Return of the King
Transcript
And so if we're going to say that Jesus is a good king, we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at his kingdom. Now, I know that as soon as we say, all right, we're going to turn to the book of Revelation, there's a little bit of like, okay, this is about to get weird. Like there's just, I don't think we always appropriately view the book of Revelation. And here's how I know this. When you talk to Christians, there's kind of a, people lean one way or the other. So it's like people, you talk to Christians, they're like, yeah, I've read the entire New Testament, except for the book of Revelation.
Like it just kind of a tagged add on thing. It's like, I've read all of it, but not that one. Or you'll talk to people and they've been like, yeah, I read the New Testament and I've read the book of Revelation 47 times. And I've got a chart in my house and I know when he's coming back and I've got a really cool picture of a dragon. Like, it's like, okay, all right. So there's just a little bit of what are we doing when we're reading the book of Revelation?
And so I just wanted to give us a little bit of an understanding of the book of Revelation so that we can actually read it, understand the text, and not be thinking random thoughts the whole time. So Revelation was written by the Apostle John. He's the same apostle who wrote the book of John. He wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and he wrote the book of Revelation. He was exiled on the island of Patmos. And it says he was, this is all at the beginning of the book, but he says he was praying.
It was the Lord's day and Jesus shows up and basically takes him and has an angel at different points take him and shows him things that are going to happen. He speaks at first to some churches that are currently in existence and then shows him some things that are going to happen. And so he writes, it's a book of prophecy, much like when Isaiah wrote a good bit of Isaiah, there was prophecy when Jeremiah wrote, Jeremiah was prophecy, and it was about things that were going on then and things that were going to happen. And so most of that has been fulfilled, all the Old Testament prophets where they prophesied things about countries or things that were going to take place when Jesus came.
Book of Revelation, most of this is not completed yet, hasn't happened yet. So we're still kind of in the, this is prophecy for stuff that's going to come. Now, here's where, what happens with the book of Revelation. John has shown things that I think sometimes are just, he's actually seeing what's going on. So he gets to see a glimpse into the future and he writes it down as best he can.
This is going to happen. There are other times where I think he's shown images that represent things that are going to happen. So kind of like in the book of Daniel, people have dreams and Daniel interprets them and there's like a giant statue with clay feet and he tells them, oh, the clay feet means this. So there's some of that that happens in the book of Revelation. And John, a good bit of seeing things and he just writes as best he can what it is. So there's one point where he says it sounded like, his voice sounded like the rushing of many waters.
So he's just as best he can. He's like, I heard a voice and it was kind of like if a waterfall could talk. That's what he would sound like. So it's just, he's, he's writing as best he can what, what's going on. And so what we're seeing in the chapter we're looking at in chapter 21 is I believe John is seeing a real thing and writing it down as best he can. So it's not imagery of something that's going to happen.
It's actually a picture of it taking place and he's writing down for us what's going to happen. And so we get, we get off in the book of Revelation. We focus too much on the images and they'll, we'll, you'll, you'll, you think that the book of Revelation is about like a dragon and a beast and the number 666 and the Antichrist. Fair? Like you heard all this out of the book of Revelation? Okay.
Just so you know, just for your own brains, this is free. Antichrist isn't even mentioned in the book of Revelation. I know, right? He's mentioned in John and never shows up in the book of Revelation. So the book of Revelation is about Jesus.
So I'm going to read you, we're going to start in 21 in a second, but I'm going to read you some of the stuff from the first chapter just to help us know what we're looking at. Revelation 1.1 starts this way. The Revelation of Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation is the revealing of Jesus. It's when he comes back. 5 through 7 says this.
Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom. Priest to his God and Father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.
And all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. Amen. So that's how the book of Revelation begins.
And what it's saying is that this book is about what it's like when the king returns and sets up his kingdom. And so that's what we're looking at in the very last pages of the Bible. We're looking at what that kingdom looks like when Jesus shows back up, sets up his kingdom, and begins his rule and his reign on earth. And so we're going to take a little time. We're going to study that this morning. And so I'm going to pray and then we'll hop in.
God, I pray that you would help us to correctly see what your kingdom looks like. The fact that you are a good king and that you have invited us into your kingdom here on earth. And that one day you will return. Everyone will see you and you will set up your kingdom because you are the ruler of the kings of the earth. And so, God, we pray that we would, through your Holy Spirit, get a glimpse into that this morning. We love you.
We praise you. We thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right.
Revelation 21 says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. Okay.
A couple of things. The Bible uses heaven in three ways. It refers to heaven as the place where birds fly. So that's like in the heavens. It refers to heaven as the place where stars are. That's in the heavens.
And then it refers to heaven as the place where God exists and where you go when you die. Those who are God's people go when you die. And so we're going to be looking at heaven, and we're going to be looking at eternity. And so since we're going to be talking about eternity today, this will be point one of 47 for those of you who are taking notes. I want to talk for a really long time to help you feel the weight of eternity. I'm just kidding.
So anyway, but we're going to be talking about eternity. And here's the thing. We will not spend, you will not spend eternity in heaven. You may be thinking, speak for yourself, sinner boy. I'm going to heaven. No one spends eternity in heaven.
What it just said was that the new Jerusalem comes out of the clouds, comes out of heaven to the new earth. And so it says that he saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Now what we don't know, because there's other passages in Scripture that talk about this, if the earth we're on now is just completely gone or if it's renewed, if it's restored. We don't really know, and the text doesn't really clearly say, but we know that we have a new earth or a renewed earth and that heaven comes out of the clouds to meet it. And so it says this, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, that's verse 3, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. On the new earth, in Jesus's kingdom, there is no death. There is no pain. There is no mourning.
Prior to this in the book of Revelation, it talks about when Jesus shows up. And when Jesus shows up, what happens is he conquers his enemies. Chief among those are Satan, sin and death. The Bible says that Jesus takes Hades and throws it into a lake of fire. And that he takes death and throws him in the lake of fire. Jesus kills death.
Now, I don't make the rules. But if you can kill death, you're in charge. That's just how that works. Like, they didn't ask me. I just know that's how that works. The guy who is scarier than death is scarier.
That's just how that. So, there is no death in the new earth. There's no pain. There's no mourning. Now, think about how beautiful that is. You don't lock your doors on the new earth.
For those who place faith in Jesus and who are rescued and brought into eternity, you don't lock your doors. You always tell the truth because, first of all, you have nothing to hide. And no one is going to use anything against you. There's no one who's going to maliciously seek to use any information you have to hurt you or to posture themselves up or to take advantage of you. Like, our government has a secret service, has CIA, FBI, because we have things to hide. And we don't want our enemies to know stuff about what we're doing and how things work.
Like, every time, like, you watch a movie and there's, like, a great invention and they're always like, this is beautiful. But if it fell into the wrong hands, it could be used for great destruction. Like, every movie ever where they invent something good. And that's just the way that works. Like, we invent the internet, we invent computers, and then people take the time, spend intelligence and effort to come up with viruses for computers. I don't know why.
You think they could do the same thing to make it productive? Anytime we come up with some sort of technology, it's used for pain, for hurt, for destruction. That doesn't happen on the new earth. There's no crying. There's no pain. There's no mourning.
There's no death. You don't go to funerals on the new earth. Every tear is wiped away. There's no cancer. There's no bad news. There's no fear about what's going to happen in the future.
Perfect peace and perfect rest because of it in God's kingdom, in Jesus' kingdom, where sin has been conquered fully by Jesus on the cross. There's nothing to worry about. Nothing bad can happen. Now, here's the thing. Now, here's what we know about that. First of all, that's beautiful.
We all want that. We all have that imprinted in us. We've said this before, and I've checked the statistics again. Ten out of ten people still die. You can Google that. Science.
And here's the thing. Here's what's true about that. Every time someone dies, there's something inside of us that screams, this isn't how this is supposed to be. This isn't how this is supposed to work. There's something in us that knows that this is wrong, and we don't know why. We don't really have, because it's, it happens to everyone, and so you'd think that humans would be used to it.
You'd be like, oh yeah, of course. That's where we're all headed. And, see, you'd work on Monday. Like, that's not, like, that's not how that works. There's something in us that just knows that this is fractured, this is broken, this falls short. So we know, when we read this, that there's no pain, there's no suffering, there's no cancer, there's no disease.
We were talking in my community group on, this past week, Bone and Kelly were in our group, and Kelly was talking about her son. She's got two sons. One's older, one's younger. They were at a clinic, like a, like a doc in a box, you know, and the older son dared the younger one. He was, they were sitting there, like, in the waiting room, and he dared the younger one. He said, I bet you won't lick this chair.
And so the younger son, being wicked smart, like, was like, oh, yeah, I will. So he licked the chair, won the bet, and then the next week they had to come back because he had two earaches, a stomach virus, and bronchitis, and was sick, like, deathly sick for two weeks, which is just the greatest story I've ever heard. I was trying to cook when they told me that. I got to laughing so hard, though I had to step away so I wouldn't catch myself on fire. Here's what we just read. That doesn't happen in heaven.
In heaven, her son can lick any chair he wants. So we read that, and we know that's beautiful, and then here's what happens to us. We immediately go, I don't know how that works. Like, immediately, our brains can't even fathom, comprehend what it looks like where there's no pain and mourning and suffering and fear. Like, even for us, I got into a discussion this week, even for us, pain is good. Like, fire can burn me, so my hand getting hot and me pulling it away is a good thing for me because if I didn't feel pain, I might have just set myself on fire.
Fear is good because bears can kill me, and so if I see a bear, I'm not just like, that guy looks huggable. Like, I have an appropriate amount of fear. Now, in heaven, so where there is no pain and no fear and no destruction and no death, we immediately just don't even have a way to process that. We just don't have a category for, okay, what does that mean? So you immediately get in things like, so does that mean that you won't hit me with a hammer or that if you do, it'll tickle?
Like, how does that work? Like, does it just mean that we won't do bad things because then it would be like, I guess we don't have freedom. We're like robots in heaven. Or does it mean that there is ways to get hurt, but you don't get hurt? You just like bounce back and laugh about it. But immediately, we have no framework for what this is going to look like.
And so here's what happens to us. It does two things to us. One is it makes us, when we think about eternity, it makes us not think about it too much because we just don't have categories for it. And it also kind of pushes back on us so that when we think about spending eternity, for those of us who are believers, and we think about heaven, and we think about spending eternity with God, we just kind of make it faker, ghostier, more vapory. Like, I might have feet, but I don't know why because I'll be floating everywhere. There's just something in our brains that can't handle this.
And so I just want to point this out to us. As we read through this text, it says this, then I saw a new heaven. Okay, so we know about heaven. And that's, and a new earth. So it's a new earth that's being created.
What I said, we don't spend eternity in heaven. We spend eternity on the new earth. Verse two, And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God.
It doesn't say that the dwelling place of man is with God. And we know that he's more important, but I think it's intentionally worded that way. I think what we're being told very clearly is that God makes a new earth, and he joins us here. So when we think about heaven, we think about like, glittery, vapory, like I would hug you, but we would just like, go through each other, and it'd be weird. Like, we just don't have a category for it, but what it's saying is that it's a new earth. So actually, what we already have in creation is a picture, a fractured, broken, messed up picture, of what his original design was.
When God created the garden, when he created earth in the first place, it was good, and he said it was good. Sin, death, destruction messed it up. The goal isn't him then looking down and going, okay, the best we can do at this point is just suck your souls up, and y'all can float around with me up here. No, he renews it, recreates it, and starts it back off the way it's supposed to be, so that we get to spend eternity in a real place. Real as in it exists, and real as in it's a tangible thing. Now, it's different, because there's no pain and no fear and all that.
It's different, but we'll have real bodies. Corinthians 15 says that like a seed is to a plant is what our bodies now will be to our new bodies. So like your body now is a seed, and your glorified eternal body is like the plant that comes from that seed. I have no clue what that means, but it sounds really cool. He talks about the fact that plants, like seeds are kind of similar, but plants look really different. So we'll have some form of body though, some form of tangibleness to us.
Philippians 3, and we'll read more of this section later, but it says, our lowly bodies will be like his glorious body. So Jesus, after he died, had a body. Like people touched him, he ate food, like he ate fish, it didn't just fall through and land on the chair awkwardly underneath him. Like he had feet, he walked places. He also like went into a room where all the doors were locked. So he can do something that we can't.
Like I don't know how that works, but I don't think he was outside jimmying it. Like pulled out his ID and slid it through and busted in. Like I don't think that's what happened. But we have a real body. Here's what this means though. We think sometimes that earth, like that spiritualness makes things better.
So to think about heaven in an earthy way, like that dirt is good, somehow makes it less than. And that we need to spiritualize. And it's like, no, we're just, we float and it's pretty and there's harps and we're in this weird thing where everyone's a baby and wears a diaper and has a harp. And we have this picture in our minds. Like if you talk to a Christian, this is what you'd say. Do you believe in heaven?
Most Christians, because it's Christian doctrine, would say yes. Like yes, believe in heaven. That's a real thing. Or you believe you'll spend eternity with God. Yes. Will you like heaven?
Yes. Heaven's going to be great. Why? I don't know. Bible says it'll be good. Like we just have a little bit of a picture in our brain.
Like I just always think, yeah, heaven's going to be great. I have no clue why. Like I feel a little bit like it's like how you enjoy coming out of surgery. It's like a dopamine wee kind of thing. It's like, I would not usually think this was great, but woohoo. Like that's the way I picture heaven.
Is it like God's just going to hardwire our brains to like floating and that'll be the best. What have you been doing? Sitting. For how long? I don't know. Heaven's great.
Like, and you just, but there's nothing in me now that thinks that that would be great. I just know that the Bible says it'll be great. But when I think about the fact that it's going to be a new earth, you ever look at pictures of earth and you're like, you have this moment where you're like, this is so beautiful. This is breathtaking and captivating. And then you have this moment where it's like, I will never see this in real life. This may just be photoshopped.
I don't even know if this is real because there's like, I won't ever be able to go investigate all these beautiful places that I see. And what we get in eternity is not a floaty spiritual realm, but a new glorified body that's like Jesus's. And we actually have an earth to re, where he redesigns everything the way it was originally supposed to be. So is there pain? No. Is there mourning?
No. Is there sadness? No. Is there death? No. Cancer?
No. Rape? No. Do people take advantage of children? No. No.
How does that all play out? I don't know. Is it real? Yes. Can you touch it, feel it, smell it? Do you actually use your feet for walking?
Yes. Your glorified plant feet, I don't know how many you'll have. It'll be like Jesus's, so he had to. He looked normal-ish. So, so we don't, we don't get this, but here, let me, I want to, I want to keep reading. I want to show you something.
Verse five. And he who is seated on the throne, so kings sit on thrones, behold, I am making all things new. Also, he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. Okay. Spring of the water of life without payment is a picture of the gospel. It's the fact that we get life, fullness, completeness, joy, and eternity without payment. We didn't rescue ourselves. We didn't redeem ourselves.
We didn't moral ourselves into it. We didn't follow the rules really well. We were rescued, redeemed, and brought in because Jesus followed the rules. The law had to be upheld, and it was upheld by Jesus, not by us. And we're given life without payment. And then it says, to the one who conquers will have this heritage.
The one who conquers means this, those who remain faithful and continue to follow Jesus. Saying that you're a Jesus follower is great. Here's what happens a lot in the Bible. There's two sides to things. So there's the side that we see, and there's the side that Jesus accomplishes.
So the Bible says that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, which means that he started it and he finished it. He didn't just save you and say, all right, you got a clean slate. Now figure it out, and I'll see you at the end if you can keep it together. No, he finishes it as well. But on our side, there's faithfulness.
There's us continuing to pursue him, us continuing in the faith, us staying and sticking and following. That's what happens. A real Christian stays a real Christian, continues to grow, continues to follow, continues to fight. And so he says to those who conquer, those who stay in, I will be their God and he will be my son. Here's the thing. Christianity says very clearly, Jesus is the only way to heaven, the only way to eternity, the only way to the father.
Those who are on the new earth got there by way of Jesus. No other way. And so people will say, that's really small minded. It's really limited. You're being really exclusive. If we had control over it, then we could control the inclusiveness or the exclusiveness.
But this is a reality. Jesus is real. He is a real king. And he doesn't cease to be a king based upon our whims. It's one of the things we said early on. There are no runoffs or recounts for kings.
So he's a real king. And here's the other thing. This eternity is with him dwelling with us, where he's our father. It says that we would be sons. If you don't love Jesus, that's terrible. If you love Jesus, that's beautiful.
The next chapter goes and it says that there is no temple. There is no son. That all of that is fulfilled and completed by Jesus and by God, by the lamb. Heaven is about Jesus. It's about the king. The kingdom, the consummated kingdom is about the king, where we spend eternity with the king.
It's not about you and what you like. It's about Jesus. Who he is, what he's accomplished, what he's done for us. We're invited into the relationship that he has with the father, with the Holy spirit. We're invited into being on earth where we dwell with him in the relationship. We were meant to have with him.
You know, sometimes you feel like, I just don't feel like I've been walking with God. Well, I don't feel like I've been following. Well, I don't think I've been hurt here. It doesn't happen in heaven. It doesn't happen in eternity. That we relate to him perfectly because it's about him.
The next chapter says that his name will be on our foreheads. So in the old Testament, he told them to put the law, to bind the law on their foreheads. Here it says that his name will be on us. If you don't love Jesus, that's not something you would enjoy being marked by him forever. And if you love Jesus, absolutely. It reminds me of toy story where, uh, what he gets lost and every once in a while, like he'll roll up his big cloth foot and look at his shoe where it says Andy, where Andy wrote his name on him.
There's just a little bit of that in heaven where we're just forever marked by Jesus. That we belong to the King, not as a subject, but as a son. That's exciting. Now, here's the thing. We, we go through this. We, we see what it looks like for Jesus to be the King, for everything to be in, in heaven is enjoyable because it comes from Jesus.
That we enjoy what we enjoy in heaven because it, it, he's the fountain of joy. The floodwaters of, of everything that is enjoyable in heaven. And here's, when we read about this, when we think about heaven, there's a little bit of like, why does it matter? Why does it matter that we're going to spend eternity on a new earth? Why, why does it matter that this is what Jesus's kingdom looks like? What's, what's the point in us today reading about that?
Is it just for us to hear it and go, ah, it sounds neat. And if I ever get asked the question, will I spend eternity in heaven? I'll say, nope, new earth. Trick question. I win. Like, like, are we just learning it to be able to regurgitate facts?
Like, why does this, why does this matter? Um, Philippians three, and it'll be up on the screen. 20 through 21 says this, but our citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. That's what we read earlier by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. The reason it's helpful for us to learn about our King and to learn about his kingdom is that that's where our citizenship is.
Philippians three says that our citizenship is in heaven is, is currently where Jesus is sitting on a throne, ruling and reigning where God is. What that means for us is that we behave like citizens of eternity. We function like we'll function when we get to the new earth where there is no pain, there is no lying, there is no deceit, there is no mourning. We get to know that heaven is a reality, that eternity is real for us, that the new earth is a place that we will spend eternity. It makes a difference. My uncle is, one of my uncles is from Nigeria.
He's a Yoruba people group. And when he came to the U.S., he was adopted by my grandparents. When he came to the U.S., he's a citizen of Nigeria. Like he thinks culturally like a Nigerian, does life like a Nigerian, sees life like a Nigerian. So like they were in West Virginia, he had never seen snow.
And so he, my granddad was having a hard time getting a trash can down his really steep driveway because it was iced up. And so my uncle sees him and is like, absolutely, this isn't okay. Like I've got to go help him. He shouldn't have to do this on his own. Take the trash out. I should be taking the trash out.
And so he just sprints down the stairs, sprints out the front door, meets ice, and goes all the way down the driveway, like out into the road. And my granddad was like, you got to learn what ice is. Like you can't, this is why this is taking me forever. But he's Nigerian. He told one time, he went back to Nigeria, met his wife, was bringing her back to the U.S. and he was trying to coach her up on like, Nigeria is different from the United States. One of the things he said was, and I'm going to do my Uncle Abel impersonation.
He, which by the way, whenever I talk about Cain and Abel, I don't say Abel, I say Abel. And that's a shout out to my uncle every time I do it, because he says, ah, if it was Abel, it would be L-E. It is E-L, that is Abel, which is what his name is. So I'm like, all right, you're right, Abel. Cain and Abel, got it. But he, I told him, I was telling the story to somebody, and I told him later, I talked to him, I said, I did my best Uncle Abel impersonation.
And he said, ah, you mean I do not talk like you? And then he went, I've been speaking English way longer than you have. You don't even speak it correctly, you speak American. You don't even know English. But he said, he told my aunt, BK, he told her, he said, if an American invites you out to eat, that does not mean they are paying for you.
You better have money. Because in Nigeria, if I say, hey, you want to go grab some food, that means I have invited you, I am paying for you. So he was somewhere, and there was a bunch of college students, they were like, yeah, I want to go eat over here. And he was like, yes, I do. Because he thought, free fruit, sweet. And they got there, and he goes, we get there, and everyone paid for themselves.
So I was like, oh. He said, luckily he had some money, he was able to pay for himself, but he told my aunt, I always have money, because Americans, you just never know. Like, sometimes they'll pay for you, sometimes they don't. There's no rule on that at all. But he was a citizen of Nigeria, and so he viewed the world like a Nigerian.
And the truth is, we're citizens of heaven, we're citizens of this eternity. We get to view the world like that. And that's why it's very helpful, and encouraging for Christians, to press eternity into our minds, to consider it, to weigh it. Paul in Romans 8 says, that he considers the suffering, of this present time, not worthy, to be compared, with the glory that is to be revealed to us. He said, he considers it like, he sat down and waited out. Thought about it.
It's helpful for us as Christians, to press eternity into our brains, and it's hard for us to fathom, but it's good for us. Because it frees us up, and it does a few things for us. This is why it's important for us, to not have just this vague, cloudy, heaven's gonna be good one day thing, but now have a grounded understanding, that that is the reality, of where those who've placed their faith in Jesus, will spend eternity. And, the other side of that, is those who haven't placed their faith in Jesus, haven't had their sin paid for by him, spend eternity in hell. Which is just as real, and eternity there is just as long.
And it's important for us as believers, as those who've been rescued and redeemed by Jesus, to have firmly fit into our brains, that eternity, with our king in his kingdom, is coming. Because it does a few things for us. It does a lot for us, but we're gonna talk about a few. One, we get to enjoy life more now, because eternity is real. There's just something about us, that thinks that enjoying life, to the fullest here, is somehow, earthy and wrong, because we're Christians, we should be spiritual. Because that's what we'll be like in heaven.
Spiritual. Someone will be like, do you want a biscuit? And I'll be like, no, this is heaven, I'm spiritual. No, it's heaven. Carbs don't count in heaven. They don't make you take a nap, you can take one if you'd like.
So, there's something about, the fact that eternity is real, and it's on a new earth, that means that as we enjoy things here, we were designed to enjoy things here, we get to enjoy more. We get to know that it's just a foretaste. That all of the beauty, and all of the fun, and all of the laughter, and all of the food, and excitement, and art, and nature, everything that we enjoy, everything that flares up in us, as we enjoy it on earth, is just a glimpse. Just a small window, into what the new earth will be like. Which means that we get to enjoy biscuits, we get to eat bacon, we get to go on a hike through the woods, and let that worshipfully roll up in us, in praise for our creator, and our savior, and our king, who invites us into something much better, for a much longer time.
It means we get to enjoy earth more now, we get to enjoy life more now, because we have a real eternity that is to come, and holiness for us, isn't a complete stepping away, from all things that are enjoyable. Now there's a time, when we fast from food, when we fast from some of the things, that we enjoy on earth, to remind ourselves, that this isn't all that there is. To help our souls hunger for what's true, and real, and eternal. There's also times, where we get to sit at a table, with family, with church family, and just enjoy, the fact that this is just a small window, into what it's going to get to be like.
Revelation says, that it's going to be the wedding supper of the lamb, that we're invited into a feast. That's what we're called into, when he returns, is a feast. There's something in us, that says that spending a lot of time, sitting around a table, and enjoying it with family, there's actually something, really spiritual about that. Really beautiful about that picture, of us enjoying food together, as family, because that's how we'll inaugurate, and start off the kingdom, when Jesus returns. That's what we'll be invited into. So we get to enjoy life more now, if we press eternity, the fact that we will spend, life on a new earth, into our brains.
Second thing that this does for us, is that we do not have to enjoy life now. We don't have to. There's an aching fear, in us, that I think continually grows. Am I enjoying life? Am I having fun? Am I having as much joy, and fulfillment as I could have?
Am I making the best use, of all my time? Am I, there's just something in us, that says, yeah heaven's going to be great, but if I'm going to enjoy a good meal, it's got to happen now. Heaven's going to be great, but if I'm going to, have a good adrenaline rush, it's going to happen now. If I'm going to travel, and see beautiful things, it's going to happen now. Heaven will be nice, I'm sure, but I've really got to do a lot now, because I've only gotten, a short amount of time, to really squeeze in, all the good stuff. There's something, that says that in us, and it's completely wrong.
Understanding that, eternity on the new earth, awaits us, frees us up, to not have a spectacular life now, to not be forced, to squeeze all the juices, out of it. And what that means is, you get to work a nine to five Job, love your family really well, spend your days in Casey, West Columbia, and that be perfectly beautiful, and good, in the eyes of God. Means you don't have to go see Europe, go if you get the chance. Europe's pretty lame anyway, that's why we made America. But, there's just something in us, that constantly feels like, we're missing out, and the truth is, we have an eternity, of better things to come.
And so we're freed up. It also means, that you're freed up, to not be a success, to give a lot away, to give a lot of your time, to those who are poor, oppressed, those who are sick. It means you're freed up, to go to another country, and nurse those, who have Ebola, back to health. And you're freed up, to get Ebola, and die. Because you've got an eternity, to come, of good things. there's just something, there's just something, about knowing that, and pressing that, into our hearts, that frees us up, to follow Jesus, in a way that we can't, if we forget, that that's what's to come. If we forget, that that's the culmination, of what he's doing.
The reason that he calls us, into really hard stuff. It's because he's already, accomplished everything, on our behalf, and he's got much better things, awaiting us. That's why Jesus, over and over and over again, is going to press into, the topic of money, and pair it with, the topic of heaven. He's going to say, don't care so much, about earthly riches, and earthly treasures, and earthly things, that you fail, to realize what's coming. The third thing, this does for us, is that we, see, we more clearly see, what is important. When this image, gets pressed into our minds, that an eternity, is to come.
A real one. Where there are, adrenaline rushes, where there is reality, where you do, inhale and exhale. Where things are tangible. Where it says, that we'll eat, and drink rich food, and the best wine. When we press that, into our souls, it helps us clearly see, what actually matters here. Here's the truth.
Every person in this room, when God designed creation, designed you to exist, for an eternity. And every person in this room, even though sin, has marred his original design, will spend eternity somewhere. And every person that you know, will spend eternity somewhere. And Jesus shows up, the king returns, and he claims his people, and he takes them home. And those who he hasn't rescued, and those who haven't placed, their faith in him, spend eternity, paying for their sin, and their rebellion against him. That's true.
And when eternity, is pressed into our hearts, it helps us see, what actually matters. When we weigh eternity, against what's going on, then it really matters, that 80% of the people, in this city, don't know, or follow Jesus. Then it really matters. It really matters, that that's true, for this city, so probably true, for where you work, and probably true, for the neighborhood you live in. And that matters. We clearly see, what's important.
When eternity, the reality of it, is considered, and weighed, and pressed into our hearts. Here's something, I've thought about some. It says that, for those who conquer, he says, I will be their God, and he will be my son. And I've got two brothers, and, I always think about, what life would be like, if there had only been, two of us. So instead of three sons, there had been two of us.
And I think about the fact that, when you have more people, it multiplies the joy. So I've got two brothers, Logan and Vince, and both of them are slap crazy. And I get to see, Logan react to a Vince joke, or Vince's nonsense. I get to call Logan, and talk about Vince's nonsense. I get to talk to Vince, about Logan's nonsense. They don't talk about me, because I'm awesome.
I get to call Logan, and talk about Vince's nonsense. I get to talk to Vince, about Logan's nonsense. They don't talk about me, because I'm awesome. Our lives are multiplied, by the fact that, there's three of us. I sometimes think about, what life would have been like, if there was four of us. That, that, I get to, Logan gets to see me react, to, to a Vince. There's just, there's something that multiplies, and if Vince wasn't there, I wouldn't get to see, how Logan would react to a Vince. I wouldn't get to see,
How Vince would, there's something about, more of us, that multiplies that. The only reason, it doesn't make sense on earth, outside of God, calling you to a life of celibacy, but for those who have family, those who are married, I was thinking about this, the only reason, like for my wife and I, she's pregnant, we're going to be having a son, and I'm very excited about, the fact that, that he's going to grow up, and have a personality, and I'm going to get to see, I'm going to learn more about Anna, as I get to see her react, and lead a son, and she's going to learn more about me,
And we're going to get to see, and grow more, and love for each other, as we grow in love for, for this kid, who's going to be, terrible and awesome, but the only reason, it doesn't make sense for us, to just have child, after child, after child, after child, after child, after child, is eventually, we're limited by time, and by finances, resources, so like, if we had tons, and tons of children, we probably wouldn't be able, to feed them all,
Run out of things, to name them, just start numbering them, 12, get over here, that's why, if you're going to have, a bunch of kids, don't do the thing, where you have to start them, all with the same letter, because that just seems like, it'd make it more difficult, for you, you just run out, and eventually, one would be like, Josephina, and Jose, and Joseph, and Josanna, and Gary, because I ran out of J's, but,
Here's the thing, those limitations, time limitations, and resource limitations, do not exist, in eternity, and so when God says, that I'll be their God, and they'll be my son, every time, that's true for a person, there's a multiplication, of joy, that we all get to be, in the same family, and we all get to grow, and see each other, and build with each other, and have connection, and life, and joy with each other, for eternity, that's why, that's why the Bible says,
That when a sinner repents, when someone realizes, that they're sinful, and hands that over to Jesus, and Jesus saves them, that the angels rejoice, every time, that hasn't gotten old, in heaven, because they understand, the weight of it, they feel, the eternity, that hangs in the balance, and they know, the multiplication of joy, when there's a new birth, that there's just something, about every time, a seat is added, to the table, of the feast, that there's joy, and that's why it matters,
And that's why, it's good to follow, this king, who invites us, into his kingdom, and that's why it matters, that people in the city, don't know Jesus, and that's why it matters, that our community groups, are on mission, where we seek, to go out of our way, to build relationships, with people, because every time, someone repents of sin, there's a seat, added to that table, and there's a family member, added to that table, and there's an eternity, of a multiplication, of joy,
That we don't even understand, but the angels do, and they celebrate, and we get invited, into that, because Jesus, paid for our mess, and our sin, and rescues us, and not into some, specter fest, where we float around, but a real eternity, where there's tangibleness, and he's our God, and we're his people, and we're his sons, and that's why, it's important for us, to press eternity, into our minds, to remind ourselves, of where our true family is, where our true hope lies,
What really matters, so that we don't waste our days, on things that are going to pass away, and fail to understand, the weight, of what is to come, Matt and Bianca are going to come back up, we're going to sing, and we're going to praise Jesus, and we're going to take communion, we've got it set up on this table, right over here, and communion for us, as believers, is a reminder, that the gospel is true, it's a reminder, of what Jesus accomplished, for us on the cross, that he had a real body, and shed real blood, that the God of the universe, took on human form, and for us today,
It gets to be a reminder, of not only what he's done for us, but what is to come for us, the fact that a new earth, where there's real flavor, real tangibleness, reality, with him forever, that as we as believers, partake in what he did for us, on the cross, that we as believers, will get to partake, in what he does for us, in eternity, it's the meal that reminds us, of the feast that is to come, he says he, in the last supper, with his disciples, he says, I won't taste of the vine again, until I eat it new, with you in the kingdom,
He's held that promise, he doesn't pick up the cup again, until we show up, and so we today, get to take communion, as believers, reminding ourselves, of what is to come, of the feast that will be for us, and an eternity, that will be for us, so that we get to be for him here, Father we thank you, we thank you for all, that you've done for us, for the reality of the cross, and the reality of the eternity, that we're invited into, by your grace, that as we place faith in you, you rescue us, you redeem us, you seal us, and that one day,
All those who have genuinely, repented of their sin, to have you rescue, and redeem them, will spend eternity with you, where it's about you, where our hearts are set on you, God help us, through your Holy Spirit, to press eternity, into our minds, and into our souls, lest we forget, we praise you, we thank you, in Jesus name, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,
An Unlikely Throne
Transcript
Good morning. We are going to be in Matthew chapter 27 today. We put extra Bibles out on the rows so that everybody could have one. So if you didn't bring one, we've got some on the rows for you to look at because we're going to be looking at a good bit of the text. We're going to be spending a good bit of time in Matthew chapter 27. So we are in our fifth week of our Kingdom Come series where we're looking at Jesus as king, where we're understanding that that Jesus is a king.
And here's the problem that we have with that. We don't like kings. Historically, as Americans, we haven't done so well with with kings. We don't have a very good track record with kings. So we might like kings in theory or we watch movies and it's interesting that there's kings.
But the truth is we don't like that idea. We don't like the concept of someone having that much power and authority, that a king can just do what they want so that when they speak things, they can speak things into law. There's nobody that like checks behind whether or not that makes any sense or is a good law. They just get to say, so we're doing right. It down. Boom.
Done. I just kinged it up like they get to do that. And we don't like that. We don't appreciate that to the point that anytime someone seems like they get too much power, we're just automatically suspicious of it. Like the mayor of West Columbia just kind of got into it with city council. So city council like stripped him of some of his powers.
So then he did something where we had to do like a runoff vote to give him more power that he wrote up. So the mayor was going to have not only the power that they took from him, but extra power. And West Columbia was like, no, you don't get more power. Quit fighting with city council about stuff like that was pretty much what happened. And so because we don't even want a mayor to have a lot of power. Like we would much rather diffuse power amongst a group of people because we think that's safer.
And the truth is that it is a safe way to operate when you have sinful people in charge of things. Anytime we've seen someone get ultimate power or a lot of authority, it tends to go poorly. And so we're automatically just kind of wary of this. But let me tell you what's true. We love democracy and we love a republic. We love the idea of being able to vote.
And but the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. Period. The best form of government is a wise and good king. Because then we don't have to have a bunch of elections and we don't have to worry about like if the king could actually be good. And the problem is we immediately go, yeah, but that's not going to happen. True.
But just go with me here. If the king could actually be good, if they were actually wise and benevolent and they were altruistic and they were just loving and made good decisions for the people, that's actually the best way to go. If they actually make things, it's not decisions that aren't just in their best interest, but in the interest of the people. I was talking to my cousin one time and I asked him what he thought was the best form of government. That's what he said. And I thought it was really weird.
But he said, yeah, benevolent dictatorship. That's what I'd be for. And it was like, I don't think that's a good idea. But I've thought about it more and I do think that's a good idea. The problem is you just wouldn't know if it was going to be benevolent. So dictators don't usually handle that well.
But that is the best way to have a government. So what we've looked at is that Jesus is a king. He is the king. The Old Testament prophesied eternal king. And so what we asked early on was, is he a good king? Like if he's a king and if his kingship is eternal so that it extends to us, is he a good king?
And more than that, like, because that's not really even the question. The question is, is he a better king than we are? Because our option when a king shows up, there aren't like dual kingships. When a king shows up, you're either under or over. Like you either submit or you fight. And so the question becomes, is he a good king?
Do we submit to him? Do we follow him in his kingdom? And so I just, thinking along those lines, wanted to talk about what makes a good king. And I've got some thoughts before we get into the text of what makes a good king. A king, a good king, takes on the plight of his people. So a good king knows what's going on.
He doesn't separate himself from his people. Like recently, I've seen a bunch of stuff about Kim Jong-un, who's been sick and I hadn't seen him for a while. And people are making jokes because he's got the best care that North Korea offers. And he's sick. And they're like, I don't know what's going on with the rest of the people in North Korea. But this isn't a good sign for them because he's separated himself so much from his people that he, what they go through isn't what he goes through.
But a good king is a part of his people and is among his people. There's a story, an old kind of story in China where they came to the king and they said, the people are starving because we're running out of rice. And the story goes that the king responded, well, let them eat meat. And I can just imagine the people being like, you don't have a clue, bro. Like, let me time you out for a second. We run out of meat before we run out of rice.
Like, if we're complaining about rice, meat's been gone for a long time. Like, that's not an option. It's not like there's people starving in China and somebody's like, bro, I need rice. And they're like, bro, just eat some meat. No, I don't want meat. I don't want rice.
And if you offer me meat, I'm just going to starve. I need rice. Like, that's not how that happens. And so this king has no idea what's going on with his people. But a good king does.
A good king isn't sitting in a palace eating all the fine luxuries and allowing his people to starve. A good king starves alongside his people. A good king maintains justice. You don't live in fear where there's a good king. You don't live worried where your property will be taken from you. It's not set up to where someone's bigger, stronger than you.
They just walk into your house and they're like, hey, I own this now. You're like, but I live here. Not anymore unless you want to be my slave. Like, that doesn't work under a good king. People are punished for their crimes. That's why we have a fit every time we see a police officer shoot someone who's unarmed.
Because it goes against our sense of justice. It breaks down the system as to how it ought to work. And there's always extenuating circumstances and things. But cops just shoot and shoot people who are unarmed. And I love, like recently there was some stuff and people came on and said, well, nobody's talking about all the people who are shooting each other in inner cities. And it's like, right.
Because they're not cops. That's how that works. Like a teacher jumps up and slaps a kid. You don't go, yeah, but the kids slap each other some. It's like, no. Like, the system's breaking down here.
And that's why we celebrate when cops get it right. That's why we're excited when justice is maintained. That's why we love the fact that if someone steals your property, you have someone to call and say, hey. I mean, recently Matt's truck got broken into. And they stole a guitar, which was Raz's guitar, which is great. So, like, Matt's like, my truck got broken into.
But don't worry. They only stole Raz's stuff. And so later on, a couple weeks later, we get a phone call. And we're working on stuff. And Matt gets a call. And he's like, it's the Lexington County Sheriff's Department there at my house.
And so I rode over with him because I figured he's getting arrested. I'm like, you know, I guess you got warrants. They only do house calls for a few things, man. And so, but we showed up over there, and they had the guitar. And so we didn't tell Raz about it. We pawned it and split the money.
But, no, but they gave his guitar back. And we celebrate the fact that they got it right because maintaining justice is something that happens inside of a good kingdom. And so a king, a good king maintains justice. A good king also offers grace. So he doesn't just destroy everyone who, all of his enemies are the people who don't agree with him.
He offers grace. He offers mercy. He helps people who are down. There's some form of welfare system for people who are down on their luck. Like a good king is gracious to his people. Gives what is unearned.
A good king wars for his people. That's why when you watch movies like Gladiator and Braveheart and The Patriot and basically any movie that has Mel Gibson in it, that's why the hero is at the front of the battle. Like he runs in with his men, and the bad guy is like up on a horse watching. Like if the commander of the good army is in the fray, and the commander of the bad guys is like watching, and he's like, well, I guess we're losing. Whatever, I'm going to leave. And he like rides off.
Or he just tells them to shoot arrows or cannons into his own men because he doesn't care because he's not a part of it. And so a good king actually wars with and for his people. Like I was recently watching another Mel Gibson movie. We were soldiers, and he was talking to them before they left, and he said, I can't promise that all of you will come back. He said, but what I do promise is that my boots will be the first one on the ground and the last one's off when we leave. And there's just this sense of like, yes, that is how that's supposed to work.
If you're going to lead, you need to be a part of, in front of, warring with your people and not having them fight and sacrifice for you. The other thing that happens with a good king is that they can be trusted. You don't always know what they're doing. That's the way it works with the White House. We don't have all the information that President Obama has. I don't wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and have people brief me on what's going on in remote parts of the world, but he does.
And then he makes decisions based off of that. And we go to war, don't go to war based off of that. And with a good king, what you see is you see all these other things. You know that they maintain justice, that they don't have a sacrifice for them, but they sacrifice with and for us. And there's just this sense of, I don't know what they're doing, but I know we can trust them. And that's what it looks like in the kingdom with a good king.
I don't know why we're doing this plan. I just know that this king is trustworthy. And so we're going to look, and what we've asked early on was, is Jesus a good king? And today we're going to kind of look at and try to answer that question. We're looking to see if Jesus is a good king. So we'll be in the end of Matthew's gospel.
And what we know is that Jesus is the ruling, reigning, forever king. He's the king of the universe who's created everything and rules and reigns over it. And here's something we know about kings. Kings love their thrones. They do. It's like people with cars now.
So like, you know, the show like Pimp My Ride or whatever. Like kings used to do that with their thrones. So if you look them up online, there's some very elaborate, intense, cool thrones. Like King Ivan the Terrible, his whole throne was made out of ivory. So ivory's hard to come by, so he made his whole throne out of it.
Like there's the king of Denmark had his whole throne made out of narwhal tusks. Which narwhals seem like they're made up animals because it's like a whale unicorn thing. And so like you see him in the movie Elf and you're like, I'm pretty sure that's fictitious. And then you look it up online and they actually exist. Just for the record, narwhals are real. And he made his whole throne out of narwhal tusks, which is pretty gangster way to make a throne.
And so, yeah, the king of Ivan the Terrible had his whole throne made out of ivory. Solomon in the Bible had his throne made out of ivory and then coated in gold. So it didn't even matter. Like he just had to tell people, I don't know if you know this, but under all that gold, there's ivory. Like it just, you know, take your word for it. But it's like, but he had it coated in gold and he had it seated up six steps.
And there was two lines, gold lines next to it. And there were lines on every step that went up to his throne. Because kings love their throne. But here's what we see of Jesus. Isaiah 6 says that Isaiah sees God high and lifted up, seated on a throne, and that there are angels worshiping him. And then John tells us in his gospel, chapter, so y'all know who it's coming from, chapter 12, says that Isaiah saw Jesus.
So that Isaiah sees Jesus high and lifted up on a throne, ruling and reigning as the God of all creation. Philippians 2 tells us that he was equal with God, but did not see equality as a thing to be grasped, but rather humbled himself and lowered himself and came to earth. What we see in Jesus is that he doesn't love his throne, he leaves his throne. That the throne of a king is where their seat of power and authority is and that Jesus leaves it. And so what I want us to know before we get into this text is we're looking to see, is Jesus a good king? And we're also looking at the fact that as we read through this, I want us to have firmly set in our mind that this is the king.
Jesus is the ruling, reigning king of the universe. So when we watch movies and a king leaves his palace for a little while and goes and lives among his people, we're like, oh, look at this, like he's learning what it's like. When you watch Undercover Boss, it's that same thing where the CEO of a company is figuring out what it looks like to go pick up trash. And we're like, good, he needs to learn what that looks like. And what we see in Jesus is that he leaves his throne and he joins his people. And we'll read about him now in Matthew chapter 27.
I'm going to pray. We're going to hop in and we're going to look at the ruling, reigning king of the universe as he was in life on earth. God, I pray that through your Holy Spirit, you would apply your word to us today. That you would teach us, that you would firmly plant in our minds the picture of the ruling, reigning king of the universe as we read through this text. That we would not be able to escape the drastic reality of what Jesus deserves and what he receives. Speak to us today in Jesus name.
Amen. We'll start in verse 11. So this is Jesus after he's been arrested, after he has been taken before the Sanhedrin, which is the ruling body of the Jewish people. And they've taken him now to Pilate, who is a governor over Judea area. Now Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews?
Because that's what they brought him in saying he was the Christ. He says he's a king. So he says, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus says, you have said so. But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer.
Then Pilate said to him, do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge. So the governor was greatly amazed. All right. I want us to picture this. Jesus is in front of a governor.
A governor of not even like a really well-to-do area of the Roman Empire. Colossians 1 says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn among all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven on earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or rulers, dominions or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And they exist by him, that in him all things hold together. So this is the creator of the universe standing in front of a governor to be sentenced.
On trial in front of a governor. Not even Caesar, which would have been humiliating, embarrassing, and laughable, but in front of a governor. Creator of the universe. And he doesn't defend himself. He sits in silence. John tells us that at one point Pilate looks at him and because he won't defend himself, because he won't make any argument against the claims that they make against him, even though they make a long list of claims, outlandish ones.
Pilate looks at him and says, do you not realize I have the ability to release you or crucify you? And Jesus responds, no you don't. Jesus says, you only have the authority that's been given to you by my father. You have no authority over me because Jesus is the ruling reigning king, but he stands before a governor to be sentenced. Fifteen. Now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release.
There's a big Jewish holiday going on. It was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, who do you want me to release for you? Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ? So he just calls out the two prisoners that were most well known.
Who do you want me to release? Barabbas, this notorious criminal, or Jesus who's called Christ? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, have nothing to do with that righteous man. For I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. So his wife had had a dream where apparently it was obvious to her that they shouldn't do anything to Jesus.
There's a spiritual reality to her dream, which is a real thing about dreams, not about all dreams. So sometimes my wife will wake up and she'll be giving me a dirty look and I'll be like, what? And she's like, you were doing a bunch of junk in my dream. And I was like, well, I was behaving myself while I slept. But his wife sends him a thing saying that God had spoken to her.
Something had happened through this dream. And she says, have nothing to do with this righteous man. For I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas.
Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They all said, let him be crucified. And he said, why? What evil has he done? And they shouted all the more, let him be crucified. So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but that rather a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd saying, I am innocent of this man's blood.
See to it yourselves. And all the people answered, his blood be on us and on our children. Then he released for them Barabbas and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. So he stands in front of this crowd and he says, who do you want me to release? This notorious criminal who we know is an insurrectionist and murderer, Barabbas or Jesus, the Christ, the king. And they say, release to us Barabbas and kill Jesus.
And he says, why? What has he done? And they say, we don't care. Crucify him. His blood be on us, not on you. Crucify him.
Kill him. And to the point that a riot was breaking out. That they're beginning to realize that he's lost control of this crowd so that he placates them by killing Jesus. And what it says is that he scourged him, having scourged him, which means that he was beaten by Roman guards who had made a profession of torturing people. So having been tortured, Jesus was delivered over to be crucified, which means that they're going to take him and they're going to nail him from a cross beam through his hands or his wrist right here.
And through the top of his feet, they're going to drop that beam in the ground and he's going to hang there until he dies. A lot of times people were crucified without having been scourged. Jesus was scourged first, which means they took a cat of nine tails and ripped his back and flesh open so that you'd be able to see his ribs. And they would throw salt in it to burn the wounds, make it more painful, but also to stop the bleeding so that he would last longer for them to continue beating him. So that's the state Jesus is in.
The king of the universe. Beaten. Tortured. And heading to a cross. 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters and they gathered the whole battalion before him.
So every soldier there. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. So they take a crown of thorns and they stick it down so that it stabs into his head. And they put it on his head and they put a reed in his hand, in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him saying, Hail, King of the Jews.
One of the only times Jesus was ever treated appropriately as a king was while he was being mocked by a mob of soldiers. You see, they gave him a scarlet robe. And the book of Revelation says that when he returns, he will have a scarlet robe, but it'll be a robe that's been dipped in blood. They gave him a crown of thorns, but the book of Revelation in chapter 19 says that when he returns, on his head, he'll have many crowns. Because he's not just the king of the Jews, as they mockingly say to him, but he's the king of kings. Meaning he rules over all governments, all kings, all rulers forever.
Including the Romans. They put a reed in his hand, but Revelation says that he'll have a sword coming out of his mouth, which is to strike down the nations. Which seems to be that he's going to destroy his enemies through the power of his word, which is how he creates and moves and works. And that he'll rule the world with an iron sepulter. So they give him a reed to hold in his hand, but he'll have one of iron.
And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, king of the Jews. And they spit on him, and they took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, that compelled this man to carry his cross. Seemingly because Jesus could only carry it so far, having already been tortured. Stayed up all night being beaten by Jewish people on their trial and then was handed over to the Romans in the morning.
33. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there.
And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. That was the charge against him. He had declared that he was a king, and they killed him for it. He declared that he was Christ, and they killed him for it. Christ means leader, ruler, one who was going to set up a kingdom. They knew what had been promised.
They knew what was being said. They knew why he was being killed, and they labeled him as such. Jesus was appropriately labeled. The crime against him was true. He was the king of the Jews. But not just the Jews, everybody.
Jesus Christ, king of the universe, leaves his throne in heaven, is born in a manger, lives a perfect sinless life, and this is how he dies. Acts says he dies at the hands of lawless men. That he was destroyed, crucified, murdered. King of the universe. He didn't love his throne and hold on to his throne, but he heads to a cross. He deserves a throne.
He deserves praise. He deserves honor. He deserves worship. He deserves glory. And instead, he takes shame and defeat and torture and pain and leaves his throne and heads to a cross. So the question is, is Jesus a good king?
Does he meet the criteria? As we read through this, is Jesus a good king? We said that a king takes on the plight of his people. And the Bible tells us that Jesus died to pay for our sin. That he joined us in our mess. That he didn't sit far off and declare to us, work it out, fix it yourselves, be really good.
But no, he joined us in our mess. That he walked through life and lived as we couldn't live. And that he died in our place. That he went to the cross because he is a good king who joins in and takes part in the plight of his people. That he doesn't have his people sacrificed for him, but he sacrifices for his people. He said that he maintains justice, that a king is just and fair.
The cross is a pure, unadulterated declaration of the justice of God. Because sin will be paid for. So much so that Jesus, God of the universe, would pay for it himself. You see, when we talk about a king has justice, that sin is paid for, that wrongs are righted, that crime does not go unpunished. And that he offers grace, we see perfectly in the cross that Jesus does both. Perfectly that he does both.
I'm going to read something from Romans chapter 3 just to put this picture in our brains. It says, That's all of us. All of us fall short. This is Romans 3. And are justified by his grace as a gift. Which justified means made right.
So Jesus makes us right by his grace. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation. Which means that he was destroyed on behalf of wrath. Of God's wrath in our place. That we deserve wrath, but Jesus took it. That's what propitiation means.
Propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness. Or another way to say this is justice. Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It looked like, as we read through the Old Testament, that people got off. That people who sinned and deserved to be destroyed didn't get destroyed.
People who rebelled weren't. That justice wasn't maintained because God let people go. And what we see in the cross is that justice is maintained. Sin will be paid for. He had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time.
So that he might be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. What that means is this. Every sin will be paid for. All rebellion will be paid for. The question is, will it be paid for by us or by Jesus? Every time someone has wronged you.
Every time someone's stolen from you, taken from you, abused you, hurt you. And there's that moment in you, there's something inside of you that cries out for justice and punishment. The cross adamantly declares that there will be justice and punishment. But there's also grace. That Jesus would take the justice and punishment that we deserve and he would take it on himself so that we can have freedom. So he does both.
And just for those of us in this room who've been hurt, who've been harmed, who've been assaulted, who've had people rob us. Know this very clearly. Justice will be paid. And it'll either be paid on them, on those who harmed and hurt us, or it'll be paid on Jesus. And for those of us in this room who are in rebellion, who have harmed and hurt, who have stolen from God, who have fought against him. Know this.
Justice will be paid. Either by you, either by us, or by Jesus. But we're offered free grace because of what Jesus accomplishes on the cross. So he's a king who maintains justice and offers grace. We said that he wars for his people, that he steps in, that he leads in the battle, and that's exactly what Jesus does. That he went to a cross on our behalf.
That he didn't sit far back and declare that we had to go work it out. Christianity following Jesus isn't about us warring for ourselves. It's not about us earning it on our own. It's not about us achieving anything. It's not about us being very moralistic or doing our religious duty or showing up to things so that God gives us points. We don't fight this battle for ourselves.
Jesus stepped in and fought it on our behalf. And we're brought in by his victory. That Jesus has already won the war in our place and we just get to live in light of what's already been accomplished for us. Because he went to battle for us. Ultimately, a good king can be trusted. We so often have no clue what God's doing.
When there's pain, when there's hurt, when there's harm, when we're confused, we have no idea what he's up to. But the cross answers the question of whether or not God can be trusted forever. We look at the cross and we know that God is good and that he's for our good and that he can be trusted. We don't know what he's doing all the time. But we know he's good.
We know he's for our good. So much so that he would die for us because he loves us and he cares for us, which means he can handle all the rest of it. But Jesus stepped in our place and can be trusted because he went to the cross for us. Where we see Jesus's power and authority is not a throne. Where we're given the clearest image and picture as we read through scripture to know that Jesus is in charge and that he rules and that he reigns. It's not him seated on a throne.
He doesn't sit on a throne and hand out edict after edict for us to behave. For how we should follow him. For what his good subjects look like. Where we see Jesus's power and authority is on the cross. Where he's high and lifted up and deserving of honor and glory and worship. The king of the universe isn't on a throne but on a cross.
That Jesus left his throne so that we could be brought back to him. And he went to a cross. That that is his unlikely throne. Because he didn't come to set up an earthly kingdom but he came to destroy our ultimate enemy of sin, death, hell, and Satan. And he went to a cross on our behalf. Then he was buried.
Three days later he rose again. And he is seated on a throne. He does rule and reign over all of eternity. And one day he will return. To bring his church home. And to pay for, to punish the rest of sin.
But we see him high and lifted up and glorified on a cross, not a throne. That he went to a throne by way of a cross. That the one God of the universe who deserved all honor and all praise and all glory and all worship and all followership forever. Took on our plight. Fought for justice to offer grace. Won the battle we could never win.
Proved that we can trust him. And was highly exalted on a cross. Not sitting in luxury. Declaring that we have to work really hard to follow him. And that we get to, by faith, follow him. As he pays for our sin.
The band's going to come back up. And we're going to praise Jesus. Who paid for our sin. Who is a good king. And who is worth following with everything that we have. With all of our lives.
Forever. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the love that is offered to us through Jesus. God, I pray that you would continue to teach us how to worship and follow you as a king. As the ruler of all creation. Who, instead of destroying us when we rebelled, joined us and was destroyed on our behalf.
We praise you. We thank you.
Kingdom Parables
Transcript
Well, good morning. Jesus is a king. Jesus is the king. And that's what we've been spending the past several weeks talking about is that Jesus comes as a king, that he comes to us through history as the eternal king. So the Old Testament is going to say that there's a prophesied king who's going to come in the line of David.
And then the New Testament is going to say that king is Jesus, the eternal king that is the king of kings, that princes will rise up and bow down to, that is in charge of everything, is Jesus. And so what we've been doing for the past several weeks is we've been looking at what it means for Jesus to be king, for him to be a king, the king of our lives, of the universe. And what does it mean for him to have a kingdom and what does his kingdom look like? How does it work? And so that's what we've been spending some time doing. So the first week we looked and said that you can't have two kings.
That's not how kings work. And so some of you may have read, you know, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and you said there are two kings in that one. That's a made-up story. That's never happened. And there's talking animals there. Like there's other things going on.
You can only have one king. And so Jesus shows up, says he's king. Herod, who is a king, tries to kill him. And that we basically have the same options. We can get off of the throne and quit trying to be king of our lives. Or we can try to fight Jesus.
We said, so you can't have two kings. Then we looked at how we respond to Jesus' kingdom, that we respond in repentance, that he comes and we change to him because he is in charge of everything. And then last week we spent some time talking about the fact that since he is an eternal king, he deals with eternal problems. And his kingdom is a kingdom of light that advances against the domain of darkness and that we actually, as church, family, get to be a part of that advancing kingdom. So what we're going to do today is we're going to be in Matthew chapter 13.
And we've been spending some time in Matthew. Pretty much this whole series has been in Matthew. So we were in Matthew chapter 1 and 2. Then we were in 3 and 4. And we spent some time in 5. And so we're jumping on ahead into Matthew 13.
And Jesus, a good bit of his ministry, would tell stories. And we know them, we call them parables. Which just means, and I said early on, that he told confusing stories. And some of them are. Because sometimes he just says, the kingdom of God is like this. Or following God is like this.
And he'll just tell a story. And he just, he doesn't explain it. He's just like, it's like this. Boom. And he just walks away. And you're like, well, what are you talking about?
What does that mean? And so, so we're looking at some parables. And we're going to look at just a few short ones in Matthew 13. That where Jesus says, this is what my kingdom is like. This is what the kingdom of God is like. And so, the two things we're going to see as we look at, we're going to look at four parables.
But they kind of come in chunks together. Two main points Jesus is making is that the kingdom of God advances. And that the kingdom of God is priceless. And so that's what we're going to be looking at today. I'm going to pray. And then we'll hop in and look at Matthew 13.
God, we just thank you for this opportunity to gather together as church family. Pray that you would, through your Holy Spirit, teach us, lead us, and help us to continue to grow in what it looks like to be a gospel-centered community on mission in our city. Thank you for your grace and your goodness towards us. In Jesus' name, amen. Matthew 13, page number is up there. If you're using one of the Bibles that's in the pew, one of those blue and white Bibles.
If you don't own a Bible, take that with you. That's our gift to you. If you do own a Bible, leave that here. Unless you know of someone you can give it to. Matthew 13, 31 through 33 is the first one we're going to read. And it says this.
He put another parable before them. And so what we said is that a parable is just an illustration, a story, where Jesus is going to basically, like we would say a simile. It's going to say this. The kingdom is like this. And so he put another parable before them saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree.
So that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. Okay, so he's going to tell two back to back, and that's the first one. And what he's saying is that the kingdom advances. The kingdom of God advances. And what we're going to look at, we're going to kind of look at it in two different ways. But Jesus has a bunch of people around, and then he would just teach.
And sometimes he would just teach with authority, which just meant that he didn't have a text. So synagogue leaders would open the Bible, and they'd say, they'd read it, and they'd talk about it, and they'd say, this is what it means. Jesus would just be like, you know how the Bible says this? I say this. And it's like, you can't do that. Are you allowed to do that?
And so people would follow him around, and he would teach with authority. And then he would teach parables. So he would just say, the kingdom of heaven is like this. And sometimes he would explain them to his disciples, and sometimes he wouldn't. And here's what's great about this parable. First of all, we hear that, and we're like, okay, good.
The kingdom of parable is like a mustard seed that a guy planted. And I know all of you are like, yes, mustard seeds. I know so much about them. Like, I mean, I had to Google stuff, because I'm like, I want to find out how big mustard seeds are, what mustard plants are like. Because the most I know about mustard is French's is the best kind. That's about what I got when it comes to mustard.
But here's what's great about this parable, is that Jesus undersells the kingdom, it seems like. So if he had looked at them and said, the kingdom of heaven is like a cedar from Lebanon. All this Jewish audience would have been like, mmm, good. Like, that sounds great. Like, but he says the kingdom of heaven is a mustard seed. Everybody was like, what?
Run that by me again, boss? Like, how does that work? What are you talking about? It's kind of like, and he doesn't explain it, and we're going to kind of unpack it. But it's kind of like the, you know, ogres are like onions kind of thing.
It's like, why? Because they have layers. Well, parfait has layers, and it's better. And so that's kind of what I think they were hearing. It's like, mustard seeds, you're going to have to do a little more here to explain what you're talking about. But let me just unpack a little bit of the story here.
So he immediately, when he says this, everybody's like tracking because it's like this was a weird thing for him to say that the kingdom is like. Mustard seeds are tiny. So that if you took a mustard seed, you could pinch it in between your fingers and play that which hands the mustard seed in kind of game. Like, and let someone guess because they're really small. If I held one, it would just kind of could sit right there about as small as a BB, if not a little bit smaller. Mustard seeds are really small.
And so when he says they're the smallest of all seeds, he means all the seeds that they were familiar with. He's not speaking scientifically as the creator God. He's speaking in context with the people he's talking about because there are smaller seeds than mustard seeds, but not that they would have been familiar with and used. And he's talking about in the context of a garden. So what he's saying is mustard seeds are the smallest seeds y'all use to plant in your gardens.
But here's what happens. Once you plant it, it grows into pretty much a small tree. So that it becomes the largest garden plant. So large that birds come and make nests in it. That's his parable. That's what the kingdom is like.
And so what he's saying, first of all, is that if you got to choose, no one would pick the kingdom based off of how it's going to get started. That it's going to be so epically underwhelming when it starts. So that Jesus is walking around. He has a ministry for about three years. This is the God of the universe has a ministry for about three years. When he dies, 120 people.
God of the universe plants a church. Three years. 120 people. Like I've read books that would be like, we need to coach that guy up. He's doing some things wrong. Like there was 6,000 at one point and he told them to eat and drink his blood.
That's poor strategy. He freaked everybody out. Like Jesus, when big crowds would come, he would say really hard things to him. And so what he's saying is that his kingdom is going to be very small, very seemingly like it's not going to do anything. So that when he dies, he dies and then three days later he rises again and there's 120 people that are following him.
And you wouldn't think, well, obviously that's going to take over the world. Obviously that's going to have massive impacts on world history. Obviously this guy who spent most of his time with 12 men, one of whom betrays him. So even that gets cut down to 11. Obviously that's going to turn the world upside down. But it does.
And that's his point. Is that the kingdom advances externally. And that's the way we're going to look at it today. Is that this first one we're going to look at is it advances externally. Which means that more and more and more people are going to become believers. Are going to follow Jesus.
And that's exactly what happened. So there was 120 then. There are now in the world 2 billion people that follow Jesus. That claim him as king. That submit and surrender their lives to him. 2 billion.
120. I read this quote. And I think it's interesting because I don't understand mustard. Basically mustard plants, once you get them going, are hard to get rid of. And they spread and they grow in unlikely conditions. So that when we were looking up some of the places that mustard grows, it's like Russia and Africa.
And Egypt. And Australia. Like it was all these. It's like, so it's not a regional climate type thing. Mustard is a hardy plant that grows well. And once it gets to growing, it's hard to get rid of.
It says this. The point in other words. This is John Dominic Crossan. The point, in other words, is not just that the mustard plant starts as a proverbial small seed and grows into a shrub of 3 or 4 or 5 feet in height. It is that it tends to take over where it is not wanted. That it tends to get out of control.
That it tends to track birds within cultivated areas where they are not particularly desired. And that, Jesus said, is what the kingdom of God is like. Like a pungent shrub with dangerous takeover properties. So mustard can grow in unlikely situations and grows well once it gets going. One of the best examples, I think, in modern examples for us is the Chinese church. So the church in China under Mao, Mao Zedong, in 1949, he decided he was going to get rid of the church.
He's one of the guys who called it the opiate of the masses. And he wanted to stamp out and get rid of the church. So what he did was there's about a million believers in China. He sent away 10,000 missionaries. So there were 10,004 missionaries in China and about a million Chinese believers.
He sent all of the 10,000 missionaries out. It was referred to as an unwanted Exodus or undesired Exodus. So that was 1949. So it was about 60 years later in China. The estimates, because it's not really legal to be Bible-believing following Christians in China. There are some state-sanctioned churches, but they kind of have regulations on what they're allowed to talk about.
