To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain (Philippians 1:18b-26)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning my name is Spencer I am one of the pastors here we are continuing to walk through the book of Philippians we're in chapter 1 still uh we're going to be in the second half of Verse 18 all the way through verse 26 so you can follow along with us on the screen you also can follow along in a blue Bible it's on page 570 you can track along with us so the other day it dawned upon me that my oldest uh is going to turn nine this year which means that we're kind of at the halfway point of her being in the house.
God willing uh and that there's not a lot of years left to really you know influence to be able to show her what it means to love Christ what it means to display that love to others what it means to uh have a Gospel centered life like we don't have as much time it's and I'm also you know I'm not naive I understand that when she gets more into uh you know the teenage years that my influence is going to WAN a little bit and her wife as she starts to become her own adult uh person.
But it's just I mean it's kind of hit me honestly oh man um you know we you know we read the Bible at night we do some worship songs at night we we try to have some time where we talk about applying God's word to um their lives and to our lives and it's like I want to I want to maximize this time as much as possible because I'm losing it the time is is is running away and that's going to happen with each of my children as they get older old and as I get closer and closer to 40 which is typically the time where a lot of men start to ask Big Life.
Questions because you're at the halfway point of life and you're like I I mean this is like I'm I'm I'm nearing I'm nearing the end the halfway point is just going to keep going like and that's when you know midlife crises come into play and people make sometimes really bad decisions uh you know some of those are less bad than others uh you know some might say I'm going to get a car I I got to get I got to get the car.
Because if I don't get the car like what am I doing if I'm I got to travel I got to get to Europe I got to do this I got to do that there's all types of things some things I think are good people might say I got to go back to school I got to refocus I got to you know join a gym do CrossFit whatever it is like I but there's just this evaluation when you understand that time is a finite resource and you don't have much of it left.
But what are you actually going to do that reality check Dawns upon us and it does leave you asking questions like I'm just like am I am I always going to drive a Prius is that how this is like I mean I'm just kind of Peace meing this car together as it goes like am I am I going to like keep wearing flannels and rocking beards I started that Trend like in my early 20s and it's I mean it just kind of continued like those can like fall upon you and you start to re-evaluate and I think to have the really the the finite nature of time and really the reality that death will one.
Day come to us all I think that's actually a good thing to do I don't think you should do that at 40 years old I think you should regularly as a Christian think about that reality and to make the best use of our time and to live the best life that you could possibly live that we should ask the question what is the what is the ultimate life worth living now I have good news for us today the book of Philippians and where we're at in this part of the book speaks directly to that it gives us.
If you're asking questions about how should I live my life but is the best possible life I could live we're at the place that absolutely addresses that God has a good word for us today so I want to pray for us as we really lean into that question and then we'll walk through the text together heavenly father I pray that you would help us be open to receiving your word and that we would not just be hearers of the word but we would be doers and that comes through.
First acknowledging the Gospel and trusting in you and out of that Faith Comes repentance that changes the way we live so that we can worship and honor and Delight in you God I pray that you would do that work within us this morning so that we might be a people that take this life life seriously in Jesus name amen all right so we've been in Philippians in chapter 1 for a bit one of the things we've seen the last few weeks is that Paul in his imprisonment as he's in Rome he's in prison and house arrest the Philippians they're they're exchanging letters in this letter he is talking about how his imprisonment is being used.
To advance the Gospel it's encouraging Believers Christians on the ground in Rome and he was excited about that even as we saw last week that there are some people who were preaching from Bad motives from selfish ambition a rivalry with Paul but there are others who are preaching with good motivations and he goes regardless of the motivations I'm just jacked I'm rejoicing because the Gospel is being preached because Christ is being proclaimed so he's at this moment where he's just rejoicing that Christ is being preached and he has something else to Rejoice about in the back end of.
Verse 18 where we pick up when he says yes and I will rejoice for I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my Deliverance that's his rescue he's going to be rescued as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by by death so he's not just rejoicing that the Gospel is being repe is being preached and being proclaimed he's also rejoicing.
Because he's going to be delivered and this is I I don't want us to miss this isn't the main point of this but he says due to your prayers through the prayers of the Philippian Christians and the work of the spirit that he's going to be delivered which just should really Center us on like prayer is unbelievably important God accomplishes his will through his people through the prayers of his people from Old Testament into the New Testament so we should be a people that are praying.
For God to work we have a prayer list that goes out to members in our Church who've opted to receive that text that goes out on Monday we have a prayer list that you can if you want things prayed for you can go on our website to uh I think it's one of the times if I had it off top of my head I'd tell you but I don't but it's somewhere in there you scan all the tabs you'll see pray and you can put in a prayer request it goes to that list we should do that.
Because prayer matters God accomplishes his will through the prayers of his people over and over and over again and don't I want us to miss that as we launch into the rest of this that they've been praying for his Deliverance they've been praying for Paul and he says I'm going to be delivered now that word delivered comes from the same Greek word uh for saved sotia so this is saved this is delivered and the question is okay from what from what are you going to be delivered is it what you were just talking about is it your imprisonment that you're going to be delivered from prison is he going to have his Tim Robbins moment.
Where he goes through the tunnel or the the what do you call those pipes that Shaw Shank and gets out into the water and looks up in the sky and he is free which if you don't know what I'm talking about I'm so sorry for you if you've never seen Shaw Shank Redemption first off how dare you like just you've missed out on something this is one of the top five movies if you have this Tim Robbins moment where he's just he's.
So excited to be is's going to be delivered is that's what's happening here so some will argue that's happening others will say no he's actually he's moved on that was so verse 17 we're on to new and better things in these next few verses what he says is is that they will turn out from my this will turn up for my Deliverance verse 20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed but that with full courage.
Now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by by death others will say no no he's moved on from imprisonment he's talking about eternal Deliverance he's talking about death he's talking about the fact that because he believes that Christ was crucified for his sin and he put his faith in Christ and because he put his faith in Christ God the Father looks at Paul and says that he stands righteous because of the righteousness of Christ and not his own.
Because Jesus died for him he stands confidently waiting to go into the next life waiting to be delivered into the next life where he will be with Christ for eternity so some will say no it's it's more that's what's happening here I think the language here between two ideas I think he's being a little bit vague and koi for a reason I think he's kind of going with both and when you read the rest of the passage I think you'll see that he actually means both very practically as he works through this that he does expect to at some point be released from this Roman imprisonment and also he is eager.
For what is next after this life which he picks up in verse 21 for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain if I'm to live in the flesh that means fruitful labor for me yet which I shall choose I cannot tell I'm hardpressed between the two my desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better we'll pause there verse 21 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible like it is Shaw Shank Redemption top five level at of all the passages in the Bible this this right here is it you can come back to it over and over again and the deeper you weit into it.
The more satisfying it actually is to live as Christ to die as gain now his basic argument is pretty easy to follow if you're going to live it is for Christ if I'm going going to live a life it is going to be for Christ if I'm going to get out of this R imprisonment and continue my Ministry it's going to be for Christ it's going to be fruitful labor is the language he uses In this passage which will further unpack in the verses that follow that means more churches planted that means more Sinners saved that means more Christians discipled.
If I'm going to live huge win if I'm going to die huge win because if I die I gain I gain eternity I gain an eternal life with Christ I depart this painful broken marred sinful world and I get to be with Christ and that is far better so here is why I think this is one of the most important passages in the Bible it's hard to find a more succinct summary of what the Christian life looks like like this is the headline.
For the Christian Life and when I say headline I mean like how headlines used to be it used to be that you got a paper and that paper was like a physical paper and it smelted really good and you would look and you'd see headlines and the headline was a few words that summarized the whole article you could read the headline you get a general gist of where it was going nowadays headlines are not that they're clickbait sometimes have nothing to do with what's in the article.
Because journalism's lost complete ethic bearings and just but it's just the actual headline like what what actually like this is it like the old school headline you see this to live as Christ to die as gain that's the Christian Life and there's a whole lot more that can be said about that when you read the rest of the Scriptures but you have that right there and you understand what it means to be a Christian that when you actually trust in the finished work of.
Jesus when when you trust in his perfect life and the righteousness that comes through that that gets accredited to our account when you trust in his death that I a sinner and I need a savior and his blood covers me you trust in his resurrection that I actually get to have a new life in Christ because death no longer has a grip on me and that he ascended to the right hand of God the Father where he rules and Reigns from and I get to serve him out of that hope.
When you understand that the rest of the Christian Life is this you put all your chips on that hope on that reality you don't H your bets it's all in on Christ and now what to live as Christ to die is gain so I want to spend some time digging into this phrase because I think this phrase is unbelievably important if you understand what the best life is to live so let take a look at the first part to live is Christ he goes on to say.
If I'm to live in the flesh that means fruitful labor for me now he's going to go on to unpack this in the next few verses and just say that this is serving your brothers and sisters in Christ this is in service of the Church but that's what it means to live as Christ means to serve Christ to live is to serve that's the Christian Life to Live is to serve I went to a college called Presbyterian College and they had a a motto in Latin was called Dum vivamus servamus which was.
While we live we serve and at one point I'm sure in the history of our college that was attached to Christian values this is no longer a Christian College not remotely close but just like Harvard back in the day was founded as a seminary this was founded as a Christian College back in the day and at some point someone made the connection that the life that you live in Christ is one of service to live is Christ if you're going to be a Christian you're going to serve that is what it means to be a Christian and not only that that is the Pinnacle of human existence you understand what the what the what the.
Most maximized human life is do you understand what the good life is the good life is one that is found in serving Christ but in a lot of different ways I think our actions and our desires reveal that we don't really celebrate that Anthem that we don't really wholly Embrace that idea and then if you're in a bit of a midlife or quarter life crisis or you're just evaluating your time and you're trying to think through what do I do with the life that I have left like Paul is.
If I get out of prison this is what I'm going to do to live is this that if we're pose the same question that says if you had more time if you had more time in this life what are you going to do what is your gut instinct say what do your actions reveal I think if we're honest might reveal a lot of things that if I get more time what I'm going to do is I'm going to maximize my time to make money that I'm going to do what I can to make money.
