Mill City 7/2/17 Mill City 7/2/17

Righteous Judge

Transcript

G'day guys, my name is Raz, I'm one of the pastors here, and today we're rounding out, we're finishing up our glory series, and today we're going to be taking a look at justice. And in particular, we're going to be talking about Jesus as the mind-blowing judge who's coming back at the end of days, a judgment day, to restore order to everything that's happened ever, which is a pretty big task for one day, but that's what we're doing. We're going to head to Revelation 20, so if you've got a Bible, or grab one of the Bibles in the row there, we're heading to Revelation 20, I think it's like the second last page or something like that. Just turn to the end and then go backwards.

Oh, there you go, it's page 602, that's helpful. 603, I assume, is the last page then. In Revelation 20, this is a picture that the apostle John has seen in a vision, and he's trying to put down in words what God has shown him about the very end of days. And so the language is pretty weird, there's some images that he's never seen before, and he's just kind of, out of a lack of words, just writing things like, it kind of looked like this. And so it's a little hard to understand, but we're going to read from verse 11. So this is Revelation 20, 11 through 15.

It says, Then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it. That's Jesus, big white throne. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened.

Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he also was thrown into the lake of fire. Imagine this. It's judgment day. All of humanity is there. That is a gigantic crowd.

He calls it a great sea of people. And they're waiting on their turn to come up and be judged. And Jesus is out there with, like, volumes and stacks upon stacks of books that have written in them everything that you have ever done. And you're going to be judged according to that. And then he's going to lean over to the second book and check your name off on the roll call. I imagine this scene, I mean, that's a scary scene to me.

That many books, intimidating. But I kind of, I see things, I imagine things through a more technological, I mean, I grew up with TV. So I just imagine things with a more technological kind of swing to them. So if I was to re, I mean, this isn't good practice necessarily, but if I was to reimagine this scene and explain what was going to happen, I think I would take a different approach than maybe what he was saying. And the same thing would be accomplished. But this is how I picture it.

So imagine, I'm doing my best to try and appeal to an American audience here. Imagine a gigantic college football scene. You don't have to know anything about college football because I don't. But I've seen the stadiums and they're huge. Imagine a huge, huge, huge college football stadium and all of humanity is in it. This is not the Gamecock Stadium.

This is not the Michigan Stadium that's, like, crazy big. This is not the NASCAR stadium that they transformed for one night. This is, like, the biggest stadium that has ever been seen because all of humanity has to fit in that stadium. And it's not okay for just one jumbotron to be in the middle with the four-sided thing. They're, like, scattered around the place. They need to be everywhere because everyone needs to see what's going on.

And one by one, each individual is called up. And on the big screen, everyone can see them walking out into the middle. And then the highlights reel from their life plays. Now, in John's vision, it gets read out of a book. But in my vision, it's not a biblically inspired vision.

But in the way that I think about it, your life plays out on the jumbotron. And everyone gets to see what you did. And it's not a highlights reel, like, check out all of my greatest achievements. This is, like, the lowlights reel. This is the slow-motion impact highlights reel. And I imagine it like when you are watching football and somebody gets, like, crushed.

And they play it, like, in slow motion from seven different angles. It's like, and then they amp up the volume of the pads clashing. So it's like, crack, every single time. And everyone in the crowd is like, ooh. You know when, like, there's the slow-motion replay of the guy's helmet comes off. And everyone's like, ah.

And, like, if you weren't watching, you hear the ah. And you're like, oh, what did I miss? That kind of thing happens over and over again. But as people are watching your life. Because all the little things that you did that you thought nobody knew about, that you thought got swept under the rug, that happened in secret, they're now being played on a jumbotron in front of everybody. They make fun of stealing candy from a baby.

But you remember that time you stole candy from a baby? That's going to play in the jumbotron. And everyone's going to be like, ooh, dude, what did you do that for? Every time you've done simple things, like roll for a stop sign, and then lied about it, that's going to play on the jumbotron. All the times you did something good, but you only did it because you wanted to receive praise. You only did it because you wanted people to know how great you are.

Somehow they're going to display that on a jumbotron, and people are going to see the selfish notion of your heart in that moment. The time when you lost your mind at your spouse for no reason, or lashed out at your kids, or the time in school when you were bullying that kid, all of it plays out on the jumbotron. Gigantic stadium of people watching. Every moment of your life that you're ashamed of gets played on that jumbotron, and the entire crowd is going, ooh, yeah. And at the end of your highlights reel, you ought to be judged for that. But Jesus looks over into his little black book and checks to see if your name's in there.

And if it is, good. And if it's not, then you get judged for it. That's pretty scary, right? You want to know at that point in time that your name is written in Jesus' little black book, right? Because that's like the only pass out of being judged for all the things that play out on that jumbotron. And here's the thing, though.

This is imaginary. This is hypothetical, but not really. Because this is actually going to happen. And here's the thing, though. But there's hope for that in Christians because while we know our highlights reel is not going to be the greatest, no one really wants to watch that happen, no one really wants to see all of those things that they've done play out on the jumbotron, we know as Christians that our name is going to end up in that second book.

And in that second book, that's where we have hope. And now that probably sounds weird for us to have hope in our name being in a book and not being judged by the highlights reel or the lowlights reel of our life. And I think that's because, I mean, it sounds weird for us to want that or to think that's good because we have a a continuously developing cultural understanding of what justice is. What's fair? Everybody on some level wants their way of seeing life means that they want things to come back to being fair. And everybody, well, not everybody, but there's a lot of different opinions on what is fair.

And that's why we lead to different political affiliations that everyone wants to achieve what's fair, but they disagree on what fair is, whether it's free health care or you've got to pay for your health care or it's competition in health care. Everybody wants what's fair, but we disagree on what fair is. And it's because culturally, we don't really understand justice. I don't think. We certainly don't understand God's justice. Or if we do, we have a culturally, we view it through a cultural lens.

So we're going to take a zoomed out look at justice. We're going to look at the way we think about justice. And then we're going to look at the way that God thinks about justice. And I'm going to be answering, I'm going to be asking a ton of questions, most of which, if you're a Christian, you'll probably be asked at some point, especially with culture getting more and more aggressive against Christianity. Everyone has some way that they're going to try and outsmart you or challenge you or challenge God. These questions are going to pop up quite a lot.

And I think when it comes to justice, it's typically going to be, how can a loving God pass judgment? Or some reiteration of that same notion, some reiteration of that same question. If your God is loving and kind and always talks about forgiveness, how can he send people to hell? That's a question that is going to come up repeatedly. And it snowballs. It gets more and more intense.

If your God is loving, why won't he just forgive people? Why can't he just forgive everybody? The whole topic kind of snowballs. And I think rather than answering each individual question like one by one, I think we'd be better served to zoom out, look at justice as the whole, on a whole, and maybe identify that because we misunderstand justice, we don't really understand the questions that we're asking in the first place. And I think it begins with a common misunderstanding. And that's the relationship between justice and revenge.

What is the relationship between justice and revenge? How are they the same? How are they different? I mean, typically we think justice, good, revenge, bad. But somehow we interchange them or we accidentally misidentify them as each other.

Let me ask you this. You're watching a movie, any action movie, any movie where the good guys and the bad guys literally fight. Any movie where that actually happens. What is it that you want at the end of that movie for it to be like, yes, order is restored, justice is accomplished. You're watching Harry Potter, right? You are seven movies deep into Harry Potter.

You're at the very end and they have the big wizard battle. Do you want the good guys to point their wands at Voldemort and abracadabra ropes that come out and bind him up? And he's just bound up. He's stuck there like that. And then they take him to wizard court and they say, guilty, you're a bad person. Go to Azkaban.

And he goes to Azkaban and spends the rest of his life in Azkaban. Is that how you want Harry Potter to end? No. There's no brave people here. You want the good guys to vanquish the bad guys. You want them completely destroyed, no longer in existence.

That's what you want to happen at the end of that movie. Let's be culturally relevant. Independence Day. At the end of Independence Day, do you want the U.S. Air Force to come up with a gigantic net that brings the mothership down and then one by one those aliens get marched off of that ship, taken into a court of law and then there's like a 10 year trial for each individual person because they know our legal system and they appeal everything and then they end up one by one in jail for the rest of their life. No!

You're cheering for a redneck McRedneck-y man to fly that plane into that spaceship and blow every single one of those dudes out of the sky. That's what you want and we cheer for it. That's how Hollywood programs us to want justice in the stories that we see. That's how we're programmed to cheer and that's just kind of how it is in our culture, right? How we want justice to happen is the bad guy gets completely wiped out, destroyed. When I was growing up my dad and I we used to watch a lot of James Bond movies and the game GoldenEye on Nintendo 64 was kind of like the game of the generation.

Programmed to cheer and that's just kind of how it is in our culture, right? How we want justice to happen is the bad guy gets completely wiped out, destroyed. When I was growing up my dad and I we used to watch a lot of James Bond movies and the game GoldenEye on Nintendo 64 was kind of like the game of the generation. GoldenEye is much more famous for the game than it is for the movie

But in the movie really good movie I watched it when I was like 9 or 10 I think that raises some questions about parenting in my house it's a very violent movie but my dad and I we used to bond over these things and so we're watching GoldenEye and at the very end of GoldenEye actually building up to the end there's two guys there's James Bond and there's Alec Trevelyan they are both together they're partners

They're on Team England that's a thing they were the good guys at one point at least in James Bond thanks man Team England they're on the same team together and at some point everybody thinks Alec is dead but actually Alec has rejected Team England and he's now on Team Russia and he comes back in the movie as the bad guy but they were once friends and now he's the enemy and so at the very end of the movie

In the climax of the movie or whatever there's this huge radar dish thing like a gigantic one absolutely crazy big and it's sending signals up to some Russian satellite thing out in the sky and there's a giant dish like this and a big arm that comes out the middle and the thing where all the rays kind of focus on and shoot out into space and that's so big that people can be inside of it there's computers and almost like

A space station looking thing up inside there and so James Bond has to shut the thing down so that Russia stops getting their signals and whatever and the other guy is trying to stop him and they're inside that little capsule thing like 300 feet dropped down to the radar dish and so they're fighting in there they've got their guns out because that's the kind of movie and they're shooting at each other and then of course

They can't use the guns because that's a lame way for someone to die so they hit the guns out of each other's hands and then they're punching each other and James Bond's losing because it's really intense and everybody thinks James is going to die and then he goes down the little hatch and he's down on a ladder and he's got one hand up and his other hand is flailing like this and there's like a 300 foot drop to his dead and the bad guy the bad guy comes down he puts his foot on and he's like and he falls down

And then he drops down and there's one last little platform right? Everything happens on that last little platform and you see James Bond he's in like that fetal position as he fell down there he's down there he's getting crushed and then the bad guy drops down boof on his feet and you're like this is it this is the end one nudge and James Bond is dead but no Hollywood uppercut

Bad guy slow motion off the platform surely gonna die 300 foot to fall to his death and then James Bond boof grabs him by the ankle what's gonna happen? I'm kinda out of breath and you think for a moment is James gonna let this guy live? and the bad guy looks up at him and he goes for England and James goes no for me and then he drops him and in that moment

The bad guy knows he's lost and the camera goes right up in his face he's like and then there's a top down view and then this bottom down view and then it goes to the wide angle view I'm no doctor but in my understanding of human physiology when you fall 300 feet and land on your spine you die not so camera comes right up close to Alec Trevelyan's face he's got a little bit of blood coming out of his nose

It was a big fall a little bit of blood and then his eyes go bing and he's alive and you're like no this happened earlier in the movie it's gonna happen again and then the camera cuts back up James Bond is up on the little platform the thing starts exploding and he jumps off grabs onto the bottom of a helicopter helicopter takes him off to safety and then and then the giant thing in the middle explodes off the arm

That's holding it up and a giant metal needle camera wide angle top down view bottom down view close up on the guy's face skewered through his body into the ground and at that moment nine year old Raz is like yeah high-fiving dad I wish I was at the cinema I wasn't allowed to be in the cinema but I would have been like high-fiving other people because justice had been served the good the guy who's a bad guy because he used to be a good guy but then he became a bad guy is dead

At least that's what we're kind of expected to cheer for right that's justice in movies that's what we want that's what we want to see happen and I think that we so often talk about justice but what we're actually cheering for is revenge because in that moment if James Bond wanted to bring Alec Trevelyan to justice he would have done the Hollywood thing where you can actually hold a person by their ankle and just bring him back up handcuff him take him back to England take him to the MI6 base

And he lives underground for the rest of his life but we cheer for what actually became personal and vengeful he was full of hate and spite for the guy and so he saw revenge so revenge is emotional where justice is is rational revenge is personal where justice is impersonal revenge is about vindictiveness where justice is about vindication revenge

Is about retaliation where justice is about restoring order so could it be possible then that when we challenge God's justice when we have questions about his justice when we say is that really fair what we're actually doing is questioning whether or not he's seeking revenge are your questions really asking is God just vindictive

Is God just retaliating so what then what then even is justice and how do we achieve it even in our world what does justice actually look like for us in normal everyday life let me ask you some hypothetical questions so you can self-diagnose self-realize some of the tension here in your own brain in your own way

Of thinking when is justice served is justice served when the thing that was done is undone is that when justice is served or is it when the thing that was done is paid back to the same degree that it was done in the first place is that when justice is done think about it like this if we're on the

Playground and I poke you in the eye you get to poke me back in the eye that's fair that's justice that's how playground rules work grow up a little bit you lend me your car and I wreck it how is justice served I owe you a car of equal or greater value right you don't

Get to just go wreck my car I don't have a car I borrowed yours but what happens for example if your child is kidnapped how is justice served is justice served when the child is returned it's just undoing the thing

Is justice served when you go kidnap his child that's repaying it one for one should there be some kind of a punishment and if there is a punishment how great a punishment should it be is it jail time

Is it a big fat fine is it death penalty is it public execution of you and all of your acquaintances so that nobody else makes the same mistake if the doctor is negligent and your child dies how is

Justice served in that situation do you get to go kill the doctor's child is that revenge or is that justice do you just get a big fat check from their insurance the

Practice insurance is that how justice is served or should that doctor go to jail I think we all know intuitively that somehow we can't always

Put our finger on it but somehow the punishment has to fit the crime somehow we have to come up with systems to make that happen but somehow

The punishment has to fit the crime and oftentimes the punishment is over and above just undoing what the crime was we don't expect that a car thief will achieve

Justice when they return all of the cars they return all of the cars and then they go to jail there is a punishment over and above undoing the thing that was done I was watching a presentation recently by a guy called

Michael ramsden he's a british apologist basically means he's a dude who goes around to college campuses and conferences and stuff like that gives speeches presentations on they call it a defense of the faith

