The Suffering Substitute

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

The Suffering Substitute

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. As I said before, my name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in Matthew 27, verses 11 through 31. You can follow along on the screen. You can also grab one of those blue Bibles around you.

It's going to be on page 486. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that Bible. That is a gift to you once you have a Bible that you can read at home. So, one of my friends from Louisville, Kentucky, when I lived there for five years, he was a church planner and was a pastor. And over the last few years, I've kind of watched, really online, he has kind of developed a following as he's stopped being a pastor. He's kind of moved into more being a motivational speaker.

He's done a TED Talk. And it's been kind of sad. I've watched him kind of depart from kind of the core teachings of our faith and really, really departing from the gospel. And about a month ago, he posted this graphic right there. If divine forgiveness requires payment, then it's not really forgiveness, the restitution. And I saw that and I was blown away.

I just was like, oh, okay. Now, my personal policy when somebody posts something on Facebook that's meant to be a discussion starter, that's meant to really be a little bit controversial, is don't comment. Just don't do it. Facebook is not a place for discussion. It's an angry place now. There's no nuance.

Like, it's just not, you know, it's not worth the bet. And I should say that that's probably the policy that all of you should have. It's when somebody posts something on Facebook, don't comment. Right? You're not going to have a discussion. You're not going to convince anybody of your position.

It's just going to devolve into a lot of angry ranting. It's just not the most helpful place to have discussions. It's much better to do it in person. So, having said that, I commented on that post. I reasoned in my head. I was like, you know what?

We don't have a lot of friends that overlap on Facebook. And I don't know. Like, it's kind of out on the Internet somewhere. I was like, I just want to respond. So I did.

And we had, I mean, we're friends. So, you know, we had a civil discussion. The big following that he has amassed, they were not happy with my take on this statement. So, I looked at that and I was like, that's insane. What it's saying is, is that if divine forgiveness, if God's forgiveness requires payment, then it's not really forgiveness, but restitution. Restitution being a payment for something that is wrong.

And a lot of people looked at that like, oh, that's really deep. That's profound. And I thought, only in a Western culture like ours could you divorce forgiveness from restitution. As if they were two completely different ideas and not two sides of the same coin. As only in our culture that is largely insulated from major injustices. Now, we have injustices.

We absolutely do. But in other cultures across the world where they face genocide, where there are people that are going into villages and hurting women and stealing children. That are going through major injustices. They would look at that and think that how in the world could you divorce forgiveness from payment? As if they're two completely different options. So I tried to have this discussion.

And I thought more about it over the last month. And the reality is, it's not based in the Bible. And one of the people that really like this idea, they don't like the idea of God's wrath. They don't like the idea of sin. They don't like those ideas at all. So it's not based in the Bible.

It's also not based in reality. I mean, for example, if I devised a scheme to steal your mother or your grandmother's retirement. Everything she's worked for her entire life. I stole every penny. And then I got caught. There's one of two options of how that really plays out.

It's either I pay restitution. I pay for the wrong that was done. Or she says, no, you know what? He obviously needs the money. I forgive him. But even in both of those examples, somebody is paying restitution.

Either I'm doing it or she's absorbing the debt herself. In her forgiveness, she's the one that's actually making the payment. There is no biblical reality. There is no reality in general. It separates the idea of forgiveness from payment. And that is because forgiveness is not free.

It costs something. Tim Keller, a pastor that we love and look up to, says the only way God can pardon us and not judge us is to go to the cross and absorb it himself. To make the payment himself. And today that's what we're going to look at. Today we're going to walk through that reality. As we see it very clearly.

We've been following Jesus as he's preparing for the cross. And now he is leading up to the cross. And we're going to follow him all the way up to before he walks up the hill. And as we walk through this today, we're going to see over and over again that forgiveness is not free. That it has a cost that Jesus paid. And my hope is, is for those of us who have trusted in Jesus, my hope is that that would lead us to a deeper affection and love for Christ.

And my hope for those of you that have not trusted in Jesus as your only hope. For those of you that do not know him. My hope is that you would see how much our God loves you. That he sent his son to die for you. So that's, that's the goal.

That's what we're going to walk through this morning. Let me pray for us as we walk through this passage. Lord, we love you. And we are thankful for what you have done for us. God, I pray that you would help us see that so clearly. You would become so beautiful to us.

And that you would work on our hearts and we would respond. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, so. Verse 11. Chapter 27.

Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, you have said so. All right, so context from last week. Chet walked us all the way up to the trial at the Sanhedrin. So, Jesus is arrested.

He's brought before the Sanhedrin. That's the religious leadership. And they put him on trial. And they're looking for a charge that they can, that they can charge him with under their law. Under the Old Testament law. And the charge they come up with is blasphemy.

Which is ironic because Jesus is God. And they charge him of this. But that's not enough to have him killed. All right? That they need the Romans to carry this out legally. Legally.

And the Romans don't care about Jewish law. So they're going to find a different charge to bring him to Pilate with. They're going to work on the charge of kingship. And they claim to be king. That he's an insurrectionist. That he's trying to lead a rebellion.

That's what they're going to bring to Pilate. Pontius Pilate is the governor of this region. He's the prefect of the region of Judea. He is a politician. He's a politician assigned with the assignment of ruling in Judea over the Jews. And in the Roman Empire.

That's not a glorious post. No one volunteers and gets excited about that post. It's not Greece. Right? He could have been in different parts of Greece. With deep into the Greco-Roman culture.

He could have been in places like Alexandria, Egypt. Lots of places he could have gone to. Been assigned to. That would have been good. But he has been given the task of being governor over the region of Judea.

And it is not a fun place to rule as a Roman governor. Because the Jews hate the Romans. They don't like the Romans. And the feeling is mutual. The Romans look down on the Jewish people. See one of the brilliant parts of Roman rule.

Is that when they conquered you. You liked it. It was nice. Once they conquered you. They brought their culture. And a lot of other places assimilated to.

They grew into being Roman. This Greco-Roman. They call it Hellenistic culture. They liked it. They liked what it had to offer. The taxes were high.

But they had roads and infrastructure. And all kinds of things. And they were kind of fine with being ruled. The Jews were not. They rebelled over and over again. They had a different faith.

A different religion that the Romans looked down upon. They didn't have a lot of shared values when it came to that. And so there is that kind of history between the Romans and the Jewish people. But there is also personal history between Pontius Pilate and the Jewish people. You see when he first came to rule in Judea. One of the first things he did was he took the Roman shields.

Which bore a graven image. And he set them up all around Jerusalem. And that is a violation of the second command. Of having a graven image. In the holy city. The Sanhedrin.

The religious leaders. They protested this. And they led a major protest against Pontius Pilate. Against the Romans. And you can look at two different historical sources. You can look at a historian named Philo.

Another named Josephus. When you piece them together. It looks like this was a major protest. That King Herod had to get involved. And it made Pontius Pilate look bad before Caesar. He got a slap on the wrist.

So there is that kind of tension. Also at one point Pontius Pilate went into the temple. Took some of the money from the temple. And built some water systems in the city. So the Sanhedrin.

And Pontius Pilate. Have some cultural history and differences. And some personal beef with one another. Now you might be wondering. That's great. You love history.

Why does that matter here? First off. History is nice. Gives you some context. But secondly.

It's important to understand what's happening right here. Because these two have to work together. Together. The religious leaders and Pilate have to work together. See Pilate needs the religious leadership. Because they help keep the people in check.

They make sure they don't rebel. And as we've seen with the religious leadership. They love power. They're in bed with the Romans. And they like the power that comes with that. So they have to work together.

All of that history comes into this moment. All of that division between these two political rivals. It comes into this moment. Where they bring Jesus to get authority. So that he can be executed.

So Pilate asks. He says. Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus does not hesitate. He says. You have said so.

Yes. He confirms. He is the king of the Jews. You might be thinking. Alright. Isn't that the charge that does it?

It's not. The reason why. Is because Pilate does not really care. Over who the self-proclaimed king of the Jews is. He didn't care about that. That's not something that's really important.

There is a king. Herod. He's got a weird spot in the Roman Empire. And he doesn't even like Herod at this point. So that's not enough to actually get him crucified.

He doesn't care about the customs. He doesn't care about the law. The Jewish people have. But what the religious leadership is trying to do. Is they're trying to mount a case. They're trying to help him see.

That the Messiah from the Old Testament. The king. Who Jesus is claimed to be. Is going to have a global reign. He is going to have a global reign. And that is going to put him at odds with Caesar.

We see that in John's gospel. When they say. You are no friend to Caesar. If you don't deal with this. So they're going to try to make a political maneuver against him.

Before his hand. And in the midst of this. Jesus confirms his kingship. To Pontius Pilate. But then he doesn't defend himself.

Verse 12. But when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders. He gave no answer. Verse 13. And Pilate said to him. Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?

But he gave him no answer. Not even to a single charge. So the governor was greatly amazed. So at this point. The religious leadership. Starts mounting their case.

Against Jesus. And Jesus is silent. He doesn't say. A word. And this stuns Pilate. He's like.

Can you hear what they're saying? Can you hear. What. What. What. The things.

The accusations. They're letting against you. He doesn't say. A word. And this is shocking. The pilot.

But this is to fulfill. What was spoken of in the prophet. Isaiah. Isaiah 53. He was oppressed. And he was afflicted.

Yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And like a sheep that before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. He does not defend himself. They keep making this case against them.

He is silent. Like a lamb that is being led to the slaughter. Because Jesus knows. He knows what the father wants. He knows what needs to happen. Our sin needs to be paid for.

And forgiveness is not free. He will not defend himself. This is a part of the plan. And if he wanted to at this moment. Remember what Chet said last week. He said he could appeal to a legion of angels.

In this moment. At this moment angels could come down by his command. And they would absolutely destroy his enemies. But he remains silent. Because forgiveness is not free. Verse 15.

It says now at the feast. The governor was accustomed to release for the crowd. Any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had been a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Alright. So now around this time.

Pilate had instituted really a political gesture. That around the Passover feast time. They would release to them one of the prisoners that they had. And it was kind of genius. Because the fear was around Passover. Is that this is the perfect time for rebellion to happen.

It's when everyone is coming in to the city. From all over the region. And they are celebrating the Passover feast. Which remember. Is the festival. That they helped celebrate.

To remember that God helped free them. From an oppressive regime. And the Egyptians. What better time. To start a rebellion. Against an oppressive regime.

At the yearly festival. Where they remember this. So this is a political gesture. Give them one of the prisoners. An act of goodwill. And see all of this is a political exchange.

And at this time. There is a prisoner named Barabbas. Now Mark's gospel tells us a little bit about who Barabbas is. He is an insurrectionist. Meaning that he is someone who has left. Had a rebellion.

And he is a murderer. He has killed at least one person. He is completely guilty. And the ones who were put on crosses. Were rebels. Were insurrectionists.

You can look at Jewish history. At the time when these rebellions would happen. The Romans would quickly put them down. And very forcefully. They would line the roads. Out of the city with crosses.

And they would put rebels. It was a brutal. It was a brutal form of torture and death. For those who would rebel. So it is fair to say.

That this day. Barabbas was set to be crucified. That Barabbas woke up that morning. Ready to face death. There is something called the death row phenomenon. It is the psychological building up.

That happens with prisoners on death row. And it is pretty intense. I was listening to a pastor. He had interviewed a chaplain. Who was a chaplain on death row. And he said that some of these prisoners.

Would build themselves up. If they were going to face the gas chamber. For example. That they would. Days leading up. Would have moments of just really heavy breathing.

And intense breathing. And really simulating what it is like to be in the gas chamber. Gasping for breath. That those who had been hung before. That they would have this preparation. Where they almost could feel the rope around their neck.

In the days leading up to execution. That there is this. There is this weight to being executed. And Barabbas wakes up this morning. And is feeling and sensing. Maybe even possibly sensing what it is like to be on the cross.

You have to lift up your chest. As you are slowly gasping for breath. As you are slowly suffocating. He is in the cell. Awaiting a grim fate. But then something happens.

Verse 17. So when they had gathered. Pilate said to them. Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas. Or Jesus.

Who is called Christ. For he knew that it was out of envy. That they had delivered him up. So Barabbas is waiting in his cell. And there is commotioning happening out in the courtyard. There is political maneuvering that is happening out there.

You see Pilate offers up two different people. And he could have chosen anyone else besides Jesus. He could have chosen a less notorious criminal. It is his choosing. But he chooses the notorious Barabbas.

You see the politics at play here? He presents both of them. Because he understands the motives of the religious leaders. He understands they are envious. They are jealous. And if he can put Jesus alongside Barabbas.

Then it makes it a tough choice for the crowds. All right. The notorious prisoner. Or the Jesus who he knows about. This is the first time that Pontius has heard of Jesus. Jesus.

For three years he has been a celebrity in the land. This traveling sage. This prophet. Who thousands of people have traveled out to hear preach. Who have gone to be healed. It is his job to know what is happening in Judea.

When Jesus comes in and out. When he comes in this very week. Just a few days before. And the people are chanting. Hosanna. Hosanna.

He knows about Jesus. He is this good prophet. That the crowds love. So he puts Jesus alongside Barabbas. Understanding what is at play here. What the religious leaders are doing.

Thinking. That he can get past this. With this political play. But while this is happening. Matthew adds a wrinkle. That the other gospel writers don't include.

Verse 19 says. Besides. While he was sitting on the judgment seat. His wife sent word to him. Have nothing to do with that righteous man. For I have suffered much because of him today.

And a dream. So even more so. While he is on the judgment seat. His wife sends word to him. And says. Don't have anything to do with Jesus.

I have had dreams. I have had nightmares. I have been afflicted because of him. We don't know what the content of those dreams were. But it is enough to scare her.

In this moment. To send word to him. To say. Don't have anything to do with Jesus. Jesus. And while this is going on.

The religious leaders are making political moves of their own. Verse 20. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd. To ask for Barabbas. And destroy. Jesus.

So the crowds. Are there. And the religious leaders are working their way through the crowds. Now crowds can turn very quickly into a mob mentality. Very fast. When I was traveling years ago.

And study abroad. I was in India. And one of the travel warnings we had for India. Was when you were there. If you see a crowd form. They form very quickly.

And a lot of people. Get out. Because they have a lot of protests. And those protests are violent. Very quickly. With mob mentality.

We saw that. And we've seen that here. In our own country. That when a crowd gets together. It just takes a little bit stirring up. And all of a sudden.

It can turn to violence. And that is exactly what is happening here. And the religious leadership. They know how to work a crowd. Working their way through the crowd. Whispering lies.

They probably. It's possible they've even stacked the deck a little bit. Put people in the crowd. Said we're going to free Barabbas. Barabbas. We're going to chant for Barabbas.

We don't need this Jesus. He's going to bring problems for us. Barabbas. Start the chant. Barabbas. Barabbas.

They're building up the chant. Verse 21. Then the governor again said to them. Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said. Barabbas.

So they've won the crowds. They've got them stirred up. Barabbas. Barabbas. They're chanting for the notorious criminal. Verse 22.

Pilate said to them. Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? So Pilate has lost this political game. He tried it. Presenting two different options. They want to free Barabbas.

Okay. So what do you want? What do you want me to do with Jesus? So they all said. Let him be crucified. And he said.

Why? What evil has he done? I want you to see the shock that's in Pilate there. He says. What evil has he done? You see.

The crucifixion was a Roman punishment. It was not a Jewish punishment. They had a great disdain for this punishment. They didn't like it. And it is shocking to him. That they would ask for crucifixion.

That's overkill. Right? That's something that's reserved for rebels. Who have rebelled against the Roman Empire. That is a step too far. It doesn't make sense.

That a beloved prophet. That they would make a move on him like this. He does not deserve the cross. But it says. But they shouted all the more.

Let him be crucified. All the more. Let him be crucified. It intensifies. They want him on a cross. The Sadducees.

The religious leadership. The Pharisees. They have won the crowd. Pilate has lost control. As it intensifies. As they want crucifixion.

Pilate is shocked. Jesus is not. This is a part of the plan. This is part of the plan. Forgiveness is not free. It has to be paid for.

Verse 24. So. When Pilate saw. That he was gaining nothing. But rather that a riot was beginning.

He took water and washed his hands before the crowd. Saying. I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. And all the people answered. His blood be on us.

And on our children. Pilate is a politician. And he is a coward. But it is better for one man to die. Than to have a riot. That he has to answer for later.

Because. Having riots. Not being able to control. Your region. Would get you removed. It eventually does.

For him. Because he cannot control this region. So the coward. The coward washes his hands. Which actually doesn't absolve him of guilt. But in his mind it does.

And the people foolishly in the crowd say. Let Jesus' blood. Be on us. And our children. Verse 26. Then he released for them Barabbas.

And having scourged. Jesus delivered him to be crucified. So Barabbas. Is released. He gets to go home. And Jesus is scourged.

Which is a horrific punishment. Scourging. It's called flagellation. Flogging. Was a brutal form. Of torment.

One commentator. Describes this. He says. A Roman scourging. Was a terrifying punishment. The delinquent was stripped.

Bound to a post. Or a pillar. Or sometimes. Simply thrown to the ground. And was beaten. By a number of guards.

Until his flesh hung. In bleeding. Shreds. Hear that. Hung in bleeding. Shreds.

The instrument. Indicated by the Markan text. That would be Mark's gospel. The dreaded flagellum. Was a scourging. Consisting of leather straps.

Plated. With several pieces of bone. Or lead. So as to form. A chain. So.

