The Secret to Contentment (Philippians 4:10-23)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Guys this morning my name is Matt if we haven't met yet I'm one of the pastors here you normally see me leading in worship but today I get the opportunity to preach and I'm excited about it we are we got a whoop whoop we got multiple whoops let the record show the room was full of whoops we are uh closing out our Series in the book of Philippians today and this this is really been an encouraging season uh for us as a Church just walking through this letter together almost half of the Year doing that and excited to we're going to be in chapter 4 beginning in.
Verse 10 and we're going to take it all the way to the end of the chapter today so if you don't have a Bible just grab one of those blue and white ones in front of you we're going to be on page 571 and if you don't have a Bible we want you to so take that one with you that's our gift to you we want everyone to have the word of God but excited to hop in today um I grew up in and around the Church uh maybe some of you did too uh how many of you have heard of something called a life verse like a like a.
Let me little maybe a little show a hands okay a life verse okay I I I'm not sure where I first heard it or even where I decided that I need one but somewhere around like the first or second grade I I kind of decided on one for me you know obviously I lived a whole bunch of life up until that point uh but the one that I settled on is smack dab in the middle of the passage that we're looking at.
Today and this is it I can do all things through him who strengthens me or the way I memorized it was this I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength that was it for me that was my life ver so you can imagine little second or you know little relative little second grade Matt taking a math test pick up the pencil I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength okay I'm on the playground I'm about to walk up and talk to a girl I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength I just said it over and over and over again.
Okay well one of the things that I did on my wreck football team was that I was the kicker obviously right with this build stereotypical kicker right here uh but I I can't remember who we were playing but I can close my eyes and remember this one game it was a big game there were lots of people there I had family from out of town there were friends there and it's like okay this is a big game it's a big moment and I.
Remember we had to kick off first so I walked out there I put the ball on the tea I backed up did my did did my Paces what I say I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength guys I ran up and I smoked that ball 15 yards left and out of bounds it was so so embarrassing I I was mortified I like I had friends there people were going to talk about this even more than that I said the words you guys I said it where where was where was my strength you know and here before before you start making a whole lot of fun of me.
For doing this I'm not the only person right I'm not the only one I'm not the only one now you've seen this right you've seen this verse on a Christian poster or on a T-shirt and when you see it you're tempted to think okay anything that I set my mind to I can do through Christ you just think about the things in life it's like well they'll be bigger and better and more amazing if Christ is the one who gives me strength I can do anything with.
God on my side and at face value I don't Flinch at that idea that if God were to give me the strength to do something literally anything I could do it the question we've got to answer this morning is is that what Paul meant when he said it or as he's writing to the Church at Philippi is there more to it that we're missing without the rest of the context given to us in this letter and the answer is when we start really reading into it seeing it in the context of the letter it's actually way better news than acing a test it's way better news than winning a football game.
So that when we get to the Apex of this passage where it says I can do all things through him who strengthens me it's actually way better than we could possibly imagine so let's pray together as we jump in that God would help us see it clearly what was the intention behind that verse let's pray together God we are grateful for for the opportunity that you have given us to open your word together this morning and see a beautiful reality that.
If we will hold on to and cling to it has the ability to sustain us through this life and into the next so help us to discern your word well we need your Holy Spirit to help us do that amen okay so again we're going to be in Chapter 4 verses 10 through the end now we're going to spend the bulk of our time in those first four verses okay we're spent a ton of time there and then we'll use the rest of the letter to kind of explain some of what's going on.
Okay you with me we tracking all right so as I mentioned earlier this is this is a letter we've been studying it together and it's a beautiful letter that Paul is writing to his friends and I want us to see that right out the gate this is correspondence between friends these are people who genuinely love and know and care for one another so before it was a book of the Bible before we read it as a theological Trea Z it was a letter among friends and it's beautiful this letter is Paul celebrating his friends being faithful he's commending them to be continue to be humble servants to to stand firm in the good news of.
The Gospel to be unified to serve as examples this is a letter of joyfield Thanksgiving it's a joyous thank you note that's what this letter is remember how we began this is Philippians 1 3-5 it says I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always and every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now it's a thank you letter he's thanking them for prayer he's thanking them.
For encouragement for partnership but we don't get the bulk of what Paul is thanking them for until we get to the section that we're looking at today so let's hop in okay Philippians 4 4 beginning in verse 10 we're going to take each of these verses kind of Chunk by chunk here verse 10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me you were indeed concerned for me but you had no opportunity he said I rejoiced in the.
Lord greatly he's rejoicing in their concern for him now that word for concern in the original language is referring to the same idea that we've seen throughout the letter that's have the same mind you know we've seen that over and over and over have the same mind it's referring to partnership and what we're going to see a little bit later in the section he's specifically talking about a financial gift that they gave to him that they were concerned for him this was a thing that they had done in the past it's a thing that they were continuing to do.
See Paul was a missionary and there were times where Paul was on one of his missionary Journeys he would come to a city and he would work work as a Tent Maker he would work a job to provide for himself to be able to do Mission work there were other times where Believers in the city would just provide for him in a way that he didn't have to work he had more time to spend building up the Church and sharing the Gospel.
And so when F when Paul first came to this area the Philippian Believers were able to support him they were able to meet his needs and along the way they've continued to do this when he was in another part of the world they sent finances there and here we are again it says they have another opportunity they had no opportunity but they do now Paul's in prison we talked about that it's been a main theme that we've carried through this letter that Paul is in prison in Rome and what these Believers did is they sent one of their best apodus to go be with Paul to strengthen Paul to be an encouragement and to send.
A financial gift Paul's in prison and it's not like our prison system is today where your food's taken care of your clothing all those things are provided for you that's not the case here he was under house arrest and he had to have other people provide for his needs and time and time and time again the Philippian believers who love Paul care for Paul step up and they send gifts they encourage Paul by sending Financial gifts continues on verse 11 see it in context you were indeed concerned.
For me but you had no opportunity not that I'm speaking of being in Need for I've learned in whatever situation I am to be content he says not that I am speaking of being in need it's like what Paul you you are in need you're you're in prison like you have you have literal needs but what he's saying here is that he's learned in whatever situation that he's in how to be content content that's the word that we need to focus in on that's actually what we're talking about.
Today and really is the main point of this passage it's contentment where does it come from how do we have it um the word for content in the Greek has several meanings that I help uh that I think help us understand what Paul's getting at when he says that he was content satisfied sufficient independent and that you hear that it says whatever situation to be content that sounds nice right to be satisfied for all things to be sufficient and across the room we want that nod your head.
If you want that you want to be content in all situations we just have a hard time understanding how and so we actually need Paul to coach us up which is funny again because it's coming from a person who's in need of help that means we're already getting a hint at what Paul's going to talk about here that the root of his contentment isn't in his situation it's not the root of the contentment isn't because he's so happy about the finances it doesn't logically make sense.
If you read it that way there's something more at play continues on to verse 12 he says I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret to facing plenty and hunger abundance and need so what's happening here you can see it Paul's just expanding on that phrase where it says whatever situation he's just expanding that in in this verse he's saying he's saying I know how to abound I know how to face plenty I know how to have abundance.
But then he he also says the opposite as well he says I know how to be brought low I know how to have lack I know how to have hunger and the truth is for Paul that's not just fluff we have so much of Paul's experiences given to us in the New Testament that backs up this claim he's experienced all of this in his life that there were times where Paul had relative ease I think specifically about his time in Corinth.
Okay Corinth was a wealthy City there were a lot of Believers there um he had people he could network with he was a Tent Maker it was a PO like there were so many things that in light of Paul's life that was a relative easy time he would probably look at that and say I there was abundance there for me but on the other side there are parts of Paul's story that are explained in Scripture that are horrifying to us terrifying to think about going uh and living in in fact there's this little picture we get of this in 2 Corinthians 6 it's Paul writing to the Believers.
When he was maybe in abundance or a little bit more of ease here's what he writes in second Corinthians uh 6 this is verse three says we put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry but as Servants of God we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in afflictions hardships calamities beatings imprisonments riots labors sleepless nights hunger what what Paul is saying here to the Believers in Philippi is that in whatever situation whether he's in abundance or he's in a season of lack he's figured out how to be content and that sounds great right that no matter what you face you can be content.
But again catch the spectrum that he draws he says I've learned how to be content when I'm brought low when I'm facing hunger when I have lack I think most of us in the room would say we need some help there that when we're facing lack when we're struggling when we're facing trials we wrestle with this idea of being content right we look at that say okay Paul Paul yes coach me up I want to find contentment in the midst of those situations.
But that's not the only thing he describes he also says that he's figured out how to be content when he's abounding that he's learning the secret to facing plenty and abundance even the phrasing feels odd to our ears right like facing plenty like oh no I've got too much stuff and money but here's this is it seems ridiculous right facing plenty but here's where we need to lean in what Paul is saying right here is that abundance does not lead to contentment that.
If contentment were fixed by having having a bunch of money and stuff this sentence would be structured differently the problem is that for most of us in the room we don't actually functionally believe that that's true that if we're honest we would all admit that our life circumstances would be better if we had more money or more stuff or more success Etc like you you name it at least you would admit that you'd have an easier time being more content if you had those things.
See we live in a culture that's hyper fixated on selling us this lie of abundance on proposing solutions to our lack of contentment if you don't have enough money here's a way for you to make make more maybe you should go get a master's degree maybe you should pick up these three side hustles you should invest in this business don't like the way you look here's a diet that you can do here's some pills that will help you should exercise maybe you should take up CrossFit or something or you need to be in a relationship here's how to meet people here's how to maximize your compatibility or maybe the key to your contentment is to.
Dump the person that you're with and find somebody else that meets your needs maybe you need to wear these types of clothes maybe you need to drive this kind of car sure your house is fine but you know what would be more fine a bigger house guys this is literally what Instagram and Facebook and Tik Tock are built off of find out things about you and exploit that to pull you in our culture is constantly screaming at us a million ways to be content and in some ways we've bought the lie and the worst part is we know that it's a lie.
When you finally got the promotion were you making enough money to be satisfied or did you want more when you finally got the new car and then your kids destroyed it it's the worst you you know you have those moments you buy a new car you just walk outside you just look at it make sure it's still there yes here's the thing this is this is the easiest way to show you U that we've bought it okay easiest way ways to show that we've been fooled.
When you daydream about your future what's different when you think about future you or future your family what's different for many of us it's a just a nicer house or more money in the bank or Le honestly just less struggle less struggle to pay our bills maybe it's more vacations it's us we just have more abundance and that we'd be more content and our life experience would tell us that we'll never actually be satisfied we'll never have enough experience enough get enough to be content and I I do want to make this distinction between happiness and enjoyment of something and contentment it's.
Okay to be happy and to enjoy the good gifts that the Lord has given you in relationships and fin it's okay to be happy and to enjoy those but contentment while they're similar they are different contentment is something different it's soul level and what Paul is arguing for here is a contentment that's not circumstantial or to say it another way there is no circumstance that could or should change the type of contentment that we have not lack nor finding contentment in abundance what Paul is saying is that his contentment is secure regardless of what he faces in life.
So you go how what what's what's the secret Paul what's the sec to contentment and then we find ourselves back at verse 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me all things can that mean the ability to Ace a test or to win a football game sure if Christ gives you the strength and the ability to do that yes but that's not what Paul's talking about here when he says all things he's talking about all circumstances all situations that he can endure any and all circumstances through Christ who gives him strength and the way that he can face them is finding his contentment in Christ.
If he's in a season of lack he can find contentment if he's in a season of abundance and plenty his contentment is unchanged the secret to contentment has everything to do with knowing Christ it's not about our circumstances so how how can that actually functionally be true for us how do we find contentment in Jesus like I said at the beginning this is a letter right so this is in context he's actually already given the Philippians he's given us the answer to where we find our contentment he did it back in Chapter 2 I want us to.
Look at it Philippians 2 beginning in verse 5 so if you've got your Bible you can follow along we'll have the words up here it says this have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the the Earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father he's given us the answer right here Paul begins this section by saying uh have the same mind back in verse 5 he says have the same mind this is similar to what we get in our section in chapter four where he's talking about the concern it's the same language Paul says make this your focus make this your aim.
And then he just goes on and he shares the good news of the Gospel Jesus was is and forever will be God of the universe alongside of the father and the Holy Spirit but he left the riches of Heaven to come to Earth to be like us to be with us he came to teach to love to heal to warn yes but he came for verse eight the reason that Jesus came is to die on the cross for our sins.
Because what we believe as Christians is that we are separated from God because of our sin but because of Jesus's perfect life of obedience he could be the sacrifice necessary to pay for our sins but that's not the end he didn't stay dead he rose from the grave defeating sin death hell death no longer has a grip on those who belong to Jesus and then he ascended into heaven and now he sits on the throne rule ring reigning interceding loving waiting.
For the day that he's going to come and bring his Church home to be with him for eternity hear this the ground of our contentment in Christ is the good news of his life death Resurrection Ascension and return that Jesus lived the life that you couldn't live he died the death that you deserved he rose from the grave giving you eternal life in him he has ascended to heaven to prepare for you a place and one day he's coming back to give you what more do you need to be content than that on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand The Rock won't move there is no contentment that the.
World can offer you that is better than the good news of the Gospel and here's the thing what we're saying is our contentment is strung out into eternity it's hooked to it it's Eternal it's unchanging but so often what we do is we Pull the Rope and we try to tie it to something temporary and we do it all the time sometimes we're not even think about it but we take the Eternal and we try to tie it to something temporary um Tim Keller uh he's a pastor that we quote a lot.
Because he's very wise and he has a great way of helping us understand things and explain things here's here's what he says this is a he talks about our culture like this he says if our culture is pushing an idea over and over again imagine it's like a driving rain like a torrential downpour rain blowing in sideways puddles everywhere and if you're a Christian trying to follow Jesus and you've got an umbrella you've got rain gear you've got boots on you're doing everything you can to protect yourself from those things.
If our culture is that kind of storm even with all of our protection on we still somehow end up wet even trying to follow the lord do the things that we're supposed to do we still somehow end up wet the ability to remain content in our culture is unbelievably difficult so even for those of us who are in Christ we forget this truth in the dayto day right we become discouraged we get tough news we stress out about our bills we have a desire.
For more and different stuff and so like we we face this we'll feed look at this we'll feed our discontentment with all manner of things and we'll look to fulfill our contentment with all manner of things we get messed up on both sides of this but because we believe that the Gospel is actually good news for all of life we do have a solution when we realize that we're off where our contentment or lack thereof is being driven by Our Lives what we need to do in those situations is we need to preach the good news of the Gospel to to our situations we need to.
Remember the good news of the Gospel in the midst of our situations let me show you a little bit of what this looks like okay maybe you are discontent because you've been in and out of relationships but all of your friends are happily with significant others they're in good relationships they're married dating's been a joke for you but you have this desire you want to be with someone you want to share life with someone maybe you can't even be in romantic relationships.
Because of your life situation and you're just sad you're frustrated you're jealous and the truth is those are all those are all human relation like those are those are human responses we're going to feel those things the question is what happens when that starts driving deeper into our soul we start thinking it's not fair why can't God let me be happy like everybody else and so you start thinking well if I could just have a partner then I would be content what about what about a job.
Okay maybe you're a teacher right maybe you're a teacher you have a principal who never acknowledges your hard work at all you're on a faculty and staff where people have plastic faces or they'll be nice to you in the breakroom but then they're spreading lies and gossip about you among the other teachers you go into a classroom of 20 ungrateful middle schoolers who can't stop going what's up brother it's like just stop it already what's what's the answer where's contentment found I need a new job I need a new school I need to get out here.
Then I'll finally be content and the truth is we can't talk about examples without talking about what's in this passage he's specifically talking about lack of resources and abundance of resources let's talk about money for a second let's talk about lack let's say you're broke you're working two jobs just to make ends meet maybe you're in a spot where you've deferred your student loans for the third time because you think it's going to sink you that rent is coming up and you think you're going to be evicted meanwhile you.
Look on social media and your friends are living it up every weekend buying the newest everything what's the answer when will you be content well I just need a new job I need to figure it out I got to make more I got to save more I got to keep grinding and figuring out how to make more money then I'll be content what about the person that's got it all what about that person they think to themselves I've finally reached the Pinnacle.
When you finally got the promotion now it means you've got to work some weekends you're away from your family it meant that in your abundance you actually got to buy a beach house but your phone's blowing up because the water heater just broke and your tenants are blowing it up okay even in our abundance There's issues maybe maybe that's too far-fetched for us okay maybe we're over here just being like hey the abundance for me is I can finally just buy groceries on a regular basis.
So you drive to Aldi but you're jealous of all the people who are going to Trader Joe's and Lowe's Foods like we just we just want more if I just work harder if I do more what we can't be content in all of these examples the answer to discontentment or the place for finding contentment is found in circumstances but we know we know deep down we know it won't actually fix it that being in a relationship is that a good thing yes is being able to provide.
For your family financially a good thing yes but these circumstantial things are not strong enough to be the foundation of our contentment they're not Paul says it has to be Christ so we preach the Gospel to our circumstances to the person who wants to be in a relationship what if you remembered that Jesus chose you for himself brought you into a relationship where you're close to him forever that he's offered you a relationship where he promises to meet every need you'll ever have that he won't fail you like some boyfriend or girlfriend not only that he's brought you into forever family where you can have real love and real companion companionship with his people.
And then one day you will grieve that no longer because you'll get to go be with him and with his people forever that's good news and it helps us fix our aim and our contentment on Jesus to the teacher to the person who's frustrated in your job what if you remembered that Christ has saved you and he's called you into an eternal mission where you get to work for him you're not just a teacher you're a Gospel wielding soldier who has the ability to share the Gospel with all kinds of people that.
When your boss speaks negatively about you God speaks truth over you and everyone who's watching gets to see what a Believer looks like when their contentment is in Christ it's a display of the Gospel and that's good news in the midst of what you're facing to the person who's struggling in their finances what if you remembered that in Christ you've been richly provided for with the greatest thing that you will ever need your salvation and that was given to you at the overwhelmingly costly sacrifice of Christ you've been brought into a family where you're a coair with him and he will supply all of your needs he's G he's giv same thing here he's giv.
You a family of people to come alongside you and to help you in your time of need you may be broke but you have everything we need in Christ you can be content and brothers and sisters who have swallowed the lie that more is better that you'll find contentment and satisfaction and having more money more stuff if you think for a second any of the example that just came to your head that I'm offering you some second rate cheap alternative to the good life to the stuff you actually want oh that you might.
See the costly gift of Christ who gave himself so that you might know him and love him and be in relationship with him that you might sing with confidence the words of the hymn How Deep The Father's Love For Us I will not boast in anything no gifts no power no wisdom but I will boast in Jesus Christ his death and Resurrection why should I gain from his reward I cannot give an answer but this I know with all my heart his wounds have paid my Ransom the answer to our discontentment is in Christ.
So we preach the good news of the Gospel in the midst of those situations and circumstances um Augustine was one of the early Church fathers and he said it like this our hearts are restless until they find rest in you until we're resting completely fully in the finished work of Jesus we'll Chase all kinds of other things to find our contentment or to alleviate our discontentment we must fix our eyes on Christ any and all circumstances so what do we do.
When we are discontent we repent and we find our contentment in Jesus it's as simple as that that where we see it where whether we are chasing contentment in something we ought not to or we have found ourselves discontent and sitting in it we just repent we confess it say father I don't want that and we look to find our contentment in Jesus that's the strength he's giving us I can do all things through him who gives me strength Jesus strengthens our ability to find our contentment in him regardless of our circumstances and he's working in it.
Now here's what we're going to do we're going to Pivot and I just want to take us to the end of the letter we're going to move kind of quickly from this point because what I believe is that we get an opportunity to to see what can be a direct implication of a people who find their contentment in Jesus Paul's saying he's found his contentment there and if you look at the Philippians you would argue I I think they're getting a picture of this too I think they're understanding.
So let's look at it verse 14 yet it was kind of you to share my trouble and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the Gospel when I left Macedonia no Church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only even in thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again not that I seek the gift but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit I have received full payment and more I am.
Well supplied having received from a patis the gifts you sent a fragrant offering a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God this is just Paul recounting his partnership with the Philippians when he first showed up they helped meet his needs he went on on to another city they met his needs when he is now in prison they have met his needs they sent aaod dius with yet another gift and what I think we see here one of the downline effects of a people who have found their contentment in Christ is that they are also generous they're also generous that's true of Paul his contentments in Christ he gave his life away he left being a Pharisee.
To follow Jesus to do all these missionary Journeys where he was beaten he was bruised he was all those things happened to he gave himself away for other people he he served as an example for people like the Philippians that they would be able to see his example his contentment in Christ and his generosity and so one of the ways we might would say that is that Christ centered contentment leads to Christ centered generosity those who have found contentment in Jesus whether they are in abundance or in lack will ultimately Express that through being a generous people some might even say that they will live generously and here's how.
If you believe that your contentment isn't based off of your life circumstances if it's not based off of your life circumstances then you can be open-handed with anything and everything that you have and God uses that incredible ways that's what Paul's talking about in verse 17 verse 17 it says not that I seek the gift I seek the fruit that will increase to your credit that God works and does something in a group of people who are generous and that that generosity actually leads to more people being generous it's this downline effect of.
When you find your contentment in Christ you can be open-handed with anything and everything and guys I've I've been the recipient of this I've been the recipient of this there was this time where Katie and I first got married where uh we were we were about to start the last week of the month we didn't have a whole lot of food we we were both working multiple jobs to be able to pay the bills and so we just prayed and said.
Lord would you please provide food for us please provide for us and he did there were four different people in our Church that week who brought us food and guys I'm not talking about like a can of green beans it was just four desserts it was a banana pudding it was a peanut butter pie it's the good stuff you know what I'm saying like provide in our lack but also in our abundance before Katie and I had kids we met had this great plan that we were going to do a 17-day trip to Europe Ireland Germany Italy Live It Up costed us a lot of money we went and had a great time we came.
Home to realize that we had missed a credit card payment we were we were so embarrassed you guys but we we told we told our community group what was going on we asked them to pray and within a couple of days one of our group members showed up to our house with boxes of groceries we had just been in Europe did we deserve that no but people who realize that God's been generous towards them will in turn be generous towards anyone and everyone it's been most recent with our adoption of our son Joseph who uh growing you know a lot uh the amount of clothes that we have been given by people in this Church.
And you've seen it I know stories of people who have just given other people cars who have paid bills for people who have stepped in in incredible ways it it's beautiful when you see it this Church is full of stories and you may even hear that you may be going well that one time I talked to my group they didn't meet my needs I I do want to I'm sorry but remember the the Church is full of a bunch of people who are just trying to find their contentment in Christ.
If you're if you're still kind of feeling some of that just go talk to them just go talk to them have a conversation forgive one another and let's keep being generous we're not going to do this perfectly but we can seek to be a people who are generous in giving and in receiving verse 15 uh Brandon we put 15 back up there it's kind of cool look at this real quick he says the Philippians know that in the beginning of the go El.
When I left Macedonia no Church entered into partnership with me in giving and in receiving generosity goes both ways people who are content can be generous in giving and can be willing to receive it's all about finding our contentment in Jesus and then he finishes with this this is verse 19 and my God Will Supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in what in Christ Jesus that's where contentment is found guys this isn't the Prosperity Gospel this isn't you give $100.
God will give 200 back to you that's not what we're talking about here what we're saying is that the finished work of Christ is everything that you need to be content and he supplies that graciously and then Paul just rolls it up and praise verse 20 to our God and Father be glory forever and ever amen at that point Paul can't can't stop himself it just rolls up in Praise so just a couple of handles for us as we close first one is this be content in Christ like I knew that I knew that before I walked in.
Today thank you be content in Christ but no I'm serious seek it seek after that's what Chad talked about last week think on these things and practice these things that you would do the things that stir your contentment for Christ that you would read your Bible that you would pray that you would be actively involved in your community group and with Church family and you would stop doing the things that cause your contentment like complaining like being jealous like being on social media all the time that we would do these things that are necessary and that we would preach the Gospel to our circumstances.
Second thing is this give your money away it's one of the best ways to grow in your contentment is realizing that you have everything that you need in Christ if you're content in Christ you can be generous that's why we unashamedly call our Church family to give on a regular basis that's why we do our give project every year at Christmas time what you have is not meant to just terminate on you if your contentment is in Christ you can give you can be generous and the last thing is this display the Gospel display the Gospel here's the last couple verses and we'll close um yeah there we go 21 greet every saint in Christ.
Jesus the brothers who are with me greet you all the saints greet you especially those of Caesar's household the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit he finishes with this family this family greeting greet all of those people we receive your grace and your gift and we see that there are people in Caesar's household that are coming to know the Lord that are hearing the Gospel it's it's this picture that we've seen all throughout the letter you guys a group of people who are filled with joy in Christ who are willing to suffer.
For the name of Christ who are willing to be humble servants who want to serve as examples to the world who are willing to do the things that are necessary to find their contentment to be generous he says keep doing these thing these things mil City I see this all across our Church family I hope that this letter has been an encouragement to you let's keep doing these things let's be a people that in this community will suffer for the name of the Gospel let's humbly serve everyone around us let's find our contentment in.
Jesus let's be a generous people so that we might see more and more people in the city come to know the good news of the Gospel let's pray God we need your help we need your help to find our contentment in you because we are so easily distracted we will so easily untie from the Eternal and try to tie our contentment to something temporary help us to see Christ as more valuable Christ as better that we would find our contentment in you it's in the name of.
Jesus we pray amen uh Raz and heart are going to come back up here and we're going to take communion as a Church family communion is a picture of what we just talked about it's Christ's body and blood that were shed to provide for our greatest need it's a generous sacrifice that calls for a response so we go to the table and we take the bread and the juice to remember that everything we need has already been provided for us in Christ.
And then we return to our seats in gratitude to continue to be a people who are content in Jesus and will be generous towards the world and so they're going to play for just a little bit uh Believers in the room whenever you are ready you can go and take communion if you're not a Believer we don't want you to go take communion but we do want you to find your contentment in Christ he's done everything that is needed for you to be content in him confess your need you need a savior come to Christ.
Today but Church family Believers whenever you are ready there's two tables at the front there's two tables at the back you can come get the bread dip it in the juice as a reminder of his broken body and shed blood for you whenever you're ready.
Psalm 96 - Music and Song
Transcript
Good morning. I think that was the remix version. Get halfway through. God's working magic up there. It's good to see you guys today. My name's Matt.
I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City. If it is your first time hanging out with us, welcome. We're glad you're here. We do pray that this morning there'll be a blessing to you. And as Spencer said earlier, we are walking through the book of Psalms, basically talking about what does it mean to have a life of worship. And today specifically, we're going to talk about singing and music.
And for most of us, if you grew up in and around the church, that's actually the thing you think of first when you hear the word worship. You think music and song is the first thing that kind of pops in your mind. And I kind of want to address this right up front. So singing and music are worship, but worship is not just music and singing. Okay. So what we do on Sundays is worship, but worship is not just Sundays.
We believe that worship is a lifestyle. That's the way the Bible talks about it. That basically anything we think, say, or do when done for the glory of God is worship. So that's everything, which also means that music and singing do fit into that category. So as we continue the Psalms today and talk about worship, we're going to talk about music and singing.
Make sense? Got it? All right. I'm going to interchange those words today. So I just want to make sure we're all on the same page.
Go ahead. Grab a Bible. Turn to Psalm 96. It's going to be on page 286 in the white Bibles. As you're turning there, if you don't have one of these, if you don't have a Bible that's your own, I want you to take this one with you. We want everyone to have a Bible.
And as Spencer said earlier, we do have our Psalms books kind of over there by the door. But here's how Psalm 96 begins. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. You guys pray with me as we get started this morning. God, your word very clearly commands us to sing, commands us to make music. And so our prayer this morning as a church family is that as we continue to grow in what it looks like to have a lifestyle of worship, God, that you would work as your Holy Spirit speaks, as you speak through your word to teach us how music and singing can be used as worship of you and how we ought to do that. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right. So right from the get, Psalm 96, Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord. Sing to the Lord. Tell of his salvation. Declare.
