A Better Foundation: Free To Serve
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet virtually this week.
Transcript
Uh which means uh the fact that we believe that Jesus is better the the message of the Gospel that he went to the cross and the empty tomb because of that we get to live in the reality of grace because of that truth we as Christians and as a Church fight to stay rooted and centered in that and one of the ways that practically shows up on a sunday morning is that we are our gatherings are centered in the word so you're going to hear the some Scripture read this morning our songs come from the word of.
God we're going to preach that comes out of the word the word is what keeps us centered in the Gospel our groups do this as well our groups are smaller groups of our Church family that live life together uh in everyday life and also meet uh during the week one of the things we do regularly in groups is we open up the word because God has spoken a lot of times we're trying to figure out and pray and figure out what.
God wants for us which is good but he also has spoken in his word and in our groups we get to be molded and shaped into the image of Christ by studying his word so that's an encouragement for us as a Church not just in groups not just on sunday but to be also be in his word on a regular basis as we seek to live out being a Gospel centered community on mission uh if you are new welcome if you're joining us online.
For the first time welcome we're glad that you are joining us one of the easiest ways to get plugged into our Church is to check out our community groups you can go to our uh our website meal citycasey.com you can look at our community groups page you can fill out a form there and we would love to uh to to reach out to you to tell you about our groups tell you where they meet uh but we're glad you're joining us this morning we hope this morning is a blessing to you.
If you are not new and you call this Church home we invite you to give and to continue to give generously you can give by giving in the gift slots you can also give online as well but we walk out the Gospel in generosity and that is also opening up our wallets all right so just a couple of quick housekeeping tips first all the lights are not on in here and that's for a reason we're trying to keep it cool uh as we are getting ready in the next few weeks to change out the hvac unit that powers this which is a part of our larger construction plans which.
If you walked in you saw it's starting to change but one of the first changes that you'll notice is that that part of the hallway and those bathrooms are off limits so we have a couple different bathroom options if you need to use the restroom in this building right next to us if you are a man you can go downstairs into our kid city space we're not having kid city so you can go down there and use the restroom there for our ladies in that building right there you can also go up into our office and around the corner and there's a bathroom there also.
If you don't want to climb steps our fellow our fellowship hall two buildings over is open uh and you can use the restrooms there there's a men and women's restroom there all right so let me pray for us the guy prepare our hearts for worship and then i'm going to open us from psalm father thank you so much that we get to come and sit under the authority of your word that we get to hear it we get to read it together we get to sing songs from it and you get to mold us in shape as the preaching of your word got to pray that you would meet us here this morning we ask.
This in Jesus name amen if you're able stand i'm gonna call us to worship from psalm oh sing to the lord a new song sing to the lord all the earth sing to the lord bless his name tell of his salvation from day to day declare his glory among the nations his marvelous works among all the peoples for great is the lord and greatly to be praised he is to be feared above all gods for all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols.
But the lord made the heavens splendor and majesty are before him strength and beauty are in a sanctuary would you see with us call for songs fix the and here i am is is one two three we have been justified we have been justified by faker Jesus Christ but solely by his grace we stand once found thy sin and shame now slain righteousness making Jesus is glory of God oh great joy to sing about the lord savior Jesus Christ Jesus oh a reading from ephesians chapter 2 verses 2 12 through 18.
If you would please read the underlying portion portions along with me remember that you were at that time separated from Christ alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.
So a little bit last week we're going to take another step into that and really it's this if the if government is super supposed to promote what is good and hold at bay what is evil then you have to know what is good and what is evil you have to have an answer for that you have to know what is good and what is right and what is wrong and what is true and what is false we have to be able to answer those questions.
So that in order for us to agree on what government ought to do we have to have a fundamental answer to what is good and what is bad what is right and what is wrong and everybody's got to find that answer somewhere you need to be able to answer that question what is good how do you know or what is good why this is something i learned when i had a three-year-old who would ask why to everything you said and i realized i had a couple of options i could lose my mind seemed like it would be bad.