So there are a lot of underground churches. But the estimates on how many believers there are in China now, 60 years later, under a very repressive attempt to stamp out Christianity and religion, is somewhere between 50 and 100 million. So it was a million, and he was like, well, let's get rid of them. And it didn't work. Because that's what Christianity is like. It's like a mustard seed that's very difficult to get rid of.
They estimate that about 10,000 people become believers every day in China. So he got rid of 10,000 missionaries, and there's 10,000 added every day now to be missionaries to China. Because that's the way the church works. Because that's what the kingdom is like. It's like a mustard seed that starts off really small and underwhelming, and then grows and grows and advances and moves and becomes really hard to get rid of. That's why we get really excited about church planting.
That's why we get really excited about community groups and why we want to launch community groups all over our city, why we want to plant community groups all over our city, because a handful of believers in Jesus genuinely following him as king is a dangerous thing. A beautifully dangerous thing when it comes to being a part of his kingdom advancing. Because the kingdom does advance. And it will advance. And so one of the things we need to know as believers, and especially as we try to build with people and we're trying to build relationships and trying to help people meet Jesus and show what it looks like to follow Jesus, and sometimes that can be discouraging, Jesus says the kingdom advances.
Period. Matthew 16, Jesus says, I will build my church. Which means that all of our effort, all of our energy is worth it, because he is going to advance his kingdom. All the energy you put into building relationships with your coworkers, all the energy you're putting into trying to just be a good neighbor and love and bless people in our city, with the hopes that some might would meet Jesus and with the hopes that some might would just be blessed by the fact that you know Jesus. It's worth it. Because the kingdom does advance.
And that's why we care about and get excited about things that look small and like not super likely like they're going to do great things, because that's what the mustard seed is. If you laid them on a table and said, all right, we're going to grow the biggest plant and let kids pick which one they wanted, or if you didn't know anything about them, not a lot of people are going to be like, oh, this tiny one. Duh. It's going to be great later. That's why we get super excited about it. I was having a conversation with my grandmother.
She's a sweet lady. This is a fun conversation. But I had a conversation with her on vacation this year, and she said she, she, my granddad had been a pastor, so she was asking questions. She always asks them questions about the church, church plant, what, what it is, what we're doing, what a church plant is, because she's just kind of, you know, it's a new idea to her. And so she said, she said, let me ask you something. I said, what?
She said, if God called you to a church, would you go? I was like, what? She said, if God called you to pastor a church, would you? And I said, well, if God told me to, sure. She said, really? I said, yes, ma'am.
And she said, well, I'm going to pray that he calls you to a church. And then she said, cause I just, this thing you're doing, I don't really know what it is. And I was like, I was like, okay, well, just caveat conversation I had to have with her, which was if God calls me, sure, I'll do what God wants me to, but I don't think he's going to. And if a church just calls me, no, for several reasons. One of which being that they don't have good sense. And that sounds like a bad idea.
If those are the kind of decisions they make. So anyway, but that's why we get super excited about what we get to be a part of. That's why, that's why it's worth the energy and the effort we're putting in to start something new in West Columbia. And, and why it's amazing and exciting that we have five community groups and the options and the opportunities to have more eventually. Because Jesus doesn't need much. And he actually likes to show off with something really small and seemingly insignificant.
Because he gets a lot of glory from it. That's why I get real excited that we're a ragtag scrub team. Because it's like, Jesus, you're going to have to show up for this to be good. And he can, and he does. And he says that his kingdom does advance and will advance. And then it says, all right, so first, that's the first one.
And we were looking at him. He's saying his kingdom advances. We're looking at him in two different ways. Kingdom advances externally. So people will meet Jesus.
More churches will be planted. More groups will be launched. 33. He told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened. Again, just kingdom of heaven's like this.
And he doesn't explain it. It doesn't go through. Just, that's what it is. I just want to time out for just a second. One of the things that I, it's very exciting just, just to kind of look at when he tells these stories. The first one is a man takes a mustard seed and plants it.
And the second one is a woman takes 11 and does this. And so even in just Jesus is telling parables, he's inviting everybody in to be a part of his mission. And it's just, it's just cool. So I just wanted to point that out. But the way we're going to look at this one, just mental image wise, and he's just saying the kingdom advances, but the kingdom advances internally as well.
So the kingdom advances externally and the kingdom advances internally. So you take a bunch of flour and he says that it's, how many measures? Three measures of flour, which was about 50 pounds, enough to feed about a hundred people. And so when Jesus first started and he was like the kingdom of heaven's like a mustard seed and some of our outdoorsy gardeny type people were like, I'm tracking. This sounds great. Like a tree.
Okay. Hmm. And then some of, some of us were like, okay. And now he's talking about bread. So I'm like, all right, all right, I'm listening.
Carbohydrates. I'm tracking. Tell me more about this lady with the bread. Do you have any samples that I might understand leaven better? But here's, here's how leaven works.
You take a little bit of starter, which is just like a gross ball of goo. And then, uh, you feed it. You can feed it flour and the starter stays together. And then you add just a little bit to the bread you're using and yeast spreads through all of it. So you can't have like half yeasted.
You can't, you can't have like, it's going to take over the whole thing. So when she adds yeast to this, she can't just have a little bit or she adds a little bit and it takes over 50 pounds of it. That he says it leavens the whole lump. And here's the thing. It doesn't look different. It just operates differently.
It doesn't have this magical external change. It's just going to work differently when you stick it in an oven. When you cook it, it's going to rise. It's going to have different internal properties. And here's what's great about that. What he, what we're looking at here is that the kingdom advances internally.
So some of you became believers. This is what Jesus does inside of our souls. Is that he takes over everything. And that's beautiful and terrifying. But Jesus takes over everything.
So some of us are in here like, man, I'm a Christian, but I just, I'm just not getting it right. Like I'm just messing it up. I feel like a lump. He leavens the whole lump. So if you're like, I'm a lump, good.
Leaven's going to take over the whole lump. That's what he's going to do. That's how that works. And here's the thing. If you become a Christian, you don't look different. It's not like people become a Christian and start smiling like an idiot all the time.
That's not how that works. Why are you so happy? Well, I'm glad you asked. That's not how that works. I'm a Christian. I love Jesus.
My face looks like this most of the time. Like, it's not what happens. It's not an external thing. He changes internally. He takes over our souls. My other grandmother, I just got grandmother stories today, but my other grandmother, when we were growing up, my parents would have to go out of town some and they would invite our grandparents to come watch us.
And so they would just come stay at our house and watch the three boys. And so at first it was just like, they would invite them in and they would be like, just, just hang out, watch, be grandparents, do your, do your grandparent thing. And, but my grandmother, her name is Ea, which is just Yoruba, which is African language means grandmother, but Ea can't sit still and not do things. So when they're like, come relax, just get to be a grandparent. She's incapable of that. So she would, she would get into everything.
So like before they came anyway, we had to like clean the house and hide stuff. And inevitably at the end of the week, she would have found it and been like, Oh, we're, we're reorganizing all this. She, she came one time for like four days when they came back, she had rearranged the kitchen. So that like my parents came back and would like open to get a plate and there'd be cups. And it was just like, why? Why would a person do this?
And the great part was that my parents were just like, we'll get used to it. Like they didn't change it back. It just seemed like too much work, but she didn't like the feng shui of kitchen organization. I don't know. I don't know what drove her to do that, but she just reorganized. So then what they had to do is this happened about once a year.
They started giving her jobs. They started when she was coming, they were like, Hey, we want you to watch the kids and paint these two rooms and do wallpaper. And it got to where they had a list long enough that it was like, do this first, this second. If you get to this until my grandparents would come watch us and like redecorate our house. But my parents had to like point them in the right direction because otherwise they were just going to get into everything.
Here's what happens though. Jesus does that in our souls. So for the most part, most of us, we want to become a Christian because we, we see a glaring need for Jesus here. Jesus, I want to place my faith in you because I need you here. This is a hot mess. I need you active here.
And he shows up and he does that. He changes us. He moves us. He rescues us there. And then you're like, thank you so much. Have a seat.
And he's like, Nope. It's not how that works. Jesus comes in. We talked last week. Jesus isn't a cat that just, we add to our life to add a little bit of comfort and a little bit of, when I feel sad, I get to hug and pet. And then he goes and kind of minds his own business in the corner.
Jesus is a king. And so Jesus leavens the whole lump. He takes over everything. So we'll invite him in because we need help with our children. And then, and then he's like, he helps you learn how, what that looks like and rearranges your view on parenting. And then he's like, you want to talk about, let's talk about finances.
And you're like, whoa, no. Hey, let's talk about your view on relationships. No, no, no. That's not, that's not why you were invited in. And then let me, let me just tell you this. He's going to leaven the whole lump.
C.S. Lewis said at one point that, that God loves us the same way that an artist loves a masterpiece in a lot of ways. And that by the time an artist is done with a masterpiece, that if the canvas could talk, it would be a very painful process because there would be times when he had to restart and re scrape and re, re begin what he was doing. And, and, and over time, eventually the canvas would just be saying, couldn't I just be a sketch? Couldn't you just like make me nice enough? And he says, no.
See, God doesn't have a sleepy love for you. He has an active love for us and that we're satisfied way more quickly than he is. So most of us reach a place and we're like, I feel pretty good. And he's like, no, we got, we got a lot of work to do because I care about you enough to continue working when it's difficult. Because he's going to leaven the whole love. He is going to take over internally.
So here, here's the thing. Romans says that we'll be conformed to the image of his son, that we're predestined to be conformed to the images of his son. Romans 8 says that. And so what's going to happen is that over our life as a Christian, if we've genuinely placed our faith in Jesus and are following him, he's going to continue to change our outlook on, on everything that our, our, our way we look at money is his, the way we look at relationships is his, the way we view marriage is his, the way we view sex is his, the way we view every bit of our time, everything belongs to him. And he's going to continue to take over.
And here's the thing we've said repeatedly that kingdoms only advance militantly, that a kingdom advances against the kingdom militantly. Jesus, because he loves you and is gracious to you is going to militantly take over your soul. And so a lot of times we draw lines in the sand and we hunker down and we say, all right, if you want this one, you're going to have to take it. We draw battle lines and we say, all right, Jesus, this is going to be a fight. Jesus wins. He's going to, and he cares enough about you to fight you.
And so some of you, maybe that's, that's your story. You became a Christian and you're like, man, this has been like a fight. Since I became a Christian. And Jesus cares enough about you to not stop, to not, not let you go and to continue to advance in your soul, his kingdom, because of his gracious love for you. And he's going to take over the whole thing. So.
Let me give some encouragement, because that is true. If you are here and you're saying, I just don't feel like I'm growing. Keep following, keep fighting, keep putting yourself in the right positions, keep trying to get as close to his grace as he possible. Gather with your community group, gather when we get together on Sundays, keep reading scripture, because Jesus is going to leaven everything. He is going to, his kingdom is going to advance in you. And if you've been fighting him, surrender as quickly as possible.
It's the best advice I can give you, because he is not going to be satisfied. There are no holdouts of your old kingdom allowed anymore. There are no areas that Jesus doesn't get to be. There are no dark corners and closets that he's not going to mess with. There are no places that his light isn't going to penetrate. And surrender as quickly as you can.
And ask him to help you surrender. So that he might continue to advance his kingdom in your soul. Because he's going to. Okay. So here's what we're going to do.
Oh, let me say this. As you become a Christian, a lot of times people think that I will sin less. And that's true. Ish. But that's not the predominant way that we grow as Christians.
One of the predominant ways that we grow as Christians is that we see our sin more. We see it more clearly. We see it more often. And so a lot of times you're thinking, oh my goodness, I didn't even realize that this whole aspect of my life was not in line with, I feel so terrible. And it's God's grace to show us our sin. That's one of the ways that he helps us grow.
And so as we continue to grow as Christians, we're just going to see more sin and have more areas we get to repent, more areas we get to surrender. And so sometimes people think, oh, I became a Christian. I was doing really well. And now I know that I've got this scenario and this scenario and this scenario. And the truth is, you had him the whole time. Jesus and his grace is now showing them to you.
And that is growth. And he is going to take over everything. Okay. Now we can jump down. Matthew 13, 44. So in between these sets of parables, he explains another one that he told earlier in Matthew.
And so we're just skipping over his explanation and jumping to 44. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Okay. Two stories, two parables.
First one, there's a guy in a field and he finds a treasure in the field. So we don't know why he was in the field, why he was digging in this field that he didn't own, but he's there. He finds a treasure. Maybe he just, the treasure was there and he covers it up. So he hides it.
He's like, Oh my goodness, I found a treasure. Like, have you ever thought about like daydreamed about finding treasure? At least when you were eight and wanted to be a pirate. Like, so he finds treasure and he covers it up. And then he's like, like, what do I do? And he leaves and he sees a for sale sign.
And he, dear diary, jackpot. Like, so he goes and sells everything that he has. He's just, just like, Hey, Hey man, I need to sell my truck. Like I need to, I need my, I got to sell my car. Like I got to sell everything I got. I got to sell my house.
And he sells everything that he has. I mean, nowadays he'd be like hitting up eBay, selling his lamp. Last thing, just so you know, if you're going to sell everything on eBay, sell your computer last. It's just a helpful tip. So, so he sells everything that he has. And his, his family, I just, could you can just assume that people around him think he's absolutely crazy.
And in his joy, he shows up and he's like, how much you asking for the field? And they're like, this much? And he's like, they don't know about the treasure. And so he buys the field, sold everything he had, buys the field in his joy. The second one is, uh, kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. So this guy's a merchant.
He buys and sells thing and it sells things. And he loves pearls. He loves fine pearls. Like, so he's, he's out merchanting, buying and selling. Uh, and he finds a pearl of great price. And, and it would seem from the parable Jesus tells, that he knows the value of the pearl.
And the other guy, apparently he buys it from knows it's valuable, but maybe not as valuable as it actually is. But he goes and sells all that he has. So he goes with his merchanting and sells everything he's got and comes over and buys that pearl. And that's what the kingdom of heaven is like. Real quick. How much does the kingdom of heaven cost?
The first guy. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man fell and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells. Yeah. All that he has. And he buys that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value went and sold. All that he had. And bought it. Here's what Jesus is saying. Well, here's what we see from the parables. The kingdom costs.
Everything. All that we have. That it takes everything. What this means for us as believers is that there is no non-radical form of Christianity. There is no normal run of the mill Christianity that when we become believers, everything is on the table. It's not, I'll decide where I'm going to work.
No, that's on the table. I'll decide what, what, what kind of, what I'm going to study in school and what, what I'm going to do with my life, what my goals are. No, that's on the table. I'll decide who, who I marry and how my relationships will work. No, that's on the table. When we approach Jesus, everything's on the table so that he gets to tell us where we live, where we go, what we do, how our life's going to play out.
Everything belongs to him that we show up and we submit to him as king. And everything is on the table because he is Lord. And so it's not, we read the Bible and decide whether or not we want to do this. Our choice isn't, is this good or is this bad? And is this what we want to do? Our choice is to submit and follow because he's Lord.
And it costs everything. What's beautiful is that's not the point of the parable. He says that, he says that it costs you everything, but that's not his point. And that's not the point he's making in the parable. So Jesus says earlier, he says that the kingdom is going to advance.
It's going to continue. It's going to move. People are going to meet Jesus. People are going to surrender and follow him. And that the kingdom is going to advance in your soul. And it's going to take over every last square inch of you.
And it's going to cost everything. But that's not the point he's making in this parable. Here's what's beautiful about this. The kingdom is worth everything. The point in the parable is that it's priceless. That these guys give up everything.
They sacrifice everything. And they don't feel like it's a sacrifice. I saw recently that there was a professional football player whose name I will not say because it's Samoan. And it's like, he and his brother both played. His brother had kidney issues and had to stop. And then when he found out that his brother needed a kidney, his immediate response was, he can have mine.
And he was a 99% match. And I was reading the article. And so the article was, professional football player has to stop playing football to give up his kidney. And so he sacrifices his kidney. He sacrifices his playing football. But at no point does that register as a sacrifice to him.
Yeah, he gets it. He had to lose weight to be in shape enough to give the kidney. And he's got to do rehab. And he can't play professional football anymore, which I'm sure is something that he has poured countless hours into. And in his brain, it's like, yeah, but that's my brother. So this is a sacrifice, but not really.
And that's kind of just a glimpse into what Jesus is saying about the kingdom. When we understand the kingdom, that yeah, yeah, it's a sacrifice. And yeah, we're giving up everything, but in our joy, because of the matchless worth, the immeasurable worth of what we're getting out of it. So what I find to be true is when, when I'm frustrated by the amount of work I'm putting into following Jesus, I feel like he's asking a lot. And I can't believe that I got to do this to be a Christian. I can't believe that other people get to live like this and do this with their, and I got to do this.
What, what I, what I've realized is I don't get the weight of my sin when that happens. I don't understand what's been given to me in the gospel. When my heart goes there, I've missed this parable because what I'm thinking is, yeah, it does cost everything. And what I'm missing is that it's worth everything and that we still get the better deal because it's priceless. That what's been given to us in Jesus has no value. You can't, you can't put a price tag on it.
It has, it's not even in the same category. So that, that they give up everything, but they don't see it that way. It's priceless. And that's what Jesus is saying. And that's what Jesus is saying. We need to understand about the kingdom is that it, yeah, it costs everything, but he's already accomplished everything for us.
So, um, I think it was last year, uh, a guy, the gas station I go to all the time called Murphy Express on Augusta road, which is right near my house. Uh, a guy won the mega millions lottery jackpot, $400 million, which is always fun. When you talk to people about someone winning the lottery, because they'll be like, yeah, but after taxes, but it was like 200 million. And it's like, bro, it's $200 million given to you for free. That's a horrible thing to complain about. Like you missed the point here, but he wins $400 million.
You ever sat and thought about, oh man, like when that happened, I thought, man, which it really doesn't matter. It was close to my house. Cause he just picked random Numbers, but it feels like it matters that it was close to my house. It's like, man, what if I won the lottery? Like you ever think about that? Like what you would do if you won the lottery.
And there's just this moment where it's like, ah, there'd be a lot of freedom with that. You wouldn't have to work. I mean, you could have, you wanted to, if you felt what you were doing fun, you wouldn't have to. Anytime your boss got on your nerves, you'd just be like, I quit. Cause you didn't need the money. You have to do what you want.
You wouldn't have to work. There's this immediate feeling of like, I wouldn't have to worry about my future. Like I'd be in control of circumstances because of the amount of money I'd have. I'd get comfort and rest. I just, I wouldn't, the stress and the weight that I carry just wouldn't be there anymore. That I just, I'd be free.
That's what, that's what you play out in your mind. And you may not add those words to it, but that's what you're thinking. When you go there about thinking about what you would do with $400 million, and you just think, oh yeah, I could put a roller coaster in my backyard. And I could pay people to run it. And that would be a good use of my money. Like you just, you go through and you think about all the stuff that you could do and the joy that it would bring you and the, the freedom that it would bring you and the comfort and the control and the power.
Like you just, all of these things that immediately you find rest in just this idea. This idea of what that would accomplish for you. And so what Jesus is saying in this parable is, God has the winning lottery ticket, but he's in the witness relocation program. So he can't go on TV. He can't go cash this thing in. It's not allowed to, but he's going to sell it to you.
Whatever you got. Here's my house. Here's my car. Here's everything I have. I'm going on an adventure. Here's my car.
Cause I'm just going to hold a ticket for a while that says I get $400 million. And I don't mind leveraging everything I have for this short period of time because of the great amount of worth that I'm going to get out of it on the back end. No brainer. And it'd be as if you couldn't talk to your family about it. So they thought you'd lost your mind.
I can explain a little bit about what's happening, but I can't tell you everything yet. You're not going to get everything yet, but just trust me. I know you don't see it, but just trust me. Jesus is saying the kingdom is that for our entire lives. That what he's accomplished for us in the cross, you don't have to work anymore. You don't have to prove your value and your worth because Jesus has already given it to you in the cross.
That when Jesus died, he took your sin. He took your debt. Some of you think, oh man, if I had $400 million, no more credit cards, no more credit card debt. I'd be out of debt. All my school loans paid off. Everything.
I just go pay cash for a house. How much? $300,000. This is going to be a while. Jesus paid our debt. Gone. And he didn't give us a clean slate.
He gave us his slate. He didn't put his back in neutral and say, go work it out. He gave us his righteousness. So we don't have to work anymore. You don't have to prove your worth. You don't have to earn it.
You don't have to be at the end of your life and look at Jesus and say, did I do well enough? He's already accomplished everything on your behalf. We know that regardless of how everything works out, there's a sovereign king in charge of the universe who's adopted us into his family and has perfect control over everything. That our hope and our security and our future is set because of what has already taken place on our behalf because of Jesus. That our invitation into the kingdom is priceless. And that every bit of everything that we give up for it is never wasted.
And at the end of the day, when we put everything, when we put everything on the line, at no point have we reached paying back what's already been given to us. At no point has it become an even trade. And that's why he says in his joy, he sells everything. Because he knows what he's getting. See, Jesus says that the kingdom is going to advance. More people are going to be brought into his kingdom.
And that the kingdom is going to advance in our souls. And that it's going to cost us everything. And that it's worth it. It's priceless. And that what we get out of it cannot be measured. Can't be counted.
That the value of the kingdom is uncomprehendable. So that when we think about what we're doing and what we're a part of, at no point does it tap out in our wildest imaginations of what has been given to us in Christ. At no point have we reached what it actually is. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing and praise Jesus for the fact that through him, through his sacrifice on the cross, we get invited into his kingdom. That his kingdom does advance in us.
That it does advance in this city, in this world. And that it's worth everything. That what he's accomplished for us in the cross is priceless. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love. Thank you for the hope that's been given to us in you.
We pray, Lord, that through your Holy Spirit, you would help us to see the pricelessness of your kingdom. The great value and worth of what you've already accomplished for us in the cross. And God, we ask that you would do what you promised to do. That your kingdom would advance in our souls. That we would repent of sin. That we would continue to follow you.
That we would, when we see our sin, God, we would praise you for your grace. That you've covered it. And that you've been gracious enough to show it to us. God, we ask for your kingdom to advance in this city. For more groups to be launched. More leaders to be trained.
More churches to be planted. More relationships to be built. That God, you would take mustard seeds all over the world and continue to grow them. That your kingdom would continue to grow. And God, we ask you that you would help us to see, to taste, to feel the pricelessness of what has been accomplished for us in the cross. That an unpayable debt's been paid.
That wealth and riches, eternal grace and love, favor has been applied to our account. That we've been welcomed in because of your sacrifice. We love you. We praise you. We thank you. In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Prepare the Way
Transcript
Last week we looked at the fact that there's a problem when there are two kings. And so we saw how King Herod existed and some wise men showed up and said, Hey, we want to see the king. And he was like, here I am. That's not in the Bible. I'm just assuming that's how he responds when people say they want to see the king. He's like, kiss my ring, whatever the kings get to do.
And they were like, no, no, not you. Capital K King, the prophesied king, the king that was to come, the king that that has been promised by prophets, the king that's going to be an eternal king. And so Herod basically tries to get rid of Jesus. He tries to kill him unsuccessfully. Later, Jesus will die. And that was also unsuccessful because he didn't stay dead.
But he tries to kill him. And basically, we looked at our responses. We have the same options. We can, like the wise men, worship and submit to Jesus as king. Or we can, like King Herod, do everything we have to defend our own territory. And what we said was that kingdoms are militaristic, which means they advance at the expense of other kingdoms.
And so, like, I live in a neighborhood. If my property line expands, it expands at the expense of my neighbors. That's how it works. So if I walk into my neighbor's yard and I'm just like, yep, putting a hot tub here, my neighbor would be like, no, you're not. That's my yard. And I'd be like, that's my yard now because that's where my hot tub's going.
We just talked about this. Like, pay attention. And that's kind of how kingdoms work. Kingdoms could only expand at the expense of other kingdoms. And so when Jesus is standing in the Roman Empire and he says the kingdom is at hand, that's automatically a militaristic statement. And what we talked about a little bit last week is that we don't understand how kings and kingdoms work.
We just don't have a good grasp on that. And so we looked at some kings throughout history. And the way kings work is that they have rule and reign and they have absolute authority. That's very interesting to me to look back at just some earthly kings and the things that they got to do. King Louis XIV, known as the Sun King, he was a king in France. He built a palace at Versailles.
And this was like in France when they were wearing like knickers and like really awkward, uncomfortable clothes and stuff. And there's like pictures of him with like weird tight pants and like a giant fur thing hanging off of him. And so but what he did was he didn't like the sound of knocking. And so if you wanted to talk to him, you couldn't knock on his door. You had to use your left pinky finger fingernail to scratch. This is how you knocked on his door.
You scratched with your left pinky fingernail, which is just weird and arbitrary. But he gets to do that because he's a king. And so the people around him started growing that fingernail out longer so they could scratch better. And then you would scratch. This is a power play. You would scratch until he he let you in.
I look cool doing that. And that's what he's doing. He's just showing his power. They used to compete to see who would get to be the guy who would wipe sweat off of his face. It's like when he was out, like you was a good position to be King Louis XIV sweat wiper guy. That meant like he was showing you doing you a favor.
And he's just an earthly king. But that's how kings rule. They have authority and power and reign. And we don't get that. That doesn't fit into our American mindset where we're like, not no, heck no. Somebody going to sit here and make me wipe sweat and scratch on their door.
This is ridiculous. But that's how kings get to act. And so when Jesus shows up and says he's a king, what he means is that he has absolute authority. And so what we're going to look at is how do we respond to Jesus's kingship? If we are going to step off of the throne, if we are going to not like Herod fight for our throne, but we're going to be like the wise men and worship and surrender and step off of the throne. What does that mean?
How do we respond? And so we'll be in Matthew chapter 4, and then we're going to jump back to Matthew chapter 3. So, you know, just like you learned how to count 1, 2, 4, 3. We were in chapters 1 and 2 last week. We're going to be in 4 and then going back to 3. What we're going to look at, Matthew 4 verse 17, is what Jesus began, how he began his ministry.
So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop in and start looking at what the Bible says about how we respond to Jesus as king. God, we thank you. That we have the opportunity to gather together as church family and study your word. And we ask that your Holy Spirit would work in us to change us and to make us more like you. Help us to hear your word clearly today and help us to respond. Don't let us be cold towards it.
Don't allow us to hear your word and to walk away and to do nothing with it. And so we ask that your Holy Spirit would move and speak and change us. In Jesus' name, amen. Verse 17. So from that time Jesus, this is Jesus beginning his public ministry.
It says, from that time Jesus began to preach. He's proclaiming, saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And I think for most people in this room, we've heard something like that before. Or we've heard that said before. Or we've heard that kind of a statement before.
And I think for pretty much everyone in this room, we don't really know what that means. I know for me, like I hear that and I'm like, okay. All right, I don't know what to do with that. Like I don't know. I don't even really know what he's saying. So when he says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
It's a lot like when they would send someone. Someone would go before a king. And we're going to look at that in a second. And basically it's, there's a kingdom coming. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And you need to respond.
And so I think for us, we don't really get what repentance is. Repentance kind of has a bad rap. Like we don't really fully grasp what it means, what we're supposed to do with that. So maybe our best, when we think of this declaration, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, is like someone holding a sign that says repent. Like repent, the end is nigh. It's like, well, I don't know what nigh is, but that doesn't sound good.
Or like repent or you will perish. Like those kind of signs. Like I'm dirty and angry. Like they usually look like pretty unkempt. There's, my favorite is the like, repent, you specific person of this specific sin that I happen to be most angry about. So it'll be like, repent, you long-haired hippies.
And it's like, why, why just them? Like why, what you got against those guys? Or like they'll go repent at a specific type of people or a specific, and we just are like, okay, that sounds weird. It's like most of the time I think of repentance. Sometimes I'll think of it in, I'll either think of it in kind of the context I have in scripture, but any outside understanding of where I've seen this kind of declaration, I think of people like angrily shouting on a street corner. And so what we're going to do, if Jesus shows up and the first thing he says is repent for the kingdom's at hand.
Repent for the kingdom is here. I think we need to take some time this morning and figure out, okay, if that's how we respond to Jesus as king, if his kingdom's here and our response is repent, let's find out what repentance is. And so Matthew, who's writing this, doesn't explain much about that. He just says that Jesus declares that. Part of the reason he doesn't explain that is because he's kind of already explained it in chapter 3. And so that's how Jesus begins his ministry.
That's how he begins to declare what our response is. And we're going to jump back to chapter 3. So the beginning of chapter 3, if you've got one of the Bibles on the rows, it should be the same page. If you don't own a Bible, grab one of those and take it with you. That's our gift to you. So this is John the Baptist.
In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I love John the Baptist. And we'll get to see why here in a minute, just from some different things. But he begins preaching in the wilderness.
That always just seemed kind of weird to me. Like someone rides into town and they're like, Hey, um, there's a guy. Like in the wilderness, like on my way in, he was yelling it. There wasn't a whole lot around. He was just yelling. Y'all want to go see what he's doing?
Seemed crazy. Could be fun. Like he's in the wilderness. And it really just kind of means not in the city. So like most people, when you had a message declared, you go to the city.
But he just stays out, kind of does his own thing. Luke's going to say that he wasn't a part of the religious establishment or the political establishment. He was his own thing. But he's in the wilderness declaring, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so this is very similar as what he's declaring is it's when a king would come, when a kingdom was coming, it basically, they would send people ahead of them. And so they would show up to another castle or another kingdom.
And they'd say, Hey, uh, surrender. Cause Xerxes is coming. And he's on his tour day, butt kicking. And you can either be along that tour or you can surrender now before he gets here. So surrender because Xerxes is coming.
And so that's kind of what he's saying is John is declaring, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This kingdom is coming. And this is how you respond. You get to surrender now or you get to, to fight against this. And so it says for this is he talking about John the Baptist who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. When he said the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
And I'm going to read that section of Isaiah to you really quick. It's an Isaiah 40. If you want to look it up later, I'm going to read verses three through five, just to give you the full extent of what it says when it's talking about John the Baptist, who he is. So in the wilderness, a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert, a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up. Every mountain and hill be made low.
The uneven ground shall become level in the rough places of plain and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. So it was prophesied beforehand that, that John the Baptist was going to come and declare this. And what he is declaring is a king is coming. We've got to get prepared. You see, when, when kings would travel to certain areas in their kingdom, so it's inside their kingdom, they travel to certain areas, people would go before them and they would prepare the road for them.
So most roads, the Romans had some roads, but when they went to certain areas in kingdoms, there just weren't, there weren't good roads. So there was basically paths that people had walked down or maybe enough horses had ridden down and maybe some carriages. And it just, there were a lot of places where it was, you just kind of winded through what was the most easy way to go. And sometimes it was over things and sometimes it'd be a path. And all of a sudden there was a giant rock. And so people who were walking are going to move the rock.
They're just going to move the path around the rock and go down the hill and up the hill. And so what someone would go ahead into the area and say, a king is coming. We've got to prepare the king's highway because when he comes, he's not going up and down and around. He's got an entourage. He's got his army with him and we need to, to prepare the king's highway. And so they would go ahead of them and say, okay, a rough place places have to be smoothed out.
Big rock stones, trees got to be out of the way. We've got to build a bridge here. We're not messing with this. When the king shows up, we're not messing with having to try to go through this Creek the way y'all go through it. We're building a bridge here. And they would prepare the way for the king.
And so the first thing that we see about repentance, when, when they show up and say, repent for the king, for the king is coming. The first thing we see about repentance is that we actively respond, to Jesus as king, that we actively acknowledge Jesus as king. That's the first step in repentance, because they would show up and say, the king is coming. You change to him. He doesn't change to you. Your ways, your thinking, your system, your setup changes to meet his, not his to meet yours.
And so the first thing about repentance, the first way that we respond to Jesus as king, is we actively acknowledge Jesus as king, which means he's in charge. He has rule and authority and reign. And so you'll hear people say things like, well, God loves me just the way I am. And I love me the way I am. And so God wouldn't show up and make me change, because he loves me the way I am. And the truth is, that's true.
God does love you just the way you are. That's made evident for us throughout scripture. That's what the gospel declares, that God loves us the way we are, but he loves us enough not to leave us there. And so you're making a false dichotomy, to say that God loves me so much, he would never ask me to change, doesn't make any sense. That's not actually how love works. So parents that love their kids don't say, okay, four-year-old, nope, what do you want to eat for dinner?
Candy. Sounds great. That'll be good for you. Do you want to go to sleep? Nope. Cool.
Do whatever you want. That's not love. That's easier. That's not love. Love is, no, you're not eating candy, because that's not good for you. You can have some at certain points when it makes sense.
But that's not your whole diet. And you do have to go to sleep, and you do have to wake up, and we are going to send you to school, even though you don't like it. And when you come home crying, because school's terrible, we'll talk to you about, yeah, it's terrible. You're going back tomorrow. That's love. That's how love works.
And so, to say that God loves me so much, He would never ask me to change, no, what you're saying is, God actually has this vague, fuzzy love towards me that isn't real. No, God loves you so much that He's going to ask you to change. That He's going to step in and take away the candy sometimes, because of what's actually ultimately good for you. See, I heard somebody say this the other day, and I thought it was a really good way to think about this. A lot of times, we think about following Jesus like getting a cat. So it's like, I'm going to follow Jesus, I'm going to be a Christian, I'm going to be a believer, and it's like getting a cat, which is just, my life needs a little bit of something.
It's pretty good. It just needs a little something, a little bit of some warmth and comfort. And so, like you get a cat, like it's going to sleep here, go to the bathroom here, not really do anything else here at all. And then when I've had a bad day, I'll hold it in my lap, and I'll pet it, and it'll make me feel better. And, and then when it, when I don't want to pet it anymore, I'll just toss it to the side, and it'll kind of, we'll coexist. And a lot of people think that's what following Jesus is like.
He'll just be a good addition to my already pretty nice life. And, and when I'm feeling bad, he'll comfort me. And when I need a little bit of warmth, he'll, he'll add that and spruce it up. And I'll, I'll be one of those Jesus people, you know, like, like a cat person. And that'll be good. And it'll help me.
And if, if he starts to get on my nerves, well, I just won't pet him that much anymore or whatever. But Jesus isn't a cat. He's a king. And kings don't coexist. Well, they don't just provide warmth when you want it. It's not how kings work.
So I want to be, because I think it is helpful. If you get to decide what applies, if you get to decide from here, what's real and what's not real and what Jesus means and doesn't mean, if when the Bible is really clear and specifically talks about areas of sin, and you get to say, well, that's not really something I'm going to do right now. Or yeah, I get that the Bible says that, but, but God doesn't really know my circumstances or, or yeah, finances were different. Or yeah, if I had a little more time, if you get to do that, Jesus isn't king. You are. If, if I get to tell Jesus where he can and cannot operate, if I get to tell Jesus what I will and will not do, then he's not king.
I am. And the truth is, who I'm following, worshiping, proclaiming, and saying that is my king and is my Lord is not Jesus. So if on a consistent enough basis, you get to tell God what he will not do, what he cannot do, then you can show up here as much as you want. And you can be in a community group every time that y'all meet, every time y'all have normal rhythms to hang out and share food. You can show up here. And when we're singing, little tears can drip out of your face, but you're not singing to Jesus because he's a king.
I don't know who you're here worshiping, who you're here proclaiming. I don't know who you're acting like you follow, but if he doesn't get to set boundaries, if he doesn't get to tell you when to go and when not to go, if he doesn't get to lead, it's not Jesus. The first thing that happens when we begin to follow Jesus is that we acknowledge him as a king and a king has ultimate authority. That's why it's a very helpful question when someone wants to follow Jesus to say, okay, someone says, I'm ready to be a Christian. Okay. Are you ready to do whatever Jesus tells you to do no matter what?
If he tells you to move, you're ready to move. If he tells you to quit your job, you're ready to quit your job. If he tells you to follow him here, you're ready to follow him there. Because Jesus is a king. Kings don't coexist well. So the first thing we see is that we acknowledge, we actively acknowledge Jesus is king and we change to meet him.
We change our ways to meet his ways. Verse four. Now, John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey. He wore a garment of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist. The reason they say this is because this is weird. People didn't do this.
And his food was locusts and wild honey. Trader Joe's doesn't have anything on that. Like you think you're, you're green or you're like, I mean, I'm pretty sure that's gluten free right there. He's eating crickets. I don't think there's gluten in those. Like he, the first organic, there you go.
You want to be a proof text right there. If you need to prove to someone that it's okay to be like organic and farmer's market. There you go. Say John the Baptist. It's like John. Uh, so anyway, or belt camel's hair, leather belt, uh, ate locusts and wild honey, lived in the wilderness, yelled at people.
I just, I like John the Baptist. He's great. He probably looked like one of the duck dynasty guys, but more, more Jewish, darker, uh, then, uh, then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him. So everybody starts leaving the cities to go out to hear what he's proclaiming. They were going out to him and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. So people would show up, they would go, they would hear him proclaim, repent for the King is coming.
You acknowledge him as King. And they would actually walk down into the river where he was. They would confess sin in front of people. They would say, this is where I'm off. This is where I'm broken. This is where I'm wrong.
This is where I need help. This is where I'm twisted. This is where I need a savior. And then he would baptize them as they confessed sin. And so the, it says that all these people are going out to them, confessing their sin. And when he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, let me tell you who Pharisees and Sadducees are.
These are the religious elite. These were the respected Jewish leaders. These were the guys in chapter two, when the wise men show up and tell Herod, there's a King. These are the guys he calls in and says, Hey, y'all study the scripture. You know, these are the Bible trivia guys. Like these are the guys that when you were talking about something, they'd be like, actually Malachi says this.
Like they would, those were the, these were those guys. And these were the guys that you asked Bible questions to. These were the guys that were respected religious leaders. It says, when they came out to him, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Um, when we read scripture, there is some cultural distance between us and the people in, in the text. Um, so just to help us out, brood of vipers is, uh, would be considered a, um, what's a cut down, like a mean thing to say to someone.
I know you thought maybe that was like how they greeted each other. Brood of vipers. What's up? Like, no, uh, it was a mean thing. What he was actually pointing to was they understood when he said, you're the son, you're the children of snakes. But there's children of a snake.
What he's saying is, uh, you know, in the garden of Eden when everything was perfect and then a snake showed up and, and led Eve astray and Adam followed. Um, yeah, he's saying, he's saying that was Satan. He's saying you're Satan's children. Automatic bad team. They didn't appreciate this because there's a bunch of people. And then the religious respected elite show up to check things out, to maybe even be baptized.
And he says, you snake babies, you brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee? I love that. Because it means that repentance isn't about our behavior. Can't be. If he yells at these guys, it can't be about what I do.
These guys would have had the old Testament memorized at least the first five books. They brought Jewish children in. They would teach them the first five books. They would memorize it. And if they were good at that, then they got to keep going in school. So the first five books, you know, the books of the Bible that you have a hard time reading.
You know, the books of the Bible that we get to and we're like, all right, I'm going to read the whole Bible Bible reading plan, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, no book of John. I'm going to the book of John. They had it memorized. They were the religious elite. They behaved. They were moral.
They were upright. They looked up to them. And so what we would think, what we think repentance is, is come behave. Come be really good little boys and girls. Repent. Stop, stop being a bad person and start being a good person.
And if that were true, when the Pharisees showed up, he would have said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And the Pharisees would have shown up and he would have said, be like them. Follow them. They're the best. That's not what he says. He says, brood of vipers, who warned you?
And the air was let out of the wilderness. You know how the air can be let out of a room? It was let out of the entire wilderness. And what he declared was, it's not about behavior or good morals. Or being a good little boy and a good little girl. It's about something deeper and more real.
And that's what he says. He said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit. This is verse eight. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.
I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. You see, they thought they were good because of who they were. That's why he immediately says, look, they said, no, no, we're Jewish. We're the good guys.
We're the ones who behave. We're the ones who are more. We're the ones who know our Bibles. We're the children of Abraham. They thought they were good because of their lineage, because of their behavior, because they followed really well. They obeyed really well.
They kept the rules really well. And what he says is, God doesn't need you to behave. He doesn't need you to be a certain type of person, because he can raise up those people from rocks. He says, God can raise up children from Abraham, from these stones. And he says, even now the, the ax is laid to the root of the trees. You see, repentance is a root issue.
The first thing we do is we acknowledge that Jesus is King. And then we have to understand that repentance is a root issue. It's not a behavioral issue. The call is not come be good. Come behave. The call is come be systematically, systematically changed, irrevocably altered.
He says, it's a root problem. We spent some time talking about this when we talked in our, uh, idolatry series. And basically Martin Luther, who was a, uh, theologian in Germany, uh, one of the reformers. What he says is when he looked at the 10 commandments, he said that we don't break any of the other 10 commandments until we've broken the first one. The first of the 10 commandments is that you will have no other gods before me. God says I'm God and there are no other gods.
And Martin Luther looks at that and says, okay, we don't do any of the other things. We don't lie. We don't steal. We don't cheat. We don't, we don't defraud people. We don't murder people until we first decided that something is bigger and more important to us than God.
You see, a lot of times we get caught up in sin and we think that the issue is the sin. I lie a lot and I shouldn't lie. That's fruit. The problem is the root. If you have a tree and it has bad fruit, it's not the fruit's fault. It's the root's fault.
You don't buy a better fruit and staple it to the tree. You get a new tree. And so what he's saying is like, so we could both lie. You could lie and I could lie, or we could, we could both lie and we could be lying for completely different reasons. And we could, we could sit in our community groups and we could say, don't lie. It's bad to lie.
You shouldn't lie. But here's the thing. All we're going after is fruit there. We're not actually changing our heart. We're not actually changing the root of the issue. So let's say you're at your house.
Somebody calls you up. I'm like, Hey man. Hey girl. Hey friend. How about that? They're at your house.
They call up. Hey, I'm really needing some help with something. I'm kind of in a tight spot. Are you doing anything? Can you come help me? And you are watching television.
And so you say, because you follow really well, you say, yeah, I've really got some stuff going on. I've got some plans. I'd love to help, but I can't. My schedule is swamped. And you're, you do have plans. Sitting on the couch.
Schedule is swamped. These shows aren't going to marathon themselves. Um, and so you lie and, and you can say, I shouldn't lie. But the truth is you're lying to defend your comfort. But let's say you're in your community group.
You're hanging out with your community group and people are confessing sin and they're talking about how they need to change. And you're just kind of sitting there. Sometimes you get to where it's like, this person's going to talk about where they need to change, where they need to repent, where they need Jesus, where they need the gospel. And it comes to you and you say, yeah, you know, I just, I've been having a hard time reading my Bible lately. And I used to read five chapters and now every day I only read like two. And I just need you all to pray for me.
That may be true. But in this particular situation, you also have a current issue with pornography. But you don't want to talk about that. And you're, you're lying, but you're lying to defend the approval of the people in the group with you. And so we can stand up here and talk about, and they could stand up and say, repent, behave really well, and go after, don't lie, be a good person. But the problem is, your root doesn't change.
So we could talk up here and you could decide, oh, well, if I'm going to be a good Christian, then I need to, to have the approval of all these other Christians and I need to be open about my sin. And so really all you're doing is continuing to worship. Approval is just in a different area. And so John the Baptist shows up and says, this is a root problem. the goal isn't to be really good. The goal is to have your heart changed. So one of the ways to tell us is if we get caught in sin, somebody knows about sin, are we frustrated that they know?
Are we, do we feel bad because people now know about the problem? Or do we feel bad? Do we feel guilty? Do we feel conviction because they're sin and we're broken over sin? Or is it just that people know now? Is it just a problem because, oh, now I got to talk to people about this?
Or is it actually heart level change towards Jesus? You see, they, they behaved really well, but that, that doesn't help. Because their heart didn't love God. it loved a lot of other things. People thinking they were great. People thinking they were smart. Being the best at stuff.
Behaving really well. Putting God in their debt. You know where this shows up? We do a lot of the, um, come to Jesus and he'll make everything great. If you follow Jesus, then your kids will be great little kids. Or if you follow Jesus, then your business will work out.
Then your finances will be good. And so there's some people who, who hop into the church because they're making a deal with Jesus. They're contracting him out. I'll hold up my end of the bargain. I'll behave. I'll be moral.
I'll do good things. I'll vote the right way. Whatever that means. As long as you hold up your end of the bargain. That's why you have a lot of people in the church really mad at God because he's not living up to the promises that he never made. They've just contracted him out.
Their heart doesn't love Jesus. They're not in awe of a God who would step in and rescue them. They haven't changed the route. They're just trying to contract Jesus out. And that's what they were doing. We'll behave.
We'll be good. We'll do these things. And then when God, you show up, you have to love us because we behaved so well. So some people were like, I burned all my bad CDs. I quit going to R rating movies. How could this happen?
I've been showing up every time there was a Sunday thing. And I even started going to that little group. They talk about all the time. And now this is going on. And we're frustrated with God because we contracted him out through our behavior. I'll be good.
And then you pay up. I'll be good. And then everything else gets to be smooth. And John the Baptist looks at those guys and said, brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee? So they needed to repent of their good works.
So they were using to put God in debt. And they needed to change root level, heart level change. Then it gets good. He says this. We're going to jump back up. Verse eight.
Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root. And every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So what he says is bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
Not bear fruit and that leads to repentance. Not bear fruit, do good things, have good behaviors. And that is repentance. What he says is bear fruit in keeping with it. So when we repent, when we change the root, we have different fruit.
So like in my backyard, I've got like cherry trees that aren't like good cherry trees. They just drop little red things all over my yard. And that's the kind of the fruit that they have. And if I want an apple tree, I plant an apple tree. I don't try to change this cherry tree. Cut out the roots, put a new one in.
And here's what he's saying. He's saying that repentance leads to joy. That root change leads to a fruit change. That's the third thing we're looking at when it has to do with repentance. And it rhymes, so you know it's really important. Root change leads to fruit change.
And so basically, we so often think that God wants good fruit from us, and we work really hard to behave. We work really hard to keep it together. But the root hadn't changed. And here's how fruit works. There is joy in fruit. It's a process.
Cutting out the root is hard. It's difficult. It's painful. Repentance is not easy. But there's joy in fruit.
We don't understand fruit. They use fruit as an example a lot. We don't really get it, because if my involvement with fruit is like, I want an apple, so I go buy them. Like how I pick fruit is I get one of those plastic bags. I'm going to go pick some fruit. And it's super easy.
Like I can get apples all the time. I have no clue when apple season is, because I can always get apples. So I'm pretty sure always is apple season. I know when watermelon comes in, because you can't always get watermelon. But we don't get fruit.
And so like my dad, he plants fruit trees. I was at his house, and he was showing me his fruit trees, and he was like, look at this, look at this, look at my pear tree. See, it's got pears coming in. And I'm like, those don't look like pears. Y'all aren't going to eat those, are you? Like that's not.
And he's super excited, because fruit takes a long time. And you get excited when fruit shows up. See, root change is difficult, it's painful, it's hard, and then you celebrate when fruit shows up. There's joy when fruit shows up. And here's the thing. You have two options when it comes to hanging out with a church family.
You can pretend, because we don't get to see root. Shows up every once in a while, but we don't get to see root. Root doesn't show up on a regular basis. Fruit does. So you can go to the store, you can fabricate what fruit should look like, and you can staple it to your tree, and you can maintain that for a little while.
Or you can go through the process of having your heart level, deep level, root change, and then fruit will come. Because root change leads to fruit. That's how it works. And let me tell you something, if you're in here, and your heart hasn't been changed to love Jesus, if you haven't had a root change, keeping up fruit is unbearable. And very, very difficult. But if your heart's been changed towards Jesus, it's a natural thing that happens.
That we begin to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So some of you are saying, I love Jesus. Deep heart level, I want Jesus. Let me tell you something, growth is coming. The Bible says we're predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, which means you're going to slowly look more like Jesus. And so for some of us, you just need encouragement to know that growth is coming.
That the fruit's going to look weird and odd, and you probably shouldn't eat it at first. And then it's going to continue to grow and continue to come, and you're going to continue to look more and more like Jesus. And for the people in this room that are just pretending, just hanging out, just trying to behave, just being really moral to get God on your team, you're going to wear yourself out, and you can't keep that up. So repentance is acknowledging Jesus as King. It's having a root level change. And then fruit comes.
Root change leads to us bearing fruit, which means we actually do begin to obey. We actually do begin to love things that we didn't used to love. We actually do want to read Scripture. When before you became a believer, you had no desire to do that. We actually do want to confess and repent of sin. We actually do find joy in that.
We actually do want to be with church family. We actually do want to show up early in the morning to hang out because we've been changed. We enjoy being around these people. Fruit is beginning to come, and it's not anything that we're working at or doing. So here's what he says.
This is how this is beautiful. Verse 11. I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I. He's talking about Jesus. Whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
What he's referring to there is that you will be changed by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. You will be a believer, and the Holy Spirit of God will come rescue you and change you, or you will go to hell. That is what he is saying. He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear the threshing floor. That's where they would have wheat.
And gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The picture there is that wheat has chaff, and wheat is heavier than chaff. And so you would take a big fork and toss it in the air, and the chaff would blow away, and the wheat would stay. And you would sit there and do this. And then you would burn the chaff, and you would keep the wheat. And what he says is, Jesus the King is showing up, and that's what he's going to do.
He's going to keep the wheat and burn the chaff. And they're all together, and he knows the difference. That's what he says. And here's how this is beautiful and wonderful. So you look at this, and you say, well, repentance sounds hard and terrible.
And yeah, I get the fruit thing, but that's far off. And how do I get to this root issue? How do I change my heart? He baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He changes your heart. You see, John the Baptist did something really weird.
He baptized people. And that was really weird. We've got a baptism coming up, and we're doing this because John the Baptist did this. And because Jesus, after John the Baptist, did this. But he baptized people.
And here's why this is really weird. That's why he's called the Baptist, by the way, because he baptized people. It would be the same as calling him like John the Baptizer. He wasn't like denominationally affiliated, just so you know. They had baptism, but here's how baptism worked. I'm Jewish.
You're a Gentile. You want to be Jewish. You want to get in on the right stuff. You want to start following well. Here's what you get to do. You get to step into a river, and you get to wash yourself, signifying that you're cleaning yourself up, you're making yourself nice, and now you can come join the right team.
And here's what John the Baptist did. It wasn't just for Gentiles. It was for everybody. So Pharisees were invited to be baptized, and Jews were invited to be baptized, and Gentiles were invited to be baptized, and he baptized because he was signifying, you're not cleaning yourself up. You need someone else to step into this situation and to accomplish this for you. And he said he's coming, and he's going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.
He's not just going to signify. He's actually going to do it. He's going to change you fundamentally. You see, John the Baptist was pointing that you needed help. You needed someone to step into your situation and clean you up for you because you were never going to accomplish it. And if you were religious and moral and good behavior, you needed to repent.
And if you were a sinner and you were out, you were an outcast, you were pushed to the side, you needed to repent. Everybody needs to repent and have Jesus wash you. You see, Jesus stepped on the earth, and he lived a perfect, sinless life as a king, and then instead of headed to a throne, instead of setting up his eternal reign like they thought he was going to, he died on a cross. And we actually as believers are washed by his blood. We are changed by his blood that was shed for us. You see, what he did was he took our sin, he took our religion, he took all the things that we've tried to put him in our debt and all the things we've tried to use to run from him, and he died for them.
He was crucified for them. And that as believers, when we're baptized, what we're saying is, I was buried with Christ, just like he was dead and buried, and I was raised again up by him, not by me. I've been washed clean by him, not by me, that my sin died with him, and that I've been risen, and I've given new life and righteousness by him, that Jesus swapped places with me. You see, the call isn't come be good. It's come have Jesus change you. It's not come behave, it's come be changed, have the root changed by Jesus.
You can never accomplish this, you can never work it out on your own, Jesus can, and only Jesus can. That's what repentance is. And that's why there's joy there, and hope there, and life there, because it's not about our ability to be good at it. Because it's about what Jesus has already done on our behalf. That we acknowledge him as king, and then we have him change us fundamentally. You see, there were people that, in their understanding, couldn't be forgiven.
They were out. They'd already failed, they'd already messed up, and the only way they could be back, was to be good again, to work really hard, to change their ways, and some of them were just out, like there's no way back in for you. And that's why all of Judea, and Jerusalem came out to him, because he was proclaiming, everybody can be welcomed back in. That's why repentance is really good news. If there is no forgiveness, there is no repentance. So what he's saying is, it'd be like if you ran away from home, or strung out on drugs, and somebody came to you and said, hey man, I was at your house the other day, and I talked to your dad.
And he said he wants you back. And you don't have to pay him back. You don't have to clean yourself up, and get a job, and get off drugs, and show back up respectably. He just wants you back now. In debt, broken, messed up, and in need of a whole lot of help. That's good news.
That you're welcomed back now. Most of us feel like, we've got to clean ourselves up, work really hard, and show up in a respectable manner, so that God would welcome us. And those are the guys, that he calls brood of snakes. We've got a lot of weddings coming up, in our church. A good bit of them. And I'm pretty excited, I like weddings.
I get to do premarital counseling, which is a lot of fun. Because you just get to talk to people, get to know people, get to ask questions, get in their business, annoy them. It's great. One of the things we talk about, in premarital counseling is, we're going to try to have a whole lot, of really awkward conversations now, so that they're less awkward later, when you're married. So we're going to talk about, how to argue, we're going to talk about finances, we're going to talk about sex, and the next time, y'all have to have a big in-depth conversation, about finances or sex, you'll think, at least Chet's not here, and we're not sitting, at a waffle house.
It's just, all together feels better, as a way to have a conversation. And so, but I'm really excited about it, and here's what I know to be true. At a wedding, so we'll stand up, we'll be at a wedding, and there'll be groom, and bride, and they'll be like decked out, and looking, looking nice, and like sweating, and freaking out, and they have no clue what's going on. And so, they put all this work, and effort into making this wedding really nice, and then remember zero of it, because they're freaking out, and like hyperventilating and stuff. But here's what I know is true.
I got to do, my brother's wedding, Logan and Elise, are in my community group. I got to do their wedding in January, and no one, no one was sitting there, while we were performing the wedding, and going, look at how great, a husband, Logan is. Look at him, crushing that husbanding. Nobody was doing that. He was in the process of getting married. Nobody was looking at him, and going, look, he's wearing a suit.
Check. He's repeating those things, that that preacher says. He's crushing this husband thing. Nobody's doing that. Because that's not the test of a good husband. I wish it was.
That'd be sweet. Can you put on pants? Yes. Can you repeat after me? Yes. Word for word?
Almost. That's not the test of a good husband. A good husband is lifetime, devotion, work, effort, repentance, messing up, admitting that you messed up, messing up again, waiting longer, then admitting that you messed up again. That's what, that's what a good husband is. A husband is proven, not in an hour of cleaning themselves up, and repeating after somebody, but it's proven over the course of time. As they prove that they love, as they prove that they serve, as they, you get to see, does this guy love his wife, by his actions over time?
And so the truth is, in Christianity, what he's saying is that your heart will be changed by Jesus as you repent. The root will be changed. It's not your ability to clean yourself up and to repeat some words. That's not how it works. That's not what following Jesus is about. That's not, that's not how this operates.
It's you continually following as you're changed, as you love. It's not your ability to be dutiful. So no, no husband on their 25th anniversary, like shows up with flowers and it's like, honey, 25 years ago today, I repeated words. And I signed something that's kept at the courthouse. And so I've stayed married to you because I signed something that's kept at the courthouse. And I've tried to be a good husband because divorce is bad.
And I bought you flowers because husbands are supposed to do that every once in a while. And I guarantee that 25 years from now, I'll still be holding up my end of the bargain. You're welcome. There's not a female in this room who just got teary eyed. And some of us are acting like that's how we follow Jesus. Jesus, I read your rules and I've been sticking to them.
And I'm going to keep sticking to them because I'm supposed to. And that's good. You're welcome. No. That's not how it works. That's not what we're called to.
That's not how the Holy Spirit changes you. That's not what marriage looks like. Marriage is love. I did the right things. I stuck around when it was terrible because I love. Because I care about you.
Because I'm willing to fight for this. These 25 years, we've been married for 25 years. Eight good ones. And I'm here. And I'm going to be here. Because I've been changed by you.
I love you. I'm going to be here. I'm going to do for you. I'm going to work for you. I'm going to serve. I'm going to do.
And that's what he's saying, that you have a heart level, root level change, that you love Jesus. And you're like, this is difficult. And this is hard. And you're king. And I'm going to follow. And I'm going to be here.
Because you've changed me. Because you died for me. Because you've rescued me when I didn't deserve it. Because repentance is your grace that I can be forgiven. That I'm not out. And I'm not too far gone.
I'm not too broken. And that's what the call is to follow Jesus as king. He shows up and he doesn't coexist well, but he loves greatly. And he died to rescue us and to make us his. And that means we change. Because he changes us.
Because on our good days and on our bad days, he paid for our sin. Period. Period. And it's not about our ability to behave or to be good. It's about what he's done for us. And the invitation is for everyone to repent.
Band's going to come back up here and here's what we're going to do. We're going to do something differently from what we've done in the past than what we do on a regular basis. The invitation always, as we follow Jesus, is an invitation to repentance. It's an invitation to see where Jesus is king and where we're not following well and to change. To acknowledge that we're broken, to acknowledge that we're messed up and that we need him. And so we always have opportunities for repentance.
We gather together in our community groups for repentance. But specifically today, John the Baptist and Jesus both begin by declaring, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is a king and he does have a kingdom and our response is repentance. Which is acknowledging that he's king. Acknowledging, confessing sin where we're broken and where we're off and knowing that we get to because of what he's already done. That he has died for us and that he will change us at a root level.
He won't just help you behave, he'll change your heart. And so the people in this passage came from their cities and they would stand on the bank of the Jordan and then it says they would come down into the water and they would confess sin and they would be baptized. And they were overjoyed at the fact that they were welcomed in. See, they thought they were out. They thought there was no way they could be good enough. Some of them were overjoyed that they'd been working really hard to prove themselves and they didn't have to.
That it wasn't about their ability to clean themselves up. So here's what we're going to do today that's different than what we usually do. We're actually going to, as we sing this last song, you're going to come out from your chair and you're going to come here and you're going to confess sin and talk to Jesus. So we've got a baptism coming up, Raz mentioned it earlier, we've got a baptism coming up October 19th which is where we're going to get together and celebrate that repentance is still offered to us and that Jesus died on our behalf and that we can have life and hope and joy in him. That he'll change our root and that we'll begin to bear fruit and begin to grow and begin to have joy as we follow him.
But see, they would walk down into the water and they would confess sin and I want to offer us the same opportunity to come down. If you come out from behind your chair and you walk up here, everyone in this room will know that you're a sinner and everyone in this room is a sinner who needs Jesus and we will celebrate that Jesus still saves, that he still rescues, that he still changes hearts, that it's not about our work or our effort or our goodness, it's not our ability to stick, our ability to be great and that we're not too far gone. So as we sing this next song, the invitation is to do exactly what they did over 2,000 years ago, which was to walk down and confess, I need Jesus. I'm a sinner.
I need help. I need to be welcomed back in. The invitation is repent for the kingdom is at hand. There is a king and he is good and he did give up his throne to go to a cross so that we could be welcomed in. So that's what we're going to do.
Maybe some Christians in this room and you need to confess, you need to repent, you need to talk to Jesus. There may be some people in this room who've been pretending, you've been working really hard, you've been taking all the time and effort it takes to staple fruit to a tree. You need to ask Jesus to change your heart. And then, on October 19th, we'll do exactly what they did and we'll baptize and celebrate that Jesus is alive and that he saves and that he works and that he does his will and that he changes us. So y'all stand.
Let's sing. And don't fight it. You need to come confess, you need to come repent. It's open. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. We are invited in.
God, we thank you for your grace. We ask you that your Holy Spirit would move, that you would continue to change us, to draw us to yourself. God, that you would keep us as you change our hearts, pull us towards you. Lead us all into repentance, God, as we respond to you as king. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Discernment Radar Wk. 2
Colossians 2:8-23
Transcript
Well, all right, everybody doing well tonight? I hope we did have a good Fourth of July. It's been two weeks since we've gotten together like this on a Sunday to dig into and talk about Colossians. I just spent the past couple of days, I manage a fireworks store during the Fourth of July and New Year's. And so if you've ever thought, is he kind of a redneck? I hope that clears it up for you.
I am. I love fireworks. I get in there and I get like a little kid. But you can't tell people when you sell fireworks, you can't tell people all the cool things they can do with them. You have to be like, no, don't hold that in your hand. No, don't throw that at your brother, like those kind of things.
But it is fun and has been a busy past couple of weeks. And a week before we didn't gather, we had the opportunity to eat or to eat here with First Baptist West Columbia or to come hang out with Midtown Fellowship or to stay at your house and nap. So hopefully people made good choices there. I think eating here and then napping would have been a good combo, but whatever you want to do. But what we're talking about tonight, we're in Colossians chapter 2.
We've been going verse by verse through Colossians. What we're talking about tonight, we're finishing up. We started talking in Colossians chapter 2 about a discernment radar. And so we'll be in 8 through 23 tonight. And what we're kind of doing is we're finishing up this idea of having a discernment radar that Paul kind of starts off in the beginning of chapter 2. And so really what we said that was is as Christians, as really as humans in the United States, we're bombarded with ways to think and to feel about everything.
So we're told constantly by television how we ought to view romance, life, joy, hope, the purpose of why we're here. We're told through books that we read and through shows that we watch. I mean, constantly. I was watching the end of a show. My wife and I were watching the season finale of a show. And I found myself sitting there wanting one of the main characters to get rich.
There was a job he was trying to work out. And I was wanting him to have it work out really well at the end of the show so that I could just know that this character, who wasn't real, was going to be okay off in Fake World when I was no longer allowed to watch him. And I remember sitting there thinking, like, wanting that to work out. And then I was like, you know, the truth is I don't think that's where life and joy and hope and happiness come from. I don't think that wealth accomplishes that for us. But through this show, I was believing that for this guy.
And I was beginning to think that that would make his life better and he would have joy and hope and life if he had that. And this was like two nights ago, and it just reminded me of the fact that as we watch television, as we read books, we're constantly being sold a worldview. And so what happens is we get indoctrined by everything around us. And that's what Paul is. He's writing to the Colossians. He's saying, look, there's all of this coming in at you, and I want you to have a way to process it.
I want you to have a way to understand what's healthy and helpful and good for you. And so what we talked about in the first seven verses of chapter two is, and we kind of went through it backwards, but Paul says, I want you to be knit together in love. I want you to be one so that you can have the full assurance of Christ, so that you can know what is true in the gospel, so that you're not led astray by plausible arguments. And so what we basically said last time we got together was, we're constantly being attacked by plausible arguments, things that sound smart and good, but we need to be able to submit them to Jesus in the context of community.