Because money means freedom to choose freedom to do what I want freedom for me freedom for my family it means a lot of things that I can gain in this life this life is very temporary and I need to maximize my life and the aim of my life in a way that maximizes how much money I can have in my bank account I think for others that if you had more time that you'd be really focused on I want to be able to find someone to do this life with that I want to be able to find someone that I can journey through life that I love that I want I want that person.
For others who even might be married now might be just in a marriage that you're not happy with and it's like I if I I want someone I can actually love and journey through life with to live is if I had more time I could just have this if I had more time I could have the perfect family the right amount of kids who behave the just right amount of like all the things I want them to do that they would be involved in these Sports and would be uh uh good at this aspect of school and be able to have these type of careers.
If I could just uh have more time I'll be able to establish that type of family if I had more time I would be able to establish the kind of the kind of career I want but as you're thinking ahead primary focus is what kind of career I can have and the time I can put into that and the Legacy that I can leave through that and the work that I do if I had more time I would just grow to be a person that is admired by others that people would like me and I could leave that type of Legacy.
If I had more time I could live the kind of comfortable lifestyle that I want I could ditch the car that I don't like it improved the truck that I do like I could live uh I could level up in the house that I have I could have Comforts I could have the big screen TV if I had more time I could get happy if I had more time I could get healthy I think the Instinct within us and I think the actions that we display would reveal a lot of different things that.
If we had more time it would be a focus on this but to live would be this and listen I don't I don't think that I think having a good job and a and a spouse and a sweet family and a career that you like and being liked by others and being able to afford Stakes on the weekend like I'm I think those are good things and guess what Christianity is not opposed to those things this just not a a faith that's built on aestheticism this super righteous over-the toop lifestyle that's not what this is at all.
But here's the thing those things are not the Pinnacle of what it means to be a human those AR the the that's not what it means to live the good life not for the Christian at all that's not what it means that's not that should not be the central aim of Our Lives all of those things in our lives should be in joyful submission to the central aim of our life and that life is one of serving Christ which means that the money that we make is in service to Christ that.
If you get a pay raise it's like I God has blessed me with more so that I might not use it all on myself that I might bless others I might see other people in our Church family that are in difficult situations and be able to bless them that I might be able to reformulate my budget so I can send more missionaries because ultimately my money is a means by which I get to serve Christ that if God blesses me with a spouse that means I get to be in a one flesh Union that is in service to Christ that.
If I'm currently in one I get to rethink how our marriage is centered on the Gospel so that our marriage can ultimately not serve my needs or even my spouse's needs but ultimately in service of Christ that if you choose a career or you decide to switch jobs that every one of those decisions is like how do I submit this in the service of Christ how would I be a missionary in this workplace how will choosing this uh job help me serve the kingdom better you can go on and on down the list.
If I'm going to raise a family it's going to be one that is centered on the idea and the truth that is beautiful to live is Christ which means that I'm going to spend time with my children to help them understand that is the most important thing they could possibly ever understand and believe which means that I'm going to have make decisions as a father that says maybe we don't do the travel ball team this year and maybe I'm not impressing upon them that straight AIDS is the most important thing you can do to have the career that you want that I might even stretch them past bedtime on a night at community group knowing.
Good and well when I get home at 8:30 they're going to be really tired and awful at 6:00 in the morning when I'm getting them ready and the whole next day they might be a little tyrants but it's for a purpose because ultimately I want them to understand that to live as Christ and that this is more important we make decisions all the time that should be in service to Christ and should guide ourselves our families towards the ultimate good life that whatever Comforts that whatever whatever things.
God gives us in this life is in service to the ultimate aim that is to serve Christ that we would Le we would leverage every aspect of Our Lives towards making disciples and loving Brothers and Sisters in Christ and doing just to be blunt whatever God wants you to do now sometimes when you put a big emphasis on that there's a part of us especially in our Church where it's we we preach over and over again that you're not saved by works we beat that drum all the time that you're not saved by your Works you're not saved by your Works you're not saved by your works from Grace you've been saved through faith we.
Hit that drum over and over again for a reason because we need to understand that we trust in the perfect works of Christ on our behalf and that record stands for us you don't get into the kingdom of God by doing a bunch of good so we'll hit that over and over again but not at the expense of go 2 verse uh Ephesians 2: 89 and verse 10 which says that we are his workmanship that once you're in the kingdom of.
God you're created for good works which is not for you to get into heaven it's for your neighbors and it's for the advancement of his kingdom I love how Paul puts some very similar ideas in this passage into 2 Corinthians chapter 5 when he says in verse 8 and9 yes we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord see that similar language there i' ra I'd rather be at home with the.
Lord because that's my heavenly home it's not here it's there i' rather be at home with the Lord verse 9 so whether we are at home or away we make it our aim to please him and I want us to miss that we don't please him to get into heaven but we should make it our chief aim as Christians to say how can I please him how can I serve him how can I do this and I think the problem for us as a as Americans I think as American Christians I think we're.
So drunk off of Earthly blessings and Earthly riches and Earthly things that when the Bible confronts us on this when it comes to us and says You must live for Christ you must please him you must obey him a part of it just goes yeah I know but if I do that I'm going to miss out on some things and I just I want to just brutally murder that idea from us ever believing that is true because it's the idea that enjoying the things of this world is somehow better than what Christ has to offer us I I just want to kill that idea.
If I took my child if I took my son and I said we're going to get ice cream and not just any ice cream like we're going to the Baked Bear in Five Points which I've been on keto for a month and today is my first day off and sometime this week I'm going there because you can get ice cream and they take gooey butter cookies and they press it together into just I mean it's amazing and yeah I'm like that's where we're going we're getting that it's like that as that's the that's the best we got in Columbia we're going there and we're walking through five points and all of a sudden he sees.
A red shiny thing in the gutter and it's a one of those strawberry candies like the outside looks like a strawberry wrapper it's bright and shiny inside tastes like lip gloss you know what I'm talking about and he darts to it and he picks it up and he's like no no no dad I found it we're good I'm going to camp out here you go do whatever you want I don't have to walk that much further because I found what is going to satisfy me I would smack it out of his hand I would say you're not enjoying this no no no I don't you don't understand I want this i' smack it out of.
His hand again and have to look around and make sure that nobody's going to call the police you leave that for the kids in Five Points coming off of USC campus that's not what we're going to enjoy we're going to the Baked Bear I know we got to walk a little further son but that's where we're going because once we get there it's going to be good and it's going to be better than that filth that I'm going to stomp into the ground no that's what I do with my son and that's what God's trying to help us.
See yeah it's a little more effort to serve Christ takes a little farther to get there but it's good it's actually where goodness is found it's unbelievably good when you read Psalm 37 in Psalm 37:3 he says trust in the Lord and do good dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness he's saying trust in God and in trusting him serve him do good but faithfulness and then you get to verse four when it says delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart which people have Twisted out of context.
For their own purpose purposes and said you had Del lighten yourself in the Lord he's going to give you whatever you want it's like no no don't miss what it's sandwiched between verse three do good verse 5 commit your way to the Lord trust in him and he will act that ultimately goodness is found in Walking With Our God and doing what he commands and trusting in our savior and then obeying him that's where goodness is found not just goodness you get to delight in.
God through that and delighting in God who is the Perfection of beauty who is wonderful is good serving Christ is not drudgery it's not it's not a boring life no matter how much it gets depicted in movies or in TV the Christians live a boring life it's not service of Christ is not drudgery that is a lie you ask anyone who has followed Christ for decades they've pursued him in word and prayer regularly they have been obedient to make disciples they have entered into the baptism Waters and they have seen people testify that Christ has change them.
Because they got to be vessels of that being used to declare the Gospel to them you listen to their stories of how they helped other Christians get out of debt of how they helped walk with other brothers and sisters in discipling them you ask them if they would wish they had spent the last few decades doing something different that they would have would you would you have rather spent your time on endless amount of hobbies pursuing meaningless sex would you rather have watched a bunch more shows and bed a bunch more series would you have rather gone to a bunch of really fancy parties and gotten sosed is that what you have rather have done.
With your time if you ask them that question they're going to look at you sideways they're going to look at you like have you have you lost your mind absolutely not not because they've experienced what it means to Delight in Christ through service they know what it means to walk with their God and out of walking with their God serving others they have experienced that and that's better as we say every Sunday morning better than everything else and they believe that yet.
When I talk to people who have spent their years spent the last decade pursuing empty Pursuits chasing after worldly things I hear I'm s I'm tired I'm depressed I'm anxious I'm burned out because those things don't actually ever satisfy because that's not where true Joy is found to live as Christ is where true Joy is found service of Christ is not drudgery it is joy and when we realize that and believe that we become the Living Sacrifice that God has called us to be.
Then we tap into a greater form of joy that is better than anything this world has to offer so when he says to live as Christ of course I'm going to keep doing this what else would I rather be doing this is it and that's why he can so freely say in the next breath to die is gain death is gain because he knows if I die it's promotion to the big leagues I'm going to Eternity and that is far better and I think the problem.
For us is that so many of us are tempted to squeeze every ounce out of this life to squeeze every ounce of Earthly pleasure out of this life that we can't even see that that's better that I think that if many of us were told that you were going to die younger than you thought it would be scary and it would be sad and Paul just doesn't have that mindset he's so freed up in believing in Christ and understanding eternity and that this life is a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of time that spent in eternity and how much better that is he's.
So grounded in that idea he says if you kill me good I'm I'm I'm going to get where I want to go faster where I'll behold the face of God where I won't have the stain of this body and its Brokenness and its pain and its suffering or I won't be in I won't be I won't struggle with sin anymore yeah I I'll take that all day long he says yet which I shall yet which I shall choose I cannot tell I'm hardpressed between the two to Live to Die My Desire is to depart and be with Christ.
For that is far better he's not suicidal y'all that's not what's happening here he just understands Eternity for what it is and he's just being honest he's like I'm heart pressed I know that I should I got more to I got more to do but man I want that CU that's better and if you've ever heard stories you've been around Christians who've walked with the Lord for years and they have a terminal illness there's a part of them that's sad because they're going to leave a wife or a husband behind and they're going to leave kids behind and that's painful.
