Exodus 4:27-6:9
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bibles. Go to Exodus chapter 4. Exodus is the second book of the Bible.
If you grab one of these blue Bibles that's in the little rack under the chair in front of you, it'll be on page 28. The big number is the chapter. The little Numbers are the verse. We're going to start in Exodus chapter 4, 27. So where we're picking up today, God came to Moses in the burning bush and said, Go.
You're going to go to Pharaoh. You're going to proclaim that he's to let my people go. And I'm going to drive you out. I'm going to bring the people out. And he's going to send Aaron with him and he's going to go. And where we get to start today, we get to see the first steps in Moses' obedience to this call.
Spencer said a couple weeks ago that it'd be like if God came to you and said, Pack up. Go to Russia. We have a message for Putin. You're going to go stand before Putin and you're going to declare that this is over. And it'd be like that amount of intensity. But Moses is going and we're going to see that as Moses steps out in faith, that immediately everything gets worse.
Just way worse. And it's a little bit surprising. Like that's not how we thought this was going to go. It's surprising to them. It's surprising to Moses that this is like, Oh, they were doing what you said to do. Why has it gotten worse?
And if we're honest, a lot of us feel like that in our walk with the Lord. Why is this so hard? Why, when it feels like what I'm trying to follow you, I'm trying to read, I'm trying to do the things that I'm supposed to do. Why is this so difficult? Some of you are like, I became a Christian because my life was a mess. And I had in my head that after I became a Christian, it would be less like that.
But it's still extremely hard. In some ways, objectively worse. And so we're going to see as Moses goes to the Lord and says, Why? Why is this working this way? Why have you done this? We're going to see that God answers him.
And God does not tell him why. He's not going to answer that question. Why it's worked out this way. But what God is going to tell him is why it's worth it to keep going. And so for us this morning, I hope that's what we get out of this. Is that we understand, maybe we want to get all the answers to why has it played out this way.
Why has it been this specific thing. But why it's worth it to keep going. So let's pray and let's study this together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your work of redemption among the Israelites. It gives us a tangible picture of your ultimate work of redemption from sin.
And we thank you, Lord, that you do work to redeem in the lives of your people. That you see them, that you hear them, that you know them, and that you come to save. We pray, Lord, that as we study this this morning, And that you would help our hearts be grasped by why it's worth everything to follow you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Chapter 4, verse 27.
The Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Okay, so that and kissed him part, I'm going to cover that first because that's weird for us. It just means it was a very warm reception. It's an Eastern thing, a Middle Eastern thing to kiss in a greeting. They're excited to see each other.
They're brothers. Aaron is a couple years older than Moses. It seems like Aaron was born in the Shifra and Pua era of Pharaoh saying, kill all the babies, and then Shifra and Pua, the midwives, being like, Hebrew women have babies too fast. That zone. And then Moses was born in the, okay, throw all the boys in the river zone because that was what happened with him, and he was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. And so Moses grew up pretty much separate from Aaron, but he knew he had a brother.
Aaron knows of Moses. And God tells Aaron, go see Moses. And Aaron hadn't seen Moses since he killed a guy and ran away. And that's been years, 40 years or so. And so my first question when I read this, though, was how does Aaron just get to leave? Aren't they slaves in Egypt?
The text does not tell us, so I came up with two theories that I'm going to share with you now. Theory one, sneakiness. It's possible that God told him to leave, and so he just sneaked on out of there. I actually don't like theory one as much as I like theory two. Theory two, Aaron, this isn't a theory, we know this, is like 84 years old. So my second theory is that the Egyptians didn't care.
They were using slaves for manual labor. I think Aaron was past his manual labor days, and he was like, I'm out of here. And they were like, bye. Nobody minded. That's my second theory. All right.
Verse 28. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak and all the signs he had commanded him to do. Throw the staff down, turns into a serpent, stick your hand in your cloak, pull it out. You have leprosy. Put it back. No leprosy.
He also has a sign where he can take water from the Nile and pour it out, but I don't think he's able to do that one here because I don't think they're at the Nile yet. But it's possible they traveled some. Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. And if you'll remember, that's what God worked out with Moses, which is Aaron's going to speak on your behalf. And the people believed.
Can you all feel this? Moses gathers them, shows them this sign, all the elders, and they believe. And they worship. And I can imagine that this news spread through the Israelites. Israelites, I mean, I bet there were people that couldn't sleep that night. I bet there were those that went to bed and just thanked the Lord that he was answering their prayers, that they had been begging him.
I bet there were those that went to sleep and they were saying, Lord, I'm sorry, I had lost heart. I had lost faith. But thank you that you hear and that you redeem and that you work. And I bet among the Israelites, it felt like it's just something in the air, the way it feels before a storm, that there's something going to happen. I bet there was giddiness. And it was the first time they ever woke up to go be a slave where there was a little bit of movement in their step that like, ah, not much longer.
You know, when you put in your two weeks notice and that's the best two weeks you've ever had at work. That kind of a thing. That feeling. God's working. They worship. And I know that some of you, as you have placed your faith in Jesus, you've had that.
That I see it. I know who he is. And I believe. And something happens in you that you can't explain. And sometimes your friends try to ask you to explain it. You can't explain it.
That something is happening to the Holy Spirit that's working you. And there's this moment of belief for them and excitement for them. And then we move forward. Chapter 5. Afterward, so we don't know exactly how long, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Not be free forever.
That's not what they say. Let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. And they're going to say later to offer sacrifices. But it says, But Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. And moreover, I will not let Israel go.
I appreciate this response for two reasons. One, he says, Who? I don't know him. And also, No. I just like that he says, And moreover, No. And also, on top of me not knowing him, No.
You cannot go. But his questions, Who is the Lord and why should I obey him? Those questions are going to be answered for him. He's not going to like the answers, but Pharaoh will get those questions answered. Who is the Lord and why he should obey him? But he says, No.
No. Not obeying him. Don't know him. Get out of here. Then they said, The God of the Hebrews has met with us.
Please let us go a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. They're saying, He's our God and if we don't obey, it might go poorly for us. But the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens. And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their burdens. This is how slavery works.
They are valuable to the Pharaoh for production. He says there's a lot of them and slowing down production is a bigger deal. Get back to work. And Pharaoh said, verse 6, The same day, that same day, so immediately, they go talk to Pharaoh and immediately, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks as in the past. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past, you shall impose on them.
You shall by no means reduce it for they are idle. Therefore they cry, Let us go and offer sacrifices to our God. So I want to show y'all, yeah, let us go and offer sacrifices to our God. I'm going to make sure I hadn't jumped ahead of myself here. Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words. But I want to show y'all a picture.
This is a picture that was in a, these were on the walls of a tomb in Thebes. And it is pictures of people making clay bricks. So what they would do is they'd take, they didn't have stone to quarry, so they would take water, they had mud, they would make clay bricks. Straw was used, it's kind of like rebar, it helped it dry out and it helped it make more, made it more solid. So without straw, the bricks would break apart.
And you'll notice in a couple of the pictures, there's just a guy sitting holding a stick. Those are taskmasters. He's not working, he's just there to make sure you work. And so they would give the Israelites straw, they would bring it to where they were, give them straw to make bricks. And so now he says, well quit bringing them straw. They have too much time on their hands.
If they can have little get togethers where they talk about, hey, let's leave, they got too much time on their hands. So now, just quit giving them straw. And they still, but keep the same number of bricks. So if they had to make 500 bricks a day, they still have to make 500 bricks a day. But now, go get some straw and maybe you won't have times to get together and have little discussions.
Verse 10. So the taskmasters and the foreman of the people went out and said to the people, thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least. Okay. Moses and Aaron said, thus says the Lord. And they come out and said, you know, thus says Pharaoh.
It's a decree of a God. And if you're the people of Israel, one of those is having more of an effect on you right now. One of those feels more real. I don't know if you've ever felt that. You're like, I know what the Lord says, but man, does this feel more real. I know what he says, but this is the one that seems to work.
I know what he says, but this is the one that seems to apply to my life. That's the situation they find themselves in. Verse 11, go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least. So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. So they have to make bricks that hold together.
They have to have straw to do that. They don't seem to own a lot of land and people have already harvested the straw, so they're just running around wherever they can to find stubble just to try to piece this together. The taskmasters were urgent saying, complete your work, your daily task each day as when there was straw. And the foremen of the people of Israel, so they had taskmasters and then they had foremen. Foremen were Israelites over other Israelites to make sure the work gets done. The foremen of the people of Israel whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them were beaten and were asked, why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday as in the past?
Moses and Aaron come and say, hey, God's visiting us. He's going to rescue us. Moses and Aaron go in front of Pharaoh. That same day, the rules come down that they're not going to get straw anymore and then it says, today and yesterday, they didn't meet quotas, so on that end of the second day, they're beaten. This happened quick. That the foremen are brought in and beaten by the taskmasters because they're no longer fulfilling what they're supposed to fulfill.
Now could you imagine being the foreman? For just a moment, God's visiting us. This is changing. We're going to be set free. Then they come and announce, y'all are wasting time.
You have too much time on your hands and now you've got to get the same amount of work done with less and that's hard and impossible. And then, as they fail, while people stand over them yelling, then two days in, they're beaten for it. Verse 15, then the foreman of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, why do you treat your servants like this? No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, make bricks. And behold, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your people. Your own people is in your own people.
Verse 17, but he said, you are idle. He said, lazy. You got too much time on your hands. You are idle. That is why you say, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go now and work.
No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks. And the foreman of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, you shall by no means reduce your number of bricks in your daily task each day. They leave and they said, well, we're in trouble. This is not going to work out for us. Verse 20, they met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them as they came out from Pharaoh and they said to them, the Lord look on you and judge because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Now from, Moses says, okay, Lord, I'll go.
I'll step out. If you remember at the burning bush, he said, please no. And he gave a bunch of excuses and then when God went through all of his excuses, he said, okay, you got through all my excuses, but also one more thing, please no. I have no more excuses, but please don't send me. And he sends him and Moses goes. Moses steps out in faith.
He goes before Pharaoh and it gets worse and then the people who he's coming to try to help look at him and say, may God judge you. They're going to kill us because of you. Verse 22, then Moses turned to the Lord and said, oh Lord, why have you done evil to this people? why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people and you have not delivered your people at all. Why? Why have you done evil?
Why has this gotten worse? You haven't delivered the people at all. Like you said you were going to deliver them, you hadn't done that at all. Like it's the opposite. It's worse. Ever since I came it's just gotten worse.
Have y'all ever thought this? Have you ever prayed this? Lord, why has this gotten harder? Why has this gotten worse? I thought this was going to be good. I thought you were going to bless.
I thought, I mean, I don't believe in the prosperity gospel. I didn't think I was going to be a millionaire and have a jet. I wouldn't be mad at you if that happened but I didn't think that was going to happen. But I didn't think it was going to be like this. I mean, it feels like I'm trying to fight uphill through briars and now there's a guy hitting me with sticks. Like I don't, it's gotten worse.
Why is this so much harder? Why isn't this easier? I've been following you for years now and it still feels like I'm in the same stuff. Why? And for Moses, Lord, I'm obeying. Why?
I did what you asked me to do. You haven't delivered at all. So chapter 6, God answers. And he doesn't answer that why. Why has this happened? He doesn't answer that.
But in his answer, I think he gives us why it's worth it. Why we should trust him. Why we should keep moving forward. In chapter 6, he says this, But the Lord said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will send them out and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land. So it's interesting because right now Pharaoh's using his strength to keep them.
And God said, Watch. Pretty soon he's going to throw everything he has at getting rid of them. God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves and I have remembered my covenant.
So this first part is an answer to Moses and then he's going to tell him what to say to the people of Israel but he says, I am the Lord and he talks about what he's done, who he is and what he's done and he talks about that he's remembered this covenant and he's going to fulfill his promises. In the next bit he's going to talk about the fulfillment of those promises. But I think that's part of the first answer we get, part of where we should start is who is he? What do we know of his character? What do we know of his nature? And we have a much more beautiful answer than Moses has when we sit and consider that.
Moses has that he fulfilled his promises to the fathers in some measure that he's working this out and that he's going to fulfill these promises now in Egypt but we actually know that he does fulfill these promises in Egypt and more than that he fulfills them eternally in Christ for us. That he loves us so much that he died for us. That's what we read earlier in Ephesians 2 that while we were still sinners Christ died for us that he loved us so that he would rescue us by grace. We start there but then here's what he's going to say to say to the people of Israel this is verse 6. Say therefore to the people of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them and I will redeem you with outstretched arm and with great Acts of judgment.
I will take you to be my people and I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob I will give it to you for a possession I am the Lord. And Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. They just couldn't hear it. They had a broken spirit and harsh slavery and there is really nothing worse than a broken spirit. And so my hope today is that even in the midst of wherever you are that you would be able to hear this answer.
That you would be able to hear what he says. When I was in seminary we they referred to a study I learned about a study where they had people tell a Bible story and then have to retell a Bible story. So you would listen to a Bible story and then you would retell it. And what were they studying? I don't know. Who's they?
Also don't know. But it's not important for this illustration so try to stay focused. What they did though was they did this with people in the United States and then they did this with people not in the United States that were more in it was either in Africa or kind of the Middle East India area but it was a very different culture. And so what I'm going to call is we'll just call it the West United States and we'll call it the East the not the United States. I remember like I said all the pertinent details. But they told them the story of the prodigal son and they had them repeat it.
And you don't need to know the whole story of the prodigal son. I mean for this illustration you don't. You should know it. It's good but you don't for this illustration. It comes from Luke 15. The main thing you need to know is that the prodigal son goes off and he does two things.
He has two problems. One is he wastes all his money and two there's a famine in the land. That's the problem he has. He wastes all his money there's a famine in the land. When the Westerners retold the story almost all of them remembered that he wasted his money. But only some remembered there was a famine.
Most of them did not. When the Easterners retold the story almost all of them remembered there was a famine and very few of them remembered that he had wasted his money. Now I don't know what they were studying but one of the things they found was that sometimes we only latch on to the things that seem to connect with us that make sense to us that we're excited about that we think about. Westerners understand wasting money. Maybe they've never really gone hungry never had to live through a famine never understood what that was like but they know about wasting money and the Easterners in this study didn't have a whole lot of connection to wasting money but they'd lived through some famines.
Now this is one of the only times I'll ever say this don't look at your Bibles just for a second don't look at your Bibles what does God promise that he's going to do? He says say this to the Israelites and he promises that he's going to do something what does he promise he's going to do? Get your answer in your head don't shout it out you'll ruin it for the rest of the class. I think that the majority of us remember he's going to set them free from slavery. He's going to get them out of the burdens of Egypt. If I had to guess what was the second most remembered thing is that he's going to take them to the promised land.
But there's a third thing that he says that I think we're likely to overlook. One of the reasons I think we're likely to overlook it is that as I was preparing this I kept overlooking it. And it's this you will be my people and I will be your God. And you see I think there's times where we read this and as Americans land of the free oh we got that freedom land land of the free home of the brave and it's like well it's land of the free home of the milk and honey but you were close. But you see the purpose of the freedom that he gives is not to get them to the borders of Egypt and say go live your dreams.
He sets them free that they might be his. He gets them away from Pharaoh that they might belong to him. I want to read this. I want us to see it. Verse 6 say therefore to the people of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great Acts of judgment. Amen.
He sets them free from slavery. There's a wonderful glorious thing that he's going to do and that he promises to do. Verse 7 I will take you to be my people and I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will bring you into the land that I swore to gifts he's going to give them land to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and I will give it to you for a possession I am the Lord but see what makes the freedom wonderful and what makes the land wonderful is that they belong to God. And how dare we fail to see how glorious and wonderful he is that he's actually what the point of the promise is.
The promised land is the promised land because he's there because he's making a people for himself. If you were in an orphanage and it wasn't a good one it was a rough place and someone came by to see you and they said one day I'm going to get you out of here. One day I'm going to get it lined up and I'm going to get you out of here. And you're not going to stay here anymore and you're not going to have to put up with this anymore and you're going to be free. And there's not going to be a day where you're laying and staring at this ceiling anymore and you're surrounded by these people anymore you're going to be free.
And one day they do it and they come to get you and they sign everything and they get it all worked out and they walk out holding your hand and then they look at you and say okay you're free best of luck to you and walk off. No the point of the freedom was so that you might belong to them. The point of the adoption was so that you might come live with them that you might belong to them and they might belong to you that they might share themselves with you and that's the glorious point of this promise here is that God says I'm going to make you mine. And if all we see is some of the stuff around it then it's possible in the midst of the difficulty we'll think is it worth it?
Because I'm pretty sure this other thing will give me some of the stuff. I mean I signed up so that my kids would behave. I started following you so that things would work out for me. I started following you because I thought it was going to make life easier. I started following you because I figured if I'd obey then I'd be married by now. I started following you because I figured this would happen or that would happen or I'd make work work out.
I don't know I didn't want you to I wasn't trying to think of you as like a lucky penny or something but I kind of I don't know. It just feels like you're not fulfilling the things. It feels like you haven't delivered at all. And if all we understand is that he's going to do some wonderful things for us but we don't understand that he's wonderful and that ultimately he's the prize and that heaven is only heaven because he's there. But if we understand that well it doesn't matter where he takes us because if he's at the end of that road it's worth it.
It doesn't matter how long it doesn't matter how much suffering it doesn't matter how much hardship the truth is Paul tells us that the suffering of this time are not worth compared to the glories that will be revealed to us that he's actually preparing for us an eternal weight of glory that only suffering works out in us and so that the more suffering to have the more we're going to carry a weight of glory that we cannot fathom because we're going to belong to him and he's going to belong to us and that's the point that he's redeeming a people for himself and praise God that he is. Praise God that heaven isn't just that weird rodeo place from Pinocchio where it's just like go do whatever the heck you want and that somehow it's just all the fun things that we could dream of because the truth is all of that is empty if it's not for him. If heaven isn't heaven without him and so we long for him we long for this day that he looks on us we long for this day that he sees us we long for this day that we're welcomed home and that is what we hold on to. Why does it play out like this?
Why do you have the struggle you have? Why do you have the pain that you have? Why do you have the hurt that you have? Why do you have some of the emptiness you feel? I don't know and I don't know if he's going to answer that but I know that if you get him at the end of it oh it's worth it that the suffering of this time pales in comparison to that day that Jesus Christ is reconciling the world to himself that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and that no one comes to the Father but by Christ and that it's through Christ that we're forgiven and that we get the Father and that's the point.
Now this is how the Bible ends.
Exodus 4:1-26
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
My name is Spencer and I am one of the pastors here. We're jumping right in to where we left off last week. Last week we began the calling of Moses and this is part two of that. So we're going to be in Exodus 4, which is on page 27 in your blue Bibles. We're going to be in the first 26 verses. So, we started off last week in chapter 3.
Moses is tending sheep in the wilderness. He comes upon Mount Horeb and then God calls out to Moses from a burning bush. And in this calling of Moses, God does a few things. He announces His plan. That He has seen the affliction of His people. He has seen that they've been in slavery for centuries.
And that He's going to bring them out of Egypt into the promised land. And He's going to use Moses to do it. He reveals who He is. Moses asks, what is your name? And He gives His personal name. I am who I am.
And we looked at that and the power and the mystery that is packed into that name. And He tells Moses that He's going to use them to lead them out of the promised land. They won't just leave the promised land empty handed. That He will loot the enemies. He will take from the Egyptians as they will give gold and jewels and clothing. In the midst of all this calling, we see a question that arises that starts to show that Moses has some doubts.
In verse 11 of chapter 3, Moses says, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? That Moses is focused on his weaknesses, on his inadequacies. And God is trying to help him see Moses. It's by my power. I'm the one who's going to be with you. It's going to be by my power that I bring the people out.
And we're going to see this continue into chapter 4. That Moses is going to continue to doubt. And God is going to continue to point to Himself. Moses is too focused on his weaknesses, on his inadequacies. He's too focused on himself. And he's not focused on what God is telling him.
That I will be with you. That I'm the one that is going to bring them out. That's going to be by my power. And we're going to see how God's response to Moses is incredibly helpful to us. We're going to see that God's redemption of His people and the obedience that He calls us to is only possible. It is only possible if we stop looking at ourselves and start looking to God.
Because we, like Moses, we make God far too small and ourselves far too big. So that's what we're going to see. Let me pray for us and then we'll walk through this together. Lord, we ask that You would help us be present this morning. You'd help us receive the Word of God. And that we respond.
We respond in how You call us to. In faith and repentance and to worship and delighting in who You are. So God, I pray that You would do this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so again. We're in the middle of this calling story.
We're picking right up where He left off. He just said, repeated His plan. I'm bringing them out of Egypt. I'm using you. They are leaving with jewels and gold and clothing. And then Moses answered, verse 1.
Moses answered, But behold, they will not listen. They will not believe Me or listen to My voice. For they will say, The Lord did not appear to you. So Moses, again, doubts. He says, What if they don't listen to Me? Which, absent from God, is a very reasonable question for Moses.
You've got to remember, Moses spent 40 years with one foot in the Egyptian royal family and another foot as a Hebrew. Okay? Not really belonging fully to the Egyptian royal family. Not a slave like the rest of his Hebrew brethren. Okay? So that's reasonable that they might have some doubts.
Also, he's been gone for 40 years. He's 80 at this point. I mean, he's presumed gone. Dead. Dead. And he's supposed to rock back up and say, The God of your forefathers appeared to Me.
And we're getting out of here. It's a very reasonable question. Absent from the Lord. But the Lord is with him. He's not absent. So it's not a reasonable question.
Moses is focusing on himself. He's made himself too big. He's made God too small. And God answers by displaying his power. So, pick it up in verse 2. It says, The Lord said to him, What is that in your hand?
He said, A staff. And he said, Throw it on the ground. So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent. And Moses ran from it. So, again, context here. Moses is 80.
Okay? He's 80 years old. He probably uses that staff for more than just shepherding. It's probably some support. Okay? God says, Take that.
Throw it on the ground. He throws it on the ground. And it turns into a snake. And he does what has been instinctual for thousands of years. He runs. All right?
80 Years old. Geared up his loins. Haltail it out of there. He gone. Like, just not dealing with a snake. And, listen.
We're going to see this happen later in Exodus. The staff is going to turn to a snake again. The presence of Pharaoh. And that snake eats two other snakes. So, this is not a small snake. Think 10, 12 foot king cobra.
Big, scary looking snake. So, if you're afraid of snakes, you are in good company with Moses. And then it says, verse 4, But the Lord said to Moses, Put out your hand and catch it by the tail. So, he tells them, catch it by the tail. So, listen. If we were a crazy snake handling church, which, if you're new, disclaimer, we're not.
Okay? And I went and grabbed some snakes, took one, and threw it in the front row and said, Pick it up by the tail. What is implied in my request? A little bit of trust. I'm telling you to pick it up. It's not going to bite you.
Which, I learned a thing this week. That actually picking it up by the tail requires even more trust. Because that's not the way you're supposed to pick up snakes. Apparently, it's by the head. Okay? We have a teaching team, Isaac and Shep, on our teaching team.
And I learned, because I grew up watching Steve Irwin. And Steve Irwin picked up lots of snakes by the tails. So, that was how I understood. That's how you pick, you just pick it up. But apparently, you don't do that because it gives them enough reach to be able to bite you.
But I grew up in the lake. We just shot snakes. I didn't grow up at, like, Isaac, at Bethel Christian Camp, out in the wilderness on his own. Like, I didn't grow up like Chet, 30 miles from the middle of nowhere. Like, this is not an activity that we did. But, you're not supposed to pick them up by the tail.
This requires a little bit of faith here. And Moses takes a step of faith. He says, So, he put out his hand and he caught it and it became a staff in his hand. And the Lord says this, That they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you. He's like, Moses, do you see what I just did? I took a staff, I turned it into a snake.
I took the snake back into a staff. Do you see my power here? They will believe you. They will believe that the covenant God of their forefathers has called you. But, here's some more evidence of my power. He gives a second sign.
Verse 6, Again, the Lord said to him, Put your hand inside your cloak. So, Moses puts his hand inside his cloak. And he says, And put, he put his hand inside his cloak and when he took it out, behold, the hand was leprous like snow. Which, is terrifying. Right? It's terrifying.
Leprosy in their culture was awful. It was awful. It wasn't just the fact that you had a disease that you would slowly decay and die from for years. It was a great social stigma. You couldn't live amongst your own people. You'd announce that you were unclean.
People were scared of you. I mean, there's no cultural equivalent to what we have today. None. The closest thing you could probably make an argument for is maybe getting HIV in the 80s. But that doesn't even remotely come close to this.
Seeing your hand as leprous is terrifying. And he sees the power of God on display. Then God said, Put your hand back inside your cloak. So he put his hand back inside his cloak and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. God is showing the kind of power that he has. Moses, do you see this?
Do you see the power that I have? And then he offers one more sign. This is verse 8. If they will not believe you, God said, or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. And the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.
So they don't believe those two signs. Do this. Take some water from the Nile, pour it out, it will turn into blood. Which if you know the story of Exodus, that's going to end up being the first plague is turning the Nile into blood. So he says, listen, do this next.
Which is a little bit of future looking. You've seen these two signs. You're going to have to wait to see this one. Have a little faith here. But once you pour that out, I'm telling you, Moses, they're going to see that I am the God of your forefathers.
I am calling you. They will believe you. Moses says, well, what if they don't believe me? And God says, do you not see it as my power at work here? Moses, do you not see it's not about you? You have made yourself far too big.
And Moses has made God far too small. And yet, Moses doubts. Continue. Verse 10. But Moses said to the Lord, oh my Lord, I am not eloquent either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.
He says, I'm not eloquent. The Hebrew literally reads here, I am not a man of words. I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue. And commentators look at this, the phrasing and how he answered this, and they say that it's very possible that Moses actually had some type of speech impediment. Some type of speech problem that he would use this type of language. So whether that is true or he's just not eloquent in speech, he's fearful.
He's looking at himself and he's like, oh, but I'm not a man of words. Which, this hits home for me. If you've, I've mentioned this in some sermons in the past, but since I was a kid, I've had a small, a minor speech impediment that I've had to work on for years.
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Sola Fide
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab a Bible and go to the book of Romans. If you have one of these blue Bibles in front of you, it will be on page 547 in the book of Romans. We're here this morning.
You're here. I'm here because at some point we've asked the question that we were supposed to ask. We've all come together asking the same question. Some of you are here this morning. Maybe this is the first time you've begun to ask this question and you've come this morning. And the question is the same question that comes out of the mouth of the rich young ruler when he meets Jesus.
It's the question that the Philippian jailer has after an earthquake where he sees the authority and the power of God and he's talking to Paul. It's the question that everyone asks after Peter's sermon on Pentecost. It's what must I do to be saved? That's the question. You may have worded it different. You may have thought about it differently, but that's the question.
It's what Carl Jung refers to this. He's a Swiss psychologist. He refers to this religious instinct that humans have this desire, this longing, this searching in them to have religious answers. It's the question that all religions are answering. What does God want from me? If there is a God, what does he expect from me?
What am I supposed to do? What must I do to be saved? What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? That's the question. And some of you are saying, I'm not asking that question. This person brought me here.
Well, I will tell you that it is the question you need to have an answer to. That if you actually were able to meet God and ask him one question, you may be curious about things like Bigfoot and UFOs or the next winning lotto Numbers, but this is the question you actually need answered is how can I be saved? Because that one has eternal implications. And I'll tell you that the Bible's answer to that, I'm going to give you a short answer, and then I'm going to give you a longer answer. You thought maybe it would just be a short answer, but I'm a preacher and that will never happen. I'm going to give you a short answer, and then I'll give you a longer answer.
The short answer is that in order to be saved, you need to be able to stand in front of God who is a judge, who weighs the hearts of humans. You need to be able to stand before God and be righteous. As Leviticus says, we have to be holy as he is holy. Or as Deuteronomy says that we need to be blameless before God. Or as David puts it in Psalm 24 where he says that he who has clean hands and a pure heart. Or as Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, that we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.
That's the standard. Now, if you're like me, like if I was going to take a test, if I was going to get my electrical license, and I went in and they said, you know, you got this amount of time and this many questions, there's 50 questions, there's 100 questions. My first question I have for them is, how many do I have to get right? Where's the cutoff? We're talking 50%, 75%. So the question that we should have is how holy, how blameless, how clean are my hands supposed to be?
How pure is my heart? When you say perfect, you meant like C plus range, right? It's like we want to argue that somehow it's graded on a curve. Like, you know, it's like, like it works the way it works when you're running from a bear. If you're ever running from a bear, you actually don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than the other people with you.
And that's kind of how we want this to work. It's like the salvation work like that. Like if I can just find people who are worse than me and I'm in the top 50%, is that okay? And when it says blameless, it means blameless. When it says holy, it means holy. When it says perfect, it means perfect.
That's the standard righteous. This is the theological word is that we would need to be justified before God, meaning that when we came in, we would need to have no sins that we have committed and we would need to have practical, positive righteousness, no sins, no negative righteousness. And we would need positive righteousness. I mean, we've actually done good in the world. So never having sinned and done what we were supposed to.
Good luck. Let's pray. That's the question. That's the short answer. But there's a longer answer that's more beautiful and more helpful than good luck.
Let's pray. And it's that question that drove Martin Luther, who we've been studying as we've talked through these five solas of the Reformation, these five theological truths that came out in the Protestant Reformation as the Protestant church broke with the Catholic church that we hold dearly because they come from the scriptures. It's this question that drove Martin Luther to, uh, to the church and ultimately to kind of where we are today. So let's pray. And then we'll, we'll start in now. We ask for your help this morning.
As we study this, we pray that this truth would be visible, tangible, tangible, that we would see it's a beauty and that we would accept it and trust you in Jesus name. Amen. So Martin Luther had this question, how can I be saved? It's why he became a monk. He thought it was the best route to being saved. Uh, we said earlier, lightning struck near him and knocked him over.
He yelled, St. Anne protects me. I'll become a monk. And he did. He becomes a monk and he's trying to be good enough to be saved because what they were telling him is you had to practice penance. You had to practice confession.
He would go into the confessional. He would confess. He'd be on his way out. He'd remember more sins. He would go back. He, he was haunted by the reality of his sin.
And the truth is he wasn't crazy. He actually saw himself pretty clearly that if you could really look into your own heart, you would see depravity. And so he, he was trying to wear out and carry out. How do I get saved? How do I make myself okay? And he was stuck studying the book of Romans and we've shown this passage, but this is where he was.