It's really just a rational explanation of why christians believe what they believe and he's at this conference and they're about to go on a break and he says during this break we're going to

Have a whiteboard out front and we want everyone to come out and write the hardest questions they can possibly come up with so write your really hard questions on the whiteboard during the break and then at some point

During the break come and vote on the question that you think is the hardest question to answer and in the following session we're going to answer the really really hard questions which is brave to volunteer to do a 40 minute speech on

A topic that the audience gets to choose but he does that they go away on the break they come back from the break and there's a tie for first place two questions that have the same number of votes everyone says these are the two

Hardest questions to answer these are the two questions number one this is the first question how do you expect me to be happy in heaven if God has sent people to hell how do you expect me to be happy in heaven if God has sent people to

Hell the second question how do you expect me to be happy in heaven if the man who sexually abused me as a child is in heaven with me don't miss this the first question is saying how can I be happy if God Judges people and sends them to

Hell the second question is saying how can I be happy if God doesn't judge people and send them to hell you see the tension between the two questions one is saying if God upholds justice and punishes

People I cannot be happy and the other is saying if God doesn't uphold justice and punish people I can't be happy the same issue is addressed in both questions but they're pulling in opposite directions on our human

Morality meter in our own sense of justice we kind of we're unhappy with either option we simultaneously want God to punish evil but we also want him to

Be loving and kind and forgiving and give people a chance I have to admit that I feel this tension as well I think our society lives in this tension all of us have some way of

Comprehending it at least in our brain we feel like it's okay for some people to make it and it's not okay for other people to make it and we draw this line it can

Be anywhere and we say these people they're good enough these people they're not and my line could be here and your line could be there and somebody else's line

Could be all the way over there and we say at this point in time people are good enough and at this point in time I'm just uncomfortable with those guys making it into

Heaven and we all draw our own little lines in the sand and we see the world through that lens these people are good enough those so that we make it and anyone worse than

Us is probably not good enough I'm uncomfortable with them being in heaven with me so we have this criteria that makes us that gives us comfort of are the people good enough and we all have our own

Little lines and every time we do that every time we put a line down and say this is the fair spot for it what we're actually doing is saying God your line isn't as good as mine my line is better I'm

Fairer than you are my idea of what's right and wrong is better than your idea of what's right and wrong we should use my line because I'm more fair than you now God has a line as well he doesn't

Use our criteria luckily if he did use our criteria if he used the criteria of who's good enough and who's bad enough then his line is all the way over here there's one dude sitting by himself over there

God's only son Jesus Christ he's good enough everybody else fails the test if God uses our criteria of who's good enough and who's bad enough luckily

He does not use that he has a line but that's not what his line looks like so what does God's line look like how does he decide who makes the cut how does justice work in God's kingdom on who

Makes it and who doesn't I think there's a good chance you've heard this a thousand times but according to the Bible according to Christianity all of humanity stands guilty before God Romans

3 23 Says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 6 23 says the wages of that sin what you earn

By that sin is death all of humanity is guilty the punishment that everyone has earned is death think back to the stadium where each

And every person's low lights reel is played on a jumbotron in front of all of humanity you get to see how evil the inside internal inclination of each person's heart is

Every evil thought every evil desire every lustful glance every flash of anger every ounce of pride every action made out of self ambition

Every cruel intention every under your breath cuss word everything happens on the big screen and each and every time you're sinning against a holy

And pure and righteous God each and every human each and every human is in their core fundamentally internally wicked everyone's the same all of humanity

Stands there right with you and it would be unfair it would be unjust of God who is the holy and perfect judge it

Would be unfair of him to look at that sin to look at that guilt and just say it doesn't matter because that's not

How justice works it would be unfair of him some kind of reparation some kind of payment is absolutely necessary to pay for that guilt to pay

For that punishment that ought to come for your sin if a jury if in our world if a jury comes back and says this man is guilty we have we have decided upon the evidence that this man is guilty and the judge comes back and says yes

I've seen the evidence he's been judged by a panel of his peers this guy's guilty but you know what I'm loving I'm compassionate I'm merciful so I'm just going to let you go please don't kidnap any more

Children or kill them there would be public outcry that is not justice that is not fair that is wrong a reasonable judge cannot just let people off for the things that they're guilty of

So what does God do Romans 5 8 and 9 it says but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us since therefore

We have now been justified by his blood much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God so while we were sinners Christ died for us and he paid the penalty for our sin we were

Justified by his blood we're saved by his life we're guilty we deserve punishment he pays the penalty that's how God's mercy and his justice work together for our good at the cross because justice says

You did this now you deserve this that's how justice works we're not always the best at saying what you deserve but we know that if you did this you deserve this mercy says you did this

You deserve this but I'm going to give you this now typically mercy happens at the expense of justice typically if you poke me in the eye and I choose not to poke you back

In the eye I'm extending mercy to you and justice is not served I was ripped off that's how mercy typically works when you extend mercy to someone you do so at the

Expense of justice so does that mean that God gives up justice in order to give mercy in Christianity no he can't he must uphold justice

To be a perfect judge God looks into every single human heart and at the core of it he sees sin he sees us for who we really

Are and he says this is wrong this is not how it was supposed to be this is not how it was designed you

Are guilty you stand guilty before the king and moved out of compassion he does something about it and he does that at the

Cross that's where the penalty for sin is met that at the cross when Jesus dies on behalf of all of sinners he incurs

The wrath that sin deserves so that punishment is made on behalf of sinners but Jesus pays for it so that sinners don't have

To God doesn't exercise mercy at the expense of justice he exercises his mercy through justice at the cross we should hear that God's justice is

Coming and we should hear that he's going to judge the entire world and it should be terrifying because we should know that by

Our sin we stand guilty and deserve death and destruction but here's the game changer this is Romans 10 9 it says if you

Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved

If you put your faith in Jesus you will be rescued from the judgment that you deserve if you put your faith in Jesus

His death on the cross will pay your ransom for you when you put your faith in Jesus your name goes into his little

Black book that he checks off at the end of days to see who's in and who's out when God's justice comes there is

Hope even for the guilty if they have faith in Jesus you might not think about it this way but I think we actually

Want God's version of justice because if we were tried in our justice system where good enough makes it and bad enough doesn't then

You would have to pay the penalty for your own sin you want Jesus as your judge because in his system you don't pay

The price for your own guilt if you put your faith in him you aren't held responsible for your own penalty for the woman

Who's afraid of seeing her abuser in heaven if he's there it's because he put his faith in Jesus and God himself paid the debt

That that man deserved Jesus took the punishment if that man is unrepentant if he refuses to admit his guilt if he refuses to

Say sorry if he refuses to put his faith in Jesus then he will stand on judgment day the highlights real from his life

Will play out for everyone to see and then he will stand condemned and be judged for what he's done and in that moment

Justice will have been served but he pays his own penalty Matt's going to come back up and as we land the plane here I want

You to consider what this means for your life so this isn't just knowledge that you store in your head but this is a

Hope that you get to live the rest of your life by because it means that for Christians justice doesn't have to be served now

Justice doesn't have to be served now you we live in a world where injustice happens the guilty go free the innocent get convicted we

Live in a world where injustice happens but that's okay because as Christians we know ultimate justice comes at the end of days if

You wouldn't call yourself a Christian then my urge to you is to consider this it simply isn't enough to say I lived a

Good life I'm a good person I'm on the right side of the line all have sinned all fall short of the glory of

God and justice must be served and you get to choose do I want that justice to be served on me or am I

Willing to let Jesus take it on my behalf for Christians since we know that ultimate justice will be satisfied in Christ's return that

It's better than any human justice that his line is more fair than any line we could come up with where mercy and justice

Can both happen then we get to live in a system where we're satisfied and we're fulfilled by our faith in Christ a system where all of sin is

Paid for either by Jesus on our behalf or by those who don't call him Lord and justice will be satisfied in that the

Hope for Christians is that when you go out there and you stand before Jesus and your life is played out on a jumbotron it doesn't matter how shameful it is it doesn't matter how bad you were

It doesn't matter that the whole world sees it Jesus is going to look over into his little black book and see your name and you're going to be invited in and

Jesus has paid the penalty for you that's the hope that we have in God's justice system let's pray God we thank you that you sent Jesus to take our punishment

For us we thank you that by him our punishment can be paid and that we can be welcomed in pray that we'll put our faith in you and in your justice and that we can be satisfied that

It will come at the end of days and that we don't need it immediately that we don't need to see justice in this world immediately because you are a right judge you are a holy judge and you will judge

All of humanity equally based off of whether they have faith in Jesus not according to what they've done we praise you and we thank you for that in his name amen

Mill City 6/25/17 Mill City 6/25/17

Christ and Resurrection

Transcript

Good morning. We're in the third week of our glory series where we're just taking some time to look at how big and good and holy Jesus is. And today we're going to be talking about the resurrection, that Jesus Christ rose from the grave. And the way the Bible treats this is that it is central. It is the thing that everything else hangs on. It's the truth that makes all the other truths true.

And so as we begin this morning, I kind of want to tell a few stories to kind of help you picture this and how this kind of concept has played out in my life a little bit. I grew up playing football, so I want to start with fifth grade, Chet. It's a Saturday in the fall. And the Colts have made it to the Rotary Bowl. This is a big deal. This is the Super Bowl for fifth graders.

We had played three games that day, and we had made it to the Rotary Bowl. And I was a running back at this point. I would not be for the rest of my career, but I was at this point. And we were down. We're losing the Rotary Bowl. My stomach's running empty on the pancakes my dad had fed me that morning, which was always his go-to.

You're going to have to play football all day. Let's eat pancakes. I have not yet addressed this with him, but I'm not going to do that to my kids. But anyway, we have about three yards to go to score a touchdown, to win the game, and this is it. It's our last chance, last play. I don't know what the time was on the clock, but this was our last.

It was fourth down, so we're going to score here or it's going to be over with. And we ran a wishbone, and I was on this side, and Kyle McClain was right here. I'm 11, he's 10, something like that. And the play is the ball's going to be handed to Kyle. I'm going to lead block, and we've got to get three yards. Ball snapped, good snap, which in Little League, that's a feat in and of itself.

The center handed it to the quarterback. We're already off to a great start. So I take off. He hands the ball to Kyle McClain. We've got to get three yards. Let's fast forward.

Junior year of high school, second round of the playoffs. We had a pretty good team this year. It was the best team we'd had in years at our high school. We were doing pretty well, and we played Carolina Forest, second round of the playoffs. And we were used to really just beating people, and Carolina Forest is beating us. And they were a good team.

They had a tight end on that team. It was a big white boy. He's the reason why I decided, why I went into the next season 20 pounds heavier. Because I tried to tackle him, and it was like tackling a tree. And I was like, I'm going to have more momentum next year. Made that decision after a couple of plays.

It was in the first quarter. I was like, no, I'm gaining weight. This isn't happening anymore. I did that quite successfully for many years. And then I got slower in the momentum thing. It's a math problem.

It starts not working out as well. Anyway, we're down. We had a good offense this year. The defense had fought and fought and fought, and it was 24 to 21, and we had to score. We had one drive. We had about a minute and a half.

And we've got to get down the field. We had not great field position. We're starting on like the 20. And we've got to get all the way down the field, score a touchdown, stay in the playoffs, keep going. So our quarterback, Coco Hillary, drops back and streaming down the sideline is Justin Broadwater.

And this cat was fast. All he did was run fast, catch footballs, score touchdowns, and not talk. That was all he did. Like he did not say a word. Everybody on our team called him mute. Now that may be offensive.

That's just what we called him. He, because he didn't talk. He could. He just chose not to. I hadn't known him since first grade. He did not talk.

And this is what he would do when he would score a touchdown. And he scored a lot of them. He would run into the end zone. I mean, streaming. As soon as he passed the goal line, he'd do like this. He'd turn around.

He'd find the ref, toss him the ball, and walk off the field. Like nothing had happened. Everybody else loses their mind. He was just like, all right, I did. I scored a touchdown. Let me go back over here.

Streaming down the sideline. He's got a cornerback right here on his hip pocket. Coco drops back, throws the ball. I mean, beautiful spiral. Justin's got about a step on this guy. And if he catches it, he's gone.

Quentin Curry's on the other side running down this side. I'm glad Coco threw it to Justin because Quentin Curry could catch the ball in traffic all the time. But as soon as he caught it, he would just fall down. It's like it took all the energy he had to make his hands do what he wanted it to. And his legs just stopped. So he would catch the ball and fall.

So even if he caught it, there's nothing we could do. Justin Broadwater, we got a shot. Ball streaming. I can remember watching it. It's just beautiful. Lights Friday night shining on it.

It's coming down. A few years later, first year of college is our first home game. We're playing Charleston Southern. It is 13 to 14. End of the game. We're driving in.

We've got to get a field goal, which I went to Presbyterian College. We didn't have the best field goal kickers. So really, we needed a touchdown. We needed a touchdown. 13-14. We need a point.

We've got to score a touchdown. We'll win the game. Quarterback drops back. S.J. Worrell is coming across the middle. Matt and I argued about this earlier.

He said it was Chetuan Reeder. I say it was S.J. Worrell. I get to tell the story, so it's S.J. Could have been Chetuan. But anyway, coming across the middle.

Drops back. Throws the ball. Football in the air. S.J. One defender. We've got to shout at this.

It's a good pass, too. It's going to hit him right in the Numbers. Everything in all three of those plays, in those moments, everything in that game hung on that moment. Everything. Win, lose. It's hanging on that moment.

And Paul is going to tell us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Go ahead and grab your Bibles and go there. Paul is going to tell us 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that the gospel, the truth of what Jesus has accomplished in the cross, that everything we hope in and believe in in Jesus hangs on the resurrection. That if Jesus Christ is laid in a tomb and stays there, game over. That's what Paul is going to tell us. So we're going to read a good bit to kind of get to where Paul is making this claim.

So if you're in 1 Corinthians, we're going to spend a good bit of time in 1 Corinthians today. We're actually going to walk all the way to the end of the chapter. It's a long chapter. We are going to jump ahead a little bit. If that stresses you out, I'm apologizing in advance. Take one of these Bibles with you.

It's our gift to you. Read the whole chapter when you get home. I'd love for you to. But today we're going to have to jump a little bit. But we are going to go from the very beginning of the chapter to the end of the chapter as we walk through looking at the resurrection and its implications for us as Christians.

I'm going to pray and then we're going to start reading in verse 1. God, I pray that you would help us to see the seriousness of the resurrection and the beauty that's hidden in it. How it is the truth that makes all the other truths true for us. I pray that today would be worshipful and joyous as we see that you conquered the grave. In Jesus' name. Amen.

