Salutations
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We are in our final week in Ephesians. We made it. Nine months later, we are closing out Ephesians.
We're going to be in Ephesians 6, verses 18 through 24, which is on page 570. If you have a blue Bible around you, if you don't have a Bible, please take that home. That is our gift to you. Next week, we will start our Hammer and Hammock series, which is a six-week series on work and rest. But for today, we're going to close out Ephesians.
It's going to be in 6, verses 18 through 24. Something I've realized recently in parenting, I have almost three and almost one-year-old, is they're not very coordinated. They struggle with doing two things at once. Let me give you a few examples. My son, Bridgers, he just learned how to crawl a couple months ago, and he struggled. He struggled out of the gate.
We put him in the middle of the room, and we'd walk away, and we'd come back, and he would be all the way backing up into the couch. He knew he could back circles around anybody, but getting the coordination of arms and legs to go forward was a little bit difficult for him. He would finally get to the point where he'd do this standing push-up. His butt would be in the air, and then he would just sit there. He didn't know what to do. And eventually he would just faceplant into the ground, which was funny when he didn't bruise his face.
My daughter also isn't super coordinated. I think long-term she's not going to be super coordinated. She's going to be great at a lot of things. I just don't think she's going to be super coordinated. And recently, I've got this, like I rode bikes growing up. It was a big deal to me.
So I want her to learn how to ride a bike. So this weekend, I was at my parents' house, and we got a tricycle out that she typically can be pushed on. But her legs are now long enough to reach the pedals. I wanted to show her this is how it works. So I put her feet in the pedals, and I took one leg and pushed it down and showed her how that kind of moved it forward.
And I took the other leg and tried to do the motion for her. And she was just fine with that. I was like, no, no, no, you can do this. If you just push equal weight on both sides, distribute it, you're going to be going forward. And she's like, no, I'll just let you push me. Like she was completely content with that.
And I was like, we'll get there. Because eventually, I want her to get on a bike. And when she gets on a bike without training wheels, she's going to have to figure that out. Because if you want to take a bike forward, you need equal distribution weight on both sides, pushing both pedals down. Because if you do too far to the right, you're going to fall off to the end. If you're going to do too far to the left, you're going to fall off to the left.
In order to move the bike forward, she's going to have to figure out coordinating both those things together. And Paul is teaching a little bit of this as we close out Ephesians. In fact, most of his letters show two main aspects of ministry that need equal weight on both sides. He talks a lot about the mission of God, seeing the loss be reached. And he also emphasizes care for the church. That both of those, mission and care for the church, need equal weight on both sides.
Because if you're high mission, like if you have a community group and you guys are really good at reaching people, and you're inviting people in, you're getting to know neighbors, but you don't do a good job of caring for one another. You don't do a good job of addressing sin. If you don't do a good job of that, what happens is, is that you're going, going, going, and you will burn out and sin will creep up and take you down one by one. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are really good at care, if you're really good at building each other up, like maybe you have really good theological deep discussions, maybe you wade through really tough sins, which is good, you should push for that, but you're low mission.
You're never reaching people, you're never inviting people. What you turn into is a holy huddle. You don't advance the kingdom. Both need equal weight. And that's what we're going to look at this morning as we close out Ephesians 6, and we see the two main aspects for the ministry of the church. So he picks up in the middle of verse 18 where Chet left off last week.
To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, so that you may also know how I am doing, how I am and what I am doing. Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brothers in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. I'll pray and we'll dive into this. Father, I thank you so much for this season of Ephesians. God, I pray that you would help us see your heart for mission and your heart for care for the church and that we might be encouraged by this and walk this out as a church. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, so he starts out where Chet left off last week. He says, To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication. That's prayers. Offering up prayers for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. So we pick up where we left off last week, that we are in a spiritual war.
If you didn't listen to last week's sermon, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. Because if you are called in Christ, you enter into a war against not flesh and blood, but the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness like we read last week. We are in a war. And in the midst of that war, we are called to advance the gospel. So Paul, in the midst of this, is asking for prayer because he understands the power as a weapon against the enemy.
And in high school, I played a lot of video games growing up. But when I went to college, I realized something. That if I would have taken my video game console to college, I would have not done well. I would have not made the grades. My whole life is taking an ounce of talent and maximizing it through hard work. So I knew if I went to college, this wasn't going to end well if I took my video game console.
So I left it behind. But what I realized was, is when I got to college, that if you wanted to actually hang out with other guys at some point, you're going to play video games. That's just what it was. So we, in college, tried to reach, we were part of a ministry to try to reach people. And I wanted to spend time getting to know guys in our dorm. And the one game that everybody played that came out when I was in college was Call of Duty.
Man, people loved Call of Duty. They played it. And I wasn't out when I was in high school, so I didn't really play it. And I would get roped into playing some of these games. And they would immediately regret their decision. Because I was terrible.
Like, I just, I wasn't very good. And we'd be playing. I'd be trying to figure out kind of how to move around, how to shoot. And I played some shooter games growing up, so I kind of figured out the basics. But I was terrible.
I was a drag on the team. And eventually, I would sit on weapons that I didn't know how to use. And eventually, someone pointed out, Hey, man, you know what an airstrike is? I was like, no, what's that? It's like, you know all those, every now and then we have bombs that are just being dropped and people are dying? I'm like, yeah, that sounds great.
What is that? You have one. And if you just press this button, it's like the cheat code. You're just going to do work. I was like, oh, that's a really good idea. Maybe next game that will work out.
I was like, no, not my team. And it's like, I was sitting on this powerful weapon that I had. I didn't know how to use it. I didn't even try. In the same way in the church, we sit on a powerful weapon that stands against the enemy in prayer. We've been given this air support from God that we can tap into and we choose not to use it.
Rather than cultivate a consistent pattern of prayer to push the enemy back, we remain silent. Billy Graham once said that a prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian. And what he was getting at was that we have this unreal power from our God to go to work through us and reaching other people to grow us into Christlikeness. And we remain silent. We were missing out on that power. Another pastor named John Piper, he said, One of the greatest uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not from a lack of time.
You can insert Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever app you have on your phone. That on the last day when we are standing before our Savior, we look back at all those who could have been reached, all those who could have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, if we would have spent time praying for their boldness within us to reach them, it won't be for a lack of time. That we are called to pray. And Paul, he wanted the prayers of this church. Because he understood its power. And he understood what was at stake.
That eternity was on the line. And he understood that the pattern of prayers that God has ordained, he has chosen beforehand that prayer is the means by which he advances his kingdom and his purposes. That we get to tap into that kind of power. Let me show you what that looks like. A year ago, I'm a bivocational, I do real estate. And I was in a real estate office, a different one than I am now.
And there was a woman in my real estate office, another agent, who came up to me and said, Hey, did you know that my daughter works for one of the attorneys that we do closings at? I said, No, I didn't. She said, Yeah, her name is Kaylin. And it would be, you know, she just jumped in the workforce. She didn't go to school yet. So a lot of her friends went off to college.
And it would be great if you would connect with her and just invite her into what you're doing at your church. I said, Girl, you're a team player. Absolutely. So I went. And at the next closing, I saw her. I said, Hey, I heard that you were looking to hang out with some people.
There's some people close to your age. We have this community group from our church that meets. And it would be great if you came. And what was brilliant was what she heard. That's what I said. What she heard was, Oh, a young networking group for professionals.
Great. I'm going to come to that. And she did. And it was not a networking group. She quickly picked up on that. But she came back.
And she kept coming back. And here's something we picked up on pretty quickly. We picked up on the fact that she had been around church, but she never actually clearly heard the gospel of grace. That she heard some kind of works-based righteousness, but she actually hadn't heard about Jesus and the grace that he offers. So we started praying for her.
And we started journeying with her. And then one day she came up to us and she said, Hey, this is the last time I'm coming to group. And I was like, What's up? She's like, I'm starting night classes on Tuesdays, and I can no longer come. And I was like, This is not how this ends. So I went to a different group.
I went to the Flagstone group, which is led by Jesse and Tony Ando. And I said, Hey, we have this awesome girl in our community group. I would love to get her plugged in with you guys. And, of course, they took her in. And we kept praying as we sent her off. And I know for a fact that they kept praying too.
And over time, it finally clicked. It made sense. And this spring, she stood in this room and gave one of the most powerful testimonies I've ever heard of baptism. Because people prayed and God went to work in redeeming her. We tapped into that power. And Paul, he understood this.
That's why he asked for prayer, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. That he might have the boldness to go out and proclaim this beautiful mystery that he's been tapping into for six chapters. And Ephesians. This mystery that flipped entire cities over for the gospel. Because it ignited a flame within believers and it ignited a flame in other people. Growing up, my stepdad taught me how to build fires.
We had this fireplace in my parents' house. And he finally taught me how to build one. He set up the logs. And I looked to the right and I saw this beautiful, rugged, cast iron tool set. And I was like, I'm going to use those. I like that.
I'm going to grab this poker. I'm going to jab this thing into submission. It's going to be great. And to the right of that rugged set was this fire bellow. This antique fire bellow. Fire bellow is just this little pump.
You simply just push and it pushes out air. I was like, that's cute. I don't need that. Well, he lit the fire and he got the fire bellow out. And he started just to push down just effortlessly. And it brought out air.
And fire needs air, which I didn't really realize. And it engulfed the whole logs and fire. And I was like, oh, that's actually a pretty useful tool. And I still was stubborn. Because I was like, man, I think I can do this on my own. I would build a fire.
I'd get face to face with the flames. I'd be huffing and puffing and going for it. And there's a tool right there I just could have used effortlessly. Pumping up the air. Getting the fire going. And that's what prayer gets to be.
It stirs a fire up within us. A boldness within us. It stirs a fire up in other people. And you can strong our mission. You can get face to face with the fire. You can huff.
You can puff. You can go for it. Or you can take what God has given us in prayer. And use it. And prayerfully pray for those who need Jesus. Pray for a boldness within you to stir up.
That you might actually go and proclaim the gospel. And in order for Paul to continue in this boldness. He desired the prayers of this church. To fan those flames of boldness. And as a church we need that same prayerfulness. And how we approach mission together.
Because if we're going to be a gospel centered community on mission. We need this. Because here's the deal. We are actually really good as a church. At building relationships. At throwing parties.
At inviting people in. We crush that. And that's good. I don't want to diminish that at all. That's in our culture. That is how you reach people.
Is relationally. You can do a ton of good in doing that. So I want to uphold that. But hear this clearly. You can't friend people into the kingdom. You can't.
You can friend them into listening. But you can't friend them into the kingdom. At some point. You're going to actually have to say words. You're going to have to speak words. Because the gospel is a message.
And those words are going to take boldness. It's going to take boldness for you to declare the grace of our Lord. That we were once dead in sin. That through faith in Jesus we're alive in Christ. And that you can have that same relationship with him. Because you've been separated by sin.
It's going to take boldness. And it's going to take words to say that. And when you do that. At times. It's going to get weird. At times.
It's going to be awkward. You're going to say things. And people are going to look at you like. Nah. Like you're going to have friends that you actually share Jesus with. And they're going to say.
I don't want that. And if that's what you believe. I don't want you either. And that's going to be painful. You're going to be socially cast out in some situations. You might share with your neighbor.
And then you go out and take the trash out at the same time. And you'll look at each other. And it'll be awkward. It's going to happen. Because there is a cost to sharing words. There's a cost to being an ambassador.
Which is what Paul picks up on in verse 20. He says. For which I am an ambassador in chains. That I might declare it boldly as I ought to speak. An ambassador is simply a representative. We have those today.
And in their day it would have been a royal ambassador. Who spoke on behalf of the king. And declaring his good news. So we get to be that in Christ. That we get to be ambassadors of our kingdom. Proclaiming the good news.
But he puts a caveat on it. In chains. Noting that there will be suffering that comes with it. That you will suffer for declaring the gospel. Paul was put in prison. We'll be in social situations where we are cast out.
Where we are set aside. But here's the deal. In 10,000 years from now. Is that going to matter? Is it going to matter that you may have cost some friendships. Because you valued their eternity.
Over your friendship or your comfort with them. No. In 10,000 years you'll be thinking of the people that you risked it with. That are standing beside you. In the presence of Jesus. That's what's going to matter.
So with all of that in mind. I have a few questions for us as a church family. As we try to walk this out as a church family. Who are you currently trying to reach? We did this a little bit at our family meeting this week. Who are you trying to reach?
Have you been praying for them? I don't mean like have you prayed. I mean are you regularly praying for them? Have you invited other people in our church family. Other people in your community group. To pray for them.
Do they even know who you are trying to reach? Do you know who the other people in your community group are trying to reach? Have you been praying for those people? And at the front end of this. You're like I can't think of anybody that I'm trying to reach. Who doesn't know Jesus.
Have you prayed that God would break you. Of the apathy. Or the fear. Or the busyness. Or whatever you insert there. That keeps you from actually going out.
And seeing others be changed by the gospel. Church family. We got to grow in our missional hustle. And we do that by praying. And putting weight on that pedal. That we might drive the church forward.
And in the midst of doing that. In the midst of putting weight on that pedal. We got to evenly distribute to the other side. And caring for one another. As a church family. So Paul picks up on that.
He says in verse 21. So that you also may know how I am. And what I am doing. Tychicus. The beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord. Will tell you everything.
I have sent him to you for this very purpose. That you may know how we are. And that he may encourage your hearts. So the other pedal that needs weight. Is caring for one another. And I feel like when I read this sometimes from Paul.
It's hard for me to actually visualize this. Because when I think of Paul. Sometimes I think of this weighty theologian. He's got thick glasses. He's got a loud voice. He got called up into the seventh heaven at some point.
He has all kinds of big things he has to say. He talks about mission. And it's hard for me to picture. That he intimately and deeply cared. For the churches that he was reaching. And for us to capture a picture of this.
In Ephesians. We have to go back to week one. Of our sermon series. As we talked about his time. In Ephesus. In the book of Acts.
In the book of Acts. He spent time with. He came. He was one of the people that helped planted. The church at Ephesus. For three years.
They labored there. They saw that city. Start to be changed by Jesus. And then he left. To go and plant other churches. And he kept ministering to them.
And then we pick up in Acts 20. This is where we really see his relationship. With the church at Ephesus. And how he cared. And at this point in Acts 20. He is traveling through.
He wants to meet with the Ephesian elders. One more time. Because at this point he realizes. He is going to Rome. And he is going to die. This is the last time he is going to see them.
And they pick up on. This is the last time they are going to see him. So in Acts 20. He gives this speech. And in this speech. He kind of gives the highlights.
Of the sufferings that they went through together. Of the people that were reached. And all the time that he spent there. And then he says this verse. He says remembering that for three years. I did not cease night or day.
To admonish. Which means correct. Everyone with tears. That for three years. He invested in these people. He corrected them.
With tears. Pouring over them. That they might grow into Christ likeness. And then he continues in this speech. To encourage them. And the final scene we see here.
Is they start hugging him. And everyone is in tears. And what we catch a glimpse of. Is how much they love him. And how much he loved them. It is like a father.
Who is being dropped off. To go off to battle. And it is a war. That he is probably not going to come back from. It is a powerful scene. And it is because they loved each other deeply.
And they cared for one another. And he was going off to die. This kind of care. This aspect of ministry. That we see in his ministry. Is because he wanted them to mature.
In Christ. He wanted them to grow. In knowing the gospel. And in the midst of that. In this letter. Back to Ephesians.
He knows. He cares for this church. And he wants them to be encouraged. So in wanting them to be encouraged. He knows it is going to be hard to capture. In this letter.
His emotional state. I mean it is hard to capture a letter nowadays. You write an email or a text message. It is hard to capture. How you were doing. I know they gave us emojis.
But I don't think they are all that helpful at times. So it is good to actually have someone who can communicate that. And he does. He sends Tychicus. Which side note. We don't really know.
There is no consensus on how to say this guy's name. I have called him Tychicus for a year. I listened to some audio bibles this week. They called him Tychicus. And I was like come on. And then I went back to the Greek.
And it literally reads as Tychicus. And I knew if I started this off by calling him Tychicus. You would not have recovered. You would not have been able to pay attention. So we will call him Tychicus.
They send Tychicus so that he might encourage them. And we do not know a whole lot about Tychicus. But here is what we can tell from this passage. He has been with Paul. He has been ministering to Paul while he is in prison. And Paul he needed that.
You see in his other letters that he cares. He wants people to come and minister to him. So he ministered to him. And he calls him a brother. He sees him as family. That this would have been a really hard thing to send him out.
Because he would be losing family for a season. And he sends him out knowing how valuable he is. Knowing that he is going to be an encouragement to this church. Because encouragement is what they needed as a church. The word for encouragement when it is read literally is call near. That is the idea.
That you be in the presence of someone and you be encouraged. And it is often translated as encouraged. Or comfort. Or built up. And the picture of what is happening here. Is like a fighter.
Who at the end of a round. Goes back to his corner. Whether you. This is boxing. I know some of you all like UFC. The picture is that he would be going back to his corner.
And what you do not see in boxing or in UFC. Is when they go back to their corner. They sit down by themselves. And they. You know. They guide themselves.
They drink some water. They take it to Owl. They wipe off some sweat. You do not see that. In boxing. What you see.
Is when you go back to your corner. That is where we get the phrase. I have people in my corner. Is you have a whole team that is waiting on you. And that team. As soon as you sit down on the stool.
Is going to start going to work. They are going to start mending wounds. They are going to take sticks. And stick them up your nose. And plug and cuts. They are going to start putting ointment on your face.
They are going to be putting ice on you. They are going to start mending wounds. And then what you see in boxing. Is you have the coach come in. And he starts coaching them up. He starts saying bro.
You got to watch out for his right hooks. He has been tearing you up. All round. With those kind of punches. You got to put up a defense. You got to change your strategy here.
So once they mend them. And they start coaching them up. Then they start building them up. You see that. Man. You are going to get this.
We are going to go in for another round. You are going to get it. You are going to get your licks in. You are going to come back. We are going to do this again. And we are going to finish this fight.
And the bell rings. And they send them back out. And that is what we get to be as the church. That as we fight sin. As we battle against this world. And the cosmic powers of this present darkness.
Over Satan. As we battle and go to work. We get to come back to our corner. You get sometimes to stagger back into your corner. And you have people in your community group. Who are there to mend wounds with the gospel.
Who are there to coach you up. Who are there to tell you. You got to watch out for right hooks. You got to watch out for what you click on the internet. You got to be mindful of the bitterness that is stirring up within you. And they coach you up.
And they start building you up in Christ. To send you back out. That is encouragement. That is the encouragement that Tychicus would have done. That is why we as a church say. That we give good news before good advice.
Because when you come in staggering into group. And often times this is me. I come staggering into group. I want someone to build me up and remind me who I am. That I am a son of the king. When you come stumbling in after a rough week.
I will remind you that you are a daughter. That you have been adopted in this family. And that when Jesus sees you. He does not see your sin. Or your suffering. Or your pain.
He sees the finished work of Christ. I want to remind you that you are part of a church family. I want to remind you that you did not save you. Some of you are struggling every week. Because you still think I have got to earn God's favor. I got to clean myself up.
And you are going to come in. I am going to say no. It wasn't you that saved you. It was Christ that saved you. You might come in weak. And just struggling.
And I am going to look at you and say no. Do you realize you have the God of the universe. The God who formed everything out of nothing. Is living inside of you. The Holy Spirit is working through you. And he is not going to let you go.
I am going to remind you how this thing ends. That at the end of it all. It is you and the presence of God forever. Because of what he has done for you. He is going to carry you home. And we are going to build you up.
We are going to encourage you in the gospel. And we are going to send you out for another round. And it might be every week. If you are going out to fight sin. And coming back and it is building you up. That is what it is going to look like every week.
Because that is what encouragement looks like in church family. And in our church family. There are people that are struggling physically with ailments. Struggling with sin. Struggling emotionally. And they are hurting.
And I get it. As a church family we walk together. And sometimes that gets tiring. Sometimes that gets hard bearing burdens. But I just want to clearly say something.
We see no place in the New Testament that says. That because it is hard we stop. That because it is hard we stop encouraging one another. There is wisdom and teaming up. And not getting burnt out. I hear that.
But we lean into. We are called to encourage. No matter if it is a season. Or if it is a lifetime. As a church family. We strive to encourage one another in the gospel.
There are others who are in here. That are struggling. And you haven't said anything. You have remained quiet. You haven't told people what you are going through. Because you feel like you need to bear this all alone.
I want you to hear this clearly. You are not meant to take the hits alone. That is not how this is supposed to be. You are not meant to take the hits alone. You have a corner of people in this church family. Who are ready to receive you.
Who are ready to build you up. You might be thinking. I don't have a corner. And that is why every week. We make a push.
Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Do you mind grabbing your Bibles and go to Ephesians chapter 6? We've been walking through the book of Ephesians. We've got this week and next week.
And we'll be moving on to another series. And so we're going to pick up in Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 10. One, my great uncle, my dad's uncle, was a minor league baseball player in 1941. And he was pretty good. He was doing well in 1941. He was getting close to and looking like he was going to be called up to the majors.
And then December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. On December 8, Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood before a joint session of Congress and declared that he wanted Congress to make it clear that war had begun the day before and that we were officially at war with the Empire of China. And on that same day, my great uncle signed up and joined the Marines. Within a year, he was in the Guadalcanal. And in no uncertain terms, in a moment, the United States was at war and everything changed. For my uncle, for my granddad, for many of your relatives, for our entire nation, we were plunged into war.
And because we were at war, everything was different. And the way we had to approach life and the way that the world would be from then on was different. And as we read this text today, we're going to see that Paul, to the Ephesian church, says, we are at war. He declares the same way that Franklin Roosevelt did. We are at war. We have an enemy and we have to act and think and work and live accordingly.
So we're going to pick up in verse 10. Let's pray before we do that. And let's see what Paul is talking about and how we can learn and grow from that. God, we ask that your word would speak powerfully today. And that your Holy Spirit would be actively present. That we might feel you at work.
We pray specifically that as we learn about and speak about our enemy, that we would approach the subject appropriately, not flippantly, in giving all the glory to you. In Jesus' name, amen. So Paul, as he's finishing up his letter to the church in Ephesus, in verse 10 of chapter 6, he says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God. Okay. So he says, be strong and put on the armor.
Get geared up. Now, if I burst into your house and said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I need you to eat a good meal tonight. I need you to go to bed early. I need you to be well rested tomorrow. I need you to wake up early. I need you to put on some good clothes, some shoes you can run in or some boots or something.
I need you to load every weapon you have. And I don't care if that's just a stick. I need you to sharpen it up and be ready in the morning. Now, your immediate next question is, why? Like, Paul just looked at us and said, you need to be strong and you need to be wearing armor. And I think our next question is, but why?
Like, what are we needing to be strong wearing armor for? It feels like this just got intense. And it did. So let's see what he says. Verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. So Paul said, you need to be prepared to stand against the devil.
That we actually, as Christians, believe that there is a devil, a real spiritual being that is at work for harm, at work for evil. He keeps going. He says, you may be able to stand against the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.
That word wrestle means hand to hand combat to the death. It is if you were in a fight and you got all the way down to the end, no one had a weapon anymore, but somebody is still going to walk away and somebody is going to be laying in the dirt. That's the word he uses there. So it's not a kind word. It's not play wrestling. He's saying our battle, our war, our fight to the death is not with flesh and blood.
When you became a Christian, if you are a Christian, when you became a Christian, you were not commissioned to what Christians don't band together to get a bunch of guns and go conquer nations and make them follow Christ. That's not what happened. We were transitioned from a kingdom of darkness that belongs to the enemy. The devil into a transferred into the kingdom of Christ, into his beloved son, a kingdom of light that we might live out our days following Jesus in his kingdom. And it is a spiritual war, a spiritual battle that we have been called into. That's what Paul just said.
Now we believe that this is true. That we fight a cosmic battle against cosmic, powerful enemies. That's the story of the Bible. That God created the world and he created heavenly beings. And he made them powerful and beautiful and gave them jobs and poured a lot of himself into them. A lot of goodness.
And that there was a spiritual being that rebelled against God, that led other angels astray. And that he has been actively at work to fight against God since before creation. We know that when we were created and God created the earth and Adam and Eve and he placed them in a garden that a serpent came along and began to whisper to Eve. To try to sow dissension and make her doubt God. And that we're told is that serpent is the devil. That that is Satan.
That he's a real being who has been at work since the beginning of humanity to draw us away from God. We're told in the book of Revelation that he's a great dragon that actively opposes God and his people. We see him at work throughout the scriptures. I think one of the questions that immediately arises, and we don't have full answers to this, but if God created the devil, how is he evil? Why would God create something that was evil? But see, God created humans and he created angelic beings and he poured a lot of good things in them.
And the more God put in you, the more beauty he put in you, the more strength he put in you, the more capable of good or evil you are because we have free choice. Let me give you an example. My brother has a saltwater fish tank. And it's pretty cool. It's got saltwater fish in it, if you didn't pick up on that. And here's the thing.
If there's a fish in there, if you looked at his fish tank and you picked the kindest, most loyal, most loving fish in that fish tank that defended my brother's honor and looked forward to seeing his distorted face through the glass every day. And then you took the other fish, the most evil, conniving, sneaky fish in the tank, who hates my brother and his evil, distorted, creepy face, and actively seeks to destroy my brother. The difference between those two fish is very, very small. I think this one can bite this one. That's about it. They're not staging an uprising.
They're fish. They can only be so good or so bad because they're not so much poured into them. They're not that big. They're not that smart. Now, he has two dogs. If one of them was perfectly loyal and one of them was sneaky and evil and was attempting to overthrow the household, now I'd actually watch this movie.
This sounds interesting. Because there's a little more to a dog. They're a little smarter. They can bite. They can do these different things. And we know that when God pours a lot into someone, into a creature, it has more capabilities for good and for evil.
That the more intelligent a human, the more in place they have, the more power they have, the more money they have, the more evil they can do. And so he took a spiritual being and he poured a lot of power and a lot of energy and a lot of beauty and that spiritual being decided that he wanted to rebel against God, that he wanted to fight against God, and he's very powerful. He's existed for a long time and he's actively at work for evil in the world. Now, I realize that some of you want to go. Time out. Real quick.
Did you for real just say the devil was real? In 2018, in the United States? You know they just said that stuff because they didn't know science, right? Like someone would be sick and they would just be like, he's puking out demons. And we now know, no, he's got strep. He's going to be okay if we give him some medicine.
Like there's, some of us want to say, like, I just don't, like are you really saying there's like a red person who you can't see, but he's red, and he's got like a pitchfork and like comes along to you and is like, you should drink more alcohol. Is that what we're talking about? This exists? It's actually a lot worse and a lot more scary and a lot more fearful than that. And I will say that we've gathered this morning because we believe, and I would say maybe you're here because you believe or you want to believe or you're interested in the idea that there is a good spiritual being that you can't see, that loves you and is at work for your good.
And it's not that far-fetched or unreasonable to think that if there are good spiritual beings that we can't see that are working for our good, that there would be evil spiritual beings that are fighting for our harm. C.S. Lewis, who's a thinker from the last century, said there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. That Satan is at work to lead people away from God, to lead people to hell. The Bible tells us that hell was created for Satan and his demons, and Satan knows his fate, that he will one day be judged for all of his actions and his rebellion against God.
And so he is actively trying to lead as many people astray as possible. One of the things that I've had people say to me on a regular basis when we talk about this stuff, they go, you believe in a real devil? And I'm like, yeah, I believe in a real devil. I believe Satan's real. And they say, okay, well, if he's real, why don't he just show himself? And it's like, because he's not stupid.
Y'all ever watched a horror movie? As soon as they find out there's a ghost, who's the first person that shows up at the house? A priest. He never does well because the horror movie isn't going to end with the priest. Usually. But if Satan showed up at your house and was like, I'm Satan, worship me.
You'd be like, that doesn't sound good. And if you're real, then maybe, let me look, what's this say? Oh, it says Jesus wins. Let me follow him. And he might immediately make a whole bunch of people run to Christ rather than being fine with heading to hell and not knowing it. The truth is, there are a lot of people who are going to hell and they're going to hell because they're very comfortable.
They have enough money. They're enjoying life just fine. They don't know they need grace. They haven't seen their sin and the enemy's fine with that. He's playing the long game. You're only here for a little bit and then there's an eternity.
He's fine with you being comfortable now. Everything working on him just fine now. Having no need for Christ now because there's an eternity you'll get to spend in punishment where you are separated from the love of Christ and where you don't get to enjoy all the good things that Jesus died for. We have an actual enemy who is actively at work to destroy, to harm. So he says this, verse 13.
I'm going to read 12 again. He says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So we know they have force. We know that they have power. We know that they have authority. We know that they rule and we know that they're evil and that we're in a death match with them.
Therefore, because that's true, take up the whole armor of God. So he's saying completely cover yourself with what he's about to talk about. That we would be completely covered with the armor of God. That we would take all of this together. That you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. So that was verse 13.
Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. I want to talk about that phrase, the evil day. I think it means this general time where evil is at work. I also think it means specific times when you are under attack. that you would actually be able to stand firm when the enemy begins to attack you. See, if you believe, if you're a Christian in the room and you believe basic Christian doctrine, you believe that God created the world good and that the enemy came in and led us astray into sin. And therefore, all humanity had fallen away from God and deserves because we joined the rebellion with Satan to have his same fate.
To be cast into hell for our unwillingness to love and follow God who deserves all love and worship. But that God loved us enough that he did not leave us there but he came in the person of Christ that we might know him and that we might have our sin paid for. That if you believe that, that you've placed your faith in Jesus because you knew you were going to go to hell, you knew that you were going to pay for your sin and you knew that there was no way that you could be good enough or holy enough or beautiful enough to stand before him and say, judge me on my account, I'm great. But that you knew you would stand before him and that he would see all that was vile and sick and twisted in you and that you would have to be held accountable for your rebellion against him.
So you placed your faith in Christ that he might die for you and that he might rise for you and that you might be clothed in him. If you believe that, then you signed on in the midst of this conflict because you were in the midst of this conflict. If you and I joined the military, we went to basic training. We had some people yell at us. We had them teach us the schemes of the enemy. We had them give us weapons that were designed to harm others.
We had them teach us how to fight. We had them teach us how to swim, how to handle emotional, mental stress while they shouted at us and almost drowned us. And then they said, okay, time for y'all to go. You're headed to Afghanistan. And we showed up and we went on our first patrol wearing our helmets, riding in our tank or our Humvee or whatever. And we rode around and then we came back and you and I came back and we're just in a tizzy.
We're flustered, you guys. Our little hearts are pounding. And we said, we need to talk to the commander. And we just bust up in his office or whatever he's got and we say, hey, excuse me, sir, buddy. We need to talk, right? Right, we need to talk.
We just went on patrol like you told us. And there are people out there, I'm not kidding. Don't forget my kid. No, they shot at us with missed rockets and guns. And we got the distinct impression that they did not like us. And I'm sorry.
This is not what we signed up for. We would like to go home. Now, your commanding officer would look at you like bugs had just crawled out of your ears because there's something wrong with you. How on earth had you not picked up on that's what was going on? And one of the problems is that we as Christians, specifically Western Christians, have this idea that spiritual realm stuff doesn't affect us, it has nothing to do with us, that we signed on for something different. That we have no category whatsoever for being attacked.
It's bizarre to us. We have no way to handle it. So what we usually do is we medicate or we hide. I believe wholeheartedly because I've been a pastor for long enough and it's not very long but I've been a pastor for long enough to know that some of you are under spiritual attack and you have told no one because you're ashamed and you're believing lies that the enemy's telling you. Because you have no category for a healthy conflict that we've been invited into. Maybe you think you're going crazy.
Maybe you think you need different or new medication. Maybe you think you need to change your scenario. Maybe some of you think it's just your job or it's just you need to move and maybe some of that is true. We're going to get to some of that in a minute. But maybe it's not.
Maybe you have a real enemy who's attacking you. Some of you will acknowledge that it's a real attack and this terrifies you as if something crazy has happened but Paul says it's not crazy. We're in a war. If you lace up your boots and you head out there it's not crazy that they attack. If you actively join a community group and you say we're going to be on a mission to see more people meet Jesus which means that we're going to walk with Jesus to confront the kingdom of darkness and snatch people out of the enemy's hands so that they might know Christ and they might spend an eternity in Him of course you're going to face opposition.
Some of you became a Christian and you suddenly felt like I thought this was going to be good and now life is way worse. It's like right because the enemy was fine with you when you were headed to hell. Now he's got a problem because you've joined the conflict. While you were pretending that you had flat feet and stayed home wasn't a big issue. When you geared up put a helmet on there was a reason for it. You have a real enemy who's actively at work.
So Paul tells us what to do. Verse 14 He says Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. All the words he uses here in the Greek are specific words that have to do with armor. So the belt was a big leather belt that had like leather strap things that covered your thighs so if someone tried to hit you it would block that. The breastplate is a piece of armor that would cover your back and your front and would guard your heart that would shield you from attack and the shoes he uses are a specific type of cleat that had big spikes that were designed for the people who had the largest shields to plant their feet and not go anywhere.
So what he just said was put on truth to guard yourself. Put on righteousness to guard yourself and plant your feet firmly in the gospel. And I think the best way to understand what he means by truth and righteousness and standing firm in the gospel is to think about what he said at the beginning of this when he says be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. That's an interesting command. He says be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might and I think that applies to how we understand the rest of this text which is that you would be strong you would actually be strong but you would be strong in Christ and in his might.
Meaning that the strength is both your strength in truth that you know the truth your strength in righteousness that you repent of sin that you follow Christ your strength in the gospel that you know and believe the gospel but it's also his strength that you're strong in him in his strength. That it's not just that you're honest but it's that you know that Christ is the truth and you've clothed yourself with him. We're going to keep going because he pulls all this together. There's an interesting thing I want us to see. 16. In all circumstances take up.
So he changed he said put on earlier having fastened he uses a verb that means dress and then he changes the verb to pick up to hold. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith. They had two words for shield one was a small one one was a big one this is a big one. You don't necessarily need to know that but I thought our faith is a big shield you might want to know that. With which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. What he means is there were times when they would shoot flaming arrows they had big shields that they would soak with stuff so that even when the arrow stuck in the shield eventually the shield would put it out.
With which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. You have an evil one there is an evil one who shoots at you and you can take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. So what he says is that we would hide behind our faith that our faith is in Christ and that is our shield that we would place on our head salvation to guard our minds and that we would take up in our hand the sword which is the only offensive weapon here the only thing that we can use to actually attack which is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. That we would know the word that we would know the Bible and that when we were under attack we would wield it but the truth is he says it's the spirit's sword so that when we were under attack we would know the Bible and we would watch the spirit wield it.
That we can use to actually attack which is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. That we would know the word that we would know the Bible and that when we were under attack we would wield it but the truth is he says it's the spirit's sword so that when we were under attack we would know the Bible and we would watch the spirit wield it. This is what Jesus does when he's tempted by Satan at the beginning of his ministry
He quotes Deuteronomy three times that we would know the Bible run to the Bible when things got bad we would grab the Bible we would read it out loud we would quote it out loud that we would trust in it that we would believe it that we would soak in it and here's what I want you to see in this passage that I think is so encouraging he says stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on
The readiness given by the gospel of peace in the circumstances in all circumstances take up the shield of faith the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God there is not an item here that is not connected directly to Christ in the scriptures that Jesus is the truth that he is our righteousness that the gospel is brought to us only through Christ that he is our faith that he is our salvation and that he is the word of God what he says is
That when the enemy attacks stand firmly in Christ and that's the other thing he says he says stand stand withstand that you may be able to stand that our job our role the way we defend ourselves against the enemy is that we plant ourselves in Christ in his gospel and we don't move that this is what guards us against attack because here is the thing we are told in scriptures that the enemy is a liar we are told that he is an accuser we are told that he is an attempter
We are told that he is a murderer so let me tell you things he does he shows up to you and begins to convince you that sin will bring you joy begins to convince you that sin will give you happiness he begins to convince you that the reason God has told you no to that is because he is not really trustworthy he is not really loving he does not want what is good for you what is great for you and he begins to convince you that you ought to chase after something he begins to tempt do this do this
Chase this you will love this this will be good for you you will enjoy this everybody else is doing this he begins to attempt and then he accuses see he has schemes so once he tempts you and once you sin then he says you are not a Christian look at you you make God sick you don't actually believe this he begins to draw you away from if you are in a community group or walking with church family or you have Christian friends he begins to draw you away from them he begins to say you can't be around them acting like this do you know how ashamed
They would be of you if they knew this was true you know none of them struggle with this you know that they will see you are a fake if they find out you are a sinner he is accusing you are the worst he lies nobody loves you nobody wants you around if you quit hanging out with your group you know what it will do if your group does not contact you well they will say see they do not even notice you are there they do not even notice you are gone nobody cares about you
You might as well just go back to your old friends you might as well just go back to your old ways you are not really a Christian anyway this is what brings you most joy anyway and he will go back and forth he will go back and forth on this is what will make you happy and he will use it to accuse you if your group does a good job of contacting you you know what it will say they are just doing that because they have to they don't really care about you or they are just doing that because they are legalistic and you can't show back up now because they are holding it against you that you haven't been there and if you go back and confess this
You can't tell anybody this you are going to have to take this with you to the grave and it is all lies how did you become a Christian in the first place you were the worst and if you don't know that you are not a Christian if you think you became a Christian by being moral and standing in your own righteousness you don't have Christ but if you know that you came saying I am a sinner who needs Jesus because all I have ever done is messed this up and all I can ever bring is what nailed him to the cross and I have nothing to offer and if you show back up to your group and say hey guys I have been running after
All sin that I have ever chased before and I need Jesus again do you know what your group says yes we need Jesus too do you know how good he is do you know how much he forgives do you know how much hope is in him it is a lie nobody loves you a lie Jesus Christ died for you you were purchased with blood we have a breastplate of righteousness when he comes to you and says you did this it pings off our chest you're right I did that but I'm covered by Christ his righteousness for me when I stand before Christ when I stand before God I am clothed in righteousness not my own but Christ
Tell me some more stuff I did that was messed up let's keep talking about how good Jesus is I'm glad you brought this up let's spend the rest of the day praising him what else did I do come on tell me I did do that Jesus is good he forgave me of that that's like a scene from Oh Brother Where Art Thou where he goes and gets baptized and he comes out and he says he forgave me of all my sins even that piggly wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo and looked at him and said I thought you said you were innocent of those charges
Well I lied and that's forgiven too the enemy comes along and tries to accuse you of something if you're in Christ it's forgiven there's hope there's freedom there's truth there's salvation that guards your head you stand firmly behind faith you plant your feet in the gospel and you're not going anywhere and you grab a hold of the Bible because that's what moves and works and fights and defends that you might know the truth and you might know Christ and you might have him dwell in you and you might be saved now his children
This is why so often we say and we so often forget we want to talk about good news before we talk about good advice and we want to talk about Jesus before we talk about you what that means is that when you're in the middle of sin I don't want to come and say well here's a good way to stop looking at porn or here's a good way to I got over my addiction to that here's how like we don't want to do that what we want to come along and say is Jesus is good because the truth is we stand firm in the gospel and in nothing else our hope is Jesus
And nothing else and in the midst of attack we plant ourselves in Christ and his righteousness and his goodness and his salvation and his truth and we don't go anywhere so often even as a pastor I'll be talking to somebody specifically when I've been walking with somebody for a couple weeks or months and something and I just am like I just want something so good to say to them I really want to help them and the truth is what I ought to help them with is knowing the truth knowing their salvation knowing where their righteousness comes from
Knowing that they don't have to go anywhere they can plant in the gospel and they can't be uprooted that I would point them to Christ and nothing else and no one else so we believe this church we believe that we have a real enemy throughout the new testament if you'll read the gospels you'll see that Jesus interacts with demons that demons actively harm people he interacts with sick people and there are actually just sick people there are people that it says are epileptic which means they have seizures all the time and he heals them but then there's also a time
Where he heals a boy who has seizures and the seizures are caused by a demon I know this messes with us but if we believe it and know that this is what we got called into we got to realize this is true that in the new testament we'll see that demons cause mental issues emotional issues self harm issues physical issues and we believe as a church that you're a whole person and if you're struggling with any of this here's what we think let's address the whole person so if you came to me
And said I'm really struggling with depression what we would do is we'd ask some questions because you're a whole person what's your sleep like what's your diet like what's your exercise like because those affect you depression makes you want to do none of the things that would help you not be depressed we ask questions has the sun seen your face in a while but then we also ask if you've seen the sun's face in a while have you gotten in your bible are you looking at Jesus are you running to him we ask questions about I had somebody come in
And say I think maybe I'm dealing with some spiritual warfare every time I try to read my bible I fall asleep I said okay where do you read when do you read your bible at night where do you read your bible in my bed okay we'll pray about the spiritual warfare because it could be that also read it at your kitchen table during the middle of the day and see how that goes or at least read it at your table before you go get in your bed at night you're a whole person we also had someone say when every time I try
To read my bible I'm just overwhelmed at like cussing at Jesus like I just can't think clearly because all I'm doing is cussing Jesus if I close my bible it stops okay let's pray about that because that sounds spiritual so let me just throw some things out there for us to start thinking through this and be aware do you deal with consistent nightmares as a normal part of life that most of these things you have been told by the enemy if he's attacking you to just accept this
This is how life's going to work for you consistent nightmares specifically where you see similar characters that do weird things sometimes you'll wake up and go I think that was a demon in my dream consistent unexplained anxiety anger sadness riding along normal day sad riding along normal day panic attack in a conversation and suddenly your heart rate's way above
Where it should be again we believe you're a whole person this can be caused by different things but we also believe the enemy can do stuff one of the ones that we've seen a good bit of is that you have consistent negative thoughts about you or others sometimes in your brain is not even if you were to be honest and really think about it it's not exactly really even your voice it's inside your head but it's not your voice
It's not really you talking one of the ways to know this is you are telling it to shut up and it won't stop I don't want to think about this stop stop stop shut up and it's accusing you it's saying things to you that maybe your parents said to you it's saying things to you that maybe you heard in middle school it's saying things to you repeatedly about how no one loves you Jesus doesn't love you nobody wants you around
You come in here on a Sunday and it sits and says you don't belong here nobody wants to talk to you you ought to just leave you can hang out with your group you can't even hang out with them because you just feel overwhelmed and feel anxious and as soon as you leave you feel better that sounds like a scheme I'm going to let you be happy as long as you're away from all the things that God loves and all the people that love you and all the things
Where Jesus is at work and I'm going to mess you up when you get around so that I can trick you into thinking the best place for you to be is away from these people that sounds like a scheme and we believe that the enemy actively does that we know that the enemy actively does that and it's not weird and you shouldn't be ashamed here's one of the things that he comes along and does some of you right now are talking yourself out of telling anybody this stuff and here's for a few reasons
Why consistently he comes along and says no no no you're in your head going no no that's not it that's not it the reason I talk bad about myself is just something I've done forever can I just pause you for a second if you sit and consistently say negative things about yourself who cares where it comes from let's stop that it's not true it's not true in the gospel
You have been redeemed you are a beloved child of God you are welcomed into his kingdom you belong to this family you've been purchased with blood you have new blood pumping in your veins you will have an eternal kingdom that you exist with Jesus in don't sit and tell yourself lies some of you are going to say no no no that's not it and you're going to try to defend not having to pray about this
Not having to walk through this some of you are going to think maybe this was spiritual maybe the enemy is at work and you're going to immediately feel this shh that's one I've dealt with something weird will happen I'll get in an argument and suddenly be way too angry I'm a sinner and if I'm going to be something
It's going to be too angry just so y'all know I'm way too angry I'll think I need to pray about this and then I'll immediately think no no shh don't pray about this that'd be weird don't do that and let me tell you something
Holy Spirit has never come along and told me not to pray about something enemy might my sin might but all I know is when that comes along oh it's praying time another one that we've seen is the enemy tells you you're crazy you can't tell anybody this and here's the thing from Grecian
Times on up until like the 1800s doctors used to do a practice called bloodletting which was you would go to them and say you were sick and they would drain some of your blood it was not a helpful practice if you went to a doctor now and they were
Like what's going on I have anxiety and I've been throwing up and they were like hmm probably too much blood let's just pop a hole in you squeeze some of that out and you'll be fine you would say you know what I'm gonna go get a new doctor and check out
Yelp later can you Yelp doctors because I'm gonna I'm going to here's the thing if you're dealing with spiritual issues Jesus is the only doctor there's only hope in Christ if you're under attack by an
Enemy he's the only one who defeats it so you can go to a psychologist you can go to a psychiatrist we recommend some different counseling centers because we believe you're a whole person there may
Be some things you need to talk through but we also want to pray with you we also want to walk with you and what's true in the gospel we also remind you
Who Christ is because the best thing that our culture can give you is medication because they can't do this if they don't have Christ because only Christ does this so here's what Paul says 18 praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and
Supplication to that end keep alert with all perseverance making supplication for all the saints so what he just said was put on all this armor be very strong and immediately we want to think okay we're going to fight and what's
He say get geared up be really strong put on the armor of God stand firm in the gospel and let's pray one of the quotes from one of the commentaries I was reading on this text said nuclear wars cannot be won with rifles likewise
Satanic wars cannot be won by human energy you can't be strong enough you can't be good enough you can't be smart enough so you stand in Jesus and you pray we ask Jesus to go
To work and can I tell y'all something about Jesus if you read your Bibles something is imminently predominantly beautifully clear Jesus is terrifying let me tell you about someone who's terrifying if you're behind him and he stands in front of you
That's beautiful and amazing and if you're in front of him and he's coming at you it's terrifying there's a story that's told in all three of the synoptic gospels it's in Mark Luke and Matthew Jesus and his disciples show up on a boat and they go to an area where there are tombs it's this whole kind of cliffside
Area near this town where they bury all the people which was weird Jewish people shouldn't be hanging around tombs that's where they land their boat and they show up and while they're there there is a crazy naked guy we're told in the Bible that he's a demon possessed or demon afflicted
One of the questions that comes along with that sometimes is like can they completely take over you like the Bible doesn't really make all that clear we know that as Christians you belong to Jesus so they can't but let me tag
This real quick you ever had a really terrible friend who just when you got around them made you depressed or sad or angry or whatever like every time you hung out with them they just made you feel bad about yourself
It's a bad friend you guys they talked you into doing stupid things it's a bad friend imagine demonic activity sometimes is like having a bad friend you can't see and since you can't see him you don't ever tell him to
Go away but in Christ you can't so anyway there's this guy who's got demonic stuff going on so much so that he is naked he's withdrawn from society he cuts himself with rocks so he's got mental issues he's got social issues he's got self harm issues he cuts
Himself at different times this part of the city has gone out and sent men to get him they capture him they chain him up they put guards on him he breaks the chains and busts out and stays naked and lives in the tombs so he may
Have shackles still on him he may have broken them off we know he's naked we know he cuts himself this guy looks scary they get out of the boat they start walking we're told that he like runs towards Jesus he's yelling he falls on his knees before Jesus now if you're one of the
Disciples you just got off the boat you're in a tomb area maybe you're one of the disciples that was a little bit creeped out by tombs but you weren't going to tell anybody we don't know which one this was or if any of
Maybe they were all really brave but I'm thinking one of them was like I don't really like graveyards you guess there's a naked guy so now you're a little more uncomfortable he's yelling he's running and I think there was this moment where the disciples are like we fighting
We running we can get back on the boat I'm gonna go over here just in case like I'll sneak around him Jesus just stands there he falls on his face before Jesus and he begs for mercy and all
Jesus did was show up Jesus is terrifying at the end of scriptures he rides in on a horse he uses his sword which comes out of his mouth it's the word of God and he slays his enemies at some point the enemy
Satan holds another uprising and we're told he's just snatched up and killed tossed into the lake of fire at some point God's had enough and let me explain something to you the reason why we're
Told in this text to stand firm in Christ is because if we're in Christ nothing can assail us nothing can get to us nothing can harm us we don't stand firm in ourself and our own strength we stand firm in Christ and Jesus is terrifying
But if he's the shield in front of you the helmet on your head he's guarding your heart then you in Christ are terrified and have nothing to fear we have a real enemy who actively works to harm so we remember the gospel
And we pray and if you are struggling with any of this do not get talked out of it grab some Christians and say we need to pray then he's tricked me he's blinded me he's led me astray I've bought into his lies I believe
I'm not welcome I believe I'm not loved he's been telling me lies about y'all and what y'all are thinking that's one of the best ways to know the enemies at work he's reading other
People's thoughts and telling them to you it's nonsense here's why she looked at you like that here's why he said that you were unintentionally they on purpose didn't invite you to that they don't want you around you don't belong here
They wish you weren't here you make everybody uncomfortable nonsense we belong to Jesus so we belong to each other we walk in the hope that he offers Matt's gonna come back up here and we're gonna do that as a group of people
Who stand firm in the gospel that Jesus Christ is our righteousness that he alone is truth and that truth shatters the lies of the
Enemy and we're going to as we belong to him we're going to stand up in a moment we're going to take communion which is that his blood was poured out for us his body was broken for us
And that we hide behind that the enemy has no claim on us Colossians 2 says that the enemy was disarmed when Jesus was nailed to the cross because the only claim he had on us was our sin and Jesus paid for
Our sin the only power he had over us was sin and Jesus paid for our sin and we have an eternal hope in Christ we'd love to talk with you we'd love to set up some pastoral stuff we'd love for you to go
Talk to your group leaders we'd love for you to talk to some other people in your group if they're uncomfortable or don't know quite keep walking until you find somebody who says yeah let's pray about this let's walk
Through this we're gonna take communion Matt's gonna play give us a little bit of time to pray you need to move around the room right now and just grab someone you can go grab him right now and say I just need to not chicken out later I need you to
Pursue me later so that we can talk about some stuff I don't want to talk about it right now but I know if I don't talk about it right now I won't talk about it ever and I need as redeemed victorious
People who are covered by Christ let's pray God we thank you that in Jesus we have nothing to fear but we have everything to be ready and guarded up against that you have given us the full armor and that we might put it on I pray
That we would be a people that know the truth that are clothed in righteousness that are guarded by your salvation that stand firm in our faith in the gospel and that love and know the word of God we ask that the gospel
Would cover us and that we would actively pursue being strong in you that we would cease to be strong and all the other things that we've put a lot of time in and we would start being strong in Christ that we might stand firm and that we might be
Actively a part of your mission to see more people come to know you and the freedom and the hope and the life that's in you so that there would be fewer people that live in Columbia South Carolina that go to hell that Columbia would start
Looking a little more like heaven and heaven would start looking a little more like Columbia that you'd be actively at work in us we pray for those that are struggling with enemy attack that they would not feel weird that they would not believe the lies of the enemy that they're
Crazy or that they can't talk about this that they would cease today to be attacked and not fight back standing firm in the gospel this would be a place of freedom and joy and life because all of those are given to us in Jesus Amen he Oo dangers
As if they do everything in that participate we have a too essa come in to me います to them to me come in os
Children and Parents
Transcript
At some point, you found out you were going to have a baby. And there was excitement and there was fear. Maybe you read some books. Maybe you just watched YouTube videos because your books aren't your thing. Maybe you just asked some people. Maybe you read mom blogs or dad blogs.
And then, as scary as it was, at some point you headed in to have this baby. And this experience, which you had been told was going to be beautiful and natural and lovely, the best word to describe it was traumatic, terrifying, seems very unnatural. You have this child and this process took anywhere from 10 to like 150 hours. You have not slept. Then they hand it to you and they say, best of luck, you'll never sleep again.
You head home, you've got this child now and it is for some reason, and mostly the reason is that God has tricked you. You love this thing. But it gives no objective lovability other than it is kind of cute when it is asleep, but not even for the first couple of weeks. They don't look right when they come out, you guys. Mostly it yells at you and is actively trying to destroy the relationship you have with your spouse because it makes you have a lot of discussions at 3 a.m., which don't seem to go well. But you love this thing and then it begins to grow.
And somewhere around, maybe it's eight months, maybe it's 18 months, you have this moment with this child when you look at it and you think, are you trying to start something with me? I think you're doing this on purpose. Like you can't even speak English, but that was malicious. Like you actually understand what I want you to do and you're actively doing the opposite of it. And welcome. It's begun.
Now you have maybe a two-year-old who's laying on the ground crying because you won't let him or her eat toothpaste or because you wouldn't let them sleep in a snow jacket. And you're sitting here going, we live in South Carolina, why do I even own a snow jacket? I could have avoided this altogether. Then at some point they go to elementary school and you think, finally, you're out of my house. We're going to get back into kind of a normal rhythm. I'm going to miss them, but also not that much.
And then all of a sudden, you've got to go to the school all the time because you're now learning what the stress is like for a child who's having behavioral issues at school or who's having issues with keeping their grades up. And so elementary school becomes more difficult than you thought it was going to be. And then you hit middle school. Maybe you've kind of gotten in a rhythm of school and this is going well. You hit middle school. And suddenly this child cares more about what their friends think than you think.
And you're finding they also care a lot about what the Internet thinks and you think that's not great. Then they hit high school and you start beginning to watch them carry out behaviors that you had. You begin to watch them make mistakes that you made. And this process is increasingly difficult. When they used to talk to you and confide in you, now they just head into their room. They seem embarrassed by you.
At some point, it's time to send them away. And if you're like my mom, you believe that God intentionally made teenagers annoying so that you wouldn't mind that they left. But you send them away to get married, to go to work, to go to school, to join the military. And there's this moment in that where this is, I'm ready for you to go. This is what we've worked towards and I don't know if I'm ready for you to go and I don't know if we've done enough work and I don't know how this is going to work out. And then as they continue to grow, you still find that you have anxiety and struggle and fear and how life's going and how them beginning to raise children is going and it just never seems to stop.
And for some of you, you don't have children. You're still in the category of child or growing out of being a child. And you have found that living with your parents and relating to them is extremely difficult. And maybe you figured it out when you were two and they wouldn't let you eat toothpaste. It was that moment when you realized their job was going to be to destroy you and your job was going to be to return the favor. We're picking up in Ephesians today in chapter six where Paul is specifically addressing children and parents.
So in this section, he's doing household code and what he's basically saying is, okay, as people who believe the gospel, as people who follow Jesus, that affects how we live our lives. And so he begins to address major relationships in our lives. How children relate to their parents, how parents relate to their children, what that looks like and how we walk that out. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to begin to read the text together. God, as all of us most likely are in a situation where we are children, we have parents that we need to relate well to, and many of us are parents or about to be parents, we just ask that you give us help as we study this, that your wisdom would sink in and that we would apply well your word this morning.
And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. It begins, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. All right, so that word children, for many of you, there may be this, okay, where do I fit? I don't have children. Am I a child?
And for a lot of you, you're saying, no, I'm not. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. So I'm going to help you out. That word in the Greek, children, refers to those who are dependent on their parents. So if you live in their house, if they're paying for your stuff, if you're driving their car on their insurance, if they're paying for your schooling, you're in gold or brown or whatever color that is.
You fit the category. And so it says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. When we talked to husbands and wives, we specifically said, husbands, don't elbow your wife. Wife, don't side-eye your husband. Parents, that does not apply to you. You can snap and point.
You can do whatever you want. You can hit them in the leg. They have to obey you. That's the zone they're in. And so, children, this is, I don't know, many of you are going, wait a second, I'm 18, I'm 19, I'm about to be. It's like, yeah, about to be isn't.
It means dependent. It's not a derogatory term. It just means, do you still kind of belong to your parents? And the role that you have is to obey your parents. It says, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, I know, for many of you, this feels really difficult, because your parents seem mostly clueless.
They don't seem to understand how technology works. For some of you who are younger, and like maybe, you know, it was embarrassing that they didn't know what dabbing was, and then it was worse when they learned what it was. Like, I don't know. I don't know the zone you're in with your parents, but, but your role, your biblical role, if you are a Christian, is to obey them. It says, obey your parents in the Lord. So, I want you to see that that phrase, in the Lord, means that, that your submission to your parents is worship.
It is through them to, to the Lord, to Christ. That's who the Lord is. So that you, as a Christian, are saying, no, my role is to obey my parents, because I, I still live here, because they still pay for things, because I still kind of, I'm under their umbrella. I'm to obey them. I'm to follow their instruction. I'm to, even if I disagree.
So here's what that means. There's some freedom in that, and some restraint in that. The freedom is this. You don't have to agree with them. That's not what obedience means. The restraint is, you still have to do what they said.
But there is some freedom, and they don't have to win you over. This doesn't have to be a long conversation. You don't have to be completely sold. You can decide, I will obey you right now, but I'm not doing this forever. And it says, for this is right, and it says, in the Lord. So I do think this does specifically apply, the same way we talk to husbands and wives, that your obedience to your parents, is ultimately to Jesus, so that Jesus is above them, and if your parents are actively calling on you to sin, that you can say no, as you follow Christ.
That your goal would be, as we said to wives, to say yes to your parents, while saying no to sin. And so if your dad comes to you, and he says, hey, I've drawn up in an awesome heist, and we're going to rob a bank. You can say, I'm sorry, but I won't be able to partake in this one. But if you want to open a lemonade stand, or a hot dog truck, I'm in, I'm on board, I can't do this one. If you want to join the circus, I'm in, I'm on board, I can't do this one. It says, for this is right.
Then it says, honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. And then he says, here's the promise, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land. Okay, so, children, who are dependent on their parents, obey. All children, who have, doesn't matter how old you are, honor. So you're supposed to obey while honoring, and then later, as you are an adult, who is handling, carrying your own, caring for your own family, you are out of the zone.
And some of you are kind of half and half, because it's like, well, I'm at school, and I'm paying for most of my stuff. They're paying for school, so it's this kind of, I'm in the zone where I'm transitioning from, just obey, to just honor. But this means, that it doesn't matter how old you are. You're to be respectful to your parents, you're to be kind to them, you're to answer their phone calls, you're to think about them, you're to care for them, you're to check in on them, you're to hold them with high regard. And then he says, there's a promise here. It says that you may live long, it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land.
This is a promise that was given, in Exodus 20, this is one of the Ten Commandments, it was given to the people of Israel, and basically it was saying, this is how society ought to work, and as people honor their parents, and hold their parents in high regard, then everybody lives long, everything goes well, like this is a general principle, it's not a specific thing to where, if you honor your parents, you'll get to live to 85, and if you dishonor your parents, you make it to 20, like that's not how it works. Sometimes your parents tell you, that's how it will work. If you dishonor me again, I will end you. But that's not the specific promise, it's not to every individual, but in general, what it is saying is, honoring your parents, it's kind of a sign saying, this way to life, this way to things going well.
That in general, much of your goodness, and health, and joy in life, begins with your healthy relationship, to your parents. One of the things my dad used to say, was he would say, boy, ain't nobody who's worth anything, disrespects his mama. He said, you can join the mafia, you can go to the penitentiary, those people still love their mamas. The only people who don't love their mamas, are messed up. That's what he would say, like this is my dad's wisdom here, but his point was, that in general, this is where baseline life health comes from, is honoring, appreciating, loving, respecting, your parents.
Now, some of you are parents, and that's not what's happening with your children, and I'm sorry, that's painful. And some of you are children, who have parents, who you were looking at this, and going, and I hate this text, I hate this commandment, because my parents do not deserve honor. I was abused, I was neglected. They did anything, but be honorable. And I want to let you know, that that is extremely painful, and I am sorry. But you're free, from having to have honorable parents.
This is in line with, when Jesus says, that we ought to love our enemies. That it's about who you are, and who you belong to, rather than who they are, and how they've acted. Now, you may not be able to be around them, for safety reasons, but there's a way to still speak of them honorably, even if you're being honest about their behavior, to treat them well, to not run them through, the mud. But we're called to, honor, our parents. Then he goes on, he says, fathers, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up, in the discipline, and instruction, of the Lord.
Oh, real quick. Some of you, maybe while you're at school, because I know we've got some college students here, maybe while you're at school, you're just in the honor your parents is on. So you don't need to do things, that are openly, flagrantly disrespectful to them. And then some of you go home, during the summer, and you move back into the obey zone. So, you're 23, you're 22, you've been living on your own, and your parents say, you have to go to bed at 10 o'clock. Well, I am sorry, but as you worship Jesus, you go to bed at 10 o'clock.
And some of you have parents, who have more restrictive attitudes, and I'm sorry, you have more restrictions. And some of you have parents, who have very little restrictions, and when you show up, they're like, some of you, they looked at you and said, you're 17, you're an adult, do what you want. And I don't know how well that worked out for you, maybe you handled that fine. Some of you, when you were 17, needed parents to not say that to you. But it is based off of who your parents are, not what other parents do, not what you think parents ought to do.
It is based off of who your parents are. And so, the situation that you're in is, in Christ, obey them, and realize that there is a time limit on that. At some point, you just get to move into honoring, and you won't have a 9 o'clock bedtime, like I had my entire life. And then you'll find, that because you went to bed at 9 o'clock, for your entire life, you still impose that on yourself. And you don't make many friends in college, because you're asleep. It is what it is, you guys.
I am friends with the people who were my roommates, because they saw me during the day. Alright. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction, of the Lord. I want to point out, that it begins with fathers. Okay, so this has to do with, the understanding, the biblical understanding, that husbands are the head of the household. So, husband is head of his wife, that's what we just learned in Ephesians, and therefore is head of the household, and is responsible for the household.
This is not meant, to say anything negatively, about mothers, or to exclude mothers. It is meant to, pin fathers to the wall. So, it's not meant to be, because the truth is, the Bible upholds mothers. You'll notice earlier, it says, children obey your parents. It doesn't say, obey your fathers. And it says, honor your father and mother.
It doesn't say, honor your fathers. This parenting is upheld, motherhood is upheld in the Bible. If you'll read the Old Testament, it's like a highlight reel, of mothers being amazing. There are so many stories, where a mom is on her face, praying, and her husband, is in the vicinity. And she is actively involved, with her children. And her husband, was mentioned at the beginning, because he's the father, of that child.
There are so many stories, like that in the Bible. And so many places, where motherhood is upheld. And here's an area, where the Bible is specifically saying, hey fathers, we gotta talk for a second. So fathers, we gotta talk for a second. What this means, is that parenting, is not outsourced, to mothers. And this is easy to happen.
And here's one of the reasons, why I think this is easy to happen. When my wife and I first had a child, I knew, zero things about children. I had practiced for having a child, caring for a child, in my life, zero percent of the time. My wife, when she was a child, they gave her, fake children. And she rocked them, and fed them, and pushed them around, and I've seen home videos, where there was a, they gave her a doll, and she said, oh, open it up, I just wanna hug it. Okay, so she trained, since she was like two, for this moment. all I ever trained in, all I ever trained in, was like how to kick things, how to throw things, how to break things, how to shoot at things, none of that applied, to having a child.
I was like, if something comes at the child, I'm ready. You tend to that, I'm gonna face it this way. Like that was, like that, so what happens, a lot of times, is forefathers, as soon as the child is born, you're just like, I don't know, and the mom, seems to just, no. And I don't know, if she's faking, I don't know, if she has like, hormones, that have just kicked in, and like, I had no hormonal changes at all, when we were having the, like I was the person, who was like, are you still like Taco Bell, magically all of a sudden? But like, I always liked Taco Bell, that wasn't a new thing, my hormones weren't doing anything weird, I was the same, I still like Taco Bell, she doesn't anymore, but whatever, I'm sad, it's okay.
That have just kicked in, and like, I had no hormonal changes at all, when we were having the, like I was the person, who was like, are you still like Taco Bell, magically all of a sudden? But like, I always liked Taco Bell, that wasn't a new thing, my hormones weren't doing anything weird, I was the same, I still like Taco Bell, she doesn't anymore, but whatever, I'm sad, it's okay. I don't know, like my wife at one point, after our first child said, you know those videos, she's holding her baby, you know those videos,
Of like, a mom cat, that like adopts a duck, I think I would do that, because I think I just love, all children now, like there's just something in me, that makes me like all, like I would just adopt anything, right now, in this moment, she's past that, she likes our kids, she's not adopting ducks, but, there's like, she just knew what she was doing, and there was so much of like, I don't, I've never, I don't know what I'm doing, so I think what happens often, is husbands, fathers,
Begin to just slowly, step back, and very early on, begin the practice of, I'm deferring to you, and so that grows, into, ah, moms kind of tend to the kids, moms are in charge of parenting, what do you think's best, how do you think this ought to go, and what he's specifically saying, in Ephesians is, no dads, you're supposed to be in on that, because ultimately, the weight of the family, and the flourishing of the family, is going to be on your shoulders, and so you have to be involved, in the parenting, it's not outsourced, not to say that moms,
Aren't good, it just means that fathers, are supposed to be active, present, and leading, um, fatherhood statistics, this was, I was looking at some of this earlier, but fatherhood statistics, surpass any other factor, when it comes to negative statistics, in life, so having a father present, or not having a father present, surpasses race, surpasses wealth level, surpasses economic class, surpasses poverty, or not poverty, whether your father was there, it matters immensely, and so fathers are supposed, to be active and present,
In raising their children, so then he says, fathers, do not provoke, your children to anger, but bring them up, in the discipline and instruction, of the Lord, okay so, I think this means, one specific thing, and then like, something that grows out of that, like a big hole, so do not provoke, your children to anger, I think it's one of the specific reasons, why he says fathers don't do this, is because he's talking about, overall how to think about parenting, but I also think, this issue is specific to fathers, so, for some reason,
And I don't know why, I care deeply about my children, but I want to provoke him, he is three, and I consistently want to provoke him, I don't know, he'll ask, where's my blanket, and my wife wants to say, it's in the dryer, and I want to say, oh I carried it out in the backyard, and the falcon swooned by, and grabbed it, and flew off towards the sunset, and I could just barely hear, as he was getting away, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, I don't know why that's in me, but that is how I want to respond to him, like all the time, and so here's what happens, fathers for some reason, seem to want to torment their children,
But now you're in a big problem, have you seen those videos, the Jimmy Kimmel, I ate your candy videos, have you seen those, they're hilarious, and you're not supposed to do it, what they would do, is the videos, Jimmy Kimmel, he's on late at night, I've seen him on the internet, I'm asleep, remember, he tells parents, after Halloween, when your kids go to sleep, and they wake up, empty out all their stuff, open up the wrappers, just kind of say, hey we ate all your candy, film them, and see how it goes,
And it's really funny, because children lose their minds, or meltdown, or whatever, and it's funny, but not if it's your kid, and not if you're responsible, for raising them, to honor their parents, and to live in a healthy situation, because, if I provoke my son, which I do, instinctively, for some reason, and then he responds poorly, now I'm in a bad spot, because the truth is, my son ought to, if I tell him, I ate all of your Halloween candy, go, yes sir, like that's an appropriate,
Honoring response, I hope you enjoyed it, like it's a messed up situation, but he's supposed to, he can't throw a fit, he can't tell me, I'm a terrible person, he can't yell at me, and if he does, if he says, well I hate you, and I suddenly am now, in a weird spot, where it's like a no, under no circumstance, should he ever yell that at me, but also, I made up a circumstance, that pressured, like made it harder for him, to respond appropriately, and here's what happens, I think that what grows out of this, is a whole form of parenting,
Which is, parenting by provocation, and I think mothers and fathers do this, which is that, in order to get you to behave, the way I want you to, I stand on the back end, of your behavior, and I provoke you, I chide, I mock, in order to get you, in the right zone, I'll give you an example of this, I'm going to talk about my dad, a good bit, because I think he did some things, really well, but I want to give you an example, of parenting by provocation, this wasn't his main form of parenting, but he did do it some, he's very good at it, I got in trouble in middle school,
For talking too much in class, and they sent home a little thing, and I had to take it, and my parents had to sign it, because apparently, I think I'm funny, and that people should hear, what I have to say, so then, I told my dad, and he was like, oh, you can't, you can't be quiet in class, well I can, apparently not, says here, they told you to be quiet, but you weren't, well I, but I can, no you can't, no, you're cute,
You're chatty, you're a Kathy chatty doll, and yes, my whole life, he said it backwards, I didn't even grow up, in the era of these dolls, but they are most assuredly, chatty Kathy dolls, not Kathy chatty dolls, he said, you're a little Kathy chatty doll, said I'm not a Kathy chatty, yeah you are, say it, sir, say I'm a Kathy chatty doll, say it, and that meant, this was going to get worse, if I didn't, so I have, stared my dad straight in the face, and said,
I'm a Kathy chatty doll, and he said, handed me the slip, walked away, I didn't bring one of those home again, I don't think I got them again, now, what he did, was provoke me, to anger, he provoked me, to correct behavior, and you absolutely can do this, and this can be your main form of parenting, they, I saw a thing, where a guy took some coaches, and he was just trying to prove to them, that this is how this works, he took some coaches, who had coached basketball, and he said, I want you to pretend, that a child just made a terrible shot,
And I want you to come up with the, most hilarious, mean things that you can say to them, and he said, this practice, it was across a bunch of coaches, in a whole region, and they were great at it, they knew how to belittle 12 year olds, like nobody's business, like they had the most creative, it was, he said it was hilarious, and great, and then he said, okay, now, I want you to pretend, that a child just missed a shot, and I want you to say something encouraging, and the room was like, he said he got like one feeble, nice try, get it next time,
And his point was, it's a lot easier, to be on the other side of things, than it is to be on the front side of things, and so what Paul says here, he says, do not provoke your children to wrath, but, so in contrast to that, but, bring them up, in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, that phrase bring them up, means, nurture, it's the same, the same Greek word that was in verse 29, when it says that you love and nurture your body, so what it's saying is, don't be on the back end, just provoking, get on the front end, and have a picture for what they ought to look like, that you're bringing them along,
That you have something in mind, that they're supposed to turn into, that if you have sons, you have a picture of biblical masculinity, that you are molding them into, that if you have daughters, you have a picture of biblical femininity, that you are building them up into, that you are walking them along into, it is so easy as a parent, to parent based off of today, off of how I'm feeling, what's going on, whether or not you're annoying me, whether or not I'm okay with this behavior, it's easy to parent based off of, I just want us to have a nice dinner, so I'm going to try to appease this child, I'm going to try to do what you want, so that you'll just calm down, but the problem is, that doesn't build up, it's also easy to belittle, it's also easy to name call,
It's also easy to, and that doesn't build up, the truth is, if you belittle, or you nurture, you can get some of the same behaviors, but you're building into your child, something completely different, that you can get your child, to not talk, to not misbehave, to not by belittling, by chiding, by aggression, but you can also get it, by having a front end picture of, and my dad was great at that, he would consistently tie, current behavior, to future us, for example, you'd be scared, kind of freaking out about, having to get on a roller coaster,
And you're like, I just, I just, I just don't think I can do it, my dad would look at you, and be like, boy you better straighten up, because you're acting silly, and you need to get in control, of your emotions, he said because one day, you're going to be 40, and you're going to hear, glass shatter in your house, in the middle of the night, and it's going to be go time, because you've got two children, and a wife, that you've got to save, and you can't let your emotions, rule the day, you've got work to do, and suddenly, my father had tied,
Riding a roller coaster, to protecting my family, when I'm 40, and I'm 12, and I'm like, my kids ain't going to die, and I locked it up, and I got on a roller coaster, and I rode with him, and all I was doing, was proving, that if my house caught on fire, I wasn't going to hyperventilate, and he did that all the time, he tied work to the future, he tied who you were going to be, toughness, he tied caring for somebody, he tied everything, was not just this moment, but where we were going, that in some ways, if you think about like a trellis, and a vine,
I was a vine, and he was consistently telling me, where the trellis was headed, and it makes an extreme difference, and Paul is saying, don't just be doing provocation, but bring them up, take them somewhere, have a picture in your mind, of what you're building, and begin building it, that's for fathers, and mothers, and some of y'all need to sit down, and have a discussion, about where are we taking this child, what are they going to look like, also, in the, the weight, of the flourishing, of the family, being placed on the father, I want you to understand,
Many of us have, are young, just having children, some of us, you have older children, you're still walking through this, fathers, you have to lead here, you were designed differently, than your wife, and you are meant, to be engaged here, and you are meant, to be active here, one of the things, that I have found, and this is particular, to my wife and I, and this may not apply, across the board, but this is an example, of what I'm talking about, my wife, is in the moment,
With our child, all the time, I'm not always, in the moment, with our child, she's in the moment, one of the things, I am better suited for, is being further ahead, in where we're going, she'll consistently say, he's three, it's okay for him, to act that way, and I will respond, it certainly is, but not when he's four, and if we don't begin, working that direction, he'll be doing it, when he's four, so this amount of, there are times, where you're going,
To disagree, and the idea, of wives submitting, to husbands, plays a role here, in how things work, and how things work out, and so that your wife, absolutely understands, things you don't understand, and knows things, about your child, you don't know, and you would be a fool, to just blast into this, but you are also a fool, to back out of it, and to abdicate your role, because one day, you will stand accountable, before the Lord, in how you raised your family, and that's going to be, really tough,
It's about to get tougher, in some of the stuff, that Paul says, and let's keep moving, oh, you're bringing them up, towards a goal, we have a current, cultural climate, of let your kids, figure out who they're going to be, and that is stupid, do not let them do that, Proverbs 22, 15 says this, is it 22, 15? Yeah, folly is bound up, in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline, drives it far from them, we're going to talk about, the rod of discipline,
In a second, but I just want you to see, that folly is bound up, in the heart of your child, folly is foolishness, your child, the Lord loves them, you love them, they are a fool, go back and look, at pictures of you, from middle school, put one on your refrigerator, remind yourself, that child, did not need to make, all the big life decisions, I needed my parents, telling me stuff, that I didn't want to hear, and your job as a parent, is to parent, God gave your children, parents on purpose,
There is a reason why, in the wild, those little lizards, can run just as fast, as anything, right when they're born, and there's a reason, why your child, can't do anything, for a long time, because God intended, for you to be there, helping, guiding, leading, training, and driving folly, away from them, alright so Paul says, bring them up, in, now he's going to tell us, what we're bringing them up in, so we're bringing them up,
We're nurturing them, we have a goal, he's bringing them up in, the discipline, and the instruction, of the Lord, so we're going to take, all those phrases separately, the discipline, and instruction of the Lord, so discipline means, that in the goal, that you have set, you have boundaries, that are not crossable, that you have fences up, sometimes I feel like, that's all I'm doing, with my three year old, I'm just a fence, and he can run into me, all day long, and at some point, he'll realize,
There's a fence here, and when I was, one of the movies, that was my first movies, I saw in theater, and it really had an impact on me, was Jurassic Park, and in Jurassic Park, they're talking about, how smart the velociraptors are, and the little guy, who's talking about it goes, he says they're testing the fences, to see if there's a weak spot, and some of you feel like, we gave birth to a velociraptor, because all it is doing, is testing the fences, to see if there's a weak spot, and the truth is, to discipline your children, you have to be disciplined, the fences can't move, the fence can't be here one day,
Because you're in a bad move, and over there one day, because you're not, y'all know Pavlov's dogs, they rang a bell, and the dogs would salivate, and it was a really cute test, that's not what they did, they didn't ring a bell, they shaved the spot, on the dog's arm, they put an electrode on it, and they electrocuted the dogs, and then fed them, just bell sounds nicer, they would take these dogs, they would walk them down the hall, they would set them up on a table, they would stick an electrode on their arm, they would shock them, and then they would feed them, so they were giving them, negative reinforcement, prior to getting to eat,
And then, what they started doing, was they had some dogs, that every time they shocked them, they fed them, and they had some dogs, that they would shock sometimes, and they would feed them, or not feed them, or whatever, so the dogs that got shocked, and fed, when they started heading down that hall, would run down the hall, would jump on the table, would hold their arm out, they didn't mind getting electrocuted, they knew they were about to get fed, I don't think they shocked the fool out of them, but I don't know, I wasn't there, the dogs that they shocked, all the time, and fed sometimes,
Lost their minds, they were psychotic, they wouldn't go down the hall, they were fighting, they couldn't handle, the rules changing, now, your child is smarter than a dog, after it's about two years old, all I'm saying is, there is something to, if you're going to discipline your children well, you have to be disciplined, so that the fences don't move all the time, so that the system doesn't change all the time, it also means that you and your spouse, have to be on the same page, because it can't be one way with one of you, and another way with another one of you, because that makes room for children, not knowing where they are, not knowing how things work, if you're going to count to three, when you get to three,
Something needs to happen, whatever you decide that thing is, and then it needs to happen, every time you hit three, if you count to three, and sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes you count to five, or if you count to three, and nothing ever happens, you just counted, like that's, I'm going to count again, go for it, that'll double the time, I'm doing the thing, you didn't want me to do, like I, you got to pick, you're the parent, you're going to stand, accountable for him, but discipline means, that you have to be disciplined,
And this has to stay, I want to show you, something though, specifically, specific to the idea of spanking, and to the idea of discipline, and these are in the Proverbs, I want to show you two things, Proverbs 13, 24, whoever spares the rod, hates his son, but he who loves him, is diligent to discipline him, we're told in Hebrews, that God disciplines his children, if he doesn't discipline, you don't belong to him, the Bible says, that you are a bastard, if you were not disciplined, by the Lord, so that you have children, it is your role,
As a parent, to discipline them, to figure out, what that looks like, in your household, and how that works, now the rod, in your household, may not be a rod, it may be time out, if it works, it may be removing things, that they appreciate, if it works, it just has to function, like a rod, the rod, the rod, in your household, may be a rod, or as Spencer said, one of his professors, called it a wisdom wand, there's driving folly away,
Via magic, on your rear end, here's the thing, discipline, comes from love, one of the reasons, why culture responds, so negatively, to spanking, to, is that we've seen, a lot of discipline, that didn't come from love, came from annoyance, it came from frustration, it came from anger, it came from a place of evil, it came from a place of sin, it came from a place of drunkenness, and that has no place, in parenting, and it has no place, in the church, but loving consistent discipline,
Does, and it is beautiful, and good for your child, and here's, another proverb, that helps paint this picture, do not withhold, discipline from a child, so you are wrong, to do that, you need to repent, if you are, if you strike him, with a rod, he will not die, I quoted this to my wife, as a joke, because whenever I would, spank my child, all she could see, was a 30 year old, hitting a 2 year old, even though I wasn't, hitting him that hard,
She was like, you are crazy, and it is like, I am not crazy, and then I would say, he is not going to die, the Bible says it, I was taking that out of context, that is not what that means, I do not think, that is what it means, I think what it means is, the purpose of striking, with a rod, is for life, it is a life giving rod, here is what I mean, my dad used to spank us, when we would play, in the road, he would sit us down, he would explain to us, why it was wrong, and then we would get,
A certain number of licks, with a belt, the reason he spanked us, while we played in the road, was because, we did not have the concept, an understanding, of what getting hit, by a vehicle was, but his belt was very real, and so one of the things, that happens at my house, is that we are consistently, creating negative consequences, because the negative consequences, are too slow to come, my son, hopped up off the couch, took his little sippy cup, walked over to me, said, get me some milk, and threw it at me, walked back over,
Hop back up on the couch, now, parenting is not about, what he does, parenting is about, what I do, so I threw it back, he said, get your own milk, I didn't, I took a deep breath, so that I wouldn't, here's the thing, I want him to have milk, I want him to drink milk, all the time, especially if he wants milk, but he can't act like that, but the consequences, for him are delayed, because I can go get him milk, and all he has learned, is negative behavior, gets a positive result,
Same with like, when he melts down, and cries over something, if he starts crying, all the fun in the world, ceases to exist, we have removed everything good, if you throw a fit, if you whine, nothing good happens, because if he cries, and then we give him a good thing, all we have taught him, is the way to be happy, is to cry, and that's nonsense, and that's a terrible thing, to learn, and your children, will turn into terrorists, and they'll continue it, 12 year olds do this, they learn this, when they're three,
They terrorize you, at a dinner table, so you'll appease them, because you just want to have, a nice night out, when really you should spend, the time outside, disciplining your child, you just do whatever, they want you to do, and then they learn, so parenting, disciplining is, creating negative results, because the real negative results, are too far coming, here's the real negative result, if my son can throw, a milk bottle at me, and I have to go get him milk, I begin to not like my son, my wife begins to not like our son, she can't take him to Walmart, we can't do anything fun with him,
Because he ruins everything, and so now, our child is in a situation, where we actually kind of dislike him, we don't want to be around him, and that is not his fault, that's our fault, he goes to school, he can't sit still, he can't be quiet, he can't control himself, and that's not his fault, that's our fault, he had folly, bound up in his heart, and we refused to drive it away, because we were being unloving, he goes to middle school, he goes to high school, he can't now, now when he grows up, he can't keep a job, he doesn't know how to handle relationships, and it began,
Because he had a father and mother, that refused to make him honor them, and refused to love him well enough, to discipline him, and that's ridiculous, we're called to it, but the negative effects, of poor behavior, and a small child, are too far in coming, and so you begin to make, the negative effects immediate, so that they'll learn, a belt is real, a time out is real, whatever, all removal of good happy things, is real, and that's because, his action is going to lead, to the removal of all good happy things, he just doesn't know it, and so I have to play act it with him, and that's,
I'm giving him life, that's discipline, that's the biblical picture of it, all right, then he says, bring them up, so we're moving them in a direction, we have a picture, of what we want, out of a son, we have a picture, of what we want, out of a daughter, we have a picture, of what a well-grown, well-adjusted adult looks like, if you didn't see that, in your parents, if you didn't see it, go talk to people, who've parented well, go ask them questions, go look at the people, who you think are well-adjusted,
Who work hard, who do things, ask them questions, how did you learn, begin to paint a picture, you got a place you're taking them, and we're doing this, in discipline, and instruction, instruction here, the word brings to mind, kind of head training, so you're giving them information, you're explaining things to them, you're walking them through, you're teaching them, not only what to think, but also how to think, I can remember, telling my dad stories, about, hey a buddy of mine, he was at his uncle's house, and I would tell him,
This big long story, and my dad would go, that didn't happen, no it did, he said he saw it, he didn't see that, your friend lied to you, and he was consistently, training me, on how to think, how to gauge things, he would make me come sit, and listen, and look at something, he would teach me, how to think, and that's one of the things, that instruction means, is that you're, not just teaching them, what to think, but you're also, training their brains, you have a picture,
Of where you're growing, and you're training them, and then it says, discipline and instruction, of the Lord, we're going to spend, the rest of our time there, one of the things, this means is parents, your role, with your children, is to discipline, and train them, in the Lord, in Christ, and what it looks like, to follow Jesus, this is a letter, written to the church, and it places parenting, on the parents, not the church, it's one of the reasons, why we are very careful,
With how we do things, with children, with students, because it, parenting doesn't get, outsourced to the church, it doesn't belong to us, it belongs to the parents, now where parenting, is lacking, and where students, don't have parents, that love Jesus, we try to step in, we try to walk with them, in that, it's one of the reasons, why we put them, in community groups, because we think, that's better, than just putting them, around peers, we put them around,
Like if you don't know Jesus, if your parents don't know Jesus, we're going to stick you, in a group, okay, you're 15, you're going to get, have a lot of parents, that love Jesus, they're going to begin, to pour into you, they're going to begin, to take you places, begin to try to train you, and instruct you, and discipline you, and walk with you, through life, but if you have parents, and if you are parents, it isn't the church's role, to raise your children, in the Lord, it is your role,
To raise your children, in the Lord, this is an atmosphere, in which this takes place, Deuteronomy, when it's training parents, how to teach their children, it says do it when you wake up, do it when you walk around, do it when you're sitting at the table, do it before you go to bed, that this is how, all of life belongs to Jesus, and so you begin to train, in all of life, how to think, that when your child comes to you, and says how do we think about money, that you so know the Lord, and you so know the Bible, that you go, here's why we think about that way, here's why we approach money that way, that you so know the truth,
Of the gospel, that when they say why, why do we as Christians, say we're not supposed to have sex, before we're married, you say well here's why, it's not just a rule, but you have a big picture, of why it's beautiful, and why it's good, that you know the Lord well, so that you can do this well, here's the other thing, you need to understand as parents, that you are a stand in for God, with your children, you're a stand in for God, some of you understand this so clearly, because when you became a Christian, it was so difficult to relate to God, because he calls himself a father, and your father was terrible, so you feel like God is distant, you feel like God only cares about you,
If you're successful, you feel like God is consistently disappointed in you, you feel like God is waiting, to strike you down, waiting for you to mess up, and that's because your father, your parents painted a very poor picture, but parents, you get to paint a really beautiful picture, so one of the things that happens, is you raise your children in discipline, when it says of the Lord, do you know how much joy is in the Lord, do you know how much time at your house, needs to be spent laughing, and playing, and celebrating, do you know how much joy is in the house of the Lord, that you're painting a picture, for what God looks like, which means, he's terrible, when you're in sin, he has wrath for sin,
But he also has grace, and love for repentance, and there's joy in his house, that when you're outside of his will, it's awful, but when you're under his roof, it's beautiful, and his parents, we're getting to paint that picture, that the household is a household, that you actually get to walk your children down the aisle, and at some point hand them off to God, and that's seamless, because they already have a good picture, of what he's like, but you have to have a good picture, of what he's like, and you have to walk that out, that my son should be afraid of me, in a healthy way, and that my son also should think, I'm the most fun person, that has ever existed, and that's how I ought to think about God,
And you get to be a stand in for that, specifically parents, one last thing I want to point out, for many of you, you're just beginning this, for many of you, you're already on the other side of it, there's a good bit of us in the middle of it, and you are failing, in so many ways, I am failing in so many ways, I can't tell you how many conversations, I have with my wife, where I put my son to bed, and I come back in, and she's like, you did not handle that right, and I'm like, you're telling me, he just got going, I was just, I went for it, and that was awful, what do we need to do next time,
He threw me a curve ball, I wasn't ready for it, I dodged it, I wasn't ready for it, you're going to fail, but Jesus saves sinners, and he saves failures, and when you've taken your fifth trip, up to the school in five weeks, to talk to a teacher again, and when you worked, and worked, and worked, and worked, and they still brought home F's, and when they've left, and you don't even know where they went, but prior to leaving, they said the most hurtful things, that anyone could possibly ever say to you, and you responded, with some of the most hurtful things, you've ever said to anybody, you get to repent,
And you get to trust, that Jesus saves sinners, that one day, you'll stand before him, and yes, you'll be held accountable, for your actions, and you'll be held accountable, for how your children, what you did with your children, but you'll also stand, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, that he paid for your sin, so that you can walk free, that's the hope of the gospel, and that as you lean into Jesus, you get to trust, that some of you right now, you look back on parenting, you have so much regret, and you just get to trust, that Jesus covers you, and pays for you, and brings you hope,
That you won't stand held accountable, for your own sin, but you'll get to walk in the freedom, that's offered to you, around this room, we need to repent, some of you are children, who are actively disobeying, or dishonoring your parents, and you need to repent, because you're in sin, but there's a lot of grace, for sinners who repent, maybe you need to call your parents, or have a conversation with them today, where you tell them you're wrong, you shouldn't have said those things, you shouldn't have acted that way, you need to change your attitude, that you get to trust, that Jesus redeems sinners, saves sinners, forgives sinners, some of you are parents,
Who need to repent, your fathers who have abdicated, your fathers who have just deferred, to your wife, even though you think she's wrong, because you feel like, she feels more comfortable, or she feels more adamantly about it, or you feel like, she makes it difficult, chapter three of the Bible, Adam says, but my wife, and God doesn't take it, as a legitimate excuse, we don't get to do that, we have to lead, some of you are wives, who are actively, not being, following the leadership, of your husband, or who have actively, abdicated from parenting well,
Or who have begun, treating your children, in a way that's just about today, that's just about your own happiness, that's not about theirs, we need to repent, but we run to a God, who has open arms, and an open house, and who loves us, the way a parent loves his children, and so when we show back up, he's not mad at us, and he's not ready to chastise us, he's ready to open the door, and start cooking a meal, and say sit down, I was waiting for you to come, because there's a lot of joy, in the house of the Lord, and there's a beautiful welcome, for sinners who repent, band's going to come back up, and we're going to sing,
And sing, but I would invite us all, to take a moment, to just pray, to reflect, to rest in the hope of the gospel, to run to Christ, in the midst of difficulty, let's pray, God we thank you for your grace, we thank you that you are, a good father who loves us, and redeems the picture, of so many messed up fathers, that we had, we thank you and praise you, for the good fathers and mothers, that we did have, and we pray that you would, bless this church, to be a place of, of good parenting, and we pray that you would, bless those who are still,
Dependent on their parents, to be obedient, as obedience to you, that you would help us all, to honor our parents well, because it trains us, in how to honor you, and how to live a life of joy, we thank you, and we praise you in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Amen.