For the overall joy of our household and functioning i could just tell him to shut his mouth but i went with the third option which was try to make a game out of it and see how many of these questions i can answer and what i found was that if you hit me with a string of why questions long enough we will make it to God the father creator of the universe to the trinitarian God who has made all that we know.
So we stop in the truck and why'd we stop it's a red light why is there a red light and we would go and we would go from invention and creation to the dignity of human life because vehicles should just run into each other why we don't want people to die why don't we want people to die because God created man and woman in his own image he poured dignity and value in them why because he's good because he's trinitarian because he loves and he created humanity why that's it we made it to the end we're going to have to start a new line of questions.
But what i found was that my foundation if you ask why enough i made it back to God and the reality is we have to be able to answer questions that way why is this policy good why is this bad why is this wrong why why why eventually you'll make it back to your foundation you'll make it back to the root of your understanding of how things ought to function and so as Christians we have a different foundation which makes us into a different people.
So we participate differently i usually different three times we'll explain it better as we go but that's where we are we have a different foundation which makes us into a different people so we participate differently we don't look the same as the rest of our culture because we are believers so we just read in verse 13 but jump back up to chapter 2 verse 4. now this Paul is Peter is not directly addressing government and politics what he's talking about is much bigger.
But we're looking through the lens of how we ought to think about government and politics and i think this passage is helpful so first Peter chapter 2 verse 4. as you come to him that's Jesus a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ for it stands in Scripture.
Behold i am laying in zion a stone a cornerstone chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame that's Christ so the honors for you who believe but for those who do not believe the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone stumbling at a rock of a fence they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do as Paul's there for a second Christ is our cornerstone and we are being built up off of him.
Now a cornerstone was the chief stone they laid it first and it gave direction and alignment to the rest of the stones so we work our way back to Christ and he gives us direction and he keeps us in line but the rest of the world does not have Christ as their cornerstone does not work their way back to him as their foundation does not work their way back to him as their answer to why why why why why so we are fundamentally starting in a different place than the rest of the people around us even.
If they agree with us on certain things about unemployment benefits or the size of government or how voting ought to work we have a fundamentally different foundation from which we begin that he keeps us in line that he gives us direction and they stumble over they trip over this that they have not placed their hope in Christ they have not seen him as their foundation they're not built off of him those who do not believe in Jesus are starting from a different place and they do not obey and i love that i want to pause.
For just one second and point that out he's our cornerstone and they stumble over him because they disobey the opposite of that is what we do which would be obey yes it hurt to even think about it didn't it we obey i think that's really helpful because it doesn't say they stumble over him because they disagree and we agree they disobey and we obey the reason this is helpful is that as a Christian there is much in the Bible that you might begin in disagreement with that's to be expected you came to Christ.
Because you were a sinner because you realized that there was something wrong about you and the way you've treated people and the way you thought about the world and that you needed to be redeemed you needed to be fixed you needed hope you needed someone to die for you to make you write and then you read something in the Scriptures and you're like well i don't like that of course not you're messed up if you could have perfectly written this down you wouldn't have needed to.
Jesus to die for you there are things in here that we disagree with what do we do we obey that's extremely helpful specifically when it comes to us setting our alignment when it comes to what we ought to vote for and work for sometimes they're going to be things in here that we don't like that we actually like how our culture thinks about it ah i don't like that but i do like capitalism i don't like that but i do like what this professor has been teaching and the reality is they don't have the same foundation we have the same foundation and you have to stay in line with the cornerstone.
So we obey they disobey they stumble over it but here's the reality we use Christ to set for us our line to mark for us what is good what is right what is inbounds what is out of bounds that's what a cornerstone does now he does this in a spiritual way that he redeems us and makes us into a spiritual house but we're talking about our approach to politics our approach to government so this also applies and i think it's helpful.