Because death thingss and that's painful but if you press in and you ask but but are you are you excited about being with Christ and that face just turns and it's like yeah I am I'm really looking forward to that I believe our calculations are off if we think there's less reward in serving Christ and I think our calculations are off if we fear death we should live every day to serve Christ in any way that he desires and we should.
See the joy in doing that because it is wonderful and then when God calls us to be home with him we're ready for the gain that awaits us that's what Paul's articulating here now it's when you see how he's talking around this you see he's somewhat convinced I would argue he's somewhat convinced that he's still got more work to do and the history behind this is is that there's a few historical resources outside the Bible that say that he got out of this imprisonment and he ended up in Spain which is.
When you read the book of Romans where he wanted to go and take the Gospel now we don't know that for a complete fact whether he did that or whether this really was the last imprisonment I lean towards looking at this text and realizing that I think he expects to get out and then he expects he has more work to do and you get a glimpse of that mindset when you go through verse 24 and 26 which was what we close out with.
Today he says 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account convinced of this I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again so I think from this that he he thinks he's getting out regardless of where you where you land on that his mindset is if I get out.
When I get out it is for your progress and joy in the faith that's what he says the way I get to live as Christ the way I get to serve Christ is for your progress and joy in the faith later in Chapter 2 he's going to talk about himself as a being poured out like a drink offering which is sacrificial language from the Old Testament that he's gets to be a sacrifice for their benefit he gets to be a sacrifice.
For their joy and progress in the faith that's what it means to serve Christ brothers and sisters that you leverage your life in service of Christ for the good of one another for the joy and progress of the people in this room to know and love and enjoy Christ we do that first by remembering Jesus in a sacrifice for us what he did on our behalf what he went to the cross for us we look at that sacrifice and out of that and realizing the mountain of debt that he paid.
For that our sin that put him there out of that we overflow into worship and we say and try to leverage Our Lives to say how can I serve others that I might help them have joy in Christ progress in their faith in Christ that's what it means to live as Christ and that that looks like the group leaders we have in our Church family that are laying on the line for their groups and when group gets hard and it gets messy and it gets tiresome you.
Look to Christ and you say thank you Jesus you serve me I'm going to serve others too and I'm going to I'm going to persevere in this and the joy that's found in the hardship of doing that is watching people taste and see that the Lord is good and watching Sinners be saved and watching marriages be restored and watching people understand what it means to truly serve Christ and to give themselves away this happens when a brother or sister sits down with someone who is hurting another brother and sister maybe.
For hours maybe for days maybe for weeks and just sits with them serving them because it's for not my own good it's for the good of others and it's for their joy and for their progress in the faith so yeah this is a a negative situation and it's got negativity within it but I press into that reality because it's worth them knowing and enjoying loving Christ this means leveraging your hospitality for others which is hard cuz I don't know if you bought groceries lately.
But like two bags is a 100 bucks and I we feel it and it's like man I I mean I we can we do hot dogs like I just you can by the way um it's like you're leveraging this I'm I'm going to I'm going to put this in my budget I'm put this in my mindset that I'm going to give up time and money for others to invite unbelievers into my house to invite their Christians into my house because it's good.
Because it's ultimately for their joy and progress and the faith Faith this means hear this this means sticking it out with people that are described as messy or even toxic man there's there's so much of an ideology going around right now that says if you got messy people in your life you got toxic people in your life you draw all this boundary and that's your circle and they can't get in the circle because if they get inside the circle that's a problem.
Because self care is Pinnacle at this moment you got to care for yourself so they can't be let in and what I'm not saying is is that you don't keep in mind that you don't give all of your energy and all of your time to messy people but you go the gospels and you show me a time when Jesus drew a boundary around himself and said these messy people can't get in and you ain't going to find it you know what he did do with messy people with hurting people he spent time with his heavenly.
Father and he got away from the crowds and he was filled up so that he could serve others well and I just want to again murder the mindset a lot of murder language sorry I want to destroy the mindset that says I can't serve others because I have to only care for myself it's the opposite of the Gospel to live is Christ whatever that is fill in the blank to live is serving Christ and leveraging our lives for others joy.
For others progress in the faith and we do it over and over again because we ultimately believe that Jesus is better over and over again and that in and through those labors and those efforts we get to see other people as he says In this passage have ample opportunities to glorify Christ ample cost to glorify Christ so brothers and sisters we leverage our lives for Mission we leverage Our Lives to loving one another well for the good of one anothers and we do it over and over and over again and we give ourselves away.
Because ultimately we get to help others experience joy and progress and in that labor even when it is hard we experience joy that is found in him because that level of joy is only found in the service of others so that means we need to be honest about how we'd answer that question to live is what that we should be honest about what we are basing Our Hope in this life on but what we think the good life is to live is what.
And if that answer isn't Christ then we say I submit this to you Jesus and I put it at your feet and you Chang my heart and you help me repent and you help me to live is for you for the good of others and for the progress in the faith until Christ calls us home again I'm at the halfway point with my oldest and I've only got a few years of really PR primary influence in her life before she leaves the home and I.
So want the next n plus years just to say an embody in her to live is Christ baby girl to live is Christ and to die is gain that's the Christian life because I want her to be able to go into the world and see money not as a God but as a tool and she's like I'm just so that one day she'll say this is just a tool and I won't be anxious about this I'm not going to be needing to.
For all this but I will live for the good of others and I will leverage my finances for the sake of others that if God does call her into a marriage one day and she has a husband that they will enter into a Godly marriage that is in service of others that she chooses a job that it's ultimately going to be how can I serve Christ in this job if she chooses to spend her time she says I'm going to serve Christ as.
God blesses her with children that one day she's going to raise them in service of Christ and enjoying him and God willing is going to live a long life and I'm going to beat her to Eternity and then one day at the end of her life a legacy of serving others she's just ready and she's ready to go home and she's ready to depart this world because what awaits her is eternal gain and I will get to be there and welcome her there and invite her and we celebrate.
And then for the years that follow I get to see person after person after person after person who enter into the kingdom of God because she leveraged her life to live is Christ and saw death as only gain that is the life I want for her that's the life I want for all my kids that's the life I want for myself and that's the life that I want for every person in this Church to live a life that is for Christ and doesn't cling to this world.
Because ultimately death is better because we gain him me pray heavenly father I pray that you might break within us a love for this world that we might not cling to anything that it has to offer but we might truly submit Our Lives to you to be in service to you because that is eternally better that's where Joy is found and my heart doesn't want to believe that it wants to cling to the things of this world may you break that within me.
So that I might embody what it means to live as Christ that our Church family that is struggling with loving the things of this world whatever that might be that you might break within them a heart for others that comes out of loving you and serving others may you help us be able to answer this question Faithfully that to live as Christ and to die as again and if there's anyone here that has not trusted in you that this is not the central aim of their life at all I pray that you'd help them.
See that this world is not worth it and they pursuing the things of this world is not worth it but they would go all in on you and they would live for you so that ultimately one day death may be gain in Jesus name amen the band's going to come up we're going to take prepare to take the Lord's Supper on the night that Jesus was betrayed he took bread and he broke it he said this is my body that was broken.
For you he took the cup of the New Covenant he said this is my blood that was shed for you that as often as you eat and drink this you Proclaim my death until I return and we are people that regularly come to the table of a meal that signifies death it signifies the death of Christ but also through faith in Christ death to ourselves which means that in the moments as you prepare to take the Lord's Supper as a Christian you get to.
Look at the things that we might say to live is what and we might fill that in and bring that before Christ and that we might repent joyfully H prly joyfully that we'd come to the table joyfully say thank you Jesus that you died for my own selfish ambition for my own selfish desires thank you Jesus that you died for this so that I might joyfully be able to spend what the this meal also points to Eternity the final meal that we enjoy with Christ forever that as a people between those two realities we get to live a a life that is.
For Christ expecting that one day death enters into game now if you're not a Christian if you never trusted completely in the finished work of Christ please don't come to the table this is not a meal for you what I want for you right now is to contemplate and to think that if you've banked your hope if you banked your life on anything outside of Christ if you're honest with yourself you're like I don't no I've never done that I've actually never believed My Hope Is that you would surrender to.
Jesus now because he's good and living a life for Christ is good and it's Joy filled and it's wonderful and ultimately it ends an eternal game but that can't happen unless you surrender in faith and I pray that you would now now so when you are ready come to the table with gluten free in that back corner over there if you want to know more about this if you want to know what it means to trust in Christ and surrender your life to him grab me grab another pastor we would happily walk you through the Gospel and what it means to believe and trust in him.
See that he is better heavenly father I pray that you would.
Holy Week (John 12:20-26)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Happy Palm Sunday we are taking a break from Exodus feels like we're in the thick of the Ten Commandments it's been a lot it's been a lot to digest and we said you know what let's take three weeks to just celebrate this Holy Week to celebrate Palm Sunday today and the Triumph and entry into the City and we're going to be in the Gospel of John chapter 12 verses 20-26 we're going to look at a story that directly follows the triumphant entry and celebrate Palm Sunday.
Today and then we'll have good Friday which we would love to see you here for Good Friday for our worship night and then Easter Sunday and then we're even going to spend one extra week celebrating the season we're going to have we're going to look at the Ascension the week after uh Easter so three weeks to give us a little bit of a break from Exodus and celebrate uh this season's we'll be in John chapter 12 verses 20-26 the text will be on the screen in the Gospel of John there is this building anticipation.
For when Christ is going to complete his work there's this phrasing that Jesus says my hour has not yet come the hour has not yet come my hour has not yet come there's this building anticipation for the hour to come as you read the Gospel of John and then he rides into the city on Palm Sunday and he is celebrated like a king the people chant Hosanna Hosanna this is shades of of the of of a Messianic King who is coming in to save us and they were expecting this uh this political revolution that.
Jesus was going to breathe not bring not realizing that he was actually coming to save them from their sins and there's this joyous time as Jesus triumphly enters into the city treating him like a king and then directly after that story we get this story right here which only shows up in in the Gospel of John and we're going to see as we walk through this how this uh is a celebration of the ultimate work of Christ and really a celebration of the Gospel and we get to really.