It's an illustration. Of what this is. The flagellum. Was a tool. It wasn't just a whip. It had.

Bits of bone. Or lead in it. And the goal. Was that. As you whipped the person. That it would latch.

Into their flesh. And rip out. Chunks of skin. And they would do this. Over and over again. Their backs.

Their legs. It was meant to. Absolutely. Fillet. And mangle the flesh. Of the person.

Who was being punished. He goes on to say. No maximum number. Of strokes. Was prescribed. By Roman law.

Unlike Jewish law. That kept it at 39. So we see. In the book of Acts. That. That they.

They get a flogging. Like this. And the Jewish law. Says. Nope. Not more than 39.

40 Might kill you. 39 is enough. The Romans did not have that. They did not have mercy. They were some of the most brutal. The most brutal.

People. That would. That. Their torture methods. Were. Were unreal.

They. They. They wouldn't stop. At 39. They. They would.

To the point of almost. Killing people. It says. And men condemned to flagellation. Frequently collapsed. Then died from flogging.

Josephus. Who's a historian. He records that. He himself. Had some of his opponents. In Galilee.

Scourged. Until their entrails. Were visible. That they. They would be. Scourged so.

Badly. That so much. Flesh. And muscle. Would be ripped out. That their entrails.

Would be. Exposed. The torture itself. Was enough to kill. Somebody. And then.

They're going to put a cross. On his mangled. And bloodied. And ripped apart. Back. But not yet.

Because they're going to humiliate him first. Verse 27. Then the soldiers. Of the governor. Took. Jesus.

Into the governor's headquarters. And they gathered. The whole battalion. Before him. I've pictured this in the past. I've missed that part.

The whole battalion piece. I've imagined. I don't know. It's because. This is from the scene. Of the passion of Christ.

Or whatever. But I. I've imagined. It's just a few people. But it's not.

It's a battalion. Of soldiers. Six hundred. To a thousand. Soldiers. Are going to mock him.

And his. Bloodied. And mangled body. Is brought before him. And they're going. To make fun.

Of his kingship. It says. And they stripped him. And put a scarlet robe on him. And twisting together. A crown of thorns.

They put. It on his head. And put a reed. In his right hand. And kneeling before him. They mocked him.

Saying. Hail. King of the Jews. And they spit on him. And took the reed. And struck him on the head.

And when they had mocked him. And they stripped him. Of the robe. And put. His own clothes on him. And led him away.

To crucify him. So these Roman soldiers. They also have heard of Jesus. And they see the charge. He's going to be charged. As a king.

Okay. Let's make fun of his kingship. So they take a scarlet robe. And they put it. On his back. Now.

Mark's gospel. And John's gospel. They call this a purple robe. Which means either. They're describing the same color. Which happens in some cultures.

They don't have a whole lot of differentiation. Between certain colors. Or it's two robes. The purple one. On his back. Ripped off.

And these are. These would have been. Not smooth. Robes. These would have been rough. Blending into.

His mangled flesh. Being ripped off. And they're. They're mocking him. They're mocking him. As a king.

And they take. A crown of thorns. And don't think. Like rose thorns. These would have been. Thorns.

Native to that region. These are longer thorns. And they take. A crown of thorns. And they force it. On his head.

To mock him. They take a reed. Stick. Made it look like a king's scepter. They put it in his hand. And they bow down to him.

Hail. King of the Jews. Hundreds of soldiers. Laughing. Mocking. The king.

Of the universe. And they spit on him. And they. They take the reed stick. And they hit him. On the head.

It is a brutal. Mocking. A brutal. Torture. But this is to fulfill Isaiah 53.

It says. But. Isaiah prophesied about this. He said. But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed. For our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement. That brought us. Peace. And with his wounds.

We are healed. Peace. Does not come. Without a cost. Forgiveness. Is not free.

And we see that so clearly. And we will pick this up. On good Friday this week. As we continue. As he goes up the hill. Now.

One of the things. That sticks out about this. Is how absolutely. How absolutely. Injust. This is.

How absolutely. Unfair. This is. How corrupt. And how evil. This is.

I mean. This situation. Is gross. I mean. Jesus. Is completely innocent.

Of all of these charges. He's only displayed. Kindness. And goodness. Towards. The people.

And then he gets arrested. By these religious leaders. And then he becomes. A political pinball. Between two. Godless.

Groups. The religious leaders. And Pilate. And the Romans. And then. These weak.

Feckless. Cowards. Debate. Over the God. Who made them. Over the God.

Who thought them. Into existence. They debate. Over his life. And then they plan. To murder him.

To murder the ruler. Over all things. And Pilate. In his political maneuvering. He presents. Two different options.

You can have. Barabbas. Or. Jesus. You can have. Jesus.

The prophet. Whom all the crowds love. Let me think. Guys. We've been in the gospel of Matthew. For over a year now.

Think of all. Of the beautiful displays. Of our savior. Of how good he is. Of how righteous he is. Of how kind he is.

You can have this. Jesus. Or you can have. Barabbas. You can have this. Notorious.

Criminal. This. Murderer. And the religious leadership. The ones. Who are supposed.

To uphold. Justice. And mercy. And righteousness. They start a chant. To free.

Barabbas. And they take Barabbas. When you look. At all of it. It's not fair. It's not fair.

That Barabbas. Avoids the cross. That was meant for him. And Jesus takes his place. And when you come to that conclusion. And when you fully absorb that.

As the reality of this situation. It is then. That you can begin to appreciate. That Jesus died in our place. It is then. That you can begin to appreciate.

And fully understand. That the reality is. Is that we have sinned. Against a holy and perfect God. That our sin. Over and over.

Is a violation. Of his good will for us. That we rebel. Against the God. Of the universe. That we are insurrectionists.

With our lives. That we hurt. Other people. Over. And over. And over.

And over again. That we are. We are prisoners. In a cell. Awaiting our sentencing. Our just.

Sentencing. Against. For sending against the God of the universe. And we are brought up. Out of. The cell.

And there is an exchange. That happens. For those who trust in Jesus. We point to him. And we avoid the cross. And he goes to the cross.

For us. That is what theologians call. Penal substitutionary atonement. Theologians like to use big words. All that means. Is that.

There is a penalty for sin. That's the penal part. For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6. 23. That we deserve death.

Because of our sin. But God. In his rich mercy. Provides for us. A suffering. Substitute.

That Jesus takes. Our place. My buddy from Louisville. Has lost the thread. On the gospel. There is no reality.

Where forgiveness does not cost. That there is no. There is no. Reality. Where our sin. And rebellion.

Does not cost. And here is the deal. We may not. Play out that same thought exercise. We may not. Come to that same.

Intellectual. Conclusion. But the reality is. Is that for many of us. Practically. We live that way.

Practically. Our lives. Show that we believe that. Because over and over again. We just don't think. Our sin costs.

We don't think. Our sins. That big. Of a deal. We dismiss it. We rather live our lives.

On our terms. And we'll justify it. And we won't think. It's that big of a deal. So much.

Of southern Christianity. Is just. Claiming. To be a Christian. And living your life. On your terms.

And it's this. This thought process. That because God is good. And because God. Is loving. That it'll all just work out.

In the end. That it's forgiveness. Doesn't have this real cost. And we can live our lives. On our terms. And that is an eternally fatal.

Belief. No. Our forgiveness. Costs. Rebellion. Costs.

Paul. In Colossians says. In Colossians 2. He says. In you. Who are dead.

In your trespasses. In the uncircumcision. Of your flesh. That's the sinful nature. Of your flesh. God.

Made alive. Together with him. That's through. Faith. God made alive. Together with him.

Having forgiven us. All our. Trespasses. All of our sins. By canceling. The record.

Of debt. The record of debt. We have an endless. Record. Of sins. That stands.

That stands against us. With its. Legal. Demands. The legal demands. His death.

This he set aside. Nailing it. To a cross. That is the heart. Of the gospel. That in our sin.

That in our rebellion. That we have. Rebelled against God's. Good design. That we are waiting. In the cells.

In the prison cells. Of our sin. And death. Awaiting to be sentenced. And God loves us so. Much.

That he doesn't leave us there. That he steps in. That he steps down. From heaven. That he comes to live the perfect life. That we could not live.

And that he comes before us. And we are brought out of the cell. And all we have to do. Is say. I believe in you Jesus. My life belongs to you.

I trust you. And he says. Good. Take my perfect record. And I will take your place. And he goes to the cross for us.

It is not fair. That God in his rich kindness. Redeems. Sinners. And man. It has a cost.

And I want us to sit in that. This morning. If you are. If you are a Christian. This morning. If you have trusted.

In Jesus. As your only hope. I want you to sit. In this painful. Beautiful. Reality.

I don't want us to stare. To stare away from. The cross. And the brutality of it. It teaches us. Grace.

When we look at the cross. When we think about what they did. To Jesus. It reminds us. That we can never earn that. We can never do what Jesus did.

And praise God. That we could not. That we don't have to earn his favor. That no amount of good works. Could make this right. That we look to the cross.

And we say. Praise God. It teaches us repentance. It motivates us to repentance. That there are moments. When we become so tempted.

When the lusts of our flesh. When our sinful selfish desires. Arise. And present to us. The option of sin. We get to in that moment.

Remember. No. No. We get to literally just picture the cross. And say. No.

No. No. My life was bought with a price. It was too costly. And I'm not going to run. To sin.

I want Jesus. It leads us to worship. Y'all. It's. It's. It's all over the songs.

That we sing. That we respond. And we sing. About the blood of our savior. About what Jesus has done for us. It motivates us.

And it inspires us. To love God. That he's so loving towards us. That he came to die on a cross for us. If you're a Christian. I want you to sit in that reality this morning.

And I want you to see Jesus as beautiful. In worship. If you are not a Christian. If you have not trusted in Jesus. That's your only hope. My hope this morning.

Is that you would see. That God loves you so much. That he did not leave you. In sin and brokenness. We all have sin. All of us have our junk.

We've all rebelled against God. And this morning. He has you here. And he wants you to see. I love you. Can't you see.

That two thousand years ago. I came for you. I died for you. I bled for you. So that you might believe.

My hope this morning. Is that you would see. That his arms are open. And he wants you. And that you would believe. That you stop running.

And sin. That you stop trying to earn. Your salvation. By your own good works. By your own merit. My hope is that you would trust.

Only in the finished work of Christ. He wants you. My hope is that you believe. Because forgiveness is not free. But he wants to give it to you.

Freely. The band is going to come up. And I want us to sit. In these truths. As we prepare to respond. If you are not a Christian.

Please. Do not delay. Don't walk away from this. Don't walk away from conviction. My hope. Is that you would trust.

In Christ. That right now. As we sing songs. You would take a moment in your seat. And you would pray. Pray for God to reveal himself.

Ask Jesus to forgive you. Of your sins. And give your life. And trust. In him. If you are a Christian.

I want you to take a few moments. And just be reminded. Of how good your Savior is. About how beautiful his blood is. About how much our sin costs. And it doesn't lead us to shame.

It doesn't lead us to guilt. It leads us to praise. Because we get to look at our sin. And then we immediately. Get to look to our Savior. Let me pray.

Let me pray. Lord. Your kindness. And your mercy. And your goodness. Are so profound.

And so beautiful. God. I pray. That you would help us. In this moment. See it.

Clearly. Don't let us run away from it. Don't let us hide from it. God. I pray. You've got to work in our hearts.

Right now. If there's anyone here. That's not trusted in you. God. I pray. That you would become so beautiful.

So good. That you would win their hearts. And they would believe. God. I pray. For those of us that are Christians.

Lord. We love you. Help us see. The brutality of the cross. As beautiful. And may it lead us to worship and praise.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Joseph and His Brothers

Joseph and His Brothers

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

It's good to see you all this morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab a Bible and go to Genesis chapter 42. If you grab one of our blue Bibles, that'll be on page 21. We've been walking through the book of Genesis.

We are now in the section on Joseph, and so we are talking specifically about Joseph. We've been following along with his story. We have, today we're going to kind of finish this story up. So usually it says a number and then like a colon and then a few other Numbers. And that's chapters 42 through 47. So today we've got a lot of work to do, but we won't read all of it.

Some of it will be summarized. I would encourage you to read all of it. But we are going to be kind of finishing up, in large part, the Joseph story. And then next week we will look at Jacob blessing his sons. And then the following week we will kind of end Genesis, see the kind of the summary idea of Genesis and how that's not just the summary idea of Genesis, but in some ways it summarizes the entire Bible. And then we will close Genesis, not to open it again for quite a while.

And thankful for the time we've spent in it and thankful to be talking about something else. So we've been walking through it. I think it's been really good, but we are walking in Joseph and his story right now. And we're going to see that Joseph's, a lot of his storyline, a lot of what we've seen God at work in is kind of coming to a head. It's kind of coming to the intense part of his story is going to kind of play out today. And so we're going to get to look at that together.

So let's pray and then we'll start reading. God, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you through how you have revealed yourself. That your word and what we have is that we might see you and know you. To know what you're like and to know how you respond and how you act and what you desire from us and for us. And so we pray that we would grow in that today.

That through your Holy Spirit we would see more clearly who you are and what you're doing and what you have done. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. So if you look at chapter 42, we're actually going to read the two verses right before that. 41, 56 and 57. So it says, So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians.

For the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain because the famine was severe over all the earth. And so we start off with Joseph in this position of leadership, in this position of power. But that's not how his story began. That's not how it played out. He has, he's Jacob's son.

He was the second youngest. He was the firstborn son of Rachel, Jacob's favorite wife. And he has a one younger brother named Benjamin and he has 10 older brothers. And so because he was the firstborn of Jacob's favorite wife, he was treated differently. He was given a magnificent set of clothes. And it's a big deal.

If you read throughout the Bible, it'll say things like, and then they gave them gold and a change of clothes. And we, we take for granted having a lot of clothes, but they didn't. They had the same clothes and they would wash them and they would clean them. They wear them all the time. And so he gets nicer clothes than the rest of his brothers. And he then has these dreams that his brothers are going to bow down to him.

And he announces them to his brothers and his brothers dislike him. They're not happy with him. And so his 10 older brothers, at some point he goes out to, to see them in the field and they decide, let's kill him. So his 10 older brothers grab him. He's 17 years old. They throw him in a pit because the oldest brother, Reuben says, let's not kill him.

And his plan was just put him in the pit. And Reuben was thinking, I'll come save him later. Reuben's looking for an opportunity to do that. He doesn't get that opportunity because another one of the older brothers, Judah says, let's not kill him and have his blood on our hands. Let's sell him as a slave and have cash on our hands.

And so that's Judah's plan is let's make some money out of this. Let's not just get guilt, but let's get money. And so they pull Joseph out of the pit. They sell him into slavery. And so he is taken down to Egypt. They take his coat of many colors.

They kill a goat. They pour blood on it. They take it to his dad and they say, isn't this Joseph's? Can you identify this coat? His dad says, surely he's been torn to pieces by some wild animal. That was their plan.

Then we follow Joseph. He goes to be a slave in Egypt and he is an excellent slave. He has a good attitude. God's with him. He works hard. He's diligent.

He becomes second in charge over this entire household. And this is going well for him as well as being a slave can go as well as his life. Who's gone from the pit to slavery has been turned upside down as well as it can go. But his master's wife lays eyes on him and then begins to attempt to seduce him. She begins to pursue him. And Joseph spurns her advances.

He does not have he doesn't want to have anything to do with that. He tells her explicitly no. He listens to her daily. Try this. And he says no. And eventually she just had enough.

She grabs him and he just dips out of his clothes and feats don't fail me now takes off. And so she takes his clothes and she tells her husband she lays up next to him and says, this is Joseph's and he tried to assault me. He tried to rape me. And so her husband is captain of the guard takes him right then and throws him in jail. So he goes from most beloved son to pit to slavery and now to prison.

And in prison he could be angry. He could be bitter. He's not. He works hard. He the Lord is still with him. The Lord blesses him.

He becomes second in charge of the prison. And so as as high a ranking position as a prisoner can have, he has it. He cares for the people well underneath under him. And there comes a time when there's the cup bearer and the baker from the king are both in prison and they both have basically nightmares, really vivid dreams that stress them out. He sees them in the morning. They're in prison.

And he sees them and says, why do y'all look sad? Notices their facial expression and cares about them. They tell him his dreams. He interprets them because he's already had dreams and seen that his brothers are going to bow down to him. He interprets these dreams. He says to one of them, you will be lifted up back to your place.

And he says to the other one, you will be lifted up and hanged. And he tells the one who's going back to his position, just don't forget me. And that guy says, I sure won't. And then promptly does. Until several years later, the pharaoh has a dream and he says, oh, you remember when I was in prison? There's a little Hebrew guy who can interpret dreams.

Let's go get him. So they go get him. And in a day, he goes from prisoner to second in charge of Egypt, from prison to palace overnight. And that's where we pick up with him now. Second in charge over Egypt. He was able to interpret the dream that there was going to be five years of plenty, seven years of plenty, seven years of plenty.

Seven years of famine. And they're now into the famine. And so everybody's coming to Egypt because they were able to prepare. And because Joseph led well, they were able to prepare. Everybody's coming to Egypt. And now we're going to see where the story gets interesting.

Chapter 42, as if it hadn't been interesting so far. When Jacob learned, so that's his daddy, that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look at one another? And he said, behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there that we may live and not die. So 10 of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother. So that's his younger brother, the youngest one of the family. And Joseph's only full brother. All the other ones are half brothers with his brothers. For he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus, the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came for the famine in the was in the land of Canaan.