1 Corinthians 15. 1 Paul's writing to a church in Corinth. He says, Now I would remind you, brothers, which that word is brothers or brothers and sisters. It's how that word works. I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. So he's saying, I want to remind you of the good news.

That's what gospel means. I want to remind you of the good news, the news I proclaimed to you, and that you believed, and that you focused your life on, and you stand in it. Verse 3. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And that he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter's name before Jesus gave him the name Peter.

Then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. That's a nice way of saying have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I'm the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them. But it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. So Paul starts off by saying, I want to remind you of the gospel, that Jesus Christ died for our sins.

The Bible said he was going to do this. Then he rose from the grave. The Bible said he was going to do this. And then he started showing up and talking to people. It wasn't just that his body disappeared and people said, oh, he rose. His body disappeared, and then it walked over and talked to people.

And a bunch of people saw him. Some of those people are dead. Most of them are alive. That's what Paul says. And then he says, pick up in verse 12. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

So some people apparently were teaching. People don't come back from the dead. There is no resurrection. He says, but if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching, this message we're telling you, our preaching is in vain. And your faith is in vain.

What you've believed is a waste of time. 15. We're even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised, for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. As Paul says, if Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave, what you believe is a waste of time. It's futile. You're still in your sins. What he's saying is that our faith, that our sin has been paid for, that we can stand before God and be made okay is based solely on the resurrection. Jesus Christ had to die for us and he had to pay the penalty.

But if he didn't rise, then he was just the guy who died. Everything hangs on the resurrection being true. Otherwise, we're still in our sin. And what we preach is in vain. It's a waste of time and people should feel sorry for us. It's a Saturday.

I'm in fifth grade wearing my green Colts jersey. I believe I was number 28 at the time. And I was in fifth grade, but I look pretty good. I'll just be real with y'all. I'm lead blocking. Kyle McClain's behind me.

They hand the ball to him. I run into the hole. Somebody comes through here, hits Kyle. He's tackled. And as much guilt and shame and pain as a fifth grader can feel, we felt. It descended on us.

We had lost the Rotary Bowl. Game over. Tears cried. Go home. It's my junior. Ball's in the air.

Cornerback reaches up. Reaches in front of Justin Broadwater's face. Flips the ball down. Game over. Go home. 24-21.

Season over. Seniors, you're done. Most of them never played football again. Tears cried. Head to the locker room. Over.

Freshman year of college. First home game. S.J. Warrell's coming across the middle. There's one defender. Ball's in the air.

It's beautiful. He's right here. He touches it. And he gets hit so hard there was a crack that rattled through the stadium. His feet flew up in the air. The ball flew up in the air.

Another defender caught the ball and took it to the house. 21-13. Game over. Go home. And that's Christianity. Without the resurrection.

Game over. Go home. Tears cried. Feel shame. Feel guilt. You're still in your sin.

Game over. Go home. And this is true. Because of what we preach. Because of what the New Testament says. Some of you who maybe would be willing to be like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. But Jesus, if he didn't rise, we still got all this good stuff. First of all, no. We don't. You say, well, we got, you know, Jesus was a good moral teacher.

No, he wasn't. Because he walked around telling people he was God. And that he was going to die. And that he was going to rise. If he doesn't rise from the grave, he's not a good moral teacher. He's a nut.

Or a charlatan. And then you say, well, we'll never, they added that stuff later. Okay. Do you know the message of the New Testament? The gospel message. The gospels.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The point of them is they're going to tell you that Jesus healed people. They're going to tell you things he taught. But the point is he died and he rose from the grave. And because of that, God's seal is on him. What Jesus said was true.

We should believe in him and sin can be paid for. Do you know what the New Testament letters say? What we believe as Christians? This is the premise of the New Testament letters. You cannot, will not, ever fix yourself. Pay for your sin.

Be good enough. You deserve wrath. You're dead in your trespasses. You deserve for God to destroy you. But Jesus can, does save you.

Pays for your sin, which you could not do. Rises again, conquering sin, death, and hell to give you life. That's why Paul says, if this isn't true, people should feel sorry for us. Do you know how sad this gathering would be if Jesus didn't rise from the grave? Jesus doesn't rise from the grave. Christianity ends.

We're done. If he didn't rise, if you're not a Christian in here, I just want to tell you, this is the thing to investigate. If you're trying to figure out whether you want to believe in Jesus, the resurrection is the thing to investigate. So many people come at Christianity and they're like, I want to know what its stance on this political issue. No. You need to know whether or not Jesus rose from the grave.

If he rose, then talk to him about politics. Because he's alive and he can talk to you. If he didn't rise, have all whatever kind of politics you want. Have whatever kind of moral stances you want. Think of whatever. He didn't rise.

We should be done. If Jesus didn't rise from the grave, get up. Go outside. On the lobby, there's a little coffee thing. It's better now than it used to be. And hit the door.

And don't ever wake up early on a Sunday again. Unless you're going fishing or playing golf or something. Oh, if you have a kid in Kid City, get them first. That's what he says. It's futile. It's a waste.

If Jesus Christ didn't rise from the grave, it's a waste and people should feel sorry for us. Do you know how, just think back to all of our sermons, if you've been here a while. If Jesus didn't rise, do you know what our sermons are? One of our favorite passages is Ephesians chapter 2. And it says that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. That you were captive to the prince of the power of the air.

That you were following him, a son of disobedience and a child of wrath. And then it says, but God, who's rich in mercy. And then it declares the gospel that we've been made alive with Christ. But there wouldn't be a but God there. It would just be, we would open the Bible and say, all right, everyone. You're dead in your trespasses and sin.

You're a child of wrath. You're a slave to Satan. Potluck next week. Bye. We'd sing songs. One of my favorite Christian songs that we sing, worship songs to sing to my son is nothing but the blood.

Without the resurrection, that song is just nothing. It's the title of it. What can wash away my sin? Nothing. Nothing. What can make me whole again?

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing can save my soul. Nothing can make me whole. Onward to hell we go. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. What can make me whole again? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing can save my soul. Nothing can make me whole. Onward to hell we go. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. That's Christianity without the resurrection It's nothing You can still be Jewish You can still be Buddhist You can still be a Muslim Christianity hinges on this one fact Jesus Christ rose from the grave And if he didn't If he didn't We're done Look at verse

20 But in fact Christ has Been raised from the dead The first fruits Of those who have fallen asleep You see the resurrection of Jesus is not reanimation He did not come back to life To later die He rose It's resurrection That he is forever alive now That's what we believe We believe that Jesus Christ Literally Physically Physically Lived on earth That he was God Who'd become a human And that he literally Physically Died And he was buried

And then he literally Physically Rose from the grave And this is what the gospels Attest to That there's Place after place In Acts And in Matthew And Mark And Luke Where Jesus goes around People recognize him They eat with him They touch him This happens over and over In Luke 24 It happens in John 20 In Matthew 28 People grab his feet And John 24 He shows him his scars And his hands And his side

He eats fish Which I don't know If it was just to prove That he had a body Or if he wanted some fish But he ate fish He sits and eats They said that they Ate with him They talked with him They touched him Jesus Christ Risen from the grave Literally and physically He wasn't just a spirit It wasn't just that they saw a vision It wasn't that he came to him From the afterlife It's that he had life again And then he literally Physically rose Ascended into heaven That's what we believe I want to share

As we get started That that's what we believe That we believe That Jesus Christ Literally physically died And that he literally And physically rose From the grave And most of our time today Will be spent on The results of that What that actually does How that truth Makes everything else true But I just want to help us See something That there are things That we have historically And that historians agree to That help make this Seem more compelling So we have the gospel story That's what we believe That Jesus Christ died

And that he rose from the grave But there are actual Historical things That also help this Seem very plausible And I just want to share Some of those with you Because I think it's It's encouraging And helpful To see some of this Every once in a while There's a theologian His name is Gary Habermas And he One of the ways That he talks about this Is he says that there are Historical Like undeniable Historical facts That everybody agrees to That they have A lot of historical data

That points to this And then they have Christians Non-Christians Atheists Agnostics Historians of every Brand and stripe And color Agree These things happened That you can just look at history And we agree this happens And he lists them out The first one is this Jesus died by crucifixion There was a man named Jesus And we know that he died By crucifixion That's historical People believe that Nobody's really arguing that Two Very soon afterwards

His followers Had real experiences That they thought Were actual appearances Of the risen Christ Of risen Jesus So The reason why It's worded that way Historians will look back They don't agree That Jesus rose from the grave Historians aren't making that claim Because that's a They would say That's a faith claim But they'll point and go Okay The people that followed him Really did believe it That's what historians agree on They don't necessarily believe That he rose But they believe

That the people around him Actually believed it They weren't just making this up They actually believed it Third one is this Their lives The people who saw Had these experiences Were transformed as a result Even to the point Of being willing to die Specifically for their faith In the resurrection message So what we can see Historically Is that there are A group of people Who followed Jesus around We know that Jesus died And then Soon after All the people who Followed him around Started saying

He's alive And there was a large Group of people Who said No he's not Shut up And this small group Of people kept saying Yes he is You shut up It's a historical fact The church grew In the face of persecution All of these disciples Of Jesus Were actually martyred They were killed On a regular basis For proclaiming this I want to read a quote We'll leave that up there I want to read a quote From a guy named Chuck Colson

Chuck Colson Was the first guy To go to jail For the Watergate scandal He was called Nixon's hatchet man I don't know why But he sounds intense He was Nixon's hatchet man If you're not familiar With Watergate It's like Deflategate But not as big a deal Watergate was the Scandal that Nixon had Where they broke in And Into the Watergate hotel And If you've seen the movie Forrest Gump It's featured in there But they break into The Watergate hotel

Forrest Gump Tails on them And They break into The Watergate hotel And they bug it And it's the Democratic National Convention And they were just Trying to listen in And the bigger issue Is that they then Tried to cover it up They tried to hide this lie It's what eventually Led to Nixon's Resignation From the presidency Chuck Colson Was one of the guys In on that And he goes to jail And in the process Of being indicted

And going through court And all that stuff He becomes a Christian Eventually starts A prison ministry Which I think is cool That Jesus worked in that But here's what he says He says I know the resurrection Is a fact And Watergate Proved it to me How? Because twelve men Testified that they Had seen Jesus Raised from the dead Then they proclaimed That truth For forty Years Never once Denying it

Everyone was beaten Tortured Stoned And put in prison They would have not Endured that If it weren't true Watergate Embroiled twelve Of the most powerful Men in the world And they couldn't Keep alive for three weeks You're telling me That the twelve apostles Could keep alive For forty years Absolutely impossible So this was a man Who's caught up In Watergate And he says We couldn't keep it together For three weeks

And we were powerful He says This is a bunch of fishermen He said I believe the resurrection Happened I believe that they Believed it Because every single one Of them faced death For it And never Said anything else And the boldness That comes from that Is that What we find When we read The scriptures Is that we have Eyewitness testimony Telling us That Jesus Christ Rose from the grave

And every single person Who penned it Who wrote that down Who proclaimed it Believed it When Paul says I saw Jesus And he changed my life He believed it When the disciples Said it They believed it The fourth one That this He gives Is that These things Were taught Very early Soon after The crucifixion That's actually First Corinthians Three through seven

What we just read Where it says I delivered to you As of first importance And then he says That Christ died For our sins In accordance with The scriptures That he was buried That he was raised On the third day In accordance with The scriptures All the way through seven Where it says He appeared to James And then to all the apostles That actually When people who Are really smart Study this And study language They say

That's actually a creed Paul's just quoting that And that's one of the Earliest things That Christians Memorized and said To each other Jesus Christ Died for our sins Rose from the grave He appeared to these people So they began Passing that message around And memorizing that Because that's what They believed Very early on Five James Jesus' unbelieving brother Became a Christian Due to his own experience That he thought Was the resurrected Christ

So again Historians aren't going to Agree that it was They're just going to say We know historically That there was a guy Named James Who was Jesus' brother And he came out And said Jesus is God Now if you have siblings You explain to me How hard it would be For you to convince them You were God Six The Christian persecutor Paul Formerly Saul of Tarsus Also became a believer After a similar experience What we're faced with In the scriptures

Is a bunch of eyewitness accounts Saying I believe that Jesus Christ Rose from the grave And then everything In Christianity Hangs on that If he didn't rise We've got nothing But if he did We get everything That's how Christianity works Jesus Christ Rose from the grave Everything That has been Proclaimed in the gospel Is true So we're going to Take a little bit of time As we walk through First Corinthians To see four results

Of the resurrection Four ways That this Four Truths That this makes true That because of the resurrection This is now true And we can Bank on it And we can rest in it And we can hope in it Because it is now true for us Through the gospel Pick back up in verse 20 But in fact Christ has been Raised from the dead The first fruits Of those Who have fallen asleep For as by a man Came death By a man

Has come all Also the resurrection Of the dead For as in Adam All die So also In Christ Shall all Be made alive So what he's saying Is That our first father Adam sinned And death Entered the world So that in Adam Everybody dies Because of Adam We all die But in Christ All are made alive And because Jesus Rose from the grave He forever lives

And is forever able To offer his life To those who would Believe in him This is why Paul In Galatians 2 20 says I've been crucified With Christ It's no longer I who live But Christ Who lives In me And the life I now live In the flesh I live by the faith In the son of God Who loved me And gave himself For me You see Because Jesus Christ

Rose from the grave He's able to give you His life He's able to live In you Because he's not dead He's risen He's alive And so he's able To give you his life And what that means For us as Christians Because we declare Clearly You're not good enough You're not smart enough You're not going to do this You mess this up You're going to fail You are sinful And that would be Really depressing But we follow that up with But Jesus

Accomplished this For you And as you place Your faith in him Will accomplish it In you One of the reasons Our church expects So much Of each other When it comes to repentance When it comes to confession When it comes to living When it comes to generosity Is because we believe That Jesus is at work In you Our goal is not to ask you To accomplish that On your own Our goal Is to ask each other To yield to Jesus As he works

In you And we expect A whole lot Out of Jesus And we believe That he's alive In you Leading you away From sin And towards holiness But the promise Of Jesus being alive Means that you can Actually say no To sin It means that you can Actually go beyond Your own natural ability To love And to serve And to sacrifice Because it's Jesus Animating you It's Jesus

At work in you And we believe That because Jesus Is at work in you He's the one Who carries You to completion That he's going To make you Holy And blameless And above reproach Let's keep reading Pick up in verse 23 Verse 23 But each In his own order Christ The firstfruits Then at his coming Those who belong To Christ Then comes the end When he

That's Jesus Delivers the kingdom To God the Father After destroying Every rule And every authority And power For he must reign Until he puts All his enemies Under his feet The last enemy To be destroyed Is death I've said this before If you can kill death You win That's the last enemy To be destroyed Is that Jesus Destroys death That through the power Of his resurrection He forever reigns