Look at this and celebrate what Jesus has done for us and then following that there's kind of two two costs that Jesus gives to his people that if he's giving up his life this is what he expects in return so we're just gonna take a moment and celebrate that and celebrate the good news of the Gospel in our lives as we walk through this we're going to be starting in verse 20. I'll read it I'll pray and then we'll walk this together in.
Verse 20 it says now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks so these came to Philip who was from bethsaida and Galilee and asked him sir we wish to see Jesus Philip went and told Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus and Jesus answered them the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified truly truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the Earth and dies it remains alone.
But if it dies it Bears much fruit whoever loves his life loses it whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life if anyone serves me he must follow me and where I am there will my servant be also if anyone serves me the father will honor him let's pray thank you Jesus that you came and thank you for your work and I pray that you would help us receive your word this morning that you'd open our ears and our hearts to receive it and that we would celebrate and worship who you are with glad and generous hearts and we would respond in faith and In Worship and repentance and delighting.
In who you are as the God who saves thank you Jesus amen all right so this story follows right after okay Jesus rides into the city like a king verse 19 into verse 20. okay I know exactly when this story happens after the triumphant entry but this is the next story and it's significant verse 20 it says now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks now the word for Greeks there and the original Greek text is helenace.
So Greeks is what the ESV chooses because we're not really familiar with that term hellenists but the hellenists were not just Greeks they were just Greco-Roman background they were non-jewish Gentiles who were very much in Greco-Roman culture and it says that they're in town for the feast to worship at the feast which means from the context is that they seem to be as the biblical New Testament category would call them God fears these are non-jewish Gentiles that have abandoned Greco-Roman religion and the gods of greco-rominism and have seen.
God is the God of the Jews is the one true God but they're not Jewish they're Outsiders but if they're here to worship at the feast like they're they absolutely seem like God fears it's something the people that actually have abandoned their former ways and trust this is the one true God and they no doubt have heard of Jesus Jesus is a celebrity in the land at this point by the time he goes to the Cross everyone knows who Jesus is in the land of Israel and he came in like a king people chanting Hosanna Hosanna these Greeks probably either would have been there to.
See that they certainly would have heard about it because the whole city is abuzz the Rival of Jesus expecting what is this great prophet going to do and like many others they want to see Jesus in verse 21 it says so these came to Philip who was from bethsaida and Galilee and asked him sir we wish to see Jesus Philip went and told Andrew Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus so they they want to see Jesus but you can tell from the text they they can't there's some type of barrier that keeps them that they're going to fill up one of his followers to.
See if they can have access to Jesus now it's very possible the reason they can't is because at this moment Jesus might be teaching in one of the inner Temple courts so you have the temple and you have these Courtyards the three inner Temple courts are only for Jews and those who have been circumcised and then there's an outer court it's called the court of the Gentiles and that's where they could be as close they could get to the temple so it's very possible that we don't know.
If it's clear from the text that they are in the outer Temple courts Jesus was doing some teaching in the temple courts but they can't get to him and they wish to see him whatever the case we we don't know for sure they can't get to Jesus they go to Philip and I said we wish to see Jesus and here's what's peculiar about this story we don't know if they actually see Jesus that's the text doesn't tell us like it doesn't say that he met with them it's possible that he did it's possible that he didn't.
But in John's Gospel that's not what he's trying to focus on here he's not focusing on their meeting he is focusing on their request right next to how Jesus responds to this request and that's what's significant here 23 and Jesus answered them the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified Now's the Time this anticipation has been building my hour has not yet come the hour has not yet come the hour has not yet come John 2 4 John 7 30 John 8 20.
There's this theme of the hour has not yet come then Jesus triumphantly enters into the city as they chant Hosanna Hosanna what is he going to do next these hellenists want to see Jesus and in response to that he says the hour has come the son of mans be glorified what does he mean by that well he means Glory by Death the arrows come to be glorified by death it says in verse 24 truly truly Jesus says truly truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the Earth and dies it remains alone.
But if it dies it Bears much fruit the hour has come for Jesus to die and in just a few days on Good Friday he is going to the Cross now most of us aren't from the Midwest so that grain reference may be lost on our ears because we don't grow grain down here but it would not be lost on them what he is teaching there that a seed from the grain is growing and it's alive and is a part of the grain stalk the sheep.
And then it when it falls off it's lost its life source and it dies but when it goes into the ground and the rains come it will be reborn to something brand new and Jesus is referring to that as a way of speaking about his death and answering Gentile Outsiders like that you cannot miss the significance because what he is pointing to is the Pinnacle work of redemption that all of redemption history has been moving to this point where his hours come the Scriptures have been awaiting.
For the hour to come all the way back in Genesis when Adam and Eve sinned against God and broke Fellowship by trusting the word of the serpent in that moment when the curse of sin is being told by God that sin is going to corrupt every aspect of creation we get what theologians call the proto-evangelion that's a fancy Latin way of saying the first Declaration of the Gospel where he says one day one day the seed of Eve is going to come and he is going to crush the head of the serpent the one day someone is coming in the line of eve and he's going to crush the work of evil.
And then later on in Genesis in chapter 22 as Abraham is being called we see that God has chosen of specific people a specific tribe and he says in your Offspring shall all the all the nations of the earth be blessed that one day the seed of Eve is going to come through you Abraham and through you this seed of redemption is going to bless the Nations and then we've been in Exodus we've been walking through the law and we see that Israel was called to follow the law.
But we know that they cannot follow the law we know they break Commandments over and over and over again and then even Moses prophesies in Deuteronomy 18 he says I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers there is this growing expectation that someone is going to come from amongst our people the hour is going to come where this is going to get fixed and at the right time Jesus comes and he fulfills the Old Testament law by about banging it perfectly.
And then he heals the sick and he feeds the hungry he performs Miracles he raises the dead as we saw last week in the fourth Commandment he challenges the religious establishment and they're misrepresenting the heart of God he's going to establish a new people and then the time has come for him to die and after this statement in just a few days is going to be arrested it's going to be arrested and then I'll be ashamed and he'll be beaten and I'll be flogged he'll be mocked and his flesh will be torn apart and they will force a crown of thorns on his head and they will put a wooden cross on his mangled back.
And they will send him up the hill of Golgotha or they will nail him to a cross and they will raise him in shame most likely naked and exposed and he will slowly suffocate to death to atone for the sins of man and to purchase a people for himself and then like a grain of wheat he'll be placed in the earth in a borrowed man's tomb and the seed of our Redemption will be placed in the earth as we wait as we wait.
For death to meet its conqueror and then on the first Easter morning he rises and he defeats the power of death so that Hellenist so that Outsiders so that outcasts can finally have access to Christ so that there might not be any bear they won't have to go to Philip they won't have to go to anyone they have access to Jesus because through his death and his resurrection they now have access to Christ the hour has come and you will get to experience life with.
God forever you will get access to God the Father through Christ the son by the power of the Holy Spirit that ultimately what we see here is when the text tells us when Jesus says it remains alone but if it dies it Bears much fruit that ultimately the fruit of his Redemption is us that's every Outsider that did not know Christ who finally trusted in Christ and that now that we bear the fruit of righteousness that he provides within us like that that is the fruit of redemption.
So that response to a bunch of Greek hellst who want to see Jesus it previews the whole mission of God and Jesus answered them the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified truly truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the Earth and dies it remains alone but if it dies it Bears much fruit our hero is tipping his hand to where this is going but in just a few days he's going to die on the cross.
So that every tribe and every nation every tongue can experience God forever now the cost of redemption is his life is believing and what he has done for us following that Jesus gives a cost a cost that we bring to the table and the next two verses these two costs that he's going to outline are unbelievably important the first is your life and the second is your service so let's look at that first one in verse 25 he says whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it.
For eternal life what a provocative thing to say what a powerful thing the challenge us in I mean a lot of times people think of Jesus and he's they have this picture that he's just this wise Sage you as children tugging at him and he's picking them up and Swinging them around and that is our God that is Jesus but that's not the only picture of our Jesus he's a prophet and he drops prophetic truth bombs like this that mess us up he is absolutely attacking our approach to this life here on Earth.
And when he says lose in the original language in the Greek lose often means also destroy or ruin the idea here it's not just losing your life but destroying your life ruining your life if you want to ruin your life love it be about maximizing pleasure having your best life now cling to this life and you're ultimately going to lose what is truly important life with God if you love your life you will lose it you cannot have both you cannot have.
Jesus and this life is a one of the best scenes and what I would argue is the best Indiana Jones movie the Last Crusade Jenna some of you might think that's controversial we can have the argument about Raiders The Last Arc and all that stuff as long as you don't say the Crystal Skull movie which was nowhere in the stratosphere of the Last Crusade but in the Last Crusade the very end when they've been seeking the Holy Grail this treasure and in the end.
When they finally have it and the whole tomb begins to shake and this earthquake happens and it falls out of the hands of that lady and the chasm divides the the Holy Grail this treasure and her and she falls and then Indiana Jones grabs her and she's off the she's off hanging off the cliff about to fall into the abyss but she sees that treasure she sees that Holy Grail that means eternity it means life all the things that in this story it means and she sees it and she begins to reach.
For it and he's like no take my hand I can't hold you can't hold you in you grab this take my hand and she can't help herself she wants the treasure so bad and then she slips through his hands and falls into the abyss and dies and then the whole earthquake shakes it again shakes and then Indiana Jones Falls and he falls in the exact same situation but this time Sean Connery is there his dad it grabs him by the hands and Indiana Jones has the exact same Temptation he sees the Holy Grail he's it's with an Arms Reach he's just he just tries to reach he wants it and Sean Connery looks at Harrison.
Ford and he says Indiana Let It Go Let It Go you you're gonna die if you do this don't do this take my hand and he's the hero and he makes the right choice but that's us y'all that we see this life and what it has to offer and we think if we that if I cling to this life I can get pleasure and joy but we got one hand on Jesus and one hand on this life and thinking we can have both.
Jesus is saying you can't have both that if you try to cling to this life you're going to lose it you're going to ruin it don't do this ultimately Jesus wants us for himself and clinging to him is our only hope you cannot have this life and everything that it offers in comparison to Christ who offers so much more Jesus says if you love this life you're going to lose it but if you want to save your life he says you need to hate your life in this world try selling that on a t-shirt in the Etsy Marketplace Bedazzled as a provocative thing to say you need to hate this life hate is a very.