I love how this starts. Jacob says a really good dad phrase. Why are you all sitting around looking at each other? Don't just sit and stare at your brother's face like y'all somehow going to, that ain't going to accomplish anything. Get up and go to Egypt and get us some food. Don't just sit here.

Go get us some food. But he doesn't send Benjamin. He sends his 10 older sons. These are the 10 sons who threw Joseph into the pit. So Joseph is now about to get to stare face to face with those who harmed him.

And Joseph is no longer in the pit. Joseph is the one they have to come get food from. Joseph is in a position of absolute power in Egypt. So let's see what happens. Now, Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land.

And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them. But he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. Where do you come from? He said. They said, from the land of Canaan to buy food.

And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said to them, you are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land. And they said to him, no, my Lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all the sons of one man.

We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies. Okay, so he sees them and he recognizes them. Now, this makes sense because he gets some context. First of all, they showed up. They were older, so they would have already looked a little similar.

He said he was 17. At this point, he's 32. So he's made a big jump from 17 to 32. You can look considerably different. But his brothers were all older than him.

They're just that same distance, and I can't do math quick. So that amount of older. And he sees them all together, though. He gets some context. So maybe if it was just one, it might have been harder to recognize.

But when all 10 of them walk in, he's like, oh, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Zebulun, Reuben. I know these people. They don't recognize him, but also he is now in a position of authority in Egypt. He has an Egyptian name. He is speaking Egyptian. And there's a good chance he no longer looked like a Hebrew.

They would have changed his hairstyle. He would look Egyptian, most likely. So they walk in. He recognizes them. They don't recognize him. They all bow to the ground, and I bet a cold chill shot through Joseph because he was like, oh, the dream.

Oh, I knew it. So they all bow down, and he recognizes them, but he speaks roughly to them. And you want, we'll see in a second why. There's 10 brothers. Joseph has 11 brothers. And so he doesn't make himself known.

He speaks roughly to them. He calls them spies. And he said to them, no, this is verse 12. It is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see. A weird phrase for us. It just means you've come to spy out how defenseless we are.

And they said, we, your servants, are 12 brothers, the son of one man in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more. But Joseph said to them, surprise! No, he didn't. But Joseph said to them, it is as I said to you, you are spies.

By this you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you and let him bring your brother while you, the rest of you, remain confined. That your words may be tested whether there is truth in you or else by the life of Pharaoh. Surely you are spies. And he put them all together in custody for three days.

So he immediately just, they're arrested. And he says, I want to see your younger brother. Because in Joseph's reckoning, it seems logical that he's thinking through, okay, I was favorited. I was treated differently among my brothers and they hated me for it. And when I was removed from the picture, there is a really good chance that my father began to dote on Benjamin above and beyond anything he ever did with me. And if my brothers were willing to sell me into slavery or kill me, then there's a good chance, potentially, they've killed Benjamin.

He wants to see Benjamin. He doesn't show up with the ten. He wants to see him. They say he's alive. They say his dad's alive. He says, all right, I want to see him.

Also, he is displaying his absolute authority over them. These are ten men that he just, throw them in jail. Now, this is the moment that some of us have been dreaming of in our own lives. To stand face to face with those who have harmed us. With those who have done more in our lives to destroy our lives than anybody else. That his brothers were able to just take him and in a moment, from being a 17-year-old with a lot of life in front of him, were able to just snatch that away from him and send him off to be enslaved in Egypt.

They derailed his life. As much as anybody can derail a life, they did it. And now he's in a position of power. And this is what some of you rehearse in your mind. Ooh, one day. One day they'll see.

One day I'll get to show them. One day I'm going to show up to my high school reunion. One day she's going to come crawling back to me. One day I'll be in the position. I'll have the job. They'll see that this will work out.

And then I'll be able to tell that guy, I'm going to open my own business. I'm going to put them out like this. We rehearse this in our minds. And so if Joseph had been doing that, now it is. Here it is. Laid out in front of him, teed up.

One day I'll be in a position. One day God will let that dream come true. You will bow down to me. And I will have absolute authority. He could have been holding on to this vision that God had given him as a tool for striking his brothers down. He arrests them.

And let's see how this story continues. It says, So he swaps it. A minute ago it was one of y'all can leave. Nine of you have to stay. Now it's nine of you can leave.

One of you has to stay. And we'll verify that this is true. It says, And they did so. Then they said to one another. So they said, Okay, we'll do that.

Then they said to one another. In truth, we are guilty concerning our brother. In that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us. And we did not listen. This is why this distress has come upon us. And Reuben answered them.

Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood. They did not know that Joseph understood them. For there was an interpreter between them. Then he turned away from them and wept.

So he hears his brothers begin to speak to each other in Hebrew. And what they say is, No, we deserve this. It's caught up to us. The guilt of our brother has found us out. Meaning that they understood and carried for this amount of time this guilt towards their brother. This sin that they had committed.

And they look at each other and go, No, it's caught up to us. And it's this idea of like God ordained karma. That they've done this and eventually it will catch them and that God will make it catch them. And they said, Because we listened to the distress of his soul and didn't listen to it. We heard it, but we didn't listen. And you can imagine Joseph standing there looking at his brothers and hearing them speak in Hebrew to one another about him and how they were wrong and how they were guilty for what they had done.

And remembering the moment when they were pulling him out of the pit and he had been pleading, calling out them each by name. Naphtali, don't do this. Naphtali, do you hear me? Gad, don't do this. Reuben, is Reuben there? Don't do this.

Reuben, you can lead them. You can change this. Judah, Judah, is it you? Can you? Just crying out to him and being pulled out and seeing enslavers that they're now going to sell him to and actually searching the face of his brothers and seeing which ones would make eye contact and look cold towards him. And which of them wouldn't even look at him and which of them has he pleaded with them?

Don't do this. And his soul was in distress and they didn't listen. And here's him speaking about it and it says he weeps. Now we don't know at this point. Why? Is he weeping because he's angry?

Is he weeping because he remembers the hurt of that moment? Is he weeping because he longs for his brothers and he's glad to see that they at least feel guilt? Is he weeping because it's just all the emotions tied up in seeing them and seeing that they've carried this with them? Because this is part of what we want when we want to exact revenge on somebody is we want them to see what they've done wrong. We want them to know it prior to bringing the hammer down. They did not know that Joseph understood them for there was an interpreter between them.

And then he turned away from them and wept and he returned to them and spoke to them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them. Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed.

So he not only gives them the grain they paid for, he gives them their money back and he gives them provisions on top of it. They just load them down. He sends them off. At this point, we're like, what is he doing? Is he just being kind to them? Is this part of his plan?

What's happening? Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack. And he said to his brothers, my money has been put back here in the mouth of my sack. At this, their hearts failed them. And they turned trembling to one another saying, what is this that God has done to us?

So they're leaving thinking, let's go get Benjamin and we'll come back. And then on the way, they realize, wait, wait, my money's here. Meaning the Egyptians are going to think we stole. How did this happen? How did we get in a situation where now he thought we were spies and now we've proven dishonest? It says their hearts failed them and they think God did it.

God is orchestrating this to harm us. They go home. They find out that everybody's money. This is the rest of the chapter. I'm just going to explain it. They find out everybody's money is back in their sack.

And they stress out about it. And they tell their father, Jacob, we have to go back with Benjamin. Because we've got to get Simeon set free. And Jacob says, no. Now he loves Benjamin.

It's possible he doesn't fully trust his other sons. We don't know. But he just says, no, like I can't give up Benjamin. Reuben, the oldest, actually looks at him and says, kill both of my sons if I don't bring Benjamin back. And Jacob says, no, if anything happens to Benjamin, my gray hairs will go down to Sheol in sorrow. He just says, it'll kill me.

If he dies, I'll die. So move to chapter 43. Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go again and buy us a little food. But Judah said to him, the man solemnly warned us, saying, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.

That again, I love Jacob in the story. It feels like a very fatherly thing to do, to be like, no, we ain't doing that again. I ain't ever having that. Maybe this is just how my house worked. And then they go on. They run out of food.

He comes back and says, go back there and get me some food again. And they're like, what? Well, you don't remember? You don't remember the conversation we had? And so that's what Judah says. He says, the man told us, you're not going to see me.

You're not seeing my face. This is verse three. Unless your brother is with us. If you will send our brother with us, we'll go down and buy food. But if you won't send him, we will not go down.

For the man said to us, you shall not see my face unless your brother is with you. And Israel said, why do you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother? And they, he says, why on earth would you have told him that Benjamin exists? Why has that even come up? Go buy grain, hand them money, come back with grain. Why is this difficult?

Why are you showing up and telling them your life story? What, what on earth? Have you ever even been to a store before? Y'all are 10 grown men. What are y'all doing? That's kind of what he's saying.

And they're like, he asked us a bunch of questions. That's their answer. He said, do you have a father? How old is he? Is he still alive? That he asked, do you have a younger brother?

How are we supposed to know as soon as we said we had a younger brother, he was going to say, well, I want to see him. We thought it was weird. And then it turned out bad for us. So turn, turn, I'm sorry. If you have a blue Bible, turn the page. If not, just keep following along.

We're 43 still. So he says, Judah tells his father, hang it on my head. If Benjamin doesn't come back, I'll be held responsible and I'll bear the guilt forever. Now, a couple of things have happened since last time. Last time, it was Reuben, who Jacob does not have the best relationship with because Reuben actually slept with one of Jacob's wives. We're going to see that show up more and when he blesses him, which the word bless sounds nice.

It's not much of a blessing. Reuben says, hang it on my sons, not on me, which is an interesting thing for him to say. And maybe he thought that was weightier, but he says, you can kill my sons. Judah says, hang it on me. And the other thing is now they don't have any grain. So they're out of food.

So he says, let the guilt fall to me if Benjamin doesn't come back. And if we had not delayed, we'd have already gone and come back twice. So verse 11, their father Israel said to them, if it must be so, then do this. Take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags and carry a present down to the man and a little balm and a little honey and gum and myrrh and pistachio nuts and almonds. Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks.

Perhaps it was an oversight. Take also your brother and arise. Go again to the man. May God almighty grant you mercy before the man. And may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.

So he says, we got to have food. Take the food that we do have, the nice things that we do have, some of the, at least some of the stuff that we have. They need grain, but at least some of the stuff that we have. They need a staple crop and none of that was growing. So they said, take some of this as a gift and may God bless you in it.

So the men took this present and they took double the money with them and Benjamin and they arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, bring the men into the house and slaughter an animal and make ready for the men are to dine with me at noon. The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph's house. And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph's house. And they said, it is because of the money which was replaced in the sacks the first time that he's brought us in so that he might assault us and fall upon us and make us servants and seize our donkeys.

So they went up to the steward of Joseph's house and spoke with him at the door of the house and said, oh, my Lord, we came down the first time to buy food. And when we came to the lodging place, we opened our sacks and there was each man's money in the mouth of a sack, our money in full weight. So we have brought it again with us and we have brought other money down with us to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks. So the steward, it says he replied, peace to you.

Do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in the sacks for you. I received your money. And then he brought Simeon out to them. So, OK, so what happens is they show up. They think, OK, we got Benjamin.

We'll show him Benjamin. We'll get Simeon. We'll buy some grain. We'll pay them back if they want us to pay them back. And we'll get out of here. They show up and a guy comes over and says, the Lord of the place, which whatever his Egyptian name was, Zeph, Hefoph, Muflef, Muflef.

From last week, he wants you to come to his home. And so they're like, uh, so they show up at the house and they're like, this isn't this can't this isn't good. Right. Like, why does he want us to go to his house? They're standing there talking. They're like, it's got to be the money.

He wants to get us in his house. Then he's going to attack us. They're going to enslave us and keep our donkeys. And so they said, let's go tell him. So they walk up to the door.

They don't go inside. And they're like, we brought the money back. You guys don't even we don't need to go in there. We have all the money. And the guy says, I had your money last time. Which means a couple of really cool things about Joseph.

One, he just paid for their grain. He gave them their grain back and blessed them by giving them their money back. He wasn't going to charge them. They're his brothers. He does that. He also didn't just be like, well, I'm the I'm in charge of this.

So here's some free grain. He paid for it. So he pays for it. The guy who's handling it gets the money and he sends their money back. And they say, just come on in. And then it says, Simeon was brought out to them.

So Simeon comes out. I'm sure he's excited because it's been the amount of time it took them to completely run out of grain and decide we're all going to starve to death. Simeon's been there a while. I assume he was really happy. But part of me thinks he walked out like this.

And they were like, yeah, your dad didn't want to send Benjamin. He was like, yeah, OK, that makes sense. It's good to see y'all. Thanks for coming back. Nice to see you, too, Benjamin. Took your sweet time.

So it says they brought Simeon out to them. Then he brought Simeon out to them, 24. And when the man had brought the men into Joseph's house and given them water, and they had washed their feet. And when he had given their donkeys fodder, they prepared the present for Joseph's coming at noon, for they heard that he should eat bread there. So they're taken care of.

They're tending to their donkeys. They're letting them wash their feet. They're hanging out. And all of a sudden, they hear that Joseph's coming. And so they pile up all the little pistachio nuts and, you know, 10 men trying to make something look real nice. We don't know how nice it looked, but not that nice.

And they piled it up. And they were like, yeah, put some gum and some balm there. That'll be sweet. And then we'll be like, here's our present. It's good to see you. And so they pile it up.

So then when he comes home, they could give him his present. When Joseph came home, they brought into the house to him the present that they had with them and bowed down to him to the ground. He inquired about their welfare and said, is your father well? The old man of whom you spoke, is he still alive? They said, your servant, our father is well, and he is still alive. And they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves.

And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother, Benjamin, his mother's son. And he said, is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? And then he said, God, be gracious to you, my son. Then Joseph hurried out for his compassion, grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep. And he entered his chamber and wept there. So that had to be weird for them.

He says, is this your brother? May God be gracious to you, son. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen somebody start to cry and try to stop it. But their face looked weird. I don't cry very often, but when I am going to cry, I try to stop it and it does not go well. I've done this before.

I start getting like the yips. I'll be like, like, I just, I can't. My face starts doing like this. I remember my brother on his wedding day, he would like look around people and then he would turn and go like he was just trying to tighten his face and do a little knot. So I'm assuming he looks at me and says, is this your brother?

May God bless you. And just took off. They were like, this man's on something. I don't know what, what this is. And also, if you go weep somewhere, that takes a little bit. I don't know how long it takes you to weep.

A couple minutes. I don't know. I don't know how long, you know, he goes and weeps. He then it says he washes his face and he comes back. He looked different. You don't weep and just bounce back from that.

So when he walked back, they were like, something's going on here. I'm sure when he took off, they thought, oh, this is the time they jump out and get us. You know, he confirmed that he was here and now we're trapped. He comes back. He's wept and cleaned his face. So then verse 31, then he washed his face and came out and controlling himself.

He said, serve the food. They served him by himself and them by themselves and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews. But that is an abomination to the Egyptians. And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth. And the men looked at one another in amazement. Portions were taken to them from Joseph's table.

And Benjamin's portion was five times as much as any of theirs. And they drank and were married with him. That means they got tipsy. All right. Picture this for a second. The Egyptians know that Joseph is Hebrew.

So they're not going to eat with him. He eats by himself. So the Egyptians eat by themselves. Joseph eats by himself at multiple tables at this place. This is apparently pretty extravagant set up. And all of his brothers get to eat by themselves and they sit in birth order.

And Joseph has all this food brought out. First of all, these men are starving. They came to the place where they thought, if we don't go, everyone dies. So is it okay if we risk Benjamin because he's going to die here or there? Like, can we go? Everybody's going to die if we don't.

So they go. They're starving. All this food is brought out because Egypt is doing well because God ordained that it would be through Joseph and the planning that was going into this. And then, this is my favorite part, he piles up food for all of them that they're amazed. And he gives Benjamin five times as much. Which, if you've ever eaten and you're thinking, like, I think your piece of chicken is bigger than my piece of chicken.

Like, KFC did it to you on purpose. Like, you know, you open yours up and you're like, all right, I'll eat this. And then you see somebody else, they ordered the same thing. But it's like, no, that chicken was healthier. It worked out. I don't know why they gave me the sad chicken.

I think we accidentally got our boxes swapped. Like, you ever had that? Five times as much. It'd be like, if you sat down, I don't know what they had, like Egyptian chicken. And so, like, this guy's got a chicken leg. And then they just keep piling stuff.

Like, you got a piece of cake, they give him a cake. They give you a drumstick, they give him a whole chicken. Five times as much. So they're piling this up and they're like, did they think we sat in reverse order? Obviously, I look older than him, right? Like, Ruben's on the other end going, why are they, what is happening here?

And you know, they probably look at him like, everybody's got to just eat what they were given and be respectful. But I wonder if they were like, Benjamin, can I have some of that? And Benjamin was like, I don't want to be rude. I think I'm going to have to eat this whole cake. You know, I haven't eaten in like a year. I think I'm going to have to just eat this whole chicken.

I don't want to offend anybody. I hate to end up in prison. All right, so they do that. Chapter 44. Then he commanded the steward of his house, fill the men's sacks with food as much as they can carry.

Put each man's money in the mouth of his sack and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest with his money for the grain. And he did as Joseph told him. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. They had gone only a short distance from the city. Now, Joseph said to his servant, up, follow after the men. When you overtake them, say to them, why have you repaid evil for good?