Bless. So like right up front, you're kind of hit with a whole bunch of commands. A whole bunch of commands right at the beginning. Sing, sing, sing. And then the other three commands, bless, tell, and declare, are all just tagging back to this idea of singing. So right out the gate, this, this Psalm is talking about singing and music.
And really, all told, the Bible has over 400 references to singing and music and over, there's 50 direct commands to sing. I mean, that, that's crazy when you think about all of scripture. Uh, the book of Psalms is really one of the largest books in, in the Bible. And it's basically a book of songs. In the New Testament, we're commanded in two different places to sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs when we're together. Uh, Psalm 22, which is, uh, in reference to Jesus says that in the midst of the congregation, I will sing.
The night before, uh, Jesus was crucified, he gathered with his disciples and they sang a hymn. In Zephaniah 3, 17, we get this picture of God singing over his people, exalting in the midst of his people. And it's just kind of crazy how much the Bible actually talks about, uh, music and singing. But if you think about it, that's, that's kind of weird. Or, or it at least makes you ask the question, why? Why does God command us to sing and make music?
Because I think for most of us, there are other commands that it's way easier for us to get on board with, right? It just, it just kind of makes more sense. Uh, so when the Bible commands us to love one another. Okay, makes sense. I can see how that works out well for us. Uh, the Bible says don't commit murder.
Okay, well, if we're going to love one another, that makes sense. Probably, probably shouldn't kill each other. Bible commands, open your mouth and sing loudly with a group of other people. That, it just, it just doesn't quite fit in the same category. Like, if I'm sitting down with someone and I'm kind of in a, oh, lost my papers here. Uh, if I'm in a pastoral counseling situation with someone, and they basically look at me and say, Matt, I am really struggling right now with two sins.
Two major sin areas in my life that I am just struggling with. I'm stealing. Every time I see something that I want, I just, I just take it and I'm stealing. And when our church gets together on Sunday, I don't sing. There's one of those that I'm just going to kind of just move to the side. I'm saying, all right, grab a Bible.
Let's go to the 10 commandments where it says you shall not steal. It also says you shouldn't covet. Uh, let's talk about the punishment for stealing. And like, that's, that's the one I'm most comfortable going after. Uh, but here's the deal. The Bible actually only talks about theft and stealing in general 52 times.
The Bible talks about music and singing 400 times and has 50 direct commands to sing, but that's not the one I'm going after. I'm just kind of shooing that one to the side because for some reason in my brain, it fits in a different category. Like it's, it's not a command. It's a, it's kind of like a suggestion or maybe it's optional. It just doesn't fit in the same category. I've even been in conversations with people, uh, like about what we do on Sundays and they'll say things like, wow, man, you know, I really don't like to sing or I'm not a huge fan of the music that we do on Sundays.
And I have in those conversations said, ah, it's not that big a deal. You know, just stand, you know, just, just listen. Don't worry about singing. Bad pastor, bad, bad pastor. Like if I have said that to you wrong, like I am wrong there. The Bible commands us to sing.
It carries the weight of obedience, which means that God's serious about it. And when we don't do it, it's actually sin. So, and I think, truthfully, I think there are all kinds of reasons why, why people don't want to sing on Sundays. So, uh, for some of us, it's a self-conscious thing. Okay. Like we just, we do not sing well.
And so we do not want other people to hear us sing and therefore be a distraction. I get that. Uh, for some of us, maybe just music isn't your thing. You don't connect with music or maybe you just don't, uh, see the point. Uh, maybe you're a guy and you think, ah, music's kind of effeminate. And look, I know our church family.
Uh, some of you are going, I don't know about that fancy musical term effeminate, but it's kind of girly. Uh, fair point. Uh, maybe you just kind of think it's weird and awkward. Okay. So maybe you didn't grow up in and around the church.
And so standing with a bunch of other people and singing just isn't comfortable. Or maybe you like music. Maybe you're kind of a music person and you like coming in and singing songs, but you just kind of come in and you just kind of go through the motions. Like you're singing good, good melody. It's like you're, but you're not actually thinking about the words. And the truth is whatever spectrum you kind of fall in, uh, wherever you fall on that line across the room, we got to wrestle with the fact that God commands us to sing.
And this really is one of the most unique aspects for us, uh, as followers of Jesus. There are very few organized groups and even organized religions that gather on a regular basis for the purpose of singing together. And I'm not talking about like at a concert where you sing along because you know the words or like in a high school course. I'm talking about singing with a group of other people because you believe the same thing. And the purpose is to glorify and magnify and lift up the name of Jesus. Like that, that's us.
And it's part of what makes us, us. It's very unique. But if you think about it, it, it is kind of weird. It is odd. It is different. So the question we got to wrestle with is why would God command us to sing?
Why would he command us to do that? Um, most of you know this, but I studied music in college. And so I just tried to, to take a second that when the Bible says, sing to the Lord, a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth. Like, I wanted to just think like, what is it? What could it be about music in general? What, what is it made up of, uh, that might clue us in on why God might call us to sing?
Why might command us to make music to him? So these are just, these are some general observations. These are not coming directly out of the text, but I think we would all agree to most of this. And I think it'll help us see why God commands us to sing. We're, we're actually going to put these up on the screen. Uh, if you're a note taker, uh, maybe these are helpful for you.
If not, just, just kind of listen along. Uh, the first one is this music helps us learn, remember, and internalize. It does. Music just helps us learn, remember, and internalize. Think about, think about this situation. What if I asked you, what are the three letters that come after I in the alphabet?
Yeah, someone's, I heard it. I heard someone singing it. That's how you got there, right? You didn't just go J KL. Nobody's doing that. You went A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L.
Also, did anyone think elementa was a letter for a while? Elementa, man. Sorry, that's a tangent. Helps us learn good things and bad things. J KL, it's how you learned, was by song. Here's another one.
Play along. One little, two little, three little chickens. I'm going to try again. And I'm going to expect better results. One little, two little, three little chickens. All right.
Yep. We're talking about making a joyful noise in a second. But yeah, that's part of how we learn to count. And music has that ability. It helps us remember things. It makes things sticky.
It just does. Play along again. Ready? Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Yeah. You all know the jingle.
When you got $3 in your pocket and it's midnight and you kind of want some semblance of a hamburger. You know that jingle. Okay. Don't stop. Oh, that was better. We were having more gusto on that one.
Yeah. Everyone's favorite wedding song. Music just sticks with us. It helps us remember things in a way that without music we're not able to. If you were to sit me down and ask me the question, Matt, what has more value? The book of Ephesians or Limp Bizkit's album from 1998?
I would without batting an eye tell you the book of Ephesians. If your follow-up question was, which one of those two do you have mostly memorized? Don't judge me. Stop it. Stop it. You all have songs and albums memorized that you couldn't forget them if you wanted to.
Music has that ability. It just makes things stick with us. It helps us learn, remember, and internalize in a way that without it you can't. You can remember an entire song but not the parts of the body on an exam. I mean, like, that's how it works. Music helps us do that.
The second thing is this. Music can bring us together. It is. It's just one of the properties of music. Music has the ability to bring us together. For those of you who are Carolina fans, just imagine.
In a couple of weeks, you're in Williams-Brice Stadium with upwards of 20,000 other people. And sandstorm. Yeah, it'll sink in. And sandstorm comes on. And you're just like... You didn't say two words to the person sitting next to you until that song came in.
And now you're just in it together. I mean, it's your favorite two parts of the ballgame. Music just has the ability to bring us together. That one will sink in later. Okay. Or imagine you're at a baseball game.
Imagine you're at a baseball game and this is what you hear. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. What are you doing? You are standing up. And you're going to sing. You're going to sing with other people who are Americans.
The national anthem. Or you've probably been to a concert where you've just gotten like lost in the moment. Some of our church fam went to a Beyonce concert last year. And they just talked about it forever and ever. And ever. My wife and I are going to see...
In Charlotte next week, we're going to see Counting Crows. And Matchbox 20. I'm very excited. It'll be a bunch of other 30-year-olds who now have kids that were product of the 90s. And we'll throw on our Birkenstocks and sing Mr. Jones at the top of our lungs.
But there's something about that moment that just makes you connected to the people who are around you. But not even on the big scale like that. Think about small scale. Let's imagine you're working with someone. And then all of a sudden you realize they like the same band that you do. Like a whole new level of friendship is unlocked.
Or maybe you find out it's like they like country music. Like old country music. Not new country music. They actually hate new country music. They love old country music. Your best friends from forever except for like Chris Stapleton.
We'll take him. But it does. It just helps us connect. We bond over music. What happens very often after tragedies like the Manchester bombings or even after 9-11? Benefit concerts.
Why? Because music has the ability to heal and to bring us together. Okay. The last one I just want to point out as I thought about it is that music also has the ability to connect with our emotions. It just does. Even if you're not an emotional person, music has the ability to connect with our emotions.
Music can get behind our walls and boundaries that we have set up and get to our hearts. And in some ways music can get deep inside of you to stuff that you didn't even know was in there. Think about it like this. If you're in a good mood, if you're happy and you listen to a happy song, it makes you happier. If you're sad and you listen to a sad song, it makes you sadder. It helps us connect with our emotions.
Music does in a way that really nothing else can. And I want to just illustrate this. Okay. So, I'm going to play some stuff on the piano. And I'm not going to tell you what to feel. I just want you to think about what it makes you feel in the moment.
Okay. You ready? Just turn it on. We're good? For real, imagine Jaws without the soundtrack, right? It would really be a camera person following someone doing a beautiful breaststroke and then shark.
Like there's no suspense, no buildup at all. Like really any movie. Think about any movie without the soundtrack. Or just imagine you've got the camera angle where you're looking up through the water at the person swimming. Doesn't match, right? It doesn't create the same type of emotion.
Okay, but it's not just fear. Like some of you are ready to go run right now. Okay, here's another one. Some of you makes you think about a wedding. Some of you guys got that sick feeling in your stomach again. I will remember you.
I will remember you. I will remember you. Will you remember me? It's not like you say sorry. Who's waiting on a different story? This time I'll...
Music does that. It has the ability to make you feel all kinds of different things. And here's what I want to point out. If all of that is actually true about music. That it has the ability to help us learn and remember and internalize. And it can bring us together.
And it can make us feel things in a way that without it we can't. Doesn't it make sense that the God who so desires a relationship with us to connect with us would give us the gift of music. And its fullest expression would be when we actually give it back to Him. God didn't discover music. He created it. He made it potent and powerful.
And He's weaponized it. That melody and harmony and beat and rhyme and meter and melody and harmony. All of it can be used by Him to teach us who He is and to help us connect with Him. So when the Bible actually commands us to sing to the Lord. God's got a purpose in it. And it's to help draw us closer to Him.
So with those kind of things in mind. Since music actually can do that. Now I want us to walk through and look at these verses. And basically say if that's what music can do. What should be the substance of our music and song? What should the worship actually look like?
So we're just going to walk through. I'm going to kind of move at a quick clip. Because I think the scripture helps us see this very clearly. We're just going to make six observations about what music and song and worship should look like. So pick back up.
Psalm 96. Verse 1. Oh sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord bless His name. Tell of His salvation from day to day.
Declare His glory among the nations. His marvelous works among all the peoples. Okay so we already said this. But it starts off with six commands. All of which are pointing towards singing. Sing to the Lord.
Sing to the Lord. Sing to the Lord. I want to read that again. And I'm just going to add some emphasis. Because I think it will help us see the first aspect of worship. Oh sing to the Lord a new song.
Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord. Bless His name. Tell of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations. His marvelous works among all the peoples.
Sing to the Lord. The worship of the church should be God centered. That's the purpose. So when it says sing to the Lord. Our worship is about Him. It's to Him.
It's for Him. It's through Him. The songs that we sing collectively are in worship to God. So they're going to be for Him and about Him. And I want to point this out. So perk up this morning.
If any of those hesitations or reasons for not singing kind of resonated with you earlier. I want you to hear this. Because this is important. Maybe the most important thing you hear this morning. Whatever reason it was. So like take the example of I don't like to sing.
Because I don't sing well. Okay. The Bible actually kind of addresses that one clearly. Raz read it earlier. Psalm 95, 98, and 100. All say make a joyful noise to the Lord.
But all of those reasons that we give. Whether it's we don't like music. Or we don't feel it. Or it really doesn't do anything to us. Think about this for a second. What better way for you to make your worship God centered.
Than by moving past all of your personal thoughts about music. And singing to God. You see that? So every one of the reasons or excuses that we leverage to say. Well I just don't sing. It's not my thing.
What better way for you to worship God. To make your worship God centered. Than by putting those to the side. Because what happens is. What's happening in those moments when we choose not to sing. Or when we choose not to make music.
Is that worship is actually about us. We're the most important thing in the room. But when we move past that. And put it to the side. And give ourselves fully into worship. God's honored through that.
And if you tag back to some of what we said at the beginning. God's got a purpose in it. If the songs that we're singing are to him. And for him. And about him. God can use those.
To help us learn. And remember. And actually begin to internalize truths about him. That music can take that truth. And plant it in your hearts. In a way that affects normal everyday life for you.
So when we gather for corporate worship. It's going to be about him. He's the point. It's to him. And for him. Verse number two.
Kind of repeating a little bit of what we've already read. But it says. Sing to the Lord. Bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations.
His marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord. And greatly to be praised. Okay. I want to point something out. That if you just read the text.
It's hard to pick up on. If you go back to the original language of Hebrew. That this was written in. You'd notice one thing. That every one of those verbs. And commands.
Are not in the singular. They're plural. It's not you sing. You tell. You declare. It's y'all.
Y'all sing. Y'all declare. Y'all tell. Which means that. The worship of the church. Should be congregational.
Should be congregational. It's an us thing. Or here's. Here's kind of another way to say it. The worship of the church. Should be corporate.
It should be unifying. It should be among other people. It should bring us together. It's not solely a personal thing. It can be. It absolutely can be.
Music and singing can be a personal thing. But we are commanded together. To sing. To the Lord. Among other people. And let me give you a little clue into why.
At least why I think this is so good. Have you ever walked into this room. Just not feeling it. You're down. You're depressed. Maybe you're angry.
About something. Maybe you're struggling with sin. It's just. You're done. You're just done. But you showed up this morning anyways.
And you walk in. And people stand up. And they start singing. You stand up with them. But you're not singing.
But you're listening. You're listening to people singing on your left. And on your right. And they're singing truths about God. That you're wrestling with. Believing.
Whether they're even true. And God starts doing something in that moment. That as you hear your brothers and sisters. Stand and sing about how good God is. And how he's to be worshipped. And how loving he is.
The Holy Spirit starts doing something in that moment. To encourage us. He's helping us see that like. We're not alone. We're not by ourselves in the midst of that fight. That you've got people on your left and right.
Who believe the same thing you do. Who are going to bear burdens with you. Who are going to call you to holiness. He does something in the midst of us singing. That encourages us. And brings us together.
So in those moments where we think. Well I don't need to sing. Or I don't need to participate. What's actually happening. Is that we're short changing the people around us. From one of the means that God actually uses.
To heal them. That part of the reason the church is called to sing together. Is to remember that we're in us. That we are a family. That we are in this together. So we can actually.
The worship of the church should be congregational. So that we can remember that we're in us. That we're actually together. And let me just say this. There are going to be times. There are going to be times where you need to sit and listen.
There are going to be times where you're not there. You're wrestling with whether our singing is actually true. You need to sit and listen. And to ponder that. But on the whole.
We're commanded to sing. And it should be done. Together. Grab your Bibles. Go back to verse 7. Ascribe to the Lord.
O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Oh I'm sorry. I jumped. I jumped. Go back.
Strike that. Go. Go back to verse 4. Says this. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. For he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the people are worthless idols. But the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Says great. Great is the Lord and worthy to be praised.
He's worthy of it. Because of what we've already talked about earlier. His wonderful deeds. And his marvelous works. And then it says. He is to be feared above all gods.
Little g. Gods. We said this earlier. But music has the ability to get to our emotions. In a way that nothing else really does. Has the ability to get past our walls.
And our boundaries. To get to our hearts in a way that exposes stuff. So that when it says that God is to be feared above all gods. It is tapping into the idea of our emotions. Fear has the ability to influence in such a way. That it becomes the dominant feeling or emotion.
But fear and emotion. It goes beyond that. It goes to a place where it's a recognition. That begins to expose what we love. What we value. What we hold up and honor.
Fear. So when it says he is to be feared above all gods. What it's saying is. When we come together and we sing these truths. What happens is that it begins to expose. All of the areas in our hearts and in our lives.
That we're fearing all of the other little g. Gods. That something else holds sway in our life. Other than God. There's all these little g. Gods.
And that can be our spouses. That could be our work. That could be our bank account. And what happens is. When we come together and we start singing. There's something the Holy Spirit does.
That is you're singing truths about how big God is. And how glorious. And how he provides. And how he redeems. It actually begins to expose. All the other little things that we're trusting in.
That aren't God. So in that moment. Music is getting to our hearts. In a way that we weren't ready for. And so the worship of the church should affect our hearts. And lead us to repentance.
And faith. So that in that. In those moments where we're singing. Truths about God. And the Holy Spirit's moving and working. There should be times.
When you are absolutely cut to your core. Because you're singing something about how God provides. And the Holy Spirit's going. Not your bank account. You don't believe that. We're talking about how big.
And how good. And how loving God is. Because it's not your wife's Job. And we're broken. Over it. And the Bible says.
In that moment. We get to repent. We get to turn from. Wrong belief. About who God is. And turn to.
Correct. Belief. That's part of what music does. It has the ability to get to our hearts. And help us see that. Help us see what we're loving.
Trusting. And believing in. More than. Jesus. And so we turn from it. In.
Repentance. And faith. Verse 7. Now. Now we'll do this one.
Ascribe to the Lord. O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord. Glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord. The glory.
Do his name. Bring an offering. And come into his courts. Worship the Lord. In the splendor of holiness. Tremble before him.
All the earth. Okay. So it starts off with. Ascribe. Ascribe to the Lord. Ascribe.
Ascribe is a fancy word for acknowledge. To acknowledge that God is the source of. Fill in the blank. And maybe another way to think about it. Is to. To give credit to.
Or to attribute. Something to. But it's not really a word we use very often. But basically it's saying. Acknowledge that God is worthy of worship. Or he is the source of.
All of these different things. That. That. Glory and strength. Or do his name. That we should bring an offering.
That we should. Tremble. Before him. And here's. I want to take a step here. And help us see something.
If our worship is supposed to be. God centered. And we're supposed to. Ascribe. Or acknowledge him. As we ought to.
Then it's on God. To reveal himself. To us. So that we know who he is. And what he's done. And the way that he does that.
Is through the Bible. Okay. So it's not specifically. Saying that here. But the only way.
We're going to be able to acknowledge God. As we ought to. Is through the Bible. So the worship. Of the church. Should be.
Formed. By the Bible. It should be huge for us. That's why we spend so much. Time in our worship gatherings. Together.
Preaching. It takes the majority of our time. But even as we. Talk about praying. We're talking about it. In reference to the Bible.
Giving. Because God calls us to. To it through his word. The songs that we're singing. Are coming directly. From the Bible.
Without the Bible. We're sunk. When it comes to worship. But through the Bible. We begin to learn. Who God is.
And what he's done. And why we ought to be. Worshiping him. Most of you know this. But part of.
Part of my job. As one of our pastors. Is that I get to plan. Our time of worship together. And I have a great team of people. Who help me do this.
But that's. Really what we're shooting for. When we're choosing songs. For us to sing. Are songs that. Accurately reflect.
What the Bible says. About God. And what he does. And in turn. What that means for us. And what we do.
Because music is so catchy. It helps us learn. And remember. And internalize. If we're singing things. That aren't true about God.
Or aren't true for us. It's actually helping us. Rehearse bad theology. It's actually part of the reason. We. You probably noticed.
That maybe you don't know. All the songs. When you show up. We steer away. From some of the stuff. That's on Christian radio.
Because it has the ability. To just talk about us. But the point of worship. Is God. So we try to find songs.
That actually help us. Remember. And learn. And internalize. Things that are true. About God.
And here's another thing. The Bible not only tells us. About God. And why we should worship him. But it tells us.
How to do it. So. We're already talking about. Sing to the Lord. But here.
Just check out this list. Okay. I'm going to kind of tag it quickly. And we'll keep moving. Psalm 9. 2 says singing.
Isaiah 29. Says standing. Dancing. Psalm 71. Says shouting. Psalm 5.
Says praying. Psalm 30. Says dancing. I'm going to say that one again. Psalm 30. Says dancing.
Some of you with Baptist roots. Just died a little bit inside. I need y'all. Church. I need y'all to hear that this morning. I know the predominant stance.
In worship. Is coffee cup. In this hand. In this hand. In this pocket. But watch.
You can. You can. Guys. You can move. You can dance. As a part of worship.
Says clapping. Psalm 47. Guys. You can clap. Before a song. During a song.
After a song. Permission granted. Go for it. Lifting hands. That's Psalm 134. Bowing down.
That's Exodus 34. The Bible actually tells us. How to worship. It tells us how to do it. I want our church. To be a place.
Where you can freely. Express yourself. In worship. If you want to raise your hands. Do it. If you want to clap.
Do it. If you need to bow down. And pray. Do it. As part of the reason. We're doing a worship night.
This coming Thursday. Is that we've got room. To grow. As a church family. And actually being able. To express ourselves.
In worship. One of the coolest aspects. Of this Psalm. In particular. Is that it's actually used. In worship.
In the Bible. In 1st Chronicles 15. And 16. David's leading the Ark of the Covenant. Back into Jerusalem. And the people actually use.
Part of this Psalm. To worship God. They're singing. And it says. They're clashing cymbals together. And people are playing trumpets.
And they're playing lyres. Which is like a string instrument. It says the people. Were singing. And making music. Loudly.
David. Danced. Before the Ark of the Covenant. And that was a man. After God's own heart. So we've got room.
To grow. As a church family. What it looks like. For us to worship. I'm not afraid. To put a saxophone.
On stage. Not afraid. To have a drum set. Be up here on stage. That's why. It looks a little bit different.
Every Sunday. Because there's so much. Variety for us. In worship. And we've got a lot. Of room to grow.
But for us. The Bible is central. It helps us see. Who God is. And how. He wants to be.
Worship. Verse 10. Say among the nations. The Lord reigns. Yes. The world.
Is established. It shall never. Be moved. He will judge. The peoples. With equity.
It says. Say among. The nations. The Lord reigns. The whole. The whole world.
Tell it. To everyone. The worship. Of the church. Should propel us. To mission.
It should. The worship. Of the church. Should drive us out. To tell more. And more people.
About. Jesus. The part of the reason. We come together. As a church family. On Sundays.
Is to sing. And to celebrate. And to remember. The good news. Of the gospel. And that it's good.
So that when we leave this place. We're more apt. Because we've been reminded. That God is good. And the gospel is good news. For everyone.
So the worship of the church. Should drive us out. Should remind us. That as believers. We've been called. To share that message.
To tell. To bless. To declare. To sing. To go tell as many people. About Jesus as possible.
And I'm going to lay all my cards. On the table. If you. If you're in this room. This morning. And you are not.
A Christian. That's what we believe. We believe. That Jesus. Came and rescued us. At our point of need.
That we were dead. In our sin. Without hope. And that Jesus. Came to rescue us. And to redeem us.
That he died on the cross. To pay for our sin. And he rose from the grave. So that we could have. New life in him. And that's why we come together.
To celebrate. And that's the good news. We want you to know. You can place your faith. In Jesus today. And for us.
As a church family. When we sing. Songs about the gospel. It drives us out. Drives us out. To tell as many.
People. About it. As possible. Verse 11. As we wrap up. Let the heavens be glad.
And let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar. And all that fills it. Let the field exult. And everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest.
Sing for joy. Before the Lord. For he comes. For he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world. In righteousness.
And the peoples. In his faithfulness. You see that? The sea is going to roar. And all the animals that fill it. Fields and creation.
Come to life. Trees singing before the Lord. As he comes. What we get here. At the end of this Psalm. Is a look forward.
To what's going to happen. In the future. Which means the worship of the church. Should fill us. With hope. And joy.
In Christ. Should fill us with hope. That one day. Jesus is going to crack the sky. And come back. And get his church.
And everything that is wrong. With the world. Will be made right. The world itself. Will be returned. To a state.
Of the garden of Eden. That justice. Will be had. That vengeance. Will be served. And God's going to set up.
His eternal reign forever. And that's actually good news. For Christians. That's the best news. Because it says. He will judge the world.
In righteousness. His. Right. His righteous standard. And for those that have placed faith. In Jesus.
Your hope is secure. There's joy. That we can go through. What. Everything we're going through. Right now.
Is just a blip. On the radar screen. Of eternity. We can walk through life. Right now. With hope and joy.
That we have in Christ. In fact. When the church gathers. On Sunday. When we gather to sing. It's actually just a little bit of practice.
For what eternity is going to be like. We're actually getting in work now. That when you sing with brothers and sisters. All across this room. That's just a small picture. Of what heaven.
Is going to look like. Should fill us with hope and joy. Raz and Bianca are going to come back up. And we're actually. We're going to take a little bit of time. To just put this into practice.
That when God commands us to sing. He's serious about it. But it's for our joy. That he created music with a purpose. That it can help us learn. And remember.
And internalize. And bring it. It can bring us together. And can help get to our emotions. So that as we sing as a church family.
We're going to make it about God. We're going to sing songs together. And remember that we're unified. We're going to allow the Holy Spirit to work. And get to our hearts. And lead us to repentance.
And faith. We're going to sing songs. That come out of the Bible. Like we're about to. That come from the book of Romans. And 1 Corinthians.
And John. And Psalms. And Hebrews. And then as we leave this place. We're going to be filled. We're going to be reminded.
That our worship should. Propel us out to mission. And give us joy. And hope. I want to ask you guys to stand. Go ahead and stand.
We're going to sing in just a second. God my prayer. Is that we would be a church. That rightly sees the joy. Of your command to sing. To sing to you.
And bring honor and glory to your name. That God you use it. You use it powerfully. God to work in our lives. In such a way that we. Come to know who you are.
Or that you can get to our emotions. You can bring us together. Father. So God my prayer. Is that you would actually. Help us push back.
All of the hesitations. All of the reservations. All of the wrong thoughts. About your commands to sing. And your Holy Spirit. Would allow us to do so freely.
This morning. Because you're worthy of our praise. In Jesus name. Amen. You guys sing with us.
Service, Slavery, Death
Transcript
It's good to see you all this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City. And I'm excited to get to celebrate Christmas with you guys. As you can't tell, we kind of like Christmas around here. And I'm a Christmas person.
So don't get me wrong, I like the other holidays. Like I like Thanksgiving, the 3F celebration of family and football and food. But like I'm a Christmas person. Give me Christmas. The lights and the trees and the Christmas carols and everything like that. I just love it.
And the truth is I grew up in a family that was like that too. So it's kind of ingrained in me from the very beginning. We were the family that as soon as Thanksgiving was over and as soon as like the last leftover was tucked into the fridge, like the attic door just swung open on its own and all the Christmas decorations just came pouring out. And the rest of Thanksgiving Day was spent putting up Christmas decorations and they stayed up until after the new year, depending on when we wanted to take them down. But I love Christmas.
I mean, take a look at this little guy right here. I mean, that's jubilation. There's like sleigh bells going in the background. It's funny, people tell me, Oh, Emmy looks just like you. I'm like, only mostly. Only mostly she looks just like me.
But I'm a Christmas person. Our family kind of went crazy for Christmas. And the church that I grew up in was pretty crazy about Christmas too. In fact, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, our church would have this like very formal ceremonial service called the Hanging of the Greens, which literally meant we're going to decorate the church. I mean, it was like this big service where families would walk up together and they would hang wreaths and people would hold candles and we would sing songs by a candlelight. And if it sounds crazy, that's kind of because it was.
But really, that was just the tip of the iceberg to my church's crazy experiment with Christmas. We had children's plays. I don't know if you're familiar with children's plays, but you had to have a children's play and you had to have the costumes. You had to memorize your lines and you had to learn the songs and all this kind of stuff. You had to dress up. You always had to look really good.