Over death So that death No longer has Any claim Any power Anything But one of the other Truths that becomes True because of the Resurrection Is that justice Will eventually reign That Jesus will Eventually subject All authorities And all powers Under himself And this gives us Great hope And this hope Is grounded In the resurrection This gives us Great hope

As Christians That one day Jesus will judge He will be fair He will hand out Justice I read a quote From a guy Who had seen A lot of pain And death And destruction In Croatia During some of their wars And he said That when people argue That God isn't just He's not He's not going to Punish anyone He's just going to love He said The only people Who make that argument

Are the people Who have never seen Someone ride through A village Murder Rape And burn things down He said Because The only thing That keeps me From having to Pick up the sword Is knowing that Jesus Christ Picks up the sword The only way I'm actually able To forgive And offer grace Is to know that Jesus forgave And offered me grace And he promises

That one day Justice will be served That either He'll pay for it On the cross Or they'll pay For their sin But that justice Will be served Otherwise we get trapped In having to Seek revenge And retribution He says It's actually the justice Of God That gives us freedom And that justice Of God Is hanging on The resurrection I have a Two year old So I've been catching up

On all my Disney movies One of the ones I like Is Robin Hood It's got a fox And he's Robin Hood And John Prince John And this is based Off of historical stuff I don't know how True Robin Hood stuff is I know he wasn't a fox Prince John is a lion But he doesn't have a mane He sucks his thumb And he has to Poke his ears out Because he's wearing His brother's crown He has to like Poke his ears out So the crown Won't fall down

Over his head And he's Committing massive amounts Of injustice He's He's just Ruling with an iron fist And he's ruling poorly And this crown That doesn't quite fit Is a really good picture Of how poorly he rules And then at the end Of the movie King Richard The Lionheart Shows back up And he's a lion With a legit mane And the crown Fits perfectly And there's something About Jesus One day returning

Because he's resurrected One day returning To set up justice That helps us Clearly see How every authority And every government And every system Of power Has a crown That doesn't quite fit And they have to do Everything they can To try to keep it On top of their head And as injustice Is poured out On us on earth We can hold on With hope That one day Justice will roll down From the mountains And that the king

Will again ascend To the throne And he will rule Everything Because his crown Fits perfectly And that's banking On the resurrection That Jesus rose And one day Will return Let's move to Verse 45 We're jumping ahead A little bit Paul begins to talk About how the resurrection Of the dead works I'm sorry Let's move to Verse 42 I said too far He begins to talk About how the resurrection

Of the dead works And how our bodies Are raised And what that looks like And one of the Examples he gives Is that If we took a bunch Of seeds That went to Different plants And made you guess If you didn't know Much about Botany Plant science If that's what Botany means And you had to guess What the seed Would look like After you buried it His point His argument

Is most of the seeds Look the same But once they start Growing They look very different And they do Very different things And he says That's kind of the way Our resurrection Bodies are work That we all look The same right now But eventually We have to be buried We have to be sown That's the word He's going to use That we have to be buried That that seed Has to die In order for the The real thing to come And so I just want to

Explain kind of how He's saying this Because we got to We got to move We're in verse 42 So it is With the resurrection Of the dead What is sown Is perishable So he's talking About our bodies They fade They perish What is raised Is imperishable It is sown In dishonor It's raised in glory It's sown In weakness It's raised in power It's sown A natural body

It's raised A spiritual body If there is A natural body There is also A spiritual body To what Paul says Is that because Of the resurrection Of Jesus Our resurrection Is secured And this Is A beautiful hope That we have In Christ Because he says Our bodies They're going to be Laid down in weakness They're going to be Laid down in dishonor They're going to perish

They're going to give out They're going to fail They're going to fall short That when Jesus Was walking around on earth And he was healing The blind And he was healing The sick And he was He was letting Paralytics walk again He was accomplishing In them Something that was Going to ultimately Make him have to Go to the cross That he was Pre-working Some of the Resurrection Some of the Paying for sin

That he was Eventually going to do On the cross That Jesus Christ Re-gives us a life And that this hope For us Is in the resurrection That all weakness And sickness And disease And fear And depression And mental illness And persistent sin All those things That make it hard To wake up in the morning Or that follow us Around like a cloud For those of you Who struggle with Depression And someone will ask you

How are you doing And you answer Okay I think And the reason is You feel okay But you've learned Not to trust yourself Because you You don't know If you feel okay Because you're actually okay Or because you've just So untethered yourself From everything You just don't care And you just don't love anymore Those of you Who struggle with Mental illness Can't trust your brain Can't trust yourself Can't be alone With yourself

Have to have people That you're ready to call At a moment's notice When things turn Really dark for you For every single person Who you know Or if it's you That sat in a room And didn't want to Have the sunlight come in And didn't want to Talk to a human And wanted to sleep For 12 hours a day 15 hours a day Didn't want to do Any of the things That would lead to joy And health and life The promise of the resurrection Is that what's sown In weakness Will be raised in power

What's perishable And failing Will become imperishable For every single one of us Who've watched A loved one Slowly fade They get smaller Every time we see Their mind Their mind doesn't Quite work Like it used to Maybe they've begun To have erratic emotions Or they're lashing out Or they're saying things That they never would have said Every single one of us That has to watch A loved one Battle And battle And battle

Cancer Just to lose The hope The hope found In the resurrection Is that what's weak Rises in power And what's perishable Rises imperishable And what's sown In dishonor Rises in glory For every single one of us Who've received a phone call And from that moment on Life changed You have your life Pre phone call And you have your life Post phone call The promise for Christians Is that when we gather At a funeral To mourn

A saint Someone who's Placed their faith In Jesus That we gather As a group of people Who are heartbroken And who hurt Because of the loved one We've lost But we don't gather Without hope Because we have a king Who once had a group Of friends Gather around the tomb Heartbroken And hurting And then he came Walking out And the hope for us Because of that risen king Is that we will rise Our resurrection

Is secure And that all fear And guilt And shame And sin That we can't seem To beat That you've fought For your entire life That you've begged God To release you from That you've asked And pleaded And it's come to the point Where you've begun to think This is going to be With me Forever Every single person Who has a sin battle That is good for a little while And then comes Rearing its ugly head

The promise is That you're weak And you're dishonorable And you're perishable But Jesus Christ Rose from the grave And there will one day Be power An imperishable body And glory Because our God Didn't stay dead The resurrection of Jesus Gives us hope In a glorious Future resurrection That we can hold tightly to In the midst of everything We face now Verse 53 For this perishable body Must put on the imperishable And this mortal body Must put on the

On immortality When the perishable Puts on the imperishable And the mortal Puts on immortality Then shall come to pass The saying that is written He's quoting Isaiah Death is swallowed up In victory Oh death Where is your victory Oh death Where is your sting The sting Of death Is sin And the power Of sin Is the law But thanks be to God Who gives us the victory Through our Lord Jesus Christ

All right I want to explain Verse 56 for us quickly The sting of death Is sin And the power Of sin Is the law So he says The sting of death Is sin And the power Of sin Is the law Okay so the law Is the right rules That God gives That he speaks Into the world And says this is how You ought to live Once those rules Came in You became

Excessively Sinful I'll give you an example Of this My son Gets spanked On a regular basis At my house Because my house Has rules Don't touch that Put that down No You can't have Four popsicles When he goes to His grandmother's house And I say How did he do She says He was great What she means is I never said no There is no power

Of the law At her house Not at least The way it is At my house The power Of the law The power Of sin Is the law What makes Your sin Evident And present And clear Is the law Is the Your sin Is the law So I look at my son And say Don't do that Suddenly there is A law

That he can now Show Clearly and evidently How sinful he is As he looks at me Judges the distance Between us And decides I can do it About three times Before he gets here That was him At about nine months On an outlet Don't touch that Looked at me But the law Showed his sinfulness So what Paul's saying Is that the power of sin Is in the law That all of the things That God said This is how you ought to live

They just show us How much sin Is at work In us For people who think People aren't that sinful It's because they've never Really tried Try to be really gracious And generous And caring And kind And considerate And loving Try that for a really long time Try to be moral For a long time What you'll get Is guilt and shame Or you'll convince yourself There is no God Because you'll never Live up to that And then he says

The sting of death Is sin Death came into the world Because of sin And it's painful Because of sin Death has a sting to it Because we die In our sin That we stand before God In our sin But he says The sting of death Is sin And the power of sin Is the law But thanks be to God Who gives us The victory Through our Lord Jesus Christ If you are in Jesus The law has no claim on you Sin has been paid

And there will be no sting In death Where is your victory? Death Where is your sting? It does not exist For the Christian Because the moment You take your last breath You take your next first one Into eternity When you stand before a king Made holy And blameless And righteous Because Jesus Christ Died for your sin And rose To give you his life And we follow after him He's the firstborn Among the dead And we rise To be resurrected

To glory As all of those Who follow after him As brothers and sisters Made righteous Through Jesus There is no sting In death For a Christian There is no victory Of death Death Will claim us Once And when we go Through death We can look back At it and say Jesus is coming I've read about Your end You see You killed him once And he rose forever

And one day He's calling your number Death And you'll never Claim anyone again Because sin No longer has power Because Jesus Upheld the law For me But if Jesus Didn't rise We've got nothing If Jesus Christ Just died He does not Conquer death He does not Fulfill the law He does not Pay for our sin Death has a sting Sin claims us And the law

Accuses us But we're told That we have one Who stands before The throne of God And who has Disarmed the enemy That sin no longer Has a claim That the law Can no longer Accus us And that when we die We're ushered Into glory Where we're met By a God Who loves us Because he loves us In Jesus Jesus' resurrection life Is alive in you Now Justice will be served

You have the hope Of a future resurrection And victory Is already yours In Christ Those are true If you have placed Your faith In Jesus They're true What do we do With that How does Paul Tell us to respond Matt and Bianca Are going to come up here As we kind of Finish this out This morning Here's what Paul says Is the response For us In Christ Who have

Believed on him For salvation Not just Know that this Happened But actually Believe That he Paid the penalty Of our sin We've trusted in him We've placed our faith In him He says all of this About the resurrection He says all of this About the victory That we have in Christ And then in verse 58 He says Therefore Which just means Because all of this Is true

Therefore my beloved Brothers Be Steadfast Immovable Always Abounding In the work Of the Lord Knowing that In the Lord Your labor Is not In vain Paul's conclusion To this Is don't Go anywhere Don't Go anywhere Be Steadfast Those of you Who are

Tired Those of you Who are Doubting Your hope Is in The resurrection Of Jesus Don't shift To something else Those of you Who have begun To ask the question Am I good enough You've already Moved That was never Your hope To be good enough To be holy enough To be To do enough Your hope Is in

The resurrection Of Jesus Stay There Be steadfast Immovable And then he says Keep working Every bit Of every ounce Of sweat And blood And tears And sacrifice Every penny Spent Because there's A resurrection Because there's A future home Because this life Isn't all we get It's worth it Don't stop

Don't take Your boots Off Don't clock Out Keep working Don't go Anywhere Keep working Let's pray Father I pray That the Reality And the power Of the resurrection Would sink So deeply Into our soul To be the Foundation for Everything for Us And I pray The Lord

That through Your spirit Alive in Us That we Would keep Working That we Would be Steadfast Immovable And always Abounding In your work In your name Amen It's It's It's It's It's It's It I'm It's

It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's Ill It's It's It's

That through Your spirit Alive in Us That we Would keep Working That we Would be Steadfast Immovable And always Abounding In your work In your name Amen It's It's It's It's It's It's It I'm It's

It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's Ill It's It's It's

Mill City 6/18/17 Mill City 6/18/17

Atonement

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. This morning we're going to be talking about sin. Happy Father's Day. We are, though.

We're in our second week of our Glory Series, and we're talking about how big and glorious and magnificent and beautiful and holy Jesus is. And last week we specifically spent some time looking at that He is the image of the invisible God, that He's the radiance of God's glory, and that He exists over and above all of creation, from the smallest thing to the greatest thing, and that He is most glorious and most worthy of worship. And today we're going to spend some time talking about the atonement. We're going to spend a little time talking about this concept of atonement whereby God takes sinful humans and develops a system, makes a plan to make them okay with Himself, to bridge the gap between His holiness and our sins.

So in a minute we're going to turn to Leviticus. I want us to start here, though, and we'll have this on the screen. It's Hebrews 1, verse 3, and in a second that's going to get brighter. We're having some issues with the projector today. So it says, He is the radiance of the glory of God.

It's talking about Jesus. That Jesus is the glory of the glory. He's the beauty of God's glory. He's the light and the heat from it. He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. That if we want to know what God is like, we look to Jesus.

And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. So if you only think of Jesus as a Galilean peasant who holds sheep and cries and is just having conversations with the weak and the poor, He does these things. I don't know if He holds sheep. I'm just assuming maybe at some point He did. He does in all the pictures you see in Sunday school. But He does weep.

He does bend to those who are weak and poor and hungry and needy. And He does spend time. But if that's your only picture of Him, your picture of Jesus is underwhelming. It is petite. It's cute compared to the true magnificent Christ that we meet in Scripture who upholds the universe by the word of His power. Now I know that the Bible says that and I understand what the words mean, but I actually have no clue how that works.

But it means that Jesus rules and reigns over everything. And then it says this, After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So what it's saying is that after Jesus Christ died for sin, that's what He did on the cross, that's what people know about Jesus. If you don't know much about Jesus, people will say, well, He died for our sins. People who don't even believe that will say that. What did Jesus do?

He died for our sins. So what we're going to talk about today is what does that mean? That Jesus Christ had to make purification for sin. First, we see from that three words, purification for sins, we see that sin exists and it needs to be cleaned up. It needs to be taken care of and that Jesus does that. That's what atonement is, is that there is sin.

Objectively, it exists. It has marred. It has destroyed. It has sullied. It has dirtied. And Jesus purifies.

So first, very simply, what is sin? In a simple definition, sin is the rejection of God's good reign in the world. It is our action, attitude, and nature that intentionally and unintentionally rebels against God and His moral law in the world. That God is the creator, that He oversees the universe, and that we rebel against His law, His rule, His reign, His system. That we break His laws. Paul says this in Romans.

He says that the Jewish people who were given the law of God will be judged based off of the law they were given. And then he says in the non-Jewish people, that their conscience actually bears witness and that they show through their actions that what the law requires is written on their hearts. That they actually have a conscience imprinted in them. And this is why many of the cultures that have grown up in society, they have very similar systems for what right is and what wrong is. That stealing is wrong. That murder is wrong.