Is it not from this that my Lord drinks and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this. So he gave him his cup that they're going to accuse. They're going to say he practices divination with. Now, we don't know if that was just the accusation, if it was made to seem even more powerful, if he actually did practice divination, he lived in Egypt and had taken on some Egyptian practices. You're not supposed to practice divination.

But we don't know. But that's part of the story. So it's a way to kind of fortune tell or whatever. When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. And they said to him, why does my Lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing.

Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. And how then could we steal silver or gold from your Lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die. And we also will be my Lord's servants. And he said, let it be as you say, who is he who is found with it shall be my servant and the rest of you shall be innocent. So he goes.

And can you imagine the integrity they have that they just say, no, no, no, no. We didn't take anything. And if you find it, kill that one and we'll all be slaves. They just were like, we didn't do this. And he says, fine, but we'll, we'll be a little more fair about it. We'll just make him a slave, whoever it's found with.

Then each man quickly, this is verse 11, 44, 11. Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground and each man opened his sack and he searched beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes and every man loaded his donkey and they returned to the city. They didn't just say, well, Benjamin, sorry, buddy. They all said, oh no, it can't be Benjamin.

They tear their clothes and they just get back on their donkeys and they all go back. When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground and Joseph said to them, what deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination? And Judah, and this was all through a translator. So he would have said really aggressive things.

They looked at him and they looked at the translator and the translator would say it. And then he would look at him and aggressively say things again. They would look at the translator like that and then say, oh, that sounded worse than the first one. And so they would listen to it. Practice divination. Verse 16.

And Judah said, what shall we say to my Lord? What shall we speak or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my Lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found. But he said, far be it from me that I should do so.

That's Joseph responding. Only the man in whose cup and whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father. Do you see what's happened? Joseph. Took the same 10 brothers.

Put him in a situation where they can sell Benjamin into slavery and walk away. They can get rid of Benjamin. He can be a slave in Egypt and they can walk away. So Joseph just says, no, he'll stay and be a slave. Y'all are free to go. Then Judah went up to him and said, oh, my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears and let not your anger burn against your servant.

For you are like Pharaoh himself. My Lord asked his servant saying, have you a father or a brother? And we said to my Lord, we have a father, an old man and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead and he alone is left of his mother's children and his father loves him. Then you said to your servants, bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.

And we said to my Lord, the boy cannot leave his father. For if he should leave his father, his father would die. Then you said to your servants, unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again. When we went back to your servant, my father, we told him the words of the Lord. And when our father said, go again and buy us a little food, we said we can't go down unless our youngest brother goes with us. And then we will go down for we cannot see the man's face unless our younger brother is with us.

Then your servant, my father said to us, you know that my wife bore me two sons, one left me. And I said, surely he's been torn to pieces and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to shield. He says, now, therefore, as soon as I came to your servant, my father and the boy is not with me. As soon as I come to your servant, my father, the boy is not with me. Then as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die.

And your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to shield. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life. Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father. Joseph tees it up for the older brothers to be able to walk away and leave Benjamin there to have him be a slave in Egypt.

And Judah comes and says, I can't, I can't go back. I can't go back without Benjamin. I'll take his place. I'll be a slave in Egypt. Benjamin's got to go home. I'll be a slave in Egypt.

Benjamin's got to go home. I'll take his place. I've already made a pledge. I'm not doing it. I'm not going back. I'm not going back again and telling my father that his son is dead.

I've seen that once. I don't want to see it again. I'm not doing it. Chapter 45. Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him.

And he cried, make everyone go out from me. So he yelled this in Egyptian. His brothers don't understand. He just yells, get out of here. And all the Egyptians leave. So no one stayed with him.

And when Joseph made himself known to his brothers and he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at his presence. Judah says what he should have said so many years ago. He swaps places with Benjamin.

Judah fights for Benjamin's life. He fights for what is right. He does what he should have done. He's the one earlier who was saying we're guilty. And they all agreed. And then Judah, all the brothers walked back broken hearted.

And Judah just says, you can't. We can't lose Benjamin. And when he says it, Joseph just can't control it. And so he yells, get out of here. Everybody runs out but the Hebrews and the Hebrews are looking at him. And then in Hebrew, he says, I am Joseph.

And they didn't know what to do. He starts weeping. And he says, is my dad alive? They didn't answer. They just stare at him. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please.

And they came near. And he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years. And there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here but God. And he has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Go, hurry up and go up to my father and say to him, thus says your son Joseph. God has made me Lord of all Egypt. Come down to me.

Do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me. You and your children and your children's children and your flocks and your herds and all that you have. There I will provide for you. And there are yet five years of famine to come. So that you and your household and all that you have do not come to poverty.

He said, now your eyes see and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my mouth that speaks to you. You speak in Hebrew. That is my mouth that speaks to you. Hurry up and bring my father down here. Verse 34. Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept.

And Benjamin wept upon his neck and he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After this his brothers talked with him. He has them in the palm of his hand to do them harm. And he just wants to hug them and welcome them and draw them near and care for them and provide for them. And he says, I'm your brother who you sold into slavery. And we would want to.

You would want to think that what would follow that sentence is I'm the one you sold into slavery. And now you'll pay. I'm the one that was in the pit and I've waited for this moment my entire life. But he says, I'm the one who you sold into slavery. Do not be distressed. God has worked in this to bring about provision for you.

You didn't send me. God sent me. And there's hope for you because of it. Now, what happens is they go get his father. His father comes back. They weep.

They hug. He settles them in the land of Goshen. He cares for them. His father actually gets to meet Pharaoh. They bless them. They put him in a nice land but not where the Egyptians are.

And then all of Egypt becomes extremely wealthy because they're the only people that have food for the next five years. And the nation of Israel is cared for, protected, and lives in Goshen. God even tells Jacob, don't be afraid. Go down there. I'm at work in this. Now, when we read stories in the Bible, so often we want to see what are we supposed to learn from them?

How are we supposed to act? What did they do wrong that we shouldn't do? What did they do right that we should do? We want to read this story and you could say, when you have the opportunity for revenge, don't take it. When you have the opportunity for revenge, don't. We could put you in the place of Joseph and we could talk through that.

But the problem is with this story is that we're not Joseph. We're his brothers. And Jesus is Joseph. We're the ones who did not want a king, did not want someone we had to bow down to, who actively opposed him. Jesus comes and proclaims a kingdom and humanity rises up against him to destroy him, to cast him out, to kill him. And then he rises, not from a prison, but from a tomb, not to an earthly palace, but to an eternal throne.

And one day everyone will stand before him and have that moment where he says what Peter said about Jesus in Acts chapter 2, which is, Jesus whom you crucified, God has made him both Lord and Christ. Everybody will have someday when they stand before Jesus and see the king who has absolute power over everything. And we'll be like the brothers that our hearts fail us because we know our sin and we know what we've done. But Jesus is better than Joseph. He says the same thing. Wasn't just your sin that sent me here.

It was the father who sent me here so that he might make provision for you. Wasn't just your sin that sent me here, but I came here to pay for sin so that you might have life, that you might have forgiveness, that you might have freedom, that that's the hope found in Jesus. That he is the one who dies, that he might welcome and love his brothers, that he wants to wrap his arms around us, welcome us. That when he looks at his brothers and they're standing back from him and he says, come near to me. It's me. It's me.

He weeps and he hugs them. And that's what Jesus does for us. That Jesus wants you to know your sin. He wants you to see it. He wants you to feel it. He wants you to know your guilt.

But not for condemnation. Not so that you might feel terrible. Not so that you might be crushed by it. But so that you might be free from it. Matt's going to come back up here. As we close out our time, I want you to see this.

He wants you to see your sin. Not for vindictiveness. This is one of the things that people go with the Bible, you know, it just says, it comes out and just says I'm a terrible person. It's like, yes. Yes, it does. It cosigns that you're terrible.

But for your redemption not to crush you. So that you might see it and then it might not weigh on you. That your guilt might not find you out. That he wants you to see your sin and he wants you to turn from it. Just like Judah and them. They changed how they were.

They wanted to turn from this. They knew that they had been guilty and they weren't going to repeat it. He wants you to turn from it and he wants you to come to him so that he can forgive you. So that you can find grace. And reconciliation. That he can welcome you.

Do you know that that's Jesus' response? That he can't control himself. But he overwhelmingly wants to wrap us up. Have us close. Draw us near. Forgive us.

Reconcile us. And he says the same thing. God sent me before you to prepare a place. He sent me before you for provision. Not for harm. For good.

Not for destruction. I'm the one whom you destroyed. But not so that you might be crushed by. But so that you might be saved. That's Jesus. And that's our hope.

That's the only hope we have. That we might see our sin. That we might repent of our sin. And that we might in Jesus find the one who paid for our sin. And who welcomes us back. And prepares a place for us.

That we might have life. And protection. And provision. The goal in this story is not just to be like Joseph. But to be the brothers.

Others who don't deserve anything but condemnation. And who receive everything because of the grace of someone else. Because someone else was willing to suffer. And someone else was willing to carry the penalty on themselves. That Joseph with joy can look at his brothers and say, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. God did this.

God put me in the pit. God sent me to prison. God elevated me out of slavery and out of prison to here. So that he might bless you. And that Jesus looks at us and says the same thing. So many of us think that we come to Jesus.

And he's like, Alright. Alright. It's about time you saw how terrible you are. Now go sit in the corner and think about it. And if you keep it together, then maybe. We feel like maybe he saves me.

But I'm kind of in the back of the group. And I'm not really as welcome as the other ones. Or maybe he saves me. But he's still holding this sin against me. Or maybe he would save me. Or he did save me.

But I've continued to sin. I've continued to be broken. And so now he's going to take it back. And that's not what he does. He says, No, I went to the cross for you. God sent me there that you might be welcomed.

And you might be loved. And you might be grabbed. And hugged. And wept over. And cared for. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus.

I want you to see your sin. And know how terrible it is. I want you to feel the guilt of it. But I want you to turn from it. And take it to Jesus. Who forgives the worst of sinners.

And brings hope in the darkest of places. And joyously welcomes those who've harmed him. In a moment, we are going to take communion together as a church family. Which is where we celebrate and remember that Jesus' body was broken for us. And that his blood was shed for us. And we take bread.

And we're going to dip it in juice. To remind ourselves of his body and his blood. And to remember what Jesus has done. And that we need the gospel. And that our hope is in him. And when you do that today, I want you to remember that, yes, our sin sent him to the cross.

But God sent him to the cross. So that we might be provided for. And that is his provision. His body and his blood shed for you. That you could be welcomed. That our hope is in him.

And our life is in him. If you are not a believer, we would encourage you to place your faith in Jesus. And then take communion. And if you are not a believer. And have not placed your faith in Jesus. We would ask you to not take communion.

Because that is something for believers. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your grace. That you save sinners. And that our hope is in you. The one who suffered and died in our place.

That we might be welcomed when we don't deserve it. And that you go to great lengths to orchestrate. Us seeing our sin. And being able to repent. And being able to be welcomed. And that you have prepared a place for us.

That you have gone ahead of us to bring about life. And may we place our faith in you. And find our hope in you. As you redeem and you reconcile broken situations. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

The Defiling of Dinah

The Defilement of Dinah

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Well, it's good to see y'all this morning. My name is Chet. I am one of the pastors. Logan, do you mind cutting the light on? I'm one of the pastors here. Last week we got to celebrate Easter together, and so we gathered, as many Christians around the globe did.

We gathered, we sang, we praised, we worshipped, and we delighted in the fact that Jesus Christ died on a cross. He was dead, he was buried, and he rose again to forgive us of our sins and to save us to himself. And as we did that, as we got together, as we celebrated, as we ate, as we had an Easter egg hunt, as we did a lot of fun and had a lot of fun, and across the world in Sri Lanka, there was a tragic attack that killed 253, as of the last count, people who were in hotels and people who had gathered in churches to celebrate the same gospel that we gathered to celebrate. And that is the reality of the world that we live in, that there is beauty and joy and delight, and there's pain and tragedy and suffering, and we can swap from one to the other in the blink of an eye.

And the story that we're going to be in Genesis looking at today is one of those stories of great tragedy and horrific sin. And if you'll grab your Bibles and go to Genesis chapter 34, we've been following through this story. If you don't have a Bible, there's a blue Bible near you, it'll be on page 17. And if you don't own a Bible, feel free to take this one with you, that would be our gift to you. We'd love for you to have a Bible, we'd love for you to read it. We've been following through this story where God made the world good.

He made it beautiful. He made it delightful. And then humanity sinned, and we brought into the world wickedness and pain and death. And then the question throughout Genesis is how is God going to respond to this problem? And that's the question we've had to continually ask as we've watched real people in real stories in real life have horrific things happen is how does God respond? And that's what we're looking at today.

In a story about rape and revenge, fear, hatred, murder, we're asking the same question, which is how do they respond? And more importantly, how does God respond? Now as we go through this, there may be some of you who, this is very close to home. In your past, you have had situations of abuse, that you have been abused or harmed, that you have abused and harmed others, or those near you whom you love have been harmed greatly. And this will drag up a lot of painful memories and a lot of emotion. My encouragement to you this morning would be, even in the moments when you feel like you want to just get up and leave, you just need to get out of the room, my encouragement would be to stay as we study this together, that we might see Christ and His answer, which is a good response to this, and it is sufficient and complete.

So my encouragement would be to stay, to continue to press in, to ask the Lord for help. Now I know that for some of you, I just made it really hard to go to the bathroom. And so there's still room, normal Sunday, if you need to get up, if you need to go out of the auditorium, you're welcome to, and nobody's going to be looking at you thinking, obviously this means something particular about you, but I did want to give that word of encouragement to those who don't want to hear this. So we're going to pray for God's grace. So I would encourage you to just a moment, pray for yourself, that you might hear this well, regardless of where you sit in the room, whether this is close to home or foreign to you.

Just ask the Lord for grace, and then I'll pray, and we'll read this text together. Lord, we need your help. Lord, we have been sinned against, and we have sinned against others. We have been harmed, and we have inflicted harm. So we ask for your Holy Spirit to work as we study your word today, that we might, as we look at this family and their story, and your response, we might see Christ, know him, and that we might respond appropriately.

In light of your word, in Jesus' name, amen. Chapter 34. Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. Okay, so Dinah, her name actually, it's similar to her brother's name, Dan. It means judge or avenge or justice. And that's going to be really interesting, because that's kind of what we're going to be asking in this text, is where is justice?

What ought to happen? How does this respond? But it says that she went out to see the women of the land. Now if you'll remember, Jacob had fled from his brother Esau because he had stolen from him. He then gets married, has a bunch of children. He has 11 sons at this point.

He's going to have one more. He has one daughter, Dinah. She's probably in her teenage years. He's 16 or up, somewhere around in there, 16 to 20. And they come back. He was supposed to kind of go back to Bethel, where God had said originally, I'm going to bring you back here, and then you'll worship me.

And when he said, go back to your homeland, it's kind of implied. Go back to Bethel, but he doesn't. He goes to Shechem. He lives near a city. Now the Bible does not tell us that cities are evil, but the Canaanite cities are.

The Canaanite people in this land have a very bad culture, and the Bible is not like us. And we say, well, all cultures are equal, and there's, you know, everybody just what they believe. The Bible doesn't do that. The Bible steps in, and because it's written over all culture, can say, that's good, that's bad, this one's okay, that's not. This part of your culture needs to go. This part needs to flourish.

And so it does that with these Canaanite cities. They're not good cities. And they settled near one, and so Dinah goes to see the people of the city. Now, Jacob has a tribe. They're set up in tents. They're kind of a roaming band, but they bought a little bit of land.

They have some tents. They have herds. They're not a huge group of people. If you'll remember, Abraham had a ton of people. He had 300 fighting men. Jacob doesn't.

He's got 12 sons. He's got some servants, but it's not a huge crowd. They're big, but not huge. They're a little tribe. They're next to a city, and that's kind of the setting for this. And it says she goes out to see the women of the land.

So she heads into the city. She wants to get to know some people. We don't really know why, what she's doing. We just know that she does this. And it says, And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land. Okay, so they're near the city Shechem.

This guy's name is Shechem. He's the prince. His dad's the king, tribal leader. He's over the city. It says, When he saw her, he seized her, and lay with her, and humiliated her. When he saw her, he seized her, and lay with her, and humiliated her.

From his position of power, he sees something that he wants, and he forcefully takes it. Now, we don't know how forcefully, but he did use his authority, and he did use his power, and he does rape Dinah. Now, the truth is, you should be able to go anywhere, and be inside any circumstance, and never have someone sexually assault you. The reality is that that is how God designed his world, but the reality that we live in, is that that is not how it works, any longer due to sin. And that we can get into positions, where we are unsafe, and we can get into positions, where we really should be safe, and still be drastically, horribly, wickedly harmed.

And what happens to Dinah, is horrific. And it's the type of thing, that happens in life, where from this moment forward, life is not the same. Not to say that she can't heal, and not to say that she can't mend, and not to say that there can't be good in life for her, but this is the type of thing that happens in life, where from now on, it affects your future. And so, there are instances in life, where things happen, horrific accidents, terrible sin, wicked actions, and then as we move forward, the question is, how do we best move forward, but there's no way to really, just perfectly fix, and go back to, what we would have considered normal.

We're going to have to find a new normal. And for, this story is not far from us. In the United States, one in four females, will be sexually assaulted in their life. That's the, the statistic we have currently, one in six males. One in six females, in the United States, will be forcibly raped. Most of them, will be raped by someone, that they know, are acquainted with.