Marriage and Singleness Q&A
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. I am an optimistic person. I try to tackle any given workday, like tomorrow is a workday for me, and I do real estate and also serve here. And I try to tackle as much as I can, so tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have this huge plan and I'm going to tackle getting my daughter to preschool.
I'm going to tackle writing contracts and doing stuff, and then I'm going to tackle preparing for sermons over the next couple of weeks. And I try to do all these things. My wife, she finds out about these plans regularly, and she just kind of smiles. Because she's like, you continuously bite off more than you can chew. And I do. And what's good to know is that I'm not the only one.
That Chet Phillips also does the same thing. That as we were planning this section of Ephesians months ago, we had planned that we're going to spend some time in marriage, and that we're going to have a Q&A that we're going to do, and we're going to tack that into one of the sermons, and it's going to be great. And then your questions started to come in. And we realized, oh, I don't think we're going to be able to just take 15 minutes to answer all these questions. I think that we're going to actually have to spend some more time doing this. So this morning is going to be a little bit different.
Typically, we'd open up the Bible. We'd read through a passage, and we'd preach from the text, and that's what we'd do. And we had planned originally for this Sunday to be kind of in line with Mother's Day, that we were going to have parenting starting Ephesians 6, and it was going to coincide with Mother's Day, and it's going to be awesome. And then once we saw kind of we were running out of space to do that, it's like we actually really need to take some time and address these questions. And they didn't line up so well. So sorry for Mother's Day that we couldn't have the Mother's Day sermon that we wanted.
You get to listen to questions and answers, which I'm sure you guys were gearing up for. So we're going to spend what's going on this morning. I'm going to quickly walk through where we've been in Ephesians, and then I'm going to answer one of the questions we have first. I'm going to teach you that because it's a little bit more nuanced. Sometimes it takes a little more time, a little more space, but ultimately this question that will come up first will kind of set the framework for how we answer the rest of these questions. And then once I work through that, I'm going to have Katie Freeman, who's one of our community group leaders, and Chet Phillips, one of our pastors, come up, and we're going to work through the rest of these questions.
I'm going to pray, and then we'll start. God, thank you for today. God, I pray that you would bless this time, that it would be beneficial, that as we walk through these, you would show us your will. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so summarizing where we've been, we've been in Ephesians for the last like six months, and we've been in this section of Ephesians 5 for over a month now, walking through the picture of marriage, and it's couched in the context of Ephesians.
In the first three chapters, Paul walks through the picture of the gospel, that God chose the church, that he came to redeem the church, that while we were dead in sin, he died for us and made us alive, that by grace we have been saved. And he extends this picture of the gospel for three chapters, then he pivots into chapter 4, and starts doing coaching and correction with the church, applying the gospel. Then we get to Ephesians 5, and we get to this section on marriage. And we see here, as Paul lays it out, that just as Jesus is the head of the church, the body, so the husband should be the head of his wife.
That he should lead, that he should sacrificially love. We walked through that a few weeks back. And that wives should respect and follow and submit to their husbands. And when this cycle of love and respect is happening, we are showing a beautiful picture of the gospel in marriage. So we spent some time walking through that.
And as we've been walking through that, we also walked through singleness last week, how God has, how our culture says you need someone to be complete. And we come in with the Bible and say, no, we walked through 1 Corinthians 7, on how you don't need someone else to be completed. You need Christ to be completed. And as we've been working through this, these questions came in. And one question in particular, which takes a little more time, was this. Why has the leadership chosen to espouse complementarianism over egalitarianism?
All right, a lot of big words there. So why have we chosen, as a church, we uphold the position of complementarianism? So why have we chosen that over egalitarianism? So these are two positions on gender roles in the church. Egalitarianism coming from the French word égal, which means equal. And what ultimately that position is advocating for is equality in roles, that wives could be the heads of their husbands and that women could ultimately be pastors and preach with authority.
That's kind of the overarching position of egalitarianism. And we come alongside as complementarians and say, that's not what the Bible teaches, that the Bible teaches that our roles are complementary. So I'll walk through that in a moment. But I want to say out the gate that there are Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christians in both sides of this debate. One of my mentors for the past 10, 15 years, someone I love deeply, who is, he married my wife and I. He continually checks in on me.
He's a pastor in Houston. I became a Christian in a Methodist church, and he's a Methodist pastor now in Houston. I love this dude, and he loves me, and we don't agree on this. He comes from the egalitarian side, and I come from the complementarian side, and gender roles debate. But both of us love Jesus, and we love the mission of the church, and I pray that he would reach people in Houston.
But we differ on this. Now, there are two extremes that get pushed out of this that are not biblically based. And I'll have a slide that comes up that will show this. That on one end of the spectrum, when you push egalitarianism to its extreme, you get feminism, specifically Christian feminism. And when you push complementarianism to an extreme, you get patriarchy. And those two positions do not find a place in the Bible.
So let me tackle this first one, patriarchy. This is not necessarily the term for patriarchs in the Old Testament. That's not what it's going for. It's more of a term that has been used to describe that men rule in the house, that men rule in general over women. That's the position of patriarchy. And it comes from the idea that though Genesis 1 says that men and women are made in the image of God, they have taken that, and they say, No, actually, women are made in the image of men.
And men are made in the image of God. Therefore, any language about headship gets extended out of that logic. And what happens and what flows out of that is a ton of unhelpful teaching and really some abuse. And I kind of thought that this position had faded away a little bit, but I was reminded about a month or two ago in California, this family of 13 kids was rescued from a family. And the oldest was 27. She was like 90 pounds and had been systematically abused for all of her life based off of this guy's understanding of patriarchy in the Bible.
And that finds no weight in the Bible. That is out. You cannot be a consistent Christian and uphold that position. So that's one extreme. The next extreme on the other end of the spectrum is Christian feminism. At its core, feminism did some really awesome things.
In the 1800s, when the feminist movement started, the whole core of the position is equal rights for men and women. And the fact that women can vote, the fact that there has been a pushback against systematic sexual harassment and abuse in our culture is good. But man, where that has extended and what has been the overarching theme of feminism and what it is today has been extremely unhelpful. And if you look at it from a position of Christian feminism, what has happened is a response to patriarchy by saying, we're going to view the Bible skeptically. That if the Bible says things, we're going to question the Bible as a basis even for this debate.
So I studied at a college in a religion department that was primarily, it was from a Christian feminist position on gender roles. And they regularly would pray to Mother God. They would change the language of the Bible. They would take any passages that dealt with male leadership or headship and completely chuck them out. All of the Bible is filtered through the position of extreme feminism and not much comes out the other side. And I even have one.
I was one professor. I remember I opened a Bible and I was reading through the ESV, which is the version that we use. And she was yelling at me right in the face that we should never use that version because of how it translates the Bible. When in fact, it's one of the most helpful English translations that we have. And eventually she went to the academic department and got that version banned from our religion department. And that's kind of the flow of Christian feminism.
Everything gets filtered through the extreme position of feminism that is today. And those two extremes, if you look at them, they don't consistently follow the teachings of the Bible. So those two are extremes. I want to just take a moment to walk through the two positions that can be held in the Bible and by Bible-believing Christians. The first position is egalitarianism. Egalitarianism pushes for equal roles for men and women, specifically that wives can be the heads of their husbands and that women can preach with authority in the local church.
That is the push of egalitarianism. And some of what egalitarianism has pointed out has been really beautiful and good. Like the fact that the past hundred years has been a push to say, look at the ferocious, strong women in the Bible who have character and were forces of good. Like they point out Deborah from the Old Testament. They point out Ruth. They point out Mary, mother of Jesus.
And we're like, yeah, we need that correction. Sometimes we focus on some of the male leaders in the Bible and we say, wow, like no, we absolutely should focus on their character, on who they were. So egalitarianism has pointed out some very helpful things over the years. But I want to walk through the root of their argument and how they approach the Bible. Egalitarians approach the Bible from the perspective that male headship, what we've talked about the last month, is rooted in the fall. It's rooted in sin that came into the world in Genesis 3.
And that the rest of the Bible, any type of male headship, is a result of fallenness that happened at the fall. So they go through the Old Testament and really the New Testament, there's one verse that their position is hung on very strongly that they fight for. And it comes out of Galatians 3, verse 28, which says, And what they're saying is, is because of Jesus and because of this verse that gender has been flattened. There's no Jew, there's no Greek, that all of us have the same roles and opportunities in marriage and in the church. And that has been used as the logic for much of egalitarianism today.
Now, before I move on to complementarianism and explain that position and why we hold it, I want to see that verse in its context because that really is the linchpin for much of their arguments. If you look at verse 25, a few verses back, it says, But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's no male and female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. So when you look at this, what is actually happening here is that faith is what's being upheld here.
And what argument that Paul is making is that in faith, that in Christ, in your redemption that Jesus has done for you, none of you are better than the other. That was a huge problem in the New Testament church that Jews thought they were better than Gentiles, that Gentiles are saying, no, we're better, and that male and female, that there was this argument going, and Paul comes in and says, no, none of you are better, each of you are equally valued because you are one in Christ. So it's not a statement of rule, it's a statement of value. That we are all equally one and valued in Christ. Which brings us to the last position, the position that we hold as a church, which is complementarianism.
That is a big way of saying that men in the Bible were created to lead in marriage, and that men were also created to lead in the church as pastors, and that wives have complementary roles to husbands, and that women have complementary roles to men in the church. And our argument for that starts with male headship and male leadership being rooted not in the fall, but actually being rooted in creation. That when you go back to the garden, in Genesis 1 and 2, before the fall, you're going to see that Adam was created first. That creation order matters. And we're going to see that show up again later in the New Testament.
We see that in the garden, God holds Adam responsible for what happens at the fall. And then we see that before the fall happens, that Eve is called Adam's helper, which is the Hebrew word for hezer. That these were pre-fall realities, a part of the fabric of God's creation, that men were created to lead. And we see that flow throughout the rest of the Old Testament, that the tribal leaders were men, that the priests were men. And usually about that time, when egalitarians, when they hear this, they'll say, but what about women like Deborah? And I'll say, absolutely.
We look at a figure like Deborah in the book of Judges. She was a political leader at the time that stepped up in a time of need when men were failing and helped lead the nation of Israel in a vital period of time, which is why you'll never hear a stay from the sage, don't ever vote for a woman. We're not going to say that because the Bible doesn't hold that position. In the time where men are failing, absolutely, women can be political leaders that help lead, but that's not what happens in the book of Judges. She's not a spiritual leader. And more importantly, the book of Judges and the whole point of the book of Judges is that this is not the way it's supposed to be, that the whole nation of Israel, each judge that came in was failing over and over again.
It's not a picture that we go to. And then when you move to the New Testament, one question that I've asked our egalitarian brothers and sisters in Christ, I've asked if Jesus was so counter-cultural, if he was so revolutionary, and he was, I mean, he stared down the religious leaders like he flipped the whole system on its head. And if this is who Jesus was, then why did he choose 12 men to lead the church as disciples? 11 of whom, and another man who was appointed would become the apostles in the church. And I've never gotten a good answer for that. That Jesus, who is setting up his church, who is flipping the system on its head, he chose men to be the ones who lead.
And then the flowing out of that in the New Testament is that men would lead as pastors. And when we flip to 1 Timothy 2, you look at 1 Timothy 2, Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, these lay out how men are called as pastors. And then you look at 1 Timothy 2, and it says this, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. And I, just being honest, I used to be an egalitarian because I became a Christian in the Methodist church. And when I would hear people quote this passage, my go-to response was, no, you don't understand.
Like, this is culturally different. That the women in the church back then weren't educated. And that's why Paul is putting this there. And I used to hang so much of my arguments on the cultural realities at the time until finally someone said, yeah, but what about verse 13? When he gives the logic for why he says this, when he says, for Adam was formed first, then Eve. There are absolutely cultural elements happening here.
But that's not what Paul's arguing. He's arguing out of creation order. This is why he's designed men to be pastors. Similar things happen when we look at Ephesians 5 and how we've spent time in that. That the order that he has had, that he's established in marriage that we've walked through is actually rooted in something that's eternal. It's rooted in the gospel.
And that's unchanging. And you go to 1 Corinthians 11, 3, which is another passage on headship. And it says, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. And the logic that's being played out there is in the same way that the Father is the head of the Trinity. He's the head of Jesus the Son the same way husbands are the heads of their wives. And nobody is going to make the argument from a Christian standpoint that the Father is better than the Son, that Jesus isn't equal to God in value.
If you did, you'd be a heretic. That's heresy that's been condemned for over 1,500 years in the church. But we would say, no, absolutely not. They are equal in value in the same way husbands and wives are equal in value. But we have different roles.
So we take cultural considerations in the New Testament seriously. And we look at them and we look at history and we try to figure out what's going on. But we also know that our truth is rooted in eternal patterns that go back to creation order, that go back to the gospel, that go back to our Trinitarian God. And that is why we as a church we uphold the position of complementarianism. And when we do that and the culture hears that, the culture is going to rage. We're going to be called everything in the book.
We're going to be called backward, archaic, chauvinistic, everything down the line. And I get it. I understand where they're coming from. But we don't let culture dictate our positions as a church. We let the Bible speak for itself. And this is what we think the Bible consistently teaches from Old Testament to New.
And as a church, this is what we believe. But we also, this means we don't value the opinions and the wisdom of women. That's why we as a church we have deacons that are women in our church. We see deacons in the New Testament that are women. Deacon is just the word diakonos in Greek which means servant. We have women who are lead servants who are crushing it in our church.
That's why as a teaching team there are three of us. There's Chet, Bianca McDowell, and myself. And when we craft sermons together, I love having Bianca in the room because she challenges me and Chet. She helps us see the Bible from a different perspective and she speaks wisdom into what happens up here. Over and over again, we are reaching out to women in our church because of the wisdom and the strength they provide. But we order our church in the way that the Bible orders it and that's what we try to follow as a church.
So that is a long way of answering that question but that's going to give you a framework a little bit for the rest of the questions that we have today. I'm going to have Katie and Chet come up and we're going to finish our Q&A. And we've got about eight more questions and I appreciate all of you that sent questions in that were challenging. We spent the last three weeks talking through them, opening up the Bible, praying, debating the works. So with that in mind, let's transition.
I want to tag something real quick on what he was just talking about. I think one of the, we believe in complementarianism. I think one of the things that we've done though before as a church and I know I've done this some is say the word complementarianism and lean patriarchy because it's cleaner. It's easier to draw hard lines than it is to be in the middle of trying to figure out. So like even with Bianca McDowell on teaching team, that Timothy passage says I don't allow women to have authority or teach men but she's in there.
You know, it's like that's a less clean line but we actually want to lean more into the, no, we value women. We value their opinion. We value what God's poured into them and the help that they have and so I just know for us sometimes we've gotten that wrong. We've leaned a little bit too far to a, it's just cleaner to do this when we really need to embrace and lean in. So there can be times where we mess that up one way or the other but we're trying to actively grow in it and walk out with the scriptures we think say on them.
So. Thanks. That's more of a personal confession. So hi, my name's Chad and I'm a sinner. Alright, so. Our first question.
As a wife, how do you submit to your husband and be his sister in Christ especially when dealing with sin? Katie, do you want to take that one? Sure. The first thing we're always going to do here as a church is to direct you towards prayer. We want to go into anything where we have to address sin with a prayerful spirit so I'm going to ask the Lord where's my sin in this? Where do I need to repent?
And that just sets me up with a heart of humility and then I pray over my husband's sin. I can pray that he will be receptive and want to hear that when I do speak to him. But the next thing is just how do I approach my husband in this? That's what I want to consider before I start that conversation and I like to compare it to somebody maybe I respect in my life. So maybe that's somebody, a coach, a teacher, a boss, somebody that I would say yeah, they're getting it right and I respect them and I care about them and so I have an issue I need to address with them.
How am I going to set that up? And so if I was going to do that, I think if it were someone I respected, I'd want to give them some prep. I want to let them know that we're going to have this talk. I want to kind of tell them I need to talk to them about something. I want to go in humble. I want to build up the positive things that I see and then bring in the tougher stuff and then do it in a very respectful and humble way.
And then once you've done that and if you can take that same approach with your husband, then you need to just take a little time to allow him to repent. I think we immediately as women sometimes want to see the results, see the change but this is a goal for the long term is that he's able to overcome this sin and so I think we want to give him time and then as we continue to check in and say, how's this going? Are we growing here? Are we fixing things? Is the Lord working? Then if there is a need, you can bring in some help from your group or from a pastor but let's not rush there.
I think sometimes as a female we can see our other female community group members as somebody we can confide in and talk to but very quickly it can switch over to a little bit of husband bashing and we never want to go there. We always want to build our husbands up and be proud of who they are and put them in that position of respect and so kind of two approaches real quick here when we're talking with our community groups. The first one is females. When you're talking to other females about how to approach sin with your husband don't flaunt his sin. Talk to them and say here's my heart here's where I'm struggling can you can you help me to love my husband and have an appropriate view of his sin?
You don't even have to tell him what the sin is. And so and then the other one is instead of you telling your community group leader about your husband's sin direct him there. Let him go do that. Let him have that ownership. Shows respect. Shows you admire him and love him and hopefully over time with the Holy Spirit in your husband you can trust the Lord to change that in him.
What the sin is. And so and then the other one is instead of you telling your community group leader about your husband's sin direct him there. Let him go do that. Let him have that ownership. Shows respect. Shows you admire him and love him and hopefully over time with the Holy Spirit in your husband you can trust the Lord to change that in him. Thank you. I just want to add that ideally you can't go to your husband and address sin and regardless of your attitude
He's receptive wants to own his own sin wants to be repentant. 1 Peter 3 says what do you kind of speaks into what do you do when he doesn't obey like you don't want to hear it so you go to your husband and you say hey I think you're wrong here and he says the equivalent of well just shut your mouth and leave me alone and that's extremely difficult but Peter says that you win him over more with a gracious attitude a walking through that in the midst of that difficult with kindness with gentleness
Rather than continually trying to be like no I'm going to fix you I'm going to make you change and that's extremely difficult and that's where we would say what Katie was saying which is like at that point start leaning into church families start having other people praying with you start if they're a part of our our church family your husband's in a group or whatever then we can start following up with some church discipline and some different things like that to approach it with them but that can be a very difficult situation
Alright next question is there a line limit to your desire to be married if so what is it and why does it exist ok so we talked about singleness last week and basically just said that kind of do you have the desire do you not have the desire one of the things Paul says is that if you're burning with desire and so I would say that yes there is a line and a limit like you just too much but it's got to be past burning
Because the Bible says like that's that's kind of an ok zone so what I would say is you can desire marriage to a burning desire level like it can be a deep seated like I really want to get married I really feel this I have urges or whatever like I mean however you would put it so there is room for that the only thing that we would add in on that is just we are always careful to not allow something to become idolatrous which just means
It means more to us than Jesus does that we are elevating it to I have to have this to be ok I have to have this to feel loved I have to have this to be saved I have to like we've elevated it to save your position and so one of the tests for that if you're sitting there going like I really desire this and I have some questions is like ok are you willing to sin to get it I so badly want a husband
That I'll just move in with a guy I so badly want a wife that everything else is on the table like that amount of like well you've crossed the line because you've elevated it above Christ and so that would be our question was like no you can absolutely desire it you can absolutely burn with desire but don't allow it to become more valuable to you than Christ and with
Just in general line and limit questions whether it's this or another it takes a ton of leaning into the Holy Spirit of pursuing wisdom and prayerfully doing both of those so just keep that in mind as you're pursuing that as you're thinking through that and processing that next question is when is it ok to not submit as a wife especially if your
Husband is expecting you to follow him and not what the Bible says Katie can you take that when I read this question it was very clear to me that this is a woman who does want to submit to her husband and she's having trouble because he's asking her to sin to do that and so I'm sorry I know that these guys are sorry that you're
In that position we do think the Bible speaks to it and we want to support you in that so again we're going to immediately point you to prayer over it but then if you have specific questions over whether something is ok for you to partake in with your husband and you can't come to that on your own you have people who want to support you in that
Group leaders pastors other Christian believers within our church family so ask for help if you need it and don't be ashamed but then I want to point you to a biblical story that some of you may be familiar with the story of Ananias and Sapphira and basically this is a couple who sells a field they make some money and Ananias goes to take the money to the disciples feet
And when he does this he lies about how much he made and he's immediately struck dead and so then Sapphira comes in a little later and she is asked how much the field was sold for and she also lies and is immediately struck dead so that's just a small example of women we are held accountable to our sin
In these situations and so as Christians we need to know how to handle that and so there's a couple things that I want us to be aware of as a Christian we are called to love and respect and honor our husbands and that's what we want him to know especially if it's a non-believing spouse we want them to know that we are called to that and that's our passion
And our heart we also want them to know that we love Jesus and we do not want to sin and so we want to frame it that we want to follow you we don't want to sin and so ultimately in this situation I want women to think about how can I say yes to my husband right now maybe he's asking me to lie maybe he's asking me to watch porn maybe he's asking me
To cheat on our taxes and you can't say yes to those things and I think most of us know that but we want to know what can we do talk with your husband if he's scared for you to talk about him just losing his job that's real he may ask you to lie and tell people that he didn't lose his job and though you can't do that say what can I do in this situation that both honors God and honors you
And y'all come to a conclusion that unifies you brings you together this doesn't have to be destructive and so just praying that praying over what that can be how can you say yes to your husband and love him well in these challenging situations and we're here to help again group leaders and pastors want to walk with you through that if it's a struggle that's good next question
Outside of unfaithfulness is divorce ever okay okay so church family real quick we have a handful and a few more following this of questions about divorce and remarriage and even as we continue to go and even what we've already talked about this is extremely painful difficult personal stuff and so we want to start by saying
We want to answer these questions and we want to answer them biblically we want to talk to you so if you're walking through some of the situations that Katie was just talking about or some of the situations we're going to cover we want to talk with you we want to open the Bible with you we want to
Talk about your personal situation we want to talk we don't want it to just be like well here's what the Bible says and that be a hammer rather than that being what the Bible intends it to be which is a grace for us and so I want to say before we begin to answer some of these questions
That's our hope is that if you are actually walking through some of these scenarios these situations have more questions don't just leave frustrated let's talk and be frustrated together and so that's our request and if I have to say this I am approachable you can talk to me I know my face says otherwise on a regular basis after talking to me people will say hey this wasn't as bad
As I thought it was going to be and I've learned to just appreciate that and not be offended and so I just want to always tell them go tell other people that you can come talk to me but you can talk to me if you don't want to talk to me you can talk to Spencer or Raz or Matt and so you know you can talk to Spencer and Matt and Raz and I will hang out and y'all can come talk to us if you
Want to outside of unfaithfulness is divorce ever okay okay so the question is assuming automatically that in unfaithfulness divorce is okay and that is a reference they're referring to Matthew 5 or Matthew 19 I'm going to go to Matthew 19 I want to read some of this the overall weight of scripture towards marriage is that you should stay married if you are married that divorce is not okay
So I actually want to read this passage it says and the Pharisees came up to him this is Matthew 19 starting verse 3 the Pharisees came up to him and they tested him by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause now that any cause is actually a phrase they're quoting from Deuteronomy 24 and we know historically there was a big debate in the Jewish in the Jewish approach to this
And one school of thought said it was kind of limited and another school of thought said any cause from Deuteronomy 24 meant she burnt your toast you found a lady that was more attractive I mean it's super like if you read the list it's aggressive at how much you could just divorce a woman for really no reason whatsoever similar to how we approach stuff today is it lawful
To divorce to any wife for any cause and he answered Jesus answered have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined
Together let not man separate so his response is a he goes to the Genesis and just says no they shouldn't get a divorce should stay together God put them together he brought them together don't let anybody tear that up and then they said why then
Did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away and he said to them because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so and I say to you whoever divorces his wife and this is
The phrase that they're getting the except for sexual immorality a lot of translations will say marital unfaithfulness and marries another commits adultery so before we get into that clause I want to say this the Bible upholds a beautiful picture of marriage that a man
And a woman would cling together and it's actually the best bet for a good marriage is that you're not allowed to leave if both husband and wife go in with a this is our marriage and we're going to have to make it good it's the best bet
For a good marriage it's the best bet for a beautiful marriage is that if both of you were in saying there's no way out so if we're going to have a good marriage this is our shot at it whenever there's the back
Doors open and you get to look over your shoulder and get to say well if this one doesn't work out if this doesn't it leads to greater conflict greater difficulty also the Bible holds up that marriage is based off of Christ's
Love for the church it gives us all these beautiful pictures and calls us to so much joy and goodness in it and the Bible steps in it gives so much weight and rights to females that it's crazy given the
Context it was written in it's actually as if God is above culture and has a plan for how men and women should interact with one another and doesn't just let culture decide how that works and it's great
So that when in culture you'll notice can a husband divorce his wife do you know how wives were allowed to divorce their husbands they weren't your husband was terrible you have no real legal right you can run away but you can get yourself in trouble for that but husbands
Could just write a certificate and send you out and so Jesus steps in and says no don't but he does have this phrase except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery so that phrase except he uses the word adultery and he uses the word sexual immorality which is
Pornea and so that's what they're quoting in the case of unfaithfulness and so we would read this I read this and the majority opinion is even the majority opinion among our elders but not all of us opinion is that in the case of sexual immorality sexual sin that you can get a divorce and you can
Remarry because if you take the text as it's written except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery so the assumption would be if it were for sexual immorality when you married another you would not be committing adultery so Jesus holds up this picture for if
You get a divorce for any other reason than this then the question becomes what is sexual immorality what does that word mean it's a broad word that includes incest it includes bestiality it includes it's a whole list of things that
Aren't allowed in the Old Testament it includes fornication prior to marriage it includes and so for their culture when you were getting married to someone you had been betrothed since a young age they were supposed to be a virgin both of
You were and there was this idea that if you got married and soon found wait this person isn't a virgin that would be grounds that's porneia that's why it extends out and our culture is a little bit different so if
Some of y'all just said oh so I can get out if I just know that this person slept around in high school it's like that's not really what it's going for and the great weight of scripture Matthew 10
Luke 16 Matthew 5 1 Corinthians 7 the great weight of scripture is no you don't want to get a divorce you want to make it work you want to forgive that you should work this out the only other instance where the bible kind of says when you ask is it okay to
Get a divorce would be 1 Corinthians 7 and I want to read this passage real quick to the married I give this charge not I but the Lord and all he's saying is I'm quoting Jesus this is what he understood Jesus to be
Saying in the passages we were just reading the wife should not separate from her husband but if she does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband
Should not divorce his wife to the rest I say and he says I not the Lord meaning I'm not quoting Jesus that's confusing but if the unbelieving partner separates let it be so
In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved God has called you to peace for how do you know wife whether you will save your husband or how do you
Know husband whether you will save your wife so Paul speaks to a very specific situation where someone becomes a Christian and then the spouse
Says I don't want to be married to you anymore I heard of a case where an instance where this couple had an open marriage and
They were often going to orgies and swinging and that sort of thing and then one of them became a Christian and she was like I can't do that
Anymore and she even was in the position she was like you can't I know that's how we started this I'm going to graciously be here but
I can't and he just said no you're different you're different now and if you're not going to do this and so the Bible steps into
That situation and says if he won't live with you if he divorces you okay you're free you're not having to try to wait
To reconcile you're not having to try to pursue you're not trying to have to so if two Christians get a divorce we're going
To go alongside whoever and say no you need to reconcile you need to work this out you need to pursue you need to wait and he just says
In the situation no you're okay you're not enslaved so I would say the two instances that are clearly addressed sexual immorality if you
Are married to an unbeliever who will not stay married to you you are free to sign that paperwork and accept it rather than
Try to fight it as aggressively as we would say you would fight in all other cases for things to that leaves a lot
Of room that leaves a lot of questions immediately it's like okay what if they attempt to murder me what if they get an
Abortion and don't tell me what if it turns out they're a serial killer and so now they're in jail forever and so to
All of that we would say that the biblical call is stay married as best you can like stay we do believe it says
A wife shouldn't leave her husband if she does so he adds a wife shouldn't leave but if she does she should remain separated
Or else be reconciled to him but she shouldn't get remarried and so we would say that there are times you need to get out of the house
There are times when you need to call the police absolutely there are times when you need to call the but the overall call is to
Stay married and to walk that out and our invitation would be come talk to us don't do that on your own and don't just take
This as a blanket here's the aggressive answer and not let us be church family in the midst of all this and trying to
Figure this out the only thing I add to that is that unfaithfulness is painful it does not with the call the overall call the
New Testament being stay married we want to lean in that as much as possible and see Jesus go to work on us next question
Is remarriage after divorce permissible for a Christian yes when the divorce was permissible so if you read Matthew 19 where it says except for
Sexual immorality marries another commits adultery you would have to read in the case of sexual mean you're free to remarry I think that
Also when he says you're not enslaved in 1 Corinthians 7 he means you're also free to remarry otherwise it would be the case where he
Says in 1 Corinthians where if you're not living together try to seek reconciliation so our hope would be to reconcile or remain unmarried
Which can be very difficult which can be very painful I do think that Jesus in Matthew 19 says Jesus teaching in Matthew 19
Was controversial among his followers two seconds later so if we're still discussing this the first thing out of his disciples mouth was wait what you
Shouldn't get a divorce and they said why would you even get married then that's terrible and Jesus responds you don't have to get married
You can be fine and one of the things that he hints at and Paul specifically says is that God gives grace in the midst of
Singleness so if you were in a situation where you are forcibly singled and you did not want to be but you feel like I'm not free to get remarried that there's grace for that
That God empowers that for you so we would say if you're in a situation where the divorce was permissible then yes you'd be free to remarry
In other situations you ought to be waiting and hoping for reconciliation if your spouse dies you're free to remarry and then we also have questions on okay
Did you wait did you hold out for reconciliation and now they have remarried and so there's just no hope for reconciliation and they are what the Bible would say is committing adultery now in their new marriage also it's a big mess in our relationships and it's a big mess
In all of this and so there's a lot of grace there's a lot of conversations and just for the record so you know if you have been divorced and are remarried this is a marriage to be treated as gloriously and as much as you like to love and serve it is a real marriage
It's always treated like a real marriage in the Bible the Bible never encourages leave this marriage go back to your original spouse it actually discourages that on multiple occasions says that's terrible and heinous and so we would just say if you're in this
Situation and you're already remarried we love you we want to help you have a really beautiful marriage and there is no amount of you should feel shame you should talk with Jesus about whether or not your marriage
Started off poorly and then you get to repent and you just get to walk forward and having a beautiful marriage now next question how do we lovingly hold the other person accountable without causing guilt or shame when it comes to the lack of sexual intimacy
Okay I want to talk first first Corinthians seven I just want to say like so this question is it's not working the way the person who's writing it is saying like I want to have not a lack of sexual intimacy but we do have a lack of sexual
Intimacy how do I approach that I want to say first that if the other person is not your spouse they're doing great y'all should have a complete lack of sexual intimacy we're very proud of them if the other person is your spouse the Bible
Speaks differently there so the Bible says we're going to look in this is first of all first Corinthians seven has a lot to say about this six and seven because Paul was doing this he was just answering questions that people had sent in and so he talks on this as well he
Says now concerning the matters about which you wrote and they wrote to him saying isn't it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman and he's like sure but because of the temptation to sexual immorality each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband the husband should give to his
Wife her conjugal rights which was crazy for him to say he says that the husband has to give to his wife he's not just in charge of this and likewise the wife to her husband for the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband
Does likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does do not deprive one another except perhaps on agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control
Now he says now as a concession not a command I say this I wish that all were as myself but each one has his own gift from God one of one kind of one another so he says this is a concession that you should get married he's saying it because you deal with sexual temptation I'm saying get married do this he says that's a concession you don't have to
Get married if you can be fine and not burn with desire then no concessions made so we believe the Bible teaches that in marriage you should have active consistent regular sexual intimacy and that you should only not have active regular consistent sexual intimacy if you both agree on it Paul says for the purpose of prayer and then afterwards
You can come back together and I think that's a fair thing where it's like we're so busy that we're having to choose now between like are we going to pursue Jesus are we going to pursue each other and he says sometimes you need to say hey let's just pursue Jesus for a time but then come back together I also have found as a pastor that most marriages are not oh we're both a six on the how our desire for
Intimacy scale we're both a seven like it usually is like a seven marries a three and I also have found that in general it's kind of like when you're driving down the road everyone who drives slower than you is got to be like 95 years old and should not have a license and everyone who drives faster than you is a complete psycho and so usually when a three marries a seven the seven is going what is wrong with you why do you have no desire
For me why don't you love me why is this why I don't understand and the three's going what is wrong with you is this all you think about like quit watching TV like go get a hobby like I don't know what you're probably like leave me alone and the truth is we do have different levels of desire but the Bible says no we ought to try to walk this out so the question is how do I approach my spouse this is this question was asked by a seven who's married to a
Three how do I approach my spouse and try to not just say hey I just like do I just leave first Corinthians seven laying around the house open hope they read it hope it changes their heart it's like no how do you approach your spouse which would be graciously discussing this and trying to help them figure out how to say yes realizing that the desires that this would be healthy that this would be good discussing it and then backing up not just demanding not
Just like realizing that it's going to take a while for them to get used to this and also I would say set the runway out longer than just you you know it's in there we should this should already be working but no set it out to like here's my goal for the next year here's our goal for the next two years like we want this to be healthy eventually and we're going to work towards it specifically from the person who's in the position of I desire this more and don't
Understand I will also just say and this is usually it also has to do with runway is different for different people so in general men are visual so just like wives if you step out of your shower and your husband is there he's paying attention maybe makes you uncomfortable but reverse that a lot of times if a husband steps out of the shower and you're there you're not paying attention like you you're like you know like it's just it's a different approach to how you get excited about things how you think
About things and so I I just know that like if I've had a terrible day and my wife and I have only argued we go to bed I'm like I think we should make out I think that would make this day better I think that would help us feel love for each other and she's like are you crazy we were just yelling at each other I have no desire to kiss you for the next seven years and it has to do with how I feel loved and how I feel close to her and how she feels loved and how she feels close and so I would say don't just assume your spouse
Is the enemy but try to figure out how do we get you to say yes what is fun for you how do we get there so that's all the things though well I'm going to speak from the perspective of a wife who has struggled with this some in my marriage I grew up with a very negative view of sex based on just very strict views from my parents and so I had to overcome a lot of that and so I want to speak to you honestly as a wife whose husband has pursued her in this one of the things that I can encourage you to do from the beginning is to
Just strike away all weirdness and start praying about it and talking about it don't let it be the elephant in the room for a long time it'll just destroy you it'll it'll eat away at both of you and so start talking about it start praying about it then one of the most loving things that my husband's done for me in times where this has been a challenge is he has made this an us problem something we needed to solve not something I needed to fix and because of that attitude I have been much more willing and have enjoyed getting to grow in this area because
It was through love and it was through this is something God has given us as a blessing and he continually pointed me towards that and so it's one of the most loving things he's done in my marriage and I appreciate it and so I'm encouraging you guys if this is you or it could be the opposite I'm sorry it's more the unwilling the one who's pursuing the unwilling spouse just don't give up and be and be loving and be caring and think about this as something you're going to walk together in until the day you die and so a couple practical things when Chet was mentioning
Helping you know your spouse say yes talk to your spouse about what that is what will help them say yes for me one of the things is if my house is a mess and the I have a lot of chores left to do that I'm not it's not the night for me but if my husband helps me put the dishes away and helps get the house clean and get the girls in the bed he's setting the stage for love and we know that a lot of women it's for women there's got to be love and a connection for that to be something you even want to participate in now I'm not disregarding what Chet says sometimes we just need to say yes out of love for our husbands and be ready
To go in five minutes because he is you know it's just one of those things but I think the times where he is showing love by helping us say yes and I am speaking from the women's perspective this could be reversed I realize we you know when when he's helping us say yes we can feel very loved and so kind of in closing I have read through and recommend the book that our church recommends which is intended for pleasure it has you could you could cherry-pick in there information if you needed it but to read the whole thing through even if it doesn't apply to you just gives you such a healthy perspective on this aspect of the Christian marriage and finally just for
Those of you who are busy and that is your excuse or who are too tired or who just don't want to do it the best advice that I can give you right now is to schedule it and I know that sounds very practical and you don't really find it in the Bible but it takes a lot of the pressure and the stress off if you both know it's coming if it's scheduled at a time when you feel like you're going to be relaxed when you feel like you can prepare get your heart there get your mind there so if you want to talk about scheduling I have a planner I love my planner we can talk about all things scheduling but even this as awkward as this topic has been for me in the past it's funny that a six-month period of just pursuing it and pursuing the Lord in it how he's
Opened my heart to be able to talk about it so if you need to talk about this I know that our pastors are there for that I am here for that and we have some great resources we can recommend alongside of it if if your spouse consistently says no that is not an excuse for sin so you cannot say well they forced me to that's not how that works you pursue holiness and you pursue your spouse and then I will say if you're if you are on the lower scale than your spouse and they're consistently coach them up say this that's like that's the hardest thing for me to say yes to like this is the worst approach ever here's how I want to say yes so like go back and try again and I want to say yes to this like I want to say yes I want to say yes in the future to this like that that would help as well so these are really really good
Answers and these are really tough questions we've got a few more we're going to be a little more concise on for the sake of time next question when we sin against our spouse without them knowing is it okay to confess and repent only to God if the sin is never repeated quickly in general no and even the way that question is phrased sounds like my thought process when I used to look at pornography I would tell myself I'll never do this again and that was really just so I wouldn't have to talk to my wife about it also the reason I would not confess my sin to my wife was that she was scarier than Jesus she was bigger than Jesus and so I was willing to talk to Jesus about it but I wasn't willing to talk to her about it and I had to I had to swap that I had to believe in Jesus more than I than I needed her in order for us to get healthy I would also say that's the general answer there may be for
Someone who's not asking about infidelity who's not asking about because sometimes people say well I did this one time I'm not going to cheat on him again and I know it's just going to hurt him it's like no that's not how that works you ought to confess your sin you ought to walk that out into the light because that's actually it's hurting you in ways you don't know but for the person who's saying no it's not that it's like I spent the whole day being mad at them about a thing and then I realized I shouldn't have been acting that way and I changed my attitude and when they get home I don't want to say I need you to sit down and I spent 25 minutes thinking terrible terrible thoughts about you all day it's like maybe maybe that is a different scenario so but in general yes and I agree with that I'm not going to go into
Specific scenarios but basically you and your spouse may need to talk about with sin that is averted and you choose not to go down that path if you want to be told about every little thing when in certain situations I've just directed my husband to some male accountability where it was hurtful to hear about certain things and I gave him permission to talk to some others and repent to them and so maybe worth a conversation if that if you think something you're dealing with may fall in that category and that's not just a husband-spouse rule that's a biblical rule is when you know you've sinned against somebody you're supposed to you should go talk the goal yeah the goal here is just walk in the light and every marriage is case by case I've heard of some accountability partner or some husbands and wives who are like accountability partners and they
Share everything that that's helpful for them that's good that's not helpful for in our marriage my wife is generally when especially when it comes to sexual temptation just wants to know generally are you walking in the light how's it going how can I be praying for you every marriage is different but the goal is walking in light the goal is bearing one another's burdens and that's what we're going for so we're gonna be a little more descriptive as opposed to prescriptiveness next question if you were married and divorced prior to becoming a believer aren't those sins washed clean and you're born again a fresh new start so would remarriage still be a sin if that person's old sin was washed away if you take the first half of that question and don't do the so would remarriage still the answer is yes if you become a Christian all of your sin
Is washed away and not just past sin future sin that you are wiped clean that you not only have you're not given a clean slate that you didn't have to keep together you give Jesus your slate he takes yours you swap names on the tests you turn in and you stand before Christ before God in Christ that his goodness is for you and that his death was for you but specifically the question is how do Christians think about past sin when they become a Christian and I think one of the some of the good examples are what John says the John the Baptist he says bear fruit in keeping with repentance and then when Jesus interacts with Zacchaeus I think that's a good example to try to think about it so Zacchaeus meets Jesus becomes a believer and then says I'm gonna pay back everybody that I ever cheated he doesn't say sweet all the money I stole is now washed clean and if I
Spend it new and afresh it's as if it was mine at the beginning he actually says no I'm gonna try to restore what was broken and so I think that as Christians we walk out the effects of past sin and we try to figure out what's holy now it's the the word Jesus interacts with the lady in adultery and says go and sin no more so it's this idea of okay all my sins clean but how do I move forward in holiness and so I think the question is the same for them as everybody else which is how did that go down what's the situation and what's holiness as we move forward so I would not say that it just automatically means if you were divorced prior to becoming a Christian that that you that's as if that never happened because I don't think that's how the Bible generally treats sin and is this even more we did it you
Guys we did it not concisely but we did it I want to thank Chet and Katie for coming up here answering questions you guys give me a hand applause you
Singleness and The Gospel
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I have been sick all week, so I'll try not to make gross noises into the microphone. And I'm on some medicine, so either this will be—I'll run out of energy or something, and we'll wrap it up quickly, or this will at some point become incoherent and rambly more so than normal. So we'll just see what happens.
There are some things that are culturally kind of hard to hear. There's some—and not even because of microphones, just like culturally hard to hear. There's some things that just kind of don't mesh well with the larger culture that we have. It's a little bit like every single culture that you're in has its own rhythm, has its own way to process things, has its own way to think about things. This is why we have some of the funny situations we have when someone comes in from another culture and kind of does something that's embarrassing or kind of out of place. I remember one time my brothers and I got to go to Romania on a mission trip, and I got up to—actually, I got to preach, and I was up there, and I looked, and there was an aisle down the middle of the church, and there was a seating section over here and a seating section over here.
And as I got up there, I realized that all the males in the church were on this side of the church, and all the females were on this side of the church except for my two brothers who just sat with all the ladies. And I guess they were like, hey, nice, let's get over here and talk. All those guys are confused. They just didn't know. They went and sat down. And there's just kind of some of that kind of stuff where every culture has its own things they do and own ways to think about things, and there's certain things.
It's almost like every culture is kind of playing double dutch. You know the game that little girls will play and they have two— I can't— Unleash your kingdom's power Reaching the near and far No force of hell can stop Your beauty-changing hearts You made us for much more than this Awake in the kingdom See in us Fill us with the strength and love of Christ We are your church We are the home Oh, my God Oh, my God Oh, my God Oh, my God Build your kingdom Here Let the darkness Show your mind Behind Heal our streets And the lines
Steady our church On fire Witness nation Change the atmosphere Dun allikke Dude Things you got ь Back We dream Build your kingdom here Let the darkness fear Show your mighty hand Heal our streets and land Set your church on fire Win this nation back Change the atmosphere Build your kingdom here We pray What do you call it Give your dragging Hopehésitez These songs are set out Future
How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord It is laid for your faith in His excellent word What more can He say than to you He has said To you who for refuge to Jesus have pled Feet and I, I am with you, oh be not dismayed For I am your God and will still give you aid I'll strengthen you, help you and cause you to stand Upheld by my righteous omnipotent When through the deep waters I call you to go The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow For I will be with you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you your deepest distress I will be with you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you, your troubles to bless And sanctify to you, your troubles to bless But, like, it's like we can't get in the way of that We just, over and over, we're just primed up for And so here's what happens I don't believe that we've oversold marriage If you're single, you might have felt like People are not okay with you being single That you have to be married You might have really felt like that in the church
We're going to get to that in a second We're going to talk to your married friends I'm glad they're here But you might have felt like You have to be married to be okay But the problem is We have an oversold marriage The reason you're being pushed to be married Specifically by your Christian friends Is because they have oversold romance And romantic love The reason I can tell you We have an oversold marriage Is because if you look at ourselves culturally We have high divorce rates That's not an oversell of marriage That's an oversell of romance We have a high rates of people living together Without being married That's not an oversell of marriage That's an oversell of romance We have taken romance And we have put it out of place Now, God and the Bible are pro-love
God is love But that love is well beyond romantic love It's much more deep Much more beautiful And the Bible is very much Highlights and lifts up marriage But it's not just a romantic love in marriage But it's a more beautiful covenant That goes beyond romance And we have elevated romance And so when we start talking about singleness I think we need to understand that Because some of the things the Bible is going to say to us Sound out of rhythm The Bible storms into our double Dutch game And just knocks everything over And says, y'all were doing it wrong And it makes the Bible seem annoying Because we were in the middle of swinging our little ropes here And we had a good thing going, you guys But the truth is The Bible is correcting us And it doesn't view things the way we do So as we talk about singleness today
We're going to hear some things That sound crazy But are actually because the Bible Believes differently than us That we have placed romance out of position My son, I have a son He's three years old And he got to be a ring bearer In a wedding And this is him Prepped Prior to getting to go ring bear Now he actually Didn't get to touch the ring Which is great They were like, you're the ring bearer Can you carry this Bible down there? Because they were just like We don't want you to be in charge of anything Which I thought was a great idea Because he was two Now, I'm a pastor I've gotten to perform weddings Which is
It's stressful To perform a wedding I usually When I get up here I have some notes And then I just kind of talk And I get fussed out all the time Because I said something That wasn't super helpful And sometimes I say things That are kind of dumb Or whatever But mostly I just embarrassed myself Like a couple weeks ago When I said It was hard to look at your wife's face Or whatever Like that was just It was misspoken It was an embarrassing thing for me But at weddings People film those things And remember them forever So what I do
Is I write out Every word that I'm going to say And I just try to read it Because even when I'm doing that I mean hypothetically At your brother's wedding You try to say two words at one time And you say a cuss word And it just And people don't forget But As stressful as that is This was way worse No, no, no Go back, go back, go back Go back This was way worse I was the handler For a two-year-old Who had a job to do And two-year-olds Don't do jobs super well You guys I would rather
Be watching a dog That had to carry the ring down Because at the end of the day You can just be like It was a dog Dogs are idiots But you can't say that About your two-year-old People get offended And they act like You should have had a better Job So we had been practicing And all he had to do Was carry his little Bible down And you know We're excited It's right before He's ready He's practiced multiple times He knows what he's supposed to do He gets ready We get up there And they say Okay, it's time for him to go
And right as I say Alright, go I let him go The wedding's going I mean, they've already done All the prelude And Canon and D And other wedding songs That kind of stuff Right as I let him go The lady says Wait The father of the groom Hasn't been seated yet Now The father of the groom Has one Job at a wedding And it is Go sit down I don't know What this cat was doing But he did not do His one Job But now
He can't go sit down If we start this thing So my son was like The first thing That was like Got the ball rolling And so it couldn't Happen out of order And so This picture The man in the suit Is the guy Who did not do his job That is my son Look at Look at the Look at the Focus in his eyes He's He's never been More prepared To do anything In his life And do you see
What I'm talking about Being stressful You see my face there That's what I looked like All day That wasn't even Alright, so here's What I did Now I've been known To handle situations Poorly Specifically when it comes To like physically Having to do something And so what I did A split second After this My son was laid out On his back Because I tackled him That's all that I did I grabbed his arm And he was taking a step And I just slammed him
To the ground So they were like Don't go yet I wonder how that looked For the wedding lady Who was like in charge She was like Don't let him go And I just grabbed him To the ground You're going nowhere son So he starts screaming Fair enough You got tackled And so I picked him up I sat him down And he was like I want to go He was trying to articulate That he like wanted to go And I was like Get it together You're going to get To carry the Bible
You can't go right now You can't be crying Lock it up Let's go And I spun around I was like go And he quit crying And did it I was so proud of him Now here's the thing Let's say That he wasn't able To lock it up Which would have been reasonable I was like go And then as soon as he went I tackled him And so that was startling And he did hit his head A little bit If he wasn't able To like get it together And go And if I just like
Had to pick him up And just like Like okay The ring bear is done Like he He received an injury At the beginning Of his duties What I couldn't do Is walk into The middle Like say Oh I'm sorry I'm sorry Ring bear went down I guess there's no Shining moment In this wedding anymore I guess there's really No point Can we Can we postpone it Do this on another day Can we just wrap it up
Do we just want to Y'all just want to call it You're dismissed Like I couldn't Do any of those things Because I would have Completely been confused About the role The position That we had in the wedding Like if when they went To cut the cake later I went and stuck him In the middle So he could smoosh Cake on their face I would be really annoying If I gave a toast At the end Like hey I want to give a toast I'm the father Of the child That was it
Like it's out of place And what we have done With the idea Of romance Is we've taken Something that's good And it gets to be a part And when it plays It's part It's really nice When it doesn't Get tackled And just gets to Walk down Like it's a really Cool part But that's it It's not the main thing It's not the goal Of the universe It's not why God designed everything And we can't let it Get out of place
And some of us Want to cancel everything Just can't Just cancel everything Because the romance part Hasn't done What we wanted from it It hasn't worked out The way we wanted it to And so the Bible Steps in and corrects And says it's out of place Let's walk through And see How we can understand this And approach this A little better So we're talking To singles About singleness today We've been studying Through the book of Ephesians So grab your Bibles And go to 1 Corinthians 7
We're going to get To Ephesians today But Ephesians doesn't Say anything directly To single people 1 Corinthians 7 does The reason why The Bible doesn't Talk to single people A whole whole lot Directly Is because The Bible talks To single people All the time In all the general Calls that it gives To Christians And to life And how to think About things It's applied to everybody And then every once In a while
It pauses And specifically says Hey married people And it gives them Specific instructions For some of the things They're going to have to face Everything applies To single people And then every once In a while It just says Hey if you're married Think about this If you have kids Think about this And then what happens Culturally Because we've Over elevated Romance We have a lot Of marriage problems And we also have
A lot of marriage Like it's the goal It's the magic It's the pot of gold At the end of the rainbow Stuff Because we really Are just hyping romance And so Christian churches In the U.S. Talk a lot about marriage And they have a lot Of marriage series And they have a lot Of single series That are like Trying to talk you Into how you can get married And so it gets talked about Not a lot Singleness and the way The Bible approaches It doesn't get talked About a lot
And if you're single In the church It can sometimes feel like You are half a person Until you get to be married And that is not Biblically accurate So let's go to 1 Corinthians 7 We're going to pick up In verse 32 Excuse me I want you to be free From anxieties To Paul's writing To the church He just kind of Got done saying Like you don't have To get married He's going to spell This out a little more I want you to be free From anxieties
The unmarried man Is anxious About the things Of the Lord How to please The Lord But the married man Is anxious About worldly things How to please His wife And his interests Are divided And the unmarried Or betrothed woman Is anxious About the things Of the Lord How to be holy In body and spirit But the married man Is anxious About Married woman
Is anxious About worldly things How to please Her husband I say this For your own benefit Not to lay Any restraint Upon you But to promote Good order And to secure Your undivided Devotion To the Lord So what Paul says Is I don't want you To be overly anxious You're going to have Some anxiety You're going to have Some stress And here he doesn't mean Like just the
Over anxious Worried about everything With no real reason No real cause But he's talking about Like a good healthy Anxiety Good healthy stress level Of this matters So I care about it It's a concern Is more what he's Addressing here And so what he says Is I don't want you To have too much of that So I would just Encourage you To not get married If you're not married Don't get married And his point is You get to give Undivided attention
To the Lord And what he says Here is really true He says the married man His interests are divided The married woman Her interests are divided They're not just worried About how to please the Lord They're worried about How to please their wife Or their husband And that's real I'm a pastor I get phone calls Or texts late at night And people will say Hey can you get over here This is going on Can this happen And I immediately Am like yes I need to do that And also
I have a wife And I have two kids And I got to help Transition this out And I got to talk to her And we got to work this out Like every time When we're hanging out With our community group And people want to talk After they got questions And stuff There's a little bit of like Yes I want to talk to you Yes I want to be able To walk this through with you But also I can't make my wife Put our kids to sleep Every night Because that's difficult Specifically for her Because she's nicer than I am So it's like
There's this There's this Real tension And what he's saying Is single people You don't You wouldn't have that Your anxiety would simply be How do I please The Lord Meaning that If somebody called you And said Hey can you come Can you be at this Can you be a part of this Can you serve here You just think Does it please the Lord Yeah Like there's a real amount of If you get married How much time should you spend Just alone with you and your spouse
If you have children How much time should you spend With your children How much should you spend With your children And just you How much time should you spend Family time How much time should you spend Alone with each of your Individual children That's a real thing To be a healthy father To be a healthy mother To be a healthy husband To be a healthy wife And to walk that out And so what Paul's saying is If you do that Just realize You have divided your attention Not to say that marriage is bad Later he says You can get married
He just says I don't want that for you What I want is for you To just focus on Jesus So I will say this For single people And I don't know How you are single today I don't know If you're single Through death I don't know If you're single Through divorce I don't know If you're single now And you feel like This is a season I'm going to date Or I am dating I'm going to get married I don't know If you're single now And you're saying
No I think this is life for me I think life for me Is singleness But I want to ask If you are currently single What's your anxiety level Over pleasing the Lord Because Paul's assuming That that's present The same that the people Here's what happens We've been taught Kind of in our culture That if you're married You've got to worry a lot About what your spouse thinks And what they like And if you're single You just get to do What you want Not if you're a Christian Christian single people Don't just do what they want They try to figure out
What the Lord wants Try to figure out What pleases Him What is He like What does He want With your life What should your day Look like as you follow Him We have this kind of idea Culturally That when you're single It's a little bit of like I can grow up later I can get it together later You know my budget Only affects me My time only affects me If I mess something up If I'm junky If I'm messy If I'm undisciplined That only affects me And later If I get a wife
If I get a husband Then I'll kind of have to Fix all this And the problem is All of that doesn't Just affect you It affects Jesus And His mission And your life In His church Among His people And are you anxious over What it looks like For you to follow Him And to please Him So I don't It doesn't matter What zone of singleness You're in Do you spend time Do you spend time with Him Do you read Do you pray Do you know Him
Like I've been married For nine years There's things I should just know About my wife Things she likes Doesn't like Things she enjoys Doesn't enjoy Things that are And there's a little bit Of like How long have you Been walking with Jesus Do you know His word Do you know the things That He says please Him Do you know the things That He says He enjoys That He looks for in us That He wants from us Do you know specifically What He wants from you He says that I might
That you might secure Your undivided A devotion To the Lord We have to Don't hear this I think so often We hear it this way Think of all the stuff You can do for Jesus If you're single You can do so much stuff For Jesus Like I'm married I gotta do stuff For my wife But you can do stuff For Jesus The Bible says Think of all the stuff You get to do with Jesus And He says He never Leaves us or forsakes us That you aren't His
Workers that just Punch the clock for Him And get to turn in Like here's what I've accomplished But you actually get to Walk with Him in life When Paul Walked with Jesus Jesus would show up And talk to Him Paul would pray Paul didn't feel this It was a companionship They walked together We have to step up Our belief In the presence of Christ And the fellowship Of the Holy Spirit That singleness Displays the sufficiency Of Christ In a way that Marriage never can
That marriage is Supposed to Display the gospel But there's a part Of singleness That displays The sufficiency Of Christ The fullness That He offers for us In a way that Marriage never can There was a A missionary Named John G. Patton This was a A while back And I think In the 1800s Sometimes And he and his wife Went to the New Hebrides Islands
And soon after Getting there She got sick She gave birth And then she got sick And so she passed away And then the baby Passed away Because there was no way To feed the baby And buried both of them And on the island They were on Was a It was a very savage island There were a lot of cannibals And so he actually Spent many nights Sleeping on their graves So the cannibals Wouldn't dig them up And eat them And then he was there By himself
For a long time Just trying to reach Them with the gospel And there's this story Of he was being chased By some cannibals Who wanted to kill And eat him And a guy That he knew That he was He was a little spotty The guy was a little spotty He wasn't quite sure If the guy was on his team Or not Told him hide in this tree And he was like I don't know if I can Trust this guy But I don't have Like a better option So he hid in the tree And he was like
Maybe he's just Going to bring people To the tree Maybe I can trust him This is a quote From his autobiography But he says Being entirely At the mercy Of such doubtful And vacillating friends I, though perplexed Felt it best to obey I climbed into the tree And was left there Alone in the bush That's how British people say The woods The hours I spent there Live all before me As if it were But of yesterday I heard the frequent
Discharging of muskets And the yells Of the savages Yet I sat there Among the branches As safe As in the arms Of Jesus Never in all my sorrows Did my Lord Draw nearer to me Speak more soothingly In my soul Than when the moonlight Flickered Among those chestnut leaves And the night air Played on my Throbbing brow As I told all my heart To Jesus Alone Yet not alone If it be to glorify
My God I will not grudge To spend Many nights Alone in such a tree To feel again My Savior's Spiritual presence To enjoy His consoling Fellowship If thus thrown Back upon your own soul Alone All alone In the midnight In the bush In the very embrace Of death itself Have you a friend That will not fail you Then One of the things That he kind of continues
And this is one of the Major points in his life Is that he felt So close To Christ So fulfilled By Christ So connected With Christ And what I want us To see And understand Is that when Paul Says things like Don't get married Just get Jesus Just worry about him He doesn't think He's making a bad Exchange for you He doesn't think That Jesus Is a consolation prize That many people
Who deal with Struggle with Being single Or thinking about Lifelong singleness I've had someone Say to me That the fear Isn't that I'm lonely Now It's that I'll be Lonely in the future Someone else said It's not so much That I really want To have sex Or something It's that I want companionship I want someone Who knows me And that I know And that I can Just walk through
Life with And the biblical Truth is That Jesus Is that And I know This answer Just sounds churchy Hey single people You get Jesus But it's It's so Real That we can't Miss that I want to Keep moving In this text 36 If anyone Thinks that he Is not behaving Properly Toward his
Betrothed If his passions Are strong And it has to be Let him do As he wishes Let them marry It is no sin Okay so A lot of times The people ask Does the bible Give like helpful Information for like Dating And how to think About dating And the question Becomes are you Are you in a Are you in an Arranged marriage Do you have A betrothed
Anybody The bible has Some coaching For you Nobody's betrothed Okay it doesn't Say a lot About dating Culturally The bible Doesn't address Dating the way That we date It doesn't Have this There's not A huge Single population That was Free From their Families That there Wasn't dating
The way that We have Where people Lived on their Own and Dated on their Own And men And women Would go Live by Themselves That didn't Really happen So there is Some coaching Here that we Have to pull Out principle Wise From this What paul Says here Is it's
Okay to Get married If you've Never been Married You can Get married He actually Says If his Passions are Strong And it Has to Be Let him Do as He wishes Let them Marry He says If he Doesn't Think he's
Behaving Properly Towards his Betrothed If you're Overcome With a Desire If you Really Want to Be Married That's Okay It's Okay to Want to Be Married He says It's not A sin To get
Married Specifically I want To say That I Think That Some of The things That biblically Apply to Singleness And Dating So there Are Some People Who Are In Singleness Have Already
Been Married Are Divorced We're Going to Talk More Specifically About That Next Week In General The bible's Approach To that We're Doing Q&A Next Week We're
Going to Spend Our Time Doing That Or At At At At A really Large Portion Of Our Time Doing That But the Bible's Approach To Marriage
And Divorce Is Basically If you Are Married You Should Not Get Divorced It Gives A Few Little Bit Of Okay Kind Of In This
Area In This Area Let's Think About This We'll Talk More Nuance About That But the General Answer Is If You're Married Don't Get Divorced
And If You Are Divorced Don't Get Remarried That's The Bible's General Answer It's The Basic Approach And If You're In One Of Those
Zones If You're Married The Bible Is Going To Step In And Just Kind Of Say You Shouldn't Get A Divorce And If You're
Unmarried Because Of The Divorce The Bible Pretty Much Steps In And You You Shouldn't Get Remarried Now Again There's A few Places Where There's
There's Some Allowances Ish And We're Going to Talk Through That More Specifically Next But If You're In If You're A Christian You Date In
Order To Be Married That We Elevate Marriage Over Romance That If You Are Dating And You Try To Think How Should I Think
About Dating Well The Bible Says First Of You Shouldn't Marry A Non-believer So You Shouldn't Date Non-believers Advantage Dating Isn't A Good Idea
And You Should Treat Everyone Who's A Believer Like A Brother Or Sister So That Makes Dating Weird But Think About It Maybe More
Like How Would You Want Someone To Date Your Sister I Don't Have A Sister But I Think I Can Answer That Question I
Would Like For Him To Ask Her Out To Show Some Pursuit And Be Willing To Be Shot Down I Think That's Actually Masculine
You Guys I Think There's Something Masculine About Asking Waiting For Her To Ask You Out And Doing Some Of This Stuff So That
She Has To Risk It So That She Has To Be Rejected Like Some Of That Stuff Is Like Step Your Game Up Let's
Go I Like For Him To Pursue Her A little Bit I'd Like For To Take Her To Nice I'd Like For Him To To
Keep His Hands To Himself How Would You Want Someone To Date Your Brother How Would You Want To Treat Him Like There's Some
Of That That Goes Along With Understanding How Do We Act Towards People In These Situations So If Really The Point There Just To
See This Is That He Says If You Really Want To Get Married You Can It's Not A Sin But Then He Says This
But Whoever Is Verse 37 Whoever Is Firmly Established In His Heart Being Under No Necessity But Having His Desire Under Control And Has
Determined This In His Heart To Keep Her As His Betrothed He Will Do Well So What He Says Is If You Can Control
Yourself If You're Not Burning With Desire If You're In A Situation Where It's Like No I Actually Don't Have To Get Married I
I Been Kind Of Sold On This But I He Says You Do Well Then He Finishes With This So Then He Who Marries
His Betrothed Does Well And He Who Refrains From Marriage Will Do Even Better Y'all See That Y'all Say Even Better Wow We Don't
Do This Often Say Even Better Okay Married People In The Room Let's Talk For A Second Do We Act Like That Verse Is
In The Bible No We Do Not Do You Know How Obnoxious That Is For Our Single Friends And Do You Know How Unbiblical
That Is Here's What Married People You Gotta Stop We Gotta Stop Acting Like If You're Not Married You've Totally Missed Out On Life
We Wouldn't Say Those Words Necessarily But We Do Portray That Idea Oh You're You Are Incomplete You Need You Need Someone Else To
Come In And Make You A Whole Person Y'all Know Where That Idea Came From It Came From Plato In His Symposium He Wrote
A Story About How People Used To Be Four Like There Was Two People Stuck Together They Had Four Arms Two Heads Four Legs
And Then The Gods Got Mad At And Chopped Them In Half And So Everybody Had To Go Around On Earth Feeling Terrible Until
They Found Their Soul Mate You Were Looking For Your Other Half That's Nonsense You're You're Okay You Want to Know What Your Problem Is
You Want to Know Why You're Feeling Complete Sin You're Broken You need A savior Not a Soulmate And Then You're Complete And You Can Marry Another Sinner
Who Also Needs A Savior Or You Can Just Be Someone Who Gets The Savior And You're Fine Married People They Do Even Better
So Stop It Because We Don't Seem Like Christians We Seem Like We Can Double Dutch Fine With American Culture But We Got To
Get On Rhythm With Christ Which Is Hey If You Just Get Jesus You're Going To Be Good Now If Your Single Friend Comes
To You And Says Hey I Really Want To Date Someone I Think What You Need To Ask Him Is Are You Burning With
Desire And If They Say No My Desire Is Under Control Say Well Then Keep It Under Control You'll Do Fine Now You're Married
They Say My Desire Is Out Of Control Then You Say Well Hey I Can Help You Out All Right He Will Do Even
Better Paul Keeps Going I Want To I Didn't Put That We Were Going To Read This But We're Going To 39 A Wife
Is Bound To Her Husband As Long As He Lives But If Her Husband Dies She Is Free To Be Married To Whom She
Wishes Only In The Lord Meaning She Can Marry Whomever If He's A Christian Yet In My Judgment She Is Happier If She Remains
As She Is And I Think That I Too Have The Spirit Of God So What He Says Is She's Actually Happier If She'll
Just Stay Unmarried Now Who In Our Culture Can Say That Without It Sounding Gross And Here's What I Mean Someone Looks At You
And Goes Oh You're Unmarried Stay Unmarried That's The Way To Be Happy Like It Comes Across Weird To Us It's Like Ah Especially
If They're Married If They're Like Oh Please Just Stay Unmarried It's Like Come On Man Like Don't Say That When Paul Says It
Though It's Not Coming From A Place Of Bitter It's Coming From A Place Of Him Knowing What's Better That's What It Is He's
Not Bitter He's Not Upset It's Not Like He He's Saying I'm Telling You You Can Actually Be Happier Freer Walk In More Joy
If You Just Focus On Jesus And He Means It Now How Does Paul Mean That Because It Sounds A Little Bit Crazy To
Us When The Bible Steps In And Tells Someone Who's Been Divorced You Should Not Get Remarried Do You Know How Offensive That Sounds
To Us How Harmful That Sounds It Sounds Like What Just Be Single Forever Don't Marry Someone Of The Same Gender Just Be Single
It Sounds Like All We Have Really Said Is Hey We Want You To Have A Terrible Lonely And Sad Life That's The Way
We Hear It Because We've Been Oversold On Romance Is The Only Way To Fulfillment Romance Is The Only Way To Real Love Romance
Is The Only Way To Companionship Romance Is The Only Way To Be Known And Cherished And Cared For Romance We've Oversold It So
That It's Hard For The Church Even To Say Things The Bible Says With Any Amount Of Credibility Because We're Walking In The Same
Vain With The Rest Of The Culture On What We Believe About Romance But When Paul Says It He Means How How How Can
He Say That Well I Think It's Been In Our Ephesians Passage That We Have Read Over And Over Again So Turn Back To
Ephesians 5 We've Read This For The Past Four Five Weeks And I Think When Paul Says You Don't Have To Get Married I
Think We Can Actually Look At The Section On Marriage And See Why He Says That With Such Credibility Why He Can Look You
In The Face And Not Blink And Say I Think You Should Spend Your Time Worrying About What Jesus Wants And That Will Be
Good And You'll Be Complete So Here's What We've Read Over And Over Again It's Going To Be On The Screen I'm Going To
Read Through It Fairly Quickly Ephesians 5 I Think This Is The Last Time We'll Read This Together As A Church You Guys So
You Should Be Excited We've Read It A lot Okay I Was Super Confused I'm Looking At Galatians I'm Going To Get It Together Here
We Go I Was Like I Don't Know What This Is 22 Wives Submit To Your Own Husbands As To The Lord For The
Husband Is The Head Of The Wife Even As Christ Is The Head Of The Church His Body And Is Himself Its Savior Now
As The Church Submits To Christ So Also Wives Should Submit In Everything To Their Husbands Husbands Love Your Wives As Christ Loved The
Church And Gave Himself Up For Her That He Might Sanctify Her Having Cleansed Her By The Was So That He He Without Spot
Or Wrinkle Or Any Such Thing That She Might Be Holy And Without Blemish In The Same Way Husbands Should Love Their Wives As
Their Bodies He Who Loves His Wife Loves Himself For No One Ever Hated His Own Flesh But Nourishes And Cherishes It If You're
Single You Hear Wives It's It's Easy For That To Happen And Some Of That Is Because The Church Has Oversold This So Much
We've We've Overhyped This So Much I've Been In Sermons Y'all No I'm Going To Talk About I Wasn't In I Saw It On
The Internet I've Interneted Sermons Y'all There We Go Where The Point Of The Sermon Was This Where So Many Sermons Are Hey Are
You Single Would You Like To Hear About The Promised Land That Is Marriage Would You Like To Hear About The Goal Of Life
That Is Marriage I Was In A Sermon That Was God Took The Text That Said God Gives Good Gifts And Then Said God
Only Gives Good Gifts So If You're Not A Good Gift How Would God Give You To Someone Else And The Point Of The
Sermon Was You Should Become A Good Gift And Then You Can Get Married One Of The Points In The Sermon Was You Should
Exercise But What They Set It Up As Was Here's This Weird Like An Actual Promise The Bible Says About God Giving Good Gifts
Let Me Apply It To A Weird text And Let Me Say That If You Do Everything Good If You Work Really Hard At
The End Of It You Can Have Future Perfect Spouse Let Me Tell You Something That Is Not The Gospel That Is Not The
Good News Of The Bible That Also Sets You Up For A Really Messed Up Marriage Because Your Spouse Is Going To Way Worse
Than Jesus And Make A Terrible Savior Here's The Gospel You You Are A Sinner Who Is Broken You Need A Savior And The Promised Land Is
Life With Christ In Eternity That's The Gospel And So I Did On Like A General Regular Basis But What I Did Was I
Took This Passage And I Just Put All The Stuff That Was Talking About Specific Instructions To Husbands And Wives And I Want Us
To See What Paul Hangs It All On Church And So Here Is The Text The Reality Of The Text See Everything Else Is
Just Hanging On This But He Says Christ Is The Head Of The Church His Body And Is Himself Its Savior The Church Submits
To Christ In Everything Christ Loved The Church And Gave Himself Up For Her If You Are A Christian You Belong To The Church
If You Place Your Faith In Christ This Christ Loved The Church And Gave Himself Up For Her That He Might Sanctify Her Having
Cleansed Her By The Washing Of The Water With The Word So That He Might Present The Church To Himself In Splendor Without Spot
Or Wrinkle Or Any Such Thing That She Might Be Holy And Without Blemish Christ Loves The Church As His Own Body Christ Does
Not Hate The Church But Nourishes And Cherishes It Because We Are Members Of His Body What He Said Was Christ So Loved The
Church That He Gave Himself Up For Her That He Sacrificed Everything That He Could Have Her That All All The Beautiful Love Stories
We Have Told Are Just A Hint A Whiff Of What Christ Has Done For The Church Everything We've Ever Loved About A Hero
Riding Into Rescue Is Just A Small Dirty Mirror Pointing At What Christ Has Done For The Church He Says He Nourishes That Means
That Christ Takes Us And He Cares So Much About Us That He Provides Everything We Need And He Takes Everything You Could Ever