He was in Romans one and he was reading this over and over again. Romans one verse 17 for in it. That's the gospel. It says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God for salvation. So in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith from faith for faith by faith. And he was stuck here. He didn't understand how the righteousness of God was revealed in this way, that God is righteous in this way. And then he began to realize that righteousness of God being revealed is that it's granted to us that his righteousness is given to us. And his understanding of how you became righteous was that you did it. You worked it out.
You repented enough. You did enough good works. And he starts realizing that righteousness is, that it is given from faith, that we receive righteousness from faith and that it's given for faith and that we live by faith. And when he wrapped his head around this, he said, it was like the gates of heaven swung open to him that he was saved, not by his work, but by faith alone. And that's what we're looking at is this idea of sola Fide, which means by faith alone, that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone, that it's God's grace working on our behalf, but that it's faith that is the channel that brings that grace to us.
And so he wrote 97 theses. Addressing this great theological rift between what the Bible says and how we understand the Bible and what the Catholic church was teaching at that time, he wrote 97 theses on how to study the Bible and understand the Bible. He wrote it on grace and faith. And he said, you know, this is, he was dropping a bomb on the Catholic approach to understanding of, of life and sanctification and faith and how we were saved. He was saying, we've answered this question wrong. The question that we're supposed to get right.
We've answered wrong. He wrote 97 theses, which were just his end conclusion points. And he wanted to debate them. He wanted to discuss them. He was ready to show his work. He, he dropped this out to basically say the Catholic church is wrong.
This is how we're saved. And they said, the response was underwhelming. He thought, I've just thrown a hand grenade in here. Everyone's going to care. They didn't really debate a whole lot. He was winning over some people in Wittenberg to this idea that we're saved by faith, by grace alone through faith alone.
And then the cell of indulgences happened. And he threw what he did not think was a hand grenade into a situation that turned into a hand grenade. And he was like, you like those 95 theses? I have 97 other ones I'd like to share with you. Here's what happened with the cell of indulgences. Indulgences is this idea, it's Catholic idea that when you sin, there are consequences.
Consequences we're tracking so far. That's true. There are consequences. And they taught that there were time bound consequences and eternal consequences. Also true. We're on board.
Protestants are still nodding along. Yes, there are eternal consequences of sin. There are time bound consequences. They said that there are time bound consequences that are paid out here on earth. True. We agree with that.
Like if there are just consequences to sin, if you punch someone in the nose, there are consequences, immediate consequences to their face and then follow up consequences. Maybe they punch you back. Maybe they call the police. Maybe the job interview didn't go so well. I don't know. There are consequences.
But they taught that those consequences weren't the natural result of the way God designed the world, but that God would actually keep record of what you have done and dull consequences back out to you to make you pay it back off. And that he would not only do that here, but he would also do it in purgatory. As soon as they make this argument, we back out. God isn't paying you back specifically to make you pay off your debt. It's just the natural way that there are consequences to sin. It's the way God designed the world.
And there is no purgatory where you pay off mid-level sins that didn't send you to hell, but that you have to be there for a certain amount of time. But they taught this. And so they taught that what you could do was an indulgence. You could say a certain number of prayers. You could go on a pilgrimage. You could do good Acts.
And what that would do is put good back into the world. You brought bad into the world. You could put good back into the world. And as you put good back into the world, God would remove some of the consequences he was going to give you either here or in purgatory. They taught you could go on pilgrimages. Then at one point they started saying, well, you could give to like help good causes.
Like there was a hospital. You could help pay for that. And then they were like, well, you know what? We're actually working on a church building. And so in Rouen, France, they have a part of a church building, a cathedral called the butter tower, because during Lent you weren't allowed to eat butter or dairy, but they started letting you pay a little money and they'd give you like a butter ticket. And that's where we, the way we use the word, like I'm going to indulge in some ice cream.
That's where they, that gets tied to that. This indulgence of you paid some money. We're going to build our tower. You can, you can have some butter. Then enter the archbishop of Mainz.
He paid a lot of money to become the archbishop because it was a very powerful position. The church wasn't just the church. It was also in charge of politics. So he paid a lot of money to become the archbishop of Mainz. He was now in a very powerful position, but he wanted to recoup some of his money and Pope Leo the 10th wanted to finish St. Peter's Basilica and make it a lot nicer.
And so they hatched a plan. We're just going to sell indulgences for cash and split the profits. And so they hired a guy named Tetzel to begin to be their indulgence preacher. And he's traveling around Germany preaching and he's preaching. Basically, these are indulgences that if you pay us a certain amount of money, we'll give it to you. And if you keep it, if it's for you, you'll, you won't have to go to purgatory.
And if you pay it on behalf of someone else, we'll let them out of purgatory right now. So they was teaching. Um, and he had, he was like a, he was hawking these things. He was a salesman. He had different phrases he used. He said, if you buy one of these, you're cleaner than when you come out of baptism.
If you buy one of these, you're cleaner than Adam before the fall that the cross on the indulgence has as much power as the cross of Christ. But the one he's most famous for is as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory Springs. And I was like, man, that's catchy. It rhymes, you know, it's true. But I was like, well, you know, it rhymes in English.
He was saying this in German. So was it as catchy? I looked it up and I hadn't been as excited about anything in a while. It's amazing in German. It still rhymes. If you don't speak German, I'm about to crush this.
If you do speak German, I'm sorry if I say something offensive, but this is the phrase in German. So bald, that's geld in cast and clinked. Die still in den Himmel springt. Clinked and springt. I was so pumped when I saw this. I think we should put more T's at the end of words.
So he has this phrase that he's saying, this is how you do. This is what happens if you'll buy one of these. This is how salvation works. And I was so excited about this that we've come up with some of our own. When the money goes in the slot, your sins are forgiven on the spot. The check goes in the wall.
There's no more sin on y'all. Set up recurring gifts online and then your soul will be just fine. You better have a Venmo if you want to sin-mo. So proud of those. Anyway, it would be absolutely crazy if we actually taught that. That if we were like, you know, we need to place our faith in Jesus.
He's the one who redeems us. Or there's a cash option. But that's what they were doing. And so Martin Luther writes 95 theses about this. His 97 weren't a big hit, but he was like, this is ridiculous as well. So he's doing the same thing that he did.
He's not thinking this will blow up. He's just trying to say this is wrong. Some of the arguments he makes are, first of all, he says the Pope is in charge of Pope things, not purgatory. If the Pope tells you that you have to pay some kind of penance, then the Pope can give you an indulgence to not have to pay that penance. He's in charge of the churches doling out and removing of things. He says, but God's in charge of purgatory.
Later he decides there is no purgatory as he continues to read his Bible. But at this point he's not there. So he says, God's in charge of purgatory. He says, the Pope can't get you out of purgatory. Secondly, if the Pope could get you out of purgatory, he should just be doing this because he loves people, not for cash. He should pay out of his own pocket if it costs money.
He should pay his own money to get people out of purgatory if he has that power. He should want to sell St. Peter's Basilica to get people out of purgatory. This is what he writes. This one was not well received by the Pope. This one makes it to him.
He attacked the Pope. He attacked his wallet. And it becomes a big thing. And he was like, you like those 95 theses? I got 97 more on something that I think is way more important. So as soon as he got some, people started hearing him and reading this.
He started pressing this idea of there's salvation by grace through faith. And this is how it comes to us. It blows up over this idea of indulgences, which affects this. But it wasn't his primary argument he was trying to make. He's more famous for the 95, but his 97 matter more because it's a theological argument. So he comes through and he says, this is how it works.
And all we're going to do now is I'm going to show you in the book of Romans where this is. And we're going to walk through that we are saved by faith alone. We are not saved by our works. So in Romans chapter three, turn to chapter three. We're going to pick up in verse nine and we're going to move our way through Romans. I'll show you some passages in Galatians, but we're going to work our way through Romans.
First thing you need to know to understand how salvation works, to answer this question, what must I do to be saved? We're supposed to be righteous. You're supposed to be holy. You're supposed to be blameless. That's the standard perfection. Out the gate, you need to understand something.
You aren't. Romans three, Paul says this. He's talking about the law, meaning the ways that we would behave, that God has told the Old Testament Jewish people, that this is the law on how you would be holy is how you'd be blameless. And he starts talking about them having this. And he's already making the argument that everybody has sinned. But he says, what advantage has the Jew, meaning the people who were given the law, or what is the value of circumcision, meaning this covenant that was made with them?
Sorry. Verse nine. I'm way, I'm up at the top of verse, chapter three. He's making this argument as he goes through. Then he says, what then are Jews any better off?
Verse nine. No, not at all. He's saying that this was given to him and it was a blessing, but it ultimately doesn't make them better off when it comes to salvation. The law does not do this. He says, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous.
No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good.
Not even one. You're like, no one does good. Maybe I do. Not even one. What he's saying is that, and this is a quote from the Old Testament, but that the standard of righteousness is not met by anybody. That you're supposed to add high quality good into the world.
You're supposed to have positive righteousness and you're supposed to not sin. And what we have done is we have not done this, not done what we were supposed to. And we have done what we weren't supposed to. We have sinned. That's us. If it's your first time hearing that, I'll let that sink in for a second.
You're a sinner before God. You have lied. You have stolen. You have been covetous. You've messed up relationships. One of the best examples of this is that to show how wicked we are is that most of the time, the worst things we do are the people that we would say we love the most, the people we're closest to, that we consistently harm people that we're around, that you have not, you're not one of the good ones.
So we fall short. This is what he says in verse 22 and 23 later on. He says, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So that none of us make it. Secondly, so we've all sinned. Secondly, we need to understand this is verse 19.
That we are all accountable to God. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. That not only are we in our sin, but we are accountable to God. That he, as God, as creator, as ruler of the world, holds us to account. And we don't have anything. We don't have anything to say.
He says every mouth may be stopped. This is what Job says when he talks about standing before God. He says that who could stand before God? He would accuse you on a thousand fronts and you would have no response for any of them. That if you actually went in front of God, he'd have a thousand things that he could say. You've lusted.
You've lied. You've tried to make yourself seem better than you were. Every time you did something good, every time you did something that would be counted as good, you walked around with pride in your heart, strutting as if you were better than everyone around you. You couldn't even do something good without bringing your sin along. And we would have nothing to say. It'd be like he had it on tape.
He had it on record. He showed it to us. We'd have no argument to make. That's what he says. The law just shuts us up because it holds us accountable and there's nothing we can do about it. The third thing you need to understand is that no amount of work can fix this.
So when we're called to be righteous, there's no amount of penance that you can pay, no amount of debt that you can work off, no amount of goodness that you can add back into the world, no amount of, okay, I've been bad, I've messed up, I've hurt people, but now I'm going to get it together. Now I'm going to do it right. That doesn't work. He says, for by works of the law, this is verse 20, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So if you say, well, what do you want me to do?
Just give me the list and I'll do it. He says, that will never make you justified. You'll never be able to stand before him by works of the law and have done practical righteousness and not sin. No human being. If you happen to be a part of the Illuminati and you're like a lizard person, you might can sneak in, but everybody else, all the human beings, will not be justified in his sight. This is what Galatians 3.10 says, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and do them. So I want to talk to two people real quick that I think often are trying to rely on works of the law. I want to talk to a good old boy, Southern Christianity. What does God want from me? He wants me to be an upstanding citizen. He wants me to do what's right.
Okay? True, he does want those things for you. That will not save you. Because if you don't uphold every part of the law, you're cursed. There is no, just be in the middle of the pack. Don't make things worse.
And we'll be all right. That's not how it works. It says, all who rely on works of the law. For you to say, well, I'm just going to be good enough. I'm just going to kind of do what I'm supposed to. I'm going to be a part of a church.
I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to pay my taxes and pay my tithe. And that's what you're relying on. This is what you're going to present to him. This is your resume you're building. You are under a curse.
It will not work. And some of you are shooting for middle of the pack. And some of you go, that's ridiculous. Got to be in the top 10%. So let's talk to church ladies.
If we're going to give a hard time to good old boys, let's talk to church ladies. If you think that, no, it's not, it's not just be kind of good. It's be really good. It's get a perfect attendance pin to Sunday school. It's know your Bible backward and forward and be able to quote it at people. It's be disgusted with sinners.
My wife works at a bank and periodically they'd have situations where things were going wrong. And I don't know if y'all know this about people, but they get upset during customer service incidences. And they seem to crank that up if it involves their money. But there was a time she was telling me there was a lady they work with who's hard to work with. And every time something happened, she was super frustrated. And when she was arguing with them, she would cite that she was a Sunday school teacher.
And how dare they? And my wife would be like, what? First of all, this is a bank. We don't care about your Sunday school teaching. Second of all, what the heck even is that? It's like this.
But that idea of I'm one of the good ones. You're cursed. If you're trying to rely on the works of the law. If you have a resume that you're going to present to God, it will not work. It's what Galatians 2, 21 says. He says, I do not nullify the grace of God.
For if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. If you could do it on your own. If there was one person. It says, no, not one. But if there was one person who was righteous on their own.
Then all God would have to say is, see? You could do it. But this person, the rest of y'all, if we could do it, if there was a way to attain it from the law, why did Christ come? Why did he die? We don't have an answer for that. Paul says it's for no purpose.
Christ doesn't have to die. He would just have to teach us things. He would just come back in. He would reform it a little bit. He'd tweak it. He'd say, y'all aren't doing this part right.
But if you try really hard, you can. You can. You can. So Jesus comes, verse 21 in Romans. But now, the righteousness of God, that's that word again, has been manifested, means showed up, apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
So he says the law and the prophets were pointing us in this direction, but it's not the law that brought God's righteousness to us. It says it's the righteousness 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. That's that word. That's that theological word, that thing that we need to be in front of God, 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 to be received by faith. All right. That's beautiful. That we're justified. That thing that we need, we're made right before God by his grace as a gift. A gift meaning we didn't do it.
He gives it to us. It's to be received. You look at the bottom. Received by faith. That's what we do. We receive a gift by faith, by trusting Jesus.
He's the one who does redemption and propitiation. Let me tell you what those words mean. Redemption is the idea that he buys us out of slavery. That he pays the price for us. So, to stand before God, you need no sin and positive righteousness. Unfortunately, what you have is sin and no positive righteousness.
Okay? You're in the wrong line with the wrong ticket. At the wrong show. At the wrong time. You got nothing. Jesus has no sin and positive righteousness.
So, Jesus redeems and propitiates. Meaning that he comes in and he swaps places with us. He pays the debt. He says, I'll take your sin. I'll give you my righteousness. It's redemption.
Propitiation. Then he goes to God and he says, I will, here's their sin. I'll pay for it. That's propitiation. That he absorbs the wrath of God on our behalf. If he had sinned, he wouldn't be able to do anything for us.
If he hadn't fulfilled the law on our behalf, he wouldn't be able to do anything for us. He never sinned and he fulfilled the law. We never fulfilled the law, but we have sinned and he swaps places with us. Jesus Christ died for a purpose. And it was to redeem sinners and to propitiate our sin before God. There's this idea of a champion.
I always found it really intriguing. And it's just an interesting thing that would happen in history. When people would go to fight, whole armies would line up. But then at times they would say, rather than us just our army fighting your army, just send forth your champion. Send out the biggest, baddest dude you got. And we'll send out the biggest, baddest dude we have.
And they'll fight on our behalf. This actually happens in the book of 1 Samuel. That's what Goliath was. He was the champion of the Philistines. He comes out and says, I'm going to fight on behalf of us. He actually says, if I win, y'all will serve us.
But if you win, if your champion wins, we'll serve you. The whole nations, the whole armies, everything was hanging in the balance on one-on-one fight. That's what faith in Jesus is. He's not our commander that coaches us up on how to fight well. He's our champion. We stand back.
It's all in his hands. If he wins, we win. If he secures the victory, we have the victory. If he rescues, if he redeems, if he accomplishes it, if he rises, we rise. If he doesn't, we don't. But it's all been pushed onto him.
That we trust Jesus to be the one who accomplishes this. Jesus to be the one who's righteous for us. Jesus to be the one who pays off our sin debt. That it's not, I have to feel bad enough. I have to pay penance to pay off my debt. Or that I have to be good enough.
It's none of that that we trust Jesus. We have faith in Jesus and we are saved by faith. Fifth thing we need to see is that faith is not a work. It's actually the opposite of work. It's anti-work. It's not the one work that we do.
It's the quitting of our work. Effective immediately. Resignation, effective immediately. Here's what he says, verse 27. And I love that he poses this as a question. Then what becomes of our boasting?
Like what the question is, okay, cool. Jesus saves me by grace through faith. It's a gift. What do I get to brag about? What happens with me telling everyone I'm awesome? And he says, it is excluded.
Which means you don't get to. There is no boasting in this system. You aren't awesome. Did you read the first part of my letter? It's excluded. You did not do this.
That's what he's saying. There is no boasting. And this helps us understand that this isn't a work. He says, by what kind of a law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Meaning if you did it, then you can strut. But if you watch David and Goliath go forward. And we were here for 40 days, super scared. Nobody wanted to fight Goliath. And then we're like, here's a child with a rock.
Let's see what he can do. We send him forward. All our hopes in him. We're trusting in this. Because he's the only one brave enough to go do it. He's going to go handle it.
Seems meek. Seems like it's not going to work. But it does. That ultimately he's a beautiful picture of what Jesus is. But we're the ones all scared and sitting back.
And as soon as he killed Goliath, if I jumped in the back and yelled, I'm awesome! Chad Phillips! He'd be like, what is wrong with you? He'd be like, we won. It's like, yeah, but David, what? That's what he's saying.
Like there's no boasting here because we didn't do any work. It's excluded. This is what Calvin says in his institutes. He was a French performer in Geneva. It says, because of the majority of people, because the majority of people, imagine a righteousness of faith mixed with works. Meaning you need both.
You've got to bring your good works to the table. You need to have faith in Jesus. Let us also show the righteousness of faith is so different from that of works that if one is established, the other is overturned. One's excluding the other. You can have one or the other. You can stand before God on your own merit or you can stand before God on Christ's merit.
It's up to you. But you don't get both. You either show up with Christ's record of righteousness, which I would heavily suggest to you, or you show up with your record of righteousness. But you don't get both. That's what he says. What becomes of our boasting, it is excluded by law of faith.
And this is good news. I want to jump to Romans 4, 4. Because I love this passage. Now, to the one who works, he's still carrying this idea out, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. If you work for 40 hours, you went to pick up your paycheck, and as they went to hand it to you, you reach that and they pull back and say, ah, say thank you. Like, fool.
You tell me thank you. You owe me this. That's his point. It's like if it's a wage that you earned, it's your due. We can't hold it back from you. You deserve it.
Then he says this, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. That's us. We don't work. We didn't show up with something to present. And we're ungodly. But Jesus justifies the ungodly.
If you're here and you're going, I'm so messed up. I've got to get back in church. I've got to get it together. I've got to start reading my Bible. I've messed everything up in my life. I've messed up all my relationships.
I've just got to clean this up. I've got to get this straightened out. You won't. But Jesus can. He justifies the ungodly because he's good. That's why it's a gracious gift.
This is beautiful, wonderful news. That faith is counted as righteousness. And faith is us just saying, I trust that Jesus has accomplished this for me. And that makes us genuinely, truly, eternally righteous because we stand in Christ, not ourselves. We're saved by grace alone through faith alone. Now, as we do that, Christians are supposed to work.
We have good works. But good works do not secure salvation for us. They do not earn anything for us. It's just the appropriate response to what Jesus has done for us. That's what Martin Luther, I'm going to end with two quotes from him. He says, God does not need our good works.
They don't present to him. They don't save us. He says, but your neighbor does. And that's God, we're saved by grace through faith for good works that he works in us, that he planned beforehand. We're told that in Ephesians, but they don't redeem us. So that if you look at a Christian, Christians are supposed to have works.
They're supposed to look like believers. John tells us that. James tells us that. Paul tells us that. Christ tells us that. But we look like believers because we are.
We look like Christ because we've been made like Christ through the work of Christ. So you don't bring good works to him for your redemption. You come to Jesus. The only thing that you can bring is your sin that makes your salvation necessary. That's all you have. I need a clean.
I need clean hands and I need a pure heart. But I have dirty hands and a wicked heart. And I get Christ. Christ. So this is what Luther says.
He says, it is God's nature to make something out of nothing. Hence, one who is not yet nothing, out of him God cannot make anything. So if you think you're something, if you have good works that you're going to present to God, you'll stand in that. But God will not make you new. Because you still think you're presenting something to him that has earned you something. He says, therefore, God accepts only the forsaken.
Cures only the sick. Gives sight only to the blind. Restores life only to the dead. Sanctifies only the sinners. Gives wisdom only to the unwise. In short, he has mercy only on those who are wretched.
But he does have mercy on those who are wretched. He does justify the ungodly. And so we get together and we praise his name because he saves us through his goodness and his glory on our behalf. The band's going to come back up. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus. If you do not have a good answer to the question of what does God want from me?
Or if you answered the question with he wants me to be good. You are under a curse. You are not righteous. You are accountable to God. And you will pay the due penalty of your sin. And it would be unloving to tell you anything else.
It would be unloving to stand up here and say, you'll be okay. It'll be fine. It will not. If you walk towards Christ with your resume that screams the glory of your own name. You will not be welcomed into heaven. You will not be welcomed into his presence.
You will not be given glory before his face. You will pay the penalty of your sin. But Jesus Christ redeems the ungodly. He justifies us before God. He pays the penalty of our sin. And all you need to do is bring your sin to him and say, this is all the stuff that should disqualify me.
All I can bring to you is all the things that would keep me out. And I can hand him over to Christ and I can let him take him to the cross for me. And when he rises, I can rise with him. Because he gives me his righteousness. And then when you stand before God. And he brings to you a thousand accusations.
You can say they were all paid by Christ. And I am clothed in the righteousness of your son. And we are made righteous in his son. And we are justified by God. And if someone says, well, you're ungodly. It's like, yes and amen.
That's who Jesus justifies. I'm wretched. And so I get a glorious, gracious Savior. And if you've placed your faith in Jesus. And you're somehow trying to smuggle works back in. Because we have little legalist hearts.
That you're somehow falling short. And you haven't done enough. And you aren't good enough. And you're overwhelmed by the weight of your sin. Would you stop and take a deep breath. And praise Jesus for justifying the ungodly.
If you can look at yourself right now and say, I've been following Jesus for so long. And I feel so ungodly. Praise Christ that he justifies the ungodly. That he redeems. That he propitiates. You say, I deserve so much wrath for my wickedness.
He said, yes. And Christ paid it out on the cross. And he disarmed the rulers and the authorities. And we rise with him because he rises. Not because we're good. Not because after he saved us we got together.
And we became good people. But because he redeems. And he makes new. And he gets the glory and the praise forever. If you haven't placed your faith in Jesus. Trust him.
Come to him now and say, I need you to save me. And he will. And if you have placed your faith in Jesus. Let's celebrate that he saves sinners like us. And let's sing praises to his name.
Here We Stand: The Five Solas
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
He call glorious above, and gratefully sing His wonderful love. Our children defender, the ancient of days. Alleluia, in slender, and burden with grace. Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here.
In the summer of 1520, during the height of the Holy Roman Empire, a papal bull was sent out, which sounds way cooler than it is. It just means aggressive pope letter. So the pope sent out this letter, this papal bull, and in it there's this quote. It says, Arise, O Lord, and judge your cause. A wild boar has invaded your vineyard. This letter was sent out, and it was saying that this wild boar was Martin Luther.
This monk who was in the Catholic Church had, as he was in the Catholic Church and been studying as a monk and had begun to teach, he had begun to realize that he didn't think the Bible matched up with a lot of what Catholicism was doing. And as he was reading it and studying it, he thought, oh, wow, I bet the Catholics would like to know this. I bet the pope would like to know that, like, we're not lining up with scriptures. And he started writing. His intent was to change some of the way that the church was operating. He was trying to say, hey, I don't think we're right about this.
He wasn't trying to do what he ultimately ended up doing. He was just trying to reform. And so he had begun to disseminate information that the Catholic Church didn't want to be disseminated at this time. And so Pope Leo X sent this papal bull out, and it basically said, Martin Luther, you've got 60 days. Turn yourself in. Recant.
And we can move on. Martin Luther, around day 60, with some of his students, burned the papal bull. He said, they burn my books. I'll burn their letter. And he was excommunicated from the church. And then the pope basically asked Charles, told Charles V, who was king, to go get Martin Luther.
The separation of church and state is something that comes out of the Protestant Reformation, but it did not exist before that. And in the Holy Roman Empire, the pope and the state were one and together, and the pope had a lot of authority. And so he told this king to get Martin Luther. They bring Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms, which when you read it, looks like a way worse version of the paleo diet. But diet just means council, and Worms is just a city.
So they call him to like a city council meeting, but like an aggressive one. So it was kind of like a city council meeting. And they bring him in front of it, and this council works for the church, works for the Catholic church. And so basically they're bringing him in, and it's kind of a trial to see if he's a heretic. And at this time, he's already been excommunicated from the church. But if you're deemed a heretic, someone who's actually teaching false doctrine, they most likely will execute you.
Heretics were burned. And so he stands in front of this council, and they basically slide across to him some of the things that he had been teaching. And they say, these are the teachings, and we want you to recant. We want you to take it back. And so he says, can I have a day? Can you give me a day to look over this, to think about it?
They say, yes. You have it 24 hours, and he would show back up the next afternoon. So he goes to think about it. Now, Martin Luther, if we're looking at the Protestant Reformation in a real simplistic form, Martin Luther is like the spark that set off a powder keg, where God had already been working and doing things, but when Martin Luther begins to proclaim what he proclaims, it sets all of this in motion. And the reason it's called the Reformation, or the Protestant Reformation, is that they were intending to reform the Catholic church. They were reformers.
But the Catholic church didn't want to be reformed, so they became protesters. So it's the Protestant Reformation. And out of this, we have Lutheranism and Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists come out of this. We're going to study this for ourselves. We're going to look at this and decide what we ought to do based off of the Scriptures. We have Scriptures in our own languages, in the common language.
That was not a thing that was practiced at this time. So Martin Luther comes back the next day, and he says two things, and I appreciate both of them. And I think we can learn from both of them. The first thing he says is, okay, I admit that some of my language was not helpful. Some of the way I went about this was coarse. And if you ever read much of Martin Luther, yes, he did not speak kindly.
He was very coarse in his language, very aggressive. And so he says, I didn't word this right. And some of us need to learn that, that you can come back and you don't have to hold to all your guns. You can come back and say, hey, so I still agree with myself, but I did not handle that well. I should not have said that the way I said it. I shouldn't have acted the way I acted.
I need to repent of that part. And then we need to have a discussion about the actual issue. That's what he says. I shouldn't have said it this way. And then he says, but I can't recant. And this is how he ends him telling them he can't recant.
He says, my conscience is captive to the word of God. I will not recant anything. For to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.
Amen. So he tells them, understanding that those who have gone before him and have stood against the Catholic Church have many of them been executed. He says, here I stand. I can do no other. I stand on the word of God. I'm held captive to it.
He ultimately is not killed by the Catholic Church. He does have to escape. He hides for a while. But this monk who started reading the scriptures and became captive to the scriptures sets in motion this movement in the church that we stand down river from. That we stand in line with. And so for the next five weeks, well six weeks counting today, we're going to look at the five solas of the Reformation.
These five major pieces of articulated doctrine that come out of the Reformation, we're going to spend some time studying them and looking at where they come from in the scriptures. I want you to turn to Titus chapter one. So I can help you understand why we find this valuable and helpful for us to do. And then what we'll do today is we'll walk through all five of them, give a brief introduction to them, and then we'll spend a week on each one over the next five weeks. Titus chapter one, verse nine. This is Paul writing a letter to a pastor.
We're going to read what he says, but we're going to pray first and then we'll move into Titus one. God, we ask for your blessing and your help. We ask for the work of your spirit that we might see these truths, these doctrines as beautiful and good. And that we might grow to know what we believe and why we believe it as we hold fast to you. In Jesus name. Amen.
Titus one, verse nine. Paul's writing to a pastor and he's this is a pastoral epistle. He's writing to a pastor and Creek and he's basically telling him what to do, how to install more elders, more overseers in this area. And he says this in verse nine. He meaning any new overseer, any new elder, any new pastor must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. We are a people of the word that's been handed to us.
We have a message. We have doctrine. We have truth that we hold on to and that we teach and instruct one another in and keep each other in. We have boundaries. We have a foundation that we can't go outside of. This is good for us, but we don't get to come together and make up new doctrines.
It's one of the things we've said periodically. If you're reading the Bible and you come across something brand new, it's possible that you're reading it wrong. But we also and we'll get to this later, we believe that we are under the authority of the scripture and that it does reform the church. So that there are times where we've gotten off and the scriptures bring us back. But we have to hold firmly to this.
And so it helps us to know what we believe and why we believe it. Because we are a doctrine people. This puts us at odds with the world. That we actually have truths that we hold to regardless of what others say. That we don't change with the times. In so many ways, we're bound to this.
He says this in chapter 2, verse 1, as he keeps going. And he says, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. And so that's what we're setting out to do for the next five weeks is to study together good doctrine. And good doctrine is life-giving. It's foundational. It's helpful.
One of the things that happens in this room periodically is someone will come and they're coming to visit or they're coming to see something or they're coming to help fix something. And they'll walk in this room and they'll stop and go, oh, wow. We've had multiple people just walking with eyes to come fix something or look at something that will just stop and stare at the ceiling in this room. They're like, oh, my goodness. Because that's a beautiful ceiling. I mean, that's a good-looking ceiling.
Now, if you're under the balcony, not as much. But if you're out here. And what happens in places like this where something is well built, there are times where you can just kind of be captivated by it. And then there are other times where you cease to notice it. And foundational doctrine in the church works much like that. It can't be removed.
But at times we can get to where we've stopped noticing it. We've stopped appreciating it. And for the next five weeks we want to know what we believe, why we believe it. And we want to take a moment to just look and go, isn't that good? Isn't that beautiful that that's true for us? And just appreciate this sound doctrine.
So let's talk about what the five solas are. We will look at them first in Latin. One of the things that the reformers fought tooth and nail for, often being executed for, was to get the Bible in the common language of the people. And to honor that sacrifice, we refer to these in Latin. It's possible that the reason we do this is so that we can still be clear with the Catholics where we disagree. And they like Latin.
So it's like these are the ones that we want to talk to you all about. But here they are in English. Scripture alone. That's what the sola, sola, sola. Scripture alone. Faith alone.
Grace alone. Christ alone. To the glory of God. Alone. I was talking to someone recently. I said we're going to talk about the five solas.
And they were like, hmm. I don't know about that. And then I said them in English. And they were like, hmm. That's good. I like that.
That's what we believe. A way to say this is that we believe that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. As revealed by the scriptures alone or under the authority of the scriptures alone. To the glory of God alone. That's foundational for us as Christians, as Protestants. And that was not the case when this began in the Reformation.