For us but the reality is everybody is getting an answer to what is justice what's injustice what's equality what's inequality what's right what's wrong they all have to have an answer somewhere they have to have something that backs that up we have a foundation the rest of our world the rest of the us most of whom don't believe that there is a God don't have the same foundation i'd argue don't really have any foundation i want to read a bit from an article this was in the duke law journal it was written by arthur allen left he's a professor of yale law at yale law school and he's talking about law he's talking about where.
We get our laws and how we keep our laws and why do we hold to certain laws and not other laws that's what professor does so he's writing about this and his article is called unspeakable ethics unnatural law what he means about that ethics what's right and wrong law the system of government we have out of that what he means about that by being unspeakable and unnatural he's addressing the idea that there is objective moral law that is not made up by man.
But exists outside of humanity it's unnatural that's what he means by that and it's unspeakable meaning we didn't come up with it as Christians we believe this there's a God he speaks it down to us he gives Moses Moses doesn't go up on the mountain with the elders and they come up with their best idea of what the law should look like God hands him the law and says take it back down he argues that that doesn't exist that all law all ethics all morality all good bad and otherwise is made up by humanity that's the point of his article.
But at least he's honest about it he says this doesn't exist and then he says that's terrifying that life would be better if there was objective morality outside of us but it doesn't exist there is no God there is no objective morality all of it is us making it up that's what he talks about he says that we have to be able to answer what he calls the grand says who he says the ultimate bar room and school yard says who someone tells you you can't do that you can do this this is wrong it says who who puts you in charge who's to tell me what's right and wrong and he says the reality.
Is if we're the ones making it up we have no answer to says who other than says us says the majority says what i think is right we don't have anyone to appeal to there's no teacher in the classroom there's no one that speaks the law down to us does that make sense what he's talking about okay so this is how he ends his article all i can say is this it looks as if we are all we have given what we know about ourselves and each other this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect i i agree with him.
If we're all we have that is extraordinarily unappetizing that sounds awful looking around the world it appears that if all men are brothers the ruling model is cain and abel so he's honest he's intellectually honest he says there is no God and then he says step two uh-oh that sounds awful if we look around that's what we've got and it's gonna be bad he keeps going he says neither reason nor love nor even terror seems to have worked to make us good and worse than that there is no reason why anything should only.
If ethics were something unspeakable by us could law be unnatural and therefore unchallengeable so he's saying if it came down from God then it would be beyond us and we wouldn't be able to challenge it but since it doesn't and we've just made it up we're in trouble and this is what we said last week that this is where good government is a good gift to us breaks down that it can't make us good it can't fix us so he keeps going as things.
Now stand everything is up for grabs think about that we're actually watching that play out right now everything is up for grabs because everybody's coming in with a different foundation about what is right is it what the majority says that's why you see all these polls that just say this many americans now believe blank because the idea is that if the majority of us believe it then it's okay there's some people who are pushing for the biggest thing at the back of this is personal freedom or equal opportunity or equal outcome or private property or happiness everybody's got something at the back of of why does this matter says who and we're seeing this play.
Out right now where everything's up for grabs but then he says this nevertheless napalming babies is bad starving the poor is wicked buying and selling each other is depraved those who stood up to and died resisting hitler stalin amin and pol pot and general custer ii have earned salvation those who acquiesced deserve to be damned there is in the world such a thing as evil altogether now says who God help us he says there's no God therefore we're in trouble conclusion not base it's it's like point a point b point green it does not follow that name palming babies is bad it does not follow that standing up to evil is bad or that there.
Is even such a thing as evil it doesn't fit in his logic but he says we know this it doesn't fit that's his whole point says who God help us and he's argued the whole time there is no God i 100 agree with this person except for his foundation he stumbles over the cornerstone and then comes up with a very logical premise out of that and the reality is this last part where he ends and says napalming babies is bad the reason why we currently culturally believe that is that we're riding a 2 000 year wave of judaism and christianity we keep running this out we may not believe that anymore once we stop having.