And of course, I'm going to try to set the standard for when you're looking good. So obviously, a hand-me-down sweater because you can't even see my hands, rocking khakis, and a tie that's for some reason missing, like missing part of it. I don't, like they're supposed to go to a point. I don't know. But I tried to look good.
And every once in a while, we do like, we do Christmas plays that had a theme. It's like metaphorically to talk about Christmas. I mean, because you could do cowboy Christmas. And of course, you wanted to look the part if you were doing that. Even if you didn't have two front teeth. Like you just whistled the music out.
But you couldn't just do a children's Christmas thing. You had to have like an adult choir cantata. And if you don't know what a cantata is, you're one of the lucky ones. We're going to spare you. We're not even going to tell you what that is. But there was just all this stuff going on.
There were practices and dress rehearsals. And it was Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. And then extra practices during the week. And you also had the Christmas card swap. And you had the candy cane tree. You had children's storybook Christmas.
And then you had the church Christmas party. And a lot of times you got to January and you were just kind of exhausted. And the truth is, I look back on all of those things that we did and I really enjoy them. Like some of my fondest memories are from some of those times. But I have to ask myself the question, like was all the time and energy we put into that stuff worth it?
Like were we actually celebrating Christmas as we were putting on those plays? Because the point of all the stuff we were doing was for our friends to like invite people to come. Like the people that were part of our church family to invite their friends to come and to maybe get plugged in with our church. And as I think back on that, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if the energy and time we put into it allowed people to actually hop in with us. See, the church that I grew up in kind of had a come to us mentality at Christmas.
We'll put on these great plays or we'll have these parties if you'll just come. And as I think about Christmas, as I think about the fact that God came to us at Christmas, is the correct response to then get people to come to us? Or is Jesus came on a mission for us? Are we then to turn out and go on mission for others? Should we be going to them? And really all of this and more is why we as a church from the very beginning have done our give series at Christmas.
All we're doing is we're looking at our culture and say, no, no, let's flip what our culture values at Christmas and focus on what's really important. At a time of year where it's all about me and what I can get and that kind of stuff, we just want to remember what Christmas actually is all about. It's that Jesus came for us. And the way that we do that is that we're generous to people who are in need as we do our gift project. So when our culture says, you know, get all you can, get the new Samsung virtual reality goggles or maybe some new jewelry or the new PlayStation 8, we say as a church, no, no, no, give more away.
Be generous because he who is rich became poor so that we by his poverty might be rich. That at a time of year where it's all about what you can get and all about the memories and stuff you can make, we say let's make it about others. Let's put others' interests in front of our own. Let's sacrifice so that we can do that. And so today as we kind of tie a bow, so to speak, on our Give series, I just want to continue to echo that as we follow Jesus, what we're called to is sacrificing. What we're called to is to be generous.
And my hope is that by the end of this morning, we have a clearer picture of not only what that looks like at Christmastime, but hopefully what that looks like for all of our lives. So let me pray for us and we'll jump into the Bible. God, I'm so thankful that this time of the year we get the opportunity to just stop and press pause and remember what Christmas actually is all about. To not buy into what our culture says and to remember, to reflect, and then to actually get the opportunity to see change in our lives. So God, I pray that you would just encourage us this morning.
I pray that you would help us see the joy that it is to follow Jesus. God, that we would respond by being radically generous and sacrificial with our lives. I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Grab a Bible. Go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 20.
If you're grabbing one of the Bibles that we have on the seats, it's going to be on page 482. If you don't have a Bible, Merry Christmas. Take that one with you today. We want you to have it. If you're looking at it going, ooh, sweet, new white Bible to go with my collection of three blue and white Bibles at home, that one can just be your Glen Forest Bible. Just leave that one here.
But the passage that we're looking at today is not your stereotypical Christmas passage. There's no baby, no shepherds, no angels bursting into robust chorus. In fact, this passage is recorded in all the Gospels the week before Jesus would go to the cross and rise from the grave. And so this is really kind of at the end of everything. And here's what we're looking for. This is what I want us to see today.
What does it look like to follow Jesus in his kingdom? So if we're going to be kingdom people, if we've decided to follow Jesus, what does it look like for us to follow him with our lives? And how does his example motivate our actions? And ultimately, how does that even like change our entire approach to life? So what does it look like to follow Jesus in his kingdom?
So Matthew chapter 20, and we'll be starting in verse 20. It says this, Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons. And kneeling before him, she asked him for something. And he said to her, What do you want? She said to him, Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom. So just to kind of set the scene, James and John come with their mom and they bow before Jesus.
And apparently their mother basically says, Can I ask you a question? Can I make a request of you? And Jesus allows her to. And she says, Grant that these sons of mine can sit in the positions of power and authority in your coming kingdom. Let them sit at your right hand and at your left hand. And it's kind of funny because the Gospels are filled with stories about James and John.
I mean, they even have nicknames. Their nicknames in the Gospels are the sons of thunder. And so we kind of see it throughout. But this one's particularly funny to me because they got their mama to go ask Jesus if they could be at his right hand and left hand. I mean, sons of thunder, more like mama's boys. Like, this is, I mean, you've got to imagine how this played out, right?
Hey, James, you know, you know who Jesus really, Jesus says a lot of hard stuff, but you know who he doesn't say hard stuff to all the time? Older women. Like, what if we got our mom to go and talk to Jesus? I mean, for real, that's how that played, that's how it played out. And what we know from the other Gospels is this question didn't originate from James and John. They put their mom up to this.
But regardless, they come before Jesus and say, the mom says, grant that my sons can sit at your right hand and at your left hand in your coming kingdom because these were positions of power. Let them have power and authority and influence in the coming kingdom. Seeing an opportunity to rise up in the ranks and have some power, they jumped on it. An opportunity to kind of get to the top. And the truth is, regardless of motivation, we're all kind of doing this in our lives if you think about it. Whether it's the opportunity to get like a promotion at work or to get a raise or maybe to get a better car or to get a better house or live in a different neighborhood.
And again, those things aren't bad in and of themselves, but I think intrinsically all of us kind of want to keep moving forward, keep achieving, keep having success is one of the things that Chet mentioned earlier in the announcements. Like, I think that's intrinsic to us because we live in a society that highly values those things. That's kind of what capitalism actually is. It's all about. It's getting to the top. It's climb the ladder of success, make the most money you can, get into the best school and get the most sought after degrees.
And in a lot of cases, regardless of what you have to do to get there. And I think that's part of the mystique behind Donald Trump being elected president. I think there were a lot of people that looked at Donald Trump and said, if he can grow this huge company and have business ventures across the world and have a last name that's synonymous with wealth and status, then of course, he can run the greatest nation in the free world. Because they look at that and they see that as kind of the pinnacle of human existence. Like, he's made it to the top. And the truth is when it comes to looking at power and authority, another term that you can throw up there that goes right along with it is wealth.
A lot of times, power and authority just kind of follow the money. And you can see that on a big scale. You can see it in the macro. So if you look at this last political cycle, you've had lots of conversations about how Wall Street and politics kind of played out. Like, what were the relationships between CEOs and the people who were running for president? Any business, the waitstaff makes less money, has less authority than the shift manager, than the manager, than the owner, than the regional vice president, than someone who's on the board, than the CEO.
It just kind of, it's a, you follow the money and you kind of find where the power and authority are. And even, and even that can be true in our lives. Like, even on the small scale. So if you've, if you've got maybe a little bit more money and a little bit more standing, maybe you can live in a different neighborhood. Maybe you can get a better Job and have more authority. And so even, even on the small scale, you can see how that affords you a little bit more opportunity.
And while James and John live in a completely different culture than ours, their, their question is still at the, at the heart of what we're going after too. James and John seeing an opportunity to kind of rise up in the ranks, to, to move their way to the top, to have more authority, more influence, seeing that opportunity, they jumped on it. So let's, let's see how Jesus responds. Verse 22. Jesus answered, you do not know what you are asking. Which is, which is actually a very gracious response from Jesus because he, he does know what they're asking.
And he's simply just pointing out that they don't, they don't know. They don't know what he knows. That there's obviously a disconnect between what power and authority look like in Jesus's kingdom and what his disciples actually expect it to be. He continues on. He says, you don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?
And they said to him, we are able. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? Now that's not like a, a turn of phrase that we would use nowadays. So we have to unpack that just a little bit. All throughout the Bible, the cup is basically used to represent someone's like God-ordained destiny. What God had for their lives.
And so if you look in the Psalms, you'll see the cup representative of like blessing or salvation. And then other times you'll see it has more of a negative connotation where it's like God's wrath or disaster. And more often than not, the cup is going to have some connotation along with it that deals with like suffering and trial and hardship. And Jesus, Jesus asked him, he says, are you able to drink from the cup? And they said, they said we are. So regardless of what James and John know at this point, so regardless of, of, of what they understand the cup to be, they respond that they're able to.
That whatever it takes to get to the top, whatever it takes to be Jesus's right-hand men, James and John are saying, we're in, we'll do this. Whatever path we have to walk, whatever we have to do, we are in. Jesus responds to him, verse 23. He said to them, you will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father. He says to them, you will drink my cup. Whatever that cup means, you're going to drink that cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left hand is not mine to decide.
My Father is going to decide that. And so, hang on to that little bit about James and John drinking the cup, but you've got to imagine at this point, they're disappointed. So they come with this expectation of, of maybe getting elevated to this position and it just doesn't work out for them. Jesus says that it's, it's not, it's not for them. It's not going to work out. It's not as they plan.
And then verse 24 adds to it, it says this, and when the 10 heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. The 10 being the other disciples. Okay, James and John were two of the 12 disciples and when the 10 heard it, it says they were indignant. These guys were ticked. And rightly so, I mean, think about this. Think about all that James and John and the rest of the disciples have gone through.
A lot of these guys even knew James and John before they became disciples. And so, I mean, they've walked with Jesus. They've, they've heard him teach. They've, they've gotten to be a part of these miracles and experiencing all this together. And now they're trying to jump ahead of them, trying to get to a place where even maybe they're ruling over the other 10 disciples. And they're ticked.
I mean, I would be, and I think there's a little bit of us when we read that, it's kind of like, for real? That's what you guys are doing? And the passage doesn't tell us like that they became friends immediately after that, like it wasn't all okay when Jesus stepped in. I mean, there's probably some time. But honestly, I hope, they made up.
But honestly, I hope that the disciples, the rest of the disciples never let them live that down. Like, never. James looks at Peter and says, where's Jesus off to? I don't know. Why don't you ask your mama? I mean, like, the appropriate amount of forgiveness and the appropriate level of mockery.
I feel like that probably embodies Mill City. Pretty good bit there. But regardless, Jesus saw an opportunity to teach. He saw an opportunity to correct an understanding of what it meant to be a disciple in his kingdom, what it meant to be a follower in his kingdom. And even more than that, what does it mean to be a leader and have power and authority in his kingdom? He says this in verse 25.
But Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles Lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. Jesus says, you know, I.e. I don't really have to explain this to you. You know how the rulers treat the people who are underneath them. See, Israel was occupied by Rome at the time.
So whether it's governors or administrators or maybe it was people that were in charge of the Roman military, they constantly had their authority lorded over them. It was forced on them. Like it was for shameful gain. It was oppressive misuse. Most of the leaders were just trying to, again, climb the ladder of success or just make the person who's above them happy. And he said, it shall not be so among you.
And the truth is, in a lot of ways, our culture is like this too. That's why most of us are kind of wary of politicians or people who are in like places of authority and leadership and really don't want to do it. They say, because we've seen this all too regularly. We've seen deceit and manipulation and lies and corruption, which is why we're kind of wary of people who are in leadership. And what's interesting is, even though we know that's true, what we just admitted earlier is that all of us are trying to claw our way to the top to get there. To get to that place where we know that there's abuse and misuse of authority.
But Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no. It shall not be so among you. Jesus isn't against all types of authority and influence. He's just exposing what oppressive misuse looks like. And he says, no, no, there's another way. There's another way that my disciples are to act.
He's got a different definition of what it looks like. Pick it back up, beginning of verse 26. He says, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Here's what Jesus says. He says, greatness in his kingdom isn't measured by dollar bills or the number of people who call you boss.
He begins by saying it's about being a servant. servant. Not like a server at a restaurant. He says, servant of the servant class where your life is leveraged for whoever is above you. And to clarify, he takes it a step further. He says, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. I mean, that's picturesque.
That's service and slavery. And if you're putting it in terms of their day, he's saying that authority and power in his kingdom look way more like working long hours in the field or washing a visitor's feet when they come in from a long journey. It's way more like taking garbage out to the dung heap or cleaning a cattle stall. And you've got to imagine at this point, James and John are listening to Jesus talk. They come to Jesus with this expectation of we want to be in power and authority. And they're kind of like raising their hands at this point going, um, excuse me, I, when, when we came to you and we're talking about this, we, we, we just thought that you would be on a really big cushy seat and we, we would, we would also get cushy seats, not as big as your cushy seat because you'd be in the middle, but we'd be on the right and left and maybe, maybe the things you're saying would be what people do for us.
And Jesus says, no, you've, you've got it backwards. It's as if he's looking at them and saying, hey guys, remember, remember when you were a fisherman? Before I called you, remember when you were a fisherman? Greatness in my kingdom doesn't look like the person who owns the boat, looks way more like the peon who carries the nets off the boat and then goes back and scrubs fish guts off the deck. See, here's the problem. It's the, it's the same problem for them as it is for us.
While we read this passage and see exactly what Jesus is talking about, while we understand that a life of serving others and putting others first is, is noble and it's good and it's what Jesus did for us, we're bombarded on a regular basis with thousands of other messages that say the complete opposite. Our, our culture says, you do you, do whatever makes you happy. Whoever you've got to push down to get to the top, do that. It's all about you. It's all about autonomy. That's what Chet was talking about just a little bit ago.
It's about self. We, we use this metaphor a lot and I think it's helpful here that if our culture and what our culture values is like a driving, pouring rain and you as a Christian have an umbrella, you can't help but get wet. There are going to be times when we're so overwhelmed by what our, our culture teaches that even though we understand what Jesus is saying that it's about others, it's about serving them and putting their interests first and sacrificing for them, we can't help but let this little bit just kind of trickle into our lives while we're all going, no, no, no, serve and give our lives for others. It can trickle in.
Let me give you an example of how it does this. If you're a part of a community group, I want you to think about your group for a second. Has the thought ever popped in your mind, I wish I was in another group or maybe this, I wish I was a part of my old group maybe something like this. I would go hang out with my group but they're just not really meeting my needs. I would be open and honest but that person monopolizes all the time with all the problems they have going on. It's subtle but deadly.
At the time that we're looking at what Jesus says about serving and putting others first and that's what Raz and Josh have articulated so well the last two weeks about putting others first. It can creep in. Even though we understand what Jesus is calling us to, it can creep in. So the question becomes, how do we do that? What's our motivation? How do we begin to approach life in the same way that Jesus does and what he's calling us to?
Verse 28. In fact, we'll back it all the way up to 26 and just read the whole chunk. He said, It shall not be so among you but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you you must be your, you must, sorry, you must be your slave even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus said, Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus, the one who the disciples realized was worthy of all honor and all praise and all glory who would one day sit on a throne said he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom.
Like he sets the example. He puts others first. He is the one who is generous and he would do so by giving his life as a ransom for many. And in that statement, Jesus sets out and shows us what his mission has been from the very beginning. He didn't come to set up an earthly throne. He's going to have a throne but it's by way of a cross and it's an eternal throne.
It wasn't to be set up here. The reason that Jesus had to go to a cross is because we had a debt that we could not pay. That we could not overcome outside of his sacrifice for us. that when Jesus is talking about that cup in a couple of verses up, he's talking about the cup of God's wrath. When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, God, he said, Father, if this cup can be taken from me, let it be. But if not, your will be done and not mine.
Jesus went to the cross because he had put, he put us first. It was about sacrificing himself for us. And so when he says he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom, we're beginning to understand that Jesus is the king of an upside down kingdom where our culture says that moving up is where greatness is. Jesus says, no, no, no. Greatness is by moving down from service to slavery and even to death. Greatness, success, and wealth, and prominence isn't measured the same way.
It's not about sitting beside him but following behind him. And the essence of what Jesus is saying this morning, this is what I want us to walk away with and realize. We could not get to God. We couldn't. We could not get to God not by our morals, not by behaving, not by anything. We could not get to God so God came to us.
It was a rescue mission. That's what we're celebrating at Christmas is that God came to us. He came as a missionary. Think about that for a minute that Jesus who spoke everything that is into existence is now in the form of a baby staring at sheep and cows in a manger in the backwoods middle of nowhere. The king of the universe humbled himself and came but he didn't stay a baby forever. He would go to a cross where he would die.
He would die for us. He would die for our sins so that we could follow after him. So the question becomes how do you respond to that? Like how do you respond to what Jesus says in these verses? We follow after him. We respond by following after Jesus in the same way that he did for us because Jesus came on a mission for us we go on a mission for others.
That rather than buying into the it's all about me nonsense that we get from our culture especially at Christmas we get to make it about others. Jesus looked at James and John and he told them you are you're going to drink the cup that I'm going to and what we know that after Jesus ascends into heaven that James and John are some of the leaders of the early church and they went out they went out from Jerusalem pursuing people spreading the gospel and for the people that were followers of Jesus it didn't always go well there were persecutions and beatings and there was jail time and some of them ended up murdered. James would be murdered for his faith and John they tried to kill John church history tells us and it didn't work and so they exiled him to an island where he would die. Service slavery and death but what James and John realized is all that Jesus had done for them and so the rest of their lives got to be this humble grateful response to what Jesus had done.
Here's the deal I want you to think about this for a second. The reason that you're sitting here this morning is because Jesus came on a mission for us and then somebody responded to Jesus' call to be on mission for others. Think about the person who told you about Jesus. If you're not a Christian think about who has invited you to hang out with our church because Jesus came on a mission and others have responded to that mission since. That's why you're sitting in this room. That's what Christmas is all about is that God came for us because we could not get to him.
So our response is not to make it all about us but to turn our eyes outward and to go and to pursue others. Our response is to have the same posture as our king. And this is so freeing. This is so freeing when we don't have to buy into everything that our culture tells us. That rising to the top that having the most money or being successful that everything else that our culture tells us to chase after isn't going to isn't going to fill us up. Isn't going to bring us joy.
And if it brings us happiness it's only temporary. But Jesus calls you into a relationship with him where he served and sacrificed and died for you. And so our response gets to be that we approach life in the same way. We're all mission to see more and more people become Christians and we go to them. Which means that your entire approach to life changes. It means you're a missionary at work.
It means when your boss asks you to do something that's degrading or menial or below your pay grade you do it. Because you're just there to serve. That when you notice someone skipping work for the second day in a row you go to them and say hey can I treat you to lunch? And instead of going to McDonald's to the value menu like you take them to Moe's. Or if you're really rolling you take them to Chipotle where they can pay more and get worse food. But you treat them.
When you realize that a co-worker's been sick all week you leave work and you go get some soup and you drive it to their house. That's going to people. It means you're a missionary in your neighborhood. If you've got a crabby neighbor that always is yelling at you about your dog using the bathroom on their lawn even though your dog's in a fence and never comes out of the fence. Can't be your dog. If you look out the window on a Saturday and see them working on their shed it means that maybe you sacrifice some of your time and you go help them.
Maybe you realize that there's a lady that's in her late 80s who can't drive that's down the street but just needs someone to come sit and to talk with her. It means we give up some of our time and we go to them. It means we're missionaries in our city especially to those that are less fortunate than us because that's who Jesus went to. Jesus went to the people who needed help that were kind of outcasts from the society. That's why we spend time trying to help people that are often just kind of neglected and forgotten. That's why we spend time at Gentle Pines because it's a part of our city that has kind of just been forgotten and overlooked and we want to go in there and tell them that we love them and that Jesus loves them and that we want them to be a part of our family.
It's why we've partnered with Samaritans well this year. We want the women and the children there to know that we love them and care about them and Jesus loves them and we're willing to leverage time and resources so that they know that. I've been so encouraged. I've had two separate group leaders in the last couple of weeks tell me that they kind of want to be in line to partner with Samaritans well long term. That's so encouraging. Man, that is so encouraging to see our church family turning our eyes outward and looking at the people that God has placed us around.
But it's all of life, guys. It's every second of every day realizing that you exist for the benefit of others. That you don't have to find your worth and your joy and your value in meeting all of your needs and making it all about you because it's ultimately bankrupt and you have everything you will ever need in Jesus which means that we get to turn our eyes out and like everything we do as a church family we get to do it together. We get to do it with our community groups that our friends and our neighbors and our coworkers we're trying to reach them for Jesus and build relationships but we get to invite our community groups into that.
And so here's I've got two ways I want us to respond this morning. Two ways that we can respond to Jesus' call to go out and to see more people become Christians and as we do it to meet people's needs. Two ways we can do that. The first one is that we do. We actually meet people's physical needs. Jesus went and he healed the sick and he spent time with those who were in poverty like Jesus met real needs and so his church meets real needs.
You can meet real needs today by giving to Samaritan's Well. I've been so proud of our church family so far and I know that we can continue to give. We've got the envelope set up over there. You can write a check. You can put cash. You can drop it in the gift box.
There Are No Unsent Christians
Transcript
It's good to see you guys this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. And today we are finishing up our series called Follow Me, where we've basically been walking through the book of Mark and talking about discipleship, learning from Jesus and his interaction with his disciples. So what we've done is we've looked at that.
We've looked at what Jesus teaches his disciples, what his disciples were doing. And what we've done is ask the question, how do we do this? How do we, in 21st century America, actually respond to Jesus' call? How do we follow him just like James, John, Peter, and Andrew did? How do we do that in our context today? And so we started off with our baptism party where we celebrated people who have moved from death to life in Jesus, who've placed faith in Jesus.
And we talked about the fact that the gospel is good news that you live in light of. It's an event. It's news of something that has happened, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. It's not, the gospel's not a whole bunch of rules. It's not moralism. It's news that you believe.
And then as you believe that, your life begins to change. So we started there. That's primary for disciples of Jesus is belief in the gospel. And then we moved on and said, okay, if that's true, there are no unrepentant Christians. That's what we talked about next, that the life of a Christian should be repenting and believing. Repenting being seeing your sin, confessing of your sin, turning away from it to follow Jesus.
And that's a lifelong process from a disciple. You don't just confess your sin when you become a Christian. It's the life of a Christian is repenting and believing. And we moved on from there and said, there are no Christians who have something other than Jesus as primary. That when you follow Jesus, he asks us, tells us, commands us to lay everything else down, and he becomes primary to us. Even the good things in our life, even family and friends and our jobs and things that would be considered good on their own.
Jesus takes the primary spot over top of those. And our response to that is when we see anything that's getting in the way of that is back to what we talked about the week before, which is to repent and believe the gospel again. And what we looked at last week is that there are no Christians that exist outside of church family. There are no Christians that are supposed to exist outside of the family that Jesus has made us into. And it's this beautiful mix of people of all different backgrounds and races and thought processes and understanding. Even the disciples were a hodgepodge mix themselves.
And what happens is Jesus calls them to come to him. And as they come to him, he begins to change them. And so today as we wrap up our series, what we're talking about today is the fact that there are no unsent Christians. All Christians are to respond to Jesus, to come to him, and then he actually sends them out. That we're actually supposed to live our lives to spread the gospel, that we should be on mission. And the truth is, if you're a Christian in the room, or even if you just know things about what Christians believe or who Christians are, you're already on board with what I'm saying.
Because the gospel at its core is a message that has to be shared. So nobody in the room is going, yeah, well, but, nuh-uh. That's not happening because we all understand that it's a message that's supposed to be shared. Nobody's doing that. But there's still a disconnect between knowing that we're sent out and actually doing it.
There's a disconnect between knowing that we're sent out and even knowing how to do that. So we say all the time as a church that we're a gospel-centered community on mission. That you should be on mission with your friends and your neighbors and your coworkers. That we're joining Jesus in his mission to save Columbia. Like, we talk about that all the time. But the question becomes, okay, well, if that's what I'm supposed to do, how do I do that?
So you get excited and you're like, okay, cool. I'm going to go be on mission at work. We talk about that a good bit. And then you show up to work and it's like, what now? Well, I'm here. I'm ready to be on mission.
Like, is it that you kind of walk over into the break room where people are having coffee and like you just, at whatever opportune moment presents itself, you just, Jesus. I'm really doing it, guys. Is that it? Or is it like if you're wearing a shirt, you kind of roll up your sleeves so that they can see your sweet cross tat and you're just hoping that they're going to come talk to you? Like, they're going to, hey, tell me about your cross tattoo and your relationship with Jesus. Like, is that it?
Or is it maybe people are in the break room eating lunch and you're just trying to figure out how do I slide in the idea that I had a sweet time of fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ last night? I mean, is that going to do it? It's kind of like when you're in middle school and you're trying to talk to someone of the opposite sex. You know this? Y'all remember this, right? Okay, it's like I'm a guy.
I'm walking up to a girl. Do I say something about her hair? Like, do I mention, do I say that I like my little pony too? Or like Lisa Frank, whatever that stuff is. Did I put on enough Acts before this conversation? But that's kind of the idea.
So nobody's arguing. Nobody in the room is going, no, I understand that Christians are supposed to be sent. The disconnect is, well, how do I do that? I know I'm supposed to tell people about Jesus. So what we're doing today as we finish this series is say people who follow Jesus are sent to go share the gospel.
So we're going to look at Jesus sending out his disciples. And what we're going to look and say is, okay, if that's what he told them to do, if that's what he instructed them to do, how do we apply that as 21st century Americans? So my goal today is just to be helpful. I want to help coach us up just a little bit on like how can we begin to practically do this in our lives. So I'm hoping today will be helpful as we conclude this series.
So before we hop into the text, let's pray together. God, the fact that this church exists is evidence that you send your people to share the gospel. Or that you sent people to Columbia and then you sent those people out into their neighborhoods, into their places of work, to their schools, to continue sharing the gospel so that people could place their faith in Jesus. So God, I pray that you would help us remember our call this morning. I pray that you would help us remember why we're actually going out to share the gospel and that you would begin to help us practically see how we can begin to do that.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, go ahead and grab a Bible. We're going to turn to Mark in a second. But before we do that, I want to remind us of one of the main points we talked about last week.
Because if you don't get this point, if you don't understand what we talked about last week and you just go into being sent out, you'll miss the whole point of why we're being sent out in the first place. And so this is Mark chapter 3, verses 13 through 14. You can turn there. It's on 544 in your Bibles. But it says this, And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.
And he appointed 12 whom he also named apostles so that they might be with him, and he might send them out to preach. So it says there in verse 13, He called those whom he desired, and they came to him. So before we ever talk about being sent out, before Jesus sends out, the first call he makes is for us to come to him. Some of us need to hear that this morning. That may be the one thing you need to hear this morning. Jesus' call to you, first and foremost, is to come to him, to enjoy him, to be in a relationship with him.
And the problem is when we get this flipped, when we forget that as Christians, when we forget that that's actually primary, we'll go out and we're ambitious to share the gospel. We want to tell people about Jesus, but we end up getting frustrated and burned out and spinning our wheels because what we're doing is we're going out telling people about the gospel that we're not actually enjoying and living out in our lives. So if we're not enjoying Jesus walking with him daily, but we're trying to go tell people about Jesus, we're missing out. Jesus wants our... Before he wants your actions and your activity, he wants you.
He wants your heart. That's primary. It says, if you look again, we've got the verses still on the screen, but it says, They came to him and he appointed twelve. And it says, So that they might be with him. And then it says he sent them out. So I just want to...
That is the motivation this morning. When we talk about going and sending out, we're coming from a place where we're actually enjoying a relationship with Jesus. We're walking with him. And then we go out. Now, turn to Mark 6. We're going to be looking at verses 7 through 13.
And this is kind of a foundational passage for us as a church. Because what we're going to see is a group of guys whose lives are centered around Jesus and the gospel he proclaims, that are living that out in relationship with him and with each other, and then are being sent out on mission. Being centered around Jesus, gospel-centered, community, on mission. This is a big part. That's why we talk about groups so much, because we believe that's our best way to fulfill what Jesus is talking about here. To follow him in close relationship with other believers, and then in relationship with those other believers, go out and share the gospel.