And these were points of clarification where Luther and Calvin and Zwingli had to say, no, no, no, no. Look at this. It doesn't say what y'all are saying. So. Sola Scriptura. We'll look at it first.
Martin Luther was a monk. And he had become like a priest, pastor, kind of in a role where he was teaching. And they had him teaching through the book of Romans. And so he was reading Romans. And he was reading Romans in Latin and in Greek. And you had to be well educated to do this.
They did not have the scriptures in the common language. And so as he had been educated, he was beginning to read this. And as he was reading the scriptures over and over again and studying the scriptures over and over again. He came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church at that time was not in line with the scriptures. There were a lot of things that they were doing that didn't make any sense. So he at one point says.
A council may sometimes err. And be wrong. Neither the church nor the pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from scripture. And if you read scripture, you'll see this. Jesus says this when he's talking about the Pharisees in Matthew 15, 9.
He says, It's in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They've begun to teach foundational truths, but they're just made up. They don't come from the text. They were things that men came up with. They aren't what we build life and faith around. Or in 2 Timothy.
As we look at this idea of scripture alone is our authority. Scripture alone is what guides and directs the church. In 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 17. Paul writes to Timothy. He says that he. How from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.
That's the scriptures. We believe that the scripture is from God. It's breathed out by him. It has authority. It's true and valid. And so we rest on scriptures.
When we come to the Bible, we don't approach this. We talk about interpreting. Like we want to interpret this well. And we do. We want to understand how it was written. Who it was written to.
What time it came in. We want to understand what this passage means like that other passage. But what we don't get to do is decide what we like and don't like. What we'll keep and not keep. We don't believe that the Bible sits under us. We believe that the Bible sits over us.
That it has authority over us. We actually believe that it makes logical sense that this will say things that you don't like. If you read the scriptures and they only ever agree with your political views. If they only ever agree with what you wanted to do anyway. There's a good chance you're not reading it right. Because the scriptures correct us.
They challenge us. That God is holy. We are not. And so that he has to in his holiness correct our sinfulness. This affects how we operate as a church. This type of series that we're doing right now is very out of the ordinary for us.
We'll spend most of this year as we've spent most of every year. Walking through books of the Bible. Because we think they're profitable. For teaching. For reproof. For rebuke.
For correction. For training in righteousness. That we would be equipped. We think that they're able to make us wise unto salvation in Christ. So we study the Bible together.
We just finished 1 John. We're going to hopefully, by the Lord willing, we'll look at Ruth this year. We'll get into Exodus. It's going to be a pile of fun. And we think it's going to be helpful. And it will point us towards Jesus.
That even the Old Testament will ultimately drive us towards faith in Christ. We live in a culture right now that tells you that this is a crazy idea. And that what you need to do is be true to yourself. Figure out what you really love and follow that. And as Christians, the Bible stands antithetical to that idea. You know, people sit in horror movies and they're like, don't go in the room.
You know, they yell at the person or whatever. We need to do that in Disney movies. It's like, follow your heart. Don't do it. Your heart's going to murder you. It's a liar.
We don't think we need to follow our heart. We think we have scripture that corrects us and addresses our heart and changes us. And that puts us at opposition with the world. And also, some of you right now are believers. And you're stressed. And you're tired.
And you're exhausted. And you're frustrated. And you're confused. And you're telling this to your community group. But you're not reading your Bible.
And we need this to correct us, to train us, to help us, and to point us towards Christ. So we're going to spend some time looking at that over the next few weeks. Sola fide. So we're going to keep talking about Martin Luther as we go through some of this because he's a very interesting person. But he was training to be a lawyer.
His dad was helping pay for that. I was excited about him being a lawyer. He got stuck in a thunderstorm and was terrified. Lightning struck really near him. And he shouted out, St. Anne, protect me.
I'll become a monk. He's Catholic. So he's shouting, St. Anne, protect me. I'll become a monk. He did not die in that thunderstorm.
And he did become a monk. And his dad was very mad about it. Much like my mom when she found out I was going to be a pastor. She was disappointed in me. She thought it was good. But she wanted me to do other stuff.
She told me she had to pray about it. She thought I was throwing away my potential, which I think she overshot potential. But whatever. She's my mom. She's real proud of me, guys. So he becomes a monk.
And the knowledge of his sinfulness was ever present with Martin Luther. He felt it. His wickedness. His evil. He drove his confessor crazy. You know, you have to go confess your sins to a priest.
And he would go all the time. Because there were a couple of teachings that affected this. First of all, he had become a monk to try to save his soul. So he was trying to work. He was holding vigils and doing prayers and doing effort. He was trying to make himself okay in God's eyes.
And one of the things that you have to do is you have to confess sin. And if you confess sin and then you have unconfessed sin when you die that you haven't confessed yet, you can still go to hell or purgatory. And so there's multiple cases where he would confess sin, be walking out of the confessional, and turn immediately back around and be like, I forgot something. And he would just go through. I did this and this. And he would drive in his...
The priest is like, that's enough. Like, wrap it up. Like, he was confessing too much stuff. He was driving him crazy. At one point... The other thing is they teach venial sins and mortal sins.
And venial sins are like sins that aren't that bad. And mortal sins are sins that are real bad. And one of the rules is that if you do it on purpose, like with a high hand, like aggressively sin, that can make it a mortal sin. And so Martin Luther would go in and confess sin. And his priest would say, well, that's, you know, a venial sin. And Martin Luther would be like, no, I did it on purpose.
And the priest would ask him questions. And it was... His argument was, if I know what's right and I do what's wrong, then I've intentionally done it. My heart is angry towards God. My heart is not towards Him. I'm doing all of these.
And so Martin Luther would go in, confess every sin he could think of, and argue that all of them were mortal sins. To the point that his priest said, hey, let's stop this. You need to just become a mystic. Which was the thing that was growing in Catholicism at that point. He said, you need to learn just how to love the Lord. And so he tried that.
And he came back. And the priest was like, how's that going? Do you love God? And he was like, nope. Martin Luther actually said, no, I've actually learned the more I've tried to love Him that I actually hate God. And the reason was that God was angry, waiting to strike him down, holding him to a standard that he couldn't meet, dangling him over the pit of hell.
And he would never be able to get himself out of this. He was working and working and working and working and working and working and working to try to make himself okay. And he could never escape. He said, I hate God. And his priest said, you know what? I'm going to put you in charge of being a pastor over some students.
That was his response to finding out that he said he hated God. But his theory was he was taking it very seriously. And maybe he needed something to take his mind off of how sinful he was. And just hanging out by himself, being a monk, wasn't working. So he put him in charge.
And he started teaching through the book of Romans. He's reading it in Latin. He's reading it in Greek. And he gets stuck on Romans 1, verse 17, which is this. For in it, talking about the gospel, because Romans 1, 16 is not ashamed of the gospel for in its power of salvation. He says in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.
As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And he gets stuck because he doesn't understand what on earth that means. And he keeps reading it over and over again. And in the Latin, the word righteousness is this word that means justification, to be right. Right. But in the Greek, the original language it was written in, it has this nuance to it that means to be named right.
To be considered right. So he started thinking, hold on a second, this isn't God's righteousness, wherein he's righteous on his own. But it's righteousness that he gives, that we're considered righteous. And he stares at this over and over again until he says, hold on a second. Righteousness from God is revealed from faith and it's for faith. That it's not revealed from work.
So we don't get to his righteousness from effort. We get to his righteousness from faith. And then it's not from faith to something else, but it's from faith and it's for faith. And so the righteous shall live by faith. And in this moment, it says it clicked. That he would be saved by faith alone in the work of Christ.
That the gospel was the power of salvation. And it was from faith and it was for faith and the righteous live by faith. And he has this quote. He says, when I discovered that, I was born again by the Holy Spirit. The doors of paradise swung open and I walked through. Now, it's amazing.
He jumps. This is the hinge. This salvation by faith alone is the hinge which all the rest of this turns on. It's where our faith is that we are saved by faith alone. But I feel like if he had just kept reading in Romans, he'd have figured it out more clearly because it gets clearer.
I think if he'd have been in charge of teaching Galatians, that's pretty much all Galatians is saying. I want to show you this in Galatians chapter 2, verse 16. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. That the way we're made right is not by our effort, but through faith. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.
Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. The law being God's righteous moral standard. That you being good enough will not justify you. If you've come in here and you think that the primary thing that the Bible teaches you is how to be a good person, this flies in the face of that, that is not what it is telling you to do. It is telling you about a good person and his name is Christ. And that we are justified through faith in him.
Philippians 3, 8 and 9 says, Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. We are not saved by our work. You're not saved by your morality.
You're not saved by your good works. You're not saved by what you do. You're not defined by what you do. If you're in Christ, you get to be defined by what he has done. And that we are made righteous, acquitted, not guilty, perfectly clothed, beautiful, spotless, blameless, above reproach. We are made righteous in Christ through faith in what he has done.
That we trust in him. That we would have a righteousness that comes through faith, that depends on faith. And it is not the righteousness of our own that we've earned. Some of you need to soak in this idea. Because some of you, even those who say, I'm a Christian and I believe that I'm saved by faith, that you live out your life much like Martin Luther, constantly in the confession booth. All you can see is your sin.
All you can see is your brokenness. All you can see is your wickedness. And you're constantly going to God and saying, help me with this. Forgive me of that. I'm so, and that's all, you're stuck there. And some of you need this truth because you don't even think you need a confession booth.
You're strutting around in your good works. How wonderful you are. How well behaved you are. How you're one of the good ones. And the beautiful thing about salvation by faith alone is that he saves us from our sin and our good works. That he rescues us from our wickedness through his righteousness.
And he saves us from our self-righteousness through his righteousness. That we get to be free in faith alone in Christ. The next one that we'll spend some time looking at over the next couple of weeks is sola gratia, which is by grace alone. If faith alone is the mechanism by which we are saved, if it's the means, if it answers how, how are you saved? Well, you're saved by faith in Christ or through faith in Christ. Then grace answers the question, why?
If faith answers how, grace answers why? That God in his grace saves us. And this is so freeing when you see these two truths together. But I want to show you this. Ephesians 2.8, it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing.
It is the gift of God. If you've ever gotten a gift and you brag on the gift. My wife's really good at gift giving. She's a thoughtful person. She remembers stuff. I'm getting better at it because I've learned to write things down.
Like a genius. But if I ever talk to you about a gift that she's given me, I'm bragging on the gift. I'm bragging on the giver. I'm never like, yeah, I don't mean to brag, but I crush going to Christmas. It doesn't make any sense. And that's what he's saying is that we're saved by grace.
It's a free gift from God. And it's not your own doing. And I want you to, if not your own doing, if you could wrap your arms around it, I want you to. I want you to hug and love this idea of grace. Because if it was just faith alone, then we might feel like, okay, I've got to keep my faith. I've got to have faith.
I've got to muscle up some faith. Because if there's anything that we're good at, it's smuggling some works in there somewhere. And so what you might be tempted to think is, well, I'm one of the smart ones. I'm one of the ones who did research. You know, other people just bounce along in life not even thinking about it. But I actually studied.
And so I was able to come to the conclusion that Jesus is who I need to place my faith in. And yes, he saves me, but I somehow got myself here. Not your own doing. It's the goodness and the mercy and the love of God. Which means that it's faith in what Christ has done that saves us. And it's his grace that got us there.
And it's his grace that keeps us there. So that I'm saved by his work and I'm kept there by his goodness. And that's good news. This is what Martin Luther said. He came to the conclusion that he hated God. And then he says this.
He says, if you have a true faith that Christ is your Savior, then at once you have a gracious God. For faith leads you in and opens up God's heart and will that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This is what it is to behold God in faith that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God is angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face. So that when he was trying to work, he hated God.
He was frustrated with God. He was fearful of God. But when it dawned on him that he was saved by grace through faith, God's glorious. He's good. So that some of you are tired and you're frustrated and you're mad at God because he's not doing what you want him to.
Or you feel like that you're always falling short and he's always disappointed with you. And you need to wrap your mind around and wrap your heart around that you're saved by grace through faith. This gives us ultimate humble confidence. It gives us ultimate humility. Because we did not earn this. This isn't the super morality club.
This isn't the most well-behaved people in Casey. If you join a community group, there's going to be a time where you're like, these, these, these, what? These people are the worst. Over the course of getting the pastor, people have found out that our pastors are sinners. Yeah. Uh-huh.
That's actually why I'm here. If I didn't believe it was by grace through faith, I'd be doing something else. Because I wouldn't be in the good behavior club. I would have never, would have never gotten in here. Would never, this is good news. We have humility.
We're sinners. If someone comes to you and say, I need to talk to you, I think you've sinned against me. Your response should be, probably. What was that? I need to know some specifics so I can repent and try to change my attitude. But you shouldn't be surprised.
Me? Sin? Never. People all the time will be like, hey, can I talk to you? Like, they'll text me or they'll call me and I'll ask. Hey, are you correcting me?
Because I just like a heads up. I want to get emotionally prepared. I want to remind myself I'm a sinner before I get in there and you just spring it on me. I don't want to know. Like, it's a thing. We have humility.
But guess what? We have off-the-chart confidence. I didn't earn this. I didn't earn this. It's not my doing. It's not found in me.
It's not found in my goodness. It's not found in my wisdom. It's not found in my strength. You know what that means? It's not kept by me. It's not kept in my goodness.
It's not kept in my wisdom. It's not kept in my strength. How are you going to take it away from me? Are you going to make God not merciful? Good luck. Are you going to snatch the righteousness of Christ out of Christ?
Not going to happen. That's why you can tell me I'm a sinner and I don't lose my way. I already knew that and I already knew my hope wasn't in me not being a sinner. My hope is in Christ. Oh, faith and grace are glorious. And don't take them for granted.
Let's take some time to just look at them and say thank you that you are so good and this is so beautiful. And that I'm kept and I'm saved and I'm free. The fourth one that we'll look at is solo Christo. In Christ alone. You see this faith alone, grace alone leads us to it's in Christ alone. Which is they go together that Christ is the one who has accomplished this.
That it's his grace and it's his work that we have faith in. But this also one of the things that they were having to combat was that the Catholic church believes in faith. But they would say it's faith plus and they would add things to it. And so what ended up happening was that the church stood in between you and Jesus in so many ways. That you needed the church for sacrament. You needed the church for to be absolved by a priest.
You needed to go on pilgrimages. You needed to have catechism. You needed all these things that were from the church. And this church administered grace. But we believe that it's in Christ alone.
That the church is good. That loving our brothers and sisters. We talked about this in 1 John. Is good. But that salvation and grace do not result from the goodness of the church.
The goodness of the church results from salvation and grace in Christ. And so that we get Christ and then we're ushered into these good things. But it's Christ alone. He's the one who does this. 1 Timothy 2.5 says, For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus.
That you get to go directly to Christ. And by Christ's grace you get to be brought directly to the Father. That you get to have a relationship with the Father. That you get to be adopted into the family. That you get to belong. That you get to be brought to the Father.
Secure. Through the work of Jesus. And I think this may be a thing that we take for granted. That if you didn't grow up Catholic. You're not familiar with the Catholic Church. At this time it was thousands of years.
A thousand years where this had been taught. And they finally wrapped their mind around. Wait I just get to know the Lord. And he knows me and he loves me. Where Paul writes. That God.
That Jesus loves me and gave himself up for me. He's writing a letter to the church. And he says no he loves me. And gave himself up for me. And this beauty of our genuine personal relationship. That we get to have with the Lord.
This is not perfunctory. It's not something that we do some routine things. And we're in. But we know Christ. And he knows us. And we love Christ.
And he loves us. This is why we preach Christ. And celebrate Christ. And that we want to leave praising Christ. Because our hope is only in Christ. Christ.
The fifth one that we'll spend some time on. Is soli deo gloria. Which means to the glory of God alone. I have a relative that I used to follow on Twitter. When I was on Twitter. And he would post things.
He would post. It was like it was connected to his Instagram account. Which I'm not. I wasn't on Instagram. But he would post.
And he would say. Had a great night out with friends. Or he would be like. Wonderful day at the museum. Or whatever. And I would click on the picture that he had posted.
And he would be like. Great night out with friends. And I'd click on the picture. And it would just be a selfie of himself. Like in the corner of a booth. Or like.
Got to see the Grand Canyon. And it was just him. And like. He was like. What are you. What are you doing?
I also wanted to see the Grand Canyon. I guess I could just Google it. But I wanted to see which part you saw. Like I. I wanted to see if you actually had friends. Like why are you only taking pictures of yourself?
I think you've missed the point. Of what you were supposed to do. At least given the caption. You know. I guess he could just post. Handsome at a restaurant.
You know. Whatever. If we. With these doctrines. These. Truth.
Joyous. Glorious. Truth. Somehow turn around and go. Look at how great we are. We've missed the point.
That we don't earn something. We receive something. And then we celebrate. That if you believe that you're saved by faith alone. By grace alone. In Christ alone.
Then you'll celebrate the glory of God alone. That if we walk in here as those who have trusted in Jesus. And have been redeemed by his grace. And are kept by his grace. Through the work of Christ alone. Then we'll stand.
And we'll sing. And we'll praise. Because that's the appropriate. Right. Joyous. Response.
To a God who loves us so much. That he would come and redeem sinners like us. That we'll come in and say. Thank you. That you would purchase. For yourself.
Me. With your blood. That you would welcome me. That you would make me righteous. That you would keep me. That you would do this by your grace.
And your mercy. Praise your name. You are glorious. And you are good. And you are holy. And that we would walk in this humble confidence.
That makes us free. To delight in the goodness of the Lord. We're not earning this. We're not achieving this. And we're not losing this. That it's in Christ.
And we trust in him alone. And so we celebrate the glory of God alone. This is kind of the centerpiece that holds this all together. In Isaiah 48, 11. God's talking about salvation that he's going to bring. And he says.
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. That the right response to his salvation is to glorify him. To praise him.
Because he's the one who's done it. He doesn't share his glory with us. Jude 24, 25. And I think it's a good place for us to end. It's where Jude ends his letter. He says.
Now to him who is able. To keep you from stumbling. And to present you blameless. Before the presence of his glory. With great joy. Go back to that real quick.
That's salvation. By grace through faith. In Christ. That he's the one. Him. Him who's able.
To keep you from stumbling. By his grace. By the work of Christ. Some of you feel like. I think I'm going to stumble. Well he's able.
Well he's able. To keep you. He's able. To present you blameless. Before the presence of his glory. With great joy.
Can you wrap your mind around that for a second. That when we stand. Before. The king. We will not shrink. In fear.
Or sin. If we're in Christ. But we'll be. Blameless. Radiant. I have two little boys.
Every once in a while. Something will happen. I'll ask my older boy a question. And you can see this moment. And I know that moment well. When someone asks you a question.
You didn't want to answer. And so you have that little lightning strike of terror. So I ask him a question. He'll be doing something with his brother. And he'll be bopping along. His brother's crying.
And I'll ask him a real pointed question. And he'll go. Like oh. Did not expect to see my father in my own house. I did not know you cared for that little one. That lives here.
It's this moment of pure terror. And I don't even want to imagine. Because I know what that was like. A teacher would ask me a question. Or my dad would ask me a question. Or even my relationship.
Or my wife's asked me questions. I didn't have a good answer for. I didn't want to answer. I know that moment of terror. I don't even want to imagine. What that's like.
Before the face of God. Who can see directly through us. The deepest part of our wicked souls. Oh but he can keep us from stumbling. And he can present us blameless. And that when we stand in Christ.
There's none of that. Just joy. Just welcoming. And he says this in verse 25. To the only God. Our Savior.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Be glory. Majesty. Dominion. And authority. Before all time.
Now. And forever. Amen. That our God is good. He redeems. He saves.
By his grace. Through his work. To his glory. We sit under the authority of the scriptures. That has good news to proclaim to us. And we celebrate.
So for the next five weeks. We're going to look at doctrine. So that we know what we believe. And we know why we believe it. And so that we hold firmly. To some really good news.
And we don't drift from it. Into something that is worse. And something that is smaller. And something that robs us of joy and hope. Matt's going to come back up. We're going to sing.
But before we sing. We're going to take communion. Communion is a practiced rhythm. For the church. Where when we gather. We remember what Christ has done.
That on the night before he was betrayed. On the night he was betrayed. And the night before he died. He took his disciples. And he took bread. And he broke it.
And he said. This is my body. It's broken for you. And he took the cup. And he said. This is my blood.
It's a new covenant. It's poured out for you. That this is a meal. Remembering. The body and blood of Christ. The sacrifice that was needed.
For the redemption of our sins. And Paul says. That as often as we take it. We proclaim his death. Until he comes. That we stand.
That he's had glory. From eternity past. He has it now. And he'll reign forever. And we stand right now. In this moment in history.
Where we stand in between the cross. And his return. And so that we proclaim his death. Until he comes to get us. Until it's consummated in the kingdom. And we share the wedding supper of the lamb.
All those who have been redeemed. By God's grace. Through faith. In Christ. And there are three things that we need to do. As we come to this this morning.
If you're a Christian. If you're not a Christian. We ask you to not partake in this with us. This isn't for you. We'd love for you to place your faith in Christ. For you to receive what we have in him.
Which is by his grace to be saved. To be made righteous. To be made new. We'd love for you to do that. But if you're not a Christian.
We'd ask you to refrain from taking communion. But for Christian. There's three things we need to do. We need to see ourselves. See our sin. We need to repent.
We need to go before the Lord. And ask him to forgive us. And to make us whole. And to watch us. We need to know. That we need a savior.
And we need to see him clearly. We're to discern the body and the blood of Christ. To know that this was a sacrifice that was necessary for us to be made whole. And then we proclaim his death. Which is to proclaim the good news of the gospel. That you aren't saved by your own works.
And you aren't kept by your own works. That we get to come as sinners made new in the work of Christ. That he physically came. That he physically died. And that he made us whole. To take a moment.
Where you are. To pray. To repent. And to celebrate. As you're ready. That Jesus died.
To save a sinner like you. And that by his grace. And by faith in him. We are redeemed. And we are kept. And we are whole.
Testimony (1 John 5:6-13)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you. God is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. So that you may know you have eternal life. Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We are in 1 John chapter 5 verses 6 through 12.
We have two more weeks in 1 John and we have completed the book. So you can follow along with us on the screen. You can also put a blue Bible around you. It will be on page 593 near the back. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That's our gift to you.
We want you to have a Bible that you can read. Something that Christians struggle with from time to time, though we're not always honest about it, is doubt. It's something that maybe we're not even honest with ourselves when we struggle with this. But we do. If you follow Jesus long enough, you're going to struggle with doubt. Like, as a pastor, even pastors struggle with doubt.
And I have to ask myself sometimes, like, do I really believe this? Like, I preach this. My life is built upon this. Do I actually believe this? And I want to give you a window in into a little bit of how I think about this and some of the reasoning that I go through. My logic is certainly not infallible.
But this is how I process it. There are actually two possible options in how I've observed and studied. There's two possible options for what is true and for what is reality. The first option is that everything is the result of crazy, cosmic, random chance. That life on Earth and everything that we know in existence is just crazy chance. That in the vast expanse of the universe, we have this galaxy.
And within this galaxy, we have this solar system. And within the solar system, we have the Earth. Earth. And it's, like, perfectly positioned in the solar system and perfectly tilted at a 23.5 degree tilt to be able to sustain life. And that everything that we see is just one in, I mean, people try to run odds on this, one in trillion, quadrillion, ridiculous amounts of chance. That everything we see just is.
There's no such thing as love. There's no such thing as purpose or meaning or beauty. All of that's invented. You have to be consistent here. Everything you see just is. And then you die.
And then there's nothingness. All right. That's one possible option. The other possible option for me is that Jesus is who he said he was. That Jesus is the one true God. That when I look at this world, that it's so obvious to me that it's designed.
There's so many things that had to fall into place to the big picture of where the Earth is positioned and how it's positioned all the way down to, like, the design of the human eyeball. There's so many things that show that this was designed. And if I believe that this was designed, I need to work with who actually made this. And when you look at the different faith systems and the different creator type claims, I find Christianity to be the most compelling. Like, I studied world religions in college. I actually studied world religions and visited the different countries where these are practiced.
I studied Islam and then studied that in the context of Morocco and visited there. I studied Hinduism and visited Hindu temples in India. I studied Buddhism and went to a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Did anyone who makes the claim that all these world religions are just claiming the same thing, they don't know what they're talking about. They haven't actually studied these. They're making distinctly different claims.
And Christianity, even more so, is making claims that are distinct from the others. We believe in an eminent God who actually came. But the one thing I must concede in my faith is that my faith is built upon a testimony. That my faith is built upon the testimony of the scriptures. The testimony of our God. The testimony of people who saw Jesus live this life on this earth.
Who saw him die a death on the cross. Who saw him rise from the grave and ascend to the right hand of God the Father. That his body will never be found. I must concede that my faith is built upon that testimony. What I want us to see this morning is that testimony actually, this testimony is powerful. And this testimony absolutely can lead us to belief.
Some of you are not a Christian. And maybe you're just figuring this out. Maybe you're just exploring this. Maybe you are working through doubts. And I want to let you know this is a safe place for that. To be able to work through doubts.
And I want you to clearly hear. I think God wants to meet you here in your doubt this morning. Some of you believe the gospel. You're a follower of Jesus. But you struggle with doubt.
And it maybe shows up in a lot of different forms. I want you to hear very clearly this morning. Built upon the testimony of God. That he wants to continue to win you over. To faith in Christ. The passage that we're going to be in this morning is going to speak about the power of testimony.
My hope is that we would listen. That wherever you are in this journey. That you would listen and by faith respond. So let me read the text and then we will walk through this together. Verse 6. It says, This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.
Not by the water only. But by the water and the blood. And the spirit is the one who testifies. Because the spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify. The spirit and the water and the blood.
And these three agree. If you receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God that he is born concerning his son. Whoever believes in the son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. Because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning his son.
And this is the testimony. That God gave us eternal life. And this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. Let me pray for us.
And then we will walk through this together. Lord. I pray that you would open our hearts to the scriptures this morning. That for those who are struggling with doubt. That they would be able to listen. To your word.
To your calling. May you win each of us over. Amen. Okay. So we're going to walk through this.
And see his argument. And then I want to sit in the power. And the importance of testimony. So I'm going to go back a verse. To where Chet left off last week. In verse 5.
It says. Who is it that overcomes the world. Except the one who believes. That Jesus is the son of God. That as John is wrapping up his final arguments. In this book.
One of the things we've seen over and over again. Is that he wants us to know. What it means to believe. That Chet walked us through last week. This really this triangle. That he's hitting over and over again.
That over and over again. He's been teaching us. And telling us. That this evidence of faith in our lives. That we would love God. That we would love one another.
That we would obey the commandments. And he's teaching us over and over again. And now he's going to switch gears. And he's going to show. What this evidence testifies to. And in these seven verses in our passage.
It says testimony eight times. The word testimony in some form. Shows up eight times. Anytime that you study the scriptures. And you see a word repeated over. And over.
And over. And over. And over again. Highlight it. Right. Circle it.
Underline it. Make a mental note. The Lord is trying to teach you something in this. He's trying to show us something about testimony. Now. When you hear the word testimony.
I would argue that most of you. Probably your mind runs to. The courtroom. It's one of the most familiar. Uses of testimony that. That we have.
Is in the courtroom. Someone who is giving testimony on the witness stand. Right. There's enough crime TV. There's enough law and order. There's enough things that you're just familiar with.
Testimony is something that you give. I actually think that's probably a very helpful picture. For this passage. That type of testimony on the witness stand. Is actually probably a helpful image. For this.
I think John. What he's trying to convince us of. In belief. Is putting. He's going to try to convince us of belief. By putting three different witnesses.
On the stand. Three different witnesses. They're going to give testimony. To. Christ. And we're going to see each of these.
The first is the water. The second is the blood. And the third is. The spirit. And by verse eight. Where he's going to help us see.
All three of these are in agreement. But we're going to take them one on one. And put them on the stand. And see what each one has to. Add to this argument. To compel us over to faith in Christ.
So let's look at the first. Which is. The water. The water is the first. To take. The stand.
What does he mean. When he says. This is he who came by. Water. What is John getting at. Now.
Like other parts of John. First John. Like other parts of the scriptures. It's debatable what he means. When he says. The water.
And there's some Sundays. I think it's valuable. To take a few minutes. To get into the weeds. Of interpretation. To go a little bit deeper.
To list out all the options. And when I do that. I find it fairly exciting. And there's about 10 to 20 of you. That also find it exciting. But the rest of you.
Inwardly. Or audibly. Grown. It's like. Just. Tell us.
What. He means. And move on. Well guess what. Sunday's for you. I'm not going to get in the weeds.
I'm going to tell you. What. I think he means. When he uses water. In this passage. All right.
Here's the most compelling argument. I found in the commentaries. This week. John is referencing. Baptism. When he says water.
He's referencing. Baptism. I think this encompasses. First. The baptism of. Jesus.
That initiated his ministry. And then what followed. Was a ministry of. Baptism. That John was. Baptizing his disciples.
Then he becomes lesser. Jesus becomes greater. After his disciples. Continue baptizing. And that what's being referenced. In the water.
Is the beginning of Christ's ministry. And baptism. And the continuation of ministry. That he baptized. Which is pointing to. Really.
I would argue. The whole. Of Christ's ministry. And the message. That accompanied. Those.
Baptisms. Which we saw. In the gospel of Matthew. That we walked through. Last year. And the year before.
Which was over and over again. Repent. The kingdom of heaven. Is at hand. It's this message. Of this kingdom.
That he is coming to establish. That will have no end. And all the goodness. That is found. In this kingdom. It's this message.
Of repentance. That he preaches. Over and over again. To turn from this world. Turn from your sin. Turn to me.
I am better. It's the message of the kingdom. It's the. The whole ministry. Of where he. Healed the sick.
That he cared for the forgotten. The outcasts. The outsiders. Others. It's how he healed the sick. It's how he challenged.
The self-righteous. Religious establishment. Over and over. And over again. It's like all the things. That we love.
That make Jesus. Punk rock. And awesome. We love it. That's all of his ministry. I think it's bound up.
It's summarized. In this word. Water. Jesus came. By. Water.
That's the first. To take the stand. The second. Is the blood. The blood. He says in verse six.
This is he who came by water. And blood. Jesus Christ. Not by. The water only. But by the water.
And the blood. Now. If you've been with us. In first John. For a minute. He doesn't write.
Very. Clearly. Times. It's like. Wait. What?
And this is one of those times. Where he says something. It's like. Why couldn't you just said. He came by water. And blood.