There's this kind of internal policing of... This is why when you do some sort of an action, you feel it. You feel bad. You feel wrong. That's what he's saying, is that those who were given the law will be judged by the law. And those who weren't given the law, the non-Jewish peoples, show that it's written into them.

But it's not just a failure. Sin is not just a failure to live up to God's moral code. It's also primarily, it begins with a failure to relate to God properly, to appreciate who he is, to worship him, to love him, to bend to his reign, to submit to his rule. It's this... Paul says in the beginning of Romans that all of our sins starts with us loving something, worshiping something more than God. That once God leaves his rightful place, as the most...

That's what we spent time talking about last week, that Jesus is the most worthy of our devotion and our love. But once God gets moved and you put something else there, romance, finances, power, prestige, anything you get stuck up there suddenly begins to bend us. We begin to love it too much and it leads us into sin so that at first, sin is not just a breaking of rules, but it's at first worshiping and loving something other than God that leads to us rejecting his rules and running from him. Augustine says that sin is disordered love. Augustine's an African church leader in the early church. He says it's a disordered love that we love something too much.

We love ourselves too much. We love our families too much. We love something other than God. It's moved from its rightful place. And you can see this in simple things. So if you imagine a home where it's Father's Day, so we'll use this for an example.

You imagine a home where there's a father, a mother, some children and there's supposed to be an amount of love that goes towards this. The husband's supposed to love his wife and his children in a way that makes the rest of everything else fall into place. But if he begins to love work more, suddenly his love is greater for his job or greater for his title or if his love is greater for money or even just his own personal satisfaction and rest, suddenly everything gets out of order. And that's the system that we have in the world where we've begun to love things more than God and the whole system has begun to break down.

Paul says in Romans 3, he says, None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one. The biblical stance on sin is that it is bad and you are a sinner. That's where we're starting this morning. I'm going to pray and we're going to jump into in just a second, and we're going to be going to talk about what sin actually does and how it's bad. But before we do that, we have to realize that naturally we don't want to think of ourselves as sinful.

You give yourself the benefit of the doubt. You judge other people by their actions, but you judge yourself by your intentions. It's one of the things like my wife will say, you know, you really hurt my feelings. And my response is, well, I didn't mean to. And I feel like that's a perfectly good response. That was not my intention.

And maybe that's helpful. I wasn't malicious, but I still caused harm. I still broke our relationship down. It's like, well, that wasn't what I was going for. And that's why people, you know, when someone, you tell somebody they did something wrong and they, well, I'm sorry that it offended you. And you immediately want to be like, time out.

That's not an apology. What you just like, like it's really looking at someone and going, well, I'm sorry that you're too sensitive to handle being around me. We don't want to think of ourselves as sinful, but we are. And we need God's help for us to see ourselves as he sees us and for us to see him as we ought. And so let's take just a second and pray for ourselves. Wherever you are, just ask God to help you see that this morning as we look into this.

God, I pray that you would give us a glimpse into our sin, into what it does to us and to others, as you'd help us to see your holiness and that we would leave here today with a true appreciation for what you've accomplished through the cross on our behalf. In Jesus' name, amen. I have three pictures, three reasons, three truths I want to talk about sin to help us see what it does and how the Bible talks about it. One of the ways the Bible talks about sin is that it pollutes or it defiles, that a whole land can be polluted, can be defiled by sin. So first thing is that our sin destroys God's good world.

Before we can get into talking about the system that God has for taking care of sin, we've got to understand a little bit more about sin. So our sin destroys God's good world. I had a friend of mine that was a, she was a student youth group leader and she was a good cook and one of her students is actually here today and I just ran into her and now I'm going to have to really make sure this story is told true and accurately because it's based off of how I remember her telling it to me. But she made brownies for her entire like student group and so she was a good cook. She made brownies. Everybody was just chowing down on these brownies while they were hanging out before they were going to kind of do their study time and then she kind of called everybody up and she starts teaching from the Bible and she says, okay, sin pollutes, it defiles, it creeps in and it works its way into everything and she says, and that's what sin does in us and some of us like to minimize and act like just a little bit of sin is okay and she goes, in order to help us see this, I have a confession.

As I was making those brownies, using my same recipe as normal, I just added one ingredient. I went out of my backyard where my dog lives and I got a small helping sample really, just a little bit of dog poop and I mixed it in with the brownies. Now immediately, they did not take it well. close to anarchy very quickly with people like hyperventilating and very frustrated and some of you are thinking, there's no way that anybody would ever do this. I will tell you that this certain lady has lived a life in such a way that this is plausible and she said, it was just a little bit, it was just a little bit, it was hardly any at all, really, it was just a tiny little bit and people are like, you made us eat poop brownies and she's like, no, they're not poop brownies, they're brownies with a little bit of poop.

It's completely different and so the question, when it comes to sin, when it comes to brownies, the vouchers will ask about brownies, what's the minimum acceptable amount of poop? What's the maximum acceptable amount maybe? What's the range here when it comes to your brownies and poop? And the answer is zero poop. None. None whatsoever.

I don't care if it was really a sprinkle. It's like, why would you add that to brownies? Absolutely not. And this is what God says that sin does, that it immediately defiles, that it works its way into everything because if you told me I have brownies that are 98% brownies and 2% poop, I would say those are poop brownies. Those are not, they are no longer edible. This is not a good brownie batter system recipe.

Throw it away. This is terrible. That's what God says sin does. That it works its way into the world that a little bit of it begins to destroy everything. I have another picture of this. One of our pastors became a pastor.

We ordained him in January of this year. He has a gluten allergy, celiac disease. It's kind of aggressive in the way he has. I know some of y'all have gluten issues. He's got significant gluten issues. And I don't know much about gluten.

I don't know the science behind it. From what I understand, it's the thing that makes all food taste good. And so like when I eat a biscuit, all the biscuits I've eaten over my lifetime are slowly working together to try to kill me. If he eats a biscuit, it goes immediately and tries to kill him. That one biscuit just right then tries to kill him. And so we were eating a meal.

He had some soup. I was there. Our other pastor, Matt Freeman, was there. And Matt Freeman, because no one ever really taught him basic social norms, does what he will do from time to time, which is while you're eating with him, he will just eat some of your food. And so Matt's sitting there talking to Raz. Raz is eating his soup and Matt takes a saltine cracker and just dips it in Raz's soup, scrapes some up, and just starts eating.

And Raz looks appalled as any normal human should. But then over and above was just staring at Matt like, what on earth? And I was like, what? I'm just like, I didn't even pick up on the gluten thing. I was just like, you ate his food, dude, stop. Like, but Raz goes, I can't eat my soup now because you defiled it with gluten.

It was like, it wasn't just breaking social norms. It was attempted murder. And sin does that. It enters in. This is what God tells us about sin and creation. It enters in and it begins to erode.

It begins to corrode. It begins to destroy everything. Let me give you an example. In real life, you'll have someone talking to you and they'll tell you something. They'll tell you a story about their life or something they did or they'll tell you some sort of an event and there's this moment in you where you go, mmm, nah. You just have this, I don't think that's true.

Or someone maybe comes and they start complimenting you and they start saying nice things and there's this moment in your soul where you go, mmm, this is starting to feel a little bit like you're trying to trick me. You have nothing really to base this off of in this conversation other than the fact that you know lies exist. You've been told lies before and you've told lies before. You've been manipulated before and you've manipulated before and so what happens is this relationship is already being torn apart by things that have happened in other situations. It's quite possible that that is the exact truth.

When people tell me things, my natural reaction is, no, okay, probably not. And maybe I'm way too pessimistic. People complain to me that I am. But it's because sin has worked its way into relationships before I even meet somebody. my child has never been abducted. But when we go to a playground, we are less free because other children that we do not know and have no relationship to whatsoever have been.

And that instance that had nothing to do with us where nothing was taken from me has worked its way into my life so that it is now breaking down how life should look for us. that's why we have to take our shoes off when we go to an airport. It's because sin in other areas has begun to work its way in and this is what sin does. You've been manipulated so you treat everyone like they may do that. It begins to work its way into the world. Our sin destroys God's good world. And the issue in the Bible is that how is God going to get rid of sin without getting rid of us?

Because it's in us. For lack of a better example we're all poop brownies. It's infected us and God has to get sin out without destroying us if he's going to keep us. Secondly in our sin we have joined God's enemy. The story of the Bible is that God has an enemy in Satan who is an angelic being who led a rebellion and that in the Garden of Eden he continued that rebellion as he recruited humanity to join his side and to actively reject God's good rule and reign. And when we sin it is not a benign action but it is the willful rebellion of God's creation against him.

And in our sin we have joined the enemy in the same way that someone who grows up in our nation can join ISIS carry out and carry out an attack claim allegiance to ISIS and ISIS will step in and say yes they were on our team. That is us in our sin when we reject God we join the cause of the enemy to sow dissension and pain in the world. And this happens through our selfishness this happens through our racism this happens through our lies that we tell this happens in every way possible that we choose to sin we actively join God's enemy. Thirdly God is eternal in size glory worth and majesty he is eternal in size glory worth and majesty so that read earlier that he rules the world holds it together by his word of his power and that he sat down at the right hand of majesty that God is infinitely glorious and that all of our sin is first and foremost against him.

This is what David says after he commits adultery and murder he begins praying to God by saying I've sinned only against you because that's who our sin is first and foremost against. So we know that our actions carry consequences of greater weight depending on the object that we carry out our actions against. It sounds complicated it's not. If I take a sheet of white paper ball it up and throw it away I should not have done that. I just wasted paper. But if you had just drawn a picture on it or my son had just brought it to me from Kid City with a little picture on it and I'd balled it up in front of him and threw it away that's worse because something went into it.

That's worse because something went into it. If I waited until you got done taking your SAT and then snuck over and grabbed your Scantron and tore that up and threw it away you should choke me you just wasted three hours of a Saturday working your hardest to guess what words meant if I tore up the Mona Lisa and threw it away now it's the object that our sin

Is against that makes the greater weight and so when we look at an eternal and glorious and holy and majestic God and actively sin against him and then say it's not that big a deal what we're really saying is you aren't that big you are not that glorious you are not that beautiful you need to calm down

See one of the major issues we have as humans is that we do not think our sin is that big of a deal and is because we do not think our God is that big of a deal we exist at his will we're here because he allows us to be and the truth is often as humans we dislike that God

Expects anything from us we find God to be an imposition that he would hold us accountable that he would care about our sin that he would eventually judge us seems unfair frustrating and as if he should really just leave us alone there's a quote from Jonathan Edwards who's a pastor in the 1700s in America I'm going to read this it says in this world

God puts forth his authority to command them them being humans the rest of the time he's talking about humanity and to require subjection to him meaning that God says he's in charge and humans should subject themselves to him in his commands he's very positive strictly requiring of them the performance of such and such duties and positively forbidding

Such and such things that are contrary to their duty all he's saying is that God says do this don't do this this is how you ought to relate to me but they have no regard for these commands God continues commanding and they continue rebelling they make nothing of God's authority God threatens but they despise his threatening

They make nothing of dishonoring God they care not how much their behavior is to the dishonor of God he offers them mercy if they will repent and return they despise his mercy as well as his wrath he calls but they refuse thus they are continually plunging themselves deeper and deeper in debt

And at the same time imagine they shall escape the payment of the debt and design entirely to rob God of his due but God has undertaken to right himself he will reckon with them he has undertaken to see that the debts due to him are paid all their sins are written

In his book not one of them is forgotten and everyone must be paid see God is the glorious eternal king and him requiring anything of me is an imposition it's an annoyance it's an annoyance maybe at best and at times it's ludicrous and it seems as if he's out of line so we as humans sin

And make a little of our sin and in so doing trample on the honor of God and make a little of him and act as if he should not care or hold us accountable one of the beautiful things about the state of South Carolina is that we live in an at will state meaning you work at the will of your employer I say this is

Beautiful because my dad runs companies he is an employer and this means this if he has an employee who shows up late talking on his cell phone listening to his headphones doing one in one a year and my dad tries to tell him hey you need to get to work you're late and he looks at my dad and goes

And goes right back to talking on his phone and then when he gets off my dad's like hey you can't show up late you start explaining to him the duties of his job and that person who's a 15 year old boy looks at him and says I don't understand why you're getting all up in my face you need to calm down my dad can look at him and say

There's the door and it brings joy to my soul when it happens and here's why if if a my dad as a boss keeps him there and does not try to corral that does not try to change that he makes the rest of our work environment terrible you ever worked in a place where the boss did not oversee his employees so that anyone

Who showed up late and did whatever they wanted to like who does that it tears everything apart and I would be watching and going who on earth are you to be a 15 year old and talking to someone who's older than you and your boss and of course he started this company he can do whatever he wants to with it but we will stand and look in the face of God and say it's a little bit ridiculous for you to care

About my sin and I think you've stepped out of line and if there is a God this is the type of God I will accept well there is a God and you have to accept the one you got who is glorious and holy and is just and will not let sin be unaccounted for because it destroys his good world

That he created out of his own goodness and his own love and his own joy that he invited us into and we exist at his will the reason you are still inhaling and exhaling oxygen is because he is allowing it C.S. Lewis in his essay God in the dock dock being where a guilty person would stand or the accused would stand

So we might would say God on the witness stand the ancient man approached God or even the gods as the accused person approaches his judge for the modern man the roles are quite reversed he is the judge God is in the dock God is on the witness stand he is quite a kindly judge if God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war poverty

Disease he is ready to listen to it the trial may even end in God's acquittal but the important thing is that man is on that the man is on the bench and God is in the dock that we approach this glorious holy God as if he has some explaining to do he owes us nothing why are you allowed to swat a mosquito

That bites you why am I allowed to rid my backyard of fire ants who destroy my son's ability to play back there freely and how on earth do I think that the God that created me owes me something we have a problem God is just and sin must be punished and God doesn't owe us anything but I have really good news

The Bible also clearly and repeatedly says that God is loving and merciful and faithful and gracious in Exodus chapter 34 God shows up and he begins to declare who he is and what he's like and this is what he says he says the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him

There him as Moses and he proclaimed the name of the Lord the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord a God merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will

By no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation God says he will by no means clear the guilty let me explain to you something about a good judge a good judge does not let the guilty walk someone in your family had been harmed and you went to trial and the person

Stood up and said yes I'm guilty yes you have proof that I'm guilty but I just want to let you know I'm really sorry and it'll never happen again and the judge went good enough for me said they're sorry if someone stole your car they found it and they said you know what now that you found me with it I'm willing

To return it the judge said sounds good we have a system where it's like no you have to make restitution you stole something but it didn't just it wasn't just the car that went missing it's the action that you took and there has to be restitution a good judge does not let the guilty walk free and God declares himself a good judge God is just