So this is a foundational passage for us. And what we're going to do is we're going to just read straight through the passage and look at Jesus' instructions to the disciples and then we'll kind of get the big idea at the bottom and then come back to the instructions at the top and talk about, okay, how do you practically do that? How do we practically do that? So Mark 6, starting in verse 7, says this, And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.
And he said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. Okay, so that's Jesus' instructions. Then verses 12 and 13 tell us what they actually did as they were sent out. So picking back up, verse 12.
So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. So 12 and 13 tell us what they actually did when they went out. And verse number 12 gives us the beginning. It says, They went out and proclaimed that people should repent. You see, the gospel is a message of joy.
It's a message of freedom, but at its core, it's also offensive. What we talked about in the second week is that when people are repenting of their sin, it's coming to them saying that you are a sinner in need of saving. That there's something about you that is off and broken. You need to admit that and confess that and turn from it and follow Jesus. So while in the gospel there is ultimate joy, we understand that there's heart level satisfaction, that all the longings of our heart are actually fulfilled and found in Jesus.
There's also a part of us that is offended by the truth of the gospel because it calls us to change. It was true in Jesus' day and it's true in ours, especially in our culture. Our culture holds up the idea of expressive individualism. We talked about this in our Theology of Sex series. But the basic idea of that is you do you.
Whatever makes you happy is the greatest expression of yourself. Don't let anybody tell you what to do. You do you. But the problem is that the gospel comes along and helps us see that we're broken and we're in need of saving. So at its core, it's going to be offensive.
But ultimately there's freedom and joy that we can find in Jesus. And then it says in verse 13, so there's a call to repent. But then it says in 13 that they cast out demons and anointed many with oil who were sick and healed them. Now, it's likely that most of us in the room just kind of thought to ourselves, well, well, that's weird. And it gets even weirder when you realize that as Jesus sent them out, part of following Jesus was that they cast out demons and that they healed sick people. And in all honesty, when you hear that, it's like, oh, that's weird.
I don't understand how that exactly works out. And part of part of the reason for that is that we live in a culture that highly values intellect and education and reason. Those are those are pillars kind of in our society that we hold up. And those are those are good things. Those aren't bad things in and of themselves. But since our focus is kind of primarily there, our culture is very skeptical of the spiritual or the unexplainable.
And so I want us to take just a second. This really isn't the main point of what we're talking about today. But I want to take just a second to talk about what is what's going on here. What were the disciples actually doing? Because I think there are two errors that you can make when you come to something like this in the Bible. OK, you can read it and then just skip over it and act like it doesn't exist.
It's like I don't really know what that's talking about. So we're not going to talk about that's challenging. That's difficult. That's not being faithful to the text. I want us always as a church to be fighting to understand what the Bible is telling us. And the other thing that I think mistake people make is they read something like that and they say, well, that was only in the time of Jesus.
That doesn't happen now. And I don't believe that that's true either. I don't believe that that's true either. So I want to take just a second to unpack what he's talking about here and then we'll keep rolling. We believe that what the Bible says is entirely true. So that it says that they cast out demons and healed the sick.
We believe that happened. Our culture is obsessed with scientific explanation for everything. But when someone like Jesus enters into the conversation, someone who walked on water, who fed 5,000 people, and who died and three days later was raised from the dead, science isn't going to explain everything. It's not going to have all the answers. And the Bible helps us see that there is a spiritual reality that exists. And I want to help us out here for a second because I think sometimes even we can be skeptical on this kind of stuff.
If you believe in good spiritual beings, so if you believe in a God and if you believe in angels, it's not inconsistent for you to believe that there are also evil spiritual beings like Satan and demons. Okay, those two things are not inconsistent. And what the Bible tells us is that Satan is a created being. He's an angel who rebelled against God. He wanted to be greater than God. And God cast him out of heaven and there were other angels who followed him.
These fallen angels are what the Bible refers to as demons and they have influence in this world. They're actively trying to undermine God's will and God's work in the here and now. But God and Satan are not on par with each other. The Bible doesn't even get close to presenting it like that. It's more like Godzilla versus Bambi. Okay, and even that's kind of a, that's not even describing it well enough.
That's what the Bible tells us. But Satan, demons, hell, all real. The Bible makes that clear. The Bible tells the story of Satan deceiving our first parents, Adam and Eve, into sin to break God's command in their life and sin entered the world. And so the relationship between God was fractured as they were tempted. And the rest of the Bible tells the story of God's active pursuit to redeem people, to bring people back into a relationship with him.
And ultimately we see that accomplished through Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead. So that when Jesus died on the cross, Satan was defeated but not ultimately conquered yet. Still having influence in our world. Still able to do stuff in our world. We see in the book of Revelation that ultimately he is conquered and destroyed. And so what Jesus is doing here, what the disciples are doing as they go out, is they are actually combating the works of the enemy.
That Jesus is helping them push back darkness in their area. That they're actually ministering to people on a spiritual level. And the Bible tells us that part of the way that works throughout, that you see, is that there's power in the name of Jesus. And there's power as people pray. It says people were possessed or oppressed by demons or had spiritual warfare going on. That was how it was combated.
It was with the power that is in Jesus' name and through prayer. Now again, I don't want us to spend all of our time talking about that this morning. So if you've got questions or you want to talk more about it, Chet and I are going to be available after the gathering. You can ask us more questions. Also, we did a sermon on this back in our 1 Peter series called The Devil and the King. And I would also kind of point you towards that sermon.
So what's the point? What's the point of what the disciples were doing? As the disciples went out to share the gospel and to minister to people, they were sharing the gospel with whole individuals. They weren't just meeting physical needs. They weren't just meeting emotional needs. They weren't just meeting spiritual needs.
That as they shared the gospel, the gospel was good news for the whole person. Whether it be sickness or spiritual warfare or the need to just repent of sin. That as they went out, they were actually ministering to whole people. So yeah, they helped feed people. They helped clothe people. They helped clothe people.
People who were in poverty. And the same thing is true for us. We should feed the hungry. We should help with homelessness. All the while knowing that it truly is the gospel that is at the heart of what people need. So what we're seeing is that the disciples went out and shared the gospel.
Because the gospel is good news for all of life. So now the question becomes, based off of what Jesus instructed them, how do we do that? How's that going to begin to show up in my life? How's that going to begin to show up in the life of our group? Now, some of you, maybe you're a note taker. Maybe you're not.
I'm going to challenge you to jot down some notes today. There are cards in front of you. There are pens in those seats. Because I want to just give us some practical coaching on how we can begin to be on mission. Based off of what Jesus is telling us. What he's instructing his disciples.
So go back to the top. Go back up to verse 7. It says this. Now he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two. Now, there are likely a lot of reasons why Jesus did that.
I think there was a safety element. That it was easier to travel with two people together. I think there was like personal discipleship kind of woven in there. Those two guys being able to pour into each other and build each other up. But I think the main reason is to show us that community is hardwired into Jesus' call to mission.
Hardwired into it. That it's supposed to be done in the context of relationships. Especially since the rest of the New Testament continues that idea. You see the church living it out in relationship. The letters are written to groups of believers. And so the first answer to the question, how do we do this?
How do we begin to practically be on mission? Is that we go together. Is that we go together. I was growing up and anytime mission or missionary was talked about. It was always in the context of like you as an individual. Go out and invite your friend to come to church with you.
Or even if it was foreign mission. It was like an individual going out to another country by themselves. But the command for mission in the New Testament is always in communal terms. But the problem is what we talked about last week is that we've been invited into a family. We've been invited into relationships with other believers. But when it comes to mission, it becomes an individual sport.
It would be like watching a football game. It's football season. There are going to be a lot of football metaphors. It would be like watching a football game. And the quarterback snaps the ball to himself. And he runs up and he blocks somebody because he's got to do that too.
And then he throws the ball and sprints after it as fast as he can to try to catch the ball. And then he gets splattered. And the rest of the game looks a lot like that. And their team loses 63 to nothing. And then in the press conference after the game, he's like, Oh, we just didn't play up to our potential today. We nothing, man.
You were trying to do it all by yourself. And I think when we talk about mission in the church, we all begin to think as individuals. But it's not. It's intended to be done by groups of believers going out together. And here's why. Community puts the gospel on display in a way that you as an individual don't have the ability to by yourself.
Community puts the gospel on display in a way that you can't do by yourself. Let me show you how this shows up. So many of our baptism videos start off with, I started hanging out with a community group. And so we have to remind people like, Your community group didn't save you. Mill City Church didn't save you. But what they're saying is, That's the first place I actually saw the gospel tangibly.
I saw real love and service and openness and family and hospitality. They saw the effects of the gospel. It goes hand in hand with what Jesus says that, By your love for one another, They'll know. They'll come to know the gospel. I mean, it's so clear all throughout the New Testament That it's supposed to be done in relationship with other believers. Okay, well, how do you do that?
A couple of practical things. Invite your group. Like I said, we're a groups-based church. We talk about groups all the time. Invite your group. And here's what I mean by that.
Don't just invite people to your group. Invite your group to people. Don't just invite people to your group, Like your group meeting time. But invite your group to people. It's not bad to invite people to hang out with your community group When you're getting together. But invite your group to people.
We all have relationships, Whether it's at work, Or the people that we go to the gym with, Or that we're in school with, Or people who live in our neighborhood. And so what the Bible helps us see is, Make the most of those relationships, And invite the other Christians you're already in relationship, Into that. You've already got the relationships. Just let them be a part of that. Let me show you how this can play out. Let's say I'm building a relationship with someone who plays video games.
I mean, he's a gamer and he loves it. I don't like video games. The reason being, I'm not very good at video games. I stopped at the Nintendo 64, GoldenEye 007, Which is the greatest game of all time. You cannot argue with that. It's true.
So that as video game systems got better and more complex, I was, Like I was behind the curve. Like my roommates, When we were in college, Would invite me to play Halo, Just so they could get their kill count up. I mean, I'm literally the guy in the corner with a gun, Doing this. And they're all three standing behind me, Just waiting for me to turn around. They don't even care who gets the kill. They're just loving watching me, Because I can't, I can't control.
I'm all over the place. I'm not good at video games. But let's say I'm hanging out with my group, And my group leader says, Hey, Anybody that we should be praying for, Anybody you're building a relationship with currently? I say, Yeah, I've got a friend of mine who, Well, Tell us about him. He loves playing video games. And Tom goes, I like playing video games.
Can I get in on that? And immediately you go, Why did I think of that? Tom plays like 15 to 20 hours of video games a week. Now that's another conversation for another day. But Tom's good at video games.
And so Tom and I and my friend, We begin hanging out. And of course I play with them, So, You know, They can get their kill counts out and whatever. But that's a picture of you inviting somebody in, A Christian that you're friends with, Into a relationship that you already have. And that actually goes hand in hand with the second thing. Use your gifts. We believe that all Christians have been given gifts by Jesus for the edification of the church.
So you are not like everybody else that you're in relationship with. You've got different skills and abilities. And inside the context of a group, You actually get to use your gifts for the benefit of helping people come to know Jesus. I want to tell you all a real life story of how that happened. Okay. And I'm going to use real names because these are real people.
When Chet and I and our families moved down to be a part of Planting Mill City, Chet worked at Sears. Okay. At Sears, Chet met a guy named Jack. So he started building a relationship with Jack. They kind of became friends. Started hanging out some outside of work.
Maybe grabbing lunch. Playing some video games together. And then Russ, Who was the first person who became a Christian as a part of our church, Also worked at Sears. And was also a part of the community group that Chet was in. So they all started getting together and playing video games.
So different people using different skill sets. Then Chet invited Jack to come to a Halloween party that his group was throwing. Okay. There had to be someone who was organizing the party. There had to be someone who was communicating with all the people what they were supposed to bring. There were people who served and made food and set up and kept it kind of going.
There were people who were just fun and just relational. They were playing cornhole and can jam. And so Jack shows up to this thing. And, you know, I mean, you've had a conversation with Chet. And, you know, I mean, maybe it goes somewhere. Maybe it doesn't.
Who knows? But there are two super friendly guys in that group, Boneweed and Dan Stoiku, Who spent that night getting to know Jack. Just got in conversation with him. And then after that night, they started inviting them to come to their house. So he started hanging out with their families.
They invited him into their homes. And then Jack started hanging out with their community group. And eventually Jack became a Christian. You see that? That's different people within a community group using their different gifts. To throw that Halloween party.
To open up their homes. Someone had to eventually share the gospel with Jack. So we actually get to use our gifts. And that really takes the pressure off. I think all of us think, I've got to know exactly what to say. And I've got to do all this stuff.
But the New Testament tells us that it's done in the context of relationships. The third thing is this. Have rhythms. Have rhythms. That's kind of common language in our day. You'll say something like, you know, just going through the normal rhythms of life.
And what you're saying is, all the stuff that you're doing on a regular basis. That's what rhythms of life means. Well, we encourage all of our community groups to have rhythms. Rhythms of life where they spend time together. So obviously that's going to include coming to a gathering on Sundays.
That's going to include their group meeting time. But it's not just that. That we have some of the things that are going on in some of our groups. Some of the guys get together for lunch during the week. The girls have girls' nights. Some of the groups get together outside and they go and serve.
We've got stay-at-home moms that go to the zoo together. And try to invite their friends. And here's the deal. The more that you guys are actually spending time together in relationship with other believers. The more opportunities you have to bring other people in. Okay, so if the invitation is, hey, come to my house.
We're going to read the Bible and repent of sin. It's going to take a special kind of person to respond to that and say yes. But if your invitation is, hey, come watch a football game and eat some ribs. I'm down. What time? Do I need to bring anything else?
I want to make this the best party ever. So when it says they went two by two, mission is done together. So I want us to change our mindset from just being individuals, being renegade cowboy Christians out on our own trying to do this to actually beginning to do it together. Okay? So we go together.
Go back to the text. Look at verses 8 and verse 9. It says he charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff. No bread. No bag. No money in their belts.
But to wear sandals. And not to put on two tunics. Okay, I think part of Jesus' design here is to emphasize that they needed to totally depend on God for this to happen and go well. Not on themselves. Not on their provisions. Not on their provisions.
That they needed God to open up the doors and to provide for them as they were going. God's setting this up in a way where they're not able to take credit for what actually happens. And so second practical thing that we can do to begin to be on mission to be sent is to trust God. Now, you may hear that and go, okay, thanks preacher boy. I know I'm supposed to trust God. It's like, no, but actually trust God.
If we believe, if we believe that salvation begins and ends with God, that God draws people and through his Holy Spirit leads them to repent, leads them to a correct understanding of who Jesus is, leads them to turn from their sin and to have a life of following him, then we're going to treat it that way. We're going to trust God. And for us as Christians, one of the ways that we express our trust in God on a regular basis is that we pray. That's what prayer is. It's communication with God and asking him to work in our lives and on behalf of other people, whether it be sickness or salvation, whatever it is, that's us coming.
God's saying, I trust you. We need you actively at work here. So if that's true, if that's how we trust God is through praying. If I could listen to your prayer life, would it be abundantly clear what you want to see Jesus do in the life of your friends? Would your dependence on God be evident if I could listen to your prayers? Which of your unbelieving friends did you pray for by name this week?
Because the truth is, if you're not praying, if we're not praying, we're not actually on mission. We're not a part of the mission. There is no mission without prayer because there are no results without God. I'm going to say that again. There is no mission without prayer because there are no results without God. So we pray.
That's part of how we actively begin to be on mission is that we pray. The first thing you can do is pray for yourself. You may hear that and go, well, that's kind of selfish, isn't it? No. That's what we talked about in our Prayer in the Holy Spirit series is that God is our good Father. And we're needy children.
And he wants us to ask him for stuff because we're needy children so that he can send the Holy Spirit. So part of the way you begin to do this is you pray for yourself. You're praying for your eyes to be open to the people who are around you. You're praying that God would send the Holy Spirit to give you courage. You're asking for the Holy Spirit to give you the right words. You're asking the Holy Spirit to actually help you care about the people who you are around.
We need God active in us first and foremost. Then we begin to pray for people by name. Pray for people by name. And this is for you personally and for us as a group. That we actually go before the throne of God asking him to move and work in the lives of people around us. Because if we actually want to see them become Christians, we actually want to see them saved, then that's going to be the active work of God in their lives.
And I want to tell you all this. There are two guys that our group began praying for two years ago by name on a regular basis. We started praying for those two guys to become Christians, that Jesus would move and work and lead them to repent. And both of those guys have become Christians, were baptized as a part of this church, and now are actively involved in community and serving to see more people become Christians. Now, as we were praying, we were also inviting them to go get lunch and spending time together. But that's a confidence booster for our group.
We get together and we remember, Man, two years ago this person wasn't saved and we prayed and God saved them. So that's part of how we can practically do it. Third thing is this, pray for others to go. Pray for others, the people who are in your group. Pray for other people in our church. Pray for Christians in our city and in our state and in our country and in other countries.
Jesus says, Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send out laborers because the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers few. We're praying for opportunities that God would open up the right doors. We get to join other people in their mission. Here's the deal. The more you begin to pray about people and pray about the people in your group who they're trying to reach, the more you begin to care. The more you're willing to invest your own time, your own energy, your own effort.
The stuff that we just talked about, working together as a group to see that actually be possible. Jump back to the text, verse 10. It says this, And he said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. Okay, there's a cultural thing going on here. In the Old Testament, when the prophets would go into a town to proclaim the message, if it was received, they would stay there and let their blessings stay there.
Okay? If they rejected the message, the sign that they would do as a sign of condemnation against them was that they would shake their sandals. They would shake the dust from their sandals and move on. So that's what he's talking about here, is that look for those type of people that will receive you. And again, what we've been doing in this series is saying, here's what Jesus did with his disciples. Now, how do we learn from it?
And specifically in this text, he's actually sending the disciples out. They're going out. So it's not really in the context of their day-to-day lives. It's more, he's actually sending them to places. And the church is still a sending agency. We still send people to other cities and other states and to other countries to share the gospel and to plant more churches.
That's why our church partnered with City Church for our gift project. Last year, we gave $2,300. And 25 people from Columbia, South Carolina moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. And I'm happy to tell you that they have since doubled moving there. So now they've got 25 that moved in and 25 that were actually from Knoxville.
And starting in January, they're going to be beginning like a worship service. It's like we've got to be a part of that. That's why we're a part of a church planting network with them and with three other churches. That's why in the future, we want to partner with unreached people groups and other parts of our world to see them become Christians. So the church does send out.
But for us, what we're looking at today is how do we take this same idea and apply it to right now? How do I apply this to the everyday? And here's how we say it. Here's how we say what we're looking at in this passage. Build with those who want to build. So in this passage, it says, Go to people who will welcome you into their homes.
Some of the other gospel accounts say like, Go to people of peace. People who are open and receptive to your message. And if people aren't, just shake the dust from your sandals and keep moving. And so for us, we want to build with those who want to build. That means we're going to pour the majority of our time and energy into those who are receptive. Now, this isn't an excuse to be lazy or to not be persistent.
It's a strategy thing. If someone is open and receptive to the gospel, you want to spend the majority of your time there. There's a lady in my community group that when she talks about me inviting her to be a part of our group, she says, Well, I basically just ran out of excuses. Yep. I'm persistent, if nothing else. I think the word she used was annoying, but let's not split hairs.
But what it's talking about here is building with those who want to build, going after those who are receptive. So how do we do that? Reach people in your calendar. Reach people in your calendar. Here's what I mean. Okay.
What? Y'all don't like the popping sound effects as we talk? Here's what I mean. We are surrounded by people constantly. The people that you work with, the people that you are in relationship with. And honestly, these are the easiest people for us to reach.
And one of the most common excuses that people give for not being on mission is that, Man, I don't have time. I don't have time to add something else into my schedule. Well, here's the beauty of seeing all of life as your place, as your means for being on mission. First of all, it kind of makes that excuse crumble apart. But that means that every situation, every relationship, every circumstance that you find yourself in is an opportunity for you to build relationships and to be on mission.
Work, school, coworkers, I already said work, neighbors, friends, family, the person at the gas station, the person at the DMV. All of those are opportunities for us to begin building relationships. So you can ask two questions to kind of figure out what are my options here? How do I spend my time? How do I spend my time? Who has God already placed me around?
How do I spend my time? What are the things that I do? And who are the people that God has already placed me around? And for the majority of us in this room, whether it be school or work, that is the place that you spend the majority of your time outside of anything else. I mean, we spend so much time at work or at school. And so we actually begin to look for ways to be in relationship with the people that we work with.
Here's how that shows up. Just imagine for a second that instead of going out to eat, going to eat lunch by yourself or maybe even just going to sit in your car for a couple of minutes of peace and quiet, you actually began inviting the people that you work with to go have lunch with you or you began going and sitting in the break room to look for people that you could have a conversation with, to begin building a relationship with. What if the people that you actually asked, how are you doing, that you actually stopped and listened? I'm for real. Like these are the people that you're in school with or that you were with.
They really don't have an option to not be around you. And so you get to begin to be strategic. All the other things we've already talked about, like praying and asking for God to be active in their lives. And then as you begin to talk with them and build relationships, you're going, okay, God, help me actually listen. Help me be able to share good news with them. Help me be able to encourage them.
Help me to be able to help guide them in the life situations that they may have going on. Before I started working for our church, I worked at Dick's Sporting Goods for two years. And I got to experience this firsthand. There's a guy that's a part of our church whose name is David. And David and I worked in the same department at work. And we just, I just talked to him.
We built a relationship. We talked about things that we had in common. We talked about Clemson. We talked about our love for golf. Then I found out, like he's got a pretty odd last name, that one of his cousins was one of my professors at PC.
And then we went out to lunch together. And then he and his wife started hanging out with our community group. Like it was just building normal relationships with someone who was receptive. Let's see. Let's see if I can tell another story.
My group's laughing because I tell these stories all the time. But it's not even just in the good times. It can also be in the frustrating situations. So there was this time, I know you're all going to find this hard to believe. There was a time when I did something at work that I wasn't supposed to do. I was hitting golf balls in the golf simulator when I was supposed to be helping people.
And someone went online and wrote a comment about how nobody could help them because he was too busy working on his chip shots in the range. And Tony Ando was the store manager at the time. But they didn't know who it was. And so they went to the golf pro and said, who was it? Who was watching it? And the golf pro was, I really don't know who it was.
And he came to me and he goes, look, dude, this was you. You were watching the department, right? And I was like, yes, I was watching. He's like, look, man, I'll just tell him I didn't know who it was. I was like, man, I can't do that. I'm asking you to be dishonest and I'm not being real.
So I went to Tony's office and I sat down and said, hey, I just want you to know I was the person who was watching the golf department. I'm sorry. I was doing something that I should not have been doing. I just want to apologize because that's not who I am. I'm a Christian. And so I just wanted to ask for your forgiveness.
And from that moment, the relationship that Tony and I had changed because I was willing to go and admit a mistake. And even in admitting my mistakes, was able to share the gospel in a way that I had not been able to previously. That's what I'm saying. We've got all these different opportunities at work. So begin reaching the people who are in your calendar.
The second thing is this. Be a friend who is a Christian. Simply be a friend who is a Christian. Another reason that people give for not being on mission is that I'm afraid. Now, they may not say this. They may say things like, I don't want to hurt people's feelings or I don't want to lose friends over this or I don't want to mess this up.
I don't know enough. But if we actually believe the gospel is good news for all of life, all of that just kind of falls apart. Because ultimately, we get to do this with other people as we're praying for God to be active and at work. So we just get to be a friend who is a Christian. It's not always going to mean that you just come out with your Bible laid open and just telling them all of this stuff. Be a friend who's a Christian.
You begin listening. Here's how you do it. You begin listening to what's going on in their life. And when they come to you and ask, what should I do about this in my marriage? What should I do about this with my money? The way you get to respond is, well, I'm a Christian.
So that impacts how I think about this. But here's how it is. Here's how I would handle that. Here's what I believe to be true. Nobody's offended by that because you're talking about what's true for you. You get to begin looking for people who've invited you to things.
Who's the person that always wants to come talk to you at work? Or talk to you at school? That may be the very person that God wants you to reach. When you go for walks in the neighborhood, who's the one person who's like waving to you and wants to talk to you? Like, go be their friend who's a Christian. I already told you a little bit about how that shows up at work.
How it shows up in the frustrating situations. It's all of life. If following Jesus is primary for you, it's eventually going to come out in the conversations that you have. You don't have to put this weird pressure on yourself to tell them everything about Jesus. You begin to listen to their life and love them and serve them well. And eventually God will open the door, whether it's through you or somebody in your group, to share the gospel with them.
So the way we answer Jesus' call to be sent out is that we go together, that we trust God, and that we build with those who want to build. So the question becomes, for those who have answered Jesus' call to come follow him, the question becomes, are we answering that call to be sent out? Are we actually going and sharing the gospel? Are we looking for those opportunities all around us? Because there are no unsent Christians. And for those who have been radically changed by the gospel, who realize that Jesus came on mission to save us, to give us ultimate fulfillment and life in him, how much more do we want to go out and share that with other people?
And we get to do it with other people in the context of normal, everyday life. We get to begin praying and praying for other people that our group members have relationships with. That we get to build with those who actually want to build, throwing parties and going to football games and doing all the things that God's called us to do because there are no unsent Christians. We get to follow Jesus in our normal lives going out. And so Raz and Isaac are going to come back up and lead us in a song as we close. But I want to help us see how we can respond in three ways today.
The first one is this. If you're not a Christian, the first thing that we talked about this morning is the way that you can respond this morning. Jesus' call to you first and foremost is to come to him. And we invite you to do that, to come to him, to repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus and begin a lifelong, eternal relationship with him. If you're a Christian and you've listened to what we've been talking about today and you know that you've been sent, but you're thinking about work and you're thinking about family and you're just realizing, I haven't been doing this. That's part of what Jesus calls us to do.
And so my invitation to you this morning is to repent, to repent of that. And then the third thing is change. Actually begin to go. Don't just leave here and go, man, that's such an inspiring message. We should be on a mission. That's great.
No, actually, your life begins to change. My hope for you is that you walk out of this room today thinking specifically about people at work or people that you're in school with. And you begin thinking about the conversations that you're going to have with the people in your group about how you can begin to serve together, how you can invite each other in on the mission. And that as the years go by as a part of our church, we would see more people become Christians and more community groups multiplied as Jesus does work in the city as we join him on his mission. Let's pray.
God, we can't do this without you. We don't have the ability to. We can't change people's minds. We can't change their hearts. And so first and foremost, God, we pray that you would be working in the lives of the people around us. God, we thank you for the wonderful opportunity you've given us to actually go out and share the gospel.
God, I pray that we would leave today and actually begin making plans for how we can reach our friends and our neighbors and our coworkers. God, there's so many people who need to hear the good news of the gospel, and you've given us the opportunity to do that. God, I pray that through our community's own mission that you would begin to do work, that you would help people repent of their sin, that you would help them place faith in you. God, that you would give us courage and boldness and joy as we follow you in it. In Jesus' name, amen.
When the Spirit Moves in Power
Transcript
But happy, happy Labor Day weekend. If it's your first time hanging out with us, my name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors, and we're coming to the conclusion of a little two-week series that we've been doing. I was reading recently in a book, and the author shared a story that I want to share with you guys. In 1857, there was this young guy named Jeremiah Lanphier who had just been given a new job as a pastor on the south side of Manhattan. It was a really small church, and like anybody who's going into a new job, he was excited.
He was excited to get to know people, to start spending time with them. But it didn't take long for Jeremiah to become discouraged and frustrated, because it seemed like every person he met didn't have time to talk about God, wanted nothing to do with the church. It was like people just bypassed him in such a fast-paced city. And so not really knowing what else to do, he decided to pray. And as he was praying, an overwhelming sense of God's Spirit, God's presence came over top of him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
And so what he decided was, okay, I'm going to just invite people to pray with me and ask for God to continue doing this. That was his new plan of attack. So he decided that one day every week, he would put a sign outside of the mission, inviting people to come in and pray with him during the lunch hour. So that was his new plan. So he put out the sign, the day came, he went inside and waited.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. A half hour went by and nobody. And again, defeated and discouraged, he went to close up shop when six people walked in the door. And he was excited because people had come to pray.