Let's move on. To the spirit. But he says. No. Not by the water only. That should clue us in.
To ask some questions. What are you getting out there? What are you not saying. When. You're saying that. Like there was a.
There was a picture. That was circulated online. A few years ago. And it was a picture. Of a. Of a notice.
At the library. At someone's public library. And it said. It said. In light of recent events. There will be.
No Oreos. Allowed. In the library. And it's like. Really. Tell me more.
What are you not saying. I want to know what happened. Like I want to know. What kind of mess was made. With Oreos. In the library.
Like I. I get a little messy. With Oreos. What I like to do. Is like to take the cup of milk. And I like to just.
I don't dunk it. I let it. I just drop it. I let it bathe. All right.
I let it. I let it get. You don't want it to fall to the bottom. Because it falls to the bottom. It gets a little messy. You got to get your hand in the glass.
And sometimes it gets stuck. And then you pull it out. Sometimes milk. And Oreo guts go everywhere. It is worth it. But it gets a little messy.
I want to know what happened. At the library. Right. When you see that. It begs the question. What's happening here.
That's what's happening here. In first John. Okay. Not by water only. What are you talking about? And if you've been with us in first John.
As we've walked through it. This should make a little bit of sense. Because what we've seen over and over again. In first John. As he's making this argument. That Jesus was real.
That he was a real physical person. That from the very first verse. All the way into the end. There's this theme. That he's hitting at. Jesus actually physically came.
Because there was a false teaching. At the time. That swept through. These churches. That John was writing to. That taught the opposite.
That taught that Jesus only came in spirit form. That he didn't come in physical material form. And we believe that was the early seedbed. The early beginnings of Gnosticism. So he's just making a point here.
Not by water only. He did come physically. In blood. So that's part of what he's saying here. But also when you get to the blood.
This is the easiest part to interpret. Because the blood is talking about. The blood that he shed on the cross. That he shed real blood. For our real sins. On a real cross.
That this actually happened. So what's happening here a little bit. Is the water. The beginning of Christ's ministry. Bringing through the ministry of baptism. Up to the event.
Which is the pinnacle event of salvation. In the scriptures. The cross. And the empty tomb that follows. That as we saw in 1 John 2. 2.
It said. He is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only. But also for the sins of the whole world. The blood references this. That he teaches.
Over and over again. That we deserve wrath. That Jesus stands in our place. That blood was shed for us. That he made atonement for us. That he made it right for us.
By his blood. And not our own. He came by water. Not water only. He came by the real blood. That he shed for our real sins.
That should compel us into belief in Jesus. And then the third witness takes the stand. The spirit. He says. With the spirit. And the spirit.
Is the one who testifies. Because the spirit. Is. The truth. Now. It's capital S.
It's talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is. The truth. Now part of this picture. Undoubtedly goes back to when Jesus was baptized. When Jesus was baptized.
The heavens opened up. The Holy Spirit. Descends upon Jesus like a dove. This happened. And the people saw this. And this really marked.
This is the Christ. God the Father said. This is my son with whom I'm well pleased. This is the one who has come. Listen to him. That's part of the picture here.
Is the Holy Spirit. That descends upon Christ. At the beginning. But it's also a picture forward to. The Holy Spirit. That descends upon the people of God.
This is a picture. That looks forward to. Pentecost. When the fulfillment happens. Of God. And his temple.
God. And his people. The Holy Spirit. Descends upon the new temple of God. The people of God. The church of Jesus Christ.
And the Holy Spirit. Lives in his people. This spirit is the truth. And testifies. Over and over again. To us.
And through us. That he is the Christ. That he is God. Verse 7. For there are all. There are three that testify.
The spirit. And the water. And the blood. And these three agree. They're all three in agreement. When each one.
Takes the witness stand. They're all testifying. To the same. Truth. They're all in agreement. That this is.
The Christ. And then John. Goes on to say. In verse 9. If we receive. The testimony of men.
The testimony of God. Is. Is. Greater. For this is the testimony of God. That he is born concerning his son.
I think it's a general statement. That he's making to say. God's. Testimony. Is. Greater.
Than. Man's. If you are. Willing. To accept the testimony. Of mere men.
How foolish. Would we not. Would we be. To not. To accept the testimony. Of.
The God who created. All things. God's testimony. Is. Greater. And then he goes on.
To say. When you receive. This testimony. It comes. To live within you. Verse 10.
He says. Whoever believes. In the son of God. Has the testimony. In himself. Whoever does not believe.
God has made him a liar. Because he has not believed. In the testimony. That God is born. Concerning his son. When you believe in Jesus.
This is a picture. Of the Holy Spirit. The testimony. In you. The Holy Spirit. Comes.
Into your life. And makes you. New. This is the gift. That we are given. By faith.
The testimony. Comes to live. In us. If you believe in Jesus. You have this. Unbelievably.
Amazing. And powerful gift. Don't. In true. John form. You're a liar.
Which we've seen. Over and over again. In first. John. Is like. One of his.
Go to things. He's like. You believe this. Or you're a liar. Or you make God. To be a liar.
All right. As the young guns say. Cap. No cap. Which took me a minute. To figure out what they were saying.
But front run knows. What I'm talking about. Okay. Lie. No lie. Right.
That's the language he uses. Over and over. And over again. And he gets to verse 10. He says. Whoever believes.
In the son of God. No. Verse 11. And this is the testimony. That God gave us. Eternal.
Life. And this life. Is in his son. Whoever has the son. Has. Life.
Whoever does not have the son of God. Does not. Have. Life. That's how he finishes. This argument.
That if you believe this. You have eternal life. In Christ. If you believe this. You have this eternal life. That he offers.
If you don't. You don't have this. So John's closing argument. As he's finishing up. First John. Is.
Believe this. Believe this. John wants us to believe this. God wants us to. Believe this. So much so.
That three take the stand. The water. The blood. And the spirit. And the hope. Is that we would.
Believe. Now. That's the argument he's making. I want to look at four conclusions. That we can draw from this defense. That we can draw from this.
Argument. That deal with the power. Of testimony. The first is this. The testimony. Is of a real.
God. The testimony. Is of a real. God. Verse six. He says.
This is he who came by water and. Blood. Jesus Christ. Not by the water only. But by.
The water. And the blood. Y'all. This isn't just something. The early Christians. Needed to be convinced of.
That Jesus came in the flesh. We need this. Christians. We. Need. To believe this.
Because what happens is. Is that we start to. When life gets difficult. We start to believe. That God is so distant. He's so big.
He's so glorious. He's so powerful. He's so mighty. And all of that's true. That he can't possibly understand. What I'm going through.
He can't possibly understand. My circumstances. Like God. Don't you want to change. What I'm walking through right now. Like don't you understand.
How hard this is. How hard. Life. Is. And because of the water. And the blood.
He does. He does understand. How hard this life is. Because he came. Because he didn't stand distant. In the heavens.
Where. He could have rightly. Ruled and reigned from. He. Came. And he lived.
He took on flesh. And dwelt among us. And he lived a life. And he experienced loss. He knows what that's like. I mean the reason why you don't see his.
Earthly father Joseph. Pass. When he's a child. Is because he died. He knows what it's like to lose. He knows.
What it's like to endure loss. He knows what it's like to endure. Betrayal. Someone that he invested in for three years. Discipled. Loved.
Served. Sold him for 20 pieces of silver. He knows what it's like to be abandoned. It's abandoned by all but one of his disciples. He knows what it's like to endure temptation. For those of us who struggle in the.
Throes of temptation. Like I just. It's so hard. It's so hard. It's so hard. To continue.
To pursue what is good. It's so hard to endure this. He knows. What it's like to endure it. For we don't have a high priest. Who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.
But one who in every respect. Who is tempted and tried. And yet was without sin. Hebrews 4. He knows. What it's like.
To be human. Because he came. And when God feels distant. And he feels foreign. We need to remember. He is a real God that came.
We need to remember the eminence of Christ. Meaning that he descended in bodily form. That he knows what it's like. It's not just us that needs to know this. The world needs to know this. I mean.
He stands apart. He is not Allah. That stands distant. And demands submission. This isn't a system of Buddhism. That leads to nothingness.
This isn't any false projection. That our culture puts upon him. That he's vindictive. Or that he's cruel. Or he doesn't care. He does care.
Because he came. And the world needs to know that. That he needs to know that he came. That he was baptized. He spent three years ministering to the least of these. And that he laid down his life on the cross.
For us. And he rose to give us new life in him. That is a testimony y'all. And it speaks to a real God. The second conclusion we need to draw. Is that this testimony is true.
This testimony is true. Back in verse 6. And the spirit is the one who testifies. Because the spirit is the truth. Verse 7. For there are three that testify.
The spirit. And the water. And the blood. And these three agree. John makes this point. The three in agreement.
The spirit is the truth. They line up. This testimony is true. And that's so incredibly important. Because we live in a time. Where there's so many false testimonials out there.
There's so many false things that are put out there. And believed. I mean. Choose your adventure. I mean. There's.
I was listening to a short story. I was working in my bathroom. Remodeling. And I wanted to listen to a series of short stories. Because that's what I do for fun. And.
And I was listening to this short story that came up. Called The Egg. And it turns out this story is like one of the more critically acclaimed short stories. In the last two decades. And this story is about a guy who dies. And he immediately appears before God.
And he starts to have a conversation with God. And what he learns is. Is that he's about to be reincarnated. And he's going to return to the sixth century. And he's going to be back in time. Reincarnated in the form of a Chinese woman.
And what he learns is. Is that every human that has ever existed. Is the same consciousness. And that when she dies. He's going to reincarnate to something different. And get better and better and better.
Until the very end. He's become this God-like figure that he's talking to right now. And I listened to it. And I was like. This is the most baseless. Ungrounded.
Ridiculous. Argument. And I just. When I realized. That this is one of the more critically acclaimed short stories. That last draw their entire faith and reality.
From movies. And from novels. And as Christians. We have to winsomely. Boldly. And lovingly say.
That's not. True. That's not true. As this passage. Teaches. The testimony of God is greater.
For this. Is a testimony of God. That he has born. Concerning his son. That we say. Jesus is better than everything else.
We need to boldly. And winsomely. Argue that. That he is true. What he offers. Is better.
This testimony is true. That it's rooted in historical reality. They're not going to find his body. This is rooted in a historical reality. This is rooted. This is rooted in a supernatural reality.
The Holy Spirit at work within us. It's anchored in a living hope. And a real person. Who took on real flesh. Don't miss that. For a moment.
This testimony. Is true. The third thing we need to see. Is this testimony. Is in you. This testimony.
Is in you. Verse 10. Whoever believes in the son of God. Has. The testimony. In himself.
And as we said earlier. That's talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. That. The testimony. In us.
Y'all. The implications for that. Are. Massive. It's huge. That the Holy Spirit.
Comes to dwell. In us. Comes to minister. Within us. Is. It's a similar language.
To. To Romans 8. And the argument. That Paul is making. In the middle of Romans 8. When he says.
In verse 14. For all. Who are led. By the spirit. Of God. Are.
Sons. Of God. That when you are led. By. The spirit. That when he.
Dwells. Within you. That. You're no longer. A slave. To this world.
As he argues. For you do not. Receive. The spirit. Of slavery. To fall back in fear.
You're no slavery. Slave to this world. A slave to your. Flesh. You've been. Freed.
And more than that. That you belong. To him. The spirit. Within us. Reminds us.
Of. This. By whom we cry. Abba. Father. 16.
The spirit himself. Bears. Witness. And the Greek word. For witness. Is the same Greek word.
We have in 1st John 4. Testimony. Same concept. Bears. Witness. Testifies.
With. Our. Spirit. That we are the children. Of God. That the Holy Spirit.
Lives. And reigns. Within us. And testifies. Within us. That we are the children.
Of God. That is. Huge. Because there are moments. In this life. Where we fail to believe that.
There are moments. In this life. I feel this. There are moments. Where I'm in the midst. Of doubt.
And I. I'll go back to. My reasoning. Right. That I believe. That the faith claims.
Of Christ. Are way more compelling. To the wide leaps. Of faith. That it takes. To have.
Nothing. I'll reason there. I'm like. No. This is. The most reasonable.
Argument. This compelling argument. The reason. In and of itself. Is not enough. It's not.
Always. Enough. And sometimes. I feel. This doubt. It's like.
A dark haze. Of hopelessness. That just. Lingers. In the midst. Of that.
Doubt. The spirit. Goes. To work. One of the more. Beautiful songs.
That I've. I've heard. In the last few years. Is this song. By ghost ship. We.
We sing. Some ghost ship songs. From time. To time. They had this song. That came out.
A couple years ago. Called. Belief. And I love. What the songwriter. Works to.
Because he's working. Through this doubt. He's working. Through this. This darkness. That he's.
Struggling through. And he. In the first verse. He says. Darkness. Haunts me.
Again. Today. So. Confused. Have I lost. The way.
If you're. There. And you're. There's God. If you're there. I can't see.
Your face. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes. It's hard. To believe.
Help me. In my. Unbelief. And he's quoting. The father. Who brought a son.
Jesus. And said. Oh Lord. I believe. But help.
My. Unbelief. Like I feel. First. Like I. I feel that.
It's just so. Hard. To believe. Sometimes. That we. We feel this.
Doubt. That just. Hovers over us. Where we question. The. Goodness.
Of God. Or the. Existence. Of God. Or the. Faithfulness.
Of God. Or the. Love. Of God. Or the. Character.
Of God. We begin to. Question. Who. God. Is.
And this. Doubt. Just. Lingers. Over us. And it.
Leaves us. In this. Place. Of desperation. And it's. In those.
Moments. That the. Holy Spirit. Comes. Into his. People.
And begins. To do. His. Work. He begins. To minister.
Within us. And I love. How this. Him. In the midst. Of his.
Doubt. And has. Gone. To work. Because he. Finishes.
The song. By saying. There are. Only. A few. Things.
I. Know. I know. That he. Rose. Which.
Is a testimony. Of true. Events. He came. By the water. And the blood.
That he. Really. Did come. And. This. Really.
Did happen. I know. That he. Rose. I know. That he.
Loves. Me. So. I know. That he. Won't.
Let. Go. And. Those. Two. Statements.
I know. That he. Loves. Me. So. And.
He. Won't. Let. Go. You. Can.
Read. Those. But the. Holy. Spirit. Makes.
Us. Feel. Those. He. Makes. Us.
Feel. The. Love. Of. God. In.
A. Way. That he. Is. Close. That we.
Can. Feel. His. Presence. He. Makes.
Feel. That he. Holds. Us. That he. Won't.
Let us. Go. That is the ministry of the Holy Spirit at work within us. And the spirit wins us over and over and over again. And he testifies to our soul. To our spirit.
That you belong to me. That you are my child. That no one is going to snatch you out of my hand. That I love you. Because I love you. Because of my great love.
And I will carry you all the way to the finish. The people of God have the Holy Spirit at work within us. Testifying at work within us. And the last thing I want us to see. Is that the testimony grants us eternal life. That this testimony gives eternal life.
Verse 11. He says. This is the testimony. That God gave us eternal life. And this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life.
Whoever does not have the son of God. Does not have life. And as Chet is going to pick up next week. In verse 13. He says. I write these things to you.
Who believe. In the name of the son of God. That you may know. That you have eternal life. The argument he is making over. And over.
And over again. In first jump. God. Gave us. Eternal life. In Christ.
The testimony of God. Is greater. For those of us. That trust. That he came by. The water.
That he lived. A life. He fulfilled. The law. Perfectly on our behalf. For those that believe.
That he came by. The blood. That his blood was shed for us. On the cross. That our sin. Is what puts him on the cross.
And his blood was shed for us. For those who believe. The Holy Spirit comes. And makes us. New creations. In Christ.
And testifies. To our spirit. We have. Eternal. Life. The three take the stand.
The water. The blood. And the spirit. And they're all in agreement. And they're all. Compelling us.
To believe. Some of you. Some of you have never. Surrendered to this Christ. Some of you have been around church. Your entire life.
Some of you are just checking it out. For the first time. But you've never. Surrendered to this Christ. And I want you so. Clearly to hear this morning.
Jesus. Wants you. This testimony shows. He. Wants you. That he.
Desires you. That he doesn't. That your past. Does not have to define you. That your life right now. Does not have to define you.
That faith in Jesus. Is putting all of our hope. And what he has done for us. That by grace. He saves us. That there's nothing that you bring to the table.
But your sin. And he wants you. He wants to take your sin. On the cross. He wants you. Believe this.
That God has you here this morning. That he desires you. That this testimony is good. It is pure. It is perfect. And it is for you.
Don't. Stop running. Stop running from God. He wants you. Believe this testimony. It is worth your life.
Some of you. Are Christians. And you got to be honest about the doubt. That you are facing. And John so clearly. Is teaching of this morning.
He's teaching us. Keep believing. Continue. To believe. Believe is not a one-time event. That happens.
It is a continual. You believe over. And over. And over. And over again. The testimony.
Is of a real. God. Who came. Who died for us. Who took on flesh. The testimony.
Is true. And the testimony. Is in you. And this morning. He so clearly. Wants you to know.
That is true. And that what is held out. In front of you. Christian. Is a testimony. That does not end.
That heads into. Eternity. We continue. To fight. To believe this. By the power.
Of the Holy Spirit. Matt's going to come up. And he's going to. Take that song. Belief. That I just.
Read through. And he's going to sing it. Over us. And as he does. I want. Us to listen.
Listen to the voice of God. That for those of you. That are here. That have never surrendered. To who this God is. That never fully believe.
In the testimony of Christ. My hope and prayer. Is that you would. Believe. That this song. Would be a confession.
And you confess. It for the first time. Maybe. Maybe you are a Christian. You've been struggling. For.
Years. You've been struggling. With doubt. Make this your prayer. Help me in my unbelief. Help me believe.
In what the water. And the blood. And the spirit. Testify to. Help me believe. In this Christ.
May this encourage. Your soul. Remind you. Of your savior. And remind you. How good this testimony is.
Let me pray. Father. We need you. We need you. In a world. That has.
Darkness. And doubt. In our lives. Where there is darkness. And doubt. May you cut through it.
And we see you so clearly. And so beautifully. Right now. For those who have never trusted in Christ. May they believe. Right now.
For those who have trusted in Christ. But are struggling. May you help them. To continue to believe this testimony. In Christ's name. Amen.
Three Essentials of the Christian Life (1 John 5:1-5)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you. God is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. So that you may know you have eternal life. Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in 1 John.
We are coming towards the end of this letter. And we've got just a couple more weeks of walking through this. And John is kind of summing up some of his ideas. But I want to begin this sermon by talking about Daniel. And not Daniel from the Bible, but Daniel LaRusso from the Karate Kid. Also very important.
Not quite as important as the other Daniel. In the Karate Kid, the original one. Some people also like to call that the good one. Mr. Miyagi is teaching Daniel karate. Karate.
Daniel actually really wants to be like a kid who's all about karate. And so he's teaching him karate. And what he does is he makes him paint his fence. And he makes him wash his cars. Karate. And I thought, man, I could teach somebody karate.
If that's all. Chores. Come do chores at my house. But that's what it seems like. And he's having him do wax on, wax off on these cars. And he has a specific way he wants him to do it.
And he's doing paint the fence. He does this specific stuff. And he makes him do it with both hands. And there's this scene. It's one of the best scenes in the movie. It's up there with the this scene.
It's one of the best scenes in the movie where Daniel just says, I'm done. All you've done is make me do chores. I'm done. And Mr. Miyagi says, show me the stuff I've been making you do. And he starts to do it.
And he goes, no, you're doing it wrong. Show me the way I showed you. And he starts making him do the stuff that he showed him how to do. That he made him do this repetitive motion over and over and over and over again. And then Mr. Miyagi starts throwing punches at him and just starts trying to assault him.
He's throwing punches and kicks. But because he had painted the fence, he knows how to block stuff. It's a little hard to believe, but this is what happens. And this is what he does. And there's this whole scene where he shows him that I was just teaching your muscles to do this thing over and over again. That's why I said it over and over and over again.
And we're in that scene in 1 John. Because I don't know if you've been reading John. He says the same thing over and over and over and over again. He has said it over and over and over and over. And we're getting to the scene where he's the part in John where he starts going. He's just saying it again.
But he's helping us see clearly. I've been saying this repeatedly. I've been connecting this this whole time. And this is what it looks like to be a Christian. These are the identifying markers of a Christian. And he's said it so many times that at this point, if someone tried to assault us with something that was against this, we should be able to karate kid that stuff.
We should be able to say, no, this is how it works. So that's where we are. We're going to read through this section together. And we're going to kind of paint a picture to help us see. He's saying it again. But we want to put some weight in this and put this in our heads clearly as he's kind of coming to his letter.
So let's pray. And then we'll be in 1 John chapter 5. God, I pray that you would help us this morning. That you would help us to hear from your word. That you would help remove distraction and our desire to wander and to think about other things. But that you would help anchor this reality in our souls.
And then, Lord, I pray that you would, through the power of your spirit, would make it true of this church. That this is what we look like as we abide in Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. 1 John chapter 5. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. So he's said this idea multiple times, but he's saying it again.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. So that we believe that Jesus, the man who walked on earth, lived and taught, was crucified on a cross. That he rose again. That he's the Christ. That he's the one that God had promised to bring salvation through. That he's the one who is fulfilling Christ.
Jesus is a name. Christ is a theological office. It's a role that he plays. That he is the Christ who has been the promised Messiah who was going to come and fix everything for us. That from the very beginning when God promises in the garden that there's going to be a son who's going to be born. And he's going to crush the head of the serpent.
That there's this promise throughout the Old Testament that this Christ is coming. This is who John is saying. Whoever believes that that's Jesus. That he's the one who's come to save. That he's the one who redeems. That he's the one who forgives sin.
Whoever believes that. Trusts in that. Hopes in that. Puts their faith in that. And I think we've got to just appreciate that word believe for a second. Because all we're doing is coming to a news that has been told to us.
That Jesus has done this. And if we believe it. If we say no that's true. I'm going to wrap around that. I'm going to hold on to that. I'm going to anchor in that.
He says whenever that happens. Then we've been born of God. Everyone who believes that Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. That this is one of the commentaries I have on this says. To believe is to be acted upon in a dynamic transformative way by God.
That God does this. So here's what he's saying. Is that we believe in Jesus. But then this happens. So Jesus brings us to the Father.
And so that if you have faith in Jesus. And we're going to kind of draw this whole picture out. Because this is the stuff he's been saying over and over again. But Jesus brings us to the Father. You don't have the Father without Jesus. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ.
Has been born of God. You've been made new. You've been born again. As he would say in. Jesus would say in John chapter 3. Not 1 John chapter 3.
But John chapter 3. That you are born again. That you are made new. That's this idea. That we belong to God if we believe in Jesus. Then he says this.
So verse 1. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ. Has been born of God. And everyone who loves the Father. Loves whoever has been born of him. So if you love the Father.
If you believe in Jesus. He brings you to the Father. You're born of God. And if you love the Father. Then you love everyone who's been born of him.
So that looks like this. You love the Father. You love the Father. They are connected. You can't disconnect that. This is how it works.
So if you say I love the Father. You love the brothers. That's not a new idea if you've been here. John has said that. Over and over again. Then he says this.
Verse 2. By this we know that we love the children of God. When we love God. So by this we know we love the children of God. When we love God. So it goes the other way too.
One of the ways that you love the children of God. Or the brothers. Brothers and sisters in Christ. Is that you love God. So it goes back the other way.
You can almost put arrows. But there's this channel of love. Running back and forth. That if you love the Father. You love the brothers. And then he's going to say.
If you love the brothers. You love the Father. And this is. This is the circle he's been running. He said this over and over and over again. Then he says this.
By this is verse 2. By this we know. That we love the children of God. So this marks us as loving the children of God. When we love God. And.
Obey his commands. So it looks like that. If you love. If you love the Father. You love the brothers. If you love the brothers.
Then you'll love the Father. And. You'll obey his commands. And this is how you know. That you love the brothers. This is how you know.
That you care about your church family. You obey God's commands. That's a little startling for us. I think sometimes. To think that obeying commands. Is something different.
But he's saying. No. This is one of the things. That marks. A love. For your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Is that you obey his commands. Verse 3. For this. This is the love of God. That we keep his commandments. So then it goes.
From commandments. Back up to the Father. John has said this. So many times. This is. This is his point.
This is his thesis. This is. He's landing the plane. And. This. I.
I've said it. I don't know how else to say it. I've said it forwards. I've said it backwards. I've said it positively. I've said it negatively.
I've accused you of being a liar. Multiple times. Which we're going to read those in a second. But this is what he says. You believe in Jesus. You get the Father.
You don't get the Father. If you don't have Jesus. If you have the Father. If you belong to the Father. Then you love the brothers.
If you love the brothers. Then you love the Father. If you love the brothers. You'll follow his commands. The way you know that you love the Father. Is that you follow his commands.
Yeah. Wax on. Wax off. He said it. Over and over. And over.
Again. There is a faith. Love of God. Marking. For believers. That if you're a believer.
Then you have faith in Jesus. And you love the Father. There is a relational. There is a relational. Love of church family. Marking.
For believers. And there is a moral. Ethical. Marking. For believers. My uncle.
Who's. Yorba. People group. From Abomasaw. He's one of the last. Generations born.
That they put tribal marks on. So he has tribal marks on his face. And it was meant to be. That you could look right at him. And you would know. Right where he was from.
And that is. What this is. For Christians. That we. Are to be. Marked by.
These three things. And you can't. Get rid of any of them. But I want to show you. That John has said this. Over and over again.
I'm just going to read. I want you to listen. I'm going to try to move. Fairly quickly. But I'm going to read.
Things that we've read. In chapter one. Chapter two. Chapter three. Chapter four. To just try to refresh.
In your head. He said this. This is his whole point. And just as I read it. Try to figure out. Okay.
Yeah. That's from there to there. That's from there to there. Because he's just running. This track. Back and forth.
Different ways. Chapter one. This is the message. That we heard from him. And proclaim to you. That God is light.
And in him. There's no darkness at all. So he's talking about the father. If we say. We have fellowship with him. While we walk in darkness.
Meaning that we. Sin. And are following sin. And not obeying his commands. We lie. And do not practice the truth.
But if we walk in the light. Meaning following him. And are walking in openness. He is. As he is in the light. We have fellowship.
And you would think he would say. We have fellowship with him. We have fellowship with one another. So he runs this way. And the blood of Jesus. His son.
Then he takes us back up there. Cleanses us from all sin. Chapter two. By this. We know that we have come to know him. So you know the father.
If we keep his commands. Keep his commandments. Whoever says. This is chapter two. Verse four. Whoever says.
I know him. But does not keep his commandments. Is a liar. The truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word.
In him. Truly the love of God. Is perfected. By this. We know that we are in him. Whoever says.
He abides in him. Ought to walk. In the same way that he walks. And he jumps down to verse nine. In chapter two. He says.
Whoever says. He's in the light. So I know the father. That's being in the light. And hates his brother. Is still in darkness.
Whoever loves his brother. Abides in the light. And that's his idea. Of walking in openness. And following the commands. And knowing God.
That's it. Being in the light. Verse 15. No. Not verse 15. 29.
If you know that he is righteous. You may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness. Has been born of God. So. If we know the father. Then we practice righteousness.
Chapter three. Everyone who. Thus hopes in him. Purifies himself. As he is pure. Again.
This following his commands. Verse four. For everyone who practice. Makes a practice of sinning. Also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.
You know that he appeared. In order to take away sins. In him there is no sin. No one who abides in him. Keeps on sinning. Then verse 10.
Whoever does not practice righteousness. Is not of God. So. You're not doing that. You don't belong to him. Nor.
Is the one who does not love. His brother. Verse 11. Chapter three. For this is the message we've heard from the beginning. That we should love one another.
Verse 23. This is the commandment. All right. So here's the commandment. And he's been talking about commandments. Is not sinning.
So it's a general idea of commandments. And then he specifically. Is going to highlight. One of the major parts of the commandment. And here's what he says. This is the commandment that we have from him.
That we believe in the son. Jesus Christ. And. Love one another. Just as he's commanded us. So he snuck the other two in the commands.
We can make this more complicated. He didn't hide them as subsections in that one. Chapter four. This is the summation of it. But he says this.
We love because he loved us. So. Us. Being loved by him. That he's done this first. He's brought us in.
He loves us. If anyone says I love God. And hates his brother. Is a liar. He who does not love his brother. Whom he has seen.
Cannot love. Whom he has not seen. And he says. This is the commandment. That we have from him. Whoever loves God.
Must also love his brother. I trimmed it up. There are more. Because it's the entire letter. This is what he says. This is what you look like.
If you belong to Jesus. This is what you look like. Jesus. Brings you to the father. The father makes you new. And now.
Your life is marked. By a love for God. A love for. The church. Your brothers. His children.
And obedience. And he specifically. Goes out of his way. And I read some of these. I'm going to read them again. To say.
If you try to remove. One of those. And say it's fine. I'm still a Christian. He says. Liar.
Like the scariest scene. In Princess Bride. Where that guy's talking. And then what's his head's dead. And then that crazy lady. Comes running out of the back.
Yelling. Liar. When you're a little kid. That's really the scariest scene. All kinds of things happen there. It's like.
Oh my goodness. That's what. That's what John does. Verse. Chapter 2. Verse 22.
Who. Who is the liar. But he who denies. That Jesus is the Christ. You try to take Jesus out. Liar.
2.4. Whoever says. I know him. But doesn't keep his commandments. Is a liar. In chapter 4.
Verse 20. If anyone says. I love God. And hates his brothers. Is a liar. He specifically covers all of them.
And says. You can't. You just can't take one of these out. Now. What. Will happen.
Mostly. Is that people. Will claim. The top one. And ignore the bottom ones. And for our purposes.
That's the thing. That's most helpful. Because. Most of us. Subtly. It's not going to sink.
Sneak in. That we're to not love Jesus. But we're to obey his commands. That. That exists. This idea.
That I can just be moral. And that's fine. Or that I can just be loving. And that's fine. But. For our purposes.
We're just going to kind of look at. Trying to claim the top. And for John's purposes. That's what he cared most about. Whoever says. They know the father.
Whoever says. They're in the light. Whoever says. They know the father. Like he's consistently saying. You're claiming this.
But you're trying to remove. One of these. But here's. Here's what you have. You'll have people say. That you don't need Jesus.
That he's not. You can. Every. Everybody. Every. All paths lead to God.
Everybody believes the same thing. So you believe in Jesus. That's fine. This other person believes in something else. But we're all going to end up in the same place.
We're all going to be in the same spot. Everything's fine. And John specifically says. No. That's. That's a lie.