Want Everything That You Feel Like You're Lacking Everything That You Feel Like Is Out Of Place And He Just Fills You Up And
Then He Cherishes I Think There's So Much Of Us That Longs To Be Cherished I'm A Grown Man And I Don't Use That
Word A Lot I Want My Wife To Cherish Me I Want Her To House I Want Her To Laugh And Think I Love
That He's Funny But The Truth Is She Doesn't Cherish Me Like Christ Does She Never Will See My Wife And My Marriage It's
Good It Gets To Be A Picture Of The Gospel Gets To Point To It But When We Step Into Eternity She's My Sister
I'm The Bride Of Christ I'm Cherished In a Way That He Desires And Longs For And Knows Intimately Everything Knows All Of My Sin
And Still Died For It That He Loves Us Beyond Compare That He Nourishes And Cherishes It Because We're Members Of His Body Therefore
A Man Shall Leave His Father And Mother And Hold Fast To His Wife And The Two Shall Become One Flesh This Mystery Is
Profound And I'm Saying That It Refers To Christ And The Church We Said This On Our First Week But Marriage Points To The
Gospel So So So So So So Paul Without Blinking Can Look And Say If You Just Get Jesus You Do Better French Not
It Dubai your spouse or you maybe never have a spouse but that person would only have ever been a small arrow pointing to Christ if they did what they were supposed to correctly there's going to be a day when it says that new Jerusalem comes out of heaven adorned like a bride for her husband and that Christ is going to welcome the church and he's going to look at us and be so overwhelmed by love and then we're going to have a wedding feast where he welcomes us to him in a cherishing nourishing love like we've never known and that if you are single you can walk with Jesus your whole life and be full and complete and loved beyond your peers and beyond the people around you it does take work does take some effort to walk with Jesus and to rest in him and to pray and to wrestle this out but it's real the band's going to come back up here the king of the universe if you belong to the church if you belong to Christ the king of the universe loved you pursued you desired you saw your sin and in spite of it died for it to claim you
So that he might love and nourish and cherish you for all eternity and if you are not a Christian you can repent of your sin and it'll mean that the king of the universe loved you saw you pursued you and cherished you claimed you as his own and died for your sin but if we belong to Jesus we haven't missed out on anything we actually get what's better let's pray God we ask that you would help us grow in knowing your love in resting in it and in walking in communion connection with you we might feel you we love you and we praise you in Jesus name amen thank you
That marriage is Supposed to Display the gospel But there's a part Of singleness That displays The sufficiency Of Christ The fullness That He offers for us In a way that Marriage never can There was a A missionary Named John G. Patton This was a A while back And I think In the 1800s Sometimes And he and his wife Went to the New Hebrides Islands
And soon after Getting there She got sick She gave birth And then she got sick And so she passed away And then the baby Passed away Because there was no way To feed the baby And buried both of them And on the island They were on Was a It was a very savage island There were a lot of cannibals And so he actually Spent many nights Sleeping on their graves So the cannibals Wouldn't dig them up And eat them And then he was there By himself
For a long time Just trying to reach Them with the gospel And there's this story Of he was being chased By some cannibals Who wanted to kill And eat him And a guy That he knew That he was He was a little spotty The guy was a little spotty He wasn't quite sure If the guy was on his team Or not Told him hide in this tree And he was like I don't know if I can Trust this guy But I don't have Like a better option So he hid in the tree And he was like
Maybe he's just Going to bring people To the tree Maybe I can trust him This is a quote From his autobiography But he says Being entirely At the mercy Of such doubtful And vacillating friends I, though perplexed Felt it best to obey I climbed into the tree And was left there Alone in the bush That's how British people say The woods The hours I spent there Live all before me As if it were But of yesterday I heard the frequent
Discharging of muskets And the yells Of the savages Yet I sat there Among the branches As safe As in the arms Of Jesus Never in all my sorrows Did my Lord Draw nearer to me Speak more soothingly In my soul Than when the moonlight Flickered Among those chestnut leaves And the night air Played on my Throbbing brow As I told all my heart To Jesus Alone Yet not alone If it be to glorify
My God I will not grudge To spend Many nights Alone in such a tree To feel again My Savior's Spiritual presence To enjoy His consoling Fellowship If thus thrown Back upon your own soul Alone All alone In the midnight In the bush In the very embrace Of death itself Have you a friend That will not fail you Then One of the things That he kind of continues
And this is one of the Major points in his life Is that he felt So close To Christ So fulfilled By Christ So connected With Christ And what I want us To see And understand Is that when Paul Says things like Don't get married Just get Jesus Just worry about him He doesn't think He's making a bad Exchange for you He doesn't think That Jesus Is a consolation prize That many people
Who deal with Struggle with Being single Or thinking about Lifelong singleness I've had someone Say to me That the fear Isn't that I'm lonely Now It's that I'll be Lonely in the future Someone else said It's not so much That I really want To have sex Or something It's that I want companionship I want someone Who knows me And that I know And that I can Just walk through
Life with And the biblical Truth is That Jesus Is that And I know This answer Just sounds churchy Hey single people You get Jesus But it's It's so Real That we can't Miss that I want to Keep moving In this text 36 If anyone Thinks that he Is not behaving Properly Toward his
Betrothed If his passions Are strong And it has to be Let him do As he wishes Let them marry It is no sin Okay so A lot of times The people ask Does the bible Give like helpful Information for like Dating And how to think About dating And the question Becomes are you Are you in a Are you in an Arranged marriage Do you have A betrothed
Anybody The bible has Some coaching For you Nobody's betrothed Okay it doesn't Say a lot About dating Culturally The bible Doesn't address Dating the way That we date It doesn't Have this There's not A huge Single population That was Free From their Families That there Wasn't dating
The way that We have Where people Lived on their Own and Dated on their Own And men And women Would go Live by Themselves That didn't Really happen So there is Some coaching Here that we Have to pull Out principle Wise From this What paul Says here Is it's
Okay to Get married If you've Never been Married You can Get married He actually Says If his Passions are Strong And it Has to Be Let him Do as He wishes Let them Marry He says If he Doesn't Think he's
Behaving Properly Towards his Betrothed If you're Overcome With a Desire If you Really Want to Be Married That's Okay It's Okay to Want to Be Married He says It's not A sin To get
Married Specifically I want To say That I Think That Some of The things That biblically Apply to Singleness And Dating So there Are Some People Who Are In Singleness Have Already
Been Married Are Divorced We're Going to Talk More Specifically About That Next Week In General The bible's Approach To that We're Doing Q&A Next Week We're
Going to Spend Our Time Doing That Or At At At At A really Large Portion Of Our Time Doing That But the Bible's Approach To Marriage
And Divorce Is Basically If you Are Married You Should Not Get Divorced It Gives A Few Little Bit Of Okay Kind Of In This
Area In This Area Let's Think About This We'll Talk More Nuance About That But the General Answer Is If You're Married Don't Get Divorced
And If You Are Divorced Don't Get Remarried That's The Bible's General Answer It's The Basic Approach And If You're In One Of Those
Zones If You're Married The Bible Is Going To Step In And Just Kind Of Say You Shouldn't Get A Divorce And If You're
Unmarried Because Of The Divorce The Bible Pretty Much Steps In And You You Shouldn't Get Remarried Now Again There's A few Places Where There's
There's Some Allowances Ish And We're Going to Talk Through That More Specifically Next But If You're In If You're A Christian You Date In
Order To Be Married That We Elevate Marriage Over Romance That If You Are Dating And You Try To Think How Should I Think
About Dating Well The Bible Says First Of You Shouldn't Marry A Non-believer So You Shouldn't Date Non-believers Advantage Dating Isn't A Good Idea
And You Should Treat Everyone Who's A Believer Like A Brother Or Sister So That Makes Dating Weird But Think About It Maybe More
Like How Would You Want Someone To Date Your Sister I Don't Have A Sister But I Think I Can Answer That Question I
Would Like For Him To Ask Her Out To Show Some Pursuit And Be Willing To Be Shot Down I Think That's Actually Masculine
You Guys I Think There's Something Masculine About Asking Waiting For Her To Ask You Out And Doing Some Of This Stuff So That
She Has To Risk It So That She Has To Be Rejected Like Some Of That Stuff Is Like Step Your Game Up Let's
Go I Like For Him To Pursue Her A little Bit I'd Like For To Take Her To Nice I'd Like For Him To To
Keep His Hands To Himself How Would You Want Someone To Date Your Brother How Would You Want To Treat Him Like There's Some
Of That That Goes Along With Understanding How Do We Act Towards People In These Situations So If Really The Point There Just To
See This Is That He Says If You Really Want To Get Married You Can It's Not A Sin But Then He Says This
But Whoever Is Verse 37 Whoever Is Firmly Established In His Heart Being Under No Necessity But Having His Desire Under Control And Has
Determined This In His Heart To Keep Her As His Betrothed He Will Do Well So What He Says Is If You Can Control
Yourself If You're Not Burning With Desire If You're In A Situation Where It's Like No I Actually Don't Have To Get Married I
I Been Kind Of Sold On This But I He Says You Do Well Then He Finishes With This So Then He Who Marries
His Betrothed Does Well And He Who Refrains From Marriage Will Do Even Better Y'all See That Y'all Say Even Better Wow We Don't
Do This Often Say Even Better Okay Married People In The Room Let's Talk For A Second Do We Act Like That Verse Is
In The Bible No We Do Not Do You Know How Obnoxious That Is For Our Single Friends And Do You Know How Unbiblical
That Is Here's What Married People You Gotta Stop We Gotta Stop Acting Like If You're Not Married You've Totally Missed Out On Life
We Wouldn't Say Those Words Necessarily But We Do Portray That Idea Oh You're You Are Incomplete You Need You Need Someone Else To
Come In And Make You A Whole Person Y'all Know Where That Idea Came From It Came From Plato In His Symposium He Wrote
A Story About How People Used To Be Four Like There Was Two People Stuck Together They Had Four Arms Two Heads Four Legs
And Then The Gods Got Mad At And Chopped Them In Half And So Everybody Had To Go Around On Earth Feeling Terrible Until
They Found Their Soul Mate You Were Looking For Your Other Half That's Nonsense You're You're Okay You Want to Know What Your Problem Is
You Want to Know Why You're Feeling Complete Sin You're Broken You need A savior Not a Soulmate And Then You're Complete And You Can Marry Another Sinner
Who Also Needs A Savior Or You Can Just Be Someone Who Gets The Savior And You're Fine Married People They Do Even Better
So Stop It Because We Don't Seem Like Christians We Seem Like We Can Double Dutch Fine With American Culture But We Got To
Get On Rhythm With Christ Which Is Hey If You Just Get Jesus You're Going To Be Good Now If Your Single Friend Comes
To You And Says Hey I Really Want To Date Someone I Think What You Need To Ask Him Is Are You Burning With
Desire And If They Say No My Desire Is Under Control Say Well Then Keep It Under Control You'll Do Fine Now You're Married
They Say My Desire Is Out Of Control Then You Say Well Hey I Can Help You Out All Right He Will Do Even
Better Paul Keeps Going I Want To I Didn't Put That We Were Going To Read This But We're Going To 39 A Wife
Is Bound To Her Husband As Long As He Lives But If Her Husband Dies She Is Free To Be Married To Whom She
Wishes Only In The Lord Meaning She Can Marry Whomever If He's A Christian Yet In My Judgment She Is Happier If She Remains
As She Is And I Think That I Too Have The Spirit Of God So What He Says Is She's Actually Happier If She'll
Just Stay Unmarried Now Who In Our Culture Can Say That Without It Sounding Gross And Here's What I Mean Someone Looks At You
And Goes Oh You're Unmarried Stay Unmarried That's The Way To Be Happy Like It Comes Across Weird To Us It's Like Ah Especially
If They're Married If They're Like Oh Please Just Stay Unmarried It's Like Come On Man Like Don't Say That When Paul Says It
Though It's Not Coming From A Place Of Bitter It's Coming From A Place Of Him Knowing What's Better That's What It Is He's
Not Bitter He's Not Upset It's Not Like He He's Saying I'm Telling You You Can Actually Be Happier Freer Walk In More Joy
If You Just Focus On Jesus And He Means It Now How Does Paul Mean That Because It Sounds A Little Bit Crazy To
Us When The Bible Steps In And Tells Someone Who's Been Divorced You Should Not Get Remarried Do You Know How Offensive That Sounds
To Us How Harmful That Sounds It Sounds Like What Just Be Single Forever Don't Marry Someone Of The Same Gender Just Be Single
It Sounds Like All We Have Really Said Is Hey We Want You To Have A Terrible Lonely And Sad Life That's The Way
We Hear It Because We've Been Oversold On Romance Is The Only Way To Fulfillment Romance Is The Only Way To Real Love Romance
Is The Only Way To Companionship Romance Is The Only Way To Be Known And Cherished And Cared For Romance We've Oversold It So
That It's Hard For The Church Even To Say Things The Bible Says With Any Amount Of Credibility Because We're Walking In The Same
Vain With The Rest Of The Culture On What We Believe About Romance But When Paul Says It He Means How How How Can
He Say That Well I Think It's Been In Our Ephesians Passage That We Have Read Over And Over Again So Turn Back To
Ephesians 5 We've Read This For The Past Four Five Weeks And I Think When Paul Says You Don't Have To Get Married I
Think We Can Actually Look At The Section On Marriage And See Why He Says That With Such Credibility Why He Can Look You
In The Face And Not Blink And Say I Think You Should Spend Your Time Worrying About What Jesus Wants And That Will Be
Good And You'll Be Complete So Here's What We've Read Over And Over Again It's Going To Be On The Screen I'm Going To
Read Through It Fairly Quickly Ephesians 5 I Think This Is The Last Time We'll Read This Together As A Church You Guys So
You Should Be Excited We've Read It A lot Okay I Was Super Confused I'm Looking At Galatians I'm Going To Get It Together Here
We Go I Was Like I Don't Know What This Is 22 Wives Submit To Your Own Husbands As To The Lord For The
Husband Is The Head Of The Wife Even As Christ Is The Head Of The Church His Body And Is Himself Its Savior Now
As The Church Submits To Christ So Also Wives Should Submit In Everything To Their Husbands Husbands Love Your Wives As Christ Loved The
Church And Gave Himself Up For Her That He Might Sanctify Her Having Cleansed Her By The Was So That He He Without Spot
Or Wrinkle Or Any Such Thing That She Might Be Holy And Without Blemish In The Same Way Husbands Should Love Their Wives As
Their Bodies He Who Loves His Wife Loves Himself For No One Ever Hated His Own Flesh But Nourishes And Cherishes It If You're
Single You Hear Wives It's It's Easy For That To Happen And Some Of That Is Because The Church Has Oversold This So Much
We've We've Overhyped This So Much I've Been In Sermons Y'all No I'm Going To Talk About I Wasn't In I Saw It On
The Internet I've Interneted Sermons Y'all There We Go Where The Point Of The Sermon Was This Where So Many Sermons Are Hey Are
You Single Would You Like To Hear About The Promised Land That Is Marriage Would You Like To Hear About The Goal Of Life
That Is Marriage I Was In A Sermon That Was God Took The Text That Said God Gives Good Gifts And Then Said God
Only Gives Good Gifts So If You're Not A Good Gift How Would God Give You To Someone Else And The Point Of The
Sermon Was You Should Become A Good Gift And Then You Can Get Married One Of The Points In The Sermon Was You Should
Exercise But What They Set It Up As Was Here's This Weird Like An Actual Promise The Bible Says About God Giving Good Gifts
Let Me Apply It To A Weird text And Let Me Say That If You Do Everything Good If You Work Really Hard At
The End Of It You Can Have Future Perfect Spouse Let Me Tell You Something That Is Not The Gospel That Is Not The
Good News Of The Bible That Also Sets You Up For A Really Messed Up Marriage Because Your Spouse Is Going To Way Worse
Than Jesus And Make A Terrible Savior Here's The Gospel You You Are A Sinner Who Is Broken You Need A Savior And The Promised Land Is
Life With Christ In Eternity That's The Gospel And So I Did On Like A General Regular Basis But What I Did Was I
Took This Passage And I Just Put All The Stuff That Was Talking About Specific Instructions To Husbands And Wives And I Want Us
To See What Paul Hangs It All On Church And So Here Is The Text The Reality Of The Text See Everything Else Is
Just Hanging On This But He Says Christ Is The Head Of The Church His Body And Is Himself Its Savior The Church Submits
To Christ In Everything Christ Loved The Church And Gave Himself Up For Her If You Are A Christian You Belong To The Church
If You Place Your Faith In Christ This Christ Loved The Church And Gave Himself Up For Her That He Might Sanctify Her Having
Cleansed Her By The Washing Of The Water With The Word So That He Might Present The Church To Himself In Splendor Without Spot
Or Wrinkle Or Any Such Thing That She Might Be Holy And Without Blemish Christ Loves The Church As His Own Body Christ Does
Not Hate The Church But Nourishes And Cherishes It Because We Are Members Of His Body What He Said Was Christ So Loved The
Church That He Gave Himself Up For Her That He Sacrificed Everything That He Could Have Her That All All The Beautiful Love Stories
We Have Told Are Just A Hint A Whiff Of What Christ Has Done For The Church Everything We've Ever Loved About A Hero
Riding Into Rescue Is Just A Small Dirty Mirror Pointing At What Christ Has Done For The Church He Says He Nourishes That Means
That Christ Takes Us And He Cares So Much About Us That He Provides Everything We Need And He Takes Everything You Could Ever
Want Everything That You Feel Like You're Lacking Everything That You Feel Like Is Out Of Place And He Just Fills You Up And
Then He Cherishes I Think There's So Much Of Us That Longs To Be Cherished I'm A Grown Man And I Don't Use That
Word A Lot I Want My Wife To Cherish Me I Want Her To House I Want Her To Laugh And Think I Love
That He's Funny But The Truth Is She Doesn't Cherish Me Like Christ Does She Never Will See My Wife And My Marriage It's
Good It Gets To Be A Picture Of The Gospel Gets To Point To It But When We Step Into Eternity She's My Sister
I'm The Bride Of Christ I'm Cherished In a Way That He Desires And Longs For And Knows Intimately Everything Knows All Of My Sin
And Still Died For It That He Loves Us Beyond Compare That He Nourishes And Cherishes It Because We're Members Of His Body Therefore
A Man Shall Leave His Father And Mother And Hold Fast To His Wife And The Two Shall Become One Flesh This Mystery Is
Profound And I'm Saying That It Refers To Christ And The Church We Said This On Our First Week But Marriage Points To The
Gospel So So So So So So Paul Without Blinking Can Look And Say If You Just Get Jesus You Do Better French Not
It Dubai your spouse or you maybe never have a spouse but that person would only have ever been a small arrow pointing to Christ if they did what they were supposed to correctly there's going to be a day when it says that new Jerusalem comes out of heaven adorned like a bride for her husband and that Christ is going to welcome the church and he's going to look at us and be so overwhelmed by love and then we're going to have a wedding feast where he welcomes us to him in a cherishing nourishing love like we've never known and that if you are single you can walk with Jesus your whole life and be full and complete and loved beyond your peers and beyond the people around you it does take work does take some effort to walk with Jesus and to rest in him and to pray and to wrestle this out but it's real the band's going to come back up here the king of the universe if you belong to the church if you belong to Christ the king of the universe loved you pursued you desired you saw your sin and in spite of it died for it to claim you
So that he might love and nourish and cherish you for all eternity and if you are not a Christian you can repent of your sin and it'll mean that the king of the universe loved you saw you pursued you and cherished you claimed you as his own and died for your sin but if we belong to Jesus we haven't missed out on anything we actually get what's better let's pray God we ask that you would help us grow in knowing your love in resting in it and in walking in communion connection with you we might feel you we love you and we praise you in Jesus name amen thank you
Love Your Wives
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. You may not know this about me, but I am not super handy. Which may come as a shock to some of you that a man that drives a Prius would not know his way around the garage. But I just, it's not like I didn't have the opportunity growing up.
My stepdad here in a body shop, he tried to teach me things. And I knew the basics of taking care of our yard and stuff like that. But he tried to teach me these things and I just said, look, this stuff doesn't just, it interests me. So like if you, like one day I'm going to be an attorney, I'll make lots of money, I'm going to pay people to do this. It's going to be awesome, don't worry. And after a while he just kind of gave up.
And that was a really bad plan because I'm not an attorney and I don't make lots of money. So I had to figure out, like, how do I do some of these things that I missed out on? And one of the things that's been really helpful is YouTube. Like you can go to YouTube and plug in anything, any house or project, and you're going to see like 10 different how-to videos come up. And so finally, like when I got married, I was like, this is great. So I just started projects and learning how to do things.
And about six months ago, my wife said, you know, it would be great if we extended the concrete pad in our backyard. And I was like, yeah, you know what? So I got on YouTube, got really excited. I was like, I can do this. So I hopped in the minivan, got to Home Depot, loaded the swagger wagon down with as much concrete as it could handle.
It was like this far off the ground. Came back home and about two hours into the project, realized that this wasn't going well. The YouTube didn't make it as easy as it seemed to be. And then I finished, like this looks terrible, tried to fix it. It was still terrible. And for six months, it's still in my backyard, this horrible looking concrete pad that I'm stuck with.
And I feel like a lot of times we jump into marriage with kind of the same like mindset. We get excited. We fall in love. We get to the wedding. It's an exciting occasion. And then all of a sudden, a year in, we're like, man, this is a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be.
Like I've never met anyone in their first year of marriage that said, yeah, you know what? We made it. We breezed through it. We crushed it. It was awesome. Super easy.
It's like, no, it's hard and it's costly. And we've been in Ephesians 5 for a minute walking through marriage and what it looks like. And we've been walking through this cycle of love and respect that we introduced last week. Husbands, love their wives. And wives, respect and submit to your husbands. And there's a last week introduced.
This is from a book called Love and Respect. And when we are functioning the way we're supposed to, when wives are submitting and respecting their husbands and husbands are loving their wives, we're flourishing in how we're supposed to be. But we're not. It turns into a crazy cycle. So last week we addressed wives.
This week we're going to address husbands. So last week he said, you know, he said, wives, I'm preaching to you, husbands. Don't elbow. Don't make obvious signs. And the same thing we say this week. Wives, no sad eyes.
No elbowing. Don't take like obvious notes so that he can see. This morning we're preaching to husbands. And we ask that you would be respectful as we walk through this. Now, husbands, you might think, oh, love your wife. I mean, that's how I love her every day.
Like, we're good. Let's go to Ephesians 6. The more that we press into this, the more we're going to see the weight of what's actually happening here. So in Ephesians 5, verses 25 through 33, we're going to see two main aspects of how we're supposed to love our wives. That firstly, our husbands, we are called to love our wives with love that is costly. That our love is meant to be costly.
And secondly, that our love is meant to be considerate. And when we are doing these things, we are modeling the gospel in our marriages. So that's what we're going to walk through today. We're going to start out in verse 25. He says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. Because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound.
And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Let's pray. We'll dive in. God, I'm thankful for your word. I pray that for the men that came in today, if they are wanting to be married, if they're engaged, for the husbands in the room, that we would sit back and we'd listen.
That we wouldn't put up defenses. That you would help us see what it looks like to love wives like Christ loved the church. Amen. Alright, so he starts out, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So I want to quickly, we're going to go deeper into this, but I want to quickly on the surface define what love is.
Because our culture reduces love down to affection, to warm feelings. And that's an aspect of love, but that's not what it is at its core. That at its core, love is sacrificial. It is shown here as that Jesus died and loved the bride, loved the church. We might reflect that same love to our wives. It is meant to be costly.
That love for our wives is meant to be costly. Now here's the deal. I feel like most of us generally get this. Like I think most husbands, I don't know many husbands who on their wedding day stood up and thought, you know what, this wedding, this marriage, it's going to be all about me. Like I asked my sister-in-law, she's a wedding photographer, I was like, have you ever had any groomzillas? And she said, no.
I haven't had any groomzillas yet. I'm not saying it won't happen, I just haven't had it happen yet. Because I think most of us generally understand that that day is not about us and that marriage is not going to be about us as well. It's going to be a little bit sacrificial and costly. But I don't think we fully grasp how costly our love is supposed to be.
I think most of us approach marriage like approaching a fine restaurant with the kind of restaurant that doesn't have prices on the menu. Like you go and you think like this is going to be kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And you roll in and the restaurant is exciting, you're feeling the vibe, everyone's dressed up. And you sit down and you open the menus and you're like, baby, don't worry, like this is a special occasion. We're getting appetizers, we're getting entrees, we're going to get drinks, we're going to get desserts, it's going to be awesome. And then all of a sudden, the bill comes.
And you didn't know that appetizers could be $30. Like you didn't know that entrees could be three figures, that market price meant like black market selling a kidney price. Like you didn't realize how much was coming on the bill. And I don't think we fully realize how costly it is. And the more that we press into this, the more that we press into this, we're going to see how costly it is. That our calling is meant to reflect the cost of our Savior.
Which was His life being laid down for the bride. Sacrificing it all. Like that's the calling, the model for our love for our wives is the cross. That's it. Our model is the cross. And somewhere in all of this, we've gotten confused, I think between two really polar extremes.
Like on one end, on one end we shift into, some of us may shift into domineering leadership. Like the way we love and lead our wives is domineering. And the other end of the extreme, you have husbands that are more like doormats. That passively are abdicating leadership, a responsibility, and somewhere between the doormat and domineering, we've lost what it is, the model of the cross. So let me address husbands that may fall into this first extreme.
Domineering leadership. The world stereotype of what we talk about in Ephesians 5, what we talk about headship, is this. It's domineering leadership. This is where we get accused of having patriarchal, archaic understanding of marriage. And it's the stereotypical picture of a husband who comes home, after a long day at work, and kicks off his shoes, and sits in his favorite chair, and he's like, I'm dumb. Like, you, you can take care of the food, you can take care of the house, you can take care of the kids, I've done my part.
He's going to check out, and he's going to be in his favorite chair, and he's going to watch sports, or he's going to be on his phone, and he's going to be lost, and he's not going to care, because he's done his part. He's gone to work, and she can do the rest. This kind of husband, if you fall into this zone, this is the kind of husband that might check out for all of hunting season. Like, as soon as hunting season comes, they're gone. As soon as football season comes, everything's got to revolve around college football. Her needs, her everything is going to revolve around this.
If you're this kind of husband, you may approach arguments, like battles to be won. Like, it's good to have constructive arguments, like you shouldn't just avoid conflict. That's not healthy in marriage. There's a fair way to talk stuff out, but if you fall more in this zone of domination, it is a battle, and every argument's a battle that you've got to win, and if you can't out convince her, you can get louder, and talk her down, until finally she just gives up. If you're more in this zone of leadership, like, you may have a pattern of wanting to suppress your wife's emotions. Like, you don't want to deal with that.
If I'm honest, this is kind of more where I lean, when I'm functioning as an unhealthy husband, I lean more towards this zone. When I was dating my wife in college, we were starting to fall in love, and I said, baby, I got, I was like, this is, this is going really well, but I just want to be honest with you. I don't know how to handle emotions. I don't know how to, I don't know how to handle crying. So it would be great, if you just didn't cry.
And she, if you don't know my wife, she's, she's an emotional person. Like, she experiences other people's emotions for them. Like, we can be in a situation, where somebody is yelling at somebody else, and she is experiencing their fears, their sadness, their pain, all in that moment. And I just told her, I was like, it'd be great if you just didn't cry. I was, I was real smooth, in the dating process. And then it came up, premarital counseling, and I was like, oh wow, like this is really damaging.
And everyone was crying at that point. If you lean more towards this, or maybe you've seen this, maybe you grew up with a dad that was like this. This is not leading, and loving your wife. Like, if you want to be married, or if you're in the process of being engaged, or you are married, this is not, the model that we have. The cross, and sacrificing, and laying down, from the moment that you say I do, it's not about you, it's about sacrificing, laying down your life for your wife. That's the model that we have.
That's why we as a church, we talk about being men of the second shift. That, yeah, you may have a long day at work, but when you clock out, you gather yourself together, because when you come home, you clock back in. If you don't have kids, it means helping around the house. If you do have kids, it means taking, we have little ones right now, so when I come in, it's time for me to step up, it's time for me to pitch in, it's time for me to take the kids off of her hands. If you have older kids, that means running errands, taking kids to practice. And yeah, that might mean that you wake up at six in the morning, and that you work your tail off all day.
And that by the time you finally get to rest, it's nine o'clock. Yeah, that's hard, but that's what we signed up for, when we said I do. Being men of the second shift. It means, that for us as men, like we're not entitled, to midlife crisis, or as, as now in our generation, we get like a quarter life crisis. Like I turned 30, this year, and I'm entitled now, to my quarter life crisis, that I could just, blow up our family's budget, that I could just go, and buy toys, because yeah, life is hard, I need something else to get by. No, that means, I mean, yeah, it's hard, but we press on, this is what we signed up for.
It means, that as husbands, you don't get to just check out, on your phones. Man, this is a big one for me. I do real estate, I have to have my phone, I have to answer emails, and phone calls, and text messages, that's how I make money. But man, that rolls over, to some really bad habits. Where my wife, and my kids, are trying to get my attention, and I'm just surfing, ignoring, and I've tried to reform, over the last year, my patterns of this. It means, it means you don't get to check out, on your phones.
It means, that when you get in an argument, you apologize first. You don't do this weird power play, where she's got to be the one, that apologizes first, and when she comes to me, and apologizes, then maybe I'll say, I'm sorry you got upset. I'm sorry that you got hysterical. I'm sorry that you got your feelings hurt. It means that, we step up, we sacrifice, we come first, and say, baby, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?
It means, the picture that we're going for here, there are two kinds of kings, that fight wars. There are kings, that fight from the throne. They lead the battle from the throne. They're back, slump back, this is where David, in the Old Testament, got in trouble. He used to fight his battles, on the field, with his men, beside them, sacrificing, laying it down. The moment he stepped in, said, no, I'm just going to lead the battles, from the throne, is when he got into that mess, with Bathsheba.
That's when he ended up, having an affair, and having someone killed. We're called to get our hands dirty, to sacrifice, to lay it down. That's the model of the cross, that we have. And I'd contend, honestly, that's the model that women want. I saw a Facebook post, a couple weeks ago, and it was of an older man, and his wife was in a hospital bed, and his wife was elderly, and he was combing her hair. Taking care of her.
And y'all should, it was a viral post, y'all should have seen the comments, that came below it. Of women who were like, losing their minds, like this is amazing. It was like they, they were looking at a solar eclipse, that came only once, every couple hundred years. They were so excited to see this, and they were so blown away. That's why when Up came out, the first ten minutes, slayed everybody. Because it was like, man, seeing this kind of love, where a husband would sacrifice, and stay beside his wife.
I mean that, that's what women want. And that's what women need. That's what our wives need. That kind of costly love. Now, you may fall into this zone, but you might be on the other end of the spectrum. You might be leading more like a doormat.
What I mean is, that you are passively giving up leadership, deferring to your wife. If you're in this zone, you might be the kind of wife, that might be the kind of husband, that leads really hard, into happy wife, happy life. Like, that's generally true. Okay, but, I've seen some people, that's like their, that's their anthem. Happy wife, happy life. Like, don't, don't want to stir the pot.
Don't want to, like, just, as long as she's happy, I don't want to push back on things. If you're this kind of, a husband, it may be very easy for you, just to pass the buck, to let her take the reins, to let her lead, in a lot of different areas. And you may justify yourself, with saying, well, you know, I'm just trying to keep the peace. I don't want to stir the pot. As long as I have a peaceful house, I'll just let her take the lead on things. And you're consistently giving up leadership, that you were designed, to take.
That God has designed us, as husbands, to be the ones, that lead. And we talked about it, a few weeks ago, if that throws you off, I encourage you, go back and listen to those, sermons. But God has designed us, uniquely designed us, to lead, and for our wives to follow. So if you lean more, in this zone, of passively giving up leadership, it's time for you, to step up, into who you were called to be, and to lead, in a few different areas. It means that you take the lead, on decisions. Like the small, the classic one is, is who picks the restaurant.
And if you're in this zone, you're always in the zone of, I don't really care. Like just pick somewhere. And that's small, but that rolls over, into much bigger decisions, where you're like, ah, just let her take it. Just let. No, you're called to step up, and lead. And yes, your wife, most of us are going to have, wives that are smarter than us, and have more wisdom, than us.
So you listen, and you take, you take a lot of what she is saying, and you run with it. But sometimes, you're going to come to a head, where you're going to have to make a decision. And you're going to have to take the step, you're going to have to step up, and take responsibility. Because ultimately, you're the one that's going to be, held accountable for the decisions, that are made, in your family. It means you step up, you lead in decisions. It also means you lead, in providing.
Now I want to be, careful with this, because there's always, extenuating circumstances. There's, sometimes you get laid off, sometimes husbands get sick. I get that. But God has designed us, to provide. All the way back in the garden, you see that we've been given, creative gifts, that we might cultivate the earth, and that we might provide, for our families. So that means, that sometimes, you've got to work hard.
Sometimes you've got to work late. And sometimes you've got to work two jobs. But you do what you can, and you grind it out, because that's what we, signed up for. It means that you're called to lead, and your family, and specifically, when it comes to parenting. God has designed our wives, for those who have children, that there's a maternal instinct, that is good. And that is right, I would say for a lot of cases, most of the time.
Like she's going to have, a lot more insight, a lot more connection, but that doesn't mean, you just fold on, every single parenting decision. There's a whole generation, of men my age, that, their moms were like, helicopter moms. Always on top of them. Smothering them. So the point where, I mean there's stories of guys, who went to apply, for their first jobs out of college, went to sin, and the mom is still making resumes, is calling employers, is arguing with employees.
What happened? Well there was a dad, in the background, who abdicated his responsibilities, and said, no I don't want to shake the boat, I don't want to rock the boat here. Instead of stepping in and saying, no you are going to keep this boy, a boy, it's time for him to step up, and be a man. There are going to be times, where you have to step in, and it's going to get dicey, and it's going to be difficult. But through prayer, and through discernment, you step up, and you help make, parenting decisions.
It means you're called, to take the lead on finances, that doesn't mean, that your wife doesn't have that, like Chet mentioned this last week, that his wife Anna, she works at a bank, and she's organized, and she helps organize finances. My wife's the same way, like she's very organized, and helps keep our budget in check. But the overall trajectory, of where our family is going financially, that falls on me, and that falls on you, to step up, and to give some vision, and to budget, and to help think through, where you're going as a family. It also means, that you step up, and you lead in discipling, your family.
That man, we are called, as heads of the household, to be responsible, for the spiritual direction, of our family. That we might, disciple our kids, and take the lead on that. I interned under, a youth director once, and he had parents, come up to him, when their kids got caught, at a party, and they said, where were you? What, how did you let this happen? And he flipped the script, he's like, where were you? Like, I'm not the one, who's primarily responsible, for the spiritual health, of your kids.
Like, that falls on you, to disciple your own, children. And man, that's where we step in, and we read Bible stories, to our kids. We help explain, the story of the gospel. That's where we step in, and we help our wives, love Jesus, and give them space, and encourage them, to have time, to read their Bibles, and to pray. Because ultimately, we are the ones, that are held accountable, for that. As we stand before God, held accountable, for the spiritual direction, of our families.
And that's what Paul, is pressing into, he gets into verse 25, he says, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might, sanctify her, having cleansed her, by the washing of the water, with the word, so that he might present, the church to himself, in splendor, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy, and without blemish. That in the same way, as Jesus, presents the church, in splendor, and in glory, we are called, to mirror that, that we would present, our wives, that we would present, our families, before the Lord. Because we're the ones, that will be held accountable for it. Now that is a humbly, humble calling, and it is costly.
And if you fall, somewhere between, leading from a doormat, or being domineering, we're fighting, for modeling the cross. And that might be, really difficult, especially, if your wife, does not respect you, and does not submit, to your leadership. It'll be hard. I mean, if you've ever been, in a situation, where you're at a dinner party, and there's a bunch of, different husbands and wives, and all of a sudden, one of the wives, says something, that's so, like disrespectful, and embarrassing, and just completely, undercuts her husband. Here's how this falls, between those two extremes. On the one end, husbands that are more, lean into the zone, of leading from a doormat.
You see the same, like it's almost, a conditioned response. They hear it, their shoulders sink, they kind of, withdraw, and you can tell, this happened over, and over, and over again. He's not going to talk, about this later. He's just going to take it. Internally, he's starting to hate his wife. On the other end, of the spectrum, man, if you see this happen, with more of a domineering type husband, his immediate, his immediate response is, a what?
You said what? Oh no, and it turns into, a knock down, drag out, makes the whole occasion, super awkward. May I suggest, a third option. That if you're in a situation, where your wife, does not respect you, will not follow you. We have Jesus, as a model. Because when Jesus, was on the cross, he was mocked.
And in that moment, he could have easily, flexed his power. He could have called on, a legion of angels, to come in, and correct everything, that was happening. But Jesus displayed, his power, mightily. He endured, the fallenness, of the situation. He laid it down. He paid it all.
So you can endure, insults. You can endure it, with patience. And then later, patiently, you can go to your wife, and say, honey, I love you. And I want to love you, and sacrifice for you. But when you do things like that, you completely undercut me.
You dishonor me. And I want to love you, and I want you, to grow, and respect me. When you come out with it, with that posture, the hope is, is that by the hope of the gospel, you can love your wife, into this cycle, of love and respect. It is a costly calling, to love our wives. And it's good. And it's also, we are called to be, considerate in how we love them.
Paul continues, he says, in the same way, husbands should love their wives, as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes, and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members, of his body. Jesus uses this, this body metaphor. He's the head of the church, he is united with the church, with the bride of Christ. He uses this body metaphor, to show that we should be, considerate, in how we love and care, for our wives.
When my wife has a headache, I say, my stock response is, have you taken something? Like, have you taken Tylenol? Have you taken Advil? Like, we don't do oils in our family, we just do medicine, that's us, you do you, we do us. Like, ask her, is she taking something? And once she takes something, I don't think about it anymore.
I've moved on, because I don't feel, her pain. But let me tell you something, when I have back pain, and that for me, is a regular occurrence. Like three weeks ago, I was in Lowe's, and I thought it was a good idea, to take 300 pounds of rock and stone, and push it across the entire store. And, that's, I'm right at the front, this woman comes out and says, hey, did you know we have forklifts for that? I was like, would it have mattered, you would have seen me push this, and just let me do it. And I pushed it across, and I hurt my back, and ever since then, I've been just, I've been trying to rehab, and I've been feeling it, and I am, I am aware of the back pain.
I am aware of what's going on, because it's my body, and I can feel it. And I know what kind of needs I have. And the picture here, is that you are one flesh with your wife. You would be considerate of her needs. You would be considerate of how she feels. And that's what we are called to as husbands.
So what I wanted to do, I want to walk through some practical ways, of how we can consider our wives. I consulted multiple wives in our church, to make this list, of ways that we can grow, in considering our wives. Firstly, understand how she feels love. We feel love, and experience love, in different ways. There's a man named Gary Chapman, he's a psychologist, he wrote a book called, The Five Love Languages. Some of you may be familiar with it.
I'm not a huge fan, of the overall thesis of the book, the overall trajectory of the book. He finally gets into a zone, of like we have these love tanks, and you've got to, kind of just do someone's love language, to fill it up. But you don't have to, take all of it. But you can take, the five practical things, that he lays out in this book. That there are five different, general ways, that each of us experience love. And he lays out on me, one of them is physical touch.
That your wife might, she might need to be held. Held in a way, that doesn't lead, to anything else. Just that she might need, physical contact, and just need to be held, or to be hugged. For others, it may be, words of affirmation. That maybe she's the kind of person, that really values, when you write notes. Or when you send text messages.
Or when you tell her, how much you love her. Another gift, another love language, is that he lays out as gifts. That for some people, it's, if you give them something, that shows them love. So for some of you, your wife might need flowers, or it might be chocolate, or it might be, small tokens of affection, that show her, that you love her. A fourth one he lays out, is Acts of service. That your wife might be, more of a show me person.
Like show me you love me. My wife used to be, in the physical touch zone, which is good, because that's kind of where I am. But then she, we had two kids, and they like touch her all day. And by the time I get home, she's just like, I don't want to be held, I just want to be left alone. I want you to do the laundry. I want you to do the kitchen.
I want you to do some things. So I've had to adjust on the fly, and realize that, oh, showing love to her, is me doing the laundry. That's how I show her love. And the last one he lays out, is quality time. And sometimes, your wife, if she falls in this zone, she just needs quality time. And quality is how she defines it.
Not, alright, well let's take some time and watch the game. Like, it's how she defines quality. And it's, and it's intentionally carving out times throughout the week that she might experience this. And it can change. It can change over time. And that's why it's important to study your wife.
And that's the second way you can, you can be considerate. Is to study your wife. Know her. her. Man, some of us are operating off the same playbook we had when we were dating. And we think we've got it all figured out. She changes.
Study. Get to know what, what, what she likes and what she doesn't like. What changes. My wife and I used to love Mexican food. We go to Mexican restaurants multiple times throughout the week. That was our thing.
And then our second kid came. And she threw up every single day for 12 weeks straight when she was pregnant. And she no longer loves Mexican food. It just, which is sad to me. I'm hoping about a third kid it'll just correct everything and we'll be back to loving Mexican food again. But it changed.
And it's taken me some time. I've tried, we went to a, we went to a restaurant this week and ate. She didn't feel good. I'm like, man, I'm still learning this. She's changing. So study your wives.
Thirdly, mine, your words. Your words matter. James 3 in the New Testament lays out how words can be used in a constructive way. He gives a positive example. It can be like the tiny rudder of a ship. And he makes the point that although it's, it's a tiny rudder, it directs the whole course of the ship through all kinds of seas.
But your words can also be like a spark that lights a forest fire. And the picture of that in marriage is that our words matter. You can build up your marriage. You can direct the course of your marriage with your words. or you can burn the house down. Your words matter. That's why she can remember things you said four years ago.
And there are real emotions that are attached to those words. Now there's forgiveness that has to happen there. Absolutely. But our words are important. So what you say matters.
Fifth, fourthly, anticipate her needs. This is a big one. Anticipate what her needs are. And this is another thing where you have to know and study your wife because those needs change. You anticipate. So like, one of the things that I picked up over the last six months, I got this from Matt Freeman, that he would go home and he would, he would see that his wife Katie needed help and he would say, you know what, I'm going to take the kids.
Why don't you take, why don't you go to Starbucks for a little bit? Gather yourself, have a quiet time. And I was like, that's really good. So I've been, over the last six months, I've been trying, I'll come home and I need to anticipate that my wife needs some space because we have a toddler and an infant. And I'll take the kids and I was like, why don't you go to Duncan? Why don't you just take some time?
For some of you, that means that you need to anticipate when your wife needs help. Maybe you need to take the lead on taking them to school on picking them up. That sometimes you need to anticipate what she needs on any given day and be in tune to that and to be asking about that. Fifth, you are called as the husband to pursue her. You are called to pursue your wife. When was the last time, hear this, when was the last time you did something nice that was not an anniversary, that wasn't Christmas, that wasn't a birthday?
When's the last time that you surprised her with something? When's the last time that you intentionally romanced her into intimacy instead of at the end of the night just giving the touch, giving the sign? How are you pursuing her? How are you wooing her, loving her, romancing her? Are you dating her? That's a big thing.
Every family is different on how many dates or what kind of that rhythm should look like. We have fought for that in our household. We try to have one date night a week. Kind of with kids right now it ends up being about three date nights a month. But that's something we fought for because we have crazy schedules.
I've had crazy schedules almost all seven years of our marriage. And we've had to fight for this, that I would date her, that I would pursue her. And I've gotten lazy in some areas, so this year I had a goal that once a quarter I would do a special date night that didn't look like the rest that I could work on intentionally pursuing her. Because she needs that. She needs you to care. So we are called to pursue our wives and lastly, we are called to be faithful.
Being considerate of our wives is being faithful. Pornography can destroy your marriage. Can absolutely destroy your marriage. Because what you are doing is you are outsourcing love to other people online. What would it be like if she outsourced her respect to everyone else but you? One of the things I love about my wife is that she really fights for this, that she fights to show me respect.
It could have been very easy when I said, alright, I'll take on the concrete pat, let's do this. For her to step in in that moment and say, why are you even going to try? There's no way you're going to get this. You're going to mess it up. It's going to be sitting in our backyard for six months. You know what?
Why don't I call my granddad? Because her granddad's like a wizard that can fix anything. Why don't I call him? In fact, why don't I just go find some other men to come in and do this? Because obviously, you're not going to be able to handle this. How well would that have gone over to show that kind of disrespect?
And when you look at pornography, you are outsourcing love in the same way that she could outsource respect to anyone else but you. That mess can wreck your marriage. It causes her to question her self-value, her self-worth, her self-image. We are called to be faithful. That is how we can be considerate to our wives. I could keep going through all kinds of different examples, but here's the deal.
Every wife is different. God gave you your wife. He gave me mine. So she's going to be different than yours. So you need to learn how to be considerate.
And if that means just asking, ask. On the way home today from leaving here, ask, honey, what is a way, what are some ways that I can grow in considering you and loving you? We are called to consider our wives and when we love our wives in a way that is costly and a way that is considerate. We are moving into the zone. We are fulfilling this mysterious purpose of marriage that he is referencing in the last part of this passage. He says in verse 31, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is profound. And I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. One of the, I'm not big into art but there is some types of art that I actually really like and one of the ones I like are mosaics. I think mosaics are really interesting and really cool that for thousands of years that mosaics have existed. That people would individually pick smaller objects and they would place them on a canvas, place them on a portrait and then as you backed up over time you would start to see the bigger picture of what was happening there.
And when photography came around that people would individually shrink down smaller photos and place them in a way. I remember seeing one when I was a kid of JFK that you looked closely and you saw individual pictures of JFK and his life and then you back up and you'd see his portrait. I love that kind of art. I did one, I realize you can do this online now. I took one of our family photos from Christmas and this took me like an hour. I just took the photos off my iPhone which is like all seven years of our marriage and uploaded them.
And if you look closer there are pictures of our marriage of our wedding of our kids being born of being silly and all kinds of happy moments but the farther you get back from it you see the picture of what's actually happening there. Mosaics our marriage is like a mosaic. They're like individual pictures that make up a greater picture the picture of the gospel that Paul is referencing here. A mystery that goes all the way back to the garden in Genesis 2 that's what he's quoting here. That in that moment two became one. They became one flesh like two metals being welded together into one object both distinct with different properties but together as one and stronger together.
And that over time the picture is that we grow old together as one flesh that even metals would rust and look the same together. And that picture of what happened in Genesis is pointing forward to the cross when Jesus would come down to pursue his bride and go to the cross. And that every marriage before then and every marriage after then is a picture of the gospel. That your marriage and my marriage are individual pictures that make up a greater picture of the gospel. So husbands we need to feel the weight of that.
That your marriage is a picture of the gospel because one of the biggest critiques that we have in our culture of the American church having a say in marriage one of the biggest critiques is how do you have a say? Y'all's divorce rates are crazy. And that's a fair critique. It's a fair critique when many of our marriages are calling it quits. It's a fair critique when there are husbands that are leading passively and abdicating leadership. It's a fair critique when other husbands are domineering and ruling over their wives.
We are called to model the cross. That's how we reflect the gospel. And marriages like mosaics they take time. Now we live in a culture where things happen like this. They happen instantly. Where I can take an art form that took for thousands of years that took so long and upload pictures in a moment and have it.
Man, it takes time. And you may be thinking man, this has been a rough week, a rough month, this has been a rough couple of years. And you may be thinking man, I don't know how much more fight I have left. I don't know how much more this can change. Our hope for you this morning is the gospel that it absolutely can. That there are stories of marriages in our church where husbands and wives have come together and have fought.
Where husbands have grown in loving their wives. Where wives have grown and respecting and following their husbands. Where they fought for it and they've come through the other side. There is hope. And that hope is found in Christ. That he would mold us into men who love our wives with a costly, considerate, pursuing love like Jesus had when he came down to redeem his bride.
Wives
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I want to start by telling you a little bit about my dad. He, my whole life, he's just kind of a large, intense man. He doesn't do anything slowly.
He doesn't do anything halfway. He just is. He's a very aggressive man. And like growing up with him, just crazy stuff that he was just like a, like multiple times. I've seen him fight a dog and win. Multiple times.
Like this is, and like, like, like you would think you wouldn't have to have seen that. Like big dogs, he's fought them and won. At one point he looked at me and said, hey, you ever get to fighting a dog? Choke them. Dogs hate not being able to breathe. And it's like, I think, first of all, it's a rule for like creatures.
But also, how do you, how many fights have you been in where you had to like learn this technique? Like he, um, I've seen him climb a tree to clear for deer stands. He climbed a tree using his hands, holding a machete in his mouth and then hung off of limbs, cutting them off like this. I've seen him, we were working on a car one time laying up underneath it and he was tightening a bolt and he was talking to me. And he was tightening and it goes, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. And he just keeps going and then he ping, just breaks the top of the bolt off and goes, not again.
And I was like, how, how often do you do that? And he's like, every once in a while. Like, I remember the first time, like he was, he's my goal for like, what, what is a man? What am I going for? I remember the first time I was working on a project and I broke the head of a bolt off. I think it's the only time I've ever done it.
I wasn't even mad. It made this, this is going to take way longer now. I was just like, yes, I don't care that it was rusty. I'm a man. Like I, but something about my dad that I've always thought like it just, every time I've thought about this, it just messes with me. But my dad, when he goes to weddings and he probably doesn't want me telling you all this, but when he goes to weddings, he gets choked up.
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter who's getting married. Doesn't matter how well he knows him. And you ask him about it and he's like, weddings are the most intense thing ever. He's crazy. He said, they're like 22, 25.
And they're up there staring at each other and promising all this stuff that they have no control over. I'm going to be there. I'm going to do this for better or for worse. He's filling in all this information. He knows what worse looks like. He knows what sickness looks like.
He's filling it in. He's going, this is the, and if they do that, it's just, and then he'll just be like, stops talking because it's like it gets to him. It just grunt a little bit like, and that's the truth. And that's what we're looking at in Ephesians. We're in a section where they're talking about marriage. And what we're going to see today and next week is where Paul, and we've been, we've read it a couple of times and we've tried to zoom in on different things, but where it's Paul is saying, this is when you stand up, when there's a marriage, when you stand up and you're making promises, you're making vows, you're covenanting with one another.
You are making promises on behalf of yourself. That, that when you stand there and you're getting married, you're saying, here's what I'm doing. Not what you're doing, not what you're going to do. I'm not, I'm, I'm making vows. I'm not accepting yours. I'm not, I'm giving mine.
And what Paul's going to say is this is when you do that, here's what husbands ought to be doing promising actively living out. And here's what wives ought to be doing promising actively living out. And as we see in this text, and if you want to go ahead and turn there, it's Ephesians chapter five, it'd be on page 569. We're going to pick up in verse 22 this morning. As we see in this text, what Paul is going to say is that wives ought to submit and respect, submit to and respect their husbands and husbands ought to love their wives the way that Christ loves the church and the way that anybody loves themselves.
So that husband ought to love his wife the way he loves himself. He ought to love his wife the way Christ loves the church. And this picture that we're given in biblical Christian marriage is that it is a picture. It's an image of the gospel of how Jesus loves the church and how the church responds. And it's this beautiful, uh, when it's working well, when a husband's loving sacrificially, it's easy for a wife to submit and respect. When a wife is submitting and respecting, it's easy for a husband to love and sacrifice.
And it's this beautiful picture that feeds off of itself to, to grow and be healthy and to work well together. And that's the, the ideal and the design. And so what we're going to do today is we're going to look at verses 22 through 24, and then we'll jump down to 33 in a little while. And we're just talking to wives and it's because they come first in the text. Paul takes a little time just to address wives. And so we're going to spend time there this morning.
Let's read this text together as we get started. Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife. Even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Okay. A couple of things as we get started.
We, we spent some time talking about this last week, where this idea of headship comes from. So, uh, if you are, um, a little bit confused as to why we're approaching this the way we are today, that should be online for you to listen to it. If you want to hear kind of the bigger picture where, where the idea of biblical headship comes from and how we think about gender and why this is assigned to male and female the way it is. Uh, we talked about that at length last week so that we could just kind of address this text as it's given to us. Um, also, uh, ladies, I am a man and a husband. There are few places in the Bible that just don't apply to me.
This is one of them. Um, so it will be easier today to take me, uh, for me to get in the way of the text. It'll be easier today for me to be hard to listen to because often we get to say we, and as this bears down on us, but today I'm, I'm just up here talking to y'all about y'all saying, I ain't gonna get something. I go home. I go to sleep. Like I ain't gonna have anything to do with this.
So it'll be easier for me to get in the way. It'll be easier for you to want to dismiss what is being said because of how it is said or how my approach is or words I use. And I would just encourage you, uh, to graciously listen and try to interact with the text and the author of the text, the Holy Spirit, rather than getting caught up in interacting with me if I, if I say something that isn't, isn't quite helpful. Um, so let's pray and then we'll, we'll begin kind of walking through this together. God, we thank you for your word. Um, we thank you for the encouragement that you give, uh, and the, the correction and the coaching that you give for marriage, um, with it is as difficult as it is.
We need help. And so we ask that you would help us to graciously listen, um, and to trust you as we do in Jesus name. Amen. So in this text, as we just read it, there is a weight of leadership and responsibility that's placed on the man, uh, in the marriage, uh, which is headship. There's this, uh, weight placed on him and that there's wives are then to respond to that and to be submissive in that. Now submission is a biblical idea that is called of on all Christians.
All Christians are to submit in different roles and different ways at different times. So, uh, every Christian is called to submit to, um, to the government. That's in Romans 13. Children are supposed to submit to parents, wives in Ephesians five and Colossians and Peter are called to submit to their husbands, employees, to employers. That's all over the new Testament. But second Thessalonians, a good example, church members to elders.
That's Hebrews 13, all Christians to each other. That's, uh, Ephesians 5 21. That's the verse right above where we're picking up today. It says submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then the whole church as believers is to submit to Christ. And so submission is something that all Christians do at different times in different places, but is a specific role and a specific weight of responsibility on wives in marriage.
So that there is a specific type of, uh, submission called of, called to wives in marriage. Now at no point does the scripture treat this like that has anything to do with superiority or inferiority, ability or inability. Um, it is just the call that is given and the weight of God's design, uh, on men and women and his specific design for marriage. So that there is a deference, um, given and a difference between the genders. And this is what we're called to do. So let's begin looking at this, this, uh, verse, verse 22.
We'll start here. It starts with wives. All right. Husbands. Not for you. This is like reading somebody else's, uh, note that was written to them.
It's not your business. It's not your thing. So if you want to memorize a section of Ephesians, I know you're going to love this section. This isn't your section. This isn't the one you quote. This isn't what you get cross-stitched on a pillow.
This isn't on your mug. It's in for you. Next week is. So I would encourage you husbands. Don't, don't pull this mess next week of, I think I'm coming down with the black lung. No, you get here.
Don't do that mess. Show up. If there are guys that are in your group that aren't here this week, say, Hey, you should be there next week. Like, like the next week is us looking at the specific parts that talks to husbands. The inclination of all of our sinful hearts is for wives to be supremely aware of what husbands are called to do and husbands to be supremely aware of what wives are called to do. And both of them absolutely convinced that if the other person would just fix their mess, we wouldn't have problems.
That's not helpful and it's not biblical. So wives, this is for you today. Husbands, if you start, first of all, husbands, eyes up here, no cutting your eyes to your wife, no hitting, no tapping, no being like, Hey, write that down. None of that. She's not going to do that next week. Um, if you start getting way too excited, if at some point in here you start just becoming so immensely self-righteous, grab your Bible, start reading in verse 25 and start asking, how am I doing there?
Because if you want to say, Oh, she doesn't do, Oh, I hope she like, just, just slow your roll. Read verse 25 because the truth is you can't make her do these things the same way she can't make you do the other stuff, but you are both very, very responsible for your own obedience as you follow Jesus. So wives, this verse is to you. Submit to your own husband. So the submit, let's talk about it for a second.
That means a willing subjugation to that. You willingly lay down your own preferences, lay down your own desires that you do this to yourselves. It's a command to wives for their own posture. Not to be subjugated, not to be domineered, but to willingly do this. Also in the idea of submission, it includes that you would disagree. In some ways, what the biblical idea is here is that, um, there used to be a road near my house, uh, that had a road just cutting through and there were two stop signs.
And then on the other side, if you went that way out of my house, there was a four way stop. Um, and yeah, y'all, y'all live in South Carolina, you know, people can't drive, right? And I'm, I'm part of this. I grew up in this, like I messed stuff up too. But like on the road, uh, where it was just two stop signs, there was one road that just cut through and you could sit at that stop sign forever because it was a busy road and you would just wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.
So they tore that down and they put up a roundabout. So now we have a roundabout and a four way stop. Neither of them work well because people don't know what to do with them. And if I'm stuck at a four way stop, y'all long enough, when I get up there, I'm not, I haven't been paying attention. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, but my goal, my, my play is to just aggressively go as soon as I get a chance because this pump your brakes, wave stuff drives me crazy. I'd rather get in an accident than sit there and do that.
So I just go, but the roundabout, I know how to do their yield signs and it's a circle, but some of y'all are from South Carolina and you don't know what to do with these things. It's a circle. There are yield signs. You yield unless you're in the circle. Okay. But everybody that roundabout, when a roundabout is working, it works beautifully.
When they first put it in, people were all stopped at it and just like terrified. But now people kind of started to get it. They know it's there and they know how it works. The yield sign in marriage is given to the wife. That's the biblical idea. And it's to avoid wrecks and it's to create speed, smoothness, helpfulness.
It's not a four-way stop. It's not just stop signs in a thoroughfare. It's a yield sign. It's a roundabout. That's how this is designed to work. But submission brings in the idea that you would disagree.
It's not agreement. Agreement's this whole other thing. And agreement in marriage is amazing. It's the best. When I look at my wife and I'm like, I think we should do this. And she's like, I think you're smart.
I's like, yeah. When she says, I think we should do this. And I'm like, that's why I married you. Yeah. There's no submission there. We're just like, that's just beautiful.
And that's what we want. And hopefully a lot of the time that's what happens. But when my wife has to go, trust Jesus, be obedient to the Bible, submit, is when she thinks I'm a complete moron. That's when she has to do it. So what I've found sometimes is that ladies in the church will read this and be like, yeah, I'm for that, except for he's wrong here.
And it's like, that's actually when submission just showed up. Because if you think he's right, you're not actually having to submit. If you think he's right, then you can say he's leading. And maybe he is, but it's just easier to follow. And so submission does bring into the equation the idea that you disagree. And God has graciously given marriages a way to move forward.
And we're going to see why in a second. And hopefully it is life-giving. We approach the scriptures believing that the Holy Spirit authored this through human authors because God is good and he loves us. And that what his word says, if we follow and practice it, actually brings about joy. It's for our good. It's for our thriving on earth.
There's a reason why the Bible says don't lie, don't steal, don't kill. All of those things bring harm and strife. And when the Bible gives us clear commands and instructions, it's for our good. And so we're going to approach this believing that God has us in here for our good, even where we disagree or even where it's difficult. And that's the case with the Bible. That because we're sinful, most of it is difficult and often we disagree.
But we trust that he's good and that he has our good in mind. And so we follow. It says submit to your own husbands. Okay, let's talk about that phrase. This means a couple of things. It means that comparison isn't super helpful because you have your husband and someone else has their husband and you don't submit to their husband and they don't submit to yours.
So your house will look different. Submission in your household will be different. You're different people. Your husband has different strengths. You have different strengths. You have different joys and dislikes and frustrations like you submit to your husband.
So that when you get together in community groups, you don't, it's not helpful to go with that. It's not how that would work at my house. It's like, okay, well, if she somehow marries your husband, she can walk through that. But since that shouldn't happen, the helpful thing to do is to kind of walk through and say, okay, well, that's like, let's figure out how you walk in obedience and that and how you find joy in that and how you, how you navigate that. So for better or for worse, you have the husband you have, and this does mean it'll look different.
So like in my house, my wife handles 99% of the finances. If I wanted to clear out all of our money and just run away, I would have to ask a thousand questions. Like, hey baby, how do you, how would I go about that? Which bank do you think I should go to? If you were going to do it, what would you do? Like I, I have a bunch of questions.
I actually know which bank we use because she works there. Um, like if, if she gets sick, like I'm going to be really worried about her, but I'm also going to be like, hey, when is like our electrical bill due? Like I need some help here or you're going to have to get better. Like I, I can't, that's how it works. Now there are times when she's carrying the weight of that and we don't have enough money.
And so she's very stressed out because she sees the Numbers. She knows that we don't have enough money. I think we're fine because I don't ever see them. I'm just rocking along, happy as a lark, spending money, like whatever. And she's, she sees like, hey bro, you keep that up. We don't pay our electrical bill.
Like she's, she's on that. And so there are times though where I've had to step in and say, okay, okay, okay. Pause everything. I'm going to make some decisions here so that you can follow decisions made and you don't feel the weight of what's getting paid and what's not getting paid. That I graciously step in and take the beating when things are bad and she gets to manage everything because she's really good at it all the other times. So this means if you watch us long enough, you'll see me pick up my phone and call my wife and ask for permission to buy things.
Hey, can I get this? And she'll say things like, no. And I'll say, okay, baby, and hang up the phone. And it's not because she's in charge of all of our money. It's not because she rules all of that over me. And I'm just, hey, I was hoping maybe that's not how that works.
It's that we've predetermined what we're going to do. She's just the one who knows that money doesn't exist. So no. And then I'll say things like, okay, well, when can we and how can we work that out? Like we were a team, but that may not be how it works at your house. My wife also keeps up with everything in our calendar.
And I call in and say, hey, can we do this on this day? If you ask me to do a thing, I'm like, that sounds great. But I got to talk to my wife because I have no clue what I'm doing ever in the future. The two people who keep up with my schedule are my wife and Matt Freeman, and they argue with each other. Sometimes I'm like, y'all talk to each other. I'm tired of talking to both of y'all.
Just give me a thing that tells me where to be. But that's me. I don't feel like, I feel helped when she calls me up and says, have you done this? I feel helped. I don't feel like she's trying to rule me. I feel like, thank you, baby.
That sounds great. I should have done that. When she tells me four or five times in a row, she's got to work on not being frustrated with me. But she married me. It's on her. Like she's got to.
I feel helped. But that's, that's us. She's married to me. We have to work out what that looks like with us. You have to work out what that looks like with you and how that plays out with you. And for you to talk to Anna and go, oh, so you do all that?
And then go back to your husband and say, I'm going to do it because that's what Anna does. It's a terrible, terrible idea. Okay. Submit. Oh, also, single ladies. If you get married, that is what's called.
That's what's asked of you, commanded of you. This is why Mill City Church cares if you're dating a clown. Because we're going to, in chorus later, say, submit to a clown. And we don't want to. I have to sit with couples and tell them, I think your obedience here is to let this run into a wall. And we don't want to.
Verse 23. Here's why. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Oh, I'm sorry. We skipped the ask to the Lord part. Submit to your own husband's ask to the Lord.
That means two things. It means, one, is that you're modeling what it looks like for the church to follow Christ. That's what we're about to get in verse 24. It also means that your submission to your husband is submission to Jesus. That you look past your husband in obedience to Christ. That the question for you as you follow Jesus in your marriage is not, do I believe in my husband?
Do I trust my husband? Do I have faith in my husband? Your primary question is, do I believe in Jesus? Do I trust Jesus? Do I have faith in Jesus? And am I willing to follow what he says is good for my marriage?
Even when that's extremely hard. Okay. Now verse 23. For the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Okay, so there's this weight of headship that's placed on the husband. He will be held accountable and responsible as head of your household for your household.
That later your husband will go stand before Jesus and he will give an account for your children. Did they grow up in discipline? Did they grow up in leadership? Did they grow up in love? What was the household like? He will stand accountable for you.
Were you a well-watered vine? Did you flourish under his leadership? Was there joy in y'all's relationship? Was he domineering or was he helpful? Was he gracious? Was he sacrificial?
Was he long-suffering? He's going to stand before the king of kings and give an account for. If you belong to Jesus, see what's in this text. If you belong to Jesus, Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. When a husband stands before God and gives an account for his wife, he's giving an account for Christ's body if she belongs to Jesus. He's giving an account for Christ's bride if she belongs to Jesus.
He's giving an account for Christ's daughter if she belongs to Jesus. And let me tell you something. Jesus takes very seriously how his stand-ins act. But the weight of that lands on your husband, not on you. You'll stand before Jesus and you will not give an account for all that happened in your household and all the decisions that were made and all the things. You weren't the head of the house.
You won't give an account for that. You'll give an account for was there gracious submission? Was there respect? How did you carry the weight of the responsibility given to you? Now, if you are a wife, in the play of marriage, you've been cast in the role of church. That's your part.
So you figure out, how do I play the church well? If you're a husband, you've been cast in the role of Jesus. That's just what it is. Jesus in the church. That's our model. That's our this is to that is that is to this.
So when we when we went in and you got cast, you got cast in the role of church. So if you're playing Juliet and the person playing Romeo is terrible. Be the best Juliet. If you start saying his lines for him or mouthing him for him like it's just it just makes it worse. So that's that's kind of the role.
So my son, he dresses up like Captain America, puts his little zipper Captain America thing on, puts his shield on, runs around our house beating me up. He does this all the time. He's pretending to be Captain America and I let him beat me up because I always have to be the bad guy. I'm hoping Thanos whoops Captain America in this new movie. And I'll be like, this is how it works from now on. In my marriage, I'm I'm supposed to dress up and pretend to be Jesus.
Now, Jesus is the savior. When it says he is himself its savior, it's just talking about Jesus in the church. It's saying that Jesus is your savior. Jesus is your hero. Jesus is your hope. It's not saying your husband is.
But your husband's supposed to pretend. He's supposed to put that on. So he's supposed to I'm supposed to ask what are savior things? Where can I try to save my wife? Where can I try to be the hero? Where can I take the beating on her behalf?
Where can I try to be sacrificial? Where can I try to do what's harder and more difficult? Where can I play act to be Jesus? And her role is to say, how do I pretend? How do I put on the church? How does the church respond to Jesus?
How is there joy? How is there gracious submission? How is there some admiration? How is there some what's the response here? That's the role. That's the the call.
Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. I may have I don't know where we are if we've skipped. Yeah, just jump past that, David, and go to the one where it's church submits. Yeah. Should submit in everything. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
That is the posture of a wife in marriage. That's the the goal, the hope, the the obedient way to walk through is that you should submit in everything. Decision making. Decision making. I don't I don't know where the points of contact are in your marriage, but the point is to submit. So I don't know if it's decision making.
I don't know if it's leadership. I don't know if it's what you're doing with the kids. I don't know if it's sex. I don't know if it's money. I don't know. I don't know.
But the answer for biblical counsel, if you say, well, what if my husband? The answer is. You should submit. What if my husband? You should submit. Now.
That's the posture. The question immediately becomes, well, wait a second. What about and you want to pull out some scenario and for hypothetical scenarios. I have a lot more grace and really want to address more the real scenarios than the hypothetical ones. If you were in a situation where submission to your husband becomes, I don't see how I can do this and to be following Jesus. When it says as to the Lord, it means that Jesus is supreme over your husband.
You're submitting to the Lord. Your husband is not Jesus. Your loyalty is to Jesus first. So here's what that means. There are a few places where it seems like the Bible says, not in that. Paul means this is the basic posture.
This is 95% of the time, 95% of the marriages. This is what you do. When your husband calls you to blatantly sin, you can graciously with a posture of submission say no. Your posture doesn't change. You're posture doesn't change. Your tone doesn't change.
They're just places where you say, I can't. You know I'm not trying to fight you on everything. You know I'm not, but I can't. We see this in Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira was a married couple. They both chose to sin.
They both carry the weight of their sin. He doesn't look at Sapphira and say, well, you followed your husband. You're good to go. He says, no, you did this too. So there is an in call to blatant sin.
Your husband says, well, I want us to watch pornography together. I want us to have a threesome. I want you to help me commit. I want you like any, like where he's just saying, you've got to go join me in sin. You've got to, you say no. Now, when your husband is sinning, it's not your job to keep him from sinning.
You can graciously with a pattern of respect, try to point it out. You can try to correct the healthier he is, the better that goes. Sometimes you're in a completely unhealthy situation and you can't. So he's being selfish. He's being rude. He's being sinful.
There are going to be wives who say, okay, okay, but if I hand this over, if I let him do this, we're going to go bankrupt. And the response to that is, I think y'all should go bankrupt. And I hate that. But I want you to stand before Jesus and say, I tried to do what I was supposed to do. And I want you to know that Jesus is going to take care of your husband, hopefully here. Hopefully he corrects him here.
Hopefully he works on him here. But one day your husband will stand before Jesus. And that's the posture. The other one is I don't believe wives have to be in a situation where you accept abuse. I think you can graciously remove yourself from a situation. There are other authorities like laws and police officers.
You can call Lexington County. You can call Richland County. We see you on Live PD. I'll leave my house. I'll come on. You can call church family as a stand-in and say, hey, we're getting close.
I need y'all to show up. I need some guys to come talk to him. I need somebody to be here. I don't feel safe. That's fine. And there's a gracious, respectful way to do that.
It isn't lack of submission. So if your husband says, you just have to deal with this, that's not correct. And I'm sorry. Some of you are in some very difficult situations. And I want you to know that there is grace in the midst of that. That God empowers what he's called us to.
And where the ideal is lacking, grace abounds. So if you're in a situation where this is extremely difficult, you get to lean into Jesus. You get to lean into church family. You get to ask for help. And you get to set as your goal, following Jesus with a posture of submission. All right.
Jump to verse 33. Paul is going to sum this up. He kind of takes this idea. He gives instructions to the husband. He says, love your wives as Christ loves the church. Love your wife the way you love your own body.
Spend your time sacrificing, working to display the church and to make her beautiful. Like to do this with your wife. That's what he says. And then he kind of sums it up and he says, okay. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Okay.
So this is interesting. Wives. Easier to love your husband or to respect your husband? You can answer. Oh, don't. No, no, no.
Never mind. That would be bad. I'm sorry. Don't answer that. You shouted that out next to your husband. I heard his feelings.
It's easier to love for most wives. Husbands a lot of times have a hard time loving their wife. They have a hard time displaying that. They have to be reminded. You should be loving. You should be gentle.
You should care. You should cherish. You should don't. You should like, there's a lot of times husbands have a hard time with that. But wives, like that's, that flows so often.
Even in a situation where everything's terrible, you can still love your husband. But wives will say things like, I love my husband. I just don't respect him. But what's specifically called here is that wives ought to respect their husbands. And here's why. Husbands need, thrive on respect.
They feel loved when they feel respected. It's just a thing. There's a guy who wrote a book called Love and Respect. His name is Dr. Edgar Riches. And I want to show two charts that he has.
But he says this is often what happens in marriage. He calls it the crazy cycle. He says without love, she reacts without respect. So he reacts without love. So she reacts without respect.
Like that's the cycle. That happens in marriage all the time. He's unloving. So she's disrespectful. So he's unloving.
So she's disrespectful. So he's unloving. So she's disrespectful. And so he argues that the energizing cycle for marriage is the opposite of that, which is this. His love motivates her respect, motivates his love, motivates her respect. Now, when we talk to couples, we do what Paul's doing here.
And we just say, wives, do what you're supposed to. Husbands, do what you're supposed to. So that every time a wife wants to say, yeah, but my husband, we just say, can't control him. You got to do what you, you've got to break your side. Side of the cycle. The same thing we do with husbands.
That we will sit down and look at a husband and say, I don't, I don't care. I do not care. I care about you, but I do not care what she's doing because your responsibility does not change. There is no place in the text in Ephesians five that says, but if she makes it really difficult, I wouldn't sweat it. If you feel at that moment, she's unlovable. I wouldn't love her that much.
Like it doesn't do that. And wives, it doesn't do. So here's one of the things you can go to the next slide, but here's one of the things that this guy argues for. And I thought it was helpful. And I'd never thought about this concept before. We read into this passage, unconditional love on the part of the husband.
And all of us are like, absolutely. And he says, okay, unconditional respect. Now there's part of us that's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's how love works. But respect is like an earned thing.
Plus this guy seems like a moron. So like, why would you have to do that? And he says, no, this is how it works. That there's unconditional respect. That's your posture. That's what you're called to.
That there is no, but wait, but wait, hold on. He, this isn't how that works. It's unconditional love, unconditional respect. So if you have a hard time with that, you can ask the question, who do? So like when there's a situation, I would ask, how do I act loving in this situation?
I don't have to go into the room and go, okay, is my wife being really lovable right now? I just have to say, okay, what does love look like? What does sacrifice look like? How do I do this? And so you get to ask, how would I treat someone I respect? How would I talk to this person if they were my boss who I used to love at that old job?
It was great. How would I talk to this person if they were my grandmother who I have supreme amounts of respect for? How would I act respectful in this zone? Okay. So here's what this means.
Wives, you need gracious expectation for your husband. There's gracious expectation. This means that you are believing in, showing respect to your husband. I'm trying to help you have an idea of a picture of what respect means because so often it's easy. Like wives will say, I love my husband. I don't respect him.