Strong word and it's also a nuanced word my my children when they were my oldest when they were three and four they would use the word hate that hear us use it and they would use it we would say don't say hate because three and four years old they weren't ready for that word they want them going in the preschool saying I hate you to a kid that took their toys like this is not no you're not ready for that word.
But that put in their mind that this was a naughty word like it was a bad word so now they're a little bit older and we've said hate and they'll say don't say hey it's a bad word and I said well it's not I've had to explain to them we've told you early on this is a word that wasn't for you but now you're getting older and you're getting a little bit of wisdom and learning the English language and now we're teaching them the hate actually is a Biblical word we're supposed to hate sin we're supposed to hate evil we're supposed to hate Injustice and I'm trying to teach that.
But it's a nuanced word and Jesus is clearly nuancing his use of the word hate here and really hate is an opposition to love here and he's doing something with that word Jesus is not literally saying you need to hate this life in the same way like he's not saying you should hate your job and hate your wife and your husband or your friends you should hate your kids you should hate your family you should hate everything you've got he's not saying it literally like that.
But while he's not using that word literally he certainly means it very seriously and how he's using hate here and the way that it's being used on opposite in the opposite of love is that you should so love Christ that you should so love the things of God love Jesus love his people love what is good that your love in comparison to the world that your approach would look like hatred of the world indifference to the world I love how one commentator puts it he says people whose priorities are right have such an attitude of love.
For the things of God that all interest in the Affairs of this life appear by comparison as hatred let me read that again people whose priorities are right have such an attitude of love for the things of God that all interest in the Affairs of this life appear by comparison as hatred that you would so love God and the things of God by comparison look like hatred you know a lot of folks don't know this the restaurant that sells the most T-bone steaks in the world is Waffle House it's Waffle House Awful Waffle Wahoo they sell the most T-bone steaks and you might think by that logic.
If you've never had a steak well if they sell the most they must be the best and you go to Waffle House the first time and you need to stay and you'd be like oh this is what it means to have a steak and you'd be so wrong you'd be so utterly mistaken you'll know a wonderful place to get a steak Raz Bradley's house as Bradley is one of our pastors and he makes wonderful steaks he makes the steak called pecania it's the steak you get at a Brazilian steakhouse that's just.
So good he makes even what uh it's called wagyu steaks okay it's fancy Japanese beef and he makes these steaks and they're so good and y'all it's one thing I love about Raz he's so hospitable he would love for every one of you to come to his house and have Wagyu steak in fact I think you should today he's out there doing security for us or whatever it's called safety for us I would love for you to go and ask him I want to come to your house and have wagyu beef make me this glorious steak.
Because once you put that in your mouth you will experience what true steak is supposed to be and you would look at Waffle House and go I hate that I don't want that I'm never eating that again because you've actually experienced what ultimately is good God wants to ruin your taste for this world by his great love he wants to ruin your taste for this world he wants you to taste and see but the Lord is good blessed is the man who takes refuge in him Psalm 34 he wants you to taste of him.
See that he's ultimately as we say all the time so much better than everything else because he is what a prayer what a prayer to pray Lord ruin my love for the ruin it because I want you and I want you alone because what he offers it is so much greater we should invite God to ruin our love for this world Jesus wants that for us that we'd so deeply love God the thanks of God that our approach to this world would be no it's not even close.
So that's the first thing it costs your life and your approach this life and the second cost is your service your service in verse 26 he says if anyone serves me he must follow me and where I am there will my servant be also if anyone serves me the father will honor him one of the problems of American Christianity is that faith in Christian faith is treated like a mere function of your life that it's a social aspect of your life as.
If that you could put on this Christian faith like a uniform on Sundays only a few times throughout the week and exchange it for whatever setting you're in that Faith Becomes of your function in our social aspect of your life and not what it's supposed to be the guiding Compass of our life that we're meant to be servants and that service is displayed through following him that we be followers of Christ who serve him like that one of the when I'm talking with people in the South about faith and I'm doing evangelism most Christians in the South are going to answer the question are you a Christian they're going to say yes most people are.
Going to claim to be Christians in the south but what I'm asking what I'm looking for what I'm seeking for and someone is not just identifying with Christ not not talking about him as he's just like a part of their life or who they identify with I'm looking for the language of the follower I'm looking for the language of a servant that Jesus they've so loved him and so believe that he is good that it changes the way they live their life they seek to serve Christ do you merely identify with Christ is it merely someone you can put on or put off given the social setting that you're in or are you a servant.
Of Christ because don't miss this he's saying this on the way to the Cross when he says where I am there will my servant be also he's on his way to the Cross as he says that so this service for for some is even unto death which we we at America are so insulated from them we have brothers and sisters across the world who are being persecuted and they take that literally that it may cost their life and serve in Christ there will my servant be also.
But I fear that many Christians in America would not be willing to serve Christ if it meant even having an uncomfortable conversation with a co-worker let alone unto death and he's calling to a deeper service and I feel this that the American part of me wants Comfort it wants it doesn't want suffering for the sake of the Gospel it doesn't want to serve in a way that would make me uncomfortable but a prayer to grow in would be Lord Where You Are there your servant will be also what a prayer to pray where you are.
God is where I want to be are you willing to serve Christ and do whatever he tells you to do that language of servant for us is difficult because we're so far removed from the New Testament world in the context of a servant class where the closest parallel I can think of is military service if you're in the military you belong to the military and your commanding officer says do something you do it you serve wherever he wants you to go or he will are we willing to have that approach to.
God that we'd serve him at a minimum that's going to be the things he tells us to do in the Scriptures at a minimum that's going to be everything from work and prayer and the disciplines all the way down to where is the Holy Spirit leading you what is he leading you to serve where is God at that you need to be at in your service to him I'm growing in as a Christian not sidestepping the Holy Spirit and it's nudging it is leading in my life.
Because there are times where God says I want you to do something and I just go well but I what kind of qualifications do we have for that as opposed to just being someone say okay no God where you are is where I want to be where you want to surf where do you want me to be are you willing to pray boldly and ask the Lord where do you want me to be Lord what do you want me to serve what do you want me to be doing.
For some of you that may be as simple as serving in Kid City or serving as a leader in training or a group leader for some of you that may be stepping in to pastoral Ministry or being a missionary and going to the ends of the Earth but here the costs that he has for us that he costs our life and it cost your service and then don't mess what he says to follow it up with he says if you do this the.
Father will honor him father will honor you which means that if you look at this in the context of the rest of the New Testament that speaks like this that it is good to be motivated to receive honor from God but that's actually a Godly motivation which is weird for for many of us I know it's weird for me it throws me off because it shouldn't I have the I don't know the internal intrinsic value of just serving Christ is it wrong to seek honor from him as.
If in some way we're robbing God of Glory it messes with because we're so we in our Church we so preach and live that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God Alone there's so much of Who We Are and you hear very clearly this isn't for your salvation he's not you're not doing these things unto me to be saved safe being saved by Jesus is by believing in what he has done alone.
But once you are a Christian this is for you and what's being held out for you is in your service to Christ that you'll be honored and you should desire that and C.S Lewis's weight of Glory essay he talks about this he talks about uses the phrase I love it he says the undisguised pleasure in being praised that we should have undisguised pleasure in being praised by God and he Compares us to a dog I don't know somebody like I'm not a dog in comparison to.
God you're much worse but C.S Lewis he talks about us like we're a dog I have a dog her name is Piper she's a big Labradoodle which some of you want to know yes we did name her after John Piper it's a pastoral nerd that's what happened but her name is Piper and when I drive home and I pull up in the driveway and she hears my car pulling up which is impressive because I draw the Prius and it's real quiet and she she hears it she runs to the front of the house she gets on the couch she looks out the out the window she waits.
For me and then when I open the door she's standing in front of it and she's so excited she's got a full body waggle just just going for it just prancing her feet are prancing she just wants to be praised she has she has this uh undisguised pleasure and being praised she seeks that she wants it she wants that type of praise and love and affirmation we we should have that approach to God that in eternity we should have this undisguised pleasure in being praised it does not Rob.
God of Glory for him to honor you I mean think about the language of the parable of the talents and the parable of talents what's the language that Jesus uses the phrase that we long to hear well done good and faithful servant boy oh boy we should long for that type of Honor we should live our Christian lives longing for the day when Jesus says well done good and faithful servant where he bestows that type of on or upon us and we don't know all we don't have great vivid pictures of what that is in the New Testament of what type of Honor that is of the storing up riches in heaven that he speaks.
About we don't have the most vivid pictures of that but if Jesus says it's honor we certainly should believe that and that we shall live our lives in light of them cost your life and it costs your service but boy oh boy you will be honored I so appreciate this brief story in John's Gospel that on his way to Good Friday and on his way to Calvary colonists they just they wish to see Jesus and then we get this response that shows exactly what his work is.
For we see what it's all about that the hour has come where he will go to the cross for us because of his great love for us so that we might have our love for this life ruined by his great love and serve them into eternity and at the end of the week he takes all of our sin to the cross and he walks out of the grave and he makes a way for Outsiders like you and me to experience Our.
God forever many of you have said and expressed the same desires as these Outsiders I wish to see Jesus I wish to see Jesus I want to know him I want to be with him I longed to see him this is how let God ruin your love for this world let him ruin your love for this world serve him with all of your heart so that you might be honored that is the path that he's forging at Calvary as we head into Good Friday and we sing songs about the death of.
Jesus this is what it is for a people that he has purchased for himself that do not love the world but love him deeply and serve him and to Eternity Matt's going to come up and we get to worship and we get to take the Lord's Supper as we remember the good news of the Gospel but on the night that he was betrayed he took he took bread and he took one he took the cup of the New Covenant he took the bread he said this is my body that was broken.
For you he says often as you eat this you remember Jesus death on the cross that we take the cup the cup the New Covenant this is my blood that was shed for you he says that as often as you eat and drink this we get to proclaim the death of Jesus until he returns Christians as you come to the table you'd remember what happened on Good Friday and what Jesus did for us and that the seed of redemption was placed in the Earth and that on Easter mourn he burst forth into life making a way.