Objective morality everything's up for grabs everybody's standing on the same footing and eventually it can fall down to who's the strongest who's got the majority who has the most power we're fundamentally coming at this differently than everyone else we believe there is a God there is an unspeakable ethic there is a natural law and it is unchallengeable i buy us and we obey it this is why you'll see that some people will say well we know this is wrong and they're appealing to something that actually doesn't fit in their logical framework.
Because how do they know if they're logical and they'll stick to it my cousin i had a conversation with him and he was saying that logic that the rules were based on who is mostly in charge what the majority believes my cousin the first generation nigerian-american i asked him do you think it was okay in germany because the nazi party was in charge that they eradicated jewish people and black people because they were in charge and he was willing to stick with his logic and he said i guess.
If they were the people in charge i'm not okay with that i don't think that's how this works i think that this guy's right that that is evil and they ought to be stood up against but that's where Christians come from we have a cornerstone that keeps us in line so we fundamentally are coming at this differently and we have direction in the Scriptures that tell us things about marriage about murder about the value of human life about what parents are.
For over and over again in the old testament we're told things in in the leviticus in Exodus leviticus deuteronomy they give personal moral law about lying and adultery but they also give rules about how we ought to interact with each other that the criminal justice system ought not to be bent towards the poor or the wealthy how people in the society are supposed to handle their money how wages are supposed to be handled how business practice sexual sin high interest loans how people treat foreigners how capital punishment works like there's all this stuff that has to do with.
Because God is setting for us what things ought to look like that we get to look to the Scriptures to set for us a guideline not a political platform of what our current people pundits are running and what they say they're going for but we get to look to the word to help keep us in line and it's going to say some things you disagree with it ought to i would argue that if you read if if in your Bible reading it perfectly agrees with you all the time you aren't reading your Bible very.
Well if this never corrects you you're not reading it correctly there's some places where it ought to push you but we're told about how to treat the poor that hard work is good adultery is bad drunkenness is bad gluttony is bad that's in proverbs but then the prophets come in and they say that God's going to judge people for bad business practices and the treatment of the poor or how they care about wealth more than the poor you see we have a lot in the Scriptures that helps give us what our foundation is meant to guide us in and we ought to be people of the book who obey the word and that's going to.
Make us look different from the rest of our culture and it's going to make us appeal to a grand says who that they don't agree with okay but we don't get to change what our cornerstone is so we're coming at this differently so we participate differently so we have a different foundation which makes us into a different people verse 9 keeps going so he says they stumble over this but you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people.
For his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light i think if we sat in that verse we might have a amount of political clarity that we lack you're a chosen race in Christ he redeems the race that you're given your current race that you were born into is not primary you're a royal priesthood that we're meant to represent man to God and God to man that's what a priesthood does we're a holy nation and and it doesn't after that chant usa usa or aussie aussie aussie your people.
For his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into a marvelous light that we've been made into a new people because we have a new foundation we've been redeemed and rescued by Christ once you were not a people but now you are God's people once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy don't you love that the primary identifier of us as a people is that we've received mercy isn't that beautiful that you're not going to get what you deserve you're going to get grace that you're loved and you're welcomed and that's foundational.
For us as we walk in Christ he says beloved i urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul keep your conduct among the gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation he calls the sojourners in exiles a sojourner is a traveler who does not live here and exile is someone who does live here.
But this isn't their home i'll be honest with you a lot of times when i listen to political candidates when i think about the future of the united states i feel very at home here and when i feel very at home here i feel very worried about things at times i have a lot of fear that rises up because i feel like i belong here i'm a citizen here my future is at stake and the reality is i'm a traveler and an exile this isn't my home i have a home i'm on my way to it i get to live in a certain way.
Now but i have a home and i'm going to be honest with y'all i love the united states the home i'm headed to is so much better it's glorious it's beautiful i'm redeemed and welcomed i receive mercy there i get to live here as an exile and a sojourner but my home that we're headed to is beyond compare and if we lived like that we're currently trying to help support uh the rockies as they move to honduras to be missionaries and the reality is they're going to show up and it's going to unlock some things in their brain.