Is it okay for your husband to say, I have a lot of respect for my wife. I just don't love her. The same way that that feels is the way that feels to your husband. The same damage that does, the amount of time it would take you to get over that. So you have gracious expectation.
Often wives are saying things like, I'm drowning. I'm carrying the weight of everything. And he just doesn't even care. He just sits there. It's just, like you don't even notice. You don't notice that I'm doing all this.
You don't notice. You don't care. And she's wanting her husband so much to show that he loves and to hop in and begin to carry some weight and begin to lead. But if that is you, let me explain some of what happened. Your husband maybe was sinfully passive. It's also possible, personality wise, he just moves slower than you do.
Thinks slower than you do. He may be sinfully passive. I found a lot of times wives feel like the rabbit in Zootopia when she goes to the DMV and everybody there is a sloth. Like something happens in your house and your husband goes. And you're going, why are you still sitting there? I came up with four plans already.
Three is the best. I'm on it. And here's what happens. Your husband is supposed to carry the weight of being the head of the household. Supposed to carry this weight. It's good for him.
You keep jumping in front of it. You're carrying all of it. And you're turning around looking at him saying, why aren't you doing anything? He doesn't have a problem. None of the weight is bearing down on him. It's bearing down on you.
And also, just for the record, looking at your husband and saying, why are you terrible? Has never motivated him to do anything ever. Move out of the way. Intentionally slow yourself down. And let the weight hit him. Push the weight back to him when he tries to push it to you.
Now, some of you may immediately respond, if I do that, everything will fall apart. That's fine. Everything falling apart is not on you. Respecting and submitting to your husband is. Everything falling apart is on him. And if you actually want him to begin shouldering it and carrying it, let it start falling apart under his rule.
I think he'll step up. He may not. He's got a lot better chance than you doing everything and being mad at him. I have an example of this that I read in a book. It's by Kathy Keller. She's writing this book with her husband.
He planted a church. We quote him all the time. He planted a church in New York. But when they were feeling called to do that, they were living in Pittsburgh. They had a couple of young children. They lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh.
And they loved it. And he started feeling called to move to New York, to downtown, kind of Manhattan area. And so he went to her and said, I think we're supposed to do this. And she said, that sounds like the worst idea you've ever had. So if Jesus told you to do that, he's probably mad at me because that sounds awful.
I don't want to raise, like, why would we raise our boys in the middle of downtown New York? Like, we love where we are. We love, like, this is awful. She says, I don't want to do that. He goes and prays about it, thinks about it for a while. And he comes back and says, okay, if you don't think we should go, then we won't go.
And her response was, oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not pushing the weight of this decision on me. I'm not holding the weight of this. That's not my decision to make. I told you what I thought we'd do, but you've got to lead our family.
She just pushed it right back. So he went and prayed about it. They moved to New York. She actually wrote in that book, in their book, The Meaning of Marriage, she said it was one of the most manly things she and her sons have ever seen him do because it was one of the hardest things for him to do. That's what I'm talking about. So your husband says, well, I don't care.
Just do what you want. And you respond with, no, no, no, no, no. He said, no, just I do what I want, household. That's not how this is going to work. I believe in you. I trust you.
You make a decision. Like, you push it back, and he'll begin to carry the weight of it because he's supposed to. Your husband is a goldfish, just so you know. Not that he has a bad memory. That may be true. He's going to grow to the size of his tank.
If you expect this much out of him, you'll get a little bit less than that. And if you've been expecting this much out of him for a while, and you suddenly just pull back to here, it's going to take him a while to grow to it because he thinks his walls, they're clear, you know. He has to run into them a bunch before he realizes they're there. Maybe he's been running into you a bunch in an area, and he's backed way off, but he's actually supposed to be leading there, so when you back up, he doesn't realize I should be going that direction. It's going to take a while, but he'll grow to it. You're going to get what you expect out of him, and expect is different from demand, just so you know.
You cannot demand your husband to lead. That is you leading and him following. As soon as you make a demand of him, he can no longer lead. You have destroyed it. It's just how it works. Here's what happens.
You say, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this. In order to be a good husband, this is how you have to lead. You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. He now has two options. He can submit to you and follow and not feel masculine at all, or he can sinfully rebel and feel like a great man because he threw off all of your rules and he ran away from his mama. Neither one of those is great.
Often they choose to sinfully rebel. Often they choose to follow, but neither one of them leads to what you're wanting to see and what God designed to happen. Okay. Let the wife see that she respects her husband. You're supposed to see to it. That's your job.
See to it that you respect your husband. Find a way to do it. Figure out what that looks like. Figure out where he feels that. Growing up, I loved the movie Peter Pan. I loved Peter Pan.
He was a boy who flew and fought pirates. Awesome. I'm on board. My grandma made me a little Peter Pan-like thing. I wore it all the time. I had an eyedropper thing.
I was probably for medicine, but it was in the shape enough of a little knife, and I used that all the time to be Peter Pan. Loved Peter Pan. I've gotten older and I have a confession. I don't like this as a confession, but I have. There are times when I'm more like Tinkerbell than Peter Pan. And here's why.
In order for Tinkerbell to do all the stuff she's supposed to do, you have to believe in her. She dies if you don't. She needs someone going, I believe in you. I believe in you. I believe. I believe.
She needs it. And there's so many places where I need my wife going, I believe in you. I believe in you. And it just swells me up. She can come along and say, I don't know why you're so terrible. I don't know why you don't know how to do this.
I don't know why you haven't gotten this together. And at no point has that ever made me, other than spitefully want to prove her wrong, go to the task. Like, I don't know if you know this, ladies. Have you ever watched your husband lose at something? How often do they continue to play that? How often do they continue to do that?
They don't lose long. They either decide, I have enough skill here to get better at it, or they quit. And if you follow them around, telling them they're losing at husbanding, they're losing at parenting, they're losing at everything, that's why they go off to work and they just work 60 hours, because they win at work and people don't talk to them like that. That's why they retreat to the room and play video games, because they're good at that. Nobody stands over top of them and tells them they're terrible. There's a way to have gracious expectation, where you stand next to your husband and go, I believe in you.
I respect you. My wife loves me. She does. She also loves cats. And they're useless. So when she tells me she loves me, I'm like, thank you, baby.
But like, find ways to show respect to your husband. So go to him. Don't just say, you know, I married you because I love you. Go to him and say, you know, I married you because I love you. But that's super difficult sometimes, by the way.
But it wasn't the only reason I married you. I married you because I thought, here's someone who's going to work hard. Here's someone who's going to get after it. Here's someone who's going to carry weight. Here's someone who's going to take a beating on behalf of our family. Here's someone I can hitch my ride to and we'll be fine.
You're not getting in my way of the good life. You're my ticket to the good life. I've put all my chips on you. Watch your husband go, okay. There's just something to it. Figure out the things that he's stressed over, that he's working in.
Figure out how to show respect. Let me give you some examples of where this shows up. I don't know where your husband's tender. I don't know where he needs you to realize he's Tinkerbell. Don't call him Tinkerbell. It's the opposite of what we're talking about.
Don't go, oh yeah, I forgot your Tinkerbell at work. Don't do that. Work is a part of the curse for men. There's a really good chance your husband needs you to encourage him there. Just like parenting and child raising and childbearing is part of the curse for women. I can't look at my wife after she had a baby and go, it didn't seem that difficult.
I don't know why y'all whine about that. I can't come home when she says, man, I've had the worst day and go, oh really? What did Netflix give out? I can't do that. First of all, that's not true. She has really hard days.
I've had to watch those kids. They're the worst. But husbands can't say those kinds of things. But husbands will come home and say, oh my gosh, work is killing me. And their wives will go, really? You answer a phone.
All you do is complain about that job. It's not that hard. I had a job that was way harder than that. Look at your husband and say, do you hate your job? Yeah, I hate it. Thank you.
Thank you for waking up every morning on time and going to a job you hate because you love our family. That's hero stuff. And nobody's clapping for you. Nobody knows, but I notice it. You ought to wear a cape. And let me tell you something else.
If you decide you need to find another Job, I'm with you. You're not going to do anything to wreck this family. You make good decisions. Let me tell you what your husband does. He swells up. I don't know.
I don't know if it's work. I don't know if it's sex. I don't know if it's that he asks you to do stuff with him all the time that you think is stupid and you ought to just say yes and go to Lowe's. I don't know. Just so you know, your husband makes friends doing shoulder-to-shoulder stuff. If he invites you to do a thing with him, he's saying, be my friend.
Your husband does not go meet with his friends just for coffee. Not usually. If he's hanging out with a friend, they're not usually sitting right across from each other, staring at each other's faces. They're looking at other stuff. They go to a place and they talk about what the walls look like. They just, anything that keeps us from not having to look at each other.
And then they're friends. He builds a new deck with his neighbor and then they're best friends. And he says to you, will you go to Lowe's with me? And you say, that sounds dumb. And what he just said was, hey, will you be my friend? I just need you next to me while we do stuff.
Will you take a ride with me? He just wants you sitting next to him so he can talk because staring at your face is difficult. Well, didn't mean it that way, you guys. But sometimes it is when he wants to talk about something real. Does your husband get hurt? Does it turn into an argument every time you talk about money?
There's a good chance that you are just wanting to talk about money and he hears you talking about his value and his ability to lead and his ability to carry weight and his ability to be the head of the family. And you need to figure out a way to be very respectful because if it melts down into a fight every time and you're like, I don't know why this is such a big deal, maybe you fail to understand that you need to approach that with a lot of respect because he needs it. There's a story in 2 Kings chapter 5 of a general named Naaman who's from Syria. He has leprosy. He's told that there's a prophet in Israel so he goes to Israel to meet the prophet.
The prophet does not even come out to talk to him. He just sends his handler person, walks out and says, what do you want? He says, I'm the chief of the armies of Syria and I want to speak to the prophet. And he says, he knew you were coming. He said, go dip yourself in the Jordan River seven times and you won't have leprosy anymore. And the prophet gets very, or not the prophet, Naaman gets very upset.
He turns around to leave to go back to Syria. He tells the people with him, there are better rivers in Syria than the Jordan. And his people with him say, if he had asked you to do something great, if he'd asked you to do something big, if he'd asked you to do something that took strength, would you have done it? You're looking at the Jordan and you're saying, it's not real big. It's not real powerful. It's not real tall.
It's not the smartest. Yeah, as far as rivers go. And you're telling me, just go dip myself in that. Just go, trust you there and you'll do something great. And I think so often for wives, if God had looked at you and said, he's not doing well, take over. If he'd asked you to take the weight of being the head of your family, if he'd asked you to do something great, you would have immediately felt like, yes, this is fitting for my call and you just stepped in.
But what he says is, why don't you just submit and trust me and it's hard to take. But what he's saying is believe. Believe that by obedience, you'll bring about his obedience way more than disobedience will bring about his obedience. And believe that in the midst of this, you're trusting me and not yourself. That you get to take the position of the church, which is Jesus is my savior. So your husband doesn't have to be.
And then you get to walk that out daily, reminding yourself, Jesus is my savior. I take on the part of the church who's already saved, who's already cherished, who's already loved, and who's already walking in obedience with Christ. And then you allow Jesus to work on your husband. Here's what I'd like to happen. Matt and Bianca are gonna come back up here. Here's what I think needs to happen.
I would like for wives to take a minute to prayerfully ask the Holy Spirit, is there anywhere that I'm lacking submission or I'm being disrespectful? In a goal to be obedient to the word of God. Because so often, it's like you're treating your husband like a child and you wanna respond, yeah, he is a child, but that's not what it says. It doesn't say if, it doesn't say but, it says this is your role. Ask the Holy Spirit, where am I doing this? And then I'd like for you to take the time to begin, if you're the person who writes, if you can just think this up, but start thinking about a respect list and where you can tell your husband, I respect you here.
I'm proud of you here. I believe in you here. I'm trusting you here. So you might begin to pour into him what he really needs to hear. So where you are, if you'll take a minute to do that, and if you're not married, realize that your dad runs off of respect, if you have the chance to do that, realize that the men in your life, the guys in your group run off of respect, that there's an appropriate amount of getting to say I respect you, that they appreciate that.
But this is supremely for wives. Called to this in the text. That if they hear from the world, they're a failure. They shouldn't hear it from you. And if there's anybody that can come along and swell them up and put wind in their sails, it's you. That they married you because they wanted you among everyone else to chiefly believe in them.
Do that. And then take communion when you're ready. That's for everybody. Husbands, repent where you need to repent, where you're right now sinfully just frustrated with your wife, or where you have spent some time reading the other part of the text and realize you need to grow, where you've been demanding, or where you've lacked the weight, carrying the weight of headship in your marriage. Take time to repent, and then we'll take communion together. They're going to sing this song.
We're just going to sit, reflect, and pray, and then in a minute, we'll stand and sing together. Thank you for 에�bulus. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Male and Female
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I have two brothers, and we're all married, and our wives were all pregnant this year, so that we were going to have, there was going to be a baby born in January, in March, and in May. And my younger brother, and their family was going to have a little boy. Our family was going to have a little boy, and my older brother was going to have a little girl.
And I grew up in a family with three brothers. My dad's a real intense guy, and honestly, when we first went to have children, people were always like, we just really want a healthy baby. And I'm like, yes, absolutely, we're in the zone right now in our church family where a lot of people are having children, and that is what we pray for. And the Lord willing, that works out, and sometimes it doesn't. And that was absolutely a prayer, but I also was like, I'll just be honest with y'all, like I wanted a boy. Like I just, I'm praying healthy, but I want boys.
And the truth was that Phillips is, we don't know anything about girls. Like we always liked them, but we didn't know anything about them. Like grew up in a situation where it was just like, I didn't know, so we started having a son. I was like, cool, I feel like I got this. Like be mean to him, he'll turn out okay. Like that was my thing.
My wife's been correcting that. But, but, so my brother goes, they're having a little girl, and they just had her, she's a precious little girl. And I went to him, and I was like, yeah, I said, you know, like you've got to develop like a healthy, biblical, godly picture of womanhood in your head so that you can help your daughter grow up. And he looked at me and said, why on earth would you say that to me right now? He's like, is this their first child? He's like, I'm just trying to figure this stuff out.
Why would you, he's like, I'm not like laying awake thinking about that tonight. Like I, you know, and it was just like a, it's the truth that right now we both have little babies and they, they, you know, you expect, I expect, we expect very little out of them right now. It's like, we want you to eat. We want you to sleep. We want you to poop. That's about it.
Like it had been a couple of days and our son hadn't pooped yesterday. We said, Hey man, we set some goals for you. You need to poop today. Like that's, like, that's a goal we have for you. And he crushed it by the way. Uh, and, uh, but that's the truth is that right now what's expected out of little infants is, is the same.
But at some point, as we continue to help them grow with our, my sons, I'm going to have to begin to point them into here's what biblical masculinity is. Here's what healthy biblical manhood looks like. And at some point it's going to diverge from my brothers who both have daughters and they're trying to train them. Here's what you ought to look like in biblical femininity and womanhood. And there's, there's been some pushback on this, that all of this is just cultural, that the idea between femininity and masculinity and manhood and womanhood is just, we're just, we're all the same, but we've just been sold on this.
And I read a study on the BBC. I thought this was really interesting that when they polled men and women to, uh, understand kind of how they view themselves, how they think about themselves, what, what's true about them. Um, and had them, everybody fill this stuff out that, uh, men and women vastly understand themselves very differently that they, when they would answer these questions, it was like, okay, there's a huge gap between, uh, men and women in, in all these areas. And then they did it across the globe. And what they found was that in more traditional societies in Africa and Asia, where they have a more traditional home structure, where they have a less egalitarian society, that women have less freedom, they found that the differences between men and women were actually less that in places where there's a more egalitarian society, where there's more freedom, where women are allowed to have more roles that they actually diverge more so that rather than having a more, a more progressive society.
And we suddenly realize, oh no, men and women are the same. What we've begun to realize is that the more progressive the society, the more we, uh, display the differences between men and women. Now that matters immensely to what we're going to look at today. Grab your Bibles, go to Ephesians chapter five. We're spending a decent amount of time in this one passage because it has a lot to say and it has a lot that we need to hear. Um, and I'll explain why we're going to approach this the way we're going to, um, after we read it.
So let's read it together. It's Ephesians chapter five. It'll be on page 569 in this blue Bible. If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. Um, the, the Bible is the most stolen book in the world, but if you take one with you, it won't be stolen. It's our gift to you.
Take it with you. Um, if you don't own a Bible, we want you to have one. Ephesians chapter five, verse 22 wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife. Even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the words so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.
Well, we'll stop there. I, what, what we could do as we come to this text is it begins with wives submit to your husbands and then it goes to husbands and it gives a very distinct different commands based off of are you male or female? It just draws a line in gender in, in a marriage relationship and says, okay, men, husbands do this. Women, wives do this. And it's just drawn down a biological line. It doesn't say, all right, when y'all get together, figure out who's best at.
It doesn't say take an IQ test, figure out who's smartest. It doesn't say, uh, you know, check out, check out your bench press max and see who can do that. And now y'all can decide, like, it doesn't do that. It just says, uh, you male, all right, you do this or you, okay, do that. And what we could do as we approach this text is we could just read it, say, this is what it says. Let's obey it.
That's fair. That's a perfectly appropriate way to approach the Bible. That's the way my wife approaches the Bible. She's just like, says it. I'm good. I just got to figure out how to do it.
And I love that about her. That's not how I approach the Bible. I approach the Bible and I'm like, it says it and I know I ought to figure out how to do it. But what, but why does it say that though? Like I have this, there's this tension where it's like, I know I ought to follow it, but I got, I got more follow-up questions to try to understand this. It helps me if I understand where it's coming from to follow in a more, uh, to like following a little better.
Now I know I ought to obey and there's sometimes I don't get all the answers I want, but, but I approach it that way. And so rather than just jumping right in and saying, all right, wives, let's talk about how to submit. And then the next week, all right, husbands, let's talk about how to, how to love like Christ loves the church. What we decided was it might be better for us to just investigate this idea of headship in marriage. So it says, verse 23 for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.
This is a concept that was brought up earlier in Ephesians where it says that Christ is the head of the church and the church has been presented to him. Um, and so this idea of headship in marriage drawn on gender lines is something that I think it'd be helpful for us to understand before we try to try to apply it. So what we're going to do today is we're going to try to trace this through the scriptures. We're going to try to understand where headship comes from, why it's drawn on gender lines as best we can. Next week, we're going to talk specifically to wives and, and understanding how to practically, what does it mean?
Submit. What does it mean when it says everything? Does it mean everything? We're going to talk about that. Uh, then the following, we're going to talk directly to husbands and we're going to spend a little bit time doing Q and a and, um, talking to about singleness, uh, and the, and the scriptures. And so if you have questions and hopefully we will, um, and honestly, I don't think I'll answer all of them.
So if you get frustrated, you feel like something was said poorly, uh, give me some grace, but ask some questions. Um, not now don't raise your hand. I won't call on you. I've done that before in a sermon, but we're not doing that anymore. Uh, you can send them in and there's the information will be, uh, we can see it later, uh, where you can send them in and go through our website. Okay.
That got rambly. Let's go. Um, when it, when the Bible talks about headship, it talks about in a couple of different ways. It talks about a preexisting pre-creation headship, a creation ordinance headship. And then it talks about the fall and a redeemed picture of headship. And right now what we see in Ephesians is pointing to the redeemed picture where it says that, that this is supposed to model Christ and the church.
This idea that Jesus loves and redeems the church, how he pursues the church, how the church relates to Christ. And it's pointing to the redeemed picture of headship, but it also talks about a preexistent one and a creation one. So we're going to look at those as well to try to trace this through the scripture. So, um, Corinthians, we're just gonna have it on screen cause it's short Corinthians. Uh, he refers to kind of the creation one and the preexistent one. So he says, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ.
The head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. And so what he's saying is like, you need to understand that some of this comes from how the world works and he ends with the head of Christ is God. So he's saying that God, the father is head of Christ. And I think this is very encouraging and helpful when we try to understand what it means for husbands to be the head of their wife. Okay. Theology quiz time.
Is Jesus better than the father? Has more value than the father? No. Does the father have more value? Is he better than Jesus? Is he greater than Jesus?
No. Philippians tells us that although Christ had equality with God, he didn't see equality as a thing to be grasped, but he submitted himself to God, the father so that Christ lives out a submission to the father's will, not because his value is less, but because he has a, he shows deference to the father and he has a different role. So that when it says that Christ, the head of Christ is God, what it's saying is that this is his existed. This idea, this concept, the way this works in the world has existed in eternity past within the Trinity between God, the father, God, the son, Holy spirit, but that Christ submits to the will of the father.
And then we see in the scriptures that the father uses that to, to lead and then to elevate Christ to a place above everything that Christ is elevated with a name above all names. And so that it's a preexistent picture, but it's also a creation picture. So if you'll see, uh, as he keeps going in this in verses eight and nine, we'll read 11 and 12 as well. Um, verse eight and nine for man was not made from woman. And we're going to read this in Genesis in a second, but woman from man, neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. And that makes sense.
Because if you were going to help a man out, you would create a woman, but if you're going to help a woman out, it just doesn't make sense the other way. All right. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman for as woman was made from man. So man is now born of woman and all things are from God. And so he tempers it. He says that this is the way it was created.
This is the way God designed it in creation. This is the way he, he set it up when he made things. And then he says, but it's not like, don't get cocky. This is, he also set it up to where we're consistently dependent and we're all dependent on God. So he tempers it.
But he does say that headship, this idea comes from creation. So grab your Bibles, go to page one. It'll be Genesis chapter one. We're going to spend a little bit of time in Genesis one, two, and three, and just kind of trace this out. It'll give us some understanding about gender in general. And then we'll apply it to marriage in specific.
So when you read about Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, they were both first man, first woman, as well as first husband, first wife. And so we learn things about marriage and gender from them. Um, and so we, we have to draw some, some conclusions out of their relationship to understand what's applicable where. So we're going to look at, uh, some things about gender in general and some things about, um, marriage in specific. So chapter one, I just want us to look at verse 27 and 28.
Um, chapter one, Genesis chapter one, he kind of, the, the author gives us like an overview of creation. It's a, it's a flyby kind of an understanding of here's how everything was created. And then in Genesis chapter two, it zooms in and gives a more, um, a more intricate picture of how that actually worked. So rather than just kind of saying, here's how it works, it zooms in a little bit. But Genesis chapter one says this.
So God created man, uh, and that word includes, um, both male and female. So it could be humanity. It's the way we use man. Sometimes we're talking about like mankind. So God created man in his own image and the image of God.
He created him male and female. He created them. So what it's telling us in Genesis one is that God, a kind of the sixth day of creation creates male and female. And it says, and God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So God takes man and woman.
He creates them. And then he says, y'all have a co reign over the earth that both male and female were made in God's image that anybody would try to take the Bible and say that somehow man is better than woman or somehow woman is better than man that gets its legs cut out from under it in chapter one of Genesis, that they were made both in the image of God and both called to have dominion over the earth, to co reign together, to subdue the earth. And then chapter two gives us a zoomed in picture of this. So if you look at chapter two, we're going to start in 13. And as we go, we'll pull out some pictures, some understanding of some things about masculinity, some things about femininity, but again, trying to understand this idea of headship and a little bit of why it's drawn on gender lines.
So the Lord God took the man. So he made the man first, took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now, as far as we know in the text, that's the only time God says that. So he says it specifically to the man.
And then when later, when Eve comes on the scene, we're to assume the man was supposed to have explained that and to lead in that well. But he takes the man, he puts him in a garden. And so he has a garden in Eden. And then he's kind of commanded that humanity together is to make the rest of the world look like the garden, to subdue it, to conquer, to slowly grow and to make the rest of the world beautiful. And he says that the man is to work and to keep it. And that's a small, helpful understanding of some of the call on masculinity.
Men are supposed to work. They're supposed to defend, to keep, to shield, to guard, to protect, and they're supposed to cultivate. So he's putting a garden and he's supposed to make it better. But that's a call on masculinity. To work, to defend, to keep, and to cultivate. If you're trying to understand a biblical picture of masculinity, it does not give us a lot of specific things.
It gives us general pictures. I think one of the ways, if you're a guy and you're trying to understand this, I think 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1 are good examples of what the call on masculinity is because that's the call to eldership, which is a male office in the church. And it says, here's how to do that. Here's how to walk in that. And that's a helpful because it includes things like gentleness, which if I was writing out things about manhood, that wouldn't have made my list. Like I put aggressiveness on a list of manhood, but I wouldn't put gentleness.
And then the Bible corrects me. It says no gentleness and don't be argumentative and don't be fighting for fighting sake. And you can't be, uh, the Bible says not a striker, which means don't punch people. And it's like, okay, I'll take the correction. Like help me out here in trying to understand. But like, one of the things I'm doing with my son is trying to figure out what are things that are true about Jesus?
What are things that are true about God? Then they need to be like, I can say you ought to be kind. You ought to be gentle. One of the things I have to say to my son is I don't just say, don't cry or stop crying on my good days. Some days I do. Stop it.
One of the things I try to say to him is, hey, there are good things to cry about. This isn't one of them. There are things that are perfectly fine for you to cry about. Um, when we were going to go see Black Panther together and it was sold out, I just let him cry a little bit. I was like, that's sad, man. That's sad.
When, when we're at the house and I tell him to turn the TV off and he wants to cry, it's like, bro, you can't be crying about that. Like there are things to cry about. The TV turning off isn't one of them. Like understanding that there are, there's a biblical picture for masculinity, but it's general. It doesn't tell us things like, um, should know how to, I was watching the middle the other day and he was talking to his son. He said, there's six things every man needs to know how to do.
You know how to kick down the door. You need to know how to open a bottle without a bottle opener. Like he, he had this list. You need to learn how to whistle with your fingers. That list isn't in the Bible. Like there's not six things.
Well, that's going to be a bad if it gets away from me here. It's not six things, uh, that are specific to manhood as much as a general picture of the call. Then it says this, then the Lord God said, this is verse 18. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. We're going to define that in a second.
Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. And in Hebrew understanding that helps show the man's authority over creation. The man gave names to all the livestock and all the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs, closed up the place from the flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and he brought her to the man. Okay. So he says, I need to make a helper fit for him. And then it just pauses. And he says, all right, let's name all the animals.
So he says, it's not good that you're alone. And just guys understand that was the first thing that was said about masculinity. Like this is mint conditioned manhood. He's as rugged and as manly and as designed. I mean, God formed him with his hands. And then God looks at him, sets him in the garden, gives him some instructions, watches him and says, nope.
This isn't going to work. And that's not just a comment on men in specific, like every man has to have a wife. That's a comment on masculinity and the call to, to subdue and lead the earth that masculinity needs femininity for the world to work properly. So then he says, I've got to make something that works. I've got to make something that helps him. And it's not the word helper is the, is the Bible word Ezer.
It is most often used to talk about God. So Psalm 33, 20 says, our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. Psalm 75 says, I am poor and needy. Hasten to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer.
O Lord, do not delay. Yesterday I was working on my car and Archer was being my little helper. And I gave him like a flashlight to hold and point where in the middle of the day, I just needed him to have something in his hands so that he would quit. Like he got a hammer and just started hitting stuff. And it was like, no, no, like here, hold this. And he's like, I need a better flashlight because he's sharp and could tell this wasn't shining on anything.
That's not what it means. He didn't look at man and go, you know what you need? It's a cute little helper. Someone make your sandwiches while you're doing stuff. Like that's not what he's doing. That's not what the word means.
It means a ferocious help. The help is a fine word. We've made it a little bit diminutive. We've made it a little bit short, but it's a ferocious help. It's like reinforcements. It's used that way in the Bible that these people were about to lose the battle and God and like they sent in reinforcements and then they won.
It's used of God. Now that's helpful for us to understand because the primary call is given to man. He's placed there first. He's given the call. He's told to do these things. And then God said this, you will be insufficient, but there is an amount of headship of leadership given to the man in this relationship.
And then he says, no, but this is incomplete and it won't work properly. The word fit. Some of you, uh, maybe it says I'll make your helper meet for him. If you have an older translation, um, the word actually translates into like opposite. I'll make something that's like him, but that's opposite him. And that's actually like God designed men and women to be different.
It would make zero sense if he just meant there needs to be four hands on this. No, he meant I need something different from this. He can only see a certain way. He's only going to approach this a certain way. I need something different. Uh, there's, um, I got a few quotes.
I thought were interesting. This is from the Stanford, uh, medicine. Let me read this first. This was a, it was a, uh, a feminist. Um, her name is Carol Gilligan. And she was one of the first people that began to kind of push back on the all men and women are the same stuff.
She was like, no. And, and isn't that helpful for feminists to step in that they wrongly say, no, they rightly say we're different. And then they wrongly say in women are better. And it's like, well, no, maybe at some things, sure. Not at all things. That's not how it's designed to work.
We're supposed to be different and we're supposed to be distinct from one another. It makes sense that God would not make them at the exact same. He made them distinct so that they can compliment one another. But she comes along in her book and a different voice. She says, one of the things that you see from very early on is that men think they are growing. They understand growth as becoming independent, separating attachment.
He says that most women, and this is all generalization, but most women consider themselves growing when they become attached. The more attachments they make, the more that connections they make, the more dependent they become and more people become dependent on them, the more they feel like they've grown. She says this starts very early on. There was an article from Stanford Medicine. I'm going to read a quote and then there's a quote inside of that. It says, social psychologists and sociologists poo-pooed the notion of any fundamental cognitive differences between male and female humans.
Halpern, a professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College, in her preface to her first edition, Halpern wrote, at the time it seemed clear to me that any between-sex differences in thinking abilities were due to socialization practices, artifacts and mistakes in the research and bias and prejudice. She's saying, I approached this and was like, the only reason anybody says women are like this, men are like this, is because they've got bad research or they've been socialized to believe that. After reviewing a pile of journal articles that stood several feet high and numerous books and chapters that dwarfed the stack of journal articles, I changed my mind. She says, the more research I did, the more I realized, no, they're made different.
And we get that from Genesis 2. That God designed femininity, womanhood, to be distinct from manhood. That he had a plan. There's a lot of, she had a list. I want to read this quickly. I thought this was helpful.
She said, these findings have all been replicated. Women excel in several measures of verbal ability. Pretty much all of them. Except for verbal analogies. Women's reading comprehension and writing ability consistently exceed that of men. On average.
They outperform men in tests of fine motor coordination and perceptual speed. They're more adept at retrieving information from long-term memory. Some of you are like, that sounds really true. Men, on average, can more easily juggle items in working memory. They have superior visuospatial skills. They're better at visualizing what happens when a complicated two or three dimensional shape is rotated in space.
They're good at correctly determining angles from the horizontal and at tracking moving objects and at aiming projectiles. I got to the end and I was like, yeah! Like, I see an airplane, I can shoot it with a missile. All right. I don't get to do that, but that'd be awesome. But there's all kinds of stuff.
They started realizing these differences between masculinity and femininity, between males and females, happened like they gave monkeys toys. And they realized that baby monkeys and monkeys do the same thing that baby humans do. Females, for the most part, like soft toys. Both monkeys and humans. Males like toys with wheels. Like, they would automatically separate and start doing stuff differently.
They found out there was a difference in the way infants react to things. That males most likely like moving things and females are most drawn to faces. And then she was like, and this continues, that males like objects and moving things. That distracts them. And females pay attention to faces. One of the things in here I thought was really interesting, they did brain scans on males and females and they made them remember something that was an emotional experience.
And they looked at their brains and the men's memory section lit up. And the emotion section didn't do much. And when they had females remember the same thing, their memory section and their emotion section lit back up. They felt the same stuff. Guys, if you've ever been in an argument with a female and she got re-mad over something that happened 12 years ago. The other thing they found was that when they had males and females sit and listen to noises and they listened to music and they saw how they reacted and then listened to white noise and they saw how they reacted, females responded the same to music as they did to white noise.
Males heard the music and pretty quickly ceased to hear the white noise. There's something about the male brain, they said, that is able to turn off unwanted acoustic stimuli. This is why I'll be sitting at my house and my wife will go, check. And I'll go, what? And she'll go, answer your son. And I'll realize he's been standing at my feet going, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy.
He became unwanted acoustic stimuli. God designed men and women differently on purpose in order to complement one another. It's in us. Every single one of your cells. You can take a cell from any part of the body and it's stamped with either two X chromosomes or an X and a Y chromosome. That my wife's heart is a female heart.
It's XX on everything. And my heart is a male heart. XY on everything. Does it do the same thing? Yes. But God has placed it in us down to our courts.
Not that he just swapped out reproductive organs. It's that we are distinct on purpose. And so God designing this the way he did. Realizing that masculinity on its own. And this is creation wide. Not just in marriage, but creation wide.
Masculinity on its own would be incomplete. And designed femininity on purpose to complement that well. And then cut them loose to subdue and rule in the world. And this was beautiful. And it worked amazingly for like this much of the Bible. Oh, sorry.
I did that too big. This much of the Bible. Chapter 3. We have the fall. And that's where humanity rebels against God. And this gets broken.
This beautiful complementary design gets broken. And it's simple. The idea of complementary just means they go well together. They pair well together. It's like, you ever have a great pizza with a wonderful glass of chocolate milk? No.
You know how gross that was? Just to hear? Like my son drinks milk with everything. And I'm like, I'm not trying to talk you out of it. Milk's good. But bro, that's gross.
Like you just aren't doing this right. Like the idea that they go well together. They're meant to complement one another. And that's the way he designed this. And then this gets broken. It goes from being the appropriate things to drink with Italian food.
And this is a church. I'm not going to talk about it a whole lot. But just the appropriate things to drink with Italian food. And now we're all drinking chocolate milk with our Italian food. That's all I'm saying. It messes it up.
So here's what happens. A serpent comes in and she... The serpent begins to talk to Eve. And he tricks her, deceives her into rebelling against God. There was one tree that Adam and Eve weren't supposed to mess with. Adam's told this.
It was to assume he should have coached Eve up, led well in this. If God told her specifically, we don't see that in the text. And she eats the fruit. And she... Then it says she handed the fruit to her husband who was with her.
And so immediately all of us should have been like, what? Like he was just here. She's talking to a snake. He didn't... Like there's no teamwork here. He just was waiting to see how it shook out.
Then God shows up. When they do this, this is sin. Because God told them not to. And so now, rather than following his good lead, they decided we know what's best. They rebel against him. This is how all sin enters the world.
God shows up. He calls out to Adam. Again, we would see that there's a little bit of weight placed on the leadership of Adam. The headship of Adam. That this is already written into creation. That he's placing the weight there.
And he calls out to him. And he says, what happened? And Adam says, the woman that you gave me. She gave me the fruit of the tree. And I ate it. So Adam does what men begin to do immediately after the fall.
God, I'm pretty sure this is your fault and her fault. I was just there. It was her. And I don't want to say anything. Because I thought she was great when I first met her. She seems kind of defective.
Like you didn't do this right. Because you made her. I didn't... I was just pulling that out. So God curses the serpent.
He curses the woman. And he curses the man. He basically says, here's what's going to happen now. Because of this. To the woman he said. Verse 16.
I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. This is true. Like I said, my wife and I, she just gave birth. But he's about two months old.
We were in there. And she would say stuff like, I'm in a lot of pain. And the nurse would go, great. That's what's supposed to happen. She would say, I feel like I'm going to throw up. And she'd be like, oh, it's wonderful.
That means we're progressing. She was like, I'm starting to shake. My hands aren't working. She's like, great. The new mom shakes. And it was like, what can she say that's wrong here?
Like, you just are excited. And she actually looked at us at one point and said, this is the only place. Where nausea and blood and pain and shake. Like all the bad things are good here. And I was like, man, that curse wasn't playing around. And it doesn't matter how you go about having a baby.
And it doesn't matter if you have children or don't have children. And it doesn't matter. It's this for women is a pain area. Children as they grow. Children if you decided not to have children. If you can't have children.
Like this is a pain area. This is took something that was going to be beautiful and it's cursed. Then he says, your desire shall be contrary to your husband. But he shall rule over you. Some of your versions are going to say your desire shall be against your husband. Some of your versions are going to say your desire shall be for your husband.
It's kind of complex in how you read it in the Hebrew. And translators have to make different decisions. But one of the things that helps us understand what he's saying here is chapter 4, verse 7. Where God is talking to Cain. And he says, sin's desire is for you. Or sin's desire is contrary to you.
And you must rule over it. So it's the exact same, I mean, stroke by stroke phrase in the Hebrew. And so what he's saying is that sin wants to own you, rule you, harm you, destroy you. And you have to fight it. You have to have dominion over it. And so this good, beautiful, complimentary relationship that was going to happen in marriage and in humanity, he says, no, it's broken now.
That your desire is going to be contrary to your husband and he shall rule over you. And this happens between the sexes in life and it happens between husband and wife. And then to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife. And there he doesn't mean don't listen to your wife. Like I can't quote this to Anna and be like, I'm not going to be like Adam. I ain't trying to listen to you.
Like it, it's not what he means. Because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten the tree of which I commanded you. What he's saying is you didn't listen to me. You didn't follow me. You followed her. And you didn't lead.
You just, you just, you were just there. And you just tagged along. And you just completely abdicated what you were supposed to do. And rather than following me, you followed her. And rather than leading. And that's what he's saying when he starts off.
Because you listen to the voice of your wife. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. And you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.
For out of it you were taken. I read that with a weird. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken. For you are dust.
And to dust you shall return. So death enters and work becomes toil. What was going to be good. He put him in the garden to work. And it was good work. It was like you know how work can be good.
Where things just work out. And they're nice. And you can look and say look at how good. That's the way work was going to be. And he says now you're just going to sweat. And it's going to be awful.
The ground is going to fight you. And men have you seen that? When you finally are like I'm going to do what God wants me to do. And I'm going to work. And I'm going to get up early. And I'm going to read my Bible.
And I'm going to leave my family. And I'm going to. It fights you. It is not easy. It will be done by the sweat of your face. Okay.
We have the pre-existent version. That beautifully happens between the father and the son. We have that woven into creation. When God says I want them to be different. And to show deference to one another. Equal in value.
Equal in worth. Both made in my image. Both needed to display what I'm like to the world. But I want there to be deference here. So he makes the man first.
He brings the woman from him. Paul tells us later that that helps us see. Why there's a weight placed on the man. And a level of headship in marriage. Now. In marriage.
Single people. That's not men to women. There is a distinct call on masculinity. And there's a distinct call on femininity. But masculine manhood does not include headship to womanhood.
Headship is only brought into marriage. So it's not like you're in your group discussing something. And you and some guy disagree. And he looks at you and says. Hey. I think you did just submit to me.
I'm a man. Get your Bible out. Pop him in the face with it. So let's go text bro. Like. That's not.
It's not man to woman. And. If you are single. Men. This does not. You're not incomplete.
Without a woman. This is masculinity and femininity on a grand scale. It's perfectly fine to want to get married. But get your stuff together. Get a job. Start carrying weight.
Men were designed to carry weight. One of the. My favorite sayings. I heard somebody say one time. Is that men are like trucks. They drive straighter with a load.
That you're designed to carry weight. Women. Single women. You're not waiting around all shucks. For a man to show up. So you have something to do.
You've been given. A call. To co-rule. And subdue. The earth. And there's one thing that's.
Designed. Innate in femininity. It's to see where things are broken. And begin to help. To see. This is why women lead so many organizations.
Where they just come along. And they go. Uh. The. There's a whole gap here. Where nobody's paying attention.
And nobody's making this better. And nobody's at work here. And they just go to work. And it's beautiful. It's a ferocious work. Also.
Learn your Bibles. Learn theology. I heard a pastor say. That's one of the best ways. To spray on boy repellent. You don't want boys hanging around.
Know your Bible. It'll scare them. Men will like it. Boys will run. Maybe they'll grow up. Come back knowing their Bible.
After you popped them in the face of yours. This was supposed to work. And be beautiful. And in some ways. This still shows up. That I feel like this shows up in my life.
Where God looked and said. No. Like. Chet needs Anna. For this to work out well. He needs her at work.
For him to. To. To help this. For him to receive. And to follow the way he's supposed to. That we're designed to work together.
There's so many places. Where she has just kind of posted up. And been like. This isn't okay. You're not thinking about that right. That's not biblical.
And just helped me grow. And just. I mean. Ferociously. Been a part of. Our family being healthy.
In so many beautiful ways. But it is broken. That this. Way this was supposed to work. Where. Men were supposed to lovingly.
Sacrificially lead. Carry weight. And women were supposed to be. A ferocious help. But we're told.
In scripture now. With a spirit of submission. In marriage. This is. We're talking specifically. To husbands.
Wives. There's a spirit of submission. With a ferocious. Labor. And men were supposed to lovingly. Sacrificially.
Head. Their families. Lead. Their families. That it's broken. That we were designed.
Men. Husbands. We were designed. To think of our wives first. The other day. My wife's mom was with us.
She had just had surgery. My wife was running out. To get her a sandwich. She was going to pick up sandwiches. Like you want a sandwich? I said no.
I don't want a sandwich. And then I thought. Well the sandwich shop. Is right next to. The pizza place. So I just called.
And ordered myself a pizza. And I called my wife. And said hey. I ordered a pizza. Will you go pick it up? And she said oh good.
In that moment. I realized. She wanted pizza. Pizza over a sandwich. But I completely.
Just ordered what I wanted. Not what she would have wanted. I didn't even. Like she didn't even exist. Other than the person. To pick up my pizza.
Y'all. Like this was. And I just was like. She said what? I was like. Well you're not really going to like that pizza.
I already paid for it. So. So ordered two pizzas. That's not how it's supposed to work. But there's something broken.
That I don't think of her first. That I don't just elevate her. That I don't sacrifice. That so many times. It just doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Let me tell you.
So if men were supposed to. As we take the two pictures. From Ephesians. And Genesis. If men were supposed to carry weight. To work.
To labor. To tend. To protect. To lead. With. Sacrificial.
Love. That's what we're told. In Ephesians chapter 5. Flip back to Ephesians. We'll spend the rest of our time there. With sacrificial.
Love. That Jesus begins to redeem this picture for us. So that Ephesians chapter 5. 25. Says husbands. Love your wives.
As Christ loved the church. And gave himself up for her. If that's what men were supposed to do. Let me show you how this goes wrong. In both directions. You will have men.
That just move into the. Complete. Curse of the fall. They carry weight. They work. And they rule.
They don't lead. They have dominion. They dominate. They oppress. They maybe use their stature. Both in the world.
Financially. Or their stature. Physically. To completely dominate. There's no love. There's no sacrifice.
It's just machismo. They just flex. Because it's broken. Or. You have men. Who completely.
Take on the sin of Adam. And abdicate. Maybe they're loving. And maybe they hide behind the idea of sacrifice. But they're not working.
They're not serving. Let me show you some ways. This is the guy who won't get a job. Lives in his parents basement. Can't find the right Job. Just.
It's easier just to not. You know. That didn't really work. He's not carrying weight. This is the husband. Who consistently just says to his wife.
Well if you care about it. You do it. You make that decision. He just punts on everything. She can just hold the bag for everything. If.
If that was a bad decision. She can deal with it. That'll be on her. When they disagree. If she disagrees. Rather than saying.
This is what I think is best. And leading. Even though it's more difficult. He just says. Well you just do it. Just whatever.
And they'll say stuff like. I just can't wait till this falls apart. So she can see I was right. It's like. Bro. That's abdication.
It's not sacrifice. You're holding her out. So that she can take a beating. So that you can then show that you. They were called to both. A sacrificial leadership.
We're going to spend. Oh. In two weeks. We're going to spend time. I'm just talking about. How does that look?
How do we do that? Women. If there's supposed to be. A ferocious labor. A ferocious help. Seeing what's broken.
And going to work. And complete complimenting. Where it's falling apart. And this will look different. All over the spectrum. But if there's supposed to be that.
With a spirit of gentleness. A spirit of submissiveness. Because there's headship. And you're deferring. Not weaker than. Not smaller.
Not lesser in value. But deferring. Let me show you how this goes wrong. You'll see women. Completely shift into. Submissiveness.
They're not going to say anything. They're not going to do anything. Just going to hang out. Let the man do his thing. You'll see them know. That their husband.
Or their boyfriend. Or whoever is making a huge mistake. They don't help. See my wife helps me. By saying. You know that's dumb.
Right? She doesn't say. You know you're dumb. That's helpful too. She says. You know.
That's dumb. Right? Y'all aren't doing. Like you. Yeah. Have you thought about.
Like. Hmm. She asks questions. She's gracious. On her good days. Hey.
I just was thinking. Maybe you hadn't. Like. Have you thought about this thing? Because what you about to do stupid. She doesn't just blow in.
And try to blow me up. She. But they just don't help. Just complete. Rob. Rob the world.
Rob their friends. Rob their company. Rob their husband. Of all that God poured in them. To be complimentary. And ferocious.
Or. It's just the curse. You're just contrary. Everything within your power. To undercut. To control.
To manipulate. You got different tools. At your. At your. Expense. Like there's.
Earlier it said. That women. Excel. In everything verbal. Except for analogies. So maybe when you're.
Just completely destroying. A man verbally. You're really hard to say. And you're also. Your face is like a dog. It's like I don't know.
Maybe you have a hard time. With that part. But everything else works. You will see. Women do this. In conversation.
Their husband will start to talk. And they'll lean. Look at them. And then give the verbal equivalent. If my wife began to speak. And I walked right over.
And just popped her on the face. And said be quiet. It's the verbal equivalent of that. You'll see men shrivel. My wife has more ability. To suck the life out of me.
Than anybody ever. And she has more ability. To put wind in my sail. And make me think. I could go tackle. A freight train.
Than anybody ever. My wife pumps me up. Primes me up in the morning. I could walk out. And I just will. What world.
You want something. And if she follows me around. Just cutting. And taking away. I'll shrink. And you'll see women.
That do everything. In their power. And maybe some of them are bigger. Maybe some of them are dominating. Maybe some of them. I got an aunt.
She can flex on you. She can put you down. A lot of them can't. But my wife weighs 100 pounds. And she can cut me down like that. But by God's grace.
She doesn't. You're meant to be here. With a spirit of gentleness. And an unwillingness. To not help. I'm in this.
I'm a part of this. This is going to be better. Because I'm here. And because God's gifted me. And because God's poured. His work in me.
Now. Real quick. Why? The Bible doesn't tell us. The Bible doesn't give us a real clear. Here's why men.
Here's why women. That's why it gets so convoluted. Where people are like. You know. Guys want to be like. Well I guess because men are better.
It's like. Bro. That's not in the text. But why? We don't know. But what we do know.
What I do know. Is that I need the Holy Spirit. At work in me. That's where Paul starts. This in Ephesians. Where he says.
Walk in the spirit. And he walks through this. I need the Holy Spirit. At work in me. To actually be able to do this. I can.
I can dominate. Without the spirit. And I can abdicate. Without the spirit. But I can't sacrificially lead.
Without Jesus. At work in me. And I'm assuming. I've never been a woman. But I'm assuming.
That's how that works over here. That you can just sit. Throw your hands up. And watch men do stupid stuff. Or you can manipulate. And control.
And do everything you possibly can. To reign. But. To submit. And help. To serve with gentleness.
And to be in it. You need the Holy Spirit at work. Last thing is this. When we do this. Men carry a weight. That is necessary.
For their growth. And females have a freedom. That helps them flourish. And it's beautiful. When you see this work. In a marriage relationship.
Where husbands and wives. Walk this out. And it displays. Ephesians 5 tells us. Christ. And the church.
That people see Jesus. In a way they couldn't otherwise. My wife and I. Do not know how to dance. We can middle school dance. We're married.
We can get a little closer. You know. We made up a random dance. That was just like. We just memorized some stupid moves. So that we could do something dumb.
And then get off the. Off the floor. But like. I don't know how to like. Do all this mess. And like the steps.
And I. You know. When we try to dance. I step on her. But have you ever seen people.
Who know how to dance. Dance. It's captivating. I think this is actually one of the things. That TV's messed us up on. People used to get together and dance.
And they had to learn stuff. All we do is like the cha-cha slide. And the electric slide. Which is just line dancing. Because they're like. Stomp.
Spin around. Wave your hands. We're all like. We're dancing. It's like you're following instructions. And some of y'all.
Not really. That's me. I can't even follow the instructions. That's like. Watch Matt. We go to weddings.
I got to watch. See what Matt Freeman's doing. And I do that. And when I spin around. If I'm on the end. It's over with y'all.
If there's nobody here. I don't even know what to do. I don't know what the cha-cha is. But if you've ever seen people. Who know how to dance. Dance.
It's beautiful. Somebody leads. Somebody follows. But you can't even really tell. It just works. And that's what this is supposed to look like.
There's supposed to be leadership. There's supposed to be submission. But when it works right. It's just beautiful. And everything's put on display. And what we're told is that Jesus shines through it.
The band's going to come back up. Our goal over the next couple weeks. Is just to try to figure out how to do that. How to dance well. How to dance well when your partner's defective. How to put Christ on display when it's difficult.
How to put Christ on display as you work together to do that. That's our goal in the next couple weeks. Send in as many questions as you have. We're going to try to study this text. And see how we can learn to walk in obedience. In a way that displays Jesus.
And displays his love for the church. To a watching world. With something that they don't have. Let's pray. God we ask that you would empower. The single females in our church.
To not abdicate their role. To make everything around them better. We pray that none of us would undercut their position. Or somehow communicate that they have less value. We pray that single men in our church. Would begin to carry weight.
Wouldn't just be male. But would be men. That honor and display. The glory that you've placed in them. As you've made them image bearers. We pray that we'd work well together on that.
We pray that you'd bless the marriages in our church. That we might dance in a way. That displays the glory of the cross. Help us grow in this. Be repentant. And open to following you.
In Jesus name. Amen.
Marriage and The Gospel
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Imagine with me, if you will, for just a second that you are married. You've been married for six months to like a year, year and a half. And, you know, going into getting married, you just you just you're just so excited.
And it was just so special. And there was just so many butterflies and unicorns and rainbows and everything was sprinkles and skittles. And it was just going to be amazing. Let's say six months, year and a half. It turns out it wasn't exactly how you had pictured in your head. And and not that it was bad, just that it was just that sometimes it was and that it was a lot harder than you thought it was going to be.
And that like your night and shining armor, his armor wasn't as shiny. And it turns out there were whole sections of it that were just cardboard that had been spray painted like it wasn't even like that. And maybe she wasn't quite exactly, you know, just like you like you liked how like how she could carry a conversation. You just didn't know that she could always carry a conversation 24 seven and always wanted to. Like there were just some things, just some some stuff that made it hard, started being difficult. And it started being.
And here's what happens in that in that season, six months, year and a half that kind of continues. And it just is not exactly how you picture it. It's not exactly what you thought it would be. And it and there are seasons that are just excruciating and some that are good. And what happens is you start to have to answer the question. You start asking the question whether you know it or not.
And you start having to answer the question whether you're intending to or not. But you start asking and answering the question. What is the point of marriage? And the harder it gets and the more difficult it is and the more painful it is and the the more excruciating the season, the more you have to answer that question, whether you're intention tending to ask it or not. I don't think many of us would go sit in a room and get a journal out and say, OK. And right at the top of it, what's the point of marriage?
I'm just going to try to reflect on this. But you you you begin to ask that you begin to kind of wonder what what's another way to say that is you start asking the question. What is a good marriage? What what makes a marriage good? What makes a marriage successful? You start having to kind of answer that question, questions you didn't really think about before.
Maybe maybe offhandedly, but you just kind of you just had never really had a season. What what's the point? What makes it good? You see, you start talking to your your community group during this time when things are when things are frustrating, things are hard and they listen. They're sympathetic. They listen to you.
Mostly, sometimes they hop in and they're all like, have you thought about your own sin? You're like, shut up, Carol. I'm in the middle of talking. Did you not just hear what I said about him? But mostly they're sympathetic, but there's a whole this kind of their general gist.
Their tone is like, yeah, that's what marriage is like. You're going to be OK. And they kind of just gather around you, just kind of almost feel like, you know, when middle schoolers would fight and they'd form a ring and they just kept pushing you back in there. That's a little bit what your group feels like. You start talking to maybe some friends from high school you've been friends with for a really long time and their tone's a little different. They're sympathetic as well.
But maybe their attitude in general is. If it works for you, good. And if it's not working. You're not stuck. Life's short. Get out.
Both of them would say they're on your team and they're for you. But you're having to answer this question of what's the point of marriage? What makes it good? I want to ask you that for just a second. Just think about that. What makes a good marriage?
I think some people would answer. It lasts. That's that's an answer. That a good marriage is one that hits 50 years, 60 years. Maybe that's what our what your grandmother would say. So when you stick with.
OK, so the follow up question is, OK, if is it a good marriage if it lasts, but you're miserable. Is a good marriage just one where you're happy? Is it is it where both people are happy or just where you're happy? What what makes it successful? If if you would say that any marriage that ends in a divorce. Isn't successful.
But you you might would also say that a marriage where they're unhappy. Isn't isn't a good one. Isn't it successful marriage? Now you've got a tension that you've set up that maybe you don't realize you have two different answers to the same question. You see, for for us, we're entering into a season where we're going to study Ephesians chapter five. If you want to grab your Bibles and turn there.
We're going to be talking about marriage. We're talking about what the Bible says about marriage. Specifically what Paul says in his letter to the church in Ephesus about marriage. About what husbands are supposed to do, what wives are supposed to do, what marriage is supposed to look like. And we've got to begin by asking this big picture question. What's the point of marriage?
How do you know it's good? What makes it good? Collectively as a culture, we're asking and answering this question right now. According to the CDC, they keep up with statistics on these kind of things because they're always kind of gauging health in different areas. According to the CDC, we have the lowest marriage rate since they started keeping up with this in 1870. The statistics that we have in 1870, we have the lowest marriage rate.
Now, we still have a lot of marriages because we have more people than we had in 1870. But we have the lowest rate, meaning percentage of the population, more and more people are just saying, what's the point? Why would we even do this? You have the idea now that marriage is outdated, that it doesn't work for women or it doesn't work for men, that monogamy is outdated. Or that if we do marriage, if we're going to get married, then it just needs to be what works for you, what makes you happy. And then we can, if it's not working, you know, divorce should be easy, accessible, cheap.
Tim Keller in his book on marriage says that there are kind of two currently two competing views in our culture about what marriage is about, what the point is and how to view it. And he said one of them is kind of the traditional view. And it's been mostly pushed by Catholics and Protestants with a little bit different flavor on it. But he says the traditional view is basically this. Marriage is a social good. It benefits society.
It's good for men. It's good for women. It's good for children. It's good for the economy, which statistically that holds true. It's good for health. It's good for men and women's health.
It's good for economic structure and stability. It's good for children. Like in any kind of thing that we can, he says that's kind of the traditional view is that it's good, that marriage is a good, but it's not just beneficial to society, but that it actually is good in and of itself. It exists as an institution. It is good. And so that marriage exists above us to that we submit ourselves to it.
So he says the purpose of marriage was to create a framework for lifelong devotion and love between a husband and a wife. It was a solemn bond designed to help each party subordinate individual impulses and interests in favor of the relationship. To be a sacrament of God's love, that was a Catholic emphasis, or to serve the common good, that was the Protestant emphasis. But it worked to build a binding partnership. But marriage exists above us so that if it's not working for us, we stick with it.
That we subvert, we submit our own good to it. That's kind of the traditional view. He says that the new version is kind of the understanding that marriage is good. It exists below us. It's good if I like it. It's good if it's working well for me.
He quotes Tara Parker Pope, who's a New York Times columnist, and her column, her article was, The happy marriage is the me marriage. It says, The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn't marriage supposed to be about pursuing the relationship first? Not anymore. For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself. But in modern relationships, people are looking for a partnership, and they want partners who make their lives more interesting, who help each of them attain their value goals.
So the new understanding, the new push is that, no, it's a me. Like, if it works for me, then it works. Then it's good. But if it doesn't, it's kind of marriage is below. It's a tool that's helpful, and if it works, and that's where you have the idea. People will say, like, we had a good marriage.
It was a good marriage. We're not married anymore. But it was a good one. It was good while we had it. It was good while it lasted, but no longer. And they won't argue that they had failed or that it was unsuccessful or that it wasn't good.
It just doesn't exist anymore. They've stepped away. They've moved on. They went in different directions. But in order for us to be able to study this, for us to be able to understand marriage, and for us to be able to view it correctly, we kind of have to answer the question of what's the point?
Why do we have it? Why does the Bible teach it? Why does the Bible have it? Why does God stand behind it and say this is how this ought to work? We've got to ask kind of the big picture question. And I want to let you know that this is important for you regardless of your current marital situation.
We'll start with married people because they seem to be the easiest people to address when you're talking about marriage. You need help. Okay? Did y'all get that? All right.
If you're married, you need some help. We need to think about this well. We need to view this well. We need to understand how this works. And we need to have a framework to move from. And to have a foundation to understand how we ought to respond, how we ought to act, how we ought to treat our marriage.
He's going to give specific coaching, which will be helpful. But we need to have a framework to start from. If you are single, there are a couple of reasons that this is beneficial. If you're single but you used to be married and for whatever reason at this point you're single, hopefully during this series as we spend the next little bit studying this one section, hopefully the Lord will use it to bring some healing, some clarity, some helpfulness in kind of walking through what it was meant to be and how it was supposed to work and what it could have looked like. So if you're single, regardless of the reason for being single, this is helpful for several reasons.
One is just practically the way we kind of form ourselves in community groups is that we don't just do married groups and single groups, but we have single people with married people. And single people, you need to understand the point of marriage for two reasons. One is, well, it's one, just listen, I've messed that up, but it's okay. It's one reason with two things behind it. So that you can be helpful to the married people in your group.
You can serve them well, you can love them well by saying helpful things. Not saying stupid things, which single people do. Many people say stupid things too, but single people, a lot of times, they'll just say stupid things to married people. Not saying stupid, unhelpful things. Also, not just thinking, well, I'm not married, so I can't say anything. Because that's not true.
That's not the biblical model that we have. We have truth. Paul's unmarried, but he gives really helpful things here. Jesus is unmarried, but he has really helpful things to say so that we might all understand what it ought to look like, so that we might all point towards the ideal together. Married people, trust the Holy Spirit in single people and listen to them. Don't believe the false American idea that if you aren't in the situation I'm in, you can't talk to me.
Because that's not true, and it's not helpful, and you miss out on a lot of good, helpful encouragement and correction. And if they say ridiculous things, correct them in return, and they'll grow, and it'll be helpful. Don't just nod and go, hmm, and move on. Hopefully, so here's kind of how this is going to work. We're going to talk about the big main point today. Next week, we're going to talk about gender, because we have to understand how the Bible treats gender before we get into specific things that the Bible says to men and women, because culturally, it's really hard for us to hear some of the stuff it's about to say.
And then we're going to talk about wives. Then we're going to talk about husbands. Then we're going to talk about singleness. And we're going to do Q and A. So throughout this whole series, if you have any questions, we have all set up online on our website, millcitycolumbia.com, slash questions.
Or if you go to the home page, there's just a little button that says submit a question. You can put your name on it, or you can submit it anonymously. But we're going to do some Q and A, either the last week of the series or the last two weeks of the series, just depending on how many questions we get, and try to really kind of discuss what the Bible says. Because we're only going to be studying Ephesians here. So if there are other questions that you have, we would love to be able to give a more well-rounded view of things.
I'm going to pray, and then we're going to start reading Ephesians. God, we thank you that you train us, that you correct us, that you help us. And we pray that through this next few weeks as we study this section, that you would grow us to understand the beauty of marriage, and that you would practically help equip us to serve married couples well, and to be married well. Today, I pray that you'd help us to see the beauty of the gospel in relation to marriage. In Jesus' name, amen. So what I think we're going to see as we study today is that the point of marriage, the goal behind marriage, the purpose of marriage is actually bigger than just marriage exists and is good, so submit yourself to it.
And it's bigger than marriage is helpful if it makes you happy, but if it doesn't, you can be done with it. It's actually bigger and more beautiful, and that the answer gives a better good. That as we actually study this, we get to reach a better version of good and what a good marriage is. Now, as we read this next section, in Ephesians chapter 5, he's going to say some things that I think are hard for us to hear, and we'll see. We're kind of asking what's the point of marriage, and so he's going to give specific practical coaching, explanations of what wives do, of roles, what men do, what women do.
And I think in a lot of this, this is one of the passages that people quote when they want to say, look at how crazy the Bible is. Look at how outdated it is. So I'm just going to give emphasis to the offensive parts as we read through this, in case you can't pick up on it. Verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. How'd that sound? Harsh? Painful? Husbands were like, oh, that didn't sound terrible. Husbands, love your wives.
At first glance, that's like, that sounds good. Like, that doesn't sound too difficult. As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. It got harder, you guys. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Look back at verse 31.
And this is where we'll spend, 31 and 32 is where we'll spend the bulk of our time today, because it's where Paul kind of gives us the key of what he's talking about here. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery, the word there in the Greek is mystery. It's also secret, like it's used back and forth, and so it kind of goes together. It's the mystery, but it's also the explanation of it. So it's this secret, this mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and to the church.
Okay, so what Paul just did there was kind of crazy. He went all the way back to Genesis. He took the original statement that's given when God brings Adam and Eve together. He took the original statement that for this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and he'll hold fast to his wife, and the two will become flesh. He took that original marriage and said from that moment on into the future, all of that was meant to point to Christ and the church. What he said was that this was just a picture of that marriage as it exists in the world is just a picture of.
It just refers to, if you look at any marriage, it has a little number next to it. Any marriage has a little one in the corner, a little two in the corner, a little three, a little 35, a little 72. And if you go to the bottom, it will refer to the whole work. It will refer to the whole book, and that is Christ and his pursuit and love for the church, that each marriage has been footnoted as a pointing to. It's just referring to Christ and the church. Now, we understand this in other things, so let me give you a few examples.
Humans are made in the image of God. We think things are funny because God thinks things are funny. We get angry because God gets angry. Now, we don't do it all in the right places. We think some things are funny that God doesn't think are funny, and we get angry about things that God doesn't get angry about. And there are things that we should get angry about that we don't get angry about.
We've got all kinds of problems, but we have personality because God does. We reason and think and have logic because God does. We're made in his image. He existed first, and everything that we have comes out of that. And what he's saying is that this marriage is a cosmic reality between Jesus and all those whom he would redeem, and that every other marriage just refers back to it. It's tapping into this cosmic reality.
And every other marriage is just pointing to what God was ultimately going to do. Because here's what happened. In the beginning, prior to us sinning and falling, God preplanned that he would rescue and redeem a people for himself. And then he does, and the Bible begins with a little picture of a marriage between Adam and Eve, and it ends with the bride being brought to her husband, where God in Christ claims the church for himself. So that this marriage, this cataclysmic cosmic marriage, runs through the whole story of the Bible, and it's woven through history in that when we get married, it's just a small picture pointing to the gospel.
So the point of marriage is to point to, to refer to, Jesus and his love for the church. And that makes an immense difference. I have, ever since I was little, liked doing impersonations. Most of them are not very good. Some of them are worse. But I enjoy them.
I like doing impersonations. So I, like I do Arnold Schwarzenegger. Get to the chopper! We've got to get these people in! I love, in one of those movies, people grab him, in the middle of, like, he's walking underneath this thing. He's attacked by, like, four men, and he doesn't just fight back.
He says, what did I do wrong? Like, obviously, these people are taking him to the principal's office. Like, it doesn't make any sense. But I, like, I do Sean Connery. So, give me a second. I'm Sean Connery.
And I only ever do movies with women half my age. And I was so excited when the new Batman came out. Because Bane is just a Sean Connery impersonation. With, like, an echo and weird noises. So all you have to do is, like, cup your mouth and be Sean Connery.
So all you have to say is, They expect one of us on the plane, brother. And then you just go, For no reason at different times. The one I've done the most, And that has been most requested. But it looks, It's a better impersonation when I'm clean shaven and about 20 pounds lighter. But I'm going to go ahead and do it today.
It's Carl Childers from Sling Blade. So. What you got in there? Just good to eat. Today we're going to be talking about marriage. Some folks calls it a contract.
Bible calls it a covenant. Now. Here's the thing about that impersonation. If you have never seen Sling Blade, That was super weird. And that's the way marriage works for Christians. If you don't know the gospel, What we believe about marriage is super weird.
I had a friend ask me one time at Sears. He said, Hey man, You got, I'm about to get married. Do you have any marriage advice? And I said, Yes. Tons of it. A little bit too much.
But, I'm going to have to tell you about Jesus first. Otherwise, You're going to think I'm crazy. If I can't tell you about Jesus, If I can't explain how he loves the church, If I can't talk to you about how the church relates to Christ, If I can't explain that, If I can't point to this bigger, More beautiful picture, All the things I'm going to say about marriage sound crazy. It'll look like a Sling Blade impersonation If you've never seen the movie Sling Blade. So that one's actually pretty good.
But I always have to be like, Have you seen this first? And they're like, No. It's like, Well, I'm not doing it. Because you're just going to, This will be completely, This just won't work. And that's what we have to do here. We have to say, No, We've got to look at this first.
We've got to have this bigger picture. We've got to know what we're basing it off of In order for us to be able to understand What it ought to look like. We need a bigger picture. The truth is, Everybody has a picture of what marriage should look like. You don't know this, But you have it. You have a picture of what a husband should do And what a wife should do.
We always, In premarital counseling, We always try to get people to say, I'll ask a bunch of questions. I just ask questions like, Who does dishes? Who cooks? If the car's broken, What happens? Because everybody already has this picture They've developed in their mind Based off of the relationships they've seen on TV Or the ones that they're close to About what should happen in a marriage. And you realize, Six months in, Because here's what happens.
A guy grows up, His dad gets up in the morning, Early, Goes to work, Works like crazy, Comes home, Walks in, Kicks muddy boots off, Sits on the couch, Watches television, And crushed it as a husband. That was what he was supposed to do. Mom stayed home, She cooked, She cleaned, She kept the house right, When he walked in, Food was ready, And they loved each other, It was a good marriage. This guy grows up, He sees this, And he goes, Okay, I know what a husband does. He gets married to a lovely young lady, Whose family didn't look like that at all. Both parents worked, It's like the Huxtables, One was a doctor, One was a lawyer, They would do take out, Someone would bring food home, They swapped off on chores, They were a team, Somebody cleaned the house every two weeks, They paid to come in.
Lovely marriage, They loved each other, It worked out really well. This young man, Goes to work, Works like a dog, Comes home, Walks in the house, Kicks his boots off, Walks over, Kicks his recliner back, Pops a drink open, Turns the television on, And his wife, Who has not prepared supper yet, Because why would she do that? She also worked to this day, Is suddenly like, What are you doing? And he's like, Crushing it, What the heck are you doing? I went to work, I scored like, 1400 points for the marriage today, I was going to let you catch up, You work part time, So you got like, 700 points, You got 700 to make up, Before you go to bed, Like go cook something, Like this is what happens, And they don't realize it, They get in this huge argument, And they don't realize it, But what she's saying is, Why are you husbanding wrong?
And he's saying, Why are you wifing wrong? And the truth is, We all need a bigger, Better picture to look at, So that we can know, What this should look like. Before we get into, All these little particulars, Before we start talking about, How this plays out, We got to see the big, Beautiful picture, And then we can work from there, So what Paul says is, Marriage, All marriages, Whether you like it or not, Because marriage is written, Into something that's eternal, Marriage, Is based off of, How.
Jesus, Loves, Pursues, Sacrifices, Saves, His bride, And presents her, Beautiful, To the world, To himself, And how the church, Lovingly, Responds, That's what marriage, Is based off of, It's based off of, Christ, And his relationship, To the church, So as we finish up today, Because that's true, What I want to do, Is we're going to read back through, And we're going to focus on, The beautiful parts, Of what Jesus does for the church, We're going to go through, Kind of quickly.
And then we're just going to talk about, Some implications of this, That if this is true, If marriage is really, Based off of the gospel, What does that mean, For marriage and for us, We're going to talk about, Some implications, And then over the next few weeks, We'll get, We'll dive in, And get more and more, Into particulars, Wives, Submit to your own husbands, As to the Lord, For the husband is head of the wife, Even as Christ, Is head of the church, What we said, What we saw earlier in Ephesians, With that the church, Was presented to Christ, That he's the head, He presents himself, Back to the church, That they would belong together.
That they would be united together, That when it says, That he's the head of the church, It's this beautiful, Loving, Connected picture, He's the head of the church, His body, And is himself, Its savior, Now as the church, Submits to Christ, So also wives, Should submit in everything, To their husbands, Husbands, Love your wives, As Christ, Loved the church, And gave himself up for her, This sacrificial, Humble, Devotion, To claim the church, And to make the church beautiful, That he might sanctify her, Having cleansed her, By washing of the water, With the word.
So that he might present, The church to himself, In splendor, Without spot, Or wrinkle, Or any such thing, That she might be holy, And without blemish, In the same way, Husbands should love their wives, As their own bodies, He who loves his wife, Loves himself, This is referring back, To where it says, That the church is Christ's body, So when he says, Love him the way you love your own body, He's saying, Because that's how it works, He who loves his wife, Loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, But nourishes it, And cherishes it, Just as Christ, Does the church, You see that picture, Of what Jesus does with the church, That he nourishes, And cherishes, And he fills us up, He takes care of us, And then he just, Enjoys us, Because we're members of his body, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, And hold fast to his wife, And the two shall become one flesh, That picture is both, It's a sexual picture, As.
Well as like a covenantal picture, That they would completely belong to one another, They would completely devote everything to one another, That they would forsake all others, And then he says, This mystery is profound, And I'm saying, That it refers to Christ, And the church, So that marriage, All marriages, First and foremost, Point to Jesus, And his loving sacrifice, On behalf of his bride, And the church's loving response, So, I want to just walk through, What are implications of this, There are seven, We'll move quickly, And they won't have all the same amount of time.
But I just, Seven implications that I think are helpful for us to think about, As we go into, Marriage being about Christ and the church, That we would understand some of the implications, What that means for us, Number one is that the foundation, Of your marriage is secure, That if marriage is about Christ and the church, Then it's not just based off the fact, That it's a good institution, It's not just based off the fact, That we're enjoying it, Or that it's good.
For us, But that it's pointing to something eternal, So that in the middle of it being really hard, Or in the middle of a season, Where it's very difficult, Or when you have a lot of doubt and frustration, That the foundation hasn't shifted, Because it was always pointing to Christ, It was always based off of how he loves, And pursues his church, And how the church responds, That one of the things, That we have a slight picture of this in, Is parenting, That.
When you're a parent, It's not based off of what you get out of it, We kind of collectively as a society, Agree to that, The parenting isn't like a 50-50 agreement, That it's your job to sacrifice, And serve your child, That it's not based off of what you get out of it, I was talking to a friend recently, Who moved from one house to another, And changed roommates, And we were asking him how his roommates were, And he was just talking about how that was going, And I told him I had a new roommate, I've got a two month old, And I was like, My new roommate's awful, He's either asleep, Or he's got a.
Bottle in his hand, He yells at everybody, Stinks up the whole house, He has a terrible attitude, Won't make eye contact when I'm talking, Wakes us up in the middle of the night, He's just a terrible roommate, Now that's a crazy thing to say about a two month old, Because that's not how that works, Like he, We just owe him all this stuff, And he owes us nothing, And it's a terrible agreement that we made with him, The day he was born.
But that's how it works, And so marriage, Works in a similar fashion, Where it's, It's you're in it, Because it ultimately points to something bigger, And better, And it's not based off of, The goodness of it right now, Isn't based off of, How good is it right now? The value of it, Isn't based off of, How's it working?
Isn't based off of, How's it working? What am I getting out of it? It's secure, It's based, In something bigger, And more beautiful, Secondly, Because marriage is to reflect, Christ's relationship to the church, The picture of marriage is fixed, It's set, It does not change, It does not change, It does not change, It does not change, It does not change, This is why Christians, Hold to a very rigid, Definition, Of marriage, That it's, It's the picture that God gave us, It's one man,
One woman, Covenanting for life, Together, And that's it, That's what we hold to, You can't, It's about Christ, Who is distinct, And separate from the church, Joining the church, And making something beautiful, Together with the church, So that we argue that it's, No, It's, Anything outside of this realm, Is, It's because we're, It's a paint by Numbers, We have one set thing, That we're going off of, So that cohabitating isn't the same, Because there's no commitment, There's no covenant,
There's no, It's too easily, Stepped out of, That a same sex marriage, Is not, Is not the same, It does not qualify, Because God is separate from us, Christ is separate and distinct from us, That there's just a fixed picture, That we're working for, That it's a lifelong commitment, This is one of the reasons, Why divorce, Whether you believe this or not, This truth about marriage, Being given to us from God, To reflect Christ in the church, It's one of the reasons, Why divorce is so painful, And so scarring, So emotionally difficult, Is because when we get married, We are tapping into,
Something that is eternal, And we are, When we are divorced, We are rending that picture, Because we believe, That no matter what, It's based off of this, Good marriage, Between Christ and his people, Thirdly, If marriage is to reflect, Christ's relationship to the church, It means that, Marriage is good, But it is not essential, To a good life, This means that you can go, Your whole life, And never be married, Or that you can have been married, At one point, And no longer be married, And you're okay, That Christ redeems,
That he fixes, That he works, In the midst of that brokenness, And, That you don't miss out, On the best part, Which is the thing, That all other marriages, Are pointing to, Marriage is an appetizer, It's good, Like when you go somewhere, Like a blooming onion is good, Get the steak though, Like if you, This is, This is Christians, Married, Married people in the room, Quit acting like, Everyone single around you, Has to get married, That is not true, That's not helpful to them,
They're not incomplete, If they have Jesus, They are fine, Act like your, Non-Christian friends, Are way more incomplete, Than you act like, Your unmarried friends are, Swap that in your brain, Start working on that, That relationship, With somebody, Because they're not, You can go your whole life, And never be married, And be fine, And it's good to desire marriage, It's fine, But if, If we both worked on a ship together, It was one of those beautiful ones, With all the rigging, And all the cool stuff, And you had to know how to tie,
Like 37 different knots, And when I went home at night, I also had, Little model ships, That I put in a jar, Cool ones, With the little rigging, And all the little tiny knots, And like I figured out how to put it in there, And then set it all up, If I had those, And I really liked them, That's great, But they remind me, Of the big ship that I work on, And all the cool things, That have happened there, And they remind me of, Being out in all the, The really good thing, But if you work on that ship with me, I don't need to try to convince you, That you have to have ships in a bottle, At your house,
You got the big one, You're good, So marriage is good, But it's a small picture, Of the ultimately good thing, So if you are unmarried, You're okay, You haven't missed out, And Jesus is better, Fourthly, Sex is a reflection, Of the joy, Found in the gospel, So Paul says, This picture, That is a sexual picture, He says, It's not just a sexual picture, It's a covenantal picture, But it's also a sexual picture, And he says, That they too, Would become one flesh, And then he says,
This is about Christ, And the church, And the Bible repeatedly, Collectively, Continually says, That sex is designed, To exist inside of, A covenantal marriage relationship, And it is a covenantal good, Meaning that it represents, The good, Joyous, Beautiful things, That you get, Out of a real relationship, With Jesus, That it's a small picture, Of the ultimate joy, That we would have, This is another reason, Why Christians are real rigid, On their definition, Of where this is okay, Simple,
But we're rigid, Inside of marriage, You go for it, Outside of marriage, Nope, That's it, That's Christians approach, To that, Because we believe, That it points to, The ultimate good joy, That's found, In God, In Christ's relationship, With the church, That's a celebration, Of that, So here's a few things, That that means, Shouldn't be taken lightly, Shouldn't be taken out of context, In a marriage relationship, It is not to be bartered, Or earned,
Used as a tool, To get what you want, It's not the reward, At the end of it, It's none of that, Because it's, It's about the joyous relationship, Between Christ and the church, And once Christ claims his bride, They belong to one another, And it's celebratory, It's kind of like, We treat sex oddly, In our culture, We kind of act like, You should have all the sex, Before you get married, Because once you get married, You won't anymore, And that's such a broken picture, Of what that's supposed to be, And it's a little bit like, When people say, I want to drink and party,
And celebrate now, And then I'll become a Christian later, Because I know, Once I go to heaven, I'll be super bored, It's like, You have the most messed up, Picture of heaven, You know it's really good, Right? You know they have wine, But none of the, Like they have all the good stuff, But none of the effects of sin, So there's like, There's like alcohol, But no abuse of it, There's like carbohydrates, But no calories, Like I don't know how it works, But it's going to be really good, And that's similar, To what this is supposed to be, That sex is supposed to be,
A covenantal good, That is celebrated, And enjoyed, Because it's based off, Of this beautiful picture, That we have, In Christ, And his love for the church, Fifthly, Jesus, Is the power, For a healthy marriage, Because it's ultimately, Based off of the gospel, That in order for you, To have a healthy marriage, A good, Joyous, Long lasting one, In the midst of difficulty, And pain, In the midst of harm, In the midst of trouble, Is that you would relate,
To Jesus first, I am not saying, That people who are not Christians, Can't have a good marriage, I don't believe that's true, I believe that marriage, Was given to all of creation, That people who aren't Christians, Should get married, Do get married, Do have good marriages, I just believe, That for it to ultimately, Look the way it's supposed to, Jesus is who empowers us, To live this the way, It ought to be lived, That when it's exhausting, And when it's hard, That we get to be filled up, By Jesus, If my wife, Needs to have all of her, Relationship approval,
Come from me, If she needs me, To rescue her, And redeem her, And build her up, And make her whole, She's going to be, Very disappointed, And being married to me, Is going to be really hard, Being married to her, Is going to be very difficult, Because I won't be able to sin, I won't be able to confess, I won't be able to fail, But if she loves Jesus, Relates to him, Stilled up by him, And I just get to be the sinner, That she's married to, Which gives her a lot of freedom, And it gives me a lot of freedom, And that Jesus is ultimately, The power for your marriage,
To look the way it ought to, Six, If, If marriage is based off, Of Christ's relationship, To the church, If it refers to that, If it points to that, If it comes from that, Then it can be beautiful, Even when it's ugly, If marriage is simply, To exist, For our own enjoyment, And good, Then as soon as it turns bad, As soon as it is hard, As soon as we're hurting, It's over, There's no more good, It's failed, It's broken, We can't have any good out of it, But if it's meant to point to Christ,
And his love for the church, And the church's response to him, Then you can be in the middle, Of a very painful marriage, And doesn't make it not very painful, But you can be in the middle, Of a very painful marriage, And still reflect the gospel, In a beautiful way, Because what we believe about the gospel, Is that Jesus, Did his beautiful work for the church, On a cross, That God took what was most scarring, Most damaging, Most painful, Most hideous, And flipped it, To redeem us, And bring about beauty, And good, And salvation, And hope, And that in the middle of a marriage,
That's very, Very difficult, Sometimes hard to even wake up in the morning, And hard to fall asleep at night, That you get to represent the gospel, In such a glorious way, Through sacrifice, Through love, Through showing that you get what is good, From Christ, And not from everything else, That you get what is good from Christ, And not just in your circumstances, That you get to display him, In a way, That you would not be able to otherwise display him, And lastly, You can have a good marriage, Empowered by the spirit, That if marriage is ultimately about Christ, And if we know him first, And we see that picture first, And we base everything off of that, Then we can,
Empowered by the holy spirit, Actually have a really good marriage, You can have a good marriage, Empowered by the spirit, Where wives humbly, Graciously submit, To the loving, Sacrificial leadership, Of their husbands, And anywhere and everywhere, That this happens, It's beautiful, I'm going to say that again, You can have a good marriage, Empowered by the spirit, While wives humbly, Graciously submit, To the loving, Sacrificial leadership, Of their husbands, Now for some of us, Even as we, As I said that, And as we read that,
We bristled a little bit, It's hard to hear, You've seen it done poorly, It's one of the things, That make us want to say, Yeah I can tell the bible, Was written 2000 years ago, And I would just invite you, If that's the case, To spend the next couple weeks, With us, Studying this together, And trusting that God, Did author this book, That it is for our good, And that there's a lot of hope, And joy to be found, In what it teaches about marriage, And for everybody in this room today, Where marriage is good, Where it's difficult, Where it's a painful subject, Where you have a lot of baggage, A lot of pain,
A lot of hurt, We have a lot of hope, Or a lot of dashed hopes, I pray that you would find, That everything you've ever placed on marriage, And everything that's ever been broken, Has been set right in the gospel, That there is a better husband, And there is a better bride, And there is a more beautiful thing, That we're invited into, A more beautiful covenant, A more beautiful marriage, That is offered to us through Christ, And his sacrifice for us, A man's going to come back up, Matt and Raz are, We're going to finish up today, By taking communion together, Which is where we celebrate, That Jesus, His body was broken for us, So we take bread, And we break it,
And we partake in it, And that his blood was shed for us, So that we take wine or juice, And we dip the bread in, And take it, And we're going to celebrate that together, And as we do it, I would invite you to take the next few minutes, As Matt's going to play the piano for us, For us to just think about, Christ's love for us, His sacrifice for us, The hope that we have in the gospel, That we might repent, Of our sin where we need to, And that we might celebrate well, That our hope for marriage, Our hope for life, Our hope for goodness, And joy is found in Jesus, And Jesus alone, And His work done on the cross, And everything else comes after that, So he's going to play for a minute,
We can sit, We can pray, Would encourage you, If you need to be reminded, About how much Jesus loves you, And how good He is, To read back through that section, We read today, To remind yourself, That you're a part of the bride, If you belong to Jesus, And that He loves you that way, That He sacrificed for you that way, That He nourishes and cherishes you, That way, And if you're not a Christian, We would ask that you refrain, From taking communion, As we take it together, Collectively in a moment, That you would just stay where you are, You won't offend us, By staying seated, And we believe that communion,
Is for Christians, Those who have placed faith in Christ, If you are not a Christian, But want to be, You can place faith in Christ right now, Trust Him with your sin, Because He does love, And welcome all those, Who would repent and come to Him, Let's pray, God we thank you, That the gospel is good news, For all of life, And specifically as we talked about marriage today, We pray that in these next moments, That we would see more clearly, Your beautiful sacrificial love, For your church, And that we would honor and celebrate you well, As we take communion together, In Jesus name, Amen, Amen. Amen.
Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. And today's going to be a little bit different than normal. So if you want to grab your Bibles and go to Ephesians, we are jumping right into studying the Scriptures together.
If this is your first time hanging out with us, this is not what we usually do. But we have a reason why we are going about it this way. And if you're part of our church family and this is the first time you ever showed up on time, this is not what we usually do. But we're going about it different for a reason today. We do want to take a second just to welcome you and to tell you that if this is your first time that we gather on Sundays here, we study the Scriptures together, we sing songs, which is a good bit of what we'll talk about today. And we scatter throughout the week into community groups where we try to walk in everyday life as Christians in relationship with one another.
Seeing what it looks like to follow Jesus with all of our normal everyday life. What it looks like to be a Christian at work. What it looks like to be a Christian in your neighborhood association. What it looks like to be a Christian who coaches t-ball. That we walk in life together. And so we do that because we believe that Jesus is better than everything else.
And that he's commissioned his church, sent his church into the world to display that to the world. And so we try to walk actively in repentance and in openness and in sharing the gospel with others so that they might see that Jesus is better than everything else. With our hope being that your neighbor that is not a Christian right now will one day be a Christian. That you'll be a part in baptizing them. That we'll get to lay hands on them and commission them as group leaders. That our hope being that your husband or wife that currently wants nothing to do with Jesus will one day co-lead a group with you.
Or will one day be baptized by you as they place faith in Jesus. And so that's why we go out of our way to do all the things that we're doing. A couple of bonuses for today that are just going to be fun is that since it's daylight saving time, we're just really throwing everybody off. Because people are going to be showing up late anyway and really confused about what time it is. And so we'll be in the middle of a sermon early. And that'll be fun.
Luckily for y'all, I will see them come in and I'm not easily distracted. So here's what we're going to do. If you've got your Bibles, be in Ephesians 5. Today's going to look different. This is why. We're going to study the passage first.
We're going to study the text first. And then we're going to sing second. So usually we sing first. And then we study the Word. And the reason why we do that is it's practical and it's theological. That there's history behind why we, when we gather, we're going to sing first.
We're going to pray first. We're going to kind of prepare our hearts for studying God's Word. That we believe that He speaks to us and that we respond to what He says. And that's why if you go to any church, 95, 98% of the time, they're going to follow a similar approach. There's going to be some songs. There's going to be some liturgy.
Some Bible reading. Some churches will light candles. But there's this kind of a buildup to the proclamation of the Word. And then there's a response through song or through communion. And today we flip that because what we're studying is some of the reason behind and some of the power behind singing. Some of the reason behind and some of the power behind us reading the Scriptures together.
And so we want to begin here and then go into actively practicing singing together, reading together, and doing some of the things that we normally do. So what will happen is we'll study through this a little bit. The band will come back up. I will walk down. We'll sing a little bit. Then I'll walk back up and explain something else.
Then we'll sing some more. Then I'll go and it'll be back and forth for a little while for the rest of the day. So if you've got your Bibles, Ephesians 5, starting in verse 15. Picking up where we left off last week. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. But be filled with the Spirit. Addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Let's pray. God, we ask that as we study your word today and as we respond to your word in singing, in reading scripture aloud together, that your spirit would fill us. And that we would know what it feels like to walk in the spirit and that we would grow collectively together as a church to do that. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, verse 15.
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. So Paul says, look carefully how you walk. And multiple times throughout Ephesians he said, walk this way. Walk in unity, walk in holiness, walk in a life that displays the gospel. He's called us to walk and he just said, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
And now he says, look carefully how you walk. And I like that he uses the term walk because it's helpful in thinking about how life works. Because when you're walking, you don't really feel like you're getting anywhere. There's a children's book I read with my son who's three and it talks about these little animals. It's a Dr. Seuss book and I don't remember what they're called because they're all called made up things.
And it's like these things go from left to right. Day and night they go from left to right. And then it says something like, they walk from near to far. I would never walk. I would take a car. And like I resonate with that part of the children's book.
Because it's like, yes, why would you walk anywhere when you have access to a car? But that's kind of our attitude which is like I have places to be, stuff to do. I want to get there quickly. And the truth is walking is a good example of life. That's even why we'll talk about people from all walks of life. But there's this idea that you don't really seem like you're moving.
But over time you absolutely get somewhere. There was a documentary filmmaker named Arthur Hitchcock who in 2011 walked from Long Beach, California to Augusta, Maine. And it took him 175 days. Now you can fly that distance in a handful of hours. But he walked it in 175 days.
And the truth is that's how life works. You won't look that much different tomorrow than you do today. You won't look that much different in a week. Your attitudes, your relationships. But a year from now, you will.
Two years from now, you will. Three years from now, four years from now. That we're always moving in some form, some direction. We're always changing in some way. And some of you even think like, no, there were times where I didn't change at all. It's like, okay, sure.
You in middle school didn't grow from sixth grade to eighth grade. But by eighth grade you were shorter. Because everyone else grew. That's kind of how it works. That we have this idea that I can stay the same. But the truth is we can't.
That we actually, there's no way to, we're always moving in some direction or other. And that's why he says, look carefully how you walk. Pay attention to your life, is what he's saying. Pay attention to what you're doing with your time. He says, look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise.
Making the best use of the time. Because the days are evil. I read an article a while back. And I couldn't find it this morning to actually tell you what the name of the article is. But it talked about if you knew the real cost of a click.
So when someone sends you a link to like a YouTube video. And they're like, check this out. If you knew right before you press the button to watch a two minute video. That you would then watch YouTube videos for 45 minutes. Like if there was a thing that popped up and said. Because you're like, oh yeah, I got two minutes.
And if it popped up and said, are you willing to donate 45 minutes to YouTube? You'd be like, no. But we do this all the time. That if you and you went to check just one thing on Facebook. If right before you clicked it just popped up and said, are you willing to spend the next hour and a half on Facebook? He'd be like, I'm not going to know.
Why would I do that? And he said, if you just knew when you clicked on an article. When you clicked into something. How long it would take. And the truth is life's like that. It's not just our time on the internet.
Although that's a good example. But that for so much of our time. So much of our energy is spent in unwise endeavors. Where we've just wasted time. And the older we get. The more we pay attention to that.
And the more you begin to ask questions like. What am I going to do with the rest of my time? What's the rest of my life going to look like? As people go into retirement. A lot of times they start asking this question of like. What have I done?
Who am I? And then as they get older and older. They start asking. What kind of legacy have I left? What's going to be remembered of how I spent my time? The only time you think about time like that.
Is when you're young. And it's the end of summer. And you're like. Where did it go? I wasted my whole summer. But the older you get.
The more you start looking at your whole life that way. And sometimes it feels like we've just clicked. And clicked. And clicked. Until we've wasted our time. And poured our time into things that don't matter.
And Paul says. Look carefully. Pay attention. To how you're walking. Making the best use of the time. Because the days are evil.
And I like that he says. Because the days are evil. And I think we're helped today. Because we started daylight saving time. And y'all all agree. Today felt evil.
Like it fought you this morning. You woke up. And the day was like. Back in bed son. Like you. It was just a hard.
Like it felt like that. And it's a good example of what life is like. Because the truth is. You don't accidentally do healthy things. Very. Very.
Rarely. Have you ever just been eating. And been like. Wait. This is kale. I like kale.
That's never happened. You've accidentally eaten four quesadillas from Taco Bell. But you've never accidentally had kale chips. Like you. There's no. We don't accidentally exercise.
We don't accidentally set our schedule well. We don't. We can only really accidentally fall into unhealthiness. We can only really accidentally fall into wasting our time. You never are like. You know what.
I wasn't paying attention. But this year. I read four theology books. It's like. No. You watched through all the seasons of Parks and Rec twice.
That's what you accidentally did. Like. So. Our schedules fight us. The days are evil. And we have to work hard to walk in wisdom.
We have to actually pay attention to what we're doing. And so Paul's going to give us two direct ways to do this. He's going to give us two ways to think about this. To be helpful in this command. In walking wisely. And paying attention to your schedule.
Seventeen. Therefore. Do not be foolish. So he's just said. Don't be unwise. Be wise.
And so the opposite of wisdom is. Is foolishness. And so he says. Don't be foolish. But. Understand.
What the will of the Lord. Is. So the first step. To walking in wisdom. Is walking with. The Lord.
First step. To walking in wisdom. To paying careful attention to our time. To making the best use of our time. Is knowing the Lord. And knowing his will.
That's the only way you know his will. Is you know him. He's revealed himself in his scriptures. And in his son. Christ. And Christ is revealed to us.
Through the scriptures. And so we. Learn his will. Through his word. And it takes time. And it takes effort.
And it takes energy. But that's the first step. To walking in wisdom. To ceasing to be a fool. Is to knowing. And learning.
God's will. It's not what we would think his will would be. That makes us God. But it's actually what his will is. We allow it. To come in.
As an outside force. And change our lives. I've. Been married. For going on. We've been nine years.
This May. We dated for a while. We met in high school. Started dating. Dated through college. And got married.
And I know. My wife. Took me a while. But I know things about her. I know her will. I know the things she likes.
And doesn't like. It takes a lot of time though. There are some times. Where like. We'll be in a situation. And someone will say something.
And I know my wife will think it's funny. So I don't even pay. I just look at my wife. To watch her react. Even more fun. Is when they say something.
That I know she'll think is absolutely crazy. And I just kind of cut my eyes at her. Like. You going to make a face? You going to keep it together? Like I just.
But it takes a while. It takes. That's what walking with the Lord is like. Like. It took. Up until last year.
Last year. I stopped asking my wife. If she wants ketchup. The answer is no. She does not want ketchup. I like ketchup.
She does not like ketchup. Now to throw her off. I started doing it more blatantly. Loudly and sarcastically. To make it seem like. Maybe that's what I've been doing the whole time.
That it didn't actually take me nine years. To figure out she didn't like ketchup. So I would start getting up from the table. And I'd go. Ketchup. Just to try to throw off on.
I had just now learned this. But now. I don't. I don't need to ask. I know. Her will.
When it comes to ketchup. I know her will. When it comes to other things. I know that sometimes. When I start talking to my son. I have to cut my eyes to her real quick.
Which just means. Let me do this. Don't charge in. Like a mother bear protecting her cub. He needs to be disciplined. Like I know what's happening in her heart.
That we've walked together. And we understand. Each other. And that's what we're supposed to do with the Lord. That we're supposed to understand him. In order to live a life.
Making wise decisions. And using our time. Well. I had a. A man I knew. We were.
We were friendly. I wouldn't necessarily say we were friends. We. We got along well. His. His name was Steve Von Fang.
He was a. Very well. Organized. Man. He was in his late. Sixties.
He passed away last year. Um. And he was very intentional. He spent his time. Wisely. Now I know some people think.
Oh I know people who spend their time wisely. Because they're always busy. And the. The truth is. Most people who spend their time wisely. Aren't.
Always that busy. People who spend their time wisely. Life seems like it moves. Kind of smoothly for them. They have seasons of busyness. But they're not always chaotic.
He. Um. He loves spreadsheets. He's a very organized person. He's very intentional with his time. And he.
He was very intentional with his time. So that he could be very intentional with people. Um. My wife and I were in a community group with him. When we were. Or a life group over at Midtown.
When we were. Over there doing some training. And kind of being an apprentice. As a church planter. And. Uh.
Every time you got in a conversation with him. You just felt like he was working it towards a goal. He was just so intentional. And so every once in a while. You get in this conversation. And it was like.
He was just walking you through a maze of conversation. To get to this conclusion. We'd get in the car. And one of us would look at the other one. And go. I got Von Fanged again.
But he was so gracious. And he made so much time for people. That I remember being. In an auditorium that held. 750 to a thousand people. And it just being packed.
Out. At his funeral last year. With people lined around the walls. And people getting up. Person after person. Getting up and just saying.
Here's how much time he took. To talk to me. To speak to me. To spend time with me. To answer my questions. And the truth is.
When we know the will of the Lord. Two of the things that we learn first. That Jesus says. Are primary in God's will. Is to love God. And to love others.
We talk in the office. Our leadership team. Often talk about our best spent time. And what we usually mean by that. Is there's certain things. That Matt Freeman can do.
That I can't do. There's certain things. That Spencer Carey can do. That I can't do. That Raz can do. That Spencer can't do.
And so we just sometimes. Will talk about like. Where's your best spent time? What's the thing you need to be working on? That if any of the other of us. Tried to do that.
It would just be bad. And we usually mean that. And when you read like. Leadership books. Or business books. They usually mean that in like.
What's your core competency? What's the thing you're best at? What's your. What's your skill level here? What's your skill level here? And I think actually.
If we look at Jesus. Some of our best spent time. Is relational time. That if we're not wasting time. We have a lot of time for people. That's why when I sit at home.
And I'm a couch away from my wife. And I'm reading things on my phone. I'm wasting time. Rather than engaging her. As only I can. Because I'm her husband.
Doing the same with my kids. And my community group. The same for you. And your roommate. Your co-worker. That we've been designed.
To use our time wisely. And that begins. By knowing the will of the Lord. Which begins. By understanding Christ. And understanding his word.
Secondly. So. First thing he says. Is to know the will of the Lord. Don't be foolish. But understand what the will of the Lord is.
Which means study. And read. And soak in it. And make time for it. So that you know what he's like.
And what he appreciates. And calls us to. Verse 18. And. This is going to feel a little bit like. It's out.
From out of nowhere. And I think it's. Helpfully jarring. So he says. Therefore do not be foolish. But understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine. For that is debauchery. But be filled with the spirit. It doesn't really fit in the rest of this. The next thing he starts talking about. Is singing.
And it just feels like. You just really don't like wine. Like you're just taking a shot here. What are we doing? Is that like the major issue. That you would just stick it in the middle of.
Walking wisely. And I think. What's helpful to see. Is that he's contrasting it. With walking in the spirit. That being drunk with wine.
Is somehow in contrast to. Being filled with the spirit. That we. Are. When we drink. We give ourselves over.
To. We allow alcohol to have more control. Than it ought to. So. For the record. Just because we're here.
And this is helpful for us to discuss. The Bible does not say. It is wrong to drink wine. Or to drink alcoholic beverages. It does say. Here and other places.
Not to get drunk. For them to not have control. And it's not just wine. Some of y'all are like. Oh I don't get drunk on wine. I'm a Bud Light man.
That's not. That's not how that works. Wine was the primary one. The Bible does also mention. Beer and strong drink. And mixed drinks.
So. All of it. And this would also include. Like narcotics. And anything that we're giving control over. Anything that we're submitting ourselves to.
That it. It has control over. That's. That's what he's. What's in mind here. So he says.
Don't give yourself over to that. And the truth is. When we drink. When someone's drink. We give a lot of credit. To the alcohol.
We give a lot of credit. When it comes to actions. Like we lose. And this is why. Subfilled sobriety tests work. You lose the ability to control your body.
You lose the ability to control. Like we. So suddenly. We lose. Self. Control.
And self. Awareness. It's one of the things that alcohol does. That's why. Karaoke. Is done in bars.
Because you lose. This. Self. Inhibition. Like you lose this. Concern.
For yourself. And you lose this control. Of yourself. And the alcohol gets a lot of credit. For what happens. Some of you have had to go around.
The day after things. Some of you maybe got in a program. And had to go around. Years after things. And apologize. For your actions.
While under the influence. Of something else. To apologize for your actions. Your words. While out of control. And see.
He distinctly. Lines that up. In contrast. To the spirit. Because I think in some ways. The spirit.
Does the same thing. It's just the good version. That the spirit. Gets credit. For things that we would not have done. On our own.
That the spirit. Helps us with a self. Forgetfulness. That is unparalleled. Outside of. Being inhibited.
By something. That we're not to get. Drunk here. We're not to be filled up here. We're to be filled up. Here.
In the spirit. That we're to be. Cut loose. And set free. In the spirit. That as we walk in the spirit.
You should. You know. People go to a bar. And they need a few drinks. Before they become friendly. We ought to rock up friendly.
On Sundays. Walking in the spirit. Going out of our way. To meet people. Now. Maybe you shouldn't say.
Hey. Come here often. But there should be like. A way to greet each other. That's like. Helpful and good.
Like. That we should. Be freed. By the spirit. And that the spirit. Should get control.
This is actually why. The first time. That we see the holy spirit. Fall on. And fill people. In the book.
Of Acts. What's the first thing. Peter has to start. His sermon with. His opening line is. These men are not drunk.
As you suppose. We're filled with the spirit. Because people hadn't seen. People act that way. Have that freedom. Have that tone.
Carry themselves that way. Outside of. Of something coming in. And messing them up. And the only thing they had. Was the whole.
Was wine. Was alcohol. They were actually. Also. It was Pentecost. So it was like.
A wheat and barley festival. So that made sense. That people would be drinking. That early in the morning. But. He says no.
And Peter even says. We're not drunk. It's nine in the morning. We don't wake up that early. This is the holy spirit. And honestly.
Y'all need. We need to be listening. To this as a church. Because we need to grow here. Because nobody's ever. Showing up on a Sunday.
And left and thought. I think some of those people. Were drunk. Hadn't happened. Y'all. I stand right here.
And sing. And this is my. Super into worship singing. I might close my eyes. If I know the words. I stick my hands.
In my pockets a lot. You won't see this. For a couple of reasons. First one is. That this makes me. Insanely uncomfortable.
Now. If I drink a little bit. Before I show up. Maybe. But actually.
The holy spirit. Should set me free. From thinking about that. From feeling this. I can't. I can't.
I got. A group in a church. Where they. I was told recently. That somebody went in. Raised their hands.
And someone after. Went over to them. And said. Hey. We don't do that here. Yeah.
And the truth is. We wouldn't say that. But hey. We don't do that here. We're not correcting you. But you'll figure it out.
We're not going to call you on it. But you'll learn. Show up 15 minutes late. Like we just. That's our thing. Like we got some stuff.
That we do. And so. It's like. No. That we would be filled. With the spirit.
That we would be set free. That we would walk in a way. That has an unparalleled freedom. And then. It makes sense. Where he goes next.
Oh. I do want to point this out. Because I think it's helpful for us. This is a command. Be filled. With the spirit.
There are other things. That the Holy Spirit does. That you have no control over. That when he. Regenerates you. When you place faith.
That he seals you. That he did earlier. In Ephesians. Where he talks about. That we were sealed. That we're sealed.
For our inheritance. There are things. That the Holy Spirit does. That you have no control over. This one. You do.
It's a command. Meaning that we can disregard it. That you can fight it. That you cannot walk in the spirit. The Holy Spirit can call you to do something. And you can say not today.
And so we need to. In the same way. That you would actively go out of your way. To give yourself over to alcohol. We need to actively go out of our way. To give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit.
To pray that he would fill us. To pray that we would have the courage. And boldness to do what he asked us to. And to get into some situations. That we never would have gotten into. And to do and say some things.
That we never would have done or said. Outside of the Holy Spirit being at work in us. And that way the Holy Spirit gets a whole lot of credit. That's what makes so much sense. About where he goes next. So he says.
Addressing one another. In Psalms and hymns. And spiritual songs. Singing. And making melody to the Lord. With your heart.
Alcohol and singing have gone together. They're friends. They've been going steady for a while. That there's something about alcohol. That makes a merry heart. That makes people sing.
That causes. Like if you've ever been in a situation. Where you just sang with strangers. You were either at a concert. Or you had been drinking. Or both.
But usually this isn't a thing that we do. We don't just sing. This doesn't just bubble out of us. To the point that even if someone came in singing. And you saw them singing. If they just walked in singing.
Like you would have questions. Like if you just came walking into the office. And you were like. I believe in miracles. People would be like. I don't know.
My first thing would be like. What? Like what happened? Like what? What's the cool thing that's going on? And if you were just like.
I'm a happy person. I'd be like. We're not going to be friends. Like. Like you're making me uncomfortable. Like I don't.
Like that's. Like that's how this works. Like you don't just do this. You don't just sing. You don't just like. It's stuck in a certain category.
And what he says is. Be so filled with the spirit. Be so free. That this is how we respond. This is what we do together. That there's freedom.
Self forgetfulness. And joy. That's found. As we come together. So I want to point a few things out.
And then. We're going to actively practice. Some of this. You see. What happens. When we drink.
And that's why he holds this up. What happens when we drink. As we reach a level of joy and freedom. That sometimes people say. Well I can't find it elsewhere. That's one of the things.
That you'll talk to people. Like I need this to feel good. I need this to feel normal. And people will put anything here. Narcotics. Marijuana.
Whatever. Just like I need this to feel okay. And he's saying. No the Holy Spirit should be. Pouring that joy into our hearts. That's why he says.
Singing. Making melody to the Lord. With your heart. That there'd be a song. In you. So what do you use.
To set you free. And what do you use. To bring you joy. What do you use. To make you feel good. And if you're a Christian.
Do you realize. The Holy Spirit. Does a much better Job. Than that. So. I want to point a few things out.
That he says here. He says. We're addressing one another. In Psalms. And hymns. And spiritual songs.
And when the Holy Spirit. Fills us. And we do spirit filled. That's kind of what it says. When it says. Be filled with the spirit.
Comma. And then he says. Addressing. Singing. Making melody. Like all of that's in the spirit.
They follow being in the spirit. And being filled by the spirit. So we address one another. So that when the Holy Spirit. Is filling us. We're communal.
We're relational. That when we gather on Sundays. And we sing together. Or we read Psalms together. Or we do some of these things together. That it's not.
Just you. Singing with voices to God. But it's you. Singing to everybody else in the room. You're addressing them. You're reminding them.
You're telling them. You're agreeing with them. You're pointing them back. To the truth. And then he says. At the end.
He says. Making melody to the Lord with your heart. Meaning that it's not only relational. But it's also real. It's not only communal. But it's personal.
That in your singing. You are. Your heart. Is singing to God. While your voice. Sings to everybody else.
And it also gives us. A better content. For how we address one another. That when we're walking in the spirit. The way we address one another. Is filled with depth.
And richness. That it doesn't have otherwise. Okay. I want us to take just a second. Where we are. I think for many of us.
I know this is true for me. I think I've spent a lot of time. Actively. Fighting against the Holy Spirit's. Leading in my life. There's some things.
Where I yield. And there are other places. Where I just kind of say. Makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not going to do that. So I want to.
Just take a second. If you're a believer. And just ask. Holy Spirit. Fill me. Help me know what that feels like.
Help me walk in that. Because we're about to practice. Some of the things that he says. Addressing one another. In Psalms. And hymns.
And spiritual songs. And we want. The Holy Spirit's help. So that's beautiful. And glorious. And it's what it's meant.
To be. So just take a second. Where you are. And just ask for the Holy Spirit's. Help. For the Holy Spirit's.
Filling. Amen. Matt and Bianca are going to come up here. Here's what we're going to do first. In just a second. We're going to stand.
And we're going to read. A Psalm together. We started doing this more on Sundays. It was really weird for me. But it's helpful.
And it's biblical. That we would read. Collectively together. That's one of the things. When it says. Addressing one another in Psalms.
That's what we're doing. So that when we read collectively. When we do a responsive reading. Where we have it up here. And there's a part. That someone up here reads.
And there's a part. That we all read. That's underlined. That some of what we're doing. Is we're collectively. Joining voices.
And we're collectively. Speaking to each other. And saying. We all believe this. This is real. One of the favorite things.
That we do. Is for me. Is when we've started doing this. And we stand. And we all just say. I'm a terrible sinner.
That's my favorite thing. Because I'm just like. I know. I know you're the worst. So am I.
Jesus is good. Like when we collectively. Stand up and say. I hate. I hate the light. I love the darkness.
I need Jesus. It's like. Yes. That's right. That's right and good. For us to remind ourselves.
That without him. We're in trouble. And so we. We stand. And we repeat these things. Because we're called to.
So just a second. We're going to do a responsive reading. And then. We're going to sing. And this is our first step. In this morning.
Practicing. Being spirit filled. Addressing one another. With Psalms. We're just going to take Psalms. From the Old Testament.
And we're going to. Address one another. And hopefully. As the day goes on. Our hearts will start making melody. To the Lord.
They'll start singing along. With our voices. So in verse 19. Paul says. Addressing one another. In Psalms.
And hymns. And spiritual songs. Now. Those are all connected. The ideas are all connected. That we would be singing.
And that's one of the things. That we do collectively. As the Holy Spirit. Fills us. But Psalms.
Are specific to the Old Testament. They are. The book of Psalms. Is something that we have. Handed to us. From.
David. And from other Psalm writers. And then. Hymns. Become a thing. Mostly.
In the New Testament. Where they began. To take truths about Jesus. And they would make. Theological poems. That were easily memorized.
And they would. Say them together. They would recite them together. They would say them out loud. They would sing them to a tune. They would repeat them.
Over and. And over. We have a few examples. Of kind of where those show up. In the text. There's other places.
That we think are hymns. Or at least have their root in hymns. Where Paul's kind of drawing from them. To say. Like you know this. And.
Repeating it. But there are a few. That it seems. Very clearly are. First Timothy 3 16. He says.
Great indeed. We confess. Is the mystery of godliness. And then he kind of quotes this. He was manifested in the flesh. Vindicated by the spirit.
Seen by angels. Proclaimed among the nations. Believed on in the world. Taken up in glory. So it's this short bit.
Of theological truth. That they would get together. And repeat. And say to one another. Second Timothy. Eleven through thirteen.
He does a similar thing. Where he says. If we have died with him. We will also live with him. If we endure. We will also reign with him.
If we deny him. He will also deny us. If we are faithless. He remains faithful. For he cannot deny himself. And so there's these.
Phrases and verses. That they would kind of repeat together. They would say together. There's actually. We have. A letter.
That was written from. Pliny the younger. To the emperor Trajan. At about 112 AD. So. Sixty.
Seventy years. Removed from the death of Jesus. And the beginnings of the church. And this is an area. In modern day Turkey. Up above Galatia.
And he's writing. Saying. Hey we've got all these Christians. And I don't really know what to do with them. His letter starts off by saying. Most of the ones I found and talked to.
I went ahead and killed. But I just wanted to know. Like. Is that what I should be doing? Should I be actively trying to round them up? He said.
All the ones that just kind of rejected Jesus. When I brought it up. I let them go. But if they kept saying. They were going to worship Jesus. And not the emperor.
That seemed bad. So I killed those. But I thought I'd write to you. Emperor. And find out. He said.
I did talk to one. And found out. That really all they were doing. Was on a certain day of the week. They would get together. Right around sunrise.
And they would say a hymn together. To Christ. And then they would take a pledge. Not to do anything bad. But to not steal.
And to not cheat. And to pay people back. That they owed. And to love one another. And then they would go to work. And he was like.
So I just kind of wanted to see. What you've been doing with them. But he says. Even at that point. That this was a normal thing. That Christians would gather together.
And say hymns. And sing hymns. Together. And so. Some of the ones that we do on Sundays. That fit kind of in this category.
Songs like. Come thou fount. It is well. How deep the father's love. Where it's like a. A more dense.
Kind of theological thing. That we say. Sing together. Repeat. I also think that you see this a lot. In gospel music.
Black gospel music. Not white gospel music. But black gospel music. Where they repeat. The same phrases over and over again. It's this.
This kind of a theological point. That they're just going to say. Over and over again. Until you soak. In it. White gospel music.
With like the four quartet thing. They sing all kinds of stuff. About like. A man was walking. And he met a dude in Tennessee. And they do all kinds of stuff.
And it's not this bad. But that's not what I'm talking about. And so. We. We collectively. Right now.
Are going to do that. We're going to sing. A hymn together. Where we're going to. Stand again. And remind one another.
And speak to one another. Hopefully. As the Holy Spirit leads us. Speaking in our hearts. To God. Making melody to him.
As we sing together. So he says. Psalms. Hymns. And spiritual songs. And spiritual songs.
Just kind of is a. Is a. Catch all at the end. That just. Grabs it all together. And says.
Really. Kind of. Brings in the idea of. If you're singing. In the spirit. To the Lord.
And even about. Those types of things. That subject matter. Then. Then go for it.
Then this is something. That we would do. That we would sing together. That we would make melody. In our hearts. To God.
And that we would sing. Spiritual songs. So this includes. And it kind of gives us. A lot of freedom on. What type of music.
Do you like? What kind of things. Help you. Trust Jesus. What type of things. Help you.
Grow in him. So this is. So for some of you. That may be Striper. Or Lecrae. Or Toby Mac.
Or everything on K-Love. Like it's this. It's spiritual. It's singing about God. We're not quoting scripture. It's not super deep.
Theologically. But it helps me remember. That he loves me. That it helps me remember. That this is true. And we sing these type of songs.
On Sundays as well. And it opens a lot of room. The Bible doesn't give us. Direct. Here's the type of music. Here's the tempo.
Or here are the instruments to use. We've come along. A lot. And said. These things are okay. These things aren't okay.
I remember my brother started going to Bob Jones University. And I think they're. They have a lot of things. That they do really well. But one of the rules they had.
Was you weren't allowed to up strum a guitar. That's a real rule. At least it was. And that had. That controlled tempo. Because if you can only down strum.
You can only go like this so fast. But up strumming. Chika chika chika chika. Like that's. That's not real. And it's like.
No. That's not. We have a lot of freedom. So like when I went to Liberty University. And the first time I went to a chapel service. And it was two.
Really thin. Gelled haired. Super tight pants guys. With acoustic guitars. And I sat down. I was like.
Okay. And then in a little bit. I was singing. I was like. Oh. I had to repent.
I was like. Lord. This is good. I shouldn't have paid attention to their pants. I should have just cared about the fact that. Like.
I'm sorry. This is when I went. While I was also at Liberty. Went with a friend to his church. It was a predominantly African American church. And they actually.
A guy led. From a drum set. Now. It was great. We wouldn't know what to do with that. Yeah.
You see your response right now. You don't. We don't even respond to things. We couldn't handle a drum set. You guys. They just started playing a drum set.
And singing. And it was. It was really good. And then we had brought. A little. Jared.
Gelled haired white guy. Who played an acoustic guitar. And he was playing by himself. And they all started. Keeping a beat for him. And it was.
Great. But it also is like. You get the. The room. To say. What helps my spirit.
Follow Jesus. What helps me. Sing to him. And make melody to him. And we have a lot of space. In Christianity.
For. If it helps. And if it's godly. And if it's God fearing. If the holy spirit's at work in it. Let's do that.
Let's make room for that. One of the things we want to grow. Collectively in as a church. Is having more room. For that. More room.
And openness for. Not all the music that's played. Is something you agree with. That actually helps us grow. And being. Culturally sensitive.
And culturally inclusive. So that. There are some songs. That you're like. Man I was. I was in that one.
And then the next one. I just had to think about the words. And I had to think about Jesus. Because that's not my. My normal tempo. And the normal type.
Of volume. Or music. That I like. But we have a lot of room. To gather together. And to make.
To sing. In the spirit. Songs to the Lord. And so we're going to sing. A few. Together now.
That kind of fit. In that category. Verse 20. And 21. Last ones. We'll look at today.
As he talks about. The Holy Spirit. And how he. Fills us. And the appropriate response. And what it looks like.
As we walk. In the spirit. He goes into. That we would sing. That we would address. One another.
That we would have a song. In our heart. Could you imagine. If that's how people. Described you. This melody.
In her heart. There's melody. In his heart. That there's. There's a deep. Resounding.
Uncontrollable. Unreachable joy. That's given. By the spirit. Then he says this.
Giving thanks. Always. And for everything. To God the father. In the name. Of our Lord.
Jesus Christ. Submitting. To one another. Out of reverence. For Christ. I want to talk.
A second about. The thankfulness. That we get. I want to talk. A second about. What submitting.
To one another. Looks like. And then I want to look at. Why he says. It's in the name. Of our Lord.
Jesus Christ. And it's out of reverence. To Christ. He says. Giving thanks. Always.
And for everything. We. Are bad at this. We live in a very. Cynical time. In the 50s.
If you go back. And actually look at. Some of the advertisements. They used to have. There was just so much. Hope.
About the future. How beautiful. It was going to be. Like all the future things. When they would talk about. Any movies.
From a while back. When they would. Show the future. It was bright. And clean. And people were happy.
They would have these advertisements. About like in the future. When your house gets dirty. There will be a drain in the bottom. And you will just. Spray your whole house.
And it will just be clean. And they had all this crazy stuff. That makes zero sense. But they thought. Somehow in the future. This will be beautiful.
And good. And we don't have that anymore. You don't go to a movie. And watch. A beautiful future. It's grungy.
It's dark. Everyone hates everyone. The government comes out. And says. That's the future we get. Zombies.
And like a world. Where the rich people. Made their own little planet. Above people. And the only way to get up there. Is if you wear a robot.
And attack them. I didn't see that movie. But that's what I got. From the preview. Like there's this. This idea.
That everything's going to be worse. And we're good at cynicism. We're good at sarcasm. We're good at bitterness. And what he says. Is no.
When the Holy Spirit comes in. There's always thanks. And there's thanks. For everything. Do you know. How much joy.
And peace. Are found. If that's true for us. As the Holy Spirit's at work in us. That we're just grateful. Genuinely.
Grateful. Not. I'm an adult. And I know I should be thankful. Not. I can think about the fact.
That I live in the United States. And that makes me better off than other people. And I should be thankful. But genuine. Gratefulness. I have a.
A son who's about to turn three. And currently. He still has genuine thankfulness. On a really regular basis. For super simple things. Every once in a while.
He'll just go. Dad. Who painted my truck? And I'll say. I think the people at the. The.
You know. The store did. And he'll go. That was so nice of them. I'm like. It was nice.
Wait. His birthday party. When he turned two. Somebody gave him a card. It was just a birthday card. And he opened it up.
And I thought for a second. Like. Oh. It's just a card. Like. I'm.
You know. You're always worried. Your kids are just going to do super embarrassing things. And I'm like. Let's see how he reacts.
And he goes. You got me a book. And he just opened it. And then he hugged it. And I was just like. That's awesome.
I'm going to enjoy that right now. Because I don't think. A five year old getting the card. Is going to respond the same way. Like. I just.
I'm glad that he has this genuine. Gratefulness. And that's actually what the Holy Spirit. Authors in us. Is a genuine thankfulness. And I.
I'm not like that. I don't reach that. That often. Recently. I did. And it gave me a peek.
Into what it looks like. If the Holy Spirit. If you're walking with the Holy Spirit. How you actually get some. Deep. Genuine.
Thankfulness. And if this could be my pattern of life. That I was always thankful. And I was thankful for everything. But. Recently.
My wife. About a month ago. Gave birth to our. Our second son. And. It took.
You know. Twenty something hours. It was a long time. And we finally. We were getting to sleep. That next morning.
At like six in the morning. And I just remember that next day. Holding this baby. And being. You know. He's healthy.
She's healthy. That doesn't. That doesn't always happen. That's not how it always works out. And. Far too often.
That's not how it works out. And I just was sitting there. And I just. Was looking at him. And just thinking. Like.
I don't deserve this. And this doesn't make any sense. And the Lord's just good. And like. I'm sitting there thinking that. And I just start crying.
And my wife. Looks at me. She's like. You alright? And I'm like. I'm fine.
Like. I'm just. I'm too tired to be thinking. The things I'm thinking. Like. I had to quit.
Like. Every time at the hospital. I just would get thankful. I just was. And I was just like. I'm too.
This is too tired. Too tired to be grateful. Because I'm gonna cry. And that makes me really uncomfortable. But there's this.
Gen. Like. I had this genuine sense. And it was so. Freeing. And the truth is.
As the spirit is at work in us. That's us. Thankful always. For everything. You see. The world can make you thankful.
For cheap tricks. For. We could. The world can make you thankful. For chocolate and roller coasters. But the Holy Spirit can make you thankful.
For bread. And a conversation. Like. The Holy Spirit goes to work in us. To. To create a deep well.
Of gratefulness. I think that's actually one of the best indicators. For are we walking in the spirit. Is. How thankful are you? How critical are you?
How cynical are you? How grateful are you? See. The Holy Spirit offers thankfulness. Always. For everything.
And then it says. Submitting to one another. Out of reverence. For Christ. That this is the ambiance. This is the flavor.
Of God's people. Is that they're thankful. And they're submissive. Submissive. Submissive. Just.
Sounds like a bad word. We've just been taught. That that's a bad idea. You don't want to submit. You don't want to back down. You don't want to like.
I don't care if you. Like if you talk about. Submission. Submission in marriage. Or take it all the way over to like. The octagon.
We don't use it in a good context. The idea of submission. Submission. Comes across as bad. Or weakness. Or outdated.
Or evil. And what he says is no. The Christians submit to one another. Through the Spirit. Now he's specifically talking about.
Some of the stuff. He's going to go in. And say some of the relationships. Where that's how that works. He's about to talk about marriage. And children.
Parents to children. He's going to talk about. Bond servants. And masters. So he talks about that.
But it's also just the. The tone of God's people. And here's why. And here's why that's spirit filled. And spirit led. As I walk.
In this church family. In the Spirit. I begin to trust. The Holy Spirit. In you. And so that it makes sense.
That when you correct. I submit. When you call me out on something. I submit. That I would submit things. To my community group.
For their evaluation. For their looking at it. And trying to help me think through it. That that's. How we would work together. That we actually get a group of people in life.
Let me. Let me explain. Just so you know. Outside looking in. You're in a community group. And you bring to them.
I've been offered a job somewhere else. And I want y'all to weigh in on this. And they actually have some say. Outside looking in. That's one of two things. That's a cult.
It's what we're told to think. Or. That is extremely beautiful. And unparalleled. In what other people have in real relationships. Because you would actually trust.
That the Holy Spirit is at work. And a group of people. That know you. And know your family. And know your walk with Jesus. And know your sin.
Well enough. To actually be able to have some say. One of the. The greatest things that happens. In our elder meetings. Is when one of us disagrees.
Everything just shuts down. And we spend way too much time. Arguing. And talking through. And it's like. No.
But this is actually how this is supposed to work. Because we trust. If you don't feel right with this. Then the Spirit's not. We're not in unity yet. We can't move forward.
That's a terrible way to run a business. But it's how the church is supposed to look. That we're supposed to at times. You're supposed to bring to your group. And say. Hey.
I want to take this job. And they're supposed to say. Well what we know about your idolatry. What we know about your sin history. We got a lot of questions. That's beautiful and gracious.
As the Holy Spirit works in us. And it only happens. As the Holy Spirit empowers it. But that that becomes. What we look like. That we're going out of our way.
To see other people get their way. That we're going out of our way. To serve and love one another. And here's how this happens. And here's how all of this happens. And we just sing about it.
A bunch. He says. Giving thanks always and for everything. To God the Father. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And submitting to one another.
Out of reverence for Christ. That all of this is based in Christ. And what he has done for us. That we don't have any of it without Christ. That you don't have a song in your heart. You don't have melody.
You don't have Psalms to sing. You don't have joy. You don't have the ability to submit. And the freedom to walk in that. You don't have thankfulness at all times. If there is no Christ.
That what Jesus did. Was that he sacrificed himself for us. That we might be free. And then he fills us with his spirit. That we might live like we're free. Someone who can submit freely.
Someone who can walk in thankfulness and joy. And have a song in their heart. They're free. And they're in a place of trust and comfort. That's unparalleled. And he says for everything.
There are places in the Bible that says. Count it all joy when you suffer. That's what he's talking about. It includes when everything's terrible. He's not saying everything's going to work out perfectly. He's not saying everything's going to be beautiful.
He's saying that Christians sing in jail. And we see that in the book of Acts. Now either they're tapping into something. That we haven't seen before. That we don't know about. That the world can't copy.
Or they've been drinking before they got arrested. Those are the people who sing in jail. And what he's saying is that we walk in the spirit. As empowered and gifted to us. By a Christ who died for us. And so that all of this empowerment by the spirit.
And all of this freedom given to us by the spirit. Is through the sacrifice of Christ. And it's in his name. That it is something that we have to. It is a command that we fall into. But it's not something we can earn.
And it's not something we can accomplish. It's something that we can surrender to. Asking Jesus to lead us. And to fill us. And to give us all that he offers to the cross. That we'd be free from our sin.
And therefore free from ourselves. That our self-consciousness would fall away. As our Christ consciousness is exalted. And that it would be about him. And it would be about our fellow brothers and sisters. Getting more of him.
So I pray that we'd be a church. That wouldn't waste our time. And that we'd be a people. Who'd pay attention to what our day looks like. So that we can pay attention to what our week looks like.
So that we can pay attention to what our month looks like. So that we can pay attention to what our years look like. So that one day when we close our eyes. And take our last breath. And our eyes open. And we see the glory of Christ.
We spend a whole lot of time pouring it out. In love for him. In love for others. We've walked in wisdom. We've known what he's want. And the spirit's filled us.
And led us the whole time. So I ask that we'd cease to be foolish. And that we'd learn God's. Understand his will. And the spirit would fill us. And that we'd walk with him.
So that he might be glorified. And that we might be free. We might be a thankful, joyous people. With a song in our hearts. And some joy and some freedom. That's unmatched.
Unparalleled. Unfound in the world. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing some songs. And just be thankful. That we're collectively as Christians today.
We're just going to be thankful to God. For what he's done. And how he's saved. And who he is. And his gloriousness. And his redemption.
And his love. And I want you to know. If you're not a Christian. If this is new to you. Or if it's not new to you. But you know you don't have this.
You can. In the name of Jesus. That you can say. I want him to cover me. I want his death to pay for my sin. I want the freedom and the life.
That's given by the spirit. And you can ask right now. God save me. Save me from myself. Save me from my self-consciousness. Save me from my self-awareness.
And give me Christ. And if you have questions on that. I'd love to speak with you about it. But collectively as a church. Let's sing.
Let's sing.
Wake Up
Transcript
Good morning. Grab your Bibles. Go to Ephesians chapter 5. It's on page 569, if you have one of the blue Bibles in the row. We are walking verse by verse through the book of Ephesians. My name is Chet.
I'm one of the pastors here. And one of the primary complaints, I want us to think about this as we get started this morning, but one of the primary complaints that people levy against Christianity is that it takes everything beautiful and joyful and fun in the world, and then it says, don't do that. Don't enjoy that. It's like people believe that Christians believe that God created the world, and then he looked and he was talking to his angels and he said, it seems like humans really like that. And the angels are like, oh, they love it. It's one of their favorites.
And he's like, huh. And they enjoy this too. Yeah. Oh, they love that. Let's make a book and none of that can happen anymore.
Like, let's get rid of all the fun and all the joy and all the things that people chase after and like. We're just going to tell them none of that. That's kind of this idea that people have that this old, prideful, angry church lady picture of God where it's like this. Well, if you were smiling, if you were having fun, it's evil and God hates it. And that's that's this this picture that we have. And and honestly, what it what it comes from is that a deeply held belief that Christians actually have.
We do believe that God created the world, that he designed it, that it has purpose. And so there are ways to get it wrong and there are ways to get it right. Like there there's a design to your vehicle. My wife, when she first started driving, the first time she ever completely went from E to full on her car, she put diesel fuel in it. She made it across the street and it quit working. And they were like, are you out of gas?
She's like, no, I just filled it up. And they took took a while before they were like, where'd you fill it up? She's like right there. They were like right there. Where? And she's like right there at that green tank.
They were like, yeah, the green one's not the good one. And then later she went to a BP and all of them were green. And she got out and was like, no, like she had just taught herself, don't put green. It's like then she had to look and was like, oh, OK, I figured it out. Gas is fine. But there's rules.
There's certain things you can do and can't do. And we believe that that's how the world works. We actually think there's great evidence for this in the world. Like if you and I were walking through the woods and we found a wristwatch. And I picked it up and went, look at what nature made. And started looking at the trees.
You'd be like, fool, that's a wristwatch. A human made that. Trees don't make those. And we actually believe that there's great reason to look at creation, to look at the world and go, no, there's a whole lot of design here. There are a lot of things that are just rules that this is just how it works, that chaos didn't create this. That's what we're told to believe that swirling chaos just boom, exploded into order.
That's a cute story, but we've never actually seen that happen. Like there's never been a hurricane that just rolled through and built a city. It just doesn't happen. And I don't care if you do the infinite amount of hurricanes and infinite amount of universes. It's like, it's just that that's not how that works. It's not just like, boom, Sears Tower.
Like it just. They sold it. I don't know if it's called that anymore. But there's a. K-Mart Tower. It's just not how it works.
And so like they're one of the two of the bigger pictures of this, I think, that we can look at is math. Math is just math. It has rules. You can't be like, well, I mean, that math is for you, but this is what my math looks like. It's not how like when someone you're studying in class and they correct you and they say, no, that answer is wrong. You don't get to go, well, I don't see who you are to tell me I'm wrong with my math.
It's like they didn't even compute. It's like. Oh, you think you're like the in charge of math? You think you can just take your math and come over and tell my math what's right? It's like. Math is just the thing.
It's objective. Like it really matters. It really exists in the world. There was a ship that was made and it was this nation's and I can't remember somewhere in Europe. It was this nation's probably like it was going to be the chief ship of their armada. Like it was going to be.
It had more cannons, more like it was. It was beautiful. And they they sent it out and everybody stood and watched it make it about a half mile and then capsize and sink. And it was because they had used two different types of ruler, one on one side and one on the other side. They'd used an 11 inch ruler and a 12 inch ruler for what a foot was. And so it turns out that one side was heavier than the other and that doesn't work well in boats.
Because math exists. The ship sank. We believe math has a definitive design and we think that melody does that that music does it. There's an actual like if I was up here with Matt and Matt said, OK, I'm going to sing this part and I want you to sing the harmony. And I just started singing because I don't know what harmony is. And then he said, hey, stop.
That wasn't harmony. And I said, well, it was harmony to me. He'd be like, man, that's cute. Go sit down. I'm like, you just don't get to. That's not how this works.
Because music actually works like there's there's actual unless you're listening to jazz. There's like actual sounds that work together. And there's one music person that thought that was great. It all works together. The same sheet of music. Same thing with math.
And we actually believe that it's not just math and it's not just music, but it's also morality. That God designed the world. And so that there are actual things that it's like this is how the world is supposed to work. This is right. This is wrong. This is OK.
This isn't. And that it works and functions the same way because there is a good design behind it. And so that when people say Christianity takes all the fun things and says no, we actually say, well, maybe some of the things you would define as fun. Yeah. But that's not actually how Christianity works.
And that's not actually why God says no. And we're going to get to look at some of that this morning as we go to Ephesians chapter five. The reason we started that way this morning is because there are going to be some things that the world that the U.S. says this is the point. This is where joy is found. This is where love is found. This is where greatness is found.
This is where purpose is found. And the Bible just says no. Not not in that context. Not used in that way. Because there's a real, true design to God's world. Let's pray together.
And then we'll start reading in chapter five, verse one. God, we thank you for this time we have together this morning. And we pray that it would be fruitful, beneficial for our eternal souls. That you would go to work on our insides, on our hearts with your truth. That we might look more like you. And that we might more fully find the joy and the good that's in the world.
In Jesus name. Amen. Chapter five, verse one and two. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. This is where we ended last week. As beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
A fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. So Paul in Ephesians is used a couple of times to say walk. He kind of it's a big transitionary statement. So he says walk and live a life in manner worthy of the gospel. He says walk in love. He's saying this is how we ought to look.
This is how life ought to look for us. So he says walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. So that's the gospel. That's that Jesus Christ came and lived on earth. And that he died in our place for our sins.
That he was our sacrifice. That he atoned for us and that he loved us so much that he gave himself up for us. And that actually is Christian love. That's the concept of Christian love. That it's self-sacrifice for the sake of another. Or self-sacrifice for the sake of others.
And you've got to realize it's not just sacrifice. But it's actually for others' sake or for another's sake. Christians don't believe just in asceticism. That you would just say no to everything. That you would just sacrifice all the good things from your life. And that that somehow would make you holy.
That you should wear uncomfortable clothes and eat bland tasting food. And that makes you good. No. Maybe you should eat bland tasting food for the sake of generosity to another. Maybe you should say no to alcohol because somebody else struggles with it. Maybe you should give up meat so that you can give more money away.
There's a reason behind it. It's for others. It's not just for the sake of sacrifice. And so that's what we're told is that he gave himself up for us. That he loved us and gave himself up for us. And that's Christian love.
Self-sacrifice for the sake of others. For the sake of grace and generosity. Verse 3. But. And so now he's pivoting off. He's saying this is how we're supposed to walk.
But. And he's telling us the contrast. The difference. The opposite. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you.
As is proper among saints. I'm going to read that again. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you. As is proper among saints. What he's saying is that there shouldn't even be a hint of it. There shouldn't even be a whiff of it.
It shouldn't even show up anywhere. This has no place with Christians. That's what the word saints means. It's those who were sinners who were made saints by Jesus. It means all Christians. It's not the Catholic understanding.
So what he's saying is all Christians. This shouldn't have a place among any of us. And so what I want us to do. We need to take a second to understand what those three words mean. Because we're not supposed to even have a hint of them. They're not supposed to be around anywhere.
Like our tolerance level for it should be zero. So we need to understand what they are if we're going to have that amount of intensity towards it. Sexual immorality. We'll spend a little more time here this morning. Just because I think we have more pushback. And maybe it's a little harder to see.
And we have a little more questions. This is one of the areas. This word sexual morality in the Bible makes a lot of people want to become a Bible scholar. We should be talking to someone and they'll go, yeah, but what does that word really mean? And it's like, that's actually great. We should do that.
We should ask that of the text. If we only ever ask it of this one though, maybe we're already indicating where our heart is. But here's, before we get into sexual morality, you have to understand the biblical picture of sex. And some people think that Christians' position is that sex is dirty and gross and evil and disgusting. Save it for your spouse. That's the understanding of sex that Christians have.
And that's not the understanding that the Bible has. That's not what is taught about sex. That is actually good and beautiful and by God's design that it would be enjoyable and delightful. And then save it for your spouse. That's the biblical Christian understanding. So we see in Genesis 2.24 where it says a man will leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife or cleave to his wife.
And the two will become one flesh. Now that is specifically speaking of a distinct union. And it is a sexual union. They will become one flesh. And immediately, if you just kind of think about that picture, you're going, okay. Like I get the physical picture of two people becoming one flesh sexually.
But it actually means more than that. It has greater weight than that. And here's one of the ways that we know that clearly. It's taught throughout the Old Testament that you would have one husband, one wife, one man, one woman. And that that's the only avenue for sex and sexual activity is that category. And it was not held that you could do any other form of anything throughout the Old Testament.
In 1 Corinthians 6.16, Paul says, Do you not know that when you are united with a prostitute? Now, prostitute means the word prostitute. It's the same that we have now. But they did not have the song All the Single Ladies would not have been a hit in first century Rome. And because they didn't have All the Single Ladies. You lived with your dad.
And then you lived with your husband. There wasn't this category of adult single females. The category for adult single female was prostitute. So if you slept around, it was either someone's wife or was a prostitute. There wasn't this category of females who had their own house, had their own Job, unless they were widowed. Okay?
So when he says prostitute, he means prostitute because that was the category it was. But it also would mean more now because we have a different category of how life can work. You know, y'all get to go to college and have jobs and rent. You can sign stuff. You can own a house, you guys. Like all this stuff that a lot of it came out of Christianity where Christians started saying, I think women are people.
You don't know that, but that's what we said. So he says, Don't you know that whoever is united with a prostitute becomes one flesh with her? Now, if one flesh just meant is physically united, if it just meant the physical act, then what Paul would have said very profoundly was, Do you not know that anyone who is physically united with a prostitute is physically united with a prostitute? That's not what he's saying. He's saying, Don't you know that whoever is physically united with a prostitute is one fleshing, is becoming united in a deep spiritual way, is doing what ought to happen only in the confines of marriage.
Because God designed sex to be an all-giving, all-sacrificing activity. That it is a covenant ceremony. That it is a commitment ceremony. Tim Keller calls it a radical self-donation. That it is to say, All of me, and all that I have, and all that belongs to me, and everything I own, and everything that I have is to belong to you. And I'm donating it.
That that's what it's designed to be. That it is a union. So Paul says, Don't you know the weight of this? And then in Ephesians 5, which we're going to read here as soon as Easter is over, in 5.31, he says, Paul says that, I'll read it since it's right here, I don't have to flip to it. Because we are members of his body. Verse 31, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So he quotes Genesis. And then he says, This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Okay, so Paul goes another more explosive layer on this, where he says that the original intent behind sexual union and marriage, this covenanting, was a picture of Christ and his people. That he was going to become one with us. That he was going to join us in flesh, and that he was going to make us his. That this delight in sexual activity is meant to be a small picture of the delight that the church will enjoy with Christ for eternity.
So when people, whole religions will picture heaven, there's a few, I've seen two clear pictures of heaven when it comes to sex and sexuality. There's probably other ones, these are the ones I've seen. There's whole religions that say, when you get to heaven, all the sex. Like that's what it's about. There's just tons of ladies there for your sexing. Like that's it.
Like that's a talk. Like that's heaven. And it's like, okay, I think we've elevated sex to a weird spot, but all right. And then Christians come along and you're like, I mean, I remember being in like, uh, you know, an adolescent, non-married person who was trying not to have sex. And we would ask questions like, Hey, is there sex in heaven? And they'd be like, no, there's not.
And then we'd be like, okay. I remember distinctly having someone look at me and go, you know, like, I'm really excited for Jesus to come back, but I hope he comes back after I've had sex. Cause I just don't want to go to heaven and have that not have happened. And we just understand like our picture is that's either the point or it's not there. And we'll all be sad. Um, that actually is such a warped view of how delightful Jesus is and what the picture was supposed to be.
Anyway, sex is good. It is delightful. It's meant to image something that is far greater and far more beautiful and far more lovely. And that's why we've said multiple times and we'll say it again, but I'll go ahead and say today that you can live your entire life and never have sex and be a fully complete adult human. Jesus did. Like you can, you're fine because the ultimate picture of what it's supposed to point to is way better and we won't miss it.
So say all that to say the word sexual immorality means not that good picture. So if I asked you what is counterfeit money, you would respond something that looks like money, but isn't money. Like we just, we know what money is. And so anything else that's pretending isn't that. And so the picture of sex in the Bible is inside of a relationship between a man and a wife, husband and wife, man and woman in a covenant relationship with a self donating, uh, self covenanting sexuality. And everything outside of that is outside of that.
And it's sexual morality. The Greek word is pornea. It's used all over the place. It's used to describe prostitutes, both male and female. It's used multiple times to understand this word sexual immorality. It's used to describe someone as an illegitimate child.
They just call them a pornea, which just means, uh, they came from sex. That wasn't this. What that's really helpful for us, by the way, because if God just gave us a big list, that'd be a really long section of the Bible. It was just like, don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this.
Don't do this. Don't do this. And then we'd find something that wasn't on the list and be like, home free. We can do this. And then, and what it says is, no, this is what it's supposed to look like. So everything outside of that is not that.
And it's sexual immorality. This also includes, Paul says the betrothed. So in first Corinthians seven, Paul keeps going from his, where he says in six 16, he also says, if you're betrothed and you're burning with desire, get married. He does not say, well, if you've made promises, that's fine. You don't have to burn with desire. You're free.
No, he says, if you're betrothed, get married. So this idea of, well, we're going to get married or it's like we're married or we're he, Paul actually comes in right in that little spot and says, no, sex is okay. Once you've made the full commitment, because it's a self donating, self-sacrifice on behalf of another. First Corinthians seven, two says, because of sexual, because of the temptation to sexual morality, as Paul using the same word, each man should have his own wife and each woman, her own husband. So what he says is, because you're tempted to do this, get married and it won't be that.
So he just says what we just said, which is sex is okay here. Sex is not okay there. I did that. And we took the time there this morning out of this list, because that's the one where we most go, um, but doesn't it mean, but wouldn't it be okay if, Hey, I was thinking my uncle told me like, no, Jesus actually draws the line at lust. So he says, don't look at a woman lustfully.
So he takes it just to your mind. So if you're like, how far is too far? Jesus is like, well, what were you thinking about? Oh, hold on a second. I just meant like, is it bad if we moved to the backseat? And you were saying, what were you like?
What did you think? What were you looking at? Jesus says, just turn around and go the other ways. This is the acceptable zone. And then if you're married, this is the acceptable zone. Now we'll do a little more of understanding why Christianity teaches that.
Cause the next response to, okay, if that's what the word says, fine, but I don't like that. Or I don't understand why God would say that. And here's part of one of the arguments people make is, well, sex is so natural. It's just an appetite. It's just a desire. It's, it's normal and natural and healthy.
Christianity's not saying that it's not. Yeah, it's natural. Yeah, it's normal. Yeah, it's healthy. You, John Piper says, you put a fence around a garden, not around weeds. Like you, you protect what's important.
Like if you broke in someone's house and you were a professional cat burglar and you went and moved a fancy painting and there was a safe and you put your little thing on and you started cracking it because you know you're awesome. And you pop it open. You would not find that that safe was their dirty clothes hamper. It wouldn't just be like old socks. Why? Because we don't protect what isn't important.
And so the reason the Bible draws a fence around this is because it's potent, powerful, meaningful, not because it's less. The Bible thinks more about sex than we do. Maybe not more often, but it thinks more highly of it. I didn't want you to get confused with what I was saying there. Some of you are like, I'm going to read my Bible more. Alright, let's regain our focus here.
Sexual morality and all impurity. So what he does with all impurity, that word just means, a lot of times when he talks about impurity, it means specifically sexual impurity, but when he says sexual morality and all impurity, he's just zooming out. He's just pinching it and widening it out. What he's saying is like, not just sexual morality, but all the impurity, all the things that we chase after and throw off, all of the, it's when we say there's no inhibitions, there's no rules, there's no, we can just chase after everything we want, and they usually go hand in hand. That's why they're put together a lot.
But what he's saying is, it's not just sexual morality, but it's all of the times that we just say, there are no rules, everything's free, I can do what I want, I can pursue decadence, and debauchery, and everything that makes me feel good. It's this pursuit of personal pleasure. And they do go together. So, I saw an article recently, it's in Newsweek, it's in Vanity Fair, talking about the same thing, where this person kind of started interviewing people in the Silicon Valley, kind of the cutting edge of technology, and what they found out was, this cutting edge, progressive people, who are kind of expanding our horizons when it comes to technology, have these drug induced sexual orgy parties, where everybody shows up, and it's just this kind of rampant thing, and when you, they were talking and interviewing some of these people, and they were like, yeah, we're progressive everywhere, including our sexuality.
And the person writing the article was like, um, this actually isn't progressive, this has been happening forever. This happened in the 1970s at the Playboy Mansion, this happened in the 1960s at Woodstock, this happened at Bacchus and Dionysus festivals in the first century AD, to sit and say, we're going to chase all of this pleasure, and we're going to include sexuality in it, isn't progressive. It's the same thing. I was reading some of this article, and I was like, I agree with the writer of Vanity Fair. That's not progressive at all. You're right.
It's sin, and it's the same thing. And so that's what Paul says, it's not just this, but it's when we suddenly say, well, you know what makes sex better is Molly. And ecstasy, and drug use, and celebration, and party, and whatever that ends up looking like, he's saying the pursuit of, and the throwing off of, restraint. One of the ways that we say this now is, what's right for you is right for you, does it hurt anybody? Those are our kind of two moral rules. Are you hurting someone?
And we just say, well, if it doesn't directly hurt them, then you're fine, do what you want. And Paul says no. Covetousness. All impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you. Covetousness can also be translated greediness. Later he says covetousness, which is idolatry, meaning that we've so focused in on something that it's become our life pursuit, that it means more to God, that it's what we worship, it's what we have to have.
To covet means to want something that's not yours. Maybe specifically to want something that's someone else's. But it's this devotion to things. That my life will be better if I could just have. That all I'm really working for is this. And now all of my time and all of my energy goes towards this.
So Paul says, sexual morality, all impurity or covetousness don't have a place among you. Now this is hard for us as Americans because we don't live in a prudish society that's anti-sex. We live in a place that has completely sold out to the idea that more and better sex will fix you. That there is no real rules as long as you're not hurting someone. And our whole consumer system is based off of covetousness. That you see something that someone else has and then you get one.
That's how that works. For us. See, it's the throwing off restraint in selfish pursuit of personal pleasure. Has no place among Christians. Throwing off restraint in the selfish pursuit of personal pleasure. I'm going to chase after my own desires and I'm going to be filled up.
Verse 4. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. No filthiness, no foolish talk, nor crude joking. That crude joking term means crude joking. It can mean vulgar jokes. It can also mean like biting sarcasm.
Jokes that hurt people that have gone too far. So filthiness. So filthiness. Just being dirty, being vulgar, trying to find the crudest terms. Trying to be like, well, I'm an adult so I can use all these words. And it's like, yeah, this isn't helpful.
Is it edifying? Foolish talk. I think, honestly, a lot of times our foolish talk comes in is certainly whenever we're sinfully talking, when we're harming people, when we're being sarcastic in a biting harmful way, when we're talking poorly about people. It's all the stuff we talked about a few weeks ago where Paul says that let our words be building people up and not tearing them down. I think it's also when we get too focused on things that aren't that important. That's foolish.
So if I said, I really like Oreos, I'd be like, yeah, it's America's favorite cookie or milk's favorite cookie or both. I don't remember the slogan. And it's like, yeah, but if I said no, but I have to have a thing of Oreos in my house at all times, so I always have two just because sometimes I run out. You'd be like, okay. That sounds excessive, but Oreos are good. And if I said, I'm going to devote my whole life to Oreos and I'm going to start a podcast where we just talk about Oreos, you'd be like, that sounds dumb because it'd be foolish to take something that was fine and then make it so important.
Okay, so foolish talk. Go on Facebook. Find the thing that someone that was fine, but then they made it the category for how you know if you're an okay human. This is good. It's a good thing to do this with your spouse or your children or your money. Everyone who doesn't is a complete idiot and is probably going to Hades.
It's like, oh, it's probably foolish. Like, let's tone it down. It's good. You can't devote your whole life to it. This is sports are good, but now, I'm going to devote my whole life to knowing every single thing about 18 to 20 year olds. Or 18 to 24 year olds and who's getting recruited and where they're coming from and what their high school is like and who their mom is.
It's like, ah, I think we've moved. I think we've moved from an okay thing to a foolish thing. Then he says, filthy, crude joking. And here's, I have a problem with this. I have a problem with this. I never liked this verse because I think I understood what it meant and I didn't want.
You ever read a Bible verse and you're like, I think that's correcting me and so then you go, well, I don't really know what that means. Nobody else has done that? Just me? Where it's like, that seems obvious. Probably isn't what I thought it was because then I'd have to change. Or you just think, you know, there's other stuff in the Bible that I'm not really doing.
I should focus on those because this is the one you don't really want to mess with. That was that for me because I had in my mind wrapped up the idea that crude joking was part of manliness. That was a part of how men talked and how masculinity worked and how you spoke about things and how you talked and it was like, you know, boys can't say these words, men can. And so I didn't like the idea that I wasn't supposed to because it was like, yeah, but I don't want to sound like a boy. I talk like a man. It's like, well, my version of masculinity is really messed up because that's not godly maybe it is manliness if you mean by man sinfulness.
Sure. It's great manliness but it's not godliness. I also think when it comes to some of this, some of you who are practicing filthiness and foolish talk and crude joking made all of those decisions in middle school. Right around the time you were 12, 13 is when you decided this is cool and this is how you were going to talk and I would just suggest that you wouldn't let middle school you make any other lifelong decisions for you and you might want to reconsider. And if that's not when that happened, still reconsider because we're told to. Here's why this matters.
It's about to get really serious. So if it hadn't been so far, verse 5, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Paul said, you may be sure of this. The sexually immoral, the impure or the covetousness, that is an idolater, have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Now, does that mean has ever done this?
I don't think so. It's an identity thing. So he says, those who are actively practicing identified by sexual immorality, I mean, a murderer, a career thief can do a nice thing, but that's not the thing that categorizes them. It's not the thing that they've set their life around. So it's a category of practicing active sexual immorality, pursuing impurity, pursuing covetousness, living a life of greed.
He says, you can be sure of this. They have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Now, the way he's using inheritance is he says it in the earlier chapters of Ephesians that we've been given an inheritance by Christ's work on our behalf, that the Holy Spirit has sealed us, that keeps us for our inheritance. And so what he's saying is that if someone's actively practicing these things, they are not a Christian. You can be certain of it. If this is how they categorize their life, they don't belong to Jesus.
And then he says, let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. That those who would step in and say, well, it's really not that bad, no, this is okay. This is alright. Their words are empty and deceptive and they are not your friend. Now, why is this carrying this weight? Why does Paul say this is a clear indication that this is not a lifestyle change, that they don't belong to Jesus?
Let me tell you who will not be in the kingdom. That's what he says. Let me tell you who you won't meet in heaven. The sexually immoral, the impure, and the covetous. They don't belong to him. He started this chapter by saying, let's imitate God, be imitators of God, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
Sexual immorality, pursuit of impurity, and covetousness are antithetical to the gospel. They're headed in the opposite direction because the gospel is this. Christ loved us and he gave himself up for us. So we trust in him and we believe that he is where everything good and holy and right is found. That he's where joy and pleasure are found. And then because we believe that he is all that is good and everything pleasurable and enjoyable is in him, then we belong to him, then we sacrifice for the sake of others.
That Christianity at its heart, at its root, is this self-sacrifice of Jesus that works its way into love and self-sacrifice on behalf of those who belong to Jesus. And sexual immorality is not self-sacrifice, it is selfishness. And a pursuit of impurity and personal pleasure is not self-sacrifice, it is selfishness. And covetousness and greed is not self-sacrifice, it is selfishness. And therefore, it stands in stark contrast with the gospel. I want to give two specific reasons why that's true.
One, it's not walking in love and giving ourself up for others. It's easier to see, I think, in covetousness and greed, like we can all rally around at times and at different points in society like we have where people had the robber barons and then you had the fat cats on Wall Street and now you've got the 1% who are greedy. You've got Kim Jong-un who's greedy, who for his own sake and for his own benefit he harms those around him. And everybody will stand around and say, it's so evil, it's so greedy to take from others and to hoard for yourself and to just worry about your own enjoyment and benefit.
And then at the same time, we'll step in and say, but the free sex movement and what I do in the privacy of my home and what happens in our relationship is different. And the Bible says, no, they're in the same category. And here's why. Sex was meant to be self-donation and self-sacrifice and without the commitment and without the covenant, it's selfish. It's self-enjoyment and self-pleasure. And you might respond, whoa, hold on a second.
It's mutual. Okay. You're both sinful. These people can respond. If they didn't want to get paid this wage, they can work somewhere else. If you really didn't want me to be this wealthy, you can buy other products.
If women wanted to get paid as much as men, fill in the sentence. And if you say, well, this is... And it's like, yeah, maybe the whole system's off. Maybe they think that's the way that relationships work or how they have to stay in this relationship or it was the only time you ever told them you loved them or the only time they ever felt love like this. It's the same thing. That actually, the Harvey Weinsteins and the Matt Lowers are just carrying this out to its logical conclusion because it is, at its root, selfishness.
It's not self-sacrifice on behalf of another. It's not giving ourselves up. Honestly, if you are ignorant, to the fact that sexual morality is sin and you're actively practicing it, you're harmful, but you're not malicious. But if you're not ignorant to what the Bible says about it, that because of it, wrath is coming on the sons of disobedience, you're cruel. It's actually cruelty to be in a relationship where you pressure and participate in sexual immorality at the sake of the other who's joining you in sin and headed for wrath. He says, sexual morality, impurity, and covetousness.
To say that my whole life is built around and pursuit of and this is what fills me up and this is what is good and I'm unwilling to repent. He says that, be certain. You don't belong to Jesus. The throwing off restraint and selfish pursuit of personal pleasure is antithetical to the gospel. The second reason is that it preaches a false gospel about where the good life is found. That we're supposed to be pictures of Christ who proclaim that He is all that is good and He is all that is holy and He is all that is right, but then if we say, well, when He says that I shouldn't have sex outside of marriage, I don't really listen to that one.
I've actually had people before say, okay, I may become a Christian but I'm not going to do the no sex thing and I've just said that's not how it works. That it actually, we proclaim with our lives that we think this is better, that this is more enjoyable, that this is good. That we proclaim with our lives when we spend our whole time, all of our money goes to ourselves and it all goes to our personal pleasure and it all goes to our personal satisfaction that we're telling the world this is where joy is found, this is where life is found, this is where good is found. That's a false gospel. Joy and good are found in Jesus.
So that's why the Christian response to covetousness is hard work and generosity because that's what Jesus did. That's why Paul earlier says, let thieves no longer steal but let them work hard and share. We respond by looking like the gospel. Hard work and generosity is a small picture of the gospel in the midst of covetousness. It's saying, no, we believe our good things are found elsewhere and that part of my labor is supposed to be self-sacrifice on behalf of others. And that's why the Christian response to sexual morality is chastity.
And that's a word we don't use. Abstinence is another one but chastity is a better one because chastity is like a good picture of a thing and abstinence just means don't. chastity means do this. Abstain for a good purpose because it displays God that it's sacrifice on behalf of another. You may be certain, do not be deceived. It's not winked at, it's not excused, and anyone who tells you it's okay is not your friend. God.
Now I pray to God that if those of us in here who would say, no, this is, this is a full part of my life, the practice of sexual morality or this is a full part of my life, the pursuit of impurity that I'm just saying in this area, Jesus isn't involved because I just want to pursue this thing that feels good. I don't know what that is. I don't know if that's alcohol or marijuana or your approach to food. I don't know. I don't know where, I don't know where we're saying, this is the thing, I just don't want him to tell me no. And I don't know if there's people in here saying no, my whole life right now is just I want stuff.
My devotion to it and I don't really have set aside to share and I just, all I think about is how I could move up and how my house could be bigger and how my land could be bigger and how my car could be nicer. I see someone dressed well and I just have to get that. And I pray that for us there's this moment of saying, okay, what do I do? Verse 7. Therefore, because this is true and because it's antithetical to the gospel and because it has no place among Christians, therefore, do not become partners with them for at one time you were darkness. So he's talking to Christians, you were darkness but now you are light in the world.
So what he said is be certain that those who practice these things don't belong to Jesus and then he goes right back to saying, but you do. So don't participate. You were darkness but now you're light in the world. Walk as children of light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. The Christians would know that everything good and right and true belongs to us and that we would decide what pleases God not just what pleases me and that we would not participate. So I would just ask who are you partnered with and who are you imitating?
Does your approach to money look way more like the American approach to money or the Jesus approach to money? God's approach to money. Does your approach to impurity and sexuality look way more like the American approach? Are you partnered with Americans? Are you imitating Americans and therefore excusing well I look like everybody else it can't be that big a deal and I don't even care if you're just saying well other people in the church do this. You can be certain they don't belong to Jesus if that's their active practice in life.
So don't look at someone in your group and say they do it. God help them that they do that. And may He lead them to repentance. And may they find Jesus. 11. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them.
Here's our answer. and it's a glorious answer. Here's God's beautiful response in the midst of a coming wrath. Take no part expose it for it's shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret but when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. Now that's not a true statement but it is here.
I can't say hey will you shine your flashlight at my shoe I want my shoe to become a flashlight. This is not how it works. My shoe shines it reflects light so we get a little bit of a picture of that but that's what He says though is everything that is exposed and brought into the light becomes light. That we would take no part in unfruitful works of darkness and that we would expose them. That's in ourselves that some of you have something that needs to be exposed. that needs to be brought out and laid out. And some of you have something that you need to go to someone else and say hey this is an unfruitful work of darkness and I need to help shine some light on it for you because you're walking in and I don't think it's going to help.
I don't think it leads to health or good or joy. I actually believe that there's a good God and there's a coming wrath. But I also believe back half of 14 therefore it says awake oh sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. I believe that there's a coming wrath and I believe that there's a Christ who took that wrath. I believe that there's a coming wrath on the sons of disobedience and I believe that there was an obedient son who became disobedience for us so that that wrath doesn't have to get us. I believe that wrath is coming on sons of disobedience but I also believe in an obedient son.