When he defends his good creation against what is polluting and destroying it he is just when he executes vengeance on his sworn enemies and he is just when he defends his holiness and his majesty against those who trample on it with utter contempt for the God that created them but keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression

And sin God doesn't have to do that but he chooses to and he comes go to Leviticus chapter 1 Leviticus is in the law it's going to be on page 40 something 46 47 47 if you have a white bible it's going to be early on if your bible some other brand different Numbers God comes

God comes to Israel and he says I'm going to make a way for this to happen I'm going to make a way for me to forgive sin because when you've sinned you've incurred debt that in God's economy there's actually debt that is incurred through sin he says I'm going to

Make a way for this to be paid for it says the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting saying speak to the people of Israel and say to them when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock if his offering is a burnt offering

From the herd he shall offer a male without blemish a burnt offering was the one that atoned for sin a male without blemish he shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement

For him this means that this animal is going to pay for his sin it's going to make him right with God and if you're unfamiliar with this I hope you have not gotten attached to this animal verse 5 then he shall kill the bull before the Lord and Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent

Of meeting they would take the blood of the animals that they had sacrificed and they would splash it against objects and this was making purification that they would take the life out of another animal and they would use that life to atone for sin and to make purification and this was the sacrificial system that God set up now we don't really have a category for this

But God says you have a debt that has been incurred by your sin and in his justice and his mercy he makes a system where your debt can be paid now we don't understand that someone else could pay the penalty for something you did so that if I commit a crime my wife can't go to jail for me but we do have a system where if I owe a debt anyone can pay it that that makes restitution and God somewhere in the blending of this says that I'm going to

Set up a system because I am merciful he does not have to do this but because I am merciful and good I'm going to set up a system that allows you to pay for your sin to atone for your sin a few observations your sin deserves death the penalty for your sin was death and they had to redo this over and over and over again you'd have to walk out to your herd you'd have to find a male that was without blemish means it was worth something it was good it should keep breeding

It does not deserve to die you would have to then bring it with you walking with what was going to have to pay for your sin you'd bring it to the priest you would lay your hands on its head transferring your sin your action your decision your willful rebellion against God to this animal and then in front of you it would be killed and it would be a bloody mess and they would take some of the blood and they would sprinkle it to purify

For the sin that had caused the stains something had to die for you to go free but this is God in Exodus chapter 34 this is him accomplishing this because this this little phrase in Exodus doesn't make a whole lot of sense forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty so you're saying a whole second iniquity transgression and sin make you guilty

So how does he forgive that and not clear the guilty and this is where he does both he forgives it by giving you a way to not be guilty anymore by allowing you to transfer your guilt to something else allowing you to take your guilt place it on something that's why they would lay their hands on this animal place it on something and have it die for you every year this can be found in Leviticus 16 we're not going to spend any time there this morning but you can read through it

Every year they would have the day of atonement where they would do this for the entire nation they would get two goats they would bring them the high priest would lay his hands on one to lay all the sin of the nation on it and it would die for the sins of the nation and the high priest would lay his hands on another one to lay all the sins of the nation on it and it would be carried off to take the sin away

Because God's wrath had to be paid for and sin had to be taken away and then the high priest with the blood would purify everything in the temple that this was a ritual that they had to do day after day year after year because they kept piling up sin before God and they kept needing their debt to be paid now this is an actual debt I find that that when we're talking with people

About this sometimes they'll say well yeah well why couldn't God just forgive us why couldn't he just wipe it away this is his process that he made for it because let me explain to you if I come to your house this is how sin works with God if I come to your house and I break your television it's more likely that my two year old would do it but if I break your television we have a couple of options now

You can make me buy you a new television that I pay for the decision I made or you can say don't worry about it but if you tell me not to worry about it who's handling the television you are who's incurring the cost you are you're paying for the television you're either going to buy yourself a new one or you're going to pay for it day after day

After day after day of having to talk to the people who live in your house so you're going to buy yourself a new television but you're going to have to incur the cost and what God says is there's an actual debt that has been mounting against us that he's holding back the debt and it continues day after day to rise and to rise and to rise that there's a flood of sin

That we are piling up that he's counting that he's watching and he's either we have to pay for it but ultimately to forgive something someone has to pay for it and what we find in scripture is that God says I'll incur the cost of your debt God looks at us and says you don't have to worry about it

I'm going to pay for it and Jesus Christ comes as the atonement see he gave us this picture of animals having to die for our sin but they had to keep doing it year after year and day after day and every time you sinned you'd have to walk another animal and I would have to be very rich to handle all the sin

That I would have to kill goats for and they continually had to do this but eventually God says I'm going to fix this problem turn to Hebrews chapter 9 the book of Hebrews walks through and clearly connects a lot of the Old Testament to the fulfillment that's found in Christ will be on page 583 starting in verse 11

Hebrews chapter 9 verse 11 but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come so this is when he says the high priest he's talking about the person who would have overseen the day of atonement who would have overseen the sacrificial system it says that Jesus steps in as the new high priest the one that's going to make atonement for the people

He appeared as a great high priest as a high priest of the good things that have come then through the greater and more perfect tent this is where the high priest would have gone to make atonement not made with hands that is not of this creation he's talking about his body he says he entered once and for all into the holy places this is the day of atonement this is the picture he's painting

That they would have gone into the holy places and made atonement for the people he's saying this is what Jesus did he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by the means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling

Of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God what he's saying is that Jesus Christ was our perfect sacrifice he was the one without blemish

Without sin who willfully chose unlike a goat who has no choice Jesus Christ willfully was led to the slaughter to make atonement for the sins of others therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant meaning there's a new system now between God and humans so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal

Inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant Jesus Christ came humbled himself the creator of the world who holds the world together by the word of his power and who owes us nothing but yet we owe him everything not only our existence but also for our rebellion in that existence he comes to

Swap places with us to walk with us and to as a great high priest pay the penalty for our sin to be both the high priest and the sacrifice so that we may forever be at one with God forever be made right with him and forever have our sin taken away I have a few points of application that I think

Come out of this concept for us to consider this morning as we finish first I want us to see that in this God saves humanity he remains just because sin is dealt with the guilty do not go free either the sacrifice is accepted and your guilt has been taken away because

It was placed on Jesus or we are still in our sin that God remains just and he vindicates the glory of his name in this picture of atonement that we're given in scriptures we learn that we are guilty of sin and unable to make restitution we have a debt that we are unable to pay that every

Human will stand before God with a debt of a life lived in rebellion and be unable to pay secondly we learn that God in his love and mercy and grace through Christ provided an acceptable sacrifice this is why Jesus is called the Lamb of God that God in his mercy provided someone

To pay our debt thirdly you should hate your sin and you should hate the fact that you don't really hate your sin that if we look into this and see the weight of the burden of the guilt that we had before a holy and just God knowing that one day we would have to pay for it

And we should hate all the sin that had to be laid on Christ that he had to die for and we should hate the fact that we so often minimalize and do not hate our sin feel okay with it think God winks at it act as if his holiness does not matter if you have not trusted in Jesus

Christ as your atoning sacrifice you should do so now you should repent of your sin and look only to him as the acceptable satisfactory payment of your debt to God Jesus Christ has been put forward as your way to not

Pay for your sin and what I would encourage you to do is to walk to the cross just as you would have to walk and pick out a goat and walk to the high priest and lay your hands

On it knowing that this animal that is currently breathing and looking at you and has walked with you this whole time because it is a tame animal is about to breathe its last breath because of the actions

That you have taken and the choices you have made and lay your hands on it and know that your guilt has transferred from you to this animal and it will die for you I would encourage you to walk to Christ

And lay your hands on him and transfer your guilt to him and know that he'll breathe his last breath to pay for the guilt that you owe God so that you can be eternally redeemed if you have not placed your faith in

Christ you should do so now because God forgives transgression and iniquity and sin but he will not clear the guilty for those of you who have placed faith in Christ we should rest confident in the eternal redemption provided by

Him questions of have I done enough am I good enough betray the fact that we have begun to believe that somehow the guilt has shifted back to us or somehow believe that we have to atone for our sin something that we were

Never going to be able to do and we should rest fully confident and free in the fact that a death has set you free that you did deserve punishment but in Christ you will not receive it this is why Christians no longer practice

Animal sacrifices we have a sacrifice once for all that has eternally redeemed us the blood of the lamb has been shed we have been purified we will stand before God guiltless because he

Stood before God guilty we should tell everyone about our terrible state before God and the good news of hope offered through Christ if we believe this and see this and know this to be true the most loving thing you can do is for those who feel guilty help them know that there is a

God who pays for guilt and for those who do not feel guilty help them see how guilty they are and then let them know that there is a God who pays their guilt for those of us who stand here or sit here this morning and say we believe this

There is no other loving option for those around us other than to tell everyone we possibly can that there is a debt of sin and a savior that offers redemption lastly for those of us in Christ we should spend the

Rest of our days marveling and rejoicing at the sacrifice of Jesus that God would humble himself to redeem creatures like us that he owed nothing to but that he loved enough to rescue and to make his own to reclaim his willful enemies

Who have actively destroyed his good order and with an utter contempt for his rule he came for the purpose to bleed and to die and to sacrifice himself so that we could have life the band

Is going to come back up and as we begin today to leave here as Christians marveling at the grace of God that we do not have to pay for our sin that we incurred debt that he paid for that we

Can walk with Christ and walk away free and blameless the way we are going to immediately respond as Christians in the room is to take communion where we remember the sacrifice of Christ where we take take the cup

We take the bread and we remember that Jesus Christ was broken and bled for us so that we can go free that we get to walk pick up a goat we get to walk with guilt hanging over us to a high priest

And walk away free that we get to walk to the cross with guilt bearing down on us but because blood is shed and death reigns we get to walk away free but you see Jesus Christ

Is both goats from the day of atonement sin is laid on one and it is killed and sin is laid on one and it carries it away and Jesus Christ died on a cross and rose from the

Grave and we have an eternal redemption and an eternal inheritance and we get to celebrate today as we wonder and marvel at the graciousness of a loving God who would die in our

Place we get to take communion remembering that we owe a debt to God that we could never pay but that Jesus Christ has and if you are not a Christian you should place your faith in Christ you should

Become a Christian and you should go take communion for the first time as a Christian who knows the weight of what you're doing that Jesus has redeemed you from your sin and that you can be forever free let's

Pray God we thank you that you made atonement for us that you purified us that we no longer stand under our guilt because we are in Christ thank you that you figured out a way to rid us of sin

To atone for our guilt without destroying us but that you were willing to be destroyed for us as an eternal sacrifice who reigns supreme seated in the right hand of majesty forever giving your life to those

Who place their faith you thank you in Jesus name amen

Mill City 6/11/17 Mill City 6/11/17

Worthy of Worship

Transcript

All right, how are we doing this morning? Cool. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors. We'll be in Matthew chapter 10 to get started this morning. Matthew chapter 10, if your Bible looks like this, it'll be page 476 where we'll start picking up.

We are starting a new series today, and we spent the last six weeks or so talking about the need for, the call for Christians to use their normal everyday lives to see other people come to know Christ. That we would leverage what we have, our time, our energy, our money, our homes to see people come to know Jesus. And so today we're starting a new series. We've just called it Glory. Basically, we're just looking at how big and beautiful and wonderful and glorious Christ is. And in some ways, I feel like it makes sense because we just spent so much time talking about how we should use the normal daily lives that we've been given to see people come to know Jesus.

And now we're just looking at why, why we'd want to do that. And we're just looking at how big he is and massive and how much joy there is to be found in him. And so we're going to do this for four weeks, and then we'll spend the rest of the summer studying through the Psalms and learning how to personally worship God from them. Today, as we get started, we're going to talk about the fact that Jesus is worthy of worship. That Jesus Christ is worthy of worship. The word used for worship in the Old Testament really just means to bow down.

And that's what we're looking at, why you should bow your life down to Jesus. Why you should consider him in all things. You should submit yourself to him. Why you should go to Jesus and allow him to be in charge of you, of your time and your money and your effort and your energy. We're looking at how glorious he is. I've got a definition for the word glorious.

It's striking beauty or splendor that evokes feelings of delighted admiration. It's so beautiful that it makes you feel something. That's what Jesus is. He's so glorious, so good that we should be in awe of him. We should be enraptured by him. He's so beautiful that it does something to us.

You see, Jesus says that he is worthy of worship. And that's what we're looking at in Matthew chapter 10 as we begin our time today. I want us to see this. I want us to kind of take seriously Jesus' words here and think about them for a minute. We're going to pick up in verse 37. Verse 37.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Just look at those words for a second. I want that to stare you in the face. That's why we don't usually put verses up on the screen. We usually just look at them in the Bible.

But I want this to seep in a little bit. Jesus actually said these words. And they're hard to get around. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38.

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. So at this time, Jesus had not gone to the cross. He was headed to it. But he's using this as a cross as a Roman instrument of torture. It was a... He said if you're not willing to be executed.

If you're not willing to lay down all your hopes and your dreams. If you're not willing to lay down your plans. If you're not willing to pick up a cross. If you're not willing to bear the burden of nothing goes well for you. And you head into destruction and persecution and death. You don't deserve me.

You're not worthy of me. 39. Whoever finds his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. That's a little cryptic. What he's saying is if you spend your life focusing on your life.

Trying to make it good. Trying to live the good life. If you go out of your way to try to find your life and to find yourself. And to have the good experiences and the joy. He says you lose it. It's a waste.

But if you are willing to give up everything for Jesus. Then you'll actually find it. Then you'll actually get the good life. Okay. Maybe. Maybe you've been around the church long enough.

That it's easy for you to hear that. Maybe you've heard it enough that you're like right. Hmm. Jesus. He says things like that. So I just want to take these sentences.

And we're just going to put them on other people. So that we can think about them a little better. Alright. Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. Who's allowed to say that to you? I'll argue your father and mother can't even say that.

Like if your dad came to you and said let me explain something to you. If you love your mom more than me. You do not deserve me. I am the greatest father. Let me just. I need you to tell me right now.

You love me more. Like if I. If my wife started doing that with my son. She's like if you love your dad more than me. Then I don't even need to.

Like you do not deserve me for a mother. I'd have to have a talk with her. Be like this is. This is a bit intense. Plus he's two. Let's tone it down.

Who gets to say that? If you're dating someone. You're in high school. And you say yeah. I gotta go do this with my parents or whatever. I'm going on vacation with my parents.

And they say let me explain something to you. If you love your mother and father more than me. You don't deserve me. Okay. I'm still going on vacation. But we're probably not going to keep dating when I get back.