That is not how it works. So if anybody tells you. Or if you're inclined to believe. Or you like the idea. That. Really what the Bible is just telling us.
Is just to love each other. And that if you really read the Bible. All you'll get out of it. Is it to love each other. And to. To just have a good relationship with God.
And with others. John says. That's a. That's a lie. That's not. That's not what this is saying.
You need to know Jesus. You need to believe in him. He's the one who. Who brings us. To the father. Now the southern version of this is.
Oh I'm a Christian. Oh I love me some Jesus. What church are you a part of? Well. Well. I don't really do that.
Follow that up. We don't ask this. We follow that up with. How's obedience going? Don't really do that either. I mean.
Unless you mean. The way I vote. America. It's like. Okay. Hold on.
We can't. We can't just. Separate. Like there's. We have to follow these things. Like.
You can't. It can't just be. I say I know Jesus. Because you will meet people that say. I'm a Christian. And those other things don't show up at all.
So let's just. Let's take one. Sometimes they show up a little bit. Sometimes they'll have one. But let's just pick on one for a second.
Let's just cut out brothers. And let's talk about what this looks like. This is the. Oh I love Jesus. Church messes me up. Church is just a bunch of hypocrites.
You know. I tried to be a part of church. It just made it worse. I found that a church. Was a hurdle. To me loving Jesus.
And I'm just better off without the church. Because all that stuff is just man made. Just practices. And stuff that just ends up. It just messes me up. And I want the authentic stuff.
I want the real stuff. I want just me and God. John says. That doesn't exist. You don't get the father without the family. That's not how it works.
See. If you love him. Then you love his people. But this shows up all the time. I read this article this week. It was by John Pavlovitz.
And it's. It's. The title of the article is. Relax Christian. You don't have to go to church. It says.
This Sunday. You may be snuggled in your bed. With your family and dog. Telling stories. And giggling away the morning. You may be jogging with your best friend.
Through the wooded paths. Just coming to life. In the early morning sun. You may be driving through the empty back roads. With the roof open. Blasting the 80's metal.
That reminds you. Of when you had hair. For the breeze to blow through. You might be having breakfast with friends. And giving thanks for life. And family in the day.
You might be in the garden. Your knees pressed to the damp soil. Smelling the leaves. Just popping up. Through the ground. These places are all sacred.
They are all waiting sanctuaries. For God to be seen. And heard. And experienced. They are common cathedrals. Fully saturated.
With the presence. Of the divine. Part of us really likes that idea. Because part of that. Is kind of true. There is nothing magical.
About this building. It doesn't have like a funnel. That makes our prayers work better. If we decided as a church. To meet in the evening. Or in the middle of the afternoon.
On a Saturday. Okay. There is some historical reasons. Why we get there on Sunday morning. There is some flow of life stuff. But.
The church is the people. But to argue. That you don't need that. He says later. It is good to have some community. I read this to Spencer earlier.
And he almost lost his mind. He started frothing at the mouth. He was so mad. And he was like. A group of friends. That you have brunch with.
Is in a church. So. If you kind of like this idea. And you want to get yelled at. Go talk to Spencer about it. But the truth is.
Some of this is evil. And unhelpful. To try to weasel in. And say you don't really need that. You can be a Christian. By yourself.
That's a tactic of the enemy. Because everything I think is a good idea. Is a good idea. When I'm by myself. I need some people around me. To go hold on.
That's not helpful. I need some people. Who I know are going to ask me some questions. If you've walked in church family long enough. And you've been around people. Who are going to ask you.
How things are going. You have learned. That that helps you not sin. And you've learned. That there are things. That you have chosen to obey.
Because you love your church family. You've actually begun. To live some of that out. Where it's like. No I actually am showing. That I love my church family.
By following this command. And so what happens is. There's this tendency. For us to say. Well we don't really need that. Now.
We're all here. Some of us were like. Wait. Can I just. Lay in bed. And giggle.
Or whatever he said. Is that. Where's this going. Now this is good for us. To belong to a group of people. But let me show you.
Where it gets sneaky. Where it can creep in. Where this idea. You might would have like a. Not as bright little X. It's penciled in.
You don't really need that. Let me show you how this. This shows up. You can show up on Sunday. And participate. Because you're trying to do the bottom right.
That you think that being here. Is just about your personal devotion. To the Lord. There's a way for us to do that. It shows up in some sneaky ways. You might would say.
I don't get there early. I like to just show up. And walk right in and sing. Because I don't want to talk to people. But that betrays a little bit of.
You think that talking to people. Is just for you. And not also for them. There's some people who show up. On Sunday mornings. That are a part of our church.
That need to be talked to. That need somebody to come by. And care about them. And if all we care about. Is how I'm interacting. With things that are happening here.
We can miss it. Some of you haven't committed to a group. Because you don't really need that. I'm doing okay. I feel fine. I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
I get that that's good for lonely people. I'm fine. I'm stable. I had. I had a person. That I was.
When we were talking about. Planting a church. And I told him. We were going to be group space. He said. Groups are great.
He said. But I have a question for you. He said. My dad. Teaches seminary level classes. What would you have for him?
Because he doesn't need to be a part of a group. And I was young. And in seminary. Now I'd say. Liar. He needs to belong to a group of people.
Where he can love them. They need him. And you'll find. That as he. Commits to loving a group of people. He also needs them.
That. A love for the Lord. Is not just mental. We. We hear this show up sometimes. In the way we talk about church.
Sometimes we'll talk about it. Like it's a gym. You should be a part of my church. The way we would talk about. You should be a part of my gym. Oh.
You should be a part of my gym. The fees are low. It's 24 hours. They have the best machines. The smoothie. They sell smoothies.
Some people are like. You should join my gym. Because we don't work out. And we eat pizza. And it's cheap. People have pitched that to me.
It's like. I can do that at my house. For cheaper. But we do that with church. You should come to my church. The music's the best.
Oh. You should come to my church. The preaching. You should come to my church. We renovate it. Now everybody knows where the bathrooms are.
We pick. Pick different things. To try to highlight for somebody. As if. The church is just the experience. And what I'm getting out of it.
And not. You belong to a group of people. And I'm not saying it's bad to like things. And some of you are like. I'm doing great. I don't like any of this stuff.
That's what I mean to say. It's not bad to like things. And to appreciate stuff. But if that's the way you think about it. There's a possibility. That you are just approaching it as.
What am I getting out of this? And this is just about personal devotion. And has nothing to do with me loving people. And you can't. You can't get rid of that one. This is actually.
One of the reasons why I appreciate some things. That I don't like. On Sundays. I'll give you some examples. On Sundays. I like.
And always enjoy. When I go to a church. And they cut off all the lights. And we sing in the dark. I like that. But I actually appreciate.
That we don't do that. Because part of the reason we're singing. Is because we're singing to each other. And we're being reminded. We all believe this. And this isn't just true for me.
And it's not just about my relationship to Jesus. It's about us. That's why we're told in the scriptures. To address each other in Psalms and hymns. And spiritual songs. Part of the reason we're singing.
Is not just singing to God. We're singing to each other. I don't like corporate readings. I think they're kind of awkward. I definitely hate leading them. I accidentally led one one time.
I wouldn't even plan on people reading them. It wasn't even underlined. But I had like cued everybody in. Read this with me. And it was just like. Oh my gosh.
I don't. I don't like them. But I appreciate them. Because we're collectively saying. We believe this together. And this isn't just true for me.
It's true for us. And it's true for all who belong to Jesus. And we belong to each other. And that's what we're practicing. When we get together with our community groups. So that when your group's doing something.
It's like. If you just only want to show up to your group. If you know they're studying stuff. You might have tricked yourself into thinking. It's just about your personal obedience. If you say.
Well I don't have to go to that. Because I don't like board games. Do you love your brothers and sisters? I don't have to go to that. I don't like. I don't like that show.
But do you enjoy. Like can you go serve. And love them. And connect with them. And pour into them. Right.
So we do that. And sometimes we miss. That we belong to people. Sometimes we talk about churches. If we belong to the philosophy. Or the type of music.
Or we belong to the type of preaching. Or whatever. And we miss that we actually belong to a group of people. That's why you should show up early. Talk to people. Sing songs you don't like.
Because that's part of us. Of loving one another. Well. Okay. Sometimes we remove commands. We just say.
We don't really need that part. And what we'll say. It's just about loving God. And loving people. And he says that. Right.
Like he says. To love God. Love people. That's all the commands. John even highlights those as really important ones. And so what we'll say is.
Really all God wants. Is for us to get along. For us to love people. For us to be kind. For us to be open. For us to be accepting.
And that when we add in all the rules. That's when people get bigoted. And angry. And prideful. That's when we get the mean old. Stereotypical church lady.
Excuse me. It's from the rules. And there's some truth in. That it's not about rules. Rules don't save us. And there is a way to be pharisaical about the commands.
There is a way to get this wrong. And to be bigoted. And angry. And hurtful. And think that the rules somehow save us. He's actually going to get there in just a little bit.
But he includes this. This is still here. So you can't just say. Well there's a bad version of that. So get rid of it.
You say there's a bad version of that. Well then what the heck is he talking about? What's the good version? What's this supposed to look like? Because you'll hear things like. Well it's not about the rules.
And rules just divide people. Or. One of my personal favorites. I prayed about it. And it just. I don't feel like it's wrong.
I prayed about it. And I just don't feel convicted. I know you're like reading a verse at me. But I prayed about it. And I feel fine. Which is really.
Verbally the claim. I know the father. He and I talked about it. I'm cool. I don't have to do that one. John says.
Liar. That's not how it works. And I know we get there sometimes. And I will tell you what I always tell people. You should be terrified. That you've so drifted from God.
That even when you're looking at a direct command. You don't feel anything. Repent. And repent quickly. Don't look at me and say. Hey my heart's cold and dead.
And I feel fine. It's like. Oh my. Oh Lord help us. But that's what we say.
I prayed about it. I don't feel. I don't feel like it's wrong. We'll also say. Well I know God just wants me to be happy. I know God just wants me to be happy.
I've been looking at this. And I just don't see. How I could be happy without it. And I know that God loves me. And he wants me to be happy. So I can have this thing.
God does want you to be happy. I used to yell. When we first planted this church. If you've been around a long time. I yelled at you. That God doesn't care about your happiness.
I'm nuancing that now. Because he really does. He just doesn't care about it the way you're defining it in that moment. God loves us so much. That he would die. For our delight.
In him. And he actually knows that you won't be happy. Outside of him. He's willing to go to greater lengths for your happiness than you are. And his commands fit in that category. They're for our good.
So there's some assumptions that come in. When you're going to obey the commands that the Lord gives you. One. We assume that he's good. That he loves us. That he's for our good.
The cross definitively proves that. John says that multiple times. This is how we know love. This is how we know that he loves us. That he died for us. But we're assuming he's good.
Because if you're going to obey his commands. You've got to start there. I've got to assume that he's good. And that he's for my good. Secondly. I've got to assume that he knows some stuff I don't.
Considering I can't create things by speaking. Or keep them together. I'm just going to go ahead and assume he probably knows some things I don't. And he's capable of doing things that I can't. There's some jokes about people who posted on Twitter. I finally got to perform a tracheotomy at 3,000 feet or whatever.
Like someone asked if there was a doctor. And I stood up and I was able to perform this. And they'll put being a doctor of philosophy. That was a wild ride. And it's this idea that you just claim you're a doctor and just go for it. And there's with any lack of information that you would actually need to do this well.
And so sometimes when I'm saying I just want to chase after this thing that he tells me no. What I'm saying is I think I have all the information I need. And that I'm now smarter than him. Or maybe he's smarter than me. But he's not for my good.
But Christ on the cross definitively proves that he is. So that we can just put his commands in the category of I have a three-year-old, a four-year-old. This is easier for me because he only wants to eat the four food groups. Waffles. French fries. Pizza.
And Swedish fish. Which at my house, and this is why I tripped up for a second, they're called poop fish. Because we use them to teach him to be potty trained. That's all he wants to eat. He'll say yes to any of those. I have a rule at my house, which is you can only eat waffles one time a day.
I'm a very strict parent. But there's a reality to it. His older brother would never choose to sleep. So this one is going to eat just junk all the time. His older brother, I mean, he could look ragged. And be like not able to talk without crying.
And be like, buddy, you need to go to bed. No. I'm fine. It's like, okay. We have rules. Because I'm smarter than them.
And I love them. Really. Eating Swedish fish for dinner might make you happy right now. That will ruin your life. It just will. That path does not lead to joy.
It does not. It leads to a lot of places. Joy is not one of them. And there are times where God steps in and all we can see is what would be on the plate right in front of us. And he says, I love you. And that path does not lead to joy.
And so to say, well, he wants me to be happy. So obviously this universal command can't apply to me is silly and short-sighted. So we obey. And that's why obeying displays our love for him. I love you and I trust you. And even though I don't understand why you're saying I can't have that or do that or why you're not letting this work out right now.
I'm in. And we obey in a way that helps us love his children. And I want you to see this. That's what John has said over and over again. And we can't get rid of any of those. We've got to keep all of them.
But I want to add something. Or he adds to it. So I want to read it and talk about it. What he says at the end of verse 3. So he says, this is verse 3.
For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. That's what he says next. So we keep his commandments, but his commandments are not burdensome. Now he's going to define that for us. Because some of you are like, then I must be doing them wrong. Because I've got a few I really do not like.
And I have found quite, I would describe them as a burden to try to keep doing them. He's going to define this. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. So that for is very important. His commandments are not burdensome. For.
He's not changing the subject. He's defining what he's talking about. For. Everyone who has been born of God. Who's been born of God? We read this earlier.
Everybody who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. So. Everyone who believes in Jesus has been born of God. That's the same group here. For everyone who believes in Jesus or who has been born of God. Overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith. Hold that for a second. Here's what he means by it's not burdensome. When he talks about the world. What he means is the stuff that would tempt us to sin.
Evil desires. Which tempt us to sin. He also means the enemy. He talks about the antichrist. He talks about the devil being sons of the devil. That we have an enemy that's.
Trying to destroy us and lead us to hell. And we have ourselves. That's trying to destroy us and lead us to hell. Like our own desires. Corresponding with the world. This is what we're trying to do.
And if it's you going toe to toe against that. Via obedience to win. You lose. If you've got to beat the world. Save yourself through obedience. You lose.
That's a burden. The reason his commands are not burdensome. Is they do not carry the weight of our salvation. They do not bear that burden. He does not mean they are not difficult. This is where Jesus can say.
Truly. Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. And I will give you rest. For my burden is easy and my yoke is light. And he can truly say. That the path is narrow.
And the way is hard. And that those who find it are few. That there is some difficulty. To obedience. There is some hardship to obedience. There is some difficulty to following Jesus with our life.
But it does not bear the burden of our salvation. There is great freedom and hope in this. If you believe in Jesus. You overcome the world. And in a real way. Not like when Americans announced themselves world champs of things.
That we only. Only us competed in. But like in a real way. That you overcome the world. That you are not. Destroyed by sin.
And if you have made any real effort. To fight your sin. You know. There are moments when you think. Oh. I am going to be lost.
I am going to. I am going to. I don't. There is something wrong with me. And that is when he steps in and says. Do you love Jesus?
Do you believe in him? These commands are for your good. But they are not able to carry the weight of salvation. Jesus carries the weight of salvation. So then he goes on.
Verse 5. Who is it. That overcomes the world. Except the one that believes Jesus. Is the son of God. Do not read John.
And look at this triangle of identity. And go. I am going to do better. All I got to do is. I am going to go do better. Truth is.
We can get together on Sundays. We can yell. Go do better. And you will. A little bit. Ish.
For a while. You will have some more motivation. You will have some energy. You will have some. I don't know. Guilt.
Or pride. Or something that is driving you to. I am going to show my group. I will love better than any of them. Okay. You are mad at them.
To love. I don't. Good luck. But ultimately. That just adds to the burden. That I am going to go do better.
Just adds to the burden. This is an invitation. Into an identity. That has been accomplished. By faith in Jesus. And being born.
Again. By the power of God. So. Faith. Is what you need. You need faith in Jesus.
And then this is an identity. That is why John doesn't say. If you do not do these things. Get it together. He says. If you do not do these things.
If this. If your life is not marked by love for the brothers. And I am trying to help you see where they can creep in. And where we need to grow some. But he says.
If your life is not marked by this. Not marked by obedience. Not marked by the brothers. It is not. Do better. He says.
You are a liar. And what you need is Jesus. What you need is him at work in you. What you need is the empowerment of the spirit. Not. I am going to do these things better.
So if you are in here. And you are going. I believe in Jesus. Then what you ask. Is for his help. For him to empower you.
For you to grow in your love. Not. Watch me. Watch me do this. That is not the response. The response is faith.
And delight. In the fact. That through Jesus. We overcome. That you are not destroyed. By your sin.
So I don't know. If this is your first time. Being around. Or if you have been around for a while. I don't know where you are. But.
Don't leave with. I am going to do better. Leave with. I am going to love Jesus. And I trust him for salvation. And this was so encouraging for me.
As I worked on this. Because y'all. That is our church family. Sometimes kicking and screaming. That is our church family. Some of you have seen that in yourself.
And people in your group. Some of you. For real. You are obeying commands. That you hate. Some of you.
That is you being here this morning. You had to fight. Your children. And your wife. And yourself. To get here.
Or your husband. Or traffic. Or whatever. Not traffic. It is not busy on Sundays. But to get a group.
Sometimes. Yeah. And you are like. I don't know why I am here. I will tell you why you are here. You have placed your faith in Jesus.
And the Holy Spirit is changing you. That is why you are looking at some commands. And you are going. I don't like this. I still don't like this. This is one of the ones I said.
I would never be a Christian. Because. And I actually now believe that he is good. And so I am going to try to follow this. Some of you are like. I don't.
I hate people. But I love these people. And I hate that. But I love it. And it is so weird. It is like.
Yeah. It is the Holy Spirit. It is working you. Some of you. Every time. It is time to go be around people.
You are like. I do not want to do this. And then you show up. And there is something magical. It is not magical. It is Holy Spirit empowered.
And it is good. This is us. Because this is what Jesus does. Among a group of people. I am going to leave you with this. I found it.
So. It is an encouraging. I was reading. The Pilgrim's Progress. A children's version. So it is a big poem.
Of the Pilgrim's Progress. To my son. And we read through it. And we talk through it. And it is confusing as mess. So we get a lot of discussion about.
What the heck is he talking about. But then there is a guy named Evangelist. And he sings this. There is a guy named Christian. Who is trying to become a Christian. He has got a burden of sin on his back.
That he is trying to get rid of. Somebody told him. Just go follow the law. Go do. Go obey. And you will be fixed.
And then Evangelist sings this to him. He says. To run and work. The law demands. But gives us neither feet nor hands.
Far better news the gospel brings. It bids us fly. And gives us wings. Obedience. Loving others. They are in response to the work of the Holy Spirit in our heart.
Because we place faith in Jesus. He is calling us to fly. But he is going to give us the wings to do it. It is not the thing that saves us. It is not the thing that rescues us. Jesus does that.
But it is good. And it does work among his people. And where we see us drifting in a direction. We need to repent and run towards the joy that is offered to us in him. Matt and Kelly are going to come back up. We are going to sing.
Because we have a champion in Christ who has gone before us. And who has rescued and redeemed. And made the way for us. And we are going to delight in the fact that this is who we get to be as his people. And yeah. If there are some areas where you see.
I need to grow here. Then ask the Lord to help you. And if you don't have any of those markings. Then place your faith in Jesus. And let him go to work. Because he is our only hope.
In a moment we are going to take communion. Which is where we celebrate collectively. That Jesus Christ redeems sinners. That he has. The gospel has called us to fly and given us wings. That he has rescued us from our sin.
That he has given us hope. That he has given us a new heart. That we have been born again. And that we are not saved by our work but his. That is why we picture it. With the bread and the cup.
That we remember his body and his blood. Work that he accomplished for us. And so we come and we once again say. Lord I need the gospel. I don't need to be better. I don't need to be smarter.
I don't need to be stronger. I have a hero. I have a savior. I overcome the world through faith. I just need you. And I need you to cleanse me.
And I need your mercy. And I need your grace. And I need your empowerment. And I need the gospel. So if you are a believer.
We would invite you to come. After you have taken a moment to reflect. After you have taken a moment to maybe repent. To talk to the Lord. To adjust your heart as you go before him. But then come.
And celebrate that you are saved through his work. Not yours. That his commands are not burdensome. And that we get to be born again. Into the work that he has accomplished. Let's pray.
God we thank you for. The faith. That saves us. We thank you that we get to come. And trust in the work of Jesus. And that you then make us into a new people.
And Lord we pray that we would look like that. And that for those who have. One of those completely missing. And it does not Mark their life. Lord we pray that they would not say. Well I'm going to get it together.
But that they would come to Jesus. And be saved. To not try to carry the burden. Of their salvation. But to let him accomplish it for them on the cross.
May we grow. In our love for one another. May we grow. In our love for you. And may we grow. In our obedience.
Through the empowerment. Of the spirit. In Jesus name. Amen.
Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat
Transcript
It's good to see you all this morning. My name is Chet. I am one of the pastors of Mill City Church. If this is your first time with us, we're glad you're here. We gather together on Sundays. We have groups that meet throughout the week.
We gather on Sundays. We sing to Jesus and about Jesus. And then we open the Bible and we read it and study it together. If you'll grab a Bible and go to Genesis chapter 37. We've been walking through the book of Genesis. If you have one of these blue Bibles, it'll be on page 18.
If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you when you leave. That's our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible. We've been walking through this story. We've been following this family. And we are now going to begin looking at the life of Joseph.
We're going to be following his story for the next little while as Genesis kind of rounds its way out. So we are in the home stretch. We have turned. We've touched third base and we are headed home. We're going to be able to finish this book up within the next year or two. And the next several weeks we'll be finishing up and studying through Joseph.
I, when I was in 10th grade. Oh, sorry. First of all, let me say I'm glad. But I'm always excited when the elementary students are in here. It's good to see you all this morning. I love having the elementary students in here.
I learn things. Like today, I learned that your soul is located right here. Which makes so much sense as to how I feel after I've eaten. Like I've just fed my soul. And so it's good to see you all this morning. When I was in 10th grade, I was playing quarterback for our JV football team.
And I was not a very good quarterback because I was what my driver's ed instructor called impetuous. And for those of you who aren't familiar with that word, it means when you need to make a decision quickly, you just go for it, which is a problem when you're at yellow lights or when you're throwing a pass into double coverage. So I threw a lot of interceptions. And we were only a few games in. I went to, I faked a handoff. I was rolling out this way.
Somebody grabbed my right shoulder. My left foot got out in front of me and buckled like that. Oh, I actually just did there because it's got problems. And my kneecap shot out of place, which it does. Well, it started around then. And I would have one knee injury every football season for the next six years.
And I learned a lot of things. I was introduced to LCLs and PCLs and ACLs and meniscus and sublexed patellas. I dislocated my kneecap a lot. And if you've never done that, if you've never dislocated like your left kneecap, just imagine what it would feel like to dislocate your right kneecap and then pretend it was over here and you'll have a good idea of what that feels like. And so I did that a lot. And what I was really introduced to was having plans for the way things were going to work out and then having that just knocked out from under you.
That ended my quarterbacking career. I didn't go pro. You know, I just never, it just knocked it out. And I did this every football season. I would get injured again. And so the progress I had made and the way things were working would just get reset.
And I would just have my plans, my future just wiped out from under me. And that was kind of how it began. And this happens in life consistently and on a much greater scale. That we will have plans for our future and just have them snatched away. We'll have plans for our future and how things are going to look and just have our legs knocked out from under us. We'll lose a job.
Somebody will have been drinking and will drive left of center. We will have a parent leave or a spouse leave. We will have plans. We'll have a vision for what future is going to look like and just have it derailed. And that's what happens in this story. That's what happens in the life of Joseph.
And so we're going to ask that question today is what do we do in those times when we just get kind of stuck where we had a plan, we had a future, we had an idea of what things were going to look like and that just gets taken away from us and now we're just kind of stuck in a holding pattern. And so that's what we're going to be looking at this morning. So I'm going to pray and then we'll start reading this text together. God, we come here today from all different places. There are some people who have had a joyous, life-giving week. And there are some people who have had the life beat out of them this week.
There are some who feel much the way Joseph is going to feel like the future was snatched away, like they're stuck in kind of a holding pattern. And we just ask for your help as we study this and we ask for your Holy Spirit to minister to us, to comfort us, to teach us that we might grow to look more like you and that we might grow in our love for Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen. Chapter 37, verse 1. Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan.
These are the generations of Jacob. Now whenever it says that, it means we're kind of starting a new chapter, a new set of stories. And it says, Joseph being 17 years old. So let's pause for a second and let's remember who Joseph is. At this point, now we left off in chapter 35. For the few of you that maybe remembered that and you're going, wait a second, did we just skip some stuff?
I'm going to read back and find out what we skipped. I'll tell you real quick. We left off in chapter 35. They move towards Bethel. God protects them. Then they live in Bethel for a little while.
They move from Bethel. Rachel dies in childbirth. Rachel is one of Jacob's four wives. You really should only have one. He has four. She's his favorite.
If you have multiple wives in the Bible, you're not supposed to have a favorite. So he's messed this up in multiple ways. But he has multiple wives. He has a favorite. She passes in giving birth to what she names, her son, who she names Ben-Oni, which means son of my strength or son of my sorrow. And his dad changes his name to Benjamin, which means son of my right hand.
And he's honoring his wife and acknowledging that he's lost a part of himself. That is Joseph's little brother. So his favorite wife has two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, who are the second to last and last of his children. And so he's got 10 older sons from his other wives. He's got these two sons. That's who Joseph is.
He's second youngest and first son of Rachel. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. All right.
So Bilhah and Zilpah had four sons, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. And when it says he was a boy with them, it does not mean that they were all, they were friends and all the same age. It means he was their boy. He was their small boy. He was their lad. He was their runner.
So they were teaching him how to tend the flock. And he was running back and forth and having to do all the things they said and working for them. And he brings a bad report. He goes and tells his father that they're not doing right. Now we don't know what they were doing.
It just says he brought a bad report. He tells them that either they're sinning or they're not treating him well. I remember when we were little, I have an older brother and a younger brother. And my older brother kept demanding that me and my younger brother do things. He would send us to do things. He would send us on errands.
We were his small boys because he was older than us. And my mom and dad fussed at him and told him to stop doing this. And then one day we were down playing in the woods. We had a little camp and we said our, I can still remember vividly, he was like three or four at this point, him dragging a two liter Mountain Dew down to us from our house. It was almost as big as he was but we had sent him to get us a drink so he brought a two liter Mountain Dew which is a brilliant choice on the part of a four year old. My parents fussed at us and said, y'all have got to quit telling Vince, making him run all your errands and do all this stuff for you.
And my older brother looks at him and says, Mama, you gotta fuss at Chet. Don't fuss at me, you gotta fuss at Chet because every single time I tell Chet to do something he turns right around and tells Vince to do it. But there's this dynamic here where these four have this small boy Joseph and Joseph goes to his father and he gives a bad report and we don't know, we don't know, there's two kind of ways to give a bad report. There's a way that you tell on someone that is for your own benefit. You're telling on them just to make yourself look good, just to puff yourself up. I remember going to my dad one time and I was doing a service for the family because every time my older brother did something wrong, I would let my parents know.
They needed to know these things. They needed to stay on top of his behavior and his actions. And so I went to tell on him one time and I remember my dad looking at me and going, he just looked disgusted. He just stood there looking at me for a while and I was like, this is not the right response. Maybe I was thinking, yeah, that's right, we should be disgusted at Logan's behavior. I don't know.
He just, but I could tell it was like aimed at me and it was just like, okay. And then he said, you're just a little snitch, aren't you? Just a little rat fink, which y'all should use in real life from now on. Rat fink is an amazing term to call people. And he called me a rat fink and he said, you're just a little tattletale. He said, look, I don't want to hear it anymore.
It's you and your brother against me. It's not me and you against your brother. That'd be messed up. I'm not on your team. Quit, quit narking on your brother all the time. And I just remember thinking, but the whole reason he was doing that was because the only reason I was telling on him was to make myself look good.
It wasn't that I was actually genuinely worried about my brother and his character and his life and his health. I just wanted him to get in trouble because it made me look good and I enjoyed watching him be in trouble. There's also a genuine, heartfelt what they're doing is wrong and giving a bad report. We don't know which one he did. Best guess though is that he did this in integrity, in honesty, just because as you watch this play out, his brothers aren't very good people and he seems to genuinely handle things well. So as best we can watch, they don't seem to have a lot of integrity.
Joseph seems to, so it seems as if he's given a genuine report of they're not doing some things right and he's not a rat fink, if you will. He does tell on them. It says this, it says he brings a bad report which is a good way to make your brothers not like you, whether they're wrong or not. That's a really good way to make them not like you. So they're already reading into this.
They would be frustrated with him. Now Israel, that's his daddy, loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, which is a problem. That's the same thing that Jacob, who's also Israel, that's the same thing his dad did. It caused him a lot of problems. He's turned right around and done the same thing. Because he was the son of his old age.
And he made him a robe of many colors. We don't, that robe, that thing could be a robe of many colors. It could be a robe that was like sparkly or shiny. It could be a robe that had long sleeves. We don't really know. The only other place this is used in the Old Testament is to describe an outfit that a princess is wearing.
So what we do know is that Joseph looked fabulous. He was shiny and colorful and sparkly in his princess outfit. It was amazing. I'm sure his brothers envied him and mocked him because that's how brothers would work. And so he gets this fancy outfit. His dad shows great honor to him, privilege to him.
And in some ways it's treating him the way he ought to treat the firstborn son. And he's messing up the birth order from Reuben down to Joseph. But Joseph is the firstborn of Rachel. So there's this weird favoritism that's plaguing this family. And it says, but when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Some of you who have siblings know what that is like.
You go through these stages where it's like your siblings cannot talk nicely to you, cannot speak nicely to you. You come in and you're like, hey, what's going on? They're like, shut up, get out of here, Steve. Like, whatever. Like, you just have this kind of, this animosity that grows and this happens. And I want you to know this.
Parents, you have a role to play in how your children get along with one another. Seems as if Israel is further fueling this the same way his dad did, but you have a role to play. There's a family in our church family that has a get-along shirt that they make their two children wear at once so that they'll get along. My dad used to make us hug. You have, after we had fought, you have a role to play in trying to help them get along, and he's not, and it's further dividing, and they cannot even speak to him without being cruel to him. So Joseph, this is verse 5, now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright, and behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf. So he says, we were binding grain, my sheaf stood up, looking good, and all y'all's little sheaves that y'all put together just came right around and bowed down to mine. What y'all think about that dream? His brothers said to him, are you indeed to reign over us, or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come and bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. All right, we've got to talk a second about dreams.