And I believe that he took God's wrath on our behalf and I believe that we get to wake up and not just wake up arise from the dead. Maybe some of you have felt so guilty and I hope so. But I hope you don't walk out those doors feeling guilty. I hope you walk out those doors feeling free because sometimes we want to say I think I'm so far gone I think I'm already too deep in it I think it's gone too far I think this is too much a mode of my heart and he says he raises the dead we believe in a God of resurrection. There's nothing more far gone than dead and our God says not even that is beyond my reach.
That Jesus Christ died as an obedient son so that we might not face the wrath that is coming for us that we absolutely deserve but that we can be those who arise with Christ and here's what he says that whatever you confess whatever you expose becomes light. that it actually Christ shines in it. Do you know who the most glorious person in heaven is? Do you know who displays Christ most beautifully is the person who least deserved to be there. Some people are like of course they're in heaven they're a good person and there are other people who are like no way that person got in. It's like but if they believed in Christ he shines in them.
Do you know the most beautiful part of Christ in your life is the part that looked the most far gone? It's Ali and Foreman where he's just getting pummeled round after round after round after round and then he just pops off the side of the ropes and wears Foreman out. The best game I was ever a part of as a football player we were down 24-0 at halftime. I played a lot of games where we just beat people. Those were fun. They weren't the ones I get to point back to and say that one was great.
And there are places in your life that are dark and hideous and filthy and disgusting and immoral and those are the places where when Christ shines when you expose them in confession Jesus displays his greatness in an unparalleled manner because morality and good behavior is what we're told save you in so many other religions and Christians say no. Jesus saves in the midst of everything that was dark and broken and hideous about me. and let me tell you all that was dark and broken and hideous so that you can see a good and glorious obedient son who's a savior and who took the wrath I deserved. Wake up. bring it into the light and have Jesus raise you from the dead so that Christ may shine. Bring it into the light expose it so that Christ will shine that he'll shine in the midst of our confession of our sin he'll shine as we confess our savior. the band's gonna come back up we're Christians we believe in resurrection we believe that we repent of sin and that we walk with Jesus and that in the midst of our repentance and our brokenness and our sinfulness that he is his glory is displayed because there is no religion that saves sinners like Jesus saves sinners that what qualifies you for salvation is your sin not your goodness and it's in the midst of our darkest worst most hideous evil that he most displays his goodness and grace on our behalf that his grace is bigger that his salvation is sufficient I'm gonna read a quote from a song and then we'll sing together this is called Felix Culpa it's by the band King's Kaleidoscope Felix Culpa is a Latin phrase that means a fortunate fall and it's talking about this idea that it's at our worst that he is the most glorified it says turn the lights on and look at what I have see the twisted trophies of a dead man countless stories tell of sin and pain but they sing the sweetness of my savior's grace I'm a torn man spirit fighting flesh there's a battle raging deep in my chest but all that haunts me and all that leaves a stain only sings the sweetness of my savior's grace a fortunate fall my sins are stories of grace to recall a fortunate fall I glory in my sins forgiven Jesus bought me and now I am his and dying with him in his death I now lived all my vices to which I was chained only speak the sweetness of my savior's grace if you need to expose sin do it if you need to repent do it so that Christ may shine on you and you can rise from the dead and you can be counted with the living who belong to Jesus only because he dies to sin and raises again in new life through it you of my and my and and I will and I will and and
Time to Change
Transcript
Good morning. How y'all doing? All right. I'm going to say a quiet prayer for all of y'all. Grab your Bibles and go to Ephesians chapter 4. We're walking through the book of Ephesians.
As Spencer said, we're kind of in this section right now where Paul has shifted from the first three chapters where he was giving some big theological truths. And now he's shifting into what it actually looks like in life as we obey, as we follow Jesus and what he does among a group of people. How they begin to change, how they begin to look. And so that's kind of what we're spending some time on. And so we'll be in Ephesians chapter 4. We'll be in verses 25 through chapter 5, verse 2.
And we've said this a couple of times, but the chapters and verses were added later. So this was just one big letter that Paul wrote. And then later on, chapters were added. And after that, sometime verse Numbers were added to try to help you be able to quickly reference things. It was to help the church, but those are just in there to be helpful. So it's not some of y'all, maybe it stresses you out that we would roll from chapter 4 into chapter 5.
But if it helps you to know that those were added later and we can do whatever we want as we read through this text. There you go. Have you ever tried to change something about yourself? You ever given any effort towards that? You ever tried to change your sleep pattern? Or tried to change an exercise pattern?
It's February. How are your New Year's resolutions going? You didn't think those would be brought up, did you? Shame. Shame on all of you and pride for like one of you who's like, I crushed it. Everybody else.
No, but like that's, have you ever tried to change a thing? Like the only people who ever think dieting is easy are people who've never really dieted. They never, they're like, well just change how you eat. And it's like, just shut up. There's, changing something's hard. And one of the things I notice is like, for ourselves, we've got a lot of room, a lot of grace.
There's a lot of space for like, change is difficult. You know, I'm, I'm introverted. That's just what I'm like. Or I'm extroverted. I'm just loud and in your face. And that's just who I am.
And if that scares you, well I'm sorry. Like that, you know, like, you know what I'm talking about? Like I'm introverted, so I don't actually have to know anyone or leave my house. It's like, well, um, okay. Like, you know, we have these, I'm, I'm Italian, so I yell and throw things when I get mad. It's like, well, um, but like we have a lot of space for, a lot of grace for when our own ability to change and the amount of time it takes to change.
I noticed this a lot in, um, we have very little space or time for when it, for someone else. And I noticed this a lot in young married couples in our church family where they'll sit us down. They've been married for like a year, six months. And they're like, if this doesn't change, I just don't even know. And we've talked about it twice. It's been seven days.
And I just don't even know if we're going to, it's like, slow, slow your roll a little bit. Like I brought it up and, and then it happened again four days later. What do you want me to do? Bring it up again? And it's like, just, but I, I, I see, I always, I, you know, I feel for him, but I'm also entertained every time I get to have that conversation. Cause I get to see me in that where it's like, I want to look at my wife and be like, I already told you this was a problem.
I don't know why you fixed it. We've been married going on nine years. Now there are still things that she'll bring up that she's been talking to me about for nine years. And I'm like, Hey, I'm trying. I'm working, baby, I'm working on it. And it's like, I'm doing a terrible Job working on it, but I'm working on it.
Like let's, let's give some. And so change is hard. And that's the text that we're in today where Paul is just writing to the church. And here's what he says, change, be different. He's, we, we spent time last week as, as Spencer was reading through where he says, put off the old self and put on the new self. He says, this is a, he talks about your former life and how you chased sin and how you lived pursuing your desires.
And he says, that's not how you learned Christ. As you've been taught in him, put off the old self, put on the new self. And so what we get to look at today in this text is him walking through and giving us pictures of old self, new self. He's giving us pictures. He's given us, um, categories for put this off, put this on. And so here's what I want us to do today.
I want you to see that. Let's say you started here, old self, then you became a Christian. You placed your faith in Jesus. You realized I'm a sinner. I've got problems. I've got things that I've done that I shouldn't have done.
I've got heart issues. I need Christ to save me. And now he's saved you. He's coming to your life and you've got some things to get rid of. You've got some growing to do. You've got to put off some things and put on some things and you've got to move this direction.
You've got to have a trajectory of growth, a trajectory of change. So that when it comes to anger and how you respond to situations, you've got to go over time from this spot down there. When it comes to work ethic, when it comes to how you treat people and respond to people, and when it comes to your ability to forgive and to love and to be gracious, you've got to work yourself from here to there. That when we become Christians, we are now on a trajectory to change. And so what I want us to do today is as we read through this, I want you to prayerfully, if you're a Christian, if you believe in Christ, I want you to just start asking, have I put that off and have I put on the new action?
So when we talk about anger, just kind of gauge yourself, where am I? Have I put away anger? Have I put on the new action? Kind of where do I fall in this? And so we're going to spend some time just kind of evaluating, kind of investigating our own hearts. And then we're going to try to understand why Paul approaches it the way he does and why he has the confidence that he has.
So let's pray and then we'll read the entire text together and then we'll walk through it. God, we ask for your grace today that we might see ourselves rightly. That you might be good enough to us that we would accurately begin to see where we need to change. What about us needs to be different, where we need to grow. And we ask for your help as we do this this morning in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Verse 25, chapter 4, verse 25 through 5 to therefore, having put away, put it, put away falsehood. Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share.
Let the devil's hear with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
I think you're going to have to wrestle with yourself a little bit as we go through this text today, because we are tempted culturally to just kind of lean into identity. That's who I am. That's just what I'm like. We have a whole lot of like if people don't like you for you, just get rid of them. And Paul steps in and says, maybe you need to change. Maybe you need to grow.
Maybe there needs to be something different about you. And he steps in and begins to say, this has got to go. This has got to come. You've got to get rid of this. You've got to put this on. And so that's what we're going to walk through and look at.
Let's start in verse 25. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. So he begins by saying, OK, if you if you're in Christ, put away falsehood. Have having done this, he's just assuming that falsehood has left, that when you became a Christian, that when you place your faith in Christ, one of the first things to get rid of was your falseness. You're faking your pretense. You're lying that you came to God and were open and honest with.
I'm a sinner. I'm in need of help. I'm admitting the worst about me and I'm getting rid of all my falsehood. And the reason he gives, he says, get rid of falsehood. Let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor. And this is kind of the pattern that he'll follow.
He'll say, get rid of this. Start doing this. Here's why. That's kind of the pattern he's going to follow. There's a few times where he he doesn't follow that, but mostly that's what he says. So he says, get having put away falsehood, speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another.
And the way Paul uses the word member, it's not like a member of a club that he uses to to kind of illustrations to explain member. And he uses member throughout his letters. He means body member and family member. He does not mean member of an organization. So if you said of your A.V. club in high school, yeah, last year we had 10 members and this year we have eight.
OK, if you said that same sentence about your family last year, we had 10 members and this year we have eight. That's a completely different sentence. Body members, family members is a different. It's an intensely connected. So the reason why he says to be honest is that we are intensely connected with one another.
The same way that your body parts are members of your body are connected to one another. This past weekend, if I had been working with a saw and cut my hand off and you saw me and said, how are you doing? I wouldn't say, well, you know, 90 percent of me is doing great. I think I mostly focus on the hand issue that I had. And that's the point he's talking about is is that we're deeply entrenched, intensely connected with one another. And therefore, honesty, falsehood is gone and honesty is here.
And I want to tell you what that means. That means that when you hang out with your community group. You don't fake. You don't pretend. When you're hanging out with your church family, you're not trying to make it look like you've got yourself more put together than you do. You're not trying to act like, oh, I've got everything in order and I'm fine and everything's good.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. When that's not what's going on. That we've put away falsehood and that we're honest with one another. We speak the truth. It also means that when someone in your group is sinning or they have an issue or they ask you a question, you respond honestly.
Hey, do you think this is a problem? Do you think I was wrong there? No. No, you're not wrong. I bet they just had a bad attitude. And then later, because you're Southern, you say no.
And then later you go to the other person and go, can you believe that person over there? And it's like, no, you were supposed to speak the truth, which was, yes, I think that is an issue. I think that is a problem. I'm glad you brought it up because I was going to have to. That we're honest. I want to give a quick caveat to this for two particular individuals.
If you don't fit in one of these categories, just zone out for 30 seconds. But if you fit in this category, I need to help you out. There's a person in here. Not a specific person. I know y'all, so don't be like, oh, he's talking about me. Calm down.
A type of person in here who will overthink some of this stuff and will be like, okay, I have to put away falsehood. Okay. Okay. And then you'll go to the DMV and they'll be like, how are you doing? And you'll say, fine. And then you'll get in your car and go, I'm not fine.
I didn't put away falsehood. And then you'll walk back in the DMV and go, I have problems. Yes, you need to be transparent. You need to be honest. But with a specific group of people, a certain group of people in a certain setting at a certain time.
It's okay to say I'm doing well. It's okay to say I'm not doing great. When you come hang out on Sunday and someone says, I'm not doing great. But I got some people I'm talking to about that. I got some people I'm walking in life with. Just be praying for me if you get a chance.
You don't have to paint a smile on, but you also don't have to go every time someone says, how are you doing? Go, let me reconfess my sins. So you don't have to do that. Jesus, I'm going to give you a quick example of this. Jesus is with his disciples. He feeds 5,000 people.
He sends his disciples off in a boat. And then later, he dismisses the crowds. And he walks on water across the lake to where they're going. People look for him the next day where they know he was. And they also know all the boats left. They then circle around the lake.
They find him. And the first question they ask, which is an intelligent, reasonable question, how did you get over here? Now, the answer to that question is, I walked on water. Do you know how he responds to that question? The only reason y'all were looking for me is because I fed y'all last time. He does not answer their question.
You don't have to answer every question to every person. You do have to answer questions to certain people. And so the second group of person I just need to address real quick is the person who said, put away falsehood. Put down pretense. Quit faking. Not happening.
Be transparent. No, sir. No, you have to. You have to with some people. You have to with your community group. You have some people in your life that you've got to tell how you're doing.
And it can't be, I talk to my cousin in Tulsa on the phone once a month and tell them how I'm doing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to have some people around you that know how you're doing, that know your sin, that are walking deeply with you so that you can repent, be open. With the members of your family, with the members of your church family who you belong to, we put away falsehood. 26. Be angry.
Oh, before we move on to 26, you can keep it up on the screen. How you doing? When it comes to putting away falsehood, how you doing? When it comes to being honest, how often are you finding in yourself that you're only given half truth? How often when it's time for your group to confess, are you only confessing this thing but keeping this back? How often are you finding when it's time to pray about something, you come to the moment of, I really should talk about this, and then you just back up?
Because you just can't stand to have people know really how you're doing and what's really going on. He says, put away falsehood. Start speaking the truth. 26. Be angry and do not sin. Now some of y'all, right when we started reading verse 26, you got excited.
Paul said, be angry. You were like, amen, close the book, let's head home. I got it. I'm done. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
There's some freedom in this verse because he does say be angry. It's okay to be angry. It's not a Christian virtue to be just stoic all the time and to always just be perfectly calm. No, there was, Jesus was calm in the middle of situations. There were also times that Jesus, you know, flipped over some tables and had a whip and was very angry. Startling.
It would have made little church people freak out. He was angry. It's okay to be angry. You just can't sin when you're angry, in your anger. It says, be angry and do not sin. So you can get angry.
You can get frustrated. There are times that you should be angry. It's at sin at work in the world. There are times that you should be angry, but then you have to process it. Well, you have to not sin in your anger. And he covers more anger issues later, but he says, do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give up, give no opportunity to the devil.
Here's what that means. Anger does not get a resting place with you. It has a place, but it doesn't get to stay. It can visit, but it doesn't get to dwell with you. It doesn't get to live with you. It doesn't get to stay overnight.
Anger is like your boyfriend or girlfriend. When it gets dark, they've got to go home. All right. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Give no opportunity to the devil. So anger, you don't get to let it fester.
You don't get to let it dwell. It doesn't get to keep hanging out. Anger is a, so here me explain what happens. Something happens and you're angry, rightfully angry. What they did was wrong. What they did was messed up.
What they did was busted. That's one of the things that we have all the time. People go, they really did this. It's like, I know. Yeah, it's a real thing. They sinned.
They harmed you. That shouldn't have happened. But then you got to keep a short account. You got to go address it with people. You got to go talk to them. You got to go say, hey, this really bothered me.
This hurt me. Let me explain how this goes to work. And I want to show you all the reason he gives should terrify us a little bit. Should startle us a little bit. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Okay, we're Christians.
We believe that there is a good, holy, righteous being that exists in the world and is at work for our good. That God is good and holy and righteous and he's at work for our good. And we also believe that there is evil in the world. Spiritual evil that we can't see that is at work for our destruction. And he says that if you have untended anger, that you're allowing it to stay with you, you are giving an opportunity to Satan. Now, I don't know about y'all, but if there's people, if there's someone on earth you didn't want to give opportunity to, it's Satan.
We recently had a lot of car break-ins in my neighborhood. And people just go through and just pull on car doors. That's the extent of their effort. If your car door is unlocked, opportunity. If your car door is locked, next house. And what he's saying is if you allow anger to hang out, to dwell with you, you unlock the doors for Satan to come join.
You allow him to hop in. You allow him to begin to mess with things. Let me explain how this works because I get to see this a good bit. You're hanging out with your group and you're talking through something and someone in your group says something. And it's like, okay, that felt like that was aimed at me. They know me well enough.
I feel like that little comment was a shot. Well, then you start thinking about all the terrible things you know about that person because you know them well enough. You start working on your own little shot you might take and then you're like, no, I'm better than that. No, I'm a good person. I'm not going to do that. So now you're a little frustrated with him, but you think, I'm going to let it go.
You don't, but you think that. You tell yourself that. And then you go home. You go to sleep. The sun sets. You unlock your doors.
So here's what happens. It starts to hang around. The next time you're hanging out with your group, you go, you know what? They did that last time. Let me listen. Let me see if they're going to keep that up.
Now you're looking for it. So you'll find something that just kind of fits. That was it. If you can't find one that fits you, you'll go, that was aimed at them. This is just something they do. Now you've got a little lens you're working on with this person.
Slowly you start growing cold towards them. Slowly stuff begins to grow up between you and them. Slowly when they're now talking, you have a hard time even listening to the word they say because you've got this anger growing. You've got this bitterness that's working towards them. And here's what happens. The enemy comes along, puts his arm around you and says, you are so right.
They're doing it on purpose. You start hanging out on a Sunday. You show up. You see them. You look at them. They look at you.
They made a little face. I think they made a face. They look right past you. They wave at the person behind you. That was on purpose. And you don't think that maybe that unfortunately due to genetics, this is just what their face looks like when they're thinking.
And they can't help it. You also don't realize that maybe they just look past you. You also don't realize the fact that you did not wave to them. You did not say hey to them. And the enemy's coming along. At this point, he's rubbing your back.
Yeah. They're doing it on purpose. And suddenly, you have someone in your community group that you have a hard time even hanging out because they're being so fake when the truth is, that's you. You're pretending. You're lying. You're faking.
And we don't even know what's going on with them. And so here's what happens. You have to keep a short account. Something makes you angry? Fine. Go talk to them.
Hey, were you trying to take a shot at me? Here's now you have a couple options. You started the conversation. That's a little scary, but it's good. Were you trying to take a shot at me? Was that aimed at me on purpose?
A couple options. It was. They lie. No. Okay, well, they're sinning. You can't help that.
Maybe the Lord will bring them to repentance at some point. But you're doing what you're supposed to. Other option. Yes. It was passive aggressive, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't do that.
But I do need to talk to you about this issue. Cool. Now y'all are growing. This is healthy. Third option. No.
But I see how you took it that way. And I just wanted you to know I'm not malicious. I'm just dumb. I absolutely shouldn't have said that. Because I do know your story. But I'm so sorry.
And then guess what? You get to go home. The sun sets, but not on your anger. Americans are really bad at that, so get over it, and you just got to work on it. We're really good at being like, well, I'll just see, and if this gets weird enough, I'll go somewhere else. And we just don't have to be friends.
And no, that's not a biblical concept. So talk to them. Work it out. If you don't know how to go about that, we will help. We will help set the stage for that. Help work that out with your group, with your group leader, whoever.
28. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. So Paul says, if you've been getting your financial stability unlawfully, stop it. If you've been shoplifting, if you've been stealing, if you've been cheating, if you've been lying, stop it. Let the person who went out of his way to send emails to trick people and to get their social security, stop it. Let him no longer steal.
Now, he's talking about thieves. I would say, I think this probably also applies to lazy people. Just inserting that. Thief seems further down the line than just lazy. What he says is, stop stealing, start working. That Christians are to do honest labor with their hands.
They're to labor. They're to do hard work. To get effort in. That's what Christians do. They work. And then he gives the reason why.
He says, let the thief no longer steal. Let him get a job. And let me tell you something. If you've been stealing, jobs are the worst. If you've been selling weed, a nine to five at Best Buy. Oh, it feels like murder.
I'm just being honest. It's good for you. It's what Christians are supposed to do. If you've just been being lazy and just hanging out because you can get assistance from your family or from some kind of other source and you just haven't been working. Get a job. It's good for you.
It's what we're supposed to do. It's godly. But he says, go to work, start laboring. And then he says, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. So, you stealing? You're getting your provision in an unhonest way?
Are you pretending to be unhealthy to get medical assistance? Are you pretending to be mentally unstable to get medical? Are you doing something that's getting by on the system? Stop. Start working. The question now is, are you working hard?
Are you laboring? When you go to work, when you go home, would Jesus look and go, that was labor? Or was it only labor when somebody was watching? Third question. Is a portion of your income intended for sharing? Is a portion of your income intended for sharing?
When someone in your group says, hey, guys, I really have a need, do you immediately go, yeah, ready? Now, how beautiful is that? If every person who is a Christian just had a whole set aside. He doesn't say give it all away. He says share. Had a share.
Had a set aside portion that was ready for needs. Isn't that beautiful? When Jesus comes along, thieves get jobs and begin to share. They do the exact opposite of what they had been doing. 29. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths.
29. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths. But only such as is good for building up. 30. 30. 30.
30. 30. 30. 30. That it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So the Holy Spirit has sealed you.
He's talked about that in Ephesians already, that the Holy Spirit has sealed you. He's claimed you. He's made you his. And that when we speak in a corrupting way, in a way that corrodes, in a way that destroys, in a way that harms, the Holy Spirit is grieved. It hurts him. The Holy Spirit is a person.
He's not a force. He's hurt. It's harmful. It's almost as if, have you ever been in an argument where these two people are arguing, but their mom's there, or their grandma's there, and that's the person who cries? Do you know what I'm talking about? Like these people are saying the most harmful things, but they're so angry, and there's another person at the table who just is so hurt.
Because that's not what that's supposed to look like. That's the Holy Spirit in you when you're tearing somebody down. That he's just hurt. Because that's not what that's supposed to look like. That's not how Christians are supposed to speak. So he says, let no corrupting talk, which means that anything that works to harm, to corrode, to destroy, to rust.
Sometimes I think about it like the tin man. He was out working, doing his thing, and then it started raining, and then he turned into, he locked all up. I've seen this movie. You know what I'm talking about. And somebody had to come back along, and put oil on him, to try to get him working again. Some of us, you're like that.
You know that. You know things that someone said to you, that worked its way into your joints, and there's a whole part of your life, that just doesn't work right anymore. It just doesn't move like it should. You had somebody speak something into you, and you know, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will harm me forever. That's really how that ought to work. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will crawl into my soul, and destroy me.
That's how it works. You have stuff that somebody said to you, that your father said to you, that your uncle said to you, that mean girls in middle school said to you, that still sticks with you. You can't curl your hair to this day, because of some random thing somebody said to you. There's this whole part of your life, that just doesn't work right. And that's not how Christians, are supposed to talk to each other. We give grace.
We give oil. We free people up to move. And so we fan the flame. We put wind in people's sails. That's how we talk to each other. Now he says, as fits the occasion, which means that sometimes it is gracious, fitting words to correct someone.
That's what Proverbs says, that profuse are the kisses of an enemy, and beautiful are the blows of a friend. That sometimes correction comes from those who love us, and cherish us, and that's gracious. That's good. That's what Jesus does. He corrects us in our sin. So sometimes you could say something really nice.
It doesn't fit the occasion. It didn't help. But Christians come along, and they say words of encouragement. They spur people on. They challenge people to do better, to work harder, to follow Jesus, to have more faith. And one of the ways I know that we need this, is if you ever take the time to just go up to somebody, most of us are thinking nice things all the time, by the way.
You think nice things about people. Man, it was so nice that they did that. And then what you say out loud is, your friend walks over, he's wearing pink striped shorts. He says, hey man. And you say, I'm sorry I couldn't hear you, your shorts are too loud. That's what you say out loud.
You don't think, I just want to let you know how good of a friend you are, and how much I appreciate that you're here. And here's one of the reasons I know that we need this, is that if you'll take the time to actually go over to someone and just say something encouraging, you will make grown adults cry. If you just grab someone and say, I just want to let you know, I see Jesus at work in you. And when you called our group to this the other day, I was so proud. And I just want to let you know, you make our community group better. You'll see people's eyes just glisten up, and they'll go, well, thank you.
Sometimes they just go, and it's like, oh man, we so need this. The leadership of our church gets to take a couple days during the summer usually to pray and just kind of to work on some stuff. And we did competitive encouragement, which Romans 12 says to outdo one another in showing honor. And so we just went in a circle, and it was this person's turn, and everybody in the room just said nice things. It was the weirdest thing for us, you guys. It was terrible.
And by the end of it, we were all like, okay, well, that was lame. Because we need this, and this is how we're supposed to talk to one another. We're supposed to give words that build up, that encourage, that move people forward. That's how the church talks. And that's when the Holy Spirit in you is going, that's exactly what I wanted to say. That's exactly what I would have told them if I could have pulled them aside.
So many of us are right now working our whole lives against a negative internal self-talk. about what we can't do, how ugly we are, how dumb we are, how much we ruin everything, and we have been filled by a Holy Spirit, and we've been surrounded by other people filled by a Holy Spirit who needs to come along and grab you up and say, let me tell you how great you are and how much I see Jesus at work in you and how much I believe in you and how much potential you have. 31, on that, on that, some of y'all need to repent for some things you said to some people. You need to go talk to them. And some of y'all need to repent for some things you didn't say to people and you need to go say some encouraging stuff that you've thought.
31, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Okay, so earlier he said be angry, now he says put it away. And here's the thing, it's like as a pattern of life, wrath and bitterness and anger and clamor and slander don't have a place with us. They don't belong in the church, they don't belong among God's people. Bitterness is where we slowly just grow this frustration, hatred towards somebody, this anger towards somebody. Who in your group begins to talk and you start to roll your eyes?
Who in your group starts to talk and you go, here we go again. Who is it they can't even get a word out, they just go, well, and you go, oh my gosh. Who is it that you have malice towards? I hope, I hope they see what happens in their life. I hope, I hope that this finally catches up towards them. You just have ill will towards them.
How many of you when you get angry have clamor, which means loudness? Shouting. saying harmful words. How many of you as a posture of life just have wrath? Anger is what drives you, it's what motivates you, it's how you go to work. Slander is speaking, speaking unhelpful, wrong, evil things about somebody to somebody else. That's why as a posture of our church, one of the things we say is that when you come to me and say, this person did this, my response is, what did they say when you told them?
Because we don't practice slander. Then he says, be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. this one messes with me a little bit because tender hearted is a cut down in my family. He might as well have said, be kind to one another, be a sissy, forgive one another. Like that's really, that's the way it hits me, like it just, it's kind of, and he just says, be it. Like the most tender hearted member of my family is my brother Vince and I sometimes, like I'll do it at some point, like tell him I'm sorry for all the stuff we did to him. That's a joke, I need to refer to him.
But like he's not like a super tender hearted person, he was just the most in my family and so we were really, really hard on him. I remember one time I had read the book of Mice and Men so I knew how it worked and then I rented the movie and he was watching with me and I knew what was going to happen at the end of Mice and Men. If you don't know what's going to happen at the end of Mice and Men, the guy that you like the most is going to die. So you should check it out sometime. And the way he's going to die is that his friend is going to shoot him to be gracious to him because he's mentally handicapped, he causes some harm that he didn't mean to cause, he's going to spend the rest of his time in prison and so his friend thinks it's nicer to just kill him than to let him live and so I, this is when we have VCRs and so rewinding was easier.
You know, like rewinding was just easier with VCR, it wasn't as quick but you could get where you wanted to go way better than you can get where you want to go with this other stuff. You're like, oh let me see who that person was and then you're 30 minutes behind now, it's all messed up. Anyway, I had a VCR and it was easy to rewind and so I sat and I knew it was about to happen and right when he got shot and fell over, I just went, and you know, still like for just a second and then he was right back up and I did it like seven times. My brother, who was in middle school, was sitting in his little chair and I just looked at him and he was like, and little tears were rolling down his face and I was going, and then Paul says, if you're in Christ, be tender hearted, care, love, when someone's hurting, that should hurt you too.
And he just comes to me and says, do it. Change. Be kind to one another that we as Christians would care about what was happening with each other. when someone in your group ran against the same wall over and over and over and over again, when other people would grow bitter, when other people would grow frustrated, when other people, you would care more almost every single time because not only are they still hitting that wall, but they don't know how to stop hitting it. And we would be kind and we would be tender hearted and we would come to him and say, this is the fourth time you've blown past your budget and you're making your life hard and I'm sorry, but how do we help?
How do I feel what you feel rather than just being frustrated with you? Forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. That's one of the, I love that, that that is there. If you haven't been around for a while, I want to give you a promise. If you stay as a part of our church family for long enough, we will hurt you. We'll sin against you.
We'll do something so messed up that you'll think Christians should have never done that and you're right, we shouldn't have. And that's why Paul follows this list up with forgive. Forgive. People, I sit with people sometimes and I'm like, I just don't know how to be in that group anymore. And it's like, yeah, I know how you can be in that group. You forgive.
You confront, you get them to repent. They confess their sin and you forgive. You hug them, you tell them you love them. And how do you do that? Because Christ forgave you. That's what we're supposed to look like.
That's who we're supposed to be and he just says, do it. Imagine this for a second. Let's just think about this list that we just walked through. If you were hanging out with a community group, maybe it's the first time you ever went and got around a community group, but if they were actually practicing this, let me tell you what would happen. You'd show up and they would say nice things to each other. And that would be weird because we're just not used to that.
But they would just be going out of their way. You'd start realizing like, man, this is a weird like complimentary, like, is this a cult? Like, you just would start being like, they're just too, there's a little bit too much caring about each other. They'd come in and ask about life things. Hey, you said this last week. How's that going?
How's work going? You still having the issue with your boss? Man, I'm so sorry. You'd have people saying, I just want to tell you how much you blessed our group last week when this happened. They'd get angry with each other and then they would just address it. Some of you, the first time you ever go hang out with a group is going to be the night they're just addressing how mad they are at each other.
Those happen. Let me tell you, those are actually good nights for you to see because it's really healthy for you to see someone say, hey, I need to talk to how, how I don't even want to be here and I'm mad at everybody in this group. And you're like, whoa. And then they talk it out. And they're like, hug and pray and it's weird and sometimes they're like, okay, well, we're still mad. Well, we're going to see each other again.
Like, this is how we deal with it. We got to keep being around each other. You start seeing them forgive one another. You start seeing them say encouraging things. You start seeing them correct one another. In love, you'll start seeing them.
Someone will say, hey guys, I really need something. And everybody in the room hand will just like reach for their wallet. What do you need? It's not weird for you to have a need and it's not weird for you to ask for it. It's beautiful when this starts to work its way around among a group of people as Jesus works in their hearts. Here's what I want to point out as we finish up.
I watched a sketch on MADtv one time where they were doing a thing where, yeah, I've watched MADtv. It used to come on Comedy Central. Don't judge me. Where they were doing a thing where a guy was being a counselor and so somebody would come in and they would tell him his problems and he would sit with his little pen and his legs crossed and then when they finished talking he would go, okay, stop it. And they would just look and he would say, stop it. And he would just yell at them, stop it.
And then he would send them out and charge them and then somebody else would come in and he would do the same thing. And that's ridiculous to us. That's crazy. That's the worst way to counsel ever because we all know that doesn't work and then the Apostle Paul just said, stop it. That's what he said. Put this away.
Pick that up. I want to point this out in this last verse but he's been doing it the whole time. He says, be put away from you. He says, just let that be put away from you. Throw it away. Get rid of it.
And then he just says, be. Stop it. Start. You're welcome. Counseling session over. That's what he does.
It's just like, of course, don't be angry. Like all of us are like, I already knew all these things. Don't steal. But then I'm somewhere and it just feels like, oh, no, no, no, and life's hard and I really gotta, oh, and I don't know what I'd do if I'd quit getting this benefit if I was honest about the fact that I can go back to work. Like, he just says, stop. Start.
Stop. Looking at someone who's bitter and they sit down and say, I'm just so bitter. I just go, oh, let me help you out. Paul says, don't be. You just got pastored. It's a good thing I don't charge for that kind of thing, right?
Like you would just be like, what? That's what he says. Guys, I want to help you see why. Chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. See, he's gotta have this confidence coming from somewhere. Either he's just saying it and he's assuming that we won't really be able to do it, but from what I've read of the Apostle Paul, that doesn't seem right.
Seems like he pretty much believes this is gonna happen. He says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. Be imitators of God as beloved children. Some of us know all you've got is the imitate God part. You've got the what would Jesus do? And you think the role, the job of a Christian is to work really hard to be good.
And we are. You are supposed to. You're supposed to obey. You're supposed to repent. You're supposed to work really hard to be good. But you're supposed to do it, comma, as beloved children.
You're supposed to imitate God, which means you need to be reading your Bible to see what he's like. Not just winging it on what you think God should be like. Yeah, you need to imitate him. You need to know what he's like. You need to know what he does. You need to know how he responds to sin.
But you do it as a beloved child, which is so helpful. I've got two boys now, which I'm pretty excited about. The one's three weeks old. And yesterday, somebody was over at our house. I was in our community group and she'd been watching them so that we could go get a date. And then we came home.
We were just hanging out a little bit and talking. And my little boy was crying and my three-year-old was sitting there and she looked at him and said to my three-year-old son Archer, she said, tell Ellis to stop crying. Tell him to calm down. And he looked at her and said, he doesn't speak English. I thought, that's my boy. And it's true.
My son Ellis does not speak English. But one day he will and he has no chance of speaking any other language growing up in our house. He's not going to pick up Spanish. One day he's not going to pop out with Portuguese. That cat is going to speak English. He doesn't yet.
My son was right. Telling him things doesn't help yet. But he's going to. That we're going to, because we are God's children, we're going to be formed into the image of God. That we're told in Romans that we're predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. It is going to happen.
If you belong to Jesus, if he has claimed your soul and you have been adopted by the Father, guess what? You're going to look like him. I have a buddy of mine that I went to middle school and high school with. He's a good friend of mine. I liked him. We had a lot of fun together.
And I doubt he listens to this. But he was just kind of goofy. He's real thin. He's funny. But he wasn't super coordinated.
And one day he said, I'm going to join the Marines. And I was like, hmm. Okay. You got any other things you're thinking about or just that one? He said, I'm going to go be a Marine. And I was like, okay.
Now, if you saw him, you would not think, I'm a Marine. If you knew him, really got to know him, you would not think, I'm a Marine. Like you just wouldn't. And this cat, went to camp with June. And then later, I see pictures of him. And he's a Marine.
He's wearing the uniform. Cat's got a sword. People don't get to carry swords. Marines do. Like if I just went and got a sword. Nah, man.
Put it up. But how cool is it to get a sword? And it'd be like an acceptable, yeah, you know, you can carry a sword. Like we've looked at certain people in our society and like carry it around. You got it. He became one.
And here's how the Marines work. You go to basic. You sign. It's over. You are like, it's going to happen. You're in.
Deal with it. And here's what happens. They recycle you. So if you don't get the physical portion down, you don't get to go home. They just start you back over. Everybody else gets to move on.
If you finally get that and you don't get the gun portion down, guess what? You don't go home. They just recycle you. Now eventually that breaks down. But guess what?
With Jesus, it doesn't. If you're down here on anger, guess what? Eventually you're going to look like Jesus. If you're down here when it comes to hard work and sharing, guess what? Eventually you're going to look like Jesus. And that's why Paul just says, stop it and pick it up because he believes that the Holy Spirit is going to work in you, that you are a beloved child of God and that you're going to imitate Him because you belong to Him and eventually you're going to make it.
Now that is extremely encouraging because some of you are in here today thinking, will I ever stop? Will this always win? Will I ever accomplish this? And guess what? At one point, you get a uniform and a sword. You get to look like Jesus.
It's going to happen. And that's why we all aggressively work this direction and expect this out of each other. You don't get to peg a person in your group and say they're just like that. No, they are now. But they're not going to be.
You don't get to peg yourself and say that's just who I am. No, it is who you are now but you're not going to be. I have a son who cannot speak English who every time you wake him up poops on himself. He's like that now. He's not going to be. And that's us in Christ.
And here's why. Walk in love, verse 2, as Christ loved us. And gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.
Put on the New Self
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We're going to be in Ephesians 4, verses 17 through 24 today. So you can go ahead and turn there in your blue Bibles.
It should be on page 569. If you don't have a blue Bible, please take that home. That is our gift to you. So growing up, I grew up in the lake, and one of the things my brother and I love to do is we love to go to this bridge. It's called Jake Knott's Bridge. It's on 378 going towards Saluda from Lexington.
And we love to go to that bridge and jump off of it. It was one of the best bridges on the lake to do it. It was like 35, 40 feet, but once the water went down, because they repaired the dam for like seven years, it was a 55-foot jump. And it was a lot of fun. You'd go, and you'd get there, and you'd climb the rocks. You'd come up the side of the bridge, and then you'd look over the edge.
It's a highway. It's 378, so cars are going 55, 60, 70 miles an hour. You had to wait until you found a solid gap of cars, and then you'd jump the fence. You'd run straight in the middle of the bridge, jump up on the ledge, look down, and jump. I mean, it was a thrill. And we probably jumped off that bridge, no doubt, like 200-plus times.
And you'd go, and you'd get as many jumps in as you could, because at some point somebody was going to call the cops or DNR, and it was over. So you had to get a bunch of jumps in really quickly and then hit the road. The last time that I jumped, I was getting ready to go to college, and we got one of our friends. Her name is Sarah, and she never did anything wrong. She followed all the rules, and we somehow convinced her to do it with us. So we take her out there, and we look over the ledge.
We see the gap, and we jump over, help her get over that fence, run to the center of the bridge. It took a little longer to get to the center of the bridge, and all of a sudden, the car is getting closer and closer and closer, and that car has lights on it. We step up on the ledge. I'm like, Sarah, that's a cop. We've got to jump. And I did the honorable thing.
I jumped and left her behind. And she wouldn't jump, so the police officer pulled over. He was really kind and let us off and said, just go home. But we had so much fun doing that as kids. And it wasn't until years later that I realized something. We did all those jumps, and not once did we ever have a spotter.
We never had anybody looking at below the bridge because this is how the bridge looked. It's a four-lane bridge, the open lake, and there was a cove behind it. And in this cove, there were boats, and there were docks, and there were people that lived there. And it was also a big fishing cove. So there are boats coming underneath that bridge all the time.
Not once did we think about, maybe we should put somebody at the bottom of the bridge to give us the go-ahead. We never thought about that, not realizing that one of those days, we're going to time it horribly, jump off the bridge as a boat comes underneath and crash into the boat. Did not think about that one time in our entire time of jumping. And you don't think about that kind of stuff when you're kids. You don't. You don't think about the consequences for your actions.
You just live in the moment, and you do what feels right. The foolishness and ignorance of that is a picture of all of us outside of the grace of God. Just looking for momentary fun, not realizing the consequences for our actions. And today, in our text, we're going to see a clear picture that Paul paints of the old self and the new self. The old self outside of life with God and the new self that has been transformed with Christ. And as we walk through this, I want us to be honest.
I want us to sit back. I don't care if you've been walking with the Lord for 30 plus years or if you're just now starting to explore Christianity. I want us to approach today and just be honest and ask ourselves, where are we in light of these two pictures? Where do we fall? So as we walk through this, verse 17 through 24.
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you've heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. To put off your old self, which belongs to your form and manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful practices, deceitful desires.
And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. Let's pray and we'll dive in. God, thank you for your word. I pray that we would be present this morning. You would show us who we are in light of this text and you would let the word pierce our hearts. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Alright, so this passage bridges the beginning of chapter 4. So we started off Ephesians 4 and we talked about how the call is God wants to unify his church. And then out of that, last week, Raph talked about how he has raised up leaders in the church to equip the saints, to equip the church for the work of ministry, for the building up the body, to grow into maturity. This comes right after that. And what Paul's doing, he's giving a clear picture of the old and new before he starts issuing commands.
What follows after this is going to be clear commands for the church and how to live this out. And he starts by giving a vivid picture of the old self. He says, verse 17, Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. Now, we're to understand what Paul's doing here. You have to work through his logic.
And to do that, you have to work backwards. You have to get to the end here where he says the hardness of heart. All right, so what he's saying there, hardness is a hardened heart is a dead heart. It is cold. It is unable to love God. And out of that, out of a hardened heart, flows those descriptions he gives when he says ignorant, alienated, darkened in understanding, futile in mind.
So out of a hardness of heart flows those descriptions. And that's true for anything. If you are hardened towards anything, there's going to be a lot of baggage that comes with it. Like if you are hardened towards trying new, really good foods. Like my toddler, Ellie, she, the first time that she, that I ever put bacon in front of her. I was like, you, I was like, Ellie, you need to try this.
And she says, mm-mm. I was like, no, no, no, no. That's for me and my household. We eat bacon. So I did the most PETA-approved thing in the world.
And I forced it into her mouth. And she tasted it. And her eyes just lit up. And it's one of her favorite foods. And she would have never known. I had to push a little bit.
But as a toddler, she's growing. And hopefully one day she's going to continue to try new foods and expand her understanding of the food universe and what is so great out there. Some people never grow out of that. One of my wife's friends, her husband doesn't eat hardly anything. He's a grown man with two kids. I think he eats steak, chicken, french fries.
And that's about it. Like we went to a Mexican restaurant one time. And you could tell he was nervous. He didn't want to eat it. I think he might have even ordered chicken figures. And I was like, what, what's going on there?
He just, I don't eat anything. He has a hardened attitude towards food. And if you have a hardened attitude towards trying new food, you are ignorant of all the amazing flavors that you're missing out. You are alienated yourself. You alienate yourself from all the different categories of food, from Mexican food. And I know in Colombia, that's the only Latin food we have that we know about.
But there's more. There's Cuban and there's Ecuadorian. There's Peruvian. There's all kinds of flavors out there. You've alienated yourself from Chinese food and Thai food and all these other things that you could experience. And you live in the dark, not knowing what else is out there.
And your palate is futile. It's futile. It's worthless. And the same way, hardened hearts are ignorant to what is good, alienated from God, walking in darkness with no purpose in mind. That is the logic that Paul works through. So now that we have the logic, let's work through the top going down.
He says that you no longer walk as Gentiles do. So Gentiles being anyone who's not Jewish. And for this context, that's many people. And the way that New Testament uses Gentile even broadens it out to say that anyone who's outside of Christ. So that picture for those who are hearing this letter read is going to bring up all the memories of who they used to be when they were formerly outside of the family of God.
And that's a helpful picture for us because for many of us, we can remember what it was like to not know Christ and how we used to live before them. Some of you became Christians at a young age. My wife, she became a Christian at seven. She doesn't really remember a whole lot beforehand. But she's been walking in obedience and growing ever since.
And that's the kind of testimony we want for our kids. But others of you, if you're like me, you remember clearly what the old life used to look like. Like I can clearly remember some of the most fallen moments before I became a Christian when I was 17. I remember in high school, my brother called me. And he called me and he said, hey man, I need you to come home. I just left for school.
And I was like, why? He said, I need you to come pee in a cup. And I was like, what? He's like, I'm getting drug tested this morning. Mom and Norm, my stepdad, Mom and Norm are taking me to get drug tested. I need you to come home.
I said, Mikey, that will not do you any good because you and I both know we would both fail that test. So I was like, I did see on TV that if you put bleach in it, like you just take a little bottle of bleach, it'll kill the test. You'll pass it. You'll be good. He said, all right. All day, I'm waiting.
I get home. I can tell the mood is not well. My mom sits me down and she says, I have something to tell you. We took your brother to get drug tested. And he failed. I mean, he failed after like four attempts.
He kept putting, what we found out was bleach in it. I don't know where he got that idea. But he ran out of bleach and he finally failed the last test. And I don't know what we're going to do with you boys. I thought we knew what was going on. I feel like I need to get you drug tested too.
And I said, Mom, I understand. I understand. Like if you feel like you need to do that, then we can do that. I mean, it's going to mess with our trust. But if you want me to do this, just name the place.
I'll go and do it. So my first thing was manipulate. Manipulate lie. Get through the situation. The next day, I went to GNC. I got a drink that's supposed to cleanse out all the toxins.
Drank it. Puked my guts out. Ended up the lie worked. I got through it all. And then years later when I became a Christian, I was trying to explain to my mom, no, clearly there was an old life and I was explaining it to her. And I used that example and she was floored.
And I was like, yeah, I used to enjoy the world. I would lie and manipulate to get out of things. That's who I was. And some of you, you can clearly remember pictures of your old self. Maybe you were like me and there were weekends of heavy drinking. The next drink and the next drink and the next drink to drown out the world.
Maybe your story is before being changed by the gospel, sex in and of itself was just a means to an end. It was just meant to be enjoyed. It wasn't how God had created in the confines of marriage to be joy between man and woman. No, like it was just a means to an end. And it was the next person, the next person, and the next person. Maybe you were also like me and you didn't just tell lies.
You were a liar and you manipulated. Ephesians 5.25. We're going to get to that next week. He's going to address that. Maybe you didn't just struggle with anger now and then. You were an angry person.
Like a wrath-filled, angry, maybe even violent person. And that's who you were. And Paul's going to address that next week as well. Fill in the blank with whatever that picture is. He's trying to draw out an image of who you used to be as Gentiles. It's who you were outside the family of God.
And then he gives the picture. And then he kind of goes behind the picture explaining what's going on. In the same way that every year my wife and I, we do a Christmas photo with our kids. In the past few years, we've crushed it. We've like nailed the Christmas photo. Partly because my sister-in-law is a professional photographer.
She's really good. But the other part of it is, is that we do a lot of work to get that one photo that we send out. Because my daughter, while she is cute as a button, she's not photogenic. Because when you tell her to smile, she sneers. She's like, nobody tells me what to do. I'm like, we're working on that obedience stuff later.
But for right now, we've got to get this picture done. And we run around being silly, going around in circles, and then finally crash together for the one moment of a good snapshot. There's a whole lot that goes in behind the picture. And that's what Paul is explaining as he keeps going. When he says, in the futility of their minds. Futility means without purpose.
Without meaning. That your mind is not grounded in purpose. It's not grounded in meaning. And this comes off the heels of last week. When the call was for the church to grow into maturity. That we might stand firm.
Not being driven to and fro. Not being driven to and fro by the winds of false doctrine. Know that we'd stand firm, rooted in the gospel. Because our minds are rooted in purpose and meaning. And man, the futility of our minds. Like that is the picture of America right now.
Like I feel like America is like the kids. We're like the kids from Ricky Bobby and Talladega Nights. Like running around the house screaming, anarchy, anarchy. And the other kid goes, what's that? I don't know. We're just screaming stuff and jumping on the bandwagon of whatever trend comes up.
Like there's been a lot of protests that have happened over the past six, seven years. I remember back to the Occupy Wall Street protests. And not making a statement on protests. I'm for them when they're what they're supposed to be. But just interviewing the people at protests has been hilarious.
They interviewed people at the Occupy Wall Street protests years ago. And it's like some of them had no idea what was going on. They were clueless. They just jumped on board because that was the next trend. There's a guy who lectures around the country. He's Jewish.
He's an intellectual. And he lectures at different colleges. And people will protest his stuff because he can be inflammatory at times. And people will literally show up these protests and they will scream Nazi at him. And I'm like, aside from the fact that, no, none of what he's saying is actually Nazism. He's Jewish.
Like what? And it's like we jump on every single trend, jump on the bandwagon. And it's kind of humorous and sad when it's stuff like that. But it's so much less humorous when our culture is jumping on the bandwagon of completely redefining entire categories of gender. And making gender so fluid that we don't even know what it is by having so many different categories of sexuality. It's a whole lot less humor when that kind of utility shows up.
And we as the church are called to stay grounded and rooted in the gospel. Rooted our minds. Rooted in his word. So that when those trends come, we don't jump on the bandwagon. And we might get called every name in the book. You might be called backward and bigots and archaic and old or whatever.
But no, we stand firm because we're rooted in purpose. Rooted in truth. And it also means that we think through stuff. We actually use our minds. We don't mindlessly, here's one, we don't mindlessly share things on Facebook. Like sometimes I see Christians and they share things on Facebook that are blatantly not true.
It's either from a fake website or whatever. And it's like, no, that kills your testimony when you share things. It's actually lying when you're sharing things that are false. Like we are called to be rooted in truth. Rooted in the gospel. Having minds that are rooted in purpose.
Because hardened hearts are ignorant to what is good. Alienated from God. Walking in darkness with no purpose in mind. So then Paul, he makes the shift to the next picture. He says darkened and understanding. Now this is similar to the futility of the mind.
It's just a little more descriptive in the reasoning process. And how the understanding process is darkened by sin. On a large scale level, what does that look like? One of the biggest pictures we have of this is the Holocaust. Like historians will ask consistently. Like they'll ask how did the Holocaust happen?
How did six million Jews get murdered in an attempt to exterminate an entire race of people? Well it started because darkened minds began to reason together. If you look at German history leading up to the rise of Hitler. There were philosophers. There were political people. There were even some theologians.
That were stained by the prejudice against Jewish people. And that grew and it grew and it grew. And until finally someone came along. And when Hitler came along with his rise. The spread of Nazism spread throughout Europe. Which I didn't.
I thought honestly. I thought that Nazism was just a German thing. I didn't realize how far it had spread. But my wife and I were watching The Crown recently. The Crown is a Netflix series on Queen Elizabeth and the monarchy. And I didn't realize that her uncle.
The former king of the British Empire. That he was a Nazi sympathizer. There are pictures of him at concentration camps. With Hitler. And there are statements of him saying all kinds of stuff about Jewish people. And that sentiment grew and darkened minds began to justify themselves and reason more and reason more.
To where Jewish businesses started getting destroyed. And people started getting shipped off to Auschwitz. Darkened minds justify every step along the way. Anything from yeah I think it's reasonable that the Jews caused our problems. To I was just following my orders when I put them in the gas chamber. Darkened minds will reason every step along the way.
The Holocaust and anti-Semitism. That's a large scale picture of that. Well how does that happen on a practical level? On an everyday level? How do darkened minds justify anything else? It looks like when you worship success.
Like if you worship success. And you idolize and you make it a false God. You will do anything to get it. You will backstab. You will manipulate. You will lie.
There are entire TV shows and movies and books dedicated to this. When success is God. You will do anything. You will justify every step along the way. Same thing happens with our kids. I love my kids.
Kids are awesome. Kids are terrible gods. They are terrible idols. And when you worship your kid. You will do anything and everything for their comfort. For their peace.
For their happiness. For their joy. And it shows up at football games. Like I told my wife. We will not be that family. I will not be that dad.
That verbally and physically assaults coaches and referees. Like I'm fairly athletic. There's a lot of the rest of my family that's not. There's probably a good chance that our kids are just not going to be that great. And when the coach puts them on second string. They put them on second string.
And I'll try to support them as much as I can. But I'm not going to go punch a coach out. I'm not going to go scream at a referee. When you elevate your kids to the level of worship. They are terrible idols. And you will justify every step along the way.
It looks like when God has given us gifts. Like common gifts. Like beer and wine. Alcohol is a gift that he's given to creation. I know that some of you are going to push back on that. And try to point to the Bible.
You're going to have a really tough time. Explaining that from the scriptures. But God has given us a good gift. And what happens is we take that good gift and we want to abuse it. With the next drink. And the next weekend.
And the next party. And the next sip. All the way down the line. We will justify ourselves to drunkenness. That's how loneliness makes its way all the way down to pornography. And every click along the way can get darker and darker.
And every justification. Every step of justification will lead you down that path. That's how the pursuit of power has resulted in a sexual harassment and assault epidemic. I mean not every single story that has come out of the Me Too movement has been legit. I recognize that. But it has shown us a ton.
A ton of destruction in women's lives. In some men's lives. Because people worship power. And when you worship power. One of the darkest ways that shows up. Is I will use you for my sexual benefit.
And I will show my power and dominance over you. All of this and so much more happens. Because hardened hearts are ignorant to what is good. Alienated from God. Walking in darkness. With no purpose in mind.
And Paul he keeps moving. He gives two more pictures. He says alienated from the life of God. Because of the ignorance that is in them. So this first picture.
Alienated from the life of God. That is those who are outside of the family of God. They are outsiders. They are foreigners. Which honestly I feel like is one of the sadder pictures that we have here. Because of what you are missing out on.
Outside of Christ. You are missing out on a relationship. With a good heavenly father. We are like the kids in Home Alone. In the very beginning of Home Alone. Kevin.
Played by Macaulay Cogan. He is at the window. And his brother comes in with a friend. And he says. See that old man. Remember this?
See that old man. He goes. That is the South Bend Shovel Slayer. And he makes up this whole back story. For this old man. He is like.
Yeah. He murdered his whole family. With a shovel. And he buried them in salt. And he goes around. Shoveling the sidewalks.
Remembering. As a kid. When I watched it. It is terrifying. The whole movie. As Kevin is dodging this old man.
His neighbor. You are terrified too. And then. At the end of the movie. Kevin is at a Christmas Eve. Church service.
And the old man shows up. And there is that moment of tension. And then he sits down beside him. And what you quickly realize. Is that all those stories. Are a lie.
He is actually. A really sweet old man. Who loves his family. He can kill his family. His granddaughter is on stage. Singing in the choir.
And he loves his family. And he is a good man. At the end of the movie. The South Bend Shovel Slayer. Comes in. And he knocks out the wet bandits.
And saves the day. Right? In the same way. In the same way. When you are alienated from the world. You believe lies about who God is.
Because the world makes God to be. An angry. Violent. Old man. When in fact. We know through belief in Jesus.
Our God is not. Angry and violent. In the picture. That is so negatively. Pam. By the world.
That while he does. Have justice. He also is a God. Who cares deeply for us. And defends us. From evil.
And many. Miss out on that relationship. Because of the ignorance. That is in them. When you are ignorant. You don't know any better.
You don't know. What you are missing out on. Recently. My wife and I. We got. My brother.
My brother got us a reservation. At the private opening. Of Allo Diaz. I don't know if you know. Allo Diaz. It is a restaurant.
In Ballantyne. It is an Italian restaurant. It is a finer Italian restaurant. They just open up a location. In Lexington. And they do private openings.
So that you can. Basically go. And you eat for free. And they get to work out. All the kinks. Before they actually open.
The restaurant. So we got to go. And we. I mean. We. We enjoyed it man.
We ordered. Appetizer. We got two of the more expensive. Entrees. We got two. Really good desserts.
And man. We. Enjoyed. This great Italian meal. Ignorance. Would be like.
If I had a table for four. And I got to invite. Some of you. And I said. Listen. We got a table for four.
A free meal. Whatever you want. At Allodias. It's going to be amazing. And you come back and say. Allodias.
No. No. Allodias. It's Italian. Oh. I don't like Italian.
Oh. Did you have like a bad experience? Like. There's always. What's going on? No.
I had a hot pocket. I had Italian sausage. And I hated it. So I hate Italian food. And I'm like. No.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
This is not the same. The hot pocket is not Allodias. They're completely different. And you are just standing firm. Saying. No.
No. No. I'm not having it. It's like you're ignorant to what you're missing out on. You're missing out on a free feast. That is amazing.
And the same way you are missing out. On a free life with God. That begins right now. through belief in Him and extends into eternity and gets better because at the end we're in the presence of a holy and perfect and good God. What's worse is that you are also ignorant of some of the pitfalls that come with that and some of the dangers that lie in that when you're missing out on. And the picture is that you're like ignorant teenagers jumping off a bridge not realizing that one day you will not land safely in the water. Eventually sin is going to catch up to you it will destroy you and you will miss out on what God has to offer because hardened hearts are ignorant to what is good alienated from God walking in darkness with no purpose in mind.
And Paul he keeps going he shows the hardened hearts towards God and then he moves through that and he gives another picture of heart and he says callous callous which is also hardness and when you are callous you're given into sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Now the way that Paul uses sensuality and greedy to practice every kind of impurity in other texts one of the pictures it brings up for this culture specifically is sexuality and how that it can be greedy to practice every type of that and that's the first image that comes up when these words are being used but it's also broadened out to mean every other kind of impurity every other type of sin that a callous and hardened heart will try to fill that void with whatever you can you will pursue every type of impurity to bring fleeting happiness that will never actually satisfy. So that's the picture that Paul gives us on the front end and you might be wondering like why does he go so descriptive on the negative? Like why does he use such strong descriptive turns?
The reason he does this I think the reason he does this is because we need to feel the weight of hopelessness that comes with our former life.
Equip the Saints
Transcript
G'day guys, my name is Raz. It's good to be with you this morning. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I was singing so loud that my throat is super parched. I want to begin this morning with a simple, pretty easy question. What does a mature church look like? That's really the question.
What does the mature church look like? What are the marks of a mature church? What kind of things do they do? What is it that qualifies them to be called a mature church? Typically, when you talk about maturity, a good starting place is age. Typically, youngers, kids are not so mature.
You could say, oh, he's mature for a nine-year-old, but really you're saying he Acts 10. But otherwise, age plays a factor. And our church is just about to turn five. We started about five years ago in March. Are we, by nature, an immature church because we're only five years old? Is a more established church, maybe 50, 100, 150 years old, are they inherently more mature because of their age as an establishment?
Maybe not. Maybe it's more to do with the age of the people in the church, right? Not the establishment, but the people who make up the church. Maybe their age plays some kind of a part in it. If you look at our church with the current rate of reproduction, our average age is going down month to month as kids are added over there. But if you exclude Kid City and just kind of ballpark this room, my guess is somewhere in the mid-30s would be where our kind of spectrum meets, somewhere in the mid-30s.
So because we're a church with an average age of mid-30s, are we inherently immature because of that when there's other churches out there where everyone's in their mid-70s? Are they inherently more mature? Maybe age has nothing to do with it. Maybe it's to do with tenure. Tenure would refer to how long the people in the church have been Christians. So if this church, the average tenure is eight years, and that church, the average tenure is 30 years, are they inherently more mature as a church based off of the amount of time people in there have been Christians?
Maybe. Maybe it has nothing to do with age or years or tenure or anything like that. Maybe it's more to do with how is this church structured versus how is that church structured? What is their position on this doctrine? How strict are they when it comes to that thing or that thing? Maybe it's how good is this church at engaging the culture where they're at?
How good is this church at bringing new people in? Maybe all of these different things factor into what it is that makes a church mature. How do we measure that? When we see it, how do we know? What is the metric? That's kind of the question that I want to open with today.
Um, we're in this middle of this Ephesians series. Last week, we kind of turned the page. We moved from the first half of Ephesians into the second half. So Ephesians is a six chapter book, six chapter letter, really. The first three chapters really cover a lot of theological ground. They cover a lot of these things are true about Jesus.
These things about true about the gospel. These things are true about who you are as Christians. And then in the second half, it kind of says, because of all these true things, this is what life looks like. Because of all these true things, here's how you go and do marriage, how you go and do life together. This is how you go and do work. This is how you go and do submission to leadership, that kind of stuff.
That's all true. This is how we live. And we turned that page last week and entered into chapter four. And we talked a lot about unity, how unity in the church is one of the big goals. And we had that recurring theme of one, one, one, one God, one faith, one baptism, one Holy Spirit. And this week, we're going to move pretty quickly from that idea of unity to the idea of diversity and how those go hand in hand in the life of the church so that we can have one kind of vision, one kind of goal for the church.
But it actually takes a pretty diverse crowd to make that goal happen. I'm going to pray for us as we as we open up the word and then we're going to get into Ephesians four. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to learn from your word this morning. I pray that it can be foundational for us as a church, as we understand who we are, how we factor into your big picture and what we can contribute. I pray that as we look at Paul's words to the Ephesian church, that that can be mirrored, that their strengths can be mirrored in our church and in our lives. It's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen. If you've got a Bible, open up to Ephesians four. If you've got one of these blue guys on one of the chairs in front of you, it's going to be on page 568, but only for a little bit. Then it's going to go into 569. So kind of a deceiving slide up there.
It's a bit of both. We're going to be reading starting in verse seven. It says, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he had also descended to the lower regions, the earth.
He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. Now, in this, we're going to keep reading. But in this first little section, there's a little quotey bit there that's indented and quoted and that kind of thing. That's a little chunk out of Psalm 68. And what Paul is doing is he's referring to some Old Testament history, a little bit of Old Testament foresight and prophecy, and also a little bit of Old Testament, old fashioned imagery of what kind of happened back in the day. So these words were actually written by David, King David, a thousand years before Jesus was even a part of the picture, really.
I mean, Jesus has been a part of the picture forever. But before Jesus was born as a baby into the world, this happened a thousand years before then. And back then, what would happen is when the kings would go to war, there's all these different nations, everyone's vying for power. The kings would go to war, and when they would conquer a particular area or a city or a village or whatever, they'd beat the other army, and then they'd loot all of the villages and that kind of stuff, and all of the valuable things they would collect. And they would bring it all back before the king, and the king would give portions of those as gifts to the people who were pivotal in the military conquest.
And so the commanders or the guys who fought bravely or whoever trained the horses, I don't really know who got the gifts. The king would say, you were important, here's your share in the loot, basically. And so what Paul is doing in this little section here is he's laying the groundwork to say, Jesus also does that for us. When Jesus conquers death, conquers sin, he is also a king who destroys all of his enemies, and he gives gifts to the church just as a king used to do back in the day. So that little brackety part and the quotey part, that's what's going on there, is Paul saying, just as David talked about this back in the day, Jesus both fulfills that and does that for the church today.
We're going to talk a little bit today about what those gifts are and how that plays out. Now, before we keep reading, before we get into the next chunk, I want to kind of illustrate like ahead of the game so that I can refer back to the picture that I'm about to paint for you. And I thought, what better way to appeal to my audience is to speak in American isms. And I would normally, you know, kind of lean into my foreignness and come up with some interesting foreign thing to explain. But I actually think this is going to be helpful.
I get the opportunity now to explain American football to you. And I'm obviously going to crush it because you guys have no idea and I know everything about it. And so bear with me as I struggle my way through this. And it's relevant because I just watched a game for the first time last week. I'm kidding. I've seen more than one game.
But I did watch the Super Bowl last week. So it's fresh in my mind. I'm going to crush this. It's going to be great. In football, I'm just, I only know half the game. So I'm just going to refer to the offensive team.
Because in America, you have multiple teams on your team. And that gets confusing. So I'm just going to, let's pretend we're only on offense. Okay, we're only on offense. Now, the offensive team has one goal. That one goal is get the ball that way, like down the field.
It doesn't matter. I mean, it's got to get a certain distance. You've got to get to the line that the TV magic's on there. And then you've got to get beyond there. And you've got to just keep going until you get to the logo, right? That's called the end zone.
See, guys, I know some stuff. Your goal, get the ball to the end zone, make the touchdowns, get the Ws, that kind of stuff. As a team, all of our team is united in our effort to move that direction. As a team, we want the first down. As a team, we want the end zone. As a team, we're working together to just go that way.
And when somebody doesn't go that way, everyone goes, no, go that way. Because that way is the goal, right? But within the team, there's all these different people who have different jobs. And I am about to crush this as I explain all the different jobs on the offensive team. You have the catchy dudes on the side. Their job is to catch.
They line up with everybody else. They stand on the side. They run forward. And they go that way. And then that guy throws the ball. And they catch it.
And sometimes they do the flip. Sometimes they do the thing where they jump over the other guy. They're the nimbly, bimbly dudes who spin around and keep running. They're quick. You can't catch them if they take off. They're the catchy dudes.
They stand on the sides on either end. They're called receivers, guys. I looked it up. Don't worry. Then you have the running guys.
They're called running backs. I don't really know the difference except that these guys aren't expected to catch the ball. So you give it to them. I guess they can't catch. So rather than standing on the side and running that way, they have to run across, grab the ball in the middle, then keep running.
And they either run straight into all the people and stop or they run around and they go all the way. That's the running dudes. So you've got catching dudes. You've got running dudes. You've got big dudes. They form the line.
I don't really know what their job is except weigh 600 pounds and start here and go to here. That's their job. And then there's one special big dude. He's in the middle. I don't know if he's called the snapper, but that's what I call him. He gets the ball and he goes like that.
And then he goes like that. Two jobs. Gets the ball. One Job. Second Job. Two jobs.
Snappy dude. And if he does any of those jobs badly, he gets in a lot of trouble. Two jobs. Then there's the tight end. He thought I was going to skip the tight end, but I'll look this one up too. I didn't look up what he does.
I just looked up the name. So I might not get this bit right. The tight end, I think, is probably the most multi-talented person on the offensive team. I don't know for sure, but he seems like he's got a lot going on because he's expected to be able to do this. But if there's nobody to do this to, he's expected to run and then catch the ball as well.
And if somebody else catches the ball, it's his job to stop the other people from stopping the guy who catches the ball. And then sometimes he's expected to come this way. And if that guy doesn't get the ball, he's got to get the ball and run all the way around. So the tight end, he's got a lot going on. But he's bigger than most of the other people.
So he's not that fast. So he normally gets stopped. He's a little bulldozer-y. He can kind of plow his way through some people. But anyway, that's the tight end.
Then there's that guy. He stands back here. This is the stud muffin of the team. The quarterback, I think, if my movies have taught me well, he's the prom king. He dates the head cheerleader. He gets paid like $300 billion a year.
And his jobs are to catch the ball and throw the ball and not get injured. I think prom king paid lots of money. Don't get injured. That's pretty much what he's... That's his job. And it's actually pretty cool.
Like, I've been... When I first moved here, I thought, you know, the quarterback does absolutely nothing. But then, you know, when they play the highlights, it's pretty awesome. When he throws... Like, he does math in his head. Like, that guy's running that way.
That guy's running that way. I know he's going to turn. So I'm just going to throw it there. And he's going to... Like, that's pretty cool when that happens. Like, it doesn't happen all the time, especially when you're watching college football.
But when you're watching NFL, it happens all the time. And it's really cool. All of that is to say, everybody on the team working together, one goal. Move the ball that way. Everybody on the team, diverse in their skill sets. They're not all expected to do all the things.
They're all expected to do one thing pretty well. And if you mess up your one thing, like, everyone gets real mad at you. You've got to be able to do your one thing. You've got to be able to do your one thing super well. The point is, unity in the mission, strength as a team, only when everybody's doing their part, right? So that's the goal of the illustration.
Now, it's not perfect, but it is going to help explain what's about to come next. Because just as a strong football team needs that diverse set of skills, so also a mature church is going to need a variety of strengths, too. We're going to look at verse 11. Verse 11 through 14, actually. And it says, So when it says, and he gave, it's talking about when we talked about earlier the conquering king giving gifts. This is Jesus, our conquering king, giving gifts to the church.
It says, And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Paul is saying this. He's saying, The church is gifted with different kinds of complementary leadership, whose Job it is to equip the saints for ministry, so that we will attain unity of the faith, become mature, and reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That's what he's saying.
Now, that's a complicated sentence, so we'll break it down. Now, to be clear, those five categories that he lists, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, it says that those five categories are given to equip the saints, to equip the church. That gives us an indication that these five people are leaders in the church, and what Christ is doing is he's giving these forms of leadership to the church to equip the church. Now, I don't think that list of leaders is exhaustive. I think there's other ways you can lead the church as well. But I do think that they give a good picture of what it looks like, at least as far as a team that is functional, what kind of five categories of strength are needed in order for the church to be strong.
Paul is saying that these five types of leadership are present in the church to equip the saints for ministry. Now, a mature church, a strong team that can get the ball to the end zone, a good team, a good church that can move the ball down the field, needs to show signs of these five different types of leadership. They need to show signs that all five of them are present and working together at the same time. We're only going to really scratch the surface on this, but in order to explain the strengths of each one of those, I'm going to do a little bit of defining those strengths. And I say that deliberately as defining strengths, because when I was talking about the football team, I was really trying to distinguish different players from each other and say, this is how they're different.
And I don't so much want to make you think of these leadership characters, these leadership positions as distinct from each other, so much as each one has a particular strength, a particular leaning that they're better at. So it's not to the exclusion of all others, so much as this one is stronger over here, that kind of thing. So we'll walk through them. They're apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teachers. Apostle literally, when translated from Greek, it means sent one, a person who is sent. Apostles lend themselves towards entrepreneurship.
They're really leaders. They're pioneers in their field. In the church, they have a vision for the gospel moving forward, and they rally people together to do that mission. And they're church planters. They're missionaries. They're the people who train future leaders because their vision for the future of the church is specific, and they want to move people towards that area.
That's kind of how an apostle leans in its strength. Prophets is the next one. Prophets are mostly concerned with maintaining faithfulness to God. That's true in the Old Testament when we think of the word prophet. Israel would stray from God's path, or Judah would do something that's in conflict with what God has instructed them to do, and he would send a prophet, and that prophet would just be the person who's supposed to correct the direction that the church or the nation at the time was headed. And they function, you know, we don't have this title of prophet today, but the leadership function is pretty similar.
These guys are concerned with holiness in the church. They're concerned with calling out sin. They're concerned with pointing people back to the truth. And it's not just in the church. It's in society as a whole. People who show that prophet leadership style are fairly politically engaged.
They stay up to date on the controversial issues of the time, and they're not really afraid to hold their ground in those situations. The next one is evangelist. Evangelists proclaim the gospel. The gift of evangelism is really the ability to speak to people about Jesus in a way that is easily received. So these guys are typically pretty convincing, pretty lovable.
They're good storytellers. They're naturally infectious. That kind of personality that draws you in and is easily able to explain to you why something is better than something else. And the next one is shepherds. Shepherds are mainly concerned with relationship. They're mainly concerned with community.
They're mainly concerned with family. They want to make sure that the relationships are working the way that they're supposed to. And so when they see conflict, they help other people solve conflict. When they see weakness because of, you know, this area of the church or this area of this group of people are fighting about something, it's the shepherds who want to maintain that unity in the family. Teachers are mainly concerned with the transfer of knowledge and wisdom from one generation to the next. So for millennia, we have relied on the Bible for all of our source of truth.
It is the teachers in the church who really take that to heart. This is what we have believed forever. This is the truth. This book is foundational for us. We must make sure that the next generation believes that about this book as well. That's essentially the function and the role of the teacher.
So you can see even with a basic overview, apostles being the leaders and the pioneers, the prophets being the ones who maintain faithfulness, encourage others to maintain faithfulness to God, the evangelists who are proclaiming the gospel, the shepherds who are concerned with maintaining unity in the church, and the teachers who want to make sure that the next generation is equipped as well. With all of those playing at the same time, you can see how that would contribute positively to the life of the church, at least to make that team strong so that as we're moving towards Christ-likeness as our end zone, we stand a chance because we've got those five different categories leading well. So we have these five categories of leadership in the church. The question becomes, what do they do?
Now we're going to pick it up in verse 12. It says, They equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. I think that this verse in particular, verse 12 in particular, it raises an important question because we've just discussed that it is the leader's Job to equip. The question in this verse becomes, whose Job is it to do the work of the ministry? And it says that the leaders equip the saints for the work of the ministry, right?
So whose Job is it to do the work? Typically, I think the cultural understanding, the normal social understanding of whose Job is it to do ministry would be ministers, pastors, church staff, employees kind of deal. That's certainly what, when you would ask that question without any context, whose Job is it? To do ministry, people would typically fall back on minister or pastor. Maybe a little, but that's certainly not how Ephesians 4 reads, right? Now, for definition's sake, there's a word in there that might trip us up.
That's the word saint. Saint, certainly if you look in a dictionary or just general life, typically brings with it this idea of the person who's super holy, has a little halo that buzzes around their head. In the Catholic Church, it has a lot to do with how well a person lives their life so that they can be sainted in the next life and intercede on behalf of us in different ways, the patron saint of this and the patron saint of that. Most of that seems arbitrary and outside of the authority of Scripture, certainly outside of the context of the book of Ephesians. So in Ephesians, a saint is basically any Christian in the church.
If you are in the room and you are a Christian, you are a saint. Welcome to the club. It's great. You can pick up your halos on the way out. The saints, actually in verse 1 of Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 1, this book is addressed, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus. He's talking to all of them.
He's talking to the church. He's talking to everyone who is a Christian, who is a believer in the church. So when it says, when we read this passage and it says that the leaders equip the saints for the work of the ministry, what he's saying is the leadership, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, their job is to equip the church. It is then the church's Job, the church's responsibility to do the work of the ministry. That's not exactly what we expect. So what does it look like?
What happens when the everyday missionary, the everyday pew sitter or ugly green chair sitter in our case, what happens when that person takes ownership of their responsibility to do the work of the ministry? Well, this passage says a couple of things. It says they attain the unity of the faith, that they grow in their understanding of the knowledge of Jesus, that they mature, and that they move towards the fullness of Christ. As a church, that sounds like our end zone to me. That sounds like the direction that our team is moving towards. That's what happens first.
And as a result, this is in verse 14. As a result, we see that the church is strengthened. It says, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, and deceitful schemes. That's what the church looks like. So at the beginning, when I said, what does a mature church look like?
That's a pretty good answer. The mature church looks like this, moving towards that goal, and unshakable. Unmovable, not tossed about, not easily deceived. They're strong, they're capable, and they're unified. The church, I think, starts to look a lot more like Jesus. The church starts to exhibit some of those qualities that we talked about in the leadership.
So the leadership who is equipping the church, the church starts to look a little bit more like that leadership. The church is strengthened based on its ability to be like Christ. Now you might be wondering what that toss to and fro about by the waves would look like. In 2003, I was 14 at the time, so glorious middle school years, a little known author called Dan Brown released a book called The Da Vinci Code. Now it didn't blow up immediately, but it blew up pretty quick after that.
It became a movie, it became all sorts of like conspiracy theories and everything. Now this book, to be clear, is a fictional book. It is on the same bookshelf in the stores as Harry Potter, as Lord of the Rings. It is in the fiction section. This is not a real book. Well, it's a real book, but the content is not genuine history.
But, because it refers to some historical characters, people lost their minds. And so at its core, this fictional book, I'm emphasizing fictional. This fictional book is really just a quest for the Holy Grail novel. There's a bunch of them out there. This book in particular, quest for the Holy Grail novel. And it really, the whole conspiracy about it rests on the fact that back in the day, the symbol for cup is the same as the symbol for woman.
Right? Obviously, guys, woman and cup, same thing. So whenever back in the day, this cryptographer or whatever in the movie says that that mistake was made back in the day and the Holy Grail became this big thing. And so he even bases his argument on Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. You've all seen the Last Supper, the big painting. It's got people eating around.
It's a picture of Jesus and that kind of stuff. It was painted in the 15th century, guys. That's 1,480 something years after Jesus walked the earth. This painting was way after Jesus. And this whole movie, this whole story, based on the fact that they couldn't count 12 disciples in that photo and it looked like one of them might have been a girl. And because cup and girl and woman are the same thing, it must mean that the Holy Grail is actually a woman.
And it must have been the woman in that painting that was painted 1,400 years after Jesus. And you know what? I bet Jesus was married to her. And when Jesus was married to her, that girl must have been Mary Magdalene. And so if Mary Magdalene is the Holy Grail and Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had kids, then those kids are still in the world today. And those kids in the world today have part of the blood of the Holy Grail in them.
You guys, I might be the Holy Grail. That was the point of that book. And in 2003, 4 and 5, the church lost its mind. And the church went, what if Jesus did get married? What if it was to Mary Magdalene? What if I have the blood of Jesus in my veins?
And it just went, and all the pastors all across the world were going, guys, what are you doing? Wrong book. And it's because the church was deceived. And the crazy part is, the crazy part is, when Dan Brown wrote the book, it was not his goal to try and screw up the church. His goal was to write an entertaining novel that would be interesting for people to read and I assume make lots of money doing it. And yet the church, for some reason, was deceived anyway.
That's what it looks like. That is like the furthest it can get for the church to look like to be weak, for the church to look like immaturity, for the church to be deceived and thrown about by the waves. And so for us, it probably won't, look, I hope it won't be that again. But it might come in the form of the next book that talks about how everybody is going to get into heaven. or the next book that, you know, somebody has a dream or a vision and they have a conversation with Jesus and they write it down to try and convince the church that the new thing is this other thing that we've been wrong all this time and we now have to do this other thing.
The next time one of those books comes out, the mature church says, this book over that other book. That's what it looks like for the church to not be tossed about to and fro by the waves. So it continues in verse 15 and he concludes with this. He says, rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And I think that really seals the deal, right? This whole idea of the team needs to work together for the team to advance is really summed up in that.
They grow up in every way into him who is the head Christ when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. When everyone is playing their part on the team, the team gets stronger. The team looks more unified and the team has less weaknesses. And on our team, on the church's team, that team is growing towards Christ. That is our end zone, the fullness, the stature of the fullness of Christ. So I think that what we get to say is the mature church looks like Jesus.
And I think a good way to think about it is back in the day when the Truman Show came out, I remember this distinctly for some reason, the Truman Show came out and the movie poster for the Truman Show was like a million little snapshots from his life. And you know, there was the one little, when you look up close, there's a little photo of him walking his dog and riding his bike and eating food and at the store and at his job and all these little photos of him. And when you stand back, it's actually a collage and you see his face, right? And I think that's the same for the church because we have some people who are really good at conversations with married couples who are struggling.