You gotta tone the crazy down like a hundred notches. Okay. Maybe. Maybe a spouse. Maybe you can have this conversation with a spouse. Maybe by the time you get married.

You're like look. Your parents can't get in the middle of all of our arguments. You've got to at some point. Like leave and cleave. There's some. There's some room for that.

In the Bible. Like at some point your mom can't just be here all the time. Maybe a spouse can say that. Go to the next one. It's if you love. Anyone who loves son or daughter more than me.

Is not worthy of me. Americans. We having a hard time with that. Parents. Have a hard time with that. Son or daughter more than me.

There's a widow. She's got a couple of kids. She starts dating somebody. You're her friend. She sits down with you and says. Yeah.

The other day he. He said if I loved my children more than him. I didn't deserve him. You know what you say. Sounds like a catch. That guy must be so valuable.

Oh my goodness. He must be so radiant and glorious. Do you know what you say. This cat's a psycho. Back up. Get away.

This is crazy. This is headed in the bad place. No one should say that to you. He says if you're not willing to lay down your life. If you're not willing to pick up your cross. If you're not willing to die.

If you're not willing to say no. To all of your hopes and dreams. All of your goals. If you're not willing to pick up. An instrument for execution. And follow me.

You do not deserve me. People come by your house. You got a friend. And they start saying. Yeah. There's this guy.

Carl. And he's a prophet. And he performs miracles. And he says we have to hate our families. And follow him. You're like bro.

That's a cult. This is. No bueno. Get away from Carl. This is not going to work out well for you. You're going to be like locked in a cellar somewhere.

Where Jesus without batting an eye. Without tripping over his words. Without hesitating for a second. Will look you in the face. And say exactly what he just said. If you love your family more than me.

You've missed it. If you're not willing to lay down everything for me. You don't deserve me. If you aren't willing to die. And if you are going to spend your life. Trying to have a good life.

You won't have a life at all. But if you'll get rid of everything. For me. You'll find the good life. Who can sit across the table from you. And say hey.

I'm the good life. And your joy. And your fullness. And your completion. And your happiness. Will only ever be filled.

And found. In me. It's like okay. Check please. Jesus means it. So.

He has to be. A narcissist. He. He. He. Supremely.

Values. Himself. And on. On anybody else. We put this on. We've gotten used to this on Jesus.

But on anybody else. We put this on. It's not a good look. But see. Jesus goes. Beyond this.

And begins to make the claim. That he is. God. God. I'm going to. I'm going to cite a few.

They're not going to be on the screen. In John chapter 5. It says this. This is why the Jews were seeking. All the more to kill him. Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath.

Which is one of their regulations. But he was even calling God. His own father. Making himself equal. With God. John chapter 8.

It says. The Jews said to him. He's having this kind of discussion with him. About Abraham. And he. He's.

Talking about Abraham. They said. You're not even 50 years old. And you've seen Abraham. And Jesus says to them. Truly.

Truly. I say to you. Before Abraham was. I am. Now. That may be a little cryptic to us.

It was not to the Jewish people. That were listening to him. He's quoting. God. At the burning bush. That tells Moses.

That he. I am. That I am. He's. I am. Is a.

A reference to. Eternal being. And being God. And so Jesus says. Let me tell you. Before Abraham existed.

I am. And you're like. Well. That's kind of cryptic. Wasn't to them. The next verse says.

So they picked up. Stones. To throw at him. They knew what he had just said. He had just claimed to be God. So they were going to.

Kill him. Because that's blasphemy. And then. In 1033. Of John. It says.

It's not for good work. That we're going to stone you. They were going to try to kill him again. Jesus almost dies a lot. In the book of John. But because you.

Being a man. Make yourself God. The climax. Of the book of John. Is after Jesus dies on the cross. Rises from the grave.

He gets back around Thomas. Who said. Unless I get to see the nails. And the nail scars. Unless I see him with my eyes. Get to touch him.

I'm not going to believe. That he rose from the grave. And Thomas gets to. And then he falls down. And says. My Lord.

And my God. And worships Jesus. Now. If you've been reading the Bible. Up to the point. And John.

You immediately know. Don't do that. You don't worship anybody. But God. Every time in the Old Testament. Someone falls down.

At the feet of an angel. These big. Powerful. Angelic beings. Go. Get up.

Get up. Get up. Get up. Get up. You saw. Right.

Like. I did not appreciate that. You are not allowed to worship me. This is a terrible thing. There's one angel. Who thinks that's a good idea.

It did not go well for him. I. You know what Jesus says. Thomas says. You're my Lord. And my God.

And Jesus says. Well done Thomas. You're blessed. And more blessed is everybody. Who's able to say the same thing. Without having to see the scars.

Who's able to have the same faith. In me. As God. So Jesus claims to be God. Throughout his life. He claims that.

Singular allegiance. Is owed him. And he's. Murdered for it. But because we do believe.

He is God. He did not stay dead. He rose from the grave. Proving his claims. And ascended into heaven. So.

Jesus says. I'm God. The God. And the God of the Bible. The God of the Old Testament. Has said the same thing.

Throughout the Old Testament. They would worship. No one but him. That's the first thing he says. When he takes him out of Egypt. He says.

You'll have no gods. Other than me. I'm the only God. In Deuteronomy. Throughout. He just keeps saying.

You're not going to bow down. And worship anything else. You're not going to serve them. I'm the only God. Deuteronomy 6. 13.

It's the Lord your God. You shall fear. And him you shall serve. And by his name you shall swear. Deuteronomy 13. 4.

You shall walk after the Lord your God. And fear him. And keep his commandments. And obey his voice. And you shall serve him. And hold fast to him.

Throughout the Old Testament. The prophets. The Psalms are going to say. Repeatedly. God is the only God. And he is worthy.

Deserving of. Your singular. Allegiance. And worship. That if every breath you have. Is spent in obedience to him.

It's worth it. Jesus shows up. Says I'm the same God. And I deserve the same allegiance. Okay. So this.

This gets. This argument gets thrown at God. It gets thrown at Jesus some. God more. I've got a quote from a. Humanistic and atheistic blog.

That I just thought the guy said it well. I don't know if this guy's famous. Or really smart. I didn't read a whole lot of his other stuff. He just said this well. He says if your God.

Demands. To be worshipped. Your God. Is narcissistic. Meaning he's. He cares only about himself.

He's focused in on himself. Narcissism is a character flaw. Which means. A narcissistic being. Isn't perfect. Ergo.

Oh you know it's good. If they use ergo. Ergo. It's a fancy word for therefore. Or. Or.

So then. Your perfect God. Does not. Exist. If your God. Is in fact.

Perfect. It would have no need. Or desire. For worship. Praise. Or any form of adulation.

Making your piety. Pointless. I think the logic holds. What he says is. If you have a God. That's needy.

If you have a God. That's narcissistic. If you have a God. That comes to you. And says. I need you to sing about me.

I need y'all to get together. Every Sunday. I need you to wake up early. I need you to put on slacks. I need people to practice songs. And I need you to sing.

That I'm pretty. If you have a God. That does that. It's not perfect. It's not complete. It's not whole.

Therefore. Isn't. Worthy. Or. If you have a perfect. Complete.

Whole. Worthy. God. Has no need. For your praise. No need.

For your adoration. Wouldn't ask for it. Wouldn't talk about it. Wouldn't care. Would be fine. Without you.

Either way. Worshiping. Is stupid. I'm taking some liberties there. But I think that's how he's.

He's ending it there. It's pointless. I. I kind of agree. I agree. If I think about the way.

He's thinking about this. I understand what he is saying. And I think he said it well. I think he's missed something. I think he's missed something. That the storyline of the Bible.

Makes clear. I want to kind of break this out. Into four. Basic. Truths. That he's.

That he's missed here. But this is. This is a thing that people say. I remember my. My. Grandmother's a missionary to Nigeria.

I remember being at the beach. One. One year. And my cousin was talking with her. And he was just saying the same thing. He was saying.

What kind of a God. Makes people. And then says. Sing to me. Or I'm going to hurt you. Worship me.

Or it's going to be bad. What kind of God does that? And he was just saying. It seems so small. And it seems so. Petty.

But here's what I think they're missing. One is. We were created by God. That's what the Bible tells us. And that we were designed to worship. You are going to worship.

Something. It's the first kind of thing I think that's missed here. You're going to worship something. You're going to bow down to something. You're going to spend your time. Your energy.

Your money. Your effort on something. Worship for you is not an option. What you worship is. The object of your worship is an option. But whether or not you will have some object to worship.

Is not an option for you. You will have something that you hold as chief and supreme. And most valuable. True worship is joyful. That's the second idea that I think is missed here. True worship is joyful.

It's self-forgetfulness. That when we really, truly sing about something. And truly, truly get engulfed in something. And enraptured in something. And point something else to it. It's joyful.

It gets us outside of ourselves. Thirdly. The best and highest worship. Will be of the best and highest object. Or the greatest worship. Will have the greatest object.

So if I told you that I was going to worship myself. I saw myself as supreme. I'm kind of limited there. I'm trapped. I'm trapped in myself. I can only get so big.

It can only be so great. I kind of have just really imprisoned myself. I could travel the world. My world would never get any bigger. Because I'm supreme. But if you said trees were supreme.

You could go in your backyard. And get more outside of yourself than I can. You could be more free. And more set free. See. The greater the object.

The greater the worship. The greater the joy found. I used to work at Sears. If I told you I was going to devote my life to Sears. You'd be like. Bro.

It's not even that great of a retail store. Like aren't they going out of business? I'd be like. Kinda. But that's why they need me.

But maybe if I said I'm going to devote myself to hard work. The scope is bigger. And then I'm a little more free. I can move around a little more. I have a little. I'm called out of myself a little more.

Maybe if I said I'm going to devote myself to helping others. I'm going to devote myself to family. You see we all pick something. And say this is most worth. Most worth my time and energy and effort. This is where I'll find the most life.

Gain the most joy. Be the biggest version of myself. Fourth point. You become like what you worship. Jesus says that you know. A student's not above his teacher.

You're going to whatever you hold up as supreme. You're going to become more like. So if you worship money. You'll become cold. Calculating. You worship love.

You're going to slowly become more like. You can see this when. Like someone gets super into. Like listening to Dr. Dre. Or Eminem.

Or. Any musician. They get really into skateboarding. Or fidget spinners. Become more like. The Bible says this in Jeremiah.

That they went after worthlessness. And became worthless. So I agree with the point this guy's making. And it's true. Unless. God is actually.

The greatest. Most supreme. Most glorious. Thing. That exists. Being.

That exists. Jesus is a narcissist. Unless. Unless. He is bigger. And more beautiful.

And more glorious. And more holy. And more worthy. Than any other. Thing in existence. That you could devote your time to.

Then. If that's true. If Jesus is supreme. When he tells you. You should love me above everything else. And you should worship me.

With all of your allegiance. And all of your time. And all of your life. Then. He's actually pursuing. Your joy.

And your greatest. Good. But only. If he's bigger. And more beautiful. And more glorious.

Than anything else. So. This is about to feel like a science class. And a poorly done one. Because I'm not great at science. But I want us to see some things.

Because. You only have. Limited options. On what you're going to worship. You got some limited options. You can only go out.

Into. Creation. You can only go out. And find something. That already exists. For you to worship.

Genesis. The first book in the Bible. Begins with. In the beginning. God. And then tells us.

That he created. Everything. So we're just going to take a minute. With the understanding. That God created all of this. And just look at.

The things that exist. We're going to look at. What. What's out there. For you to be. Mesmerized with.

For you to devote yourself to. We're going to do this in two ways. We're going to go small. Then we're going to go big. And then that. Hopefully that'll cover everything in between.

All right. Your body. Is made up of. Cells. One hundred. Trillion of them.

I don't even know. What that number really means. It's just very big. One hundred. Trillion cells. This is a.

This is a cell. It looks like something. From the magic school bus. That's a cell. Inside your cell. I'm going to move this out of the way.

I'm going to back up a little bit. So people can see a little better. Forgive me if I get in your way. I pace. That's a cell. Inside the middle there.

Is a nucleus. There's a bunch of little different parts in there. There's. Inside the nucleus is DNA. DNA. DNA.

Is the best information storage system. That exists. They are currently. Scientists are currently trying to figure out. How to save our own data into DNA. And retrieve it.

Okay. So the new Macs that came out. Like the expensive ones. They have like a terabyte of data. Remember when you had like a floppy disk. And it had like.

A megabyte. Terabytes way bigger. Did that help? Have a terabyte of data. DNA. DNA.

If you could put a drop of pure DNA. On the tip of your finger. It would have 700 terabytes. Of data storage capability. Because there's DNA. In every single one of your microscopic.

Invisible cells. That it holds. Dawkins says. About the equivalent of 8,000 books. But if you could.

So they said. They're trying to figure out. How to use DNA. Because they could save. All the things. We would ever need to save.

In a couple of teaspoons. Tablespoons. Worth of DNA. If we can figure out. How to do it. But.

But that was put inside. That little yellow thing. In the middle there. And then. Inside of there. Inside the cell.

Which you have a hundred trillion of them. That are constantly doing things. They all read. This. There's the entire DNA. For your whole body.

But the cell reads. This tiny little spot. They just go break. This one little part apart. And then that's what tells your cell. To be a liver cell.

Or an eye cell. Or a fingernail. Cell. Just that little bit of DNA. But all the DNA is in there.

And inside of your. Of your cell. There are organelles. Ribosomes. Mitochondria. Storage vacuoles.

Lysosomes. Lystra. Derby. Those last two are just places. Mentioned in the Bible. But the other stuff's in there.

Endoplasmic reticula. And a bunch of other things. That are constantly working. Doing jobs. Making more cells. This is a picture of actual cells.

We can see these with microscopes. They're creating things. All the time. Making more cells. They're made up of smaller things. The little particles inside of them.

Are made up of smaller things. There are. Each one of those. Has to be designed in such a way. As to be the correct thing. The correct lysosome.

Storage vacuole. To make the correct component. That's going to go inside the cell. Inside. The smaller. Things that make those up.

Are made up of. Molecules. That are made up of atoms. Atoms are the things that are on periodic table. On the periodic table of the elements. This is a picture of an atom.

It's been. It's been. Kind of enhanced. Digitally. Trying to make it look 3D. That's the nucleus of an atom.

There are protons and neutrons in there. And then electrons. Swirl around it. And scientists will say. We can't see those. You just kind of have to pretend.

We proved. We humans. Proved. That those existed. In like the end of the 1800s. We actually saw the first one in 1983.

We were able to look at it. They just used math. To figure out that these were real. And when I hear stuff like that. I think. There's a lot about math.

I don't know. Because I'm doing good. To make sure I got the right amount of change back. And they're using it. To figure out things. That we can't see.