Immediately, they understood when he tells them this dream, they understood that this ought to be understood in a prophetic way. That there's meaning behind it and so they're saying, oh, are you prophesying to us? Are you telling us that your dream tells the future and that we're going to bow to you? And that's why his dad fusses at him and says, oh, me and your mama are going to bow to you. They were the sun and the moon and your brothers are going to bow to you. Really?
So they understood it to be prophetic. Now, let's talk about dreams for just a second. There's kind of three ways to think about dreams. There's a group in here probably that just believes dreams are just dreams. They don't mean anything. They're your brain keeping itself occupied while you're asleep.
Like if you dream that you had to build a golf cart with your old PE teacher, probably just a dream. You're not waking up thinking, oh, wow, in the future I'm going to have to build a golf cart with my, like it just seems like it's a dream. Like dreams are just dreams. They're just random things. Some people would say, well, no, dreams tell you a lot about yourself. You can study them for psychology.
You can study them to know more about yourself. Like I have a dream periodically where I get up to preach and I, for some reason, have folded my notes into a tiny little thing and then I'm immediately trying to unfold them up here and I can't get them unfolded. The truth is that's exactly what I did the first time I ever preached. I had written all my notes on a yellow sheet of memo pad, had it wadded up in my pocket and got up and it was one of those lecterns with the microphone right here and then just like sweatingly unfolded it while I was sitting here and I don't do that anymore. Crisp, clean sheets of paper.
But I have that dream. I have dreams sometimes where I can't read the Bible or y'all keep moving so like I'll find it, I'll get ready, I'll look up and I'm facing the wrong way. There's that middle zone. I think it means I'm stressed out when I have that dream. Sometimes you have dreams where you're having to give a presentation at work and suddenly, you know, my wife periodically have dreams where her teeth fall out and that kind of stuff. It's just like I have dreams where my contacts are as big as dinner plates.
I can't put them in my eye. Now some of you who study this are going, oh no, I've just learned seven things about you. We can talk later. And then there's other people who are going, no, dreams are prophetic. They're from God. They're dreams that will tell you things that you need to know, reality that's around, things that are coming.
And the answer to this, yeah, okay, some dreams are just dreams. You wake up, you're like, that was weird. You move on with your day. Or, you know, you wake up and you're like, that was weird. I'll be mad at my husband for the rest of the day. Whatever, however you choose to do that.
Then there's the middle zone of like, yeah, maybe it does tell you about something you've been thinking about, something you've been worried about, something you're stressed about. I wouldn't put too much weight there trying to figure out all the secrets of your soul from dreams, but okay. And then yeah, biblically, some dreams are prophetic. We're going to see that throughout the story of Joseph. We're going to get to see that more. The New Testament carries that out.
There are prophetic dreams in the New Testament. When Peter stands up and preaches at Pentecost, he says, your young men, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. It's this prophecy about coming true through the Holy Spirit. That happens. So what do we do?
In general, you don't want to place too much weight on dreams. You want to place some weight. There's room for them to be prophetic, for them to be from the Holy Spirit. But the New Testament also gives warning. It says that people can be puffed up by visions. They can be led astray by dreams.
So we don't want to give them all the weight in the world. We would share them in community under the weight of Scripture. We would discuss them. You could let other people in on them. You can keep them to yourself and just wait and see what happens. Wouldn't make all my life decisions off of dreams.
And we can do what Jacob does here and keep it in mind. Try to pay attention to it. Ask the Lord about it. Talk about it in community. Let Scripture bear weight on it. Make sure you don't run off after them.
Maybe you feel like you need to pray for somebody. Trust that. Walk with people in it. But we don't place too much weight on them. If you want to talk more about that would be interested too. We will talk more about it as well in upcoming sermons.
That's all we can give it right now. He has dreams. They understood him to be prophetic. He understood him to be prophetic. And so they move forward in the story. His father keeps this in mind.
Pick up 12. Now his brothers went to pasture their flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send them to you. And he said to him, Here am I. So he said to him, Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock and bring me word.
So he sent him from the valley of Hebron and he came to Shechem. All right, let's pause for just a second. He's no longer their small boy. He's not with them anymore. We don't know if that just means sometimes he did this, sometimes he didn't. When they travel off, maybe he just stays closer to home.
He is 17, which means he's in between being an adult and being a boy. They would not count you in a census as prepared for war until you were 20. And so there is some room here, especially for those of you who are in that 15, 16, 17, 18 range. There are some times where it's perfectly fine to be in your parents' household, to be leaning into them for wisdom, to be asking them for help, to be living under that roof. And there are other times where you need to be capable, like he is, to be doing some work. His dad's sending him three or four days away on his own to go find out about his brothers and to give a report.
If you're 16, 17 years old, can you be at home by yourself for three or four days? Are you incapable of doing that? Are you capable of doing that? There's time to be willing to grow and to carry some weight and also to be understanding that I'm still able to lean into my parents and walking that out and trying to work towards health. And that's where he is. So he's sent out on his own 60 or so miles away to find his brothers.
Verse 15, And a man found him wandering in the fields and the man asked him, What are you seeking? And he said, I'm seeking my brothers. He said to him, Tell me, please, where have they been pasturing? Where they are pasturing the flock? And the man said to him, They have gone away for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
That's another 20 miles. That's another day or so journey. So Joseph's just walking around fields like this. They walk over a hill. Somebody sees him and says, What are you looking for? He says, My brothers and our stuff, do you know where they went?
And they said, Yeah, I heard them say they were going on to Dothan. And then he heads on to Dothan. He doesn't head home and say, I didn't find them. He finishes the job and he heads on to Dothan. They saw him from afar. Before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.
Okay, so his brothers see him headed towards him. Now, if you know someone and you're familiar with them, a lot of times you can recognize them from a distance. You can tell how they walk. You can kind of tell, Okay, this is this person. I know this person. I don't know this person.
If that person that you know is wearing a splendid rhinestone coat that they wear all the time, you can tell them from a distance easier. And he's wearing his splendid coat. They see him and they go, Okay, here's colorful. Joseph headed our way and they decide, When he gets here, let's kill him. They said to one another, Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of these pits.
Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him and we will see what will become of his dreams. So his brothers hated him. Then they hated him more. Then they hated him even more. Then they see him and they decide, Let's kill him.
Some of you have been betrayed, harmed by family. And it is some of the most harmful thing that can happen. And his brothers, his ten older brothers decide, Let's kill him. And they go about this the way that we go about things. They slowly let it grow and fester in their souls so that eventually it seems like a really good idea to do something absolutely evil and wicked. Some of you right now, if we said, Would you ever do this?
Would you ever do this? You'd say, No. But the truth is, you've already planted the seed and you're already letting it grow. An oak tree doesn't seem like it would come from an acorn, but if you plant it in the ground and it has the right circumstances, it can grow. And some of us right now are fostering bitterness, are fostering lust, are fostering hatred. We're watering it and we're letting it grow and eventually it leads to really heinous action so that we do things we never would have thought we would have done.
And that's what his brothers decide, Let's just kill him. And then, and then we'll see about his little special dreams. When he's dead, we'll see who bows down to him. Verse 21, But when Reuben, that's the oldest brother, the firstborn, he'd had some weight in the family, heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, Let us not take his life. And Reuben said to them, Shed no blood, throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him. And he said this, that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father.
So Reuben tries to protect him. Now, he's not in the strongest position. He's the firstborn, but he can't just tell him, No, we're not going to do that. Y'all are wrong. I think he probably fears they might turn on him. If they'll kill Joseph, who's Jacob's favorite, they might just kill Reuben as well.
So he just says, No, don't kill him. Just throw him in the pit, in the wilderness. Kind of saying, We'll just let him starve and die, but that way we won't have his blood on our hands. But Reuben's plan was to go get him out. So when Joseph came to his brothers, verse 23, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit.
The pit was empty. There was no water in it. He finally sees his brothers. He's been on this trip for days. He's probably like, Oh, here we go. Good.
He may even have some things he was supposed to bring him. We know he was supposed to find out how it was going and give a report. He shows up to his brothers, probably felt like something's a little off here. His brothers gather around him. They rip his robe off of him and they throw him in a pit. Now, he had 10 older brothers.
This probably was a bit of a struggle, but not exceedingly difficult. We can guess that maybe Ruben wasn't really hands-on here, so maybe nine. I don't know if you've ever fought nine people. Unless your name is Jackie Chan, you lost. That's usually how that goes. Because, you know, they don't do the one-at-a-time thing like they do in movies.
And so he is thrown in a pit fairly easily, and I think probably very confused, very hurt. He's the youngest. He's not actually seeking this relationship to be bad. He probably is hurt over how this has all gone down anyway. And now he sees his brothers and they harm him. And they throw him in this pit.
And it's a man-made pit. It would have been used as like a cistern. He can't get out of it. It's probably steep-walled. Kind of like a well. They threw him in a well.
That's kind of how that works. So he fell in at the pit. All right. And then, 25, then they sat down to eat. So they don't even care.
They're not worried about him. And they just throw him in there. And they sit down and start eating. And looking up, they see, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing gum and balm and myrrh on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, he's one of the older ones, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?
Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him. For he is our brother, our own flesh. So he says, it's probably bad if we kill him. Let's just sell him and make some money off of this deal. His brothers listened to him. Then the Midianite traders passed by and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver.
They took Joseph to Egypt. So Joseph had been in Hebron. He'd headed to Shechem, then to Dothan. These guys are coming around from Gilead down to Egypt. They sell him. He heads all the way down over here to Egypt.
He's now very far from where he started. It says, when Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said, the boy is gone and I, where shall I go? So what he's saying is I'm going to have to pay life for life on this that we lost our brother, that this is under my leadership as the firstborn. He tears his clothes and he says, what have y'all done and where shall I go? Doesn't seem like he's super worried about Joseph. He doesn't say, where did he go?
He says, where shall I go? Then they took Joseph's robe, this is verse 31, and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood and they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, this we have found. Please identify whether it is your son's robe or not. And he identified it and said, it is my son's robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without a doubt torn to pieces.
In this countryside, they would have had lions, they would have had bears. It was not out of the question that someone would be attacked and killed. And his sons do the same thing to him that he did to his father. They slaughter a goat in order to trick their father away from his favorite son. It's the same thing Jacob did when he pretended to be Esau. And it's the same thing they do to Jacob here.
And Jacob and his family are living out patterns. So he sees it and he says, yes, this is my son and they've, he's obviously been killed by a wild animal. Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, no, I shall go down to Sheol to my son mourning. He just says, I'm going to be sad until I die. Thus, his father wept for him.
Meanwhile, the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh, the captain of the guard. Now, if you've ever been watching a show and something terrible happens and then it just ends and you're like, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no. And then you wait till, okay, I can't wait till the next episode and the next episode picks up and tells you nothing about what just happened in the last episode. That's what happens here. Next week, we're just going to read about Judah and Tamar. The text intentionally says, meanwhile, he's a slave and then just moves on to something else.
It's a Old Testament cliffhanger that we don't know what's going to happen with Joseph. We're just kind of stuck here. And the truth is, Joseph is just kind of stuck. His life was going well. He has 11 brothers. He's the favorite.
They have regular coats. He has a magnificent coat. His dad loves him more than his brothers. Now, we don't know how he handled that. We don't know if he was gracious with it, but he also has these dreams that he, maybe in his youth and naïveness, naivety, tells them what his dream is. And maybe he was bragging a little bit.
We don't know, but he has these dreams from God that say, they're going to bow down to me. He's going to have this position of power. He's going to, in the future, things are going to go really well for him, not only as his brothers, but his dad and his mom. Like, he goes and tells them these dreams. Like, what do y'all think this means? I think it means it's going to be awesome in the future.
He goes, he's working hard. He goes and sees his brothers and immediately thrown into a pit. They save his life, barely, sold into slavery, and everything that was going to happen in his future is taken away. As best he can tell, his whole future, his whole plans, his whole idea of how things were going to work, the way he had marked it out, the way he had mapped it out is just gone. And he's just stuck. I love the word meanwhile there.
Meanwhile, while everything else is going on, he's a slave. And I think sometimes we feel like that. Like, that's how our life works. Like, you, while everybody else was having a good time, while everybody else was advancing at work, while everybody else was having things go well for them, meanwhile, I lost my job. Meanwhile, my family fell apart. Meanwhile, my health deteriorated.
For some of you who are older, maybe you felt this very distinctly when you went to high school reunions, that sometimes you felt like you were showing up and you had the meanwhile story. Oh, you became a doctor. Well, meanwhile, I gained 30 pounds. And, you know, I'm really kind of between things right now. You just feel this on you and that's where he is. He feels, he's stuck.
And we don't get any extra part of the story here. And so what do you do in those moments? What do you do when you're stuck? What did he do? Well, we'll find out later that one of the things he does is he trusts the dreams that he had. He trusts what God had already told him.
He understood that those were prophetic and he trusts them. He believes in them. He would hold on to those, lean back into those, know that this is something that God had said so that regardless of how the situation seemed to be working right now, he could lean back into that. And some of you were like, neat. That sounds nice. I have had zero special dreams.
I've had some weird ones, but none that I'm like, when I get sad, I'll think about that dream and feel good again. That's not how they work. And you're going, I don't have anything special from God that he's told me that I can hold on to in the middle of this crisis, in the middle of this pain. And I would tell you that you're wrong, you have something better. Hebrews chapter one says this, and we'll have it on the screen. It says, long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
That means that God specifically spoke to people to give a message that this dream is prophetic, that he speaks in a way to declare what his will was, what he was doing, what he was about, what was going to happen. And then it says, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed to the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. That through Jesus, he has spoken definitively and clearly that he loves us, that he's good, that he's the heir of all things, that he's the creator of the world and that there's hope fully and forever in Jesus, that he has spoken through Christ to us, that you have something better than a dream, you have the person and work of Jesus who has gone before us and who our hope is in forever. There was a story written in the middle of the 1800s called The Princess and the Goblin.
There's this princess, her name's Irene. She lives in a castle. She dresses very similarly to Joseph. It doesn't say that, but I'm just helping you picture it here. She lives in a castle. She's kind of by herself and she doesn't know, but there's a goblin kingdom that's near her castle and they've decided that they're going to try to rule again.
She's very lonely. She's wandering around the castle. She enters into this room and she finds her great-great-grandmother who is actually a fairy, as some great-great-grandmothers are. And she starts to talk with her and she gets to building this relationship with her great-great-grandmother. She goes and visits her often. And one of the things that happens is there's some bad things that happen.
Eventually, her great-great-grandmother gives her a ring and it's a magic ring and it has a thread on it that only Irene can see. It's a very thin thread and the grandmother says, if you ever are in danger, put this under your pillow and then grab the thread and follow the thread and it'll lead you to safety and it'll lead you to me. There's this time that comes where the goblins attack the castle. She puts the ring under her pillow. She grabs it and she starts following the thread. And as she heads out of the castle, she comes around and she sees that the thread leads her directly into the goblin's lair.
She just keeps following the thread in her fear and then finally the thread winds and it turns into a giant pile of rocks. She's terrified and heartbroken. This is awful. And she tries to follow the thread back to get out of the cave, but that's not how the thread works. It only goes forward. So after being sad for a while and being confused for a while, she decides, well, I might as well just follow the thread.
That's my best option. So she starts digging the rocks out. She's soon bleeding, soon crying as she tries to get these rocks out. Her fingers are hurt and as she digs them out, she finds hidden in the rocks was a prison and she finds her best friend, Kurti, who was trapped by the goblins. And Kurti's like, how on earth did you know I was here? She said, I'm just following the thread and now I see why it brought me here.
And she says, let's keep following the thread and Kurti says, no, we got to get out. That thread doesn't lead the right way and she says, all I can do is follow the thread. And she follows it and she follows it and she follows it and sometimes it leads to places that seem like there would be utter despair and destruction there, but she follows the thread and eventually she makes it to her great-great-grandmother and she makes it to safety and the thread was trustworthy because her great-great-grandmother was trustworthy. Pastor Tim Keller was writing about that story and he says this, he says, if you asked a seven-year-old, I'd like you to write me an essay on what it's like to fall in love and get married.
He says, when you read the essay, you'll say it isn't very close to the reality. We've got some parts right, but in general, doesn't really understand the process. He says, a seven-year-old can't really imagine what love and marriage will be like and he says, when you start to follow Jesus, you're at least that far away. You're at least that far away from understanding what this is going to look like. You have no idea how far you'll have to go. Jesus just says, follow me and sometimes you'll be following him and you'll be asking, why on earth are you bringing me here?
That's Joseph's story. God has a plan. God's made a promise, but it doesn't look like it's going to work out, but God is sovereign over all of it. Joseph's brothers haven't overpowered God. They haven't outwitted him. And for us, as we follow Jesus, a lot of times we just have a thread and all we can do is go forward.
It only goes that way. And sometimes we're going to hit places that we think, why on earth am I here? How on earth are you going to bring good out of this? But we have good and beautiful promises that are sealed. All the promises of God find their yes in Jesus. And they're sealed in him that he will take all things and turn them to good.
That he will make our suffering matter. That he'll bring glory out of it. That he brings hope in darkness and that we can trust and follow him. And we're not to turn back. We're just to hold on. We're to hold on to the fact that we know that Jesus has gone before us.
That he's suffered more than we have. That he's loved more than we have. That he's been tempted more than we have. And that he's walked it out in faithfulness and we can trust him. And that's our hope. So in those moments of just being stuck, trust that he's good.
That he knows what he's doing. And that you can follow him forward even though it doesn't look like it'll work out. Because he's gone before us. The band's going to come back up. We're going to take communion. If you're a follower of Jesus, one of the ways that we remind ourselves that he is good, that he has gone before us, that our hope is in him, that his promises come true, is that we remember his death in our place, on our behalf.
And so we'll take bread and we'll dip it in the cup to remind us of his body that was broken for us and his blood that was shed for us and to remind us that he has gone before us and our hope is in him. So we'll take a moment if you need to confess and repent of sin, if you need to go to Jesus with your anxiety and your fear and then we'll take communion together. If you are not a Christian, we would ask that you do not take communion because it is something that is for Christians. And in a moment after you've taken communion, we'll stand, we'll sing together one final song. So let's pray.
God, we thank you that you're good and that you go before us and that our hope is in you. We love you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Presence of God
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We have been walking through the story of Genesis. We've been following the patriarchs the past few weeks and months. We've been Abraham, and then we followed Isaac.
We are now shifting more into Jacob being the patriarch. I want to recap a little bit of what we talked about last week in the story, because that bleeds into the story today. Last week we were in Genesis 27, and it is the moment that Isaac has come to give his blessing, the promise that he had been given from God, that he would bless one of his sons, and he chose his favorite, Esau. That was his plan. His plan was to give the blessing to Esau. While Esau goes on a hunting trip to prepare food for his dad, his wife catches wind of it.
Rebecca hears of this plan. Her favorite is Jacob. She wants him to be the son of promise. So they devise a plan where she cooks some food, where she dresses him up to smell like Isaac. Isaac at this point is old. He is blind.
He is nearing death. He is a little bit easier to deceive. So Jacob shows up in his brother's clothes to smell like him. He has goat skin wrapped around his hands and his neck to feel like Esau, because Esau is furry. And then he comes and he deceives his father. He dishonors his father.
He lies to him. He even blasphemes the name of the Lord, and he actually steals the promise. That through it all, God works through this mess of a situation, this mess of a family, to bring the promise because God chose Jacob to carry this promise. And when Esau finds out about this, he is very upset. He is distraught. And in his grief, it quickly turns to anger.
In verse 41 of chapter 27, it says, Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, The days of mourning for my father are approaching. Then I will kill my brother Jacob. Jacob. So he is angry.
And this is going to cause Jacob to go on the run and to leave this family. So we're going to be in Genesis 27, and we're going to finish up through Genesis 28, which is on page 13 of your blue Bibles. I encourage you to grab a Bible today. There's not going to be a lot of text on the screen. We're going to walk through this story as this family is divided, as Jacob goes out on his own. So go ahead and flip there.
There are moments in epic stories where a hero enters the scene and changes everything. Where someone arrives and it changes the momentum, it changes the swagger, it changes the confidence of the whole story. You can think back to the two towers and the Lord of the Rings. At the Battle of Helm's Deep, this big battle is happening. They are losing the battle. And then Gandalf enters the scene.
On the top of the hill, shining like white lightning, he is ready to bring his army in. It changes the whole momentum of the battle. It changes the swagger of the army. They end up winning the battle. You can look at the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the last part, in the last battle, Aslan enters the scene, and it changes everything.
You can do this with Star Wars. You can look at the multiple times that Luke Skywalker shows up, and it changes the scene. You can do this when Bobby Boucher enters in at halftime of the Bourbon Bowl, and he inspires a comeback. The Mud Dogs win the Bourbon Bowl and the Waterboy. You can do this with a lot of stories. When someone comes in and they change everything, they change the momentum, and they change the confidence, and it brings, and it changes the story completely.
And we see that today in this story. We're going to see Jacob out on his own, and God is going to teach him something about the importance of his presence. That God's presence matters. This is going to teach Jacob a profound lesson, but it's also going to teach the church as we read this. So let me pray, and then we're going to dive in to the story.
God, I thank you that you didn't stand in the heavens, that you came, and that changed everything. God, I pray that today, as we walk through this story, that you would help us see your good news in it. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so we're going to be in the end of 27 in verse 41.
Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, The days of mourning for my father are approaching. Then I will kill my brother Jacob. But the words of Esau, her older son, were told to Rebekah. Now there's two aspects of this that I found remarkable.
First, Esau. He's just foolish, and this is the last story we get of his foolishness. It just shows up again. I kind of feel like, you know, remember the guy in high school or middle school that always picks fights? And the whole day they'd be talking up the fight, like I'm going to jump this kid, I'm going to stop this kid. And they're talking loudly to themselves.
They're telling anybody who will listen. And then at the end of the day, the principal calls them into the office and says, Hey, I heard you're going to fight a kid. And he's shocked. Like how? How did that happen? It's like, bro, because you told everybody.
Everyone in the school knows. As I imagine a little bit of what Esau's doing. He's cleaning his deer. He's in the camp and he's just loud. He's like, When daddy's gone, I'm going to kill him. That's part of what I find remarkable.
Also, Rebekah. How stealthy is she? She picks up on everything. Nothing is lost on her. She caught wind that Isaac was going to give the blessing to Esau and she intervened. And somehow she's got ears everywhere and she picks up on this.
And she realizes this is not good for Jacob. And so she sent and called Jacob, her younger son, and said to him, Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice. Arise. Flee to Laban, my brother, in Haran and stay with him for a while until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send and bring you from there.
Why should I be bereft of both of you in one day? Then Rebekah said to Isaac, I loathe my life because of these Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women like these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me? So she tells Jacob, Son, you got to go. I love you, but you got to go. Your brother, Esau's like Katniss with the bow, but he's built like Sasquatch.
And Jacob, she's like, Jacob, you're real skilled with the knife. I've seen you cut potatoes in the tent, but that's not going to help you. Your brother will destroy you. You have got to go. And also, you got to leave here. You got to go to my family in the land of Haran.
You got to go to Laban and find a wife because you can't marry the women of this land. And she goes to Isaac and she's like, If he marries a Canaanite, if he marries a Hittite like his brother, I'm going to lose my mind. He has got to find a good woman, and it's not here. He needs to go. So Isaac hears this, and it says, Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him.
You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise. Go to Badam-Aran, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. So he says, Don't, don't marry a Canaanite woman. Please, like, do not follow in the same footsteps of your brother. Marry someone.
Go to the land of Padam-Aran, which I know sounds like a planet in Star Wars. It's a real place, and it's 500 miles from where they are. So this is a big journey for Jacob, and Isaac knows this, and he gives him a blessing. And as we talked about last week, blessings hold weight in the Bible. He says, God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham.
Thus Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Padam-Aran, to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau's mother. So Isaac reiterates this promise that he had gotten, that his father Abraham had gotten. And I want to just refresh us on the importance of this promise. That he promises him a place. You will get this land. This place is yours.
And he promises him a people. That you have the blessing of a great nation being made through you. The blessing of place in people is significant. And we're going to see how that shows up a little bit later. But I also want to take note of something.
That his son dishonored him. His son lied to him. His son took advantage of him. He blasphemed the name of the Lord. He used God's name for dishonorable practices. But he ultimately trusts in the sovereignty of God in the situation.
He trusts that God chose Jacob. And he has faith. It's a little bit of a redemptive moment for Isaac. He trusts God. And he gives him a blessing. So he sends him out.
Jacob is on the road. And then Esau catches wind of all of this. In verse 6 it says, Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padam Aram to take a wife from there. And that as he blessed him, he directed him, You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Padam Aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaoth.
Now, we get kind of one last picture of Esau and his foolishness. He catches wind that it didn't please his parents to marry a Canaanite woman. So he thinks, have you ever been in a situation where you mess up in your family, like really mess up and your solution is, you know what I should do? I should marry my cousin on the estranged side of my family, like the one where his dad and my dad are not friends, like that's a good idea. That's kind of his plan here. He goes to, this is the Ishmael, alright, this is the Ishmael that his grandmother threw out of the family to die and to be on their own.
He thinks, that's a good idea. I'll marry his daughter and I will get in my parents' good graces again. And you kind of feel a little bit bad for Esau. He's just trying to please his dad, but he's foolish. He's not wise. And it's evident that God has chosen Jacob to carry this promise that Esau is a fool and that he is not going to inherit this promise and that his attempt to get back in his parents' good graces will not work.
So then the story really shifts completely to Jacob. And Jacob is on the run and it says, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran, which is another place for this land of Padamuram. He went toward Haran and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down in that place to sleep. So I want to take a moment to kind of feel where Jacob is at.
This is the first time that Jacob is on his own. And in this culture, you stay with your family. It was identity. It was future. It was value. It was the way you were provided for.
It was security. So Jacob is on his own and there's a lot of uncertainty here. Also, I feel like Jacob, he says he's a man of the tent, that he's not really used to being out on his own. I kind of feel like it's the picture of, you know, they used to take animals that were born in captivity and release them in the wild because they thought that was a good idea to lease them back to the wild and they put trackers on them and they go out in the wild and after like a week, they see the animal hadn't moved and they go out and they see that it didn't make it because it's just not wise to release someone who's something born in captivity into the wild.
I feel like Jacob is like this. He's a man of the tent. He's not used to being out on his own. There's all kinds of uncertainty all over this situation as he is journeying out. In the midst of his uncertainty, in the midst of all of it, he's very tired. We know he's tired because he takes a stone as a pillow to sleep and stones aren't comfortable.
So he is uncertain. There's all kinds of, probably some fear in the midst of all of this and he is tired and God comes to him in a dream. Verse 12, And he dreamed and behold, there was a ladder set up on earth and the top of it reached to heaven. Now, pause. This is common in the Bible. God speaks through dreams.
We are not going to talk about it a lot today. We're going to save that for when we get to Joseph because I know that some of you probably got really excited about talking about dreams and that you want to go to community group this week and you want to hijack the discussion and talk about how dreams are and how God speaks to us in dreams. I want you to save that for when we get to Joseph. God does speak through dreams. He communicates truth and he communicates promises. Also, sometimes a dream is just a dream.
If you dream about winning the lottery, it doesn't mean you go out and buy lottery tickets. Alright? We'll get more of that when we get to Joseph but right here, it's important to know he is communicating truth and promises to Jacob and he comes to him in a dream and Jacob sees a ladder. He sees a ladder. Now, it's debated in the Hebrew whether it's ladder or a staircase. You may see in some of your Bibles it'll say ladder and it'll have a footnote that says also it could be a staircase and there's a lot of debate that happens over this.
Honestly, I don't really care about the debate. I don't think that is as important as what the method is. The picture of what's happening here is that heaven and earth are connected. That a ladder connects heaven and we're going to stick with the language of ladder here because this is what our Bibles say. That heaven and earth are connected. This is a very big and grand picture.
It says, And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it on this ladder. And behold, the Lord stood above it all and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. I want us to picture this and what this would look like. There's this grand ladder. I mean, sometimes we use ladders to change these lights up here. I don't.
I watch people that do it because it's very tall up there and if you fall, it's not good. And it's high. And this pales in comparison to what it actually would be like. This is a ladder that reaches the heavens. It is massive. It is grand.
It is big. This connection is happening and there are angels ascending and descending on it. Which I know, some of us have a hallmark version of what angels look like, that they're very cute. They are not cute. They are terrifying. If you read about them in the Bible, they bring some of the glory of God with them.
They are terrifying creatures. This picture is grand. It is big. And it's starting to get even more fearful because the Lord, the God Almighty, stands above the ladder. So this ladder is in the sky.
There's angels descending and ascending upon it. And the God of the universe, the God that created everything out of nothing, that holds the universe in the palm of his hand, he stands at the top of it. And this picture just got even more fearful because the last time that Jacob spoke of the Lord, it was not good. He blasphemed the name of the Lord. He also has not had this type of relationship with God, not like his father Isaac. So this is his first encounter with the God of the universe.
And any time that anyone encounters the glory of the Lord in the Bible, it is a fearful picture. And the last we see of him talking about him is a very blasphemous episode. It feels like a little bit, there are times going up when I would get in trouble and my stepdad, who's a bigger guy, would stand before me and I was tiny. And he looked huge. And when he spoke, he spoke deep and it sounded so much louder when I was in trouble. I know many of you have had this experience with parents.
Multiply that by a thousand. And this is the picture that we get here. It is fearful. And then the Lord speaks. What is he going to say? Based on what his last episode was with what happened with Jacob, what is he going to say to him?
And this is what the Lord declares. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. He's going to give a place. This land. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth. And then we see the promise of people.
You get a place and you get a people. And you shall spread across, spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And then you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So the Lord starts out by reassuring him that you get this blessing. The blessing of Abraham, the blessing of Isaac, this is yours. And we see a glimpse of a common theme that we get throughout Genesis that this is God's grace.
Jacob deserves wrath. He blasphemes the name of the Lord. He deceives, dishonors his father. He deserves wrath. But God gives him a blessing.
He gives him grace. And this picture of grace is much bigger than just Jacob. It's going to bless all the families of the earth. So he gives this blessing and then he says, Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you. And it's at this point that we see what the imagery of the ladder is.
How this comes into full view. The picture of the ladder is a picture of God's presence with Jacob. The ladder connects heaven and earth and God doesn't just stand above it all managing from a distance. God is imminent. He is with Jacob. He's telling, I'm going to be with you.