For us to experience Jesus into eternity when he says Proclaim my death until I return when he returns all things are made new and that day for those of us that have trusted in Jesus as our only hope and have laid down our lives to follow him and have served him there's an honor that is coming that we can't quite understand but it's very good and we should aim our Christian lives for that day but there are some of you there are some of you that have not actually had your love.
For this world ruined by God you have not tasted and seen that the Lord is good you have not believed in him you have not given up your life to him your life is not in service to him and it's because you don't know him and I so deeply we don't want you to come to this table I wish for you to see Jesus I want you to meet him I want you to know him I want you for the first time to lay down your life friend I want you to pray a prayer that says.
God ruin my love for this world I want you to experience the love that he poured out for us on the cross and say I want you Christ pray a prayer that says ruined for this world so that I might live for you so that you might one day experience the unmerited grace of his honor that he bestows on his people so don't come to the table right now come to Jesus heavenly father I pray that you would help us be.
So captivated by your sacrifice of the crossed it would be so overwhelmed by how you were placed like a seed in the Tomb the Obesity overjoyed by the resurrection we get to celebrate one week from now that we respond in faith that there's anyone here that does not know you I pray that they'd wish to see you and they would give their life to you God ruined their love for this world so that they might love you God there are so many of us who trust you who follow you they want one hand on this life and everything it has to offer and one hand on you.
God I pray that we cling to you ruin our love for this world over and over and over again help us die to ourselves so that we might live to you and service of you and worshiping you For Your Glory.
Psalm 139: Search My Heart
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
It's good to see you guys this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. If you would, go ahead and grab a Bible. We are going to hop right in this morning, and I want you to go ahead and turn to Psalm 139. Psalm 139.
If you don't have a Bible, go ahead and grab one of the blue Bibles that we have that are tucked under some of the seats. It's going to be on page 300 in those. We're going to be looking at Psalm 139. As a worship leader, I love the Psalms. It's the Psalm book of the Bible, you guys. I'm obligated to actually love the book of Psalms.
But I do. I love the book of Psalms, and specifically Psalm 139. What we get in the Psalms is the entire range of human emotion. John Piper says that you can always find yourself in the Psalms, and I believe that. I believe that's true. Regardless of whatever you're going through in your life, whatever circumstance, you can always find yourself in the Psalms.
And so I'm excited to be teaching from one of my favorite passages today. So if you'll look, go ahead and look in your Bible. We don't always point this out. But if you look at the top, right underneath Psalm 139, it says, to the choir master, a Psalm of David. Okay, so it tells us that this is one of the Psalms of David. In fact, nearly half of the Psalms in the book of Psalms are David's.
And it's important for us to know that David wrote this and to think about his life because it colors how we're going to understand this Psalm, how we study it. But as we're getting started, I want you to go ahead and look. We're going to look at the first verse and the final two verses before we even start because they actually frame in what David is talking about in the Psalms. So you can look in your Bible or you can look up here on the screen. It says, Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me.
And then at the very end, David's praying and he says, Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. So David starts with saying to God, God, you have searched me and known me. You know everything about me. Nothing is hidden from you. And then he concludes by asking God to continue to search him, to know his heart, to know his thoughts, to show him his sins and to lead him on the right path.
Now there's a lot of things that we're going to look at in between this frame, but I think it's important to just highlight part of David's life before we hop in because of what he's talking about here. So this is the David that the Bible presents to us. He's the youngest of seven sons of his father. He's kind of the runt of the litter. He's the shepherd boy out tending the sheep, but God saw fit to anoint him to be the next king of Israel. This is the David that the Bible talks about who goes up against the giant Goliath with a sling and a stone and takes him down.
This is the David that wins the hearts of the people of Israel. In fact, the Bible describes David as a man after God's own heart. And while there's a lot of great things we can point out about David, sometimes we forget to talk about the darker side, that David wasn't perfect. And maybe you're not as familiar with this story, but there was a time when the Israelite army went out to war and David didn't go with them. He stayed back. And he's walking on the rooftop of the palace and he sees a beautiful woman bathing.
And he desires her. And so he brings her to his palace and he sleeps with her. Her name is Bathsheba and she becomes pregnant. And David's trying to figure out how to cover this thing up. So he sends for her husband, Uriah, who's one of his best soldiers, sends for him to bring him home so that maybe he'll go back to his house and sleep with Bathsheba and this thing will be all covered up and they'll never know it was his child.
But Uriah was so faithful, he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't leave the king's house. And so David sends Uriah back out into battle and tells the commander to pull back from him. And Uriah's killed. David was responsible for the murder of somebody else. And so it makes you wonder, as we look at this Psalm, as we looked at this framework we just created, that how can he pray this at the end?
How can he pray, continue to search me, continue to examine me and see my grievous ways in light of everything that he has done? And if I'm David, I don't want that. I don't. In fact, I don't want that. And I would bet for most of us, we don't want that either. The things that we've hidden, the skeletons in our closet, the things that we wish and hope that nobody ever finds out about us.
But it seems that David has discovered something better. What we're going to see is that in spite of everything that David has done, God still desires relationship with him. He gets the offer of redemption and forgiveness. And so that's what we're looking at this morning, how David can have such confidence in his relationship with God that no matter what he had done, he still saw it better that the Lord would know him deeply and intimately rather than keeping things hidden from the Lord. And that hopefully we'll actually leave here with that same kind of confidence, that same kind of confidence and vulnerability and freedom that we can have in our relationship with God.
Okay? So that's what we're looking at this morning. Why don't we pause and pray as we go further? God, what a bold prayer that you would search us and know us. And it's difficult for us to even comprehend how we could do that. And so we pray that you would speak from your word, that you would help us understand what David had come to know, what David had come to know, and that you would lead us in the way everlasting.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, so look at your Bibles. Let's hop into the text. Okay, verse 1. Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh, Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
It is high. I cannot attain it. So he's talking about this God, this God who searches and knows, and he's trying to color that in and describe it. Verses 2 and 3, David says, when I sit down and when I rise up, he says, you know my path and my lying down, and you're acquainted with all my ways. He says, God sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good. But seriously, he knows everything about you. He knows when you're sleeping. He knows when your feet hit the floor. He knows what I do throughout the day. David crafts this song to show that there is no activity, no action that escapes what God sees.
He knows. He knows. Not only that, look at verse 3. It says here, you discern my thoughts. I'm sorry, verse 2. You discern my thoughts from afar.
Come on. Like, not only does he know our activities, he discerns our thoughts. He knows what you're thinking. Right now. And right now. And right now.
So the thing I thought when that person cut me off in traffic, God knows. The thing I was thinking when my co-worker asked me how I was doing, he knows. The thing I'm daydreaming about right now while Matt's talking, he knows. He knows. Not only that, look at verse 4. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all together.
So that's a crazy progression. He knows our actions. He knows our thoughts. And even before we formulate words, he knows it. I have two daughters, a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old. My 7-year-old is named Emmy.
And if you know Emmy, this story will make perfect sense to you. We like to cook. Like specifically, my girls love to cook pancakes. And so that's usually a group effort for us. When Emmy was really young, we had the griddle out. We had the bowl of pancake mix.
And we were doing the whole thing. And I walked across the kitchen to grab something. And I got to the other side of the kitchen with my back turned to her and said, don't touch that. And I turn. And her hand is over the griddle. And she's just looking at me like, are you a wizard?
Like, child, I know you. And I'm way smarter than you. Like, I knew what you were going to do. I know what you were going for. And that multiplied times infinity is God towards us. He knows you.
He created you. Verse 5 says, You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. You hem me in. Now, he's drawing from shepherding terms here. Okay, so it's a little bit lost on us. But this is, he's drawing from his experience.
Shepherds would be out in the fields with the sheep. And they would be tending them and keeping them together and making sure that they went on the right path, that they didn't fall off of a cliff, that they were able to find fresh water and fresh food. And then at night, they would try to kind of hem them into an area for protection. And then oftentimes, the shepherds would just lay in harm's way so that if a wolf or a predator was coming, they would know it. They would be first in line. It's a beautiful picture here.
You hem me in behind and before. And then you get to verse 6. And he just exclaims it. He says, Such knowledge is too wonderful and high for me. I can't grasp it. And I feel that.
I bet you do too. That's David's point. He's giving glory to God for his all-knowing power. We use big words for this sometimes like God's omniscience, which just means that he is all-knowing or his omnipotence, which means that he is all-powerful. God knows everything and he is all-powerful. And even though David can't fully comprehend it, and neither can we, he's still able to glory in it.
And there are two things I want to point out from these six verses and then we'll move on. The first one is this. This is terrifying, right? Like God knows your actions, your words, and your thoughts. For those of you who are into stranger things, this isn't like a Vecna scenario where God's going to use your thoughts and stuff to torture you. Like we're not all headed for a Chrissy wake up situation.
Okay? But it is terrifying that God knows everything about you. Hear that clearly. What David is saying here is that God knows everything about every person in this room without exception. And for most of us, even those of us who are Christians, that's terrifying. We don't want God to know everything.
If he did, we think things like, how could God love me? How could God accept me? There's no way he could use me. There's no way I could belong to his people and be loved. And as Christians, we know these things aren't true. Yet we convince ourselves all too often that they are.
We give in to the lies and the false beliefs instead of glorying in who God is and knowing that he's all powerful and all knowing. And I will say this. I think part of the reason we do this is because in our lives we've experienced people who have used knowledge of us to hurt us. Okay? You've been there before. You've told something to someone and they told everyone else.
You shared a struggle with someone and then they used that in your relationship to manipulate you. We've all been there. But that's not God. The God who sees you and knows everything about you is wholly other than that. And because that's true, the other part of this passage is that this ought to be incredibly comforting to us. That even though he knows all of our thoughts and words and actions, his posture towards us is that of a shepherd.
With his sheep, he wants, even though we would rebel and try to run, God, his posture towards us is that of a shepherd. That's what verse 5 is talking about. It says, you hem me in behind and before. You keep me. God keeps us. And I'll be honest with you guys.
This is something that I pray on a regular basis. I pray this on a regular basis underneath my breath. God, you hem me in behind and before. You hem me in behind and before. I have a tough day parenting with the kids. You hem me in behind and before.
When I want to run to the fridge at 10 o'clock at night for some comfort, you hem me in behind and before. When we've got a difficult situation going on in our church, when we need wisdom and we don't know it, you hem me in behind and before. God's knowledge of us is both terrifying and comforting. So what do we do with that? What do we do with that? Look at verse 7.
It says, where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you.
The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you. It's as if David tries to illustrate what all of us are prone to, right? Run. Like, run. He says, but where would I go? Where would I flee from your presence?
He says, if I go up to heaven, you're there. Which, obvious David, but I understand it's a progression. You've got to start somewhere. You're there. If I go down to Sheol, you are there. When we have Sheol in Scripture, it's just a poetic way of saying, it's a poetic name for the place of the dead.
He says, if I go up to heaven, you're there. If I go down to the place of the dead, you are there. He says, if I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, you're there. He says, if I take flight in the morning, okay, the morning sun rises in the east. If I head towards the east or if I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, the uttermost parts of the sea for them was the Mediterranean. If I go up, down, north, south, east, west, you're there.
Where can I flee from your presence? So where do I go? The dark. I'll hide in the dark. You guys, you guys ever play hide and go seek with some kids? All right?
Come around the corner. You know the kids behind the couch. So you go and look behind the couch and as soon as you make eye contact that with the kid, they go, I can see you. No, you can't. Well, now I can hear you too. Like I, but that's us.
That's us when it comes to the fact that we think that we can hide in the dark from God or that even in the midst of our darkness, God somehow is not there. So I love what verse 11 and 12 say. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you. Guys, are you seeing what David's saying in these first 12 verses? That God is all-knowing.
He knows everything. Your words, thoughts, actions. He's all-powerful and He's all-present. There's no place that you can flee from His presence. And I do just want to take a second and highlight this here. If you've run to the dark or you feel like right now you are in the dark, God's there and it is not dark to Him.
It is not dark to Him. He's with you and He sees you. And we're going to talk more about that in a minute, but I just want you to know that. He sees you and He's with you. And as David continues on from here, what he's going to do now is give us an example of God seeing us, knowing us, and being with us in the darkness. That's why verse 13 begins with 4.
It's an illustration. It's an example of God being with us in the dark. Here's what it says. For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret. Intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them. David gives us this beautiful picture of God being with us in the midst of darkness by describing a baby in its mother's womb.
And specifically he tells it from his perspective. He says, you formed my inward parts. You knit me together. I am wonderfully made. Extravagantly, miraculously, uniquely made. My frame wasn't hidden from you.
You wove every detail together. You formed my substance. And not only that, my days were written in your book even before I was born. Not only does David say that God was active in forming him in the womb, he says, even at that time God had established purpose for his steps and his life. David's saying that God was with him, forming him and shaping him in the womb. And that's the big picture of what David's driving at in this Psalm is that the God who knows and sees us is with us.
And that's amazing. Y'all, how good is this picture? The God of the universe fashions and forms each one of us. It's just beautiful. And in fact, it's not the only place in scripture that says this. I actually want to highlight a couple of others.
They're not going to be on the screen. I'm going to read them for us. It says, in Job 10, this is Job talking, he says, your hands fashioned and made me and now you have destroyed me altogether. Remember that you have made me like clay and will you return me to the dust? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? You clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews.
You have granted me life and steadfast love and your care has preserved my spirit. It's beautiful. He's picking up on the same kind of language that is used later by David. He says later in Job. Job says this. He says, if I have rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant when they brought a complaint against me, what then shall I do when God rises up?
When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb? He's saying, if God as creator comes to question me, what am I to say? He made me. He formed me.
And not only that, if I'm in a dispute with someone else, he made them too. In Jeremiah, beginning of Jeremiah, this is directly, this is the words of the Lord. 1 verses 4 and 5 says, now the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. It's that same idea that David was talking about, that God knew him before he was in the womb.
He had predestined his steps. He had purpose for his life. He had been consecrated. And one of my favorites is once we get to the New Testament, the angel comes to Mary, says she's going to give birth to the Son of God. But Mary's aunt is pregnant at the same time.
And she goes to visit Elizabeth. And here's what Elizabeth says. She says, for behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. This child has personhood and is able to express joy. And the point that the Bible is trying to make clear in multiple places across multiple time periods is that life begins in the womb. And while David is using this as an illustration of God seeing and knowing and being with us in the dark, it's not just an illustration.
It's truth. It's a reality. And it's one that has taken center stage in our country over the last month or so. And so what we're going to do is we're going to press pause for a second. And we're going to take the next 10 to 12 minutes and talk about what is a current topic in our culture right now, which is life beginning at conception and the topic of abortion. And now, that's not the main point of this passage.
But it is most certainly a direct application and an ethic that is derived from this idea of a God who knows us and sees us and forms us. Okay? So we're going to press pause and talk about this as an application and then jump back into the text. Now, I realize that I have just polarized the room. I'm aware of that. Some of you just thought, yes, get them.
Roe fell a couple of weeks ago and it's time for us to plant our flag in the ground. Some of you just thought, if you say what I think you were about to say, I'm walking out of this building and I'm never coming back again. And some of us are just too disengaged from the conversation because you don't feel like it impacts you. And so I want to make a suggestion and a request this morning. Okay? Here's my suggestion.
Can we just press pause on all of our political arguments for a moment and realize that whatever you think about this, that this is an incredibly difficult and painful situation for a prospective mother and father to walk through. Can we be a people of compassion? Can we do that? Can you set your political leanings to the side for a second and just own that? This is incredibly painful and difficult. And out of that suggestion, I want to make a request.
Okay? If we set that aside, I want to make a request. Can we just take an honest look at what God says to us in His Word out of this passage? Can we just be honest about what it says? Because here's the deal. If we are, if we'll be honest, we can't read this passage and the others that I mentioned without agreeing what it says, that life begins in the womb.
That God is working, He's knitting us together and forming us in our mother's womb. That God predestines our steps from the womb. And to reject this is to reject the authority of Scripture. We must trust God and His Word here, which means that the overall thrust of the Bible is for life, which means that a rejection of life through abortion is sin. Period. In the majority of conversations that I have had with both believers and unbelievers on this topic, pretty much everyone, not everyone, but most of the people I have talked to show some level of discomfort with someone having an abortion just because they don't want the baby for elective reasons, just for no reason.
There's varying levels of discomfort with that, but often the conversation shifts towards the most painful and difficult kinds of situations for why someone might get an abortion. And I feel this tension. What about the 10-year-old who was raped by her father and is now pregnant? What about the 35-year-old mother who has health complications and might die giving birth? What if there's a serious fetal abnormality and the child might have incredible life complications? Guys, I can't imagine.
I cannot imagine having to wrestle with those deep questions. Those are incredibly difficult and painful circumstances. And I can tell you this, the initial response as the church, as the church comes in contact with these situations has got to be to love, to be present, to sit and to weep, to hear their story, to pray with them, to be someone who can listen. That's got to be the initial response. Got to be. But the reality of this conversation is that those exceptional types of abortions are just that.
They are exceptional. That the vast, they're in the vast minority of reasons why someone might would get an abortion. Now, I'm not a chart guy. I don't love statistics. Okay? But in my research on this topic, I care about it.
And so I wanted to read widely and soak things in. I came across some statistics that I thought were helpful for showing this. Okay? So in the state of Florida in 2020, in the state of Florida, they have to record a reason for every abortion. If someone goes to get an abortion, they record the reason. In the state of Florida in 2020, there were 74,868 abortions in one state in one year.
And so what we're going to do is I want to show you a chart that shows the reasons for those abortions and then it also gives you kind of a percentage of why the reason, okay, the percentage of the whole. Okay? So I just want to walk through this. Let's show the first one..01% were some kind of family incest situation. I, goodness, I can't, I can't even like fathom the difficulty of a situation like that. But you see the percentage.
The next one, rape. Not only had they dealt with that such a difficult circumstance, but now they're pregnant. The next one, okay,.20% is that the mother's life is in danger. Okay? The mother's life is, this could be fatal for the mother. But even if you, as you look at this, we're at, we're at.36% and then you add in fetal abnormality.
Now it doesn't say that this is a life-threatening fetal abnormality, but there's some type of abnormality in the baby. And you can see these are, these are small Numbers and if you look at the, just the total here, 1.34%. And guys, these are exceptionally difficult. Reasons, they are. They're hard to wrestle with. Kind of going on in the statistics, we kind of jump out of that into, you know, we're moving away from these exceptions.
1.48% Were for physical health. Non-life-threatening physical health. And it doesn't even tell us like how, how much physical health was at play here. And then the next one is psychological health, mental health. 1.88%. If you add that up, you get to 3.36%.
And again, we can just kind of agree that these are outside of those first exceptions that we kind of looked at that are really, really exceptional situations. We've got two more categories. 20.4% for social reasons or for economic reasons. And if you're good at math, you know that the final category is 74.9% for no reason. they were elective, which brings the total to 95.3%. If you add in the physical health reasons or the psychological health reasons and broaden that category, it gets you to over 97% of those abortions. That means that 72,500 of those over that number were done for those reasons, for reasons outside of those.
How did we get here? How did we get to a place in our country where we can terminate life for elective reasons? And we can all agree that this is a complex issue, but one thing is crystal clear is that our culture has separated sex from its original God ordained design. God designed sex to be enjoyed within a marriage for the purpose of enjoyment and procreation. And our culture has hijacked this definition and said that sex is for your enjoyment and that conception of life is a consequence rather than a gift. But that's not the ethic of the Bible.
God is for life. That's what scripture says over and over again. In my preparation for this message, I felt led to reach out to my Old Testament professor from seminary. Her name is Dr. Ingrid Pharaoh and she is a brilliant woman. She's a Greek scholar and a Hebrew scholar and I just reached out to her and I said, here's what I'm teaching, here's the Psalm I'm looking at, can we talk about it?
And she gave me an hour of her time. And we just had a Zoom call where we wrestled with what this says and she agrees. She agrees with what we're talking about here. In fact, she's an expert on the book of Genesis and she pointed this out and I thought it was helpful for us. That God is the giver of life. He's the creator of life and he gives the gift of life to his creation.