So he just, he prayed with those six people. And he was really excited about it. The next week he put the sign back out, 20 people showed up. The next week, 40 people showed up. And those 40 people decided, no, let's, let's, this is great. Let's do this every day.
So they started meeting every day at the lunch hour until after a couple of months, there were hundreds of people filling the auditorium of that church at the lunch hour every day praying. They outgrew that space and they started meeting in other places all around Manhattan. And in a couple of months time, reporters estimated that there were nearly 10,000 Christians crying out to God at the lunch hour in Manhattan. And in just nine months time, 50,000 people came to Christ in Manhattan at a time when New York's population did not exceed 800,000. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Like doesn't that like raise every hair on your arms? Just going, I want to see God do something like that. I want to see God move and work in Columbia. I want to see an outpouring of the spirit where there's thousands of people coming to Christ. In fact, the pages of Christian history are filled with stories like this. It's happening right now with the underground church in China.
I mean, there's just thousands of people coming to Christ. We see stories like Peter in the book of Acts. And every time I hear these stories, I just, I long for that. Like I want to see God doing a work like that, outpouring his spirit. And what we talked about last week is that as Christians, we understand that prayer and the Holy Spirit are vitally important to the life of a Christian. But sometimes we have a hard time wrapping our mind around like, how do I pray on a regular basis?
How do I see the Holy Spirit moving and working in my life in the day to day? And we made the connection that the reason that we pray in the first place is that we need God. So in the same way that a child is wholly dependent upon its parent to get the things that it needs to take care of it, we relate to God in the same way. And God's answer to everything that we need is to send the Holy Spirit. So we get to be needy children with a good father.
And the good gift that our father wants to give us is the Holy Spirit. And so when we're praying, we're praying about everything and we're asking for God to send the Holy Spirit to be active and at work. I was talking with one of our group leaders this week and he was telling me, he said, you know, I've been a Christian for a while and I pray. But just in this last week have begun to pray. Instead of God help me have a good day at work, I've begun to pray. Holy Spirit, help me do what I need to do at work today.
Help me reach the people that I need to. Help me interact with these people. And he just said it made all the difference in the world because he was asking for God to be at work in his life. That's what the point of prayer is. And so what we're looking at today is a specific prayer in the Bible where the guy is praying about God bringing about restoration, bringing about redemption. And as we look at this passage, we're not going to see specifically the Holy Spirit talked about here.
So as he's praying for restoration, he's not asking for the Holy Spirit. But we know on this side of the cross and in light of what we looked at last week is Jesus teaches us to pray. When we're asking for God to redeem, when we're asking for him to restore, what we're actually wanting, what we need to be asking for is the Holy Spirit. And so the question we're trying to answer this morning is if that's the case, if we should be praying for the Holy Spirit and God desires to work and he's going to use the Holy Spirit to do it, how does that show up? Like what exactly is that going to look like in our lives?
So before we hop into the text, let's pray and ask God to open his word to us. God, we don't have the ability to comprehend your word outside of you moving and working through your Holy Spirit. So God, I pray that these would not be my own words, that they would be yours. God, I pray that there would be encouragement this morning as we understand the point of prayer and what we're actually asking for and how you desire to send the Holy Spirit to be everything that we need. In Jesus' name, amen. Grab a Bible, turn to Psalm 126.
So if you grabbed one of those blue and white Bibles in the chairs, you're going to be turning to page 333. We're going to be looking at Psalm 126 today. And if you haven't spent a lot of time in the Psalms, I would encourage you to. They're amazing. It's basically a collection of songs and poetry that kind of span the range of human emotion from love to anger to despair to worship. And the majority of the Psalms are actually written as prayers.
So they're prayers to God. In the Psalm that we're looking at today, the author is yearning for the same type of outpouring of the Spirit from the story that we just saw in Manhattan. It's the same kind of thing. He wants to see God move and work. And before we start reading, if you look, look just above the text. So if you grab a Bible, you may see it says, Song of Ascents.
Okay, all that means is this is one of the songs that the Israelites would sing, they would recite, they would pray as they were going up to Jerusalem to worship. And it was almost as if they were setting their minds on who it was they were going to worship, why they were going to worship. And so it kind of in light of that, I want us to be reading it. This is the people reminding themselves of who God is and how they ought to be relating to him. So Psalm 126 is just six verses, but there's a lot here.
Verse one. So the writer of this Psalm is recalling a time when God came to the rescue of his people. So he says, God, when you restored the fortunes of Zion and that word Zion, it's just used throughout the Bible to either refer to the people of God or the place where the people of God were. He said, you came and you restored the fortunes of Zion. And it must have been amazing. And while we can't see it, we can get a picture of how they're describing it.
He says, we were like those who dream. It's one of those like you're wiping your eyes trying to figure out what's it's that type of moment. We were like those who dream. Our mouth was filled with laughter. Our tongues with shouts of joy. We celebrated as a church family last week the return of college football.
Hallelujah. And so some of you hopefully have enjoyed that all week long. It has been a great weekend of college football. There's even college football tonight and tomorrow night. It's a glorious Labor Day weekend, guys. And most of you were probably glued to your televisions on Thursday night watching the Gamecocks play.
Okay. There was not a whole lot of expectation with the Gamecocks going into this season. Everyone was kind of wondering what the must champ era was going to look like. And according to the first half, it wasn't going to look very good. Because the Gamecocks went in to halftime down 10-0. But then they came out in the second half.
Perry Orth started completing some passes. Some of those wide receivers started making some catches. And Carolina found themselves deep into the fourth quarter tied 10-10 with Vanderbilt. And so they're way out from the end zone. It becomes fourth down. And the field goal unit comes onto the field.
And the smallest guy on the team, which I can't help but point out, guys, his last name's Fry. So a small Fry comes out onto the field at about 130 pounds. And that joker kicked that ball. And it would have been good for another six to seven yards. He crushed it. And the Carolina fans that were in that stadium went nuts.
They were losing their mind and high-fiving. And I'm looking at the screen going, it's just Vanderbilt, guys. Calm down. And all across our city and all across our state, people, like, you may not have even known the person. Like, the people in the stadium, they might not have even known them. But they're high-fiving.
They're excited. That's the type of unbridled joy that the psalmist is describing. We couldn't believe it. We were like those who dreamed. This is unbelievable. It was so unbelievable that even the surrounding nations were looking at it going, the Lord has done great things for them.
Not a God. The God. The Lord. The Lord has done great things for them. And so the guy who wrote this Psalm is remembering what God has done in the past. And in verse 4, he begins praying.
So in light of what God has done in the past, he then brings his request to God. So this is verse 4. He says this. Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Okay, so he started praying now. He's using the exact same language that he used up in verse 1 to remember what God had done in the past.
So restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Maybe your Bible says Negev with a V. Maybe it's Negev with a B. There's an exclamation point. So he's getting hype right now.
He's really excited about what he's praying and asking God to do. He says, restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. So the writer of this Psalm turns out of thanksgiving for what God had done in the past into a request. He says, okay, God, what you did, what you did in our past, how you rescued, how you redeemed, we want you to do that again. We need you to bring rescue and salvation and mercy.
God, come. Come to our rescue. And it's not hard to get the gist of what he's saying here. God redeemed in the past and there's a situation now where they need him again. And this is not, this is very akin to what we looked at last week when Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray. The whole point was they were needy and they needed God's active work in their lives.
Like they needed the Holy Spirit to be moving and working. And they're in the same situation right now saying, God, bring about restoration. So it's not hard to understand what they're saying, but they are using terms that we wouldn't use on a regular basis. And I think if we'll take some time to just kind of unpack what they're saying, to talk about what's going on in their culture, it'll help us have a better understanding of how we ought to be praying. So you guys know this.
Israel is located in the Middle East, which is one of the like harshest climates in the world. It is mostly desert. So like picture the cartoon version of the coyote, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner and like the tumbleweeds rolling. And like it's that type of dry. It's arid.
It's hot. It's windy. Rains are sporadic. And the culture at this time was based off of farming. Oh, boy. It's like, could you imagine trying to plant crops in this kind of an environment?
And some of you, some of you have green thumbs like you. Maybe you've got some tomato plants or maybe you've got a garden. I know one of our group leader actually has a garden on her balcony of their second floor apartment. And you walk outside and it's kind of like you're in a jungle. And there's some spices over here and some tomato plants. It's actually pretty cool.
I'm impressed that it hasn't been scorched by the Columbia sun. But we don't talk about things in terms of farming in 21st century America because we don't interact with it on a regular basis. And so the language he's using, I want you to imagine that you've got to plant a garden. So you're thinking about the seeds that you're planting and the water and the sunlight. And the place that you had to do it is, oh, I don't know, the top of the Grand Canyon. And you've got a pretty good picture.
You've got an idea of what they were up against. And what the psalmist is praying is for God to restore. And the language that he's using is that of farming, that of bringing about growth, bringing about a harvest. And he's giving us two ways that God does that. So there's an Old Testament scholar named Derek Kidner.
He says that this Psalm is basically showing us two ways that God works in the hearts of people. And so one of the ways we say that, so look back at verse 5. Look at verse 5 again. It says this, Those who sow, so sow just means plant, Those who sow in tears shall reap, that means gather, with shouts of joy. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. Those who sow in tears.
That sounds terrible. Like the psalmist is imagining land so dry that individual seeds had to be planted and like watered with tears. Like you know you're in bad shape if to get your tomato plant to grow, you've got to like cry over top of it. You know you're in really bad shape. And that's what he's imagining. But the psalmist understands that even though that may require exhausting patience and excruciating labor, the growth would come.
That's the way the verse ends. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. And what he's saying here is that part of God's response to our prayer, part of his answer for his presence and for him to be working, is to actually send to the Holy Spirit to help us labor and sweat and work and toil on the grind to see growth come about. Jesus talks about this in the Psalms. Not in the Psalms, in the Gospels. He tells a story about a guy sowing seeds and he says, some of it fell on the road and some of it fell among rocks and some of it fell among thorns, but some of it fell among good soil.
And that produced a crop of 30, 60, 100 fold. Like even in Jesus' story, he's talking about how hard it is to sow seeds and to be planting. And the truth is, we often see God work like this through us. So we talk about planting the seeds of the Gospel, spreading the Gospel in the lives of people that God has placed us around. So maybe for you, that's the place that you work.
Maybe that's with your neighbors. Some of you, that's with your family. So like with your kids or your spouse. And it's painstaking. Your investment in their lives is just hard. It's difficult.
There are sleepless nights and tireless days. And you're shedding tears because it's just difficult. You can all think about those relationships right now where you've been investing for so long and you're just not seeing any kind of result. You're not seeing God at work. So maybe it's a co-worker.
It's someone that you work with and you've been talking to this girl about her relationship with her boyfriend. And you've been sharing the Gospel with her and you tell her that her worth and value doesn't have to come from that guy who sounds like a jerk based off of the stories. It can actually come from Jesus and she's actually, she's receptive to that. And you run into her the next week at work and she's really excited to tell you that she has since moved in with her boyfriend and wants to go on a double date with you and your husband. What the heck? Right?
You hear that and you're like, oh, what happened? What happened to the good conversation? Or maybe there's a guy that you work with that you've been inviting him to go get wings with the guys in your group. He came to your poker night. He's kind of a skeptical type person so he asks a lot of questions. But he's starting to see how Jesus is the answer to those questions.
And he comes by you in the warehouse. Hey, dude, I got that job in Philly. And like while his hand's in there, you just want to like get one of those jabs in. Dude, I didn't know you were looking for a job. Ah, yeah, man, I've been trying to get out of this dump for a long time. What about the countless hours that I've spent like pouring into what happens to this guy now?
Some of you have been like investing in the lives of your children. So like you're trying to teach them how to obey and like why obeying is good and should be motivated by the gospel. And they just got the third note sent home this week. And school's only been in session for two weeks and you're running out of patience. Your investment in their life is difficult. Some of you, you've been working in your marriage to really have the gospel come to bear.
You're trying to learn how to communicate. But they said that comment again. They brought that thing up again and you exploded and now you're in other rooms. You're having a hard time seeing it. It's hard. Planting seeds, sowing seeds is difficult and painstaking.
Some of you, maybe you've got some neighbors. You've been building with them. You've been investing in their lives. Like you've been watching their kids so they can go on date nights. You've been helping them do some yard work. And then in a discussion late one night, you point out an area of their life where there's some sin.
And they automatically become flaky. Not answering their phone. Not wanting to come to the door. They've just checked out. Sowing seeds is difficult. And it's even more difficult to see the results.
But what we're seeing in this Psalm is that some gospel work is just like that. It's long and laborious and costly. But that's not the only way. That's part of it. We get another picture of how God wants to bring about restoration. Go back to verse 4.
So we kind of skipped over this. We're going back to now. This is the beginning of the prayer. He says, Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Okay, so now the Negev, I already told you Israel is kind of a desert climate.
The Negev was like the desertiest part of the desert. Like it was the hottest of the hot. It was the, you see just the bones laying around everywhere. It's a rough patch in Israel. But every once in a while, torrential rains would come through that area.
And the small stream beds that kind of wiggle through the land would fill up, would overflow, and would flood the land. The flat land would be covered in water. And the land was so dry that it would soak up all of that water. And almost in a 24-hour period, it would go from looking like a desert to a green field. The landscape would be transformed in an instant. Like it was just sitting there waiting for it.
And the psalmist, as he's writing that, he's praying and asking, God, do that. Do the miraculous. Take desert and turn it into living land. Take it and make it green. Bring life. That's the miraculous.
So when you look at sowing seeds, and God bringing about this type of flood, the streams in the Negev, it's unbelievable. And that's what he's praying for. And that's what the story from Manhattan is. It's God sending his Holy Spirit and working in a big way. 50,000 people coming to Christ in just a nine-month period. I referenced the underground church in China.
Within the last century, the missionaries who had been serving in China got kicked out. And Christianity as a whole began to be persecuted. So the church had to go underground. So they just had to basically be the church in hiding. And so the handful of Christians, and it was still a pretty decent number, in the last century, the best estimates they can give is that the church in China is currently 60 million plus in the face of persecution, where they cannot openly be Christians and share the gospel. It's the same thing that we see.
If you read the book of Acts, that's all about the big movement of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus dies on the cross, rises from the grave, and ascends into heaven. And when he ascends into heaven, there's basically 120 believers. And he tells them to wait, wait to do anything until the Holy Spirit comes. And the Holy Spirit shows up at Pentecost. Peter stands up and preaches.
And 3,000 people get saved that day alone. The gospel begins to spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. And within the century, they estimated that there were one million Christians. That's a huge move of the Holy Spirit. And every time I hear stories like that, I just want that. God was doing stuff that people laboring could not accomplish.
It was miraculous. And let's be real. If we're looking for God to bring about restoration, to bring about healing, to bring about salvation, and our two options are for us to sow seeds with tears, so to be empowered by the Spirit to do that, or for God to send the Spirit like streams in the Negev, like a flood, I don't know about you, this is the one I want. For lots of reasons. I want as many people to come to know Jesus as possible. I want them to know the hope and the life and the joy found in Him.
The other part is, I know what this is like. This is what life is like for a lot of us. Where we're sowing seeds and we're working hard. And if I can just have the flood, I'll take that because I know what I'm struggling with and what I'm working through right now. That even though the verse ends with, we'll reap with songs of joy, it still makes it difficult. And the truth is, if our only option was that we, like for restoration, was that we would sow seeds with tears and that's how the restoration came about, I think it would almost be easier than if we didn't know about the flood part.
But sometimes God works through us sowing seeds and tears and sometimes it comes through the flood. There's a story from South Korea in 1907. Christians had been there for a while. They had been sharing the gospel and there was a, it hadn't really gained traction, but there were some believers at this time. And so they decided that they would try to get all the believers together and hold a conference. And so the night came for the conference to begin.
And a man by the name of Mr. King walked up to the podium, visibly shaken. And in a trembled voice said, I must confess before God and before you that for the last several weeks I have harbored an intense hatred for Mr. Lee. And I repent before God and before you. And the room fell silent.
Because Mr. King had just admitted to hating the person who was hosting the conference. So all the eyes turned to Mr. Lee and Mr. Lee was visibly taken aback, but gathered himself and said, Mr. King, I forgive you.
And what happened next is indescribable. One reporter tried to describe it and here's what he said. What happened next was a poignant sense of mental anguish due to the conviction of sin. After Mr. King publicly repented before God and to Mr. Lee, Christians all across the room began to repent of their sin.
They began to cry out to God and to confess their sins. And they were going around the room, going to their brothers and sisters and repenting of sin. And they were shedding tears because they were broken over it. What began in the early evening continued on to 5 a.m. the next day. And the Christians gathered the next night and the next night and the next night. And by the end of the week, the missionaries didn't know what was going to happen because the presence of God's spirit was so strong in that place they couldn't contain it.
And so all of those Christians went back to their homes. And they sought out people that they worked with and that they lived near, people that they had harmed, people that they had sinned against, and they started repenting to them. And as they repented to them of their sin, the people began to understand the good news of the gospel and those people started becoming Christians. Within a couple of weeks, there were hundreds of new Christians in South Korea. This eventually spread to a local college campus. And by the end of the semester, 90% of the students at that college had become Christians.
Christians, the people who were in the city started traveling out into the rural areas. And then people from the rural areas were walking upwards of 200 miles to get to a city to hear what God was doing. In a year's time, 50,000 people came to Christ. Thousands of churches were planted. And the gospel began to spread to all the neighboring Asian countries. And it hasn't stopped.
If you know a South Korean Christian, you know what's up because they're not playing around. I want that. I want to see that. I want to see God do that. Within a five-mile radius of this place right here, which includes parts of downtown, there are over 60,000 people outside of a relationship with Christ. There are estimates of about 600,000 people in Lexington and Richland counties.
And if you apply those same statistics across the board, you're looking at 100, 150, possibly 200,000 people who don't know Jesus. You work with some of those people. And they don't know Jesus. You frequent the restaurants where they work and they don't know Jesus. They don't know the hope and the life and the joy found in Him. And as a church, we're not okay with that.
We want to see as many people come to Christ as possible. So when I hear stories of the Holy Spirit being poured out, I want that. I want to see streams in the Negev. I want to see God pour His Spirit out. And here's what's even harder to grasp. God wants to send those streams.
He wants to. It's all throughout the Bible. Psalm 2.8 says this, Ask me and I will make the nations your inheritance. Matthew 9.38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field. Acts 1.8 You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Matthew 28 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.
The Bible is filled with the language of God wanting to send the flood, wanting to send the streams. How do we know? Because the streams of God's mercy flow from the cross of Christ. It's the sacrifice of Jesus that actually makes true restoration possible. That every bit of sweat and labor and work that as you invest in the lives of people that God's placed you around is only a shadow of the sacrifice that Jesus made on your behalf. The song that we just sang is an old hymn.
There is a fountain. It says this, There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And you hear that and you're like, that's kind of weird language, weird imagery, but it's not. So the blood comes from Emmanuel's veins. Emmanuel means God with us. That's Jesus.
What about the blood? Sinners, that's you and I, plunged beneath the flood, lose all their guilty stains. The flood of God's mercy and salvation and rescue come from the cross of Jesus. God desires to send it incomprehensibly more than you do. Even more than you want it. So much so that he was willing to allow Jesus to go to the cross to make it possible.
So how do you reconcile those two? How do you reconcile those two ways that God moves, that God brings about restoration? When it feels, when you're praying for streams in the Negev, when you're praying for the flood, and all it feels like is you're just sowing seeds in tears. Look at verse 6. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, shall return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them. The harvest happens.
You see that? They come back with sheaves and with shouts of joy. And some of you this morning are tired. You're frustrated. You're emotionally burnt out. There are people in your life that you've just been investing in.
You've been sacrificing for. You've been pouring yourself out for it. And you're just not seeing the results. And I want you to see what this Psalm is saying. See the promise. Those who go out weeping shall return with songs of joy, carrying the results of the harvest with them.
Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't stop. Don't quit. God promises it. Don't stop.
The harvest is made possible because of Jesus. Not because of your ability to hold it together. Not because of your ability to be strong, but because of His. Keep fighting. The harvest comes. Jesus makes the harvest possible.
And here's the deal. Wanting to see God send streams in the Negev, wanting to see Him flood, doesn't stop us from continuing to sow seeds. So how do you reconcile these two? How do you reconcile them together? We keep sowing and we keep praying. We keep sowing and we keep praying.
These aren't mutually exclusive. It's not either or. It's both and. We keep sowing seeds and praying for God to send the Holy Spirit. And He's going to bring about the harvest. He promises to do it.
And sometimes it's going to be through sowing seeds. And other times it's going to be through a flood of His Spirit moving and working. Sometimes people talk about a big move of the Spirit and they use the word revival. There's a pastor in New York City. His name's Tim Keller. He's a really smart dude.
And so we're going to see what he has to say about this. I've got a quote. I want to put it on the screen. He says that revival is the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit through the ordinary means of grace. Okay, now English. Let's do English this time.
The big move of God's Spirit. So that's the intensification. Okay. Of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so it's the intensification. It's getting bigger.
It's a bigger move of God's Spirit in His normal operations. So what does the Holy Spirit do? We talk about this stuff all the time. The Holy Spirit leads us. He convicts us of sin. He leads us to repentance.
He helps us understand the Word. He is God's response to everything in our lives. He's what leads us in the day to day. He's what helps us have courage and boldness as we invest in the lives of people around us. So revival is the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit through the ordinary means of grace.
Okay, what's that? The ordinary means of grace are just the ordinary ways that God continuously works in our lives. So if you're using that farming metaphor, it's the tilling soil. It's planting seeds. It's watering them. It's the sunlight.
It's those types of things in the life of a Christian. It's the things that we know that bring about growth in us and growth in the lives of people around us. It's preaching the gospel. It's reading the Bible. It's praying. It's repenting of sin.
It's actually being invested in church community. It's going out and serving and being on mission. Like revival is not so much the Holy Spirit doing a new thing as it is pouring great power on the things that normal Christians are already doing. And so our response this morning, some of us, what we need to hear is, is keep sowing. Keep sowing seeds. Keep pursuing the ordinary means of grace.
Keep doing the ordinary while you're praying for God to do the extraordinary. And there's a ton of ways this shows up, but I've got four. I just want to show us this morning. Preach the gospel. Preach the gospel to yourself and to others. The gospel is the life-changing good news.
It is not just good news that it's salvation. It is good news for all of life, which means that as Christians, we're thinking about how does the gospel impact me at work? How does the gospel impact me as I'm a dad or as a husband? Like, how does the gospel impact that? It means that we're actually opening our Bibles and asking God to show us and to help us be obedient. It means we're looking at the people that we work with and listening to their stories and what's going on in their lives.
And we're asking, how is the gospel good news here? How can I share the gospel with this person? That's the ordinary stuff of Christians. And we're praying for God to do the extraordinary, which is to actually cause belief, which is to actually bring about salvation. Some of us need to be praying for our entire floor at work to be saved. Some of us need to pray for our entire school to be saved because God can do that.
And so we do the ordinary while praying for the extraordinary. The other thing is this, we repent of sin. The Bible is clear that there is nothing that grieves the Holy Spirit more than unconfessed sin. Some of you may be sitting there this morning and you know, you know what God is doing in you right now. You know the sin that you're pursuing and you're not repenting of it and you're going, where's God's presence? Where am I?
I'm not seeing him move. I'm not seeing him work. Part of the way the Holy Spirit moves and works is through the repentance of sin. That's what happened in the story from Korea. That's what we're fighting for in our community groups through openness and honesty. It's the ordinary stuff.
And we're praying for God to do the extraordinary. In a culture where the mantra is you do you, do whatever feels best, we're praying for people to be convicted of sin and to follow what the Bible says. We're praying for the extraordinary while we do the ordinary. We persist in prayer. This is really what we spent most of our time talking about last week, is that we understand that we're needy. That's the story of the guy going to his house at midnight.
That's asking, seeking, knocking, persistently asking for God to be at work and to send his Holy Spirit. And we pray about everything. Work, family, relationships. There's nothing that we can't ask for the Holy Spirit to be involved in. And the fourth thing is that we're the church. Be the church.
Be invested in God's means to save the world. That's what the book of Acts is. That's what the New Testament is. It's Jesus continuing to work. So we do the ordinary while praying for the extraordinary.
This church began as seven people in a house. It is no longer. There have been people who have met Jesus and have been baptized. And there are disciples who are making disciples. And there is one group that became two groups that became four groups that is now six groups. It's the extraordinary.
We keep sowing seeds and praying for the flood. In South Korea before that conference, just a few months, just a few months before that conference, the missionaries got together. And they had been there for 23 years and they were tired. They were ready to give up. They had all but decided to pack their bags and go home. They had spent 23 years preaching the gospel and repenting of sin and praying and being the church with very little results.
And what God did through the ordinary means of grace was intensified the move of the Holy Spirit. The move of the Holy Spirit came through the ordinary means of grace. It started by repenting of sin and took the country and surrounding Asian nations by storm. So we keep sowing seeds, praying for God to send the flood. And so in this two-week series, what we've seen is that we're needy. We need God.
We need His active work. We need His presence. And so God wants us to pray, asking for the Holy Spirit. And as we do that, we pursue the ordinary means of grace, asking for God to move and work. So what does that look like for us?
For us as a church, that means we're a gospel-centered community on mission. It means everything. It means we preach the gospel. It means we read the Bible. It means we're pursuing Jesus. It means we're preaching the gospel on Sundays.
It means we're sharing the gospel where we go. And we're existing in community, in biblical community with each other, where we bear one another's burdens and we love one another and we fight alongside one another. And we're on mission to see more people meet Jesus in our city. It's the ordinary. And we're asking God to do the extraordinary. The way our church continues to grow is through the multiplication of healthy groups.
Josh said that earlier. Most of you are here because you got invited into a community group. Someone that was in a group invited you. And so you want to know the flood that we're praying for? And I want you to grab a card in front of you. Grab a card and grab a pen.
They're in the seats right there in front of you. Grab a card, grab a pen. You want to know what we're praying for? Remember, we're praying for 24 healthy community groups in 2019. Do the math. Yeah, we're six now.
That means it's got to double and become 12. And it's got to double again and become 24. We're praying for God to bring about 24 community groups by 2019. By the end of 2019. Because if we've done that, that means disciples are being made. People are meeting Jesus.
Leaders are being trained. Our city is being impacted by the gospel. God is doing work. And it happens through us doing the normal things that Christians are to do. And so we're going to spend some time praying. The band's not going to come up quite yet.
We're actually going to spend some time praying over these things. Like I said, some of you are tired this morning. Some of you are having a hard time seeing God active and at work. And you're struggling. And you want to. Like you need to see Him at work.
And so I want you to write those four things down. Preach the gospel. I want you to write that down. Repent of sin. Persist in prayer. Be the church.
Write those down. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to have some music playing in the room. We're just going to spend some time praying. So I'm going to kind of call these things out.
And I want you to start praying. I want you to start praying and asking God to be active and at work in you. For God to send the Holy Spirit to be working and moving. So that you can sow seeds. So you can not faint or grow weary.
Because it's hard. But Jesus promises that the harvest comes. He does work in it. So all across the room, I want you to bow your head. I want you to pray that God would help you grow in your own understanding of the gospel. That God would help you grow in your own understanding of the gospel.
That God would help you grow to love Jesus. To love his word and to want to follow. So all across the room, if you can let him know, what to say, God would help you grow in your own understanding of the gospel. Thanks for warning, 떨어�ctive, for the gospel.
Blessed to Bless
Transcript
What's up, fam? How y'all doing this morning? It's good to see you guys. If it's your first time hanging out with us, my name's Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm glad we clapped at the end of a song.
That was good. Yes! Yeah! All right! Praise God! I like when I get to preach because I get to listen to really good music and just sing along.
And that was really good stuff. We are in week four of our Covenant series. And here's what we're doing. We're basically walking through the big promises that God makes in the Old Testament to kind of see how do they fit in the grand, big scheme of things of God's ultimate big story. And there's a couple of things. There's a couple of things that we're trying to achieve through this series.