And that's, what we're looking at here. And if this, is true for you, I want to say, I'm so sorry, and that should not have happened. It is horrific. It is evil. And God does have a response. This is true, for far too many of us.

We live with this reality. And the question is, how do we move forward? And what do we do? And we're, we're going to get to see in this story, how they respond. It's not going to perfectly tell us, what to do. We're going to have to look to Jesus, for that.

But we'll get to see, how they respond. And it says, and his soul, this is verse three, was drawn to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman, and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, get me this girl, for my wife. And far too often, this is what happens. This is the confusing mess, that comes out of this, is that he forcibly takes, what he wants.

And he's in a culture, where maybe this was relatively normal. He's the prince of the land. He's able to just kind of claim, what he wants. And then he speaks nicely to her. And this happens. It says his soul is drawn to her.

He's genuinely conflicted. He, he inside of himself, thinks he loves her, but he doesn't even know what love is. And he doesn't know how to act. And he chooses to do something, so wicked and horrible. And then he's just really kind. And we have that situation, where females are going, I know he does this.

I know he Acts this way. I know he hurts me. But then he talks nicely to me, and he says he loves me. That's what's happening here. And he goes to Shek, goes to Father Hamel, and says, get this girl for my wife. Now they would have at this point, at least, if not earlier, I would assume earlier, because she would have looked different.

They would have known at this point, she is not of our people. She does not live in this city. She's a part of this tribe, that is outside our gates. And so there is some amount, of cultural tension, that is happening here. They're not all under the same law. They're not all under the same rule.

They are in separate zones. She says, go, get her for me as a wife. Now Jacob heard, that he had defiled, he being Shechem, had defiled his daughter, Dinah. Now that word defiled, is very interesting. It means, to make unclean, to make dirty, to stain. And the reality is, that our culture, at one moment, will tell you, that sex is just sex, and it's just physical, and it's just an appetite.

And therefore, it ought to be free, and it ought to be shared, and it ought to be, we shouldn't look down on it. But as soon as we move, into the realm, of sexual assault, we are all willing, and immediately understand, that that isn't true. That it's not just physical. That there is, a reality, to spiritual ramifications, that take place, and when someone, forcibly takes this, when they claim something, that is not theirs, when they take something, from you, that is private, and should never, be taken. There is great harm, and it says, that she has been defiled. She's dirty.

And for so many, victims of assault, this is a reality, that they face, that they feel this, in themselves. Yet they're dirty. It says, when he heard this, but his sons, were with his livestock, in the field, so Jacob, held his peace, until they came. Jacob doesn't respond. We're going to see, that this isn't just, self-control. He doesn't respond, this whole time.

We don't, know why. At the end, we're going to see, that there's some fear, and some self-preservation here. And for those of people, who have struggled with, assault, and maybe finally told someone, this is one of the most painful things, that can happen, is that they just, don't really respond. Or at best, they just kind of want to cover it up, or they just want to move on. That's what Jacob, leans towards. He doesn't lead.

He does not pursue, justice. And we'll see, the consequences of that, in a second. So it says, Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob, to speak with him. The sons of Jacob, had come in from the field, as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant, and very angry, because what he had done, is an outrageous thing in Israel, by lying with Jacob's daughter. Because he had done, an outrageous thing in Israel, by lying with Jacob's daughter. For such a thing, must not be done.

We don't care, what Shechem's culture is like, this ought not to happen. It doesn't matter, if he's used to it, it doesn't matter, if he's okay with it, it's not co-signed, by the scriptures. It ought not to happen. It is outrageous, and they are angry, and indignant, and they are correct. There are certain things, that you ought to be angry over. They can mourn, that would be a correct response.

They can be angry, that is a correct response. Those are responses, that God has to sin. Do not believe the lie, that all anger is sinful. Now, what we do with it, can be. And what they do with it, ultimately seems like it is. But to be angry, and to respond violently, in ourselves, is acceptable, and godly.

But what we do with it matters. So it says that Hamor went out. Now, Hamor's the king of this city. We're going to hear him speak, we're going to hear Shechem speak. It is fair to assume, they would have ridden out, with some form of guard. We also find out later, as we go, that Dinah is not with them.

She's still in their house. So either way, they ride out in a position of power. They ride out to a, probably smaller group, than them. Most likely, with some force. And, in some ways, at least to the people of Israel, it feels as if, Dinah is still held hostage. So here's what they say.

But Hamor spoke to them, The soul of my son Shechem, longs for your daughter. Please give her to him, to be his wife. Make marriages with us, give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourself. You shall dwell with us, and the land shall be open to you. Dwell, and trade in it, and get property. Shechem also said to her father, so he's there, and to her brothers, Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say, to me, I will give.

Ask for as great a bride price, and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman, to be my wife. Okay, so they ride out to Jacob. Jacob is older, he's got a hip injury, he's holding his peace, but ultimately find out he's fearful. There are 11 indignant brothers, older, not all of them, but several of them, a good bit older than Dinah, who care greatly about this outrageous thing that happened. Hamor rides out as a king, with his son, the prince, and probably, it does not say, it's fair to assume, some force, but at least no Dinah, and they just say, Hey, my son really likes your daughter.

Let's have some marriages. Let him marry her. We'll pay you as much as you want. We're rich. We can't ask for as much as you'd like. We'll pay you.

They don't say, here's what we've done. We're sorry. This is a bad situation. They just ride in. They act as if this should be fine. The sons of Jacob, this is verse 13, answered Shechem and his father.

So you'll notice, Jacob does not respond. His sons do. And in the absence of godly household leadership, you will get other leadership. Somebody will step up. Jacob ought to be leading this situation. He does not.

He commits a sin of omission. We think that sins are things that we do, but often we can sin by not doing the things we ought to do. So the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. So because of what he did, they're going to retaliate. They lie to him. It said to them, we cannot do this thing to give you our sister, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us.

Only on this condition will we agree with you, that you will become as we are, by every male among you being circumcised. Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people. But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone. So basically what they say is, the Mark of our tribe, the Mark of our people is circumcision, and so we can't intermarry with y'all because you're uncircumcised. But, if you'll get circumcised, then we have a deal. We'll intermarry.

You can have Dinah, we'll just become one big group of people. This is not exactly, but it is similar to, when someone is dating someone who is a non-Christian, and they are a Christian, and they say, well I can't marry you. We've seen this in our church family. I can't marry you unless you become a Christian. And then the guy's like, oh, yeah, I love Jesus. And the girl's like, great, that sounds great.

That's what's going to happen. They say, you have to have this Mark, you have to have this sign, and this has to be true for us to be able to be married, otherwise it's a deal breaker. And, their words pleased Hamor, and Hamor's son Shechem. That's verse 18. And the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob's daughter. Now, he was the most honored of his father's house.

That matters in just a second. So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city, and spoke to the men of their city, saying, these men are at peace with us. Let them dwell in the land and trade in it. It seems as if when they rode out, there was a bit of attention on, are we about to have to go into conflict with these people? Is there going to be war? Because it's a party's riding out to another tribe that's outside of us, and something has happened here that they may not appreciate.

So they ride out, they come back and say, we're at peace. The land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us, and to become one people. When every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. Will not their livestock, their property, and all their beasts be ours?

Only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us. Okay. One of the things I learned from my dad, who's managed business stuff, and who's done sales, one of the things he talks about is, when you're going to give somebody difficult information, he talks about you do it in the sandwich method. So a sandwich has a nice soft piece of bread, and has the main part of the sandwich. You don't call it a bread sandwich, it's called a ham and cheese sandwich, the part in the middle, and it has a nice soft piece of bread. That's exactly what they do.

This is when you're having to correct somebody. You bring them in, and you say, I want to let you know you've done such a great job, really appreciate how hard you work. And it's true, you don't make stuff up, and then you say, but we're going to have to work on the fact that you keep showing up late to work, because I want you here the full time you're supposed to be doing your great job. So let's punch in on time. But I really appreciate you, and I know you're going to fix this, and it's going to be great.

That's a sandwich. Soft. Main part. Soft. These guys roll in and say, we're at peace. They can live in the land.

This will be great. We'll give our sons. We'll intermarry. It's going to be wonderful. Everybody's going to have to be circumcised, but won't we own everything? And it matters that this is the most honored son, and this is the king of the city, because it says this, and all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised.

All who went out of the gate of his city. So every male that lives, going out of the gate means they would be able to work outside the city, but they would come in and close the gates at night. They were under the protection of Hamor. They lived in this city. On the third day, when they were sore, it's not an easy operation, specifically for people who don't have good anesthetic, painkiller, ways to keep things clean. They had sharp utensils, but it's not an easy operation.

Three days later, they are sore in a place that makes it hard to do much of anything. If sore. Two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. So they say, we can't do this unless y'all all get circumcised.

They know everybody got circumcised. They wait. Just so y'all know, every time a new servant entered into this household, it was policy that all of the new servants would have to be circumcised. They understood how this worked, how it felt, and when you were most vulnerable. They wait. They know.

Day three. They've been doing this. They understand. Simeon and Levi take swords, just two of them. They walk in the city and they kill every male that breathes. They kill Hamor.

They kill Shechem. There was a moment when Shechem most likely laid up in his bed, sees a shadow fall across his doorway, sees the silhouette of a sword, sees a man walk into his room and for just a second, maybe two men, they probably both went, just a second realizes what's about to happen, can't move, can't respond and is cut down. And his blood pours out because he defiled their sister and they kill everyone. Now I understand, I've been made to understand as I share stories from my family and my childhood that I grew up in a home that maybe was different from other people's homes. When I was in about middle school, my dad taught us about a thing called equalizers.

He said, if you're going to fight somebody and you're going to win, fight them behind the gym, fight them in a bathroom, fight them wherever. You don't want to get in trouble, just fight them. If you're going to lose, don't fight them where they say, don't fight them in the bathroom, don't fight them behind the gym because no one will break this up. They will beat the fool out of you. You're going to need an equalizer. And he gave us some options.

Hard lunch trays are an equalizer. Throwing sand in someone's face is an equalizer. Waiting until they're sitting down and you're standing up, starting the fight before they realize it has begun. It's a good equalizer. It is an effective way to win a fight is to punch someone while they're still talking or while they're taking a test. Ask my brother Logan about that.

This is one of the best equalizers in the history of humankind. They set the odds in their favor and they slay everyone. And there's part of us that loves this. There's part of me that loves this. This is Braveheart, Gladiator, Patriot, and like seven Denzel Washington movies. There's part of us that so greatly desires that when someone harms someone and when someone wrecks someone that somebody else picks up a sword.

But that's an incomplete answer. verse 26. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and in the field and all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses they captured and plundered. So the men of the city had said, if we get circumcised then we'll get to own everything they own and it was actually the exact reverse.

If we get circumcised they'll soon own everything we own. So they go in, they take everything, they plunder. Now, there are places in the Old Testament where God specifically says and directs his people to do similar things. This is not one of those places. This was done by the will of Simeon and Levi not the will of God. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi you have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

My Numbers are few and if they gather themselves against me and attack me I shall be destroyed both I and my household. But they said should he treat our sister like a prostitute which is an indictment against both Jacob and Shechem. Should he treat our sister like a prostitute? Should he just take what he wants and then as long as he pays us enough we're okay? And the question here as Jacob wants to have a very non-response a very muted response a very let's just make everything easy let's just make sure we're safe let's not cause trouble in the household. And as his sons in violent anger Jacob's working out of fear his sons working out of anger and wrath they go exact revenge.

But the question is where is justice? How ought this to have been handled? And how does God respond? Chapter 35 God said to Jacob Arise and go up to Bethel and dwell there and dwell there make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him that's all these new families all these new women and children put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments then let us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.

And to all who were with him that's all these new families all these new women and children put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments then let us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone. So they gave to Jacob all their foreign gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears

And Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem and as they journeyed a terror from God fell upon the cities and they that were around them and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob and Jacob came to Luz that is in Bethel that is Bethel which is in the land of Canaan he and all the people who were with him there he built an altar and called the place El Bethel because there God had revealed himself to him when he had fled from his brother and Deborah

Rebecca's nurse died and was buried under the oak below Bethel so he called its name Alan Bakuth God appeared to Jacob again when he had come from Padamaram and blessed him and God said to him your name is Jacob no longer shall your name be called Jacob but Israel shall be your name so he called his name Israel and God said to him I am God Almighty be fruitful and multiply a nation and a company of nations shall come from you and kings

Shall come from your own body the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you and I will give the land to your offspring after you then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him and Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him in a pillar of stone he poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it so Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel God does not show up in the middle

Of this situation he shows up after it seems as if a lot of it has been resolved although he does protect them as they travel so that what Jacob said was true which is they are going to find out what we did and all the rest of these people who are semi-related to them are going to come crush us God protects them and takes them to Bethel but then God says he renews his covenant with Jacob he renews this promise that had been made to Abraham and to Isaac

And to Jacob multiple times he renews it with Jacob and he says I am going to do this and it feels as if God's answer is insufficient it is incomplete that in this story we want him to show up we want him to bring clarity we want him to tell us who was right who was wrong how it should have been handled but God's answer to this is going to be absolutely complete and 100% sufficient and it is made here when he re-promises I am going to send the king his answer to this

Is found in Jesus and nowhere else everything else will be a limited earthly response carried out by sinful humans and so God gives a full and complete answer and it is made by way of promise here and it is made by way of fulfillment for us and it is through Jesus and I want to tell you the full and complete answer so we are going to spend the rest of our time Jesus has two tools with which he responds to this type of sin and wickedness really all types of sin and wickedness

But we ask it so often in these heinous moments first Jesus picks up the cross second Jesus picks up the sword first Jesus picks up the cross then he picks up the sword that is the answer that the Bible gives us for just a moment let us talk about the cross Jesus comes and lives a perfect sinless life loving teaching us how to love treating people even people who don't like

Christianity like Jesus he is so kind he is so loving all they want to do is pull off the deity part they just don't want him to be God but otherwise we can keep him he is nice he comes graciously lovingly and then he is brutally murdered the first thing he does is he picks up the cross in Isaiah 58 there is a prophecy about this and I want you to see that the first thing Jesus does

When he reveals himself to us when God becomes a human he meets Dinah and all the Dinah's that would come after her Isaiah 58 says he was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not surely he has borne

Our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted but he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed Dinah had someone in a position of power take her strip her humiliate her

And harm her and the first thing we see Jesus doing is coming and having people in positions of power take him strip him humiliate him and harm him that if Dinah were in one of our community groups and this week she were to share maybe for the first time or maybe just the most recent time this thing that has happened and through tears she would talk through what had taken place

That if Jesus Christ were in her group he could through tear stained eyes look directly at her and say me too that where Dinah is voiceless here we are told in this same chapter Isaiah 58 that like a sheep led to the slaughter he opened not his mouth that Jesus Christ was stripped brutally beaten humiliated and died that he is a man of sorrows who joins us in our sorrow

That throughout the Old Testament we read that God is close to those who mourn he is close to the broken hearted and the question is how close and the answer is he becomes one that close he does not sit far off enthroned and separate that he joins us in our pain but he does not just join Dinah as comforting as that is he redeems Dinah

Isaiah a few chapters later in Isaiah 61 it says I will greatly rejoice in the Lord Isaiah 61 is the chapter that Jesus reads in Luke 4 when he says he proclaims the day of the Lord's coming the year of the Lord's coming he says this has been fulfilled in your hearing this is how it ends it says I will greatly rejoice in the Lord my soul shall exult in my God

For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation he has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels if you're in here and a minute ago when we talked about Dinah being defiled you felt shame creep up your back crawl up your face and you felt dirty all over again

I want you to know that in Christ he does not just join you he clothes you that he was stripped so that you can be clothed in righteousness that you can be like a bride or a groom on their wedding day as dressed up and as beautiful as we can get as much as he can cover you and make you shine that's what he does to us in the cross that he not only dies for our guilt but he dies

For our shame and he takes it away that you have been cleansed that you have been washed that you have been made new that he meets Dinah but he doesn't just meet Dinah he also meets Jacob and Shechem if you look back at Isaiah 58 it says he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our

Iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed that is good news to those who have suffered abuse and that is good news to abusers that Jesus Christ took the punishment that you deserve and when you feel like you're going to be found out and someone ought to punish you the truth is that that is real you ought to be punished but the hope

In Christ is that he was punished for you that by his stripes you are healed and so for all the Shechem's in the room and all the Jacob's in the room and all the parts of us that are Shechem and Jacob where we've harmed and hurt and sinned that we get to run to the cross and we get to trust in Jesus who bears our iniquity and sheds his blood that there was a moment

In human history when Shechem's blood spilled out onto the dirt and onto the clay and there was a moment in human history when Jesus did the same for all those who would trust in him he bears iniquity the first thing Jesus does is he picks up the cross he takes wrath in our place that's what 1 Thessalonians 1 says we are waiting for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead

Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come when we talk about being saved and people say what does he save us from he saves us from our sin he saves us from the wrath that our sin is owed see Jesus first picks up the cross we stand between these two moments in history but the next time we see him he'll be holding

A sword he picks up the cross he suffers once and then he picks up the sword this is actually what he says to the Sanhedrin as I was reading through this this past week as we led up to the crucifixion Jesus before the Sanhedrin they're asking him all these questions and he has an answer they're accusing him of all these things and he has an answer and finally the high priest