To Adam and Eve and he looks at Adam and Eve and he says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over life. And he tells them, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because in the day that you do it, you will die. He says, choose life. And Adam and Eve eat of the fruit and sin enters the world and death enters the world. And you know what the first thing that happens is in Genesis 4 after sin has entered the world? Murder.
Cain kills his brother and God has judgment on it. Incredibly painful and the difficult truth that we've got to face this morning is that a rejection of life in favor of death is sin. It is the taking of life. It breaks one of the original Ten Commandments. And regardless of the situation or circumstance, however tragic and difficult, it is outside of God's design. And I know that it's devastating.
Our church family is not untouched by this pain. sin. We have walked with mothers who have had an abortion. We have walked with fathers who have encouraged their significant other to go get an abortion. Maybe you've encouraged someone to have an abortion or you helped fund it or you took them to the clinic. But God's answer from his word is that it's sin and God has judgment for us.
He has judgment for it. But we've got to remember who's writing this Psalm. David. The same David who says that God sees us and knows us. The same David who said that God formed him and knitted him in the womb is also the same David who slept with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered. David was a murderer.
And David's response is where hope can be offered to everyone in this room. What David had done was deceitful and heinous and wicked. But remember David serves the God who knows and sees. And God sends Nathan to confront David and David responds in complete humility and brokenness and confesses his sin. He owns it. He doesn't hide it in the dark anymore.
He doesn't justify his actions. He just says I have sinned against the Lord. And you know what happens next in the very next verse? Nathan says the Lord has put away your sin. Like how beautiful is that? David was a murderer.
We should expect judgment and condemnation and maybe even God to strike David dead but he doesn't. The God who knows and sees offers David grace and forgiveness when he confesses his sin and seeks him for mercy. And that's the reality for every person in this room. That's one of the things you've got to walk away with. If you've had an abortion, if you were pressured into it or supported someone, if you're considered, God sees you. He knows you and God is with you.
You are not outside of his grasp or his love. Even after what David had done, God didn't leave him or forsake him. When David was confronted with his sin, he went running into the arms of God for forgiveness and that's what's offered to you. Go read Psalm 51. It is David's confession specifically over this. And it's forever memorialized in Scripture to help lead us back to God.
Brother, sister, you are not outside of the reach and the love of God. Just run to God and confess and accept his forgiveness. Receive his love. And lastly, God, listen, I know this has been long, but I wanted to cover it well. One last thing before we jump back into the text. We desperately need this last thing.
Christians have to recover and embody what it means to be pro-life in all of its forms. The church in America as a whole, on the whole, has been overwhelmingly unhelpful and unkind to people who are in this situation. And the reality is, when you close your heart to someone in judgment, you no longer have capacity for grace and mercy in the mission of God to offer people hope. And that's what we're called to do. That means, first of all, for mothers and fathers who would choose to say no to abortion, we have to be willing to step in. They don't know how to raise their children.
Christians have to say yes to adoption. Christians have to say yes to fostering and helping the support system for abandoned children. Yes to supporting people financially who are pursuing adoptions. Yes to volunteering and supporting organizations that work with mothers and fathers who need to know what their other options are besides abortion. Yes to being the people that walk with single moms and single dads as they deal with mental and emotional and the socioeconomic toll of raising children. Yes to walking alongside families that have children with special needs and the difficulty of that venture.
Yes to being a place of refuge and help for those that have been abused and neglected and left. What we just saw in this Psalm is that God is the God who is with people in the darkness. That God's presence is with those in the pit of hell and if God is there, that's where his people are supposed to be. Supposed to go into the darkness to love and to help people. Let's not be a people who are just against abortion.
Let's be a people who are for life and all of what that means. Now there's, listen, there's more that could be said about this and if you want to talk about it, we're here. Your pastors are here to talk about it. But again, this application comes directly out of what David is saying. It's exactly about a God who knows and sees us. So we're going to shift back into the text because it sits within that framework.
God knows everything about you. Your actions, your thoughts, your words, you can't flee from his presence. And once again, David just has a praise break here. He just erupts in praise again of this God. He says, verse 17, how precious to me are your thoughts, O God, how vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake and I am still with you. It's just too much for David at this point. He just erupts in praise. It's like he gets praising and like he passes out. And then he's like, oh, I woke up and I'm still with you. Sweet, it wasn't a dream.
Like he's just overwhelmed with who God is. And then continuing on in verse 19, it takes an interesting twist here. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. What on earth? Like we were, I thought we were in a praise break. I thought we were taking a praise lap, David.
Why? Why are we? Oh, men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
Do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Like what on earth, David? All right.
A couple of things I want to point out here. First of all, this is raw emotion. And the Psalms give us raw emotion, which is actually really, really good news for us. Okay? Because the Psalms give us permission to take all of who we are and all of what we're feeling and thinking to the Lord and letting him sort it out. Okay?
God doesn't want the canned version of you. He wants it all. So you can take it to him. Just take it to him. And the truth is, the other thing is, if you actually see God the way David does, that he's all-knowing and all- powerful and always present, he's holy and good, then it's not a far step to want that God to exercise justice. Right?
That we actually want God to do something about wickedness. And specifically David. David was the king of the people of God. And God at times would use his people to be the instrument of his justice in the world. But we, like we actually want this.
We want God to be just. Right? We want him to deal with wickedness and sin. Just as long as it doesn't, it's not us. You know? But we want, we want someone to hold Russia responsible for what they're doing in the Ukraine.
We wanted someone to be held responsible at 9-11. Okay? We want someone to be held responsible for sex trafficking. Right? And so as David has this big picture of who God is, he just, he lays his petition before this God who is all-powerful and all-knowing and can do anything. It makes sense.
Even if it catches us off guard. And then we're right back where we started. Verses 23 and 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting.
The reason that David can actually pray this is because he found refuge in the God he described in this Psalm. As painful as it was for him, David recognized that God knows everything about him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And David knows there's no place he can flee from God's presence. And in spite of everything David has done, God still wants to be in relationship with him. That's because the relationship that David had with God was not based primarily on who David was or what David had done.
But it was based off of who God was and what God had done. You see, God had promised David that there would never cease to be one of his sons on the throne of Israel forever. And that's exactly what happened. That from his line would come the Messiah. David had Solomon by way of Bathsheba. And then hundreds of years later, Jesus was born.
Son of Adam. Son of David. Jesus came so that we might have life. He lived the perfect sinless life on our behalf. Jesus died on the cross to pay for anything and everything we've ever done. And then he rose from the grave so that we might have life everlasting with him forever.
And that's the good news that's offered to you today. Just like David was offered forgiveness in light of everything that he had done, the same offer is given to you. Our relationship with God, hear me, is not based off of what we have done or who we are. It's based off of who God is and what Jesus has done for you. So it doesn't matter what you've done.
David was a liar, an adulterer, and a murderer. What about you? What about you? What are the things that you've done, the things that you've thought, and the things that you've said that you think keep you from God? What are the things that you have hidden in the dark that think disqualify you from a relationship with God? There's no thing that could have just come to your mind that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
The offer of mercy and forgiveness is for you today no matter what you've done. God sees you and knows you and you can't hide it from him. David tried. He tried to hide it, but God loved him so much that he sent Nathan to confront him so that the relationship could be restored. God was pursuing for the relationship to be restored. And that same offer is given to you in Jesus today.
So there's a couple just little points of application as we close up here. How do we apply this? First, we do exactly what this Psalm does at the end. We pray and ask God to search us and to examine us. We actually want that. We want God to point out our mess.
And the truth is, guys, we can't see it sometimes. I challenge you, sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and just pray, God, reveal anything to me that is hidden from you or hidden from me. Anything that I'm trying to hide from you, point out any sin and just write down whatever God brings to your mind. And then pray and ask God for forgiveness and receive it. Maybe you go to people in your group and you ask them, we've got blind spots. Ask the people in your group, they'll point out your sin.
They may have a better grasp on it than you do. But we can do that. And when they point it out, don't be defensive, confess it, ask for forgiveness. Second point is that we ask the Lord to lead us in the way everlasting. Just like David does. To lead you on the right path, to hem you in, behind and before, to lead you on the path of everlasting life, to keep you.
In fact, it may be that you have to put feet to the prayers that you just prayed asking for the Lord to reveal it, that He might help you to be obedient. And if you're in the room this morning and you're not a Christian, I want you to understand something. God knows and sees everything and there actually is judgment for sin. But His desire is that you might run to Him and accept His love and His grace and His forgiveness. Your steps are exactly the same as what I said above. Ask God to show you your sin and confess it and accept His love and forgiveness and then walk in it.
You don't leave terrified. You've been offered something better. We all have. Kelly and Isaac are going to come back up and we're going to take communion. Communion is the tangible reminder of what Jesus did so that we can actually receive the grace and forgiveness that I'm talking about. That Jesus' body was broken and His blood was shed so that no matter what we've done, we can receive forgiveness.
And so if you aren't a Christian, I beg you to see God for who He is. He knows you. He knows your words and your thoughts and your actions and you can't hide it from Him. He chose. He chose to make a way for you to be in relationship with Him. So that's what we're asking you to do is to consider.
Consider that. Confess it before the Lord. And the truth is if you do that, then come. Come take communion for the first time and celebrate what Jesus has done for you. But if you're not ready to do that, we want you to sit and consider the weight of what we've talked about this morning.
And if you're a Christian, I want you to sit and ask the Lord to expose any grievous ways in us to lead us in the way everlasting, to quit hiding, to bring it into the light. Maybe there's something in your past that is haunting you. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. He offers you grace and forgiveness. Accept it.
And then when you're ready, come and take communion. Come and celebrate what Jesus has done for you. Let's pray. God, you know us and you see us and you're with us. And in spite of everything that we've done, you desire for us to be in relationship with you. And you have made a way for that to be possible.
So all across the room right now, Lord, I pray that you would go to work on our hearts, that we would confess our sins before you, we would confess our fears before you and bring it into the light so that you might forgive us. And we can walk in freedom, Lord. We're not chained by our past. We're not chained by the things that we've done. Lord, we can be free in Jesus. And it's in his name we pray.
Amen. I'm just going to play for a minute. I want to ask you to just pray and to consider all around the room.