We're looking at it going, okay, how do all of these little stories fit into the big story? Like, what's the point? How does it all kind of work together? Also, for us as Christians, I think most of us are very comfortable reading in the New Testament and spending time studying and growing there. But sometimes when it comes to the Old Testament, we have questions about how should I actually be reading this?
What am I supposed to kind of glean from this? And so we're trying to do that in this series as well. And ultimately, we want to see how all of these promises are going to find their fulfillment in Jesus. How do these smaller stories, how these smaller promises or covenants actually fit into God's big story? So Chet started off our series a couple of weeks ago with a whiteboard on the stage.
And what Chet was trying to do was just illustrate what actually is the big storyline of the Bible. Okay, so we've actually got an image of it. But thankfully, this isn't the version that Chet drew, so you can actually read it. But this is the big storyline of the Bible, which was there is a creator God. There is a creator God who created humanity to live in perfect relationship with him. That was his intent from the very beginning, to have his people in his place, in his presence, existing forever.
That was God's design. And so he takes Adam and Eve and he puts them in a garden. And he says to them, I want you to be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth with a family that will love and will worship me. He says he wants this family to grow, this people to grow. But the problem is that Adam and Eve rebelled.
They didn't trust God. They didn't believe that God's promises to them were good. Were good enough for them. They sinned against God. And when sin entered the world, that's the fault. And it fractured that relationship forever.
The story had been changed forever. And with sin came death and sickness and shame. But God makes a promise there in the garden. He didn't make the promise to Adam and Eve. He actually makes it to the serpent. He goes, I'm going to fix this problem.
I'm going to work to restore humanity back to the place where they're my people, in my presence, in my place. And so that's the promise that God makes right there. And then you kind of trace on from Adam and Eve. You go a couple of thousand years after them. And then you end up at Noah. So you just continue down the line.
And now we're at Noah. And we looked at Noah last week. What we saw was in those thousand years, humanity just got worse and worse and worse. And to the point where God looked at humanity. And every intention of their heart was evil and wicked. But God comes and he says, Noah, I want you to build a boat.
I'm going to save you and your family. It wasn't based off of Noah being good or the most moral person. God came and promised this to Noah. And the Bible tells us that Noah was declared righteous by his faith. That God actually does have wrath for sin and for sinners. And so God wipes out humanity.
But he saves Noah. Noah and his family says, go be fruitful and multiply. When they leave the ark, it's the same thing. Go be my people in my place, in my presence. Fill the earth with a family of worshipers who will worship me. And so you continue on from Noah's line through his son Shem.
And you go a couple thousand years. And it doesn't fix the problem. And you end up at the guy that we're actually going to be looking at this morning. We're going to be talking about Abraham this morning. And not just this morning. We're actually going to spend three weeks talking about the promises that God makes to Abraham.
And here's what we're looking to do. How does the promise that God makes to Abraham today continue to move humanity forward? How does this promise get us back to the garden? How does it get us to a place where we're his people, in his place, in his presence? And we're going to look at how is this promise ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. We're going to be looking at the covenant that God makes with Abraham today.
So let me pray for us and we'll hop into the text. God, we're thankful this morning that you've given us your word. You've given us the Bible through which you reveal yourself. You tell us who we are and how we ought to live in relationship with you. And so, God, this morning, I just pray that you would make your word clear. As we look at the promise that you've given to Abraham, that it would be open to us in a fresh and a new way.
That we could ultimately see what you're doing to bring about the restoration of humanity. So, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would speak through me. I pray that you would open up your word so that we could understand it. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, grab a Bible.
You can grab one of the Bibles that are in the seats, the blue and white ones. We're just going to be on page 6. So grab it. Turn a couple of pages. We're going to be at the end of Genesis chapter 11 and the beginning of Genesis chapter 12. And right off the bat, we're kind of getting just introduced to this guy named Abraham.
So there's going to be a lot of details up front. We're not going to get bogged down in those. We just want to kind of pull out the things that are important so that we can keep moving. Okay, so Genesis chapter 11 will actually start in verse 26. Okay. Verse 26.
When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Okay. So at the beginning, we looked at the thing on the screen. That said Abraham. And then this says Abram. Okay.
It's the same guy. Later on in Genesis, God's actually going to take him and change his name and turn him into Abraham. And so I'm going to use both interchangeably today because I don't have the ability not to. So just give me some grace. I'm going to call him Abram. I'm going to call him Abraham.
Hopefully I won't call him anything else. But those two things. So this is our guy. Our guys entered the story. Verse 27. Now these are the generations of Terah.
Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran fathered Lot. Okay. So just showing some generations there. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans. Sweet name.
And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarah. And the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarah was barren. She had no child. Terah took Abram his son.
Excuse me. Terah took Abram his son and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson. And Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. And they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
The days of Terah were 205 years. And Terah died in Haran. Okay. Tons of details. Tons of names. Let me just kind of break it down for us.
Before we do that, the last verse, verse 32, the days of Terah were 205 years. You immediately read that and you're like, wait, wait, what? Was like Terah the first superhuman? How in the world did he live that long? So we kind of have a little bit of pushback on his age.
But what we have early on in Genesis is that people lived for longer than they do now. Their lifespan was hundreds and hundreds of years. And Bible scholars give us just a couple of things to kind of help rectify this for us. The first is this. Adam and Eve had the perfect DNA. And so when they sinned, that's when sickness and disease entered into the world.
And so as they were fruitful and they were multiplying and generation after generation after generation, eventually that sickness and disease began to spread, possibly being one of the reasons why ages would start coming down. Also, the Bible is not the only ancient historical document that talks about humans living for longer periods of time. And you have in Genesis 6 this little small section where God alludes to the fact that he's actually going to begin limiting the lifespan of humans' lives. So don't get tripped up on that. These are real people in a real place. And the truth is, if you can get on board with a creator God who has existed for all of eternity, it's not unreasonable to think that he allowed humans at one time to live for longer periods of time.
But these are real people. This is a real story. This isn't fiction. We've been kind of showing a map on the screen just to kind of help us see where we're at. Okay, so it says that this family started out in Ur of the Chaldeans. It's the craziest name to me.
But that's this area of Babylonia over here. Okay, then it says that Terah, he wanted to move his family towards Canaan. So he basically would have kind of followed that track to get there. But it says they stopped in an area called Haran, which is basically just kind of up in that Syria area. So this is a real family in a real place.
And we don't really know why Terah decided that it was time to move his family, but he did. He left that area and moved kind of towards the area of Syria. And there's only two things that I want to pull out of this first little bit, this little introduction. The first one is this. Abraham existed. This family existed inside of a patriarchal society.
Okay, which means that everything was based around the family unit with the oldest living male kind of being the head. So he's the one that made decisions. So when it came time for them to move to Haran, they were going towards Canaan. It wasn't like, what about Billy? What about my friend Billy? What about my job?
It's like, no, Terah made the decisions for the family. Like if they were going to purchase land, Terah made that decision. If they were going to move to another area, Terah made that decision. And here's the thing. Abram is the next in line to be the patriarch. And they understood themselves inside of this kind of family identity.
So we have this family that is uprooted from one area and moved to another one under the leadership of Terah. And Abram is the next in line to be the patriarch, which makes the second detail all the more important. Look at verse 30 again. Look at it. Chapter 11, verse 30 says this. Now Sarah was barren.
She had no child. So Abram is the next in line to be the patriarch, to be the leader of this family. And he doesn't have the ability with his wife to continue the family line. Family was hugely important in this time. It's how the older people were taken care of. They were taken care of by their children.
It's how family was passed down from generation to generation. Like this was a big deal. There would have actually been some shame wrapped up in this for Abraham and Sarah not being able to have children because they couldn't continue the line. And so even in the beginning of this story, there's this tension created where Abram's the next in line to be the patriarch. And he doesn't have the ability to continue the line of the family moving forward. And that kind of gets us to chapter 12.
So let's go there. We've kind of gotten to know Abram a little bit. His story, his family. Chapter 12, verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram.
Okay. Ears perk up. Stories just changed a little bit. Now the Lord said to Abram. Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation.
And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is a huge promise. And here's the thing.
So back to verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram. We don't know up until this point if Abram has ever had any interaction with God before. This may be the first time that the Lord has ever actually spoken to him. It doesn't tell us how he did it either. Like was it an audible voice or did he kind of give him a vision?
We don't know any of that. But God shows up and he lays out this beautiful promise to Abram. He says, I'm going to take you and your family. You're going to leave here and you're going to go to a place. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless those who bless you.
I'm going to curse those who curse you. And I'm going to make you into a great nation. So much so that all the families of the earth will be blessed through you. I mean, it's this massive promise that Abram's hearing for the first time. And here's what might have made it difficult for Abram. See, we kind of gloss over this.
But Abram existed in a part of the world that most of the cultures had kind of like a polytheistic religious view. Which just meant that there were all types of gods. So there was the rain God and the sun God and the food God. That's probably not right. But some type of crop, farmer.
Anyways, you get the point. So like a polytheistic society, so for God to show up and say, I want you to follow me and I'm going to make you into this. That was different. That would have landed on Abram's ears a little bit different. It would be similar to if I showed up this morning and just said, hey guys, last week at Glen Forest, the gods spoke to me. They did.
They told me I'm going to uproot everything and we're all going to this new land. What do you mean the gods spoke to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rainbow God and the unicorn God and the butterfly God, they came to me and said, we're moving. We're out of here. We're going to a new place.
Where are we going, Matt? I don't know. They didn't tell me. We're just going. What are we going to do when we get there? I don't know.
I just know all the families of the earth are going to be blessed through us. And we're all going with you? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, well, no, me and Katie and Emmy and you, but not you, not you, Carl. Definitely not you. Or the rest of the fam.
Just me. God's going to take my family and he's going to move us here. And at some point, y'all are looking at me going, Matt, have you had enough water today? Are you a little dehydrated? Are you feeling okay? But that's how it would have been heard.
So God comes to Abram and he says, no, no, no, you. I'm taking you and your family. This is my promise to you. I'm taking your family. I'm going to move you to this place and I'm going to bless those who bless you. And I'm going to curse those who curse you.
And out of your family, I'm going to bless all the families of the earth. And we kind of laugh about that part. But there are some serious implications at play for Abram. I mean, think about it. He says, go from your country and your kindred and your father's household. He says, leave it all.
Leave everything that you use to identify yourself. Leave everything for you that is your source of security. Leave everything that is your support system. Leave it all. And he says, go to the land that I'll show you. Not that I have shown you.
That I will show you. And Abram's got to be thinking about how hard it was just to follow his father, Terah, from Ur to Haran. And now God takes it a step further. And he says, no, no, no, no, no. Not you and your father's household. You.
I'm going to take you. And through your family, I'm going to bless all the families of the earth. See, God is again promising the same thing that he's been promising. He's trying to get us back to the place where he has his people in his place, in his presence, living in relationship with him. And this would have been so terribly difficult. But God's request to Abram wasn't based off of Abram's ability to follow or trust well.
It was based off of his own trustworthiness. And God lays out this promise before Abram. And something about God drew him to trust him and weigh the cost of the crazy risks that he was being called. And so, I mean, think about the responsibility that Abram would be leaving. He's next in line. But God says, no, no, no.
I've got big plans for you. I've got something else for you. I'm going to take your family and make you into a new family through which all the families of the earth would be blessed. So what happens? Verse 4. So Abram went.
Good. Good call, Abram. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people they had acquired in Haran. And they set out to go to the land of Canaan.
Okay. So at some point, God reveals to him that the same place his father was trying to get to is actually where he's wanting to take Abram and do all this. End of verse 5. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak at Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring, I will give this land.
So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. So Abraham goes. He trusts God and he uproots his family and his livestock and his possessions. And he heads to the land that God's going to show him. And he reveals to him that it's Canaan. And then it says God appears to him.
And again, it doesn't tell us how that happens. It just says that it does. God appears to him and he says, To your offspring, I will give this land. Now, you could infer from what he said earlier that he's going to make his family into a great nation, that he was talking about his kids. But it wasn't explicit.
And so God comes to him right here and he says, No, no, no, Abram. Through your kids. Through your family. Abram. You and Sarah are going to have children. Could you imagine how terrifying and fantastic, all at the same time, this promise actually was.
That Abram and Sarah are actually going to get to have children. And God is going to, through his family, bless all the families of the earth. It is absolutely this beautiful promise. Verse 8. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent. With Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
So God brings this promise to Abram. And with all the risk and all that's involved, he follows. He goes. He follows what God wants him to do. And he goes to Canaan. And God says, It's going to be through your family.
And in response to that, it says that Abram worshiped God. He built an altar and he worshiped God. And so you leave these verses just kind of expectant. You're just kind of excited for Abram and his family. That they're actually going to have kids. And that all this is going to just work out well for them.
So you just kind of want to see when are they going to have children? When is this family going to start being this great blessing to kind of all the other families? And so for us in this series, we're also looking at this covenant going, okay, what is God doing here to move us forward in restoring his relationship to humanity? How is God getting us through this promise to Abraham? How is he getting us back to the garden? How is he returning us to being his people in his place, in his presence?
Because it's a beautiful promise. But how does it turn out? And here's the problem. We're going to spend two more weeks looking at the life of Abraham. Looking at some of the other promises that God makes to him. But if you kind of follow Abram's life, it's not all roses.
They're this small family in the land of Canaan where there are other people and other tribes that are way bigger, way stronger than them that could destroy them, could capture them. It's a long time before Abram and Sarah actually even have kids. And once they have a child, there's drama that ensues around that, whether that child even survives. And so you get to the end of Abram's life, and it's still just kind of this small band, this small family of believers in the Middle East. And you're looking at it going, was the promise just smaller than I thought it was? Was it maybe metaphorical?
Like what was God promising? Okay, well, you continue that on. So you look, okay, maybe it's through the rest of Abram's line. So you follow the rest of Abram's lineage, but Abraham's ancestors end up as slaves in Egypt, and then Moses leads the slaves out of Egypt back into the land of Canaan. And they kind of start becoming this thing. They start becoming kind of this nation thing, but they keep chasing after other gods, and they don't follow God well.
And so they basically get ping-ponged back and forth between empires for hundreds of years. And then you get to the end of the Old Testament, and you're like, where does it happen? When does God make this wonderful, this beautiful family? We're here. If we're looking at the timeline, this is where we're at. The promise has been made to Abraham, and we're looking down the line going, where?
How does it come true? It didn't come true right in Abraham's life. Where does it come true? And the New Testament's answer to that, surprise, surprise, is that it comes true in Jesus. The promise is made to Abraham, but it's fulfilled in Jesus. And so we're going to look at Galatians chapter 3 to kind of get a picture of this.
You can turn there. We're actually going to put it up on the screen. We'll read through it in just a second. But this is Paul. He's talking to the church at Galatia about, like, what is the nature of salvation? What does that even look like?
And here's part of how he explains this. I know it's kind of small. You can flip there if you want to. Here's what it says. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Okay, so verse 8 says that when God came to Abraham and he made this promise, he was actually preaching the gospel. So that changes our understanding. This isn't just a promise to Abraham. This is the promise. This is the promise of the gospel. This is what Chet said at the beginning.
This is everything that we celebrate. Well, how is that possible? It was supposed to come through Abraham. It does. Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, comes through the line of Abraham. So that when Jesus comes, fully God and fully man, Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life in relationship to the Father that Adam and Eve were created to live.
He does it perfectly on our behalf. And then he goes to the cross and he dies there on the cross. And at the cross, he takes the wrath that was poured out on humanity at the time of Noah. The wrath that we deserve so that salvation could come not just to Abraham's line, not just to the Jews, but it could come to everyone. It says that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. That's everybody else.
That the way God fulfills this promise is that he makes it to Abraham and it's fulfilled in Jesus. When Jesus dies on the cross, salvation is now open to all people. It can be received by faith. And it continues. Look at the way he ends the chapter. This is Galatians 3, verse 29.
It's going to be up on the screen. It says this. And if you are Christ's, okay, if you belong to Christ, if you have placed faith in Jesus, if you are a Christian, if you have repented of your sin and he is your Savior and your Lord and your King, okay, if you are in Christ's, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring. So that family that God promised to Abraham actually comes true in the people that would place faith in Jesus. It's a family of faith, not a physical family. Then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
And so for all those that have placed faith in Jesus, we're the offspring. And if we're the offspring, that means we're the heirs. Heirs of what? The promise. The promise that God made to Abraham all the way back. Flip back.
Look at it again. Genesis chapter 12. This is what he says. We're going to read it again. Chapter 12, verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you. I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. God's next step for humanity through this covenant was to bring us back to the place where he had a people that could be in his presence.
The promise is made to Abraham and it's fulfilled in Jesus. And so when we're looking at this, and actually, if you look at the map again, that kind of timeline, we're going to pull it back up. The promise is made to Abraham. It's fulfilled in Jesus and then it's gifted to the church. All those that have placed faith in Jesus are now heirs of the blessing. They're heirs of the promise.
And what's the promise? It's the same promise that God gave to Abraham. It's the promise of the gospel. It's that Jesus actually gets to die for your sin in your place. That he gets to take the wrath that we deserve. That we could actually be saved through faith.
Not through family line. Not through lineage or anything like that. And that's the gospel. So if you're sitting here this morning and you're wondering, what does it mean? What is this gospel that you're talking about? What does it mean to actually follow Jesus?
What does it mean to be a Christian? It's this. It's this. That you can't be good enough to earn it. You can't live a good enough life. You can't be moral enough to earn your way into this family.
To earn your way into being an heir of this promise. And you can't be so bad that the promise doesn't land on you. That's the good news of the gospel. Is that you can repent of. That's what the Bible says. You can repent of your sin.
And place faith in Jesus. And become an heir of that promise. And so it's actually this. It's gifted to the church. But it's also carried out through the church.
God comes to Abraham and he says, Through you, I'm going to bless others. I'm going to bless you. So that you will become a blessing to others. And that's the church. We're the carriers of the good news. Like the good news of the gospel that's been given to us.
It's the same thing. God wants us to carry it out to all people. And that's what we want. We want for everyone to believe the gospel. To hear the gospel. To be changed by the gospel.
And so as we were kind of clicking into this story today. If you're familiar at all. With the story of Abraham. And you knew kind of about the blessing. You probably weren't surprised. When you saw it fulfilled in Jesus.
And it's not really a surprise. That for those that have the promise fulfilled in Jesus. That it's actually our gift. That we're the recipients of it. And if that's true. That we're the ones who are supposed to continue.
Carrying that promise. To the ends of the earth. But here's the deal. I want us to sit here for a second. I think you can know this promise conceptually. Without it ever affecting your heart and your life.
I think you can hear this promise. The fact that salvation comes through Jesus. It's been given to the church. And it's supposed to be extended to other people. Through the church. I think you can hear that.
And believe it conceptually. It's like yeah. Yeah. I know the promise. But never have it actually affect your life.
That you can hear us talk about the fact. That this is the promise of all promises. And it can just kind of become a promise. As Chet said in the beginning. It's the story. And it just becomes another story.
It goes from being the good news. To just some good news. And the truth is. That the gospel has been given to the church. To carry out. The church is actually the means.
That God is going to use. So that all the families of the earth will be blessed. It's the good news that the church cares. But here's what can happen. Here's what happens. If you don't actually believe that this is true.
Maybe you know it. But it hasn't affected your heart. It's not affecting your life. You'll let other smaller stories. Other smaller promises. Be the thing that controls your life.
Your life will be wrapped up in those things. In those stories. In that news. Because the truth is. We all love to talk about stuff. We love to be excited.
And to be passionate about things. And the truth is. If this isn't the promise. Other smaller promises. Will actually begin to get in the way. Of the good news.
That we get to exist in. And we get to share with others. And here's how that shows up. We love to talk to people about how. If they'll just put 5% of their money back into savings. That they'll be able to retire at 70.
We love to talk about our favorite college football team. We'll take the time to sit with someone. And say hey here's what I learned. At the last parenting seminar that I went to. Because apparently parents go to those. The last parenting seminar I went to.
And here's how you can get your kids to eat greens. And we can get wrapped up. And talking about the two candidates that we have. Our favorite places to eat. We'll tell people about all sorts of stuff. Without ever actually taking the time.
To tell them about the good news. To tell them about the promise. And we'll sell it for smaller stories. And the truth is. When we do that. When our lives aren't centered around the gospel.
And we're not actively sharing it with people. It's because we're not actually believing. That this is the good news that changes their lives. And the truth is. Maybe talking about college football. Or where you like to eat.
May make life more enjoyable. And better for just kind of a short little while. But it all ends up at the same place. And it's without Jesus. This promise has been gifted to the church. And it's supposed to be extended to others.
Through the church. Here's what happens if you don't believe that. Here's what happens if you don't believe that. This is the promise. The good news that can change people's lives. You'll see your job at work.
As only an 8 to 4. Or a 9 to 5. Or a 9 to 6. Only a means to pay the bills. You'll show up. Do your time.
And leave. And you won't think about the people. That God has specifically placed you around. You'll take your lunch. And you'll go sit in your car. Or you'll sit in your cubicle.
Or you'll go out to eat the lunch. Rather than going. And sitting in the break room. And intentionally taking the time. To build relationships with people. Because you're forgetting.
That it's the gospel. That it's extended through you. You'll talk to people about their vacation. And like how restful. And how good it was. Without ever talking to them.
About how true rest. And true comfort are found in Jesus. You'll go home. And we'll forget about them. Without actually hitting our knees for them. That's what happens when we forget.
When we're not actually believing the promise. When we're not believing the promise. That it is the good news. It's going to affect our relationship with our neighbors. Our neighbors are just kind of the semi-annoying people. Who live near us.
That we wish were a little bit further away. We won't wave to our neighbors. As we're rolling our trash can to the road. Because we don't want to have to get in a conversation with them. We'll talk about how high their grass is. Rather than just grabbing our lawn mower.
And walking across the street. And cutting it for them. To show them the love of Jesus. And serving them. And if you're not believing that promise. They'll never see the inside of your home.
That's what happens. That's what happens to our money too. We believe that our. If we're not understanding. That this is the promise. The good news.
That's supposed to be extended. Through us to others. It affects the way we think about our money. We'll fret. And be anxious. And worried.
With every bill that comes. Rather than realizing. That God's the one who provides. And we get to step out in faith. And be generous. It's the same thing with our time.
You'll start thinking about your time. As. As. As just for you. It's for your comfort. Your enjoyment.
Not to be leveraged for others. Give up my weekend. I. I don't think so. That's what happens when we're not believing this promise. We're not believing that this is the good news.
Your community group is. Is just a group of people that you hang out with. They're just a bunch of people that you love. And you love spending time with. And they kind of exist for your good. And your growth.
And that when you're spending time with them. It's good. Because it's good for you. Without ever thinking about it as a vehicle for mission. To see more people come to know Jesus. So you'll have somebody new show up to hang out with your community group.
And we won't go out of our way to make them feel welcome. Or get into a conversation with them. We won't stay after and help clean up. So that we can continue to have that conversation. Our group will just exist for us. If this isn't the promise that is supposed to be extended through us to others.
We'll look for reasons to miss out on the gathering. To miss out on our group meeting time. We'll hear of opportunities to serve and to be on mission. And we'll just expect that somebody else is going to go do that. That we don't actually have to go do that. You may be sitting there right now thinking of all the reasons that you may have.
For why you're not sharing the gospel. Why you're not being on mission. You can think of all the reasons of why you haven't shared the gospel with your co-workers. Or why you haven't met your neighbors. And the problem is that it is indicative of the fact that the gospel. That story is being trumped over by some other smaller story.
Some other smaller story is actually more beautiful. More compelling. It's actually better news. It's something that we're more passionate about. We care more about than the gospel. We'll talk to people about all kinds of stuff.
But the promise that's made to Abram. Fulfilled in Christ and gifted to the church. Is supposed to be extended to others through the church. And if any of that is hitting you in the chest this morning. The Bible says just repent. Repent and believe the truth of the gospel.
Which is salvation is given to you in Jesus. And is supposed to be extended through you to others. So my question for you this morning is. What story. What smaller story is actually getting in the way of the biggest story? What's the thing that you're more passionate about.
That you care more about. Than the ability to actually give people the only good news. That changes everything for them. Where do you need to personally repent this morning? Who are the people that God's like intentionally placed you around. Called you to reach out to.
And to share the gospel with this morning. Because here's what happens if you do believe that. If you do believe that the gospel is extended through you to others. It just means that your entire life. All that you are. All that you have.
All that you do. Belongs to Jesus. And gets to be a means. That he can use to reach into the lives of others. He just wants us to be open to that. So the question is.
Is that what you want? Do you want to be open to that? Because all of us are going to fall short. All of us are going to leave work. And just miss out on an opportunity. We're all going to see our neighbor.
And just do the head duck. And keep running. The cause to repent guys. That's why the gospel is good news in the first place. Because we're not going to be able to live up. We're not going to be able to meet this expectation.
We can shoot for it. And follow after Jesus. But I want you to believe the good news of the gospel this morning. Is that this promise actually can be extended through you. To others. Isaac and Raz are going to come back up.
And here's how I want us to respond this morning. If you're sitting in the room this morning. The way that this promise is true for you. The way that you can receive Jesus. The way that you can receive the good news of the gospel. Is through faith.
The Bible says that if you repent of your sin. And place your faith in Jesus. You will be saved. That's the way in. It's not through your good morals. It's not.
It's not through. Like you can't be bad enough. For it not to be extended to you. The Bible just says repent. And to turn from it. So if that's you this morning.
If that's you this morning. We want to open that up to you. We want you to place your faith. Like that's our desire for you. We want you to know the love of Jesus. And for the rest of us.
If you're a Christian in the room. What story. What story has overshadowed the gospel. Where are you not seeing the promise. That you can extend to others. What's actually getting in the way of that.
So like. Where do you need to personally repent this morning. Where do you need to. When you get together with your community group. What's the thing that you need to talk about. Who are the people.
That God has specifically called you. To reach. To share the gospel with. I want you guys just close your eyes. I want you to think. I want you to ask.
Ask. Like where. Where am I off here. Where am I not believing the good news of the gospel. Where do I have those opportunities. God.
I pray that all across the room. That right now. Through your Holy Spirit. That you're opening our eyes. To see. Where we have opportunities.
To share the gospel. God. I pray that. More than college football. More than education. More than anything.
That can grab our heart. And become more important. I pray God. That you would. Give us a heart. And a desire.
To share the gospel. To share the good news. God. That you'll show us. Where we actually have the ability. To do that at work.
And. And with our neighbors. And with our family. And our friends. God. Help us to see.
The gospel. As beautiful. And as captivating. So that. We can't help. But go out.
And share it. God. I pray that you would. Continue to work. In our hearts. As we respond to you.
In Jesus name. Amen. You guys stand. Let's sing together.
Jun 26
30 Pieces of Silver
Transcript
All right, well, it's good to see you all this morning. My name's Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. And if it's your first time hanging out with us, let me be the first to welcome you. We are absolutely glad that you're here. Last Sunday, we finished up a seven-week series where we kind of engaged with what our culture has to say about gender, about marriage, about sexuality, about masculinity, femininity.
And then we went to the Bible so that we as Christians can learn how to follow Jesus well in terms of having a theology of sex. And I will say this for me personally. I think it's one of the most helpful series we've ever done. And I heard tons of feedback coming back out of our groups, just discussions, really submitting our lives to Jesus. And it was great. And now, today we're starting a three-week series because we've got three weeks leading up to Easter and celebrating our baptism party.
And for us, as we're approaching Easter, we're going to spend the majority of our time talking about Jesus. Surprise! But you didn't see that coming. We looked at Jesus' interactions. We're going to look at things that he said and things that he did. But we're going to go about it a little bit differently this year.
And here's why. The reason the cross is so beautiful, so compelling, is that on it, Jesus died for terrible sinners just like us. That the reason the cross is beautiful is because on it, Jesus died for sinners. That his death pays for our sin and he rose from the grave so that we might have life in him. That's why the cross is beautiful. And so what we're going to do is take three weeks to look at Jesus' specific interactions with some sinners that would kind of fall into this category.