And that's actually what our discernment radar is. Does this line up with Jesus? And we do that in the context of community. As we finish out this chapter, we're going to see that Paul, it feels kind of like a father talking with his children in this passage. It's almost like, look, I'm not going to be here with you, and I want you to have a way to process everything that's coming in. I'm not, Paul tells them, he says, you've never seen me face to face.
And so I'm just trying to equip you with a way to understand the world around you, a way for you to know what's good and helpful and true. And the truth is, as we go through, we're going to look today more at what comes into us from the church, what comes into us from what we see and read in Christian literature and books and pastors and teaching and all that. And so in some ways we get constantly attacked by society. And then we'll walk into a bookstore and we'll like run to the Christian living section and feel like we're at home base. It's like, can't get me here. I'm safe.
That sign says Christian. Or like you're flipping through television channels and you'll flip to some sort of a Christian channel. And it's like, no, can't, this, this is going to be good for me. And that may not necessarily be true. And so Paul's going to kind of unpack. And what he does in this passage, we've got a lot of ground to cover.
It's a lot of verses. And Paul's going to bring up a bunch of ideas. And so actually some of this will need to be unpacked in our community groups as we go throughout the rest of the week and weeks as we continue to walk through Colossians. But what basically Paul does is he brings everything into the room. So he's going to bring up all kinds of different teaching and philosophies and, and ways to understand the world.
And he's just going to gather them all together and say, the way you process this is by looking at Jesus. And so he's going to bring up all this stuff, but he's going to point to Jesus. And so that's what we're going to do tonight. We're going to pull it all into the room. We're not going to spend a whole lot of time unpacking what all of it is, but we're going to point to Jesus. So I'm going to pray and then we'll, we'll hop in.
God, I pray that you'd help us see you clearly in this. You would give us wisdom as we walk through it. Thank you for your word that you do in it, reveal yourself to us and that you lead us through it. And so we praise you. We thank you. Pray that you'd bless our time that we have together tonight in Jesus name.
Amen. Okay. So chapter two, he just, we just finished reading in verse six. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. So what we said last week was that we're to be one.
We're to be knit together. We're to know that everything submits to Jesus. And then that way we won't be led astray by plausible arguments. One of the things we said is that that means we have to be one. We have to have the Bible, not just books. We have to actually study God's word to know that, that Jesus, God revealed himself through Jesus coming to earth.
And that then we, we have him revealed to us through scripture. And so for us to know whether or not something lines up and submits to Jesus and lines up with what's true about the gospel, we have to know scripture. We can't just read books. We can't just, because it's a Christian author. We have to even weigh that against scripture. We also said it has to be community, not just crowd.
So we can't just be like, well, I read some online reviews. This is probably pretty good. Like we can't do that. We have to actually have people around us who know us. One of the best things about my community group is that they know me well enough that I can't trick them. I can't try to try to tell them half of a truth and convince them that what I'm pursuing is actually good for me.
They'll be like, no, man, we know you. And we know that you're actually pursuing this for wrong reasons, even though it's an okay thing. And they get to help guide me. They get to help me point me in the right direction. And so we actually have to have people around us who know us. And so then we get established in the faith and we abound in thanksgiving.
So verse eight, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. Okay. So we've said in Colossians that every time we see the word you, it is the plural you. It's the Greek version of y'all. And so every time we see you, it's actually y'all. He's talking to the church, the group of people.
And so when he says, see to it that y'all aren't taken captive. What he's saying is that it's actually a team effort. That the person responsible for you not being led astray is you and all the Christians around you. That we actually have to care enough about each other to point out where we're getting off, where we're chasing after dumb things, where we're believing something that isn't true. And we have to actually care about each other in order to do that. And so it's, it's our job to defend against everything together as a team.
So see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit. So basically philosophy, ways of thinking, ways to process the world, empty deceit, people who are just outright lying, just making stuff up to try to trick us. Philosophy, empty deceit, according to human tradition. So just, this is what we've done forever, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. But he says, he starts gathering all this in the room and he says, everything has to point to Jesus.
We submit to what points to Jesus and nothing else. And so what we're going to see as we go through this is Paul is going to tell us where we actually have the power and the authority in having discernment, what we actually hold everything up against, what we actually hold everything up against so that we know whether or not it's true and helpful and good. Just keep going. For in him, that's Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. It means that God became a human, that fullness is in Jesus and Jesus alone, that wisdom and life and joy and fullness are in Jesus. And you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.
So fullness is in Jesus and we're filled up in Jesus. And he's the head of all rule and authority. You know, that's really good news. We have so many rules and authorities in the world right now. In Colossians, what that means is it both means spiritual rulers and authorities and earthly. So Paul in chapter one would say that Jesus is in charge of visible things, invisible things, things on earth, things in heaven.
I did my hands backwards, but you know what I'm talking about. And, and so what, what this actually means for us is that everything submits to Jesus. And so someone has a PhD that has a rule and authority. It's submitted to Jesus. You have a local church leader, rule and authority submitted to Jesus, local government submitted to Jesus. Which means if I stand up here and point you to something other than Jesus, you tell me to shut up and sit down.
Everything submits to Jesus. That's how that works. And so all rule and authority is submitted to him who is the head and he's head over all rule and authority. Verse 11, in him, you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. This just got weird. Um, uh, so Paul's going to start talking about circumcision here.
If you're not familiar with what circumcision is, Matt would love to talk with you about it afterward. Uh, he'd love to walk you through that. Um, okay. So what Paul's going to start talking about circumcision and what, what he's referring to is Jewish religious Acts. So in the old Testament, the way that you knew you were initiated into being a God fear, a God follower, uh, was circumcision.
So all the males were circumcised and that was how they knew that they began to follow the law and how they followed God. And so what happened is after, um, after Jesus came, after he died, after he rose again, and after the church began, it began amongst Jewish people. Uh, contrary to the painting your grandmother has at her house, Jesus was Jewish, not some sort of blonde haired, blue eyed woman with a beard, uh, that you may have seen in a painting. Or if you Google it, there are some pictures of him with dreadlocks, but Jesus was Jewish. So dark hair, dark eyes, Jewish, uh, and Christianity began out of Judaism.
And so what happened was as Christian, Christianity began to grow to those who weren't Jewish, Jewish people would say, yes, you need Jesus. Yes, you need the gospel, but you also need to be Jewish. You need to be a good Jewish person. And your initiation into that is circumcision. And you need to also follow the law. And what Paul is saying is that he says, in him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Paul says that our initiation into following Jesus was done without hands. That is such good news. That means that nobody in this room accomplished salvation on their own. It was done without hands, that he accomplished it for us. What brings us into being Jesus followers, brings us into being rescued by Jesus is not our hard work, our good morals, our intellect, our effort. It's Jesus.
Jesus has already accomplished it for us. And so what it says is that you, verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. Christianity is us placing faith in God. And faith is not us doing work. It's us admitting that we can't, that we wouldn't accomplish this on our own. So we place our faith.
We say, I'm not going to work this out. I'm not going to accomplish this, but you can on my behalf. And that's what baptism is. It's us saying that Jesus died for our sins, that we died with him, that our sins died with him. And that when he rose again from the grave, we rose with him. And that's all it is, is us publicly proclaiming that the gospel is true for us.
And so some of you in this room may have become Christians, and you actually need to be baptized, which is just a public declaration of, this is true for me because of Jesus. We'll be doing some baptisms again in August. We throw parties when we baptize people, because we want to make much of Jesus, and we want to celebrate, and we love dunking people to point to Jesus. It's great. And so we eat food and celebrate and make a big deal out of it. And so that's what he's saying.
You were baptized with him. You were buried with him, and you've been raised again through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Jesus from the dead. It's about to get good, y'all. It's one of my favorite sections in Scripture. And you who were dead in your trespasses, trespasses means sin. Every time we've overstepped the bounds, every time we've stepped out of line, every time we've rebelled against God, every time we've loved something more than we've loved him, every time that we've pursued something, that we've placed in higher importance in our life than he is.
Every time we've been greedy and selfish, every time. So we were dead in our trespasses, and those of us outside of Christ in this room are dead in our trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, meaning that Jesus hadn't brought you in yet, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. All right, we're Americans, so we're familiar with debt, correct? Y'all know what debt is? Okay, it has legal demands. So like China could show up and be like, give us everything now, and they have legal demands on us.
We'd tell them no, because we don't have anything to give them. But we'd say, come get it, we have guns. But we have debt, and Americans have debt, and we accrue debt constantly. I saw a thing after the Olympics that said, it was USA and China talking, and it said, USA, we got more gold medals than you did. And China was like, that's cute. You owe us infinite money.
And then USA said, USA, USA. Just change the subject. But anyway, what it's saying is that we, when we sin, have a record of debt with God. A record of debt when we sin. My wife and I own a house. We rent it from the bank.
It's the correct way to say that, I think. Because if we quit paying our mortgage, we'd find out really quickly who actually owned it when they took it from us. But we have a mortgage. We have an electricity bill. We have a Netflix bill that comes in. We have an internet bill.
And they show up every month. We live in West Columbia, but not in the city of West Columbia. So we have to pay water to the city of West Columbia and sewer to the city of Casey. Seems a bit fishy, but that's how that works. And so we pay two bills on that. And so they show up every month in my mailbox.
And that's debt that we owe, and it has legal demand. And so I got to thinking about this. What if God sent me a bill every month for the record of my debt? Sins of commission, which means when we do something we shouldn't do. Every time that I'm just absolutely just selfish with my wife or just pop off and say something really mean to her just because I'm a jerk and she lives with me. Every time that I should have done something and didn't, when I should have been generous, when I should have cared more about someone else than myself, but I convinced myself that I deserved my money more than they did, that I had earned it, that I had more value than they do, and so I don't need to be generous to them.
Every time I stepped over the bounds, every time I missed the Mark, God kept a record of my debt and sent it to me at the end of the month. My neighbors would wonder why I got a phone book once a month. They'd be like, man, we get a phone book once a year. This cat gets a phone book every month. I'd be like flipping through and be like, wow, Tuesday the 12th was a bad day for me. I must have had to have been around a lot of humans.
So what it says is that we have a record of debt, that we're dead in our trespasses, and that we owe a debt to the God of the universe. And here's what it says. We'll start back in 13. And you who were dead in your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Jesus was nailed to the cross.
He became our debt. He became our substitute, that he died in our place for our debt, and in so doing, paid it for us. You see, Jesus is the fullness of deity. See, God became a man and lived a perfect, sinless life. He wouldn't have gotten a bill every month. He had no record of debt.
He had a clean slate. He had not only not committed sin, but he'd done everything he was supposed to do to be right with God. And then, he died to pay our debt. So our God is a judge. We stood before him in his high courtroom, and he looked at us and declared that we were guilty and that we owed an unpayable debt. And then he passed our sentence on to Jesus.
So that Jesus, who owed no debt, paid our guilty sentence. And that we, who owed all the debt, received Jesus' innocence. So that we were declared innocent, and Jesus was declared guilty because he swapped places with us. If you're a Christian in this room, you have no debt when you stand before God. Because Jesus was nailed to the cross, and he became our debt, and he canceled the record of our debt. And we've been set free.
Let me show you why this is such good news. Other than the fact we've been set free, it says this. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. So that when he canceled the record of our debt, he disarmed the rulers and authorities. And so this is both spiritual heavenly rulers and authorities and earthly rulers and authorities. Let's talk about spiritual ones first.
Satan, who is real, he's a created being. He has fallen angels that follow him. They're called demons in scripture. They are spiritual beings that exist. He's called an accuser, which says that he accuses God's people before the throne of God day and night. When Jesus died for our sins, he has nothing left to accuse us of.
So when the enemy shows up and tries to tell you, how on earth can you call yourself a Christian when you did this and this? How on earth can you say that you love Jesus when you've just acted this way? They're disarmed. All that is is an opportunity to say, good point. You're right. Grace is unfathomable that Jesus would pay for that.
Thank you so much for helping me praise his holy name, that I am that messed up, that I did just do that, and that I get to claim the name of Christian because Christ has already paid my debt. The enemy has been disarmed. I used to watch a bunch of movies when I was growing up, like action movies and stuff, and in any pirate movie or Princess Bride has a scene like this, and I think Three Musketeers has a scene like this, but they're always fighting, and then the hero does this wrist thing that I'm not sure actually exists in real life, but they do this, and then the sword shoots up in the air out of their enemy's hand, and then they grab it. And then the bad guy is standing there with no weapon, and he's suddenly in a really bad position because he used to have a weapon, and now he doesn't, and the guy he's fighting has two weapons, which makes it harder because both ends are pointy now, and so it's just a bad day.
That's what Jesus has done for us. What the enemy held against us, what the enemy would hold against us to say that we had fallen short, that we weren't good enough, that we weren't going to make it, that we hadn't earned it, Jesus has disarmed him so that when he says that, we say absolutely. Isn't Jesus good? Absolutely. Didn't he rescue me to the utmost? He's disarmed.
Not only spiritual enemies, but earthly rules and authorities that say you have to do this to know that you have value. You have to do this to get God to love you. You have to accomplish these things to know that you're successful, to know that you have worth. Not at all. Not no heck no. Jesus has already accomplished all that for me.
I've already been given worth freely. I've already been made successful freely. There's nothing that's held against us anymore. And so that's what Paul says here. He says, therefore let no one pass judgment on you. Judgment is where God stands up and he Judges us based off of our merit.
Judgment is when you're in any kind of a competition, there's a certain level of standard or measure that you have to measure up against. And so if you were in a beauty contest, you'd be judged based off of beauty. So if I entered into a beauty contest, I would lose. I would have losing well in hand. Like I wouldn't even get like a participation award. They would just be like, no, stop it.
Go home. No ribbon for you. Because they're basing it off of beauty. If I was in a pie eating contest, that I could actually do. I'm just going to, let's just think about eating pie for a second. But you have to, you have to be based off of the rules that are there.
And so what Paul is saying is that there are no more rules that apply to us that base our acceptance, that our acceptance is based off of, that our merit is based off of. Because Jesus has already brought us in. He's already initiated everything that needs to happen. He's already accomplished it without hands. And so what we're going to look at is three areas that this shows up in the church, that this kind of plays out in how we walk through life as Paul unpacks this. So he says, Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath.
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Okay. If Jesus has already accomplished that for us, and if that's what we hold everything up against, then we aren't judged by legalism. We're set free from it. So what Paul says is, don't let anybody pass judgment on you when it comes to how you behave and how you participate in religious activities.
That they're a shadow of the things to come, and the substance belongs to Christ. And so what that means is, we gather together on Sunday nights. We gather with our community groups, and we walk through life, normal life together, but it's not to get God to love us. It's not to qualify ourselves. It's because of what He's already accomplished. So if you're here tonight to make God love you, that's not how this works.
He's already accomplished it for us. So we do these things because, He says, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. We do these things because we enjoy the shadow, because it points us to Jesus. We enjoy the shadow because it outlines Jesus, but the shadow is a means to point us to Jesus. It's not Jesus. It's not the goal.
Religion isn't the goal. Legalism isn't the goal. Adhering to a certain strict set of rules isn't the goal. It's to point us to Jesus. And we get off on this in our thinking. I know my grandparents were, a pastor and wife and my dad, whenever he was sick, they would come home from church, if he was sick and didn't go to church on a Sunday night or something, they would come home and touch the back of the television to see if it was hot.
Because if he was too sick to hang out with the church, he was too sick to watch television, which seems like odd logic. Because you know those people aren't real. Like I can't get them sick through the screen. They're not actually there. Like I think I can watch TV while I'm sick. But that's what they would do.
Because the point was, your adherence to following God in this religious way, but that's not the point. The point is growing closer to Jesus, finding Jesus and realizing that he's already accomplished everything for us. Another way this shows up in the church is Christian karma, which is when things are going well, I just assume I must be doing things right. God must like me because I'm behaving well. And when things aren't going well, I just assume that God must be mad at me. I've got to figure out what I've done wrong.
Jesus. Y'all know everybody likes Jesus, right? That's a thing. Like not many people are like, man, if I met Jesus, I bet we'd fight. Like most people think that Jesus is probably an okay guy. All right?
Jesus was God and he was perfect. Jesus died to cancel the record of our debt that we owed. That's not karma. That's grace. So our walk with God isn't based off of our actions and our effort and our merit.
It's based off of Jesus. So when things are going poorly, it just means things are going poorly. You get to talk to God about it, who's good and who in the cross has already shown you that he's good and that he's for your good. And when things are going great, you get to praise Jesus for it, who's good. But it's not based off of you.
So we're not judged based off of legalism. We enjoy the shadow. We enjoy the things that God's given us that point to him, but we don't base our worth and our value and our salvation off of it. Let no one disqualify you assisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God. We aren't judged by spiritualism. So some of us think that Christianity is about having intense spiritual experiences, that we've got to have these experiences, these moments that we're just swept away or it's not real or we're not actually in.
But that's not how that works because it's not based off of you and your experiences. It's based off of what Jesus has already accomplished. And so what Paul's saying is that there are people that get swept up in worship of angels, which I didn't know this was a thing. I was talking to Jordan about it. He's from Liberty University, and he said that there's a whole section of Christians now that have gotten into very experiential worship, which there's nothing wrong with that. But then they've started talking about like glory clouds and finding angel feathers, and it's like, nope, that's gotten weird.
And biblically angels fly, but there's only one place that we're ever told anybody had feathers, so I'm not even sure that's a thing. Usually they just show up looking like really scary men. The wife of Samson's mama told her husband there's a really awesome man outside, which I'm sure made him feel great. He's like, awesome man, I'll show you an awesome man. Good gosh, you're gracious. So we get caught up in all of this thing, and we'll overly spiritualize things.
And this isn't the case in all churches, but in some areas in the holiness church and in Pentecostalism, they're taught that in order to show that you are truly a believer, you have to speak in tongues. That's not true. That's not in here. Speaking in tongues is, it's a gift given by God, but it's not to show, you don't have to have this experience to prove that you've been rescued. You don't have to have this spiritual moment to prove that Jesus has accomplished this on your behalf. So for us, we want to have spiritual experiences.
We want to speak in tongues. The Bible says not to forbid the speaking in tongues, and so that's what Baptists have done. They forbid it, and it's like, okay, explain to me Romans 14, where it clearly says, don't do that. Let me show you, let's get into Greek syntax. I'm pretty sure it means don't do that. And we want that to happen, but in a way that points to Jesus.
He says that they're not holding fast to the head. And so we have spiritual experiences, yes, and the Holy Spirit moves, yes, but he points to Jesus. Revelation says that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. And so if you want to know if you're in a spirit-filled church, you're talking about Jesus, you're praying Jesus, you're praising Jesus, everybody's pointing to Jesus. That's what the Holy Spirit is about. It's pointing to Jesus, it's making much of Jesus, it's showing us that salvation is in Jesus, it's convicting us of sin, and drawing us close to Jesus.
A way that we do this, overly spiritualized things, is we throw around the phrase, God told me a lot, and we use it like a trump card. So you'll be talking to somebody, and be like, hey man, I really don't think that this relationship you're in is really healthy, there's some obvious signs of some sin areas, and some things y'all need to be working on, it's like, well, God told me we're supposed to be together. It's like, okay, I don't know if that's true, maybe, after you repent, and start lining up with the other things that he said clearly and wrote down. So, we'll say things like, I feel more spiritual when I'm not, I don't feel like I have to read the Bible much, I feel more spiritual when I'm not reading the Bible, I don't feel like I have to be around the church much, be around church family, I just, I get really spiritual in the woods, and it's like, okay, the Holy Spirit's gonna point you to the head, who's Jesus, who's revealed to us clearly in scripture, and the head, is going to grow the body.
It says the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God, as we hold fast to the head. So we don't overly spiritualize things, we won't have spiritual experiences, and so some of us in this room, you want to have that, that's great, but let me tell you something, let me just pastor you a little bit, if you've never had intense spiritual experiences, it doesn't mean you're not a Christian. It doesn't. It's faith in Jesus, and what he's accomplished, and not what your life looks like, and the experiences you've had. It's faith in Jesus, and what he's already done.
We're not judged by spiritualism. Last one he points out, knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God. If with Christ you dived to the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, and asceticism, and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
So what Paul's saying is, yeah, we're Christians, and we deny the flesh, which means that we deny ourselves, pick up the cross, and follow Jesus, which, whatever he calls us to, we follow him in. But that doesn't mean we're ascetics, is that how that's said? Asceticism, which is just, you don't indulge any area of the flesh, which means you don't, anything that seems enjoyable, you just don't do. So it's like, your clothes should be uncomfortable, and you should eat gross food. And it's like, well, what does that do? C.S.
Lewis, who's a theologian, he said, yes, deny yourself, but don't pour out the port, and get rid of the cigars. Like, he's like, no, we still get to enjoy things in life, but as they point us to Jesus, and so we don't make it about, what we're partaking in. Like, I can eat a really good steak, but the enjoyment doesn't end on the steak, it points me to the God who invented flavor, and cows, and flavorful cows. And so we're not judged by moralism. We're not judged by our adherence to a set of rules. Here's the thing, with all of these, we love rules.
We do. Everyone thinks they don't. There's a few people that probably know you do. Everybody loves rules. Because if I, like, if I invited you to my house and said, we're going to play a game, first question, okay, how you play, like, what are the rules? And I said, there are no rules, and then I pushed you and said, I win, like, you wouldn't play that game.
If I, like, kicked your shin and yelled Yahtzee, like, we wouldn't play the game, because you're like, no, there's no rules, this is stupid. And so, our whole life is based on rules. Like, the way you woke up this morning, you woke up at a set time, based on a general set of what's acceptable in our society. When you drove down the road, you followed road signs, you dressed appropriately for generally what's acceptable in our society, because our whole life is guided by rules. And when we approach Christianity, we want something that tells us whether we're in or out. We want something that we can measure ourselves by and say, no, I know I'm in, I know I'm here, because I've done this and this, and I don't do these things.
Because I act this way, or I participate in this, and not those things. It's not about that. It's made without hands. It's not your calloused hands that accomplish your salvation. It's Jesus' scarred hands that accomplish it. It's not your hard work, your effort, your religion, your morals, any of it.
Does God love morality? Yeah. Does He want us to repent of sin? Yes. Does He want us to gather as a church family? Yes.
Does He want us to enjoy the shadow that points to the substance? Yes. Does He want us to have spiritual experiences? Yes. Does the Holy Spirit lead us to prophesy, and to speak in tongues, and to move, and change people, and lead us to repentance, and joy in life, and grow us in the body? Yes.
But none of that gets us in. Jesus does. None of that pays our debt. Jesus does. No amount of adherence to rules, and regulations, and experiences brings us in. Jesus does.
And so when it comes to how do we know what's coming in? Is it helpful? Is it good? Is what I'm reading helpful and good? Is what I'm being taught helpful and good? We hold it up to, does it make much of Jesus?
Or is it telling me that I have to accomplish something to bring myself in? Is it pointing me to Jesus, or is it saying that my worth and value comes from my hard work, my effort, my experiences, my life? And so when it comes to our discernment radar, when it comes to how do we vet, how do we know, there's two really helpful questions. Who's the hero? And what's the goal? Who's the hero, and what's the goal?
Because in this story, Jesus is the hero. He's the one who pays the debt. That old school, I'll pay the rent thing, and then you put the bow on your head, and you say, oh, my hero, you know what I'm talking about? Anybody know what I'm talking about? No? Nobody knows what I'm talking about?
I think that's an old SNL from like the 60s. My mom loved it. But anyway, I should have known better than to bring that up. At the end, the guy pays the rent, or he pays the debt, and then the girl says, oh, my hero. And the question is, who's the hero? Who are you pointing me to?
Who's bringing salvation about? Me, or Jesus? Is it my hard work, my effort, my morality, or is it Jesus? And what's the goal? What am I getting out of this? A good marriage, or Jesus?
Is it I'm getting a good life out of it? Is my goal financial success, or is it Jesus? We love to take the American dream to Jesus, and have him rubber stamp it, and he's not into that. The enemy has been disarmed, and that's really good news for us. And so for those of us in this room who feel like Christianity, Christian or non-Christian, you feel like Christianity is about your morality, your effort, your work, your goodness, your value, I'm here to tell you that you have debt that's paid by Jesus, and you have value that's given to you by Jesus, not by you. It's not made by your hands, it's made by his.
And that's really good news, because none of us were actually going to get that accomplished. Jesus is the hero, and Jesus is the goal, and we walk in community pointing each other to Jesus, because he's where life and joy and hope and wisdom are found. Band's going to come back up, we're going to sing, and we're going to make much of Jesus. We're going to praise Jesus, that he has rescued and redeemed us, that he's paid a debt we couldn't pay. And if you're in this room, and you haven't placed your faith in Jesus, I'm here to tell you that you get to, that he pays our debt, not on your own merit, but on his.
You don't have to clean yourself up, he accomplishes that. You don't have to make yourself good, he accomplishes that. And we're not inviting you into religion. We're not inviting you into, come behave like us. We're inviting you to come follow Jesus as we repent, and learn what it looks like to be more like him, and continue to have the gospel change how we live, and how we think, and how we feel. I'm going to pray.
We're going to praise Jesus. God, we thank you. Thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love. We thank you that you did disarm the enemy on our behalf, and that we are made new and right because of you. We thank you that you are the hero, and that you are supreme, you are what we, you are our prize.
Help us to see that, help us to walk that out in community. Thank you that you paid our debt. Pray for those people in this room right now, God, that are still trying to pay their own debt. Pray that you, through your grace, show them they can stop. Show them the futility of paying off debt, and show them that you, when you died, you died for them. That in faith, you can pay their debt and give them life.
We love you, we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Discernment Radar Wk. 1
Colossians 2:1-7
Transcript
Okay, so we're in chapter 2. Here's the thing. Our culture is confused when it comes to a lot of stuff. Like, we're all over the place. I think some of it has to do with we have the internet now, and so we have all this access to information. I saw a thing that said, if you met somebody from 100 years ago, the most difficult thing to explain to them would be that you have a device in your pocket that gives you access to all the information in the world, and you use it to watch videos of cats and to get into arguments with strangers.
So, like, that's what we have access to. We got a phone book was sent to our house the other day, and my wife was like, do you want this? And I was like, no, I know where the internet is. Like, I can get there, so I don't need a phone book. But the truth is, we've got a lot of information, and not a really good way to sort it.
We have a lot of information. We have access to studies. We have access to what scientists are learning. We have access to what great minds in the world think, but we don't have a really good way to filter it. And so I even got to just thinking about simple things. I remember when I was growing up, milk was, like, super good for you.
And then for a while it was like, well, we're not so sure it's good for you. Like, it doesn't help your bones as much as we thought, and it might be the reason you're fat. Like, there was just like, so now you can have skim milk, which is basically white water. It's just lying to you. It's not actually milk. And so, like, there was, and then it came back, and it was like, no, milk's good.
And they had the big advertising. And so I was just, so I just got on Google and started typing in why blank is, and then Google fills it in for you. So I did milk first. Why milk is, and immediately my options are bad for you, because Google fills in related searches. So why milk is bad for you, why milk is good for you, why milk isn't good for you, which is the same as the one above it.
It's just trickier. Why milk is white and why milk is bad for cats. Those are the things you can search when it comes to milk. So I could get on Google, and I could stand up here and give you reasons why milk is bad or why milk is good just as easily. So I started thinking, okay, if milk has this, what else do we have that's pretty baseline stuff that Google's going to help me either fight for or fight against.
The next one is water. Why water is important. Why water is good for you. Why water is so important. Why water is bad for you. Why water is important for life.
At least bad for you is further down the line than on milk. But there's probably some sort of a study that proves that water is bad for you that scientists did. Just for the record, water is not bad for you, unless we're in one of the boil water things that Columbia does constantly, because we can't apparently not need to boil our water on a regular basis. So water, I did eating. So eating, pretty baseline thing.
Why eating is important. Why eating is good. Why eating is important for weight loss. I need to check that one later. Why eating is bad for you. Here to tell you, there's two things you need to stay away from.
It's water and eating. The internet says they're bad for you. I did sleeping, because I thought if people had a problem with eating, why sleeping is good, important to your health, healthy, so important, why sleeping is awesome. The internet agrees. Nobody's making an argument against sleeping. Sleeping is great.
It just got better. As you went, ends in awesome. Nobody's like why sleeping is bad for you. The internet would get rid of them. That person would be wrong. So we have people willing to argue that you shouldn't eat, but nobody's against sleeping.
Then I started doing some things that are really important to me. Bacon. Why bacon is bad for you. Why bacon is healthy. Why bacon is amazing. Why bacon is called bacon.
Why bacon is the best food ever. Which really doesn't even need to be on the internet. If you've had bacon, you know why it's the best food ever. And then I checked another one that really means a lot to me. It's fried chicken. Why fried chicken is bad.
Bad for you. Unhealthy, good for you. But right there in the middle, why fried chicken is racist. And I'll tell you, that made me feel so good about fried chicken. Because you know how people would be like, meat is murder and stuff. This fried chicken is racist.
I'm glad we killed it. People would be like, you shouldn't eat so many chickens. What about a chicken? I'd be like, you want this racist chicken to live? This chicken hated Filipinos. And I'm glad that it died.
It deserved it. Now pass me the hot sauce. So just so you know, fried chicken deserves to die. It's racist. All of us should eat fried chicken and get rid of racism. Because those racist fried chickens.
I guess if you bake it, it's not racist. They only take the racist ones and fry them, I guess. I don't know how that works. But here's the thing. We have access to an inordinate amount of information. We have access to studies and all of this kind of stuff.
And people would back these things up with facts and reasons why. And you'll hear all the time, well, studies have shown or doctors say. And we've got all of this coming in. And we don't have a really good way to sort it out. We have a constant flow of information. But we don't have a good way of filtering what's good and what's bad and what's healthy and what's right.
And I'm not even just talking about, those are just fun examples. I'm not talking about when it just comes to food. But in more important life issues, we are constantly bombarded with ways to think, ways to feel. And we just don't have a good framework in America for how we handle that. How we process what's good and healthy, right, wrong, or otherwise. And so we're in the sixth week of Colossians.
And Paul is writing this book to the Colossian church. And a lot of times Paul would write a letter to a church and he'd have a specific thing that he was mad about. Like that he was angry about or that he was fighting against. In 1 and 2 Corinthians, he's answering specific questions. There are even times where you can tell he's like quoting them in response. Like you said this, let me respond to that.
In the book of Galatians, he's arguing against people that said you needed to be good Jewish people in order to be good Christians. And so Paul doesn't beat around the bush. He starts off with like, hey, my name's Paul. What the heck is wrong with y'all? And like he says some really mean things in the book of Galatians. That's why it's one of my favorite books.
He just goes after them when it comes to adding religion to Jesus. And so in the book of Colossians, he doesn't really do that. He talks about, you can see that he's talking about different concepts. And so it seems as if more he's combating just culture around them and culture inside the church that was slowly pulling them away from Jesus. And so it wasn't a big thing. It wasn't this one specific area, but it was just this constant onslaught.
And so it actually is helpful for us because we're in the same situation. I saw a statistic that said, because studies have shown, that the average American is going to see 2,000 to 5,000 advertisements a day. 2,000 to 5,000 advertisements a day. So thousands of times a day, we're going to be told, you need this to be happy. You need this to be complete. You need this to have fun.
You need seven razors to shave your face and not just four. Loser. Like we're going to be told over and over again that we need something else to make us happy, to make us complete, to fulfill us. I saw a statistic that said the average American watches 34 hours of television a week. Now in some places, that's a full-time job.
Definitely a part-time job. 34 hours a week. That's average. So some people in this room probably watch a little more, some people a little less. But here's the thing.
Each of us for hours a week are having worldview pumped into our brain. How we should think about romance. How we should think about finances. How we should look at success. How we should know what masculinity and femininity is. Like what makes a man a man and what's to be honored in females.
Like we're having that pumped into our brains. And how do we sort out what's helpful, what's right, what's good, and what's not. So that's what Paul is going to point them to. And so what we're working to do for the next two times that we get together is to build a discernment radar. We just want to have something. Discernment just means to make a good decision, to judge rightly.
And so Paul's giving them, he's equipping them in chapter two to discern well, to judge rightly. And so radar just means something that, you know, the little, when you're watching a movie and the little thing's spinning around and they're like watching for an enemy aircraft or something and it's just the little green thing. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, radar, yeah. And then it goes, boop, boop. You know, they can see it or whatever.
That's what we're talking about. So we're talking about we all have some sort of a system to gauge what's coming in and whether it's healthy, good, or right. And so some people in this room, we all have one. You all have some way that you gauge what's coming in. Some of us, super intense, like we're way over here. We believe like stuff our grandmother said and maybe some things Billy Graham said.
And if you're the president of the United States, but it depends on which team you're on. We'll listen to you a little bit. Like that's it. Like we have like a very tight amount of who we'll listen to. And then some people more in the middle. Well, we have some gauge for how we what we believe and what we won't believe.
And then some people just pretty much we don't have a system at all. If it just sounds good. It's like, cool, that's true. And so here's the thing. We've gotten to where we're so used to having information pumped in that we've stopped sorting it. We've stopped thinking through what's good and right.
And the truth is, it's the same way that water can run over a rock and and bore out a channel. And it's happened slowly and it happens over time. But eventually, a river running over rock will dig its own hole. And for some of us, that's what culture is doing to us. We have constant cultural onslaught of information and ways that we should believe. And we don't notice it.
But it's happening slowly and slowly and slowly to where we're drifting and how we think and what we believe. And so that's what we're going to be looking at in Colossians. We'll be in chapter two. And so I'm going to go ahead and start reading. Verse one. For I want you to know.
This is Paul writing to the church. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea. And for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the fullness of assurance and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. And so he says, I want you to know how much I struggle for you, how much I'm fighting for this, that you may be encouraged being knit together in love.
So he says that y'all would be together. Being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom, in Jesus, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible argument. So he says, I want you to be knit together so that you can grow in Christ. And I'm telling you this so people won't delude you, trick you with things that sound smart. That's what he's talking about.
So here's the thing. Paul's going to say that what our discernment radar is, and that's all we're talking about tonight is what it is. The next time we get together, we'll talk specifically about how it functions and how we kind of catch things. But what he's talking about tonight is what it is. And he says this. It's submission to Jesus in the context of community.
So we hold things up to Jesus in the context of community, that we were knit together so that we can grow in the fullness of understanding of Christ. You can go ahead and skip to the Colossians slide. Don't show the one with the other. Yeah, there you go. We'll get to the other one later. There you go.
Yeah. That we would be together and we would submit things to Christ. So here's what happens. We constantly have a lot of viewpoints pumped into our brains. And so I think sometimes as Christians, we like run into the bookstore and we run over to the Christian living section and we feel like we're at home base or something like safe. That sign says Christian.
Or we flip it through the channels and we cut it to like, oh, TV preacher, we're good. He's going to talk about good Bible things. That's not actually always the case. We have to submit everything to Jesus. We have to submit everything to Christ. It's about him.
And so what's the criteria for how we do this? Like what's the criteria for even with Christian things? Like they have cool hair. Is that like what we're shooting for? They have a TV show. So obviously, I know what they're talking about.
That they pastor something. I wish that was true. I wish that if someone was pastoring a church, that meant that they were pointing people to Jesus. But that's not always true. What is it? They seem trustworthy.
Like they wrote a book. They have a doctor in front of their name or a PhD after it. See, a lot of times we have information being sold to us, given to us, we're reading books about, and it actually isn't pointing us to Jesus. And so what Paul says is it's got to be in submission to Christ. It's got to point us to Jesus. It's got to be about him.
So you heard about blood moons? Anybody? Not in a long, some people have heard about blood moons. People, a guy wrote a book about blood moons, because there's going to be blood moons this year, which a blood moon is a way that Jewish people describe a certain type of lunar eclipse, I think, or solar eclipse, but I think it's a lunar eclipse. And so they're freaking out because there are blood moons, which is a type of lunar eclipse, landing on major Jewish holidays. There's a big book written about it.
And it's a Christian book about how we as Christians should be thinking about, worried about blood moons and what they mean for us. Okay, first of all, it's not a super big deal that blood moons land on Jewish holidays, because Jewish holidays follow a lunar calendar. So if there's ever going to be a blood moon, it's going to be on a Jewish holiday, just for the record. So that's how that works. Secondly, the Bible mentions a few things about prophetic, the moon will turn to blood, but it does not camp out there, and it's not a major thing, and it's not super described. And so for us to run off into some sideline small issue that doesn't point us to Jesus is actually not appropriate.
Because Paul says, the understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So if we have any Christian teacher standing up and pointing us to some hidden treasure, some hidden mystery, and it's not in Jesus, they're actually pointing us in the wrong direction. And so I've actually gotten into conversations with people before, Christians who are telling me, oh, but these blood moons. Somebody said, but Jewish scholars say, and I let them just talk for a while, and then I said, yeah, Jewish scholars miss Jesus when they're studying the Old Testament.
And the Old Testament's about Jesus, so I'm glad they found this blood moon stuff, but I'm not sure they're hitting on much when it comes to how we're supposed to grow and know and what we understand to be true. Harold Camping, anybody know who this cat is? He had a radio program. He did Bible math. Numerology, I think is what they call it. It's where you take random Numbers in the Bible, and then you do math, which sounds horrible.
And then he figured out when Jesus was coming back, when the world was going to end, I think is how he did it. And so there was a bunch of, like, billboards. This was a big thing up in Lynchburg, where I was at the time, but, like, it was a thing. And he said the world was going to end at 6 p.m. Which time zone, bro? Like, how's that going to work?
Is it Eastern Standard Time? And some people asked him, because he said that, and people asked him, and he was like, at 6 p.m., wherever you are. Which means that the world's going to end until it hits a time zone and wait. No, no, no, wait for it. Wait for it. There we go.
It doesn't make any sense. And what he's saying is he's found secrets, he's found mysteries, he's found knowledge, he's found understanding, and it's not in Jesus, it's in something else. And so what Paul's going to say is that if anybody comes with mystery, secret, knowledge, wisdom, and they're pointing you to something other than Jesus, it's not right. Now, those examples are a little bit easier, although they are big mainstream Christian things. But how do we do this in a very simple day-to-day basis?
How do we know if the information that our aunt or our best friend just told us over coffee points us to Jesus or doesn't? How do we have a functioning radar for when people are talking to us that we grow in our knowledge of the gospel, that we grow in following Jesus or something else? So I'll give you a few examples. You're a dude, and you're wanting to get married. You have a desire to meet a lady and to get married. And so you're talking to someone about this, and it's like your aunt, and she's super nice and has really cool blue hair, and so she's talking to you about how to meet a lady.
She's Christian, you know, in church, and her advice to you is make yourself a good gift, that God gives good gifts, and so you need to make yourself a good gift. So you need to get your finances in order. You need to have a job. You need to, you know, if you're a little bit overweight, like you need to get healthy. Like her advice is make yourself a good gift, and then God will give you as a good gift to someone else. And that's the advice.
Okay. That's actually not bad advice, but does that point us to Jesus? Is that what the gospel says? That we work on ourselves, that we make ourselves good, and then he owes us? Is that the gospel? That you do good religious things, and then God owes you something?
No. It's that we're completely messed up, that we don't deserve anything, and that in his grace he grants us things. That in his grace he gives us things. So yes, good advice. Take a shower. Yes, use shampoo.
Get a job. Sure. Quit eating things that end in Edo. Absolutely. But God doesn't owe you anything on the back end of that.
You don't earn a spouse from God that way. That's not how that works, and that actually doesn't point you to Jesus. It points you to legalism. It points you to moralism. It points you to hard work, and then he owes you something. And so nice advice, but wisdom, knowledge, mystery wasn't found in it because it didn't point you to Jesus.
Okay. You're a, um, you're female, and you've gone from guy to guy. She's gone from guy to guy, and she's constantly just needs a man to be in relationship with, to have a relationship with, to know that she's okay. She has to have a man, and so this has been a problem. It's kind of derailed some things in her life, and so she's sitting with a counselor, and the counselor tells her, here's what you need. You need to get a job.
You need to be successful. You need to be able to stand on your own two feet, and then you won't need a man. You'll be your own person. That's the counsel that's been given. Okay. Is that good advice?
Does that point us to Jesus, or does that point us to something else? Where, where are we trying to grow? Do we, as we take in advice, as people say these things to us, we have to submit it and see, how does this fit with the gospel? How does this fit with what we know about Jesus? Okay. The truth is, she does need a man, and his name is Jesus.
She's not complete by herself. She doesn't need to be self-sufficient. Getting a job is fine, if she needs to be able to operate on her own, but the goal isn't to be a successful, self-made woman, to be empowered. She actually needs to find rest, and hope, and life, and be a complete person because of Jesus. And then, yeah. Have a man, don't have a man.
Be successful in a job. Don't be successful in a job. But the goal isn't to find something outside of herself on earth to make herself complete, but to find Jesus, to rest in him, to find fulfillment and satisfaction in him, so that what she's looking for in a man, she finds in Jesus. So, yeah. Get a job. Don't have to have a man.
Sure. But realize that hope and life is found in Jesus. All right. Here's one. I've seen this a good bit. Hanging out with some people, Christian people.
Somebody's, like, super depressed. Just, maybe not even depressed isn't the word, but, like, just feels, unworthy feels, like there's no, there's no way God loves me. They have this guilt. And so what I've seen people do is they'll sit around them and start telling them why they're special, why they're good, why they're loved. Here's all the great things about you. And so it could be a spouse, sit down and say, here's why you're wonderful.
Here's why you're good. Here's why you should feel good about yourself. Or it could be a group of guys in, like, a community group, and one of them is just like, man, I just feel, every time I mess up, I mess up so much, and I just don't feel like God could love me. And everybody says, no, you're doing great. You're trying really hard, and you did that nice thing for that kid two months ago. Remember?
Remember that? You pumped up his basketball. Like, God wrote that down, and he loves you. And, like, they do this, like, you should feel good about yourself. And the truth is, that's encouraging. That's nice to say to someone.
But if my standing before God is based off of how I feel about myself and how good I feel like I'm being at the moment, you're not pointing me to Jesus. You're pointing me to me. And as soon as I stop feeling good about myself, I bottom out again because my rest and my hope is in something other than Jesus. And so what they ought to say is, hey, man, be encouraged for these things. This is where Jesus is at work in you. And know this.
You don't have to feel good about yourself. Jesus loves you regardless. And you don't have to have it together. Jesus died for you because you don't and because you never will. And then we get to point to Jesus and we get to grow in the gospel and we get to find riches of knowledge and wisdom and mystery because we submit everything to Jesus. And so we have to have a functioning radar for how we do that so that when someone says something to us, we can gauge, is this gospel?
Does this help me grow closer to Jesus? Are you pointing me to Jesus or is this something else? Are you pointing me to me? Are you pointing me to something outside of me? Do I need a job or a man? Like, what are you pointing me to?
And just for the record, don't point me to a man. I'm not going to take the bait. We have to have something, some way that we functionally walk that out. And so Paul says this. He says he's praying that their hearts would be knit together in love, their hearts be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the fullness of assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this, that no one may delude you with plausible argument.
He says, I want you to be together and I want you to know that everything's found in Jesus. And I'm telling you that so that you won't be led astray by plausible arguments. He doesn't say dumb things. He says stuff that sounds smart. Plausible argument. Yeah, actually sounds pretty good.
That's what leads us astray. Not when someone tells us something blatantly stupid. But when someone says something that sounds pretty good. So he says, I want you to be together. And so that's our discernment radar. Submission to Jesus in the context of community.
That we actually have people around us that we're knit together in love. So that we can reach the fullness, the full assurance of the gospel and that we won't be led astray. So really practically, we're going to land on a few things that we just need to know. Here's what we do. Here's how this happens. Oh, sorry.
I already went to my last page and then I hid it for myself. Anyway, here's practically how this happens. Somebody tells you something, you hear something, you read something, you don't just accept it, you think. Does this line up with the gospel? Does this line up with Jesus? And then when you've thought about it, you take it to a team, you've got a team, and you say, hey, other believers who know me, this is what I think this is saying.
Is this smart? This is what my aunt told me. Didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, although I did take a shower. Like, is this, is this, does this line up with the gospel? And then your teammate gets to say, well, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?
Like, this doesn't really line up. And this passage says this, and we get a team. We get to do this in community. So practically, just a few things this means for us. It has to be Bible, not just books. We have to have Bible, not just books.
What I mean by that is this, we have to know what this says about Jesus. We can't just read what other people say this says about Jesus. So in college, I used to work out a good bit. I worked out a good bit in high school, playing football, and different times I was trying to put on weight. And I would take supplements like protein powder and creatine and, you know, Explode, some different supplements. And so there's stores at the mall that sell just straight up supplements.
And so, they are to help you put on weight or bulk or whatever. They tell you they do all kinds of things. Some of them, I think, are more helpful than others. But they're supplements to you exercising, to you lifting weights, working out. They're supplements. If somebody asked me, hey man, what kind of workout program are you on?
I was like, I eat creatine three times a day. Yeah, but what kind of workout program? I just told you the creatine plan. It's like, you know, you've got to lift weights and run. There's got to be, that supplements what you're doing. The truth is, books, commentaries, devotionals, they supplement us spending time with Jesus.
Now, here's the thing. One of the pushbacks a lot of times for reading the Bible is a couple of things. One is, I don't know where to start. Start in the book of John. Or if you're walking with us, start in the book of Colossians. Study it along with us.
Read it ahead of us and be studying in it. I don't know where to start. I don't know what Bible version to use. There's a bunch of them. We can have conversations about that. And some people will be like, well, the Bible's confusing.
Yes, sometimes it is. But here's the thing. The disciples who hung out with Jesus all the time were constantly confused by him. Because he'd be like, here's the gospel. It's like a tree. You plant that tree in your garden.
And he would talk and then he'd walk off and they'd be like, I don't know who he's talking about. What kind of tree did he say it was? Like, constantly confused. He would look at them and say just straight up, I'm going to die. They're going to deliver me over into the hands of men. They're going to kill me and three days later, I'm going to come back.
And then it would say that he left and it would be like, none of them knew what he meant, but they didn't ask him. So you know they were having conversations. No, no, John, you ask him. I ain't asking him. I asked him last time. See the look he gave me?
So, here's the thing. Study this. Catch 60% of it. And grow and grow and grow in your understanding of the Bible. You should rather be confused by Jesus than to understand completely the nonsense that someone else tells you. You should rather that happen.
We need to be Bible people. It has to be Bible, then books, then movies. All right. They made the TV show The Bible miniseries. Okay. Then, the show did well.
Then they wrote a book about the show. So they took the Bible and they made a show about it. And then the show did well, so they took the Bible show and wrote a book about it. Which is great, because now we have all our favorite Bible stories in book form, which we already had. And here's the thing. Some of us are, we grow, we learn by watching Bible shows and by reading the Bible stories, Bible show, miniseries, book thing, which it says, based off of the Bible miniseries.
And I wanted to say, that was based off of the Bible. We've got to read the Bible first. We've got to grow in that. And that way, when somebody tells us something, we have a framework for, uh, not, because I read this. And here's the thing. We say the Bible's confusing.
We get to do this in community. So we read the Bible and then we go talk to other people. I was reading this. I think this is what it's saying. Is that what it's saying? Is that what he means here?
The other thing is this, and you need to realize this as a Christian. For those of us in this room who've placed our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God actually dwells in us, which we talked about. Paul says this is a profound mystery, that Christ is in us. The Holy Spirit authored Scripture. So he knows what it means and can teach us.
So there are times, this happens probably about once a week. I'll be reading Scripture and I'll read something and I'll just be like, I don't fully know what that, what you're trying to say, like what I'm supposed to take from that, what that's supposed to mean. It just seems like it's a story or just, and so I'll pray, God, if you want me to understand this, tell me. He wrote it. It'd be like if you had the author of the book with you and you could say, what was this whole thing about? Chapter three was weird.
Like you get to do that and so I just ask, tell me. And then I'll read it again and if I still don't get it, I just assume he didn't want me to know and I move on. I don't let it stress me out. I understand enough of the Bible to stress me out. Like I understand enough of it to know where I ought to be doing and how I ought to be walking and the things that I don't get, I just assume he'll teach me later. We get to do that.
So we get to be Bible first so that we get to know Jesus, so that we know if things submit to him. It has to be community, not just crowd. So Bible, not just books, community, not just the crowd. What I mean by that is don't take, oh yeah, I talked to other Christians because I read a review online. You actually have to, if we're going to process what's coming in and what we're being taught and what we're trying to believe and how we're trying to function, we actually have to have people around us. He says be knit together.
It should almost be awkward if we're doing things on our own because we're so used to being in community. It has to be people that are actually around you, that actually know how you walk in life because the truth is this. The people in my community group know that approval isn't a big thing for me. I don't super struggle with approval. It's more success. I don't care if you like me, I just want you to think I'm awesome.
That's a thing for me. And so I talk to my community group about this. And so when I have a life decision coming in, something I've got to think through, I get to bring them in on it and they already know me so they can actually give me helpful advice. They can see where I'm chasing after wrong things. They can say, well this isn't really something that you're pursuing for wrong reasons because we know you, we've been around you. And you want actual community because you need people to say hard things to you sometimes.
You need people that care enough about you to say real stuff and that know enough about you to be able to do that accurately. So it's got to be community. It's got to be actual people around. Here's the difference between me watching somebody I don't know about to do something stupid and me watching someone I do know about to do something stupid. Someone I don't know. That fool's about to hurt himself.
And then you just watch. You just, I think this is going to be really bad. So I'm watching this. Like this is what I'm doing at the party now. I'm going to watch this guy hurt himself. And then if I know them, I'd be like, hey fool, you about to hurt yourself.
And then you still get to watch. And that honestly is some of the difference between community and just people that are around. You need people around you enough to call you out, to talk to you, to say real things with you and to know you well enough to be able to do that accurately. You need people around you. The thing about blind spots is that you can't see them. And so if you're processing things and there's a giant blind spot in your life and you just don't realize it, you may make some poor decisions or you may not line things up well.
But if you've got people around you, just say, hey, you don't realize this about yourself, but I see this pattern and actually be helpful. And it makes life way easier and way better. That's what Paul says he struggles for. He says, this I'm struggling for, that you'd be knit together in love. I want you to be community. I want you to actually care about each other.
Okay. We've got to study the Bible. We've got to know the Bible. It's got to be Bible, then other things. And then we can actually decide whether those other things are helpful. And it's got to be community, not just a crowd of people, not just people around that we every once in a while sit down and say, hey, here's the situation.
I'm going to give you the gist of it. Is this smart? Because all you did was give them the stuff you're seeing. So of course they'll agree with you most often. But if you've got people around you who say, actually, yeah, but don't you know this is how you're pursuing this and this is what's going on with you?
It's actually more helpful. So it's got to be community, actually people around. We get to have faith. So don't freak out. We get to have faith. I've gotten to go out of the country a couple of times.
Not a lot, and I hope to do it some more, but it's always funny to me when you're leaving the country and coming back into the country because there's customs. And customs is like when you come in or out of the country as a foreign person or coming back into the country and they have to check your passport and they ask you questions and stuff. And it takes a super long time to walk through. But like I've been in four and you walk up and they're like, are you checking anything into the country that you should not bring with you? Like do you have anything that is illegal? They just ask you.
And you're like, nope. No ma'am, I am not. And then she looks at you and she's like, checks out. And like they don't check at all. Like they don't look at your bags. They just ask you.
And you're like, okay. Like I could have smuggled all kinds of things in here. And so some of us, that's been our radar. Is this bad for me? No. Seems legit.
Like that's how, that's our customs process. This person said it with their mouth so it's got to be true. Read it on the internet. Like that commercial with that guy. It's like everything on the internet is true and he shows up and she's like, he's French. And he's like, oh yeah, bonjour.
Like that. Like that's our, that's our process. We just believe it because we read it or because someone said it. And then, all right, so, but don't, don't freak out. We get to have faith and so sometimes you're somewhere and they've got like the drug dogs. So it's like an armed officer.
Got one on the side. Maybe he's holding one. He's got a, an intense looking dog. Like a scary, pointy ear. No nonsense. Like you don't see that dog and think, I need to pat his head.
Like, you know, that dog's got a job to do. He means business. He's got this look that like scares children and stuff like that. Like he's, he's in the zone and, and they're looking for drugs and it's a serious thing. What I am not saying, when we build a discernment radar, I am not telling you to go live in the woods and be afraid of everything or to start a website where you just look for stuff to argue with. That's not, that's not what we're talking about.
Fruit beagles. That's what we want. When you're coming back into the country, they have fruit beagles, which is a beagle, still an officer, walking around with a dog that is smelling for fruit because it's actually not good for us to go to another country and bring fruit back to the U.S. because it can have bugs that we're not ready for. And it can actually, like, you could bring an apple back and it could decimate crops here. And so, that's what we want. We want something that, we're not always having to be super intense, we're not always having to start pick fights with people, but we have some process for how we bring things in, how we know to check whether or not something's good.
We have the ability to submit it to Jesus in the context of community. I always like it when the fruit beagle comes by because I know he's being helpful. You do look at him and think, I can pet this dog if I wanted to. Like, he's still got a job to do but he's not crazy and I'm never worried because why would I have fruit? Now, if they bring a bacon beagle by, I might be in trouble but it's like, I never have fruit. We're okay.
Me and you, we're okay beagle. And so, we just, we want to have some process. So, you just need to be willing to know that we have to have a process and we get to have faith. Here's the thing, we're not going to always get this right. We're going to believe some stupid things. We're going to not believe some good things.
And we get to walk that out in the context of community and we get to constantly push towards finding hope and depth and wisdom and knowledge in Jesus. And here's how he lands this. This is what he says. We'll start in verse 5. For though I'm absent in body, yet I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. Therefore, so therefore meaning all this stuff we just talked about, that you would be knit together, you'd have a community, you'd submit everything to Jesus.
Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. We get to rest. We get to have joy. We get to be in community and we get to talk about real stuff and we get to have joy. We get to abound in thanksgiving. We get to, therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith.
Here's the thing. All of us received Christ Jesus in the same way. We were messed up. We had fallen short. We were not going to fix our lives or get it together. And Jesus came and lived perfectly on our behalf and died for our mistakes, died for our rebellion, died for our errors, died for our inability to fix the situation.
And then he rose again three days later so that he could fix the problem for us. So that he could take care of our errors, so he could take care of our sin, our rebellion, our brokenness, and we place our faith in him. Not our good works, not our intelligence, our faith. That he was good on our behalf and that he gives us life. That he paid for our sins. He paid our penalty and he gives us life.
That's how we receive Christ. That's how we're rooted in him. That's how we're built up. Not in our ability to work really hard. Not in our ability to have a really good discernment radar and not do stupid things. That we get to follow him.
Yeah, we get to have that. We get to follow him in faith. That he's good and that he'll teach us and that he'll train us and that ultimately it's up to him, not up to us. And then we get to do this in community and we get to abound in thanksgiving. We get to have joy in relationship with each other as we try to follow Jesus and we try to point each other to Jesus. That's us.
That's what we get to do. That's our discernment radar. Submission to Jesus in the context of community. Band's going to come back up and we're going to sing. We're going to abound in thanksgiving. We're going to make much of Jesus.
And then we get together next time, not next week, but next time. We're going to talk about specifically things that we need to be on guard for. Specifically why we have a discernment radar. What it is we need to be looking for. What it is we need to be in defense of. But ultimately we get to rest in Jesus and our faith is in him not in anything else.
I'm going to pray and then we're going to sing. God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that we get to be built up in our faith in you. That in you is found knowledge and wisdom and life. So we praise you and we thank you.
We ask, Lord, that we would submit things to you. That we would be willing to test what comes in. Know what's good and keep it. Know what's bad and get rid of it. We ask for you to lead us in this. Give us community.
Help us to grow closer to you. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Him We Proclaim
Colossians 1:24-29
Transcript
Wow, alright, that good. Goodness. Felt like I was at a rock concert there for a second. With all that shouting. Can we do something? We don't do this often and we don't do it for some reasons, but also don't want us to not do it for bad reasons.
Let me explain what I'm talking about because that's getting confusing. We don't always clap for or make a big deal of much of what we do on the human side of things when we get together, but there is an appropriate amount of that, an appropriate amount of appreciation for the people that put in and serve and work, and we actually get to praise Jesus in praising people. That's an appropriate thing to do, and so can we just for a second, can we just clap for everybody that just helped lead worship, and everybody that just... It is okay for us to appreciate that, and they put a lot of work into it, and are very...
They love Jesus, and they want to help us love Jesus, and they want to point to Jesus and everything, and that's not always found, especially among people that are talented in different ways, and so I just want to... We appreciate all of that, and we need to, and it's good for us to. We're in Colossians. It's our fifth week of walking through the book of Colossians, and so grab your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, there should be some at the end of the row, and so if you need one, look at the people down the row from you, get them to pass one to you, or do like a weird shimmy thing where you crawl all the way down to the end of the row and grab one.
So we'll be in Colossians. It'll be... We'll be in chapter one. It's our fifth week in Colossians. So how...
How are we doing? We've been in Colossians for five weeks. Are we... Are we growing? Are we changing? Are we seeing Jesus for who He is?
Are we learning that we're a y'all, that we exist in community with one another? Are we putting knowledge into practice? And as we practice that knowledge, are we learning more things like how to do stuff, how not to do stuff? You know, are we? Are we doing that? Has it been good for us?
Are we growing? Are we learning? It is our fifth week, so we're at half to today. We'll be halfway through. And I know some of you may be looking at the book of Colossians and doing some maths. We've been five weeks in chapter one, and there's three chapters left.
And so some of y'all might be calling lie on us being halfway through. But the last three chapters are going to move a little more quickly. The first chapter was pretty dense. And so we'll actually spend two weeks in chapter two, two weeks in chapter three, and a week in chapter four. So the maths currently is working out.
We're in Colossians 1. I'm excited about what we're going to get to talk about tonight because it's foundational for how we are as a church. Kind of who we believe we are and how we operate. And so it's something that actually this passage went into part of how we operate and part of what we talk about all the time when we talk about being a gospel-centered community on mission. And so I'm excited to get to talk about this passage in the context of Colossians because it's affected our thought process and how we do what we do as a church family. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop in looking at Colossians 1.
God, we thank you. We're excited to be able to gather as your people, to be church family. And so we just pray that we would make much of you and that you would teach us and lead us through your Holy Spirit to understand clearly your word as we walk through this section of Scripture. So we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Colossians 1, starting in verse 24.
This is the Apostle Paul. He's writing to the church at Colossae. Every time he says you, he's saying y'all. He's using the Greek word for y'all, which is a plural you. And so verse 24. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.
And in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body. That is the church. All right, we're going to stop. We're going to walk through this section. We have a problem sometimes when we come to Scripture. I think we get used to it.
Sometimes studying Scripture. We're going to get together on Sundays and we're going to open it up and we're going to study Scripture. We're going to read from the Bible. We read from the Bible on our own and we read from the Bible in our community groups. And I think sometimes we get used to the Bible. And so we don't always approach it in such a thoughtful way.
And so we'll read something in the Bible that honestly doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And our response will be, hmm, okay. Like we just don't think about it. We're like, hmm, sounds good, Apostle Paul. Like it doesn't affect us and like we don't have to approach it thoughtfully. And so what Paul says here is I rejoice in my sufferings.
I rejoice. I rejoice. I'm excited. I'm pumped about. I have joy in my sufferings. And we'll read that and go, hmm, sounds good.
When we should read it and go, do what now? I mean, really, if he's rejoicing in suffering, we have one of two options when it comes to the Apostle Paul. If he rejoices in sufferings, either he's crazy or he knows something we don't know. It's possible it's both because a lot of times crazy people know things you don't know. But that's just because they're crazy.
So that really gets smooshed into option one. So really, either he's crazy or he knows something we don't know. And so when you read that, when you read that he rejoices in sufferings, don't go, hmm, sounds good. Let's look at that a little bit. And so what is he saying? How can he rejoice in suffering?
That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make sense to us. That's not how we operate. Now, for those of us who have been around the church for a while or been in a community group for a while or studied the Bible for a while, this concept may not be super new to us. We may understand that that's something that Christians ought to be able to do. But we're not good at it.
And we don't really do it. So even though the concept may not be new to us, we can't act like we understand it or completely have it down when it comes to actual suffering in our lives. And for those of us who've just started hanging around church stuff, just started being, maybe just became a Christian or are just learning, checking this whole Jesus thing out, that's a pretty ridiculous statement to rejoice in suffering. To actually, not bears. He doesn't say I bear suffering or I put up with or I find some sort of a purpose in. He says I rejoice in it.
Like I'm excited about it. And that doesn't make any sense. And so, especially when it comes to like Americans, we're told that the American dream is the pursuit of our happiness. If our goal, if the most important thing in life for me is my happiness, is self-fulfillment, suffering beats that every time. Every time. Suffering always beats half my happiness.
So when my happiness and suffering lace up their shoes and head to the court, suffering dunks on my happiness every time. That's how it works. My happiness never comes away with a W on that one because happiness and suffering, happiness loses. And so what Paul is saying when he says I rejoice in suffering is that obviously he's not banking on his own self-fulfillment and his own happiness. He's writing this from a jail cell and he says I'm excited about my suffering. So he's not banking on what we're banking on.
It's not based off of his own self-fulfillment and his own personal happiness. Now, what we're going to see as we go through this passage is that this is not the point of what Paul is talking about. His point here is not how to rejoice in suffering. That's not what he's telling us here. He's talking about something completely different. But him saying that he rejoices in suffering illustrates for us what he is going to be talking about.
It pointedly shows us and demonstrates for us that what he is going to be talking about is real and it affects every aspect of his life. So I just wanted to point that out because it's a little bit bizarre for us and we can't just brush past that. And what we're going to see as we walk through is that he's actually in saying that indicating the weight of what he's going to spend the rest of the time talking about. So what's his reason? If he can rejoice in suffering, he's got to have some sort of a reason. So he says it.
Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. So it's for y'all's sake. For y'all's sake. Or when Anna and I lived in Virginia, they would say y'all's. Which is the plural, plural version of y'all. And so she worked at the bank and they'd mess up money stuff and somebody would look at her and be like, well, I think it's y'all's fault.
And Anna would be like, that's not a word. Although y'all's maybe not isn't either. If you ever have to text y'all's, it just looks ridiculous. But anyway, what he says is for y'all's sake, for plural, your church's sake. So he says, I rejoice in my suffering for y'all's sake.
And in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body. That is the church. Quick time out. That last sentence is confusing. What he is not saying is that he is completing the atonement for sin. So that's not what he's saying.
When he says the afflictions, filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. What he's not saying is that he somehow has to suffer to help continue to atone for sin. Or that we as Christians have to continue to suffer to atone for sin. That's not what he's saying. So Jesus, when he died on the cross, fully and completely forever paid for our sin.
Atonement was finished. When Jesus on the cross said, it is finished, he meant it. When he uses the word affliction, which is actually a different word than what is used when it talks about Jesus' suffering in the Greek. He's talking about the continuation of the effect of the cross on the world. That he is suffering. He's facing afflictions to continue to spread the gospel, to continue to move this forward.