Says I adjure you by the living God are you the Christ the son of God he says by God swear by God and answer this question and Jesus says you said it which isn't super cryptic it means bingo you guessed it you called it and then Jesus says this you have said so but I tell you from now on you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the

Clouds of heaven he says this to a group of religious leaders and they did not think it was cryptic we read it and we're like oh they rip their clothes and freak out because he just quoted Daniel 7 he looked at them and said in this moment you are seated above me and in this moment you're going to crucify me and right now I'm picking up the cross

But the next time you see me I'll crack the sky open and I'll be holding a sword that's what he said because this is what Daniel 7 says behold with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man he's telling him right where he's quoting from he came to the ancient of days that's the father and was presented before him and to him was given

Dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples and nations and languages should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed he said you guessed it I am the one who rules and reigns for all eternity and they rip

Their clothes and say what more do we need he's claimed to be God and the truth is if he were making that up sure he blasphemed the problem is he wasn't he picks up the cross once and then he returns with a sword and the next time the Sanhedrin saw him

It's when he's cracking open the sky the next time they saw him he was standing next to the ancient of days as a ruling reigning king through all eternity 2 Timothy 4 1 tells us that he will judge the world I watched in parts with my son yesterday I watched Aquaman and he goes and it's all this mess

And all this chaos and all this brokenness and there's this moment at the end of the movie and this isn't going to ruin anything for you because you knew it was going to happen there's this moment in the end of the movie he busts through the ground he's riding on the top of this giant sea creature

He's wearing his shiny gold Aquaman wetsuit thing he's holding his shiny gold trident and there's this moment where all of his enemies suddenly realize this person that looks so humble and pathetic is now the king and he's the right king and he's

The real king because he can talk to the animals and all of a sudden all their little sharks just turn on them and it is awesome as awesome as Aquaman can be and it pales in comparison to the moment that Jesus Christ

As Revelation 19 says stands before the sky the sky rolls back he's on a horse he's got a sword he's got a robe covered in blood you see Jesus in history is covered in blood

Twice once it's his the next time it's his enemies once it's his and the next time it's the unrepentant it says he treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath

Of God that he actually grabs people together like grape clusters and stomps them that his sword kills everyone there's this moment in the book of Revelation where

They're seeing into the future and it says that all those great and those small those rich and those poor those kings and those

Homeless it says they all who were unrepentant it says that they yell to the mountains and the rocks and the buildings and they

Say fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the

Lamb you see he was a lamb who was slain and then he returns with wrath his day of vengeance the great day of

Their wrath has come and who can stand second the Thessalonians one Paul's writing to the church and he says he's talking to them about

Their suffering and he says God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who

Are afflicted as well when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who

Do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus they will suffer the punishment of eternal

Destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified

In his saints and to be marveled at among those who have believed there are some in our culture who would tell you that

Our God is like Jacob and he just wants to love and he just wants to make everything nice and he just wants to

Calm everything down and when we begin to believe that and tragedy strikes that God is too weak to handle it and where there

Is no leadership and where there is no justice there will be blood there will be violence there will be vengeance that if God

Does not take up sword and so what do we do how do we respond there is a short answer that is a short

Lived answer and it is found in Romans 12 and Romans 13 Romans 12 he says beloved do not avenge yourselves leave it to

The wrath of God the truth is in Jesus taking up the sword he meets Simeon and Levi and they are free to put

It down because it does in Romans 13 he says that God has entrusted the sword to the governing officials that there is a

System of justice that we are allowed to pursue people can go to jail ought to but when that fails and it often does

Vengeance repayment belongs to the Lord and as we sit between these two moments I want to read something for you it is a well

Known passage in John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should

Not perish but have eternal life that's the cross for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world that's

The cross but in order that the world might be saved through him that's the cross whoever believes in him is condemned that's the

Cross but whoever does not believe is condemned already that's the sword because he has not believed in the name of the only son

Of God that's the cross and the king whoever believes in the son has eternal life that's the cross whoever does not obey the

Son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him that's the sword Romans says Paul's writing and he's talking to them about their sin

And how they judge me I want the sword I want repayment when I sin I just want you to be calm about it I didn't

Really mean it and Paul says you who judge do you not practice these same things and then he says do you not know

That God's grace and kindness are meant to lead you to repentance that the cross is to show you how much he loves you

That you might for with your unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourselves on the day of wrath here is the beautiful

Glorious good news of the gospel every single sin will be paid for there is not a sin that has been committed against you

There is not a crime that has been committed there is not a single person who has gotten away scot free there is not

Someone who was tried and not convicted and got to live out the rest of their days in peace that will not pay for

Their sin blood will be shed either on the cross or on the sword your sin will be paid for either on the cross

Or on the sword and we stand in the middle this is why John the Baptist comes and the Pharisees come to him he

Says who told you to flee from the wrath that is to come and that is the correct response to flee from the wrath

That is to come so for those parts of us that are Dinah and for those of us who are Dinah go to the

Cross where Jesus meets you and becomes you and clothes you and gives you his righteousness and washes you clean and makes you new

Go to the cross and for all the parts of us and all the times that we have been shechem and we harmed and

We hurt go to the cross where you can have your sin paid for the right blood shed for it because blood will be

Shed and for those of us who are Simeon and Levi and all the parts of us that has fury and rage towards the

Lack of justice and the God forgives you and he mends your heart and wait patiently for the day that he picks up the

Sword that belongs to him not to you there's hope in the cross but one day that hope will be gone the sky will

Rip open the king will return and every sin will be paid for the ones you think are hidden the ones you think no

One knows about there will be blood and it will either be his or it will be ours and those are the only two

Choices and if you have not placed your faith in Jesus run to him and ask him to forgive you and ask him to

Heal you and beg him to have his blood shed for your sin and this day that is a day of wrath becomes a

Day God on him on the cross that I'm forgiven and free not because I'm good not because I'm holy not because I'm worthy

But because I'm hiding behind Jesus and his blood covers me my sin will be paid for we can trust that all sin will

Be paid for Matt is going to come back up and we are going to sit for a moment he's going to sing a

Song far off as we sit in this moment waiting for those who have harmed us and hurt us to pay sitting in pain

And suffering that we feel like we can't shake trusting in the cross he's just going to sing and we're just going to sit

Feel free to sing with him pray trust rest focus on the words whatever we need to do my hope is that all around the

Room we would be running to the cross trusting in the sacrifice that was made on our behalf the hope that is given to

Us in our pain and God's supreme justice to either redeem sinners like us and to forgive them or to repay them and for

Many of us right now that's the choice you get to make and I would encourage you to flee the wrath that is to

Come and to run to the cross where your sin can be paid for where blood can be spilled and where you can be

Made new and be forgiven let's pray that we ask that in this moment your Holy Spirit would work that you would help us

To trust you and your supreme and glorious justice and for those of us who are so overwhelmed by anger that we would be able

To put the sword down and trust that you wield it properly and for those of us who feel dirty may we know that

We have been clothed in Christ if we just come to you that you will make us new you'll make us holy and blameless

And above reproach and Lord for those in this room and for those of us who have sin may you remind us to hide

Behind the cross again that your wrath has been poured out our guilt is gone there is no condemnation for those who are in

Christ Jesus praise be to his glorious grace and for those who have not trusted in you we ask Lord that they would only

Know you in the cross and would never face your sword in Jesus name Amen

The Word of the Lord

The Word of the Lord

Chet Phillips

Transcript

We're going to talk about why, and we're going to talk about this gospel proclamation. So grab your Bibles, go to Romans chapter 1. We're going to be in three different places in Romans today. We're going to Romans 1, then we'll go to Romans 5, then we'll go to Romans 10, as we talk about why, as we talk about, why would we spend our time, proclaiming the gospel, and seeing people grow up in the gospel, so that they might proclaim the gospel. That's what discipling is, that we would share the gospel, people would become Christians, they would grow to the point, that they could share the gospel, and train others to follow Jesus.

Let's pray, and then we'll begin reading in Romans 1. Father, we thank you, for how good you are, and for this time we get to spend this morning in your word, and we pray that it would be fruitful, and effective, and that your Holy Spirit would move in us, that we might commit to being people, who share the gospel, and that you might center in us, ground in us, why we can do nothing else. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll look in verse 16. This is Paul writing to the church in Rome, and he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel. The gospel is the news of Jesus, the proclamation of the news of Jesus, what he had done on the cross for us, that he paid for our sins.

So he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it, for this message, this news, is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it, in the gospel, in this message, in Jesus' work on our behalf, in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Now this is kind of his thesis statement as he carries out the rest of this book, but what he's saying is, I'm not ashamed of this news, because it's where we get salvation. It's the power of the gospel, the power of God for salvation, is in this message, that Jesus Christ died for sinners, that he rose again, and that from faith, for faith, we get righteousness, which means, that you don't bring your own righteousness to the table, you get it, by having faith in Jesus, and he gives it to those with faith, so that we have faith, it's from faith, it's for faith, that we trust him, that everybody comes forward as a Christian and says, it's all on you, Jesus, I'm trusting you, I'm not holding anything back, I'm not trusting in myself, I'm trusting you.

By having faith in Jesus, and he gives it to those with faith, so that we have faith, it's from faith, it's for faith, that we trust him, that everybody comes forward as a Christian and says, it's all on you, Jesus, I'm trusting you, I'm not holding anything back, I'm not trusting in myself, I'm trusting you. And so as I read that, and I just spent some time this week thinking about the idea of being ashamed, or being not ashamed, being unashamed, and I know that if you ask me, are you ashamed of the gospel, I would answer, no. And the reason I would answer no,

Is because, I don't think I'm ashamed of the gospel, and secondarily, I know I'm not supposed to be ashamed of the gospel, I want to be like Paul, where he says he's unashamed, and there's this idea throughout the scriptures, that we're to proclaim Jesus, we're to hold him up, we're to be not ashamed of him, and that he won't be ashamed of us, and so I think for most of us as Christians, if you asked, are you ashamed of the gospel, you'd say, no. And if you've been around the church for a while, maybe in your head, you'd start being like, no, it's the power of God, for salvation, like I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Now,

I want to change subject for just a second, to help us picture this idea of shame, I, some of y'all may not follow this section of news, as I have some unfortunate news to share with you, if you haven't been keeping up with it, something terrible happened, on Monday night, my wife and I, were on vacation, we got to go on a free trip, they said, do you want to go, it's free, I said free is my first cousin, we would love to go, but even while we were on vacation, this news reached us, the Clemson Tigers, won the national championship, in college football, now this is terrible news, some of y'all again, don't follow this,

Don't pay attention to this, but you live in Columbia, South Carolina, the home of the Gamecocks, I am a Carolina fan, and as we were going to travel, we went and got on an airplane in Columbia, where there shouldn't be Clemson fans, but they've infected the whole state, and we saw so much orange and purple, two very ugly colors, that they've mixed together for some reason, and these people were very proud, and they're on their way, to the national championship, and I remember thinking, like I was sitting near them, and I remember thinking, like I was glad, I didn't just accidentally, wear some Gamecock stuff, because I don't want to have to talk, to them about it, that's all it was,

It was like I realized, I didn't want to get in a conversation, because the truth is, as a Gamecock fan, those conversations, haven't been going well, for the last five years or so, they're not good conversations, and Carolina's not doing great, and Clemson's got continually better, they looked amazing on Monday night, it hurt my feelings to watch, and here's what happened, like I just realized, and I remember thinking about it later, and I was like, why was that, like what was that feeling, that feeling was shame, I was ashamed to have to talk, like I didn't want them to be like, oh yeah, how was y'all's bowl game, because they knew how our bowl game was,

First of all, we worked really hard, to barely make it to that bowl game, just to have our feelings hurt, and so I got to thinking about it, and the truth is, for a lot of us as Christians, we would say we're unashamed, but at the moment, we come to, maybe I should tell this person, about Jesus, is there something in us, that goes, I don't really want to talk about that, I don't really want to be that guy, I don't really want to be that girl, I don't want to, wouldn't that make things weird, I saw a comedian stand up, he said I'd love for everybody, I hope everybody's having a good night, I hope everybody's comfortable, and since I want everybody to be comfortable,

I'd love to speak with you, tonight about Jesus, everybody busts out laughing, because, they're immediately uncomfortable, like I know, that when I have to tell people, I'm a pastor, I don't even have to say Jesus, I just say ask me what I do, and I'm like here we go, this is going to get weird, you can't tell people you're a pastor, without it getting kind of weird you guys, they're either way too excited, they got a lot of questions, they got a lot of stories, or they're like oh, you can see them thinking, like it's okay, how do I leave, like it, that's just saying pastor, it's not even saying Jesus,

Is there something in us, at that moment, when we're like oh, maybe I should share, maybe I should say something, maybe they need to hear this, it goes oh, but what would that do, would that be weird, and is that in us, shame, for people who would declare, I am unashamed of the gospel, is there something, that we trip over, in our own hearts, when it comes time, to actually tell somebody, about the goodness of the gospel, and we believe it's good, you know who's not ashamed, right now, Clemson fans, and do you know why,

They're not ashamed right now, Clemson is really, really good, and do you know why, we are to be unashamed, of the gospel, because it is really, really good, far better than Clemson, the gospel is good, so grab your Bible, so if you've already, hold them, go to Romans 5, as we talk about why, why would I spend my time, sharing this, why would I go out of my way, why would I jump that hurdle, of hesitation, why would I push past, into the awkwardness, why would I do this, the first answer,

Is that the gospel, is too good, this news, is too good, and so we're going to read this, we're just going to talk about, how good it is for a second, we're going to remind ourselves, how good it is for a second, because for some reason, we get caught up in life, we get to following Jesus, and we forget, how good this is, maybe it's because we've forgotten, how lost we used to be, Romans 5 chapter 6, for while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died, for the ungodly, now that sounds like, a not very godly thing to do, Jesus,

The son of God, God the son, is coming to rescue, humanity, and who does he rescue, the ungodly, now I don't know, if y'all are familiar, with basic English, but that's the opposite, of godliness, he's godly, who does he rescue, the ungodly, now if you're ungodly, that's really good news, that he comes to rescue you, at your worst, at your ugliest, at your meanest, at your pettiest, at your most despicable, that that is who, Jesus redeems,

That is who Jesus dies for, is the ungodly, let's keep going, because this news, gets better and better, for one will scarcely die, for a righteous person, though perhaps, for a good person, one would dare, even to die, but God shows his love, for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, he shows his love for us, he says, some people would dare die, for a good person, that maybe you would, you would know of a good person, who is worth dying for,

Maybe you know, this happens with like, the secret service, or whatever, they're like, this person's life, is valuable to the country, so I'm willing to die for them, that like, we understand that concept, but he says, who dies for scoundrels, who dies for people, who are basically human garbage, someone who loves them, that's what he says, that Jesus loves the ungodly, that he dies, while we're still sinners, that while we were still weak, that he redeems us, do you know how good, that news is, you see,

We're tempted to believe, that the way that we go to salvation, in Christ, the way that we come to salvation, in Christ, is much like getting a mortgage, like he's going to check, your credit history, and you need to show, some credit worthiness, that you know, he's got the money, he's, I know Jesus saves, I know Jesus saves, he's the one with the money, I realize, I got to go to him, do the interview, fill out the paperwork, I get that, I can't save myself, I don't have the net worth, but he does,

I understand that, and so this is how people, think about it, like yeah, I can go get salvation, from Jesus, but, you know, he's going to check my credit, I got to show credit worthiness, or if I don't have, any credit worthiness, I'm not really going to bring that up, I'm going to bring pay stubs, super good Jesus, like I, don't look at that, look at future me, maybe it's a little bit of both, you also, maybe you kind of think, there's like an interest rate thing, where like, well he was pretty good,

Jesus saved him, but like he didn't have as much to pay back, I was super bad, Jesus saves me, I got a higher interest rate, I got more to do, that's not what it says, he doesn't take people with good credit, he takes people to get that 39% APR, that they don't even tell you about, that's who he gets, he's the buy here, pay here, people like you, you go like he, you don't have to have credit, no credit, no money down, no nothing, you just show up and say, hey, I really don't deserve anything, and he says, this is my team,

Do you know how good that is, because the truth is, even you, who believe you have good credit, have zero before God, that's what Paul spends his time doing, in the first four chapters of this, he says, those people are terrible, they're the worst, they've rebelled against God, that's all Romans 1, they've sinned, they've replaced God with idols, and he gets everybody going, yeah, those people, and then in chapter 2, he goes, so you have no excuse, those who judge, and you're like, why did you, why we were talking about them,

Why did you bring me into this, and he spends the rest of the time, saying that good works, and good morals, aren't going to save you, and then he comes here, and he says, he died for sinners, he died to save the ungodly, and if you know you're a sinner, and you know you're ungodly, that's good news, it's also good news, for all your sinner friends, and your sinner relatives, that he loves us, we're going to put verse 9, and through 11 up here, and we're going to talk through this, so this is, he saves, he dies for the ungodly, he dies to rescue those, who don't deserve it,

Who have no credit history, no future pay stubs, who only bring debt, all I have is debt, I have nothing else, I just bring debt, he pays that off, he dies for us, to redeem us, to buy us back, since therefore, we have now been justified, by his blood, much more shall we be saved, by him from the wrath of God, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his son, first thing I want to show us there, is it says, we have now been justified, by his blood, that if you are in Christ, you are justified,