We have some people who are really good with their finances and coaching other people how to make a budget and be generous with their finances. We have other people who are really good and compassionate with how do we reach out to the homeless and how do we reach out to the people who don't feel loved? And we have all these different people who make up this bigger picture that when we step back and we see the church, hopefully it looks like Jesus. That's kind of how I pictured that, right? So a mature church has all kinds of people with all kinds of talents in every walk of life, all with unity in the spirit, working together to do the work of the ministry, building each other up to grow more like Christ.
So the question becomes, what does that mean for us? How do we become more mature? What steps do I have to take in that direction? I don't think it's too much of a stretch. It's a little bit of a stretch, but it's not too much of a stretch for us to say that the church, us Christians in the room, we should start looking more like Jesus and we should start looking more like those five, at least corporately as a church, our church should start showing signs of those five different strengths, those five different areas, prophet, apostle, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. I think that corporately, if we lack any of those, if we start leaning too much towards, you know, our church is very leadership oriented, our church is very groundbreaking, we're very apostolate, but we're really not shepherdy or teachery or we're really not evangelistic, then we start to topple this direction and be really, show a lot of weaknesses over here in that direction as well.
And so we see that the mature church, not just in the leadership, but in the people as well, is really going to show all five of those different areas. To explain a little how that works, I'll talk a bit about us as a church. And some of this is going to be a little critical, it might hurt a little, I'm not sure how you guys are going to feel sensitivity wise to this. But I'll talk about strengths first. I think as a church, we're pretty strong on that, on the prophety side. I think we're pretty strong on, you know, we believe this book and we don't really move from it.
And so society can come up with a new definition of marriage, society can come up with a new definition of gender, society can tell us when people are allowed to sleep with each other and we say, no, we land here. And I think as a church, that is a strength of ours. Now we don't go out and pick fights. There's some people out there who, you know, just inject themselves into politics for the purpose of ramming the book down people's throats. But as, as those issues come up, I think our church stays, stays pretty true to the word, pretty true to the Bible.
And we don't really have any intention on believing anything that's outside of this anyway. So I think that's a strength for us. I also think that we're pretty good at shepherding and teaching. I don't know if you know this, maybe you haven't been around long enough, maybe you're super new here, in which case, this might just be good information for you about our church. We, we are really into this idea of building up leadership from within. Anytime there's an area in our church that we, we want to see growth, we will do what we can to empower the people that we've got with the, the equipment, with the equipment that they need, with the stuff that they need, with the training that they need to be able to go and do that job so that when Kid City blows up, we take the people we've got and we, we help them lead that well.
When the next thing comes up that we're going to want to corporately sponsor or corporately get behind, we're going to get the people that we've got and we're going to equip them to be able to go and do that. What we don't do is something that's pretty common in every other church is that when a vacancy appears, they form a committee and they hire someone from Texas, Nebraska, someone who Skyped in for an interview and they get someone else to come in and fix the problems that are here. That is a pretty normal thing in the church these days and I think for us as a church, we're pretty strong in that category, it's pretty strong in that area. We take training the next generation pretty seriously and we build up from within and I think that's good for us.
Some areas, one particular area that I think we're not as strong in. When it comes to those five areas, I think we're not the most evangelistic church ever. This is where I get a little bit self-critical of us. I think we're not the most evangelistic church ever. I mentioned earlier that we're coming up on five years old. When we started five years ago, there was eight people in a living room.
Obviously, we have grown since then. But anyone who's been around for a while knows this because we've talked about it some, is that somewhere about probably just over a year ago, we hit the ceiling. We've created our own ceiling. It's somewhere around 100 people so that every time our church grows a little bit, we hit 100 and then we bounce back down. Then we hit 100 again and then we bounce back down.
And something's going on there where as a church, we've just kind of lost our hustle on growth, on expansion. And I think that plays against our evangelistic ability. And so that's why as a leadership, we've come up with this idea for the, you've heard it the last couple weeks and we're doing an everyday missionary training thing. It starts in a couple weeks where we really want to be doing exactly what we're supposed to, equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. And if equipping the saints means identifying that we've got a weakness here in evangelism, we've got a weakness here in this evangelistic category, how do we help our people see that weakness and want to overcome it?
See, identify the issues there that are preventing us from being successful in that area, being strong here and overcome it. So we see the weakness and we're doing what we can starting in a couple weeks trying to raise awareness for this to try and get stronger in that particular area. Because as an organization, we're kind of leaning this way and that area over there, the evangelism category is a weakness for us. Now, I don't think that's a deal breaker. I don't think that makes us a bad church or an immature church, but we need to address that so that we can be mature and continue to grow as a church.
Because if you've got a weakness on your team, you need to fix that weakness or the whole team is going to struggle to move forward. Does that make sense? So, I think that we will see our church mature as we continue to identify our weaknesses and make them grow. So I want to help you out here because maybe you've also seen some weaknesses or maybe you've, it's not necessarily that you've seen a weakness, but you've seen an area where maybe we're just not strong. Maybe it's not necessarily that we're bad or that we're weak at it, we're just not strong there. Um, maybe you've, uh, some examples might be that maybe you've, you've, you've been around for a while and you think, man, I just wish that our church did more for the homeless.
I just wish that our church got behind helping the poor, helping the poor. Sorry. Uh, maybe you, maybe you're thinking, uh, our church doesn't have a very good system for helping people who are struggling with anxiety or depression. Maybe, maybe you think, uh, maybe you think our church, uh, could, could use some help in, in working out how to help new believers take that next step, how to, how to help new believers understand where to start when they want to study the Bible. people. And chances are, if you're asking or, or thinking any of those things, uh, you may not think immediately that you're gifted or strong in that area, but you're certainly passionate about it where perhaps not enough other people are.
And so I think your role in that situation is, is to be the one who identifies that weakness for us, uh, and helps us take, take steps towards, you know, what, what is it going to look like to equip the saints to, to handle that issue? And let me tell you this, if this starts happening, it'll probably happen first at a groups level for us. Uh, you spend enough time around us, you're just going to feel like we're ringing a gong for groups. And we are, and we will, and we will continue to, until the gong breaks. Because we believe in our community groups, and we believe that that is the best way for, um, for people in our church and people in general to relate in such a way that they can grow, uh, on the back of the, the word of the, of truth that comes out of scripture.
So every week we'll, we'll have a sermon, we'll, we'll have a, um, something going on on Sundays. And then throughout the week, we'll have opportunities to live out that truth in community groups. Uh, and I think, especially when we're talking about teamwork and what it looks like to have different strengths in the team and move that team forward, that becomes most obvious in groups because you know each other well and you know what you want to achieve as a group. So a couple things on that. If you're not in a group, that would be a great first step for you because, uh, that would really be you getting on a team in order to play a team sport.
And if you're not in a team, it's really tough to play a team sport. Um, church is a team sport. Uh, if you're already in a community group, uh, first thing would be to be fully invested in that group. Uh, and that means, that means a couple things, but, but first it means be there. That's it. Be there because we, we kind of, there's a trend.
I don't know if it's a trend so much as it's just human nature is we, we, we make poor excuses for why we don't have to be there. Things like, I'm kind of tired or I'm kind of hungry or I have an exam in a week. All these kinds of things, uh, they, they just come up and they get in the way and, and when you're not there because you were tired or when you're not there because you had an exam, the team feels it because it's a team sport. And if you're not there, the team misses you and you also don't get the benefit of the team. It's, it's a two-way street. You need to be there for the team and you also need the team in your life.
And so when the quarterback is missing, somebody else has to play quarterback and the ball doesn't move down the field. When there's no receivers, the quarterback has nobody to throw it to and we've got to let the running dudes do all the work. That's how it works in community groups. So if you're in a community group, be invested and be there. Unless you have the flu, stay home. If you're already a group, in a group and you're already there and you're already invested, help that group get stronger.
Your role in the group is to play your position well, play to your strengths well, help the group identify weaknesses and grow in those areas. Find its weaknesses and this is what Spencer was talking about last week, what it means to be unified in this effort. With humility, gentleness and patience, speak the truth in love so that your group can find those weaknesses and instead of hating you for pointing the finger at the weakness, they want to be on your side so that your group can grow up to the stature of the fullness of Christ. That's your role if you're already in a group and you're already there all the time.
Help that group get stronger. The band's going to make its way back up and this is where we're going to land the plane and this is what I'm going to leave you with. There is no sitting on the bench on this team. We have a much higher calling than coasting. This is not a spectator sport where in American football you get to say I'm an Eagles fan and therefore I celebrate because the Eagles won. That doesn't work in the church.
You're either on the team or you are not. There is no bench warming. We have been given the responsibility of doing the work of the ministry. That is not a spectator sport. And until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we haven't done that yet. This is what the mature church looks like.
It looks like Jesus. It looks like a team that needs each other, that complements each other, that each person is doing their part on the team so that the ball can move forward. That's what a mature team looks like. And when that's happening, that team is impenetrable. It does not show weakness. It can't be moved.
And when each person is doing their part, working together, the team grows, the church grows up into Christ and is built up in love. That's what a mature church looks like. And that's the kind of church that we get to be. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity that you have given us to learn from your word. And I just pray that we can show those five signs.
I show that our team can be united in our effort to grow into the fullness of Christ and that we can take seriously our responsibility to contribute to that. I pray that that will rest with us not just for this week but for the rest of the year, the rest of our lives. That we can contribute something valuable to the church that the church may grow. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Unity
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We are in Ephesians 4. We've been in like Ephesians 3 for four months. I know that's not completely accurate because we had a couple series in between them, but we have finally made the shift into four, which in Ephesians, the first three chapters are doctrine and theology for the church as an encouragement.
The next three chapters from four to six are the application of that, how we actually live that out. So we finally made it. We're in Ephesians 4, verses 1 through 6 today, which is going to be on page 568 in your blue Bible that is near you. If you don't have a Bible, please take that home. That is our gift to you. In high school, I played two sports.
I played football and I played baseball. Now, I realize when I say that some of you just died inside because you heard a sports reference. It's the Super Bowl, so it's a little bit appropriate today. But I can't give you a whole lot of musical ones. I love music, but I was not good at music and still not. I was in orchestra in the fifth and sixth grade, and I was last chair of the cello section.
I might as well have been last chair for the entire orchestra because I was terrible at it. So I've got sports to work with. And in football and baseball, I had two vastly different experiences. My football team was a unified bunch of guys. We loved one another. It started at the top.
We had a coach that loved us, that invested in us, that spent time with us, that built the identity of family that we were supposed to play with. And we did. We loved playing together. We had each other's back. My sophomore and junior year, it doesn't matter how much you love one another. If you don't have the talent, you don't win games.
So we didn't win a whole lot of games. But my senior year, we finally had the talent to compete, and we won a lot of games because we were a team. One of my favorite experiences from that senior year was the last summer practice before the school year started. We had a guy that missed practice, a senior that missed practice. And he got there for the last five minutes, and he explained the situation, and it was a difficult one. He was working a job.
That job helped support his family, and he could not miss that shift. But we had rules. We had rules on the team, and if he wanted to be on the team still, he was going to have to run for it. And what we did, because we were a family, is a dude, you know you're in a tough spot. We're going to run with you. So we ran all the sprints together, and that kind of set the tone for the whole season.
We ended up losing the semifinals, but it was a great season. My senior year of baseball, or just my baseball team in general in high school, was a completely different experience. It was different for a lot of reasons. We had a strong tradition of winning. Won a lot of titles over the years. Our coach had a great baseball mind, but we were not a team.
We just weren't. We weren't a unified bunch. From the top down, our coach, he knew baseball, but he didn't really show a lot of investment in us. He didn't really care for us off the field. It just was a different feel altogether. So we won a lot of games until my junior year, when the talent ran out, which is when I also started playing.
And the talent ran out. We weren't a team. And man, for two years, we didn't win as many games as we had in the past. There was a lot of finger pointing, a lot of clicks on the team. It was just weird. Some of the same guys I played football with were on the baseball team.
And it was just weird. One of the worst moments I remember was there was a game where I was in second base, and I ran out to catch a ball between me and right field. And the ball dropped right between us. It was my fault. When I got back to the dugout, my coach laid in to me, which is fine in sports. But then he got two former players from our freshman state title team who were in the stands to come around to the dugout and to shame me in front of all the other players.
And it was the most embarrassing moment I've had in sports. And on top of that, none of my teammates backed me up. It just was that that was us. We just weren't a unified bunch of players at all. Unity is vital for the health of any organization, for the growth of any organization. I mean, companies get this.
They spend millions of dollars every year investing in team building. There's entire team building recreational centers that are designed for this, that you might grow in being a unified organization. There are tons of books. There's tons of thought on it. I think if you boil down unity in a team, unity in an organization into three things, there are three things that rise to the surface. There's a culture, firstly, of team over individual.
A culture of team over individual. There's usually a leader or a set of leaders that everyone can get behind, that everyone will rally behind. And then lastly, there is a cause that everyone's bought into. Those three elements show up in unified teams. And the reason that this is true is because God has designed us this way. We have been designed to function and to flourish as a unified team when these three things are present.
And they show up in our text today. We're in Ephesians 4, verses 1 through 6. And in this text, we're going to see a culture of unity, a culture of team over individual, a culture of whole church over individual Christian. We're going to see the leader that we rally behind. And then we're going to see the cause that we're bought into. So I'm going to read the text.
We will pray. And then we will dive in. Verse 1. Verse 1. Let's pray.
God, I'm thankful for this word. I pray that we would receive it. I pray that we'd be able to be present. And I pray that you would go to work on our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so he starts out, verse 1.
He says, I therefore. So that therefore is the big shift. From the first three chapters to the next three chapters as he closes out. I love it because it builds off of what was preached last week, Chet. Preached on the love of Christ. It was a summary of the first three chapters.
And the depth of the love. The height of the love of Christ. The greatness of the love of Christ. So everything in those first three chapters. All the force of that gets pulled in to these first few verses. And he says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord.
So that little insertion there is him saying, I'm in prison for you. He's writing this letter from prison to this church. And he's letting them know, I'm in prison so that you would believe the gospel. I'm in prison so that you would get this. So that you would walk in a manner worthy of the calling.
So he's heightening it up. Showing the importance of what he's getting ready to say. He says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord. Urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. And this is when the shift happens. All the theology and doctrine of the first three chapters.
Everything that he says from chapter one. That you were chosen. That you were adopted. That you were sealed by the Holy Spirit. That you were dead in sin. That you received grace that you could not earn.
All of that that went into your redemption. You were called to walk in a manner worthy of that. So he's continuing to heighten it up. And at this point, the Ephesian church imagined when they originally heard this. They kind of saw what was coming. These letters, like the Ephesians and Galatians and 1st and 2nd Corinthians.
These letters circulated throughout all the churches. So they're probably familiar with how Paul writes. And they're probably wondering what's coming up. That he's getting ready to address some things that are going on in this church. So they're nervously awaiting.
And then he shifts into the next verse. He says, with all humility and gentleness. With patience. Bearing with one another in love. Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. In the bond of peace.
And when they get to that. At that point, they see it coming. I mean, he kind of tipped his hand a little bit in chapter two. When he mentioned that the wall of hostility. That was between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Those who were not Jewish.
That there is disunity in this church. And he is going to address it. And he starts by addressing it with the first principle. A culture of team over individual. It is not about you. It's about the church as a whole.
Disunity was a major problem in the Ephesian church. And many other churches in the New Testament. Because of these differences between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. And he starts by addressing it. Addressing the pride that is dividing them. By mentioning with humility.
With humility. Alright, so that word humility. In the Greek. In the original language that this was written in. Was not a word that Greco-Romans across the Roman Empire were familiar with. It's not a word that they used.
In fact, we don't really even see it show up. Until the New Testament starts using it. They basically had to invent this word. Because in Greco-Roman culture. Humility was not a quality. Being proud.
Being confident. That was a quality. That they upheld. But they didn't. Humility wasn't a thing for them. So they had to invent a word.
And a concept. For a culture that didn't understand it. Which I think. Is actually really cool. That they got to invent something. We actually don't see this word used.
In contemporary non-Christian sources. Until after the early churches begun. I think that's pretty cool. They got to invent a word. And a concept. For a culture.
That didn't really understand humility. And the English language. We don't get to do that. I mean. We don't get to invent cool things. The words that we get.
Introduced in our language now. Are words like yellow. Which somebody should punch Drake in the face. Forever mentioning that word. We get words like squad goals. And phrases like that.
We get words like clap back. Right? I was in the office the other day. And I was talking to Matt. I was talking to Chet. And I used clap back.
It just came out of my mouth. And they said. What? What did you say? I said. You know.
I clapped back. And I could look into their eyes. And I could tell. What they were thinking. Like we had so much hope for you. Like when you came here.
We had so much hope for you. And you just crushed it. Because you used the word clap back in the sentence. And I was like. It's like. You know.
You say something to somebody. And you insult them. And they clap back. And they insult you back. Like I saw it on Twitter. I won't use it again.
Like we. We even had the dumbest things. We even had things like triggered. And microaggressions. Which are my two favorite awful ones now. That you.
Someone could say something to you. That would so offend you. It would trigger you. And cause microaggressions. Small aggressions. Like that.
That blows my mind. That we invent stupid things like that. We don't get to invent cool words. And cool concepts. Like humility. But they did.
They got to bring that into their language. To show them. The value of humility. And Paul. He goes after their pride with it. He goes after their pride.
To show. How these Jews and these Gentiles. Have been divided. Because both of these groups. Jews and Gentiles. Both thought that their backgrounds were better.
They both thought that their culture was more superior. So you can imagine. How their early community groups were. How they were. I mean. You had.
If there was ever a problem in them. You had Jews on one side. That were like. Listen. We're the chosen ones. We've been here.
For like 2,000 years. You guys just got brought into this. Like. The problem must be with you guys. We certainly can't be the problem. On the other side.
You got Romans. And Greeks. And Africans. Who are like. What are you talking about? Like.
We're Roman citizens. We're dignified. We've. Guess what. We just got a copy of the Old Testament. And we've seen your history.
You guys fight all the time. It has to be on you. And these two sides. Are. Are completely. Divided.
In a lot of ways. Because of their cultural backgrounds. Because they both. Are prideful. And they think. That they're better than one another.
Because here's the deal. Pride. It kills humility. Because if you think you're better than someone else. If you think that you're always right. That you've always got the right answers.
You've always got the right ideas. You can't actually ever be truly unified. I mean. Many of us. We've been in community groups. In churches.
With people. That are just like this. They always think that they're right. The church that I came from previously. Was in a. A seminary.
A city. With a big seminary. And there's a lot of groups. That had seminary people in it. And man. Sometimes seminary people are the worst.
I was one of them. But man. They. They would argue over the smallest of things. And they always. Always.
Always had to be right. Always had to get the last word in. And it's like. Then arguments can come out of that. And people can get upset. And then you might go to reconcile with someone.
Who always thinks they're right. You might go and say. Man. I'm sorry. I got. I got heated.
And then they'll come back with. Oh. I'm sorry. You got upset. That's a non-apology. That's.
I mean. That's not. An apology is. I'm sorry. I sinned against you. Will you forgive me?
It's not. I'm sorry. You got upset. And. And. And you see this happen.
In community groups. And if you're like. Man. I've never seen this. I've never actually. I don't think I've ever come across people like that.
There may be people in your group. That are thinking it's you. Pride shows up in a lot of different ways. It shows up when. Maybe you have someone in your group. That you were just annoyed by.
Like man. Because. Because sometimes you get in groups of people that have. Completely different personalities. And you're like. Man.
That person annoys the crap out of me. And I know. That. I know I can't just like dip out. I know that we're supposed to stay in this together. But man.
I can. I can avoid them. I can not return their texts. If they want to hang out. I don't have to return their phone calls. You know what?
I think it's time for us to launch a new group. We need to be more missional. You know what we'll do? We'll launch a new group. And when we launch this new group. We're going to send them out.
And then I'm good. I don't have to hang out with them anymore. Listen. If that is your mindset. You need to know. This is free.
That our God is a God of irony. He just is. And if that's your mindset. Get ready. You will be with that person. For the next three group cycles.
Like it's just. That. Because. If we just get to hang out with people. That are just like us. If we just hang out with people.
That have the same interests. And that don't bug us. How are we ever going to grow. In actually loving people? How are we ever going to grow. And actually be able to.
To endure different personalities. No. We have to grow in this. The last way I see pride. There's many ways. But the last one I'll mention.
As far as that I see pride. Sometimes. Some of us. Will listen to sermons. Or will read the Bible. And will think.
This is good for somebody else. Now. Encouraging someone with. A word. Encouraging somebody with. Something you heard in a sermon.
Is fine. But here's the deal. If you're listening to a sermon. Or you're reading the Bible. And you're not letting it impact. Your own heart first.
And at the overflow of that. Encouraging others. It comes from a place of pride. Pride. Destroys. Unity.
And that's why Paul addresses it. On the front end. And then he goes into the next part of the approach. He goes into. Gentleness. He calls them to gentleness.
Now. If you're like me. This is a struggle. Gentleness for me. Is a struggle. Because.
I go hard after everything. I will bring a sledgehammer. To take out a tiny nail. That's just my MO. Like I just get excited about things. And Matt and Chet first realized this.
Really early on. When I got here. That I would get excited about the smallest of things. And would get all intense about the smallest of things. That is why you've heard so many jokes about Chipotle over the last year. It's brilliant.
Because the Chipotle MO's debate. It illustrates two things. It illustrates the differences that are there. Petting one against the other. But underneath it all.
It's Chet just giving a small dig. Because he knows. That gets me stirred up. Because I'm like. Listen. Chipotle's obviously better.
Mo's has rice pellets. You can't call that a burrito. Just because you have queso. That's not how that works. And I get all excited about this kind of stuff. And it's.
And it's fun. Right? But gentle. The lack of gentleness is not fun when it's my daughter. It's not fun when I'm raising my daughter. And my wife reminds me of this consistently.
She's like. You can't have the same tone. For every misstep that she has. You can't be that way. And I just come hard after every little thing. Like when she.
Is spazzing out. And swings at my wife. That ain't gonna fly in our house. The tone needs to be sharp. But that is not the same.
As when she smells juice on the couch. Or when she does something small. And the wife says. You can't. You can't blow up over every little thing. You can't get intense about every little thing.
You have to have a tone difference. You have to learn. Gentleness. So my wife comes. In a spirit of gentleness. To correct me in this.
And to help me see. And I am. I am trying to grow. In gentleness. But I am thankful.
That she comes alongside. In a spirit of gentleness. As Galatians 6 says. To help me on this. And the same way. That is what we are called to do.
With other people in our group. With other Christians. That we are walking alongside of. We are called to. When. Maybe someone gets offended.
Maybe you get offended. By what someone says. Or someone says something mean to you. Or your wife. Or your friend. Man.
You don't respond with a sledgehammer. You don't come hard. We come with a spirit of gentleness. How. How much more unified. Would the church be.
If we address one another. Like surgeons. With a scalpel. As opposed to coming out. With some brute force. We are called.
To gentleness. To strive for it. And then Paul keeps going. He says. With. Patience.
With patience. Patience. Patience is not putting up. With somebody. For. For a few different.
Community group meeting times. That's not patience. We have a warped. Sense of time. Because of our culture. Because in our culture.
Everything happens. Instantly. I can pull out my phone. Order food. It comes in less than 30 minutes. I can look at news.
That is happening. In remote parts of the world. All the way across the globe. Everything is happening. Like that. And we have this.
Warped sense of time. That we bring into the church. That we think. Relationships. Should happen. Just like that.
And it messes with the fact. That relationships. Take time. Life together. Takes time. It is walking with someone.
For a year. For two years. For five years. As they learn to walk. In the grace. That Jesus provides.
That's why Jesus says. You don't forgive seven times. No. You forgive. 77 times. I mean.
Think about how long. That kind of relationship is. You need to forgive someone. 77 times. Some of you are like. Man.
You didn't see in our group. That's like a week. Maybe. For most of us. That is a long period of time. Of enduring.
It takes. Patience. As we walk with one another. Which means. That you don't get to run. At the first sign of trouble.
At the first sign of trouble. You don't get to dip out. And switch groups. And leave churches. That's not how this works. Like you don't get to do that.
With your own family. Most of the time. Like with my daughter. When she wakes up from a nap. Sometimes she just wakes up angry. Like I always walk in.
I'm like. How's it going to be? Is she going to be happy? Or is she going to be ticked? And then sometimes she wakes up. And she's ticked.
I'm like. You were too. What possibly. Could you be angry about? I don't get to just shut the door. And say.
You're in here all day. Deuces. And walk out. That's. You don't get to do that with your own family. You don't get to do that with church family.
You don't get to just dip out. The first sign of trouble. Leave group. Leave the church. Nah. It's patience.
We're called to walk in patience. And then Paul. He keeps going. He says bearing with one another in love. Bearing with one another in love. Man.
I'm thankful for the sermon last week. I encourage you to go listen to it if you were not here. We need to grow in reclaiming the depth and the height and the beauty of the love of Christ. Because here's what happened in the American church. In the American church throughout the 60s and the 70s the hippie movement happened. And then like the hippie movement got attached to.
That free love and everything else got attached to Jesus. And the picture of Jesus in the 70s was. He was a hippie. And he. He was like. I love everyone.
Doesn't matter how you live. It's just. It's all. You just love everybody. It's all good. And then.
In the American church. There was a response. Because we saw that. And it's cheap in love. And we said. No.
No. No. No. I like the picture of Jesus. When he's making a whip. And he's beating people out of the temple.
Because our Jesus is about truth. And then a lot of us just bang the truth drum. Man. We bang the heck out of it. We're about truth. And theology.
It's not about this cheap version of love. It's about truth. And doctrine. And theology. And we go all hyped up. And excited.
And we listen to pastors online. And what we did. Was we pitted truth against love. We create a false dichotomy. Which is two different truths. They can go together.
But we say that they don't. We love on one side. And truth on the other. And it's like. That's. Maturity is realizing that those two go together.
I mean. Jesus sums up the entire Old Testament law. All the theology in two ways. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love your neighbor.
So we. We. We fail to. To grow into this. If we don't realize that those. Go together.
If we don't deepen our understanding. Of love. Loving. And bearing with one another in love. Looks like. It looks like.
When you're a mom. And another mom in our church. Or in our community group. This happened a lot in the church that I was at previously. Some mom posts. The most ridiculous.
Over the top. Judgmental. Opinionated mom blog. And it's like. If you don't rub essential oils. On your child's eyes.
Before they go to bed. You hate them. And they will grow up awful. It's like. What. What is this?
Like there are so many. Terrible mom blogs. They're the worst. And someone would post something. That was so outrageous. And so over the top.
And it would make other moms. Like man. I'm a bad mom. I'm a. And then. And then.
What happens out of that. Is. I'm done with her. I don't want to hang out with her. I'm unfriending her on Facebook. I don't want to be in community group with her.
I don't want to deal with her. I was like. No. That's not the response of a Christian. That's not what we're called to. We're called to bear with one another in love.
Now there may be a conversation. That comes out of that. That is. That is reconciled. That said. This isn't helpful.
This is actually hurtful. But you don't get to just block people out. Because. Of stuff like this. We're called to bear with one another in love. This looks like when.
Again. If you've got someone who's just got a different personality than you. It's like. No. You don't get to block them out. This looks when.
When someone hurts you. When someone offends you. When someone sins against you. You don't get to just say. I'm done. We're called to bear with one another.
In love. So Paul. He's driving this home. For the Ephesian church. And for us. He starts to.
To show us. The culture of team. And one another. Over individual. And then he starts to transition. Into the leader that we rallied behind.
He says in verse 3. Eager to maintain. The unity of the spirit. In the bond. Of peace. And what we see here.
To start out with. Is that our leader. Is our God. Spoiler alert. I bet you didn't see that coming. Like our leader.
Is our God. And he focuses on the Holy Spirit. And he's getting ready to unpack the Trinity. That's showing up in verses 4 through 6. But he starts with the Holy Spirit here.
And it's a good reminder for us. Because the Holy Spirit. Is inside each of us. Those who believe the gospel. He reigns inside of us. The understanding is.
Is that the church. Is the new temple of God. The Old Testament. There was the temple. And that's where God's presence was. And that's where he ruled and reigned from.
In the New Testament. We are the church. We are the temple. And God resides in us. And his Holy Spirit. Is inside of us.
And why that's important here. Is because we are all bound together. By the spirit. We are all bound together. By peace. Which means.
We're not meant to be divided. Because God doesn't want his spirit. Divided against one another. So he says the bond of peace here. And the word for bond here. Conveys a couple ideas.
It's used in the bonding together of a building. Into a sturdy structure. This word bond is also used. Into the binding together of individual threads. That make up an entire garment. Paul in Colossians.
He uses it. As how ligaments. Bind a body together. And hold a body together. And out of that. He says there's no individual here.
There's no Jew. There's no Greek. There's one body. Bound by one spirit. Which means there's no more hostility. There's no more hostility.
Because of the peace of Christ. Because individualism. Crushes unity. And that individualism. It took a hard turn in the 16th century. When the enlightenment happened.
And the enlightenment happened. And we took the focus off of God. And creation. And we turned it on ourselves. And we thought about how great we were. And then modernism happened.
And then recently. We're in the age of post-modernism. And we're on the back end of post-modernism. The narcissistic. Inwardly focused version of it. That means it's all about you.
Our culture says it's all about you. Your thoughts. Your ideas. Your feelings. Your truth. You have to live your truth.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard some version of that. Now we in the church understand there's absolute truth. And that that is a ridiculous statement. A ridiculous thought. But here's how that kind of individualism seeps into the church on a practical level.
It shows up when somebody is. Maybe they're sleeping with their boyfriend or their girlfriend. Or maybe they're doing something they're not supposed to do. Or maybe they're choosing something that is just not good for them. And someone else in their community group. Or a group of people in their community group are saying.
I don't know if you should be doing. I'm looking at the Bible. And we're praying. We love you. We don't think that you should be. We don't think this isn't good for you.
And the hyper-spiritualized version of individualism. A person says, no, no, no, no. This is. It's about. God wants me to be happy. Or the even hyper-spiritual version is.
Is that. No, God told me. The Holy Spirit told me. And everyone else who loves them. Who has the same Holy Spirit inside them. Is praying to the same God.
And looking at the same Bible. Saying, no, no, no. I think you're an heir. And we make it about ourselves. And that kind of individualism. It crushes unity.
So he starts in this. And he kind of completes the thought here. Of team over individual. And he introduces leader. And then the leader that we follow really shows up. In verses 4 through 6.
He says, there is one body. And one spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord. One faith. One baptism.
One God and Father of all. Who is over all and through all. And in all. So Paul, he attaches that culture of unity that he's been building. To the leader that we follow. And the cause that unites us.
And he drives home that unity idea. By using the same word seven times. And when you hear it. You're supposed to feel the force of it. He says one. One.
One. One. One. One. One. One.
One. It is supposed to be that forceful. That you would understand. The oneness. That he is striving for here. The oneness.
That is in the Trinity. He introduces Father, Son, and Holy Spirit here. And we are called to reflect. The God that we're made in his image. We're called to reflect. The unity.
Of our God. That there's one spirit. That unifies us. That we belong to one Lord. Jesus. That there's one God.
And Father of all. And in order to understand that. We need to have a better understanding. Of the oneness that is within the Trinity. That our trinean God. Is one.
He's eternally. Existed. As three. And as one. Before time was created. God has perfectly been unified.
In himself. Now there's a lot of attempts. There has been a lot of attempts. To oversimplify. Our understanding of the Trinity. I've heard people say.
It's kind of like water. It's when it's frozen. It's ice. But when it melts. It's water. And then when you heat it up.
It's gas. It's like our God is one. He's got three forms. Or I hear people say. No. It's like a man who's.
He has one role as a father. He has another role as a son. And he has another role as a brother. Any explanation like that. Is actually a heretical understanding of the Trinity. That goes back to the third, fourth, and fifth century.
It's not one God, three modes. We don't try to oversimplify who our God is. He is three. And he is one. I had a professor once tell me. That when you think of his threeness.
And you thought of his threeness too long. You shift back to his oneness. And when you thought of his oneness too long. You think of his threeness. And the beauty of this. Is that our God is in perfect relationship with himself.
He is perfectly unified. And we are made in his image. Which is why. When our community groups. Are great. Like we are loving one another.
We're serving one another. We're unified. We love it. We love our community group. We love when we meet. It's awesome.
But man. When somebody is mad at someone else. When there's bitterness. When there's sin. That's breaking people up. Man.
How fun is our community group then? How fun is meeting together once a week then? Man. It can be brutal. Because we are not imaging our God. We're not flourishing in the way that we're supposed to.
And being made in his image. God wants us to be unified. As he is unified. God. And he wants us to buy into the cause that unites us. Which is what we see in these final verses.
He says. Just as you were called. To the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord. One faith. One baptism.
One God and Father of all. Who is over all. And through all. And in all. And the cause is this. The cause is the gospel.
That's what we talk about all the time. And it shows up here. And the one hope. That binds us together. The one hope. That is actualized.
That is real. That Peter. And first Peter calls a living hope. It is alive. We get to see it. In part now.
And we get to fully take part in it. In the future. That right now. God. The hope we have. Is he has made us new.
And that one day. Down the line. There's a day coming. When everything is going to be made new. When everyone is going to be made new. There will be no more sin.
There will be no more pain. We will forever be in the presence. Of our God. That is the hope. That we get to see in part now. We're united by the one faith.
That he mentions here. The one faith. That we could not earn. The one faith. That was given to us. The one faith.
That was secured. By the life. Death. And resurrection. Of our Savior. And we're bound together.
By the sign of the one baptism. Now that's the internal baptism. The changing of our hearts. That is also. What we get to celebrate. Here.
Coming up on this Easter Sunday. That we're going to have some people. In a heated tub. Right in front of us. They're going to step into the waters. And they're going to say.
Jesus is Lord. And they're going to be dunked in the water. Which is a sign that you were dead in sin. And they're going to be brought back up. That you are alive. In Christ.
We are bound together. By that sign. We are bound together. And unified. By the gospel. So the hope coming out of this.
Is that if you've not fully bought into this. If you've been trusting in anything else. Other than the finished work. Of Jesus on the cross. If you thought that your good works can save you. If you thought that your church attendance could save you.
If you thought that anything else. Could stand in your place. And the hope and the appeal is this. That you would believe this. That you would be fully bought in. That you would trust in Jesus as your only hope.
And that you would see that Jesus is better. Than everything else. And that out of that. We would continue to apply the gospel. That's why we talk so much about. Gospel fluency in our church.
That we would apply the gospel. In every aspect of our life. Because that is the cause that unites us. That is the cause that keeps us together. The beauty of it is. Is that we have a father.
Who sent his son. To purchase us his bride. And that as Ephesians says. He has sent the Holy Spirit. As our guarantee. As our down payment.
That we have a triune God. Who is the leader of our church. And we have a cause. The cause of the gospel. That unites us. And that out of that.
We strive. For a culture of unity. We strive. For it to be more about ourselves. More than about ourselves. But about the church.
About one another. Another. So that's what we're going to. Practice this morning.
The Love of Christ
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bibles. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 3.
So we are back in our Ephesians series. We spent a good bit of time in the fall walking verse by verse through the book of Ephesians. And we are going to spend a good bit of time in the spring doing the exact same thing. So we took a little break for our Give series. We started this year off talking about Jesus is better than everything else. And now we are back in Ephesians.
How familiar are y'all with the pole vault? Moderately, like I'm a pole vault tier. If that's not what they're called, that's what they should be called. Like I'm not that familiar with the pole vault, so I'm going to explain it to y'all. So the pole vault is an athlete, a track athlete, a pole vault tier, dresses up in like a track outfit or looks kind of like a wrestling singlet.
Don't call it a onesie. They get upset. It's a singlet. And they have a big stick. It's a pole is the technical term. And it is bendy, the stick is.
So it's not like a super rigid stick. It's like a long bendy stick. And they run quickly holding their stick as fast as they can. And then there's like a football goal post thing set up here with another stick across it. I don't think that one's as bendy as the one they're holding. It could be the same type of stick.
I don't know. But it's running across here. And the goal is to take this stick, stick it in the ground. That's why it's called that. And then run. It bends.
And then they jump. And they fly through the air holding on to their stick. At some point they let go. And the goal is to get their feet and then the rest of their body over the... I don't know which one's the pole. This is the pole or that's the pole.
Maybe they're both the pole. But maybe they're vaulting with a pole or over a pole. But they've got to get over. Over... This is the vault part. They get over that.
And then on the other side there's like a big... Like a big mat or air mattress. Like the air mattress you sleep on at your grandma's house. But like... Like also like a gym mat. Like if they had a really big baby.
Like that's what's on the other side. And they fall on top of that. And they do a good job if they get over the goal post. That's like... That was like a win. And then they raise it.
And it's like the opposite of the limbo. They keep raising it. And then eventually they hit the stick. And I think everybody laughs. And then it's over with. And so...
That's what Paul's doing in this letter. And we've reached the moment in the letter where he sticks the stick in the ground. That's where we are today. So the fall... We spent him building momentum. We looked at all the theology behind his letter.
So he... In the fall is building up. He's running towards the goal. He's running towards what he's going to eventually vault us into. And so the fall has been him saying in chapter 1 that all this truth about who God is and what he's like and what he's done. And so he's...
He says that we've been blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. That he chose us before... Chose us in him before the foundation of the world. That he predestined us for the adoption of sons. That he loves us. That he redeems us.
That he gives us an inheritance. That he sealed us with the Holy Spirit. And then he kind of says, so... Because that's true, I pray that you would know this. So the back half of chapter 1 is he just saying, I pray that you would know all that he's done for you in Christ.
All of this rich and deep theology, I pray that you would know it. Then he goes into chapter 2 saying... That you've been saved by grace. You didn't earn this. You weren't good. You weren't special.
You weren't holy. You weren't moral. You weren't smarter. He says, you were dead. You were useless. You were trapped in your sin.
And then by grace, Jesus Christ swapped places with you. That he died for you. That you were saved by grace. And then he says, and you've been now saved by grace. Equipped for works. And then he goes into saying, because we've been saved by grace, we actually get to relate to one another.
And so we spent some time talking about racism. Because that's what he begins to address. Is that both Jewish and Gentile believers need to get along and grow together. And then today, the back half of chapter 3, we're going to pick up in verse 14. He says, for this reason. And so he begins this.
He's saying, because of all this stuff back here. For this reason. For all the stuff I've already said. And then at the end of this, he's going to say, amen. And the next verse is going to be, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And so what he does is, he takes all of this theology.
All of this dense, rich. I'm going to be careful what I'm saying here. Dense, rich truth about Christ and his work and his goodness for us. And he uses it to build momentum. That's him sprinting. You don't get over that by just sticking it in the ground and trying to build momentum.
Today, he sticks the pole in the ground. And again, I'm not a pole vaulter. Father, I'm assuming where you put the end of that stick matters. I'm assuming that if you do it too soon or too late or at a different wrong angle. I'm assuming that this really matters. That you get it right in the exact spot.
So that with all the momentum that you've built. You can propel yourself towards the work you're supposed to do. And that's what's happening in this letter. That Paul's running full speed with all of this truth. And all this momentum of the truth of the gospel for us in Christ. And his love for us.
And his adoption of us. And his salvation for us. And then today he sticks. That truth. Anchors it. And uses it for the rest of the letter.
He's going to say, now here's how we live that. Here's what we look like to live that. And so today is actually a really important day for us. As we get to see, what is he anchoring in? What was all of that building to put us in? And then the rest of the letter he's going to say, here's how to live.
Here's how to relate to each other. Here's how to love one another. Here's how to get along with one another. And so we're going to pick up verse 14. This is where Paul anchors this to propel us into everything else that we're going to look at. And we'll pray before we read this whole passage together.
God, I pray that you would give us grace today. That as Paul says this prayer and as he transitions this letter from all the true things about you into all the things that we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to respond and live in light of that. God, I pray that you would help us to see this clearly, to feel it deep inside of our hearts, that your Holy Spirit would empower it in us and that you would help us to know your love and walk in a manner worthy of you. In Jesus' name, amen. Chapter 3, starting in verse 14. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
So he begins by saying, because of all this truth about Jesus and what he's accomplished for us in the gospel, here's what I pray. That's what he means by I bow my knee. I submit myself in prayer to the Father. And then when he says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, what he means is he's the father of everybody. He's in charge of everybody. There's nobody outside of his scope that he's the God of everything.
I like the movie, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? And throughout that movie, he's going to try to find his family after he escapes from prison. And he keeps saying, I'm the paterfamilias, which means I'm the daddy. I'm the father of this family. Like nobody can replace me. And that's what he's saying here is that God is the paterfamilias.
He's the father of the family of everybody. He's in charge of everybody. And then he says, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So he's built all of this momentum. And this is where he's sticking his pole in the ground and saying, this is what we land in in order for us to move forward. And so his prayer, his request is, and we're going to highlight this, that he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being.
So he prays, his request, the thing he gets down and asks the father for this church in Ephesus. And as we read this for all Christians, is that the Holy Spirit would strengthen us, strengthen them in their inner being. And this is one of the beautiful things about Christianity, is that you can be weak physically, and you can be weak mentally, and you can have a ferocious spirit. That you can have an inner strength beyond compare, and be built in by the Holy Spirit, with a power and a strength that is unapproachable. And that's what he says, is that I pray that he would strengthen you by the power of his spirit, strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being.
And then he says, so that. And so these words are important when you're reading your Bible, so that. So now he's giving us what will happen if that happens. So he's saying, so that. Yeah, I want him to do this, so that. Here's the result.
Here's what will happen. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So he's saying, I pray that the Holy Spirit would come in your heart, and give you the ability to contain Christ, to have Christ dwell in you through faith. That you would believe in Christ, that's faith. That you would trust in him, and that he would dwell, live in your heart. And I pray that the Holy Spirit would give you strength to handle that, strength so that this will happen.
That's the result. And so look at the rest of verse 17. It says, That you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And so he says, I pray that you would be strengthened in your heart, so that Christ would dwell in you. And he says, that you, so now we're seeing, he's making another point. And then it says, comma, being rooted and grounded in love.
And so we're going to highlight that. That is, that's just kind of inserted into the sentence. So the sentence is going to keep going here in a second, but that's just inserted in there. And I just want to pause for a second, because Paul just inserts that in the middle of his sentence. So what he's saying is, I pray that he'd give you strength, so that Christ will dwell in your heart.
That you, and he's about to say the reason, but then he just inserts in the middle, now being rooted and grounded in love, it'd be a little bit like, if you had a commanding officer in the military, and he said, okay, you went to boot camp, we trained you, we made you mean, we didn't make you ugly, you were ugly when you came here, but we made you mean. And now, we did that, so that you, and then he just stopped and said, with all the equipment we've given you, can go win the battle. Like he just pauses in the middle. That's not the reason they did it, but he's just saying, with all this. And so I just want to pause, because I think this is a beautiful picture that he gives.
So he says, that you, and he just kind of pauses and says, being rooted and grounded in love. And he gives two pictures here. I want to take a second for us to picture this. And I got really kind of increasingly encouraged as I thought about this. So the first picture is rooted.
That we're rooted in love. So that we would be planted in, and begin to dig roots in, and grow in love. Now, as he's used love in this letter so far, that's the love of God for us. That's our love for God. And that's our love for each other. And other people's love for us.
The church's love for us. And so he means love. Like all the love between the church, between each other. The love between him and you. And so that we would dig roots in love. Now, the reason this encouraged me was, I have before seen a small, we'll say sapling.
A thin tree. And wanted it to not be there. And so I've just grabbed it with my hands, and tried to just pull it out of the ground. Because this weak little tree can't hang with me. And guess what? Yeah, it could.
Because it had a whole lot of roots. I couldn't see. It had been there for, I don't know how long, and it had big roots, that grew into smaller roots, that went and touched everything, and were just, it held on with a strength, that was beyond mine. That I grabbed it, and went to pull it, and I could twist it, and I could get it down, and I could, but I couldn't get it out of the ground. I couldn't just snatch it up. And what's beautiful, is he's saying, that's us, that's the church.
And we've dug roots in, the love of Christ, our love for Christ, our love for each other, their love for us, and it makes it hard for us to move. That we can't be taken down. The other thing, I got encouraged thinking about roots in a tree, was that I had a tree in my backyard, that was crooked, and so I took an axe, and I cut it down. And then, I looked out in my yard one day, and it had sprouted, like 15 little sticks out the top of it, with leaves growing on it. That tree said, you can cut down this one, I'll grow 15 trees. It's like, I'm re-treeing right now.
So here's what he's saying. Life, your circumstances, difficulty, can come through, and mow you down. Where are your roots? And the love that Christ has for you, and the love that you have for Christ, and the love that you have for his church, and the love that church has for you, and guess what? You're coming back. You're not going anywhere.
Life can try to manhandle you, but you have an inner strength, that's beyond what they can see in you, because Christ dwells in your heart, and the Holy Spirit has given you power, and through faith he dwells in you, and you're not going anywhere. The second one he says is grounded, which means have a foundation in, that we would be rooted in love, and then he just gives another picture, that we'd be grounded on it. That's what we'd be built off of. That's where we would anchor in. I remember getting to go, on a mission service trip, to Louisiana, and we were working with a church, that had just been completely devastated, by one of the hurricanes, that came through right around Katrina.
It wasn't Katrina, but one had come through, and just hit this different part of Louisiana, and just wiped it out. And I remember standing with them, on a very flat piece of concrete, and they were telling me, what used to be there. Because there used to be a building, on top of this foundation, and the hurricane said, not anymore. And you know what they were telling me then? Here's what we're about to build here. And they were laying it out, and saying here's what's going to come in here, and they were actually kind of excited, because they were like, we've actually been able to raise some support, so people gave us some money, we're actually going to get to do something, a little different than what this was.
That's what he's saying. Life can just completely, just knock you over, but it can't take away, the love that you're built on. And guess what? We're going to rebuild. That's not his main point here, but it was important enough, for him to just insert it, in the middle of a sentence, and so I wanted us to take a second, just to think about it. It keeps going.
So we're going to take that away, because we're not, so he says, that you may have strength to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth. So can we highlight that? That's not a real complete thought, because he just says, what's the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, and you're going, and then he just says comma, and it confused me for a while, but it's the love of Christ, the next thing he's going to mention. So we're going to highlight that. So he says, I pray, his request is that God would give you strength, in your inner being, so that the result would be, that Christ would dwell in your hearts, and then he says his reason, that you may comprehend, the length, and breadth, and height, and depth, of the love of Christ.
That by Christ dwelling in us, we might begin to see, how massive, how beautiful, how uncomparable, is the love of Christ. Now, this is his point. This is what he was getting at. This is where he drove, his momentum into the ground. The love of Christ. I'm going to read a poem, because I think it helps us begin to see this, imagine a little bit, the length, and breadth, and height, and depth.
It says, Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth, a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll, contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. So he says, if, you filled up the ocean with ink, you turned the sky into paper, you made everything that was pointy, into a writing utensil, and you made every person on earth, fully just devote all of their time to writing, we couldn't write out the love of God. Before we drained the ocean, we wouldn't fill the sky, we would be done. We would not be able to finish the work.
We would run out of sky. We'd run out of ocean. We wouldn't run out of the love of Christ. That you, being rooted, and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth. I love that it says breadth, so that's width, length, and then he says height, and depth. Most things don't have height, and depth, unless they are both above ground, and below ground.
Like they don't usually have height, and depth. Like if you're, if you're looking at a building, and you go, how deep is it? Your friend's going to say, you mean tall? And if you were with them later, and you looked at a swimming pool, and you said, how, what's the height? How tall is it? Your friend's going to say, you mean deep?
And then they're going to think to themselves, I don't need to be your friend anymore. Like you, I either got to help you out, or I got to be done with this. But what he's saying is that God's love has both. That it's in the sky, and it's in the ground, that it's wide, and long, that it's all around. And he's saying, I pray that the Holy Spirit of God, would let Christ dwell in your heart, so that you might comprehend. That this love might start getting into your head.
And you might begin to wrap your mind around it. And, to know, oh, can we take some of that green away? We're going to take some of that green away, so that's just, he may have strength to comprehend, because otherwise, this is going to get way too colorful, and look kind of crazy. So he says, I pray that you may have strength to comprehend. That's the, that's the, the reason he wants us to have Christ in us. And then he says, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
That's the, the reason why he wants us to have the strength to comprehend. So he's saying, I want you to begin to wrap your mind around this. And then he says, so that, not just so that we would all go, hmm, yes, I see now. He's saying, no, so that you would know it. So that it would go from your head to your heart, so that it would, that it would become part, you would become intimate with it.
That Christ would dwell in your heart, so that you would comprehend it, and you would know it. That it would become real to you. That you would know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge. And I love, that our goal, is to comprehend something, that is incomprehensible. He says, I want you to know, something that surpasses knowledge. I want you to know the unknowable.
That's why he's praying about this, and asking the Holy Spirit to do it. And then he says, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So that, that you again, is just kind of giving you the transition, it may be filled with all the fullness of God. So he wants us to know the love of Christ, so that all the fullness of God, can be in us. So that we'd be filled with the fullness of God.
Now, sorry, let's show a recap, kind of give us what he just prayed here. His request, that God would, through his riches of his mercy, would grant you to be strengthened. The result would be, that Christ would dwell in our hearts. The reason was, so that we may comprehend, the length and height, and breadth and width, so that we would know the love of Christ, for the reason that we'd be filled with the fullness of God. That's his prayer. So he says, all of this deep, rich theology, he's building all this momentum, and then he says, I want, I get on my face before God, and I pray that you'd begin to see how big his love is, and I pray that you'd begin to know it.
Now, I'm willing to bet, that if we had to guess, if we just at the beginning of this, passed out a little sheet, and said, Paul's big prayer here. Halfway through the letter, his big transition thing, what's he going to pray for us, before he starts telling us how to live, and how to walk, and how to act, and how to treat each other, and how to be married, and how to work, and how to raise kids, and like, he's going to do all of that in the back half of this letter, but before he does that, what's the big thing he wants us to know? What's his big prayer? When he gets to beg God for something, what's he going to beg?
And I don't think all of us would go, oh, to know the love of Christ. Maybe you would, and we're proud of you. I wouldn't. If I just had to guess, I'd have been like, ah, that we would stay far away from sin, that we would do what we're supposed to, that we would look the way, like, that we would be effective for mission, that we'd see people come to know Jesus, and what he says is, no, I pray, I pray, I beg, that you'd begin to see how big his love is, and that you would know it. Now, I'm also willing to bet that most of us go, oh yeah, Jesus loves me. Good.
How much longer is this sermon going to be? Because I got that. I got that Jesus loves me. I want to read a few quotes, because I disagree with you. I think you don't got that. I'm going to read a few quotes, and then I'm going to try to illustrate this, and then we're going to spend the rest of our time trying to get it a little bit.
So he says, I pray that you would know the love, so that you'd have the fullness of Christ, that we'd be full, that we'd be complete, that we'd be whole. 1 John 4.8 says, Perfect love drives out fear. Are we fearful? We anxious? We're plagued by doubt, unsteadiness? Maybe we hadn't comprehended the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of Christ.
A Protestant Puritan pastor says this about the love of Christ. He says, How often has God loved his haters? How often has he loved his mortal enemies with an everlasting love? There is such love and such grace in the heart of God that if you understood the length and breadth and height and depth of it, you would never be discouraged. Are we discouraged? Hard to wake up sometimes?
Hard to do what we're supposed to? Hard to follow? Hard to pray? Maybe we don't know the love of Christ. Augustine, the early church father, says the essence of sin is disordered love. Meaning that we love something too much.
Over and above God that we've gotten our loves out of order. Are we fighting sin? Are we losing? Maybe we don't fully know the love of Christ. Maybe we don't fully grasp it. If we're discouraged and fearful and weak and filled with doubts, maybe we hadn't fully gazed into the length and height and breadth and depth.
Maybe we don't understand it yet. I looked this up because I was trying to think like what's big and what also is something that we might feel like we kind of know. So I looked it up. I went with the ocean. So y'all know the ocean, right?
Familiar with it? Heard about it? Okay. Maybe you've seen it. How much of the ocean and this isn't just the United States, it's not like the World Series where we, you know, we do, we play and then we say we're the champions of the world which is fine. I'm cool with that.
I live in America. It's not like that. This is all of humanity together. How much of the ocean do y'all think is unexplored? Because you've heard that there are parts of the ocean we still haven't explored, right? You've heard that.
You know that stat. Like Bill Nye the science guy probably said it. How much do you think we haven't explored? Okay. Who would say 10%? 10% of the ocean we just don't know anything about.
Who'd say that? Do you mind raising your hand? Can we do that? Can this, can y'all participate? Nobody says 10%? That's too high?
No, you're going to keep our hands up. We're going to keep moving. So it's 10%, at least 10. How about that? Who would say at least 10% we don't know anything about? All right.
Who would say at least 20%? Like we just haven't explored at least 20%. Who would say 30%? Who would say 50%? We just don't, half the ocean we just don't know anything about. 60%?
Some of you are saying, no, we got, we got, okay. Who would say 75%? 75% of the ocean we hadn't seen, we don't know anything about. 85? It's 95. So some of y'all are on track with that.
It's 95% of the ocean hasn't been explored. So people can tell you mermaids don't exist. They don't know. 95% of the ocean. The ocean floor, 99% of the ocean floor. Unexplored.
We haven't even seen it. We don't even know what it looks like. It may not even be there, you guys. At this point, it's a theory. We know about 5% of the ocean, about 1% of the ocean floor. Now, I would have thought more.
I did think more. I looked this up and then I looked it up a couple of times because I was like, that's probably, come on. And now that's what it is. And this is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is their job, y'all. 5%.
Like we mapped out the moon, what y'all been doing? The ocean is very deep. I don't know if, did I tell you something y'all didn't know? You could stick Mount Everest in it and it would be a mile and a half from the surface at the deepest part. So if you just sunk Mount Everest, mile and a half.
It's 36,000 feet. So if you, if, if, if God took you out over it, the deepest part and then he just removed the water and let you go, you would fall for 136 seconds. And we assume you would hit a floor. We don't really know. 136 seconds, you would just free fall. And we're all going to stand here silently for 136 seconds and picture falling.
No, we're not actually going to do that, but. So here's what, here's what happens. When we say, I know the love of God, like I know it, I got it, I got it. When somebody starts saying, we're going to talk about the love of God, when Paul says, this is my big prayer and we go, let's get to the good stuff in Ephesians. I think it's kind of like being like, yeah, I know everything there is to know about the ocean. I've been to Myrtle Beach.
I think it's kind of like that. Like, you know, some stuff, like, I mean, when you stand on the edge of the sand and you look and you're like, whoa, it's really big. Look, it's as far as you go. Just whoa. And what Paul's saying is, yeah, you've gotten a taste of it. You're rooted and grounded in it.
Yeah, you're not going anywhere because of the love of Christ, but I'm praying that he'll pick you up by the scruff of your neck and just start flying you around. I'm praying that he'll walk to the edges of it. I'm praying that he'll take you and just dip you to the depths of it. I'm praying that he'll get to see the length, the height, the breadth, the depth. I'm praying that through his Holy Spirit, he'll begin to let you see how massive it is. And so let's just assume because of our doubt and our fear and our sin and our discouragement and let's just assume we've got a Myrtle Beach understanding of God's love.
Now, here's what we're going to do with the rest of our time today. We're going to look at a couple of pictures that the Bible gives us of his love. And then we're going to spend time singing about his love. But if we're going to know his love, we've got to do what Paul did. We've got to start getting on our face and asking the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to handle it. We've got to have Christ dwelling in our hearts so that we might begin to comprehend.
So we're going to take a shot at it today to know something that is unknowable to hopefully just pique our interest. to as much as you're going to go home and Google our mermaid's real to hopefully have us go do that as well with God's love that we might begin to realize I don't fully know this. So I want to give three quick pictures that the Bible gives and all we're going to do is just talk through some of the pictures the Bible gives. We're going to try to imagine this type of love and then we're just going to say okay, if we know that type of love God has that type of love for us but bigger. That's all we're going to do.
If you know that type of love it's that but bigger. The first one is friend. The God in the Bible calls humans friends. This is crazy because Abraham is friend. John 15, 15 Jesus tells the disciples he says I don't call you servants anymore I call you friends. Psalm 25 says that God treats us like friends that he loves us like friends.
There's a Jesus actually tells his disciples no greater love has a man than this that he lay down his life for his friends. So I just want us to for a second because we can't fully see the height and length and depth of the love of Christ I want us just for a second to picture the love of a friend and what that's like and to think about the fact that God would love you like that. So a good friend enjoys you and you enjoy them. You want to be around each other. You want to talk to each other. You want to know each other.
You want to serve each other. Good friends are the people that you want when everything is terrible it's fine for them to be there. When everything's just falling apart you just walk over the door you open it for them they come in they sit next to you. Good friends are the people that you want there when everything is great. You want to celebrate with that you want to walk through life with. As I was thinking about this when I was in college there was a couple of us were friends and we lived near each other in a dorm room there was a guy that used to come by and just bust up in our rooms because we always had our doors open and he would he would overstay his welcome.
Granted his welcome was relatively short so it wasn't hard for him to overstay it. I'd like to think I've grown some since then but we just didn't like this cap. Hopefully it would be more gracious now but I'm just telling you about I'm just a story you guys about a thing in the past. Actually I probably I would just I would know I had to be more gracious now. Is that fair? Like I might not actually feel more gracious but I would be like no Jesus help me.
At this point we were just like we ain't trying to so what we started to do was lock our doors and you would just hear boom and he would just smack his head into the thing and you just kind of knew okay and so then he learned to start knocking but we also we would knock on each other's doors or whatever but it just got to where like you know knocking doesn't always work because it could still be him when you open the door so we just came up with a secret knock. Matt Freeman still knocks on my door this way when he shows up at my house. Like you'll hear a knock at your house and I don't know if y'all are like me you're like why is this in my house? Like why is there a person here?
Because we don't visit each other anymore. Every time I'm knocking on one of my neighbor's doors they come to the door like what? Like they're ready to fight me or whatever. if they come at all sometimes you just hear noise and you're like they're not coming. He'll knock on the door and I'll hear the knock and I'll be like hey Matt's here. Like I just why are you busting up at my house? But it's fine.
I know who it is. And I just got to think about the fact that if God loves us that's my love for a friend. You guys it's not great. But if God loves us even just like that that he wants to see you wants to spend time with you wants to be around you enjoys you looks forward to it goes out of his way to be around you when he doesn't have to. That's the thing about friends. You don't have to be around them.
That's a love we know and his love is unknowable. Myrtle Beach Ocean of God's love so that everything that is true about true friendship and true love within friendship is true about God's love for you. So every good and true thing you can think about about love for a friend is true about God's love for you in Christ. The second picture that is given to us throughout the Bible and given to us often is the image of a father. The Ephesians begins by saying he adopted us to himself and I love that he says to himself that he actually wanted us to belong to him. Have you ever seen any of those videos online of people being adopted like they finally sign the papers or they give it as a gift and they open it up and the person's like 18 or 17 and they see that they've finally been adopted and they just start weeping?
That's what Christ has done that God the Father has adopted us through Christ. Proverbs 3.12 says that he corrects us like a father. Hebrews is going to say the same thing that he disciplines us because he cares about us. Psalm 103 says that he pities those who fear him like a father does his son. It's cool with as many children being born in our church family when we're hanging out sometimes and you'll hear a cry and everybody listens for a second and then people go not mine because you've learned. you've learned what your kid sounds like and you'll go okay hold on a second guys like this one's me.
You know this one's me. Tomorrow morning at 9.30 my wife will go in for a C-section we'll have our second our second son we're very excited about. Yeah. Woo! Y'all have had to stay up with a kid before you know what's up. You're like woo!
Woo! No but I'm excited tomorrow I'll get to I'll get to meet him. My wife's kind of gotten to know him a little bit more than I have you know because he's been like hanging out with her this whole time and so I'll get to meet him tomorrow and what's cool is I'll get to hold him and he doesn't know it yet but he has no choice I'm on his team. For better or worse I'm on his team and here's what that means and it's what the Bible just said about God as a father is that he disciplines us because he cares about us. You know whose kids I don't discipline? The ones that aren't mine.
Does that make sense? You know the kids I don't discipline? The ones that aren't mine. Like I've never just spanked a child in Walmart that didn't belong to me. I have spanked a child in Walmart but just the one that belonged to me. Like I am bent on making him grow into what he's supposed to grow into and he has no choice I belong to him but guess what?
I'm for him for his discipline for his training for his good and I'm for him against everything else. I remember in high school this is just a picture of what a father can be like. You maybe don't have to be like this as a father. Maybe you can. I'm not trying to say whether or not this is good. I'm just trying to tell you a story.
I get corrected sometimes after the stories I tell so I'm giving a caveat. So I remember in high school my brother had a couple of guys that said they were going to maybe they were going to fight him. This had gotten out that he was going to have a couple of guys fight him. It's possible it was something I had done. That doesn't really affect the story. So they were going to fight him and so he went home he had a block a class and he went home and got a t-ball bat because he just thought me versus three guys t-ball bat will help.
So my dad saw him come home walk in and get a t-ball bat and my dad said hold on hold on what are you doing? And he said well there's a couple guys that might jump me and I thought if there's three of them maybe a t-ball bat would help. My dad went you want me to hide in the back of your truck? That way when they show up I can jump out. My older brother Logan sat there and thought for a second and was like um and I really think he was thinking if I do this by myself there's a chance that we don't all go to the penitentiary but if you're there there's a chance that we all do. So he just said I think I got this one and I was like just let me know if you need help.
And tomorrow I have a son who gets me on his team. And for better or for worse from now on and that's what that's messed up sinful human fatherly love. Some of y'all had terrible fathers and I'm sorry because they were meant to be a small picture and a stand in of what the good glorious father you have is like. But that God says he loves us like a father which means that we belong to him he is for us and he's not going anywhere. That he's for our discipline he's for our health he's for our training and he's against all that would come against us. This is what we read earlier which is if he's for us what can stand against us?
C.S. Lewis has a quote where he says that when it comes to the love of God we don't have a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way. And we don't it's not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate. Nor is it the care of a host that feels responsible for the comfort of his guests. But we have the consuming fire himself the love that made the worlds.
But we have the consuming fire himself the love that made the worlds. And when we picture the best father the most loving the most gracious the kindest and gracious and stern and disciplined with love like when we picture the best father that would go to the ends of the world for his children what we've pictured is a Myrtle Beach version of the love that God has
For us. The third one he gives is husband so he friend father and whatever's true about true fatherly love is also true about God but further and greater and bigger and he says husband it's another picture that the Bible gives it Isaiah 62 5 says as the bridegroom
Rejoices over the bride so shall your God rejoice over you Ephesians 5 which we're going to get to in a little bit says that husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so that the story of the Bible is that God has this love and that Christ comes and rescues his bride that he makes
Her spotless and clean and holy that he draws her to himself this is why we love love stories because it all flows downhill from a good and loving God this is why people love a good father and get to see it and it's joy filled and this is why people love a good romance story this is why we love these stories because it comes from him
I was thinking about this morning Sleeping Beauty Sleeping good gosh I was thinking about this this morning Sleeping Beauty the Disney version not the version I said the Disney version is this story of this wickedness that has come over this girl that she's completely helpless and people get mad about this story now that she's helpless and he has to come
Rescue her but this is our story we're Sleeping Beauty we're helpless that's what Ephesians chapter 2 said that we were dead in our trespasses and sins that we had nothing we could offer that we were helpless and then what happens in the story is this guy Prince Charming his name's Prince Philip rides in he has the sword of truth and the wickedness that was pretty turns into a dragon and he kills her
That's the story of the Bible and then he claims his bride that Jesus Christ rides in with the sword of truth and destroys the dragon and sin and wakes us up from our sleep that would have been dead and claims us the song the song of Solomon stands in the middle of the Bible and throughout years centuries
It has been people have understood it as just a picture of the love that Christ has for the church which I'm going to tell you if you've ever read the Song of Solomon it makes me uncomfortable people now are just saying no it's a really good picture of a husband's love for his wife and it is but most of these theologians will say but secondarily first it is a picture of the love that Christ has for the church and you guys it's like gushy and poetic
And like and I'm bad I'm bad at that kind of stuff like when I want to say something nice to my wife I just go girl I got it that's it I don't have I don't have good words so I have read the Song of Solomon and they use like weird pick up lines so everyone's all text her and be like your teeth are like two sheep that have just come down from the shearing she's like what does that mean I was like
I don't know but it worked for Solomon so the love that Christ has for the church the marriage that he has when he claims his bride and destroys Satan and sin is not a marriage of convenience but it is one enraptured with love that he desires his bride that he longs for his bride that he rejoices in his bride that he celebrates his bride and the most beautiful
Captivating love story we've ever told is Myrtle Beach compared to the love that Christ has for the church the overwhelming overcoming love that he has for his bride so that everything that is true about the love of a husband for a wife in the truest most beautiful sense is true in Christ but exponentially more those are just three small pictures that if you can take the best friend
You've ever had and you can apply the truths of the love that they've shared with you Christ is like that but better if you can take the best father you've ever known God is like that but better his love is greater it's deeper if you can take the greatest husband the greatest love story that you've ever seen that God in Christ is like that but bigger and greater and more and we need
The Holy Spirit in us giving us faith in Christ so that he can dwell in our hearts so that we might begin to comprehend this so that we can know it and here's the thing all of the truth of the gospel has built up to this moment that you might know the love of Christ he wants you engulfed in his love then as Paul says now we get to walk in that but we walk in that as people who are loved people who are cherished people who are cared for
That he delights in us that he desires us that he prefers us that's the love of Christ and I recoil from it because I know I don't deserve it and that's what he said in chapter 2 you don't but he loves you anyway because he's loving and gracious and good not because we were the most beautiful or the most lovely but because he is the most loving and that he rescued and claimed us those are three pictures I want to give us proof the proof is simple
As the Bible tells this story 1 John 3 16 says for we know by this we know love that he laid down his life for us Ephesians 2 4 says but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ that the love that God has for us is known in the cross that that's where we see it that's where we that's where he proves it that when we look and say well how do I know
That he loves us how do I know this is for me we look to the cross I have one more C.S. Lewis quote he says God who needs nothing loves into existence holy unnecessary creatures in order that he may love and perfect them he creates the universe already for seeing he said or should we say seeing because there are no tenses in God so he's not seeing in the future he just sees it because everything exists before God already seeing
The buzzing cloud of flies about the cross the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake the nails driven through the messial nerves the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time for breath's sake hitched up if I may dare the biological image God is a host who deliberately creates his own parasites causes us to be that we may exploit and take advantage
Of him here in his love this is the diagram of love itself the inventor of all loves that when God created humanity he did it so that he might love us and he did it knowing full well the cost to himself to claim his bride that the proof of God's love is in the cross that we might know how loved we are how fully loved we are last two verses as Paul
Ends this section of the text and begins to move into the next part of Ephesians he says now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than we ask or think according to the power at work within us to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever amen so he says now who now to him
Who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think to him be all the glory forever and ever and so what we're going to do the way we're going to finish today is we're just going to sing about the love of Christ that we might begin to comprehend it we're going to sing and proclaim and give glory to God that he loves
Us in a way that we don't understand and hopefully in the singing we'll begin to absorb some of this truth so we're going to stand we're going to give glory to God and we're going to sing about this love that's incomprehensible and we're going to ask as we sing and I would encourage you if you are a Christian and if you're not to begin to ask
That the Holy Spirit would empower you to see this that he would give you faith in your heart as Christ would dwell in your heart that you might know this type of love that throws out fear that throws out discouragement that wraps us up that makes us his and that loves us beyond anything we can imagine that our world is so caught up in beautiful love stories and the reason is because we have a beautiful loving God who created the world
That he might share his love with us so y'all stand we're going to sing
Killing Racism
Transcript
Good morning. An extra hour of sleep. You guys have figured it out. You just need an extra hour and you're awake at this point. That's great. We'll go back to next week when I say good morning.
Do not respond. Alright, grab a Bible, go to Ephesians chapter 2. So we've been walking verse by verse through the book of Ephesians, studying that together. And we are in chapter 2. We're going to pick up in verse 11. As we get started this morning, I'm going to read.
We'll read together 11 through 16. And then we'll pray and I'll kind of talk about what we're doing this morning. So it should be on page 568 if you have one of these white Bibles. 11 through 16. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. Okay. So we just read what Paul just said was, hate Gentiles, which is all non-Jewish people. And hey, Jewish people, Jesus has made you one through the cross and he's killed the hostility.
So what we're going to talk about this morning is racism, is our own prejudice towards other races, other people groups, people from other cultures. And so before we get started talking about that this morning, I want us to pray for our own hearts, that we would hear this well, listen well as we step into something that is difficult to talk about and currently the issue and the idea is very inflamed and we automatically bring some baggage to the table. So let's pray for ourselves, for our time this morning, and then we'll jump in and start walking through this. God, we ask that what Paul says here would be practically true for us, that you would begin to kill the hostility.
We ask this morning that we would, with very clear sight, see our own hearts and understand our own tendencies towards prejudice of other people. We ask for your grace and we love you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so what Paul says here is that through the cross, Jesus eliminates racism. So that's a good news for us, that we actually, as Christians, have the tools to have a perfectly good group society of people who are of different races, of different cultures, of different backgrounds, and have joy and genuine real relationships with one another.
Now, Christianity has not always done this, but when Christianity has, it is beautiful and countercultural. And Paul says we do have the tools to accomplish this. Now, as we talk about this today, we are not going to be talking about systematic oppression or systematic racism or systematic injustice. We will spend some time talking about that at the beginning of the year. So we're in Ephesians right now.
We're going to pause Ephesians. We're going to do our gift series, which is right around Christmas every year. We talk about generosity and giving to kind of specific causes and not getting caught up in consumerism. We do that every year because by the time we hit Christmas every year, we've all completely forgotten that and totally bought back into the American dream. And it's helpful for us to re-remember, hey guys, here's some real specific things Jesus said. And so we're going to do that again.
And then at the beginning of the year, we're going to do a series on the image of God. And in that series, we will spend some time talking about systematic racism. But today we're going to talk more about our own personal prejudice. We're going to talk to all the racists in the room. Good morning. It's good to see y'all.
Here's how this works. This issue has cultural historic baggage. In 2017, for people who live in South Carolina, we have racial baggage. We do. We don't get to step into this conversation as third-party outsiders just looking in on it. We have historical baggage.
We live in the United States. We live in a racialized society, meaning that we notice race. You are aware of the race of the person you are speaking to. You tell people when you tell a story, and I notice this in myself. I'll tell a story and I'll say, man, I was in this store and this old black guy came walking in. Or I'll say, man, there was this super mean white lady behind the counter.
I just include that because I feel like you should know. It helps you picture the story. But what I'm doing is I'm acting as if this somehow matters to the story. And sometimes I might be willing to argue that it did. And so I'm noticing that we are people who notice, realize, pay attention to this kind of thing, that there's actually a social – I had this backwards, sorry. A social scientist named Andrew Hackler says, America may be seen as two separate nations.
Of course there are places where the races mingle, yet in most significant respects the separation is pervasive and penetrating. As a social and human division, it surpasses all others. What he's saying is that when you look at statistics, the thing that most adjusts income – in this article he's talking about income, college educations, health, life expectancy, the thing that most adjusts that in the United States is if you change the race. That as a social division, it surpasses all others. That we live in a racialized place. Now here's the thing.
We have baggage. In the United States, we had our most devastating war with the most casualties was the Civil War that was largely about slavery. Now I know if some of you grew up in the South, you have heard a lot of it had to do with states' rights. Sure, that may be one of the planks in the platform of why there was secession. I'll concede that. But when the guy who gets to be the vice president of the new Confederate United States says, now finally we'll have a whole country devoted to the idea that black people are inferior, it's a quote in one of his first speeches.
You have to understand, though, there are some racial issues there. That we have some baggage. We have Jim Crow. We have the Civil Rights Movement. None of us get to walk into this just completely devoid of this. And here's the thing.
I don't care where you're from if it's Australia. Y'all still have racial issues as well. That it does not matter. Here, this is a worldwide phenomenon. The only places that you do not have racial issues and racial tension and cultural divisions are in places where there are no multiple cultures, multiple races. This is a human heart level issue.
And one of our goals as we enter into this conversation, we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on it because Paul doesn't. And we're studying through Ephesians, so we're taking what Paul gives us. But one of our goals as we enter into this conversation right now, this week, and as we hopefully continue this conversation, we have a couple of things that we want to promote here. One is we believe that we are sinners saved by grace, meaning that Jesus redeems the most broken, messed up parts of us, and that one of the ways that he begins to break down our sin is that we openly confess it. And so we want this to be, I know that in our culture, racism is one of the highest, most heinous, terrible sins that you can absolutely commit.
And so it becomes very difficult to confess to having racist thoughts and a racist heart and prejudice towards other people groups. But if we want it to die, we're going to have to talk about it. We're going to have to own it in our community groups, and we're going to have to allow people to own it because we believe that Jesus saves us by grace, which means that Jesus redeems racists and racial prejudice. And that's our hope. Secondly, we want to grow in reflecting the demographics of our city. So if you just do Lexington County, it's about 60% white, 20% Hispanic, 20% African American.
If you look at Columbia as a whole, it's about 40% white, 40% African American, about 20% Hispanic. We want to more accurately reflect that because that's what heaven looks like. We live in a place where white churches and black churches exist. And we want to overcome that through gracious pursuit, friendship, love, and laying down some of our cultural preferences. So those are some of our prayers as we get into this.
So let's look at what Paul's talking about, who he's talking to, why he's addressing this. So he begins, Therefore, remember, so when it says therefore in your Bibles, I just want, I want you to know this, and this is a hokey way to remember it. Whenever you read the word therefore, you got to look why it's, what it's there for. Like, why is it there? What is it in the text? Because it's always referring to what just came before it.
And so in this part of the text, Paul is saying, because we're saved by grace, meaning that Jesus saves us through his work, not ours, that none of us have anything to boast in, none of us bring anything to the table. It wasn't like Jesus said, okay, I'm here for all the good people. Okay, I'm here for all the Jewish people. Okay, I'm here for all the well-behaved. I'm here for all the moral. I'm here for all the people who've never watched an R-rated video.
Go ahead and line up. Like, that's not what he's done. He saves by grace, meaning that Jesus is here for all the messed up, terrible, broken people who will raise their hand and say, I need a savior. That's what he's talking about. He says, therefore, because we're saved by grace, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, that's in quotations, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Okay, got to have a little historical background here as to why this matters for him to talk to the Ephesians and why it's a big issue.
So in Ephesus, we read when we started our first week of this series, we went to Acts and we read about how this church got started and we saw that there was extreme racial tension in the city of Ephesus. That the Jewish people were separate. And this is true for this time period. They had their own dress. They had their own language. Now, they would interact some.
They knew Greek, but they had Hebrew. They had their own dress, their own language, their own foods, their own guilds. They didn't participate. If you were a blacksmith, they had separate Jewish blacksmiths. They wouldn't let non-Jewish people eat with them. They had all of these regulations.
They were a separate group. And so what happens is Jesus is Jewish. I feel like I have to explain this because it's confusing. Judaism is a religion and Jewish is a people group. And they overlap. So the Judaism, Jewish people practice Judaism because they were both a people group and a religion.
And that's true even now. Someone can be Jewish and not practice Judaism or now practice Judaism and not be historically family-line Jewish. So at this time period, though, you were Jewish and you practiced Judaism for the most part. And if you didn't, you were thought very, very low. You had very low esteem in Jewish culture. You were outcast.
You were a sinner. You were separated. Okay. What we see in the story in Ephesus is that Jewish people become Christians and then the Ephesians starts messing up their political system and their economic system and they start a riot. And it says that one of the men stepped forward, who was a Christian, stepped forward to speak. And it said when they noticed he was a Jew, they chanted, great is Artemis of the Ephesians for two hours.
So he steps forward and they were going to listen. And then they were like, he's Jewish. So they obviously could tell by dress and look that he was Jewish. And then they just chant a racist chant, which was saying great. It's like chanting USA, USA. Or ole, ole, ole, ole.
Or ozzy, ozzy, ozzy. All right. There you go. All right. It's like that. They chanted this for two hours.
And so Paul, then though, people begin to become Christians. They begin to believe in Jesus and they become one church family together. And there's tension. Because you have Jews and Gentiles now trying to figure out how do we belong to Jesus together. So Paul's addressing that here.
And he says, remember Gentiles. And Gentiles is a term for all non-Jewish people. So in the Jewish mind, there were Jews. Everybody else. That is a form of racism. That they would take one group, that you elevate one race above all others.
That's what the Jewish people did. Jewish people? Everybody else. They just had a term for you're not a Jew. And they draw this line on circumcision. Weird place to draw the line?
That's what they did. So here's what that means. God takes Abraham. He says, I'm going to make you into a people group. And he gives them the sign of circumcision. If you don't know what circumcision is, ask Raz at the connect table when you leave today.
They give him the sign of circumcision. That's going to be the sign for this people group. And so they said, we're the circumcised. That's our sign. And everybody else is uncircumcised. And that's how racial slurs work.
You pick the thing that's different and you point it out. They were from the same area. They look the same other than dress. But they begin to pick the one thing that separates us. And you just, now that becomes a derogatory term. That's what we'll use to call each other.