And so what he's saying is he's taking part in affliction as a Christian, as part of the body of Christ, and for the sake of the church, the body of Christ. And so he's not saying he's continuing atonement. Is that clear? We don't need to get super bogged down here, but that's what he's saying. So what he says is it's for the sake of the church.
It's for the sake of those who would become believers, those who would place their faith in Jesus. So when he says for y'all's sake, he's talking about the church in Colossae. And so he's saying basically that he can suffer because of the mission to see more people meet Jesus. That he can suffer because the mission to see more people meet Jesus, to see the church grow is actually bigger than his own personal comfort, his own personal self-fulfillment. But what we'll see, and when it comes to mission, is that yes, the mission is bigger, but there has to be a reason for the mission.
And as he keeps going, we'll see that there is a reason for the mission. We just recently, in June 6, celebrated D-Day, the 70th anniversary of D-Day. And so there were some cool things that happened around that. There was a guy in Britain who was 89 years old who wanted to go to the Normandy celebrations. They were all the people that had stormed Normandy were going to go celebrate. And the people whose caretakers weren't able to kind of organize something for him to be able to go.
And so he just put on his best suit, pinned his medals to his suit, put on a raincoat, and dipped out. He was 89 years old, and he just left where he was because they weren't able to work it out. And he made it over to Normandy. They were looking for him later, and it was like, I went where I wanted to go. I'm a grown man. I do what I want.
I didn't need permission to come here the first time. I don't need permission to come here the second time. And so I thought that story was interesting. Whenever I think about the storming of Normandy or Operation Overlord, I always think about my favorite Vin Diesel movie, which is Saving Private Ryan. It's my favorite Vin Diesel movie because he's only in it for like 20 minutes, and he dies, and it's great. But that movie does a really good Job of showing what that looked like, what the Operation Overlord looked like when the Allied troops took back the Beechins of Normandy, France.
And here's the thing. The Allies knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing. They knew how to do it. So they knew what they were trying to do.
They were going to take back the Beechins of Normandy to begin pushing out the Germans. They knew how to do it. They knew how to operate the machinery and the weaponry that they have. And they knew how to work in relationship to one another. But in order to do it, they had to know why they were doing it.
They had to know why it was worth all of the loss of life, all of the pain, all of the suffering that would come with it. They had to know why. And so when Paul talks about the mission, and when he talks about how he walks through this, and how he can rejoice in suffering, he's going to tell us that it's for the mission, but then he's going to explain why it's worth it. So they suffered in the mission of Operation Overlord, but they knew why it was worth it. They knew what they were going after. Why it was worth celebrating every year since.
Why we celebrated it this year is because of the why, not because of the what and the how. And so what we're going to look at is, yes, we're going to talk a little bit about the what. We're going to talk a little bit about the mission. But we're going to land in, and Paul's going to land in, why. So, what we see first is the mission. That's what he's going to talk about, and then we'll talk about why.
He says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I, Paul, became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, for y'all, to make the word of God fully known. So he's still talking about the mission, and here's what he says. He says, I was given this because of the stewardship of God. So God, creator of the universe, who's working to redeem and to save people and to bring them back in relationship with himself, has a stewardship.
He commands and controls his mission, and he invites humans into that. He invited Paul into that because of the stewardship from God. So God, who's overseeing all of this, gave some of it to Paul. And Paul says, It was because of the stewardship of God that was given to me for y'all. So he's talking about the Colossians church.
Now this is how this worked for Paul. Paul was a Jewish guy, super smart, had the equivalent of like several PhDs, was on the fast track to go be a part of the Sanhedrin, maybe even high priest one day, fingers crossed. And he was super zealous for Judaism. So he began to persecute all Christians, all of those who rose up against and began to proclaim that Jesus was God, that he died in our place for our sin, that he rose again three days later. So he began to persecute them.
And he was very zealous for it, which means he enjoyed it and liked it and was good at it. And so he was persecuting the church, deserved to be destroyed and crushed by Jesus, who's in control and in charge of everything. Jesus shows up, knocks Paul off his horse, makes him blinds and says, Why are you persecuting me? And then he says, I'm going to show you how much you'll have to suffer for my sake. Jesus, instead of crushing him, rescues him, gives him grace, saves him from his sin and invites him into his mission, gives him the stewardship of his mission. And so Paul becomes a missionary for Christ.
In Christ's name begins to proclaim the gospel that Jesus gives grace to those who don't deserve it. He goes to Ephesus. In Ephesus he's proclaiming the gospel. We know that Epaphras most likely becomes a believer in Ephesus. Philemon may have been with him. It's possible that Epaphras led Philemon to Jesus when he went back to Colossae.
Ephesus begins to proclaim the gospel in Colossae. The Colossian church is born. Those who submit to Jesus, repent of their sin and are rescued by grace by him in the Colossae. People begin to meet in homes, Philemon's home and some other homes. And Paul looks at the Colossian church, writes this to the Colossian church, whom he hasn't met and says, God in his stewardship gave it to me for y'all. And what's really exciting, heavy and intense is that each of us who know Jesus have a for y'all.
We have a for y'all that God in his good stewardship of his mission has handed over part of it to us for a y'all. So Paul says it was given to me for y'all. So there was a guy named David Thomas who became a believer. He lived in South Carolina. It's not Dave Thomas who made cheeseburgers. It's David Thomas who lived in South Carolina, started serving as a part of his church, started working with students and small children.
While he was doing that, one of the students he was working with named Matt Freeman became a believer. Repented of his sins, accepted Jesus as his savior, as his substitute for his sin, became a believer. And so Matt grew up as a Christian, felt called into ministry. Eventually, while he was in college, started working at a church where he was serving. At that church, he met a female that he was picking up what she was putting down. And he talked to his roommate, who was a complete prophetic genius, about dating this girl.
And his roommate, who's really smart and ruggly handsome, told him, you should not date someone that you work with at a church. That would be stupid. And because Matt completely appreciated this prophetic advice and because he knew the wisdom that his roommate had, began dating her anyway. Which totally worked out for him. They got married. Her name was Katie.
They then felt called to be a part of a church plant in West Columbia. Felt called by God, who in Acts 17, it says, sets our boundaries so that God knows where we are, has us where we are on purpose, knows where you live, knows your address, knows why he has you in relationship with the people he has you in relationships with. So he set your boundaries. So God who set our boundaries, Matt and Katie feel called to be a part of a church plant in West Columbia, and since they feel called to be a part of a church plant in West Columbia, they moved to Northeast Columbia because that's what you do. Made no sense to me.
But God who sets their boundaries had an idea of what he was doing. And so while they lived in Northeast Columbia, they became friends with the Gillens. While they became friends with the Gillens, they invited them to be a part of community group, invited them to start being a part of church family. Daniel Gillen becomes a believer, repents of his sins, and follows Jesus, accepts Jesus as his atonement for his sin, begins to follow Jesus. Daniel invites DJC to come be a part of things. DJ starts hanging out with their community group.
DJ meets Jesus, repents of his sins, and starts following Jesus as his sacrifice, as his atonement, as his king, because of the stewardship from God that was given to David, that was given to Matt, that was given to Daniel, that was given to DJ for y'all, for a y'all that's not over with yet. That's how that works. And each person in this room has had the king of the universe extend some stewardship of his mission to us for a y'all. And he sets our boundaries, and he knows who we know, and he knows why he has us on the street that we're on, and it's been given to me for y'all, as Paul says, and each of us has a for y'all that we toil, struggle, pray for, build with, spend our time chasing after because of the stewardship of a great God and king who knows what he's doing when he hands out his mission.
That's what Paul says. Paul says, first of all, the mission's bigger than my personal self-fulfillment, than my personal enjoyment and my personal happiness, so that I can be in prison and I can rejoice because of the stewardship of the mission that was given to me for y'all. So, what that means for us is that the mission's bigger. Mission's bigger than how we want to spend every weeknight. Mission's bigger than how we want to spend our money. The mission's bigger than how we want to be viewed by people.
I know my wife and I have this conversation all the time because I harass my neighbors because I'm just trying to talk to them, just trying to build a relationship with them. And they'll look at me and go, they're not going to come outside anymore. I can see people from my backyard. And so I'll see people. She's like, they're in their backyard. You can't go talk to them.
And I'll be like, watch me, which I do creep people out. And so I got to work on it. But the mission's bigger about whether or not I want to be seen as creepy or not. Like, we got to start talking to people. We got to build relationships with people. It's bigger than how we want to spend our time, how we want to spend our money.
And we know that. And now Paul's going to tell us how it's bigger, why it's bigger. Why it's worth it. Why it's worth the suffering. So we'll start in 25.
Of which I became a minister, just means servant, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for y'all, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints, all those who have placed their faith in Jesus. That's what saints are, holy ones, made holy by Jesus. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles, Gentiles are all non-Jewish people, so me and most everybody else in this room are Gentiles. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So what Paul says is the reason the mission is bigger, and what he's been called into, is to proclaim this mystery, the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Paul says it's about the gospel. And the two ways he describes that, the two ways he puts that out, is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you is a profound mystery. A couple weeks ago we spent some time talking about how big Jesus is, how he rules over everything. And what Paul says is that, yes, that's true, and he dwells in those who have placed their faith in him.
That's crazy. It's a profound mystery, but it's been revealed that the God of the universe would indwell, would live in, those who place their faith in him. And so what he says is, when he does that, that's our hope of glory. So, glory is, it kind of just means like shining. And so like, if you took a hot red poker and stuck it in a fire, and then you pulled it out of the fire, it would glow for a while. It's glorying with stuff coming from the fire.
But what he means here is that we, one day, will spend eternity with Jesus in glory. Where there aren't, there isn't pain, and there isn't shame, and there isn't guilt, and there isn't brokenness anymore. And so what he says is, the reason he can do this is because of the gospel, which is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived a life in perfect relationship with God, died for our sins, so was crushed, as he says earlier in Colossians, that he, through his body of flesh, by his death, was crushed on our behalf, so that we might place our faith in him, and so that our sin that deserves to be punished, might be punished on him, and his righteousness, which deserves God to love, and share, and glory in Jesus, can be given to us, and that Christ can dwell in us, and that we have hope of glory. Our hope is not in this life.
So that's why Paul can say he rejoices in suffering, because his hope isn't here. He has a hope of glory because of Christ. It's not here. It's not in his personal satisfaction. It's not in how everything works out for him. It's not in his happiness.
It's in Christ. He has a hope of glory that's in Christ. I am. My granddad's name was Chester Phillips. It's actually who I'm named after. He was a pastor.
Bob Jones, Independent Baptist pastor, for a long time. He graduated from Bob Jones, so he went to, let me see, let me tell you some of his story. He went to, he was in World War II. He was in London during the bombing of London. He spent most of his time on a ship. He was a medic because he made glasses beforehand.
He and my grandmother got married like the week before he left. And so he left. World War II ended. He came back. He went to Bob Jones, learned how to be a pastor, went through their school. When he graduated on Friday, he began preaching at his first church on Sunday.
So he graduated on Friday. They moved on Saturday, and he started working with his first church on Sunday. He was not super comfortable with public speaking, and so my grandmother one time came down in his office, and she said in his office, he would always have his Bible laid out, his notes laid out, and he would have a brown paper bag over here on the right. And so she asked him one day, finally, after he'd been pastor for some years, she'd been married to him for a while, she said, what's the brown paper bag for? And he said, well, sometimes when I'm working on a sermon, I have to throw up.
Because I don't feel good about it. And that's why the brown paper bag's here. And so, but he was a pastor for a long time. I remember I was a part of his church when I was little, and he used to go to his office after he taught, and he'd open his drawer and give you a moon pie, because he loved Jesus, and moon pies are great. And so he'd give you a moon pie. And when I was seven, six-ish, five-ish, somewhere around in there, he started having trouble driving.
And my grandmother started noticing that he was drifting some, and it was like he wasn't seeing very well. And so she taught him to go to the doctor. He didn't like going to the doctor. He went to the doctor, and he had a brain tumor in his head. And so they said, we've got to operate. It's big.
It's just going to be a problem. And so they operated. They removed it. When they removed it, it was as if he had had a stroke. And so his whole left side of his body no longer worked. And so he had to do a lot of rehab to even just be able to walk.
And talk in a coherent manner. And so he found out he had a brain tumor. And then within just a few months was no longer pastoring and was not going to be able to. He wasn't able to open the Bible and proclaim God's word anymore. He was doing well to walk and to kind of communicate. And so they did not think he would have much longer, live much longer after that.
But he lived for another 15 years. Was still a complete trip. He was hilarious, enjoyable to be around. I remember one time we were at the beach, and I was about to go out swimming, and he called me over. He said, Jack, come here. So I came over to him.
He said, Now look. He's sitting in his wheelchair. He said, If you start drowning, I want you to call me. I said, Okay, yes, sir. He goes, Because I've never watched anyone drown, and I'd love to see that. I was like, Yes, sir.
I got you. That's just what he was like. But I remember about two years ago, he passed away. He was 87 years old, had been confined to a wheelchair for a while. Pretty much every day he'd had since his brain tumor operation was grace. And when God called him home, it was grace.
And I cried. And we knew it was coming. And I was genuinely sad and broken over it. And I cried. And I don't cry over much. Because there's something about death and suffering that strikes all of us as wrong.
There's just something in it. That even though we know it's coming, and even though 100% of people are going to die, and even though it happens all the time, it is as common as births. It is as common as getting colds. It is as common. It happens to everyone. There's something in us all the time that screams, this is not how this ought to be.
This is not how this is supposed to work. All of us, when we come to death, when we come to suffering, when we're faced with pain. And what the Bible says is that you are correct. That is not how it's supposed to be. That God created the world in a relationship with himself, and that we as humans rebelled. We ran from him.
The Bible says that we're the problem. That because of self-fulfillment, because of our desire to be God, because of our desire to prop ourselves up, that we rebelled, and that we're the problem. I read a thing the other day that was talking about the deadliest animals on earth. Wolves, sharks, elephants, hippopotamus, mosquitoes came in second to humans. Because we kill more people than anything else. Because we're the problem.
We're broken. We're greedy. I saw a picture of a shark swimming next to a scuba diver, and it said, one of these is the most deadly animal on earth. And the other one's a shark minding his business. Because we're the problem. But what Paul says, and what scripture tells us, is that Jesus didn't stand far away from our suffering.
Didn't stand far away from death. Didn't just crush us for our rebellion, but that he came to earth, he gave up all of his good things, so that he could live as a human, in the relationship with God that we could never accomplish. That he could live perfectly on our behalf, and that he could be crushed. That he could step into suffering, pain, and death. That he could bleed and die on our behalf, and that in him, not only can we face suffering, not only do we have purpose in suffering, but we also have hope of glory, that one day it'll be worked out again. That it'll be back right.
That that thing inside of us that screams that this is wrong, will be straightened back out, and it won't be wrong anymore. That we'll have hope of glory, where we'll spend eternity, with our great God and King, who's rescued and redeemed, and has made everything right again. Who's wiped every tear from every eye. Death and pain are no more. And that we get to celebrate and worship him for eternity. That's what hope of glory means.
And that's what the gospel is for us. And that's why we can suffer. That's why we can face pain. And that's why we can rejoice. Because God and his good stewardship has given this message to us for a y'all. And suffering isn't the end of it for us.
Suffering has purpose for a Christian. And we have hope set somewhere else other than on ourselves. It doesn't terminate on us. And it doesn't terminate on our happiness. Our hope is set with him in eternity. So that's why Paul says he can rejoice in suffering.
Because of Christ in him. Christ in us. And our hope of glory. So, here's what this looks like for us. So it's the gospel that empowers us for mission.
It's the gospel that empowers us in life. It's the gospel that lets us walk through suffering. That lets us walk through pain. It's the gospel. It's that Jesus stepped into our suffering. That he rescues us.
And that in him is our hope. Jesus. It's not set in anything else. It's in Jesus. And so here's what Paul says this looks like. We'll start in 27.
To then God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery. Which is Christ in you? The hope of glory. Him. Jesus. Him we proclaim.
Warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. So Paul in this passage talks about suffering. He talks about affliction. He talks about toil and struggle. And he says it's all about Jesus.
And he says it's him we proclaim. Warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we can present everyone mature in Christ. This is foundational for us as a church. What he's talking about is that it's the gospel that we point each other to. It's the gospel that we point ourselves to. It's the gospel that we point each other to in community.
It's the gospel that we point everyone to. It's Jesus. We talk about Jesus. We make much of Jesus. All the time. That's it.
That's all we do. It's how we view the world. One of the ways we talk about this is gospel fluency. So fluency is when you can speak a language without having to think about how you're speaking that language. Does that make sense? So I took Spanish classes in high school and in college.
I'm not fluent in Spanish. I took like years of this stuff. Not fluent in it. Like if we're ever I can say ¿Dónde estás la biblioteca? And Puerto del Baño, por favor. So if we're in a Spanish speaking country and I get lost go to the closest library and check their bathroom because that's all I know how to say.
And I honestly may not even be in the bathroom but I'll have permission to go there. Because that's what I can say. I can ask where the library is and I can ask for permission to go to the bathroom. I can say other things like the cake is moist but I don't know how often that's going to come up in a conversation. So I mean if I say it enough people might give me money to go away.
Like I don't know. But I can't. I'm not fluent. So what happens when I speak Spanish is I have to think English words. I have to then match that up with a Spanish word and then say Spanish words. And then when someone says Spanish words to me I have to catch the Spanish words match them up with an English word so that I understand what we're talking about.
That's not fluency. Fluency is what's happening right now in English where I'm saying English words and your brain's got concepts. Like you understand what's being said. And then you when you were talking to me would think concepts say English words. I would catch English words think concepts. We wouldn't have to line it back up.
Does that make sense? And so what he's saying is him we proclaim. We talk about Jesus and we talk about gospel fluency. What that means is is that's how we view the world. Through the lens of the gospel. It's Jesus that we see everything through that we point everyone to.
All the time. I've seen those commercials for night view glasses. Have y'all seen those? It's glasses that are yellow. And they act like they're somehow going to give you night vision. I love those commercials.
People give actors in infomercials a hard time. But you've got to know how to act in an infomercial because you're selling garbage. And you've got to pretend like it's good. So you've got to at least have some acting skill. But in those commercials I love it because they'll be like it's like look at how dark it is.
And then they put yellow glasses on someone and they're like I can see everything. Or they'll just show like looking at nothing and then they'll show sunglasses fall over it with yellow and then everything like lights up. And that's ridiculous. That's not how that works. It just makes everything yellow. And so I really want them to put the glasses on someone and then be like wow it's dark and everything's kind of yellow now.
But the truth for us is that that's what the gospel is. The gospel is our night view glasses. It tints everything. It affects how we see everything. It's how we communicate. It's how we think.
It's how we view the world. It's the gospel. It's Jesus. We point to Jesus in everything. It says him we proclaim warning everyone teaching everyone so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. So what that means is that the gospel is primary for us.
We point to Jesus primarily in everything. So when we gather with our community groups we talk about gospel fluency. What that means is when somebody confesses sin or when somebody's struggling with something we don't pop off with just good advice. We don't just look at someone and be like well if you ate better and exercised more you'd be happier. Maybe that's true. And that may be really good advice for 97% of Americans.
But we give gospel first. It's Jesus we proclaim. It's Jesus that we point to because he's our hope. We don't have hope anywhere else. Our hope isn't in diet and exercise. Our hope isn't in the best type of Job to have.
Our hope isn't in this technique for parenting. Our hope is in Jesus. So it's him we proclaim. So this works on a personal basis. This is what Paul's doing. He's proclaiming the gospel over his own suffering so that he can walk through life.
It's what we do. So what we don't do is this. We don't say here's the rule so follow the rule. We say here's the gospel so follow Jesus. Here's how the gospel applies. Follow Jesus.
So the Bible has rules. It has things that ways that we honor God ways that we live. Talks about generosity. I want everyone in this room to be ridiculously generous but not because that's a rule. I want the gospel to so penetrate our souls that we can't help it. That he who was rich became poor so that in him we might be rich.
That God left everything to be made nothing so that in him we could have everything. If that doesn't make us generous I want that to be what drives us so that we can look at someone else and go absolutely I want you to have some of this because I've already been given everything and my God became nothing and I know that everything doesn't terminate on me. My wealth is not for my enjoyment but it's been stewarded it's been given to me for you for this to move forward and for me to walk in light of the gospel. So yeah we want to be generous but because of the gospel yes we want to love ridiculously but because we've been loved but because we know that he's so loved us that he would die for us he would take our place so that we can love.
Of the gospel yes we want to love ridiculously but because we've been loved but because we know that he's so loved us that he would die for us he would take our place so that we can love. That's just how this works. It works in community it works with us
The y'allness of us that he's talking to. So when we have sin issues you know what that means? The gospel applies which is sin's a big deal so we address it we don't pretend like sin's not a big deal we talk about it
Openly and honestly but there's forgiveness we just assume Jesus is going to do what he does which is allow forgiveness bring redemption bring reconciliation we deal with sin issues as a church family we don't allow weirdness between people that's not okay because the gospel is true not because that's a rule
But because Jesus overcomes all of that so we talk to people we can disagree we can repent we can pray for one another we can forgive because we've been forgiven we just invite Jesus in all of it and it's him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone so this is how
We talk to our friends who don't know Jesus I was working at Sears a buddy of mine asked me he said man I used to get married he said you got any marriage advice I said yeah but I'm going to have to talk about Jesus because otherwise it's going to be confusing as crap my advice only comes from Jesus so I got to talk
To you about him first he's like okay so we talked about it because that's how I view the world that's the only way that makes sense and I honestly have found that that's not a pushy way to talk to somebody about Jesus because I'm telling them true things about how I view the world the reason
A lot of us have a hard time talking about the gospel is because the gospel hasn't penetrated how we walk through life it's clunky and awkward so it's like this weird weapon that we carry and smack people with but it doesn't affect how we walk through life so that's why we only talk about Jesus we proclaim
Jesus we point to Jesus when we get together we're going to talk about Jesus when we gather in our community groups we're going to talk about Jesus and so before you ever heard people be like I just want to go deep I want to learn deep things from the Bible and I always
Grew up thinking that you became a Christian because you learned the gospel because you repented of your sin because Jesus died on your behalf and then you learned good deep Bible things what Paul says is that it's the riches of the glory of this mystery which is Christ in us
The hope of glory you want to learn deep things dig into the riches of the glory of this mystery dig and dig and dig and dig into the gospel you are not going to find the bottom that's not going to be tap dry it's not going to it's not ever going to run
Out that's what we dig into that's what we dive into and that's why we proclaim Jesus all the time it's how we view the world he works in among us all the time so we proclaim Jesus all the
Time that's us I want to point to one more thing before we wrap up tonight he says this him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone
Mature in Christ we're going to grow in maturity we grow in maturity in Jesus we grow in maturity in the gospel penetrating deeply into how we live life and here's the thing maturity in Christ is for everyone it's for everyone
It's not for a handful of people and then a bunch of other people gather together and there's some sort of a big religious organization that's not the goal the Bible does have elders and pastors and people that teach but we teach I spend time each week working on things to teach and to talk about the Bible because
We're called to equip saints and we want everyone to be mature everyone to grow in how the gospel applies to everything maturity is for everybody growth is for everybody that we would grow in our community groups that we would begin to proclaim the gospel to each other Colossians is going to talk about that later that we would teach one another we'd admonish one another we'd lead one another celebrate
Worship with one another and that we proclaim the gospel to each other and that we'd all grow in maturity let's do that as a church let's talk about Jesus so much that we all just grow up in maturity in Christ let's let's have this room of people know how the gospel applies to finances how the gospel applies to our time how the gospel applies to our friendships it's going to be awkward it's going to be clunky there's going to be some confusing conversations there
Are going to be times that we say hey that's really good advice but how does Jesus work here how do we proclaim Jesus in this situation and you're going to go how does the gospel apply to buying a dog it does and it's going to be awkward to try to figure it out and talk about it but it applies to how we spend our time and how we spend our money and how we view the world so it applies to everything and we're going to all talk about Jesus so much that we all grow in maturity and become
Mature in Christ and it's going to be really good and a lot of fun man's going to come back up here and here's what we're going to do we are the y'all that Paul's writing to we are the church we are a group of people that exist in relationship with one another and what happens when you have a bunch of people exist in relationships with one another is that things get frustrating things get weird and sometimes people get their feelings hurt and sometimes there's struggle and there's
Pain and in this room there are people that are going through some things and so what we're going to do is we're going to respond as Christians we're going to respond and we're going to proclaim Jesus into this situation we're going to invite the gospel to bear in our lives and so what that means is some of you in here may just be struggling with some life just may be difficult right now you just need some you need some church family to come around and to pray with you and to talk with you about how your hope
Isn't in this situation but it's in Jesus and how the gospel works to bring life and to bring rejoicing and suffering here so you're just going to invite some people to pray with you you're going to go sit with somebody you're going to go talk to somebody you're going to go open up a little bit some of us in here need to confess some sin we need to have the gospel apply so that we know that sin's a big deal and that forgiveness is inevitable for those who repent that Jesus forgives and that reconciliation and
Redemption happen when we invite Jesus in so some of us are going to move around the room we're going to talk to somebody we're going to confess some weirdness we're going to confess some how we've been upset or frustrated with something it's going to get awkward but it's going to be so good because we're going to invite Jesus to be a part of it some of us just need to pray we just need to talk to some people anybody who's playing an instrument right now feels like they need to talk to someone they're going to put their
Instrument down and they're going to go talk to a person we care way more about being church family and applying the gospel than we do about a baseline no offense Josh that's what we're going to do we're going to cut the lights off we're going to they're going to play some music we're going to pray we're going to talk to each other we're going to move around that little thing that just popped in your head that you don't want to talk about that's what you're going to talk about that person that just popped in your head that's the person you're
Going to talk to we're going to follow the Holy Spirit we're going to invite Jesus to be a part of this we're going to pray with one another we're going to walk with one another and we're going to proclaim him always only we're going to proclaim Jesus because he's our hope. He's our life. And he's how we walk through everything. I'm going to pray and then we're going to move. Real quick before I pray. If you're in the room and you don't know Jesus, this is open for you to repent of your sin and to have Jesus be your hope and have his death apply to your account. So you can tell him. That seems awkward or you have questions. You can talk to a human.
We'd love to proclaim him. Let's pray. God, we ask that we'd be a church family, that the gospel works in and around everything. That's how we'd view life. So that God, we'd be able to rejoice in suffering because we know the truth of where our hope lies. And God, I thank you that in your wisdom you've given us a for y'all. That each of the people in this room who have placed their hope and their faith in you, that you've extended your mission for those around them, for those that they would toil and struggle to proclaim you to. And God, I pray that we would, that we would proclaim Jesus,
Warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we might present everyone mature in Christ. Holy Spirit, I pray that you'd work right now. Show us who we need to talk to. Enlighten us into how the gospel works in and among us so that there can be forgiveness, so that there can be reconciliation. We're going to move around the room, God. We pray that your Holy Spirit would move around as well. Teaching us, leading us, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
He's our life. And he's how we walk through everything. I'm going to pray and then we're going to move. Real quick before I pray. If you're in the room and you don't know Jesus, this is open for you to repent of your sin and to have Jesus be your hope and have his death apply to your account. So you can tell him.
That seems awkward or you have questions. You can talk to a human. We'd love to proclaim him. Let's pray. God, we ask that we'd be a church family, that the gospel works in and around everything. That's how we'd view life.
So that God, we'd be able to rejoice in suffering because we know the truth of where our hope lies. And God, I thank you that in your wisdom you've given us a for y'all. That each of the people in this room who have placed their hope and their faith in you, that you've extended your mission for those around them, for those that they would toil and struggle to proclaim you to. And God, I pray that we would, that we would proclaim Jesus, warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we might present everyone mature in Christ. Holy Spirit, I pray that you'd work right now. Show us who we need to talk to.
Enlighten us into how the gospel works in and among us so that there can be forgiveness, so that there can be reconciliation. We're going to move around the room, God. We pray that your Holy Spirit would move around as well. Teaching us, leading us, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Cosmic Jesus, Cosmic Gospel
Colossians 1:14-20
Transcript
Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 through 20 when talking about Jesus says this. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. Let's pray. God, we ask you to make much of your name tonight. We pray that you would show us that it's all about Jesus.
And help us to genuinely see that and to know that and to feel that as we study this text. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. How are we doing tonight? Good. This section in Colossians, we're in our third week of Colossians.
This section is one of the densest Christological sections. So it's just this real dense passage about Jesus. And so we're in our third week. We're going to go verse by verse through the book of Colossians throughout the summer. And so we've actually entitled our series Colossians. It's all about Jesus.
And so that's what we're going to see is Paul, who's in prison, writes this letter to the church in Colossae. He makes it very clear that it's all about Jesus. That everything and all creation, that our lives, that the way we live, the way we work, the way we relate to one another, the way we operate as a church is about Jesus. And so that's what we're going to walk through tonight. That's what we're going to look at. I get highly frustrated at the church.
I get very frustrated when I see this in myself, when I see it in just how kind of the American church works. I don't know much about other. I can't speak to other areas of the church, but I kind of have a good handle, I think, on the southern church and the American church. And I get really frustrated with human-centric Christianity. Christianity. When we make Christianity about us.
Now Christianity and what Jesus accomplished for us in the gospel is very good news for us. But at no point is it about us. My wife and her brother Sam, she's got an older brother named Sam, they grew up in the Edgefield, Johnston area of South Carolina. And the movie That Darn Cat, it's a movie that was filmed in Edgefield. I think there was an older version and they remade it with Dougie Doug. You may know him from Cool Runnings.
If you ever get the chance to see the movie That Darn Cat, don't do anything else with your time. It's just not good. I mean, as awesome as Dougie Doug is, it just didn't come out right. But the movie That Darn Cat was filmed in Edgefield. And so when they were filming it, she was little, her older brother was little, and they were invited to like, everybody can come, be in this movie, in this one scene. You just got to sign a waiver and then you can all be in the background.
It was like a fair or something. And so there's this one scene in That Darn Cat that every time we watch it, we have to pause it because as the camera is panning along, following the main characters, you can see this part of Sam's head. Just the top. And, I mean, that was his big breakthrough. He is now the top of the head model that you hear all about. He models, you know, hats and you can see the top of his ears.
No. And Anna was next to him. So her big debut was just messed up because she was a foot shorter than she needed to be. In some ways, if Sam would sit people down and say, I want to show you a movie that I star in. I want to show you a movie that's about me. And then watch the movie and then pause it at that spot and go, did you see the top of my head?
Told you. That's a little bit of what we're doing when we act like Christianity is somehow about us. We're taking this epic story of redemption that God works throughout history and we're turning it around and saying it somehow centers on us and it does not. And so what we're going to do tonight, we're going to walk through this section of scripture and we're going to see that it's all about Jesus. Always Jesus. Only Jesus.
All about Jesus. We're going to see that it's all about Jesus and that Jesus, as God, is for his own glory. That he rescues and redeems for his praise, his glory, his name. Okay. So we're going to see that it's all about Jesus and that he actually, even in salvation, is for his own glory, his own praise.
And then we're going to talk a little bit about how that's really good news for us. That in Jesus being for his own glory and in everything being about him, it's actually really good news for us. It's not about us, but it's good news for us. And so that's what we're going to talk about. But we're going to spend some time talking about Jesus.
And so this section of scripture is dense. Every line is, it's very potent. And so we're going to have to go through and we're going to have to dig in and try to take every bit that we read and talk about it. And here's what I want for us. Here's what I want us to understand. We're going to try to look at Jesus as he is.
As he is creator. As he is massive and magnificent. We're going to try to take that view of Jesus. I love in the book of Revelation, John, the apostle who knew Jesus in life, who actually in his gospel he wrote, the gospel of John, he just refers to himself as the one who Jesus loved, which my younger brother was asking me the other day. He's like, do you think that annoyed all the other disciples? Like, just to be like, and the one who was Jesus's favorite was there.
And like they're later reading it and be like, seriously, John, really? Like, but he knew Jesus, was very close to Jesus. And then when he sees Jesus, not as Jesus was as a Galilean peasant, as a man, but when he sees Jesus in his glory, he starts off with his, in the book of Revelation, he says, I was in the spirit. And he said, Jesus shows up and he explains what he looks like. And he goes, and I fell over like I was dead. John's like, I'm pretty sure I died.
And then he woke me up and was like, don't be afraid. And I was like, have you seen you? He doesn't say that. But that's, that's the Jesus we're trying to look at tonight. The, the, not Jesus as he was, Jesus as he was when he was a Galilean peasant, but Jesus as he is. Creator, God, sustainer, ruler of all things.
And so it's going to be hard for us. It's an uphill battle. And here's, especially with this being a dense passage, I want to show you something. This is a volcano. So that's a volcano.
That's an erupting volcano. I think it's in Hawaii. This is also a volcano. Not quite the same though. And as we walk through this passage, we'll be tempted to do that. We'll be tempted to take and have all this rich depth and magnificent, magnificence of Jesus.
And we'll be tempted to say, and here's this theological fact we can learn. And here's something else we can learn and just put in our brains. And, and yeah, we'll be talking about it, but we'll miss it. See, both of those pictures are of a volcano, but one of them has been robbed of its awe-inspiring gravity of its nature. And so as we walk through this text, we don't want to do this. We actually want to see this.
We want to see Jesus with the weight and the gravity that surrounds him. We want to see him as he is, highly exalted. And so we're still going to have to unpack the text, but, but don't walk through and just take in Bible knowledge and facts about Jesus and categorize them and, and miss the weight behind it. So what we're going to do is before we hop in, we're going to pray. If you're not a believer, I would invite you to pray. The worst thing is you think some thoughts towards someone who doesn't exist.
The best thing is you talk to the God and creator of the universe, and he hears you and responds. But for believers in the room, we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to show us this when it comes to Jesus. We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to impress upon us the weight and the glory of our God. And so I'm going to give you a second. You're going to pray that and I'm going to pray for us. And then we're going to hop in.
Amen. God, we ask as your people that you wouldn't let us miss Jesus's greatness. You wouldn't let us grow accustomed to studying your word and learning things about you to the point that we fail to see you. And so we ask you to do what only you can do. That's to open our eyes, open our ears, and open our hearts and overwhelm us through your Holy Spirit with the greatness, the glory of who you are. We ask, God, that you would show us clearly yourself tonight.
We pray this in faith. In Jesus' name. Amen. So verse 15, we're in Colossians chapter 1. It says that he is the image of the invisible God. So this whole section is going to say he over and over again, and it's referring to Jesus.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. So when it says image of the invisible God, in the Old Testament, God, the creator God, he makes everything. He calls the Israelite people to be his people, and he does not show up in a form. He doesn't have a body. He doesn't say, this is what I look like. And so all the other gods that other nations have around them have, you know, they have something that represents them.
They have totem poles. They have Asherah poles. They have carved images. They have idols. They have all this. And God says, you don't.
He says, I'm the creator of all things. He says, I'm the only God. And you don't sketch me out. You don't carve me up. You don't draw me down. You don't make an image of me at all.
Anything in heaven, anything under the earth, anything in the water, anything on earth, nothing. And so throughout the Old Testament, he's the God that they have no image for. I mean, that's actually still true for us. We don't depict God the Father. We can depict Jesus because he came and lived as a Jewish man. And so we kind of have an understanding of what he would have looked like as a Jewish man in that time.
Sometimes you see the Holy Spirit depicted as a dove because it says in Luke that he came in the form of a dove. But we don't depict Jesus. We don't depict God the Father. I was actually at a wedding yesterday in a Catholic church. Beautiful, beautiful church. And at the center, they had this stained glass of Jesus.
And above it, they had this stained glass of this old guy with a big white beard. I'm assuming that's supposed to be God. And we're not supposed to do that. The Sistine Chapel, the famous Sistine Chapel where there's this old naked white guy like touching naked Adam. I don't know who that old white guy is, but he's not God because we're not supposed to have any image of God. But what Paul is saying is something radical, something spectacular.
What he's saying is that Jesus is the image of God. And he's the image of the invisible God. So if you want to know how God treats people, how God interacts with people, how God has friends, how God deals with those who are rebellious, how God deals with those who are religious, who are moral, who are uppity, you look at Jesus. And you have a really clear understanding of how God interacts, how God loves, how God moves. And so he's the image of the invisible God. It says he's the firstborn of all creation.
Okay, so firstborn can mean two things. It can mean first in order or it can mean first in status. It does not mean here that he was the first thing created. Because what it says next is for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. And it keeps going. But he's not the first created thing.
He's firstborn in status. So this was a patriarchal society. So the firstborn male was the highest in status. And they would refer to other people as the firstborn, which just meant they were in charge of. So when it says he's the firstborn of all creation, it means he's over top of all creation.
Because by him, everything that was made was made by him. It says for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Okay, so heaven, all the stars, all the stuff you see in the sky, all the things beyond the stars that we can't see, all the visible things, and all the invisible things. So heaven where people go when they die that know Jesus, have been rescued by Jesus, created by Jesus. On earth, all the visible and invisible things, created by Jesus. It says whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
Every political system that anyone has ever been afraid of, every regime that's ever set itself up that people have submitted to is underneath Jesus. It's created through him and for him. So the U.S. government, the CIA, Russia, Mexico, England, Rome, all of them submit to and are under the authority of Jesus. All of them. The Taliban, all of them, under Jesus. For him to raise up, for him to lower, for him to do with as he pleases, he rules over all of it.
And it also says visible and invisible. So it's not just earthly kingdoms, earthly dominions, but it's also spiritual ones. Every power, every spirituality, every aura, every spiritual anything under Jesus. It means all demonic powers. Satan and Jesus aren't at odds with one another like Jesus versus Satan. It's not how that works.
Jesus rules over everything. It's like Godzilla versus Bambi without legs or something. I mean, it's not even, it's not fair. Because he created and he rules over. His enemies operate only in what he allows them to. So it says that, For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Everything. By him, through him, for him. He's before it and in him it all holds together. Everything.
Nothing is excluded in that when it says heaven and earth, visible and invisible. At that point it's like, Oh, what? Okay, no, yeah, you win. All things. I got it. And he goes through and he says it's by him, through him, for him.
And he's before it and he holds it together. That means it's all about Jesus. All of it. Take just a second. Look around this room. It is not overly impressive.
But it was all created by, through and for Jesus. The architectural thought process that went into it. The human ingenuity. Everything. The humans in here. Our similarities and our startling uniqueness.
By, through, for Jesus. Your ability to look around this room and have your brain process what you're looking at without having to force yourself to do it. Currently there's air being pushed out. Oxygen. That was made oxygen by trees. Which doesn't even make any sense.
I've got a science teacher in here. She probably just got annoyed by that. Oxygen. Oxygen. That was made oxygen by trees. Right now is being pushed out of my mouth over vocal cords into a mouth with a tongue that's manipulating noises.
Noises that you learned as a child that are shooting through the air landing in each of your ears and your brain is immediately processing what is being said. You're not having to think about it. You're not having to make it happen. You are automatically. Explosions. Of concepts.
And understanding. Are going on right now inside of your head. in your brain. In a chunk of tissue surrounded by bone. A chunk of tissue that is now thinking about itself. That's weird and Jesus is just getting started. Your brain thinks about itself.
Your brain named itself. Your brain comes up with things to protect itself. Like I think helmets are a good idea. Your brain is like yes I think so. Now your brain is thinking you know if I named myself why didn't I come up with something better?
Like laser power thunder thought muscle or something. It's too long but we'll come up with something good. All of it. By him. Through him. For him.
While we were doing this. While we were talking about this. You were inhaling and exhaling oxygen. You weren't thinking about it. Your heart. A chunk of meat inside wrapped with bones and flesh wrapped around it was pumping continuously.
Blood that was taking oxygen nutrients throughout your entire body. It's happening all the time. It was pumping life through you. Indescribable. Intangible. But we know it when it's not there.
And we know it when it is. Life. Life. By him. Through him. For him.
He's before it. And he holds it together. And it's all about Jesus. Every bit of it. Everything we do is about Jesus. All of existence.
All of creation. How we live and move and have our being. It's in him. Everything we do. When you go to the store. By him.
Through him. For him. You buy milk. The people that came up with the idea of how to package milk. Invented plastic. The guy who squeezed the milk out of an udder into a jar for you.
The ingenuity that came up with the diesel engine that brought it to you. And the idea for refrigeration. All of it. For his glory. For his name. For his praise.
Every bit of it. So, real quick. For fun. We're going to walk through and look at some things that he has designed. That he has created. That are by him.
Through him. And for him. For his glory. For his praise. For his name. That are just to give us a glimpse.
A hint. A shadow. Into his greatness. And his goodness. And his massiveness. This is the New England mohawk bird.
I actually don't know what the name of that bird is. But. But it was made by Jesus for his glory and for his name. I know that. That. Okay.
That's a micrograph. And all right. First of all, I've got some people in here. We're going to look at some stuff that has to do with like science. And I've got some people in here that are like doctors and science people and all that. If I say something dumb and someone looks at you because they think it was dumb, just do this.
Like, that was correct. Okay. The last time I was in a science class, I was in high school. So, but I did do some research. This is a micrograph, which is basically, they looked at it under a microscope, took some pictures, and then digitalized it so you could see it better. That is a dust mite.
Those exist in your carpet, in your couches, in your pillow. So when you go to sleep tonight, just listen very carefully. You'll hear them crawling around, partying, celebrating. But don't worry, they just eat skin cells, so that's not creepy. By him, through him, for him. That, those are, to take away the horrible image of the dust mite, those are baby foxes, by him, through him, for him.
That is the angel oak that is in Charleston, South Carolina. When the person took that picture, it was taking in sun's rays and popping out oxygen all over the place. A lot of good oxygen around that tree. That is a really cool looking fish. That's the Norwegian, spiky fish. By him, through him, for him.
For his glory, for his praise, for his name. Moment of silence for the Krispy Kreme. I'm just kidding. That is DNA. That's like a digital version of it. It's not actually DNA.
I don't think we have actual pictures of it. But DNA is in every cell in the human body. All of the DNA for all of the cells in the human body is in every cell in the human body. So if DNA filled up this room, each cell comes to the DNA and takes this much information so that it knows what it's supposed to do. But all of the DNA for every cell is in every cell.
But each cell knows what information it needs so it can do the appropriate thing. for his glory, for his name. Those are red blood cells and a white blood cell. It's pumping through your body right now, taking oxygen, nutrients, white blood cells fight off disease. It's part of your immune system. That's why they look so gangster. That is the human circulatory system.
That's where all the blood is going right now in each of us. except for it's not going to the feet or the hands of every female in this place for some reason. Those are negative 10 degrees right now. That's a sunset on the Pacific Ocean by Jesus, through Jesus, for Jesus. This is the Himalayan mountains. He carved them out to display his glory, to show his greatness, to give us a glimpse into who he is. All of culture, all of creativity, in the Old Testament, God makes man and woman and He tells them to go Edenize the earth, to go, He gives them the cultural mandate to go build the earth into what it's supposed to be.
All of that is to point to Jesus and to give Him glory. That is the horsehead nebula. Nebula are gases out in space. That's just floating around out there doing its thing. I took a picture of it with the Hubble telescope. The next one is the crab nebula, also just gases floating around out in outer space.
Just beautiful things that, as far as I know, have no purpose whatsoever other than to show off God's glory, His greatness, His majesty and His power. The next thing, we're not going to go there yet. Oh, what? We just, maybe we are. All right.
The next thing, I want to explain it real quick before we look at it. They took the Hubble telescope. They pointed it off at nothing. They just pointed it in an area of sky that when looking through the Hubble telescope was completely black. And then they took a picture and they opened up the shutter, which is how light comes into the camera of the Hubble telescope, for 11 days. So for 11 days, they just opened it up and received as much light as they possibly could.
They pointed the most powerful telescope out in outer space into nothing, opened the shutter for 11 days. And what they came up with was the deep field, ultra deep field. That's the picture it took. 10,000 galaxies. 10,000 galaxies when they pointed our best telescope into nothing. I'm going to read it.
Leave that up there. I'm going to read a passage. Short one from Isaiah 40. It says this, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Do that real quick. That's the hollow of your hand.
90% Of the ocean is unexplored. We can't even get to it. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span? That's the measurement of a span. Enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance. Every time I see something like that, every time I hear that the universe is expanding, we don't know how big it is, we just know it's getting bigger.
Every time I hear that, I think, well, Jesus' hand is bigger than I thought. Creator of the universe marked it off with his hand. 10,000 galaxies when we point into nothing. It's all about Jesus. Only, always, about Jesus. Just to give us a glimpse, to give us a hint at his greatness, his massiveness.
See, he created it all for his pleasure, his will. Let's read the next section here. So it's all about Jesus and it says, 17, And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. The church is all of those who have been rescued and redeemed by Jesus, by what he accomplished on the cross. Those who have placed their faith in him for salvation, for him to rescue us, not by our good works, not by our morality, not by our hard effort, but by his.
He's the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. So Jesus came to earth, this massive God, creator of all things, came to earth, existed as a human, and died. He humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, and then he rose from the grave, which makes sense because I don't think death could handle it. But he's the firstborn from among the dead, meaning that we might would be raised from the dead as well, but he's first.
It says he's the firstborn from among the dead that in everything he might be preeminent, meaning he's before and over everything. That in the church he's the head and he's the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. You see, we have a cosmic God, and through the cross we have a cosmic gospel. You see, when God created everything in the Garden of Eden, our first parents rebelled against him, desired to be their own gods, and when they did, not only were we cursed with sin, not only are we broken and off and marred, but the earth was cursed because of our sin.
So that Romans 8 would say that the earth groans in pains waiting for Jesus to come back, waiting with eager longing for the revealing of sons of God. So you have sin of moral kind. The reason we lock our doors, the reason we have police force, the reason we have jails is because of humans running around being sinful and broken and messed up. And then we have brokenness in the earth so that what should have just given nutrients to the earth, what should have just given water to the crops now goes through and tears down and demolishes cities. We have hurricanes and floods and earthquakes because the earth has been marred and broken by our sin.
And so Jesus, in being after his glory, it says he reconciled all things to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross. That it wasn't just about us, but that it's about him and him reuniting everything that he created for his name, for his praise, and for his glory back to himself. It's all about Jesus. And in reconciliation, it is not about us. And when he made us right with himself, it wasn't about us, it was about him. It was about his desire to bring everything back in alignment with himself.
At this point, there may be a bit of... kind of taking those verses, just a few verses, and kind of pulling a lot out of them, trying to say that everything was about Jesus. Because we want to push back and say, no, no, no, no. It's because he loved us so much that he saved us. Yeah. He loves us. But because he's loving, not because we're lovable.
You have a roommate. You know people aren't lovable. Those foxes, maybe. Humans, not so much. So yeah, he loves us because he's loving.
And so for the praise of his name and for his glory and for his fame, he rescues and redeems. But I'm going to show my work. We're going to go through the Old Testament. All of it. I'm just kidding. We're going to go through some verses in the Old Testament that God declares.
We're going to look at one in the New Testament where God just declares this is about me. This is about my glory, my name, my fame. So here's what we're going to do. It's a good bit of verses. I'm going to read through them quickly. But you're going to have to kind of stay with us as we go through this.
They will be on the screen if that helps you. If that doesn't help you, then don't look at the screen. But we're going to run through verses where God clearly says this is about me. This is about my glory, my name, my fame. Ephesians 1, 4-6. Paul says this.
He says that he chose his people for his glory. It says, In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. That's where Jesus died on the cross and rescued us and made us into family. For love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. It says he rescued us for his praise of his grace. God created us for his glory.
Isaiah 43, 6-7 says this. I will say to the north, Give up. And to the south, Do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory. Whom I formed and made.
Glory just means to show off my worth and my greatness. It says God called Israel for his glory. Jeremiah 13, 11 says this. For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, and so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they may be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of his name. So in Exodus, when the people he had just rescued from Egypt rebel against him, he spares them, doesn't destroy them for his name.
Ezekiel 20, 14 says it. I acted for the sake of my name that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. God later, when he takes them into his kingdom and when he has prophets and they rebel against him, he makes them into a nation but he doesn't cast them off for their rebellion. Isaiah, I mean, 1 Samuel 12, 20 says this. Do not turn aside from following the Lord for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. Isaiah 49, 48, 9, and 11 tells us that he defers his wrath, that he doesn't destroy us when we deserve it for his name and his glory.
For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory, I will not give to another. John, 1 John 2, 12 says this.
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. We're going to end in this one in Ezekiel. It's long, but it's good. Ezekiel says this. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. In this section, he's going to talk about what he's doing in salvation, what he accomplishes for us in Christ.
So he's explaining that in salvation, he's doing it for his glory, his praise, his name. It says, And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations in which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God. When through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes, I will take you from the nations and gather you from the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. That's what he accomplished for us in the cross, that he sent his spirit into us, gave us a new heart, he doesn't make us better, he makes us new. It's what he accomplished for us in the cross and he says, I'm going to do this and he ends with this, it is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. God is for his own glory.
It is all about Jesus. He is the creator God and in salvation, in reconciling everything back to himself, he is for his own name, his own glory, his own praise. It's all about Jesus. All of it. Okay. So how is that good news for us?
How is it good news for us that God would be about God's glory? God's glory. First of all, we hear that and we're like, well, isn't that a little narcissistic? Who does God think he is? God actually has a very good view of himself. He thinks he's God.
And that question, when we're tempted to ask it, is a little bit like, okay, bro, who do you think you are? Honestly, if God was pointing to someone else, something else other than himself, he would not be God. If God created all things and then said, you know what? A really good thing to pursue with your life is? Money. Oh, go for power.
Power's the best. You don't want to praise me. You don't want to give me glory because power, I made power greater than me. Go for comfort. If God was pointing to something else, he wouldn't be God. And actually, in being good and being holy and being loving and calling us to himself, he's actually being very good and gracious to us.
So we look and say, okay, how is God, in being for his own glory, good news for us? Okay. God created everything and it rebelled against him. But in his goodness, he didn't destroy it because he is good and he is loving. He rescued and he redeemed to bring it back in alignment with himself because of his great name, his holiness. We're going to see how this comes together for us.
Here's what happened. Let's go back to 18. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him, through Jesus, to reconcile, bring back into a right relationship, to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. You see, we weren't reconciled to God.
We weren't in a good relationship with him. We were rebellious and separated from him. But Jesus, who all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, Jesus came and he lived a perfect life on our behalf and for his glory and for his name and in reconciling all things to himself, he bled out on a cross. You see, the creator of wood, of trees, of human ingenuity was laid out on a piece of honed wood specifically designed by creative humans to inflict the maximum amount of torture. See, the creativity of humans that he had created had gotten together and decided a great way to torture someone and to extend and prolong agony before death.
See, the hands that marked out the expanse of the universe were laid out on that wood and had a metal spike driven through them. Oxygen was pushed past vocal cords into a mouth manipulated by a tongue that shot through the air and entered into his ears and all that was designed to praise and glorify him was used to revile, curse, and bring him shame as he hung on a cross. The creator of oxygen had it denied his lungs as he hung gasping for breath. He who designed red and white blood cells and the circulatory system that pumps through all of us right now had his falter and fail him as his ripped open body poured his blood and his DNA out onto puddles in the sand so that the animals that were designed for his glory might come lick it up.
The creator of everything took our wrath to make peace by the blood of his cross for his glory and for his name and to show his magnificent love and greatness. That he didn't destroy us and he didn't tell us to earn it but he humbled himself and he stooped on our behalf. You see, if you saw a man stop and pick up a hurt baby bird your mind would not immediately think wow, that must be the best baby bird of all the baby birds. No, you'd think the man was good and gracious to care for something that couldn't care for itself. And so when we see Jesus stooping to rescue and to redeem we don't think wow, we must be so lovable.
We think wow, he must be so good and he must be so loving that this God who created all things might have a part of his creation rebel against him, hate him, run from him and that he instead of destroying them as he ought would stoop become one of them and suffer at their hands so that he could rescue them so that he could make peace by the blood of his cross. He is great and he is holy and we praise his name. So God is for his glory and he's for the praise of his name. That's what Ephesians says that he rescued us he adopted us as sons to the praise of his glorious grace. If God is for his glory if Jesus and the cross is for his glory and for the praise of his glorious grace he is not for your begrudging submission.
He's for your joy. If he's for his glory he's for your joy. If he's for his praise he's for our joy. He can get our begrudging submission. The God who measured out the universe can get you to submit to him but he's for his glory and his praise. So we start asking how do we respond to this?
The band's going to come back up and I want to unpack for us quickly how we respond how we look at this God this creator God this Jesus who made all things by him through him and for him that he's before all things and in him all things hold together and that he was willing to die to rescue us not because we were worth it but because he's worthy not because we're good but because he is and so there are these moments when I periodically be talking to someone and they go I just don't I just don't feel worth it I just don't feel like I deserve this there are these moments when we sit back and we think about the cross and we think I'm small I'm insignificant and I'm dark and twisted and off and I don't deserve this exactly see it's in those moments when we think that that we've actually gotten it right it's in those moments when we think I don't deserve this I'm unworthy absolutely that's why he's to the praise of his glorious grace that's why Ephesians 4 says that he rescued us for the praise of his glorious grace grace is that he gave us unmerited love favor unearned we can't morality God into owing us something we can't behave enough so that he has to give us life and joy and peace none of that but we can in those moments when we realize our lack of worth we can praise his grace we can praise that he rescued and redeemed us because he's good because he's holy and you see God being for his glory and being for our joy comes together in our praise of his glorious grace praise is joyous grace is good that we didn't deserve this and we didn't earn it but he gave it to us because he's good I like football I'll be watching football games sometime and something will happen I'll be sitting down and I'll just I just can't stay seated like I'll be at my house by myself holding nachos jump up after like a big hit because I used to play defense and just be like boom son you'll be at games sometime if you're in the stadium and someone will break a play and everyone just hits their feet and you just start yelling because you've been caught up in something beyond yourself and when he's after the praise of his glorious grace he's not after your begrudging submission he's not after you to be afraid of him and so you've been to him he's after you to be so overwhelmed by his goodness to have the spiritual synapses and receptors of yourself just be overwhelmed and flooded by that this God this creator God would rescue and redeem that he would love us when we're unlovable that he would those of us who don't deserve it who haven't earned it that he would give us unmerited grace and favor and he would rescue us and make us right with himself because of his own goodness and so we praise his grace with everything we have we praise him with all of our lives we praise him not to earn anything but because it's already been given to us not to put him in our debt because our debt's already been paid we just praise him with how we live with how we work with we stand and we sing we praise him because it's all about Jesus and he is for his glory have no doubt about that he's for his own glory but that means very much so that he's for our joy that we would be so engulfed in his greatness that we would cease to worry about ourselves we would cease to seek our own small glory and we be caught up in a greater story invited into something so much hugger so much bigger so here's what we're going to do we're going to praise his grace if you're in here and you don't know Jesus I'm going to tell you that he is after his own glory but he's not after your begrudging submission he doesn't want you to work harder he doesn't want you to go earn it he wants you to know that he's already accomplished everything on your behalf and that you can praise his name because he is good and he is loving and he is holy and he does redeem and he does rescue and that he did make peace by the blood of his cross and the rest of us are going to stand up and we're going to sing we're going to praise Jesus because it's all about Jesus we're going to praise his grace because he rescues and he redeems and we who in making much of himself invited us into a life that we can believe and poured grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon us I'm going to pray and then we're going to praise God we praise your name Jesus it's all about you and I pray that through your Holy Spirit you would teach us how to praise you would teach us how to give you glory how to be so caught up in your glory that we are overwhelmed by joy Jesus you've created and made and hold everything together and you stooped and you died on our behalf and you poured grace on us so God we praise your name Holy Spirit move and show yourself to us in Jesus name we pray amen to
Our Identity in Christ
Transcript
We're going to be walking verse by verse through this book of the Bible over the course of the summer. So we're spending the next 10-ish weeks in Colossians. And so I'm going to pray and we're going to hop in. We've got a good bit of stuff to do tonight to walk through and to kind of intro this series. And so I'll pray and we'll hop in. God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather as your people to study your word.
Pray that you would speak to us tonight, that you would move among your people, that you would draw us closer to yourself. And that we would see more about you and who you have designed us to be. Who you have made us through the gospel. And so God, we thank you and we praise you. And we just thank you for this opportunity to try to make much of your name and to learn what it looks like for us to follow you. We ask your Holy Spirit to be present, to be moving among us, leading and changing and pointing to yourself.
And so we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So we will be in Colossians chapter 1, verse 1, where we'll be starting tonight. We're going to do three-ish things tonight. First, we're going to talk a little bit about why the book of Colossians, about just kind of intro the book of Colossians and why we would study it verse by verse, walk through it.
Then we'll talk about some major themes that we'll see in the book of Colossians as we walk through it over the next 10 weeks. As we spend the summer hanging out in the book of Colossians, we're going to talk a little bit about what we'll see, what we hope to learn, what we hope to understand from it. And then we'll actually unpack the first eight verses and kind of see how Paul starts this letter off to the Colossian church and how he lays out kind of their identity and how we see that in his beginning of this letter. So as we saw in the video, Paul's in jail. He writes this letter to the Colossian church.
He writes a letter to the Ephesian church, which is very similar to the letter he writes to the Colossian church. It's longer, kind of unpacks some scenarios a little more clearly, whereas Colossians is pretty dense. And so we'll have to take it chunk by chunk as we walk through it because of how dense he makes it. One of the cool things about the book of Colossians, one of the reasons we're excited to look at it, is he's writing to a church that was fairly young and fairly healthy. From what we can tell, the Colossian church was doing OK. And the reason I say that is because when Paul is writing to a church that is not doing super well or that it's off in certain areas, he doesn't mince words and he's pretty clear about what he's talking about.
So book of Galatians, Paul starts off like this. Hey, I'm Paul. What the heck is wrong with y'all? And so he kind of jumps right in. In Corinthians, he's dealing with specific issues that they're dealing with and he addresses them very clearly. He says, you've got an individual who's doing this.
That's not OK. I always laugh when I see that a church is like Corinth Baptist Church because I'm always like, have y'all read the letter to the Corinthians? Because they were pretty messed up. I don't know if you necessarily want to line up with them. But in Colossians, he doesn't really do that.
When you read commentaries on Colossians, they're all over the place as to why people feel like he wrote the letter. And so you'll have people say that it was false teaching outside of the church that he was addressing. It was false teaching inside of the church because Paul does in this letter use some words that he doesn't use other places. And so it seems like he's addressing something. One, I've heard some say it's Gnosticism. Some say it's Judaism.
There was one commentary that said Paul's addressing Judaistic Gnosticism and Gnostic Judaism. What the heck does that mean? It's like the guy didn't want to make a decision. So he's like, well, kind of a little bit of both also and as well, too. And so when we look at it, though, because he doesn't come out swinging against anything specific, what we feel like he's addressing a relatively healthy church that was relatively young. So it's a fairly young church plant and they're doing pretty well.
And so I'm actually really excited that we'll get to spend some time here because in some ways, as Paul writes to this church, it is it's addressed to us in some ways because we are a young church plant just trying to figure out what it looks like to follow Jesus and to be church family. We don't have any major issues. We don't have a building that's about to get repoed because we don't have a building. See how that works? We we don't have major issues with dissension or people causing problems or huge sin areas that we've got to deal with. Like we're we're doing OK.
We're learning what it looks like for us to be church family, for us to grow together, for us to follow Jesus well in the city. And so in some ways, I'm excited because I feel like Colossians is a little bit addressed to us. And Paul's just going to because he doesn't have things he's got to address. He's got a pretty clean slate to say, hey, here's what it looks like to follow Jesus. Here's what it looks like to be church family. And he's going to address some areas where they kind of maybe have gotten off.
But for the most part, it's a pretty clean slate. I honestly think he's writing to the Colossian church because he wanted to write to Philemon about Onesimus. And he was like, well, it would be awkward just to send that guy a letter. So I'll also send one to the church and we'll address some things they need to work on. But that's what we're looking at.
So we see Paul's in jail. He's writing this with Timothy. He's writing to the Colossian church. One of the things we hope to see. So there's a little bit of like, why would you go through a book of the Bible verse by verse?
That may be a question in some of your brains. It may be a, why haven't we done this sooner in some of your brains? And that's fine. Some people will argue that the way to get together and teach the Bible as good Christian people is through the Bible verse by verse. I would argue that that is a good way to teach the Bible. And we'll talk about why in a second.
I don't think it's the way. If I did, first of all, that's what we would have been doing all along. Second of all, the problem with that, the problem with people that come out and say this is the only way to teach the Bible is that when the people in the Bible teach the Bible, they don't do that. So when you read the sermons in the Bible, they're all over the place. Jesus will be like, I did this. And he just quotes two sections of Isaiah and just skips all the stuff in the middle.
Peter and his sermon in Acts 2, he's all over the place. He's like this, and we know this is true, and this from this passage, and this. Y'all want to meet Jesus? And people were like, yes. So it's hard to make an argument in my brain that you have to work through the Bible that way because the Bible doesn't work through the Bible that way.
The people in the Bible don't. But here are a few reasons why we do think it's good and healthy and helpful. One is for context. We often study the Bible, and we'll look at something in one. We'll look at something in Luke. And then the next week we'll gather together, and we'll discuss something in Corinthians.
And the next week we'll gather together and discuss something in Zechariah. And after a while, you just don't have a whole lot of context for where we are in the biblical narrative. And so it's helpful to stop and to just go verse by verse through a book of the Bible so that we have context. Because context is important. If I told you that I stood up and at the top of my lungs yelled, you slant-faced moron! Well, you might want to know what the context was.
Like, was I talking to a slant-faced moron? Was I at a football game? Was I at a candlelit dinner holding my wife's hand? Like, context makes a difference. It changes what we're looking at. And so as we read through Scripture, it's very helpful to know what came before it, what we're looking at here, and what's coming after it.
I'll give you an example. Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I love that verse. Paul says it, though, right after he talks about being poor and wealthy, hungry, naked, well-clothed, well-fed. And he says, I've learned to, in all circumstances, be content. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
It had very little to do with his benchmarks or ability to win football games. It's a good verse. I like it. But what he meant was I've learned how to, in Christ, be content no matter where I am in life. And so it's helpful for us as we study Scripture to know what we're studying, where it lies, and what comes before and what comes after it. And so that's one of the reasons.
Another reason we want to do this is we want to grow as Bible people, as Bible readers. And so we're very excited for our church family to just be able to walk through a book of the Bible together over the course of the summer. I think it will be good for us. I've heard of a professor who would start off his class. He was an atheist professor. He would start off his class in college by saying, who here believes that the Bible is the Word of God?
People raise their hand. And he'd go, okay, who among you has read the entire thing? And then he'd go, I don't think you believe it's the Word of God. I think he's got a point. For people who say, I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and then we don't spend a lot of time studying it, reading it, learning it, growing in it together. It's a little bit like, ah, something's missing there.
And so I think it's helpful for us as a church to just say, hey, we're going to just unpack this book of the Bible together. We're just going to walk through it together. Another reason we do this is Paul later, when writing to Timothy, when they're not in jail together, maybe they slipped each other notes while they were in jail together, but he definitely wrote him letters when he wasn't. So we have 1 and 2 Timothy later, when they're not in jail. Paul tells Timothy, who is a young pastor, I don't know if you all know this, relatively young as far as pastors go. Paul tells Timothy, who's a young pastor, he says, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.
And to devote yourself to these things so that everybody can see your progress. And so it's actually really healthy and good for us as a church who have young pastors to just say, we're just going to walk through a book of the Bible. We're not going to jump around. We're not going to try to come up with topics to discuss. We're just going to walk through a book of the Bible. And guess what?
One of my goals, and our goals as we lead as pastors, is for you to see progress. Not that we'd be great at stuff now, but that you'd see progress. That we'd move from like a D minus to like a D, and we could just be really excited that we have a D. So that's the goal. We're going to move that way. And so one of the reasons we think is that it's helpful for us to do that.
So before we hop in, I want to unpack three major themes that we'll see in the book of Colossians as we spend 10 weeks here. So three major themes that as we walk through Colossians, we're going to unpack and spend time talking about. And then we'll actually get into one of those, really kind of two of those tonight as we enter into the beginning of this. So the first major theme we'll see is that it's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. Everything.
Colossians is going to have some of the highest Christology in the Bible. And Christology is just how we understand Jesus. It's the study and theology of Jesus, and it's going to have some of the highest Christology where Paul just goes off on how amazing and massive and great Jesus is. How terrifyingly huge Jesus is. And then he's going to, as he unpacks Colossians, he's going to say, we do this and we're these kind of people because of Jesus. And we walk through life like this because of Jesus.
And so as we unpack the book of Colossians, we're going to see that it's all about Jesus. That he's the head of the body of the church and that we take our cues from him. We talk often about Jesus as a Galilean peasant. We think of him as a poor, homeless man who lived 2,000 years ago. And he was. So Jesus pre-exists in eternity past.
He comes to earth for like 33 years. That's what we just spent time talking about. That Jesus was a man who was a God who became man, who died in our place for our sins, and who rose again. He did that in about 33 years span. And then he exists. He rose, ascended into heaven in bodily form, and exists in eternity, future, forever.
He was a Galilean peasant who suffered for about this much of time. Creator. King. Everything exists in him, through him, and for him. And he made all things. And he will rule all things.
And so we often think of Jesus as a Galilean peasant. And he was. And he humbled himself for our sake. And we need to love that. And we need to grow to understand that. But we also need to realize he's high and exalted, massive and scary and good.
And so we get to talk about that. We'll get to see that it's all about Jesus. We'll get to see that we have a communal identity as we unpack the book of Colossians. We have a communal identity, which means that we exist in relationship with each other. One thing about a lot of the books in the Bible, and especially Colossians, every time you see the word you in Colossians, Paul is actually using the word y'all. The Greek word y'all.
So for us, we can use you as a singular you or you as a plural you. But most of us in the South would use y'all as a plural form of you. And so when you see the word you, he's referring to them as a people. One of the things that annoys the snot out of me is when I watch movies and they have someone pretending to be a Southerner and they just can't get it right. I was watching one where a guy was supposed to be from North Carolina and he called chicken barbecue. And I was like, nope.
Now, North Carolina does make vinegar-based barbecue. So they hadn't quite got it right. But they at least know it's pulled pork. But there would be movies where somebody would look at somebody and call him y'all, and it's an individual. And it's like, unless you're talking about him and his family that you know about, you wouldn't call him y'all. You'd call him you.
And if you were talking to a whole group of people, you'd call him y'all. And every time Paul uses the word you in Colossians, he's saying y'all. And so as we read through it, we'll say y'all some just to help us frame up our minds around that. Now, here's the other thing. When we hear y'all, we think of, yes, a collective group of us made up of rugged individuals. There's a bunch of us individually.
That's how we think about it. That is not how they would have thought about it. They would have understood themselves in community, as a team, as a people. That's how they thought about it. When we try to, the term for self-sufficiency in the U.S., there are certain cultures, when we try to translate that, we can't. They don't have a word for it.
The closest word in certain cultures is a form of a mental disorder where someone believes they exist outside of community. So they were trying to translate self-sufficiency, and they were like, I don't think you want to use this word because it's a mental disorder. We don't exist outside of community. And that's much closer to how they would have understood themselves. They lived and exist in relationship to other people. And when they became believers, they had a new family.
A lot of them would have been disowned by their family, but they would have had a new family. They would have been y'all. They would have understood themselves communally. The best thing we have to this would be maybe the military. So if Patton stood in front of his troops and said, we must take this land, and I need you to do it.
There wouldn't have been a guy in the middle who was like, I don't think I can do that by myself. Well, come on, Carl. That's why you're part of a platoon, which is a part of a company, which is a part of a battalion. When he said you, he meant the team, and they would have understood that. Just as if a coach stood in front of us and we were on a team, we understand ourselves in context of the team. And so when he says y'all, understand yourself not as a rugged individual who's a part of, but as a y'all, a team, a collective, a family, interconnected forever.
So we have a communal identity. The next thing we'll talk about, and I'm really excited about because we're awful at this, is we need a discernment radar. Discernment is basically the ability to tell if something is true or not true, good or not good. And so as Paul writes to the Colossians, it seems as if they have all of these outside influences, and he's helping them figure out how do we decide, how do we filter what we bring in. For the most part, you will see one of two operating systems for that among American Christians. There is no filter whatsoever.
Or if someone says it, and they were on TV, they got their own show, so they're probably pretty smart. The guy was holding a book. His name says doctor. Like, there's no filter whatsoever. It's just this person said it, and he had cool hair, and his wife looked like she lost a paintball match, but she's sitting on a throne. So I'm pretty sure we need to believe it.
No filter whatsoever. Or we only believe these 12 people who say things, and we're going to start our own little compound and our own little commune, and we're not going to trust the internets. Like, there's that. So our goal would be to be somewhere in the middle, to have a discernment radar, to actually filter what comes in, but to filter it well. And so we are bombarded by all kinds of other influences. We see thousands of advertisements, each of them preaching a false gospel to us, which says that you need this to be happy.
Your life is not complete without this. We have television shows that would say they promote no religion whatsoever, but they're promoting a worldview. Every movie you see promotes a worldview. We are bombarded with ways to think about life, ways to think about romance, ways to think about God, ways to think about our relationship with each other, ways to think about politics. We are bombarded, and we have to have a discernment radar. So we'll get to spend more time on that later.
We're not very good at it as a whole, but we'll get to spend some more time on it later. We won't spend much on it today. We're going to spend a couple weeks on it, and I'm really excited about getting into more of that, just mostly because we suck at it. All right. So tonight we're going to be looking at the intro of Colossians, and basically we're going to see how Paul frames up for them.
What we're going to do, so we're going to read through the first eight verses, and then we're going to read through the first eight verses, and we're going to read through the first eight verses, and we're going to read through the first eight verses. several times and unpack how Paul addresses this group of people. So we'll talk a little bit about what he says, but we'll also talk about how he understands them to exist because it's foundational for us as we grow as a church and as we move through the summer. All right, I'm going to pray again. We're going to hop in and talk through this stuff.
God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather, to study your word. I pray that you would speak to us, that you would lead us as we walk through Colossians, as we kick off this series where we try to study and learn more about you. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Colossians 1.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother. So Paul, apostle means sent one. He's specifically talking about those who had seen Jesus after death. So he says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother. To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. When Paul starts writing this letter, he writes to them and the first thing we're going to see is that they have a gospel identity.
That they have a gospel identity. How he understands them to exist. So he's writing to the church and they have a gospel identity. He says, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae. Saints is the Greek word that means holy ones. So in the Bible, God is called holy.
So in the Old Testament, they say God high and lifted up and there's these angels next to him and they're singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And when Paul writes to the Colossian Christians, he says holy ones. And when he says saints, he doesn't mean like St. Patrick. He means all believers have an identity of holiness in Christ. That we are holy.
We're made right before God because of Jesus. So he writes to them first in their gospel identity. So he says, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints. Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you.
As indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing. As it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. And he has made known to us your love in the spirit. All right, so what we're going to do is we're going to quickly walk through and see how Paul addresses them in their gospel identity, their communal identity, and their missional identity.
So his gospel identity. We'll just walk back through and I'm going to point out the areas where he's talking to them as a gospel people. To the saints and faithful brothers, that's verse 2. So he calls them saints, he calls them holy ones. In Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. So he says our relationship now is that God, the creator of the universe, is our Father.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you since we heard of your faith in Christ. So they have faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. So what Paul says to him is he says you're holy because you have hope laid up in the gospel. That your hope is laid up in heaven because of the faith that you have in Christ. So we praise God who is our Father because of who you are, who he's made you into.
And so through the gospel, Jesus died on our behalf. He took our sins. He rose again and he gives us his righteousness. So Paul understands them to have a gospel identity. He also talks to them out of their communal identity, that they exist in relationship with one another. So he starts off and he says to the saints and faithful brothers.
So that's the Greek word for brothers and sisters. What he's saying is siblings, those who've been made into a family. So that they have a communal identity. To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints. They go hand in hand.
Faith in Christ and love for all the saints. He says we're praising God for this. We thank God that you have faith in Jesus, that he's allowed you to have faith in Jesus, and that you have love for all the saints. And that's how that works. I've met people before that say, man, I love Jesus. I just don't have much time for the church.
I just don't care about it. And it's like, that's not how that works. They're one and the same. Like, when we have faith in Christ, we have love for all the saints, all the other Christians, all the other believers. I was talking to a guy at work one time at Sears, and he said, yeah. He said, he found out I was a Christian.
He said, yeah, if I was a Christian, if I was religious like that, if I was a Christian, he said, I'd just keep it to myself. He said, I wouldn't feel like I need to go be a part of a church or go to church or whatever, hang out with other people. I'd just read, do my own thing, study or whatever, and then I wouldn't have to be around people. I said, that's cool. You wouldn't be a Christian. He was like, what are you talking about?
I said, well, that's not how Christianity works. I was like, you get reconciled to God because he pays for our sin. He fixes the relationship we have with him. But he also, because he takes care of sin, he reconciles us to each other. So I said, every relationship you've ever had broke down because of sin.
They sinned against you, you wouldn't forgive, or they wouldn't apologize. You sinned against them, you wouldn't apologize, or they wouldn't forgive. You slowly drifted apart because you're sinful. You hurt each other and wouldn't fix it. I said, but the gospel gives us the way to fix that. That God reconciles us to himself and to each other.
I said, so you get relationships, you get family, and you would get to walk through life being able to have the ability to reconcile and to forgive and have relationships with one another. He looked at me, and he was the quietest he'd ever been. He never shut his mouth. But he looked at me, and he said, I've never heard of it like that before. I said, yeah, this is how it works. I said, so you could have your own little private faith and not be a part of the church, but I'm not sure you'd be a Christian.
Because Christianity involves us and gives us church family. So, yeah, we grow in our love for Jesus, but automatically his spirit comes in and makes us begin to love one another and to grow in our love for each other. So, he talks to them out of their communal identity. He says that you have faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints. Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth the gospel, which has come to you. As indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.
Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. So, we have, he talks to them out of their missional identity. That they are, the gospel bears fruit and grows. Just what it does. He says the gospel bears fruit and grows just as it has among you since the day you heard it.
Like the gospel just moves. It grows. It bears fruit. And it changes people. And so he says just as you learned it from Epaphras, just as this guy came in and began to proclaim to you the gospel. That in Jesus you can have forgiveness.
You can have life. You get family. He says it bears fruit and grows. And so we have an identity that moves forward. That we can be met by Jesus. Our sin can be covered.
And we can have life in him. And the gospel bears fruit. It grows. It expands and it moves. And so more and more people get to be a part of it. And so when he talks to them, he talks to them out of gospel identity.
He refers to them as saints. He calls them brothers. He talks to them out of their communal identity. How they exist in relationship with one another. And then he says the gospel keeps moving. It keeps bearing fruit.
It keeps growing. And people keep learning the truth. The grace of God in truth. That we're sinful. That we're broken. And that we need Jesus.
And that we're met with overwhelming grace. That we don't have to earn it. And we don't have to be good enough. And we don't have to be smart enough. And we don't have to be moral enough. We don't have to keep it together.
But we're met with grace through truth. So, if you're a Christian in the room, you have a gospel identity. You have it. You're not seeking to earn it. You're not working for it. You have it.
You are a saint. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy.
You are blameless. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. Now, I don't know about y'all.
But I know humans. And I know y'all in this room. Holy isn't a super good descriptor for us. It just isn't. But it's not based off of us.
I remember when I was growing up, my older brother Logan. He used to lie. Oh. He'd lie. He's like four or five. He'd look at grown people in their face and just lie.
He was good at it, too. But you could tell he's lying. He's like four. His stories didn't make sense. But he would just lie.
I ain't never heard of that before. I ain't never seen that. I don't know that kid. Like, just, I mean, just lie. And my dad used to tell him, he'd say, Logan, there's going to come a day when you're going to need me to believe you. There's going to come a day when you're going to need people to believe you.
And if you keep lying, that's going to be a problem. If you lie all the time, swear and lie through your teeth at people, it's going to be a problem because you're going to need people to believe you. So we were hanging out with my extended family. And Logan basically, like, led a rebellion. Logan, he got all of our cousins, like 14 or 15 of them, and just led them in the most, like, heinous of crimes he could possibly think of as a four- or five-year-old. And so my aunts were livid.
I mean, they were ready to string him up. And so they had all gathered. And it was really funny the amount of anger they had towards, like, a five-year-old. And so they had all gathered, and they were standing there, and they were like, he did it. I know he did it. He got all them involved in it.
And, I mean, they had lost it. And so my dad's sitting there, and Logan's sitting there. And my dad looked at him and said, Logan, did you do that? He had. Everybody knew he had. And Logan went, mm-mm.
I didn't have anything to do with that. And my dad looked at him, and he looked at my aunts, and he said, Logan doesn't lie. And if he said he didn't do it, he didn't do it. My aunts almost lost it. And he stood in between them, and he said, he doesn't lie. That boy doesn't lie.
He wouldn't tell a lie. And if he said he didn't do it, he didn't do it. And Logan went and looked at my dad like, now, you and I both know that's not true. I mean, couldn't believe that that's what my dad did, that my dad stood in the gap and took the blame and was willing to lie and take sin and on my dad's integrity get him off. And there are times when Jesus looks and he says that we're holy and blameless and above reproach. And I look and I go, you and I both know that's not true.
That's not a good descriptor for me. That's not how that lines up. But we have a gospel identity. We have been made holy and blameless and above reproach because Jesus took our sin onto himself and he was crushed for it and he gave us his righteousness so that we stand before God as Christians who have placed our faith in Jesus holy, blameless, and above reproach as if we had never sinned and always done what we were supposed to. That there is no reproach, no complaint, no sin that can be levied against us, no condemnation, nothing. We're holy and blameless and above reproach.
And if you're a Christian in here, you have a gospel identity. You do stand before God holy. If you're a Christian in here, you have a communal identity. You've been invited into a family. It says that to the saints and faithful brothers, he says to the faith you have in Christ and the love you have for all the saints. So we have a communal identity.
We've been invited into a family. Later in Colossians, he's going to say that Jesus is the head of the body, his church. So he's the head, we're the body. We are interconnected and designed to exist in relationships with one another. We have been made into family together. You're in it.
If you're a Christian, you're in family. Just the way regular family works. You didn't get to pick them. You're in it. Jesus rescues and he makes us into family. And it is a beautiful, hot mess.
It is. Every holy person in this room is a part of your family. And we're holy because we have a gospel identity. We ain't keeping it together too good. We get to walk through life together, repenting and forgiving and getting on each other's nerves and celebrating together and growing together because we've been made into family. It's who we are.
In Christ, we are brothers and sisters. The Bible says that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. And Paul here says that God, our father, who's the God and Savior, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he calls him our father and then he immediately calls him Jesus' father. And later he's going to say Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. That we are family.
An eternal family. That will last forever. And that's our identity. That's who we are. And then if you're in here and you're a believer, you have a missional identity. You are sent on a mission with Jesus.
That Jesus in eternity past, when we sinned, when we rebelled against him, that they chose that Jesus would come, that he would be perfect on our behalf, that he would die for our sins and that he would rise again so that we might have life and hope and faith in him. And then he invites his church into that mission to share that, to spread that, to move that along. And we can't help but share it. I remember when I first found out that the gospel was actually good news. Like I always thought that the gospel was this. I thought it was that Jesus could save me from my sins.
I deserved wrath and punishment, but Jesus died so that I could not be punished, not go to hell, and that he saved me from my sins. And then I was supposed to learn how from the Bible to be a good moral person. To behave well. That's not really good news. It's like when your dad's like, I got good news. We're cleaning the garage today.
I don't see how that... I don't think you know what good news is. And so when I've got good news, Jesus saves you from your sins, and now you get to be a really good person and try really hard and be moral and keep it together. Ugh. When I realize that the gospel applies to everything, that I'm already holy, already blameless, I just get to follow Jesus? That the gospel applies to how I treat my wife and how I see my money and how I walk through life and that I've been given a family to walk through life together?
That actually became good news. And I love sharing good news. My wife and I, we run a pretty tight budget, but any kind of excess money we have pretty much goes to food. We thoroughly enjoy eating out. And when I find a good restaurant, I'm going to tell you about it. I actually base directions off of restaurants.
So people will be like, you know where Thomas Road is? And I'll be like, do restaurants. They'll be like, you know where Taco Bell is? Yes, I know where Taco Bell is. All right, well, you're going to go over there, you're going to take a left of Krispy Kreme.
All right, I got it, I'll be there. Like, that's how, if they say a restaurant I've never heard of, I'll be like, I haven't heard of that, is it any good? Like, we quit talking about directions. I need to know about this restaurant you know about that I don't know about. So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to help you all out right now.
I'm going to share some good news with you all. If you've never eaten at J Gumbos, it's in downtown. It's open only in the middle of the day. So if you want J Gumbos at suppertime, you were wrong. You won't have it. But you can have it at lunch, and it is delicious.
My personal recommendation would be Jean Lafitte, or Jean Lafitte. If you call it Jean Lafitte, just to mess with them, they don't appreciate that. Although that is how it would be pronounced if you're, I don't know, not Cajun. But anyway, and then the other one is Egg Roll Station. Right down the road, super, super good Chinese food. Super, super sketchy.
So if you have a problem with that, do takeout. It's still delicious, and their egg rolls are great. So, but when I find out about good news, I can't help but share it. Like, when I find out about good restaurants, I can't help but tell people about it. You don't have to talk to me long for me to start sharing things that I enjoy and appreciate. And it's the same way with us, and when we begin to realize the goodness that is in the gospel for us, we can't help but share it.
We can't help but say, hey, look, I know you think that you're supposed to work this out on your own, and that you're supposed to be a rugged individual who gets everything done, and is super good, and super holy, and that earns your right. You're not going to. But you don't have to. You get to have faith in Jesus that he already accomplished that on your behalf, and you get to walk through life with a new family and a new identity. And we can't help but share it. And the gospel, it's just what it does.
It bears fruit and grows. So, this is us. This is who we are. Paul's writing to a church plant. He's explaining to them as he goes through the book of Colossians what it looks like for them to follow Jesus. But he starts off, and he kind of just lays out.
We see how he approaches them, how he speaks to them as to who he thinks they are. So, he talks to them about how the mission, how the gospel's moved forward among them. He talks to them about who they are in Christ and who they are in relationship to one another. And that's us. When we talk about being a gospel-centered community on mission, when we say that's what we want to do, we want to be a gospel-centered community on mission, we didn't make that up. We made it the way we word it.
But we see it here. We see it as how the Bible lays it out. So, it's just what we do. It's what Jesus does. It says here, I want to read verse 5. We started as a church plant in March of last year.
We just started meeting in my home. Just a handful of us. And then we actually got to watch the gospel bear fruit and grow. We got to watch it bear fruit and grow among us, personally, individually. And we got to watch it bear fruit and grow among a people. So, when Paul is writing this, he's saying, We also thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for y'all.
Since we have heard of y'all's faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that y'all have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for y'all in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to y'all, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among y'all since the day you heard and understood the grace of God and truth. And that's what we've gotten to see. We've gotten to see the gospel move and grow among a people. And it's been beautiful. And that's who we are. That's who we get to be.
And so we began to multiply more community groups because we just want to live in relationship with one another, centered underneath the gospel, around the gospel. Jesus is the head. We're the body. We just follow him. And so we look to Jesus to see what it looks like for us to walk through life. And we live on mission, which just means that we get to invite people into the gospel and into family.
That's us. That's what we've gotten to do. And it's been exciting and it's been great. Sometimes I look at my community group and we're all over the place. Age-wise, thought process-wise, there are some conversations in my community group that just get downright painful. Because people are trying to talk to each other and they just don't connect.
It's like they have nothing in common whatsoever. We had a conversation about heavy metal music the other day. And that was just hilarious. Because a couple of the guys knew what it was. One guy didn't. And I stood there making jokes just to be annoying.
But I was really confusing people. And so that was a lot of fun. And after a while, our group just was like, well, do you like food? Yes. Do you like Jesus? Yes.
All right, cool. We can be friends. Like that's just how it works. That's how our community group connects. We are just a bunch of people brought together by the gospel. And we get to walk through life together.
In a minute, they're going to release some children from back there in Kid City where we try to put the gospel on their level. And they're just going to be like running laps around here. I'm pretty sure they teach them the gospel and then just inject sugar into their faces. Like I don't even know really what happens back there. But it's going to be a mess and it's going to be beautiful.
That's who we get to be. When my family gathers together at Christmas, there's a whole bunch of us. People knocking stuff over, but we're family. People getting on each other's nerves, but we're family. And that's what we get in the church. That's who we get to be.
If there's one thing we know from every Christmas movie we've ever seen is that life's better with family. That's all we know. You can have anything else you want, but family makes life better. And so the truth is for us as a church, we get a gospel identity and we get a new family. We get people to walk through life together with, through good times, through bad times, to celebrate, to enjoy life together. We get brothers and sisters in an eternal family that will last forever.
So we set aside time for it. We carve out time in our busy schedules. And it's going to be hard for us as Westerners, but we carve out time to be family. To hang out with each other, to share meals together, to laugh and do fun things together, to throw parties together. Because we care about it, because it's who we are. It's our identity.
So when we talk about being gospel-centered communities on mission, all we're saying is we're just going to be who we are. So that's how we operate. That's what we do as a church. So we gather together on Sundays as groups to talk about Jesus, to open the Bible and see what it says. The rest of the time, we're just community groups for people being church family throughout the week. And that's how we function.
I talk to people periodically because we're a church plant. And they'll be like, so what are you all going to do when you grow? So more of what we're doing, I guess. Like we're going to have more groups. We've got five community groups right now. We started as one last year.
We're praying that we would have ten towards the end of the year. That more and more people would hop into what we have in the gospel. That more and more people would be freed up by the fact that they don't have to be good enough. Jesus was good enough on their behalf. And that we get a family. We're not alone.
We don't have to do this alone. As we read scripture, sometimes I feel like that private that raised his hand to Patton and said, I can't do that by myself. We read scripture and we're like, man, that sounds really hard. Right. But it's not designed for us to do it by ourselves.
It's for us to walk together in relationship with one another. To have life together. To be in community. To be family. To be family. To be the body that God's made us into.
And so. If you're here. And you're not a Christian. Here's what I would say to you. Hop into a community group. Be a part of us as we walk through life together in relationships.
We'll get together and we'll talk about Jesus. And this is a great place for you to hang out and hear things about Jesus. But we'd much rather you got to see what it looks like among a bunch of people. We'd much rather you got to see what it looks like when somebody can't pay a bill. Somebody's got a flat tire. When somebody gets really annoyed with someone else.
We'd love for you to see what it looks like for us to be family. To tangibly walk out the aspects of the gospel. When we connect with one another. Love one another. Relate to one another. And have nothing in common other than we eat food and love Jesus.
So if you're hanging out and you're not a Christian. We would invite you into a community group. To come be a part of what it looks like as we're a gospel people. If you say, no thanks. I don't know Jesus and that makes me uncomfortable. And I don't want to go hang out at your house.
I would say, I understand that. And would welcome you to keep hanging out with us on Sundays. We'll play can jam. We'll go eat meals afterwards. Not at people's houses necessarily. We'll study and talk about Jesus.
And this is a really safe place for you to do that. Because we're not here because we're good and moral and awesome. We're here because we know we aren't. And Jesus is awesome. We don't use a lot of big words. Because we don't know a lot.
And the big ones we do use are Bible words. And we'll try to explain them. So we think it's a really safe place if you're not a Christian to hang out. A really good group of people to be around. Actually, when I moved, I felt like I was moving to plant a church. That God had called us to plant a church.
And after a while, I realized that Jesus was just saying, Ah, you can come be a part of what I'm doing. You can come be a part of the family I'm starting. You can come be a part of the people that you'll get to know and love and walk through life together. You can come be a part of that. And I don't know about the plant a church thing, but you can come hang out with my church. Be a part of my people.
And I was like, all right, Jesus, that sounds good. And I've actually gotten to see the gospel bear fruit and grow, and it's been wonderful. If you're hanging out and you are a Christian, we would say hop into a community group. Walk in family with us. Be who you're designed to be. So we have a gospel identity.
We have a communal identity. We have a missional identity. Hop in. Walk through life. Carve out time in your schedule to be in relationships with others. And that's difficult, and sometimes we have seasons of life where our schedules don't line up and work around it.
But figure it out. It's good for us. It's healthy. If someone's a Christian and they say, I want to hang out, but I don't really – I just want to do the Sunday thing. But with as much love as I can say, I don't think that's good for us.
I don't think that's – I think you're missing out. And I think it – we're not designed as a church to operate that way. So the way that we use our spiritual gifts, the way that we walk through life, the way that we serve and pastor and love and shepherd one another is only in our community groups. That's how we are. And so there are a lot of churches where service opportunities and being able to use your gifts take place other places, and you have that opportunity. But for us, we feel called to be this, to be in community throughout the week, loving and serving and inviting people into what we have.
And if you're a Christian in here and you're a part of a community group, hop in more. Pour into what it looks like to be in life with each other, to walk through life together and to live out the identity we have where we get to bear fruit and grow together as the family that Jesus has made us into. Paul says he's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. That we get to, as Jesus changes our hearts, grow in love for one another and grow as we walk together on mission. And so some of the things that we're praying through is we'll walk through Colossians, but we're praying that we would grow in what it looks like to be community.
That we would grow in the depth of understanding of what it is for us to be gospel people. And that we would continue to invite more and more people into normal, everyday life of us following Jesus. Messing up, repenting, growing, getting to see what that looks like as they walk with us as we pursue Jesus in obedience to him. And so that's our hope. That's our prayer. And we pray that we'll continue to multiply more and more groups of people who love Jesus, walk with Jesus, and follow Jesus in normal, everyday life.
And we pray, and we're going to sing and celebrate the fact that we've been made into Christ's family. God, I thank you that my identity is not based off of who I am, what I do, what I accomplish, how smart I am, how hard I work. I thank you that you have made us holy. That we are saints. And God, I thank you for as difficult as it is that we get to be a part of family. That we get to walk through life with a team.
That we don't have to be alone, but that we get to have successes and failures together. As the people that you've made us into. God, I pray that you would help us to grow in our understanding of what that looks like. To grow in what it looks like to invite more people into that. To open our homes and open our hearts and to grow in our understanding of who you've made us. So that we might move forward in what it looks like to invite more people into that.
God, we pray that you would bear fruit and grow among us. So the gospel, through your truth and your grace, would bear fruit and grow. More and more people would hop in and we'd have more and more growth and maturity. And repentance and love. God, we need your presence. May you help us to grow in our love in the spirit.
May we make much of your name. Help us to be your people. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You've got to stand and sing with me.
Crucifixion
Transcript
So we'll be in Mark chapter 14. We're in our second week of our Jesus series, and we're just looking at who Jesus was, why he came, what he accomplished as the most influential man in history. We wanted to just cut out some time to talk about him. And so that's what we're doing, just some three specific things we're going to be looking at. So last week we looked at kind of the historical Jesus and how he comes to us through history, how he has unquestionably altered human history.
And so he kind of comes to us as a force through history. And so what we looked at last week was we just kind of talked about that and what historians have to say about him. And then we talked about the fact that part of the problem we have with Jesus is that he walked around telling people he was God. And so that kind of makes it difficult for us to approach him in a neutral way. It'd be like if you had, I don't know, like a really good high school science teacher. And I mean, they were just the best teacher.
They won Teacher of the Year awards all the time. They were great at like teaching kids science things like, you know, Bunsen burners and other science terms. And and then and then they started telling people they were God, like they would tell their students, you know, towards the end of the semester, just so, you know, the reason I'm a great science teacher is because I'm actually God as a human. No, no, we can no longer treat you the same science teacher. You're done messed up now like we can't. There's nothing we can do at this point.
So then parents would have problems or you you could no longer be like, yeah, OK, so he's eccentric, but he's a really good science teacher like that wouldn't fly. We would have a problem now. And that's kind of the problem we have with Jesus is because he comes to us through history. And we can't just be like, well, he was a really good teacher. It's like, no, because he walked around saying he was God. So it makes it hard for us to approach him in a normal way.
And so what we looked at last week was kind of our options when it comes to Jesus because of this, so that he is either lying to us, knows he's not God and he's lying or is crazy, genuinely thinks he's God, but is not or that he is God. So those are kind of our options when it comes to Jesus. Just for you all who weren't here, we kind of landed on the he is God one. So that's kind of why we get together, because we believe that he is God. And so what we're looking at tonight is his death. All around the world, Christians gather together to study scripture and sing about the cross, sing about blood, sing about all kinds of.
I remember when we were going, we were going to a concert and a buddy of mine was going with us and I told him it was a Christian concert. I was like, hey, man, just so you know, there's going to be a bunch of people like singing about a cross and singing about a blood, singing about blood. And it's, you know, it may be a little weird for you. And he's like, no, the last concert I went to was Oz Fest. So shouldn't be too much different.
OK, but but we do and we get excited about that and we sing about that. And it's even on jewelry now. So people wear cross jewelry. Believers and unbelievers will have crosses or cross tattoos. And it'd be similar to like wearing an electric chair around your neck. That's an instrument of torture, an instrument used for execution.
So I'd be like, hey, check out this sweet lethal injection needle I got on my arm. So we kind of had in the church, we've gotten used to this symbol and we celebrate it and we sing about it. And so what we're going to look at is Jesus's death. We're going to take tonight to just kind of unpack it and we're going to look at it in two ways. So we'll be in the Gospels and then we'll jump to Romans.
And what we're looking at is how did Jesus's death work as Jesus was a man? So Jesus came and was a man. He was God who was a man. And so what were the aspects of his death? If you looked at it as a man hanging on a cross, what did he go through? And then we're going to look at the fact that since he was God who was a man, what did he accomplish for us in his death and the fact that he died for us and rose again.
And so we'll be spending some time in the Gospel of Mark. And just so you know, the Gospels, which are the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are not biographies of Jesus's life. They aren't. We have very little information about his birth. Matthew mentions it. Luke talks about it.
That's why every Christmas when we're going to celebrate Jesus's birth, you're going to read from Luke because Luke's the only guy who spends any significant amount talking about it. We know one story about Jesus when he was 12. That's it. The rest of it picks up when he's about 30, covers about three years of his life very quickly, and then all of them hone in on the last week of his life, his death, burial, and resurrection. And so some people have even called the Gospels passion narratives, which passion just means the suffering of Jesus, passion narratives with long introductions. So the Gospel writers, if you pay attention to how they wrote their Gospels, were, hey, I really want to tell you about the cross, but if I start there, it'll be confusing.
So let's talk a little bit about who Jesus was, what he did, why he went to the cross. Now let me unpack the cross so that Matthew, 33% of it is last week of his life to death, burial, and resurrection. Mark, 37%, Luke, 25%, and the Gospel of John is 42% the last week of Jesus's life. So he lived for about 33 years, was in ministry for about three, and all of them are going to spend a disproportionate amount talking about the last week of his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. And that's why Jesus comes to us as a force through history, because of this moment. And so that's what we're going to be unpacking tonight.
So we'll be picking up in Mark 14, starting in verse 53. I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll get started. God, we ask you to meet with us, to teach us. God, we need the cross. We need you to have died in our place. And so God, I pray that you would show us through your word and through your Holy Spirit what that meant, how that worked, and how that applies to us now.
So God, be with us tonight, lead us tonight. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. We're going to pick up in chapter 14, verse 53. And they led Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes came together.
Okay. So what we have skipped, what has just happened, what has just preceded this, is Jesus was with his disciples. He washes their feet. They share the last supper together. And so that's where we actually get communion, or the Lord's table, or the Lord's supper, whatever different people call it. Can the Catholic church consider it a sacrament?
We consider it a sacrament, too. But anyway, that's where Jesus says, this is my body, this is my blood. It has the wine and the bread, and says, it's broken for you, that's poured out for you. It's a covenant in my new, a new covenant in my blood. And he kind of walks through that. Then they go out into a garden, and he invites his disciples to be praying.
He goes off and is praying by himself. His disciples are exhausted, so they keep falling asleep. Jesus is praying. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, was a physician. And he tells us that Jesus prayed with such intensity that he sweat drops of blood. This is called hematidrosis, which is actually where, because of intense stress levels, Jesus, understanding that he was going to the cross the next day, because of intense stress levels and increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, capillaries that feed our sweat glands burst.
And so Jesus' capillaries began to rupture, and he began to sweat drops of blood due to an increased level of stress. Not only was he going to be going to the cross the next day, enduring torture and persecution, he also was going to be facing the wrath of God and taking the wrath of God in our place. That's actually the term for that is propitiation, that Jesus took God's wrath on our behalf. And so he knew that he was going to be doing that and being separated from God. So Jesus is eternally God within the Trinity, and for the first time in ever, in all of eternity, and for the only time in all of eternity, Jesus would actually be separated from God and clothed in our sin.
That he would actually, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 5, 21, that he became our sin. And so Jesus was going to, that actually might be 2 Corinthians, became our sin so that we could become righteous. And so Jesus, in this moment, is praying fervently and is stressed beyond, it's very rare that this would happen. And so I just wanted to point out in that, in the fact that Luke points that out for us, because we don't think about this often, Jesus had a heart that pumped blood through veins and arteries. He had capillaries. He had the ability to have an increased stress level.
He had the ability to have capillaries rupture. He sweats. Jesus was fully man. And so there are times when we would almost approach the cross as if Jesus, because he was God, somehow got out easily in it or was able to withstand it more because he was God. But he was fully man so that his blood pressure could increase to the point, with stress levels to the point that he would actually have hematidrosis.
And so Jesus stays up all night praying. And then Judas, who was one of his disciples, has betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. And a band of men come with clubs and swords to take Jesus. And so they arrest him and take him to the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders come together to put him on trial at night. And so Jesus has not slept. And that's where we pick up in verse 53.
And they led Jesus to the high priest and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. And Peter had followed him at a distance. Peter's one of his disciples right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. Now, the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death. But they found none for many bore false witness against him.
But their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, we heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands. And in three days I will build another not made with hands. Yet even about this, their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?
But he remained silent and made no answer. Jesus in John chapter 18 says that no one takes his life from me, but I lay my life down and I pick it up again. And so Jesus is going to the cross willfully, who is in control the whole time and laying his life down. He's not making a defense. He's not a victim, although he was victimized, but he's not a victim unwillingly. He is going to the cross willingly because he is in it going to accomplish something for us.
And so high priest stood in the midst of them and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? 61. But he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am.
And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witness do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, prophesy.
And the guards received him with blows. So Jesus standing before the high priest, they're accusing him of things. He's not saying anything. And the high priest stands up and says, you tell me, are you the son of the blessed? Are you the Christ? And Jesus says, I am.
And you'll see me coming at the you'll see me seated at the right hands of power and coming in the heavens. And so the high priest tears his clothes and says, you've heard his blasphemy, which he he says, you've heard him just declare that he is God. He's mocked God because he is a human has declared that he is God, that he's the son of God. And this is unacceptable. What do you what is your decree? And everybody says he deserves death.
So then they take him. They put a bag over his head after they've spit on him. They put a bag over his head and they begin to take it says they receive him with blows and they begin to hit him and tell him to prophesy. And the reason they put a bag over his head. Two reasons. One, so he can't see who's punching him.
So they can mock him and say, who prophesied to us. You know, you're a prophet. Tell us who punched you. But the other reason is so that he can't see where the punches are coming from so that he can't prepare. So that in having his head covered, there's no way for him to to to flinch or to be prepared for when they're going to hit him or how they're going to hit him.
And so they put a bag over his head after spitting on him, beat him and then hand him over to other guards who receive him with blows. So they take him, hit him as well. We're going to skip the next section. We're going to pick up in chapter 15. The next section is talking about Peter. So we're just following Jesus through the story.
15. And as soon as it was morning. So this has happened all night. Chief priest. The chief priest held a consultation and the elders and the scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.
Pilate is the governor over the Jewish territory of Jerusalem. He worked for the Roman government. So Jesus was just on trial with Jewish religious leaders and then is now being handed over to Roman officials. And the reason the Jewish people would have handed him over to the Romans was they weren't technically allowed to perform capital punishment. So they had to now take him to the Romans and convince the Romans you guys need to kill him.
The other reason that the Jews would rather do this is because they didn't want to offend the Jewish people that thought Jesus was a prophet or held him in high esteem. So there was a little bit of if the Romans kill him, we're a little bit less culpable. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And so when they accused Jesus, it's a blasphemy. It's of what we talked about last week where he claims to be God.
But in order to get the Romans to kill him, they didn't care about Jewish religious matters. They had to say, hey, he's saying he's the king of the Jews. And in being a king of the Jews, he's setting himself up in opposition to the Roman government. So they wanted him to be tried on treason. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, you have said so.
And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you. But Jesus made no further answer. So that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the feast, so this is the feast of the Passover, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have them release for them Barabbas instead.
And Pilate again said to them, what then shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him.
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. The reason the gospel translations and the gospels are going to just kind of brush past scourging and just say having scourged Jesus is because they all knew what that meant. They understood what the process of scourging was, whereas it doesn't really connect with us. We don't know what scourging is and haven't seen it and it's not something normal. It would be the same as if we said, yeah, he's condemned to the electric chair.
We understand what that process is, how that works. But when they say it was scourging, the reason they just kind of go past that is because they would have understood what that meant. So I'm going to just briefly take the time to explain what scourging was. So he was scourged at the hands of the Romans. Romans had perfected torture. They had existed for a while and they had taken the time to perfect torture so that they could rule and reign over this large area of territory with great fear in people's hearts.
And so scourging was usually 39 lashes because they found that at 40, people died. So they would refer to it as the 40 minus 1 because they were going to do 39 lashes, which is the most they felt like they could inflict on you before you died or just passed out and it was no longer able to keep scourging you effectively. So what they would have done is it would have been one man with a whip or two men with a whip known as a flagrum or a cat of nine tails. And it would either be one man who would rotate sides or two men who would take turns. And so they would take the person being scourged and they would put them on a post so that their hands were up or they would put them over a post just so that they were stretched out so they could get to this area, to the torso area.
And so they would have their back to them and they would take a cat of nine tails, which was leather straps. On the end of the leather straps, usually nine straps, would be metal balls, glass, bone, or hooks at the end of the straps. And the reason was the balls were used for tenderizing the flesh, much in the way that a butcher would tenderize meat. And so they then would have the glass bone and metal to catch into the skin so that when they pulled it out, it would catch here. And if they were good at it, they could bring it all the way around. And so for 39 lashes, they sat there and ripped Jesus's flesh off of his bones.
And so he would have been flayed open with flesh hanging and quivering and tender hanging open all the way around from his ribs to his back. That's why in Psalm 22 where David is prophesying about the cross, where Jesus hanging on the cross says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the first line of Psalm 22. They didn't have Numbers that was added later for our benefit, but the Numbers aren't there in the original text. And so they would have used that to describe that Psalm. And so Jesus is referencing that Psalm, which was written hundreds of years earlier, to describe in prophetically what Jesus was going to go through.
And in that Psalm, it talks about, I can see my ribs. So it is very likely that Jesus was so ripped open that he could see his ribs. You could see bones sticking out. The other thing that they would do while they were in that process is they've excavated these torture chambers in Rome. There are pockets in the wall that held salt. And so periodically during this process, they would go get handfuls of salt and throw it into the wounds of the victim.
So that that did two things. It increased pain and scarring and it cauterized it so that it would quit bleeding so that they can continue to torture the person for a longer amount of time. So having scourged Jesus, flayed him open, he handed him over to be crucified. Verse 16. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace. That is the governor's headquarters.
And they called together the whole battalion and they clothed him in a purple cloak, twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on him. So they took a crown of thorns to mock him and stuck it down into his head so that thorns jabbed into the tender flesh around the top of his head. So they put it on him and they began to salute him. Hail, king of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down to him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him.
Crucifixion was invented by the Persians in about 500 B.C. Most scholars believe it was perfected by the Romans. So it spread throughout the known world, but the Romans got really good at it. At one point, the Romans crucified 6,000 people at one time. They used crucifixion for Roman citizens were not crucified unless it was the most high treason because they considered it such a gruesome death. They only used it on those who were not Roman citizens.
Females were very rarely crucified. And on certain occasions when a female was crucified, they crucified them facing the cross so that people didn't have to see a woman suffer in such a see the face of a woman as she suffered in such a way. So what crucifixion was, Josephus, who was a Roman historian, referred to crucifixion as the most wretched of deaths. Ancient philosopher Roman Cicero asked that decent Roman citizens not even speak of the cross because it was too disgraceful for the subject of the ears of decent people. In Deuteronomy 21, the Jewish people refer to crucifixion or being hung on a tree as being cursed by God.
That in the law of God, it is a curse on those who are crucified. And so Jesus was crucified and cursed by God in our place. So it would have been in a public place. It would be similar to when we used to put people in the stocks in the center of a town. If we were going to crucify someone today, we'd probably do it over at Harvison in the way to the mall or something like that in the middle of Carolina's campus. That's kind of how they would do it.
So they took him out on a public place kind of outside of the city but on a place that entered into it so that many people saw him. And the Bible tells us that he carried his own crossbar and that a guy named Simon of Cyrene carried it. And so we understand that to mean that Jesus carried it for as long as he could because he had stayed up all night, because he had had the increased stress level, and because he had been scourged already. And so they would have taken a 50 to 100 pound crossbar and put that on him, on his shoulders and back that had already been torn open by the whipping that he had received.
And he would have carried it. It had been similar to a railroad tie. And he would have carried it as far as he could. Then Simon of Cyrene carries it the rest of the way. Then they would have placed it onto the top of the upright that was going to be used.
He would have been laid down, and they would have driven nails through. Scripture says his hands, most likely it was through here. The Greek word for hands includes anything from the elbow down. And so it was most likely through here in between these two bones in this nerve center, which is one of the most dense nerve centers in the human body. And so nails would have been driven through here and through the top of his feet. And then that crossbar would have been slid over into a pre-prepared hole.
And so Jesus would have slid and dropped into place. Because it was through these nerve centers, involuntary twitching most likely was associated with crucifix. And so Jesus would have hung on the cross. Twitching. They were usually naked or almost naked. Some were crucified at eye level.
We believe Jesus was crucified higher, which they also did so that you were more visible. And we know at one point when he goes to get something to drink, they put a sponge on a stick. So if they'd have been able to reach him, they might have not needed the stick. So Jesus then hung on the cross for six hours where in order to breathe, he would have had to have lifted up, twisted his arms, and pulled so that he could get enough air. Because the way you usually die on the cross is through exposure, starvation, or asphyxiation, suffocation. And so you have to lift yourself up in order to breathe.
So every time Jesus exhales or makes a statement, it was at great cost and great pain to him while he was on the cross. And so Jesus hangs on the cross for six hours while he's being mocked with his back that has been ripped open by scourging, rubbing against the cross every time he has to lift himself to speak. We know that it was a holy day. And the Jewish people, because of Deuteronomy 21, consider crucifixion a curse by God. So they would always take people who were crucified off of the cross at night.
That's actually in the law in Deuteronomy 21. So the Jewish leaders go and ask the Romans to break the legs of those who were crucified so that they wouldn't stay on it overnight, even though sometimes people who were crucified could stay on it for upward to a week, just depending. Jesus had been scourged. A lot of times crucified victims weren't necessarily scourged prior to hanging on the cross. And so when they go to Jesus six hours or so into it, he has already died. They break the legs of the other two men who were crucified with him.
Seeing Jesus has already died, they take a spear and they drive it through his side into his heart. We're told that none of his bones were broken, but when they did this, that blood and water came out, which in medical terms means he most likely died of asphyxiation, which means that basically due to suffocation, his heart exploded. And so that's where water and blood would have come from if the spear had pierced his heart sack. And so Jesus died. Gruesomely, horrifically, publicly, in the most shameful way that humans have invented to kill someone, Jesus died. And so the Bible is going to say that Jesus is God who became a man and that Jesus as God, fully capable of stopping this, fully capable of taking another route, fully capable of not going to the cross, lays his life down on the cross on our behalf.
So that Jesus as God died. And so what I want us to look at in the last part of tonight is why. What did Jesus accomplish in his death? Why would God see it important enough to become a man? And the way we see scripture playing out is he didn't become a man just to see how things were going, that God became a man with the express intentionality of dying. He continues to train his disciples.
I'm going to die. I'm going to be handed over into the hands of evil men. I'm going to be crucified. Three days later, I'm coming back. And he says that over and over again. Jesus came with the express purpose of dying.
And if he was God, and he was, why? Turn with me to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three. It's just a flip to your right. Page six, 11. If you're holding one of the Bibles that we have, we're asking the question now.
So if that's how God died, why did God die? Did he have to? Romans three, verse 21. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Righteousness means rightness or justice or goodness. So the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
And the law and the prophets is referring to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and then the books of prophecy in the Old Testament. Bear witness to it. The righteousness of God. So the rightness or the justness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
So verse 23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of the God. Here's what the Bible is going to say. Why Jesus died. Why Jesus came and why Jesus as God died. God in the beginning created the world to exist in a relationship with himself and the world rebelled. That humans who he made to be image bearers of himself chose to rather worship themselves, love other things more than they love God.
And that they thought that we believed that we have our own best interests at heart. That God doesn't know what's best for us and that we can make wiser decisions than he can. So we as humans rebelled. That we are sinners. That's what rebellion against God is. That's what choosing to pursue the things other than God is.
And so we are sinners by nature and choice. Which just means that we're born sinful. And then after that we choose to be sinful. And here's how we know that. I'll give you some examples. Nobody ever had to teach you how to lie.
Ever. You just knew. Nobody sat with a three-year-old. Like you didn't have an uncle that sat you down and said, Alright, let me explain something to you. I know you're three and it's going to be a little complex. But let me help you out.
If you do something and then your mom kind of takes that tone with you. The one that makes you feel uncomfortable inside like you're about to get in trouble. Just whatever she's asking. Just say the opposite happened. Or say you don't know. Or that you weren't involved.
Like it's hard. Like you can't even really explain that to a three-year-old. It would be hard to explain the concept of lying. But three-year-olds know how to lie. And you can hear people running. Something crashed.
You run into the other room. There's a kid holding a lamp. He's holding the power cord. Runs over to a broken lamp. Did you break that lamp? It doesn't seem like something I do.
Nobody has to teach them that. You can have a little kid three years old have Cheeto powder all over their face in their hair. Have you been eating Cheetos? No. I don't even like Cheetos. Nobody explains that to them.
Do you have to sit down a child and explain to them how to be selfish? No. You've got to teach them how to share. You have to teach humans how to be generous. You have to teach us how to be honest. And even as we grow up and we know, everyone in this room knows that life and society would be better if we were all just honest with each other.
And life and society would be better if we were all just generous. And let me tell you something. We lie and we're greedy. All of us. Because even though we know it's wrong, we still choose to pursue it. I lock my doors at night and sleep with a Springfield 45 in the bedside table.
I don't do that because I'm afraid of raccoons. I do that because of humans. I don't think a possum is going to bust up in my house and pick the lock and break in in the middle of the night. I think that a human might. Because the reason that the earth has problems, the reason that we have struggle and strife and war and infanticide and murder is because of humans. Because we're sinful and we're all sinful.
And so the Bible says that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's what Romans 23 says. Romans 3.23. What we just read. So what that means is, and so we'll sit and say, well, yeah, okay.
But I'm not that bad. Like if you lined up all the humans, I mean I may be near the middle, but I'm going to be on the good side of the middle. And so we either believe, we'll either believe that we have to be mostly good. So I've got to be like 51% good. You know, if I'm just 51% good, I'm okay. I'm mostly good.
I'm a pretty good person. Here's the problem with that. That's not how justice works. My wife and I, my wife, Anna, loves murder shows. Loves them. Creeps me out.
She loves them. The other night we started to wash one. It was late at night. I don't like washing them late at night. I wash them with her during the day because I can get something else in my brain before I go to sleep at night. We were washing one the other night.
We cut it off. And she looks at me and goes, are you going to be okay? I was like, yep. And it got started. And I was like, no. And I cut it off.
Because I don't like them. I don't like having that in my head before I go to sleep at night. And the reason I think that is is because, first of all, they mess with me. I'll be laying in bed thinking. I always like the ones. If we're going to watch one, I like it when it was like someone they knew murdered them.
Like their spouse murdered them. I'm a little less worried about that. But the ones where it's like they were watching TV and men entered their house. And I'm like, we're watching TV. Messing my head. I'll be looking over my shoulder like.
And she just goes to sleep at night because in the division of labor at our home, if someone broke in our house, that's my job. Like it ain't going to be like, hey, you know the chart, honey. It's Tuesday. You got to handle it now. I'm a Monday, Wednesday, Friday guy. Like that's not how that works.
So she just goes to sleep. I lay in bed with my eyes wide open. And I'll be like. They'll be like, he was so normal. I'll be like, I wonder if I. If the person who works at my hardware store murders people.
Like I just mess with my head. And so we were watching one the other day and it was a doctor had killed his wife. And when he went to trial, this is how this worked. The prosecution was trying to prove that the doctor had killed his wife. And the defense was trying to prove that the doctor had not killed his wife. That was the point of contention.
The defense did not come in and say, hey, judge, okay. He killed her. Pretty obvious. But we have verified fact reported cases of 50 lives that he has saved as a doctor. Eyewitness accounts of all the lives he's saved. And the judge looked and said, oh, that means he's plus 49.
49 Humans he's saved. He's only killed one. He's plus 49. Innocent. That's not how justice works. If the doctor was some sort of a serial killer and he said, look, of course, okay.
I kill one person a month. But I save five lives a month. I'm plus four a month. I'm doing great. And we somehow think that our God, who is a just God. We can stand before him and say, yeah, I'm sinful, but I'm mostly good.
And I hate to break it to you, but the Bible is going to come out pretty hard on you're not even mostly good. That your heart is twisted and marred beyond belief. And the truth is none of us would like to sit down and have our thoughts and our actions displayed on screen for everyone else to watch. I know to the Lord I would not. Because we're messed up and we're broken. And the Bible says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The other thing that we do is we'll say, well, okay, yeah, I'm messed up, but I'm better than other people. On the bell curve of humans, I'm on this side of it. That's not what it says, though. What it says is we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The test for us is not, are you better than other humans? So we in some ways think that sin works like running from a bear, which means you don't have to be faster than the bear.
You just got to be faster than the person with you. But that's not how it works. We all sin and we fall short of the glory of God. And we are all guilty. And our God, who is a just God, says that we're guilty. When we read through scriptures as Americans, as Westerners, we read through the Old Testament and you talk to people, the biggest issue we'll have is with God's justice.
We'll say, who does God think he is to destroy a city? Who does God think he is to flood the earth and kill all of those people? Who does God think he is to take a man who stole something and then take his whole family out and stone them? But see, the Bible doesn't have that problem. When you read through the Old Testament, when you read through the New Testament, scripture is saying, how does God forgive people? The Bible doesn't have a problem with his justice in the Old Testament.
It's God's mercy that's confusing. It's the fact that people who do rebel against God receive favor from him and are not destroyed. So you see, King David receives favor from God. He's on his roof one day while his army is out fighting. And he should have been with them, but he's on his roof and he sees a beautiful woman. He lusts after her.
He finds out who she is. They say, she's the wife of Uriah, one of your men, one of your soldiers who's out fighting. And he says, bring her to me. So they commit adultery and then she gets pregnant. After she gets pregnant, David decides the best way to handle this is to murder Uriah. So he has Uriah murdered.
Then a prophet comes to him and says, because you've done this, God says that that child's not going to live. But the Lord says, I have hidden away your sin and you won't die. And the Bible says, how does that happen? How is that justice? If you're Uriah's parents, is that justice? That he gets to stay king and he doesn't get punished for his sin?
Let's keep reading. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. Propitiation means that he diverted the wrath. He accepted God's wrath on our behalf, that God has wrath for sin and sinners. And Jesus received it on our behalf through his blood that he shed on the cross. To be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness, his rightness, his goodness, his justice. Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. So Paul is telling us this is how this makes sense for him to give grace and mercy to people who deserve destruction. He overlooked it because Jesus was going to take wrath on our behalf. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So that God can be both good and the one that makes us good.
That he can be both righteous and the one who makes us righteous. That he can be both just and the one who justifies, makes us right with God. God propitiated, poured his wrath out on Jesus so that he can be both just and justifier. And so in the cross what we see is God's wrath and his mercy. In the cross what we see is God's justice and his ability to justify us. What we see is his hatred of sin and his great love for us.
And so there are three things that Jesus accomplishes and that he makes certain on the cross. The first one is that our sin is a big deal. It's a big deal. You cannot watch God hang from a cross after having his back ripped open and think that sin is somehow a light offense. Rebellion against the most high God is treason of the highest sort. We cannot downplay our sin.
The cross negates our ability to do that. Our sin is a big deal. With every lash, with every nail, with every hour that passes Jesus hung on that cross, God with an exclamation Mark declares that our sin is a big deal. Be not uncertain at all. And in no uncertain terms, our sin is a big deal. The second thing that is made certain for us is that God loves us.
He loves us. So that scripture is going to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Gave him. It doesn't mean he just came. It means he gave him up. He died.
Gave his only son that whoever believes in him might not perish, might not be destroyed, might not have the wrath of God met out on them, but might have life. So people will say all the time, God loves you. Great. That sounds good. God loves you. He wants good things for you.
That sounds nice. How do you know? I've had people before say, we don't need to talk about the cross. We need to talk about God's love. Okay, but if God loves us, how do we know? The cross is how we know.
Jesus on the cross once and for all proves that God is good and that he is for our good. That he loves us beyond measure. And the third thing we see is that we can be made right with God. That God is both just and justifier. That he makes us right with himself. That we who are sinful and broken and rebellious can stand before God and be justified.
Can be free. Can have life and righteousness. Jesus, people will say that we don't need to talk about the cross. That we need to talk about God's love or his mercy or how he's a good father. But we don't need to talk about the cross.
We don't need to talk about atonement. We don't need to talk about propitiation. That God has wrath for sin and sinners. But when I look at my life. When I look at my sexual sin and my rebellion. When I look at my pride.
And all the times that I thought that by being good or doing moral things. I could present something to God and he would owe me. When I look at how sinful I have been. I don't want to get rid of the cross. I need it too badly. I don't want to downplay the cross.
I need it. I need Jesus to pay for my sin. Because without Jesus paying for my sin. I'm hopeless. A vague promise that God loves me does nothing for me. When I've rebelled against him actively since the day I was born.
We need the cross. Because our sin is a big deal. But our God loves us more than we could ever comprehend. That he was willing to come and die to rescue his people. To make us right with himself. The band is going to come back up.
And we're going to celebrate the cross. We're going to celebrate that God became a human. And that God died in our place so that we could have life. It says that. 24. Or 23.
For all have sinned. And fall short of the glory of God. And are justified by his grace as a gift. Meaning we don't earn it. He freely gives it to us. We're made right with God.
Freely. It's a gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. To be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness.
Because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time. So that he might be just. And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Jesus. We approach Jesus with faith.
Faith that our sin was met out. Our punishment was met out. Jesus took it all on the cross for us. And so what we're going to do is we're going to celebrate the cross. And if you're in here tonight and you're not a Christian. And you haven't placed faith in Jesus.
Place faith in Jesus. Because all have sinned. All have fallen short. And all can be justified by grace freely through faith in Jesus. So place your faith in Jesus that he has rescued and redeemed with his blood.
And that the cross, your punishment that we all deserved was met out on Jesus. That we who are rebellious and deserve destruction and wrath can have life and freedom and hope. Because of what Jesus has already accomplished. That he died for our sins and that he rose again. Came back to life fully conquering the grave. Place your faith in Jesus.
And we'll pray and then we'll sing. God we thank you that you are just and justifier. That we can receive grace as a gift. That we can be made right with you because of Jesus. Not anything we do. Not anything we earn.
Not how smart we are. Capable we are. How religious we can be. But that we can repent of our sins. That we can admit that we're broken and that we fall short. And that we can have life in your name.
Jesus. We have life in your name and your name only. And we praise you. We ask that through your Holy Spirit you would save people tonight. That God the just punishment for our sin would be met out on Jesus. And that we would be set free forever to walk behind you as those whom you've rescued through your blood.
We love you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Y'all stand and let's sing.
Incarnation
Transcript
We're going to talk about who he was, why he came, what he accomplished. So we're just going to spend three weeks talking about Jesus and some specific aspects of his life, of his death, of his resurrection. So that's kind of what we'll be doing for the next three weeks, and I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be good. Tonight we'll be specifically talking about the Incarnation, and we'll talk more about what that means later. If you'll turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, it's going to take us a long, long time to get there tonight.
I want us to approach this a little bit differently. If you don't have a Bible, just raise your hand. We've got some guys that will be handing them out. If you don't own a Bible, take that one with you. That's our gift to you. But we do want you to, we're Bible people, so we'll always be in the Bible together when we get together.
So it will take us a while to get there tonight. Don't worry, we will get to Philippians 2. Just for the record, if we ever get together and we don't eventually get to Scripture, we did it wrong, and I shouldn't be allowed to talk anymore if we just get together and talk about things and never unpack Scripture. But the reason we're going to approach it a little bit differently tonight is I want us to not approach, we're talking about the life of Jesus and the impact that he's had, and I want us to just for a little while not approach it as Christians, not approach it as people who automatically believe that what the Bible says is true, not approach it as people who study the Bible to find truth.
I just want us to look a little bit at first at Jesus, the man from history. I just want us to investigate it more as skeptical Americans as we get started tonight. And so if you can do that, if you can kind of take yourself out of Christian, ready to just unpack Scripture mode for just a little while, and we're going to get there, but I want us to approach it more as skeptical Americans just looking at who Jesus was as he comes to us through history. And so that's kind of what we're going to be doing tonight. I'm going to pray, and then we'll get to talking. God, I thank you for this opportunity to get together.
I pray that your Spirit would be here, that you would lead us, and that you would teach us and draw us to yourself. Ultimately, Jesus is about you, so I pray we'd make much of your name. And may you reveal yourself to us every time we gather together with church family, whether that's in our homes or at a restaurant or here when we get together on Sundays. And so, God, we praise you, we thank you, and we ask you to be active and at work with us tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. My granddad, when he was somewhere between 5 and 10, was at a barbershop getting his hair cut.
As he was getting his hair cut, a man walked up on the street and kind of turned and started looking in the window and sat looking in the window at my granddad for just a minute or two. And then he just kind of turned and walked off. And my granddad had kind of made eye contact with him and noticed the guy was looking at him. And as he walked off, the bartender said, son, do you know who that was? Oh, sorry. The barber.
Yes, my granddad had a drinking problem from the age of five. Sorry. The barber, thank you. The barber said, son, do you know who that was? And my granddad said, no, sir. And he said, that was your daddy.
And so my granddad hopped out of the chair and ran over to the window, his hair half cut, and watched this guy walk down the street. And that was the only time he ever saw his actual father. He had an adoptive father, Papa Holloman, who ended up being a good dad and a good granddad. And it's funny, but the man who should have used his life to impact my granddad chose to peace out, chose to not be a part of it. And somebody who didn't have to be involved chose to step in and be a father to him when he didn't have to. And that's how life works.
Life affects life. So our lives have been the most radically impacted by other lives. That's just how living on the planet Earth works. So whether it was coaches or teachers or parents or grandparents or friends, the end of a life or the beginning of a life, life affects life. We bounce around into each other having massive impact on one another. And there are some lives that have an impact on the few lives around them, and then there are some lives that impact millions and billions of lives.
And so what we're going to do tonight is we're actually going to look at the life that has had the most lasting impact on the history of the world. We're going to take some time for the next three weeks, and specifically talking about his life tonight, to just look at Jesus who has had a massive impact on the history of the world. Just as humans, we owe it to ourselves to investigate the human who has impacted the world more than any other human. We have to just be logically coherent and intellectual beings. We've got to look at and investigate this life. And so that's what we're going to spend some time doing.
So I want to read some quotes to you. This is from H.G. Wells. He wrote A Short History of the World. He's a British author and historian. And this was in a conversation he was having about this book, A Short History of the World.
Because in the book he included Jesus. And so he says this. He says, I'm a historian. I am not a believer. But I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history.
Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history. So that's a British historian. He's saying, look, I'm not a Christian. I have no reason to puff Jesus up or to sell him to you. All I'm doing is looking at history. And he's the center of it.
He's easily, irrevocably the center of all history. In 1999, Time Magazine, which is not a Christian publication, was doing some stuff on the past centuries, past millennium. And it says this in Jesus. It refers to Jesus as man of the millennium in this article. And it said, It would require much exotic calculation, however, to deny that the single most powerful figure, not merely in these two millenniums, but all human history, has been Jesus of Nazareth. Not only is the prevalent system of denoting the years based on an erroneous 6th century calculation of his birth, but a serious argument can be made that no one else's life has proved remotely as powerful and enduring as that of Jesus.
It's an astonishing conclusion in light of the fact that Jesus was a man who lived a short life in a rural backwater of the Roman Empire and who died in agony as a convicted criminal. So Time Magazine said, It doesn't make sense. He shouldn't have had this impact. But Jesus is not only the man of the millennium, but all of history, Jesus. And I've got one more. This is from a Yale historian.
His name's Jaroslav Pelikan. He says, Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost 20 centuries. If it were possible with some sort of super magnet to pull out of history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? So what he's saying is if we just had history and it was some sort of metal and you just took a magnet and sucked all the things that Jesus impacted out of it, history wouldn't look the same. That he's the most dominant figure in history.
Jesus broke history in half. That's what the Time Magazine article said. We based the date off of him. You can't sign a contract without making reference to Jesus. You can't do it. What you say is, Oh yeah, Chet Phillips, this is 2014 years since Jesus was born.
He was a carpenter and he lived in the middle of nowhere and eventually he was killed when he was about 30. Yep, that should about do it. I've signed my contract. Like that's what dates are. We're referencing Jesus' birth. He is the most influential man that has walked on the planet and that's crazy because his impact shouldn't be that.
It doesn't make sense from historically who he was. It doesn't make sense from where he lived, what he did, what he accomplished. He didn't live past the age of 33. He never did any of the things you're supposed to do to get famous. And he didn't have any of the things that we have that help us get famous. Like he didn't have the internet and the ability to film himself doing something funny with a cat.
Like he didn't have that. But there are some things, if you want to get famous, if you want to imprint your name on history, there are a few things you can do. You can write a book. Have you ever heard of Mark Twain or Tolkien or Hemingway or Shakespeare? You can paint. So he could have been an artist.
He could have painted pictures. You ever heard of Picasso or Monet or Rembrandt? If he wanted to make himself famous, he could have done that. He could have written songs or music like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vanilla Ice. You know, all the major ones. But he didn't.
He didn't do any of the things that you're supposed to do to be famous, to imprint your name on history. He never led a rebellion. He wasn't a king of earthly kingdom. He never did any of the things that when you look at him in a historical perspective that would say, oh yeah, absolutely, this man should have marked history. Absolutely. Because he was born to an unwed mother in the middle of nowhere and then he was a carpenter for 30 years, which we all know is what you're supposed to do to get famous, be a carpenter.
And then he led a group of guys around for about three years, did some, you know, taught them some things and then he died and had about 120 people that were really bought into what was going on. Nailed it. Absolutely he's going to be famous. That's not how that works. And so he never did any of the things that you're supposed to do to impact history, to when you look at him from a historical perspective. And so it's as if you were walking along, skipping rocks at a pond and you picked up a rock and you threw it in and when it hit, it didn't skip, but it caused a tsunami wave that threw all of the water out of the pond.
And then you looked and the rock was just sitting there on the bare bottom of the pond by itself and you would go, that's weird, and keep on walking. No, you would want to investigate what was different about that rock. You would just assume that that rock wasn't the same as the other ones you had been throwing. And in some ways, when we look at history and say, yes, absolutely, Jesus is the most impactful man in history, but he was just a man who taught some things and died when he was 30. It's not logically coherent. And so as intellectual beings who investigate the world around us, we have to do something with Jesus.
He comes to us through history and we have to do something with him. We have to investigate this a little bit. And so I just want to let you know before we hop in, what we're going to do tonight is we're going to look at some eyewitness testimony about Jesus. But I want you to know that my skeptic's radar is fully functioning. I don't just believe things because people tell it to me. I never really have.
I got that honest because my dad's like that. He'd be like eight telling my dad a story and you'd be like, guess what happened? And you tell him, he'd go, that didn't happen. That's stupid. And you're like, what? But a guy at school told me.
This doesn't make any sense. How did they make the phone call? And it's like, I don't know how to make the phone call. Right. And then how would the people have known to show up? Tell your friend he's lying.
It's like, well, I don't know if we'll still be friends. Well, you shouldn't be friends with people that lie to you. And so he would do this and this is how I grew up and that's kind of how I am when people start telling me stories. I just automatically, if it doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense, I just, I'm not buying it. And I've gotten better with Anna's help. I don't immediately tell people anymore.
I haven't fixed my face yet. So if you're ever talking to me and I do this, that, I mean, okay, sure. Sure, you think I'm stupid. That's fine. But, but I won't cut you off to tell you all the reasons why what you're telling me doesn't make any sense. I might sometimes.
But, but anyway, I just wanted you to know, I don't, I don't just approach things blindly. And so as we go into looking at what scripture says, I want to, all of us to approach it like skeptics just for a little bit. So there's some of us in here that we believe the Bible because it's the Bible. And there may be some of us in here who we don't believe the Bible because it's the Bible. You're automatically, oh, that's the Bible so it can't be true. Or you're automatically, well, it is the Bible so it has to be true.
And I just want us to approach it with a little bit more investigation before we hop in and start looking at this eyewitness testimony. And so I want to give you some facts about scripture, about what we have when we study the Bible really quickly that helps me appreciate what it is. So the way old documents work, so I'm going to go into professor mode for a second and just track with me. The way old documents work is this. You want to get the original document that was handwritten. We don't have many of those for anything.
After about the Middle Ages, we don't have them for hardly anything at all. I don't think we have them for anything. So what you want to do is then get to a copy of the original document that was close to when it was originally written. So if something was written today or something was written, let's say something was written at 0 BC, we want to get as close to it as we possibly can of a copy of what was originally written. So we'd like to get to 200 or 300 or somewhere around in there.
Then you want to have multiple copies of the original so that you can match them together. So if you have 10 copies of something, you read this one and this one and this one and this one to kind of match them up. You may have heard the argument that scripture's not really reliable because what happened was it was written in Greek and Hebrew. That was translated into Latin and other languages, but that was translated into English. The next translation was off of that English translation and the next translation used that English translation and the next translation used that English translation.
And so it's like the elementary school whisper game. And so you whisper something and the next person whispers it and by the time it gets to this person it's a jumbled up bunch of garbage. That's not how scripture works. That's not how the Bibles that you're holding work. They always go back to the original manuscripts and we have more manuscripts now than we've ever had. So when a Bible translation comes out it's looking at the original extant copies of manuscripts that we have.
So to compare this the Bible to other things we have in antiquity. So we believe the history stuff we learned in class. Let's investigate the Bible the same way. Everything we learned about Caesar and his wars comes from a document called the Gallic Wars. We have about ten of those. The closest one to when it was originally written is 900 years.
So it was originally written on this date 900 years later we have a copy we have ten copies that we can compare and that's what you're taught in school about Caesar and a lot of the wars that took place and how they took place and what he did and Carthage and all of that. The copies of scripture we have 24,970 copies of scripture in 15 languages that are in 90 to 95% agreement with each other. Which means when you compare the 24,000 across the board they agree 90 to 95%. Now that is before the printing press. A lot of those were done in the middle ages when you had monks just sitting and writing out things.
If you went back to just 300 years and only looked at the Greek we have about 5,600 copies of Greek manuscripts that were handwritten copies of Greek manuscripts. This beats everything else we have in antiquity. Everything else prior to the middle ages the Bible beats it. As far as what copies we have of it. The next best thing is Homer's Iliad. The closest copy we have is about 400 and we have got about 650 copies of those.
So everything you read about Homer that really long poem that was kind of confusing. The Iliad and the Odyssey. We have a pretty good amount of copies of those. We're pretty sure that's what Homer said or wrote. The Bible is actually more trustworthy than that. It's the most trustworthy document in antiquity.
The most well-attested to event in history. Ancient history. Outside of something we have on video is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ because of the amount of copies that we have that we can compare to each other and the way we view history. So, one more thing that I think is helpful when I approach this and look at it and I'm automatically skeptical about things. if you just look at quotations from church fathers. So, Christians who were writing things to each other and to churches at the beginning of Christianity existing. If you took about the first 300 years you'd have about 36,000 quotations of the New Testament.
We don't recreate the entire New Testament but much of it can be recreated just from reading the original church fathers. So, the reason I say that is when we look at scripture we're looking at historical accounts of eyewitnesses that is what we know is that what was written is what we're reading. Now, if you want to say well, sure, they wrote wrong stuff. Fine. I'm fine with that. If you want to say that John made stuff up I disagree with you but I'm fine with you saying that that's at least logically coherent you can make that argument.
But, if you want to say that what we have is not what John wrote I disagree with you because that's not accurate when you when you compare the manuscripts. Does that make sense? Okay, so, when we look at this we're at least looking at what was written by them when we study this. So, what we're going to do is we're going to look at some eyewitness testimony about Jesus. So, what we have is a guy who was born in the middle of nowhere to an unwed mother who lived for about 30 years as a carpenter. We don't know much about his childhood.
We do know that he existed from all kinds of documents not only scripture but other historians and everything. We know that he existed. We know that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and we know that he's had a more long lasting impact on the rest of history. So, we have a human who should not have had a major impact who did. Has had more impact than anyone else and didn't do any of the things he should have done to accomplish that. So, we've got to ask the question why?
We have to do something with Jesus when it comes to this. So, we're going to get to Philippians. I'm going to show three verses in the New Testament in the Gospels eyewitness accounts about Jesus that really mess up our ability to approach Jesus in a good way because Jesus walked around telling people he was God and that messes up our ability to approach him in a normal way. That really throws us off. When Jesus starts telling people he's God we can't just approach him the way we'd approach any other human. So, I'm going to give you a few examples of that.
John 5.18 says, But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now and I am working. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath which is why they were arguing but he was even calling God his own father making himself equal with God. Okay, so, we refer to God as father all the time. Jewish people did not do this. So, when Jesus says this it automatically they're like, whoa, because they understand how father-son relationships work. The son of a duck is a duck.
Son of a goat is a goat. Yeah. So, when Jesus says my father is God he's claiming to be God and the Jewish people immediately recognize this and that's why John writes that. So, when I say God is my father we're used to that language but Jewish people were not. Jesus is the one who introduced that language and invited us into the family. John 8.
So, it's another argument with religious people. He says, Your father Abraham, so Abraham the father of the Jewish nation rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. So, the Jews said to him you are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was, I am. So, they picked up stones to throw at him but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Okay. Also, doesn't immediately register with us. I am is the name that God used when he showed up to Moses in the Old Testament. So, actually, the uppercase in your Bible, if you see uppercase letter Lord, all uppercase, that's actually the I am. It's the name that God, proper name God gave himself. So, they would have actually avoided using the I am statements like this.
Jesus says them a lot and the reason I like this one is because we would say, well, he doesn't really say he's God. The people there knew immediately what he had said because they picked up rocks to kill him. They understood what was happening. So, he says, before Abraham was, I am, and they were like, oh, no, he didn't. Get your rocks, he's going down. Like, they immediately reacted knowing that what he had said was blasphemous.
You're not allowed to say these things. We have to kill you. Like, that's not okay. And I'm going to give you another example. He hid from them there. So, it wasn't like they changed their mind.
It was just, he got away. Mark 14, 60 and 65. This is, 60 through 65, 64. This is the night before Jesus is going to be crucified. He's on trial. It says, the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make?
What is it that these men testify against you? So, a bunch of people were accusing Jesus of things, but he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witnesses do we need?
You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. So, he looks at him and says, are you the Christ? Are you the son of the blessed? Are you the son of God?
And Jesus says, I am. And you'll see me seated at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Very clearly looks at him and says, I am. They tear their clothes and say, we don't need any more testimony. We just watched him say he was God. We just watched him blaspheme.
He must be destroyed. So, for everyone who would like to say, well, Jesus was a good guy and he was a good teacher, there's a problem with that. He walked around telling people he was God and that only gives you a few options. You only have a few choices when it comes to Jesus because he told people he was God. Like, you've got to make a decision on that. He's the most influential human in history and he told people he was God and so we've got to do something with that.
So, I'm going to help you out. I'm going to give you the four options that are logically coherent options that you can choose from but you've got to choose one of them. No choice is a choice, just for the record. You've got to do something when it comes to Jesus as he comes to us through history. So, I'm going to give you four. The first one is legend.
You can say that what we have in scripture was later made up. This is the least likely one and I don't think it's easy to argue if you study it for a while you'll realize that this can't be the case. But, what you could say is that people came, Jesus actually existed, he was a human, nobody argues with that at all anymore really because we've got so much historical fact pointing to Jesus. You could say he was a human but his followers made up all the stuff about him. All the mystical, all the miracles, the fact that he rose from the dead, his followers made it up, wrote it down, told people, or people made that up later is what people say.
Well, the problem with that is it was written, the documents about his life and the story about his life was written and spread with people who still existed when he was around. So, it's really easy to debunk a legend. That's not how legends work. Legends have to happen hundreds of years later because when you're making things up about some fantastic thing that took place, it's easy to discredit it and so it stops quickly. I can't be like, hey, y'all, remember when aliens took over Columbia in 1982? You'd be like, no, that never happened.
I'd have to wait hundreds of years before I could get that story going because I've got to have people around who weren't here, didn't know anything about it. If I started making up stories about a person that y'all knew, you'd just say, nah, he never did that and it would be easy to debunk it. It would be easy to get rid of it and so the problem is we have manuscripts that were written within 50 to 100 years after Jesus was around. Within about 150 years, they were on four continents in three languages. So whoever was making this up would have really had to have gotten to work spreading the story and people would have still been able to just say that that didn't happen.
But you can say he's a legend, he's legendary, he's made up. The next three are a little more options for you. You can say, and this is kind of C.S. Lewis lays this out, he calls it the trilemma, but you can say he was a liar. So you can just say Jesus knew he wasn't God and he tricked people and that's an option.
You would be saying that the most influential man in history was an epic con man who's conned billions of people, tricked billions of people. He was a liar. You could say that his followers were liars. The problem with that is that all 11 of his disciples were martyred, which means murdered for their faith, except for one who was boiled alive in oil, he just didn't die. And then he was exiled to an island where he died of old age with like a melted face. But all the other ones were murdered for faith in Jesus and so if it was an elaborate lie, I just got to feel like one of them would have been like, you know what, time out?
No, we made it up. Never mind. We made it up. Or you could argue that maybe they didn't know about it but then you'd have to do something with where the body went because the argument is that his disciples then stole his body and hid it and that's why it wasn't in the grave. They never produced a body and said here's Jesus, he didn't rise from the dead. But you could say he was a liar, that he tricked a bunch of people and that's actually logically coherent although he'd have to be pretty good at it.
You could say no, he wasn't a liar, he was crazy. He was a lunatic if you want him to all start with L's. I don't use that word, I say crazy. But he was a lunatic, he was crazy. And so the most influential man in history was akin to Charles Manson or Jim Jones. He was nuts.
And the truth is this is how we would treat you if you said the stuff Jesus said. So if I was like, dude, I heard people, you've been telling people you were God and you were like, I am. And you'll see me seated at the hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. I'd be like, okay. Did the unicorns tell you that? We would just assume, I got some people I need you to talk to.
Like, you need help. So if you want to say that, okay. What you're saying there is that he genuinely believed he was God but he was crazy. And so the most influential man in history who's had the most impact on our society and the way we view life was crazy. Or, your fourth option and what I would suggest you go with is that he was telling the truth and that he is Lord. Amen.
Those are our four options when it comes to Jesus. And this one to me actually makes the most sense because it explains the impact he's had in history. If somebody walks around and has this kind of an impact and changes the world the way that Jesus has and he walked around claiming he was God, we've got to do something with that. Philippians 2. Told you we'd get there. So this is what we're going to look at.
This is actually what scripture says. Scripture's going to say that yes, Jesus walked around over and over again saying he was God and the scripture's going to explain to us what that looks like because that's the position that scripture takes. That Jesus was God who became a human. Verse 5. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. What it's saying is that Jesus was in the form of God.
He was in the same substance of God that he was God. And he didn't account equality with God a thing to be grasped. He didn't hold on to that equality. He didn't say that this is where I rightfully need to be for all time but he actually it says he emptied himself so he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. So that God our God became a human.
That's actually called the incarnation. That's what we're talking about tonight. That's what theologians would call the incarnation. What that means is like if you made chili con carne it just means chili with meat so that's the appropriate and correct type of chili to make for the record. Chili con carne and so when we talk about the incarnation what we're saying is that God took on flesh that he had meat. So if you ordered something at Taco Bell con carne it just means with meat so our God had flesh.
He became a human so he incarnated it says being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross and so here's what scripture is going to say very clearly that Jesus was God who became a man. He didn't cease to be God but it says he poured himself out so he basically took onto himself humanness and wrapped it around his divinity so he was God while he was a human but he released some of his divine attributes so divine attributes of God being that he's immutable which means he doesn't change Jesus changed he had to get haircuts he grew he got taller it says he grew in wisdom so he learned things like don't touch pots that are hot that kind of stuff he gave up his ability to be everywhere at all times he gave up his omnipotence he gave up all of his being all knowing all the time he actually we see him submitting himself to the Holy Spirit leading him and helping him understand people's thoughts but he poured himself out became a human was still God but wrapped humanity around that and that he lived a perfect sinless life on our behalf and that he submitted himself became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross so that Jesus died on a cross in our place for our sins it says therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father when it comes to Jesus we have four coherent options he's a legend he's a liar he's a lunatic or he's Lord and what scripture says is that everybody at some point is going to realize he was Lord the difference is are we going to realize it prior to dying or are we going to realize it when he comes back conquers his enemies and puts everything under his feet because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and so we have the option and our goal as a church family is to see more and more people this side of eternity knowing that Jesus is Lord but you've got some options and you've got to if you're going to be an intellectual being who's coherent with history as it's presented to you you've got to figure out something to do with Jesus you've got to have a landing point somewhere you can't be neutral when it comes to Jesus because he doesn't give you that option and so I would encourage us to wrestle with that I would encourage us to ask those questions to investigate that and to walk that out in church family together as to where we land on that and what that looks like for us as he is as we would believe Lord of everything that he Jesus is God who became a man and who died in our place for our sins that's what we're going to talk about next week we're going to focus in on his death and what it looks like so we look like what it looks like when God becomes a man makes sense God becomes a man most influential man in history okay that's what it looks like when God becomes a human let's look at what it means when God dies and what that looks like band's going to come back up I'm going to pray and we're going to spend some more time worshiping God I thank you for your grace that you would be willing to become a man that you would humble yourself you would pour yourself out and become obedient to the point of death even death on a cross God I pray that your Holy Spirit would enlighten us and give us faith that we might draw near to you and that we might bend our knees and confess with our mouths that you are Lord that we might give you much glory in doing that God we love you and we praise you in Jesus name Amen
Easter Sunday
Transcript
Well, my name is Chet Phillips. I'm excited to be here. We're going to be looking in 1 Corinthians 15 tonight. We're going to spend most of our time there. We will jump at one point back to the Old Testament. We'll be in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
If you don't have a Bible, just hold your hand up and we'll get some to you. So just hold your hand up so we'll hand them out. We've got some guys that will be coming around. If you don't own a Bible, take that one home. That's our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible.
If you do own a Bible, leave that one here. Bring yours with you next time or we'll let you borrow it again. So it will be 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. And so this is what he says, verse 1. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you.
Gospel meaning good news. Of the good news 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. 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.
That he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Okay, we're going to stop for just a second. Paul says, I delivered you as of first importance. As primary, as foundational. I delivered you as of first importance that Christ died in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried and that he rose again in accordance with the scriptures.
You may have heard a lot of things about what the Bible is about. You may have heard a lot of things about taught from the Bible. That it's some sort of a do's and don'ts list. So it's the do's and don'ts of the destined and damned. Or it's God's guidebook to life. It's God's road map to life.
You may have heard somebody open it up and teach you how to 10 steps to be a better whatever. To be a better father, a better wife, a better son. Paul says, I delivered to you as of first importance the gospel. That Jesus died, that he was buried and that he rose again. The Bible doesn't come out swinging against evolution. The Bible doesn't come out joining a political party.
Jesus doesn't vote straight ticket Republican. I'm sorry. He doesn't. He never rode an elephant. He did ride a donkey, but he wasn't a Democrat. He wasn't.
I hate to break it to you. He shatters all of our preconceived notions. He shatters all of our political parties. He doesn't come out chasing after some cause or or anything other. First importance is that Jesus Christ came to earth, that he died for sinners, that he was buried and that he rose again. That's what the Bible is going to come out swinging on.
It's going to come out fighting for pointing to Jesus. Paul says, according to the scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament, New Testament fighting for and pointing to Jesus. So if you're in here tonight and you'd say, I'm a believer, I'm a Christian, I follow Jesus. That's first importance for you. That's foundational. You grow in the gospel.
You don't grow away from it. You don't enter in by the gospel and then learn the deep things of God. You grow in the gospel. That's the foundation for us. And if you're here tonight and you're just checking out this whole Jesus thing, we're glad you're here. We think this is a very safe place to come check out Jesus.
We're not going to be pushy about things and we're all rough and messed up. And we just want you to invite you to hang out and be messed up with us. We all need Jesus. None of us are special or great, but we believe that Jesus is. We'd say, welcome. Come hang out.
And when you approach the Bible, this is of first importance. So you've got to answer and wrestle with the question, did Christ die for sinners? Was he buried? And did he rise again? That's it. That's the one you've got to wrestle with.
Then you can argue about study and dig into all the rest of it, but that's of first importance. And so that's what Paul comes out and says. And so that's what we're going to be digging into tonight. You see, Jesus was a good man, but that's not why people follow him. He was a moral man, but that's not why we're in this room tonight. He taught good things.
That's not why we're here. We're here because he was crucified. He died. He was put in a tomb. And then on Sunday this morning, he walked out. That's why we're here.
That's why people follow Jesus. That's why billions, with a B, people gathered today to celebrate Easter because of this. And so that's what we're going to talk about tonight. So we're going to look at. So we're just going to walk through this passage.
Verse 3. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture. Okay, so Christ is Jesus. You've heard Jesus Christ. Christ is not his last name. It's an office.
It means Messiah. So his last name would have been Son of Joseph is how they would have said his last name. So Christ isn't his last name. Christ is the office. So this is Jesus.
The Bible tells us that Jesus was God who lived a perfect life. He was the Son of God, came to earth, lived a perfect life in our place. He says, Christ died for our sins. I want to unpack that real quick. God created and designed the world to exist in relationship with himself, and we have done that very, very poorly. We have loved.
The Bible would say that sin is us loving anything else more than God. Us loving and pursuing and setting as our highest aim anything else more than God. And we know this is true, that when we love something over and against something else, it messes us up. We have disordered love. So that if I love success, or someone loves success more than anything, then they'll work really long hours and neglect their children.
Or if you love your status or approval more than the truth, then you'll lie and you'll bend the truth to make yourself look good. Because you love that more than you love honor and you love dignity. If someone loved wealth, if money was their highest aim, then they'd be willing to do whatever it took to get there. So they'll bend the rules as much as they have to to get to money. And so the Bible is going to say that when we come out loving anything else more than God, when he's not our highest aim, that we've rebelled against him and that we have sin. And so Jesus comes living a perfect, sinless life to die for sinners.
So Paul says that he delivered you as a first portents, that what I also receive, that Christ died for our sins. The Bible says in Romans 6.23 that the wages of sin is death, that what we earn when we sin is death. So we punch the clock and we earn at the end of the time to hand us a paycheck and that's death. That's all we can earn with our rebellion. That's all we can earn with our sin. Jesus never sinned, so he never earned death.
And then he died in our place, swapping places with us. So Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That's verse 3. We're going to flip back to Isaiah 53. It's kind of in the middle of your Bible. This was written, what we're about to read was written 700 years before Jesus was born.
So we're going to come back to 1 Corinthians. We're flipping to Isaiah 53. So hold your finger where 1 Corinthians is because we're coming right back to it. Unless you like to live dangerously and then you can take your finger out. But you're going to have to find it again later.
So anyway, Isaiah 53. This was written by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born. So this is what Paul is saying when he died in accordance with the scriptures. It's over and over again in the Old Testament. We're just going to read this one chapter just for the sake of time. Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. This is talking about Jesus. There was nothing innately wonderful about him. He was a Galilean peasant.
He wasn't in a palace. He wasn't a king. He didn't strut around and people automatically bow to him. There was nothing, no beauty, no form of majesty that we should look at him. Verse 3. He was despised and rejected by men.
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. Old Testament law said that anyone who was hung on a tree was cursed by God.
And so Jesus was nailed to a cross on our behalf. He was stricken, smitten by God. Verse 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions. And he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
So he took our punishment so that we might have peace. And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted.
Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And like a sheep before it shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. So Jesus when he was on trial. When he was being accused. When they were taking him and beating him.
When they were putting a bag over his head and punching him. So he couldn't see where the blows were coming from. So he couldn't flinch. He couldn't prepare. He never defended himself. He never stepped up and told him.
Wait I don't deserve this. He kept his mouth shut. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation. Who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living. Stricken for the transgression of my people.
And they made his grave with the wicked. He was crucified in between two thieves. And with a rich man in his death. He used a borrowed tomb from a rich man. Named Joseph of Arimathea. He borrowed a tomb.
Which was okay. He wasn't planning on using it long. With a rich man in his death. Although he had done no violence. And there was no deceit in his mouth. So Jesus was sinless.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. So Jesus died for guilt.
And then those who believe are his offspring. Or those that come from that. They're set free from them. Out of the anguish of his soul. He shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one.
My servant make many to be accounted righteous. And he shall bear their iniquities. That Jesus took our sin. Our iniquity. And he makes us be accounted righteous. That we aren't actually righteous.
That before God we are. Because he took our sin. And gave us his righteousness. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many. And he shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because he poured out his soul to death.
And was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many. And makes intercession for the transgressors. 1 Corinthians 15. So that's what Paul's talking about.
When he said Christ died in accordance with the scriptures. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. This was not a new idea. This had been being prophesied. Over and over and over again. That someone was going to come.
Someone was going to be stricken. Chastised so that we might have peace. That through his stripes we would be healed. That we would. As Zechariah said. We would look on the one whom they pierced.
That Jesus was going to die. So that we could have life. Okay. So. Verse 3. For I deliver to you as of first importance.
This is it. This is foundational. That what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried. Okay.
Okay. So far. Weird. But relatively normal. It's weird. But it's pretty normal.
Okay. So. Jesus. It says he died for our sins. So that's.
That's a little weird. People can die for a cause. Or they could be martyred for something. Or they could be. You know. Die for a country or something.
When it says he died for our sins though. It's talking about an actual trans. First action. Where our iniquity was laid on him. Our sin was laid on him. And he was crushed on behalf of us.
And he actually accomplished something in his death. Not just. You know. He died for his country. That kind of thing. So.
So that's a little weird. But he died and was buried. That's pretty normal. Pretty. Most people do that. I was reading a study the other day.
And I don't remember who. Put it out. But the death rate. On planet earth. Is hovering right around 100% right now. It stays up there for the most part.
From what I can tell. The mortality rates. Staying pretty high guys. So it's like. Something like 10 out of 10 people. Are going to die.
Yeah. I know. It's crazy. I'm thinking they should fix this at some point. So. That's pretty normal.
He died. That's what. That's what people do. He died and was buried. That's pretty normal. Okay.
Especially if you crucify someone. That's. That's what happens. He was executed. That's just a process. By which we speed up death.
And so he was. Dead and buried. Verse 4. That he was buried. That he was raised. On the third day.
In accordance with the scriptures. Okay. Now that got really weird. You see. The Bible is going to come out. And say that Jesus didn't.
Stay. Dead. That. On. Friday. He was crucified.
That he bled out. That after he died. Professional executioners. Said he was dead. And then. Just to be certain.
Took a spear. And ran it into his side. Piercing his heart. Then they took him down. Wrapped him in claws. And put him in a cave.
He was dead. Dead. Buried. And then on Sunday. He was walking. And talking.
That's weird. He was alive. Not. Not an apparition. He was alive. See.
This is why we get together. And celebrate. This is why Christians. Billions of Christians. Are all over the world. To celebrate.
Because Jesus. Didn't stay dead. He didn't come down here. Just to start some new form of religion. He didn't. Because he didn't do any of the things.
You're supposed to do. To start some new form of religion. He wrote down. Zero things. That we know of. Zero.
Like if I was going to start a new religion. First thing you do. Is you write out. How you get to be in the religion. So like.
Eating at Cracker Barrel. Makes you more holy. Like you know. I'd have a list of things. You know. I'd be up at the top somewhere.
Like biscuits. Equal sacrament. Like I don't know. It's like. It's important. He didn't do this.
The only time we ever know. That he wrote anything down. It was in the sand. If you want. Just. I'm going to help you all out.
If you want. What you're writing down. To last a while. Sand. Is a horrible medium. For that.
It really is. That's why. When you have like. Your beach girlfriend. You write that out in sand. Doug.
Hearts. Jess. Until the tide comes in. If you. Heart. Jess a little more.
Get a tree. And a knife. You know. Or do something classy. Like. A putt putt place.
You know. Just carve that in. At one of the little things. At a putt plus. Or. Or.
You know. Put it in stone. Write it down or something. But if you write it in sand. So he.
He didn't do. What it takes to. To start a religious movement. He got. A ragtag bunch of scrubs. That he.
Taught things to. That he built with. But he wasn't. Trying to push forward. Some religious agenda. Every time there.
A bunch of people got around. Jesus said. His hardest. Stuff. And ran people away. John chapter 6.
One of my favorite. Chapters in the bible. He tells people. To drink his blood. And to eat his flesh. And what he's talking about.
Is that they. You have to embrace. The cross. To be a Jesus follower. That Jesus following. Does not come.
Without the price of death. And they said. We think it's weird. That you said that. So he said it.
Six more. Times. And then they leave. And I think he was like. Good. I didn't think.
I didn't want to say it. Seven times. My goodness. And he looks at his disciples. And says. Y'all leaving too?
And they were like. No. And that's weird. But no. We're going to stick around. He didn't do.
What he was supposed to. To start a religion. But he didn't come. To start a religion. He came. To die.
Of first importance. Jesus Christ. Came to live. A perfect life. And to be crucified. On our behalf.
To be buried. As scripture said. He was going to be. And to on the third day. Rise again. That's what he came to do.
And that's exactly. What he did. That Jesus. Died. In our place. And he rose.
You see. If we just had Friday. We just had good Friday. And they said. That Jesus died. For our sin.
That would be nice. But we wouldn't know. We could say that. But we wouldn't know. We'd always be. Stuck.
Going. Did he really? Did he really accomplish it? But we don't just have Friday. We have Sunday. When Jesus rose.
And God put his seal. Of approval on him. And assured us. That our hope. Is not in vain. But that Jesus is alive.
And that the grave. Has been conquered. And that we can have life in him. And that our sin. Can be covered. All right.
Let's keep going. Four. That he was buried. That he was raised on the third day. In accordance with the scriptures. And then he appeared to Cephas.
Which Cephas is just. Peter. It's just in a different language. But both mean rock. Appeared to Cephas. Then to the twelve.
Then he appeared to more than. Five hundred brothers. At what time. Most of whom are still alive. Though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James.
Then to all the apostles. Okay. So. Jesus. Comes back to life. And starts walking around.
And talking to people. He appears to five hundred people. At one time. I love that Paul puts that in there. And he said. Some have fallen asleep.
But most of them are still alive. So what Paul is saying. Is I'm writing this. When there's a bunch of people. Who can. Verify what I'm saying.
At this time. When he wrote this. Cephas was still around. James was still around. All they had to do. Was be like.
Hey. I got this letter from Paul. Is that true? Yeah. That's true. Oh.
Okay. Like that was easy. Like. You could fact check this. It wasn't. Some kind of something.
Written hundreds of years later. He's writing it. He said. Most of these people are still alive. You can go ask them. But.
Jesus. All right. So Jesus. Dead. Alive. Eating.
Laughing. Walking. Talking. Alive. Still had scars. But alive.
He shows up. I love when. He shows up to his disciples at one point. And they freak out because they think he's a ghost. Which is appropriate. That's how death works.
You don't see those people again. Like. You don't talk to somebody and they're like. Yeah. I had to go to my grandmother's funeral. But it's okay.
I'll see her at vacation this summer. No. You won't. That's not how that works. So Jesus died.
And then he shows up and starts talking to him. And they all think he's a ghost. And I love this. So they're freaking out. They think he's a ghost. And Jesus says.
Do ghosts have flesh and blood? And then he takes some food and he eats it. To prove that he was actually alive. He was actually there. What I love about that was. Jesus doesn't say.
Hey fool. Ghosts aren't real. What he says is. Ghosts don't have feet. It's like. Wait a second.
I got to have a follow up question. Like. It's almost like he smacked one of them. Could a ghost do that? I don't know. I've never met one.
But Jesus shows up. And he was alive. He ate with him. He showed Thomas the scars in his hand and in his side. He was alive. He really rose.
Really had a body. Let people touch him alive. So Jesus died and he rose. And that's good news. And I'm about to show you. Give you an example of why that is good news.
So. Verse 7. 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 am 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. Grace just means unmerited favor. Unearned love. It's grace. It's just given to us.
And his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary. I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I. But the grace of God that is with me.
So Paul says. I'm unworthy to be called an apostle. Because I persecuted the church of God. Let me tell you why this is such good news. Paul. Was the worst.
And that's great. Because that means I've got hope. Paul persecuted the church. Anybody who had the name of Christian. He hunted them down. Killed them.
Enjoyed it. He said he was zealous for it. He was looking for more opportunities. To go snatch people out of their homes. Have them arrested. Or murdered.
He was zealous for it. He had papers of people he could go arrest. And was on his way to do it. And Jesus showed up. And should have crushed him. But Jesus shows up.
And says. No I'm going to give you grace. You haven't earned it. And you don't deserve it. I'm going to give you grace. And that's great news.
Because you know who can get unearned grace. Everybody. You know who gets to be a Christian. Murderers. Liars. Perverts.
Addicts. Broken people. Thieves. Religious. Uptight. Snobby.
Prudes. People. Get to be Christians. None of us. Has anything. That we bring to God.
And say. Look at what I've earned. Look at what I've done. Look at what I've accomplished. None of us. We all get.
Grace. Which is. Unmerited. Unearned. Jesus's. Love on us.
For no other reason. Than. He's good. And he's loving. You see Paul. It had nothing to do with Paul's goodness.
Or badness. It had everything to do with Jesus's. Goodness. Your relationship to Jesus. Has nothing whatsoever to do with your goodness. Or your badness.
It has everything to do. With Jesus's. Goodness. And regardless of how messed up we are. Which I'm going to be honest with you. Very messed up.
Jesus is very. Very. Good. And his grace is sufficient. For all of us. And that's why that's.
Good. News. You see. Paul. When he met Jesus. He had a Friday problem.
Some of us in this room. We have a Friday problem. We just had. Good Friday. We just celebrated. Good Friday.
When Paul met Jesus. He had a Friday problem. Which meant that he. Did not know. That he deserved. To be crushed.
For his sin. Paul did not realize. That what happened to Jesus. On the cross. Was for Paul. That it was the punishment.
That Paul deserved. That Paul. Deserved to have met out on him. That it was met out on Jesus. In his place. Some of us are in here.
And that's. That's where we are. We've. Minimalized. We tried to act like. Our sin isn't a big deal.
That our rebellion. Our love of other things. Other than God. Our disordered love. Aren't a big deal. Aren't a problem.
That. That's some sort of social construct. That. That's not a real thing. We have. Sin.
And even for the people in the room. That would say. I don't believe in this whole concept of sin. I would ask this question. Why do you feel guilty? Why do you feel like you don't measure up?
Why do you often feel like you're falling short of some ideal that you don't believe exists? We have sin. And some of us need to realize that Jesus on Friday paid for our sin. That he was beaten. Brutally beaten. That he was hung on a cross.
Nailed through his hands and his feet. That he hung there for six hours. And that he died. Because we have sin. That deserves to be punished. So Paul when he realized his sin.
Then had a Sunday problem. Which was now that I see my sin. Now that I know how unworthy I am. I deserve to be crushed. And I'm not sure that you're capable of taking this away. But see Jesus rose on Sunday.
Conquering sin on our behalf. That our sin can be paid out on Friday. And taken away on Sunday. That Jesus in the gospel. Rescues us both from the penalty. And the power of our sin.
That he takes it away from us. So some of us in here are saying. I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm broken. I know I'm messed up. I know this isn't right.
But Jesus rose from the grave. He takes away all sin. There are no sins too big for Jesus to take away. There is no problem too big for Jesus to handle. You sin like a human. And he saves like a God.
You are not bigger and badder than Jesus is. And he is capable of rescuing all of us. And it's given freely to us. And this is very good news. That we can admit our sin. Admit that we're broken.
And be set free. And be rescued. And redeemed. I love naps. They're the best. It's an awkward transition.
But it was a really good statement. That's true. I love naps. I love them. They're the best. And so any chance I get.
I'll take a nap. I can take a nap. I can fall asleep inside of like five minutes. So I can take a nap for like seven. Like and I'll be fine. Like that's great.
Seven minute naps. Wonderful. So I remember one time when Anna and I first got married. We had. I don't know what we've been doing. We were worn out.
Or we had a day off or something. So we decided to take a nap. And it was one of those naps where I slept on my face. Like you know how good that is. And you just. You just.
You sleep flat out. Like that's how tired I was. Like I didn't even bother to get comfortable. I just like slumped over. And was sound asleep. And.
But we had to be somewhere. So I had set an alarm. And I had an old school alarm that I've had since. I was starting middle school. And that thing. Still have it.
It's one of those. Eh. Eh. Eh. Eh. Alarms.
Like the ones that are pure evil. It's like. I think it's made out of cats or something. It's awful. And so. It makes that.
Eh. Eh. And so I had set that alarm. It goes off. I mean I was out of it. But I start waking up.
And I'm like. Oh. Okay. So I sit up. My alarm's going. Eh.
Eh. Eh. And I reach for it. And I reach for it again. I had been sleeping like this. And both of my arms were sound asleep from here down.
I mean. Done. But. This was like the best I could do. And so the thing. And it's torture.
Because now I'm awake staring at this thing. I just woke up. Which. I'm grumpy. And this alarm's going. Eh.
Eh. Eh. And so I'm sitting there. And I look over at Anna. She's gone. Doesn't even notice it.
And so I'm looking at her like. I really wish she would help with this. But she. She's. She's asleep like this. Like every once in a while.
I swear she's sleeping. Knows I'm looking at her. And she's just faking it. She's sleeping like she's on the front of a Hallmark card or something. And so I'm staring at her. And it's not even.
She hadn't even flinched. And I'm going. Wake up. You know. And so I'm thinking like. What do I do?
Do I go back and forth. Get my arms going. And then I could. I could pop her. You know. I guess I could have talked loudly.
But I was half asleep. I'm not thinking through this right. To wake her up. So. But she looked so.
You know. Just. Like I just was like. Well. I can't. So.
I turned back around. My alarm's going off. Still. Eh. Eh. Can't do anything about it.
I was really glad. That it was just the alarm that had gone off. And it wasn't like a home invasion or something. I'd have been in trouble. Unless. I've thought about this.
Unless I could have convinced them. That I knew something they didn't know. Because what would have happened was. I would have jumped out of bed. And gone. And then tried to kick them.
And they'd have thought. I don't know what kind of kung fu stuff I'm getting into here. But you can take it down brother. Eh. So I'm sitting there.
Staring at this alarm. And there's nothing I can do about it. I look over at Anna. She's completely oblivious to the fact that we have a problem. And I know that we have a problem. And can't do anything about it.
And the truth is. Some of us are sitting in those two seats tonight. Some of you are sitting and saying. I know I have sin. I know I have brokenness. I've been trying to fix it.
And I can't. And some of you. Have been oblivious to it. But it's still a problem. And what we needed. Was for a third party to walk in.
And fix the situation. And what every single one of us in this room needed. Was for a third party to step in. And fix the situation. And his name was Jesus. And he lived a perfect sinless life.
On our behalf. And he was crushed. For our iniquities. He was. The chastisement of us. Was placed on him.
For our sins. He was beaten. He was bruised. By his stripes. We can be healed. That he would make many.
To be accounted righteous. Because he would take on. The iniquities of the world. Jesus stepped in. And he solved the problem. By going to the cross.
And he assured our hope of salvation. By rising from the dead. That in Jesus. We can have life. And hope. Everyone in this room.
Has sin. And the truth is. Your sin. Will be paid for. The question is. Will it be paid by you.
Or by Jesus. At some point. We will stand before the creator. Of the universe. Jesus has given us. The opportunity.
To have our sin. Paid for. Forever. Because sin has. Consequences. Grave.
Consequences. So much so. That the son of God. Had to come to earth. And be crushed for it. But we have the hope.
Of salvation. That we can place. Our faith. In Jesus. And that all of our sin. All of the worst.
Of all of us. Can be placed on him. And he can die for it. And that on Sunday. He can rise again. And take it away forever.
And that through him. We can be accounted. Righteous. That God can look at us. And say. That we're beloved.
That we're cared for. And that we're okay. Because when he looks at us. He sees Jesus. And that's grace. And that's good news.
And that's why billions of people. Have gotten together today. To celebrate that the grave. Is empty. And that Jesus. Is alive.
Man's going to come back up. We're going to sing. And we're going to celebrate. That Jesus has paid our debt. And set us free. That in him we have hope.
And life. Forever. That the grave. Is empty. That Jesus did die. But that he didn't.
Stay dead. Let's pray. God. I thank you. For your grace. I thank you.
That someone like Paul. Who actively. Worked to destroy your church. Can be rescued. Because that gives hope. For all of us.
That we don't earn grace. So that we're all. Able to receive it. God. I pray that you would help us. See our sin.
Very clearly. Feel the weight. Of our sin. Our rebellion. Our love for other things. Other than you.
Very clearly. So that we can know. And love the cross more. So that we can grow. In our love. For the gospel.
More. You said that those. Who are forgiven more. Love more. And God. We pray that you would help us.
See the weight. Of our rebellion. So that we can see. The greatness. Of our God and Savior. We love you.
In Jesus name. Amen.
John 2: The Wedding at Cana
Transcript
All right, if y'all turn with me to John chapter 2, that's where we're going to spend some time tonight. We kind of have a week right here in the middle of, we just finished up our Idol series. We had the opportunity to share a meal with First Baptist West Columbia last week. And we'll be doing baptism gathering and then Easter. And so we just want to take tonight to kind of camp out in this one story, spend a little bit of time talking about it. So let's, if you don't have a Bible, Quentin and Isaac will help hand them out.
If anybody will just lift up your hand, we'll just hand you one real quick so everybody does have one. So we can all be on the same page. So it's John chapter 2. It'll be page, I don't know what page it'll be. It's on there if we, at some point you'll see what page, yeah, page 556, there we go. All right, I'm going to pray and we'll help him.
God, we pray that you would move in us to make us more like you. God, I pray that through your Holy Spirit you would show us more of your character, more of what you came to accomplish tonight as we study in John chapter 2. We thank you for your grace and that you do invite us to celebrate, that you do invite us to be a part of the celebration that you have begun through your grace. And so we praise you and we thank you. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.
It costs, on average, $25,000 to get married or to have a wedding in the United States. The average wedding in the United States is $25,000. In Lexington County, weddings run usually between $18,000 and $31,000. That's crazy. I've had the opportunity recently to be a part and get to see a bunch of different weddings. And weddings are interesting.
So you're getting together to celebrate. Two people are getting married. You're celebrating love. You're celebrating, depending on if some of them are celebrating the covenant of grace that is Jesus and the church if it's a Christian wedding. Some of them are just celebrating this couple. But you're getting together to celebrate.
And there's a lot of different random traditions and things. I know I've been to weddings where people braid a cord or weddings where they set things on fire. They light candles and then those candles light other candles. And then they fall down and set plants on fire and stuff. So you set different things on fire at weddings.
But as far as traditions go, people pour sand. I performed a wedding. The first wedding I ever performed, they said, we don't want to do anything fancy. They were like, we want to get this over with. Because they were real uncomfortable in front of people. I said, that sounds great.
From the time they walked in to the time they walked out was 12 minutes. It was the best wedding ever. And it's really awkward to do a wedding. Because I have to stand still. Because usually I move around. So I have to stand still the whole time.
My leg got to shake and I couldn't make it stop. I have to read what I've written out. Because if I just say something stupid tonight, let me just be real with y'all. I can just stop and be like, take that back. Or I can just move on. And the only person I embarrassed basically was me.
Unless I said something theologically incorrect. If I say something really bad at a wedding, people remember that stuff. You can break friendships over it. But weddings, so I was at a wedding with all these different traditions. I was at a wedding where, it was my cousin. It was a Greek Orthodox.
He was marrying a Greek Orthodox girl. They put crowns on their heads. And had a stream that connected them. And then they walked laps around the table. I don't know what that was to symbolize. And I'm not sure my cousin did either.
Because on the third lap, he walked around like... Like he had no clue what he was getting himself into. I was at one where it was a Jewish wedding. So they did Mazel Tov. And they broke the thing. They have different ceremonies.
Different things you do at receptions. My cousin is a first generation Nigerian American. At Nigerian weddings, they do a thing where there's a dance. And everybody goes and puts money on them while they're dancing. And so they're dancing. And you're walking out and just like sticking money on their head and stuff.
There's that. At my brother's wedding, he's married to Elise who's Polish. And has a Polish background. And so he had to wear a necklace with like little babies on it. Little plastic babies. And they had to do this thing where you like had to pay to dance with them.
And then at some point, he could come back in and pay to dance. It was really... It's just that we have all these random traditions. And all these different things that we do to celebrate weddings. And what we're actually going to look at tonight in John chapter 2. Jesus is at a wedding.
He's come to take part in the celebration that people have celebrated forever. God oversaw the first wedding between Adam and Eve. And so we see Jesus in the very beginning of his ministry. Kind of what he's getting started in John chapter 2. John's written by one of his disciples. Close friend to his.
John chapter 1. John's basically explaining that God became a human. So he says God became a human. He came and dwelt among us. And then Jesus recruits a couple of disciples. He starts getting people to follow him.
He actually gets two from his cousin, John the Baptist. Two or three from his cousin, John the Baptist. And then they kind of recruit some friends. So at this point Jesus has had disciples for all of about five days. Week tops. And he's got about five of them.
So he's got five guys following him around and starting to begin this journey of following Jesus and seeing what this looks like. So that's where we are. John chapter 2 verse 1. On the third day, they don't really know the third day of what. I think it's the third day from the last thing that happened. So he's had disciples for about three days.
But it could be the third day of the wedding. It could be the third day of the week or the month. It just says the third day. So on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
Okay. So Jesus' mother was there. We find out later that she's pretty intimately related to the goings-on at this wedding. So we don't know if she's related to someone in the wedding party or if she's just a close family friend. But she kind of knows behind-the-scenes things.
So it seems like she's somehow related. But it also says that Jesus and his disciples were invited. So it wasn't just like the, hey, mother of Jesus, you're invited and anybody else you want to come. It actually says specifically that Jesus and his disciples were invited. Now weddings at this point were a big deal.
So they, I mean, it was like a week-long celebration. And so it was a big deal. You would invite, basically the whole town was invited. You'd invite all your friends, all your relatives. But it's kind of funny.
Scholars and different people who write commentaries and stuff on this, some of them I've actually heard, they try to figure out why Jesus was invited. I've heard the theory that it would have been good to invite a prominent local teacher to your wedding. Maybe that's true. But Jesus wouldn't have been a prominent local teacher at this point. He had five disciples he'd recruited the past week. And some of them he stole from his cousin.
So he wouldn't have been a prominent local teacher. But it is kind of funny that people, we genuinely, people have a hard time kind of figuring out why Jesus would have been invited. People say maybe he was related or whatever. But I, bear with me, just want to put this out there and don't get mad at me. Maybe, maybe Jesus was fun to be around. It's crazy talk.
Walk with me here though. Maybe Jesus was fun to be around. Maybe he was enjoyable. I know, for some reason, it's crazy, we don't ever think about that. We just don't. The Bible doesn't really have a whole lot of jokes that Jesus makes.
Although, if you want to talk, I think there are some that I think are quite funny. Usually when he's fussing at religious people, he pops off with some pretty funny stuff. But it's not like him just telling knock-knock jokes to people and those kind of things. And we just really don't think about it. But I think he was enjoyable.
There's something in our brains, and I don't know why this is. We think that God would become a human and that as a human, God would be boring. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The God who invented galaxies and molecules, who thought and spoke into existence everything that we know. Monkeys, giraffes, zebras, the duck-billed platypus. He invented these things.
Steak, bacon, the idea to wrap one of those around the other one. He came up with this. The God who invented these things, who came up with laughter. The concept of laughter, which is basically where things don't fit together in our brains, and our brain kind of trips over itself, and then we just exhale a bunch of air, and that process releases chemicals in our brain. Like we just blow air out of our mouths. And some of us throw our nose, and you probably should stop it.
Just open your mouth. You're going to snort. It's going to be awkward. But he came up with this process, but he would become a human, and he'd be boring. Like his disciples would walk over to each other and be like, oh my goodness. All right, now I'm following Jesus because he's the Messiah.
But if you ever had him corner you and just talk and talk and talk, it's a good thing he invented sleep. Otherwise, I'd feel real bad for falling asleep while he was talking to me. Like, it doesn't make any sense. So I just wanted to put that out there. Jesus is at a celebration with friends who he ends up giving nicknames to. Just put it in your brain.
Maybe he was enjoyable to be around. Not a party animal, but we see him at parties and celebrations all the time. We see him engaging in celebrations, and going to parties, eating with people. He gets accused of being a drunk and a glutton. Not because he was, but because he was hanging out with people who were. And because he wasn't yelling at them and fussing at them.
He was gracious and kind and hospitable and enjoyable. So he's at a party, being humble and gracious and kind and hospitable. And he's got his disciples with him. So, verse 2. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples when the wine ran out. Okay, that's a problem.
Some of you just throw little parties, and you know that's a problem. It's a bigger problem here. Weddings in this day most likely lasted a week, and you invited all kinds of people. So when the wine ran out, which was the predominant drink that people would drink, you would drink water, but the water wasn't always sanitary. So a lot of times, most people just, you would drink wine.
It was a very common drink to have. But when the wine ran out, it basically meant send everybody home, party's over. Celebration has ended. We're not having this feast anymore. The feast has ended. Everyone has to go home.
And they're in an honor culture, which we don't understand. We do not have an honor culture. The most honor culture stuff we have is southern, like, hospitality. Like, you don't talk back to your parents. You say, yes, sir, no, ma'am. You hold open doors.
You give up your chair for ladies. Like, those kind of things. That's about as close as we get, but we don't really have this notion of being cursed or being dishonored. I mean, like, I crack jokes on my dad when I'm hanging out with him. I don't go over the line because he's big and can get intense. But we have that kind of a relationship.
But that wouldn't have happened here because of the way they treated patriarchs, the way they treated. And so the closest thing I know of when I think about an honor culture is Japan. Japan has an honor society. Maybe less now as they've had more Western influences. But I remember watching 2010 when they had the earthquake and the tsunami.
And everybody was just, it was bad over there. And they would bring in water trucks. And I remember watching a water truck and then seeing a picture of Japanese people in a single file line that just went, looked like miles. And everybody would think, that's absolutely crazy that they would just get in a single file line. That's just what they just do because it would be dishonorable to do anything else, to form a mob around it and assault each other. So they just lined up.
And my wife and I, we like documentaries, especially stuff about war. I was watching something about World War II. After Pearl Harbor, the United States rounded up Japanese people, put them into camps. Because really, the U.S. was like, we don't know if this is going to be a problem. Like if they're going to side with Japan and just start causing problems on the U.S. So they didn't.
And it ended up, wasn't a good plan and was kind of a bad way to handle it. But they would go to those camps and recruit people, recruit soldiers to join the U.S. And they did. They'd show up and say, who wants to join? And they'd say, I do. And the Japanese soldiers ended up being some of our best troops.
They didn't send them to the Pacific. They sent them into, but the generals used to fight over who got the Japanese because they were such good soldiers. I watched one where a guy volunteered, wasn't in one of those camps, volunteered. His dad was dropping him off at the train station. He looked at his son and he said, this country has let us live here. They've let us have a job.
They've defended and protected us. They've given us a life. Do not dishonor this country. He said, you don't come home before you dishonor this country. And that was what he told his son when he dropped him off. That's more akin to the culture that we have here.
So to run out of wine ended the celebration. But more than that, it began your marriage in dishonor. That's how you started off was taking a step forward in your relationship in dishonor. So it was a big problem. So when the wine ran out, feel some weight to that.
It wasn't just, oh, the party's over. And it wasn't just, well, the party that was going to last till midnight has to end at 10. It was the celebration that would have lasted a week. It's cut in half. It's stopped days early. We have to announce to our guilt, to our shame, that we've messed this up, that we didn't prepare well, and that we're going to have to end the celebration.
You can all go home. So that's kind of what's going on. So it says, So this is the mother of Jesus talking to Jesus. She said to him, They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.
His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. I love this. Our God became a human who had a mama. That's crazy. He didn't just zap down here. God decided to give honor to infants, to give honor to the whole system that he had designed.
And our God became a human who lived as a child and who had a mother. And we get this instant. There's only like two or three in the Gospels where we get to see him kind of interact with her. And I love this. So she shows up.
He's got his disciples there. Because we find out later they're there. And she says, They're out of wine. And he says, Woman, what does this have to do with me? Now, just for the record, That's not disrespectful. You could say woman.
Like if I said that at my house, That's a good way to get slapped. Like my mom telling me to do something. Woman? No, that's not how that works. But in their culture, This wasn't like a disrespectful term.
It'd be kind of like when you say, Yes, ma'am. But he says, What does that have to do with me? And he says, My hour has not yet come. Basically meaning, It's not time for me to show everybody that I'm the Messiah. It's not time for me to just step in and do these kind of things in front of people. This wedding that you're part of is not my public proclamation that I'm God.
That's kind of how he responds. So his mom comes. And you know his disciples are watching this. Because it's always interesting. Like you ever go hang out with your friends, And you see them kind of interacting with their parents. And you just like, It makes you kind of uncomfortable.
But you're always like watching to see how they interact. And so sometimes it's just weird. Like I remember being at my friend's house sometimes, And they would talk back to their parents. I would just get like, Oh, like so uncomfortable. Because like, You talk back to my mom, My dad might just appear. I don't know what would happen.
He'd just jump out from behind something. But some people would talk back to their mom, And I'd be like, Dude, that's your mama. Shut up. Just do what she told you to do. Like I will leave if I need to leave. Or when people get fussed out by their parents in front of you.
And they're like, Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. And you're just like, Like you're behind her. So his disciples are watching him as he interacts with his mom. And so she says, They're out of wine. He says, What does this have to do with me?
And then, I love this. So this is the interaction. They have no wine. Jesus said to her, Woman, What does this have to do with me? It's so great. He's 30.
It's just the way moms act. Like my mom could come to my house and be like, You need to clean your room. And I'd be like, Yes ma'am. That's just how it works. So he says, They have no wine.
Jesus says, What does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. She didn't even respond to him. He says, What does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.
And she looks at him. She looks at the servants. And she says, Y'all do whatever he tells you. And she walks away. And you know, The disciples were like, And they've got to be thinking, How on earth is he going to supply wine? They heard this news.
They're like, Well, party's over. The celebration has ended. This is a bad deal for them. But she's asking him to supply wine. And you know, They're thinking, How is he going to do this? Like, But she's just put it on him.
They're out of wine. Do your thing. And she walks out. So Jesus is just standing there. I can just kind of imagine him just looking at her. She walks away and being like, I don't even know.
Looks at his disciples. They try to act like they weren't laughing. Like, so. Alright, so. So, Then Jesus, So his mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there For the Jewish rites of purification.
Each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water. Okay. So, Now I'm making this up. But this is just how I see it in my head.
She's walking off. Jesus is sitting there. And he's going to do this, But it's not a big public thing. And he looks over and he sees these six stone water jars For the Jewish rites of purification. These stone water jars were designed for them to wash their hands And do some ceremonial washing. To, What they were trying to do was uphold the law Of the clean laws, Clean and unclean laws, Which were given by God in the Old Testament To show the Jewish, The Israelite people, That they were not clean.
To teach them that sin defiles us. That sin separates us from God. That we cannot, In our sinful state, Just approach him. So it was to teach us how often we make ourselves defiled. And even if you were living up to the clean laws, When you came to the temple, You still had to have a sacrifice on your behalf. You still, In the tabernacle, Had to have a sacrifice on your behalf.
And so what it meant was, You can be as clean as you want to be. You still need a sacrifice. So these laws were designed to point to Christ. That in our religion, We will never clean ourselves up enough. And our sin does defile us. Well what they had done, What the Jewish people had done, Was they had added layer upon layer upon layer, Lump upon layer, On top of this.
And so, These ceremonial washings, Jesus didn't do. His disciples didn't do. And he didn't do. He did the ones that were prescribed in the law. He lived under the law. But he didn't do these, Because we see in Luke, At one point he goes to a party, A dinner party at a Pharisee's house.
And they're all washing their hands, Doing the ceremonial stuff. And he just goes and sits at the table. And it's like, They're all looking at him like, How on earth is he going to eat, If he doesn't wash his hands? And then they get in a big argument. And it's great. And it doesn't say he leaves.
So I assume he just started touching things, With his unwashed hands. It's like, Give me some of those potatoes. I don't know. I'm making that up. But it doesn't say he leaves.
I assume he stayed and ate with them. So he doesn't do this. He doesn't do this. This was added on top to prove How good and how religious they were. So it would be similar to when someone's like, I've never watched an R-rated movie.
It's like, Well, that's good. That doesn't earn you points or anything. And Gladiator was great. So Terminator 2 is pretty good. Like, I don't know. You may want to bend that one a little bit For some of them.
It's okay if people feel convicted To do some of that. That's fine. But it doesn't add points. And it doesn't, You don't pile up your religious duties To prove to God that you have worth. That doesn't happen. And so that's what this was.
It was for them to ceremonially walk under. Look at how blameless I am. So I imagine, He's thinking, How am I going to supply this wine? He sees these jars And he gets this look on his face. And he cracks the smile. And the disciples don't know What that smile means yet.
They've only been around for about a week. The smile is, I'm about to tick off religious people. I think he cracked that smile a lot. I think he had this look in his eye like, Okay, now this could work. And so he tells them to fill it up. They fill it up.
And it says that there are Six stone water jars there For the Jewish rites of purification. Each holding 20 or 30 gallons. So they fill these up to the top. He says, Take that out And take it to the master of the feast. And it says that that water turned into wine. So Jesus Took six stone water jars, Filled them up to the top, And turned them into wine.
This teaches us a few things. One is, Jesus just made 120 gallons of wine. That's 619 bottles. I did the math. That may not connect well with us. That's 150 boxes.
Is that better? Y'all received that a little better? 150 boxes of wine. He didn't do this. This wasn't like a one night kegger thing. What this shows us is They had way underestimated How much wine they were going to need For this celebration to last an entire week.
So that's what it's telling us. He supplies what they needed. And maybe even above what they needed. But it wasn't like, Let me do some ridiculous thing For this one night. It wasn't that. So he supplies what was needed.
He makes all of this into wine. Steps in. And continues the celebration for him. Now, I've had the opportunity Because I like this story. To be able to talk about this With other groups before. And other churches.
And I used to get invited To go speak at churches On some Sundays and stuff. I would always at this point Kind of point out that What I would say is this. I would say, We're not going to get into Whether or not That wine was alcohol Or not alcohol. Or whether it was capable Of making somebody drunk. We're not going to get into How that plays out. Because that's not the point of the story.
And it isn't the point of the story. But, This is the first time I've had the opportunity To talk about this With my church family. That was actual wine Capable of making somebody drunk. It was actual alcohol. Still not the point of the story. And it is not to Highlight or key in On alcohol at all.
And I know that alcohol Can be destructive And cause problems. I know that In a very real way. But, It was actual alcohol. And so that shows us That God doesn't tempt us To sin. We know that from James. He's not tempting us to sin.
I love what Martin Luther said. Martin Luther said, Men can go wrong With wine and with women. Are we going to outlaw women? That's kind of a helpful way To think about that. Because that's true. God designs these things That are good And for our joy.
And we know from scripture That getting drunk is not okay. Very clear about that. But wine is actually a gift And it's made for joy And all these other things. And so he does make wine. I just wanted to point that out. If you want to talk more about that Would be happy to have that conversation.
That is not the point Of what's happening here. So he makes this wine. And so he sends it out. He says, Fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, Now draw some out And take it to the master of the feast.
Nobody knows what a master of the feast is. And all the stuff I read, It's like, Your guess is as good as ours Is basically what commentaries say about it. There's no real parallel To anything else in history That they know of. So what we do know Is that he was in charge of something But he didn't know That they were running out of wine apparently. Or that they were out. He may have known they were running out.
He didn't know they were out. But he was in charge of Basically like overseeing this ceremony. So, Now draw some out And take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. When the master of the feast Tasted the water Now become wine And did not know where it came from Though the servants Who had drawn the water knew The master of the feast Called the bridegroom And said to him So, Okay. Getting married He calls the bridegroom Which is just the groom.
This guy, The bridegroom Is having a rough time. I want you all to feel this with me. Getting married Is rough. It's hard. It's basically the worst. Being married is great.
Getting married is the worst. Like the process, The two day process That you go through Where you're dressed up In an outfit You would never wear ever And stuck up in front of people And you have to recite things And you mess it up And you're going to pass out And you don't feel good. Like that whole process, I assume it's good for females. I hope so. I hope my wife enjoyed our wedding day And our reception and all that stuff. It was, I was glad when it was over.
It wore me out. She's in Kid City Helping take care of people. So I told her I was going to tell her That getting married was the worst. And she said, I know, You've told me before. So, But it is. I remember the, We had our rehearsal dinner Which is the night before you like Practice getting married.
And we ate. And the groom's family Usually kind of puts that on. So we were at a barbecue place. That's right. Because we're, But I couldn't even eat it. It was the worst.
You know it's bad If I can't eat barbecue. Like I'm sitting there looking at it. And I just, My stomach was just like, I don't know how I feel about this. It's just like, Tying itself in a knot. And so, This guy has to go through this for a week. I only had like two days.
I had, You know, Rehearsal dinner. Rehearsal, Rehearsal dinner. Wedding. Reception. And then we were done. This guy's in the middle of like, A week long thing.
With family. And people coming in out of town. And all these friends you hadn't seen. Everybody wants to talk to you. And these people are arguing about decorations. And they don't even know each other.
And this grandmother keeps setting something up. And the other grandmother keeps taking it down. And like, It just becomes this big thing. And so he's in the middle of this week of this. And he's running out of wine. So he's about to start his entire marriage off.
This celebration. It should be this joyous occasion. He's about to start it off in dishonor. And that's a problem. He knows that at some point, So he's having these conversations. Because he was apparently related to how the wine was working out as well.
Because the master of the feast calls the bridegroom to talk to him about how he had planned out the wine. That's what he's about to have that conversation. So he calls the bridegroom. So the bridegroom knows this is coming. He's been having probably argumentative type conversations with his bride. We're running out of wine.
I know. I know we're running out of wine. We're really running out of wine. We're getting low. I know. I realize that.
We're about to be out of wine. What do you want me to do about it? Like, How do you want me to? Well, I want you to not have invited all your guzzly friends over. They're doing the fight and smile. You know, Because people are around.
So it's like, They got that going on. It's not a pleasant situation. And they're fighting and smiling. She's asking him to do things in the past. And that's how you know it's gone really bad. Like, When the only way to fix it is to have a time machine.
Like, It's like, I want you to have done this. I want you to have gotten more wine. It's like, That's not going to happen. Do we have anything constructive? Like, I can't go back in the past and have those conversations. It's like, You realize that's impossible, right?
Like, This isn't even helpful in this conversation. But anyway, So they're doing that. He knows at some point they're out. At some point he has to stand up and say, Hey everybody, Thank you for coming out for this joyous occasion. We didn't plan ahead well. We didn't prepare well.
I was not able to supply what was needed. I was not able to take care of this. And you all need to go home now. I'm going to begin my relationship with my bride in public shame, guilt, and dishonor. Thank you for being here. Party's over.
He knows that's coming. It's on the way. I don't know if they tried to water things down. I don't know what happened, but it's on the way. And then he sees Master the Feast holding a glass of wine. Let's do this thing.
It's over. So he comes walking up to the Master of the Feast. He's got a smile on his face, really ticking him off. Master of the Feast called the bridegroom, said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first. And he's thinking, Yeah, we did. And they drank it.
And when people have drunk freely, Too freely, some might say, Then the poor wine. Mm-hmm. Busted that out two days ago. It's gone too. But you have kept the good wine until now.
I did what now? I wonder if he tried to play it off. Yeah, that was a thing I wanted to do to kind of mix it up. I've been to these before, And they always serve the good stuff first, But I was saving it. It's got a good year. Like, I don't know.
I don't know if he just smiled and walked away. Like, I don't know if he's ever talked. So the Master of the Feast calls him over and says, This is the best wine we've served. Like, you did this wrong. You're supposed to serve the best wine first, Then the poor wine. And you busted out the best wine now.
This is the first of his signs. Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, And manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. Okay. So John calls this a sign.
He doesn't call it a miracle. It's a different word. So he, It's a different word in Greek and in English. But he uses the word sign. And what he's saying is, This shows us, He says this is the first of his signs, That he accomplished, That he did. And he manifested his glory.
What Jesus does in this, Is he teaches us something about his nature, And his character. And, He shows us ultimately, What he came to accomplish. So Jesus teaches us, Because it's a sign, He teaches us something about his nature, And his character, And ultimately what he came to accomplish. And whenever we learn, As believers, As people who follow Christ, When we learn something about the nature, And the character of God, It applies in both ways. It applies to what he came to accomplish. It also applies to how we follow him.
He is our example, And those who have the spirit of Christ, Dwelling in us, We are to follow him by his example. We're to grow to be more like Christ. That's what Christian means. It means little Christ. So when we see this, When we learn about the nature, The nature and the character of God, We learn how we ought to be.
So, Jesus steps in, Into the party, Into the celebration, And he brings the better one. That's who we're supposed to be as a people. We're supposed to take part in the regular rhythms of celebrations of our culture. To be a part of them, And to supply what's lacking. That's what he did. They were running out, And he supplied what was lacking.
So for us, That means we show up, We bring the better one. That's who we are, When it comes to celebrations and parties. That's Jesus' people. That means that, That doesn't mean necessarily alcohol. It means that maybe you show up, And you're, Hey, I'm hanging out. I'm going to be here with y'all.
I'm going to be gracious. I'm going to be humble. I'm going to be helpful. And when the night's over, I'm giving people a ride home. Because y'all are going to be here doing this anyway. I'm just going to supply what's lacking.
Someone who's capable of driving. Maybe it means, Hey, I'm going to show up. I'm going to be the guy who stays late and cleans up. I'm going to be the guy that helps make this mess go away. Maybe it means you show up with plates and plates of carbs. Maybe that's, Maybe that's what we do.
Like, I don't know. But we, We're Jesus' people. We show up hospitable, Humble, Generous, And we supply what's lacking. That's what he does. He steps into the situation, And he supplies what's lacking. He doesn't, In all religious cultures, The way people think about it is, The most religious people have climbed up on a mountain.
They've separated themselves. They, They don't even wear normal clothes. They, They, You know, Some of them don't even speak, And they, They sit and they just think about things. Or they, They, They kind of separated themselves from culture. The most holy, Perfect being that has ever walked on the face of the earth, Did not separate himself from culture. He stepped into it.
He stepped into the normal rhythms of everyday life. Jesus walked in celebrations. He shared meals with people. He walked through normal life. He didn't just float around. He didn't go up on a mountain, And make people come up to just hear his teaching.
He, He stepped into culture. And that's who we get to be as his people. We get to walk in the normal rhythms of everyday life, Making things better. We don't just do this at celebrations, Although we do this at celebrations. But we do this in normal life.
That's what we do in this city. Our community groups should be praying, And looking, And walking with each other, And trying to figure out, How do we supply what's lacking in our city? Is this school having a hard time making its grades? Well then we show up, And we help do tutoring programs. Is this area of our city never taken care of? Are these people not loved?
Well then we step in. Is this area, Do these people need to just know how to have a generic budget? Know how to pay their bills? Well we step in. We coach them up. We love.
We serve. We clean. That's us. That's Jesus' people. We just step into normal life, And try to figure out how to supply what's lacking. So he shows us something about his nature and his character.
That he's humble. That he's gracious. And that genuinely he just steps in and helps them. This was going to be bad for them. And just in his grace he just makes it okay. He saves them from dishonor.
But not only that, It shows us ultimately what he came to do. It's one of the reasons I love this story so much. See Jesus when he came to earth, He came to do exactly what he did here. He came in and we're lacking. We're not capable of solving this problem on our own. In this story, We're the bridegroom.
We're running on empty. Headed for shame. Headed for guilt. Headed for destruction. That's us. And Jesus steps in and he does two things.
He removes our pretense of religion. So he takes away their ability to ceremonially wash. You cannot wash your hands in wine, But you can continue a wedding celebration. You see Jesus steps in. He removes our ability to posture ourselves up in front of him. To justify ourselves through our own works.
He takes that away from us. And he invites us through grace. His freely offered grace into the celebration. He invites us into the feast. What he did in this story is what he came to do for us on the cross. The night before Jesus died, He took a cup full of wine and he says, This is the wine in the new covenant, My blood which is poured out for you.
And so Jesus went to the cross And he poured out his blood To supply what was lacking on our behalf So that we might have life. So that we might have joy. So that the pretense of our religion. So that all the things that we think we can put in front of him To say that we're worthy. That we're good. That we can do this on our own.
To be taken away forever. And to be freely offered to us Through grace. To enter into his celebration. The Bible begins. After God creates everything. He has the first wedding celebration With Adam and Eve.
Jesus, his first miracle is at a wedding ceremony. And the end of the Bible, It ends with the wedding supper of the Lamb. Where Jesus, our groom, Takes his bride, his church, To himself. He makes us his. He tells him in the night before he's going to die, He says, I'm not going to taste of this again Until I taste it new with you in the kingdom. Jesus hasn't drunk anything, Any fruit from the vine Until he celebrates with us At the wedding ceremony, The wedding supper of the Lamb.
At one point, Jesus is going to crack the sky open. He's going to call us home. And that's when the celebration really begins. That's when the joy And the life really begins. And we, as his people, Are to be a foretaste of the kingdom, Which is a never-ending celebration With Jesus, our King. We're to be a foretaste of that.
We're to be the best partiers. If there's one thing that Christians are known for, It's for their ability to party. Am I right? Can I get an amen? Somebody. That is not true.
That is not what we're known for. But it should be. That's us. We have Jesus who stepped in And brings the better wine. Who steps in and supplies what's lacking. And ultimately, We'll have a celebration feast With him in heaven.
We're to be a foretaste of that kingdom. And we're the only people Who have something to celebrate. Jesus is alive. Our sin is gone. We are free. We have hope and life in him forever.
I don't have to prove my worth. I don't have to show the world that I'm good. I don't have to justify my existence. Jesus already has. We have something to celebrate. We should be the most partying people on the planet.
Because we actually have something to celebrate. We're not running from something. We shouldn't be caught up in debauchery. But we should be joyous, celebratory people Who walk in the normal rhythms of everyday life Celebrating because that's who we are. Because we've been freed up to do that. And we don't have to seek joy out of it.
We have joy given to us by Christ That we get to walk in. That's us. Now, There may be somebody in here tonight. You don't know Jesus. And you're saying, I feel way more like the bridegroom. I'm empty.
And I'm trying to fix a problem I can't fix. And it's just progressively gotten worse. I'm headed towards shame. Towards guilt and destruction. And all I want to let you know is that Jesus, on your behalf, Has already fixed the problem. I just want to be the master of the feast.
Just to call you over and say, Hey bro, I don't know if you know this. Here's what's already happened. Jesus had died on our behalf. He took our sin onto himself So that we might be free. So that we might have life and joy forever.
That our sin could be taken away. That he could be crushed for. And that we could be given life in him. When he rose from the dead, He conquered sin and guilt and shame forever for us. And he's invited us into, By grace, Not to clean ourselves up, But by grace to join him in the celebration. Next week, We're not going to meet here.
We're going to meet at 3pm at Willow Ridge Church. To celebrate the baptism of 8 people Who are part of our church family. 8 people who want to go public With the fact that Jesus has stepped in on their behalf. And supplied what was lacking. That he has taken care of the problem they couldn't fix. And to proclaim to everyone who is present.
That Jesus is God. And Jesus is King. And he has rescued and redeemed them. And made them his own. And we're going to lose our minds. We're going to clap.
And we're going to scream. And we're going to yell. And then we're going to have a party. We're going to eat popcorn and snow cones. And we're going to play games and celebrate. Because we have something to celebrate.
That Jesus is alive. That he does rescue. That he does redeem. And that he has made us his. And that we don't have to prove it. We don't have to earn it.
We are just caught up in the celebration through grace. That's what he's supplied for us in the cross. So that's us. Can that be us as a church? Can that be us as a church family? Can we be the best partying church in West Columbia?
Can that be us? Can we celebrate more? Can we infectiously invite other churches to take part in that? Can we infectiously invite other people who don't know Jesus to celebrate with people who do? Because we're the best at it. Let's do that.
Let's let that be us. Let's celebrate and lose our minds next week. And let's continue to keep doing that. Following Jesus in grace. Clapping, singing, dancing. And having a party until he calls us home to the real one.
God, we thank you. That through grace. You have invited us into the celebration. We didn't work it out on our own. We didn't earn it. We didn't achieve it.
We didn't knock it out. We didn't fix the problem. But you did. God, we thank you. And we praise you. And God, I pray that you would make us more like Jesus.
That we would celebrate well. That we'd be humble. Gracious. Enjoyable. That we would supply what's lacking. When it comes to our streets.
Our neighbors. Our jobs. Our city. We love you. We ask for more and more of your grace. And your Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
Jesus is Better than our Idols
Transcript
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. It's going to take us a minute to get there tonight. We're actually going to be in two separate chunks of Scripture because we're going to be unpacking two separate ideas. But we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. If you don't have a Bible, just throw your hand up, Mitchell, and be able to grab and hand these out. So we've got some back there for you.
My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, and it's just good to see everybody. Decided to get all our groups together. So we are in the fifth week of our Idol series. Thank you, Isaac. We're in our fifth week of our Idol series.
We've been unpacking for the past four weeks that sin for us does not primarily look like us breaking rules. So for most of us, we grew up with an understanding or our understanding of religion or Christianity is that God has rules, and you don't want to break His rules. And it's bad when we break His rules. But for the most part, sin is actually, we don't break God's rules until we have first placed something else as primary, as more supreme, as more important to us than God. So even when God sets up the Ten Commandments, He sets it up as, you will have no other gods before me, and you will make no idols, no graven images for yourself.
And then He gives the rest of them. So we actually don't break the other Ten Commandments until we've first broken the first one. We've first said that something else is functionally more important to us than God. And so that's what we've been talking about. We've been unpacking this idea of idolatry. St.
Augustine Okat from the 4th century, he was a pastor in Africa, wrote the book Confessions, wrote a lot. He's considered a church father. He said that sin is a disorder of love. And that's kind of how we've been looking at this, that when we love anything more than we love God, it leads us into sin. And we see this in other areas. So if you love success more than your family, then you'll work too much and not spend time with your children.
If you love the way people view you more than you love the truth, then you'll lie about yourself so that you can look good. And so the truth is for us that it's actually when we love something too much, when we place too much value on something, that we begin to turn away from God and we begin to chase after other things. And what we unpacked was basically we actually want God to be God. That was what we spent the first week talking about and how idolatry is us worshiping something other than God. The second week we looked at how we can turn anything into a God. So we take good things, turn them into God things, and that actually becomes a very bad thing.
The third week we spent some time talking about what that actually does to our object of worship and to us when we do that, how we ultimately begin to destroy. So if it's a relationship, we'll slowly destroy that relationship because we have to take from it to validate ourselves, to give ourselves worth, and ultimately idolatry destroys us. Last week we spent some time unpacking that really we have heart-level idolatry. That it's not always just the object of what we're chasing after like money, but most of the time it is actually something deeper. That we're actually seeking power or control or approval or comfort and we're just money is the best way to get it.
And so we actually have heart-level issue and so God actually has to change our hearts for that to work out, for us to grow in that. So what we're actually going to look at tonight is we're finishing up the series and we're just going to spend some time talking about Jesus. And we're going to do it by looking at some lies that our idols tell us. Jeremiah 17.9, we read this the other day, but I think it bears repeating. It says this, this is prophet Jeremiah talking, he says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?
So the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. This makes like most animated movies really scary. Because there's always like a cricket or a bird or something that shows up and it's like, follow your heart wherever it will lead you. Like whenever you see that, stand up and yell, don't do it kid! It's a trick! Your heart is going to destroy you.
It's a bad idea. Don't listen to the cricket. Do that next time. It will be very helpful. But that's the truth, that our hearts are desperately sick.
No one has lied to you more than you have. No one has more often worked to deceive you more than you have. No one has stolen more joy from you than you have. It's just no one has. I remember the first time I heard that, someone was like, unpacking that idea. And they were like, no one has lied to you more than you have.
And I was like, that's not true. Wait a second. That's exactly what I would say to me if I did lie to me. This is getting really fishy. But it's true.
And so what we're going to spend some time is looking at the fact that our hearts and our idols lie to us. And we actually have to, we're going to just spend some time unpacking that and replacing those lies with what Jesus actually accomplishes for us. And so we said early on that most of the time our idolatry is not just something bad. That most of the time it's actually a good thing. It's a gift that God gave us to enjoy and to appreciate and to take part in that we've turned into something ultimate. So it's marriage, it's relationships, it's success, it's approval, it's comfort.
All these things given to us by a good God who wants us to enjoy life. And then we make it as ultimate. We begin to define our life around it. And then it becomes a very big problem. I remember when I was, I don't know, I was a little kid. But this story is not about me.
It's about my younger brother. So he's a couple years younger than me. He was like four or five. So that makes me seven or eight or something. We went to the Universal Studios and they had the Jaws ride. I don't know if they still do, but that ride was great.
And my younger brother, really, four or five, I don't think he was even, like, hadn't even made it to kindergarten yet. And one of his favorite movies was Jaws. That cat watched Jaws, Aliens, and Terminator on repeat. Like when I was growing up watching like Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Aladdin, this cat was watching Jaws. You can question my parents' parenting ability later. If you would like.
But he was like five. And so we're at Universal and they're like, we're going to do this Jaws ride. And he was amped because he loved the movie Jaws. So he gets on the ride and you're in water and you're going along and he's just eating it up. And then over the radio, the person's like talking to somebody, you know, in an earlier vessel. And they're like, we've got problems here.
There's a giant shark. And you hear like water gurgling into the mic. And my little brother was like, he's seen the movies. He knows what's going to happen. He looks at my mom and he's like, this is not okay. And my mom's like, no, it's fine, it's fine.
He goes, it is not fine. He said, I heard him go glo-go-go-go-go-go. Which meant, you know, they drowned. So we're going along. She's telling me, it's okay, it's okay. And then he just sat in the absolute perfect spot.
And I think it's because we have a good God who wants to give us good gifts. And he was being gracious to the rest of my family and everyone else on the boat. Not so much to Vince. So Vince is sitting and the animatronic Jaws pops out of the water and bites the side of the boat right where he is. He stands up in his seat and goes, we're all going to die. He is just streaming down his face.
He has lost it. He hasn't fully grasped the idea of what a ride was at this point. I guess he was questioning my parents' idea of, we're actually going to go see this Shark Jaws and this will be fun. Like, what on earth is wrong with these people? My mom was able to calm him down. And then after the ride, I mean, still, they had to explain to him, this is just a ride, this is how this works.
Once it clicked, once he got what it was intended for, it was his favorite ride. He ended up riding it like three or four times. And he loved it. But he was believing something that was wrong about it, which just ultimately ruined the ride for him. Once he realized how it was intended to be used, how it was intended to be operated, then it was actually something he could enjoy. Anyway, that's what we're doing tonight.
We've been believing incorrect things about our idols. They've been lying to us and we've been believing it. And we're going to replace that with the truth that is ours in Christ. And once Jesus is in the right place, everything else just gets to be what it is. So money can just be money if Jesus is God.
Your marriage can just be your marriage if Jesus is God. Then we actually can take all the good things that we've been treating as ultimate things and it's been destroying us. We can put them in their rightful place and actually enjoy them as Jesus trains us in how to do that. And so all we're doing is taking some lies, replacing them with truth so that we can operate and follow Jesus the way we were designed to. So here are the two lies we're going to walk through and then we'll jump into the first one.
So idolatry is a heart issue. It's us taking and chasing after something that we think is going to do these two things. This is the primary lies that our idols tell us. I can give you worth. I can give you life. So whatever it is that we're chasing after that we've put in the place of God, those are the two things that our idols and our hearts lie to us and tell us.
I can give you worth. I can give you life. First lie, I can give you worth. So we use our idols to justify our existence. They tell us that they can give us worth and value in the world. Basically, our idols come to us and say, I can make it okay for you to live on an overpopulated planet and suck up air.
I can make it okay. I can make it to where each day you have a reason to wake up, you have a reason to walk in life, and when you die, you weren't a waste of space. That's what our idols tell us. So whatever it is we're pursuing, and this is why you'll see men a lot of times will work and work and work and work and work and retire and die. Because what they had been using to define that the reason they had value in the world no longer existed for them. Because they had believed that work gave them worth, and when they weren't working anymore, they didn't really have a reason to wake up in the morning.
Because our idols tell us that they can give us worth. They tell us they can justify our existence. The movie Rocky, which is a great movie, and it's old. It's like, I don't know, it's old. But it's a very good movie.
It's one of the two good movies that Sylvester Stallone ever did. So there's the first Rocky, and then there's, Rocky II is okay. And then there's Rambo First Blood. And the greatest arm wrestling movie of all time, Over the Top. But that's a really narrow category.
So it wins that category, but I'm pretty sure it's the only one. Because everyone else is like, no, we're not making a movie about arm wrestling. Anyway, I get distracted. In Rocky, he's going to fight Apollo Creed, and he tells Adrian, who's his girlfriend, he says, I don't even want to win. I just want to go the distance. I don't even have to win.
I just want to go the distance, because then I'll know I'm not just some street bum. All of us have something that we're looking at and saying, if I can just do that, then I'll know I'm not a bum. If I can just have that, if I can just accomplish this, if this would just work out, then I'll know I'm not a bum. Then I'll know I haven't failed. Then I'll know I haven't fallen short.
Then I'll know I've had worth. I'll know I'm not a bum. That's what our idols are telling us, that they can give us worth, that they can justify our existence. But they can't. They ultimately let us down. They ultimately fail us.
That's what we spent the past four weeks talking about. That when we achieve them, we feel the need to achieve something else, to chase after something else. I remember in high school I played football. The best thing you can do in high school football is win state. I remember telling my mom when I was a freshman in high school, I think our team will be good enough by the time we're seniors to win state. She was like, okay.
I remember when they were doing class rings my sophomore year. I was like, nah, that's okay. I'll just get a state ring and wear that. My mom was like, you may not win state. Do you want a class ring? And I was like, no, I don't.
We won state my senior year. And that was cool. I did not wear that ring to college or my Letterman jacket because I appreciate not being made fun of. I didn't cease to exist after winning state in high school. It was nice. It was fun.
It was cool. Everything that we look at and say, this will prove my existence. This will give me value. This will show that we get it. And then it's like, ah, I probably should pick something bigger next time so it takes a little longer to get there. I probably should have something else that I find value and worth in so that I can pretend longer that this will fulfill me.
2 Corinthians chapter 5. I have some good news for us. Verse 21, one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. 5.21. For our sake, he made him. So he, the first he is God, made him.
The second, the him is Jesus. So for our sake, God made Jesus to be sin. We're going to come back to that. Who knew no sin. So sinless Jesus became sin on our behalf.
So that in him, in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Our idols promise us that they can justify our existence and they cannot. The word justify when the Bible uses it is talking about a legal transaction. So it's as if you were acquitted in court.
So that you were tried and you were declared not guilty. They can never try you on that again. So when the Bible speaks of justification, what it's saying is that we've been acquitted in God's court. But not only that, the great exchange has happened. Where Jesus actually became our sin. So that in him, we could become God's righteousness.
Did y'all bring your idol with you? I got mine with me. I carry it around with me all the time. I just happen to have a representation of it this week. Y'all catch that? Okay.
Jesus became everything I wrote on this. So last week, we took the time to sit down and write out what it is that we think will give us value. That we think will give us life. That we think will bring ultimate joy and fulfillment. And Jesus became it. He became everything you wrote down on that disc.
Everything that he's begun to reveal to you over these past few weeks. He became it. He became our posturing for power. He became our lying for approval. He became our incessant need to have others validate us. He became the darkest, most broken parts of our souls.
He became sin. And he was crushed for it. So that in him, we can become the righteousness of God. We stand in God's court and he declares over us the same thing that he would declare over Jesus. That we're approved. That we're valued.
That we're loved. God is not indifferent towards Jesus. He prefers him. He loves him. He lavishes on him. And we are in Christ.
We are the righteousness of God for those of us who have placed faith in Christ. And God prefers us. And he loves us. And he lavishes on us because of Jesus. Once you go to the Supreme Court in the U.S., you don't go anywhere else. Once the Supreme Court's made a decision on something.
They don't appeal down to a lesser court. When the God of the universe speaks that we're the righteousness of God because of Christ, we don't appeal down to a lesser court. We don't say, yeah, but popular opinion at work. Like, that's an appeals process, God. And I've got to run this by my wife. That's not how that works.
We are the righteousness of God because of Christ. I don't even fully know what that means, but I know it's great. That means that we don't need the approval of people because the God of the universe approves of us because we're in Christ. The most powerful being in the universe lavishes on us, cares for us, loves us, so we don't need to seek to have power on earth. The God of all comfort declares that we are in him forever, that we have always been made right, so we don't have to spend our days chasing after some piddly form of comfort that is soon fleeting. The God who orders the universe has already secured the end for us.
Our need to pretend like we have control fades away. Jesus gives us worth. Our idols do not. Jesus gives us never-ending, everlasting worth, and our idols cannot. The second law. I can give you life.
So the first one is that they can justify our existence. They can give us a reason to live. They can prove that we're worth being around. And the second one is that they can give us fulfillment and validation and satisfaction and joy. They can give us life. And it's really kind of squishy.
But we think this. Life was the best term I could come up with to describe what it is our idols are telling us. Because it's not like I can give you the ability to suck oxygen into your lungs and to keep your heart beating. That's not what your idol tells you. But it's this.
Okay, so you were in elementary school. And you were like, ah, elementary school is okay. But middle school is where it's at. And then you got to middle school and you were like, I was really dumb in elementary school. Because middle school is the worst. This is horrible.
Like that's the closest to purgatory I think I've ever been. Middle school. So you're in middle school and you're like, this is the worst. High school. High school is where it's at. When I get to high school, I'll have life.
That's where joy will be found. High school people, that's it. High school is the promised land. You get to high school and you're like, I'm going to need a driver's license for this to work out right. Like, high school is good, but driver's license. What if I have a driver's license?
I get that taste of freedom. Then I'll be okay. And then you get your driver's license. And after a while, you're like, ah, I just want to get out of high school. I just want to be done with this place. I want to have some freedom.
I want to be away from my parents or whatever. And then you start saying, if I could just go to this school or if I could just get this job. And then it's, if I could just get this promotion or if I could just graduate with this degree or if I could just get married. And if we could, oh, if we could just get married. If we could just have children, you have children. Maybe we should have gotten a dog.
Like, it's always around the corner that we keep telling ourselves that's where life will be. Because you're doing that now. We're all looking and saying, ah, if we could just, hmm, get into that type of house. If we could just get to where we didn't have to worry about our bills. If we could just get to this next stage. Always around the corner we're saying, life will be here.
Life will be here. Life will be here. And the reason that we do that is because we haven't found it yet. None of us have reached the point where we are like, that's it. Even when we get a taste of it, it's soon fading and we realize we need something else. Colossians 3.
Just a few flips to the right. Verse 1. If then you have been raised with Christ. So this is those who are in Christ. Those who are believers that place their faith in Christ. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is.
Some versions say set your heart on. So if then you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on the things that are above. See, our idols are where we set our hearts. And the reason we know that is because when they're up, we're up. And when they're down, we're down. So if it's relationships, I'm in a relationship.
I'm good. All of life is good. This relationship isn't good. Or I'm out of a relationship. I'm bad. All of life is bad.
My worth comes from having finances, having money. That's why when the stock market crashed. When all of that happened with the housing market and with Madoff. There were so many CEOs that hanged themselves or jumped out of windows. Because where their heart was set had just dropped off. And where they had their life centered was gone.
And so whatever it is that we're riding the wave of and then crashing back down with, it's where our hearts are set. But it says to set our hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth. So this is basically what we were talking about where God says, you cannot make an idol out of anything that has been created. Which leaves us one option. God can be our God.
Because he's the only thing that's not created. So that's what that's saying. Don't set your mind on anything that's on earth. Don't chase after anything that's been created. Set it on Christ. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. For you have died. We have died to our old selves with Christ, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will appear with him in glory. Our lives are not going to be found for those of us who are in Christ anywhere other than him. They're not just around the corner.
They're not going to be found in the next promotion. They're not going to be found in the next relationship. They're not going to be found if we can just make this work, this scenario play out. They aren't anywhere but in Christ. That's amazing. That our lives are in him.
We don't have to search for them. We don't have to chase for them. We don't have to try to find them. He has it. Our life is hidden with Christ. I heard a pastor talking one time, and he was working with a lady who had some serious relationship idolatry.
That she consistently was seeking approval from men. And the only way she kind of knew that her life was okay was when she had a man. That they validated her. So she was talking with a counselor, and the counselor told her, it was a lady. The counselor told her, you need to get off of this man habit you're on. And you need to get a job.
You need to get your own career. You need to pursue that. And then you'll be self-sufficient, and you won't need a man all the time. You'll have your own thing going. And this pastor said he was talking to her, and he's like, well, what did you think of that advice? And the lady said, I agreed that I didn't need to have a man for approval.
But I did not want to just swap out a typical female idol, relationships, for a typical male idol, career. She was like, I didn't think that was a good trait, to just swap idols. And he said, okay, well, what has helped you in this? What has grown you in this? And she said Colossians 3. She said, I memorized Colossians 3, and every time I enter into a conversation, start getting to know a man, I say to myself, my life is hidden with Christ in God.
My life is not hidden in you. So she'd say, I'd start a relationship. I'd be like, you might be a great man. You might even one day be my husband, and you may be a great husband and a great father. But my life is not hidden in you.
I don't need you to complete my life. And that is true for us in Christ, and that is great news. That our next job promotion, our next career, our next good grade, our ability to graduate, our ability to get this situation to work out, our ability to enter into a relationship, our ability to have our children grow up and be happy and healthy and fine, our life is not hidden there. It's in Christ. So practically, do you know how free this makes us as Christians?
Do you know how good that news is? That nothing outside of Jesus is going to bring us worth. And because our worth is centered in Jesus, nothing outside of Jesus can take it from us. And nothing outside of Jesus is going to give us life, and because our life is centered in Jesus, nothing can take it from us. I was recently reading Justin Martyr, where we get the term martyred from. He was writing a letter to the Roman government to tell them basically they shouldn't kill Christians because Christians were great.
That was basically his argument. He was like, look, Jesus told us to pay taxes and to not cause problems. You want all your citizens to be Christians. Killing us is dumb. His letter didn't go so well because we got the term martyr from his name, just for the record. He said, spoiler alert, I don't think it was well received.
But in that letter, he said this. He said, I want to make something clear to you. You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us. That's the freedom that we have in Christ. I can lose my job. That doesn't harm me because my worth and my life don't come from it.
I probably should get another Job because paying bills is nice and eating is fun. But my life and my worth don't come from it. This relationship that I'm in with Anna, my marriage, is great. And it can be going really well, and it can be going really poorly, and it doesn't destroy me. She's my wife. She's a sinner I'm married to.
I'm a sinner she's married to. I got the better end of that deal, for the record. And we just get to walk through life together. Because worth and value in life don't come from it. So we actually just get to be teammates who walk through life together.
You can graduate or not graduate. You can be in a relationship or not in a relationship. Your kids can turn out wonderfully or be the worst children the world has ever seen. And your worth and your life are always forever sealed in Christ. Now that's freedom.
People can like you or not like you. Life and worth are in Christ. So what this means for us is that as we wrote down our idols, and as the Holy Spirit in His grace began to reveal to us where we had inordinate love, where we had begun to worship something more than God, what we get to do is approach Jesus in faith. That He is capable. That He has accomplished what He says He'll accomplish. That He has taken our sin and given us His righteousness by His grace and His grace alone.
And that we have died with Him when He was brutally murdered on a cross. That our sin was nailed to it with Him. And that we died. And our life is hidden in Him. When He rose again, we rose again. And one day when He cracks the sky open, we'll appear with Him in glory.
When He does that, when we see the Creator of the universe snatch heaven open to reclaim His children, it says our life will appear with Him. We'll finally say, there's my life. There's that quiet nagging I've had my entire life. That's where it's hidden. It's hidden with Christ in God. And we'll be forever with Him.
Forever free. Forever loved and approved and comforted and given grace. Because He is good. And only He is good. And we are not. So we get to approach Jesus in faith and faith alone.
We don't have to be good at getting rid of the things we wrote down on these discs. We don't have to be good at crushing all the things that God began to reveal to us that we pursue. Because Jesus is great at it. Now that's good news. My value and my worth and my life are found in Jesus forever. And I get to approach Him in faith that He is big enough and He is capable of destroying all the would-be gods that would take His place.
So the band's going to come back up. And we're going to do things a little bit differently tonight. We're going to sing one song. I'm going to come back up and talk to us just for a few more minutes to kind of give us some instruction about how we're going to end this. Now we are a church family.
We exist as God's church. This isn't a show. So we respond. And so we sing one song on the front end and we're going to celebrate and sing a lot on the back end. We're going to take some time to respond to who Jesus is and what He's done. So we're going to sing one song.
I'm going to come back up and talk to us a little bit. But we get to approach God in faith. We get to come to Jesus knowing that these things have a hold of our hearts, but that He is the one who can grab our hearts and make it His through His grace and not anything that we do, no work that we bring to the table, no awesomeness that we have. We come empty handed to a God of grace who rescues and lavishes and loves and redeems. I'm going to pray and we're going to sing. Jesus, we thank You that in You, because You were willing to become our sin, because You were willing to take our wrath, we have become the righteousness of God.
That our worth and our value is forever sealed in You. And Jesus, we praise You and thank You that our life is in You and You alone, and that we will forever, never be able to find it on earth. That in all the things we seek, it will come up wanting because it is in You. So God, I pray right now that You would stir our hearts to love You more, that Your Holy Spirit would draw us to Yourself. And for those of us who are walking through life, seeking our worth and our life somewhere other than You, that You would capture us and make us Yours in Jesus' name. Grace is open freely for everyone.
Life is only in Jesus. The worth and the validation and the life that we're seeking, that we're constantly chasing after, all the things that our idols represent are given to us fully, and freely and forever in Jesus. And we get to approach Him in faith. Not our own ability, not our own ability to run from our idols, not our own ability to fix our heart, but faith that He is gracious and that He is capable. And that He is good. That on the cross, when He died in our place, when He took our sin, He proved once and for all that He is good, and that He is for our good.
And we get to approach Him in grace. So what we're going to do, because He is gracious, because we get to approach Him in faith and faith alone, we're going to sing a few more songs, and we're going to spend some time just talking to Jesus, praising Jesus for who He is, and you get to, if you would like, if you want to approach Jesus in faith, we've got a trash can set up over here and a trash can set up over here, and you can go throw your idol away. Not because you are able to get rid of it, but because Jesus is. All you have to do is want to get rid of it. All you have to do is surrender to the fact that He is capable of destroying all would-be gods.
You don't have to be good at it. You don't have to even get to the point where your heart isn't still going to chase after it some, but you're going to go say to Jesus, I don't want to chase after this. I don't want to seek my worth and validation from this. I don't want to try to find life in this. Life and worth and value are in you and you alone forever. And I want you as God, who are capable to step in on my behalf, just as you did in the cross, where you stepped in on my behalf to rescue and redeem.
I want you to step in and rescue and redeem. I heard this the other day, you're never too weak for a redeemer. You're never too small to come to someone who can rescue and redeem. And so we just approach Jesus in faith. Faith that He's capable. So we're going to sing a few more songs.
We're going to celebrate that Jesus is God, that He is good, that He is capable, that He does destroy idols. And we're going to approach Jesus in faith that He can. It may be a daily process of you continuing to approach Jesus in faith to get rid of your idols. But He's capable and He's faithful.
Deep Idols
Transcript
We'll be in Ezekiel chapter 14. We are in the fourth week of our series looking at and studying idolatry and kind of what the Bible has to say about that and how that plays out in our lives. Ezekiel is kind of in the middle. Maybe to the right, page 454 if you've got one of our Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you, we actually just hold your hand up. We'll grab one for you.
Aubrey will hand you one real quick. So if anybody need one, we've got some right back there. Okay, so we're in the fourth week. We've been doing this for three weeks now. How are we doing? We've been talking for the past four weeks about idolatry, kind of looking at what Scripture says about idolatry.
Are we beginning to see that in our own lives? Are we changing? Are we walking that out with community? Are we just hearing things, learning things, and not allowing it to affect us? So we got together on our first week of this series, and we talked through that God is the only God, and that we actually would want Him to be God, that it's actually best for us if He is God.
The next week we talked about how we'll take good things and turn them into God things, and then that becomes a very bad thing when we actually put that weight on something that is not God and how we'll take things that He gave us to enjoy, meant to be enjoyed, and we'll treat them as if they are God. We spent last week talking about broken cisterns. Basically what happens when we do that, how we have to work really hard to prop up our made-up God, and then ultimately we either crush it or it destroys us, and that God is the fountain of living water that brings us life. So my question is, are we seeing areas in our lives that we've placed too much weight on, that we've begun to take something good and care too much about it?
Are we looking at, are we walking that out in community? Are we doing that, or are we just hearing things, learning things, talking about things? So hopefully we are in relationships kind of walking this out and growing in the gospel. That would be the hope. That's why we do this. That's why we walk things out in church families.
So what we've been addressing, though, is that idolatry is the worship of anything other than God. So we've talked about how we often think of sin as breaking God's rules, but that we don't first break rules until we have first decided to worship something, to give more importance, more value to something other than God. So when we talk about Adam and Eve in the garden, God created them in a perfect relationship with himself. They kept it together for really like half a chapter because part of that they weren't even made yet. So it kind of tells the story twice.
So maybe if you add up both half chapters, they got a whole chapter of the Bible where humans had it together. So just so you know, if your life looks like that, lots and lots of chapters. If you're messing it up and half a chapter of it is good, that's how humans look in the Bible. So you're on pace with the rest of us. But they ate from the tree they were not supposed to eat from.
And so they certainly broke a rule. But first, their value system changed. Prior to breaking the rule that God had given them, they first decided that they wanted to elevate themselves, that they were more important. And so they swapped God out for themselves, and then they broke a rule. And so that's what we've been talking about. The sin is not primarily us breaking rules.
That when you look at the Ten Commandments, we don't break any of the other ones until we've broken the first one, which says, you will have no other gods before me. So that's what we've been talking about. What we're going to talk about tonight is heart-level idolatry. And that's what we're going to be looking at in Ezekiel. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop in.
God, we thank you for your grace. We ask you to show up in a very real way tonight. We love you, and you are good. Speak to us through your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Some of what we're going to be talking about tonight, I think, has previously been said better, or as my English 4 teacher would say in high school, more better.
She told us one time, y'all got to start doing more better on these tests. And I was like, I don't think we've got much of a chance. But there's a guy named Tim Keller that we've stolen some of these ideas from. He unpacks idolatry very well as it applies to us in American culture. And so I would recommend the book Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller. If you're interested, if you've been kind of growing and understanding this, idolatry as we walk through it, Tim Keller says things really well.
Some of what we'll talk about tonight is stuff that, like I said, I think Tim Keller has said previously, more articulately and smarter-y. That's one thing Presbyterians have going for them. They're usually pretty smart. They have a lot they have to go through to be a Presbyterian minister. Other denominations and that sort of thing, they're like, can you read? Kind of.
All right, go at it, boy. You want to yell at people about Jesus? Yes. All right, you're in. So Ezekiel chapter 14, verse 1.
Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. Okay, so Ezekiel is a prophet. He's writing this down. This is stuff that happened. So when he says they came before me, that's Ezekiel.
He's a prophet. They are in Babylon at this time. So they are in the Babylonian captivity, which means that they had been in Israel and the Babylonians had come down and snatched up a bunch of them, the king and other high-ranking people, and took them back to Babylon. And the reason that happened was because in the Old Testament, God set up the nation of Israel as his people, and as long as they were worshiping him as God, he defended them. He protected them. And so people would show up and be like, we're going to conquer you.
And they'd be like, no, because you don't know who God is, and that's going to go really poorly for you, so you might want to go home. And they would be like, yeah, right, and then God would just crush people. And then whenever they would begin to make alliances with other countries, begin to trust more in Egypt than in God, begin to trust more in other gods than in God, God would basically just say, okay, sure, if you want to pray to gods that don't exist, pray to them when people show up to capture you. And so God would lead the Israelites into captivity basically to train them, basically to show them that the gods they were trusting in, the alliances they were making, the things they were letting their heart chase after were really bad for them.
And ultimately weren't going to bring them joy and satisfaction, so he would allow them to go into captivity so that he could bring them back to himself. He actually may be doing that with some of us right now. In his grace, he may be identifying in our hearts areas of idolatry and sin that we've begun to place too much importance on something that is not him and that ultimately will not satisfy, and it's actually very loving and good for him to do that. It's the worst. Don't get me wrong. It's horrible and not enjoyable at all, but it's very, very good for us.
He's been doing that with me. It's not fun going behind the woodshed of grace, but it's very, very good for us. And so as he identifies idolatry and areas in our heart that we kind of get off, that we begin to drift, it's actually him being good to us. And that's kind of the situation they're in right now. So it says, Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me.
Elders of Israel would have been the chief leaders of the Israelite people in Babylon at this point. So chief leaders come and sit before Ezekiel, came and sat before me, and the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Stop right there. All right.
Leaders of Israel come and sit before God, come and sit before Ezekiel to have Ezekiel ask God something for him. Basically like, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to lead? What do we need to do? And what God says is, their idols are not visible. They've set them up in their hearts.
So these were Israelite leaders. They were not bowing down to other gods. They were not worshiping and chasing after other gods. If they were, it would have been obvious. When they showed up, Ezekiel would have just been like, hey, why don't y'all get rid of the idols you have in your house? Why don't you get rid of the totem poles and the asherahs?
And why don't you get rid of your Baal idol worshiping things? But they don't. They show up, seem like they've got it all together, and God says, their idols have been set up in their hearts. That's very scary for us. What that means is, that we can be walking through life, functionally looking like Jesus is our God, functionally being a part of church family, functionally looking like God is our God, but actually, at a heart level, be in love with and chasing after and worshiping something else. And so he says, the idols that they have have been set up in their hearts.
Therefore, speak to them, verse 4, Therefore, speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Anyone of the house of Israel, who takes his idols into his heart, and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him, as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, Repent, and turn away from your idols. Repent means confess and change. It means actually turn away from.
So don't just say, Oh, this is an idol I have in my life, but actually turn away from it. Repent, and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations, for any one of the house of Israel, or the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart, and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I, the Lord, will answer him myself. What he says is, they come to talk to you, I'm going to talk to them. I'm not going to speak to you and let you talk to them.
I'm going to speak to each one of them individually, as it comes to the idols that they've set up in their heart. What we're going to do, is we're going to pray, and ask this same God, to do the same thing for us tonight. He promised to do it for the people of Israel, we're going to ask him to do it for us tonight. So, all of us in here who are believers, I would like for you, because it is his grace and his goodness towards us, to show this to us, I would like for you to ask God to show you areas in your heart, that you've begun to place too much weight, too much value, that you've begun to put some hope in, put some worth in, get validation from, that is inordinate and not appropriate, areas that you've taken idols into your heart.
So, I want you to ask him, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal that to us. If you're in here tonight, and you're not a believer, and you're just hanging out, and checking out this whole Jesus thing, I would ask you to do the same thing, to ask God to reveal to you, where there may be areas in your life, that you're pursuing something, that's not going to satisfy you, because he says that he's going to do this, so that he may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel. That's what we want. And if you're in here tonight, and you don't know Jesus, ask him to do that. Here's the thing, this is the trade off, if you don't know Jesus.
If he's real, it's on him to show that to you. Like, if Shakespeare is going to meet Romeo, Shakespeare's got to do that. Okay? Think about it a little while, that makes sense. Okay? So, that's on God to reveal himself.
So, if he's real, then cool, you're talking to the creator of the universe, and it's actually very good for you to meet him, because if he's real, this is true, and you need to know it. If he's not real, you just fired off some chemicals in your brain, for no reason whatsoever, and that's not a huge waste. So, think some thoughts. If he's not real, no harm, no foul, if he is real, you might actually get to encounter the living God, and that would be really cool. So, everybody though, we're going to pray this together, that God would reveal this to us, that he would speak to us. So, I'm going to pray, but let's, we'll be quiet for a second, y'all can pray, and then I'll pray.
God, you promised your people many years ago, that you would reveal their idols to them, and we as your church, ask you to do the same for us. That you show us in areas in our hearts, where we've begun to seek validation, where we've begun to console ourselves, where we've begun to seek worth, and God, we ask that through your Holy Spirit, you would lay hold of our hearts, that they might be solely yours, because in that, there's freedom, and there's life, and there's joy. So, speak directly to us tonight. God, I pray that there's some people in here, who don't hear a word of anything else I say, because you are dealing with them.
That's far better. And we love you in Jesus' name, and ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so, what God is saying here, is that we can functionally, at a heart level, have something that we pursue, and it alters, how we walk through life. So that these men, looked like they had everything together, but they had, at a heart level, at a deep level, idolatry, set up.
What that means for us, is that, idolatry is always, the sin beneath the sin. So that it's always, idolatry, prior to us, sinning in any other way. So when we think about, our sin, a lot of times, it's not, that we have a problem with lying, or that we have an issue with money, or that we have an issue with, with relationships. It's actually something deeper, something at a heart level, that's driving that. So that a lot of times, money and relationships, and all of the manipulation, and stuff that we do, is actually the object, not the operator.
The operator is what's driving, that. So that's what we're trying, to unpack tonight, and I'm going to try, to give us some different ways, to think about that, so that we can begin, to see that in ourselves. The other thing, that that means, is that if it's at a heart level, that means that, behavioral change, will not solve the issue. It means that, adjusting how you look, how you act, how you behave, is not going to fix the problem, if it's a heart level issue. I'll give you an example, of how this plays out, and how this can be the operator, not the object. Matt and I, have been friends for a long time, we roomed together in college, which some of that was cool, and some of that was not.
I like my roommate better now, her name is Anna, she's way better, of a roommate. I think Matt, likes his roommate better now, as well. But we roomed together in college, we got to know each other, and then there was a while, where we weren't around each other, and then we moved back down, and moved to this area about, I don't know, a year and a half, two years ago, something like that, and started working on, on being a part of this church plant together, and what's cool is, we've gotten to kind of, be friends again, in a different way, and you get, you get around each other, you work for a while together, and you start realizing, man, you're kind of messed up. Like that's kind of what you realize, the more you're around people.
That's actually why we, walk out, church family, in community groups, because the truth is, you can't help somebody, walk closer to Jesus, unless you're around them. You just can't do it. Like how am I going to know, whether you're pursuing Jesus, if I'm never around you, and your spouse? How am I going to know, if you're pursuing Jesus, if I never see you, with your roommates? If I never see how you handle stress? I mean how am I going to know?
I'm going to tell you something. I can fake being really, really good for an hour on Sunday. That's easy. But you hang out with me, for a long period of time, you're going to realize, man this guy is sinful, and he needs Jesus. And that's why we walk out, community, in life, in normal everyday life, doing normal everyday things together, as Jesus' people. But as Matt and I have gotten to do that, what we realize is that we both lie, periodically, and we shouldn't, but we do.
And it happens in quick, kind of circumstances. And so what will happen is, let me tell you how, this is how Matt lies. I was talking to him about it the other day. I'm going to confess his sin first, and then we'll focus more on me. Matt will do this. Matt loves being early to places.
It's his favorite. It's the worst, but he loves it. So he loves being really early to places. It makes him way more comfortable, in just life in general. He wants to be early, kind of allows him to, take a deep breath, know everything's going to be okay. I do not operate that way, but we go to the same places a lot, to meet with people, and do different things.
And so it doesn't make any sense, for both of us to drive our trucks, which get like, 12 miles to the gallon, or something. And so we end up riding together a lot, and so what Matt will do, is he tricks me, and I just recently discovered, this took like a year and a half, so you can see how quick I am on things. What he does is this, he wants to be there like an hour and a half early, but he knows there's no way, I'm going to sit in a parking lot with him, for an hour and a half, before we have to meet with somebody. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's early guys, so he really wants to leave way early, to like change two tires on the way, I don't know what he's wanting to do.
So what he'll do, is he will tell me about 15 minutes earlier, than he knows I am willing, like would want to be. So like if we wanted to leave at 3, he'll tell me 2.45, if I wanted to leave at 3, because he actually wants to leave at like 2.30. And then what he does, is he shows up early to leave. He knows the entire time, that he's going to show up 10 minutes early, to my house to pick me up. And he's like, I'm just early, oops. So he'll tell me he's going to be somewhere, sometime, and it's intentionally 15 minutes later, then he knows he's coming.
And I recently was like, man, you're kind of lying to me, aren't you? And he's like, yeah, that's not right. He didn't realize he was doing it. And then I, he's called me out on this, I didn't realize I would do this, but I forget things, all the time. I'm the worst at it. So what I do, is somebody asks me, hey man, did you do that?
Or Matt will ask me, hey, did you do this? Because Matt remembers everything. Hey man, have you gotten this done yet? And I'll go, oh, I'm going to do that tomorrow. All that means is, I have completely forgotten about this. And if I remember, I'll do that tomorrow.
So I just act like I scheduled it for the next day. Oh yeah, I was going to get up early and do that tomorrow. Now I'm going to have to get up earlier than I had planned, because I've got to do that tomorrow. That's how that works. So what I should say is, I completely forgot, and I will now get that done.
But I don't want to say that, because the truth is, I want people to think I'm awesome. That's really one of my major goals in life. See, Matt and I are both lying, but we're lying for completely different reasons. Matt is just pursuing some comfort, some level of ease in life. And so, since I would never do that, I feel really superior to him when he does that. I'm like, how on earth could you lie like that?
What a jerk. And then when I lie, Matt remembers everything, so he feels superior to me in two ways. One, he would remember, and second of all, he wouldn't lie about it. And so he gets to feel really superior too, but the truth is, we're just lying for different reasons, and we're defending different things. I just want people to think I have my stuff together. I just want people to think I'm awesome.
I could care less whether they like me. So somebody's like, man, that guy's a total jerk. Well, whatever. That guy's really stupid. What? No, I'm not.
I'm smart. Like, I will defend you thinking I'm great. I don't care whether or not you actually like me. We are lying, and we can go after lying. We can go after the behavior, and we can say, we need to stop lying. We shouldn't lie.
But the truth is, until we change what's underneath that, we won't actually fix the problem. We won't actually root out what is there, because we have heart level issues, things that our actions are pursuing, that are a bigger deal. So what we're about to do, is we're going to walk through four, kind of broad, major categories, to just help us get a lens for this. To help us get a lens for, sin beneath the sin, what actually might be driving us, to get a look at the operator, not the object. Then I'll try to unpack it some, with some, we'll talk about money, and I'll give us some other examples, to kind of show how this plays out in life.
Here's what I want though. Don't argue with the categories, when we go through these four things. Don't get derailed, in trying to blend them together, or be like, I feel like these are the same, like just don't do that. The reason is, they're made up. So it's really not worth it.
Like I'm as willing to argue with you, about these categories, as I am about breeds of unicorns. I'm just not going to do it. Like you want to talk about, Irish stompers and palominos, because it's like, they don't exist. So you can argue all you want to about them. So this is just to give us a helpful lens.
Okay? So just track with me, walk with me through this. It's just to help us see this. So the first one we're going to talk about, is power. So if you had power, as you're operating idolatry, as something to sin beneath the sin, what that would mean, is you would say something, along the lines of, life has meaning and purpose, if I have success, if I have influence, if I win.
If I'm on top, that's how life has meaning and purpose. Your worst nightmare would be humiliation. Because your ultimate goal, is to have people think you're great. To be powerful in life, however you define that. And so, your worst nightmare would be, to have people look at you and think, man, this person doesn't have their life together. They are the worst at this.
They are terrible. They have blown this. They've failed. People around you feel used, because they're just objects, in your ability to have power. And your problem of motion is anger. I will also let you know, as we walk through this, just to be helpful to you, if it's not one you deal with, you will think, man, that's the worst.
Just so you know, you'll be like, oh my goodness, how could anybody be like that, until we get to the one that you deal with, and then you're like, well, that one seems reasonable. Just so you are aware, when I interact with some of the other ones, I'm like, that's really stupid for you to care about that. And then we get into my area, and I'm like, no, this is smart. This is what you should pursue. This is why everyone wants to win. So, okay, power, approval is the next one, just kind of a broad category, to help us have, life has meaning and purpose.
If I have affirmation, if I have relationships, if I feel loved. That's how I know that life is okay. Okay, worst nightmare is rejection. To have people not want you around, not care about you, to think very little of you. People around you feel smothered, because you need them to love you. And your problem with emotion is cowardice.
You would rather lie to someone's face, than hurt their feelings, and say some true things they probably need to hear. So, you will, people ask you questions, and you'll bend the truth, and you'll do some different things, because you really just don't ever want to get into a conflict. You'll let people walk all over you, when they shouldn't be, when it's actually appropriate for you to, to engage them in that. But, that's because you want their approval. Comfort. Life has meaning and purpose, if I have freedom, and privacy, and no stress.
Like, I just don't have to worry about things. So, your worst nightmare is stress and demands. Some of the other areas of idolatry, actually feed off of stress and demands, and appreciate it, and enjoy it. It destroys you. Stress stresses you out. It's like you get multiply, overly stressful, because something's stressing you.
People around you feel neglected, because you really just kind of want to be to yourself. So, you're not checking up on people, you don't care too much about how things are going on with them. The majority of the time, you're kind of withdrawn. And, your problem of emotion is apathy. It's just really hard to get you to care about things. The last one is control.
Life has meaning and purpose, if I have discipline, self-discipline, if I have certainty, and if I have standards, if I know how things are going to operate. Your worst nightmare is uncertainty. So, having a situation that's not going to work out, that's all you can think about. You don't know how this is going to end up, at the end of the month. You don't know how this is going to work out, at the end of the week. You don't know how this conversation is going to go.
You have no control over how you're going to pay this bill, and it drives you crazy. People around you can feel unloved, because you don't care so much about them, as much as you care about how they're fitting into your system. And your problem of emotion is worry. You just, you worry about a lot of things, because anything that brings uncertainty, brings worry. Okay, that's just to give us a lens. Let me, let me explain how that operates.
We would look at certain people in life, and we would say, man, they're idle. What they chase after, what they love, is money. They love money. Maybe. Most likely, they love what money gives them. And the reason I say that is, because if money was just green and folded, people wouldn't care about it.
It's actually what money does, that we appreciate. Nobody, gets amped up about monopoly money. None of you have a bank account, that just has monopoly money in it. None of you keep that at your house, hidden somewhere. Because monopoly money, doesn't do anything for you. The only time you care about monopoly money, is the seven hours you're playing that game.
I don't even know how you win monopoly. I always, it just ends when someone flips over the board, and yells at their grandmother. I'm pretty sure that's how monopoly ends. And then you're not allowed to play it again, for like three years or something. And it's a good three years spent. Like it was enjoyable, to not have to play that game again, for three years.
But nobody cares about monopoly money. If money was just green paper that folded, we wouldn't care about it. So what we would say is, man, this person's idol is money. But the truth is, it's probably more likely, one of those four things, or something else, that money gives them. Let me explain how this works. Since your operator may be power, or comfort, the object becomes money.
Because money is a really good way, to get your idol. So if, if power, we're going to go through all of them. So power is the one we started off with. If your idol is power, money, does that really well. It gives you influence. Political candidates listen to you.
You get to be in the important rooms, because you have wealth. It goes before you, as little soldiers, that conquer the world for you. There's actually a guy on Shark Tank, that says that, every one of his dollars, is a soldier, that goes out, and recruits more soldiers for him. But see, it is, it's just a great way, to get power. So it's not that you love money, it's that you love power, but money is a really good way, to get it.
To have influence, and to win. It's also a tangible reminder, of your winning. If you're in business, and you're making more money, you're winning. And that money, is the scoreboard for you. If it is approval, money is a great way, to get approval. You buy me a pizza, I approve of you.
That's how that works. You give me things, I like this guy. This guy, with the wallet, this is great. But it really is, it's a great way, to have friends, to be able to, to feel loved, by pouring that out, on other people. So, it's even, you know, the grandmother, who always gives the best gifts. That may be, because she's very generous, and she loves her grandkids.
It also may be, because it's a great way, to get approval from. To have them over, to have them be a part of things. Comfort, money, is a pad, to life. Comfort, you don't want stress, you don't want people bothering you. Buy a lot of land, and put a fence around it. It's great.
You want privacy? Privacy fence. It's wonderful. You can pay people, to stand there, and keep other people out, if you have enough money. But, for us, it's more like, buying a really nice couch, and getting to go on vacation. It just buys us comfort.
We don't have to worry, about stress and demands, if we have enough money. But ultimately, money is just serving, our need for comfort. And, the last one, control. There's not a whole lot, of uncertainty, if you have enough Numbers, in your bank account. What's going to happen next year? I don't know.
I got cash. What's going to happen, if you lose your job? Cash. How are you going to handle this, if your car breaks down? Cash monies. There's not a lot of uncertainty, and so, some people, they look like, they're really good with money.
Serving their God of control. You can actually have, a marriage relationship, where they argue, all the time about money, and the wife, let's say, is always, so you sit down with these people, and he's like, look, all she wants to do, is spend money. She wants to buy things for herself, she wants to go on vacation, she wants to eat out all the time, we never cook at home, she just, all the time. And it's wasteful, and it's ridiculous, and I need, we need to save money, and we need to have enough money, in our bank account. Truth is, that may be a wise decision, but he may be, being just as selfish, with every dollar, he puts in a bank account, because it's serving his idol, of control, as she is, every time she spends it, on her idol, of comfort or approval.
Now, biblically, does it make more sense, to save money, than to spend it on everything? Yes. But it may be, just as idolatrous. So, a lot of times, the object, the surface level thing, we can see, is just that. It's an object, but it's not the operator. It's not the heart level issue, we have.
So we can step in, and change the behavior, and never root out, the heart issue. Never have, our holy God, step in, and lay hold, of our heart. Which is what he says, he's going to do, in Ezekiel. So you can have someone, that has a power idolatry, and in high school, the best way to do that, is to play sports, and be really good at them. So in high school, pour themselves into sports.
Very good athlete. And you would look and say, oh, that is idol of sports. Then he gets to college, and he's not as good, an athlete in college. But he's really good, at chasing women. And that's a good way, to exert power. And so he quits, playing sports.
And he starts chasing women. And you say, hmm, his idol is women. It's just the best way, to chase after power. Then maybe he, enters into politics. He gets into, to realm of thought, and he ends up, chasing power that way. So he quits chasing women, because that will get you, in trouble in politics, for the most part.
And he starts, going into politics. At some point, this guy, chasing after his power idol, could enter into the church, and become a, quote unquote, Christian. And it'd actually, just be a really, really good way, to serve his power idolatry. Because Christians, are the only ones, who have truth. And now he's one of the, owners of truth. And in Bible studies, when you get around, in your community group, he's the guy, who has all the answers.
He's the one, who knows all the best theology. He's the one, who can shout anybody down, when it comes to, Bible vocabulary, and where to find things, the best. And the truth is, it's just because, it's a great way, to exert power. And he's never let Jesus, take hold of his heart. You could have a female, she's growing up through school, best way to get approval, make good grades, and obey her parents. Very obedient, very good student.
Gets to college, grades are still important, but man, getting guys to like you, is a great way, to get approval. So she starts having, she has to have a boyfriend, at all times. Because she has to have, someone there. Her parents are further away. She has to have someone there, who shows that she has worth. So that other people, can see that she has worth, because her value, comes from approval.
Then she eventually, gets married, and the best way, to get approval, is to be the best wife, and mother, and best soccer mom, and have the most, well kept house, and kids. And throughout life, things actually look, fairly normal for her. But the whole time, she's bending her life, and walking out her days, pursuing her idol, of approval. It's very important, that we dig down deep, and find our heart level issues, and allow Jesus, to replace them, and to take them away. So, let me explain, how we do this. How do we fix that?
If that's true, if we have heart level idolatry, if we can take idols, into our heart, how do we fix that? Okay, let's go back to lying. Let's go back to, mostly Matt, but sometimes me. when it comes to lying, I'm just kidding. What we could say is, so when I lie, I could say, I shouldn't lie. Bad Christian. Bad, bad pastor.
Like, you should not lie. Pastors shouldn't lie. I'm pretty sure, that's in the handbook, somewhere. And I'm not supposed, to do that. And what I could do, is say, what if someone found out? That's really horrible, for me to do.
What if someone found out? And all I'd be doing, is pressing on my own fear, and my own pride, to adjust my behavior. So fear is, what if someone found out? And pride is, I should be better than this. And so all I'm really doing, is increasing, idolatry in my heart, to adjust my behavior. And that actually, in the long run, is going to be a very big problem.
So all I'm doing is saying, prolonging, so I'm just, adding into my idolatry, which has to do with, power and approval. And I'm just prolonging that, and saying, on the long run, it's actually better not to lie, for your ultimate goal, of power and approval. So I'm building into fear and pride, to change my heart. This is actually how we train children a lot. You don't want to be like, those bad people do you? Pride.
You don't want to go to jail, like they do. Fear. And all we're doing, is increasing idolatry, in their heart, which eventually, will be a very big problem. Because we're taking the operator, to adjust the object, we're increasing this. And that's an issue for us. That's how that plays out.
Y'all remember, a couple years ago, when, Siegfried and Roy, one of them, we'll just say Siegfried, because his name's more fun to say. Which, Roy, that's great, that that matches with Siegfried. That's just, that's a great coupling of names there. Siegfried, and Roy. One of them got attacked, by their tiger. Y'all remember this?
Their big, white tiger, or whatever. And they were all surprised. And it's like, bro, that's a tiger. That's what they do. That's like, he's never attacked me before. Well, he's a tiger.
Like, that doesn't, he's a trained tiger. Yeah, but he's still a tiger. And what happens for us, when we build into our idolatry, to adjust our behavior. Yeah, we're just a trained tiger. We're just training ourselves, training ourselves, to have a bigger issue later. Tigers are always going to be a problem, because they're tigers.
If you want to own a pet, own a pet you can take. That's pretty much how that works. Like, maybe you need a stick, but, have y'all heard the, I saw a thing, a dude called 911, a cat had pinned him into it. Have y'all heard this? Oh, it's the best. A cat had pinned him, and his whole family into it.
He called 911, and was like, we got a cat. He said, it's a big, Malaysian, or I don't know cat names. Himalayan. It's a big Himalayan cat. The lady on the phone was like, okay, and he said, it's a big cat. How big is it?
He's like, I don't know, like 22 pounds. She beeps over and goes, because she's a 911 operator, she gets a hold of the police officer, and she's like, guy, I want y'all to come help him with a cat. Is that a thing you do? Like, because I could just tell him to deal with it, if you want me to. And the cops are like, no, I will do that. They ended up sending an animal controller, whatever.
But, but, so if you, if whatever level you can take, you know, that's the level you need to own, just for the record. This is just a helpful tip. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about. If you can't take a 22 pound cat, don't own one. Get like a hamster. All right.
But what happens for us, when we build into ourselves, that's all we're doing, we're training a tiger. And that's why people will say, I can't believe I did that horrible, horrible thing. I wasn't raised like that. I know better than that. And it's like, yeah, but you've been just feeding the tiger, and then when something came along that seemed worth it, you went for it. Because all you've been doing is feeding into your heart, your heart level idolatry to adjust your behavior.
And let me tell you something, when it comes along, and suddenly your heart level idolatry sees something big enough, your behavior is going to change. Okay. So why do we lie? Why do we constantly seek approval? Why are we greedy? The truth is, our hearts are off.
As we've been walking through this series, and we begin to see areas in our lives that it's like, I've placed too much weight there, our hearts are off. We have heart level issues. We said early on that the biggest issue is not that we sin, or not that we break rules, but that we first chase after something other than God is God. When the Old Testament says, you will have no other gods before me, Martin Luther actually says that that's the same as when the New Testament says, you shall trust in Jesus through faith for salvation alone. Do the exact same thing, that your justification will come by faith in Jesus alone.
Justification just means how you have worth before God. Faith in Jesus alone, and you will have no other gods before me, are actually the same thing. When we sin, yes, it's idolatry, it's also a failure to trust in and believe in the gospel. For Christians, when we sin, we are actually functionally at that point failing to believe the gospel. So sin is, first and foremost, idolatry, and for Christians, it's a failure to believe the gospel.
What that means is, we have to replace our heart level issues with the truth of the gospel, and that actually changes us. We have to replace what is real for us because of Jesus, to change our heart level problems. So, what happens is, idols don't rarely just disappear on their own. They're always replaced by something. So someone who, as we walk through life, is really just lazy, may suddenly cease to be lazy if they start placing a lot of value on sports.
And they may quit placing a lot of value on sports if they place a lot of value on making money. But the idol is just being swapped out. It's never just gone. That's what we've talked about. You will have something that you worship as God. All it means is that something has taken ascendancy, has risen to a greater place in our hearts every time we change from one aisle to the other.