By his blood, justified is a legal term, which means that if you went to court, you would be declared, not guilty, that if you are in Christ, his blood has covered you, so that you have no record of debt, you have no record of sin, that we think sometimes, when we go to judgment, he is going to pull up, every bad thing we have ever done, not if you are in Christ, we are declared not guilty, more than that, that is all that our legal system, will declare you, is not guilty, God is going to declare us innocent, because we are blameless, and above reproach in Christ, that if you are in Jesus, you are justified,

By his blood, you have been made right, you walk out scot free, in a legal sense, but it says, it didn't stop there, he says that we are saved by him, from the wrath of God, so that we are not just justified, but that we are saved, this idea that we are saved, from the wrath of God, or that Jesus absorbs, the wrath of God, so if you have the word justification, which is a big Bible word, this is the word propitiation, for those of you who care, about those sort of things, I will say it again, and for those of you, don't ignore the next second, propitiation, that he absorbs wrath,

On our behalf, so that it's not just, that we are made holy, before him, it's not just that we are justified, that we get to walk out, in a legal sense, but that actually, he absorbs the wrath, that we deserve, because Romans 1 says, that wrath is coming, towards the ungodly, and then it says, that he saves the ungodly, but then he keeps going, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his son, much more now, that we are reconciled, shall we be saved, by his life, more than that,

We also rejoice in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, we have now received, reconciliation, reconciliation, means that we are, brought back in, we're made right with God, and we are brought to neutral, and he's like, alright, not guilty, but I better not, see you back in here, he's like, alright, not guilty, you wanna go grab a hot dog, like he, he invites us in, he brings us in, we're reconciled, our relationship is good,

I have a three year old son, so I am learning, how to parent, consistently, every day, he is challenging, he's great, but he's also challenging, and I really love, being a daddy, and the opportunities I get, but I, my wife and I are always like, I just, you know, parenting, you don't get to think, you just, you just have to go, and then you get to think, so like I've entered into situations, and I'm like, well I finished the situation, but goodness,

That shouldn't go that way next time, so I'm always like, you know, I go into parenting, and Anna and I, like she coaches me up, we talk about it, or whatever, it doesn't go well, when she tries in the middle of everything, to coach me up, but it goes better, if we get to discuss it later, because as soon as she shows up, he's like, my advocate's here, excuse me, if you'll just speak with my legal counsel, from now on, thank you, so it goes better, when in the situation, I get to handle things, we talk about it later,

But the other day, I was doing stuff with him, and when he's getting more amped up, I get more amped up, and I don't get loud, I've never been a loud person, I don't shout, I just get intense, and so I do this, I say, boy, let me tell you something right now, and I was talking to him, and he was getting louder, so I was being more intense, or whatever, and I came out, and the situation didn't go super well, you know, I parented through it, it's fine, but it wasn't my best work, I came out, and Anna said,

You're talking to him too intensely, like it's too much for a three year old, she said, I honestly think the way you're talking, you might, could make some grown men cry, and I was like, baby, you really think I can make a grown man cry? You know, just the sort of thing to say to me, she felt like I focused on the wrong part, so, but one of the things I've had to learn with him, is that like, it's not just that, like I, kids have parents for a reason, they don't, they don't have good sense, they need adults around them, there's a reason why they're not like, you know, I watched a TV show about iguanas,

And those things like, born and they can run off, and go do their own thing, your child can't, because it needs you there, making decisions for it, for a very long time, but one of the things I've realized, is as I correct him, and as I discipline him, one of the things I've started doing, is I just afterwards, I hug him, I tell him I love him, I get down on my knee, you know, the other day, he had gotten in trouble for something, and he got popped, and I said, you can go play, and he said, wait daddy, you forgot the part where you hug me,

And I was like, yeah, dude, come here, it's a good point, I'm glad you know the system, he wouldn't, I don't think he'd be like, what about the part where I get spanked, he probably wouldn't do that, but the hug, he remembers, and that's what that says, that we're reconciled, that he doesn't just say, okay, I've made some people even with me now, you're not guilty, it says, no, that he brings us in, that he loves us, that you're right with God, that when he thinks of you,

He thinks fondly of you, that he enjoys you, that you're reconciled, that your relationship with him is good, because of Jesus, do you know how good that is, he goes on, this is what we're covering in this section, but he also talks about in Romans 8, that we're adopted, that it's not just our relationships, right, but that he brings us into the family, other places talk about, that he does expiation, which means that he takes everything, that's ever happened to us, everything that would be on our record, he removes it, everything that's ever, all the sin that's been committed against us, all our shame, he cleans us, this news is too good,

For us to have even a twinge of shame, when it comes to telling somebody about it, it's too good, it's too eternally good, and too eternally urgent, it's too soul satisfying, that we would even trip, or have a hint of a, this propels us forward, and here's the thing, it's not just that it's too good, the stakes are too high, because if you don't have Christ, everything we just talked about, is flipped on its head, that when you stand before him, he does have a record of your guilt, you are not justified, you will not be declared not guilty, you will not leave that courtroom, that when you meet him, it will not be a moment of reconciliation, you will not get the hug, you do not get welcomed in,

You are not adopted, that you will stand before your judge, and your maker, on your own account, and it will not go well, and that rightfully, and justly, you will bear the wrath of God, because Jesus did not bear it for you, on the cross, and that is true, infinitely, eternally true, for everyone outside of Christ, now he died for the ungodly, which means that everybody is welcomed in, who will follow him, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not spend our time, sharing it, for us to keep this to ourselves, you think about your life with Jesus, if you are in Christ,

And how you handle your life, when you are faced with anxiety, when you are overwhelmed, you see when you are talking to people at work, or you are talking to your neighbors, or you are just enjoying a friendship, with somebody who doesn't know Christ, they are going to talk to you about their life, and life is messy, and life is sinful, and life is hurtful, and life is fearful, and they are going to talk about, their fears for the future, and their fears for their children, and how difficult they are having, time in their marriage, and how anxious they are over money, or over how this job may not work out, or they have got a new boss, and they are not sure, if the new boss likes them, and they are going to talk about, all these things in life,

And the truth is, if you were walking through this, with yourself, or with someone in your community group, what would you be saying, I am dealing with anxiety, I am going to remind myself, that there is a God, who rules over the universe, that he is sovereign, that he tells me, that if I am fearful and anxious, I actually have no ability, to accomplish anything, but that he is good, and I can cast my cares on him, but I am worried about the future, if I really, you want to know, if I really get worried, about the future, you know you can pick up your Bible, and jump to the back end of Revelation, and see how it is going to shake out,

There is a part in there, where it says, everybody who loves Jesus, is gathered around the throne, in a place where there are no tears, and there is no suffering, and there is no night anymore, and there is no pain anymore, and that he welcomes them in, and that we get to spend eternity there, and sometimes, when you are fearful about the future, just go to the back end of Revelation, and say the future is going to be fine, for those who are in Christ, when you are worried about, being able to pay bills, don't you remind yourself, that Jesus looked at some people, and said, consider the ravens, they don't toil, they don't have barns, but they eat every day,

Look at the lilies, they don't sow, they don't spin, but they look better than Solomon ever did, you remind yourself, that you are going to be cared for, that he loves you, when you feel down, and shameful, and dirty, and all the enemy has been doing, is bringing up everything wrong, you've ever done, do you remind yourself, that one day, you'll be clothed in righteousness, that Jesus will stand in your place, that you will be justified, that you're holy, and blameless, and loved, and welcomed, and that he adores you, because he adores Christ,

And that Christ has swapped places with you, and then we have a co-worker, talking to us about their anxiety, and we have the shameful audacity, to say yeah, sounds awful, and to hold our hope, and not share it, when they talk about their fear, for their children, and their fear for their future, and we have the audacity, to say yeah, I deal with that too, but without telling them the cure, that there's a God, who works, and who redeems, who they can know, who loves them, who loves them, and they can know him, and he can work in them, and for them,

Because he's good, and we just say yeah, doctors are scary, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not learn how to respond, and for us to not be active in this, turn to Romans 10, we're going to pick up in verse 8, Paul's talking about the gospel, he's referring to some Old Testament passages, and that's why he says, but what does it say, quote in Old Testament passage, the word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that is, the word of faith, that we proclaim, so he's talking about the gospel there, this word is near you, it's in your mouth, and in your heart,

This gospel, this truth about Jesus, and who he is, he says, because if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes, and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses, and is saved, for the scripture says, everyone who believes in him, will not be put to shame, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved, there is not a person in the history of the world, who has cried out to God, and said,

I need you, I need your help, I can't do this on my own, that was put to shame, that that turned out to be a mistake, there is not a person in the history of the world, that has claimed, Jesus I love you, I need you, I need your help, I know I am a sinner, I know all I bring is debt, but I need you to redeem me, that was not, and will not be saved, by Christ, everyone, so this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, and everyone who believes, will be saved, everyone, think of the worst person you know, that person,

Will be saved, if they believe, and if it's you, if the only person you can think of, that you think is terrible is you, you will be saved, if you trust Jesus, he loves you enough to die for you, while you were a sinner, not waiting for you to clean yourself up, let's keep going, 14, how will they call on him, in whom they have not believed, so he says, all who call on the name of the Lord, will be saved, but he says, how are they going to call on him, if they don't believe in him, because if they don't know what he does, and how good he is, and what he's accomplished, they're not going to,

Nobody's going to call on him, you understand the logic there, and how are they to believe in him, and whom they have never heard, and how are they to hear, without someone preaching, now most of the time, when you think about preaching, you think about what's going on right now, what I'm doing this very moment, this is preaching, I don't know why you laughed, it is, but what he means there, is preaching is a broader term, than just what happens on a Sunday, in a church, church, it means to proclaim the gospel, to tell of the gospel, to tell the good news, of the gospel, and so it also happens at gas stations, and in dorm rooms,

That the gospel can be shared, and proclaimed anywhere, so he says, how will they call on him, if they haven't believed, and how are they going to believe, if they haven't heard, and how are they going to hear, without somebody preaching, and how are they going to preach, unless they are sent, those last two ones, are the ones that we get involved in, we preach, and we send, as Christians, that's what we're supposed to do, that's discipleship, that's teaching them to obey everything, is sending, is that we're proclaiming, we're training somebody up, and we're sending them out, to go proclaim this gospel,

And having them, having people be baptized, in the name of the son, is us proclaiming the gospel, so that we proclaim it, we preach it, we tell people about it, we see people baptized, we train them up, we send them out, this is why we always talk about, multiplying our groups, because we want to multiply our groups, because we want to see more people, in more areas, in more times, during the week, with more room at a table, to see people proclaiming the gospel, we want to see, a group in Irmo, and a group in Gaston, we want to see, this continue to move,

And more people be welcomed in, and more people invited in, because there's more people, in this city proclaiming the gospel, we got, right around 80, members, in our church family, people committed to membership, we've got around 100 adults, in groups, and our goal, our prayer, is that that would be 100 preachers, it'd be 80 preachers, people that are going around, and so unashamed, of this gospel, they're telling people about it, how are they to preach, unless they're sent, as it is written, how beautiful, are the feet,

Of those who preach, the good news, so that's, that's this, this idea, that as you travel, you know, your feet would get, dusty or dirty, or grosser, as you travel, as you go around, but he's saying, it's the opposite, that there's beautiful feet, that those who carry good news, those who bring you good news, have beautiful feet, say that to someone, next time they tell you good news, they tell you good news, and you just say, wow, those are some good looking feet,

But that's what he's saying, that we get to be that, that we get to carry good news, he says, but they have not all obeyed, the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed, what he's heard from us, so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, so some people would say, well not everybody's going to believe, right, but some will, some will believe this news, you did, and how many people, after you believed the gospel, and Jesus began to change you, were like, wait, who?

Nah, do we need to go back, to your high school reunion, I'll go with you, so this person follows Jesus now, look at people's faces, some of you, you were the most unlikely candidate, but people will believe, this news is good, what Jesus does, and who he is, and what he's accomplished for us, there's a couple of things, that I think crop up, as soon as we start talking about, that we would go around, sharing the gospel, first there's this idea, that it would make us weird, I think it's worth being weird for, honestly, if the culture doesn't like, talking about Jesus,

They're confused about who he is, and as soon as they know him, they think it's a good idea, so okay, let's be okay with that one, let's roll past that, that little bit of shame, where it's like, I think people will think, I'm like a Jesus person, and I think that's a good way, to be defined, I think sometimes we go, okay, but I'm too busy, I have to make special time, for this, I'd have to try to figure out, like what, I got to start going to five points, and just yelling at people, you can, probably won't be the most effective, but people do believe that way sometimes,

Most of us, that's not that true though, you have a 40 hour week Job, or you go to school, or you live in a dorm, and you are surrounded by people, who need to know this news, some of you have children, or multiple children, and they don't know the gospel yet, and you ought to be active, in proclaiming the gospel to them, another thing that happens, is people think, well I have to be perfect, if I'm going to start telling people, Jesus, I got to get my act together, well first of all, it's not a bad idea, for you to start repenting of sin, and getting your act together, so I'm not against that idea, but the concept,

Of I have to be perfect, to share the gospel, is not a biblical concept, it's actually nonsense, because if the gospel, is that you're a really, well behaved person, you don't understand the gospel, the gospel is that you're ungodly, and that Jesus saves sinners, so that when I do something, really terrible, I had somebody say, well I can't share the gospel at work, because I get mad and cuss, like bro, the gospel is that Jesus saves sinners, not well behaved, perfect people, there are times that I do things, and people are like, man you do that, aren't you a preacher, I'm like yeah,

Jesus saves sinners, people who act like a complete fool, you saw me at Walmart with my son, yeah, sinners, people who don't do right, that's who he saves, that he works to redeem, those who are broken, so if you say, well if I do this, and it's not good or whatever, then I've messed it up, it's like no you haven't, the gospel is that Jesus is good, not that you are, that he saves people like you, do you know how refreshing, and hopeful that is to people, now continually change, and repent, and ask for forgiveness, certainly, the other thing is,

That we'll think, well I have to know everything, no you don't, I have to know everything, I have to have every answer, what if they ask me this, what if they ask me that, what if I say this, and they're like, alright, I believe in Jesus, tell me about dinosaurs, first of all, dinosaurs is not the route to Jesus, so they won't, that's not how that works, secondly, they may have some questions, and you can say, I don't know, let's talk about it, but you know enough, if you follow Jesus, you know enough,

You know he saved sinners, you know he saved you, we're going to talk more about that next week, specifically how to share, this news is too good, the stakes are too high, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone will believe, but some will, the news is too good, the stakes are too high, not everyone, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone, will believe, but some will, so I want to ask you this, if you become active, in sharing your faith, this becomes a normal part, of your life, that you're praying,

To the Lord, and saying, give me opportunities, lead me to people, who are receptive, help me to have windows, where I can share, how I would think about anxiety, how I think about the future, how I think about parenting, help me have windows, where I can tell people, how good Jesus is, let me ask you a question, how many times, could you tell people, about Jesus this next year, if you became active in this, if you committed to, this is too good, and I'm going to share it, because that's what we want to do first, we want to commit to why, we want to commit to,

Yes I'm going to do this, I want to have beautiful feet, they ain't so pretty right now, but I want them to be beautiful, by the end of next year, what's that look like, how many people can you share the gospel with, and I'm not saying, it's like a challenge to, to like we all got to pick a number, but what I'm saying is like, if you think about it, and you can share the gospel, with five people this next year, five people that you know, that you care about, that you're around, let me ask you a question, what if one believes, what if their eternity is changed, what if you end up being able, to share the gospel once a month, what if all 100 of our preachers do, and 1200 more people,

Get to hear how good Jesus is, isn't that a good year, isn't that 1200 people, who are blessed, with some really helpful information, sometimes we say, well they know I'm a Christian, so they'll ask, they don't think they need Jesus, because they don't know what he does, they don't know how good he is, Bianca's going to come back up, she's going to play the piano for a minute, we're going to take communion here in a second, but here's, I want us to consider for a second, I want you to sit and think for a second, that if you are a Christian, I want you to ask the Lord, am I ashamed of the gospel, where is that, what's causing that, and I want us to repent, I want us to ask him to help us,

And I want us to grow, to be active, in telling people about him, we're going to talk about how next week, but that we ought to, that why matters, now some of us, it's enough for you to know, that Jesus told us to, you didn't need today, you're like Jesus told me to, I'm going to, and that's a good reason, but it's such good news, and the stakes are too high, for us to not be active in this, so our prayers, we've been kind of setting some, goals for ourselves, and we'll talk about this, at the end of every sermon this year, at the end of every sermon this series, as we've set some goals for ourselves, our prayer,

Is that our church family, our community groups, that each of us would be active, in sharing our faith, because I want to guarantee you something, if you spend the rest of your days, telling people about Jesus, that some will believe, and everyone who believes, will be saved, nobody who calls on the name of the Lord, will be put to shame, it's worth it, that there are going to be days, without end, where we are with the Lord, and that means that everything, in this life is going to pale, in comparison, it's going to fade, except for Christ, who will shine in eternal glory, so I want us to ask, am I ashamed,

And I want us to pray, that we wouldn't be, and I want us to commit, I want you to take the time, to genuinely commit yourself, to the Lord today, and say I'm, no I'm going to, I'm going to share the gospel, I'm going to begin doing this, I'm going to figure out how, so that some, might believe, you don't have to be perfect, you're not going to have to do it excellently, that puts all the weight on you, that's not the gospel, it's Jesus who saves, but I'm going to do this, and we're going to figure out how together, and if you're in this room this morning, and you, have not, called on Jesus,