Exist. They've now found out. That atoms are made up of. So that. We knew they were made up of. Protons.

Neutrons. Electrons. They can't be directly observed. But we're able to use math. To figure out what they do. They now have come out.

And said. We thought for a long time. That those were the smallest things. There were. So. Each cell.

Has about. You have 100 trillion cells. Each cell. Has about 100 trillion atoms. If you use a calculator. To multiply those Numbers together.

Your calculator. Doesn't even really give you an answer. It gives you a number. And then an E. And then it says plus. And it gives you this other stuff.

And it's like. Dude. I'm not putting all those zeros. You do it. It's an insane amount. So.

Inside those atoms. They now have decided. That they thought. That was the smallest thing. They now decided. No.

They've used more math. And figured out. There are smaller things. Than protons. Neutrons. Electrons.

And they've called these. Quarks. And leptons. And all of those. Are in a category. Called fermions.

And it sounds like. L. Ron Hubbard. Came up with this. Eventually. A logical.

A logical assumption. Is that they're going to figure out. That quarks. Have smaller parts. And maybe they'll call those. Bloggatrons.

Or nuptics. Here's the thing. Your body. Is exceedingly. Complex. It's made up of atoms.

And atoms. Have insane amounts. Of power in them. Energy in them. That we don't fully understand. We were able to figure out.

Early on. That they existed. By using math. And then they figured out. That if you took. Two hydrogen atoms.

This is a picture. Of a hydrogen atom. The internet. Nope. The internet was geeked out. The internet.

The internet was. Was really excited. That we were able to get. A picture of a hydrogen atom. Hydrogen is really small. They worked really hard.

And science. A whole lot. And they came up with that. See that. That's hydrogen. You guys.

Are you just blown away. It's. It's microscopic. We were excited. Because we could see it. Because they used to only figure out.

That it existed by math. But then they figured out. That if they took. Two hydrogen atoms. Smushed them together. They would turn into helium.

But helium. Weighs less. Than those two hydrogen atoms. Combined. So it would be like.

If you and I. If I weighed 100 pounds. You weigh 100 pounds. And we get on a scale. And the scale says. One fifty.

There's fifty pounds. That aren't. Accounted for. What they figured out. Was if they smush. Hydrogen together.

It'll push this other stuff out. And you know what that does. It just blows up. That's it. It creates energy. From smushing together.

Things we can't even see. Does the. The hydrogen bomb. That's just taking atoms. That they mathed. And then.

Coming up with a system. To smush them. And it does that. That. That's two miles wide. You can feel the heat.

Thirty miles away. Okay. Can you go to like. A black one. Just a regular. Let's talk for just a second.

Everything's made up of atoms. And. And what we're told is. That the God of the universe. Designed this. And he made atoms.

That fit together into molecules. That make up like lipids. And proteins. And stuff. And then. Make biscuits.

And taste amazing. Like. It's science. That makes bacon delicious. And I just got myself really hungry. Because if you put bacon on that biscuit.

I haven't even thought about this. Let's get some cheese. All right. You used to. Be a lot smaller than you are. You used to be like this big.

At one point. You were about this big. You ate atoms. Your body broke that stuff down. Stuck it in different places. And then your body.

Made more of your body. Created more cells. Replicated your DNA. Genesis 1. 27. Says that God made man.

In his own image. In the image of God. He created him male and female. Job 10. 11. Says you clothed me with skin.

And flesh. And you knit me together. With bones. And sinews. Psalm 139. 13.

Says you formed. My inward parts. You knitted me together. In my mother's womb. That God. Pieced all of that together.

To the smallest. Thing that we've been able to work. Really hard to find out existed. God made it. Designed it. With a purpose.

Okay. Let's go big for a second. This is the earth. It is a globe. YouTube might tell you that it's not. That's a picture.

It's either a picture of our earth. It is a globe. Or it is a vast conspiracy. That NASA is trying to trick us. By putting this on their website. But that's a picture of the earth.

This is the sun. It's a giant ball of fire. It actually is a bunch of nuclear reactions going on. On the earth. We are currently rotating. 6,000.

No. 100. Sorry. 1,000 miles per hour. We're spinning 1,000 miles per hour right now. Can you feel it?

1,000 Miles per hour. We are then traveling in orbit. 18.5 miles per second. Or 66,600 miles per hour. While spinning. And the reason we're doing that.

Is because the sun is bigger than us. And it tells us to. It's a gravity. It tells mass how to move. And we just. We're slingshotting.

Out around this thing. That's bigger than us. This is a picture of the earth. And the other planets. That's Venus. Mars.

Mercury. Pluto. We're bigger than those. I don't know if Pluto is still a planet. But look.

He's there. Alright. Next one. This is all the planets in our solar system. Uranus. Neptune.

Saturn. Jupiter. They're a lot bigger than us. Earth's down here. He's cute. Alright.

This is if you add in the sun. That's why the sun gets to tell us what to do. It works much like a playground. Okay. This is our galaxy. There it is.

That's the Milky Way. That's a guess. Because we can't get outside of it to see what it looks like. But it probably looks like that. This one shows us where our solar system is. So there's a lot of other solar systems going on.

Do you have the one that shows the other stars in our. Okay. So the sun's over here. That's Sirius. That's Pollux. That's Arcturus.

You can go bigger. And the sun will disappear. Those are in our galaxy. Other suns. Floating out there. Doing their thing.

This is a galaxy that we can see. From our galaxy. It's bigger than ours. Alright. This is one of the coolest stories I found when I was looking into some of this stuff. A guy named Bob Williams.

Did the Hubble Deep Field Experiment in 1990. He was listening to Hootie and the Blowfish at the time. He had some control over where the telescope pointed. He pointed it at a black spot on the sky. It looked like this. He said I want to point the telescope here.

And they were like. That's dumb. We're losing money. Hubble telescope's not been doing great. And you want to point it at nothing. For a hundred hours.

Yes. He just said I want to point it there. I want to just receive light. And we'll see what happens. That's about one thirtieth the size of a full moon. It's the size.

They just picked a spot that was completely black. And said let's point it there. They did it for a hundred hours. And just took in as much light as they could. Took pictures. It took 45 seconds to get in all the light.

And then. This is what came out of it. Once they developed the film. They colored it in a little bit. So they decided.

Oh okay. They thought they might have. About 2 billion. Other galaxies. Until they did that. And then they said.

Oh no. 50 billion. And most recently. They started saying. That there might be about 2 trillion. Other galaxies.

So you remember the big galaxy. And it said. We are here. That was our solar system. We're not even the biggest planet. In our solar system.

We don't even have the biggest sun. In our galaxy. 2 trillion galaxies. Filled with innumerable suns. Innumerable solar systems. Innumerable planets.

Habakkuk 3.6 says. He stood. And measured. The earth. He looked. And shook the nations.

Then the eternal mountains were scattered. The everlasting hills sank low. His word. The everlasting ways. Isaiah 40. Verse 12 says.

Who has measured. The waters. In the hollow of his hand. Or marked off the heavens. With a span. Enclosed the dust of the earth.

In a measure. And weighed the mountains. And scales. And hills. In a balance. In Job 38.

God shows up. To talk to Job. He says. Where were you? When I laid the foundation of the earth. Tell me.

If you have understanding. Who determined its measurements. Surely you know. Or who stretched the line upon it. On what were its bases sunk. Or who laid its cornerstone.

When the morning stars sang together. And all the sons of God shouted for joy. Psalm 147. 4 says. He determines the number of the stars. And he gives to them.

All their names. Anything you're going to devote your life to. Is going to fit somewhere in between. Those two trillion galaxies. And those hundred trillion atoms. In the hundred trillion cells.

Every bit of beauty. Every bit of. Things that are worthy. And valuable. It's going to fit somewhere inside of that. It says that God marked that off.

With the span of his hand. And so here's the question I have. How hateful. Would God be. How wicked. And despicable.

Would he be. To create all of that. And let us piddle around. With things that are so small. In comparison to him. It says he measured out.

The sea in his hands. If he said. Spend your life. Digging to the depths of the ocean. Which we hadn't even gotten to yet. How small is that.

And how. How horrible would it be. For him to not tell us about the hand. That measured it. For him to look at us. And say.

Spend your life. Chasing after love. Or beauty. When all love and beauty. Emits from him. Comes from him.

That is. It was thought up by him. If he said. Spend your life. Chasing after relationships. When the ultimate.

Truest. Most fulfilling. Joy filled. Glorious relationship. We could ever have. Is with him.

You see. He is a complete narcissist. Unless he is the greatest. Then what else. Would you have him point us to. What else would you have this God.

Say. Worship. Adore. Enjoy. Appreciate. You see.

What he does. Is he takes us to things. And he says. Look at the ocean. Look at the stars. Look at the sky.

And enjoy them. And be enraptured by them. And then realize. They point to me. They're just a hint. Of my glory.

And my bigness. And my goodness. And my grace. Spending all of our time. Chasing after reason. Or intelligent.

And never. Getting to enjoy. The depth of the mind. That created it. In the first place. You see.

Then. Colossians. Tells us. In 115. Talking of Jesus. He.

Is the image. Of the invisible God. The firstborn. Of all creations. Colossians 2. 9.

Says. For in him. The whole fullness. Of deity. Dwells. Bodily.

And Hebrews 1. 3. Says this. And this is what was on the. The little bumper videos. We came in.

He. That's Jesus. Is the radiance. Of the glory. Of God. So glory.

Is. Is beauty. That makes you feel something. It's. It's. It's what emanates from God.

And it says that. Radiance. Is the light and heat. That shines off of something. So what.

What Hebrews. The author of Hebrews. Tells us. Is that Jesus. Is the beauty. Of the beauty of God.

He's the radiance. Of the glory. He's the light and heat. That shines off of all of God's. Massive. Infathomable.

Unapproachable. Eternal. Goodness. He's the exact. Imprint. Of his nature.

That's God's nature. Is. Perfectly. Shown to us. In Christ. Who is God.

He upholds the universe. By the word. Of his power. That Jesus Christ. Rules over. All that exists.

And after making. Purifications for sins. That's. The cross. He sat down. At the right hand.

Of the majesty. On high. In Psalm 8. The psalmist says. When I look at your heavens. The work of your fingers.

The moon. And the stars. Which you have set in place. What is man. That you're mindful of him. Or the son of man.

That you care for him. Psalm says. I see all of this. And why do you care about us. We're in a small galaxy. Stuck off to the corner.

In a small solar system. On a small planet. Given a very limited amount of time. In history. And in God's created order. But God loved us enough.

Was mindful of us enough. That he joined us. In humanity. And went to the cross. That he exactly imprinted. His nature on Jesus.

Who became a human. The most baffling event. Most beautiful miracle. In history. Is that God. The eternal holy God.

Became a human. And humbled himself. To die on a cross. To redeem some people. So that.

He could pursue. Their greatest. And highest. Joy. Which is himself. Jesus Christ died.

So that we could have. Him. Because you will not find. A greater. Or higher. Or more worthy.

Or more valuable. Joy. In the world. In creation. In existence. That Jesus Christ.

The God of the universe. Humbled himself. A friend of mine. Got to go to a. Some sort of a tailgate thing. And it was catered by Chick-fil-A.

And he got to eat at this meal. With a bunch of fancy people. He's not fancy. But he got to go. I don't remember. Somebody knows.

Is fancy. And invited him. He said afterwards. Somebody came along. This was an older guy. Came along.

And started cleaning up everything. And throwing everything away. And he looked over. And realized. That the person who was. Picking up his trash.

And throwing it away. Was S. True at Kathy. Which is. The CEO of Chick-fil-A. He said.

He immediately thought. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like. Why would the CEO. Clean up after me. Like.

This isn't okay. I'm just here as a guest. I can't have this guy. Clean up. Like. He was like.

He was. It just felt so bad. It bothered him so much. And. And what we met with. That's the exact imprint.

Of God's nature. The humility. And mercy. And love of God. Is that the God of the universe. Who created all things.

From the most. Minuscule. To the most. Miraculously. Immeasurable. Will become a.

Person. In order to suffer. And die. On a cross. That we could be forgiven. Of sins.

And brought back. Into a relationship. With him. And have. A chance. To pursue.

What will most. Give us joy. And satisfaction. Pastor John Piper. Says this. God's love for us.

Is not mainly. His making. Much of us. But his giving us. The ability. To enjoy.

Making much of him. Forever. God's love for us. Keeps God. At the center. God's love for us.

Exalts his value. And our satisfaction. In it. If God's love. Made us central. And focus on our value.

It would distract us. From what is most. Precious. Namely himself. Love. Labors.

And suffers. To enthrall us. With what is infinitely. And eternally. Satisfying. God.

That God. Went to the cross. So that. He could labor. To enthrall us. With what is most.

Satisfying. Most. Joy-filled. God. And that's why Jesus. With complete certainty.

Honesty. Love. And helpfulness. Can look at us. And say. Whoever loves father or mother.

More than me. Is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son. Or daughter. More than me. Is not worthy of me.

And whoever. Ever does not take his cross. And follow me. Is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life. Will lose it.

Whoever loses his life. For my sake. Will find it. The band's going to come back up. If we love. Anything.

More than Jesus. We're missing out. If our lives are devoted. To anything. More than Christ. We've sold ourselves short.

If you live your entire life. Giving every penny. Every drop of sweat. Every waking moment. To Christ. And his kingdom.

And his glory. It'll all be worth it. Because everything else. Pales in comparison. To his beauty. His magnificence.

His holiness. His worthiness. Band's going to sing. We're going to take communion. Communion is for. Those who have placed their faith in Christ.

So we would ask you. That if you are not. A Christian. Just to remain seated. During this time. Or stand and sing.

With the band as they lead. But for those of us. Who have placed our faith in Christ. I want us to take a minute. To as best we can. Hold in our minds.

What makes. God. So supremely glorious. That he would suffer. And die on a cross. To redeem us.

That he would breathe his last breath. Be wrapped. And shrouded. Laid in a tomb. That he would conquer death. On our behalf.

That when we take communion. We're reminding ourselves. Of the body. And the blood. Of Christ. That was broken.

And that was. Blood that was shed. So that we could have life. So that we could be redeemed. So that we could be forgiven.

That this. Radiant. Glorious God. Would suffer. So that he could.

Enthrall us. With what is most supremely. Joy filled. Life giving. And valuable. Himself.

Let's pray. And then you'll be free. To take communion. And we'll stand and sing. God we thank you for your grace. Your love.

God. I pray Lord. That we would be. Overwhelmed. By how matchless. You are.

That you are. Supremely. Glorious. And worthy. Of all of our devotion. We praise you.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Righteous Judge

Christ and Resurrection

Atonement

Worthy of Worship

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