Thomas Chalmers, born in 1780, he's a Scottish calf. He says it this way, the heart's desire for an ultimate object, which just means something as supreme, something to be worshipped. The heart's desire for an ultimate object may be conquered, but its desire to have some object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is through the expulsive power of a new one. And as Christians, the expulsive power of the gospel is what rids us of all heart-level idolatry. When the gospel becomes so true to us, that we don't need any of these other things, when the fact that Jesus Christ, who was God, lived on earth a perfect life on our behalf, and died in our place, took the nails, the lashes, was hung from a cross, bled out the death that we deserved, so that we might be reconnected to God.
Jesus, when he's praying, calls God Father every single time, except for one time. When he's on the cross, he calls him God. Now the Bible doesn't say this, but it would seem that the relationship that Jesus had with God, as his Father, was broken, so that we might actually have one with the Father. That we might actually be adopted, because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. That when he rose again three days later, he rose on our behalf to give us life. New life, real life, not pursuing smaller things, not chasing after stuff that won't satisfy, but life in him, that ultimately fulfills and gives us everything.
Only when that becomes real to us, are we able to replace the idols that we've set up in our hearts. Only when Jesus regains and reclaims his throne, are we able to dethrone everything else. All the would-be gods that have shuffled in, and taken up a residency in our hearts. Only through Jesus. Always through Jesus. What cannot be dispossessed, what cannot be gotten rid of, may be dispossessed, if we are able to have a new affection, and so the truth is, we'll walk through life chasing after new affection, after new affection, after new affection, until the one thing, Jesus, the one true God, replaces it forever, and takes up home where he ought to be.
So here's what we're going to do. We've been talking for four weeks. Next week is our last week, that we'll be talking through this. We're going to play some music now. We're not going to, the band's not going to come back up. We're just going to play some music, because we as a church family are going to respond to this.
We've set up over here, we've got clay discs and Sharpies. And as God, through the Holy Spirit, has begun to reveal to us tonight, and through the past four weeks, areas that we have placed too much hope, too much life, too much joy, too much faith, too much worth, begin to get our validation from. The things that we've set up as idols in our heart, what we're going to do is, we're going to grab a clay disc, and we're going to write it down on it. Because the truth is, if we have idols set up in our heart, we carry them with us everywhere. I just want us as a church family to be honest about it.
So we're going to write down, I'm going to grab one, I'm going to write down the things that God's begun to reveal to me, that I have placed too much value in, too much worth in, that I've begun to seek validation from, and place my hope in. And I'm going to prayerfully write that down, asking God the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what that is, and then I'm taking my disc with me. And I want us as a church family to carry these with us, so that we can see the weight of our idolatry. Because most of us don't have something set up at home, that we go back home and worship. But we do have something set up in our hearts, that we carry with us all the time.
And so I just want us to be honest about it. I want you to put them in your purses, I want you to put them in your pockets, I want us to sit them on our dashboards, I want us to make ourselves very aware, that this little thing that we've written down, affects how we live. I want to bring them with you, when you meet with your community group. You've brought it with you every time you've come so far, you might as well just have a representation in your pocket. And I want us to be very honest and open with Jesus, and with church family, about what it is we've been pursuing, what we've been hoping would give us life and joy and satisfaction.
And then, when Jesus lets us, we're going to break home. So I don't know what that's going to look like for us. We're going to, next week, we're just going to spend some time talking about Jesus. We're going to spend some time talking about how He fulfills the promises that our idols make to us. So we'll have an opportunity next Sunday to break them.
If Jesus meets you on Tuesday and tells you to break it, break it. But don't just break it because it's convenient. Don't just break it because it's getting on your nerves. Because we actually, by God's grace, want these gone from our hearts, not just from our dashboard. We actually, by God's grace, want Jesus at the throne of our lives, because that's where joy is found, and that's where hope is found, and that's where life is found. And we don't want to walk through life chasing after things that will not satisfy anyone.
We don't want a little God. We want a big God. A holy God. A righteous God. That actually brings life. So we're going to play some music.
As you pray, and as God reveals you, and if He leads you, go grab one. We've got plenty of Sharpies. Move around the room, and in a minute I'll call us back. Pray over us. And we'll be done for that. I'm going to pray now.
God, I pray that through Your Spirit, You would reveal to us the idols in our hearts, so that You, God, as You say in Ezekiel 14, 5, that You may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from You through their idols. God, may You lay hold of our hearts. May our hearts belong to You and You alone. Because God, in You is life and hope and freedom. We don't have to work really hard to prove our value because Jesus proved our value when He died for us and He gave us value. He assigned it to us.
I don't have to be successful. I don't have to prove my worth. I don't have to walk through life trying really hard to show the world that I deserve to be here. Jesus Christ gives us value and hope. So God, through Your Holy Spirit, work in us now.
Call Your people to repentance as You called Your people here. And may we change and may we draw closer to You and may we draw closer to each other as we grow in replacing the lies that we believe with the gospel. We love You, Lord. Amen. outros, amen.
Amen. on our behalf.
God, we thank You that You change us by Your grace and may Jesus get all the glory. Amen.
Broken Cisterns
Transcript
Alright, if you've got your Bible tonight, turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 2. We'll be spending some time in Jeremiah chapter 2 tonight. My name is Chet Phillips. I get to be one of the pastors here. I'm very excited about being here tonight. We are in the third week of our Idol series, which is where we're taking some time to walk through and see what the Bible has to say about idolatry.
And specifically how idolatry is not just something that people used to deal with or that is something that only takes place in other countries, but that is actually a heart level issue for us. And so what we talked about the first week was that we were looking in Exodus chapter 20 and we talked about how God starts off by saying, You shall have no other gods before me. And so we just talked about what that looks like for us to have always have an object of worship and that we as humans will always have an object of worship. If you don't have a Bible, we actually have some. I forgot to say that.
So Jack and Mitch can help hand those out. If anybody doesn't have a Bible, if you want to raise your hand, we'll get one to you. So and if you don't own a Bible, just take that one home with you. That's our gift to you. So anyway, we've talked about how we always will have an object of worship.
We will always have something that is supreme in our lives. And so we just kind of discussed in week one why we would actually want that to be God. And we talked about how Jesus is the only God who was crushed in our place, who was crushed for us and that all other gods will eventually crush us. Last week, we talked about how we just kind of turned and looked at all of the things we can worship, how God basically says not to take anything and make it into a God and how we are as humans capable of turning anything into a God. And so one of the things we've said is that sin is not primarily us breaking rules.
So that God hasn't laid it out as I am God. Here are my rules. If you follow my rules, then we'll be good. If you break my rules, then you'll be in trouble. That's not how he lays it out. First of all, he rescues before he gives the law to his people.
So he chooses and rescues and redeems and brings them out of slavery before he ever says this is how we're going to relate to one another. And the way he sets up the law is I am God. There are no other gods. And so for most of us, we feel like sin is primarily me just breaking God's rules. But actually, the way he designs it, the way he lays it out is object of worship is first before rule breaking is.
And so Martin Luther actually said that we don't break any of the other commandments until we first broken the first one, until we've taken God and decided that something else is more important to us, something else is more supreme. That's when we'll lie. That's when we'll hate. That's when we'll do all the things that we're not supposed to do because we've actually decided that in this moment something is functionally greater to me than God. And it actually makes sense because our primary way to relate to God is not based off of works. It's not based off of rules.
It's not based off of following rules. I'll give you an example. Let's say that I ran an underground gambling casino out of my backyard in one of my sheds or something, which would be pretty amazing because I have pretty small sheds. It would be hard to get a lot of people in. Let's say I did that.
And let's say that I did not report this on my taxes and I did not tell Anna about it. Let's just say I had some form of income that wasn't illegal because I realize that in my story that's probably illegal and I can't do that. So it wasn't illegal, but I didn't tell the IRS and I didn't tell Anna about it. If I got caught, if the IRS audited me, the way that the auditor would relate to me would be completely different from the way that Anna would relate to me on the same issue. So the auditor would basically be like, all right, you owe us this much money, pay it plus interest or you're going to jail.
That's it. Anna, who I did the same thing, same situation, still money, still didn't tell her about it, she's going to approach me in a completely different way. She's going to be like, why didn't I know about this? Why on earth would you have hidden this from me? The auditor is never going to look at me and be like, an entire year? You kept this a secret for an entire year?
Like the auditor is not going to cry. He's not. He's going to be like, pay up or go to jail. That's something to you. Because the way I relate to the IRS is based off my ability to follow their regulations. And the problem between my relationship with the IRS and my relationship with Anna would actually be much different.
Because Anna and I have a whole lot of other issues that we need to talk about. Trust. We've got to talk about our communication. We've got to talk about all of the times that I told her things that weren't true. Why I wasn't willing to share this with her. And so it actually makes sense that when we feel like sin is just breaking God's rules, that he's going to say, no, it's deeper than that.
And the issue is bigger than that. Because God does not primarily relate to us on our ability to follow his rules. It's not that if we behave, then we're in. And if we don't behave, we're out. God's actually going to look at us and it's going to be that, no, if we're sinning, it's actually indicative of something deeper, something bigger, something greater. And so that's what we're talking about.
That's what we're trying to dig into a little bit. It's trying to understand how not only does our sin indicate where we are a little bit off, but actually how we might have set up idols in our own lives. And so we'll be in Jeremiah chapter 2. I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in. God, we thank you that you're good. We ask you to speak to us tonight, that you would reveal your truth and yourself to us through your word.
God, I pray that we would grow closer to you and that your Holy Spirit would have free reign in here tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So the prophet Jeremiah, he's going to speak. God's going to be speaking through him. And so basically what God's going to do in this passage, this section of text, is he's talking to the nation of Israel and he's going to lay out two symptoms that they have.
And then he's going to give them their diagnosis. So he's basically going to say, you're doing this and you're doing this, but here's the main problem. So we're going to talk about the two symptoms and then we're going to talk about the diagnosis. I'm going to go ahead, spoiler alert, the diagnosis is idolatry. For those of you who are type A people, you now want to kill me because you know point three before we get to talk about the first two. So you're welcome.
And we're going to go ahead and move forward. So he lays this out this way. He says, The word of the Lord came to me saying, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord. So this is Jeremiah speaking on behalf of God.
God says, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt. Disaster came upon them, declares the Lord. So God starts off by saying, I remember how we used to relate to one another.
I remember your love for me as a bride. And so God over and over in the Old Testament is going to say that he relates to the nation of Israel as a husband to a bride. In the New Testament, we're going to be told that the church is the bride of Christ. And so the relationship stays the same. Jesus is our groom, which I'm a man that's a little weird for me, but OK. It's that there's a real, genuine, intimate relationship there.
And that's why in the Old Testament, it's such a big deal when Israel runs away from God. It's as if a bride had left her husband. And so there's when we talked about in the first week about God being jealous for us, not of us. So God doesn't look down from heaven and go, man, this hipster thing is pretty cool. I wish I could get in on that. And I mean, when, you know, moon shoes came out, he wasn't like, oh, I love a pair of those.
Like that wasn't a thing. He's not jealous of us. He's jealous for us the same way that a husband would be for a bride. And so he fights for that relationship. And it's actually fitting. And he ought to.
So it says that I remember your devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. So then we're going to move down to verse four. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and went after worthlessness and became worthless? Some other texts are going to translate worthlessness a little different. Some will say worthless idols.
The word there is the Hebrew word, Abel. I don't read Hebrew, but I have a computer program that does for me. It's H-E-B-E-L. I don't know how to pronounce it, Abel. So that's how it's spelled out in English.
If you spell it out in Hebrew, it's some squiggly lines that don't mean anything. But the word worthlessness there is used in the Old Testament for nothing, for vanity, for worthlessness. And it's also used for idolatry. So it will be idols. And so some will translate that as worthless idols. But here's what he's saying.
This is the first symptom he lays out for him. He says, you went after worthlessness and you became worthless. We become like what we worship. So whatever we set up as supreme, we will over time become like that. And we spent some time talking about it the past couple of weeks. So here's my question.
Are we becoming more like Jesus? If he is who we worship, over time, we'll become more like Jesus. That's just how that works. If you look out, if you've been a Christian for a while and you look out over the past three years. I'm not talking about last week. I'm talking about the past, or as long as you've been a Christian.
Some of you haven't been a Christian for three years. But if you've been a Christian, are you becoming more like Jesus? When you look out over the past three years, you've grown in some areas. So we might say, well, I'm in better shape than I was three years ago. Some of us will be like, well, my waistline grew over the past three years. And I now can breathe heavier at the top of a flight of stairs than I used to.
That's kind of where I am. It's like, man, I remember when this didn't make me tired. So I've got to get back in shape. But there's certain things. Maybe we've grown. You could say, ah, my portfolio.
It's better. My net worth is. I've grown in that. And so the question is, what are we growing in? Because we become more like what we worship. So are we becoming more like Jesus?
Do we hate sin more? Are we quicker to repent? More open in confession? Do we care about our neighbors more? Do you care about your neighbors more now than you did two years ago? Do you care about your coworkers more now than you did three years ago?
Because the Bible says that we're predestined to be conformed into the image of his son. And that's a slow, messy process. That's what we say when we talk about being in community groups. We say, hey, come be a sinful jerk with us. Like, come be messed up with us. That's what we're going to do.
You're going to spend your life annoying somebody. Come annoy us. Like, let's annoy each other together in community groups. That's what it is. But over time, we grow to be more like Jesus.
So he says, you went after worthlessness and you became worthless. So I would just have us ask and begin to look at what are we becoming more like. Verse 6. They did not say, where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in the land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through where no man dwells. And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.
The priests did not say, where is the Lord? Those who handled the law did not know me. The shepherds transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit. So here's what he says.
He says, I rescued you out of Egypt. And that's where we've been the past two weeks where we've been looking at the Exodus. He says, I rescued you out of Egypt. So I took you out of the house of slavery. I made you my people. And then I walked you through a desert of deep darkness, pits and destruction and despair where no one goes.
And I kept you safe. It's basically like, I walked you down dark alleys in New York and nobody messed with you. That's kind of what he's saying. He's like, I took you into the wilderness where nobody goes. Everyone who goes there just kind of dies. And I took care of you all for years.
And then I brought you into a good place. A place that's plentiful. I brought you things to enjoy. So we talked about last week, we said that God doesn't tell us not to enjoy things, not to love things. He doesn't say, I have created bacon. Now stay far away from it.
He did for a while, actually. But then there's grace and there's some stuff that happened in the book of Acts. And so you should read it. It's amazing. We get to eat bacon now because we're Christians. And so, but he doesn't say, he doesn't not want us to enjoy things.
He just doesn't want us to worship them. So he said, I actually brought you and gave you good things. And then you quit following me. The people who taught from the law didn't even know me. Your prophets prophesied by other gods and you went after things that don't profit. Not only did you chase after other gods, but you went after things that have no life in them, have no fulfillment in them, that will give you no abundance.
You went after things that don't even bring profit. And so what he says here in this section is basically, I rescued you, I made you my people, I brought you into a good land, and then you acted like all the other nations around you. You worshipped their gods and you looked like them. So the second symptom is, he says, you chased after worthless things and you became worthless. And then he says, you went into other nations and you went into, I brought you and made you a people and then you looked like all the nations around you. And so the second question I have for him, I think Jeremiah is pointing it out to the nation of Israel is, do we look like the rest of the Americans we know?
What I mean by that is, we would say, if we're Christian, I would say that I was in slavery to sin. That I could not get out of it, I could not save myself, I could not rescue myself, I was in trouble. And that Jesus rescued me, and that he brought me through my mess, and he's still doing that. And that he's actually blessed me with good things. With life and joy and peace in him. The Bible says that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing.
And so I would say, I know that Jesus is God and that I have an eternity to come that I'll spend with him. But if I view the world the same as everyone else, it doesn't seem like that's true. So what he's saying is, I made you into my people, I brought you through this, and then you started looking like everyone else. So what I'm not talking about is what beverages you partake in or abstain from. What we're not talking about is what rating of movie you're willing to watch. We're talking about some deeper stuff than words you may use or don't use.
What I'm asking is, we're not talking about like culottes. You all know what culottes are? You know what culottes are? Okay. Culottes are great. Because there's certain Christian groups that, I say culottes are great.
I've never really been around culottes. I just, I think the concept is funny. There's certain Christian groups that females aren't allowed to wear pants. So they believe in that. And that's okay. That's fine.
You believe females shouldn't wear pants. But then there's certain things that are hard to do, like run around and play games and do stuff in dresses. So they invented culottes, which are pants that look like a dress. Which is really confusing to me because it's like, what's the goal? To just look like we're doing stuff right as long as it's a secret that we're actually, like, it has more to do with appearances than, and a buddy of mine became a Christian. I met him up at Liberty.
He became a Christian and got a job at a Christian camp. And one of the first nights they were like, they were giving out the rules to all the counselors. And they were like, no, we don't believe in mixed bathing. And that's just a Christian terminology for guys and girls shouldn't swim together. But he'd only been a Christian for a couple of months.
And he was like, uh, yeah. No, I don't believe in that either. He said he was sitting in the meeting being like, I don't know if they know. I'm not sure a whole lot of people think that's okay. That's not like a big problem in society. Now, I know in other camps all the children just get to bathe together.
And so he's like, no, yeah. And he said he found out like a week later they meant swimming. And he was like, oh, I see why that was important to cover now. But he thought it. So that's not what I'm talking about.
What I want to know, and what I think he's pointing out here when it comes to our idolatry, when it comes to how we view the world, do we treat money the same as people who don't know Jesus? Are you thinking about your tax return the same way as your neighbors are? Do you treat relationships the same way? So that you think about marriage or you think about dating the same way that our culture does. Do you think about work? When you get in a conversation with a co-worker, do you talk about work and your boss the same way they do?
Is work just this thing you go to to get a paycheck and your boss is the worst because all bosses are the worst, but this one is specifically the worst because he's a moron. Is that how that works? Because we're supposed to fundamentally be different. Our hearts are supposed to be resting in a different place. Our hope is supposed to be grounded somewhere else. And if everything we do is just the same as our culture, I'm not talking about small stuff, I'm talking about fundamentally, like if we looked at your bank account next to your neighbors, do you all spend the money the same way?
Does your money just terminate on you? Or do we as Christians have places that we want our money to go because we know it's not ours? Places that we know that I've only got a short time here and then I've got an eternity of good things. My good things aren't here. Do we act like that? Do we treat relationships like the goal is for me to find some happiness in it, and once that stops, this doesn't need to exist anymore?
Or do we fundamentally view them differently? So those are the symptoms. He's saying, basically, your hearts are far from me. You're chasing after worthless things. You're becoming more worthless. And you look like all the other nations around you.
You're chasing after that which does not profit. Verse 9. Therefore I still contend with you, declares the Lord, and with your children's children I will contend. For cross to the coast of Cyprus and see, or send to Kadar and examine with care. See if there has ever been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. So God looks at him and says, He says, look, go to the countries around you. No, no, no, go. Go check them out. Nobody does this. No country does the stupid stuff you're doing.
They have gods that don't even exist, and they keep them. I'm real, and you swapped me out for stupid stuff. No, no, go. Go to Kadar. Same God they've had. And they carve that cat into rocks.
Go check him out. It's the same one. I'm real, and you swapped me out for stupid stuff. He says they exchanged their glory. They changed their glory for that which does not profit. I think we get this on small scale.
So let's take it away from thinking about God and other things. Movies where a dad only cares about work, and he has a family, so he neglects his kids all the time. So Hook was like that. The old Robin Williams movie where he was Peter Pan. Elf is like that. The dad doesn't care about his kids.
It's any other movie ever, pretty much. That's how that plays out. If a dad has a job, he loves it and hates his children. And we'll watch it and be like, don't you realize your family is important? And then he finally gets it at the end, and we're like, yeah, tell your boss he can shove his job and go hang out with your kids and figure out how to buy food later. We get that.
We get that on a small scale. I hung out with a guy named Jeffrey at Sears in Lynchburg. He was great. I was a fan of Jeffrey. He was a bigger guy. He had grown up in California and knew Spanish, so he kind of had a Spanish-y sounding voice.
I think his dad was African-American. His mom was Samoan. And apparently having an African-American dad and a Samoan mom makes you look all Hispanic because everybody just thought he was from Mexico or some Hispanic country, and he wasn't. So it was a lot of fun because people would say racist things to him, and I got to discuss it with him, and he was like, what the heck was that? But he was talking to me about it.
Basically, he did three things. He worked at Sears, sold drugs, and played video games. That was all Jeffrey did, pretty much. I assume he slept and ate, but that's pretty much what he did. And when he would play video games, he would come in sometimes and be like, dude, I was playing video games with this guy at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, in the evening, and I could hear this cat talking to his daughter and telling her to go away because Daddy's playing video games. He was like, I almost lost it.
He's like, I can't play with that guy anymore. And so here's a guy who understands that it's dumb to trade out things that have value for things that don't. And so what God's saying is, hey, you've swapped out your glory for something that doesn't profit, for something that at the end of life will have had zero meaning, and we have a real and genuine relationship, and I exist. So that's what he's laying out here. And so he says, I'll keep reading, he says this, Verse 11, Has a nation changed their gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have honed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. He looks at the heavens and he says, Be shocked.
Be appalled. Be utterly desolate. And I think he says it to the heavens because I think he may be speaking to the angels that actually know him, that are in his presence. And he's like, Do you see? The angels in his presence, first of all, are superior to us in look and power and that kind of thing. Every time they show up in the Old Testament, they have to say, Don't be afraid.
There's one lady who goes and tells her husband, I met this awesome man, and I bet that made him feel great. He's like, Really, honey? You've got to call him awesome to my face? And then he walked up and was like, No, that was a good assessment. This guy's pretty awesome. I'm paraphrasing.
I'm just kind of helping you all. That's how I read it. So they, in God's presence, praise him continuously because he's worth it. And so he looks at the heavens and says, Be crushed by this. My people have swapped me out. Be appalled.
Be shocked. Be utterly desolate. Be crushed by this. There's some weight behind what we take lightly. He says, My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and honed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
So, okay, what we know is that swapping out a fountain of living water for a cistern is immensely stupid. That's what we know from context. So he says, Be utterly desolate. Here's what they've done. But here's the thing.
When he's bringing the hammer down with this living water cistern analogy that he's explaining this, that everybody in their culture would have been like, They did. What? That hits home with none of us. None of us are like, Oh man, cisterns are the worst. Nobody says that. We don't even know what that is.
Like, What's a cistern? Because we're really spoiled when it comes to water. Like, immensely spoiled. Like, we, even in our society now, so not even just then, but in the world now, we are spoiled when it comes to water because we can get it anywhere. It's free. Like, we complain that water has no flavor.
We'll complain when it's like, What? They're going to charge me 50 cents for the cup? This is ridiculous. I'm getting water. This should just be free. You should be able to get it anywhere you want it.
The only time I've ever had to go without water, Anna and I both grew up in the middle of nowhere on wells. And so when your power goes out and you have a well, you have no water. That's how that works, which is actually kind of funny because now that we've moved here to the big city, when the power goes out, Anna will remind me that we no longer have water. And I've had to explain to her, I think twice now, that we still have water. Like, she'll be like, Power's out, so, you know, no water. Basically, which is like, be careful with how much we use and you can only flush a certain amount of times.
I'm just coaching you up. I just want to remind you. And it's like, no, no, no. We have water. And she's like, no, the power's out. And I'm like, yeah, but like water towers and we don't have a well that runs off of electricity.
But when you grow up nowhere, you only have limited amounts of water. I remember when the power would go out, we would have to, we had a swimming pool so we would take buckets to fill up the back of the toilets. And one time it was really cold but I took a bucket and dumped it on my head on my back porch to try to rinse off because if you go without water, that's the most I've ever gone without water. It was like two days in an ice storm with no water. That's it. And I was really whiny about it.
Like, I've learned that I like water. It's very useful for things. When he says this, what he's saying is, so here's how societies work then. You want to build a city? You need flowing water. Like, you need a river.
That's why all large cities built up around rivers. That's why Columbia is here. We built up around a river. Columbia, West Columbia was built on the fall line to power mills. West Columbia started as all the mill villages that ran. That's why Gervais Street Bridge was built to get all the people who worked in the mills across the river.
But, Rome was on the Tiber. You've got Egypt on the Nile. You've got Babylon and Assyria on the Tigris-Euphrates. You've got, Israel was built on the Jordan. You want a big city, you have to have a river. And that's what living water is.
Living is either flowing, it means living, or running. So it's like moving water. Then you had wells. So you weren't near a river, you dug a well, that's groundwater, that actually wasn't that bad, although those could run dry. And then third, also here, worst, was a cistern. And a cistern was, you dug a hole and it caught rainwater.
And that's, and they were difficult to keep up, like you had to keep plastering them. They didn't have good plaster then, they would cave in, you'd dig them again, and then the water would get really gross. If you had water in it, depending on when it rained. And so what he says is, they traded out a river and built their life on a cistern. And this cistern doesn't even work. And everybody went, whoa, that's dumb.
That's ridiculous. So nobody would be like, I have dug this cistern. And upon this cistern, we will found our city. And we will become a great people. And we will water a plant. And, yes, just one.
And if, and we will have one person gets to drink water every day, if it's rained recently. And soon, as we multiply, we will all die of dehydration or dysentery. Who's with me? Like, you don't, you don't build a cistern, you don't build a city on a cistern. It just doesn't happen. It doesn't support life.
And what he's saying is, they've swapped me out who gives life for things that they have to work on and manage and that will ultimately kill them. That's idolatry. Taking God who gives life, who brings life, and swapping him out for something else that ultimately destroys. I got some pictures because we don't, it doesn't bring anything to mind. This is Caesarea Philippi. That is a, a freshwater spring in Caesarea Philippi.
That's what you can build a city on. That's flowing fresh water that naturally just pops out and turns into that. This is a cistern, a modern cistern, so it's about as nice as they look. This is also, that's in Mount Arad or Arad or however you want to say that or however they say it. And then, the next one is in southern Israel and that's a cistern as well. I work for, my dad owned a swimming pool company, so I worked for that one for a long time.
The best I can picture is a cistern, is a swimming pool that the pump doesn't work and it's just filled up with water. And let me tell you, you don't want to drink that. And that's what we're doing when we swap God out for something else. And here's what he says. He says, they've swapped me out for that which does not profit. He says, broken cisterns that can't even hold water.
What happens when we do that, two things. It crushes us or it crushes the cistern. And ultimately, it'll do both. But what I mean by that, how that plays out is this. If I make money a God, that's a problem. But if I make Anna a God, that's worse.
If you make your job a God, that's a problem. But if you make your children a God, that's worse. Because they cannot provide satisfaction and fulfillment, you will crush them. What will happen is, you ever had expectations for something and then it just didn't work out the way you had kind of painted it up in your brain? So like you just expected this date was going to be great and then it could have been a decent date, but because it wasn't what you had painted up in your brain, it wasn't any good.
I did this some when I have gifts like at Christmas and stuff. I did this past Christmas. Somebody handed me a gift and I was holding it and it just seemed like the right shape and weight to me for some reason. I wasn't really squeezing it or doing a whole lot with it because I didn't want to be like, you know, like a six-year-old. So I was just kind of behaving myself but I had kind of just decided that it was a bag of coffee.
And that means a lot to me because I really love coffee. And so I just decided, I was like, sweet, I think this is a bag of coffee. And then when I opened it up, it was socks. Well, here's the thing. I needed socks and actually have worn the socks. I was very appreciative of the socks.
But when I thought it was coffee and then it was socks, the best I could come out with was like, oh, yeah. Like that was all I could do because it was immediately like, no, this is great. Yes. Like, you know, you just kind of stick your eyebrows up and nod your head a lot. Like, you've given people gifts before and they've done that. They're like, and you're just like, well, I missed on that one.
Like, I don't know what I was shooting for, but I didn't hit it. If you walk through life expecting a relationship to provide fulfillment and satisfaction, if you walk through life expecting your spouse to be that for you, you will live your life going, ah, because they could be a great spouse, but they'll be a terrible God. And you'll slowly steal from them. You'll have to take from them to make yourself feel valued and loved and validated and over time, you'll slowly just be looking at them going, ah, and stealing from them and crushing them. Same thing with your children. Your children will have to be perfect.
They'll have to make great grades. They'll have to always work everything out because your validation depends on it. Your worth depends on it. And when they don't, it'll crush you or you'll crush them. We build our lives around broken cisterns that cannot support life. That cannot bring joy.
That cannot ultimately satisfy and fulfill. This happens prior to being married. This happens prior to entering into relationships. There's a lady at Sears who, I didn't work with her, but they told me about her. That's why she was infamous. She had a list of 50 things that her future spouse was going to have.
The only thing I know is one of them on there was a hairy chest, which, great. Like, not even like character qualifications. It was like random stuff, left-handed. Like, I don't know, like a mole on his forehead. I don't know what she had put on this list. She had 50 things.
They said that she had shown it to them. Spoiler alert, she was still single last I heard. She might as well have been looking for a golden unicorn. She'd have the same chance of finding it. To expect a person to validate and fulfill, she's never going to find that guy and if she ever marries somebody, she's going to destroy them. There's only a few options when that happens.
We can, we can blame the idol. So you can get married and just assume, well, it's this, this spouse. You can just assume my kids are terrible. If I had those kids, this would work out great. You can blame the category. So you can just be like, all spouses are the worst.
Or you can blame, marriage is the worst. Things were great until we got married and that destroyed this. You can blame the whole system. You can blame, you begin to, you can blame yourself. I'm the one that messed this up. But ultimately, as we enter into this expecting anything to validate us outside of God, anything to bring us ultimate fulfillment and joy, it'll be broken and we'll be slowly killing ourselves because it cannot, will not, sustain life.
Your entire life will be Indiana Jones 4. You'll just be slowly disappointed over and over again until it's over. And you'll be glad it's over. If you've seen Indiana Jones 4, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well done. My favorite part about Indiana Jones 4 was right before it began when I could have not watched it.
So when we build up these expectations, everything will fail because we'll functionally be walking into a relationship and not just looking for a good spouse that we can walk through life together with, but looking for something to be God. Looking for something to give us what only God can give to bring us life and joy and hope and satisfaction. That's how it works with jobs. That's how it works with everything that we can say that, no, this would sustain my life. I can build my life around this. Body image, self-esteem, whatever.
It'll fail. Pleasing your parents, making good grades, being the smartest of your siblings, being the most successful. successful. All of it. What will happen is it will control you because you have to have it. Anything you have to have controls you. And if you get it, it won't satisfy.
And if you fail it, it will curse you forever. I love the quote that C.S. Lewis has on this because a right view of God changes this for us. And C.S. Lewis says this in his book The Weight of Glory. It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. See, so often we think that we just have our passions are too strong. What C.S. Lewis is saying is like, no, we are just too easily pleased with stupid stuff.
We just too quickly run to a cistern and say, this will do it. When we are passing up living, flowing, life-giving, water, when we are passing up a God who brings joy and life always, here is what happens. When God becomes God, everything else can just be itself. When God's God, my marriage can just be my marriage, which is really nice. If Anna expects me to be perfect, she's going to be very disappointed. Extremely disappointed.
But if she knows that I'm just a sinful guy that she happens to live with and we're married and we're going to go through life together, then we just get to be friends who are married. We're just a team attacking life together. We get to repent and move forward. And it's really nice. If our marriage isn't going well, that doesn't destroy us. We get to work on it.
Because our marriage is ultimately about Jesus, not about us. If it's not the happiest moments we've ever had, that's fine. If we don't have a whole lot of money, okay. Because it's not about us. Your kids get to just be your kids, which means they can mess up. Your parents get to just be your parents.
They don't have to be perfect all the time. Your grades can just be your grades. Your money is just money. And you can have a lot of it or a little of it and it can... It's just money. Your value, your worth, your life isn't wrapped up in it.
When God is God, everything else gets to be what it is and then it's actually there's a lot of joy there. There's a lot of life there. There's a lot of hope there. Jesus died to rescue us from slavery and to make us his people. He died in our behalf for our idolatry. For the fact that we have rebelled and run from him.
And he's made us into his own. And we get to worship him and have everything else just be what it is. To actually build our life on something that will sustain, will fulfill, will bring joy. Because when we fail him, he forgives. Always. Because our merit and our worth isn't based off of us.
We entered into the relationship with him based off of his merit, his worth. So he always forgives. And when we're doing really well, we don't have to get prideful. We just get to enjoy it. Be a part of it. Because it's always about him.
And then everything else just gets to be what it is. everything else will be destroyed by the weight of glory except for Jesus. He actually was designed to stand under it. He's worth it. The weight of glory does not crush him. It'll crush your spouse. It'll crush your kids.
It'll destroy your job. If you base it off of your success, you'll crush yourself. because you aren't designed to bear the weight of glory. But Jesus is. And he's able to handle it. And he doesn't disappoint. He doesn't fail our expectations.
He exceeds them. So, the band's going to come back up to play. Here's verse 12 and 13. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate, declares the Lord.
For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. And honed out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold no water. Some of us are worn out. We're stressed out.
We don't really know where to turn. Some of us have been building our life around a cistern. And we're dying. We've been basing our existence off of something that cannot satisfy us, that does not bring life and never will. The invitation is open and free to come to the fountain of living water where joy and fulfillment and refreshment refreshment and satisfaction and life are found always. There's peace and rest with Jesus.
So we're going to celebrate that that is open to us, that was open to us at God's expense. He paid for it on the cross. We deserve destruction for our rebellion, but He suffered in our place so that we might be able to come to Him freely based not off of our merit but off of His. Jesus died on a cross and three days later He rose again and we are invited to base our life off of a life-giving, running, fulfilling, satisfying, validating God. some of us are exhausted and it's because we've been trying to maintain a pit that was never designed to build our lives around. We've been trying to drink from dry dirt and it's killing us.
But we can come to Jesus and we can have freedom and we can have hope and we can have joy and we can have life forever. God, we thank You for Your grace and I pray that Your Holy Spirit would draw us ever deeper into the life that is in You, that You would fulfill us and You would satisfy us and You would help us see where we have begun to trust in something that will not fill us up, will not make us complete, will never be able to satisfy. God, I pray that You would show us where we've begun to build our lives around something that ultimately we will have to prop up and that ultimately will destroy. We love You and we praise You.
In Jesus' name.
No God but God
Transcript
For most of us, our understanding of idolatry is you go to maybe a foreign country and – or like it's a worship of like a totem pole or something carved out of gold or it's in the Old Testament when they worshiped a golden calf. Like our concept of idolatry is worship of some sort of inanimate object. Or you think about like if you went to India and you walked into someone's home and they had set up their entire house. They had designed their whole home in the way they sit facing this little box that had an image in it. And so we would think, well, we don't have any kind of idolatry here. Like we wouldn't design our house facing a box.
And it's ridiculous to think that in India they would face all the couches and the whole home would point to this little box and there would be an image in that box. And that image wouldn't even tell jokes or solve major life problems in 30 minutes. Like they can't even change that image quickly by pressing a button. And so it's ridiculous that they would do that. The Bible is going to be pretty clear though that idolatry is not just a problem they had in the Old Testament, not just an issue that has to do with certain groups of people or certain nationalities or anything, but that it's categorically a human problem.
That if we are humans, we struggle with and deal with idolatry. And so we thought we would take five weeks to talk about idolatry. And idolatry is simply this. It is worshiping anything other than God. So placing anything other than God in a place of supremacy in our lives.
And so we're going to be taking five weeks. Tonight we're going to basically be just talking about why we would actually want God to be God. So if we're going to talk about all the other things we worship, let's actually talk a little bit about why we would worship God. Why would we do that? If God's God, why would we want Him to be God? Next week we're going to talk more about the things we actually do worship other than God.
Third week we're going to talk about what happens to us and to those objects that we worship when we place the weight of glory on them. So we take what should be placed on God and we place it on those objects. And then week four we'll spend some time unpacking more internal ways that we idolize things. And week five we'll talk about how Jesus actually is better than all that we idolize. So they'll kind of blend together and we're going to talk about Jesus every week because that's pretty much all we do, which is good.
That's what we're supposed to do. And so we'll do that. But that's kind of how we've laid it out and how we plan on walking through it. And hopefully the Holy Spirit will lead us in that. And it'll be helpful for us to see where we are. So the Bible opens with God making everything.
So he just creates everything that exists. And so it basically lays it out this way. There's God and then he creates all of creation and he puts humans in dominion over the rest of creation. So humans are kind of in to manage and take care of all other things that exist. And so it's God, humans, rest of creation. And so that's why humans are allowed to eat cows and hunt and farm and do all the things that humans are able to build buildings and pave roads.
That's okay. But it's also why it's not okay for us to just destroy everything and mow down every tree because we want paper for things and we just cut down and kill all the animals. That's not okay either because we're supposed to have dominion and care for. So that's why it's okay to have a car, but it's not okay to throw your bottle out the window. That all fits in biblical. And so we start mixing this up some.
So like you'll have people that take created things like tadpoles and elephants and dogs and they'll kind of raise them up to human level. So they have like rights the same that humans do or maybe they pull humans down. And so it's like my dog should have the same rights as my children. And biblically the answer would be no and we should make fun of you. So like does that make sense?
Okay. But then we also do the thing where we'll take animals and we'll move them to the position of God, which is even weirder. So it's like cows are gods or this animal is a God. And so we've actually let them not even just like move them to our level or pulled us down. We've let them jump over us, which was a major fail. Sometimes we pull ourselves up to God or we pull God down to us, but we're designed to exist with God, us, creation.
And that's how God designed it and he made it. And we crushed it. We were great at, crushed in the good way, great at existing in that relationship for fully two chapters of the Bible. And so, I mean, we did great. And then in the third chapter we were like, you know what? Because we exist, we'd like to worship ourselves as God as opposed to you.
And so Adam and Eve begin, they swap, they work to swap places with God and they want to be like God. And so that's what happens in the Garden of Eden. And so we're going to be looking in Exodus chapter 20 tonight. And so I'm going to take a second to get us there. But we'll be in Exodus chapter 20.
It's going to be on page 40 if you have one of the Bibles that we have. I believe 40 is right. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand. These guys are going to hand some out so that we can all kind of be in the same spot. So if you'd like a Bible and if you don't own a Bible, feel free to take that home with you.
That would be our gift to you. So we'll be at Exodus chapter 20. Here's what happens. So we swap ourselves out for God in Genesis 3. And then from that point on, basically the Bible says that humans used their good brains, because we have the best brains of all of creation. You've never met like a horse that does math better than you.
If you have, I'm sorry. You're really bad at math. But we used the best brains that God had created to come up with all of the evil things we could possibly come up with. So it said that the man's heart was intended on evil all the time. So it was like woke up and was like, I figure I'll do something evil, and then maybe I'll take a nap or eat lunch and then do something horrible.
That'd be great. And so that's basically what happened. And so humans categorically just rebel against God. And so in Exodus 20, where we pick up, God has taken a people and he said basically this. I created the world to exist in relationship with me, but humans didn't want to. So I'm picking you as a nation, you as a people, to exist in a relationship with me.
So we're going to model to the world what this is supposed to look like. And so they had been, as the Israelite people, they had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. And God had shown up. He had taken Moses and said, go tell Pharaoh, who's the king of Egypt, that I want my people, let my people go. I think God wrote a song about it. But if you don't get that joke, it's probably good because it was kind of dumb.
I don't plan these things. Sometimes they just pop out of my mouth. I wish I could catch them and put them back in. But anyway, so God takes Abraham to go talk to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And I want to take them and they're going to be my people. And Pharaoh says no.
And God, just across the board, picks Egyptian gods and shows that he's more powerful than them. So he does the plagues of Egypt and it's basically God showing that I'm more powerful than your gods. Like you think this is a God? Cool. Watch me smush him. Okay.
Is this one of your gods? Watch this. I schooled him. Is this one of your gods? And so he does that. And then eventually Pharaoh lets the people go.
God separates the Red Sea so that the Israelites can cross through. The Egyptians chase them. God closes that back up and they drown. And this is where we pick up where God is on Mount Sinai talking to Moses and he's giving them the Ten Commandments. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in into Exodus chapter 20.
God, I thank you for your grace and I pray that you would lead us and teach us tonight to understand more about who you are and how we are designed to follow you in worship and what it looks like a little bit for us when we choose not to. And so God, I pray that you would just give us wisdom and clarity and that your Holy Spirit would speak. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Exodus chapter 20. This is the Ten Commandments.
So where we pick up, it says, And God spoke all these words. This is God talking to Moses, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is under the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Okay. That's the first two commandments of what we call the Ten Commandments. What you understand is the Ten Commandments, what they argue about in front of courthouses and in schools is the Ten Commandments. And primarily, our understanding of how we relate to God is that God shows up and says, I've got rules and you must follow them or you're going to be in trouble. And so that sin is us breaking rules. That God has rules and sin is when we break God's rules.
And that's most often our primary understanding of how we relate to God. But that's actually not how he sets it up. He sets it up as object of worship. His first two commands aren't rules to follow. They are who you worship. And so that's a big deal.
God's not saying I've got rules that you need to follow. That's what Matt talked about last week, where we kind of understand those who follow the rules, who lace up their shoes and who are good little boys and girls, God loves them. And those who disobey the rules, God smites them. That's kind of how we understand it. Or in the story of the two sons where the older brother was like, I've obeyed. I've served.
I've been good. I'm the hero in this story. I'm the good guy. But it's not about following rules. It's about object of worship. And as Matt unpacked that last week, we saw that the son's heart was actually very far from the father's heart.
That he didn't care that his father was hurt. That he didn't care that his father was excited. He just wanted to obey rules and get stuff. So, that's not how God sets it up. He doesn't set it up as rules to follow. God sets it up with this.
I am God. Nothing else is. Nothing. Nothing in heaven. Underwater. On earth.
Pretty much covers everything. He says, don't carve anything. And don't make any kind of likeness of anything anywhere ever. It's me. I'm God. Nothing else is.
He doesn't set it up as commands, but as object of worship. And here's what. Sin is not primarily us breaking rules. Sin is us swapping gods. Sin is us. So that in the moment when we choose to sin, what we have functionally said is that something, someone, is more important, more supreme, bigger to me than God is.
So God says, I am God. And nothing else is. And that's how he sets up how he's going to relate to his people. And when we think of sin as breaking rules, the problem is we don't break any of the other Ten Commandments. We don't break any of the other commandments at all until we've chosen to place something else in our life as more supreme than God. And that is idolatry.
So that when Anna asks me a question and I want to lie to her, when somebody asks me a question and I just met and I want to lie to them about it, lying is one of the Ten Commandments. Like, I shouldn't lie. I'm not supposed to bear a false witness. I'm not supposed to say things that aren't true. And that's a rule. But the problem is, the problem isn't that I break a rule of lying.
The problem is the first thing I say is, hey, you know, Jesus, at this point, I value Anna's opinion more than you. I know you don't want me to do this, but she's bigger right now. I know that this isn't something that honors you, but I really, really need the likes on Facebook. It's a big deal. Does that make sense? Are you tracking?
So we don't break any other commandments until we've first broken the first one, which is we have swapped something out as functionally greater for us. That's what we saw on that slide there. It's where Romans says that we swapped out worshiping the creator for the creature, that we believe the truth, believe the lie rather than the truth. And we swapped out and worshiped creature rather than creator. Okay, I saw a comedian one time and he said that he's not a Christian, but he was talking about God and stuff. Because, you know, things to make fun about and jokes about or whatever.
But he said, he goes, I imagine after God created everything, that at some point he was a little surprised that humans just ate everything. That in heaven at some point an angel was like, oh God, you're going to want to come see this. You know those animals you made? They're eating all of them. And he said it's kind of funny because we were like, oh, oh cows, I'm going to go. Just went around eating everything and then got to dogs and cats and we're like, no, no, no.
This one lives in my house. It's my friend. I've named him Friskers. But the truth is we did humans domesticated dogs. So we own dogs.
You have friends that own dogs. You most likely don't have a friend who owns a tiger because they're harder to domesticate. But we've got people own dogs. And when we first domesticated dogs, we domesticated them for like an actual useful purpose. So like they help us herd cattle or they help hunt or chase people down who've escaped from prison.
So they're like really good at smelling. So what we would do is we'd take a dog and go, all right, I'm going to own a dog and I want it to be helpful to me. So I'm going to breed it for this purpose. And so we'd say, well, this one's good at this. This one's good at this. Let's breed them together.
Hey, this one's better at that. Oh, this one's good. Let's breed them together. And finally we have breeds of dogs that are designed for a purpose, for work or for hunting or for protection. Basically this dog, hey, this dog is going to really like you and really hate everyone else. It's a great dog.
You just put it near your house. It'll like you and it'll bite strangers and you won't have to worry about things. And so we bred dogs. But now what happens is humans' life changed. And so now we started breeding dogs and their sole purpose is to watch TV with me in my one-bedroom apartment. Like that's why this dog exists.
It has nothing else that it's good at other than sitting on a couch. Like that's the goal of this dog. So like I work at Sears. People walk through with like a work dog that's there for a certain purpose to help certain elderly people need a dog to like alert people. Some people come through and they have a seeing eye dog. And then you'll see like a woman with a dog in her purse.
That dog serves zero purpose other than to, I guess, get in the way of her finding things and leave stuff in her purse that she doesn't want there. Like I don't know. Like I've seen them pushing like a baby carriage with a dog in it. And I just want to be like, please just get out. This is ridiculous. But it's like, oh, you have a child.
Oh, my goodness. So I looked up things on the Internet. We now have a Bugs, which is a Boston Terrier and a Pug. We have a Golden Doodle, which is a Golden Retriever and a Poodle. We have a Labradoodle, which is a Labrador and a Poodle. We have a Poma Poo, which is a Pomeranian and a Poodle.
We have a Yorkie Poo, which is a Yorkie and a Poodle. I think it's fun just to breed them with a Poodle because then you get to say Doodle or Poo at the end of their name. So I think people are just like, half of it's got to be a Poodle. It's just so I can say Poo all the time. We have a Bascotti, which is a Basset Hound and a Scottish Terrier, which I'm pretty sure Bascotti, it was bred to be eaten with coffee. I think that's the point of that dog.
These dogs, sole purpose, designed to live in a relationship with a human. That's it. They are designed to live in a relationship with a human. You've never been flipping through National Geographic and seen the sheep-oos of the Serengeti. That's not a show. You've never heard a news report of campers being attacked by a wild pack of Labradoodles.
It just doesn't happen. You can't go into Appalachian Mountains because of those roaming Labradoodles. You've got to hide all your food. They love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They'll come get you. It's not a thing.
It's not a thing you worry about. But these designer dogs, if they're not with a human, they do this funny thing called they die. That's it. They don't hunt. They yip. They basically run around in the wild and say, I'm defenseless.
Come eat me. That's all they do. They don't have opposable thumbs, so they can't work a can opener, so they'll never get food. Like, they just can't. They were designed, they were created to live in a relationship with a human. And what I want us to understand is, in a very similar way, humans were created to exist in a relationship with God.
We were created by a good God who made us and designed us to exist in a relationship with Him. And outside of that, we do not ever exist without something as supreme in our lives. It is a design flaw in humans. It worked great for the first two chapters of the Bible. And after chapter 3, when we chose to place something else in a point of supremacy in our lives that was not God, it became a very big problem for us. We were created by God to exist with Him in the place of supremacy.
And what that means is, because we're designed that way, humans do not have the choice of, I will worship God, I'll worship the God of the Bible, or I'll have no God. No God is not a choice for a human. We always have to have something in that place. So the question for us is, do I want to have a good God or a bad one? Because no God isn't an option. We were designed to have something in the place of supremacy.
And so you'd say, well, what about like atheists? Okay, they've just put something else there. Science. That's what they base life off of. That's how they know whether they're in or whether they're out. That's how they know whether their life has meaning.
It may just be their brain. And you'll meet a lot of people who would never say, my God is popular opinion. But you can watch their life and see that it is. That that takes the place of supremacy in their heart. We tracking? Does that make sense?
Okay. So, the question I want to ask tonight is this. I want all of us to ask this. If our options are good God or bad God. If our options are God, the God of the Bible, or something else. What I want us to ask is why would we want it to be God, the God of the Bible?
We exist as a church plant because we think it should be God, the God of the Bible. We gather in homes throughout the week and walk through life together because we think it should be God, the God of the Bible. I pray for the people I work with because I want them to know God, the God of the Bible. But I want us to ask the question, why? If I'm going to worship something. Let's just assume I was designed to worship something.
I'm going to worship something. Why would I want it to be God rather than any of the other something else's? And I want you to ask that question. If you're in here tonight, I want us to try to answer this question. So, if you're a believer, if you say, I worship God. I worship God in Christ.
I worship Jesus. He's my God. Then I want, hopefully, to encourage us into why that's a good thing. Why you should be very, very excited that Jesus is your God. And if you're in tonight and you say, I don't worship God. And you may be even arguing, I don't have something I worship.
Okay. Okay. I'd like to submit that you do. And I just want you to help ask the question. If I'm going to spend my life worshiping something, is comfort a good one? Is partying a good thing to worship?
Is that a good God or should I pick something else? I'll just at least ask that question. And hopefully you'll see why we think Jesus would be the best thing to worship. So, that's what we're asking. If we've got options, why God? So, I think I need to address something here.
I think I need to address two quick things. One is, for some of us, the answer will be, and mostly for people who grew up in church or grew up in the south and are kind of used to this, the answer will be this. The reason we worship God is because God's God. Checkmate. Can't fight logic. Like, you know, but legitimately, that's kind of an answer.
And in some ways, that's fair. But most often, if you get that answer, it's because there's this vague belief that God is somehow like a cosmic mob boss. Like, he shows up and is like, I offer you my protection. If you follow my rules. If not, things can go very, very poorly for you. Like, that's kind of how we treat God.
It's like, alright, if I obey him, things will be good. That's why a lot of times, and the Bible doesn't say that, a lot of times people get really frustrated with God for promises he never made. For not keeping promises he never made. And we think, if I'm bad, then he'll come, you know, knock me to the ground and smite me. Like, God's waiting in heaven going, mess up. Just mess up, just one time.
I'm just looking for something. Like, he's got his laptop open, he has a smite button, and he just puts his cursor over someone and just presses smite, and it just like blows up or whatever. Like, he's a cosmic mob boss. And some of us have that understanding. And what, biblically, the Bible would say, actually, that's not the God of the Bible. So, if you believe in a cosmic mob boss, I don't know where you got that from.
It's not here. He's not waiting to crush you. And we'll get into that in a little while. He is God. And so, some people, when you have that, well, God is God. And so, some people on the other side will say, well, God shows up and says, I'm God, worship me.
Isn't that a little narcissistic? Who does God think he is? He does think he's God, just for the record. Like, that's why he shows up and says, worship me. He's kind of allowed to say that. The other thing is, when we argue that God is narcissistic, we're assuming that he should point us to something else.
That God should show up and be like, I'm God. And I created everything. And I just wanted to let y'all know, money, that's a really good one to chase after. I'll give you my top five things that y'all should pursue outside of the good God who created all of this. And so, the truth is, first of all, he is God, so it's not narcissistic for him to claim to be God, just for the record. That's how that works.
And he does deserve worship. And here's why. It's actually good for him. And so, in this passage, he says, I'm a jealous God. He says, you shall not bow down to them or serve them. That's verse five.
For I, the Lord, am a jealous God. I heard Oprah one time say that she was hearing this taught at one point. And she was like, wait, wait. God's jealous of me? And that it kind of messed up the whole Christianity thing for her because she was like, wait. If God's jealous of me, like, first of all, she had the right conclusion.
If God's jealous of you, you probably shouldn't worship him. That's not a very powerful, mighty God. Like, if he's in heaven going, oh, that's it. Man, if I could just be Chet. My brain would be smaller. I'd make bad decisions.
That would be great. I would have bad knees. Weird breath in the morning. Like, I just wish. Like, if that was true, then I wouldn't worship God because that's really sad. Like, if y'all were like, I want to be like you, I'd try to talk you out of it.
But if God did it, I'd be like, okay, this is enough. When he says he's jealous, he's not jealous of. He's jealous for. However, so, like, if I watched Anna talking to a guy and I felt jealous. Anna's my wife. If I saw her, like, after we got done here, she's hanging out talking to somebody.
Or I'm out at a store and I see her just talking away with some guy or in high school, whatever. And I feel jealous. I'm not jealous of her. I'm not going, I want to talk to that guy. I wish he'd look at me like that. Like, I'm not, that's not what's, that's not what's happening.
I'm not going with his cool, gelled hair and his sparkly, sparkly brown eyes. Like, I'm not jealous of her. I'm jealous for her. I want to physically destroy him with my bare hands. Because I care about her. And the truth is, that's actually appropriate.
She's my wife. If she was talking to some guy and they were holding hands and you're like, dude, I was holding that guy's hand. I was like, yeah, whatever. You'd be like, bro, you're the worst husband I've ever seen. Like, what are you doing? Like, you'd coach me up.
It's appropriate for me to want to physically assault someone who's messing with my wife. That's the right response. That's how that should work. And so when God says he's jealous for us, he's jealous for the relationship he designed to exist. So for me to go to Anna and say, I want you to love me.
I want us to have time together. I want us to connect. I want there to be joy in our relationship. That's appropriate. And as a husband, I should work to pursue that. And so when God says I'm jealous, he's meaning he's jealous for us, meaning he wants the relationship.
He doesn't want us chasing after other gods. He wants us to have the one that we're supposed to have. He wants us in the appropriate relationship. It's the same thing with a good father. The Bible talks about God as father. A good father wants a relationship with his children.
None of us argue, you know what? Those kids would be way better off if they didn't have that good dad. Nobody's making that argument. A good father is healthy for children. Statistics back that up. Kids are designed to have a father and have a father that protects and that leads and that defends and that cares for them and that trains them.
And so when a father fights for the right to be around his children and doesn't want to be replaced by a video game, doesn't want to be replaced by a coach, doesn't want to be replaced by any other person at all, but wants that relationship. It's appropriate and it's fitting and it's good. And when God declares, I want this relationship, it's not odd, it's right. It's appropriate, it's fitting, and it's the way it's designed to be. And the truth is, it's actually, not only is it good and fitting, it's actually for our joy. Because we become like what we worship.
In Jeremiah 3, God says that they chased after worthless things and became worthless. We become like what we worship. That's just how that works. So you meet somebody and they care about physical fitness. They worship physical fitness in a way. Or they wouldn't put it that way, but they just care about it.
They just, I like paying attention to diet and to exercise and those kind of things. Those people slowly over time become more physically fit. That's just how that works. If you worship basketball, over time you learn more about it. You grow to be better at it. Or you realize you're not good at it and you find something else to care about.
Or you learn all the stats and everybody's names. Like you've got a few options there. But that's kind of, that's how that plays out. So someone who's like, I don't worship things. I just like, I don't want rules and I just want like, I just want people to stay out of my business. And I just, I just want to be left alone and I have structure and I have all these things I've got to do.
And it's like, okay, well eventually you won't have a job. And it's a good thing you don't like structure because you're going to be wearing sweatpants. Because you won't fit into your other pants anymore because you had no structure on anything. And all you ate was cheeseburgers and Oreos and played video games. So well done.
And we slowly become more like what we chase after, what we pursue. And so when God says that he's jealous for us, when he wants that relationship, God is joyful. And he's merciful. And he's good. And so it's actually for our good to have God as the object of supremacy in our life because he draws us into himself. And we become more like what we worship.
So we have more grace for each other. We have more joy in our lives. It's good for us. But I want to point something else out to you. Verse 1. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me. God does not start off by handing out rules. He doesn't even start off by addressing this object of worship. He starts off by rescuing. He says, I'm the God who sets you free from slavery. He didn't say, alright Moses, we're going to go get them out.
I need you to pass out these regulation sheets and once everybody's following them, I'm going to come rescue you. He didn't show up and say, get it right. That guy just lied. Ten more years. He didn't do that. He shows up and rescues and then says, I'm the God who rescued you.
Now here's how this relationship is designed to work. So, we see this actually playing out in the New Testament. And so in Romans 5, and flip there with me because that's where we're going to spend most of the rest of our time. I'll refer back to some of that other stuff, but we're going to unpack Romans 5. So we see this playing out because God shows up and rescues before he ever says, this is how this relationship is going to work.
This is what you have to do to follow me. This is what this looks like. So, functionally in life, we will say, this situation, and we'll define for ourselves like a functional hell. We'll spend more time unpacking some of this next week, but this is a functional hell for me. Like being single is a functional hell. That would be the worst.
But being married and being in this relationship, that would be heaven. That's where you graduate to married life. And so for us, we have a functional savior that bridges the gap between our functional hell and our functional heaven. So we have something that, so getting married, finding a significant other is going to rescue us from hell and put us into heaven. Does that make sense? And so when we pursue those things, when we place our hope in those things, when we chase after anything else, we swap God out and make something else supreme.
The problem with that is that none of those functional saviors are a savior like Jesus is. Or a God like God is. And biblically, Jesus is God who came to earth. So, let's look at Romans 5, and we're going to unpack this. Verse 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith.
Justified just means made right. We've been made right before God by faith. Faith just means that we place our hope, our faith in God. So it is not, faith isn't working. It's not me doing something really well. It's actually me realizing that I can't and just being like, God, I just trust that you've got this.
Like, this is on you. So we've been justified. We've been made right by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, we've been made right by His death, so justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.
Paul says that Jesus died for us while we were weak, while we were sinners. And he says, look, somebody might die for a good person. They might. They might dare even to die for a good person, but nobody does what Jesus did. Nobody. Like, none of us are going to go knock on the door of a prison and be like, who's your worst death row inmate?
Who's the guy who did some really heinous, horrible stuff? I want to die for that guy. I want to swap my life out for him. I'd really love for him to get extra years because I took his place. Paul says, no one does that. But that Jesus died for us while we were weak, meaning we had no value of our own.
We had nothing to show Him that we had merited salvation. Nothing to show Him that said, we deserve to be died for. We deserve for you to be killed in our place. While we were weak, while we were ungodly, the opposite of pursuing Him. We were pursuing everything else while we were sinners. And it says, while we were His enemies, Christ died for us. no other God does that.
Work does not do that. Work does not die for you. Work does not forgive you. Work does not offer you grace. Work bases your salvation, your life, your hope, off of how well you stand in it. So when you're getting promotions, when you're getting the attaboys, when you're getting bumped to a better office, when you're making the sales, it's going really well.
But when that stops playing out for you, when that stops working out for you, it does not forgive you. It does not offer grace. It does not die for you in your weakness. It does not rescue you when you are at its enemy. Approval? The approval of other people.
Basing your life and your hope off of how other people feel about you. They do not ever die for you. They do not ever base their caring for you off of anything other than how well you fit up in their structure. Money doesn't love you. None of our gods do anything for us like Jesus does. Jesus rescues us while we're weak, while we're broken, while we're his enemies.
And he makes us right with him, not based off of us, but based solely, always, only, off of him. So that we stand forever right with God because we are in Christ. So we will only be right with money when we're in money, functioning appropriately. We will only be right with approval when we're walking through that well and gaining the approvals of others. And when that falls off, because it's always only based off of us and how things are working out, and Jesus only, always, is based off of him forever. Because at no point did we ever merit anything that gave us worth or value.
We were weak, we were ungodly, we were sinners, and we were enemies. And he died to give us life. The reason we want God to be our God is because he's the only God who does that. He's the only God that rescues us based off of himself and not off of anything else. Only, always, based in Christ and never given back over to us. And that is good news.
That Jesus rescues us on his own merit, on his own back, with his own blood, through his own death, so that we might actually have hope and life. All other gods that we worship will eventually fail us, will eventually crush us. There is no freedom in chasing after approval. There is no freedom in it. Having to check status updates, having to see how people care about you, there is no freedom in it. It enslaves us.
And God shows up and says, I'm the God who sets you free from slavery. If we base our life off of money, that does not free us, it enslaves us. And Jesus shows up and says, I'm the God who sets you free from slavery. All other gods will crush us. Jesus was crushed for us. Our life is only, always based in him.
And that makes him a good God. And a good savior. And the reason we want to proclaim it to others, and the reason that we care about other people, is because every other God will eventually destroy you. You will eventually fail it. Your health will fail. Your physique will fail.
Your money will fail. Your family will fail. If you base your life off of your children, and you're happy while they're happy, and things are good while they're good, and whether or not they're enjoying themselves, eventually that will fail, and it won't forgive, and it won't offer grace. It doesn't die for us when we're weak, and when we're its enemies, but Jesus does. All other gods will crush us. Jesus is the only God that was crushed for us.
And it offers us freedom, and life, and hope in him. It says that, verse 10, For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Jesus died on a cross in our place. Adam and Eve stepped out and swapped themselves for God. They wanted to be God, and we consistently throughout our lives have looked at God and said, something else is more important to me than you.
And Jesus stepped down, and he swapped himself, who was God, for us. So he stepped in and took the place of man, so that he might die in our place, and he was brutally murdered, placed in a grave, and three days later, he rose again to life. Jesus is not dead. He is alive, and we have hope in his life. He gives us life in his life. And there's joy, and there's freedom in that.
Having God be your God is captivating, but it never places us in captivity. It sets us free. So that in Christ, if my worth is always in Christ, you know what that means? It means I don't have to be good at everything. It means I can do really stupid stuff, and it doesn't crush me, because my value doesn't come from it. It also means that I can be successful, and it won't destroy me, because my value doesn't come from it.
My hope's not wrapped up in it. All my joy isn't based in it. It sets us free. Worshiping Jesus, having Jesus in the place of supremacy, does not crush us, because he was crushed for us, and it gives us life and freedom and hope forever. So the band's going to come back up.
I want us to do a few things. We're going to take the next four weeks, and we're going to unpack what it looks like for us, as we swap out other things as functionally greater in our lives than Jesus, that we would rather worship and love than Jesus. And so as we gather together in our community groups this week, we're going to begin to unpack that idea. But here's what I want to happen tonight. If we're in here tonight, and you say, I am a Jesus follower. I am a Christian.
My hope is in Him. Then I want us to celebrate. I want us to celebrate that only, always, and forever is our life based in Him, is our salvation based in Him, is our joy based in Him. And if you're in here tonight, and you would say, Jesus isn't my God, I want you to know that He was crushed for you. That whatever it is you're pursuing will eventually crush you. And some of you are aware of that, because it's happening now.
Because you are failing your God, and your God is not forgiving. And I want you to know that you can have life, and joy, and hope forever in Jesus, through faith, and faith alone. Which is where you go to Jesus and say, all my faith is placed in you. That you died in my place. That my hope is in you, and nothing else. God, I pray that you would speak to us, that your Holy Spirit would move in this place tonight.
That we would, you would, through your Holy Spirit, enlighten us to what it is that we have functionally placed us greater in our lives than you. That we might repent. That we might turn from that. That we might run to you. That we might quit serving false things, God. That we might serve you and you alone.
In Jesus' name.