Because they didn't weren't born there it's going to free them up in some ways to show up and go oh yeah the main point is to help people love Christ and to make this place better they're not going to show up and be like all right let's start promoting a candidate let's find out who's running for honduras house seat for our area i don't even know if they have a honduras house they may just be like let's pick a new i don't know what they got el presidente spanish i don't know.
But you know they're not going to they're exiles they're sojourners they're here to make this place better to love the people around them and the reality is some of us are far too at home here we fit better amongst our political party and we fit better amongst other americans who were born in a similar place to us who have similar skin tone who have a similar taste in food and music when we're meant to be sojourners and exiles working for good we've been made into a different people three we're back to.
Verse 13 now so we participate differently be subject for the lord's sake to every human institution whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good for this is the will of God that by doing good you should put the silence the ignorance of foolish people we're supposed to be doing good which means we're supposed to have a definition for what is good and it's supposed to be in line with the cornerstone in obedience to the word.
So we're supposed to know our bibles love our bibles love Jesus trust Jesus when we disagree with him and then be actively a part of doing that in the world government is meant to praise good we're meant to do it i think sometimes we think our role is to vote and then they better do it no we're meant to to do it we're meant to be the ones actively doing good and he says this for that's the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people live as people who are free not using your freedom as a cover-up.
For evil but living as servants of God live as people who are free remember who you are live like it i was growing up i loved the movie Peter pan and then the movie hook came out with robin williams and i loved that movie that movie is like a sequel to Peter pan and it's kind of terrifying because hook Peter pan like marries a lady moves the world forgets he was Peter pan he's just trying to live his life and move on.
But hook's in neverland growing more and more psychotic every day and he comes up with a plan to come to the real world and steal Peter pan's children he's going to abduct his children and this is a two-part plan and it's brilliant it's to get Peter pan to come back and fight him but if Peter pan won't come back he'll just raise Peter pan's children as his own back up revenge and when i watched that i was a little kid and the idea that captain hook could come bust in and steal me take me to neverland like the cartoon is like oh cool i get to go to neverland and hang out with Peter pan.
And then the sequel is like oh no captain hook might just take me to neverland and raise me as this child but the part of the movie that's playing out is that captain hook in neverland kind of makes you forget and captain hook's trying to make these children think they're his and they're these moments where they kind of forget who their father is and so they become really at home in neverland and then there are these moments where they shake out of it and they.
Remember wait wait no i know who my dad is and i actually don't belong here and sometimes i think we're we're having to play that out as we walk through life that there are times where we just feel really at home here and we kind of forget where our home is and who our father is who our allegiance allegiances to and then there are other times where we can kind of shake out of it and go oh no no no no this is actually isn't what is primary.
For me this is what matters the most to me and i'm supposed to be participating very very differently from the rest of the people i'm supposed to be getting my marching orders from here not cnn or fox news not msnbc or npr i can get some information from them they don't keep me in line this does they don't give me my foundation this to us i think sometimes we have to shake out of it but he says you're free so Church family.
For those of you who when you think about politics when you think about november your chest tightens up and fear wells up inside of you you are free your hope is secure your salvation is locked in Christ your future your home participate like someone who is free it doesn't have to work out the way you want it to it doesn't have to work out the way you think it ought to the reality is a lot of times God's good work on earth looks really really bad.
For the people of God God's good work on earth looks really bad for the people of God read this for a little while and remind yourself that he's good even though there are times where it doesn't work out well for the people who love him or know him where they aren't liked where they don't fit in hebrews 11 where they're sown into they have a better hope and a better country you're free and for those of us who because it's so corrupt or.
Because we're so jaded or because we're kind of lazy and just don't care that much we don't participate he says don't use your freedom as a cover for evil your servants of God so do good serve we're free to serve to serve him to fight for what is good to do good amongst the people we live near my parents host a family reunion they've started this couple years back and when we go to our family union we cook a pig we swim in a pond stuff you would assume my family does we all you know i don't know have a big splatoon.