You've not run to him, with your debt, you still are trying, to get your resume together, your credit history, your pay stubs for a future, whatever you're going to do, that's nonsense, Jesus saves the ungodly, and I would ask you, to run to him, to him who loves, sinners, and redeems them, and welcomes them, and adopts them, justifies them, reconciles them to God, brings them into the family, and glorifies them, and his glory for eternity, all because he's great, and those who run to him, won't be put to shame,

So take a moment to pray, as she plays, she's going to play for a little while, and then when you're ready, we'll take communion, communion is a physical representation, of what Jesus has accomplished, for us on the cross, that he literally died, that he was buried, that he rose again, that his body was broken, his blood was shed, and that we as the church, remind ourselves, how much we need the gospel, and how good it is, so if you are a Christian, we would invite you, to take communion, if you are not a Christian, we would invite you, to trust in Jesus, but if you have not yet done that,

We would not invite you, to take communion, so we're going to pray, she's going to play, and in a moment, when you're ready, we'll take communion, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit, would be active, right now, to lead us, that we might, genuinely commit ourselves, to you, to be, preachers, where we work, and where we live, and where we, play, that we might, share this good news, that we would not,

Keep it to ourselves, in those moments, that you would help us, to be unashamed, and we ask Lord, that some might, hear, believe, and call on you today, in Jesus name,

You're talking to him too intensely, like it's too much for a three year old, she said, I honestly think the way you're talking, you might, could make some grown men cry, and I was like, baby, you really think I can make a grown man cry? You know, just the sort of thing to say to me, she felt like I focused on the wrong part, so, but one of the things I've had to learn with him, is that like, it's not just that, like I, kids have parents for a reason, they don't, they don't have good sense, they need adults around them, there's a reason why they're not like, you know, I watched a TV show about iguanas,

And those things like, born and they can run off, and go do their own thing, your child can't, because it needs you there, making decisions for it, for a very long time, but one of the things I've realized, is as I correct him, and as I discipline him, one of the things I've started doing, is I just afterwards, I hug him, I tell him I love him, I get down on my knee, you know, the other day, he had gotten in trouble for something, and he got popped, and I said, you can go play, and he said, wait daddy, you forgot the part where you hug me,

And I was like, yeah, dude, come here, it's a good point, I'm glad you know the system, he wouldn't, I don't think he'd be like, what about the part where I get spanked, he probably wouldn't do that, but the hug, he remembers, and that's what that says, that we're reconciled, that he doesn't just say, okay, I've made some people even with me now, you're not guilty, it says, no, that he brings us in, that he loves us, that you're right with God, that when he thinks of you,

He thinks fondly of you, that he enjoys you, that you're reconciled, that your relationship with him is good, because of Jesus, do you know how good that is, he goes on, this is what we're covering in this section, but he also talks about in Romans 8, that we're adopted, that it's not just our relationships, right, but that he brings us into the family, other places talk about, that he does expiation, which means that he takes everything, that's ever happened to us, everything that would be on our record, he removes it, everything that's ever, all the sin that's been committed against us, all our shame, he cleans us, this news is too good,

For us to have even a twinge of shame, when it comes to telling somebody about it, it's too good, it's too eternally good, and too eternally urgent, it's too soul satisfying, that we would even trip, or have a hint of a, this propels us forward, and here's the thing, it's not just that it's too good, the stakes are too high, because if you don't have Christ, everything we just talked about, is flipped on its head, that when you stand before him, he does have a record of your guilt, you are not justified, you will not be declared not guilty, you will not leave that courtroom, that when you meet him, it will not be a moment of reconciliation, you will not get the hug, you do not get welcomed in,

You are not adopted, that you will stand before your judge, and your maker, on your own account, and it will not go well, and that rightfully, and justly, you will bear the wrath of God, because Jesus did not bear it for you, on the cross, and that is true, infinitely, eternally true, for everyone outside of Christ, now he died for the ungodly, which means that everybody is welcomed in, who will follow him, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not spend our time, sharing it, for us to keep this to ourselves, you think about your life with Jesus, if you are in Christ,

And how you handle your life, when you are faced with anxiety, when you are overwhelmed, you see when you are talking to people at work, or you are talking to your neighbors, or you are just enjoying a friendship, with somebody who doesn't know Christ, they are going to talk to you about their life, and life is messy, and life is sinful, and life is hurtful, and life is fearful, and they are going to talk about, their fears for the future, and their fears for their children, and how difficult they are having, time in their marriage, and how anxious they are over money, or over how this job may not work out, or they have got a new boss, and they are not sure, if the new boss likes them, and they are going to talk about, all these things in life,

And the truth is, if you were walking through this, with yourself, or with someone in your community group, what would you be saying, I am dealing with anxiety, I am going to remind myself, that there is a God, who rules over the universe, that he is sovereign, that he tells me, that if I am fearful and anxious, I actually have no ability, to accomplish anything, but that he is good, and I can cast my cares on him, but I am worried about the future, if I really, you want to know, if I really get worried, about the future, you know you can pick up your Bible, and jump to the back end of Revelation, and see how it is going to shake out,

There is a part in there, where it says, everybody who loves Jesus, is gathered around the throne, in a place where there are no tears, and there is no suffering, and there is no night anymore, and there is no pain anymore, and that he welcomes them in, and that we get to spend eternity there, and sometimes, when you are fearful about the future, just go to the back end of Revelation, and say the future is going to be fine, for those who are in Christ, when you are worried about, being able to pay bills, don't you remind yourself, that Jesus looked at some people, and said, consider the ravens, they don't toil, they don't have barns, but they eat every day,

Look at the lilies, they don't sow, they don't spin, but they look better than Solomon ever did, you remind yourself, that you are going to be cared for, that he loves you, when you feel down, and shameful, and dirty, and all the enemy has been doing, is bringing up everything wrong, you've ever done, do you remind yourself, that one day, you'll be clothed in righteousness, that Jesus will stand in your place, that you will be justified, that you're holy, and blameless, and loved, and welcomed, and that he adores you, because he adores Christ,

And that Christ has swapped places with you, and then we have a co-worker, talking to us about their anxiety, and we have the shameful audacity, to say yeah, sounds awful, and to hold our hope, and not share it, when they talk about their fear, for their children, and their fear for their future, and we have the audacity, to say yeah, I deal with that too, but without telling them the cure, that there's a God, who works, and who redeems, who they can know, who loves them, who loves them, and they can know him, and he can work in them, and for them,

Because he's good, and we just say yeah, doctors are scary, this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, for us to not learn how to respond, and for us to not be active in this, turn to Romans 10, we're going to pick up in verse 8, Paul's talking about the gospel, he's referring to some Old Testament passages, and that's why he says, but what does it say, quote in Old Testament passage, the word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that is, the word of faith, that we proclaim, so he's talking about the gospel there, this word is near you, it's in your mouth, and in your heart,

This gospel, this truth about Jesus, and who he is, he says, because if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes, and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses, and is saved, for the scripture says, everyone who believes in him, will not be put to shame, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved, there is not a person in the history of the world, who has cried out to God, and said,

I need you, I need your help, I can't do this on my own, that was put to shame, that that turned out to be a mistake, there is not a person in the history of the world, that has claimed, Jesus I love you, I need you, I need your help, I know I am a sinner, I know all I bring is debt, but I need you to redeem me, that was not, and will not be saved, by Christ, everyone, so this news is too good, and the stakes are too high, and everyone who believes, will be saved, everyone, think of the worst person you know, that person,

Will be saved, if they believe, and if it's you, if the only person you can think of, that you think is terrible is you, you will be saved, if you trust Jesus, he loves you enough to die for you, while you were a sinner, not waiting for you to clean yourself up, let's keep going, 14, how will they call on him, in whom they have not believed, so he says, all who call on the name of the Lord, will be saved, but he says, how are they going to call on him, if they don't believe in him, because if they don't know what he does, and how good he is, and what he's accomplished, they're not going to,

Nobody's going to call on him, you understand the logic there, and how are they to believe in him, and whom they have never heard, and how are they to hear, without someone preaching, now most of the time, when you think about preaching, you think about what's going on right now, what I'm doing this very moment, this is preaching, I don't know why you laughed, it is, but what he means there, is preaching is a broader term, than just what happens on a Sunday, in a church, church, it means to proclaim the gospel, to tell of the gospel, to tell the good news, of the gospel, and so it also happens at gas stations, and in dorm rooms,

That the gospel can be shared, and proclaimed anywhere, so he says, how will they call on him, if they haven't believed, and how are they going to believe, if they haven't heard, and how are they going to hear, without somebody preaching, and how are they going to preach, unless they are sent, those last two ones, are the ones that we get involved in, we preach, and we send, as Christians, that's what we're supposed to do, that's discipleship, that's teaching them to obey everything, is sending, is that we're proclaiming, we're training somebody up, and we're sending them out, to go proclaim this gospel,

And having them, having people be baptized, in the name of the son, is us proclaiming the gospel, so that we proclaim it, we preach it, we tell people about it, we see people baptized, we train them up, we send them out, this is why we always talk about, multiplying our groups, because we want to multiply our groups, because we want to see more people, in more areas, in more times, during the week, with more room at a table, to see people proclaiming the gospel, we want to see, a group in Irmo, and a group in Gaston, we want to see, this continue to move,

And more people be welcomed in, and more people invited in, because there's more people, in this city proclaiming the gospel, we got, right around 80, members, in our church family, people committed to membership, we've got around 100 adults, in groups, and our goal, our prayer, is that that would be 100 preachers, it'd be 80 preachers, people that are going around, and so unashamed, of this gospel, they're telling people about it, how are they to preach, unless they're sent, as it is written, how beautiful, are the feet,

Of those who preach, the good news, so that's, that's this, this idea, that as you travel, you know, your feet would get, dusty or dirty, or grosser, as you travel, as you go around, but he's saying, it's the opposite, that there's beautiful feet, that those who carry good news, those who bring you good news, have beautiful feet, say that to someone, next time they tell you good news, they tell you good news, and you just say, wow, those are some good looking feet,

But that's what he's saying, that we get to be that, that we get to carry good news, he says, but they have not all obeyed, the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed, what he's heard from us, so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, so some people would say, well not everybody's going to believe, right, but some will, some will believe this news, you did, and how many people, after you believed the gospel, and Jesus began to change you, were like, wait, who?

Nah, do we need to go back, to your high school reunion, I'll go with you, so this person follows Jesus now, look at people's faces, some of you, you were the most unlikely candidate, but people will believe, this news is good, what Jesus does, and who he is, and what he's accomplished for us, there's a couple of things, that I think crop up, as soon as we start talking about, that we would go around, sharing the gospel, first there's this idea, that it would make us weird, I think it's worth being weird for, honestly, if the culture doesn't like, talking about Jesus,

They're confused about who he is, and as soon as they know him, they think it's a good idea, so okay, let's be okay with that one, let's roll past that, that little bit of shame, where it's like, I think people will think, I'm like a Jesus person, and I think that's a good way, to be defined, I think sometimes we go, okay, but I'm too busy, I have to make special time, for this, I'd have to try to figure out, like what, I got to start going to five points, and just yelling at people, you can, probably won't be the most effective, but people do believe that way sometimes,

Most of us, that's not that true though, you have a 40 hour week Job, or you go to school, or you live in a dorm, and you are surrounded by people, who need to know this news, some of you have children, or multiple children, and they don't know the gospel yet, and you ought to be active, in proclaiming the gospel to them, another thing that happens, is people think, well I have to be perfect, if I'm going to start telling people, Jesus, I got to get my act together, well first of all, it's not a bad idea, for you to start repenting of sin, and getting your act together, so I'm not against that idea, but the concept,

Of I have to be perfect, to share the gospel, is not a biblical concept, it's actually nonsense, because if the gospel, is that you're a really, well behaved person, you don't understand the gospel, the gospel is that you're ungodly, and that Jesus saves sinners, so that when I do something, really terrible, I had somebody say, well I can't share the gospel at work, because I get mad and cuss, like bro, the gospel is that Jesus saves sinners, not well behaved, perfect people, there are times that I do things, and people are like, man you do that, aren't you a preacher, I'm like yeah,

Jesus saves sinners, people who act like a complete fool, you saw me at Walmart with my son, yeah, sinners, people who don't do right, that's who he saves, that he works to redeem, those who are broken, so if you say, well if I do this, and it's not good or whatever, then I've messed it up, it's like no you haven't, the gospel is that Jesus is good, not that you are, that he saves people like you, do you know how refreshing, and hopeful that is to people, now continually change, and repent, and ask for forgiveness, certainly, the other thing is,

That we'll think, well I have to know everything, no you don't, I have to know everything, I have to have every answer, what if they ask me this, what if they ask me that, what if I say this, and they're like, alright, I believe in Jesus, tell me about dinosaurs, first of all, dinosaurs is not the route to Jesus, so they won't, that's not how that works, secondly, they may have some questions, and you can say, I don't know, let's talk about it, but you know enough, if you follow Jesus, you know enough,

You know he saved sinners, you know he saved you, we're going to talk more about that next week, specifically how to share, this news is too good, the stakes are too high, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone will believe, but some will, the news is too good, the stakes are too high, not everyone, everyone who believes, will be saved, not everyone, will believe, but some will, so I want to ask you this, if you become active, in sharing your faith, this becomes a normal part, of your life, that you're praying,

To the Lord, and saying, give me opportunities, lead me to people, who are receptive, help me to have windows, where I can share, how I would think about anxiety, how I think about the future, how I think about parenting, help me have windows, where I can tell people, how good Jesus is, let me ask you a question, how many times, could you tell people, about Jesus this next year, if you became active in this, if you committed to, this is too good, and I'm going to share it, because that's what we want to do first, we want to commit to why, we want to commit to,

Yes I'm going to do this, I want to have beautiful feet, they ain't so pretty right now, but I want them to be beautiful, by the end of next year, what's that look like, how many people can you share the gospel with, and I'm not saying, it's like a challenge to, to like we all got to pick a number, but what I'm saying is like, if you think about it, and you can share the gospel, with five people this next year, five people that you know, that you care about, that you're around, let me ask you a question, what if one believes, what if their eternity is changed, what if you end up being able, to share the gospel once a month, what if all 100 of our preachers do, and 1200 more people,

Get to hear how good Jesus is, isn't that a good year, isn't that 1200 people, who are blessed, with some really helpful information, sometimes we say, well they know I'm a Christian, so they'll ask, they don't think they need Jesus, because they don't know what he does, they don't know how good he is, Bianca's going to come back up, she's going to play the piano for a minute, we're going to take communion here in a second, but here's, I want us to consider for a second, I want you to sit and think for a second, that if you are a Christian, I want you to ask the Lord, am I ashamed of the gospel, where is that, what's causing that, and I want us to repent, I want us to ask him to help us,

And I want us to grow, to be active, in telling people about him, we're going to talk about how next week, but that we ought to, that why matters, now some of us, it's enough for you to know, that Jesus told us to, you didn't need today, you're like Jesus told me to, I'm going to, and that's a good reason, but it's such good news, and the stakes are too high, for us to not be active in this, so our prayers, we've been kind of setting some, goals for ourselves, and we'll talk about this, at the end of every sermon this year, at the end of every sermon this series, as we've set some goals for ourselves, our prayer,

Is that our church family, our community groups, that each of us would be active, in sharing our faith, because I want to guarantee you something, if you spend the rest of your days, telling people about Jesus, that some will believe, and everyone who believes, will be saved, nobody who calls on the name of the Lord, will be put to shame, it's worth it, that there are going to be days, without end, where we are with the Lord, and that means that everything, in this life is going to pale, in comparison, it's going to fade, except for Christ, who will shine in eternal glory, so I want us to ask, am I ashamed,

And I want us to pray, that we wouldn't be, and I want us to commit, I want you to take the time, to genuinely commit yourself, to the Lord today, and say I'm, no I'm going to, I'm going to share the gospel, I'm going to begin doing this, I'm going to figure out how, so that some, might believe, you don't have to be perfect, you're not going to have to do it excellently, that puts all the weight on you, that's not the gospel, it's Jesus who saves, but I'm going to do this, and we're going to figure out how together, and if you're in this room this morning, and you, have not, called on Jesus,

You've not run to him, with your debt, you still are trying, to get your resume together, your credit history, your pay stubs for a future, whatever you're going to do, that's nonsense, Jesus saves the ungodly, and I would ask you, to run to him, to him who loves, sinners, and redeems them, and welcomes them, and adopts them, justifies them, reconciles them to God, brings them into the family, and glorifies them, and his glory for eternity, all because he's great, and those who run to him, won't be put to shame,

So take a moment to pray, as she plays, she's going to play for a little while, and then when you're ready, we'll take communion, communion is a physical representation, of what Jesus has accomplished, for us on the cross, that he literally died, that he was buried, that he rose again, that his body was broken, his blood was shed, and that we as the church, remind ourselves, how much we need the gospel, and how good it is, so if you are a Christian, we would invite you, to take communion, if you are not a Christian, we would invite you, to trust in Jesus, but if you have not yet done that,

We would not invite you, to take communion, so we're going to pray, she's going to play, and in a moment, when you're ready, we'll take communion, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit, would be active, right now, to lead us, that we might, genuinely commit ourselves, to you, to be, preachers, where we work, and where we live, and where we, play, that we might, share this good news, that we would not,

Keep it to ourselves, in those moments, that you would help us, to be unashamed, and we ask Lord, that some might, hear, believe, and call on you today, in Jesus name,