Here's what we're going to try to do. That as we see their sin, as we see their denial, their rejection of Jesus, what we're going to see is that it actually is going to hit a little bit closer to home than we might care to admit. That if we're actually honest with ourselves, more often than not, we're like the people who mistreat Jesus than we are like Jesus himself. So that by looking at these interactions, by looking at these people that Jesus has conversations with, that their actions absolutely impact his own life. What we're going to see is that we're going to align with them. That we're going to see some of our own sinfulness, our own brokenness in them.
And as we see that, as we look at that sin and kind of come face to face with it, the hope would be by the time we get to Easter, we've actually got something to celebrate. We're more excited because we understand the cross of Christ so much more because on it, Jesus died to save sinners. That by the time we get to Easter, we can't help but shout and stand and sing the good news as people are going to be baptized and we're going to lose our minds and we're going to eat a whole bunch of fried chicken. Amen? Amen? I mean, that's worth, it's good news.
It's good news worth celebrating. And so we're going to take these three weeks specifically and try to look at our own sinfulness in light of some of Jesus' interactions with people on his way to the cross. And so to kick off the series today, we're going to be looking at a guy by the name of Judas Iscariot, who is one of the most negatively portrayed people in the Bible. And maybe you've never hung out with a church before. You may not know really anything about Jesus, but you have probably, in some form or fashion, heard about Judas and what Judas does to him. Judas betrays his friend Jesus.
He sells his friend Jesus out so that if you're, you could watch a movie or you're reading a book. Anytime someone commits treason or sells somebody out or is a snitch, you may hear them turn the phrase, man, such a Judas. What a Judas. And the reason being is because that seems so unthinkable that Judas would betray the Son of God after all that he had seen. But we're not so unlike Judas ourselves.
And though we may sometimes treat Jesus the same way that Judas did, we don't have to share his same fate. That though we may treat Jesus the same way that Judas did, we've actually been given another option. And so as we actually look at his story, his interaction with Jesus, my hope is that we would see our sin more clearly and that the cross would actually become more compelling. And so I'm going to pray for us and we'll kind of jump into the text and see what God has to say to us this morning. Let's pray together.
God, we don't have the ability to comprehend your word and I don't have the ability to clearly articulate your word outside of the move and work of your Holy Spirit. And so God, I ask that this morning as we, as we open your word, God, that you would be faithful. God, that you would help us see our own sinfulness, our own brokenness, and you would help us see Jesus for who he truly is. The savior of the world, the one who dies for our sins so that we might have life in him. I pray that would be abundantly clear this morning as you speak to us. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, so grab a Bible. You can grab one of the Bibles on the chairs and go to Matthew chapter 26. That's going to be on page 539 in the blue and white Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, please just take that one with you. When we're done today, we want everyone to have a Bible, to be reading it, to be growing. And in fact, if you're looking for something to read, I would encourage you that in the coming weeks, in the three weeks or so leading up to Easter, to actually jump into Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and read from about where I'm going to begin summarizing because you'll get a picture of the last week of Jesus' life as recorded by four people.
I think that would be a great way for us all to just kind of prepare for Easter. But here's the background. Here's what we're getting into. Jesus has just come to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. And the Passover is just one of the big Jewish festivals, one of the big celebrations that they had every year. And Jesus and his disciples had come to Jerusalem for the Passover before, but this time is markedly different.
Jesus' fame and renown had spread. He had been doing ministry for years now, for three years, and people had heard about his miracles and they had heard about his teachings. They knew who he was. And as soon as he starts coming into the city, the word begins to spread. People come out to where Jesus and his disciples are coming in, and they take their coats and they lay him on the ground, and they take palm branches and they wave him in the air, and they're shouting things like, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the Son of David. Blessed is the Lord. And what all of these people are celebrating is that they believe that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah that the Old Testament is talking about. They're celebrating him. He's the long-awaited rescuer, the redeemer, the one who's going to come and save them. And they can't help but celebrate it.
But what we're going to see is that not everyone shares the same sentiment when it comes to Jesus. And so where we're jumping in, we're jumping in to chapter 26. This is a couple of days later. Things have settled down just a little bit, and we're going to find Jesus talking with his disciples. So we'll pick it up there.
Chapter 26, verse 1. When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, you know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. Okay, so it says that Jesus had just finished talking. He just finished saying these things. Jesus was talking with his disciples about what will the signs of the end of time be? What will be the signs of the end of the age?
And he kind of leaves that idea, and he comes back to the present, and he says, the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. And Son of Man is just a phrase that he used for himself on a regular basis. He says the Son of Man is going to be delivered up to be crucified. And this isn't the first time that he's told this to his disciples. The Gospel accounts tell us that he's been telling them this all along the way. But you've got to imagine.
Just imagine with me. Every time Jesus says that, that we're going to Jerusalem, and I'm going to be killed and crucified, you've got to imagine the disciples are kind of like, sure you will, Jesus. Yeah, right. Not really, though, right? This is one of those parable things, right, where we just don't understand, but you're telling us that this is actually. And the reason that was so difficult is that they had just watched the city erupt in celebration as Jesus and his disciples came in.
And now in a couple of days, he's going to be nailed to a cross. The most painful and torturous of Roman deaths reserved for the worst of criminals. And they just couldn't see it. But there's actually more at play. There's more at work here than meets the eye. And our passage kind of continues to show us that.
Pick it back up, verse 3. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. Okay, so time out. At the same time that Jesus is meeting with his disciples, talking to them, the religious leaders of the people have kind of convened a meeting together to figure out, what are we going to do about this whole Jesus situation? The Jesus thing has gotten out of control.
There are people standing in the streets within earshot of the temple complex saying that this guy is the Messiah. And these religious leaders have come together and said, the only thing that we can do is arrest him and he's got to be killed. And immediately we start asking questions because we're going, hey, time out, time out. All right, so there are people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And these people are the religious leaders of the people. Why in the world are they trying to kill Jesus?
That's a question that immediately comes up. And the truth is that this animosity between the religious leaders and Jesus didn't happen overnight. This has been going on for near three years now. The religious leaders have been in significant conflict with Jesus, warring with him over what faithfulness to God actually looked like. That Jesus showed up on the scene and he stepped into their territory and he began to challenge them on what they believed, what they were teaching the people, how they were leading, what their hearts were centered on. And as Jesus shared, he had the miracles to back up everything that he was saying because the religious leaders were tasked with teaching the people how to follow God.
And these guys had got focused on their own things. They were absolutely focused on outward appearance, the outward signs. They would go to the Old Testament law and they would take the law and then they would create rules that would keep them from breaking the law. But so that they didn't break those rules, they would make more rules on top of those rules so that they didn't even get close to breaking the law. And needless to say, Jesus showed up and didn't play by their rules. Jesus showed up and wanted to show people what does it actually mean to follow God?
What is the heart of God actually about? And so they would have conflict and debates about the things that Jesus did. They would get mad at Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath because they considered that somehow work and they were missing God's active work in the midst of them to bring about healing for people. They were missing it. They always wondered why Jesus would hang out with sinners and with tax collectors and the people that were ostracized from society because they believed that those people made you unclean. But what they didn't realize is that God was in their midst coming.
Jesus was coming to make people clean. The people who were supposed to be closest to the heart of God were convened in a room together trying to figure out how to kill God. Don't miss that. Don't brush past that. These guys knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards and some of them had even memorized it. But they were so concerned with their own power, with their own authority, their own way of doing things that they absolutely missed what was right in front of them.
And now they're huddled in a room ready to kill God. And so the story kind of continues on going into verse 6 where Jesus and his disciples go out to a certain area to share a meal with some friends. But we're actually going to kind of skip over that part of the story because I want us to follow the progression of events that has just kind of started with this meeting. We're going to follow that thread of people who don't see Jesus for who he actually was. And so we're going to kind of skip down over those verses and we'll pick it back up in verse 14. Verse 14 says this, Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?
And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. And from that moment on, he sought an opportunity to betray him. Okay, so we're used to this. For the majority of us in the room, you may be familiar with this story. But don't let your familiarity with the story take away from how shocking and how terrible this actually is.
Judas was one of the twelve, meaning Jesus' closest followers. And he just went to the people who were trying to figure out how to kill him about how he might turn them in. How he might betray Jesus to them. And I want you to just think for a second about Judas and all that Judas had seen, all that he experienced. We know that from early on in the Gospels, Jesus went up on a mountain to pray and when he came back down from praying, he handpicked twelve guys that he wanted to follow him throughout his entire ministry to serve alongside of him, to love alongside of him, to do ministry beside him and learn from him.
There was James and John and there was Andrew and there was Peter and then there was Judas. Jesus looked into the eyes of Judas and said, You. I choose you. Follow me. And he did. He followed Jesus.
He ended up with Jesus on a mountain where they were surrounded by thousands of people. Thousands of people who were hungry and the only thing that they had were two fish and five loaves of bread. Not near enough even to really feed one or two people. But Jesus took those elements and he blessed it and he handed it to the disciples and he said, Go pass this out. Go pass this out. And so Judas walked her out.
Judas walked around handing out food and handing out food and handing out food and handing out food until every one of those people were fed. Jesus had done the miraculous. He had fed thousands of people and then he said, Okay, go back with a basket and collect all the leftovers. And so Judas had to do that too. We know that Judas was in a room with Jesus and a whole bunch of other people and the house that they were in, the tiles, they started pulling the tiles out of the ceiling and these friends who were desperate lowered down their friend who was crippled into the room just hoping, desperate for Jesus to do something.
And at a word, the man was healed and he picked up his mat and he walked out. This was the real deal. This wasn't a gimmick. There were religious legal storm came down on them from the mountains on the Sea of Galilee threatening to capsize the ship. And Jesus walks up on the bow and rebukes the wind and the waves and everything ceases and the sea goes back to being calm. Even nature bent to his words.
He had watched as Jesus walked up to the front of a tomb in it, a man who had been dead. It was Jesus' friend Lazarus. He'd been dead for four days and Jesus said, Roll the stone away. Lazarus come out and a man who had been dead for four days had been brought back to life. It was amazing. Just think about all that Judas had seen.
And now here we find him walking into the palace of the chief priest ready to sell him out for 30 pieces of silver. And we know that at the time 30 pieces of silver was equal to about five weeks wages. Judas basically sold out the son of God for an all expenses paid trip to Disney World. 30 pieces of silver. And you start wondering, did Judas just miss it? After bearing witness to all that Jesus had said and done to betray him like this?
Did he really not understand who Jesus was? Story continues. Verse 17. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover? He said, Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, The teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.
And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and they prepared the Passover. Okay, so the Passover was a week-long celebration, but there was also an aspect of it that was a meal. And so Jesus is going to be sharing this meal with his disciples. Verse 20. When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.
And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, Is it I, Lord? He answered, He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, Is it I, Rabbi? He said to him, You have said so.
What happened here? This seemingly comes out of nowhere. There's no big story of conflict. It should be shocking to us when you get to this part of the story, you're going, this just doesn't add up. And so we find Jesus with his disciples in a room sharing this meal and I want you to take just a second. Jesus was fully God and fully man.
And so sometimes we forget that Jesus felt emotions. So I just want you to remember and think about what Jesus was feeling. Jesus knew of his impending death that was coming. He knew that somebody was about to betray him. and now he's here with his friends, the guys that have really been with him through thick and thin for the last three years. And he looks at him and he says, One of you is going to betray me. You see, the disciples knew that the religious leaders didn't like Jesus.
They knew that they were in danger any time they came to Jerusalem. and they know that Jesus has the ability to predict the future and so they just go ahead and begin to suspect themselves. They begin looking at Jesus and saying, I'm not the one who does that, am I? Is it I? Is it I? And then you get to Judas. Judas looks into the same eyes that three years earlier had called him to follow him and he says, Is it I, teacher?
And Jesus says, You have said so. Jesus basically looks at him and says, You guessed it. And you get to the end of that passage and you're still just left with this question, Why would Judas so easily betray Jesus? Did he just completely miss it? Did he just really not realize who Jesus was? Did he just really, did he really not believe?
Maybe Judas was like a lot of people at this time and they thought that the Messiah, when the Messiah came, he was going to be this conquering warrior king who was going to come in and lead a charge, lead a rebellion and kick the Romans out of their territory and reset up Israel's kingdom. There were a lot of people at the time that thought that's what the Messiah was going to do but this guy's talking about he's going to die? Well certainly he can't be that kind of king. Maybe it was that Jesus was profitable for Judas. We know that in their ministry people would give them money to support them.
They were away from their homes for long periods of time and we know that Judas was the person who was actually in charge of the money bag and so over time maybe Judas just slipped himself a few over time. Maybe Jesus was just profitable for him. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the prominence. Maybe it was just the sense of importance he got by being one of the twelve. Maybe it was the sense of adventure of getting to just go along with Jesus on this.
And while we don't know exactly why scripture doesn't tell us exactly why there's a couple of things at play that we can see in Judas' motivations a couple of realities that we can see in his actions and they're really similar but I want to parse them out for us. The first one is this number one Judas never ceased to be the king of his life. Judas never ceased to be the king of his life. That though Jesus had looked at Judas three years ago and said come follow me come be a part of what I'm doing lay down your own life your own wants your own desires and come follow me. Judas walked behind him physically and had completely missed out on the spiritual reality.
That instead of walking alongside with Jesus and helping others Judas was really just helping himself instead of serving people with Jesus Judas was just serving himself. Judas had never ceased to be the most important person in his life. Jesus was never king because Judas never stepped off the throne and it goes hand in hand with the second reality which is this Jesus was just a means to an end. That since Judas never ceased to be the king of his life Jesus was only a means to an end. Which means that Jesus was good only as long as he was directly benefiting Judas. And as soon as Judas had other opportunities he swapped out Jesus.
The reason he was willing to trade Jesus for 30 pieces of silver was because Jesus wasn't priceless to him. He had limits on Jesus' worth. I mean you got to remember he was the one who handled the money and he's calculating the whole time and if it had seemed that staying with Jesus would have been more beneficial would have been more lucrative he would have done it. And as soon as Jesus no longer benefited him he was off to bigger and better things that he could just swap Jesus out for something else. And this should be terrifying to all of us. That Judas could walk side by side with Jesus God in the flesh and completely miss out on what was right in front of him.
That he could be so consumed by his own passions, his own desires, his own ways that he would sell out the son of God for chump change. That somehow something became more valuable, more important to him than Jesus did. So the truth is for those of us in the room who would say we're Christians, Jesus has come to us and he said follow me and we responded to that call and we said okay I'll follow you. I'll follow you Jesus. But following Jesus isn't always easy.
There are tough times, there are times where we're going to face suffering and the truth is as we begin to look at the life of Jesus and then look at the life of Judas what we're beginning to see is we're actually a whole lot more like Judas than we care to admit. When we really let it begin to hit home we like Judas are willing to swap Jesus out for other things to use Jesus just as a means to an end. Even though we've said Jesus you're my king not all areas of our lives have actually been submitted to his rule and his reign. Let me show you how this shows up a little bit. So for those of us in the room who've said we're Christians we're trying to figure out what that means as a church and so we gather together on Sunday and we exist together as family in our community groups.
That you as a Christian you're trying to read your Bible and you're trying to pray. You're trying to look for opportunities to build with the people that God has placed you around. And then when life gets tough and things get hard and something seemingly better comes along we'll stand right beside Judas and we'll swap Jesus out for something else. Maybe it's something better that comes along. Maybe it's that we really were using Jesus as a means to an end. And we start looking at our life and we start going he's not doing it the way I want him to.
Jesus sure you're my king but you're not doing what I want you to do. We'll say things like this. Jesus how could you let me lose my job? You're supposed to take care of me. Jesus how could you let my girlfriend cheat on me? She's supposed to be a Christian.
Why weren't you protecting me? We say things like God I trusted God and he didn't come through. Which is basically saying I only trust in God as long as he does what I think is good and valuable and important. You see that? That he's not actually king. He's not actually king when we say that.
That I'm in only as long as my relationships are getting better. I'm in only as long as I'm still getting a promotion. I'm in only as long as my children are learning how to behave. I'm in only as long as it's about me. That's what Judas was saying. And the problem with that is that Christianity is not about us.
It's about Jesus. And what we've just revealed is that in these areas, in these moments, we actually weren't following Jesus because of our devotion to him. Our words and our thoughts portray that Jesus really was just a means to an end. That we liked Jesus and would follow Jesus only so far as he would do what we wanted him to do. That instead of serving Jesus as God, we want Jesus to serve us as God because we're the most important person in the equation. That we can say all we want to Jesus, you're my king.
But until he has rule and reign of every aspect of our lives, that's the thing that we're willing to swap him out for. That's the thing where we're using Jesus only as a means to an end because we've got limits on where Jesus gets to have rule and have reign. And it's obvious in Judas' life. And here's what the Bible is going to say about that kind of as a whole. From Genesis to the Ten Commandments in Exodus to Jeremiah to the words of Jesus himself all the way to Paul in Romans, the Bible is going to say that humanity's biggest problem is that we were created to worship God. God.
But instead of worshiping God, we've swapped him out and decided to worship something else instead. We've decided to worship and pursue lesser gods. That we moved God out of his rightful place and something else in our lives has become more important, holds more sway, holds more motivation for how we do things. And the Bible is going to call this idolatry. The Bible is going to take the stance that all sin is idolatry that we've swapped God out for something else. And Chet put this scripture on the screen and talked about it last week and I'm just going to summarize it for us.
Here's what Paul says in Romans chapter 1. He says, although they knew God, although they knew God, although Judas knew Jesus, although we know God, it says they did not honor or worship him as God. It says although they knew God, they didn't honor or worship him as God, but instead worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. The Bible is going to take the stance that anytime anything begins to hold ultimate sway and weight in our lives, we have stepped into the realm of idolatry. The Bible says our biggest problem is that something else has become primary. Something else has become the most important thing.
And here's why that's so scary. Here's why it's so tricky and deceptive. It's not just the bad stuff that the Bible calls sin that can get there. We can actually take good things and put them in the place of God and we've got a problem. That something that's good, that is inherently good by itself, something that's a good thing can become a God thing and we're in trouble. And we've fallen away from God's original design, which means we have followed in to the sin that is every sin since the beginning, which we've swapped God out for other things.
And it's not just the bad stuff, it's the good stuff too. For those of you who have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, for those of you who are married, maybe it's your husband and spouse, let me show you how this shows up. Because it's hard to see. When a person, when your spouse or significant other has the ability to, when things are going good with them, your mood's up here. You're excited, you're happy, you feel like you're loved and blessed and that when things aren't going well with them, you kind of trickle down to the bottom and you're depressed and you're not feeling good. And your emotions, your whole well-being rises and falls with a person.
You have based your life on that person. They've become ultimate. It's in a relationship with Jesus. When Jesus is primary, that you're not swayed by your emotions because your identity comes from him, not from another person. You can begin to look at how do you spend your time? What's the thing that has the biggest grip on my time?
What influences my decisions? If the answer is not Jesus, watch out. It may be that that is something that we've set up as an idol. And again, it can be good things. And this shows up all over the place. Spouses do it with each other.
Parents, we do this with our children. We'll do this with our children who we're called to love and to protect and care for. But when all of life begins to revolve around them and around their schedule, they've become ultimate. They've become primary. And we've ceased worshiping and trusting Jesus. And we've put our trust in something else.
Athletes do this with their sports. Students, students, you do this with your majors and your job path. With your career path, you go, nothing, nothing else matters. I mean, I'm in school right now. I don't have time. I don't have time to hang out with a community group.
I don't have time to read my Bible. I've got to study. I've got to see it. Something that is not bad, that is actually inherently good when turned into a God thing becomes sin and ultimately will destroy us. With our bosses, with our work, with our dreams, with our desires, anytime they actually become ultimate, what we've done is we've walked into the priest's palace with Judas and said, what can I have for him? We're just negotiating for something different.
Judas wanted 30 pieces of silver. Maybe we just want our marriage to be good. Maybe we just want to get the job that we want to get so that we can make the money. And the Bible says that that's idolatry. So the truth is we're actually a whole lot more like Judas than we care to admit.
And Judas, we know that this night Judas leaves and the disciples leave eventually too and they go to a garden of Gethsemane but Judas leads the temple guards to the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is arrested. And then through that night and into the next day, Jesus is mocked. He's beaten. He's spit upon. He's given a sham trial. He's whipped.
And then eventually he's nailed to a cross where he would bleed out and die. And we've got this tendency to look at the situation and go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm not like Judas. I didn't betray the Son of God. I didn't have the Son of God murdered.
Oh, yeah. Why did Jesus have to go to the cross? Sin. Who did Jesus die for? Sinners. Sinners just like me and you.
Even for those of us who have submitted our life to Jesus and say, I want to follow him. There are these pockets. There are these areas in our lives that we just haven't quite submitted to Jesus yet. Where we haven't allowed him to be king. Where we have a propensity to take good things and turn them into God things. That when it's not going our way, we'll just move Jesus to the side and pursue something else.
But here's the good news for us this morning. Here's the good news of the gospel. That though we may sometimes treat Jesus the way that Judas did, our fate does not have to be the same. That though we may reject him and deny him and swap him out for other stuff, Jesus has actually offered us another option. So I want us to jump back into the text, jump back into it.
Verse 26, because Jesus continues talking with his disciples after Judas leaves. And what he's actually giving us is a picture of what he's going to do. So let's pick it back up. Verse 26. Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat. This is my body.
And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. Okay, what we said earlier was that they were gathering to share the Passover meal together, but we really didn't talk at all about what Passover was and what they were actually celebrating. What they're celebrating is a tie back into Israelite history all the way back to the time in the book that's recorded in the book of Exodus where the Israelites were in slavery to the nation of Egypt.
But Exodus tells us that God heard the cries of his people and he goes to Moses and he said, Moses, I want you, I've heard the cries of my people. I want you to go and lead my people out. I'm going to rescue them. I'm going to pull them out of slavery. So Moses goes to Pharaoh and he asked for him to let the people go and he doesn't do it.
His heart is hardened. And so God sends terrible plagues, terrible plagues to show his glory and to ultimately motivate Pharaoh to let the people go. And he doesn't. He doesn't relent until the tenth plague, which would be the worst. The tenth plague was that God was going to send the angel of death, which is just an angel that causes death to go through all the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn sons. That was the tenth plague.
But God says to Moses, Moses, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a lamb, a spotless lamb without blemish or defect. And I want you to sacrifice it. And I want you to take the blood of that lamb and I want you to put it on the sides of the doors and over the top of the door. And when the angel of death comes through, I will see the blood of the lamb and I will pass over and your firstborn sons will be spared. Be inside your home with your sandals on, your bags packed, eating unleavened bread, because tomorrow you're coming out of Egypt.
I'm going to rescue my people. And so that night the angel of death comes through and any door that had blood on it, the angel of death passed over and there were many, all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians died and there was weeping and wailing. And the next day Pharaoh looked at Moses and Israelites and he said, get out. God had come and he had rescued his people and we know that he led them through the Red Sea and they spent time in the wilderness, but eventually they would make it to the promised land. Passover was a celebration that God instituted for his people to remind them of the deliverance that he had provided.
In the Passover, a lamb had to be sacrificed so that the firstborn sons could go free. Are you seeing it now? That the entire Old Testament was talking about this and the celebration of the Passover was ultimately finding its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the lamb and the son who would be sacrificed so that we could all go free. The Passover finds its fulfillment in Jesus. And that's the good news.
That's the good news. That's why our fate doesn't have to be the same as as Judas is because we can trust in the lamb that would be slain. That Jesus would come and his body would be broken and his blood would be shed so that our sins could be forgiven. The cross is beautiful because on it Jesus died for terrible sinners and he just calls us to repent. And so he sits here with his disciples and he said, here's the bread that provides nourishment and sustenance and life. It represents my body.
My body that is broken for you. My body has to be broken for you. And then he takes the cup. He said this cup, this wine that was to represent the blood of the lamb that was placed over the doorpost. No, no, no. This now represents my blood that would be shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
That the forgiveness of your sins would be accomplished through his death. I'm going to be the Passover lamb. I'm going to be the one that swaps places for you. Swaps places for you even though you have a tendency to swap me out for other things. And that's the good news of the gospel. And that's why this morning as we think about this, as we see our own sin in relation to Judas, there's good news for us that our fate doesn't actually have to be the same.
That Jesus' body was broken and his blood was shed for all the times we swap him out for lesser things. Where we take a boyfriend and they become ultimate. We take a job and it becomes ultimate. And it takes the place of God. Jesus died for that. So that as we celebrate communion, which is what this is, this is the Lord's Supper.
And we know that in Scripture the church is commanded to take communion as a reminder of the sacrifice of Jesus. So that every time we as a church take communion, we're remembering our sin. That Jesus' body was broken for it. That his blood was shed for it. That he swapped places out for us. This is something that we do on a regular basis as a church.
And we're going to start doing it more. Because it's wonderful. It's wonderful to sit and to actually be reminded of our sinfulness and that Jesus' body and his blood, it was broken and shed for us, for our sin. The Bible just calls to us to repent. That's the invitation to the table. Was that Jesus was broken for you.
You just need to repent and place your faith in him. In fact, every time we take communion, it's our chance to confess in two ways. We confess our sin and we confess our Savior. We confess that I'm a broken sinner, but he was broken for me. We confess that I'm covered in shame, but now I'm covered by his blood. We confess that I've swapped him out for so many things, but Jesus swapped himself out for us.
And so we celebrate the good news of the gospel as we take communion. And we're actually going to do that this morning. We're going to celebrate communion together. And communion is for Christians. So in the room, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, you've already been invited to the table and you've accepted the invitation.
The Bible does call us as Christians that as we approach taking the bread and the juice, that we would remember, that we would examine ourselves, that we would look inward, that all of us have areas where we have a tendency to swap Jesus out or to not let him be king. And the Bible's called us to repent, to repent and then take of the bread and the juice. Maybe you've been hanging out with our church for a while and you've been thinking about who Jesus is. You've been hanging out with a community group and you've been wrestling with, is this true? That you've begun to actually look inside yourself and you realize, I am sinful.
I am broken. I am in need of a savior. Today would be a beautiful day for you to place your faith in Jesus and accept the invitation to the table. And if that's you, if you're going, I know this is me. I know I need a savior. We're going to take some time to pray here in just a minute.
Repent. Repent. Repent. Confess your sin to God. Confess your brokenness, your neediness, that you need a savior. And then ask him to be your savior.
Place your faith and your trust in him. And then go to the back of the room and take communion for the first time. And then tell somebody and then probably go to the baptism class, which would be fantastic. But there may be some of us in the room who are still just, we're skeptical. We don't quite understand who Jesus is. We're still wrestling with this.
And here's what I would challenge you to do kind of during this time as other people are praying. I want you to ask yourself the question, are the things that I'm chasing in my life, are the things that I'm basing my life on actually filling me up? Actually, actually giving me joy, actually giving my life, actually giving me life. And just consider, just consider what, what giving your life to Jesus might actually look like. So Bianca is going to come back up and, and here's what's going to happen.
Bianca is going to sing a song over us. She's going to sing a song called the power of the cross. And the words are actually going to be on the screen because I want you to see the beauty of what she's singing about. Here's what I want all of us to do. I want all of us to just take some time and pray. I want us to confess and to repent of all the things that we allow to get in the way of our total devotion and allegiance to Jesus.
I want us to spend some time repenting and confessing. And when you've had a chance to do that, then I want you to go to the back of the room and I want you to take the bread and I want you to dip it in the juice and remember, remember what Jesus did for you so that your sins could be forgiven. So we're going to take some time and we're going to pray. And when you're ready, when you're ready to go to the back of the room, you can do that. You can take the bread and the juice and remember what Jesus has done for you. And then I invite you to come back to your seat after you've done that.
We're going to, we're going to sing. We're going to praise the lamb that was slain for us because the good news of the gospel is true that Jesus died for sinners. God, I ask that you would help us to, to clearly see our sin. God, that we would see our brokenness and our neediness in it. And it wouldn't drive us to put up a wall, but it would drive us to repent. To repent of all the things that we've, we've swapped you out for, that we've put in your place.
Cheap substitutes for a mighty God, for a loving God. God, would you convict? Holy Spirit, would you move throughout this room? Would you lead us to a place where we would repent and accept the invitation to the table? Our invitation that was purchased by Jesus shed blood in his broken body. So as Bianca sings, I just want us all to sit and to pray, to ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we need to repent.