For all the ladies to sit around chew tobacco whatever that part's not true but we do swim in a pond and we were swimming with my cousin and my brothers and i we go down and swim at my parents house some in their pond and so we had grabbed these little floats we knew what they were we were sitting in the water and we're either sitting on a float or you're just standing on one it's just a little like foam surfboard thing and my cousin's there swimming with us and we're all just sitting there floating around talking.
And then one of our little floats shot out from under our feet and we swam over and got it my cousin goes you all have floats we were like yeah and we've been hanging out for a while he'd been treading water for like 30 minutes he was exhausted he got afloat he was sitting there he was like oh he said i kept telling myself if they can do it i can do it if they can keep themselves up i'll keep myself up he said and i was really impressed.
Because everyone saw y'all be talking to both your hands would come out of the water and i thought goodness these guys know how to tread water the reality is as we participate in politics as believers we have something holding us up we have a hope we have a future if it gets rocky if it gets exhausting everybody else around us is going to be freaking out they're going to want us to freak out with them everyone else around us is going to be anxious and tired.
Because they don't have the hope we have and the reality is if all we do is join them we act as if we we deny the hope that we have when we ought to be pointing them to the hope that we have we ought to be proclaiming the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness and into marvelous light the reality is as we get around people who want to talk to us about how if this doesn't work out everything's going to fall apart you get to say hey guess what i know a story and everything does fall apart and everything does work out and it really just depends on has Christ redeemed.
You or not we get to be the only people who keep our heads when everything else gets difficult we get the own the only people at ease and very complicated difficult painful situations and we ought to be you're free to do good because our hope is set in Christ our foundation is set in Christ and you ought to be able to take your political opinions and ask why why why why why and work yourself back to here and if all your political opinions work back to culture political candidate this seems right to me.
But we don't have it tied off here we have a problem so we ought to be people of the word with the hopes that secure in Jesus who are the only ones who are able to keep our heads because we have a foundation when nobody else does the band's going to come back up we're going to sing to Christ we're going to all be able to keep our heads in the middle of a political season when everybody else is losing theirs take a deep breath you're free and from that position of freedom let's do good let's know what good is and let's be actively a part of it in our culture that's our hope that.
We would grow in that as people redeemed by Christ let's pray God we thank you for your grace we thank you for the love that you have shown us and that you joined us that you might die to redeem us so that we might have a hope that is held secure as first Peter chapter one says because you walked out of the tomb we have a hope that is held secure by your power in the heavens waiting for us so may we be your servants here who are exiles sojourners that do good as people who are free as only we can.
Because this does not have to work out for us here because everything will work out for us in Christ by your spirit lead us to be servants to be free to have hope and to not be swayed by everything that's around us in Jesus name amen would you stand with us as we worship hi is to use oh is he was i stand shall we she oh is oh Jesus paid it he was you may be seated all right a couple announcements before we get out of here.
Today i want to apologize to our people online was not your fault the internet cut out but we're continuing to work on that make that better another announcement dr ken uh was our transitional pastor and was a part of our Church up until this past week so it is a bittersweet announcement he is not wasting his retirement uh he is using it for the glory of God and one of his uh his his his calling his primary calling in retirement is uh to help churches in this area and he accepted the interim position at saluda baptist Church around 378 which is bittersweet.
For us sweet because they are getting a pastor who we love dearly and we know he's going to do a great job bitter because we will not be seeing him as much anymore so we love him uh as pastors we love him this Church loves him we owe so much to him we thank Jesus for him so if you're friends with joy on facebook send a message over uh continue to reach out them how much we love them um but that is the update on that.
If you are not a part of a group we would love you to be a part of a group and chet is going to be down in the construction area to be able to answer any questions you might have and tell you about our groups if you have any questions about our Church he'll be down there uh to answer them uh if you are part of this Church we invite you to give we have the giving slots you can also give online i'm going to close this with a word from.
First thessalonians 5 verses 23 through 24 now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our lord Jesus Christ he who calls you is faithful he will surely do it amen you guys have a great day.