So the uncircumcision. He says, okay, so Gentiles, all the people who aren't Jewish, you were separated. The Jews were in. And that's what the Jewish people thought. Verse 12. Well, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ.
Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. Having no hope and without God in the world. He is not saying that's what the Jewish people thought. He is saying that is what was true. That you were alienated from the Jewish people. You had no hope and you were without God.
Because God had picked the Jewish people and said, you're going to belong to me. And through you, I'm going to bless the world. And for a time, it was the Jewish people related to God correctly. And everybody else was out. Everybody else was excluded. And so the Jewish people began to say, we're the good ones.
We're the ones who are loved. We're the ones who have the covenants of promise. We're the ones who have the right culture and the right way to think and the right way to approach God. We're the ones who are the good ones. We're the ones who are in. And then draw a line.
Gentiles. Everybody else is out. And here's what the Gentiles did. Gentiles had a different form of racism. Pretty much all of us are okay. For the most part.
Greek. Scythian. Barbarian. Roman. Like we're all kind of in the same zone. The Jews are the worst.
That was kind of how they thought about it. They took one race and they lowered it below everybody else. There's actually a place in some historical writings where there's this Greek guy and he refers to Jewish people as they're prickly people. They're prickly. Which I guess is like a heck of a cut down at that point. But it just means they're unpleasant.
They're not nice to be around. They're kind of bad people. They just exist as this little minority that's separated from us and they're worse than everybody else. That's what was happening here. So Paul begins to write into this situation.
And here's what he says. The Jews say the Gentiles are out. The Gentiles say the Jews are the worst. Jews say we're the best. You were alienated without God in the world. And then verse 13.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. So what he says is we're now one. That Jesus in his flesh has broken down the dividing wall of hostility. That he's destroyed it. That we can be brought together.
That you who are far off have now been brought in. This is the gospel. This is what it was going to be forever. That God takes Abraham and says I'm going to use you to bless the nations. You're going to be a light to the Gentiles. Meaning eventually everybody's going to be brought in.
Which is good news for the majority of us in here because I don't think many of us are historically lineage wise Jewish. For the most part. Big old room full of Gentiles. What he says is you who were far off. You who weren't Jewish. You who didn't belong to the covenant's promise have now been welcomed because of Jesus.
And then he says this. What he says is he is our peace. He's made us both one. He's broken down in the flesh the dividing wall of hostility. So the wall of hostility that stood between the Gentiles and the Jews is gone because of Jesus.
What he just says is Jesus got rid of racism. Jesus got rid of prejudice. And now a really good question is how? You look. We got 14 through 15 here. It says for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of command.
Stress and ordinances. The question is how? I have a two-year-old son. And he says daddy what you doing? 14,000 times a day. Daddy what you doing?
Daddy what you doing? And I've begun to learn how to respond to this question because I'll be messing with something. I'll be working on something. He'll go daddy what you doing? And I'll say I'm fixing this. Daddy what you doing?
I'm fixing this. Daddy what you doing? And I've learned fixing this doesn't make any sense to him. I have to say I'm holding a screwdriver. I am sticking it inside of our television. I am tightening this down because you hit this with something.
And now I have to open it up and put it back. Like and then then he'll stop. Cool. He gets to see what I'm doing. Daddy what you doing? I'm driving you to school.
Daddy what you doing? I'm holding the steering wheel so that we do not strike other vehicles. And then he'll stop. And we get to ask that question of this. Because what Paul just said was Jesus fixed racism. Jesus what you doing?
How did you do that? I need more details here. I need you to explain how you actually went to work on racism because just saying you fixed it. I'm going to be honest with you. I'd like to look. I mean this happened 2,000 years ago.
Paul wrote this. I'd like to look at the United States and just kind of respond to Ephesians. Nuh-uh. You did not. But actually he tells us how he crippled it.
How he broke it down. How he destroyed it. How that dividing law of hostility goes away in the sweetest section. In his flesh the dividing law of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. Now what does that mean?
Because he says this is how he did it. All right. By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. What he's talking about is God gave commandments to the Jewish people. Do this. Don't do this.
Do this. Don't do this. Then you'll be okay. And then they took those commandments. Don't murder. Don't steal.
These are the clean and unclean laws for the Sabbath. And then they made ordinances. So maybe if you've been arrested before, if a police officer knocks on your door and he says something along the lines of, you're breaking county ordinance number 2. It's a law. It's a legislation. That's what an ordinance is.
So then they made ordinances about how are we actually going to practice these commandments. But what it was, was a giant list of, here's what makes us the good guys. We believe these things. We hold these values and we practice them. We express them in this way. And that's what makes us good.
So they had core values, the commandments, that they practiced in a certain way. And that was their resume. If you do this, if you act this way, if you think this way, if you treat people this way, then you're one of the good ones. And what Jesus does is in the cross, he walks over and he takes everybody's resume. He balls it up. He throws it away.
And he says, you get to be involved because of me. My dad is an entrepreneur. He helps run some fireworks stores. And I know some of you all met me and thought, man, I bet he's super classy. I bet he runs a fireworks store. Yes.
I get to run a fireworks store. They're amazing. And we love to y'all. No, I'm sorry I'm going to do a commercial right now. But I just mess with you.
All right. I get to. I have one of the stores I manage. I get to just walk into the other stores. I've walked into the other stores before. Never seen the people before and started being like, hey, you need to come reprice this.
You need to do some of these things because it's my brother's store. He oversees it. But I just am there and I noticed this was wrong. So I'm being helpful. Do you know what my resume is? My daddy.
I didn't even apply. I didn't even have a choice. I was just told, go to work. He didn't want to see my resume. I can't get fired. I just get cussed at.
I still have to show up the next day. Let me tell you who hates resumes being pulled off the table. It's the people who had a good resume. Do you know who loves turning in their resume? People who have a bad resume. That's why when Jesus saves by grace, terrible sinner, racist, mess, messed up, hateful, lying, stealing people go, ooh, me.
That's why when people say church is so hypocritical, everybody in there is messed up. I'm like, right. Good people don't think they need Jesus. These people think they need Jesus. I hang out with my group and people start confessing terrible sins. And it's like, yes, thank you.
We need Jesus. He took our resumes away. And for people with terrible resumes, that's beautiful. But if you are a person who says, this is what makes me good. And he starts saying, no, no, no, no, no. And starts pulling that.
You hold on to it. He's got to wrench that out of your hands. And so when he says, Jesus destroyed the wall of hostility by abolishing the commandments expressed in ordinances. What he's saying is, he took away everything you used to say, I'm what's good in the world. And once that's removed, racial hostility is removed. Let me explain how.
Most of our racial hostility does not begin with simply these people have a different racial background. It's actually, most of it, a cultural hostility. They're different. Speak differently, act differently, think differently. That's why if someone ever says, man, you are so white. For the most part, they do not mean I'm talking about the melanin levels in your skin.
For the most part. They're referring to your job, the type of food you like, how you dance. They're referring to culture. If someone ever says, oh, yeah, he's, if you ever hear someone say, yeah, he's, he's, I mean, he's not really black. They're referring to culture. They're not talking about skin tone.
That for most of us, the lines are cultural lines. Now, they're cultural lines that are drawn right on racial lines. They overlap. And so it becomes really easy to take cultural prejudice and begin to just apply it to a whole race. But as soon as Paul removes, here's what makes your culture good.
That's what he took away from the Jews. Here's what makes you present to God. Here's your resume. As soon as he removes that, as soon as Jesus takes that away, then we have nothing that we get to look at and say, here's what makes me special. Here's what makes me good. Here's what makes me one of the good ones.
Here's what invites me in. Now, this is why, I want to just pause for half a second. This is why whenever anybody comes along and says to you, the way we really worship Jesus is we practice all of the old Jewish laws and rules. The way we really, the way you really get to be involved is that you pick up on all of the old ordinances and commandments. When you do that, you practice the Jewish festivals. That completes, the reason why that's a lie is that Jesus got rid of that in the first place.
The answer to that is no. Secondarily, if you are non-Jewish, the answer to that is no. Because they didn't even make the Gentiles in the New Testament do that. How are you going to come reapply that to me now? And then they took it away from the Jewish people. You don't even get to practice all of this to say this is what makes me okay.
This runs along cultural lines. Let me explain. I heard somebody explain this one time to me, and it was helpful for my brain. He said in every culture. So a pastor who's in Memphis, and he's now in California.
His name's Brian Lourdes. He said in every culture, there are three different types. There's C1, C2, C3. This isn't in the Bible. This is just a way to think about it, but it helped my brain, so I'm going to try to explain it. There's C1 culture, C2 culture, C3 culture.
C1 culture is you have historically come out of a certain type of culture, but you have completely adopted another culture. He said this would be Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Wear sweater vests, speak a certain way, Acts a certain way, dances like this. C2 is someone who is culturally fluid, can go back and forth, can fit in one culture or another, get along with one culture or another, appreciate one culture or another. And then C3 is someone who is culturally rigid, like their culture, believe in their culture, do not leave their culture. Their culture is the best culture.
And he pointed out that most white people in the United States are here. He said this is Will Smith from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He's culturally rigid. He wasn't going to fit in. He always wore his sweater inside out to kind of visually represent this. And what he said is most white people are here.
He said you will hear white people say, I'm not racist. And he said for the most part, that may be really true. They're not just saying I dislike someone because of their skin tone. Because what a lot of white people will say, I'm not racist. I love Carl from work. I know Dave.
He's great. He's saying what they often are saying is, I know this C1 guy who's completely adopted my culture and we get along fine. And that they're actually just really culturally rigid. They're not drawing lines based off of skin tone. They're drawing lines based off of culture. And he says most white people are here not because they're evil.
Most white people in the U.S. are here not because they're bad, not because they're evil, but because they live in a place that is predominantly their culture. So they never had to change. I heard a poet, he kind of does spoken word stuff. His name is Michael Borne. And one of the things he talked about was he was at a friend's house taking a shower. He's an African-American guy.
And he said he saw the shampoo and it said for normal hair. And his argument was not everywhere. Like I don't think that's normal hair at Benedict and Allen. That's abnormal hair there. That was his point was that for most white people in the U.S. We've got normal hair and normal culture and normal food.
And everybody else has culture. Everybody else. There's the normal way to preach and then there's a black way to preach. There's normal regular music and black music or Hispanic music. There's normal food, regular, like this is just normal. And then there's, it's because we've always been in the majority.
For the most part. For most, most people. That's what he says. That there's culturally rigid people who draw this line along cultural lines. And what Paul says is that all the things you took and said, here's what makes us great. That you drew culturally.
And there are things that I really appreciate about my culture. That I want to say. I want to elevate. I want to say this is what makes us great. He's saying all of that's been removed because Jesus is the only one who you get to put forth as, here's what makes me okay. Only in Christ.
So I love biscuits. Love them. They are a part of my culture. Parties. It's a part of my heritage. I went to Spice Junction over in West Columbia.
And this was the first time this had ever happened to me. It's an Indian restaurant. The lady was really nice behind the counter. And I, she was helping me see some stuff. And there were a few things I put on my plate that I put in my mouth. This was the first time this had ever happened.
I didn't even know this could happen. My body did not recognize it as food. My immediate reaction was, I don't know what this is, but just get it out of your mouth. I was able to control that. But it was the first time ever.
I was like, there was no flavor that I recognized whatsoever. Now I will tell you, it wasn't great. And I might be willing to say, Indian food's not that great. But what I'm saying is, for a guy who has Hardee's heritage, Indian food's not that great. Some of it was okay. But only if it tasted like other things that I already like.
And that's what we do culturally. But as soon as we start saying, and this one's the right one. And this is the one that ultimately should overshadow all the other ones. And we'll allow, your language is cute. Your dress is cute. You can, you know, I love having Mexican restaurants around here because I love Mexican food.
But I need it to be Americanized Mexican food. We'll allow some amount of it. But mostly I want our culture to be the dominant culture. And that's what happens. And that's where Paul says, no. As soon as you start doing that, you're broken down.
Now, let's keep reading because I think we need a little more clarification here. Verse 15. By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So, making peace. So we're going to put this on.
He might create in himself one new man. Here's what happens. When Jesus gets rid of the ordinances, when he gets rid of the commands, he comes in and he makes one new man. He does not say, sweet, everybody can now be Jewish. Completely adopt this culture. What he says is, I'm making a new people.
There are things in your culture that are good, that reflect God, that reflect his values, that demonstrate the gospel. In every culture. Because every culture is made in the image of God. There are things in culture. So what will happen sometimes is it's like, okay, so I can't say that I don't like this.
I can't say that this is wrong. I can't say that this culturally is bad. No, you can. But you have to do it like a Christian. Here's what I mean. Can I address sin in your life?
Absolutely. I should. If we're friends and we're walking together, I should point out where you're wrong. But I have to do it like a Christian. Not like somehow when I point this out, it makes me better and I'm trying to help you behave and be as good as me. I have to do it as a person who's saved by grace.
So I have a friend, Quincy. He was baptized here last year. He's in my community group. And he does, he produces his own music and he does raps and stuff. And one of the things I've been talking to him about or we're talking about, I was like, man, I think one of the issues with rap music is it just glorifies violence and sex. It has this whole picture of how you treat women.
It glorifies drug use. We had that conversation. And then I thought about the music I listened to. That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia. It's about a girl sneaking in and shooting somebody because her wife's been cheating on him. Or, uh, I might have been born just plain white trash, but fancy wasn't my name.
Apparently, it doesn't glorify sex and violence if Reba sings it. Lay, lady, lady. Lay across my big breastplate. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Bob Dylan, like he can sing stuff. We don't notice that.
Oh, Red Solo Cup. Anything by Toby Keith. I started thinking of songs. I was like, man, pick an album. Half of that's violence. Half of it's sex.
Half of it's alcohol. Really, what I was in some ways saying to my friend Quincy was, I don't appreciate how explicit y'all are with it. How clear you make it. I need it to be, I believe in miracles. Which is about just hooking up with somebody. But it's got a good little, you know.
Sounds nice. It says the word miracle. That's in the Bible. Come on. That we can point out what's wrong, what's broken in a culture, but we can't. I read an article and it was talking about the kind of the race debate that has begun and been intensified over the past couple years.
And it was just, they just polled white people and black people. So what they did, just asked them a bunch of questions. I don't remember all the questions. I remember the first one was, race relations get worse when we talk about it. And my response to that was a couple years ago. And my response to that was, yeah.
I'm not talking about it. It's fine. And I went through the rest. I took the little test. I just answered the questions. And do you know what I found out?
I'm white. That was what I discovered. I took a little quiz and it turns out I think like the average white person. And that scared me because it means I don't think like a Christian all to me. Because if I just line up with white people, I'm off. Because the Bible corrects culture.
It celebrates culture, but it corrects it as well. One of the beautiful things in scripture, in heaven, it says that he looks and sees heaven. This is John in the book of Revelation. He says, I saw every tongue and every tribe and every language and every people. And one of the things that's beautiful about that is that it means that Jesus is redeeming people from everywhere. You know what else is beautiful about that?
He could still tell they were from a different tribe, a language, a people. We don't get to heaven and he goes, here, all of you have this skin color. Now we can get along. You get to heaven and he says, here, everybody has the blood of Christ. Now we do the blood.
And there's parts of your culture that make it. Biscuits are in heaven, you guys. They're there. Consumerism isn't going to make it. One of the things that people say often is, well, you can tell this culture is dominant by how it works in the world. And honestly, all you're saying is, I'm taking my cultural grade sheet.
I'm grading the rest of the cultures based off of what I value. And now we can say what's good. When this ought to be our grade sheet. That's what Paul says. That's what he's getting at here. That as soon as Jesus wrestles your resume out of your hands.
Your hostility towards other cultures and other races and other people groups dies. And that we get to be made into one new man. Verse 16. And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross. That ultimately what accomplishes this is Jesus on the cross. That it was one body that brought us to God.
That we have one thing that fits on our resume now. Jesus. And I will tell you, if you are trying to put something else on that resume. It's not the one the Bible has given you. If you were trying to say Jesus plus or Jesus and. Yeah, yeah, Jesus.
But also. It's not the one we get. We get one body on the cross. Jesus. We're saved by grace. We don't get to add anything in.
And through that. We reconciles both to God in one body through the cross. Thereby. Because he did this on the cross through Jesus. Thereby. Killing the hostility.
Here's what this means for us as Christians. If we have racial, cultural prejudice and hostility. We are failing to believe the gospel. I grew up in a home. Where we freely used racial slurs. All of them.
Didn't matter. Used them. Whole jokes. And our basic attitude was, well, as long as it doesn't affect how we treat individuals that we encounter, this is fine. And you've got to understand that there are some things that are just terrible about that whole group. Not the individuals, but the whole group.
And there's a difference between them and how they act. Really, what we were saying was, not racist. I just value my culture above and against all others. But everywhere in my heart that that still grows is me. I'm jerking my resume back out of Jesus' hand. Slapping it back on the table and saying, here's where I'm going.
I don't want to believe the gospel right here. I want to think more highly of myself than I ought to right here. I want to elevate myself above you right here. I want my good works to take place right here. And that we need, as Christians, Jesus to come in our hearts and begin to kill the hostility. It is a violent word on purpose.
That he comes in and begins to root this out in us. That we need Jesus to go to work. That we need to lay down our resumes. That we need to realize everywhere that this is growing. And some of you just became a Christian or you've been a Christian for a while or you're walking with Jesus. And honestly, this has been left alone and not really paid that much attention to because it doesn't play that much of a role in your active life.
And you have so many other things you're working on. But in our church family, this has to become one of the things that we talk about, that we confess, and that we walk over the way. We have very few non-white people in our church family. Which means that this is something that is at work in our church family. In the way we live, in the way we interact with people, in the way we automatically drift towards and put around us. That on some level, it's at work.
Now, it can also be at work in other people. It can also be at work in people who dislike and have a racial prejudice towards us. Like, I get that towards white people that are trying to do this. And honestly, I'll say to the people in our church family who are of a minority, stay with us. Stick. Help us see it.
We're blind to it. We don't see it that often because we don't ever walk into situations where we are the minority. I remember walking into one of the things that I've noticed, and I have to address it this way for two reasons. And I'm just trying to help you understand. I'm not trying to say it's bad to be white. I actually like being white after it's straight.
I don't wake up feeling bad. I do think because we're in the majority, we don't see and feel what some of our non-white brothers and sisters in Christ are saying to us. I don't think we see it. I don't think we feel it. One of the ways that I have to pull this into a different situation, I have to think about it. My older brother used to pick on me a lot.
And there are times in life where I will enter into a situation and I suddenly feel bullied. I feel picked on. And my reaction is not fitting to the situation. It goes to this place in my brain where I respond really poorly. I respond really violently. But for people who've never been picked on or never felt put in a corner, you may not understand that.
Now, I was playing ping pong the other day with a friend of mine, and he beat me. And then afterwards, he was going to hug me. Not nicely. It wasn't a friendly hug. It was a, oh, there you go. And I came out here.
Because I lost. So I was already annoyed. I put way too much into ping pong, you guys. But I lost. And then I felt like he was just going to come show his dominance over me. And I went to this, like, five-year-old bullied chap who was going to just assault someone.
He came at me. I was like, don't. And then I, like, twitched. Left the room. Came back and was like, I'm sorry. That may not have fit the situation.
I'm kind of a psychotic sinner. But it tapped into something in my brain in a different area where there's some people where they respond in a certain way. And it's because they've always felt this. They felt it so many times before that when they enter in a situation, regardless of what you were thinking and what you were attending, they feel it. One of the ways I've noticed this is I walked into a winged place in West Columbia. I opened the door.
And I stepped in. And I was the only white person in the room. And I had two immediate thoughts. And both of these may be wrong. But these were my two immediate thoughts.
Oh, my bad. Like, I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to be here. And then, secondly, I was like, I bet the wings here are really good. But as a white person, I hadn't walked into too many situations where I was the only white person. I get to roll around everywhere being a part of the majority. And when I get in situations where I'm not, I suddenly feel it.
I noticed it. And as a white person, I can say, when we don't talk about race, everything's fine. Because I don't notice it and I don't feel it at all. And so what I'm saying to our minority brothers and sisters in this room, help us. Help us see it. And don't push away from the table.
We're going to say things that people who've always been in the position of authority and majority are going to say. And you've got to help us see it. And help us grow. Help us walk out of that. In order for us to begin to kill this hostility, we need somebody pointing out where we are just believing things that aren't true and aren't in line with the gospel. And ultimately, we need Jesus to go to work in us.
Because everywhere we practice this and believe this, we are not believing the gospel. And therefore, racial and cultural hostility and prejudice has no place among God's people. No place. And that's for everybody. Racial and cultural prejudice has no place among God's people. And that's how we have the tools to begin to practice a harmonious group of people who can repent of sin, walk openly with Jesus, and be a picture of what the gospel actually looks like to everybody in the midst.
Band's going to come back up. We need to begin to see where we've begun to elevate our own culture, our own people group, our own. Some of it's good. Some of the things we see and we say, no, the Bible affirms this. The Bible celebrates this. That's okay.
But where we've begun to just draw lines on our own culture and our own preferences, we need Jesus to go to work to begin to kill the hostility. And we need to spend a minute just praying and asking. The Holy Spirit would help us see it. Help us walk openly in this with each other. So we might actually begin to look like this is a group of people where the gospel has taken root.
And that's what Paul was writing to them to say. Y'all get to be one. Your new primary reference group is the church. Is I belong to Christ. That's first before everything else. Let's begin to practice that here where we get rid of the things that don't fit with Jesus and we accept the things that do and we celebrate differences.
We celebrate what's beautiful about the different cultures. We repent of sin and we walk together as a bunch of people saved by the blood of Jesus. Let's pray. God, we ask for your grace as we walk in this. As it's tense and difficult to talk about and even where in maybe some of the stuff that was said today, it wasn't helpful or wasn't as clear. We ask for a whole lot of grace and an empowerment by your spirit to be a group of people who are Christ's first, covered by the blood of Jesus, who have fully submitted their resume to the shredder.
It's been nailed to the cross so that what we bring to the table is that Jesus was good enough for me. I'm free to be a sinner who's slowly being changed into the image of our king. We love you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Y'all stand.
Let's sing.
Created for Good Works
Transcript
He was talking about this and he was saying that they found this out. And so they said, OK, we're all going to Disney World. And that the closer they got to going to Disney World, the more this child's behavior just bottomed out. That she was doing everything she could to be as bad as possible, because in her mind, she had decided that the reason she never got to go to Disney World with the other family was that she had done something wrong. And so she began to basically sabotage her ability to go to Disney World. And he said he was getting close to about a week out from going.
And he's talking to her and she says he's fussing her about something that she had just done that was just terrible and kind of out of character for her. And she said, I know what you're going to say. I don't get to go to Disney World. And he said in the article, he's like, I hadn't even considered that. He said for half a second, I thought about going. Well, you won't if you don't straighten up just to try to see if it works.
And he's like, then I was just like, no, I won't be helpful. So he just said he was like, no, you're going to Disney World. It doesn't have anything to do with this, but you need to change your behavior. And he said he explained it to her. And you would have thought maybe her behavior would have gotten better. It got worse up until the point when they're loading the car.
She's breaking down and throwing fits. And they drag her to Disney World. And they take her. And he says they have a day at Disney World. And it was like Disney World. Very, very hot and terrible with just enough magic sprinkled in that you think maybe we'll come back.
And he said that he puts her in her bed that night. And she looks at him and she says, I get it. Or, Daddy, I understand. And he said, what? And she said, I got to go to Disney World not because I was good, but because I'm yours. And he just was like, that's grace.
That's how that works. That it's not because we're good. It's because of who we belong to. And that when we understand this, that by grace we've been saved through faith. And he keeps going. He says it's not a result of works.
This is verse 9. So that no one may boast. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Not a result of works.
So that no one may boast. You didn't do it. If you're saved, if you're in Christ, you are saved not by something you did, but because he's generous and gave you a gift. That both your faith and your salvation are a gift from God to you. My wife works at a bank. And periodically they'll have people come through that are just hard to get along with.
And some of the ones that frustrate her the most are when somebody breaks down, starts yelling at the tellers, and cites their church membership or their church attendance as a reason why they should be cared for. Or a reason why they're a good person. So she's had some people before say, I'm a member of this church and I've been a member of that for 50 years. And it's like, what does that have to do with teller service anyway? Secondly, what does that have to do with anything? You're not even going to get to cite that the day you stand before God because you don't get to boast in anything.
It was not your own doing. It was not your work. It was not your effort. It was not your intelligence. It was not your morality. You don't have anything that you come and present to God.
We walk to God hands empty, not hands full. We walk to God with a terrible resume that disqualifies us rather than one that qualifies us for the position that we had nothing we brought to the table. And when we understand this, the church, Christians, those who belong to Jesus, have a humility and a confidence. A humility that's unparalleled and a confidence that's unshakable. We have a humility that's unparalleled because we know we didn't bring anything to the table. And we have a confidence that's unshakable because we know we didn't bring anything to the table.
So it's not based off of us. It's not based off of our work or our effort. One of the things that used to happen between nations when they would go to battle is that they periodically, rather than everybody fighting, they would just send forth a champion so that your side of the army would send a champion out and their side would send a champion out. This is at the beginning of the movie Troy. This is what happens in the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel. That Goliath comes out and he's a giant who's been part of war since he was a child.
I don't know if I can say since he was little because I don't know if he was ever little. He was like 10 feet tall. He comes out and he basically says, send forth your baddest guy, your biggest, toughest man, and we'll fight. And whoever wins decides for both nations. So if I win, you're our slaves.
And if he wins, we'll be your slaves. And this was a normal practice to keep from having to have these big bloody clashes. They would send out a champion. And daily Goliath stood and he issued this threat and he mocked them. And every single warrior wearing their shield and their helmet would have to line up every day for the Israelites and mentally look at themselves in the mirror and say, Mm-mm. Not me.
I think maybe at first people were looking around like, who's going to go? I think after a while nobody was making eye contact. It was just you lined up and put your head down. This is the daily shaming. As everyone knew, I'm not big enough. I'm not bad enough.
I can't go out there. It gets desperate to the point that the first person who's a boy who tends sheep, who says, I'll fight him, they were like, you're the best we got because you're the only one who said you'd try. We're going to lose anyway. At least we don't have to lose a warrior over it. Just a shepherd. They send him out there.
He wins. That's why you've heard about it. That's why you've heard about fighting Goliath and David and Goliath and stuff because if Goliath just stomped him, people wouldn't quote that all the time or bring it up. He wins because God works through him. And the truth is that's the church. That's us.
That we have sent forth a champion to face our sin and our inability. And so we have humility because we had to look at ourselves and say, I couldn't do this. I couldn't be good enough. I couldn't be big enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not smart enough that the church should be filled with very humble people.
But we have an insane amount of confidence because Jesus was big enough and strong enough and smart enough and good enough and he fought the giant on our behalf. And that's why we don't boast in anything because we didn't do it. The Bible says if you're going to boast, boast in the Lord. And that's what we get to do. We get to boast in Jesus, our champion, who faced the enemy for us. So that's the point.
By grace, you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. After you graduate from school or get a promotion, people say, congratulations. And they're saying, you did a good job. You worked really hard.
When you brag about a Christmas gift, people don't say, congratulations. You worked really hard. Man, you crushed it having her as a grandmother. People don't say that. We just say, that's great. Or we say, your grandmama's nice.
Her knitting skills are legit. Whatever. Whatever. Like, you just brag on the gift and the giver. And that's what he's saying. It's a gift.
We didn't earn it. You didn't achieve it. You have nothing to brag about other than in the one who gave the gift. Okay. So Paul says that, and he's about to make a big shift.
And there's a reason why he ties these ideas together. There's a reason why he hammers this into the ground. You didn't do this. It wasn't your work. It wasn't your effort. You didn't accomplish it.
You have nothing to brag about. And then he turns, and in verse 10, says this. For we, that's the church, that's all who belong to Jesus. Church, when I say that's the church, I don't just mean you're a member of a church or you go to a church on Sunday. What I mean is you belong to Jesus. It's the big, all of those who place their faith in Jesus and what he accomplished on the cross.
That he died for our sin. That he rose again. And that he was good in our place. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Okay. He says, you didn't do it.
You didn't accomplish it. You're not good enough. You have nothing to boast about. And then he says, we are his workmanship, his craftsmanship, meaning Jesus specifically designed us, built us, poured himself into us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand that we would walk in them. So here's what he's saying.
Good works don't save you. But we were saved for good works. Good works don't save you. You're not saved because of what you did. You're saved because of what he did. But we are saved for good works.
Martin Luther, the guy we talked about earlier, has a quote where he says, God doesn't need your good works, but your neighbor does. And that's the point, that God has decided to use his church for a purpose. So Ephesians 1 says that we're his body, meaning that Jesus shows himself, displays himself through the church. That when people see the church and the work that the church does, they should be able to see Jesus. Ephesians 3 says that God has chosen to display through the church his wisdom so that his plan is that people would be able to look at Christians, those who belong to Jesus and see Jesus.
Ephesians 4 says that he equipped the church in order that the church might grow collectively in maturity and grow by seeing more people become Christians. So that the good work he's called us into is all of the good things that are laid out for us in scripture, like generosity, service, telling people about Jesus and the grace and the freedom and the joy he offers. That they don't have to save themselves. They don't have to be good enough. They don't have to be work hard enough that they get Jesus because he died for us and loves us like that. That all of the good work that we're called to do is repentance of sin and pointing out sin in each other.
And so when it says you were created for good works, that that really just means all of the good things that the church is supposed to do. That we're called to do. So it says that Jesus is a craftsman and this is really encouraging. We have some people in our church family who are good at building things. They can, we've got some people that can make wood, sing and dance. I mean like they are able to work on things and there's just something about when they show you something they've worked on.
And they'll point out things that you wouldn't have noticed and they're like this took me like an hour and a half or it took me a while to figure this one out. And I got better as I worked around and they have these things that they did. I got to go to Bradley's house. He's one of our pastors and he has a deck where he's got two latches so that he can latch his deck shut or he can latch the doors open. And I had never seen that before. But when I saw it, I was like, man, that's really smart.
Like that's a cool thing. He also built a headboard that has lights in it and stuff. And I was like, that's neat. I'm not doing it because I'll burn our house down. But that's cool.
Like you just get to see some of these guys who know how to do stuff. And what it's saying is that that's what Jesus did, does with you. That you, we, the church, are his workmanship. Meaning that Jesus is going to work on you. To change you, to mold you. And then, even more encouraging, it says we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good work.
Look, Jesus is not a 45-year-old Star Wars fan who buys the toys and puts them in a display case. He rips the package open, puts the lightsaber in the hand, and uses the karate action arm. Like we are designed for work. Jesus isn't a hipster. He gets mud on his duck boots. He wears flannel and cuts down trees.
Like when he, it's designed for work. That the church is designed for work. That he is actually a master craftsman who builds his own tools for his own distinct purposes. That's one of the cool things when you meet somebody who's worked in an industry for a long enough time. Worked on something a long enough time. They've begun to design their own tools.
They'll have taken three different tools and welded them together. And they'll have this weird looking thing. And it's because they realized they had a tool that was like this. And Jesus, when he was on earth, was a builder. And I can just picture that what he's doing now through the church is a very similar thing. When he used to pick the right tool for the job he was about to do.
That he does that now through his workmanship in us for the good works he's created us for. My wife and I are about to have another child. My parents were asking how we were trying to get ready for it. And I told them we were moving some stuff out of a room. And they said, well, we'll help you try to replace some carpet in there. And I said, sounds great.
And so they did. And the guy was replacing the carpet on Friday in this room. And he said the other guy was coming to help him be there in a little while. And there's two guys named Miguel. And they were real nice. But my first introduction to the second Miguel is he comes walking to my house because the door was open.
He comes walking to my house holding a hatchet. And I was like, I don't know much about carpet, but do you need that? Like, I don't know the tools of the train. I later saw him. Like, you know, it was just my first reaction. The guy walking to my house with a hatchet.
I was like, you can hear it with the carpet? Or you just, like, saw the door open? I saw him using it later. And it made sense. It was a hammer on one side. And he used it to tuck in carpet around on the outside.
I didn't know enough about putting in carpet. But I was like, sweet. But Jesus knows the tools. When he designed the church, when he designed you, when he saved you, he designed you in a specific way for a specific purpose. He does not save and put his workmanship and have all of the same gear. Like, if that guy, if I had gone by later and saw a bag and it was just a bag full of hatchets, I would have thought, no, I'm going to get murdered.
Because there's no reason why you'd need 17 of them. Jesus, when he designed the church, doesn't fill his tools, his workmanship with just a bag full of the same stuff. Does that make sense? The reason I'm saying that is if we say, well, there's a bunch of us. I don't have to really get involved. It's like, no, because God designed us for a specific purpose.
If you came to me and said, man, you've got 10 wrenches. Just give me two of them. I'd be like, dude, they're different sizes. Jesus, I can't just give up my 916ths because then I won't be able to do some of the work I need to do. I didn't buy 10 of the same size wrench. Jesus' tool bag makes sense.
When he designs the church, when he saves, he does it for a purpose. And then he displays his work through his church. And I get to see this all the time. Our church is young. We're a couple years old. I get to see this all the time in our church family.
Where Jesus is specifically showing off his ability, who he is, his work through us. I get to see it on Sundays with our host team. The people who intentionally wear Connect badges and go around and talk to everybody. And are intentionally friendly. And the way we recruit is we're like, hey, you're friendly. Want to do that on purpose?
Like Kelly Weed, who just, she's a hairstylist. She can have a conversation with anybody about anything. Dawn Gooch, Emily Teagle, Matt Toast. Some of these people that just intentionally go out of their way to welcome and host and be friendly. And the truth is, they show it off on Sundays. They actually are supposed to be doing it all the time in normal life.
Because God's gifted them and designed them for that work. To be friendly, to be welcoming, to make people comfortable. And the truth is, that's stuff Jesus did when he was on earth. That's Jesus doing it now through his church. Displaying himself. Showing what he's like.
I see this when, in Kid City, when people are gracious and welcoming to children. That we have an intentional time for them. We tell Bible stories to my son. And we were telling him the one about where the kids try to come to Jesus. And the disciples are like, no, you can't come. And then Jesus lets them come.
And so I would try to act them out. And I would say, okay. I said, Archery's two. I said, your mom's Jesus. Now you want to go see Jesus?
Go see Jesus. And I said, you have to say, I want to see Jesus. And he said, I want to see Jesus. And I said, I'm a disciple. And I pushed him to the ground and said, you can't see Jesus. He loved that Bible story.
He made us tell it like 35 times. And I made Anna say, stop it. And then he would get to go see her. And then we just played a game. Try to see your mom. I'm a disciple.
Stop it. And I thought, maybe I'm teaching bad things about the disciples. But they did it in the story. And so Jesus welcomes and was intentional with children. And there are people who intentionally volunteer for our church family to do that. Today, I had to stand outside because I was drinking some tea because my throat's been messing up.
And I could hear my son grabbing the little rail thing and yelling, Mama! And he belongs to me. And I was like, I'm going to go up and spank him. This is about to get serious. And there are people who he does not belong to, sitting next to him, talking to him, being kind with him, welcoming, like explaining to him why it's going to be okay. And it's like, yeah, that patience and graciousness, that's Jesus at work.
I see this in our groups, our community group and Pine Ridge group that intentionally does stuff with Gentle Pines, the apartment complex over here, where they're giving up time and money and effort to go do cookouts and welcome children and build relationships with people and try to help them get jobs and give them rides and go to the store and supply food. I see this every time our church family rallies around somebody to deliver food. Like, it's something so simple after somebody's sick or in the hospital or has a baby and we deliver food. But it's like, Jesus did that. He fed people. It meant something.
It meant something. We got to go to Midlands Tech Airport Campus. It was myself, Matt Freeman, and Jordan Surratt. And Matt and I set up cornhole boards. And our job was to hand out Mountain Dew and get guys to play cornhole with us. We just ran our mouths and got people to play cornhole.
And Jordan Surratt's Job was to play big Jenga. It's like Jenga but bigger. And hand out, like, cards about our church and talk to people because they were doing some kind of fair and they asked us to be there. And we wanted the opportunity to kind of get to know some of the students. And Matt and I were crushing our job. Hand out Mountain Dew.
Playing cornhole. I was great at that. Like, if that was actually like a paid position, I could just do that all the time. And every once in a while we would look over and Jordan would be holding hands with somebody. They'd be crying and he'd be praying with them. And we're like, Jordan, play Jenga.
What are you doing? And the truth is, it happened like four or five times. People are walking around a little thing. And then they run into Jordan Surratt. And he says, hey, how are you doing? And they say, I'd like to tell you secrets about my life.
And he says, I know you would. Tell me. And if I'd have been over there, I'd have been like, why? Why would you want to tell me secrets? But he's designed for that.
I've been with him at Lowe's. We're just trying to buy stuff at Lowe's to get back to work. And then the teller starts crying. And they have to like, I guess it's not a Lowe's teller. It's just a point of sale person. Cashier.
Thank you. She starts crying. And they have to, like, he's quoting scripture. And I'm just standing there awkwardly. We're like, we go to Lowe's. Like, peace be with you.
Oh, you give him a receipt. Okay. Like, he's designed for it. And the truth is, that's stuff you see in the Bible. That's stuff Jesus did. When he would run into somebody, when he'd meet somebody, he would just go to work.
There are people who are designed to share the gospel, to help people come to know who Christ is. There are three times this past year that people in my group sat me down and said, I need to address some sin in you. I'm so thankful for them. Because that's stuff Jesus does. Sit somebody down and says, you're wrong here. You're off here.
You shouldn't talk like that. You shouldn't act like that. Your attitude here was wrong. That God has designed his church for his good work. On purpose. Because he has actual things he wants to done.
Got to see this this last year as Nick and Bianca McDowell. Nick had to have multiple eye surgeries. And our church family just rallied around him to help pay bills, to bring him meals. They had to change Job situation. Bianca had to do a whole lot to take care of Nick. And then Jordan wrecked a motorcycle and hurt his leg.
And Bianca said, come stay with us. I've gotten really good at taking care of sick people. And so he just got to go stay at their house for a while. And it's like, that's stuff Jesus does. That's his church at work. I get to see this every time somebody comes over to me and hands me a lot of money.
And says, will you go hand this to this person? Hands me an envelope. And says, will you go give this to this person? And all I get to do is walk over and say, hey, this isn't for me. But that's the kind of stuff that Jesus does.
And he still does as he empowers his church to do it. Because he's designed us for good works. Sam and Jen Garcia. So encouraging this year. Jen became a believer and was baptized at Easter. And one of the things we always say to people when they're getting baptized is, we don't want this to be the last time that you step into this baptismal pool.
We want you to get in again to help lead other people you've led to Jesus and told about this same amazing grace. We want you to get to baptize them. And then last week, Jen got to stand in the baptismal pool with her husband as he was baptized. And I just can't help but be excited because it's like Jesus has good work for Sam and Jen that he specifically designed them to do. And only Sam and Jen can do it. That he's poured himself in as a master craftsman into the people he wants to use for the good work he has for them.
And then Paul says this. Verse 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand. He knows the job he wants to do. And that's why he's designed us the way he's designed us and poured himself into us on purpose for the work he has for us. That we should walk in them.
That he prepared beforehand that we should walk in the meaning that if you are a Christian, you have work to do prepared beforehand by God who specifically designed you for his good work and you should walk in it. You should do good work. I am. I'll take a second to just talk about our church in general, because that statement is true for us. It's true for us specifically Mill City Church that God has specifically designed us, the Christians in our church for good work, and he specifically designed this church collectively for good work that he's laid out beforehand. I don't know what our church is going to look like in 2025, and I don't know the ministries we're going to get to be involved in, but Jesus does, and he's going to work in us now for that purpose.
That he's building us now for 2025 and 2030 and 2035. That he's at work in the Christians in our church family for that purpose. We're a young church, and honestly, we're still getting to see like how are we, what's our church shaping up to be like? What is this? If this is Jesus's toolbox, what kind of tools? What's he, what's he shaping us for?
What are we going to look like? What are we going to get to be? What's he calling us into? What's the good work he's placed out for us? I was talking with a pastor of Midtown Lexington. He's a friend of mine, and their church is in a similar situation, about the same size as we are.
And he was telling me how they think about it, and I thought it was helpful, so I wanted to share this with you all. We have, this is our church family, we have about, we have 80 members, people who have actually committed to membership, and we have about 115, 120 so adults in groups. So, 80 members, 115 adults in groups, so, either way you slice that, if you're here, you're about 1% of our church family. You're about 1%. So, if you're in a group, a little, if we do it by groups, you're a little less than 1%, if you're a member, you're a little more than 1%, but you're about 1%, and since math's hard, just 1%, you guys.
You make up 1% of our church family. So, what you do, the work you're called into for our church family, matters, extremely, because we're still getting to set the stage for who are we going to be. What's Jesus designing us for? What are we going to look like? What does 2025 look like? If you grow in service, and giving, grow in generosity, grow in repenting of sin, and addressing sin in others, if you fight gossip, then guess what?
Our church grows in all of that, and fights all of that, and changes in all of that. Now, maybe it's possible that some of you just thought, well, 1% isn't a whole lot. There's two big problems with that. First big problem is, 30 of you just thought that. And that's damaging, insanely damaging to the health of our church. Secondly, you're responsible for your 1%.
You're held accountable for your good works, that He's designed for you to walk in. And so it matters, extremely, that your participation, or lack of participation, has a major effect on our church family, and on our obedience, and on our ability to walk in good works. That when three people call out on a Sunday from Kid City, that, we're not big enough to just handle that. That becomes a big issue. That's a hard thing to walk through. We just pile all the kids in one room, and lock the door.
We don't. I'm kidding. And if you're new, I'm sorry, if I just freaked you out, if your kid's up there. That's a big deal. I was reading this. Over the past couple years, a good bit of large church pastors, and large churches, have just kind of fallen apart.
It's been really sad. If you've paid attention to it, it's always harmful, and saddening to see that. And I was reading an article about a church, that it just kind of, it was a major church, a big church, and it had just kind of, disintegrated, imploded. And they were just trying to follow up, with people who had been a part of that church, and see where they were. They were talking, doing an interview with a guy, who had gone to a smaller church plant. So he'd been a part of this mega church, or he'd gone to a smaller church plant.
And when I read this quote, it was just, he said, when he first got to Tappery, that's the name of the church, he was shocked to realize, that if he didn't give, or serve here, the church dies. In a small church, he's an integral part of the system. And I read that, and was like, yeah, exactly. That's a good point. Like, there's something about us, collectively called to do, what we're going to do, that it matters, our good works, us walking in them, affects everybody. So, how do we respond?
If you've been saved by grace, not by your work, not by your effort, but you've placed your faith in Jesus, and you've been saved, to walk in good works, how do we respond? What do we do? Some of you, the Holy Spirit's already telling you, you already know, some of the work he's calling you to, some of the things that he's placed in front of you, and said, you need to get in on this, you need to get in on this, you need to get in on this. Some of you, maybe you are supposed to go be a missionary, in some place, where you're going to do that, for a couple of years, and then you're going to go to jail.
Some of you, maybe you need to go to a place, where you're going to fight, for the rest of your life, to try to translate the gospel, into another language, and they don't want to hear it, and it's not going to go well. Some of you, maybe you are supposed to go be a part of a church plant. Some of you, maybe you are, your group knows, and we're supposed to get involved, in this specific area, in our city. Some of you right now, it may be just real small, simple things. I've got to address this sin, I'm supposed to give money to this person, some of the good works, that you're seeing, that God's calling you into, but in order for us, to kind of have some, real tangible, immediate steps, for our whole church family, I've got four, that I think will help us, begin to take some steps, in walking in the good works, that Jesus has designed us for, because it matters, that we all get involved.
So the first one, commit to a group, if you haven't yet committed to a group. Now, committing to a group, I would not argue, is a good work. I mean, it's a good thing to do, I guess, but it probably doesn't fit, in the category of good work. But, being committed to a group, opens up an avenue, for a whole lot of good work, because there's sin to be addressed, and forgiven, and people to, you have to walk through life with, and burdens you need to share. Ephesians, as he keeps going, and he starts giving specific instructions, on how to live this out, he starts giving, love one another, forgive one another, bear one another's burdens, because it all applies, to relational connectivity.
So if you haven't committed to a group, commit to a group. And, I mean specifically, if you're not in one, you should get in one, because it's one of the best places, for you as a Christian, to walk out your faith. And if you are kind of in one, commit. Show up, when your group's meeting, when your group's serving, show up, when your group's throwing a party, show up, bring something. That's stuff Jesus does, by the way, one of the first things we see in John, is he goes to a party, and he makes it better. So go to the party, make it better.
Don't show up to a party, with a bad attitude, and make it worse. Go to the party, bring something, make it better, stay after and clean, help participate, in your group. So commit to a group, if you have not already, committed to a group, because that is where we, get to walk out, many of the good works, that God's designed us for. Commit to serve, if you have not committed to serve. So the second one, would be to commit to serve, if you haven't committed to serve.
If there are opportunities, in our church family, for service, and if you're sitting there going, I'm saved, I'm a Christian, I don't know what work, he's called me into, start trying something. One of the best ways, to find out whether or not, you're good at something, is to just start trying stuff. We believe, and the Bible says, that we're all designed, for good work. So we don't mind telling you, you're bad at something. Because we don't think, we're hurting your feelings, we think we're helping you, find the thing you're good at. So you're like, I'm filled, called to sing.
I'm supposed to sing. We'll say, cool, meet with Matt, and sing. And Matt will say, you're called to sing by yourself. Or maybe he'll say, yeah, maybe you are, maybe you are gifted to do this. One of the things, when I first started feeling called, in the ministry, I did a whole summer, I committed to doing, children's ministry. And I've never been around, children's since, until I had one.
Because I did it for a summer, and I was like, nope. It wasn't designed for this. And I started praying, I was like, Lord, let me yell at adults. That's what I got to do. So, commit to serve, we have opportunities for it. We've got Kid City, and our finance team, and people show up, every Sunday morning, here at seven, and begin to set things up, and line these chairs up, and vacuum up the glitter.
And if you don't know, what I'm talking about, come here at seven, next week, and help vacuum up the glitter. We don't know, where it comes from, but it's here. And we vacuum it up. There are people, who show up early, to help do all the stuff, that we're doing. People that built the walls, that we unfold, and try to keep standing up, in our hallway. Like there's, there's good work to be done, in service here.
And so if you, haven't committed to serve, commit to serve. Thirdly, commit to give, if you have not, committed to give. Our church, brings in about $10,000, a month. So, we run on about $120,000, budget for the year, which just means, things are pretty tight for us. We pay two pastors, out of that. We rent this facility.
We do all the upkeep stuff, we do here. And so that's, light bulbs that seem to go out, all the daggum time. And, we try to help upkeep, the area we're in. So we try to paint, and do some different things, to make the school nicer, while we're here. We, in our kid city, our kid city volunteers, are now writing their own curriculum, to save us some money. And I think their curriculum's better, so it's been a good, it's been a good change.
But, all the amount of graham crackers, and goldfish, and stuff it takes, to run that up there, and construction paper, and sticks to make swords out of, and all the mess they do, that's beneficial and good. Like, we pay for that. I have periodically, people ask, like, are we ever thinking about, getting our own place? And our response is, we think about it all the time. No, though, we don't have the money, to pay for that, we just think about it. We did have a church, that was talking to us, and they had some property, and we went and sat down with them, and we said, how generous do y'all want to be?
We're still praying about that, but, we don't really have the money, to pay for it. We're just like, if y'all are just looking, to get rid of this, if this land's getting on your nerves, you just give it to us, we'll put up with it. So, commit to give, if you haven't, if you haven't committed to give, that's one of the ways, to begin to do good work, with what God's blessed you with, and what he's designed you for. One of the ways, that helps us specifically, in that, is to sign up to give online, because it cuts out the, the having to remember, because I think a lot of our church family, like, we want to give, we intend to give, and then, by the end of the month, we've forgotten, or it just doesn't work out, and so giving online helps.
I really think, that our church family, we probably could be, in about the $15,000, a month range, and that really would allow us, to do all the stuff, we're trying to do right now, and more. There's some things, we're wanting to do with students, there's some things, we're wanting to do with, with kids ministry, and keeping up, with all that up there, there's some, I mean this year alone, we gave away $7,500, to people in our church family, just to help them pay bills, and that's one of the things, we think, is financially responsible for us, and so, we just, I think we can, I think we could do that, and I think it would be helpful, and I think it's a good way, for us to, to continue walking, the good work God's given us. The fourth one, is commit, to the mission, if you hadn't committed, to the mission. Commit to, seeing people, come to know Jesus.
The truth is this, everyone you know, is working on a self salvation project, they're trying to save themselves, either through their own good works, and their morality, or they're trying to give themselves purpose, through finances, or having a good marriage, or, or, or pouring something into society, but every single person, is trying to store up something, that they can point to, and say, this makes me okay, and we're the ones who know, that we can be saved by grace, through faith, in the finished work of Jesus, and if we're not telling people, we're not committed to the good works, he's called us to. We're not walking them out, because he's designed us, to help people know that.
We experienced some technical difficulties with this audio recording, but in the interest of serving our church family who could not be at the Gathering, we are posting what we have. We apologize for the abrupt beginning.
Reading is from Ephesians 2:8-10
From Death to Life
Transcript
Good morning. Grab your Bibles. Go to Ephesians chapter 2. If you have a white Bible like this, it'll be on page 568. If you don't own a Bible, you may take this one with you. We want you to own a Bible, so take this.
You're not stealing. We gave it to you. You may have it. So we get to celebrate baptism today, and we're celebrating that Jesus takes dead people and makes them alive. That he takes people who are trapped in sin, and he brings life to them, and he forgives them. And so we have two physical reminders, two physical signs given to the church that we celebrate, that we practice.
One is communion, or the Lord's Supper, where we take bread and we break it. We take wine or grape juice, and we drink it and remind ourselves that Jesus' body was broken for us, that his blood was shed for us. And then we have baptism, where we celebrate that when Jesus died, we were buried with him, and we rose to life with him when he rose again. So we're in Ephesians. We've been walking through, and we're in chapter 2 now. We're going to spend time walking through this today.
And I love the beginning of Ephesians chapter 2. It is a very condensed version of the entire Bible, that it just clearly kind of lays out, in so many ways, the point of the Scriptures, the main story of humanity. And so what we talked about last week, what we're going to talk about this week, what we're going to talk about next week, kind of is laid out a condensed version of the whole story. And so let's pray, and then we'll hop in together. God, we ask that through your word you would go to work in our hearts, that we might more clearly see the reality of our existence, and that we might fear, rightly, repent, see our sin and hate it, and come to know and love you through your mercy and love shown to us.
And so we pray for that this morning, and that we would celebrate well as people who actually have something to celebrate. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going to pick up in chapter 2, verse 1. We read through this last week. Spencer walked us through it.
And so we're going to kind of walk through just to set the stage for where this is going and kind of understand the context. So chapter 2, verse 1, it says, And you, so Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus. So this is believers, Christians in Ephesus. He says, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. So that's Satan.
Among whom, so the sons of disobedience following Satan, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So Paul walks through and says, You were dead in your sin. And I know for some of us here, maybe this is your first time hanging out with us, or you're kind of new to kind of checking out the church and trying to figure out what Jesus is all about. I just want to say, Good morning. Glad you're here. Hopefully I'll get to meet you a little later on.
And you maybe are suddenly going, Oh, second, people still get together and talk about sin? Like that sounds really old. Like I didn't know this still happened. It does still happen because we believe it still matters. So what Paul says is you were dead in your sin, that you had rebelled against God, that you had lived out your life following the course of the world, following Satan, that you'd actively joined in the rebellion against God, and that you lived your life chasing after the desires of your body and mind, meaning that every whim you've had, every desire you've had to puff yourself up, or every lust you've had, or thirst, or hunger, or desire, your cravings have led you through life.
And you maybe had more sophisticated cravings or more base cravings, but you still just followed your cravings. Now, if you weren't here last week, Spencer kind of, we spent the most of our time there. And Spencer just walked us through it. And if you weren't here, I hate you missed it. It was very depressing. Most of last week was just, here's how terrible you are.
And if you left feeling good about yourself, and not seeing the reality of your sin, I don't think you paid enough attention. It's bad. Paul ends there, he says, you are by nature children of wrath. Meaning that our nature, who we are, was deserving wrath. We deserve to be destroyed for our rebellion. We deserve to be crushed for our rebellion.
For our heinous disregard for God and His goodness. This is the story of the scriptures that God created the world, and He put Adam and Eve in a garden. And He said, you can have everything except for this one tree. You can have all the trees that are there for your goodness, but not this one. And that's the one they're like, well, why not that one? And Satan comes along, and he tempts them there.
And one of the things I realize as I read that story, is that you could swap me out for Adam. I've got the same inclination. That there's this tendency to go, I feel like God's withholding good things from me. You could take my three-year-old, two-year-old, and swap him out. He's got the same thing. All I have done for his entire life is tend to him, and look out for his good, and he thinks I'm suspect.
I'm suspect. I'm like, I want to look at him and be like, let me explain something to you. Since you have been born, all I have done, like half of my life now has been taking care of you. For a while, you were a potato that could poop itself, and I just took care of you. And then I'll tell him not to do something, and he looks at me like, oh, keeping back the good stuff, huh? Like, there's something that makes him suspect that I am not in it for his good, and there's something deep in all of us that has that towards God.
That when he says not to mess with something, it's probably because it's the good stuff. And that we actively have joined in this rebellion against God. And this is where Paul says, so Paul says, you followed your cravings, you followed Satan, you followed the world, you were a child of wrath, you deserved destruction. And then he says, but God. Okay, now, we should all, maybe some of us have gotten familiar with this story, but just for a second, we should all hold our breath at but God. When it hits but God, there should be a moment where we all go.
Give me an example. If someone was telling you a story, and they said, I was at my grandmama's house, and I was down in their basement, and it was like an old school, like block cellar basement. They had their laundry room there, and they had just some old, like, maintenance stuff there. And I found a can of spray paint, and I just went to the block wall and just tagged it. Just, I mean, went ham on spray painting my logo that I invented. I had to practice a few times over here, and then I did a good one here.
And then they said, but my grandma... Your grandma what? Like, there's a moment of like, all right, this story's taking a turn here. Your grandma was too blind to notice. Your grandma couldn't make it down the stairs. Your grandma didn't care.
Your grandma didn't play. She took a drop cord and beat you for 30 minutes. Like, where's this story going? There's this moment where Paul just said, you were worse off than you could ever imagine. Your sin was more heinous. More wicked.
Somebody once said, and I saw this in an article recently this week. It said, sin is an injury to our greatest lover, a betrayal of our truest friend, a dishonoring of our heavenly father, an act of war against our mighty king, the creature spitting towards his almighty creator. That sin, our state before God, is worse than we could ever fathom. And then it says, but God. And there's this moment where we should all hold our breath and try to say, okay, where's this going? But God is wrathful and he destroyed us in our rebellion.
But God has a host of angel armies. Like, what's it going to say? This is the moment where the judge has sat behind the bench and is about to pass his sentence and bring his gavel down. I think there's part of us that wrongly believes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. God created us. And we say that as if because God created us, he owes us something.
No, no, no, but like God made us. And it's like, yeah, we're creatures. The Bible says he took dirt and molded it together. Like, we're dirt people. Or secondhand rib from dirt people. Like, it doesn't get better.
Like, we're creatures. And we act like, well, he owes us something. And honestly, I think it's like we think, well, if you had a child. It's like, well, that's different, though. You're giving birth to the same kind. Like, it's on par with you.
And it's more like if you owned a dog. But even that's still a creature. We still kind of owe something to our ant farm and our goldfish. We don't really have the gap there. We're not picturing that right when we say God owes us something. Honestly, we're creatures.
We owe him something. So just for a second. And this breaks down if you think about it too hard. But just imagine with me to try to help us understand what it's like for a creator over his creatures. If you, let's say you got really good at tinkering with things. This is just something you had a scientific mind.
And you just were brilliant. And you could do machinery. And you could make stuff. And let's say eventually you made a doll. Maybe like this size. And you made it like, you put a lot into it so that it was intelligent.
It wasn't a doll. It was like a doll robot. Like it actually interacted. And you made it cute. You like gave it some overalls and some cute red hair. Maybe it looked something like this.
You made a cute, precious doll. Now let's say that this doll became sentient. And then actively worked to destroy everything around it. Destroy your family. Like you had to hide knives from it. Like this doll.
I don't think you'd be going, well, I created it. I really owe it. No. Catch that thing. Burn it. Crush it.
Do something to it. It's trying to destroy everything. I don't think any of us have watched the movie Chucky, which is where that doll comes from. And thought, and sided with Chucky. Well, that doll's really got a hard shake at things. It's like, no.
And if you did, we'd do counseling stuff. We'd love to talk with you. If you sided with Chucky. It's more like that. God created us and placed us in a good world. And we actively went to work to destroy it.
And then we have the audacity to look at him and say, well, it's your fault and you owe us. We should hold our breath. And beads of sweat should form on our forehead when we hit but God in this passage. Because it just said we were children deserving of wrath. That that's who we are. That was our nature.
It wasn't something we grew into. It was something we were born into. And there's something wrong with us. And we've actively rebelled against God. And it's worse than we could ever imagine. But God being rich in mercy.
That's a beautiful sentence. But God being rich in mercy. Meaning we did not receive from him what we deserve. But God being rich in mercy. Because of the great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses.
Made us alive together with Christ. God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses. Made us alive together with Christ. So that's the story.
That God created a good world. But that humans were put in it. That humans openly rebelled. Ran against God. Tried to harm everything in their path. And then it says.
But God stepped back into the picture. And through Christ redeemed. And if we don't understand what Spencer talked about last week. If we don't understand the weight of our sin. We won't understand the beauty of this picture. And my wife and I.
If you don't know us. We're classy. Sophisticated. We have refined tastes. We like the finer things in life. Some of you.
Maybe you watch things like The Walking Dead. Which premieres tonight. We watch high quality television. Like Live PD. Which is just like cops. But live you guys.
And it is awesome. We're watching Live PD on Friday. And they catch a 17 year old girl in Columbia. That's part of the reason we watch. It's Richland County. Anna sees people that she knows on there.
Because she works at a bank. She's like oh I know them. Like I want to go speed in Richland County. Just so I can meet some of my new heroes. They pull me over. I love your work.
They pull this girl over. They smell marijuana in the car. Which means they can now check her car. I'm also learning all kinds of things about how policing works. They smell their car. They say there's marijuana in.
They pull her out. They're like alright if you just have a small amount of marijuana. That's a misdemeanor. I will write you a ticket. They pull her out. They bring her back.
They cuff her. They're just kind of you know hanging out. And then he finds a Xanax. Pulls that out. He walks over to her. He says this is a controlled substance.
This is a narcotic. This is a felony. She's 17 years old. She's about to start college. He said you're done. You're done.
No school for you. It's over. This is a felony. You are being arrested. This is going to go very poorly for you. He walks around behind his car.
He gets to talk to the other cop. And they decide. We're going to take it. We're going to confiscate it. We're going to destroy it. And we're going to write her a ticket for the marijuana.
And we're going to let her go. And you have to know. You could see on her when he said. This is a felony. And it's over. You could see this weight press down on her.
And then they went back around and said. Okay we're not going to. We're not going to press the full charges. That we could press on you. And I just know. For someone who's gotten pulled over.
For doing like 55 and a 35. And got a warning. Like that makes your day better. Like you call people. And you're like. This is the greatest thing ever happened to me.
And that's just a glimpse. Of how we ought to feel. When Jesus Christ. Swapped places for us. To become a child of wrath. And a son of disobedience.
So that we could be adopted into the family of God. That the weight of sin. That was pressing down on us. Was not bearable by us. But Jesus Christ took it.
And bore it to the cross. So that we could be free. And that's what he's saying. When he says. But God.
Being rich in mercy. Because of the great love. With which he loved us. Even when we were dead. In our trespasses. Made us alive.
Together with Christ. That it's Christ that accomplished this. For us. By grace. You have been saved. And he just kind of blurts that out.
If you look in the. In the scriptures there. There's a dash. It says by grace you have been saved. Dash. And it says and raise this up.
He just blurts that out. In the middle of the sentence. Because he wants to make it so clear. God loved you. And he saved you by grace. I need.
You need to hear that this morning. That God loves you. Loves you. And offers a salvation by grace. And grace means you don't earn it. You don't achieve it.
You don't become good enough. Or lovable enough. Or beautiful enough. He loves and saves by grace. My mom told me a story. She was.
She had an older sister. And a female cousin. That would always go to this. Her aunt's house. And they had dolls. When they were little.
They had dolls that they would play with. And she got to go back in college one time. And she saw the doll sitting in one room in the house. And she noticed her cousin's doll. That was like. Had this beautiful little blue dress.
And had all these accessories that went with it. And she saw her sister's doll. That was. This little boy doll. That because her sister always wanted a boy. And so she had this little doll.
That was a little boy. And then she saw her doll. And it was. A head and a torso. No clothes. Like just like a.
Like a not even like a pretty head and torso. Just like a. Messed up. Head and torso. And she went. And she asked her aunt.
She was like. What happened. To my doll. And her aunt was like. What do you mean what happened to it? She said.
It's just a head and torso. And it's like. Torn. And her aunt said. That was. That's the way that doll always looked.
That's been your doll forever. Like some. Like. Like the type of doll. That's in the room. In the haunted house.
Like one eye half shut. Like. Creeps you out doll. That was my mom's doll. She never noticed. Because the doll wasn't special.
The doll wasn't magical. The doll wasn't beautiful. The doll was creepy. But my mom. Loved it. That's us.
That's what Paul blurts out. In the middle of that sentence. We've been saved by grace. Because God. Loved us. Some of you.
Live your life. And you're like. But I. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not. I'm not put together enough.
I'm not. Lovely enough. And it's like. Right. You're a haunted house doll. There's something wrong with you.
You're a child of wrath. You got. One eye half open. You feel like your head's going to spin around. You're creeping everybody out. Like this is.
We're busted. And broken. And in our sin. But God. Loves us. And by grace.
He saves us. And that's the story. That's what we get. That's what we believe. And that's what we proclaim. In Christ.
That none of us were lovely. You didn't just come out the box. You don't have accessories. We're. We're broken. We're busted.
And Jesus loves us. And redeems us. Let's keep reading. By grace you have been saved. Verse six. And raised us up.
So he's finishing that sentence. He says. But God being rich in mercy. Because of the great love. With which he loved us. Even when we were dead.
In our trespasses. Made us alive together with Christ. So he inserts right there. By grace you have been saved. But he's finishing that idea.
He made us alive together with Christ. And raised us up with him. And seated us with him. In the heavenly places. In Christ Jesus. He raised us up with him.
Seated us with him. In the heavenly places. In Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ went to a cross. And died in our place for our sins. So that we can be in him.
Do you hear the structure of that sentence? It says. He raised us up with him. Seated us with him. In the heavenly places. In Christ Jesus.
That's our hope. That our life. That our hope is in Christ Jesus. That's what we celebrate in baptism. That we're in Jesus. You hear a lot.
Growing up in the south. That you would pray. That Jesus would come into your heart. The Bible talks about Jesus being in us. Mostly it's talking about the spirit filling us. But way more it talks about us.
Being in Christ. That we're included in Jesus. So what it's saying here. And what our hope is. And what Talha's hope is. And what Sam's hope is.
Is that we're in Christ. So that when we placed our faith in Jesus. And he went to the cross. Our sin. We went with him. When he was dead.
And buried. We were buried with him. And in him. When he rose again. Conquering sin. And rising to life.
We were in him. With him. That he took our disobedience. In him. And that we have our righteousness. Our goodness.
Our right standing with God. In him. That it's all about Jesus. And what he has done. And we place our faith. In him.
And so when he rose from the grave. We rose with him. And when he ascended into heaven. What it says is. We ascended with him. That if you are in Christ.
You are already included in Jesus. Where he sits enthroned in heaven. How does that work? I don't know. But it's great.
I don't know exactly how that plays out. But I know that it is a spiritual reality. That those who are in Christ. Are already raised with Christ. Seated in heaven. Above everything.
And that one day. We will be fully included in him. Brought back to him. And spend eternity with him. And that's what Paul says next. Verse 7.
Well let's read 6. So that 7 makes sense. Raised us up with him. Seated us with him. In the heavenly places. So that.
Okay. That helps us. Earlier it told us that he saved us. Because he loved us. Because helped. That's his reason.
So that is his purpose. So he saved us. Because he loves us. Not because we were special. Or magical. Or lovable.
But because he is loving. He is rich in mercy. He loves us. And then it says so that. Which means. Here we are going to hear the purpose.
Why God saves. So that in the coming ages. He might show. The immeasurable riches. Of his grace and kindness. Of his grace and kindness.
Toward us. In Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages. He might show the immeasurable riches. Of his grace and kindness. Toward us.
In Christ Jesus. We are saved in Christ. So that God can show us. How immeasurably good he is. That he can show us. The immeasurable grace and kindness.
Towards us. Who believe. That's amazing. That our salvation. Is so that one day. We will fully realize.
How good he is to us. His immeasurable grace and kindness. Towards us. Who believe. There is a moment. When we will enter into eternity.
We will see Jesus. As who he is. And we will see ourselves. For who we are. And we will fully understand. How much of a child of wrath we were.
And then. We will enter into an eternity. Where he displays. His immeasurable grace and kindness. Towards us. I remember growing up.
And I would play outside. And I would get completely covered. From head to toe. In dirt. And I would not even notice. Until I started to walk back in my house.
You start to walk back in the house. And you are like. Whoa. I am dirty. That I am like. I can't just walk in here.
Like this. And there is going to be a moment. For all of us. When we stand before the king. We are going to think. Whoa.
I am dirty. I am more despicable. More wicked. More broken. Than I could ever imagine. But he is going to show.
Immeasurable grace and kindness. We believe. That we are all. Designed to exist. For eternity. And that we will either.
Enter in as a son of God. Or a son of disobedience. We will either. Be held accountable. For our own sin. Or we will be in Christ.
And our sin will be in Christ. And our righteousness. Will be carried out in Christ. That is what we believe. That is what the Bible says. Now.
As we finish up. I want to take just a second. To talk to the Christians in the room. And then I want to talk to the. To the non-Christians in the room. Try to.
I think. There is a temptation for us. As Christians. To see this. To read this. And think.
Yeah. Yeah. This is what we say every week. Y'all. If you have been around a while. This is what we say.
We do it more specifically. We say. Here is how you were. A son of disobedience. A child of wrath. And here is how Jesus saves.
Specifically. But that is pretty much what we do. Every week. It is. Here is how the type of sinner you are. And here is how you ought to repent.
And here is how Jesus is good. This is just the baseline. That is the only story we have. By the way. We are not changing that up. That is the best news.
That is what we are going to talk about. That we were sinners. Saved by grace. That God is rich in mercy. And that he loved us. We are going to keep talking about that.
But there is a temptation. I think. For us as Christians. If you have been around for a while. If you have walked with Jesus for a while. To go.
Yeah. And so I came up with this. I was trying to think about. Ways that I think this breaks down. That we would actually say we believe this. But then it would not show up in our hearts.
So I have kind of three quick ones. To try to maybe help you test. Do I actually believe this? Do I actually believe this? Do I actually walk in this? The first one.
That might indicate to us. If we are. If we are a Christian. But we. We aren't actually believing this. Is that you have a pet sin.
That you have a sin. As a Christian. That you are okay with. That you are trying to tame. You have a sin. That is in your life.
That you. You circle back to. Maybe every couple of months. Maybe you are saying. Well. It is not as bad as it used to be.
Or I only ever do this every couple of months. Or you have got some kind of sin in your life. That you just act like. This is kind of okay. It is not that big of a deal. I am doing pretty well.
You point at other areas of your life. And you actually betray the fact. That you do not understand. How heinous sin is. And how dangerous sin is. I read this in an article this week.
It is a quote from John Bunyan. The article was talking about. How dangerous sin is. That is part of what made me realize. That if we do not actually believe this. We will do this.
He says this. This is a quote about sin. He says. It is the dare of God's justice. Meaning that we are looking at God. And in our sin.
Saying I do not think you will actually carry out justice. It is the rape of his mercy. It is the jeer of his patience. Meaning that we are standing by God. And in our sin. We are poking at him.
And saying I am not touching you. I am not touching you. Assuming he will not do anything about it. It is the slight of his power. He can't do anything about it. And it is the contempt of his love.
Sometimes we use God's love. To try to tame our sin. We say. Well it is not that big a deal. God loves me. And he is saved by grace.
And so we allow things to hang around. That shouldn't hang around. We allow ourselves to circle back. To certain things. That we shouldn't be circling back to. And we are actually showing contempt for his love.
Not an appreciation of it. I think if we are in here. And we say. Yeah. Of course. But we have sin.
That we are okay with having around. I don't think we have fully understood. The gravity and the weight. Of our sin. Secondly. I think there is a temptation.
And I see this a good bit. In counseling with people. Is this idea of. I am not worthy. Or my sin is too big. It is kind of the opposite.
Of the first one. The first one is. Is we minimize our sin. You see. When we. We approach God.
And we want to act like. It is not a big deal. We either have to elevate ourselves. We have to lower God. Or we have to minimize our sin. That is the first one.
The second one is that we have maximized our sin. We completely understand. Verses 1 through 3. But when it hits the but God part. We just break all down. There is no way he can save me from this.
There is no way he can cover this. There is no way. I will be forever marked by this. And it is like no. The sentence starts. But God.
Who is rich in mercy. Meaning that yes. You do deserve destruction. Yes. You are a child of wrath. But he is rich in mercy.
And he saves. He accomplishes this. It does not say. You were this. But you.
It says. You were this. But God. We have all watched enough Disney movies. To understand how this works. If there is a king.
And he falls in love. With a poor maiden. And he wants to marry her. And then someone says. You can't marry her. She is poor.
She is a maiden. She is not royalty. What is our response to that? Yeah. But he is a king.
And he loves her. And he can do what he wants. Flip it around. It is the story of Aladdin. Jasmine at the end. She loved him.
He was poor. You all know this story. Nobody says. Well she is not poor. She is not a maiden. We do not make that argument.
You just say. Yeah. But he is a king. And he loves her. And that is what happens here. No.
You do not know my sin. You do not understand how dirty I am. You do not. But God. Is a king. And he loves you.
And he makes you beautiful. Yeah. We will agree all day long. In our church family. We will agree with you all day long. You are a haunted house doll.
You were. That is what Paul says. It is all past tense. You were a child of wrath. You were a son of disobedience. But now.
You have been saved by grace. You have been made lovely. And you will be welcomed into an eternity. Where he will show you the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness. The third test for us. I think.
Is that we do not tell anybody about this. I think if we are Christians. And we say. I absolutely believe. That this is the story of the world. That this is what is playing out.
That we are all. Either sons of disobedience. Or sons of God. We are already the children of wrath. Or children of God. Saved by grace through Christ.
And we have no desire to tell this to people. It does not show up in our schedule. It does not show up in our time. We are not intentional with our neighbors. I honestly just think. We probably don't actually believe this.
I think you could take any excuse you make. For not telling people about Jesus. And run it through this passage. And it will fall apart. They don't want to hear it. Well of course they don't want to hear it.
It starts off with. You are the worst person ever. And you are following Satan. That is a hard lead. I will give you that. It gets better.
I don't want to bother them. If this is true. This bothers no one. Not ultimately. It is like a symptom. That leads you to the doctor.
So that you can be cured. This may bother them. A little bit. Now. But ultimately.
To lead them to freedom. And joy. And grace. That if we actually believe. As Christians. That this is the true story.
Of the world. I think it would show up more. In how we spend our time. And how we spend our money. And how we. How we leverage.
And are intentional. With our relationships. I think at the end of the day. We'd say. I'm willing to lose. All of my friendships.
Over they don't want to hear me. Tell them about Jesus anymore. Rather than lose them. For eternity. Because I wasn't willing. To ever talk about.
What I actually would say. I believe. Is true. About the world. So if we're in here.
And you're a Christian. And you were nodding along to this. I think those are the three tests. To ask yourself. Do I have a sin. That I'm okay with.
That I think is cute. And I'm trying to tame. Like I said. My wife and I are class. You know those. Those animals gone wild stuff.
Like when animals attack. You know what I'm talking about. Like the high quality television stuff. And they always have like a guy. With like a lion. And then it attacks a person.
And then he's like. I just didn't see that coming. And you're like. Bro. There's a lion. I mean.
I'm not a scientist. I'll draw you a food chain chart. The only way we fix that. Is rifles. Otherwise. This is how it works.
And we do that with our sin. All the time. I just didn't think. It would be that big a deal. It's sin. It's trying to kill you.
It is a rebellion against God. It is not cute. It is not your pet. I think we ask that. I think we ask. Do I have a humble confidence.
That Jesus has made me lovable. And that I can rest in his goodness. Not mine. Or am I constantly beating myself up. And saying I'm not worthy. And then I think we ask.
When was the last time I told somebody. About how good Jesus is. Not just how good our church is. Not just how good our groups are. But when was the last time.
I looked at someone and said. You're a sinner who needs Jesus. And if you don't meet Jesus. It's going to be a problem. When was the last time. I made time in my schedule for that.
Now. If you're not a Christian. This is what we want you to know. That on your worst day. At your most depressed. When you have felt the most guilty.
About something you did to a past relationship. Something you did to a parent. Something you did to a friend. When you felt the most shame. Over your brokenness. When you felt the most vile.
I want to look you in the eye. And lovingly say. You hadn't even gotten close. To the weight of your sin. You hadn't even scratched the surface. On what you're going to feel like.
When you stand before the great high king of the universe. And realize that all of your sin. And all of your rebellion. Was always aimed at him. I hadn't even gotten close. You are more desperately sick.
And wicked. Than you could ever imagine. Than on your worst day. You've even come close to. To feeling and picturing. And you are more undeniably loved.
Than you will ever understand. That Jesus Christ was willing to swap places with you. And you can be in Christ. Redeemed and made whole. That there is hope. And it's not in you.
And it's not in positive thinking. And it's not in finances. And it's not in your next relationship. It's in Christ. And Christ alone. Because only he can die for your guilt.
And take your shame. And set you free. And he loves you. I've gotten intense. And I don't know how to say that. Without seeming intense.
And annoyed about it. But he loves you. It's an actual real love. That makes him rich in mercy. And saves us by grace. That he takes haunted house dolls.
And makes them lovely. And beautiful. He accessorizes. He clothes us. He fixes our wonky eye. Like he does that.
That's who he is. That's what he does. And there is hope. And love. In Christ. And we want you to know that.
And Talha. And Sam. Are a celebration of that today. Their baptisms. Are not. A declaration of turning over a new leaf.
Or getting their life together. Or they're not. Hey here's how I'm going to be a good person from now on. They are. A declaration of I'm saved by grace. I was a child of wrath.
Deserving of destruction. And I've placed my faith in Jesus. And when he died. I was in him. And when he rose. I was in him.
And when he went to heaven. I was in him. And one day I'll be eternally in him. As he shows off. The greatness of his immeasurable kindness and grace. Toward me.
In him. That's what we celebrate today. Now. First time. We've ever done this. Talha's baptism.
Will be filmed. We baptized him a week ago. Sam's baptism will be right now. The reason we did that. Is that Talha is coming out of an Islamic family. And we wanted the opportunity.
They work at the flea market. We wanted the opportunity for two things. One. To have his family be present for his baptism. If they were willing. They were.
And it was great. Got to be around them. Got to explain the gospel to them. They are very kind and gracious people. And it was enjoyable to get to know them better. Secondly.
They work at the flea market. Talha works with them. Lives in their home. And we want him to honor his parents. And work with them. And not miss out on work.
For something they don't really agree with wholeheartedly. So we wanted to be gracious to his parents. Have the opportunity to build with them. Have the opportunity to serve them. And not try to work around our own preference on schedule. But actually work around there.
So that we could be around them. And share the gospel with them. So that's why Talha was baptized last week. He's going to be on screen. And then Sam will be baptized here today. And on both of them.
We're going to clap and yell and be excited. Even though Talha can't hear you. We can hear. And it'll be really sad to watch him get baptized. And everybody go. So we're going to yell.
And celebrate. And then we're going to baptize Sam. And then we're going to spend the rest of the day. So the band's going to come back up. We're going to sing one song. And then we'll do that.
But I wanted to explain a little bit about. What's happening in baptism today. So for us it is a physical picture of being in Christ. That when he died. We died with him. Our sin died with him.
When he was buried. Our sin was buried. Never to rise again. When he rose. We rose with him. His righteousness now covers us.
The same way that the water. Now covers us. That we are completely clean. Washed. Made new. And that we will spend eternity with him.
Because of what Jesus has done. Not because of what we do. Let's pray. God we ask. That through your spirit. You would help us.
To celebrate well. That your grace is sufficient for us. That you because you loved us. Are rich in mercy toward us. And that in Christ. We do not have to get what we deserve.
But that we can be made. Beautiful. And new. That's our hope. That we are in Christ. And we pray that in Christ today.
We would celebrate well. We love you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen.