The Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4-6)

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

The Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4-6)

Spencer Cary

Psalm 115: God > Idols

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

Psalm 115: God > Idols

Spencer Cary

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Transcript

Good morning. See, I clean up well, you guys. All right, so before we get started, it's an exciting day when we get to baptize anyone, and especially our kids. I just want to plug two resources. Some of the things we do in family discipleship, in our road mapping curriculum, which you can find online, is we plug books that we think are helpful. I have one right here.

This is the whole story for the whole family. It's a year of Jesus-centered devotions. This one's really helpful because it has really easy-to-do devotions, actually has some fun activities to go along with it. So if you've got kids from three to about nine, ten years old, this is a great book. I actually have two free copies of this, so if you want one, come talk to me, and I'll give it to you. And then we also have, out there at our spiritual formation bookshelf, the New City Catechism.

This is 52 questions and answers that help guide the process of just helping our kids know who Jesus is and what the gospel is. So I would encourage you, if you would like to go grab those, those are free. We've got plenty of those. So we have been in the Psalms this summer. We have one more Psalm next week, and then we're going to be in the book of Jude, which is four weeks, and then we'll be in the book of Exodus. So we're in Psalm 115 today, which is on page 293, and your blue Bibles that are around you.

If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read. But we'll be in Psalm 115 today. So my wife and I both like disaster movies, okay?

So day after tomorrow type stuff, it gets even better, the cheesier it gets. So like, you know, geostorm, computer, controlling the weather, that kind of stuff is really fun for us. I also personally like satire. When satire is done well, I like it. And finally, the two genres melded together last year for a movie that came out on Netflix called Don't Look Up. So caveats, it's got some language in it, and I always do my research when it's rated or ahead of time, because it's got some sketch stuff at the end, which I just cut off and never watched.

But I wanted to see how they took satire and combined this with one of my wife's and I's favorite genres. And the whole premise is, is that an asteroid is barreling down towards the earth. And in typical asteroid style movies, you would expect they'd come together, they'd figure it out, and they'd save the day. Bruce Willis would go up there, and they'd blow this thing up. But this movie asked the question, what if that didn't happen?

What if we weren't good at this? What if our dysfunctional society right now just couldn't handle this? And it plays on a bunch of different themes. But one of the things that I found to be incredibly telling is it asked the question, what if we're too disinterested? What if we don't care? What if we're willing to ignore reality, and just because we like, you know, social media and the movie, they're too busy, you know, scrolling on their phones to care?

What if there's too many things to entertain ourselves with, too many things to focus on? And that aspect of satire, I truly appreciate it. Because you could easily apply that to our faith. Like a few weeks ago, we were in Psalm 19, and Psalm 19 has two big ideas, that creation declares the glory of God. That it points to a creator, and it declares his glory. And then later on in the Psalm, it talks about the scriptures.

How the scriptures give us this specific picture of who God is. That it tells us beautiful truths. And when you combine the two, you see we have a God who definitely made this universe. And the scriptures tell us who this God is. And we, as especially Southern Christians, can listen to that sermon, can read that text and go, yes, amen. We can say we believe in God.

The majority of Southerners would even say they believe in Jesus. But the reality is, is we live like that's not true. We're going to see in the Psalm, it says, our God is in the heavens. And we live like that's not a reality. Because we're so easily enamored. So easily in love with created things.

That our attention and our focus and our affection, and ultimately our worship, is on lesser created things. Ignoring the reality of our creator God. To our own demise. That is what this Psalm is going to look at today. It's going to speak directly to us. Calling us out for falling in love with lesser created things.

And not beholding our creator God for who he is. So we're going to see that picture and how that applies to us. So let me pray for us and then we'll jump in. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would open our hearts to receive your word. That we would be challenged. That we would see you as glorious.

And you'd help us walk this out in faith and belief and repentance and obedience. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so. Psalm 115 is in a series of Psalms. A series of five Psalms called the Hallelujah Psalms.

Okay? So thematically they all have the same kind of Hallelujah is in its most base form is praise Yahweh. So it's praise the Lord. So that's what's showing up in these Psalms. And at the very last one in this section, Psalm 115, is a Psalm that they would have actually sang together at Passover meal. So at the Passover meal, they would have sat down and had good food and good wine.

And they'd come together and then they'd sing this joyous, challenging Psalm. Starting in verse 1. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. For the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. So it's this joyous beginning.

Not to us, O Lord. No, no, no. Not to us, but to your name give glory. Why? Because of, for the sake of, your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Because you are steadfast in your love towards us, O God, when we don't deserve it.

Because you are faithful towards us, O God, when we are faithless. Not to us, O Lord, but to you be the glory. And that is joyously sung against the backdrop of those who taught them. So we pick up in verse 2. Why should the nations say, where is their God? So, that is, the nations is the Gentiles.

So at this point in redemption history, the Gentiles are outside the covenant of God. This is non-Jewish people. These are the surrounding nations around the Jewish people. They don't worship the God of Israel. They don't believe and they're taunting and they're saying, where is your God? And this is where the psalmist starts to get a little snarky.

See, this Psalm has some don't look up type of vibes to it. It's very satirical. It's very snarky. It's very sarcastic. And this is when the psalmist begins to answer that taunt and fire back in verse 3. Our God is in the heavens.

He does all that He pleases. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He is not like your false gods, O nations. He's not a God that is tangible and created so that you can see. No, no, no.

Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. We don't have to do a song and dance to get His attention. And He doesn't step to our desires. That's not how our God works. He will not be coerced.

He will not be cornered. He will not be convinced. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He is not like your gods. And then He goes on to dial up the snark even more.

And He starts to criticize and belittle and make fun of their false idols. Verse 4 and following. Their idols are silver and gold. The work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak. Eyes but do not see.

Ears but do not hear. Noses but do not smell. They have hands but do not feel. Feet but do not walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat. He is belittling them.

He is comedically belittling their false gods. He says your gods are precious. They are adorable. Look at His little mouth and His little nose. It has got little hands and little feet. I bet you put that beside your bed table at night.

That is adorable. He is absolutely stomping on false idols. He says no, no, no. Your God is not like our God. Our God is in the heavens. You have these false gods.

And it is an absurd picture. This is what Elijah picks up in 1 Kings 18. Belittling the false gods. In 1 Kings 18, he has a showdown with the prophets of Baal. Baal is one of the most prominent false gods in the Old Testament. And at this point, the prophets of Baal have pretty much taken over Israel.

And Elijah goes, all right, let's go. Let's go to Mount Carmel. Let's have a little showdown. We are going to set up an altar. Put a sacrifice on there. We are going to see which God is real.

We are going to figure out which God is going to come. Come and light this sacrifice on fire. And then in 1 Kings 18, it says in verse 26 and following, And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. So the prophets of Baal are calling out, Baal, answer us, answer us. But there was no voice.

No one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. They started doing their little dance, going around the altar, limping around. And one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Verse 27, And at noon, Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry aloud, for he is a God. Maybe he can't hear you.

You should cry louder. Got to get his attention. He says, Cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, which is a cleaned up way of saying, using the bathroom. Is your God, is he going to the bathroom? Where is he?

The mocking is on point. He says, Or is he on a journey? Or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awakened. Is he taking a nap? Go get him. Surely, and this, this does not sit well with them, and they get angrier.

And verse 28, it says, And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after the custom, after their custom was swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Why?

Because Baal isn't real. He's not the one true God. And then Elijah goes on to, say, step aside. They put water all over the altar. Calls down fire from heaven, and boom, lights it up. And that's usually where the children's stories, book Bible version, kind of just stops.

If you want to take it further, and even do some dramatic reenacting, he goes and slaughters all the prophets of Baals. So, fun stuff to do in your household. More family discipleship advice for you. It's an absurd picture. That's the way Elijah's getting at. Your gods aren't real.

Bowing down to this is an absurdity. When I was in, years ago, I was in India, and I was studying Hinduism as a part of the study of God program. And I went and traveled and looked at Hindu temples. Went to Hindu temples and watched. I watched people bow down to false idols. This made, decorated idol with incense burning.

I watched them and studied how they worshipped false idols. And when you see that picture, you see, man, how ridiculous is this? That you're bowing down, seeking for this to provide, for this to take care of you. what he's hitting at over and over again here is that idols are lifeless and they are dumb. No. Our God is in the heavens. So he gives this heavy, intense critique, and then in verse 8, he gives an absolutely helpful warning. those who make them become like them.

So do all who trust in them. What he highlights is an unbelievable truth. What you worship, you will become. What you worship, you will ultimately become. And if you worship these dead, lifeless objects, then you will receive spiritual death that comes along with it. You'll be spiritually deadened by it.

Now, reading this through the lens of a 21st century Westerner, you might think, good, glad we don't have little carved idols in our bedrooms. Am I right? Might want to distance ourselves from this. Might look at the Hindu practices of bowing down to false idols that still happen today and think, good thing that's not us. But the reality is, is that we do this, we just do it in a far more sophisticated manner.

This is what Ezekiel, and the prophet Ezekiel is picking up in Ezekiel 41, and it's going to be developed throughout the rest of the scriptures. In Ezekiel 41, he says, it says, Son of man, these men have taken idols into their hearts. Taken idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? And then in verse 6, he says, Therefore, save the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God, repent and turn away from your idols and turn away your faces from all abominations.

It is here that we see a theme that gets picked up and developed throughout the rest of the scriptures that idolatry is worshiping anything in the place of God. God. It's heart idolatry. It's choosing anything and beholding that, loving that, worshiping that in the place of God. This is why John Calvin says that our hearts are idol-making factories. That we easily, because of our fallenness and our flesh, can make idols out of anything.

That we would worship anything in the place of God. We are designed to worship. That's how humanity is designed. And ultimately, we're designed to worship the Lord. But we reject that for the tangible things that are right in front of us.

And the psalmist is warning us. If you worship idols, you will become like them. For the one who worships money through greed, you ultimately, if you worship this, you will become like that dead object. Your heart will be hardened towards generosity. You will sacrifice and sever relationships with friends and church family and family. You'll sacrifice all of that because the goal is to make money, make money, make money, stacks on stacks on stacks.

If I can get that, then I will be happy. And ultimately, if you pursue this and you worship this, you will become Ebenezer Scrooge or Walter White. And it will ultimately end up to your own demise, hardening your own heart, deadened to what is ultimately good. If you bow down before the altar of pleasure, you will follow the road of sensuality until ultimately you don't have a taste, you have a distaste for God. and you fill that in with drugs or porn or explanation or whatever. But you follow that road and what happens is you eventually just, you don't want God.

I've watched people who went down that road and then ultimately they're just like, I don't care anymore. And it deadens you spiritually until you're numb and you don't want God. I stumbled upon a quote from a Sri Lankan theologian that I have never seen before until this week. His name is Vinath Ramachandra. And I thought he nailed it. He said, It is not surprising that those who worship technology eventually develop machine-like personalities.

Mark Zuckerberg. Right? I mean, develop machine-like personalities, emotionally underdeveloped, shallow and the relationships driven by a desire to control and quantify every human situation, unable to appreciate beauty and value in anything outside the artificial. What a unbelievable critique on this cultural moment. We bow down to social media, we spend all of our time and our energy in the artificial. this is going to get worse as the meta comes on board and everything else that comes with that. He says, No wonder.

No wonder we have shallow relationships. We're driven to control and quantify every human situation. You see that in kids that are on devices all the time. You see that in adults who have lost the ability to have a nuanced discussion with anyone or just lobbing grenades like crazy. Because you've bowed down before this idol over and over and over again and it's starting to make you in its image. He goes on to say, Those who worship sex, on the other hand, are incapable of trust and commitment in their human relationships and hide a lonely existence behind a mask of superficial adulthood.

Benoth is throwing bows. Man, he is going for it. I mean, he is absolutely, he can go on and on with this. He is absolutely showing us what the psalmist is teaching us that idols will ultimately create you in their image. You no longer will be conforming to the image of our creator. When you bow down to idols, it makes you in their image, ultimately to our own spiritual destruction.

You see why the psalmist has this aggressive, polemic, sarcastic defense, this aggressive nature against idolatry? There's so much at stake in the human soul. There was so much at stake for Israel as ultimately it was their own destruction because they worshipped idols. There's so much at stake for us because our flesh loves it. Our flesh loves idols. A couple months ago, I was talking with one of our pastors, I was talking with Chet, and I was just, I was confessing some sin.

I just was like, man, I'm just, I am, my flesh loves sin. Like I just, like I'm struggling right now. And he had a very helpful picture that will stick with me for probably ever. He said, you gotta see it for what it is. He said, it's, it's meth. And I was like, yes, it is meth.

Absolutely is. Have you ever seen before and after pictures of what meth does to people? They're a normal, functioning human being and then a few years, the before and after, they, it's conformed them into this horrible image as they bow down to this drug over and over and over again and it's stolen the life out of them. Yes! He knew how to get to me. I was like, that's absolutely it.

It is like that. It spiritually decays and destroys. That's what sin does. That's what idolatry does. So he gives that aggressive warning and then he pivots to beholding who our God is.

In verse 9 and following, he says, O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. He's gonna repeat that three times. Their help and their shield. That is kingship defense language. Okay?

He's saying, our God is our help and our shield. He's the one that defends us. He's the one that provides for us. He's the one that takes care of us. O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.

O house of Aaron, verse 10, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. The house of Aaron was a part of the tribe of Levi. This is where the priesthood came from, was the house of Aaron. So what he's highlighting there is the priesthood is bowing down to foreign idols.

They're falling prey to this. Which absolutely fits pretty one-to-one with our current culture. Because the priesthood throughout America and those who plan to be pastors literally are leading people into worshipping idols, worshipping success, worshipping money for the sake of lining their own pockets and getting a G4 and all that mess. we're not much different. Verse 11, you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. He's saying, you who fear the Lord, everyone who fears God, trust in the Lord.

He is their help and their shield. He's like, believe this. Believe this. He will protect you. He is better. He will protect you in the way that idols cannot.

And then he moves from this repeated promise to a repeated blessing. He says in verse 12 and following, the Lord has remembered us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord, both small and great.

He's saying, this Lord, this God will bless us. Listen, Israel, Aaron, everyone who fears the Lord. And this is a deep, spiritual blessing. This is not a shallow, material one. Believing that ultimate hope is found in material blessings that will ultimately end up in a landfill one day. No, this is deeper than that.

This is the kind of blessing that resounds into generational blessings. Verse 14, he says, may the Lord give you children, or give you increase, you and your children. May this blessing resound through you, to your children, to your children's children. What a powerful legacy of faith that we might uphold when we behold who our God is. This is in verse 15, may you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth. The heavens are the Lord's heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.

It's highlighting a truth that God is in the heavens. He rules and reigns. But as we see in Genesis 1, he entrusts earth. He gives us the ability to have dominion over the earth. That's why it says, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it.

That's the truth that he's highlighting there. And then in verse 17 and 18, the final two verses, he says, the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. He says, those who ultimately worship idols, those who find their hope and satisfaction and fulfillment and idols, well, they ultimately will receive what is coming, death. And the picture we see of that is judgment.

He says, but we, we will trust the Lord. We will praise him. We won't go down in silence. No. We will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord.

All right. So this Psalm is noticeably different than many of the Psalms we've tackled before. Sarcasm shows up a little bit in the scriptures. Aggressive defenses like this show up a little bit. This is different than some of the Psalms we have covered. And he is hammering one central truth over and over again.

Idols are dumb. Idols are ridiculous. Idols are not worthy of worship. Our God is in the heavens. Behold him. Worship him.

He is greater than idols. But the problem for Israel and the problem really for us is that idols are very tangible. Idols are, you can see them, you can touch them. It's the reason why they bow down to golden calves and Asherah poles. They could grab a hold of it. The psalmist says that's foolishness.

That's foolishness. Our God is so much bigger than that. Can't you see? Our God is in the heavens. Don't bow down to these objects. Don't worship anything in the place of God.

And we may be more sophisticated. We may be more sophisticated than this time period. But we are not smarter. Not at all. We're very much like them. We may, listen, Southern Christians, we may know the Bible.

We may know stories about Jesus. We may know the right things to say. You know, all kinds of things about who our God is. But to us, He's not as tangible. Not saying that Jesus is embodied. He certainly is.

But He reigns at the right hand of God the Father. But idols are tangible. They're right in front of us. And our flesh says, I want it. Money is tangible. Put your hands on it.

Pull up your app and watch your bank account. Your crypto wallet. Whatever it is that you do. You can see that. It's material. You can purchase things that your heart desires with that.

Amazon packages are concrete and tangible. Right? I thought about this this week. I was like, you know what? I'm going to see if I can total up how much we spent at Amazon this year. So I thought I could go on Amazon and look at the order details and stuff in that section and see.

But shocker, they don't let you know that. Because I don't want you to know how much you've spent there. Because it's a lot. That's tangible. It's something you can get in two days or less. That's tangible.

You can put your hands on that. Social media is tangible. You can spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours obsessing, worrying, getting stirred up, getting angry, getting jealous. That's tangible. Children, spouses, relationships, friendships, success, comforts, you name it, our heart can make it and we can bow down to it. It's tangible.

It's right in front of us. And our hearts will go after it until little by little our affections, our desire and our worship towards God is slowly turned towards created objects and we're more deadened and more deadened and more deadened until spiritually it's like, I don't want God. and then we reject Him just as the nation of Israel did. One of the things we talk about in our church is the concept of deep idols. The concept of deep idols and if you want to, we have sermons that expound on this more, you can go on our website and you can go into our sermons and do it in the search bar and you can type in deep idols and hear some more teaching on this but the premise is is that we try to look at the sin beneath the sin, the motivation beneath the motivation, the idol beneath the idol and there are four main deep idols, four main categories that you can funnel most of our sin into.

That's comfort, control, power, and approval. And you can literally take any concrete idol that you'd bow down to and you can run it through those categories and see, like if it's money, not something you obsess over, you think about, you live your life for, you can try to determine which deep idols is this rooted in? Is it approval? Do I make lots of money so that I can be liked? So that people will accept me?

So that I will get claps in adoration? Or it's control. Maybe you grew up with less money and you said, I ain't doing this anymore. I will absolutely control my future and every dollar, every paycheck is another opportunity to control your destiny because you've rejected ultimately that God is sovereign over your future but you can control it with your hands. Maybe it's, maybe it's power. You make money because that gives you influence.

That gives you the ability to peddle and to meddle and to manipulate because it puts you the one in power. Maybe it's comfort. That you worship money because it brings the comforts in this life. You can buy the next car or the next house or the next vacation until you fill your life with comforts that never truly satisfy you. Listen, we're not much different. We're not.

The Psalm is for us and we we have to see idols for what they are. We have to see it for what it is. They're as healthy as meth. They're as life-giving as the wood from your kitchen table. They're as secure as a house that is built right on the top of beach sand. They are not better.

Idols are dumb. They're not worth pursuing. They're not worth worshipping. Trust in the Lord. He is ultimately worthy of our worship. With Him comes blessing and promises.

Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. The psalmist is pleading with us. See God as better than idols. And when you start to believe this. Listen, when you start to when God starts to unlock this truth in your soul.

When you start to realize that what you've worshipped doesn't satisfy. That it never truly brings fulfillment. Whatever that is for you. And when you've examined your soul and you realize that God by His grace shows how infected we are with idol worship. How we bow down to so many other things through our attention and our affections and our desire and our worship. when you see that for what it is your one logical response should be how can the God who created everything who is the only one worthy of my worship how could He possibly love me in spite of all of my rejection in spite of all of the worship that I've given towards lesser created things.

And it is in that moment that you can discover the goodness of the gospel. And the goodness of the gospel is that God knew that. God knows all of that. He knows all the idols that you bow down to. He sees all of it. And still He sent His Son to die for you.

And still He sent His Son to rise for us. And still He came to His Colossians 2 teaches cancel the record of debt the record of sin that's done against us with its legal demand. And His kindness as Romans 2 teaches leads us to repentance. Away from lesser created things back to our Creator. Our God does all that He pleases. And the good news of the gospel is that it pleases Him for you to worship Him.

And it pleases Him for you to desire Him. And it pleases Him to see you repent of idols because they are not worthy of your worship. He is.

Deep Idols and Functional Saviors

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

Deep Idols and Functional Saviors

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Excited to be with y'all this morning. Grab your Bibles and go to John chapter 4. We're in the second week of our Soul Care series.

We're going to spend four weeks looking at this idea. Last week we talked through, Spencer talked through, that the primary kind of core of who you are and how you approach life has to do with your view of God and your view of self. That's kind of the center of life and identity. And that our view of God affects our view of self. It's the primary thing that affects our view of self. Who you understand God to be, your understanding of Him or your lack of understanding affects who you are.

And so this view of God and view of self. And then he said there's complex kind of layers around that that we have to kind of understand to know our stories and to walk through this so that we can see who we really are and who God really is so that we might heal, so that we might repent, so that we might walk with Him. We talked a little bit about trying to figure out who you are and your story, and it's not self-discovery for the purpose of self-exaltation, which is what the U.S. is pumping out for you. Figure out who you are and then celebrate that and run with that and that only you can really know you.

It's this understanding our stories in light of who God is so that we might exalt Him and that we might be healed and we might be made right. And so we're going to look at that today, that we're looking kind of at that core element of who God is and how we relate to Him in worship. So we looked at kind of the stuff that gets in the way last week and the stuff that you have to think through. And hopefully as you've been thinking through that, we'll be able to look together today at who we are, who He is, and how we worship. And some of how our worship can go astray and how that affects us. We'll be looking at the concept of idolatry, which is worshiping something other than God.

But we're going to begin in John chapter 4. We're going to see this interpersonal relationship, this interaction between Jesus and this Samaritan woman. And we're going to see how He comes to this one individual person and kind of gets to the core heart level issues. And hopefully it'll help us to do the same. So let's pray, and then we'll start in John 4 together.

God, we pray that we would rightly and fully worship You so that we might be healed, that we might be satisfied, that we might be filled up. Thank You for Your grace. We pray that You'd help us to see this well this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to read this story and talk through it a bit together.

It says, Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees, and that's kind of a ruling class of religious elites that were not His fans, when they had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus Himself did not baptize but only His disciples, He left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and He had to pass through Samaria. Okay, so Judea is down here. Galilee is up here. That's kind of His home base. Samaria was in the middle. A lot of times Jewish people would go over to the Jordan River and up so they didn't have to go through Samaria.

He goes straight through Samaria. So He had to pass through Samaria, verse 5. So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, because He's fully God and fully man, so He got tired, was sitting beside the well.

It was about the sixth hour. That's noon, middle of the day. It's hot. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? Whoa. That's an awkward response to that. Let's keep reading. It says, for Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. So Jesus says, give me a drink.

And she says, why are you talking to me? There's some tension here. The Jewish people didn't like the Samaritans. And so the Samaritans jumped right up and didn't like them back. It's like my sons. He started it and he started it.

And well, I did this because he did that. That's kind of what they were doing. What had happened was when the Jewish people had been taken into captivity, they had left some of the Jewish people there. There was a remnant that stayed in the land and they intermarried. And then when the Jewish people got out of captivity and came back, they weren't a big fan of this intermarriage. There was fist fights and beard pullings and all kinds of stuff.

You can read about it in Ezra and Nehemiah if you'd like. But they basically ran off that group of people and then they kind of grew next to each other and didn't like each other. If you're familiar with Harry Potter, the Jewish people thought the Samaritans were mudbloods. If you're not familiar with Harry Potter, the Jewish people were racist. That's really what they had going for. But the Samaritans were racist back.

And that's what's happening here. That in general, Jewish people didn't have any dealings with Samaritans. So when Jesus asked this question, it's so blatantly obvious that this is odd that she just says, what? A little bit of not a fan of you sitting on my well, but why are you talking to me? Now, I just want to point this out. I don't have much time.

It's not the main point of things. She says, how are you being a Jew? He was obviously Jewish. We know his birth lineage. We have that. He's a line of David all the way down.

But he also looked Jewish. So the next time you hear people arguing about we don't really know what he was and he might have been white or whatever. No, he was Jewish. He was very obviously Jewish. And that's fine. But that's in here.

So just don't do that and help other people when they do. Say, hey, open your Bible. Let's go. And then you get to talk about this next part, which is way better. You can walk through and say, it gets better from here. So anyway, Jesus answered her.

This is verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. This conversation was off to a rocky start. It gets a little weirder. I mean, Jesus can say stuff like this all he wants and he means it and it's true. But if you just met someone and they said this to you, you'd be a little bit like her because she's going to basically respond with what?

So he says, if you don't know, if you knew the gift of God and you knew who I was, you'd ask me and I'd give you living water. I'd give you flowing water, not well water, but water that lasts forever. Water that continually is refreshed. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob?

He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. It's hard to tell how genuine her response is, how coded with she thinks maybe he's messing with her or looking down on her because she says, do you think you're better than Jacob? Like she's, he's our father too, you know, us Samaritans also. And so she just kind of responds with what, what are you talking about? You don't even have a bucket. Where is this coming from?

Verse 13, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water, the well will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Okay. Jesus is not talking about actual water. That's clear to us.

We know that Jesus talks about spiritual things, but he's not. He's not talking about actual water. That's why she was like, well, where's your bucket? And he just keeps on going. He's not talking about actual water. He's talking about some sort of spiritual water, some sort of eternal life, some sort of spiritual life that he would give those who would come to him.

And we understand this because we know the rest of the story that Jesus goes to the cross, that he dies, that he rises again, and that he offers salvation and hope and eternal life to all who would believe in him. And so he's basically saying, I'm the Christ. If you knew that, you would ask me for life. I'm thirsty right now in small part and need some water to sustain short-term life. But if you really knew who I was, you'd ask me for water and I'd give you eternal life.

So that's what he's setting up. That's the idea he's getting at. He can't just be talking about water because we still all have to drink water, even though we're Christians. For those of us who are Christians, you still have to drink water. You still have to get one of those little big jugs and then it says, get started and then like way to go and I'm proud of you or whatever. And you carry that half a gallon around with you everywhere.

So everybody knows you're super hydrated. We're proud of you. We're proud of you. As proud of your water bottle is of you, we're proud of you too. We still have to do that. So he's not talking about that.

He's talking about spiritual water, but let's see what happens. 15. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Okay, so if you're talking to someone and you're trying to help them see that they need Jesus, this is the moment you want. She says, okay, I'll bite. Give me that water then.

It feels like there's a little bit of a joke. That'd be great. Then I won't have to come back here with my bucket every day. Like some idiot who, you know, lives in this town and has to use this well. I'd love your super water that keeps me never thirsty again. That's what you want because then you go, well, I'm glad you, I'm glad you said that.

And then you get to explain it fully. Like that's the moment he's at. You're building a relationship with your neighbor. You're talking about stuff. You say, well, you know, as a Christian, I believe this. And they go, wait a second.

And then you're like, okay, here we are. I can help them see who Christ is. So he says, verse 16, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. Not the response I was expecting. And then the woman answered, I have no husband. This has been one of the roughest conversations.

If you were just, you know, in a coffee shop and you were listening to this, you feel uncomfortable. Like it's fair to assume given the lady's age, and we find out a little bit more that helps us fill that in later. But given the lady's age and in this culture, you basically lived at your father's house. Then you got married. Pretty much all women were married. It was, it was, if someone was unmarried at the age she was, it's not like our culture where there was a way to be single and to live fully.

They didn't really have that set up in their culture. So immediately when she says, I have no husband, this is a sad story. We don't know how it's sad. We don't know how she got to this place. But we know that given the age she is, when she answers, I have no husband, it's a sad story.

Now, I do this in conversations. I ask questions and make things awkward. Hey, how's your, how's your boyfriend doing? We broke up. Oh, okay. Well, he was probably the worst anyway.

Hey, how's your dog? He's dead. All right, I'm going to go over here. Sorry, I brought that up. I do that, but Jesus doesn't do that. This isn't an accident.

His response is going to make that very evident in just a second. He did this on purpose. So we have to ask why, but let's see how he responds. He says this. She says, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband.

For you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. Okay. So he asked this question on purpose to press on this on purpose. And he did it right when she said, okay, I'll take some of that water you have. He's not talking about real water.

He's talking about worship. He's talking about what you run to to quench your thirst. And so when she says, I'll take that water, he says, let's talk about the real well you've been running to this whole time. Oh. Oh, she's run to this well over and over and over again. He says, the thing that you keep coming back to is not this water well in the center of town.

The thing that you keep coming back to. And that's why he says, go get your husband. She says, I don't have a husband. He says, you're right, you don't. You've had five. The one you have now is not your husband.

That's very uncomfortable, but extremely helpful that Jesus jumps right to the heart level issue. That stands in the way of her actually getting the living water that he has. And we know it's the heart level issue because she says this in verse 20. She says, or 29. Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?

She immediately responds, I see that you're a prophet. Then she runs into town and says, he told me all that I ever did. So in her reckoning, that's her whole life story. It wasn't just a parlor trick to help her see that he knew things she didn't know. He tapped right into the core heart level. She said, he knows me.

He turned me inside out. Now, I have a feeling. We see Jesus do this in other times as well. It's not the only lady he does this to. He does the same thing to the rich young ruler. Ask a few questions, talk to the rich young ruler, and then he strikes on the exact thing that the rich young ruler has so dug his claws into to give him life and joy and hope and satisfaction.

The rich young ruler doesn't let it go. It seems like this lady does. But I have a feeling that all of us could play this out. We could meet Jesus at a well. We could have this conversation, and he could jump right to the thing, the thing, that you've run to over and over and over and over again and convinced yourself, if I can just have this, I'll be happy. If I can just have this, I'll be full.

Jump right to the heart level issues of worship for us. And this is the central issue of relating to the Lord, is this idea of worship, that we would have him in his right place, and that from him we would derive all that is good, all that is right, that our affection would be for him. This is in Exodus chapter 20, when God gives the Ten Commandments. The first two commandments are, you'll have no other God but me, and then he says, and you'll make no graven images. He doubles down on it. Not only am I the only God, but also you're not going to use anything to represent me.

You're not going to bow down to anything, up in heaven, down on earth, in the water, nothing. It's me and only me. And he says in that, that he's a jealous God. He's jealous for our affection. He's not jealous of us. He's jealous over us, that we're meant to have our hearts only beat fast, only love and cherish him above all else.

I've given this example before, but I think it captures this idea really well. That if I saw my wife, and she was talking to a strikingly handsome young man, and he was making jokes, and she was laughing, and he reached over and touched her elbow, I'd be having problems. I would be jealous, not of her. I wouldn't think, why doesn't that young lad touch my elbow? I'd be jealous over her, because I want her affections for me. I want her to think my jokes are funny, and your jokes are dumb.

I want her to viscerally react, if anyone touches her elbow. I want, like that's what I want. I want affection for me. And so God says, that you're meant to worship and love him, and him alone, and that he's jealous over you, that nothing else can clutter this up. And that we consistently clutter this up. We pick something else that we love, and cherish, and desire more than him.

We pick something else that we convince ourselves, if I could just have that, then I'd be happy. Then I'd be full. Then I'd be complete. So Martin Luther, is a German reformer, and he wrote a large catechism, and in his large catechism, he says this, when he's talking about the Ten Commandments, but he's also talking about idolatry. He says, a God means, that from which we are to expect all good, and to which we are to take refuge in all distress. He says, you want to start defining what a God is?

What do you expect to get good from? What's going to bless your life? What's going to give you hope? And then, he says, okay, what do you run to in distress? What's going to protect you? What's going to keep you safe?

He says this, so that to have a God, is nothing else, than to trust, and to believe him, from the heart. That, now I say, upon which you set your heart, so what you set your heart on, and put your trust in, is properly your God. So he says, we're able to take something, and begin to trust in it, begin to hope in it, begin to set our hearts on it, begin to trust, that it'll protect us, that it'll keep us safe, that it'll give us good, and that when we do that, we're idolaters. We're breaking the first two commandments. So Jesus is having this conversation, with this woman at the well, and he's talking about this idea, of thirst and worship.

And so Jeremiah 3, 11 to 13 says this, this is where Jeremiah's talking, about the same idea, and he's correcting the people of Israel. He says, has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory, for that which does not profit. Be appalled, oh heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people, have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. That's what Jesus says he'd offer, living water, continual, forever, refreshing, satisfying life.

They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that hold no water. A cistern is the worst way to get water, in an arid place. It's essentially, an above ground pool, or an in ground pool, that catches water, and you drink out of it. You catch rain water, you drink out of it. And you only do that, if you have no other way for water. So if you live next to a flowing river, or a spring of water, and then you drink out of a cistern, and a broken cistern at that, you're dumb.

And it doesn't work well. And that's what Jeremiah says the people of Israel are doing. And that's what Jesus is saying to this lady. Hey, can I talk to you about your broken cistern? Can I talk to you about the thing that you run back to over and over and over again, convincing yourself that this time it'll fill you up? Can you all imagine, before her first wedding, excitement, fear, hope, my life is beginning.

This is what, this will set me up, this is how, and just trying to figure out what that was gonna look like, and then, as it fell apart, we don't know how. And then going into the second one, this one will be better. Now I'll be okay again. And then going into the third one, and then going into the fourth one, going into the fifth one, how much was she continuing to hope? How much was she doubtful? How much was she wrestling with herself?

How much was she saying, this will be the right one? Till finally, when Jesus talks to her, she's had five husbands, and the guy she's with now, and her husband. It's gotten worse, and she's still going back. It's a broken cistern. That's why when she says, okay, give me this water, he says, okay, we gotta talk about where you've been getting water. That's, that's us.

That our primary issues, are worship issues, before they're anything else. That we've convinced ourselves, that something else will fill us up, make us happy, give us joy. So what I'm gonna do for the next little bit, is just try to help you identify, if you have somewhere, that you've begun to believe, that something's better than Jesus. And the reason I wanna help you do that, is because you're wrong. I don't know if you saw our colorful blue slide, Jesus is better than everything else. We want Jesus for you.

He wants Jesus for you. He's jealous for your affection, not just because he loves you, but because that's what's best for you. I have two sons. If one of them says, you're not my daddy, I'm not gonna hug you. You know what I do? Pick them up, and hug them.

Say, I am your daddy. When you get bigger, this will be harder. But you do love me, because the reality is, their life is better, if they have a good relationship with me. I love them, I desire them, but it's also good for them, and God in his goodness, wants what's best for you, which is him, because he's the best. And it would be silly, for him to point you to anything else, other to himself, and not only silly, but wrong, and harmful, for God to look at you, and go, you know what's really good? Money.

Because he'd be selling you short, on what's best, which is himself. So he wants himself for you, he actually is better, that's why Jesus says, if you knew who you were talking to, you'd ask me. So I want to help us, try to identify, give us some tools for this, some questions to ask, some things to look for, so that we can see, if we're doing this, because the reality is, even if you've placed your faith in Jesus, you can still functionally, run after other things. There are times, where Christians are very upset, and they're like, well Jesus is letting me down, and the reality is, you hadn't been running to him, for your joy, and your hope, and satisfaction.

You've been running, to something else, and hopefully, God in his grace, will let that fail miserably, so that you'll go somewhere, where you can actually, get some water. Let's talk a second, about the idea, of a functional savior. That you look at something, and say to it, you're going to make me whole. You're going to give me life. That this is the thing, that will get me to heaven. That's what a savior does.

A savior fixes your problems, gets you to heaven, so you look at a functional savior, it's something that promises, to fix you. I had a friend, who was a co-worker, and he was doing online dating, and every time, he would start interacting, and just chatting, some via text, or whatever, with some girl, he would get so excited, disproportionately excited. And it wasn't just, that it was nice for him, to have someone, he might go on a date with, it was what that person represent. They were going to save him. They were going to fix his life, and then, a week later, when they had quit talking, he would be despondent, he was broken, disproportionately broken.

It's like, you didn't even know this person, a week ago. But it was because they represented, they were a functional savior. They were making God level promises, and the reality is, there are things around you, in your life, that are making God level promises, to you. I'll fix you. I'll give you a future. I'll give you life.

I'll give you an identity. I'll give you hope. I'll give you joy. I'll give you satisfaction. If you could just have me, you'd be full. I'm never going to fail you.

I'm never going to give you up. I'm never going to let you down. I'm never going to run around, and desert you. But there's things that tell us nonsense, and we believe it. That we're willing to believe these lies, and so we trust them. And the reality is, usually these are pretty good things.

Relationships. Your children, you say, if my kids just turn out all right, I'll be okay. Then I'll know I'm okay. Then I'll know I'm fine. If I can just have a relationship, if I can just have someone who loves me, if I can just have a marriage, if I can just get out of this marriage and get to another one, if I can, my job, if I can just be paid enough, if I can just have a good enough Job. We just pick things that consistently, we tell ourselves, if I can have that, then I'll be okay.

Then I'll be complete. Then I'll be full. And it's a lie, because they can't provide it. That's a functional savior. The next thing I want to talk to you about is deep idols. Because functional saviors often just work to get you the thing you really want.

But you may have a functional savior and it's actually just showing you what you truly desire, what you're pursuing. So this is just the best tool you have at hand to get you there. I'm going to explain this and help you see this. We got this concept from Tim Keller. He's a pastor in New York. It's a concept.

It's not from the scriptures. It's just to help you. He says there's four deep idols. You could say there's six. You could say there's three. Fine.

The concept is helpful. So I'm going to show you these are the four that he lays out. He says comfort, control, approval, and power. So let me give you an example. And sometimes you have to work from one to the other. So you might say, I just love money.

That's my functional savior. That's good. We're on the right track. But the reality is you don't love money. You love what money offers you. You love what money promises you.

Nobody just loves money. None of you have Monopoly money in your pocket because it doesn't promise you anything. It does when you're playing Monopoly. So you care immensely about it for seven hours until someone flips over the table and ruins Christmas at grandma's. But all of us, when someone says, would you like a million dollars?

The answer is yes, please. Sounds great. But the reasons why we would want that are very, very different. So we're just going to run through this, try to help you understand how you could use money to chase after the thing you really want because money is just a really easy one to give examples. So comfort.

You believe the primary goal in life and what makes life good is being at ease, not having things bother you, being comfortable. Well, money is excellent for this, you guys. If you have enough money, things don't bother you. They don't get to you. You don't have to stress about stuff. You can have a nice couch and a big TV.

You can pay people to deliver you your food, cook it for you, bring it to you. You get rich enough, I think they'll cut it up and stick it in your mouth. But none of us are at that level. But maybe your primary amount of money goes to KFC and McDonald's and a couch and Netflix and that's the good life. It's just living comfortably. So your money just goes to that.

And if you got more money, that's where you'd want it to go. Control. Money's a good way to have control. You get enough money, you can help get political candidates in, you can help get things passed through, you can be in control of your circumstances, you can get arrested, it's not that big a deal. Most of us aren't there, but if you have enough, some of you, you just, a certain amount of money in the bank account lets me know I'm okay. I don't have to worry about the future.

You can get a flat tire. I saw somebody who was paying for, I was doing the premarital counseling, they're not a part of our church, they live somewhere else, but I was doing their premarital counseling and the mother-in-law, the mother of the bride, sorry, it would be mother-in-law to me, but that just depends on who you are. The mother of the bride was paying for most of the wedding, but because she was paying for most of the wedding, she was dictating how everything played out in the wedding. And then this carried on into newlywed life because she was helped a lot. She paid for a car, she paid for this.

Eventually, this couple had to say, look, we don't want your money because we don't want you to be in charge of our relationship. And we want to have a good relationship with you. And this is messing it all up. But the money all had strings attached. It's just a good way to be in control. Approval.

Get the nicest car. Nicest shoes. Nicest clothes. You can be the person who orders cheese dip for the table. That's a good way to get people to smile at you. You can be the person who covers costs for other people.

You can be the grandma who gives the best gifts. That's all generosity in some ways, but in other ways, it's just I want people to love me and this is one of the best ways I've found. Money lets me do that. It gives me approval. Power. I read recently that there was a billionaire who was building a house and he paid $16,000 in parking tickets.

Some of you are very glad. You don't think he pays enough taxes. That goes to the city. You're welcome. No? No?

All right. Paid $16,000 in parking tickets because he could park wherever he wanted. $16,000 isn't that much to him. I can't pay $16,000 in parking tickets. If I was going to get $16,000 in parking tickets, I wouldn't because I would park somewhere else. But he did that because it's just, it's a good way to be powerful.

You can be in charge of, in some ways, of who gets elected, of what gets pushed through. You can, you can, I mean, this shows up in other ways that you can try to be, have exert power. You could try to be the person who gave the most money to your local church and that way you get to help make decisions. I don't know if it worked. Give it a shot. Some of you don't have that kind of money, but you're arguing about where you're going to eat lunch and you say, I tell you what, come to the place I want to come.

I'll pay for you. It's $10 and power. But see, you can use money to get this. You could use other things. This is where it gets really scary. Some of you immediately are like, okay, I know, I know what my, my functional savior is.

This is the thing I've gone to over and over again. This is the thing I've run to over and over again to tell me I'll be okay. And some of you go, I don't know if I have one. But the reality is you can swap out functional saviors to chase after the thing you really want. That's where it gets scary. Let's say, somebody's going through high school, they really love power.

Best way in high school to have power is to lift weights and be good at sports. So they do that. They get to college and they're not as good at sports anymore because the other people are gooder at them. And so they realize the best way to get power is not to lift weights and to do sports. In the first couple years of college, they think the best way to be in power and have powerful positions is to chase girls and drink. Then they get to the back half of their college career and they think, this won't last very much longer.

So they start really studying. Mom's super happy they've turned their life around. Start really studying, working really hard, go get a good job. Maybe at some point they find religion. Because one of the best ways to be powerful is to be the only person who has the right answers to things. Now if you watch their life, we'd say, hey, they've gotten better.

The reality is they've been worshiping at the same altar their entire life. They've just found different things to get them there. This is the Pharisees. This is why Jesus had so much trouble with them. They consistently were very well-behaved people and their hearts were far from Him because what they loved was not the Lord but something else. This is one of the reasons why we consistently talk about heart level issues because the reality is you can be in a community group with someone who's walking blatantly into obvious sin and their heart is chasing after Jesus.

They keep failing. They keep repenting. And you sit over there with a heart that is stone cold towards Christ very well-behaved. And what you primarily love is how well-behaved you are and how people look up to you and you do not love Jesus. And that's terrifying. So we need to understand what are our functional saviors?

What are the things that we'd be chasing after? We need to be able to have some questions that help us see this. I'm going to give you a few questions as we finish this up. What is making God-level promises to you? What's telling you it will give you the good life? What's promising you a hope and a future and joy in life?

What do you turn to when you're stressed or scared? What do you run to when everything's hard and difficult to make yourself feel okay again or to feel safe? What do you believe the thing that you that's giving you God-level promises what do you believe it's going to provide for you? What do you hope it will give you? What do you if some of you say well this is the thing I'm chasing after it's like well what do you want it to give you? What do you think it's going to provide?

Some of you say this is the thing that I want it's like well what are you using to get there? What are you willing to sin to have? What are you willing to sin to keep? It's one of the best ways to discover what it is you really worship because when Jesus says don't do this and the thing you worship says in order to have me you're going to have to do that and you do it you love that thing more than Jesus and that's part of the reason why sin is such a problem it's not just that it's rules that you broke it's that every time it betrays the fact that you love something more than Jesus he does not have your affection and so if you consistently sin to have something or to keep something you have declared that it is your God and you are willing to serve it now Jesus says if you knew who he was you'd ask him and he'd fill you up he'd satisfy you let me tell you something we have longings and cravings and desires and empty spots in our souls look up quit running from thing to thing on earth quit getting your face down in a broken cistern over and over again that will not help you run to Jesus and tell him you promised to satisfy me satisfy me not in him I mean not in something else but in him not saying you said you'd satisfy me so give me the relationship I want I need you Jesus because you're big to serve my idol that's not how it works I need you Jesus because you're big to destroy my idol and fill me up with you that's the hope that we'd see what we worship so that we could worship something better Matt's gonna come up we're gonna sit for a moment and consider this I would beg you to ask the Holy Spirit to help you see this to see for a second just as the Holy Spirit through the power of Christ was sitting there and he was able to point right to the thing that they had run to over and over again that you might have this same thing happen in your soul and that you would not run from it as soon as the Holy Spirit starts pressing on those things one of our favorite things to do is to just shut that down and get away because we don't want to have to go through the pain it takes to be set free from something but I will promise you that Jesus is better so let's take a moment and to consider what is it that's making God's eyes promises to me what is it I believe it'll provide for me what am I willing to send to have and by God's grace may we go to him and say I need you I need you more than I need this I need you to forgive me I need you to give me a hope I need you to give me satisfaction I need you to forgive me and to fill me up let's pray God we ask right now that your Holy Spirit would be at work in this room for freedom and for life Lord that your Holy Spirit be at work to help us to see our sin and our false idols that are mute and deaf and helpless to save us and helpless to satisfy us and helpless to fix us and Lord we pray that by the power of your Spirit through the work of Christ that you would redeem and that you would forgive and that you would move to lead people to satisfaction and to salvation in you the fountain of living water in Jesus name Amen Amen Amen Amen

American Idol

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

American Idol

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning my name is spencer i'm one of the pastors here uh obviously we expected to be live in person this morning but because of some coveted exposure we want to be safe so we are live streaming online if you're joining us we're glad you're joining us here we as a Church we believe that Jesus is better than everything else and because of this we get to be a Gospel-centered community on missions so this morning that looks like worshiping from home that looks like singing songs listening to the word of.

God being preached and responding in faith and repentance but it also means that we get to be a collection of community groups that meet throughout the week it's one of the things we talk about that are our community groups our smaller groups of our Church family they're not events they're not something that you go to it's not it's not a function it's your people it's your people that you get to journey through life with that you get to go through good times and bad times with you get to come and bear burdens you get to come and celebrate what.

God is doing and and learning about the Gospel together so for some of you this week that's going to be through facetime or jitsy or zoom or or skype and our encouragement for you is to be present it's not an event uh it is better to be together but it's not an event that we just uh that we get to skip out on it's a people that you get to see face to face that's in person or through a screen there are people that you get to gather with uh and walk through the Gospel with and walk through this sermon series that we are walking through the next three weeks.

So that's a little bit about who we are as a Church and if you're new we want to invite you into that one of the ways you can find out about community groups in our Church is to go to our website millcitycasey.com you can go to our community groups tab uh and you can fill out a connect form when someone can follow up with you and tell you about our groups tell you uh what groups you can go and check out.

But we're uh glad you're here with us this morning tuning in online uh if you are part if you are a part of our Church family we invite you to give you can give online at our website we have a giving tab you can also drop off checks here at the office uh throughout the week so i want to pray that uh right now God prepare our hearts from worship wherever we're tuning in from and then i'm gonna read from psalm 100.

Father i thank you that we get to worship wherever that is we get to sing your praises we get to sit under your word you get to form us and shape us and mold us into your image God i pray that you help us be present that you help us focus that you help us join in worshiping you we ask this in Jesus name amen all right this is a reading from psalm 100 make a joyful noise to the lord all the earth serve the.

Lord with gladness come into his presence with singing know that the lord he is God it is he who made us and we are his we are his people and the sheep of his pasture enter his gates with thanksgiving enter in his courts with praise give thanks to him bless his name for the lord is good his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations let's sing together worthy of worship worthy of worship worthy of the grace souls we can.

See father creator you are worthy savior you are and wonderful worthy of worship and praise of reverence worthy of fear worthy of love and devotion worthy of all this and added to these father creator you are worthy save your sustainer you are almighty father master and lord king of all kings and redeemers savior and source of a life without in worthy and wonderful i got a firm foundation alright the only solid ground the nations rise and fall kingdom comes one strong.

Now shaken we trust forever in your name the name of Jesus we trust the name of Jesus you are the only king forever almighty God we lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty God will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious knee will bow we bring our expectations our hope is anchored in your name the name of Jesus we trust the name of.

Jesus you are the only king forever almighty God we lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty God will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious the name of Jesus from age 28. you are the only king forever almighty God will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty God will let you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious a reading from.

First Peter 1 3-9 blessed be the God and father of our lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials to the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise.

Glory and honor at the Revelation of Jesus Christ though you have not seen him you love him though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith salvation of your souls how great the castle then lay between us how high the mountain i could not in desperation i turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night then through the darkness your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul the work is finished the end is written.

Jesus Christ who could imagine so great a mercy what i could fathom such boundless grace the God of ages stepped down from glory to where my sin and bear my shame the cross has spoken i am forgiven the king of kings calls me beautiful savior i'm yours forever Jesus Christ hallelujah praise the lord who set me free hallelujah death has lost his script on me you have broken every chain there's salvation in your name Jesus Christ death has lost its grip on me you have broken every chain this salvation in your name.

Jesus the Christ that sealed the promise your very body began to breathe out of the silence the roaring lion declare the grave then came the morning that sealed the promise your very body began to breathe is set me free hallelujah death has lost its grip on me you have broken every chain this salvation in your name Jesus Christ oh God you are my living God we're thankful this morning that we get to claim Jesus as our living hope Jesus who came of his own will came of his own purpose to rescue us to redeem us we are grateful this morning who lived a perfect sinful life a sinless life he died on the cross.

For our sins and rose from the grave God that that's our hope this morning and i pray that we would put our hope in Jesus uh as we open up your word this morning we pray that you would speak to us you would help us learn help us grow we ask this in Jesus name amen well good morning i uh i really like that bumper i'm excited that we are getting to start a series together looking at politics but as we do that we we need to kind of set uh some ground rules and be able to come in this.

Well so we talk a lot about politics in the united states we talk about them almost unceasingly and we are in the middle of an election year and so you might already be overwhelmed by how much you're having to hear about political candidates and political parties and political hopes and dreams and political fears but we wanted to take some time as a Church family to discuss politics and our approach as Christians to politics so even as we begin that i know that.

For some of you that brings up a lot of fear or frustration or a desire that we as a Church would never discuss these things maybe you even believe that the Church should never discuss these things others of you may be very excited and want to talk about politics maybe you're like finally we should have already been talking about this and i'm willing to bet there's a big mixture of all of that across our Church family we want to be able to discuss this in a healthy biblical way just.

Because something is tense or difficult in our culture does not mean we have to shy away from it or we ought to shy away from it often it means we we ought to press in we as a Church ought to investigate and discuss and look at and so as we move into this series together i want to give a few things for us one is it's not going to be that long of a series we're only taking three weeks we're not going to get to say everything that ought to be said about it.

But we're also not going to spend a ton of time on it what we're trying to do is set a foundation for how we ought to approach politics and since we're in such a heated political climate we need to have some biblical wisdom as to how we ought to approach we understand that our Church family differs on policies and politics and we we we think that's beautiful and that ought to happen inside the Church but we want to have a baseline.

For how do we as Christians engage in the political processes around us without losing our mind or without losing our souls and so as we walk through this realize it's a three-week series not everything will be able to be said certainly not everything will be able to be said in each sermon if there is something that frustrates you makes you angry makes you aggravated don't value your politics above being Church family and let's press in and talk about these things come talk to me let's clarify what i said what i meant to say go talk to the people in your group as we walk through this.

But we're going to try to as best we can look like God look God like and graciously walk through this as Christians as we move forward so the point of this series is that we believe that Christians ought to look different from our culture when it comes to our political engagement that Christians ought to be distinct from those around them and how they think about and approach politics we believe that we believe that we ought to have a different viewpoint and a different starting point.

And so that you should look more like the Christians on the other side of the globe that when we boil down your life and your hopes and your aspirations and the way you walk through life that you should look more like a believer in china or india or russia than just someone who looks like you and votes like you in the united states that we ought to have a distinct way we approach politics as believers over and against those who we would technically be in the same political party as that's what we're trying to discuss.

Look at for the next three weeks specifically today we're going to look at the fact we're going to take kind of a zoom in on our current political climate and look at how our culture demands that we approach politics and ultimately what they're asking of us is to approach a political candidate or a political party as a hero and a savior to elevate one party one candidate as a messiah who will lead us into a bright future and to understand that the other candidate the other party is evil and destructive that they ought to be feared that's kind of the current political climate that we have.

So we're going to investigate that a little bit and try to see how we as Christians ought to approach this step away from that and have a different on-ramp to our approach to politics so let's pray and we'll begin to look at that this morning God we ask for your grace and your wisdom as we walk through this we know that just live streaming and then gathering in our groups is not our ideal not our desired way to approach this but we also know that through the power of your Holy Spirit and through the the way you work in your Church which is not a location or an event.

But a people that will be just fine as we study your word together and seek to be good missionaries in our city and so we pray that you would bless this as we study together and as we get to gather together in community groups that we would grow in our understanding of who you are and how we ought to approach government and the political process in the place that we live we ask for grace in Jesus name amen if you'll grab your bibles and go to Philippians chapter 3.

That's where we'll spend our time today it's going to take us a minute to get there but go ahead and flip there get to Philippians 3 we're going to be looking at verse 17 through and we're going to have to talk through a few things before we start in that passage so that we can kind of set the groundwork for what we're looking at but we will get there politics is neutral in general the idea of politics is just taken from the greek word polis which means city and it's how do we organize ourselves as a city how do we organize ourselves as a group of people what's inbounds what's out of bounds what works.

Towards human flourishing and what doesn't these are the questions that politics have to answer so in general politics is neutral now we use the word with a negative term because we've filled up politics with people and once we do that we get partisan politics and we get someone being political which just means they're maneuvering things so that they can get the most benefit without any skin in the game and so but when we're talking about this as we approach it it's the idea of government is good it's a common grace blessing from.

God it is something that we ought to participate in celebrate and enjoy that the idea that humans should collectively have ways that they govern themselves and that they keep society in order and work towards human flourishing is good and it's a gift from God and we will talk specifically next week and the week after about how we ought to engage and how we ought to press them but as we start today we want to just approach understanding how we get to where we've elevated political parties and political candidates to the position that they're in or we are really in some ways at our heart level looking.

For a savior looking for a messiah someone that we can hope in some party that we can trust in something that would put us at ease and at rest and deliver us to the promised land so as we were working on this i got with josh pabone and inspired by old political cartoons we drew up well josh drew up the government octopus and so here it is this is the the octopus of government now this is not meant to scare you.

If you're scared of octopus i'm sorry this is meant just to show you how the government can attach to and be involved in so many things that matter to us so if you look at his little headband that's the government if you see tucked up behind him he's got comfort and power because ultimately that's what happens if the government has some power and it offers us power if we're in line with it it offers us some comfort it kind of has these things that we care about and pursue and it touches all these things that really matter to us justice schools health money happiness we're going to do something that we haven't done before.

But we're going to try out as we're trying to learn how to do this well i'm going to stand to the side here and we're going to try to have this pulled up over here so that we can see it it may move around a little bit as we get it adjusted adjusted but this is the neutral not meant to scare you government octopus that touches all the things that matter and you can see how we begin to place a lot of hopes in who's in power.

Because the government affects justice what happens in our court system what do you go to jail for are there jails are there prisons who runs them how long do you have to stay there what are the conditions there how do you seek justice if you've been wronged who decides what is right and wrong you see every government whether it's big or little whether it's a a democracy or a dictatorship it's going to address some of these issues it's going to have answers to some of these problems.

If people are going to exist with one another so government attaches itself to justice and has to answer some questions for us and sometimes when it doesn't give an answer it's that's an answer it pushes it into the market it puts it into how people will handle it on their own schools so that this government octopus can address schools which is our children are they safe are there standards that all schools have to meet or is it just if you have enough money you can get a good education.

And if you don't you don't are there health standards are there safety standards who's teaching them what are they learning are they being indoctrinated in all the good things we want them indoctrinated in or they being indoctrinated in all the evil things that will lead them to stray see this matters this is why when we talk about government it matters to us our health is tied up in this what happens when you go to the hospital is it clean is it nice is that just based off of whether you have money or the area you live in has money are there standards that that medicines have to meet are there standards that doctors have to.

Meet who sets those standards who controls that how much does it cost who pays for it these are questions that government answers or chooses not to answer and just pushes out into the world but it matters it matters the type of care you get the type of care your family gets if you look at happiness we have that on there the way we've worded that in the u.s is this idea of a pursuit of happiness that the government is meant to help you not be infringed upon by them and not be infringed upon by the people around you that you can have some level of freedom this isn't the case everywhere.

But it is here and it does matter as we're trying to talk about our political landscape can you own property can you defend it or not can people take it from you is there some amount of upward mobility can you work certain jobs or not depending on who you are your skin color your race your family of origin whether or not you started off wealthy or poor like there's this level of what kind of boundaries do i have the government affects our money they set a currency is it a good currency is it a bad currency how much do you earn.

When you work does the government control that how many hours can your employer ask of you all these things government effects and so all these things matter to us and so you can begin to see how we would begin to elevate this and in reality in a culture where we step away from God where our culture drifts from understanding that God is sovereign that he rules over everything for us this matters more and more and more this idea of this government octopus matters more and more.

If we're to trust it over and against trusting God as he works it always has mattered but the more our culture shifts away from God the more we begin to look for this to deliver us the kingdom this to deliver us the promised land this to keep us safe this to give us a hope and a future and so this is where political parties begin to step in this is where political candidates begin to step in because all these things matter to us they're tied to our hearts.

And so it's easy for us as they're clumped together for us to look to political hopes as our true hope so if this is good if it's your political candidate of choice then everything is awesome everything works out beautifully it's like this governmental octopus is not just touching these things but it's hugging them it's protecting them it's keeping you safe if your candidate is in office or if your hopes and dreams are being fulfilled by those in congress maybe if you're in another part of the world and you have a benevolent dictator this is the way it works that this offers a lot of security a lot of safety it helps you.

When you walk through the world to know where your place is but if it's not your candidate of choice it's terrifying if it's not your party this this octopus is now snaking its way around it's sucking the life out of you it's it's here to harm you and destroy you this is easy for us to believe it's easy for us to feel this because the government has an effect on so many things for us it's easy for us to be able to.

See this and there's part of this that's absolutely true you start looking at it and go no the government does have a large role to play and what your day-to-day life looks like the government has a large role to play in and what your whole life looks like whether it's good or bad and so we begin to place a lot of hope a lot of intense passion around how is this going to play out but the reality is Christians cannot approach it the same way that our culture has begun to call us to here's what i mean the cultural push right.

Now is kind of a three-step process first they're going to convince us that the stakes are high and that's easy to do this idea that the stakes are high is easy to convince us that we ought to place a lot of hope in how this would work out because if it goes bad it goes really bad but if it goes good it can go really good and so this is why we've begun to give a lot of rhetoric and language towards how this plays out that we've got to give a lot of rhetoric and language tours who is to be trusted who is to be elevated you hear things like donald trump is an existential.

Threat to america he's an existential threat to democracy that our democracy the united states won't exist i saw somebody post recently on facebook or on twitter that this we were facing the fight of our lifetime and if donald trump was not elected it could mean the end of christianity we've begun to elevate this language and what happens on both sides is we start to pump up one leader or one party as the hero and we begin to pump up the other one as the villain and we're told by everybody.

When you turn on the radio when you turn on the news when you flip through your news feed on your phone nobody is coming to you and saying hey calm down it's going to be all right we're gonna we're gonna last beyond this we're gonna be okay everybody is working us into a frenzy to tell us how high the stakes are i've only seen a few elections but what i know about them is that the stakes were highest they'd ever been the.

First one i ever saw and then they were the highest they've ever been and they got higher and i'm going to go ahead and tell you that in 2024 when we're having another election i seriously doubt they're going to come on your news feed and say hey the stakes are a little bit lower than last time i feel like we're going to continue to barrel towards this cataclysmic future because the more we fear the more we approach politics with fear the more we.

See how this is snaking in and could either protect us and guard us or or snatch life away from us and so they build this up on one side you have a Christ and on the other side you have an antichrist and you may say that's that's a bit strong well the reality is i we lived through an election where the the candidate was called an antichrist i actually remember leading a Bible study in college and some of the guys on our football team came and asked me hey i've been hearing that obama is the antichrist do you think that's true i said no i don't i don't think that's true i think people politically.

Don't like him they disagree with his politics i don't think he's the antichrist but we've begun to elevate this so on this side you have a hero and on this side you have a villain this side we're going to exalt them we're going to exalt a party this side we're going to vilify it this side we have a Christ and an antichrist someone who will lead us to the promised land someone who will give us a hope and a future and someone over here.

If they're elected there will be blood in the streets you will be hunted everything you hold dear will be taken from you everything you've ever hoped in or trusted will be gone everything that you've ever built or loved the type of person you are will be snatched from you your children will be destroyed this is the type of language we see that over here we have a savior and over here we have the devil and over here we have a 75 year old white man and over here we have a 75 year old white man.

Well that one's the same but you can see how we build this up to a fever pitch and it doesn't matter the language is the same the rhetoric is the same and you can insert whichever party you want and sometimes it doesn't just get wrapped up around the candidate often it gets wrapped up around the policies or the party but they want us to believe that the stakes are higher than they've ever been and that you ought to be afraid secondly once we are rightfully fearful we're told to join a tribe you got to pick a team it's not just a team this is a tribe this is the people to whom you belong what.

They're demanding is not just pick some policies you like but they're saying no pick a party to which you give allegiance wholehearted devotion because when there's a tribe we cannot show weakness when there's a tribe we can't have internal fighting if we have weakness over here that's how the other team wins if we're fighting things out on our side if we don't have agreement on our side so everybody has to step in line you have to perfectly agree you have to defend your tribe over and against the other tribe i have two brothers my dad uh consistently told us that we were a team that it was us to me and my two brothers against.

The world even to the point at one time i told on my other brother and my dad called me a narc told me i was singing like a canary and he said it's not you and me against your brother it's you and your brother against me and i thought this is a weird family dynamic but okay but what he was trying to put in me was that my brothers would be my brothers forever and he would say these are your brothers you don't disagree with your friends over against your brother you don't you defend your brother he told us that.

If we were out somewhere and one of our brothers one of my brothers got himself into trouble by running his mouth or doing something wrong it was my job to help defend him and then when we got alone i could hit him upside his head for being a but i couldn't do it when we were out i had to defend him the reality is that's what we're told about our political tribe blood level allegiance you line up with us perfectly once we're fearful once we've picked a tribe the.

Third one's simple win destroy your enemies this is what's asked of us in our political landscape that you need to understand how much is at stake you need to be afraid you need to join our team and we must win at all costs this is the fight of our lives we must take them down you don't understand how they will rob you of everything you hold dear how they would snatch it from you everything will be destroyed we must win they want us to be outraged they want us to be angry they want us to hate the other side.

If we can see them as a big block of something dangerous rather than humans who were walking out life trying to figure things out then all the better the reality is as Christians there are things we ought to be outraged over there are things we ought to be angry about but not constant fear-driven anger over every little thing not anger that's only against one political party and not the other but anger for the things of God it's a slow anger that continually works towards things that matter justice mercy the value of life there are things that we ought to be outraged over.

But we don't just shout it out we work towards good ends but the reality is they want us to be fearful give our full allegiance and on the attack ultimately they want us to pick a and have a savior do you see how that's a problem for us do you see how Christians can't really join that let's go to Philippians 3. hopefully you're already there i said it take us a minute to get here but this passage is so helpful for us this is Paul writing to the Church in philippi he says brothers join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us who are.

Our leaders Christians who do we keep our eye on godly faithful men and women who follow Jesus for years who do we get our political marching orders from Scripture and those who love Christ not just the political candidates of choice so he says keep your eyes on them that's not exactly he's not talking about a political thing here but i just wanted us to see that that's we join in imitating those who've come up before us verse 18 it says for many of whom i have often told you.

Now tell you even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ their end is destruction their God is their belly and they glory in their shame with mind set on earthly things says those who are opposed to Christ their God is their belly meaning their passions their desires their lusts their desires of the flesh that they glory in their shame meaning all the things that are terrible are the things that they uphold as wonderful they brag about their greed they brag about their promiscuity they brag about all the things that are sinful and broken they glory in them their minds are set on earthly things all they can.

See is here and now what most benefits me here and now so he says there's this whole group of people that are walking as enemies of Christ and their end is destruction we have a picture of this to try to help us see this when when our culture tells us the stakes are high and what they mean is the political future of america is in danger if you don't act your political hopes and dreams won't be lived out the reality is we're already in a situation where the stakes are high all of creation is groaning waiting.

For God's Revelation of himself groaning waiting for him to redeem the Church and the reality is all of creation is going to be either redeemed or judged every person we know is going to be redeemed by Christ they're going to have a Christ-filled eternal future or they're going to be condemned in their sin those are the stakes that's the situation we find ourselves in and so when Paul says this he says their end is destruction their God is their belly and they glory in their shame he doesn't say this smugly he doesn't say this pridefully he says i tell you this even with tears they walk as enemies of Christ the reality is uh the.

Enemies are not political enemies they're not enemies of this party or that party they're enemies of Christ and Paul says this with tears with the hope that there would be so few of them that most people would walk into the freedom that's offered through Jesus and salvation and have an eternity with him so when they tell us the stakes are high the reality is the stakes are far higher than they know and we don't have political hopes that will fix them we have an eternal game that we're playing we have an eternal hope that is set we have an eternal judgment that is he coming.

So Christians cannot participate in the fear they want us to have over our short run political future Christians cannot participate in the fear they want us to have over a short run political future because we come from a different place understanding who the true fear is that we ought to fear him who can do more than kill the body but can also destroy the soul that we ought to fear him who rules over the cosmos and rules over history and who raises and lowers nations and who redeems in Christ in Christ alone we cannot participate in the fear they want us to have over short-run political situations and scenarios.

When they tell us to join a tribe to give our allegiance they're saying pick who you think will save you listen to this policy listen to this listen to that weigh it out and then pick one and join and fight for that end there's a scene in monty python's quest for the holy grail it's a really dumb movie they're running around questing for the holy grail that's what they're gonna go find one they go to this castle they announce that they're on a quest to find the holy grail and the guy leans over the edge of the castle and says we've already got one.

And then he ducks down and says i've told him we've already got one he's just messing with him but he he says we've already got one we already have a holy grail we don't need to join your quest and that's how i feel that Christians ought to respond when they say pick a tribe we've already got one i already have a savior i already have a hope this is what he says in Philippians 20 3 chapter 3 verse 20. but our citizenship is in heaven you already have a tribe you already have a people and from it we await a savior the.

Lord Jesus Christ we already have a messiah we already have a hope and a future we already have a glorious promise of progress so when they tell you that you ought to be afraid and you ought to join a tribe you need someone to save you we already have someone to save you and i'm awaiting a savior i'm not awaiting a savior from the republican party we're not sitting and awaiting a savior from the democratic party we're not waiting for their policies to come in to redeem and rescue we already have a savior we already have a hope we already have a future i recently watched the play hamilton.

Because it's on disney plus spencer talked about that about a week ago i thoroughly enjoyed it i think it was well done i liked the artistic nature of it i enjoyed my wife and i more enjoyed getting to see the history of things we kept looking up stuff to see if it was true we looked up to see who hercules mulligan was which by the way i know that our Church family keeps having new babies hercules mulligan is a sweet name and has the benefit of being gender neutral boy or girl would work excellently that's less true.

But it's a really good name and so we're watching this and i i enjoyed i enjoyed watching and seeing the history and thinking through this and how the united states fought against the largest empire in the world at this time and and won their independence it's fun for me to celebrate that and see that i like that we got rid of a king and got a republican democracy a democratic republi republic that's the word i was looking for it's the same thing kind of.

But we got a democratic republic i love that the queen can't show up and get rid of all of our governmental officials like she can in i don't know other places around the world like australia i appreciate that we have this but the reality is i long for the day when the king rides in and overthrows this democracy i long for the day when i no longer get to vote because i'm a servant in the house of God and all the good things are taken care of.

Because i already have a savior and from heaven we await our hope we are citizens of heaven and we can participate in the good things that government has now but our hope does not reside here and our allegiance cannot be given here because it's been given to Christ we cannot participate at the same level that those who have no hope can we ought not to this is a quote from russell moore in his book onward he's the president of the southern baptist ethnic ethics and religious liberty council he says this it would be a tragedy to get the right president the right congress and the wrong Christ he goes on to say that.

If we accept anybody who says they'll be a they're a Christian as long as they have our political leaning and we elevate them even though they show no marks of being a Christian what we're actually demonstrating to the world is that we love politics over Christ we're actually demonstrating what our real hope is and who our real savior is and it's a problem we're told then to destroy our enemies the reality is the enemies are enemies of the cross of Christ and we do not approach them with hate.

But with tears we're told that we ought to fight against our enemies that we bought ought to be outraged that those who would destroy america but the reality is their end is destruction because they're destroying themselves because they walk as enemies of the cross of Christ and so we join with our God who died for his enemies who told us to love our neighbors and love our enemies we cannot participate in the anger and the outrage they want us to have against the political party.

Because we are not just playing out a political hope we can't participate in the fear we can't give our allegiance and we can't walk in the anger they want us to have because we understand how the world actually works Christians ought to have a distinct approach to politics and to government we're called to participate we're called to work actively in them we're going to talk more about that but first we've got to repent of where we've elevated a political party to a hope into a messiah that can give us the future we want and and denigrated the.

God who has already done that for us in Christ and from whom we await salvation we need to repent this is as he continues out in verse into verse 20 he says we await a savior the lord Jesus Christ and he says who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself i want to finish up by reading two quotes that i think are helpful for us and we'll spend some time this week in our community groups walking through uh some questions that help us begin to.

See and untangle where we might have begun to worship and elevate a political party over our savior brett mccracken wrote this for the Gospel coalition i think it's helpful he says here's the hard truth for believers wanting political influence in these times consistent faithfulness to Scripture will never square with total alignment with any political party a Gospel agenda is not set by partisan think tanks in washington dc it's set by Scripture a Gospel agenda may align with some aspects of one political party and some of another and should spur us to engage in those areas.

But it also decidedly rejects some aspects of both God's agenda is better bigger and more glorious than any one party nation culture or time the mission of Jesus will outlast every white house tenure it will outlast america itself for the Christian the right side of history is always the side that places faithfulness to the eternal God above loyalty to a temporal tribe if we have begun to elevate our political party and our hopes are set in them and you'd feel more comfortable knowing that your political candidate won and that you began 2021 with the right political candidate and you care more about that than who's on the throne in the eternal heavens ruling over history.

We have a problem if you're more willing to evangelize for your political party of choice but have no words for those who don't know Christ we have a problem but the reality is we await a savior who redeems and works and transforms and has everything in subjection to himself and we have hope so we come in from a different angle hebrews 12 28 says therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and let us offer to.

God acceptable worship with reverence and all some of us have begun to worship political parties we've begun to worship political candidates we've worshipped our way into this and we need to worship our way out for us to begin this as we approach following the lord well we need to begin setting our hearts and hopes on Christ and not political agendas we've been being stirred up in fear and tribalism and anger and we need a reset we need to spend time this week in our Scriptures before the face of.

God reminding ourselves of the eternality of the mission we've been sent on it's not a short run one the reality is there will be a king who rules forever and we have hope only as we have hope in him we'll finish with this leslie nubigen he's a missionary went to india went back to the uk and saw that there was that as he had gone to india to be a missionary when he finally came back he realized that the uk had drifted as.

Well and this is one point he talks about our hope not being governmental he says the point is that a transformed society is not our goal great as that is our goal is the holy city the new Jerusalem a perfect fellowship in which God reigns in every heart and his children rejoice together in his love and joy and though we know that we must grow old and die and that our labors even if they succeed for a time will end will in the end be buried in the dust of time and that along with the painfully won achievements of goodness there are mounting seemingly irresistible forces of evil yet we are not dismayed we know.

That these things must be but we know that as surely as Christ was raised from the dead so surely shall there be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness and having this knowledge we ought as Christians to be the strength of every good movement of political and social effort because we have no need either of blind optimism despair we get to begin in a place of hope and certainty we get to approach the political landscape of our nation distinctly from our neighbors who don't know Christ we understand the reality of the eternal situation we're going to walk in.

And so we ought to worship we ought to celebrate that we have a kingdom that will outlast all kingdoms that we have a kingdom that cannot be taken shaken or destroyed and we have to begin there if our starting point is not that our savior is Christ and that we are brothers and sisters and citizens of heaven we won't be able to even begin understanding how we ought to approach something temporary and good like politics let's spend this week repenting let's spend this week confessing let's spend this week re-setting our hearts and hopes.

So that we might move forward participating fervently for the good that is in government but doing so without either despair or blind optimism understanding that we have a savior let's pray God we thank you for your grace we pray that we would be politically active but that we would be politically active as Christians who have a hope and a future who have a citizenship in heaven secured by Christ and Christ alone help us to repent this week as everything around us calls us to fear and allegiance and anger may we live as.

If we believe in Christ amen may your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven for yours is the kingdom the power and the glory forever you reign swelling lives we will be the Church to live our your heart oh God rise up in us we'll show the world how you love Jesus take our heart and make it yours salvation over us the fight was one on the cross to take may your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

For yours is the kingdom the power we will be the Church to live out your heart oh God rise up in us we'll Jesus take our heart and make it yours salvation voices make a joyful noise make a joyful noise and raise your voices make a joyful noise oh God rise up in us we'll show the world how you love Jesus take our heart and make it yours salvation over for you have overcome the world all right before we uh let's get out here.

Today before you guys tune out uh a couple announcements uh we encourage you if you're not a part of a group to jump in with a group you can go to our community groups page you can find out some more information there fill out a contact form and we can connect you uh to a group uh for our Church family that's in groups we invite you to to be present in group this week whether that's uh through uh facetime or jitsi or whatever or it's in person uh be present and uh and let's walk through this very difficult subject together let's watch this with a lot of grace and repentance also.

If you're part of our Church family we invite you to give you can give online on our website you can also drop off checks at the office during the week uh we hope to be back in this room uh this coming uh this next sunday uh but we're gonna have to wait and see so there'll be more information on that at the end of the week so let me pray that we respond well as we walk this out as a Church family.

Father i thank you that you give us your word and that it pierces our hearts it exposes the thoughts and intentions of our hearts so that we can walk and repentance so that we can see that you are our ultimate king and your kingdom is not of this world God i pray you give us grace for one another this week that we walk through this together that you would keep us safe we ask us all in Jesus name amen.

Isolation and Idolatry

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

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Isolation & Idolatry

Chet Phillips

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Never Satisfied

Never Satisfied

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Well, good morning. Hopefully you saw something on that video that you love and care deeply about. Part of our goal in this sermon series is to pick a little bit of a fight. So I'm glad to see y'all this morning. We are in the second week of our Idol series. We're taking just a couple of weeks to talk about the fact that we as humans are idolaters, meaning that we put something else other than God in the place of God as our highest affection.

This is what Raz talked about last week, that the first and greatest commandment is that we would love the Lord our God with everything we have and that that orders everything else for us. That comes first, and as long as we have that in place, then the rest of life will flow, function, work, make sense, operate the way it ought to. And as soon as that's out of place, we are disoriented. Our lives are disoriented and everything begins to go poorly. That's primarily what we're talking about, and that is idolatry. Now, there's a temptation for us culturally to go, okay, okay, okay, hold on a second.

Like, other cultures have idols. We don't. That's why we started that video. It starts off with a totem pole. It's like, yes, that's an idol, but we don't really have that. Like, if you went to ancient Rome or Greece or whatever, yeah, they have a temple set up to Athena or Artemis, or they have a temple set up to Aphrodite, but we don't do that.

And I would just argue that I think they were just a little more straightforward with their idolatry, and we're just a little more subtle with it. Aphrodite, they would have a temple set up to her. She was the goddess of beauty and sexuality. Okay. You might not worship Aphrodite, but Americans worship beauty and sexuality. When you're in line at the grocery store, check out the magazines.

That's half of what they're talking about. You may not have a festival to Bacchus where you're going to drink and celebrate in his name, but we're going to have a festival to something where we're going to drink and celebrate and give too much credence to comfort and to celebration. You may not think that you worship Athena, but our culture worships wisdom. We worship education. We place too much value in these sort of things. We don't worship Aries, but we do have the greatest military on the planet.

And some of y'all, see your little heart just beat a little faster because of how special and magic that is in the 4th of July in America. And we blow things up to become a country, and we blow things up to celebrate. We are a country, and there's this tendency to worship some of the same things. That they would worship Baal by having a giant bull statue that they bowed down to, that they worshiped, that they celebrated, that they hoped brought plenty and value and economic growth. And we have a giant bull statue sitting out in front of the New York Stock Exchange that you can go rub for good luck if you'd like.

We're just a little more subtle, but we're worshiping the same things culturally. And I want to argue with you today that you are in your heart an idolater. That I am in my heart an idolater, meaning that I place other things in the spot of God, expect them to give me what only God can give me, to save me, to give me value, to give me worth, and that ultimately this destroys and falls apart and cannot stand, that what I am worshiping cannot stand under the weight of my worship. So here's our goal. We're going to talk a little bit about idolatry. We're going to get our minds wrapped around that, make sure we're all on the same page conceptually, and then we are going to try to diagnose our own hearts today.

So we're going to study a few passages of Scripture, and then we're going to ask a lot of questions, and I'm going to coach you up on how to do that. But grab your Bibles, go to Exodus chapter 20. We're going to pick up where God is giving the law. So this is the first, this is His Ten Commandments, after He's brought the Israelites out of Egypt. I don't know if y'all have ever read Genesis. If you get the chance, it's a wonderful book.

At the end of Genesis, the Israelites are in Egypt, and the book of Exodus picks up, and it's hundreds of years later, and it says a Pharaoh came along who did not know Joseph, and they just saw that all these Israelites were here. They thought they were a threat, so they enslaved them. They're enslaved for 400 years, and then God sends Moses down to Egypt with a hit song that He's going to sing to Pharaoh about letting His people go, and they're going to march them on out. That's not true, but the song helps you remember stuff. He brings them out of Egypt into the wilderness, and God begins to give them His law, and that's what we're going to pick up, but we're going to pray before we do that.

So let's pray. God, identifying our idols is difficult. It is a difficult task for us to do. So we ask for your help. We ask for your grace, and we pray that you, through your Holy Spirit, would minister to us so that we might love you above all else. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so Exodus chapter 20, and God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not have no other gods before me. So he immediately goes into the Ten Commandments, but I want to point out something to us real quick. He starts off with, I am the God who brought you out of slavery. Now, here's how to obey. Here's how to follow.

That we sometimes want to get this backwards. We want to get to, God calls us to obedience. God calls us to morality. God calls us to good works. And then, He'll save us. Then He'll redeem us.

Then He'll work on our behalf. But that's not how it works in the Old Testament or the New Testament. You don't clean yourself up so that Jesus will love you. Jesus loves you. He cleans us up. Therefore, we obey.

In the Old Testament, God rescues them out of slavery and then says, here's how to follow. Here's how to obey. We always move in response to what God has already done. It's not the main point of the passage or the sermon, but I got to point that out because it's really, really good news. Verse 3. You shall have no other gods before me.

Meaning, first rule is that I'm primary. Nothing else gets to be in my spot. Nothing else gets to be in front of me. Nothing else. I'm number one. That's what God says.

I rescued you out of slavery. I'm number one. Now, I've heard people argue, I've heard my cousin argue, that that puts God in a very narcissistic position. If I elevate myself, if you elevate yourself and say, I'm number one, everybody needs to worship me and love me above everything else, that is a very narcissistic position because you can't handle it. You're not valuable enough to be worshipped like that. When God calls us to it, he's calling us to something that is for our own good because he is better than everything else.

He created everything else. All the little good things we have in life are just small pictures of what he's like that point us to his goodness. The one who created it, who thought it up, who exudes it. And so when he says, put me first, he is actually calling us to our own joy, not to begrudging submission. But he says, I'll be above everything else.

And the second commandment is, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. God says, I am a jealous God. I told my son that and he was like, well, that's bad because there's this idea that jealousy is bad, that it's a negative trait.

Greed's bad. Covetousness is bad. Jealousy can make us do inappropriate or bad things, but jealousy is not bad because God is jealous and therefore there's an appropriate type of jealousy. Let's talk about jealousy for just a second. This is actually really good that God is a jealous God. I, a while back I saw Oprah and she was actually talking about one of the things that led her away from faith was that she was gathered with a church.

She said the pastor said that God is a jealous God and Oprah said she sat there and was like, wait, God's jealous of me? And she was like, I just couldn't, I couldn't wrap my mind around that. That God would be jealous of me. Um, no, Oprah. He's not jealous of you. God's not in heaven going, you know, being God's pretty nice, but if I could just be Oprah, that would be the deal.

He's not, he's not doing that. He's not jealous of, he's jealous for, he's jealous over. It's a healthy, righteous jealousy that he wants our affection. He wants our love. I am jealous for or over my wife. So if we went to a party, I don't know where you're from, a hootenanny, a shindig, whatever y'all like to call it.

If we went to one of those and I looked over and there was an attractive man talking to my wife and they were flirting, she's blushing and giggling and I felt jealousy rise up in me, I would not be jealous of her. I wouldn't be over there thinking, you know, I dressed up and came to the party. He doesn't flirt with me. I don't see any guys hitting on me. I would, that would not be the jealousy I had. I would be jealous over her.

I would be jealous. I would, I don't want her to want to flirt with someone else. I want her, I want him to try and then be humiliated. And she's just like, gives him cold dead eyes and is like, get stepping. That's what I want. Because I'm jealous for her.

I want her affection. And so when he says that God is a jealous God, he says, you will have no other gods. You will not make any graven image, anything in likeness of heaven above or earth below or in the waters. Nothing, because nothing is comparable to me and I want your love and affection. I'm a jealous God. And that is appropriate both for him and for us.

You want God to be jealous. We're going to talk more about that next week, but we are too easily distracted by much cheaper, smaller, shinier, little temporary things that lead us to destruction and we want God to love us enough, to love our heart enough, to desire our affection so that he chases us down. So he's a jealous God and we are to have nothing above him. But as this passage explains it, what is an idol or what gets to be an idol or what would fit into the category of an idol? Well, anything that you would bow down to and serve. Anything that would take the place of God.

Anything in heaven or on earth or in the ocean. Anything. Anything that we would bow down to and serve. Anything that would steal our affection. Anything that would presume to dethrone God and assume his place. Romans 1.

We're going to quickly look at it. It'll be on screen. I'm not going to have you turn there because we're going to go to one other passage in the Old Testament and we're going to just look at those two in our Bibles. But Romans 1 will be up here. It says this. This is Paul talking about this conceptually for humanity.

It says, For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. You see that this is a heart level problem that we would love and worship something else. It's a heart level problem. That's why God is jealous for us. He's jealous for our affection and our love. Their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise.

They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. It is foolish to replace God with something else smaller than God and God loves us enough to address this. If you have children and they grow to be middle schoolers and they decide in middle school, I am no longer going to listen to the wisdom of my parents who know me and love me. I am now going to base all of my decision off of the four sixth graders I hang out with. I'm replacing my parents' wisdom and guidance with the wisdom and guidance of 12-year-old boys and girls.

That would be foolish and they would do stupid things and when we say, I don't want God here, I want something else here, I want this to give me value, I want this to give me purpose, I want this to give me worth, it's foolish and we do stupid things. That's what it's saying. They became fools. Therefore, verse 24, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Alright, so it says worshipped and served.

In Exodus, he says bow down to or serve. We're actually going to use those, worship or bow down to and the idea of serve, we're going to use those to help diagnose our hearts in a minute but we're going to get one more that's going to help us. So we're going to go to Ezekiel chapter 14. Here's what you may be tempted to do and you would not be completely wrong. There's a temptation to go, okay, okay, hold on a second. I know you're making your little point about how we're idolatrous but the biggest problem in Exodus and in Romans is that these people actually worshipped another God.

So not the God of the Bible, not the God revealed to us in Christ, some other God. Actually, Aphrodite. Not just the concept of love but actually Artemis. Not just the concept of war and power but actually Ares. that was the biggest problem, that they had actual idols, that Baal was an actual other God that they went after and you're saying, okay, so, bro, I'm here. Maybe you don't say bro, maybe you say, sir, I'm here. I'm not doing that.

I'm worshipping this one. I don't have this problem. Maybe you're not making that argument at all but if you are, welcome to Ezekiel chapter 14. Oh, I said that. I hadn't turned yet. I've just been talking, y'all.

Ezekiel chapter 14, we're going to see some elders come to the prophet Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord. Meaning they care about the Lord, they follow the Lord, they want to hear from the Lord. Here's what it says. Ezekiel chapter 14. Then certain of the elders of Israel, elders being leaders of Israel, came to me, this is Ezekiel writing this, and sat before me and the word of the Lord came to me.

Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? So these elders would have said they're worshipping and serving God. They're actually so much so that they're going to the prophet to find out what they're supposed to do. They're going to go ask him what things ought to look like. They're going to go talk to...

They're here. And God says, no, no. They've set up idols in their hearts. They actually love and worship and serve other things, not me. Should I respond to them? It's a rhetorical question.

God's going to answer it. Therefore, speak to them and say to them, verse 4, thus says the Lord God, anyone of the house of Israel who takes his idol into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and yet comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols. It got scarier a second ago when we found out we could put idols in our heart. You actually don't have to have something that's a statue that you worship or serve. You don't have to have, you know, a big stadium where you gather with other people and shout and cry and worship some, I don't know, orange, you know, dressed up, I don't know, 24 year olds or whatever.

You touch a rock and praise all that stuff. You don't have to do that. You can put it in your heart. Just say, oh no, Gamecocks aren't in danger of worshiping the Gamecocks. It's a bad God right now. You're not placing your faith in them for your value.

But you're wearing orange, you're on the line, y'all. You're in danger. Jump ship before it means too much. Here's what he says. Not only can we put them in our heart, but we can actually have a multitude. I had somebody say that the bumper video we had a second ago, they were like, if you look too long at it, you might have a seizure.

It's frantic. Yes. And so are our hearts. That we have things that we love and that we worship and that we change and that we can have a multitude of things that matter more to us and that we value over God. So it says, the multitude of his idols that I may lay hold.

He says, I will answer him to his face when he comes to the multitude of his idols that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from me through their idols. Meaning that our idols lead us away from God. They make us estranged to him. So, we now have the three things that we're going to do to try to investigate our hearts. We're going to stay in this passage. We're going to pick back up here as we end, but we're going to take just a minute to try to diagnose our own hearts.

Now, Law and Order is a very popular television show and here's what they do in Law and Order. If you've seen one episode, you've seen all the episodes from what I understand. That's pretty much how Law and Order works. The first half is law. The second half is order. I don't really know if that's how it works but basically the police go investigate a thing.

They catch a person and then the second half is you get to jump ahead to the trial. That's what we're going to do. We're going to all play a game called Law and Order today. We're going to investigate our hearts and we're going to put ourselves on trial. I want to show y'all something as we step into this. I want to help us understand why we're approaching it this way.

Jeremiah 17, 9. This will be on the screen. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it. There's a distinct problem in what we're going to do today. You are going to ask your heart do you love something more than God? And your heart which is a liar is going to say no.

You're going to say wait, hold on a second are we talking about this? And the answer because we're going to ask questions that are real straightforward like what do you spend most of your money on? What do you spend most of your time? What do you daydream about? And you're going to think here's what I daydream about and then you're going to go that's not a bad thing to daydream about. That's a good thing to daydream about.

And because you're saying it to you and you're a liar and your heart is the one you're investigating you're going to go good point heart. And if you go heart have you been loving this too much your heart's going to go me? Moi? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We love that the exact appropriate amount and other people who don't love it the amount that we do they're messed up. We're right.

And you're going to go you make a good point there heart. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to answer all the questions as honestly as you can. There's in truth there's going to be some things I ask like what do you spend most of your money on? You can have quick answers too and we're just going to take that as evidence to try to figure out okay that's evidence. That's the cop part.

We're just getting evidence. We're just going to compile it so we can look at it so we can have enough evidence to go to trial. When we go to trial you know in the courtroom scenes where they're interrogating the person behind the little bench and then the lawyer the prosecutor goes over to the judge and says permission to treat the witness as hostile and the judge says permission granted that's what we're doing today. Permission to treat the witness as hostile. Your heart wants to deceive you and lead you down a path that will destroy you far away from God and we're going to treat our hearts as hostile today.

We're going to compile as much evidence as we can and then we're just going to go and say alright evidence isn't looking good heart and our heart's going to go shh shh shh shh and we're going to go permission to treat the witness as hostile and then we're going to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. Y'all ready? Dun dun. Alright. That's what we're going to do. These are their stories.

Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're doing. We've got three questions we're asking using what we saw earlier that we would worship that we would bow down to something that we would serve something and then we're going to talk about that we would have something that we have set up as a stumbling block of iniquity and that's the one I'm really looking forward to just because doesn't that sound like an awesome thing to investigate stumbling blocks of iniquity? So we're going to get there.

First one. What do you what do I worship or bow down to? So he says that we would set up anything that we would worship and bow down to. So worship and bow down means that we revere. The idea of worship is that we have something that we love and fear. That we love and fear.

A good example a good earthly example is if you had a good father. You should have loved and feared your father. Now there are messed up examples but we all maybe can picture in our mind a good example of a father that you would love and fear that you would know they loved you that you would want to please them you would want them to smile on you you would want their approval and also you would not want their disapproval. You would not want the quote unquote wrath of your father. That's my goal with my children. I have two boys that one day I'm going to try to fully help them understand what God is like and my goal is to be a small stand in of what that would look like that they might love me they might know I love them and that they might appropriately fear me.

That one day I'm going to try to fully help them understand what God is like and my goal is to be a small stand in of what that would look like that they might love me they might know I love them and that they might appropriately fear me. They're not going to check under their bed for me at night but I want my sons before they go to do something they know they shouldn't do to stop and think wait a second hmm that won't go well if I do it and I love my dad

And I know he loves me and I want to please him but that's what worship is that we would love and fear something and so what happens is God is supposed to be in that spot he's supposed to be at the head of the table that we're to bow down to him meaning that he has the most weight the most glory in our lives that he's at the head of the table and that everything else follows so that we're supposed to you're supposed to in life it's normal to have a hierarchy

If you go to make a decision you're supposed to have things that you consider when you make a decision if you are married you should consider your spouse when you make a decision if you don't they will remind you that you should have done that if you have children you should consider your children before you make a decision if you own four cats you have to consider your four cats before you make a decision it's just how life works this is why people in our church family are always asking

Somebody to watch their dogs when they go on a trip because they can't just leave their house and leave their dogs there that would be a problem when they returned that's how it works you have to consider but if you consider your dog in front of your children you're out of order in how you're making decisions you ever look on Craigslist and someone says hey took a new job moved to a new place couldn't take my dog trying to sell it for 50 bucks seen those

You're like yeah I've seen that I know what you're talking about okay ever seen one that was like hey moving to a new place we're downsizing a little bit and we had to get rid of one of our children it's fair we drew straws or we just picked the youngest one because they've been here the least we don't know them as well as we know the other ones but it does that because there's a hierarchy on how we make decisions we're following okay

God's supposed to sit at the top and therefore everything is what does God want from us what does he want from me then as I go to make decisions he's worshipped he's honored he's bowed down to then I look and think okay how does this affect family how does this affect finances how does this affect the problem is we move God from the head of the table and we put something else there as our guiding

Decision making thing that we love and fear some of us so love and fear what people think about us that all of our decision making all of our life is run through that something happens first thought is what will people think first thing we try to do is image manage first thing that we run to is to try to fix the story that's going to come out because one of the primary things for us that's taken this spot of not what does God want

What's honoring to him what is image management or maybe we put money there so your primary rubric for decision making the thing that you bend to that you bow to is how will this affect my finances and you can actually trace your life on more money more money more money would help money would help money would help money and here's the thing it's in our hearts so we make all these decisions in really small ways all the time without thinking about it you don't actually

Pull out your hierarchy chart and go which do I care more about money or children let me check the chart money but you might every day make little decisions that put money above your children that put money above the Lord does that make sense are we understanding that there's a there's that these things can get out of place and that we would begin to so here a few questions

Oh let me show you something else that happens with these before we ask the questions since I looked at them on it often the thing that we truly love the thing that we truly fear the thing that we truly worship if you're in this room it's very likely that you have recruited Jesus to help you get the thing you really want you've just enlisted him

You think that he's a really good way to get the thing you really want I'm gonna give a couple of examples I had a buddy of mine I met in seminary he said his church that he grew up in his mom went to at the end of their services they would stand up and they would say money come to me money come to me that they actually believed

In their their theology that one of the things they were supposed to do one of the things that God owed them was health and wealth and finances and so they actually when they gathered in public worship they I guess commanded money to come to them okay seems a little out of order this is actually one of the things

That's told people and is that if you trust Jesus he'll give you everything you ever wanted and that works fine it's actually not a bad theology until you read the Bible and you see the people who worship Jesus get a whole lot of things they

Didn't want and not get a whole lot of the things I'm sure they would have liked it would have been nice to have I was coming through I didn't go to a church like that but when I was growing up I was in a youth group we did true love

Waits for those of you unfamiliar with true love waits this is a kind of a program that youth students would do where you were told that you are not supposed to have sex before you get married for the record I know a church family that is correct

You should not and that you were told one of the things that went along with this was if you don't then you'll the Lord has someone for you you're waiting for your true love and so if you do not have sex before you are married God will bring you

Your perfect special someone now I'm sure this was taught in an effective healthy way that not that second part and I'm also sure that that second part was was broadcast as like a real true thing the Bible says and so what happened was you

Were not obeying God because he is glorious and he is good and he has redeemed us from sin and sin is why he went to the cross we're not obeying him because we love him and cherish him above everything else we're obeying him because that's the system you get in so that God will owe you when you get to the end of the line so then you have people who who I'm 35 and I have had sex with exactly zero people and where's my perfect special snowflake

Someone rainbow unicorn person that God owes me it's like well that was a cute story but it's not here the reason for sexual abstinence the reason to be chased is actually because God is more valuable and more beautiful and more worthy than sex not because down the line who give you this promised land person this happens all the time the thing we really want Jesus is just a good way to get us there this is what people say I I had to walk away I had to walk away from the faith because I brought

My children up in church and they all rebelled and they all ran off and it was just a big old train wreck and God let me down okay well he owed you something that's not like yes I would argue bringing children up in churches good for their souls because they're sinners who need Christ but not because it's a guaranteed fix people will say I trusted God and he let me down what it means is that I had a thing that he had to give me in order to be God and when he did not do that thing when he did not give me that thing he

Failed me because that thing is actually above him not that he's trustworthy but that he's only good in as far as he'll give me the thing I really want that's idolatry it's bad for our souls so here are a few questions as we gather evidence and we will do more of this in our groups this week what are you afraid of I'm gonna ask a bunch you may just want to jot down answers as you can think about them what is your biggest nightmare what's the thing that if it goes wrong everything's falling apart what do you daydream about what do you long for what are you frustrated

With God over because he owes you he should have given you or shouldn't have taken away what steals your affection what do you most look forward to when you're having a hard day what gets you through what thoughts do you comfort yourself with in decision decision making what do you consider most there's some people that I have heard say well God won't tell you to do that God won't tell you to go to another country because you have children God won't tell you to move to that neighborhood because you have children it's your first Job to your children to do this sort of thing I think considering

Your children and considering a neighborhood and considering what country you live in is a very wise thing to do and I think thinking that God can't tell you to do something else is a very unwise thing to do so is something taking precedence over him so that it's impossible for him to lead you because that thing is actually in charge what do you defend we only defend the things that we love some of you I could tell you you are a terrible cook and you would laugh and say yes and then if I said and you are unathletic you'd be like pause time out I need to show you some trophies I need you to see how many push-ups I can do I've had people in our church family tell me

I don't like you even like on their way out they were just a part of people in my group I don't like you my response to that okay seems fair like I if that same person had said because you were stupid I would have gone wait wait hold on a second like actually stupid or like relationally stupid like test score stupid or like I said a thing you didn't like because I don't care if you like me but there's something inside of me that wants you to not think I'm stupid you can hate me all you want I just need you to think I'm great that's what I want to defend does that make sense so there's something what is it that you run to what is it you try to steer conversations to what is it that you need people to know about you what is it that you use to elevate yourself or to lower other

People a way to find that the opposite direction is what do you most look down on others for is it because they're terrible moms means you probably place a lot of weight in being a good mom you need people to be bad mom so that you can be a good mom and so that you know that you're rising up in the hierarchy and that you have value and purpose and worth is it that people are lazy you look down on them you have no time for those kind of people then you probably place a lot of value in being a hard worker and you actually need people to be lazy so that you can be elevated so that you can have your purpose and your value and your worth found in that is it that other people are inconsiderate that's because you place a lot of value in being very considerate and that actually makes you a good person makes them the bad people there's there's a way that we

Do this in a way that finds our value our purpose and our worth in something other than God and therefore it helps us make decisions and move through life that was number one what do we worship what do we bow to second what do you serve what do you serve what do you put your time and effort and money in for I've said this before believe it to be true there are certain things in your life and in my life where when the opportunity comes your wallet just appears in your hand you didn't even think about it just was there that seemed like a reasonable price that seemed like a good thing to spend money on if you look mine what my wife's budget that is eating out we don't eat out fancy we just like having somebody else fix our food it's just nice you guys and then we have a kid with allergies it's made it really hard on how to do that because we gotta

Figure out how we gotta cook for him no matter what some of you that sounds crazy to you you would never eat out that's because your wallet magically appears in your hand for something else that's where your money goes because that's what you value that's where your time goes because that's what you value some of you labor over how you look over how your body looks and our hearts immediately want to say yeah but that's good being healthy is good it is and maybe that maybe you're it's in an appropriate place or maybe your heart's a liar some of you have the greatest television and sound system and couch that the world has ever known and whenever it comes to a new gadget or a new thing your wallet just shoots out of your hand your credit card number just spews out of your mouth gleefully and you get all tingly because this is what you really love or

If somebody needs this kind of thing you would serve for you would work for you would labor for it and then somebody else asked for some service or some time and you have no time for it there's so people who who can have have everything that has ever happened in the marvel cinematic universe perfectly aligned and in their brain they know when things happen and which soul stone was which and all of this sort of thing and they read all the articles and then you say have you read your Bible and they say man I really don't have time somebody's been at the gym every day this week and then you say hey we're hanging out with our group tonight I gotta get to school I gotta do my class work that we have time for some things that we actually value and we don't have time for the things that we don't and there's something that's gotten out of place in our hearts what do you serve where do you put in time when you

Picture your future what's changed what have you earned what have you achieved what have you become what are you laboring for right now that you're saying if I can just have this then I'll be okay then I'll be happy all right number three what is your stumbling block of iniquity this is the phrase that came from Ezekiel he says they put idols in their heart they've set their stumbling block of iniquity in front of their faces what we're asking is what makes you fall into sin this is what Raz was talking about last week that if something we love something more than God it takes precedence over him and here's the thing we don't break any of the other commandments unless we've broken the first one that something else is in God's place if you love God with all your heart with all your soul with all of your strength with all of your mind with all of your mind with everything that

You have and you get the opportunity to sin you say no because he has stolen our affection but when we sin what we're saying is I would actually rather have this thing than God I'd actually rather have his his love her love I'd actually rather have money than than what God has for me it's what makes us fall into sin so the questions are what are you willing to sin to get and what are you willing to sin to keep for example some of you are perfectly have perfect integrity when it comes to money you wouldn't take a dime off the street but everybody around you believes that you can bench press 50 pounds more than you actually can't you would not lie about another person you would not lie to anyone about anything unless they called you on a Saturday and asked you to help them move and then you know I really wish I could but one of my kids is sick and like you just

What are we willing to lie to protect what are we willing to lie to to earn to save what are we willing to sin to get some of you follow Jesus love Jesus he's he is everything to you you come in here and you hold your hands up you sing and you cry we don't hold your hands up because it's in here but you hold your hands up at your house maybe maybe when you're riding in your car you help the other people in your group see their sin you help lead them to the Lord and help them understand him and then you get a boyfriend you get a girlfriend and it matters so much to have that relationship to have their love to have all of a sudden some of your standards some of the things that you would have held out are no longer true suddenly you're willing to put sex on the table because it's a good way to keep a boyfriend it's a good way to make somebody happy and yes you understand that's sin but is it really that bad of a sin and is it that big of a deal and aren't we haven't we culturally kind of moved on from that and it really just means this is a thing that I love more than the Lord that I want more than him that I think will bring me more joy more fulfillment some of you are willing to serve with your time but your wallet will not you will not give money to another soul some of you are willing to give your money away all day long but you will not get out of your house to go do a thing in service for another person because it would rob of your time and the reason you work so hard and make so much money is so that you can have all your comfort time all your leisure time to yourself that we have these things that we defend that we work for because they ultimately that we love them more and cherish them more than the Lord and we lie to ourselves and try to cover up as much as we possibly can this is why culturally the United States the Christian church in the US is confused about romance and we have done whatever we can to undercut what the Bible says about marriage

Divorce sexuality sex before marriage homosexuality that we act like the American church at large just kind of walks into that realm and goes well does it really say that does it really mean that and then there's some Greek words there that we can kind of play with you know really this is why I love when the Methodists were going to vote on this and all the African Methodists came over and were like what are y'all talking about and they were like well you know it's like no well you know what y'all are crazy one of my favorite things were the African Methodists were telling the other Methodists like this doesn't make any sense we just haven't bought into y'all's idols so we're not on board with the things y'all are doing to the scriptures we do this with sexuality and we do it with money we have a lot of little cute justifications for finances we have a lot of cute justifications for romance

But that's because culturally we love those so much more than we love the Lord what leads you to fall into sin most of these things are good things that we've put in the wrong place usually it's something that God gave us as a gift like finances like health like beauty like our spouse we've just put them in the wrong place I know this happens every time when I sin against my wife and I'm willing to confess it to the Lord and I'm willing to confess it to the guys in my group and I am not willing to confess it to my wife it is because she is bigger and scarier than God to me we've taken something and put it in the wrong place and when that happens we actually are asking it to accomplish something it cannot accomplish and it will either crush us or we will crush it because it cannot stand under the weight of being God if you place your children in the place of God and they have to turn out perfect for you to be okay and they have to be the best little children for you to know that you're saved and you're okay if you do this with your spouse if you do this with your girlfriend

If you do this with your finances it will fail you or you will destroy it and God in his grace and in his jealousy let's beg him to make it fail quicker so that we might have him to help us to see the weakness in it quicker to help us to see into our own hearts so that we might know this is actually what it says in Ezekiel if you look back at 4 it says therefore speak to them and say to them thus says the Lord God anyone of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and yet comes to the prophet I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols that's our hope is that the Lord will answer us in our idolatry to help us to see it he says

That I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from me through their idols that God wants our hearts therefore say to the house of Israel thus says the Lord God repent and turn away from your idols turn away your faces from all your abominations for anyone of the house of Israel or the strangers who sojourn in Israel who separates himself from me taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and yet comes to the prophet to consult me through him I the Lord will answer him myself our hope is that the Lord would show us our idolatry so that he might have our hearts above all else Matt and Bianca are going to come back up because of Christ

We have hope that Jesus died to save his enemies that he died to save idolaters that when we go astray and our hearts are too easily swayed by something if we have placed our faith in Jesus he will bring us back he will redeem us he will rescue us he loves idolaters he died to save idolaters that when you see idolatry in your heart it is not that you have lost your salvation and run from God it is that you have been estranged your heart has fallen in love with something that is less beautiful and we get to trust him to redeem us and to save us and to forgive us if you are not a Christian it is because you believe something is better than Jesus

And when we walk off into sin it is because we believe something is better than Jesus and we get to repent we get to turn back and say Jesus you are more glorious you are more beautiful you died to redeem those who hate you and when we see him doing that he steals our hearts when we truly see what Christ has done when we really believe the things we sing on Sunday when we really believe the things we study he steals our hearts because your money will not die for you it will demand that you serve it but it will not serve you your idols will not be able to stand under the weight of your worship they will not rescue you but Jesus Christ will your work your desire to be in a position of prominence will not forgive you if you fail it

But Jesus will and our hope is in Christ who redeems us out of our idolatry who changes our hearts who steals our hearts through his love and invites us into a more beautiful love story than we could ever imagine as he rescues and redeems the people for himself in a moment they're going to sing a song and we're going to sit and reflect and we're going to ask the Lord to help us see our idols that we might repent and when the song is finished we will then be able to take communion where we will remind ourselves that we need Jesus Christ to die for us that we might have hope that our hope is not in our hearts ability to love perfectly our hope is in Christ who loved us perfectly

And who died for our sin so we're going to ask the Lord to help us reveal our idols while they sing we're not going to stand and sing we're going to listen we're going to reflect we're going to meditate we're going to prosecute we're going to repent and then we're going to take communion we're going to celebrate that Jesus Christ loves sinners died to redeem them and that he loves you more than you love him and that he's jealous for you let's pray God we ask for your help right now we ask for your grace that you would let our lies to ourselves be obvious and evident that you would answer us yourself

In the multitude of our idols that we might see Christ fully and completely that we would know that he is enough that our hope is in him that we might repent and be forgiven and changed and loved and welcomed we ask this in Jesus name Amen

Getting the Basics Right

Getting The Basics Right

Raz Bradley

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If you’re listening, you’ll soon realize a handful of videos were played during this sermon as a part of an illustration. Below you will find copies of those videos so you don’t miss anything!

Leaving Laban

Leaving Laban

Chet Phillips

Transcript

I'm one of the pastors here, and if you're perceptive and this isn't your first time hanging out with us, you may have noticed that there was a drum kit on the stage today. I want to take a second to just kind of use that as an opportunity to tell you a little bit about some philosophy of ministry stuff for us. One is, I appreciated that. I also really like the box, and I think that even when we have cajons, we should make them sit in there, because that would be fun. Especially Isaac, who is quite loud on a cajon. This being the first time we've had a drum kit on Sundays, the reason was not that we hated drums, and the reason we have it now is not that we necessarily love drums.

It's that we never had anybody who could play drums, and our philosophy of ministry is when we gather as a church, we do what our church can do. That it's us. That we don't want to pay somebody to come in and play music, although I've heard that other churches do that. We don't pay anybody to do any of this stuff up here musically wise, because we just want, it's our church gathering together to worship and to make much of Jesus. And so if you play the oboe and can throw down on it, come talk to Matt. If you're killer on the spoons, we'll do whatever we can do to worship the Lord together and make a joyful noise, and so if everybody in our band left for some reason, hopefully to go be missionaries in Menya, then we'll just have somebody read some Psalms and somebody else hum behind them, and it'll be great, and we'll go back to that until we get some more musicians.

And so that's just kind of how we do stuff. So not sold on one thing or the other as much as we're sold on the idea that we gather and worship together and we do what our church family can do. Grab your Bibles, go to Genesis chapter 30. Um, we've been walking along through the book of Genesis and we're in chapter 30 and what we've been seeing is we've gone through this. We're seeing the beginning of the world as God created the world, and then we've watched as God has worked his will, where he has brought about his desires for the world in the midst of brokenness and sin and pain. So he created the world good and humanity rebelled, and then God immediately steps in and promises that he's going to fix this.

And so we've been following with Abraham and Isaac and now Jacob as God has stepped in and said, I'm going to accomplish my will. I'm going to bless the world through you. I'm going to give you a people and a place. I'm going to make you, uh, my people. And so we've been following that story. And what we're going to see today as we read this, this aspect of the story is part of the story is we're going to get to see a clear picture of the distinction between, um, the gods of Laban, which is Jacob's father-in-law and the God of Jacob, the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And we're going to get to see kind of the contrast between Laban's gods and Jacob's God. And we're going to get to see that Laban's gods, um, are weak and frail, uh, enable, incapable, uh, of defending themselves, bringing about change. And that the God of Jacob is very big and very powerful and rules over everything. And so the hope today is that we would grow, that we would expand our thinking about God, our view of God. Um, there's a story in the gospels and, uh, there's, it's found in Mark four, as well as other places in the synoptics where Jesus is with his disciples and they're on a boat and Jesus is asleep and a big storm comes along.

Now, some of the disciples weren't used to being on boats necessarily, but a handful of them were, were fishermen and we're used to being out on boats and the storm comes in it. I mean, it, the boat's rocking and a rolling it's, it's up and down and there's this major issues and they're trying to do everything they possibly can to defend it. Uh, themselves to try to fix the situation, to handle the situation. And they can't, they finally go to Jesus. Who's asleep in the bottom of the boat. And they say, master, don't you care that we're going to drown?

So Jesus wakes up, he comes up out of the bottom of the boat and he stands up on the deck and he says, peace, be still. And the waves that had been rocking in the wind that had been blowing suddenly just stops. And the text tells us that the disciples were terrified. They were actually, the word it uses is they were more afraid. When Jesus told the ocean to stop than they were of drowning. They were like, nah, let's go back to drowning.

I can't handle this. Like, I don't, I don't know how to handle somebody who can just tell the ocean to stop. And it does it. They're terrified. And he says, oh, you of little faith. You see, when they went and woke Jesus up, they didn't wake him up because they thought he could come calm the storm.

They woke him up because they needed somebody else to bail water. They wanted somebody else to hold a rope. And Jesus walks up and handles the whole situation. And so the reason I tell you that is it matters how we approach God and how we view God. And so they had underestimated him. He was a little smaller than they had reckoned.

He was, he was a little weaker than they, than they thought. They thought he was a little weaker than he was. And that's why he says, oh, you of little faith. If they had known who they were approaching, they would have approached it differently. So we just sang.

And when you sing, you're singing to the best picture you have of God, the best image of who he is and his character and what he's like. When we pray, we're doing the same thing. The best, our best understanding, but the best human understanding falls short of God's glory, falls short of his massiveness, of his power. The best we can wrap our minds around is still short of who he truly is. But it does matter to us in our anxiety levels.

And it does matter to us in our prayers that we pray and in our approach to him. And in the way we live our life, that we know him truly and rightly and worship him fully. Does that make sense? So our hope today is to make God a little bit bigger. To, as we see these gods contrasted against one another, try to find places where we line up more with Laban, where our thinking about God and our approach to God is just a little bit smaller than it needs to be. And try to move ourselves to lining up more with worshiping the true God of Jacob in his massiveness and in his sovereignty.

So that's our hope, that God would be a little less domesticated after we leave here today. It'd be a little bit bigger, a little bit scarier, and there'd be a lot of joy found in that. Let's pray. God, we ask for your help as we read this passage, that we might see you clearly, truly, fully. And that wherever we have made you smaller, wherever we have in our minds treat you as tame, we pray that you'd break through that in a glorious, helpful, fearful way. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. So we are in Genesis 30. We're going to start in verse 25. So Jacob and his wives just had 12 children. Eleven boys mentioned one girl, and later they're going to have another son. It'll be the 12 tribes of Jacob.

And so it says, verse 25, as soon as Rachel had born Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you that I may go for, you know, the service that I have given you. Jacob is in a very inferior position to Laban. He's married Laban's daughters. He has served Laban. He has served.

Basically, we find out this is about the end of the 14 years. He served seven years for Rachel and then he married Leah because Laban tricked him. So he served another seven years for Rachel. And so he's been there at least the 14 years. Uh, and he comes and says, let me go and let me take my wife and children with me, which in our culture, that, that would be a formality in their culture. It's not Laban had a lot of power and would have the potential ability to just say, no, you may leave, but the wife, your wives and children stay with me.

Um, and so he just says, let me go. But Laban said to him, if I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you name your wages and I will give it. So Laban says, I've learned about divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you. Now divination is a practice that's been practiced since ancient times on up till now, which is used to try to find, uh, truth about reality by seeking, uh, to divine, to find a sign, to hear from spirits, to hear from gods what's going on. And so the way they would practice this, you could practice it with tea leaves, with sticks, with water, with dirt, uh, with the guts of animals.

Um, tarot cards is a form of this. It's, it's that. And so he says, I've learned by divination that it's your God. It's the Lord has blessed me because of you. Now, uh, there's three options in the Bible and just in the world when it comes to practicing things like divination, fortune telling, these kinds of occult pagan type practices. Option one is that it's just some people doing some stuff and it's just earthly, no spiritual aspects whatsoever.

Um, so if you went and saw a fortune teller, they're just, you know, doing the things fortune tellers to do where they'll, you know, like you go see a psychic and they stand up on stage and they say, I'm hearing a, I'm getting a letter. Um, a, no, it's B. Is it C? I'm seeing a color. It's purple or it's red. And someone says, I, I, oh, red.

And you go, oh yeah. And they just, they're kind of shotgunning and they're just good at this and they kind of work out something and there's no spiritual aspect going on. It's just kind of a trick. That's one option. The second option is that it's demonic, uh, that there's actual evil spirits at work there that, um, to God rules over the world. He created a spiritual beings.

The, the ones that worship him and stayed with him are angels. And they all point us to the Lord. They don't accept worship. They don't point away from him. There are places in the Bible where they'll show up. Somebody will try to worship them.

They'll be like, nope, stand up. We worship God together. You don't worship me. Then there are, uh, evil spirits that rebelled against God and they accept worship and they point to themselves or away from God. And so the second option is that it is demonic. It's evil.

Um, so that these evil spirits, these other gods pointed and said, yes, we are able by our godly powers to tell you that that God is doing really good things. That's what they said. Not we've blessed you, not anything else, just his God's blessed you. And we're able to tell the third option. And this happens very rarely in the Bible is that God just busts through a cult things to tell people what he wants to tell them, um, that he will interrupt people's plans and just kind of do what he wants. Um, this is forbidden later in the law.

This is not something they should practice. And it is a practice, uh, that Laban is practicing, not that Jacob is Deuteronomy 18, nine says this. When you come into the land that the Lord, your God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. If you get a letter from Hogwarts, throw it away.

And because of these abominations, the Lord, your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord, your God for these nations, which you are about to dispossess. Listen to fortune tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord, your God has not allowed you to do this. The Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him.

You shall listen. Ultimately that's fulfilled in Jesus, but that's also fulfilled in the prophetic offices that happened throughout the old Testament where someone spoke on behalf of God. And so we look to God's word and we look to Christ and we look to nowhere else. But that's what he says. So he's practicing divination and he says, they've told me that I'm blessed because of you.

And so he wants him to stay. That's what's going on in the story. So Jacob said to him, you yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock have fared with me for you had little before I came and it has increased abundantly. And the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?

So Jacob has just served and he's made Laban rich. Jacob's doing well while he is in Laban's household. But if he were to leave, he has nothing. He just went and asked, can I keep my wife and my wives and children? But he has nothing to take with him.

He's not gained any wealth of his own. He's made Laban very rich. So he says, he says, I want to earn for my own household. So he said, what shall I give you? Laban says, okay, I'll give you something. I'll give you a portion.

I'll do something. And Jacob says, you shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb and the spotted and speckled among the goats. And they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later when you come to look into my wages with you.

Everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs that is found with me shall be counted stolen. So here's Jacob's pitch. Here's his plan. He says a normal shepherd's wages, if they were going to get paid wages, would be about 20% of all the new goats and sheep born. They get about 20%. So every time there was 10 born, they'd get two.

He says, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do normal kind of shepherd wages. What we're going to do is we'll go. Let me go today and I will take all the spotted speckled out of the goats and all the black out of the sheep. And I'll just have regular goats and regular sheep because most goats are just a solid color and most sheep are white. Most goats are solid brown, solid black.

He says, so I'll just have a flock, solid white, solid brown. And then from then on, my wages will be everything that is born that is black among the sheep, spotted speckled, mottled among the goats. That's his pitch. Laban says, good. Let it be as you have said. The reason Laban says good, exclamation Mark, is that this was a great deal for Laban.

Why? Because 20% is way higher than what happens with the birds of black sheep and spotted speckled goats. That percentage of the population is very low. That's why you can refer to somebody as the black sheep of the family. It means that they stand out and they're the only one. But if you had a whole bunch of sheep, you'd have one black sheep that would stand out and there's not a lot of them.

If it was 50-50, that phrase wouldn't work. Tracking? Okay, so he makes a bad business deal. And if any of you have done sales, you know that if you get to the end and you make an offer or you offer a price and the person across from you says yes and goes to shake your hand, you feel bad inside. Because you immediately think, oh, I'm paying too much. Or, oh, I could have gotten more.

They would have said yes to it. The way they said yes, I could have gotten another $1,000 out of this person. Like you just feel that. Like when you go to offer on a car, if you're talking to a car salesman, you say, I'll give you 12. And they go, deal. You go, ah, 10.

I'll give you 10. I've got to go home. I'm sick. I can't do a deal with you today. But that's what he says.

Good deal. Let's go. That's what happens. And so he says, but that day, this is verse 35, Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it and every lamb that was black, and put them in charge of his sons, in the charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock. Laban says, deal, but then he makes sure it's not a trick.

So Jacob said, let me go through and do this. And Laban says, deal. And then he goes through and does it. And he moves them all three days away. So he's thinking, Jacob's got something up his sleeve, so I'm going to make sure this doesn't work out for him.

I'm taking this deal, and I'm getting those far away from you. Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plain trees, and he peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks, and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks towards the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban.

He put his own droves apart, that's going to come back later, and did not put them with Laban's flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks and the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks. But for the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants, male servants, camels and donkeys. Okay.

So Jacob takes sticks and he makes them striped, speckled, mottled. And then he shows the sticks strategically to the animals while they breed. And boom, genetics. Science, you guys. This is Jacob's plan. Jacob did have something up his sleeve.

He had a way that he thought he could manipulate this. And it says it worked. And so if we just stopped here, you'd be like, this is super weird and I don't think the Bible knows things about science. It goes further and God's going to step in and say, no, no, no, no, no. I did this. And we're going to see that God blessed Jacob's hard work and his weird plan.

That's what happened. Jacob had a plan. He went for it. God blesses it. That's ultimately what I do want you to see, that God steps in in the middle of this story and Jacob works really, really hard. He's going to talk more about it later.

He works really hard. And God in the midst of that blesses it. He blesses his hard work and he multiplies it and he makes it work out in his favor. And so I want you to know that as you work in life, a lot of times we're waiting for God to bless us and we're wanting God to bless us. And we're like, I just wish God would work and he would do something. And I really wish I would just meet somebody.

And I really wish I could just get a job that would work well. And I wish I could get it. And sometimes you know what he does? He miraculously blesses your years of hard work. And it is miraculous. But it wasn't you sitting around doing nothing.

We've done this in our church. Matt and I have seen this early on where we had prayed and worked really hard. We came up with a sticks plan. We're going to do this. It's going to be amazing. And then it turns out that was stupid.

But God did some really good stuff. And we've seen that. And that's what he did here. That God works in the everyday. And so do you know that? Do you know that God works in the midst of everyday stuff?

That he's at work? That he sees you? And that he's blessing and working even when you can't tell what's going on? Chapter 31. Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, Jacob has taken away, taken all that was our father's.

And from what was our father's, he has gained all his wealth. And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before. Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you. Okay, so earlier, Jacob was making Laban rich. They work out this deal that is way in Laban's favor, and Jacob becomes rich. And he actually outgrows Laban.

So that Laban's sons and Laban are mad at Jacob. They're frustrated. It's not a good relationship anymore. So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was. And he said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before. But the God of my father has been with me.

You know that I have served your father with all my strength. Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me. If he said the spotted shall be your wages, then all the flock bore spotted. And if he said the stripes shall be your wages, then all the flock bore striped. Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.

Okay, so we find out a little more in this story that Jacob's plan was working so much that Laban came and said, Okay, okay, we're changing this. This is, I don't know what's going on here. But I'll take the striped ones. You can have the spotted ones. And as soon as he would say that, all of them would start giving birth to spotted ones. And then he would change it again.

Did I say, I said it wrong. I meant, I meant, I'll get the spotted. You take the stripe and immediately we'd go back. And Jacob's saying that God has blessed me. And this is after Jacob's already seen a vision that he's about to tell him about a dream he had. Where he knows that it was God that was at work in this the whole time.

He says, thus, God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. In the breeding season of the flock, which runs from about August to April. And we don't know exactly when he had this dream. I lifted up my eyes, which seems like it would be the most recent one. And saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and modeled. Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob.

And I said, here I am. And he said, lift up your eyes and see all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and modeled. For I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. And I am the God at Bethel where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land, and return to the land of your kindred.

Okay, remember earlier when I said that him splitting up the flocks would show up later? This is where it shows up. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on in this dream. Because he's like, I saw a dream. And it seems like it's special. It means something that all the goats that are breeding are spot, speckled, and modeled.

He's like, I saw them. And then he says, do you see them? And I was like, yeah, I see them. And then he was like, okay. And it took me a minute to figure out what was going on here. But here's the thing.

Jacob had Laban's flocks. All brown goats. All white sheep. Every time they had a spotted, speckled, modeled baby, he just took it away and put it in his flock. So that whenever these were breeding, it was only white sheep breeding with white sheep and brown goats breeding with brown goats.

And then God shows him in a vision and everything that's breeding is modeled, speckled, speckled, spotted. It's so hard to say those three in a row over and over again. And what God is saying is, I tweaked the genetics. I made all the males over here work as if they were over here. I made them all function as if they were. That's what he's saying.

He's showing him that I'm the one who's been at work here to make this happen. And that's why when he goes and tells them, he doesn't say, I came up with this great plan. He says, you saw what God did. God was the one who blessed me the whole time. God took control of it. God did it.

So after he sees this, he realizes that it was God that was blessing him. And maybe he did this whole thing, stepping out in faith, hoping that God would work. Maybe he just sees now that God did work. So he says, then God told him to leave. Go back. Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father's house?

Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he has sold us and he indeed devoured our money. All the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, do whatever God has said to you to do. Okay, the reason he brings him out and talks to him is that he's trying to find out, are y'all going to try to stay with your dad or are you going to go with me? Which head of household?

Which patriarch? Where are you headed? He's trying to find out. And they say, oh, we're going with you. Their answer is not, we love you. Their answer is, you own all the stuff.

He's like, okay. Fine. Saddle up. So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels. He drove away all his livestock, all his property that he had gained and livestock in his possession that he had acquired in Paddan Aram to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. Laban had gone to shear his sheep.

It's one of the busiest times for sheep herders. And Rachel stole her father's household gods. And Jacob tricked Laban, the Aramean, by not telling him that he intended to flee. And he fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead. Okay. Jacob flees Laban because he is afraid of him.

Jacob does not feel like he's in a position of power. He does not feel like he is able to just do what he wants. He gets his wives in secret and says, are y'all going to go if I go? And they say, yeah. And he says, all right, let's go. And he does it all as a trick when they're about three days away because he knows that Laban will not handle this well.

He's in more of a position of power than he was. Last time he went and asked for permission. This time he just says, we're leaving, we're taking our stuff. But he knows that Laban isn't to be dealt with. It wouldn't go well if he tried to do it straight up and he's trying to get away from him. This is an escape.

Also, let's pause for just a second. I want to point something out. But as we think through in our approach to God, are we viewing him correctly? Jacob leaves because God blesses him. And then God says, pick up your stuff and move. That's why he's leaving.

God says, time to go back. So the God of Jacob sits, rules and reigns over Jacob. That when he tells Jacob to act, when he tells Jacob to do something, Jacob has to do it. It says, Rachel went and stole her father's household gods. Now, these things could be as big as a person, if not bigger. We find out later they're pretty small.

She bags them up, throws them on her camel and hits the road. And here's what's very interesting. Jacob leaves because his God tells him to. Laban's gods leave because Rachel tells them to. Jacob goes where his God says. Laban's gods go wherever anybody that's around them says.

They have no power. They have no authority. So here's my question. As we relate to God, as you walk with the Lord, as you read the scriptures, does he tell you what to do or do you tell him what to do? Does he correct you or do you correct him? Does he set the pace in the course of life or do you set the pace in the course of how he'll interact in your life?

I want to be really clear with you and be as helpful as I possibly can. If you say that you worship Jesus, but you can tell him, stay put. Don't cross this line. You're welcome over here in this zone. This is none of your business. And he stays put.

That's not Jesus. If when you read the Bible, when you worship, if he fully, perfectly cosigns all of your political opinions. If when you're wanting to do something, Jesus just stands back there going, you got this girl. And he never corrects. And he never, he never leads you to repentance. If you have said, I've walked with Jesus, but you can't point and say, this is where he's changed me.

This is where he's grown me. This is where he wrestled my wallet out of my hand. This is where he wrestled this thing, this thing that I love away from me with weeping and gnashing of teeth for my own good. This is where he stepped in and told me this relationship wasn't okay. This is where he ruled and reigned over me sovereignly. If you don't have that, go ahead and carve you a little idol and stick it in your pocket.

You name it, whatever you want. Do you sit in authority over God? Or do you worship the God of Jacob that sits in authority over you? That's an important question to ask. Does he set the pace for your life? Does he tell you where to go?

Does he tell you what to do? When you hit passages in the Bible that you don't like, do you bend to be in line with what he says? Or do you try to bend the Bible to be in line with what you like? And let me tell you something. If you are going to be faithful in reading your Bible, you're going to hit passages you don't like. If I was talking to somebody who was unmarried, if you were talking to somebody who was unmarried, and they were telling you, this is what I want in a wife.

This is what I want in a husband. They were just saying stuff. I worked with a lady at Sears. She had a list of 50 things she wanted in a husband. And it was, I mean, it was extensive, 50 things. And they were minute things.

Like, I think Harry Chess was on there. Like, she had some things. She really, she was looking for this. But if you were sitting there trying, if they were talking to you about what they wanted, and they said, well, I want a wife like this. And I want her to want to watch scary movies with me. And I want her to, you just kind of, you go along with that.

Yeah, dream big, bro. Go for it. Yeah, they love sports. I'm sure they do. Yeah, they play paintball with you. Yeah, you want that.

Now, if I said that, you know what I want in a wife? You know my dream wife? And I started talking to you. It'd be about 30 seconds in. You'd be like, bro, aren't you married? What is your real wife like?

Is she like that? No, she's not like that at all. This is unhealthy, what you're doing. Like, we would step right in. And so there are some people who go, well, my God. And it's like, oh, okay.

My God would never. What says he does here? Which one are you worshiping? If it's not this one, we can close it. We can quit talking. Like, God can do whatever you want it to.

Carve it up. Give it a funny hat. It'll be cute. If you are worshiping a real God, he will not come in and cosign all of American culture. And he will not come in and join your political party. And if you are worshiping a God that never upsets you, frustrates you, wrestles something out of your hand or changes your opinion, you are not worshiping the God of Jacob revealed to us in Christ.

But I wish you would. Because all that stuff you love that he'll wrestle away from you is detrimental to your soul. And he's really, really good. Let's keep going. So this is going to get more humorous and scary.

So it should be good. So they head out. Verse 22. When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days and followed close after him into the hill country of Gilead. It is fair to assume they are armed. This is a doesn't know what's going on.

Grabs all the men in this camp and heads out. Specifically his kinsmen. The reason that matters is there are times when you would take all the males when you were going to do something that you thought you would need all the males for. And there are other times when you would take just your kinsmen because you were going to do stuff that required more loyalty. He takes just his kinsmen. We don't know his plans, but they're not probably not great.

But God came to Laban, the Aramean, in a dream by night and said to him, be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. So God cuts him off and he says, you can go catch up with him. Do not harm him. Do not try to sway him from what he is doing. You be very careful. So this does mean that his intentions weren't all good.

God actually has to come to him and say, you better slow your roll. And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country and Laban with his kinsmen pitched tents in the hill country of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, what have you done that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee secretly and trick me and did not tell me so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs with tambourine and lyre? Maybe he was going to do that.

That'd be nice. The text doesn't read like that's necessarily what he was going to do. It's just he says it. If you'd have told me, we'd have had a party. Okay, well, I didn't think that's how you acted over the past 20 years. I've known you, but all right.

And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? Now you have done foolishly. It is in my power to do you harm. There we go. That sounds more like it. But the God of your father spoke to me last night saying, be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.

He clarifies it's your God, not mine. But he told me not to harm you. Jacob answered and said to Laban, because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. So he's in front of everybody, the kinsmen are there, and he just says, I think I thought you wouldn't let me go. That you wouldn't send me off by myself. And then he says this.

Oh, he says, sorry, I skipped something. And verse 30, and it matters to the story that we don't skip this. And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house. But why did you steal my God? So he says, you're going back to your God, to your father's house.

Why did you steal my God? Jacob answered and said to Laban, because I was afraid, for I thought you would take your daughters from me by force. Anyone with whom you find your God shall not live in the presence of our kinsmen. Point out what I have taken that is yours and take it. Now, Jacob did not know Rachel had stolen them. Rachel is Jacob's favorite wife.

You're not supposed to have more than one wife. If you do have more than one wife, you're not supposed to have a favorite. That's how the Old Testament treats that. But Rachel was his favorite. Jacob probably would not have said that. The text includes that because Jacob probably would not have said that if he had known she said them.

But he says, we find it, we'll kill that person. Now, you know Rachel at this point, her heart's about to beat out of her chest. I didn't think they were going to get caught. I didn't think that was going to happen. So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two female servants.

Those are the other wives of Jacob. But he did not find them. So he goes to only those in the head of the household looking for who has stolen these that they might be punished. And he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's. Now, Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent, but he did not find them.

He's digging through everything. This was not just like peeping around. He's pulling out bags. He's digging. He thinks they're hidden somewhere. He digs through all of these tents while they all just stand around.

This is taking quite a while. Felt all about the tent, but did not find them. And she said to her father, let not my Lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me. So he searched, but did not find the household gods. In this culture, you would be unclean. You would be removed kind of from society and doing some different things during menstruation.

And that's what she says. She says, I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me. I would get up. But the way of women is upon me.

Now, from what I understand, I've never menstruated. What I understand is that it's not the most pleasant thing ever. But one perk here. He doesn't kill her. So there's one little bonus there.

She, we don't know if she's lying or not. But this is told in such a way, the way the story unfolds is it's meant to build tension. And then at this last moment, we're to see how inept Laban's gods are. That they had to be protected by her lying about menstruating. That she's sitting on top of them and hiding them from Laban to protect herself. And so that's what happens.

That's the way it's told. To highlight their weakness and inability. And then it says this. So he searched but did not find the household gods. Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban.

Jacob said to Laban, what is my offense? What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods. What have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between us two. These 20 years I've been with you.

Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried. And I have not eaten the rams of your flock. What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it. Whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

There I was. By day the heat consumed me. And the cold by night my sleep fled from my eyes. These 20 years I've been in your house. I've served you 14 years for your two daughters. And six years for your flock.

And you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side. Surely now you would have sent me away empty handed. God saw my affliction in the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night. All right.

The second thing I want us to consider as we think about the viewing God rightly. One of the primary reasons that it matters. That you understand how big and cosmic and glorious and powerful God is. Is that if you walk around with a tame. You worship an easy going tame God. That's nice.

Until you realize how vulnerable you are. But that's fine as long as everything is working well in life. But the truth is we are vulnerable. We do things to try to protect this. We wear seat belts and helmets. We lock our doors.

We have people monitor our credit cards. We try to defend and protect ourselves as much as we possibly can. But within a moment. Somebody not paying attention while they ride down the road. Getting a diagnosis. In a moment from a phone call.

Our weakness and our out of control. Our inability to control our world. Is so present. And in our faces. And the truth is in that moment. When you're standing.

Facing death. Facing destruction. Facing pain. If God. The God of Jacob. Revealed to us in Christ.

Rules and reigns over you. Then you are in his sovereign hands. And you can stand behind him. But if you have a small. Weak. Frail God.

You have to be the one on the hook. You have to be strong. You have to be smart. You have to defend them. So we see in the story.

That Rachel has to be clever. That Rachel has to come up with a good idea. She has to hide him in the right spot. And so what happens is. You'll be walking through life. And all of a sudden.

The bottom will fall out. The wheels will fall off. And we will be standing there. And the question is. Is your God big enough to handle it? Is he capable of you resting in him?

Can you hide under the shelter of his wings? Can you stand in his shadow? Can you know that in the midst of chaos. And pain. That he is not out of control. That he has not.

His hand has not left the steering wheel. Or. Is that the moment. That you have to be big enough. Strong enough. Powerful enough.

To withstand it. Smart enough. Some of us are wracked with anxiety. And fear. Because we are doing everything we possibly can. To rule.

And to reign. In a seat that is too big for us. It's like when my son puts my boots on. And tries to run. He can't. He looks cute for a second.

We wouldn't let him leave the house like that. And so many of us are trying to sit in God's chair. And be bigger. And stronger. And smarter. And tell him where to go.

And what he is allowed to mess with. Because we don't want to give up control. And that's fine. Until it's very very obvious. That you are out of control. And then it would be really nice.

That you had a God way bigger than you. 42. 43. 43. Then Laban answered and said to Jacob.

The daughters are my daughters. The children are my children. The flocks are my flocks. And all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these daughters.

Or for their children whom they have born. Come now. Let us make a covenant. You and I. And let it be a witness between you and me. So Jacob took a stone.

And set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen. Gather stones. And they took stones. And made a heap. And they ate there by the heap.

And they ate there by the heap. Laban called it. Jigar Sahadutha. But Jacob called it Galid. Jacob said. This heap is a witness.

Between you and me. Therefore he named it Galid. Which means heap. And Mizpah. Which means witness. For he said.

The Lord watch between you and me. When we are out of one another's sights. If you oppress my daughters. Or if you take wives besides my daughters. Although no one is there. No with us.

See. God is a witness between you and me. Then Laban said to Jacob. See this heap and pillar. Which I have set up between you and me. This heap is a witness.

And the pillar is a witness. That I will not pass over this heap to you. And you will not pass over this heap. This heap and this pillar to me. To do harm. The God of Abraham.

And the God of Nahor. The God of their father. Judge between us. So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country. And called his kinsmen to eat bread.

They ate bread. And spent the night in the hill country. Early in the morning Laban arose. And kissed his grandchildren. And his daughters. And blessed them.

Then Laban departed and returned home. So they make this covenant. That he makes a covenant with Laban. That Laban would not have otherwise been willing to make. Except for the fact that God had broken through boundaries. And told him what to do.

So they make this covenant. And then they say that God will stand between us. And the truth for us. Is that in Christ. That is our reality. That if you have placed your faith in Jesus.

That he stands between us. And the world. That he stands between us. And everything that would cause us harm. And Matthew 16. He says this.

We have it on the screen. He says. I have said these things to you. That in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation. But take heart.

I have overcome the world. So. He. He's looking at his disciples. Prior to going to the cross. And he is saying.

You're going to have trouble. You're going to have pain. You're going to have tribulation. But I have overcome the world. That I rule and reign over it. That I have conquered.

That I will conquer death. That I will conquer sin. That I will conquer hell. And that everything that could chase us down. That could catch us. That could do us harm.

He stands in between us. And it. Are you vulnerable? Yes. Can your legs get. Swept out from under you in an instant?

Yes. But our God is big enough. That in that moment. You don't have to be powerful. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to be the smartest.

The most capable. That you get to rest. Knowing that he rules. And reigns. Over it. You get to swell your eyes shut.

With weeping. Knowing that there's a God. Who has not lost control. And who has a deep and abiding love. For you in Christ. And if you are not a Christian.

If you have not placed your faith in Jesus. The real Jesus. That rules and reigns. That sets the pace. That dictates. What's real and good.

You will have to surrender. You will have to get out of the chair. That is too big for you. You will have to submit. To his leadership. His direction.

But it's so freeing. And so good. To have a God. Who stands between us. And our sin. Stands between us.

And the rest of the world. As it would seek to destroy us. That we have hope. Not that everything will. Ultimately work out well here. But that it will never be lost.

From his control. And that we can trust him fully. With all of it. They're going to. Play this next song. And during it.

We're going to take communion. And I would encourage you. To take a moment. If it's been a while. Since the God. Of Jacob.

Has led you to repentance. If it's been a while. Since he's pointed out. Where you need to grow. And change. If it's been a while.

Since you've sat with him. And you've. You've been broken. Over your own sin. I would encourage you. To ask him.

Where have I stopped. Listening to you. Where have I actively. Tried to draw a line. And say you can't cross this. What are the places.

In my heart. That I'm trying to keep from you. And I would. I would encourage you. To take a moment. And just ask him.

Where do I need to repent? Who is it. That I need to reconcile with. That I need to go talk to. Right now. That I've just been.

Holding bitterness against. Because I'm unwilling. To let you mess. With that part of my life. What is it. You've been telling me.

I'm supposed to do. But I've been holding. So tightly to something else. That I won't give it up. And I would invite you. To surrender.

To a real God. Who watches you. Who knows you. And who leads us. Into grace. And repentance.

And life. Through his sovereign will. After you've done that. If you've spent some time. Praying through that. I would encourage you.

If you are a believer. That you would take communion. Where we remember. That it is not in our power. And not in our might. That we are saved.

But it's through Jesus' body. That was broken. And his blood. That was shed. You might take communion. Reminding yourself.

Of the goodness of the gospel. And the fact that you hide. In his shadow. Let's pray. God we pray. That your spirit would move.

And that you would lead us. To repentance. And that anywhere. That we have fought against you. And anywhere. That we are defending.

Our own sovereignty. That we might repent. That we might worship you fully. And truly. Resting in you. And trusting in you.

To stand between us. And all that would do us harm. In Jesus name. Amen.