My presence will be with you wherever you go. I am intimately involved. I have got your back. And that is a powerful picture for Jacob that wherever he goes, the presence of the Lord will be with him. He will not be alone. And he gets this dream, this powerful picture and then Jacob wakes up and he responds in verse 16.
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. So we see two things in this story. We see that Jacob gets this powerful dream and then we see his response. That he just encountered God.
God steps into his story. Everything is about to change. And it's the first thing we see about his responses is that he's fearful. Because it is a fearful picture anytime that someone is in, that we are in sin and anytime you see in the Bible that someone is sinful and they're in the presence of God, it's a fearful picture because God's glory is so great it causes us to shudder. It's a fearful picture for him. It's also a reminder that he's going to be with him so it's a little bit of a warning.
I'm with you wherever you go. I'm going to see everything. I see all of your sin. I see all of your hidden faults. We see this develop later in the Bible that God sees every aspect of our life even the inner hidden thoughts. That's part of what's being said here but here's the bigger picture of what's happening.
His presence to Jacob is a comfort. It is a comfort to know that the Lord is with you that his presence is with you. The idea of presence in the Hebrew is the idea literally before the face of God. That you would be in the presence of God that he would be with you that you would literally be before his face and that would be a comfort to know that God is with you. There are moments when my son he's been walking for about six months and sometimes he'll wander off a little bit and he'll get mixed up with some people that he doesn't quite recognize and when he can't find me and he can't find my wife he starts to get a little bit scared and he starts to breathe heavy his tears start to come down his face and in those moments I'll call out to him and he hears my voice and it's a comfort but what really comforts him is when he can see my face.
Generation Faith, Generational Sin
Transcript
Morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in Genesis 26. We are continuing our journey through Genesis following this storyline of this family. We are following Isaac still.
And we're in Genesis 26, which will be on page 12 in a blue Bible near you. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. We want you to have a Bible that you can read at home. I would encourage you. There's not going to be a lot of Scripture on the screen. We are going to be walking through this story.
So please do grab a Bible. We'll walk through this together. Growing up, my stepdad had some quirks. They were quite humorous. My brother and I used to watch movies in our living room. And we wanted to be kind of like a theater.
So we would turn off the lights, watch the movie. And my stepdad would get home and he would see that we're watching a movie in the dark. And the first thing that would come out of his mouth was losers sit in the dark. That's just what, every time he'd come through the door, losers sit in the dark. And he'd come on and he'd turn on one light. That was one of his quirks.
Because in our family, you just didn't watch movies in the dark. It was just a thing. Like you had to have at least one light on. And it drove me crazy that this is one of his quirks. Fast forward. Anna and I, we got married.
We got an apartment. She gets a movie. We're watching it. Getting ready to watch it. She starts turning out the lights. I started getting fidgety.
I'm like, baby, let's put one light on. And she's like, no, this is a completely normal thing. Like, turn off the lights. We're going to watch the movie. I said, no, just, I mean, I get it. Like all the lights, we can turn off at one.
We'll just keep one light on. And she was like, why? And it came out. Because losers sit in the dark. She looked at me. What did you just say?
And I had to explain the history. That in my family, we all have one light on when we watch movies. It's just a thing. And to this day, we do not watch movies in the dark. We always have one light on. It's just this quirk that I picked up from my stepdad.
This happens. Like we pick up things from our parents. We pick up behaviors. We inherit things from our parents. We inherit both things that like are the kind of inheritance of traits. Like there are things about our parents that we inherit that are in us.
And then we also inherit behaviors. Just being around, absorbing some of the behaviors, some of the patterns from our parents. And they just kind of become ours. And we're going to see that a little bit in this story today. That Isaac follows in the same footsteps of his father Abraham. Doing almost the exact same thing.
Because he, like us, inherits patterns that have been passed down to him. And we see this show up in three distinct ways. We see that Isaac inherits obedience. And we're going to see as we walk through this that he inherits sin. And then ultimately we're going to see that he inherits grace. And as we walk through the story and we see these three things that he inherits, I want us to do this a little bit reflectively.
Thinking about the things that we inherit from our parents. Some of the behaviors that show up in us. But also for those of us that have kids, what we pass down. Because it matters. So I'm going to pray.
And then we're going to jump in. And Father, thank you so much for your word. That it is accurate. That it is good. That it instructs us in righteousness. And shows us your gospel.
God, I pray this morning that you would open our hearts. That we would hear it and receive it. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, so it starts off in verse 1. Now there was a famine in the land.
Besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. Alright, so that phrase, now there was a famine in the land. And it's supposed to take you back to Genesis 12. This is supposed to help you clue in to the story of Abraham. Because Moses uses the exact same phrase in Genesis 12. So it's cluing you in.
This story is a little bit like Abraham. And then as we continue to read this, we're going to see even more so how this shows up. How this is a repeating of history from Isaac and Abraham. It says, And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.
Sojourn in this land. So now this is starting to sound even more like Abraham. It's starting to sound like Genesis 20. If you think back in the fall when we went through this story, Abraham took his family to the land of Gerar. God doesn't want them in Egypt. That's coming down the line at the end of Genesis.
But for now he wants them to settle in Gerar amongst the Philistines. And guess who the king is? Abimelech. Now, this could be the exact same Abimelech. There's a long gap between when Abraham was living amongst Abimelech in Genesis 20 and this time period. It's a huge gap.
So it's possible that Abimelech was very young at the time being a king. And now he's very, very old. It's also possible that this is the son of Abimelech who bears the same name. But regardless, they would have been very familiar with this family. This family has history in this land. And they would have remembered it when they came to settle amongst them.
So he says, verse 3, Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands. And I will establish the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. And then God continues. He says, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven. And will give to your offspring all these lands.
And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So Isaac settled in Gerar. So he tells Isaac, trust me. Obey me like your father Abraham did. Like he trusted me in settling where I told him to.
Trust me. Obey my commands. Obey my statutes like your father Abraham. And you'll get this promise. This promised land. This blessing of a great nation.
That is for you. Just trust me. And what's important here is it says, So Isaac settled in Gerar. That Isaac, he trusts God. He listens to his word. He trusts him.
And he settles in the land. And that is huge. Isaac inherits obedience from his father Abraham. And this happens with us. We pick up patterns of behavior. We pick up patterns of good patterns.
Obedience from our parents that shows up in our lives. I think to my parents, one of the values they instilled in me was generosity. It's just something that they taught me at a young age. I have vivid memories of my mom. And we would be at church on Sunday. And she would be writing a check.
And she's explaining to me, this is what we do. We give to the church. And I remember the moments, not just giving with the church, but also there were situations growing up where there's someone that either worked for my stepdad or was a family member or someone we knew that they would cut checks, they would cover bills, they would help pay for things. That generosity was a rhythm. It was a natural thing for our household. And it's something that's shown up in my own life that I've been able to practice in our own family.
And sometimes that stuff is taught. Like I remember specifically my mom teaching me some of this stuff. But oftentimes a lot of this is caught. You absorb it over time. It becomes some of your behavior. And we see this as an intense example with Abraham and Isaac.
Because if you go back to Genesis 22, you look at the story of Abraham taking Isaac to the Mount of Moriah to sacrifice his son. Isaac was front and center for that. He got to see how Abraham was obedient to what God had called him to, so much so that he was in the center of it. But that Abraham ultimately trusted that the blessing was going to come through Isaac, that God was going to make this blessing happen. He just had to trust God. And he got to see this, that he trusted God, and there was blessing that came out of it.
And he got to inherit this obedience, and it was passed down from Abraham. And ultimately this is passed down to the nation of Israel. This love for God, that the heart of the Old Testament law is love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, that you would be wholly devoted in love to God, and in your devotion and love to God, that might show up in your kids. That you might teach that to your children, that they also might love God wholeheartedly, with their whole self. Proverbs 22, 6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.
And that's the hope, is that you would train up a child, which sometimes is intentional teaching. Sometimes it's opening up the Bible, it's showing how to pray, it's intentional moments of training, but a lot of times, it's just stuff that is caught. It's them seeing your love for God, so much so, that it shows up in their own lives, that they might never depart from it. And this is something, that we have been trying to focus on as a church. That we've realized, we have a lot of families here, and as a gospel-centered family, we want to help families do this, and we've made some shifts. Like Kid City, I don't know if you have seen this, have gotten to see this, they've been crushing it lately.
We've made some shifts over the past year, and it's been awesome. My daughter came home a month ago, and she was learning about Romans 6, 23, and she was learning about, for the wages of sin is death, and she's explaining to me, the connections of sin and death, and I was blown away. I was so thankful. And we want to continue to press into that, but we also want to see this happen, outside of Kid City, because you, parents, have the most opportunity for impact, with your kids. You do. You have the most opportunity for influence.
My mentor, for over a decade now, he's a pastor in Houston. He used to be a youth pastor, and I interned under him. When he first showed up at the church, that I was interning at, this kid got busted, this high school kid got busted at a party. And his parents came to the church, and said, where were you? Well, my kid got busted at a party. You guys are failing.
And he said, okay. He realized, this is kind of the culture of this church. It's really the culture of down south. You take your kids to school, that's where they get their education. You take your kids to sports team, that's where they get their athletics. You take your kids to the church, that's where they get their spiritual growth.
That was kind of the mindset. So he got all the parents together, in one room. And he had one small jar, and one giant jar. And he had a bucket of ping pong balls. And he said, he took out a ball, and he said, this ball represents one hour of influence, that I get with your kids every week. Sometimes it's one, he put it in the small jar.
Sometimes it's two, he put another one. Sometimes it's three. For some of your kids, I might even get four hours, with your kids a week. And he took the bucket to the big jar, and he dumped it in. He said, this is the amount of time, that you get with your kids. 30, 40, 50, 60 plus hours a week.
And he said, tell me, who has the most opportunity for impact? Who has the most opportunity, for influence with your kids? It's you. And that is how God has designed this. That we might influence our kids, we might train them to love the Lord, with their whole self, that they might never depart from it. And some of that is intentional, it's going to be, in the future, we're going to be making shifts, to make sure that we're encouraging, time in the word at home, and time in prayer.
And we want to encourage, some of those intentional moments, but a lot of times, it's just going to be caught. It's going to be caught, and it's going to show up in your lives. We were talking about this, in our teaching team this week. And Bianca, who serves in music, and she also serves on our teaching team, and helping write sermons. And she said that she remembers, that her mom, not necessarily her teaching her, how to read the Bible, how to study the Bible. But what she does remember, is she would come home, or she would come downstairs, every morning, and she'd see her mom, with her Bible, reading.
And that has had a lasting impact, on her, to where she values, the word of God, like her mother does. I think of a friend, one of my friends from seminary, he had a daughter, and we didn't have kids yet, so I was just learning, and observing. And they had this culture, of forgiveness, and repentance, in their household. That when him and his wife, would mess up, and they would sin against their daughter, they would go to her, and say, will you forgive me? I'm so sorry. And they had this, this rhythm of repentance, and forgiveness, and love, that I hadn't seen before.
I was like, man, that is awesome, that one day, that's all she's going to know, is a culture, of repentance, and forgiveness, and love, and not one of pride. that she might never depart from that. This shows up, in the everyday moments, of crisis, and chaos. Your kids will remember, our children will remember, how we respond. Will we go to the things, of this world? Or will we go, to the Lord in prayer, seeking his wisdom, and his care, and his provision? Now some of you, may be thinking, that's great, for those of people, that grew up, in a Christian household.
That was not mine. We picked up, all kinds of different patterns, but not that. So how in the world, am I supposed to, if God gives me children, or if I have children, how in the world, am I supposed to, to teach them this kind of stuff? That sounds great. How? Well, you have a, gospel centered family, that you're surrounded with.
We are figuring this out together. Ask. Learn. Ask how some, we have older parents here. Ask how, they have done it. Because we are figuring this out together.
And you might be thinking, some of you are like, wow, this is really good. You've spent quite a bit of time, in the first six verses, talking about, how to raise kids. I don't have kids, and I don't think I'm ever going to have kids. How does this apply to me? You are a part, of a gospel centered family. We get to do this together.
We need you. You get to join in with us. You get to help raise our kids, that they might love the Lord, and never depart from it. That's a beautiful thing, that you get to be invited into, in community groups, not just in Kid City. That you get to help raise our kids. So ask, how you can help.
And parents, receive it. Ask how they can, how you can pitch in. How you can help. Maybe it's babysitting, where parents can go on a date night, at least once a month. Maybe it's, intentional, moments of conversation, that you get to share the gospel, with kids in your group. Be a third wheel parent.
We are asking you to join in, that we might partner together, that we might be a village, that raises gospel centered families, that kids might depart from, might not never depart, from the love of God. This is what we are moving towards, this is what we want to embody, as we obey the scriptures, and as we love our families. And we all have opportunities, to pass on this obedience, this love of Jesus. But at times, this gets difficult. And one of the reasons, this gets difficult, is because we, inherit sin. We inherit a sinful nature, and this shows up front and center, starting off in verse 6.
He says, So Isaac settled in Gerar. Alright, so they're settled. Verse 7. When the men of this place, asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, my wife, thinking, lest the men of this place, should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window, and saw Isaac laughing, with Rebekah, his wife.
So Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, she is my sister? Isaac said to him, Because I thought lest I die, because of her. Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the people, might have easily lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man, or his wife, shall surely be put to death.
Now, doesn't that sound familiar? This is Abraham Abimelech, the remix. I mean, this is happening in almost the exact same fashion. And Isaac doesn't have the weird kind of half-truth, this is my half-sister kind of thing. This is a straight-up lie. He fears man.
After God just gave him this promise again, he said, This is the promise. You are going to have this blessing. You are going to have these lands. You are going to have all these things. And he goes, Well, my wife is a stunner. She is good-looking.
They might kill me. He fears man. And out of that fear, he lies. And it wasn't a small lie. This thing carried on for a while. It says in verse 8, that a long time had passed before Abimelech started to figure this out.
So Abimelech, he sees them, and they are laughing. Now, this isn't just laughter. This is flirtatious laughter. That's what the Hebrew is getting at in this text. They're flirting. So he sees them, and they're all starry-eyed, and laughing, and cutting up, and they maybe got a little bit physical.
And Abimelech's like, Wait a second. Y'all, this is not brother-sister love. You guys are married, and I like to think that everything just clicked. That he just, that this is OG Abimelech from back in the day, or this is his son. Regardless, it just clicks. This is what this family does.
They show up. They pass their wives off as their sister. What have you done? Which, by the way, is such a weird thing to be known for. It's like, What? You could have gotten us all killed again.
He operates out of fear. He doesn't trust God. He fears man, and eventually this scheme gets exposed. And it's because we inherit sinful patterns. Not just by absorbing them through observing bad behavior. We inherit this.
There's a philosopher named John Locke. He's one of the most influential philosophers on America. He's a British philosopher from the 17th century, but he influenced much of the founding fathers in our Constitution. Stuff like property rights, taxation without representation. That's all him. And one of the things he also, one of his philosophies was something called blank slate theory.
Blank slate theory was the idea that every child is born morally neutral. So they come into this world with a blank slate. And it's up to us, as families or as society, to shape virtue in children. They come in morally neutral, and if you could raise them in a moral vacuum, they would never have any type of evil. We could educate them to be good citizens, to be good, virtuous people. And that's one of the reasons why academics put such a high value on education to fix morality.
You may have picked up on this, that the way you solve racism is education. The way that you solve systematic injustice is education, which has not worked in any society ever, because education is not the problem. Children do not come in with a blank slate. There is one fatal flaw in this theory. It's children. Have you ever seen a two-year-old?
Have you ever? My daughter is so sweet. She's also a little schemer. She's schemey. And she, like, at a very young age, would scheme and would lie. And I didn't teach her that.
I don't spend most of the time with her during the day. That's my wife. But my wife isn't schemey. It took everything she could to throw me a surprise birthday party last year. She's just, she's not. And I didn't teach her.
No one else has taught her. It's natural. It's something that she inherited from me, because when I was a kid, I was very schemey. She inherits this naturally from me. Isaac, he certainly probably picked up some fear of man patterns from Abraham. But he wasn't even alive when Abraham and Abimelech were doing this dance in Genesis 20.
He never got to see this front and center. We inherit generational sin. Romans 5 teaches, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. That's the formation for the basis of original sin. That from Adam, sin spreads to all of humanity. That we inherit this sinful nature, it is passed down all the way back to Adam.
In 1 Peter 1.18 it says, Knowing that you are ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. That we naturally inherit sinful patterns from our forefathers. Sinful, futile ways. The Old Testament law teaches that we inherit sin from the second, third, and fourth generation. It's passed down. Now psychologists look at this, formation of behavior, and they kind of fall in between two camps.
On the one side you've got nature, and the far end of nature versus nurture, you have, basically when conception happens, genetics are formed, and therefore it's all decided from there. That's the far end of the nature side of the bait. Once your genetics form, that's who you are. On the other end of the extreme, is nurture. The idea that education, that how you are raised, is what forms you and shapes behavior. This is where clean slate theory has some of its merits in this argument.
That it would be education that would form you. That you would, through experiences, through upbringing, this is kind of what forms you. Most people fall between the two of these and see that both of them have value. That what you, there's something about you, inherit to you, that helps form your behavior. Also, there are things that shape you, and mold you. And as Christians, we look at this and go, yep, that makes sense.
You inherit a sinful nature, that matters. You also inherit, patterns of obedience and disobedience, that form and shape you. Let me give you a few examples. Take alcoholism or addiction. People look and they say, how is it that a father, or a son, and his father, and his grandfather, and his great grandfather, that all of them, are alcoholics? That all of them struggle, with addiction.
How is that? On the nature side, there are people who will say, well, it's genetics. That has to be what shapes you. And they've done a ton of studies. They haven't isolated the one gene, that causes this. They may have found some factors, into this.
But we as Christians, can look at this and go, yeah, that makes sense, that you would inherit, the sinful nature, that sin causes physical changes. The reason we know that, is because sin causes death. That yes, on this level, down to your very traits, you would be corrupt. It also makes sense, that the only way, you ever saw your father, deal with stress, or with burdens, is with a bottle. If the only time, you watched your parents celebrate, was them, stumbling through the door, killed over a toilet. If you saw, if this is who, you come from, and this is what you see, it makes sense, that's generational sin.
This happens in, in anger. People look at families, and go, there tends to be, a pattern between, all the people in this family, that are angry, especially some of the men, cousins, dads, brothers, they're all angry, and violent. It's like they have, an extra Y chromosome. There's something going on here, that they're just, angry, and violent. Every time, they face, opposition, they use their fists. Yes, you inherit a sinful nature.
Also, if the only time, you ever see your family, deal with opposition, is with their fists, are getting violent, or getting verbally abusive, those are the only patterns, you would ever know. This happens with any, I'll give you one more, this happens with anxiety. People look at families, and go, how is it, that anxiety, plagues this family so bad, that mothers, and sisters, that even brothers, uncles, there's just, it's so stressful, in this house. And it was the same, for their parents. There's all these, burdens and stress, and it was just so tense. Well, there's something going on there.
There's a fallenness, that is inherited, that shows up. Also, if you never actually, get to see, families that go to the Lord, in prayer, that fight, that trust, fight to trust the promises of God, to make through. Both of those matter. When you have inherited sin, and you have observable, bad patterns, of response, of behavior, and you put them together, that is generational sin. This is what we inherit. We inherit, we inherit generational sin.
And when you think about that, when you think about all of the fallenness, all of the brokenness, that you have inherited, is all the way down, to the core of who you are, that feels a little bit depressing. But when you also think, that you, this is what you are passing on, to your kids, that feels even more depressing. But the good news of the gospel, is that's not the only thing, that we get to inherit. That we also get to inherit, grace. And that shows up, in the rest of the story. Verse 12.
And Isaac sowed in the land, and reaped in the same year, a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more, until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks, and herds, and many servants. So the Philistines envied him. So just off the heels, of him running this lie, running this scheme, God blesses Isaac.
He gives him a harvest, that's a hundredfold, which in an arid culture, is an absurd amount of crops. He gives him animals, he builds this family, they get blessing, upon blessing, upon blessing, and the Philistines, start to get envious. And it continues. Now the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth, all the wells, that his father's servants, had dug in the days of Abraham, his father. And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. So the hospitality starts to end.
They're like, you guys have gotten way too big, y'all need to get out of Gerard, go to the valley, and then from this point forward, the rest of the story, which we don't have time to watch, walk through, they just start filling up wells with dirt. Which you might think, oh that's petty. That's like you kicking down your neighbor's mailbox. I guess, it's more than petty. That's almost an act of war. Because in an arid culture, where water is life, it's how you feed your animals, it's how you feed your family, water sustains you, you start filling up wells, you start ending opportunities to live, to prosper, to grow.
And they go, the rest of the story, from place, to place, to place, to place, digging wells, taking care of the wells that Abraham dug. And they get filled up, and filled up, and filled up. And Isaac is starting to feel this, as they have to go from place to place, not ever having peace. And there had to be some part of them that wondered, oh, is this blessing going to end? What's happening here? And then God comes to him in verse 23, and makes it clear.
From there he went to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father, fear not. For I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your offspring, for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there, and there Isaac's servants dug a well. That in the midst of this uncertainty, God makes it abundantly clear. This blessing is yours. This blessing is yours.
You are going to be taken care of. You are still inheriting the promise. You still are going to have a nation that is as numerous as the stars in the sky. I am going to take care of you. It doesn't matter how he acted before Bimelech. It doesn't matter the schemes and the lives that he lived in.
He gets grace. Continued grace. And the story ends with, we don't have time to look at this, but in your community group this week, you can look at it. The story ends with Bimelech and his posse showing up, and it's like, is this going to be a war? Are they going to fight? And they end up striking a deal.
In the most politically schemey fashion, you can look at Bimelech and laugh at how he just lashed through his teeth. They strike a deal. And peace is made. And Isaac's family is sustained. They are sustained. They are preserved with this promise.
And because Isaac was preserved, the bloodline eventually gets to Jesus. And therefore, we get grace. Grace is unmerited favor, unearned favor, which I like. That lacks a little spice and flavor. It seems a little bit overly technical. They say it like that.
Someone came up with an acronym, I don't know who, for grace. It's God's riches at Christ's expense, which I love. That in Christ, not by any good works of our own, we get the riches of God. That in Christ, we get brought into the same blessing that Isaac had. We get brought into the same fellowship that he had with God. That, y'all, we get access to the God who created everything.
We can come to him in prayer. We get fellowship in part in this life, more fully realized in the next. We get fellowship with God. We get the perfect love of Christ. That's one of the most amazing God's riches of God, that we get the eternal love of Jesus. That no matter what, for those of us who are in Christ, God's love captures us, it seals us, it never lets us go.
We get to experience his goodness, and his joy, and his hope, and his love. That one day, one of the riches we get, is we get to dwell with God, in the city of God, which Psalm 50 calls, the perfection of beauty. The perfection of beauty. We get to dwell in a land like that with God. We get excited about shiplap, and some farm tables. We don't even know beauty.
That we get to dwell with God, in the new Jerusalem. That he will be in the center. That we get to gaze upon his goodness, and his glory fully. We get riches upon riches. We get the perfect record of Christ, that stands for us. We don't have our own sin, it's replaced by the righteousness of Jesus.
You could go on, and on, and on, and fill your days, with writing out, the blessings of God. We wouldn't even come close, to scratching the surface, because those are just the ones, that we have written down in the scriptures. And they're not the ones, that through faith in Jesus, that we will get to fully realize, one day, we get God's riches, at Christ's expense. That the God of the universe, stepped into our timeline, humbling himself. He went to the cross, having his blood poured out, suffering for our sin, and having the full cup of wrath, poured out on him, so that he can make a way, for us to have life, and experience those riches.
That is the kind of grace, that we inherit, through faith in Jesus. We are just like Isaac, in one minute, scheming and lying, and the next minute, experiencing the goodness, and the glory of God, not by our own merit, but by God's. So for those of us, who are in Christ, for those of you, that grew up, in a Christian family, that got to hear this, I want you to think, through this for a moment. That you got to observe, the gospel. You got to be in a house, that filled the house, with the word of God, with prayer. You got to see this, over and over again.
And you know what, that didn't turn into? That didn't turn into legalism. That didn't turn into, false belief. By grace, you believed. You inherited grace. For those of you, that didn't grow up, in a Christian household, you inherited grace.
Because somebody, shared the gospel with you, and you believed. And someone shared the gospel, with that person, and before that person, before that person, you inherited grace. We all, through Christ, believing in Him, get to inherit this blessing, get to inherit grace. So parents, as we parent, may your homes, may our homes, be so infused, with the grace of our God, that in our obedience, that we hope to pass down, we can ultimately point that back, to the goodness of our God, working through us. That it's not, anything of ourselves, it is the goodness of the God, goodness of our God, and the gospel, working through us, that they might see, the Lord of grace.
That in your sin, and in our sin, and our fallenness, our kids may see repentance, they may see forgiveness, they may see us point back, to the gospel. May we be so, saturated with grace, that we would display this, the next generation of this church, might never depart from it.
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Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. As we get started this morning, I want to give an update on our gift project. Every year, towards the end of the year, we do a gift project where we're able to, we try to raise financial support for some sort of specific need, some sort of specific work. We've raised money for church plants before.
We've given gifts to children in local areas before. We've done some different things. This past December, we were raising support for some missionary work and for some church planting happening in Minya, Egypt. Our goal was $15,000, which, just so y'all know, the most our church has ever raised for a gift project is like $7,400, $7,400. So our goal was twice what we've ever raised.
And we were just like, let's go for it, because that's what they said they needed for a whole year to be able to buy. They took some transportation and to be able to have their budget for the whole year. And so we, during our church family, during the month of December, we were able to raise about $11,500, which was very exciting. At the same time, a local church, New Spring Church over in the Columbia area, said they were praying that they had had a surplus or that they're blessed financially and that they had heard about us and they wanted to just support us and show us that they love us. And so they wrote us a check for $3,500.
And so the pastors got together and just, we started praying, asking the Lord what he wanted us to, first of all, let me say, we got together and started talking about what we wanted to do with the money. And then we were like, maybe we should pray and ask the Lord what he wants us to do with the money. And, you know, it took us a little longer to get there than it should, but we did get there. And so I just want y'all to know, you should be very proud of us. So we prayed about it and we asked the Lord what he wanted us to do with it and felt confirmed and united in that we were supposed to give that to the work in Minya, Egypt.
We had someone in our church family say that that got us close enough that they'd pay the difference. And so we actually were able to raise $15,000 for the gift project. And super excited. The Lord knew we didn't have enough money, so he told another church to give us some so that he can go to Egypt and we're excited in how he does that and just blessed to get to be involved. Grab your Bibles, go to John chapter 1. We are in our Multiply series where we are talking through this call that the church has to make disciples.
And so we're discussing what that looks like and how we ought to respond to that, that we're called to share the gospel, to see people believe in Jesus, be baptized, and then to teach them, to train them in what it looks like to follow Jesus. And so as we've been talking through this today, we're specifically coming to how do we share the gospel? How can we go about pointing people towards Jesus? And we're going to look at several different ways this morning. We're going to look at several different kind of some methods and some different ways that we can go about pointing people towards Jesus.
So in John chapter 1, we're going to start here in verse 43. John 1 verse 43. It says, The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Follow me. And that is primarily what being a disciple is. It's someone who follows Jesus, who learns from him, who in this time, and this very practically was, Jesus got up and went somewhere.
You walked behind him. You followed him. You saw what he was teaching, what he was doing, how he acted, how he treated people. There were times where he would stop and just explain something. And this is what has carried on from then on is that as followers of Jesus, we try to learn who he was, what he taught, what he did, how he treated people. And then we collectively walk together.
And that's a disciple, a learner from Jesus, someone who practices following Jesus and who he was and what he did and what he cared about. So he says, Follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. So Andrew and Peter are already following Jesus. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So Jesus finds Philip.
Philip finds Nathanael. And this is what we're talking about today, that as Christ followers, as people who Jesus has found, who are following Jesus, that we get to be a part of finding other people and bringing them to Jesus. And what does Philip say? He says, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. He goes to Nathanael and says, You know, That stuff we've been reading in the Old Testament, the stuff we've been memorizing since forever, and that we're Jewish and we celebrate waiting for this prophet to come, this Messiah to come.
Found him. He's from Nazareth. His dad's name is Joseph. His name is Jesus. We found him. And you know how excited Philip is to be doing this?
How much prayer has been answered? How much hope and longing that this... And this is us if you're a Christian. Christian, the point of the universe, the hope of the world, the forgiveness of sins is in Jesus. And he's found us. If you're a Christian, he's redeemed you.
Your hope is in him. And all Philip's doing is going to his friend and saying, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, have I got some good news for you. You know that stuff we've been longing for. You know that stuff we've been worried about. We found him. That's what he's doing.
And that's what we get to do. And so today we're going to specifically talk about how do we get to be like Philip in this passage and like some other people we're going to see as we jump around a little bit this morning. How do we get to go to other people and just say, Hey, you want this? Because it's so good. And Jesus is so good. And if you're a Christian, he is.
All the questions we have about, why are we here? What happens to us after we die? What's the point of this? What's the meaning behind this? Is my life going to count? Do I have hope?
How will I get through this? All of that is found in Jesus. And so we just get to go to other people and do what Philip said and said we found him. So let's pray. And then we'll talk through several methods, several different ways that we can go about bringing people to Jesus. And then we're going to talk about kind of a way of life, just how we get to live as these people.
So let's pray. God, we pray that you would bless our time this morning as we study your word and that you would send us as disciples who make disciples, as followers of yours who lead other people to follow you, that you would equip us to do that through the power of your spirit. And we love you and we thank you for how good you are. In Jesus' name, amen. So, he says, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
So you would think Nathanael would be like, That sounds great. That's not what Nathanael says. He says, No, you didn't. That's kind of his response. It's like, No, nothing good comes out of Nazareth. Now, this is taught often, this is just a shot at the fact that Nazareth was a hick town and it was.
But more than that, he knows his Old Testament and he's saying, No, I don't think so because, you know, I went to school, I've studied this and nobody comes out of Nazareth. Like, there's no prophecy. We don't sing any songs about it. There's no, nobody's excited to be from Nazareth. Nobody comes out of Nazareth. This is actually like an informed Bible question.
He just basically says, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? So Philip goes and invites him and he just says, No, I don't, I don't, like, what do you, I don't think so. That doesn't sound right. Philip said to him, Come and see. Come and see. And this is the first thing we're going to talk about is you can just share an invitation.
That's it. One of the, one of the primary ways that we can try to bring people to Jesus is just share an invitation to something where there's a good chance they'll encounter Jesus. That's all Philip says. It's like, Okay, good Bible point. You know your Old Testament. We're proud of you.
Come see. Come meet him. You'll see. You'll see what I'm talking about. And so we get to do that. Some of us are like, I don't know enough.
I don't know all the answers. And if I come and they're going to say, Well, what about this? What about that? And you just get to say, It's a good point. I don't know. There's like 12 other people in my community group.
Come and ask them. Come and see. Let's see. His hope was that they would encounter Jesus. That Nathanael would come meet Jesus. So he says, Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
And Philip said to him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. And Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel.
Jesus answered him, Because I said, I saw you under a fig tree. Do you believe? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending from the son of man. Now, that went really well for Nathanael and it went really well for Philip because he says, We found him. Nathanael says, No, No, I don't think so.
He says, We'll come and see. And then like two seconds into meeting Jesus, Nathanael says, You're the king of Israel. You're God. And Philip's like, Told you. That's what I was talking about. He did the same stuff to me.
I was just standing there. He said, Follow me. And something was like, Yes. And then I knew he was. And it was just, That's why I wanted you here. That doesn't always work that way.
But sometimes it does. I've invited people to things before where I'm like, Just come. Just come. They showed up and it didn't go like this. It was weird or things didn't go like I had planned. But I'm not in charge of how that works.
I'm just in charge of saying, Come see. But then there's been other times where you've invited someone to your community group and they finally show up and your group gets to talking about weird stuff or gets to talking about good stuff or talks about something. Matt Freeman was telling me one time that he invited somebody over and his group just got to confessing sin and talking about some things. And he was thinking, Oh, come on guys. This is a bit heavy for this person's first time. Like, can't we just talk a little bit, like, a little higher up, not getting everybody's basement.
And then the person at the end said, Thank y'all so much. This meant so much to me. And began to confess as well and began to talk as well. And it was like, And Matt said he leaned back and was like, I'm sorry Jesus, I forgot you're in charge of this. And that sometimes it works like this and so that we just get to make an invitation hoping that they'll encounter the Jesus that we know. We don't have all the answers.
This is one of the things I love about when we do our baptisms and we have baptism videos. We want people to have the opportunity to share their story. And so many times we've had people who have met Jesus and would not trade Jesus for anything. And in their story they say, Yeah, this person harassed me. And then I kind of ran out of excuses. So I eventually showed up to a group.
And then I saw what they were talking about. And then I met Jesus. And I'm here to tell you that I'm going to follow him with the rest of my life. And there is something to just being able to say, Hey, come see. Come see what I'm talking about. Come see what my group's like.
Come see. Come hang out on a Sunday. Come. And it doesn't have to be just your community group. It can be, Hey, we're all going to be hanging out and eating a meal. But come see what I'm talking about.
What it looks like when people who love Jesus just get together and just having an invitation. Now, some of you are like, Sweet! That's what I'll do. If that's sharing the gospel, that's what I'll do. And I'll tell you that that's part of it and it does work. And you do see a lot of people meet Jesus this way.
Jordan Surratt, who's led a community group in our church family, who serves a lot. His cousin invited him to a prayer meeting. Now, if you're thinking, What should I invite my friend to? Most people wouldn't go to a prayer meeting. Jordan went to a prayer meeting. Didn't love Jesus.
Didn't know Jesus. He said it was really weird and it wasn't what he was expecting and then he just kept coming back. And surprise, Jordan's a Christian. Loves Jesus. Follows Jesus because his cousin said, Come pray with us. This does work and this is helpful, but what you have to understand is it's specific invitation.
Philip said, Come now. Let's go. Took him to Jesus. There's, sometimes we just do the, Hey, you should come hang out with my church sometime. Hey, you should come hang out with my group sometime. Just the same way that you look at your friend that you hadn't seen in a long time and you say, Yeah, we should hang out sometime.
And how often have y'all been hanging out? None, because sometime is no time. Sometime isn't an actual time and so that when we make these invitations, they need to be specific. They actually did some research on this, Lifeway did, because they do research on all kinds of things. And they found that 80% of people who are invited to a church or to some sort of a church thing will go, will accept the invitation if the person inviting them will walk through the door with them. So we'll set up a specific time to, Hey, let's meet here, let's grab some coffee, then let's go over there.
Hey, let's meet here, I'll meet you outside, we'll meet in the parking lot, I'll meet you at this gas station, I'll meet you there, I'll come pick you up, whatever, let's go. It's a specific invitation for a specific thing with the hope of them meeting Jesus. And that is one of the things that we can do is that we can share an invitation. Move to John chapter 8, we're going to look, John chapter 9, verse 8. We're going to look at another thing that we can do. So we can share an invitation, just hoping that they'll meet Jesus, that he'll work, that they'll see what we've seen.
We don't have all the answers, we just want to get them there. John chapter 9, we can share our story. So that's what, that's what's going to happen here is we're going to see this guy who's sharing his story. He's just telling people what Jesus has done with him, how it's worked with him. So John chapter 9, verse 8, we're going to pick up with a guy who was born blind.
The disciples are actually walking along with Jesus, they see him, and they say, okay, we want to know something, we have a theological question, who was the sinner, him or his parents, that he was born blind? And Jesus says, that's not how it works. And then Jesus heals him. And so he's a grown man who's never seen, and now he has sight. This is a beautiful day. I watched recently a video of a nine or ten month old that had never heard and they got some hearing aids and stuff and they put him in and the mom starts talking and she starts cackling, laughing, just so excited to be able to hear.
This guy's a grown man, has never seen. And Jesus, who's the king of all things, heals him so that he can see. In verse 8, it says, the neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, were saying, is this not the man who used to sit and beg? And some said, it is he. And others said, no, but he is like him. And he kept saying, I am the man.
So some of them were going, I think this is the guy who used to beg. And other people were going, no, but he looks a lot like him. And then he kept going, no, it's me for real, you guys. Except for he said it like this, I'm the man. All right.
So they said to him, then how were your eyes opened? And he answered, the man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. And they said to him, where is he? And he said, I do not know. I want y'all to know something is this guy shares his stories.
He tells in Christian circles, this is called a testimony a lot. This is his story of how he met Jesus and what Jesus did for him and how that's changed his life and worked in him. He's willing to say, I do not know. He doesn't have all the answers. He has his story. He has what Jesus has done with him.
And so, so often when we're thinking, I'm going to try to share the gospel with somebody, I'm going to try to tell them about Jesus. I'm going to try to, and this idea that they'll ask a question where we don't know the answer is terrifying to some people. Guess what? You can say, I do not know. So if you're talking with somebody at work and you're trying to point them towards Jesus or you're talking to them about church or how Jesus has worked in your life and they say, oh yeah, you believe all that mess.
What about evolution? What about, how could a good God let these bad things happen? What about this big social issue? You really believe and they'll pull something out that's this huge and you get to say, I do not know. Our group was actually talking about this this week. That's actually one of my favorite things to ever have happen when I'm talking to somebody about Jesus.
I like it most when it works like with Nathaniel and they're just like, wow, Jesus is God. That's the best one. But if they start just asking questions that I don't know the answer to, y'all don't know how excited I get. I'll tell you. Very. Because here's what happens.
If I don't know the answer, I just get to say, oh, I don't know. That's a really good question. That's really smart. Which makes them feel great because that was what they were going for, being really smart and making me look dumb. Usually, sometimes they're genuine questions. A lot of times, it's just, they wanted to just beat you.
And then guess what, you guys? This conversation is not over. I will be back. And the conversation will start right when I walk up because they gave me something to go study and to immediately start the conversation back up with. You see, sometimes the conversation kind of ends and it's really hard to get back into the conversation or it feels weird to get back into the conversation, but not if they stump you. You just go, that's really good.
I'll go look into it. And then you just go walking back in and go, so you were asking about dinosaurs. Well, guess what about Jesus? And you just get to jump right back into the conversation. And they have no choice. They're on lunch break.
You know they can't leave yet and you just get to talk to them. So he gets to say, I do not know, but he keeps going and here's what he leans into. He's just telling his story. It says, they brought, they brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. This is verse 13. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
Sabbath was a big deal to the Jewish people that you were not allowed to work. It was a very big deal to the Pharisees. This was their Mark of what made them faithful Jews, faithful to God. And Jesus runs around healing people all the time on the Sabbath. If you read the gospel accounts, it seems like he only healed people on the Sabbath. I'm assuming he did it a lot other times, but these are the ones where they got really annoyed and became a big deal.
So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight and he said to them, he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them. So they said again to the blind man, what do you say about him since he opened your eyes?
And he said, he is a prophet. Verse 18 says, they don't believe him. They keep, they eventually call his parents. They make his mom and dad come down and they're like, is this your son? They're like, yes, that's him. Was he born blind?
Yes, he was. And then they say, who healed his eyes? And his parents are afraid to say Jesus because they're afraid of the Pharisees. So they don't answer. They just, they say, well, he's old enough. Ask him, but that definitely is our son and he did used to be blind.
Verse 24. So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. And he answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. And all he's doing is saying, I know what he did for me.
I know what he's doing. I know, I know what he did. I know I was blind. I know, now I see. And this is one of the ways that we get to share the gospel is just share our story. I don't know the answers to all that, but I know what he's doing to me.
I know that he's changed my heart. I know how I respond in anger now. I know how he's fixed my anxiety. I know how he's gone to work in me and my selfishness. I know what he's done in me. I don't know all of those answers and I'm willing to look them up and I'm willing to walk with you in it.
But I do know one thing. I was blind and now I see. And that's a beautiful way to point to Jesus. You can share an invitation. You can share your story. One of the things that happens that I want to just address here is that sometimes people think, well, I became a Christian now, but I used to be terrible.
I used to hang out with all these people and do all these things that I shouldn't have done and that I'm ashamed of now. And then they think, and I can't go back and tell them about Jesus because I look like such a hypocrite. I've heard this before. I thought this before. I just want to help you out. That's incorrect.
Does this man look like a hypocrite for seeing, even though, because he used to be blind? No. He's just saying, Jesus is great. I used to be blind and now Jesus has made me be able to see. And so if you go back and talk to all your friends about Jesus and they say, you, you, you coming to tell me about Jesus? I know how terrible you are.
And you'd be like, no, you don't. You don't know the half of it. I was way worse than what you think. I just, you only know about stuff I did with you. I did other stuff with other people that was way worse. I'm here to tell you that I'm terrible and that Jesus is great.
That I was blind, but now I see because Jesus did work. And I'm here to tell you that you can have hope in Jesus. I'm not saying come be a good person like me. I'm saying, come to Jesus. I actually know a guy who planted the church in his hometown for that very reason. It's a little podunk town.
Nobody cared much about it. It wasn't that big a deal. And people ask him, why are you planting there? And he's like, oh, because I was the worst. I'm very well known in that town for being a terrible person. So I just want to go back to that town and tell people about Jesus because no one will believe that I am a pastor and that I follow Jesus.
And if I don't do this in my own town, they just won't believe it. So I'm going back there and starting a church. And you get to do that. You get to share your story. Some of you are like, yeah, okay, well, I became a Christian when I was five, so I don't really have that kind of story. Yeah, you do.
Because even though you became a Christian when you're five, Jesus has continually been a good savior to you who is a sinner. And he's continually opened your eyes and helped you grow. And so you get to talk about how the gospel is good news right now for your soul that would run from him so fast if he didn't have a death grip on you. For you who's continually needing to grow and continually needing his hope and continually needing his light in your darkness. And you absolutely can share the gospel even if you've walked with Jesus most of your life. You can say, let me tell you what he's doing in me.
I can't answer all the questions, but I can tell you how he changes my heart. So you can share an invitation. You can share your story. And this third one is that you can share the gospel. And ultimately, the goal is that you would share the gospel in all of these, that the gospel would be clearly, explicitly said. But what we're really talking about here is that you can open your mouth and just tell them the facts about the gospel.
It doesn't have to involve you. It doesn't have to. It's just here's what Jesus has done. Go to Acts chapter 10. There's a lot of examples of this. Acts 10 is one of them.
There are plenty throughout the book of Acts, throughout the gospels. But this is where Peter was praying and God told him, hey, some people are going to come and I want you to go with them. At the same time, there was a man named Cornelius who was a Roman centurion. He had been praying and God said, hey, I'm sending some people to you. I want you to listen to them. And it's a really cool picture about how in prayer God prepares people to hear the gospel.
And so one of the things I would tell you is that in any of these, in all of these, you might be praying. I'll tell you specifically three things to be praying for. You want to pray that God would send you to receptive people. That God would prepare them beforehand. That he would work in their lives. That he would work for this moment to be the right moment for you to share the gospel.
That he would send you to receptive people. That he would make you sensitive to the spirit. Sometimes we're around receptive people but we're not sensitive to the spirit. They're sitting next to us at work and they're going, man, nothing ever works out for me in life. God's prepared them to hear the gospel and we say, yeah, tell me about it. I'm going to go to the drink machine and you want to go to the mountain too.
And we need to be leaning in and listening to the spirit that we might be prepared. And thirdly, that he would give us boldness. That he would lead us to receptive people. That he would make us sensitive to the leadership of the spirit and that he would give us boldness to speak when it's time to speak. But that's what happens here is that Peter's praying.
He's sensitive to the spirit. When the spirit tells him to go do something, he goes and does it. We're going to pick up in verse 30. Cornelius said, four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour. And behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter.
He is lodging in the house of Simon a tanner by the sea. So I sent for you at once and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore, we are all here in your presence, in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord. He is very prepared. An angel actually told him, I'm going to send somebody to you so you can hear this. And this is miraculous, but the truth is it's no less miraculous how he does this all the time now.
That somebody has not walked with Jesus, doesn't know Jesus, but has God's been preparing their heart to be able to hear, to be ready for this, to be able to acknowledge him through life circumstances and they're in the right spot at the right time with the right person and God opens the window and tells somebody to speak and here's what it says. So Peter opened his mouth and said, that's the third method is that we would actually just share the gospel, that we'd open our mouth and say, which means that we would know the gospel, we would know the foundational core parts of the gospel. And so let's read what he says. It says, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
As for the word that he sent to Israel preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to those who had been chosen by God as witnesses who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness and everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. That is all true, but God has to work on somebody's heart for them to believe it. But there are times when we are led by the Spirit and ought to just tell somebody, open our mouth and say, here's what's true. Jesus Christ was good and holy and he was murdered on a cross and he died in that to save us from our sins and he rose from the grave so that we might have hope and there is forgiveness in his name and salvation in his name.
And that's good news and God prepares people to hear it. And the circumstances around it are interesting. My uncle and his friends when they were in college were riding around sharing the gospel with people and they had practiced a certain method where you have kind of certain little lead-in lines that you kind of open up with or whatever. So three of them are in a car and they're riding and they see a guy who's hitchhiking and they just go to pick him up. He hops in the backseat of the car and they're riding around sharing the gospel and so this is like, hey, God just sent like a hitchhiker here, somebody ready to hear.
So the guy sitting in the backseat with him uses the opening line they'd learned and he leans over to him in the backseat and he says, if you died tonight, do you know where your soul would go? And the guy just looked at him and he says, deep in thought. And they pull up to a stop sign and that guy opens the door and takes off running as fast as he possibly can. And they were like, oh, you know, now that I think about it, that probably wasn't the best opening line given the circumstances. Sometimes people aren't ready. I mean, I think you probably could have done that a little better, but sometimes it's not the right moment.
God hasn't prepared. It's not, we're still supposed to open our mouths. We're still supposed to share. I was in college coming out of a study hall and one of my friends I played football with said something about death. And I just asked him, I was like, man, do you think about death? And we just got to talking about what happens after you die.
And I asked him, do you know what would happen to you after you die? And he's like, no, how can you? And I was like, well, the Bible says you can. And we just started talking. I shared the gospel with him and he said, I said, do you want to follow Jesus? He said, yes.
He committed his life to Jesus, standing out under a street lamp on our way back to our dorms. I didn't follow up well with him, didn't do discipleship stuff well with him. If you're in my community group, that makes sense to you because that's how I usually do stuff. I'm very excited about people who don't know Jesus and once they believe in Jesus, I'm like, cool, figure it out, see you at the end. That's why we're working on some of these things. But I talked to him recently and he said, hey, you know, it's about two weeks away from anniversary of me committing to follow Jesus.
And I was like, dude, first of all, I didn't know when that happened and second of all, I'm so glad to know that you do. And so, sometimes God prepares people. Patrick Harden, who's a part of our church family, is a part of CEO's Campus Outreach and they go to Myrtle Beach every year and they send all these college students up and down Myrtle Beach to while people are vacationing on the beach to share the gospel with them, to go tell people about Jesus. They have different methods they try. They do start a conversation and just lead them to Jesus just to get there. They do four spiritual laws, I think, is one of them where there's like a set way that you kind of start talking about this and you move to this and you move to this.
That's kind of the thing where if you die tonight, like it's this startup conversation. They have a couple of different ways. They share their story. They have a couple of different ways. And if you were to pick the people that you think who's most likely to want to follow Jesus, I would say people vacationing at Myrtle Beach. They want you to come talk to them about Jesus.
Like if I'm sitting out on the beach enjoying the beach, I want four college students to come over and be like, hi, do you know you're a sinner? It's like, yes, I do. I'm a pastor. Keep going. Guess what? Every week, every day, regardless of the method, people commit to following Jesus.
People are ready and want to hear the gospel. And guess what? Every week, every day, regardless of the message, some people say, I don't want to hear this. But some people are prepared and there just needs to be some people who go and open their mouths. That we have good news to share and that God is at work in the lives of people to prepare them for these moments. And I think sometimes we're in the habit of making fun of someone who would just go around and tell people about Jesus and that's really cute of us to make fun of people who would go around telling people about Jesus when we haven't sat down and told anybody about Jesus in who knows how many years.
And the truth is, God is at work. The message is good. And I don't care if we share an invitation. I don't care if we share our story. I don't care if we just walk up to people and share the gospel. We've got to be active in doing what Philip did, which is trying to grab somebody and saying, come see Jesus because he's so good and all the hopes and all the prayers and everything's been answered in him.
And all your fear and all your doubt, it's in him. Some of you are here this morning because someone invited you. And I want to just tell you something. They just want you to meet Jesus. They want you to have what they have. They want you to check out what they're checking out.
They want you to see if you're seeing what they see in Christ. They care about you. They're really nervous because they're like, please don't say anything weird or let's not do anything weird today because it's just like, and we don't usually do anything weird, but they're just thinking maybe today would be the day we do something super weird. People get nervous when they bring people around churches. And I just want y'all to know that it's your first time here. We're so glad you're here and we don't want you to feel uncomfortable.
And I know churches do some things maybe you're not familiar with. And in a minute, when we pass by the bucket full of snakes, people think because it's their first time they have to take a snake. You don't have to take a snake. Just pass the bucket. Just kidding. We're not going to do that.
You guys, we don't ever do that. We just want you to know Jesus. And here's the thing. This is ultimately, like I said, we're going to have a couple of different methods and really just share your life is the last one. That you would so know and love Jesus that you would just share your life, that you would be a person so impacted by the gospel that you would just be around people and you would be a gospel person. So this is Mark 12, 30 says this.
This is Jesus talking and he says, this is the greatest commandment. He says that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. That God and ultimately revealed to us in Christ would be so primary to us that every part of our life would be saturated by this gospel. And so then we just get to know people at work. We just get to know our neighbors and we're gospel people. One of the ways we talk about this is that the concept of gospel fluency, that if you're a Christian, that how you receive the world, how you understand the world is through the gospel.
Fluency is the idea that you would speak a language fluently, that you could dream in it, that when you think, you speak English fluently, most of you speak English fluently so that you're not having to translate what I'm saying right now, pink elephant. You're able to just kind of take in whatever is said. Your brain processes it without you being able to control that flying giraffe. Like you just, whatever is said, just you can't help it. You understand that you're fluent. Now, that's not the case for us if we go to another place.
I got to go on a trip one time to a mission trip to Romania and I learned some phrases in Romanesti. And honestly, I know what the phrase means, but they're just noises I memorized. I know that means, may God bless you. I don't know which part means what and what order it's in because I just memorized the sounds. So that's the way I am with, I know a little bit of Spanish, but all I'm really doing is taking the Spanish word and go into the little Spanish dictionary in my brain and trying to say, I think that word means this word in English.
I'm just really trying to get it to English. I'm not fluent. But the goal for us as Christians is that this would be true, that we would love God so much with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength, that it's how we see and understand the world, that the gospel is how we think about everything so that you can't talk to us about marriage, you can't talk to us about money, you can't talk to us about relationships, you can't talk to us about savings, you can't talk to us about death or life or hope or the future or sadness or anything without us, the gospel just coming out. Here's the thing, some of us have this down when it comes to our groups.
One of the things we've talked about over and over again is that we would be, we'd give the good news before we give good advice. We have it down. We're gospel fluent. We have a gospel accent. It pours out of us when we're in church family. And as soon as we get around our neighbors and as soon as we get around our coworkers, we go TV newscaster on it.
My wife and I got to go, my parents won a trip to Jamaica through his job, my dad's Job. They weren't able to go and we got to go for free and I would absolutely recommend that to you. If you ever get to go on a free trip to Jamaica, you should go. It was very enjoyable. While we were there though, we were watching some TV and I don't know how they worked out this deal, but they just had channels from all over the place. And so we were watching.
Well, the funny thing was, if you watched any local news, you couldn't tell where they were from because they all had newscaster voice. They had this same little dialect that they all speak. The severed limbs were found in the elevator shaft. Good news for egg lovers, like whatever, like they just have this same tone, same voice, whatever. So we ended up realizing we were watching one that was from Miami, one that was from Canada.
They sounded the same as the people in Columbia, South Carolina, because they've all trained to just, if you're going to do the news, you just got to cut that out. And that's what we've been taught by our culture. If you're going to be a Christian, that's fine, but when you go to work, you just got to cut that out. You just can't sound Christian at work. You just got to, or you can be Christian light. You can say some things about God or whatever, but let's not talk about Jesus and let's not talk about, we just cut it out as soon as we get outside.
We put on our little newscaster voice. I'll give you an example of this. If your group, one of the questions in your community group was, what would you do if you won the Mega Millions jackpot? Most of us, if we really had to think about that in our Christian world, I got to know my answer, I'd be terrified because I think me having a billion dollars is probably not good for my soul. I really probably should keep going to work. It's nice right now that I can't own everything I would like to own.
There's something good about when God says you can't serve God and money. It's really nice that I don't have a billion dollars saying serve me. It's nice that I don't have much money and I go, you're right God, that sounds brilliant, but as soon as you gave me a billion dollars, I'd be like, well, I don't know, maybe some jet skis. The lake starts looking real good on Sundays. Like, you know, whatever. And so I'd be like, well, I think I'd probably have to give a lot of it away.
I'd probably have to get a whole bunch of people involved, maybe set up a trust, maybe spend the rest of my life just handing out money, maybe just give it to the IMB and go back to work the next day and be like, that was cool. IMB is the International Mission Board. All right. That's probably how I'd answer in our group. I'd really try to think about it. I'd talk about what was real to me and what really mattered and I'd try to fit it in the concept of eternity.
And if someone asked me at another Job or another place, hey man, what would you do if you win the Mega Millions? I'd just go newscaster on it. They don't want to hear all that stuff about how I think I'm a sinner and if I got a lot of money it would ruin my soul because that's a weird thing to say to somebody. So I'd just say, I'm going to probably own a mountain with like a castle and some sort of gun turrets because that would be amazing. We just cut it out so that when somebody's dealing with real things, you see the gospel applies to every aspect of life. This is one of the things that happens in the Old Testament.
There used to be a God of the forest and a God of the rivers and a God of the rain and a God of, in the Old Testament comes along and God says, no, I'm the God of everything. I'm the God of the rain and I'm the God of the wind and I'm the God of the mold in your kitchen. I own everything. And then Jesus comes along and he says, the gospel applies to everything, every aspect and every square inch of your life. So that if someone's talking about sadness or brokenness or depression or the Mega Millions jackpot or what they're going to do with their life or what they're hoping for their future or what they're struggling with with their kids, guess what?
The gospel applies now. It's good news now and there's hope now. That's what Peter says in, nope, sorry. It's not Peter next. It's 1 Thessalonians. Here's what it says.
It says, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves because you had become very dear to us that we would be such gospel people that when we begin to build friendships with people who don't know Jesus, not only do we share the gospel with them, we share ourselves with them and ourselves as a representation of what it looks like as the gospel goes to work on somebody. Not that you're perfect but that you're repentant. Not that you have it all together but that you trust someone who does. Not that you have all the answers but you have a lot of hope in the one who does.
1 Peter 3.15 says this, But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect. This means that as Christians the gospel will be so real to us that it didn't matter what the objection was, what the comment was, what the... This is usually taught that you're going to be at work and someone's going to come to you and say, You are so joyous and happy. What's special about you? And for some of you maybe that happens and you ought to respond that the gospel gives you hope and that Jesus works on your soul.
That's not the context this is written in it. Most of what Peter was talking about was someone's going to come to you and say, Really? You're a Christian now so you had to break up with your boyfriend? Oh, you're a Christian now so y'all can't live together? Oh, you got this going on? Oh, and they're going to have this aggression and you're going to go, Oh, gentleness and respect.
I'm so glad you brought that up. Jesus is way better than sex. I'm so glad you brought that up. Jesus is way better than money and you have a real reason that the gospel is a hope in you and you have a real answer. That's what he's talking about. The hope would be that we would be gospel people so that whether we were sharing an invitation, sharing our story, sharing the gospel, that ultimately we'd just be sharing our lives and that's who we'd be.
That we'd be those type of people who so know and love Jesus and his word so dwells in us richly that it didn't matter what we were talking about. It didn't matter what we were doing that it just comes out of us, pours out of us and some of us need to learn how to lose our newscaster voice and go back to having our gospel accent when we're out in the world so that some people might find hope and might hear the goodness of the gospel and this sharing your life thing helps us a lot when people say, well, I can't share the gospel at work. What they mean when they tell you that at work is that you can't go around trying to proselytize everybody. You can't start handing out tracts.
You can't, but you can share your life and you can be a Christian and you can, when somebody's struggling with something and you're their friend, you can say, hey, can I tell you the hope I have? Can I tell you what I lean to in these moments? Can I tell you that there's a Bible story that talks about this? And it also means that, okay, maybe you can't share the gospel at work. Maybe you got fussed out for that. Guess what?
You can share the gospel in your backyard when you have a cookout. Get to know your coworkers. That way when you say, hey, you want to eat burgers at my house? They say, that sounds like a good idea. And then guess what? Who gets to talk about Jesus at their own house all day long?
I'm going to close with this story. I have a friend named Josh Davis. I met him across the street playing at the park with his children and our kids are about the same age and we started hanging out. We had a, pretty early on, had a conversation about the gospel, which is helpful. Just so y'all know, some of you are like, I'm developing a friendship and seven years from now, when the moment's right, I'll jump out of the bushes and say, turns out I've been a Christian the whole time. It's not super helpful.
Just own it right when you start. And then if people are like, I don't want to be friends with a Christian. Okay, that person's probably not going to be Jesus right now. They're not ready. But some people go, okay, and you get that already open.
The conversation's already there. And so I had the chance to talk with him pretty early on. And one of the things Spencer's been challenging us on is just looking at people and telling them, I want you to know Jesus. I want you to believe this. So much we make it this big conflict, but the truth is, it's us trying to love somebody and trying to help somebody find something that is so good.
And so we continued this friendship and we hung out some and I just realized the next time I saw him, I needed to just say to him again, hey, I want you to know Jesus. So we were over at the park playing and we were heading back to my house and I just stopped and said, hey, our kids were playing at the park. He and I weren't playing at the park. We're on the seesaw. It was awesome. We hold hands and run to the field.
We're walking back over to my house and they were going to be there for a minute and I just stopped and said, hey man, I just want you to know I care about you. We like your family and I want you to know Jesus. So as much as we can talk about that and as much as you have questions about that, I just, I think he's amazing and I want you to know him. And he just stopped and then he said, I think I really needed to hear that. And I was just like, yes, Jesus, that's awesome. And then we talked about Jesus for the next hour or so.
He didn't become a Christian. I'm still praying for him. I'm going to keep saying that to him. I'm going to keep building a relationship with him. I'm going to keep using all these methods. I'm going to invite him to stuff.
He's coming to hang out with our group some. He's not going to do that all the time. I'm going to keep inviting him. I'm going to keep sharing my story and how Jesus is at work in me. I'm going to keep sharing the gospel with him whenever I get the chance and hopefully at some point it'll be the right moment and he'll say, what do I need to do? How do I follow Jesus?
See, our prayer for our church family this year is that every single one of our community groups would get to see somebody baptized. See, last week we said that we'd be all preachers, that we'd be all sharing, that there'd be a hundred people out proclaiming the gospel. And this week, as we talk about ways that we can go about doing that, our hope, our prayer, and we don't know if it'll work because it doesn't always work. God doesn't always lead us to the people. We don't know how his timing on all that, but our prayer this year is that every single one of our community groups would be on mission, would be active in sharing the gospel and we get to gather around the baptismal pool and see some people who on their videos say, I got tired, I ran out of excuses, and Jesus is so good.
I was blind, now I see, and I'm so thankful that somebody grabbed me and said, you need to meet this Jesus. Band's gonna come back up. As we sing this next song, we as a church family are gonna take communion. This is where we, through the bread and the cup, that we remember that Jesus' body was broken for us, that his blood was shed for us, and that we need the gospel and that in Jesus we get the gospel. That he died for our sins, that our hope is in him, that our joy is in him, that our life is in him, and so we take a moment to pray, to repent. The repentance isn't that we have to be good before we come up there, but that if we are walking in unrepentance, we are not believing the gospel, which is that Jesus saves sinners and that there's hope and freedom in the gospel.
And so we pray, we repent, we confess sins, and then we joyously, celebratorily take communion. And I pray that as we pray this morning that you would also pray for those who need to know Jesus, who need to have what you have in Christ, that we might be led to receptive people, that we might be sensitive to the Spirit, that we might be bold in sharing our faith so that more people might have the Jesus, so that we know who loves and saves sinners. Let's pray. God, we thank you that the gospel is good news and that it is hope in our darkness and that it is a bandage for our souls and that our life and our joy are in you and nowhere else.
And we ask, Lord, that you would make us effective in sharing the gospel. And we pray right now, collectively, that every single one of our community groups this year would get to see somebody baptized, we get to know the joy of sharing the gospel and of having someone begin to follow Jesus, that we'd get to be like Philip and that you'd lead us to the right Nathaniels who are ready to hear and know the goodness of your word and hope in Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. When you're ready, take communion.