And then when you've had an opportunity to do that, I invite you to the back of the room to take communion. And you can return to your seat and sing praises to the lamb. Amen. Amen.
The Goodness of Gathering
Transcript
Yeah, I hope you enjoyed the holidays. Hope you had a good break. I know I did. Got to spend some time with family and all that kind of stuff. But after two weeks, I'm ready to get back together with people.
I'm like, where is my people? I'm ready to sing. I'm ready to see everybody. But we're kind of a young church, and so a lot of our church family has been traveling over the last couple of weeks, and they're starting to get back into a normal routine of things. USC kicks back off tomorrow, so some of our college students will be traveling today. So just keep them in your prayers.
College football playoffs have been going on. Go Tigers! Amen. That is not the response I was expecting. I'm excited. Did someone just say roll tide?
Get. Go. Okay. Well, there's kind of this lull this time of year between Christmas and New Year's where we all kind of just start reflecting a little bit. We start looking back on 2015 and saying, okay, well, I wish that could have been better. I would have done that differently.
You start looking at time with your family and stuff like that, and you look forward to 2016 and maybe some changes and stuff you want to make. But all of us kind of do this reflection. You're thinking about your family. You're thinking about all that kind of stuff. So hopefully you've had some time to do that.
Maybe you do resolutions. Maybe you don't. Even if you don't, it's still just kind of rolling around in the back of your mind thinking about last year and going into this year. And so over the break, I took some time and just wanted to pray over Mill City Church and just ask some questions. Ask, how are our groups doing? Are we training leaders?
Are we accomplishing the mission that we feel like God's called us to do in this city? Are we making disciples? And so as I pray through that and ask those questions, with that being said, I want to ask you a question, and I need you to participate and help me out. You're going to have to raise your hand. Okay. I need you to raise your hand if, from this stage, you have heard this statement or something similar.
Okay, you ready? We are our groups. If you're not in a group, you need to get in a group. If you're just hanging out on Sundays, you're missing out, get in a group. Hold them up if that's you. Good.
You can put them down. All right, that's actually a good thing. Some of you have heard that for years. You've heard it on repeat for years now. It echoes in your dreams. And the reason being is we believe that following Jesus is an all-of-life commitment.
So when you start following Jesus, it infiltrates how you think about work. It begins to influence how you live with your family. It impacts everything. And since that's true, being the church can't just be what we get together and do on Sundays. It's got to be more. And what we see is that the early church understood that, and all throughout Scripture, is that life is meant to be following Jesus in relationship with other believers on mission.
So letting the gospel impact your life as you're in a community on mission, gospel-centered community on mission. See what I'm doing there? See? See what I'm doing there? All right, you're smart.
Here's how I want us to start off this morning. We're going to put some Scripture on the screen in just a second. It's a foundational passage for us as a church. Some of you will be familiar with it. But we're going to be in the book of Acts looking at chapter 2.
And what we're seeing here in the book of Acts is what we have recorded of the early church. You don't have to turn there. We're going to put it on the screen in just a second. But what we're getting in Acts 2 is a snapshot glimpse into first-century Christians and how they were trying to follow Jesus. And so as Luke is writing Acts, he's not necessarily writing to tell us how we should do things. He's mostly just describing what he's seeing.
So it's not necessarily prescriptive. It's more descriptive. And this is a huge foundational passage for us as a church. And I think we're going to have it on screen. Yeah. All right, cool.
So Acts 2, 42 through 47. Let's read this together. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship. to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Okay, and as soon as you read that, if you're a part of a community group or if you've been hanging out with our church for a while, you're already seeing aspects of who we are as a church show up. Things that we're shooting for as a church family.
It said that they fellowshiped together, which meant that they actually spent time together. They broke bread in each other's homes. It said they were devoted to the apostles' teaching, which just meant that they were engaging with Scripture together. It said that they were praying together. It said they were selling possessions and giving them to those that had need. This was a group of people who were living this out together, and we absolutely want to see that modeled in our community groups.
But here's what I want to do this morning. I want to go back. We're actually going to look at another section that we just read and emphasize something that we haven't necessarily spent a whole lot of time talking about as a church family. But it's just as beautiful and just as important as the other stuff that we looked at. It's actually in verses 46 and 47. Let's look at it again.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. So what we see in the early church right there in verse 46 is this balance. We see this balance in how they followed Jesus together. There was this collection of all of them together where they were attending the temple together as a big group of people. And then it said they gathered in homes.
So there's this gathering all together in the temple courts, and then there's gathering in homes. And so the church has kind of exploded at this point. There was about 120 followers of Jesus, and it has just grown to 3,000, which 3,000 is a logistical nightmare. A logistical nightmare that I would be happy to have, guys. I'm not going to say. So if you just want to keep inviting your friends and family, we'll figure it out.
I'll say that. We'll figure it out. We'll put people in classrooms. We'll get it all figured out. But the church grew, and what we see is this ebb and flow to their relationship where they saw value, where they saw merit in all coming together and then scattering as smaller groups into their home.
They all gathered together and then scattered as smaller groups. And so some of you have even asked us before, like, why do we call this a gathering as opposed to maybe how some churches call it a worship service? And that's honestly one of the reasons from these verses because we believe it's a better description of what we're doing when we all come. We're coming together. It's a gathering of the church. And worship is more than just what we do on Sunday.
Worship is what we do with our lives. And so as you look at that passage, you can see, okay, that's what our church should be shooting for. That's what we're shooting for, and we're accomplishing that in our community groups. And we talk about them all the time. We want people to actively be living out their faith in Jesus. But if we're not careful, what can happen is we can talk about our community groups and living it out so much that we begin to neglect this beautiful expression that God has given us.
That we can talk about our groups so much and emphasize them so much that we kind of push gatherings to the side, and they kind of lose time, and they kind of lose value in our eyes. And what we've said a lot from this stage is if you're just hanging out on Sundays, you're missing out. What we haven't said as much as if you're just hanging out with a group and catching the podcast before you hang out with them, you're also missing out. And I realize there are people in our church family whose work schedule doesn't allow them to be here with us on Sunday, and I'm thankful that we record our sermons.
But there's just something unmistakably holy and good about when the whole church gathers together, and we sing and we listen to the word, that there's something beautiful about that. And so after having two weeks off, we're back together. So that's what we're going to be talking about this morning is the goodness of gathering. The goodness of gathering all together as a church family. And here's the question we're trying to answer. We're going to put it up on the screen.
This is the question we're trying to answer. If being the church is what really matters, why is it important that we gather together? So in essence, if being the church, if living it out, if letting it impact you 24-7 is what really matters, why is it important that the church gathers together? We're going to talk about it in three different ways, and I'm going to go ahead and give them to you up front. I never do this, but I want you to see it. The church gathers to open the Bible.
The church gathers to respond to God and celebrate the gospel. And the church gathers to be sent out on mission. And we're going to focus on those three things. And what we're going to see is you can look at them and see we do those things in our community group. But we're going to talk about how when we do them on Sundays, there's something beautiful and distinct and unique about what Jesus does in us and for us when we all gather together.
So let's pray before we hop in. God, I ask that you would submit this in our minds and our hearts to understand the value and the goodness of all gathering together. Lord, of seeing your word laid open and having its truth applied to our lives and singing together and responding to you. God, there's nothing better than being in your presence and enjoying the relationship that you purchased for us through what Jesus did on the cross. And so, God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would lead us, would give us the ability to see what you're showing us in Scripture clearly today. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, so grab a Bible. This part is actually not going to be on the screen, so I want you to grab a Bible. If you don't have one, grab one of the blue and white ones that we have in the seat. We're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 8, which is on page 258 in those blue and white Bibles. And let me go ahead and say this. If you don't have a Bible, we're going to be talking about how important it is and how good it is.
We want you to take that one with you. That's our gift to you. If it's your first time hanging out with us, you don't have a Bible. If you want a Bible, please take that one with you. But we're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 8.
And again, what we're trying to do today is talk about the beauty of the whole church gathering together. And why it's important and good and valuable. And again, today's not meant to be corrective as much as it is an encouragement into understanding why we do what we do. You know this. Anything that you're doing, when you start to put vision into it and people start to help you see the purpose and why, it just makes it more enjoyable. It just makes it better.
And so for us, my hope, my prayer for us this morning is as we look at this passage, we're going to be encouraged. We're going to begin to look at gatherings with new eyes, with a fresh attitude, with a renewed sense of the goodness of us all gathering together. And we're going to be looking at that in Nehemiah chapter 8. And most of the time when we're gathering on Sundays, we're in the middle of a series or we're walking verse by verse through a book of the Bible. We are jumping straight into the middle of Nehemiah. So let me give you just a little bit of the back story.
Okay. In Nehemiah 8, the people of God, the Hebrews, the Israelites have been taken captive. That God allowed them to be taken captive because they had stopped worshiping him. They started worshiping false idols and being like the people around them. And so God allowed them to be captured. And now God has rescued them and they're coming back into the promised land.
Okay. So this is the people coming back into the promised land. They're being led by Nehemiah, being led by Ezra. And they've been here for about a week at this point. And it's not going super well. Now, miraculously, they have been able to get the wall built back up to kind of protect the city.
But there's so much to do. I mean, this city has been desolate for almost 70 years. And they've got all this different stuff to do. And what's interesting is the people, one of the first things that they want to do is they want to get together as the people of God to worship God by listening to the word of God. They said all that other stuff can wait. That stuff is good and valuable and important.
But all of that stuff can wait. And I think even just as we're hopping in, there's a lesson there. There's a lesson there just to see that the rest of that can wait. We're going to gather to worship God. And we see kind of Nehemiah and Ezra. And what happens is all the people kind of gather into the square.
And that's a little bit of the picture of what we're getting right here in Nehemiah chapter 8. Let's look at it. Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 1. Let's read it together. And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel.
So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattathia and Shema and we'll just say four of his other close friends to the right. And Padaiah and six other homies to his left.
Verse 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And as he opened it, all the people stood. So like I said, the city's been deserted for about 70 years and the people are starting to come back. And they need to rebuild the temple. They need to rebuild the city.
They need to reestablish life. And if you think about it, there's a ton of stuff that needs to be done. I mean, where's food coming from? Farmers have got to start planting so that there's food. They've got to figure out how fresh water is going to be in the city. They've got to clear roads.
They've got to set up systems for market and trade. And all of that stuff has to happen. But from early on, the people say, we need to all gather to hear from God. And that's important because the nation of Israel learned something while they were in captivity. The reason that they had to go into exile is that they lost that laser focus with their lives. They lost that focus that if God is supreme and God is the most important thing and God's our focus, then it puts everything else in its proper place.
Then work begins to make sense. The family relationships begin to make sense. And they had lost some of that focus. And so all the people gathered together into the square. It's awesome. There's like 50,000 people all together in the square.
And what it says, they said, they sent Ezra the scribe to go get the book of the law. And we don't know exactly who the they is. It could have been just the people who were also kind of on the platform thing. It could have just been all of them going, Bible, Bible, we want the Bible. I don't know if it was like that or not. But they sent Ezra to go get the Bible.
And it says he stood on the platform and opened it. And he read from it. And how long did he read? He read from morning to midday. He read from morning to, that's like eight hours. I mean, guys, you know I'm all about a long sermon.
I mean, but that's intense. So to illustrate this morning, I'm going to see how long I can go. So I pass out. I ate my Wheaties. I drank a Gatorade. I chased it with a Red Bull.
Let's do this thing. I mean, that's a long, that's a long time. And it says the ears of the people were attentive. They were listening. In fact, as soon as he opened it, verse 5 said the people just stood up. I don't know if that was like a collective.
Should we stand? Do you stand? I'll stand. One Carl stands and everyone else stands. I don't know. But the people were attentive.
They were hungry for it. They knew how desperately they needed the Word of God. And so that's honestly the first reason that we get together on Sundays is that we gather to open the Bible. We get together collectively as a church family to open the Bible. Now, immediately you're going, okay, well, I mean, I can read the Bible on my own at home. And most times when my group isn't playing Phase 10 or Catchphrase, we're opening the Bible too and studying it.
So I don't, what's the point? And let me say this, I want that to be a rhythm in your life. I want you to be opening the Bible and seeing the truth that's there and getting together with your community group and studying it too. Those are all beautiful disciplines. If that's not something that's going on in your life, if you're not diving into the Word, let that be your takeaway this morning. Hear that.
Just open the book and start reading. Let that be a part of your life. If you don't know where to start, I would love to talk to you after we're done and explain some different areas that you can go in and read. But, yeah, we do. We open the Bible at other times. We do it in our community groups.
But what we're trying to do in our community groups is more talk about how does it apply to our lives. We're going for application. Like, where is this leading me to repent? What does this mean for how I approach things? Where do I agree? Where do I disagree?
What does this person think? And we kind of wrestle with it all together. And when we gather as an entire church family together, there's something different about it. When we all gather together, there's something unique about having a posture of sitting and receiving and soaking something in that's being taught. I'm going to say that again. There's something unique about sitting and receiving and just soaking in something that is being taught.
And when I was in college, if I was in a class and I had a professor at the front of the room, unless I was given permission to ask questions or permission to speak, my posture in that class was listener and learner. There would be time when I got together with other people or a study group to be like, well, I didn't agree with that or that didn't make sense or I wonder if that's going to be on the test, but not necessarily in that moment. In essence, what I was saying in that classroom was, okay, I'm submitting to the authority of the professor, his education, and the content that he is teaching. And again, that's just an example to get us thinking along those same lines, but even that begins to break down.
Because what it's saying is there's something special about the professor, but when the church gathers, there's nothing special about the person who stands on the stage and opens the Bible. What's special is God and his word that he wants to communicate into our lives. It wasn't about Ezra. You want to know how I know that? Ezra wasn't the only person on the stage. There were a whole bunch of other people.
The stage wasn't for Ezra. The stage was for the word of God. So the word of God could be over top of all the people. And I think that's a beautiful picture of how we should see the word of God in our own lives. That we should see that God is over us and his word is over us in a way that we're not trying to take our life and justify it by the word. No, no, no, no.
We're running to the word to help us understand who God is and how we might live in relationship with him. So there's something, there's just something different about it. When someone's standing up and teaching something and you're just soaking it in and receiving it. And I'll tell you, in our culture, specifically with my generation, that kind of teaching is just kind of waning in popularity. It's not something that people are really excited about. They don't want to go and sit and listen to someone.
And some of that's because a lot of people in my generation are like, is there absolute truth or is it all just kind of relative? And we know that there are different styles of learning now. And so do we really need that type of teaching? That's why I think it's beautiful that we have gatherings and we have our groups and we're discipling each other in all of life. But there is something unique and special about opening the word of God and letting it be spoken into our lives.
And we see it all throughout scripture. Our God is a preaching God. That God uses his word to accomplish his will. From the very beginning, God stands up and he preaches. He preaches the world into existence. And then throughout the Old Testament, he uses prophets and he speaks through them into the lives of his people.
And then Jesus comes and he preaches repentance and the gospel. And then he raises up his disciples and sends them out to preach the message. And so when the church gathers together, what we're saying is we will sit under the authority of Jesus and allow it to shape our lives. And there's something beautiful about not just doing it by yourself, but doing it all together. Where we're collectively sitting in the room and you're looking around and people are head nodding and people are saying amen. And it's this beautiful excitement of saying, no, I'm not just doing this by myself.
We're actually getting to do it together. There's something unique about that. There's something beautiful about how the Holy Spirit uses that and works that in our lives. And in fact, the Bible talks about itself. The Bible teaches us about the Bible. And I want to read a couple of these things because it's awesome.
Here's what the Bible says about itself. That it's breathed out by God. You'll hear arguments of people, yeah, well, it was written by human authors. No, no, no. Hear this. It was breathed out by God and he just chose to use those authors.
And it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training. That the Bible, that it makes man complete, equipped for every good work. That it keeps us from sinning. That it's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path and so forth and so on. The Bible just describes itself as God's word to do work in our lives. And there's something valuable about when we get to do it together.
And here's another thing that makes gatherings distinct. There are times when I'm sitting there and Chet's preaching or maybe Raz is preaching. And I am loving everything that is being said. I'm digging it. I'm being encouraged. I'm being reminded of my identity, being in Christ.
I mean, I'm just, I can feel myself getting excited because it's the truth of it. There are also times where I'm sitting there listening and I'm not so excited about it. And I'm going, ah, I don't want to do that. Oh, I'm not naturally inclined to do that. I'm actually being convicted. I feel like I need to repent.
This is really making me uncomfortable. And what I want to do is head for the exit sign. But I don't because I'm in a group of people that are collectively saying we submit to the authority of God. And in fact, those moments where you want to head for the exit sign or maybe it's rubbing you wrong and you don't understand and you don't like it. Those may be the times that you want to lean in and listen just a little bit more. Because it may be that the Holy Spirit is working and moving and trying to show you something completely new.
And when we're all gathering together, it's not just you having to figure out how to do it. You've got a group of people around you that are willing to encourage you and walk side by side with you to see you accomplish Jesus' will in your life. And so the church gathers to open the Bible. Verse 6, let's keep going. Verse 6. Sorry guys, I got the power this morning.
Verse 6. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also, Jeshua and Bonnie, and you can just skip on to where it says the Levites, helped the people to understand the law while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God.
Do not mourn or weep, for all the people wept as they heard the words of the law. Okay, so as the word of God was being read, the people began to respond. We know that as soon as the Bible was open, as soon as the scriptures were open and they started reading, it says that the people just stood up. And I don't know exactly what that was like, but the people just stood up. And then it says they began to raise their hands. So I don't know exactly what that was like.
I don't know if it was any of this or any of this. Or maybe it was more of just a stretching out, like give me more. Or maybe it was more open hands, like let me receive this. And then it says they fell and put their faces to the ground. This picture of humility. Guys, remember, the city's not cleaned up yet.
We don't know what's on the ground. They don't care. It's this posture of humility as they hear. In fact, verse 9 says that some of them were moved to tears by what they heard. And so one of the reasons the church gathers, one of the reasons we gather, is we gather to respond to God and celebrate the gospel. So we gather to open the Bible, but the other thing we do is we gather to respond to God and celebrate the gospel.
So that as the word is proclaimed, we begin to respond. And the church, the people of God, the church throughout history, across people groups and tribes and languages, has always found this way to gather together and respond and to celebrate. Some people may do it with a whole bunch of instruments and a whole bunch of people singing and dancing. And this group over here may not use instruments at all. And then you've got this group who may meet in a building, and this group may meet out in a field. But the church has always found ways to respond to God collectively as a group.
And truth is, we do this in our community groups as well. We respond to God in our community groups. We talk about how it affects our lives. We wrestle with that together. We don't just say this is like information for you. It's information that impacts your life.
Like how do you live this out at work? How do you live it out in your marriage? How do we encourage each other to do it? We repent and confess to each other where we're off and where we're struggling. And in the midst of doing that, we celebrate the gospel. We celebrate the good news that Jesus came and he lived a perfect, sinless life, and he died on the cross so that we might have life in him.
And he rose from the dead. Like we celebrate that and we encourage each other with that truth because it's not just good news then, it's good news now. And so we remind each other, we don't just say you should love people. We say because he first loved you, we get to love others. Not just go out and serve, but we serve because he served us. He came and met us at our greatest need.
We encourage each other with the gospel. But when we all get together as a big church family, we get to respond in some different ways. It's kind of different. Maybe some things that you don't get to do in your community group all the time. We get together and we pray all together. We ask God to do stuff on behalf of our city to move and to work and to bring people to salvation.
There are times when we celebrate communion, where we remember the broken body and the shed blood. There are times where we give, where we give our finances to support what Jesus is doing in the city and doing through this church. We get together and we baptize people. And when we baptize people, we get fried chicken and we throw a party and we dunk people in water and we go crazy. So crazy that we can't talk.
I mean, I love baptisms. Just so you know, Easter, baptism, that is happening. So if you're trying to figure out whether you should be baptized, interested in being baptized, let me put that plug in. That's coming at Easter, so not too long from now. But one of the main ways that the church responds to God when we're all collected together is that we sing.
We get together and we sing. And y'all know, y'all know I love that. In fact, on the Sundays where I preach, I get really excited because we've got super talented musicians who love Jesus and are a part of community groups who lead us to sing truths about Jesus. And I love when I just get to be a part of that. But I also love the times where I get to be up here and I get to see your faces.
I get to see you sing. I get to see you raise your hands and then sometimes just sit and reflect on what's being sung. It's the best. And we live in a culture that highly values music. That's a big deal kind of in our culture right now is music. And maybe on the other side of that, maybe just more the entertainment side of music.
And some of that, like the value of that, has kind of seeped into our American Christian culture so much so that when people think about church and what the church is and stuff, what they've got in their mind is just what we get together and do on Sundays. It's an incomplete picture. So much so that you'll hear people say, I go to that church. What they mean is, what they're saying is, I go to that building on that street at that time on that day. And they're missing out on the fact that the church is the people who have been rescued by Jesus and it's all of life and that's just a picture of what we do.
But I kind of grew up with a similar type understanding. I kind of grew up thinking about Sundays as a really big deal, that that was kind of the pinnacle of everything that Christians did. I grew up in a church that had like a lot of music. We had all kinds of different musical stuff and there were choirs and there was an orchestra. I mean, it was crazy, a whole bunch of stuff. You kind of had to dress up to go there.
But it was good stuff. And afterwards, like any good kid, I would like run around and play tag with my friends. But there was always that little old lady that goes, Don't run in the church! And I just wish I knew then what I knew now. Because I would have turned around and been like, The church is people. And just like taken off running.
But our church valued Sunday. Sunday was a big deal. It was what was talked about. It was what was celebrated. So much so that we did it twice on the same day.
You went home and took a power nap to get ready because you're coming back. Like, we're doing this again. So the church I grew up in really valued Sunday. Then I got to college and I got introduced to my first mega church. And oh, buddy. Lights, lasers, smoke machines.
I mean, music that would like melt your face. Thousands of people just standing, singing. I mean, it was, whew! They cared about Sunday. I'm telling you. And I'm telling you, it was awesome.
It was beautiful to see all those people worshiping together. But even then, I'm starting to go, okay, is there, what else, what else should I do? And it's kind of like, oh, you can come back next Sunday. All right, I'll do that. But there's got to be more.
There's something more to it. And then I started working for a church while I was in college. And part of what I did was help plan. What did we do on Sundays? And all along the way, I'm trying to figure out, okay, how does, how does this work? Like, what is this?
Sundays are important, but it's not just Sundays. It's all of life. And as I grew in my understanding of the gospel and as I began to read in scripture, it's not a competition between Sundays and all of life. It's both. It's this beautiful ebb and flow, this back and forth of the church gathering all together and then scattering out. And it has just changed my understanding of why the church gathers and why it's important.
And one of the reasons we do that is so that we can get together and have good music. It's so that we can get together and sing at the top of our lungs and to raise our hands and to respond to the truth that's being said. Because God uses music in such a special way. Let me show you. It is highly unlikely that during the week you have walked around with the three main points of a sermon stuck in your head. Right?
I mean, most of us, by the time we're going to hang out with our community group, we're going, what were we talking about on Sunday? Sorry, guys. Maybe I should go listen to the podcast before I could hang out with our group, even though I was there on Sunday. But you have had a song stuck in your head. Right? We've all had that annoying song that gets stuck in your head.
Or maybe it's your favorite song. You just sing it on repeat all the time. Because music has that ability to stick with us. Let me prove it to you. Ready? Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. What song did I just hum? Hail the King. Right? Hail the King. I hummed Hail the King.
Okay, what were the words that I was singing? We have by faith through Jesus. It's only. That was, guys, if we were a choir, we blew it. But yeah, for the most part, you could recall those lyrics.
And sometimes, we sing that song a good bit. That song gets stuck in my head all the time. And do you see how beautiful that is? That in the middle of your work week, when you're at work and you just got chewed out by your boss, or you just had an argument with your wife, that song pops in your head and you're going, no, no, no, I've been justified. That there's a Creator God and I rebelled against Him. But He sent Jesus to die on the cross so that I might be saved, so that I could have salvation, not because of my work, but Jesus' work on my behalf.
That I could place faith in Jesus. And it's a gift of God's grace. And as I begin to remember that, it just reshapes everything. It has this beautiful impact on our lives. And so when we get together, we celebrate that truth. We're reminding ourselves.
And here's another thing. Here's something that's really important to point out. Our worship, when we get together on Sundays, is just a foretaste of what's coming later. It's just a foretaste of the future that is waiting for us. I mean, you can honestly just start thinking about Sunday as heaven practice. Go ahead and get that in your mind, like you've got to get stressed, get warmed up.
This is heaven practice for the eternity that we've been created for us. And we all know this. When there's something to celebrate, the phrase, the more the merrier, absolutely fits. When you're excited, when you want to throw a party, when you want to celebrate, the more the merrier. Let me illustrate. If I'm sitting at home and I'm watching the Clemson game by myself and they win, I mean, I'm excited.
I mean, you know, I may woo-hoo. And then I may change the channel and flip to another game. And the rest of it, I just go on with the rest of my life. If I'm watching the Clemson game at Charlie Earp's house, I'm like jumping up. And I'm doing like some of the fist pumping type stuff. And we're high-fiving and we're getting really excited.
And we're making fun of the people who weren't pulling for Clemson. Like, it's just this bigger celebration. If I'm in Death Valley with 80,000 of my closest friends, I'm storming the field. I may take my shirt off and run around. I have no, I mean, it's amazing when you get with a group of people and just celebrate it. And that's what heaven's going to be like.
There's going to be people from every tribe and language and tongue and people group. That have come to place their faith in Jesus. And we're all going to stand around the throne and sing and bring praises to God as we stand in the presence of our Savior. It's going to be awesome. And heaven's not just that. It's not going to be just that.
We're going to do other stuff as well. But it won't be less than that. I can tell you that. It won't be less than that. And there's this, I was at a concert with Katie a couple of years ago. And there's a Christian artist named David Crowder.
You may have heard him before. And before the concert they said, if anybody works for a church or is on staff for the church, come to the back. We want you to pray with David. And David Crowder prayed that night. And it was something like this. I just want to read this to you.
Let's see. He prayed, I mean, that blew my mind when he prayed that because it's absolutely true. Let our feet be lifted off the ground just a little so that we might experience what heaven is going to be like. It's going to be this amazing time of worship. In fact, there's this really cool scripture that I read in Zephaniah 3 this week where it says that Jesus is going to stand in the midst of his people. And he's going to sing over us.
Like a great choir master, he's going to stand in the midst of us and sing. And we're going to sing. It's going to be this beautiful time of celebration. And we get to mimic that. We get to mirror that as a church on Sundays. And let's kind of bring this thing to a close.
Let's jump back into verse 10. Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready. For this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy.
Do not be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing because they had understood the words that were declared to them. So the church came together to sit under the authority of God's word. And as they heard the word, they began to respond to the word all together. And then what does it say that they did? It says they went their way.
It says they went their way to eat and they went their way to drink. Back to their families. Back to their work. Back to everything. Infused with the truth that they had been taught and what they had celebrated. The third reason that the church gathers is we gather to be sent out.
We gather to be sent out. We don't stay here. As good as this is and how fun is this, this is fun and good. We don't stay here. We're sent out. And we know specifically on this side of the resurrection, for those of us in this room that have placed faith in Jesus, we know that we've been sent out specifically on mission.
And so we gather to be sent out on mission. The mission that Jesus has given us, which is to go and to make disciples, to share his love with other people, to help them come to know his love and to begin to follow him and to place their faith in him. And yeah, we do that in our groups. We get together and we talk about the people that we're building relationships with and we pray over them that Jesus might work in their life. But there's something different about when we do it all together.
It's way more like General Patton and his troops. It's way more like Mel Gibson riding on a horse in front of the Scottish. You ever seen that movie? Oh man, it's amazing. Braveheart's amazing. It's this call to this is who you are.
Go and do that. This is who you are. He doesn't say go do this because of who you are. He says because of who you are, go accomplish the victory. And that's what's true for us. As Christians, our identity is seated in Christ.
And so out of who Jesus has made us, we are sent out. And so I hope that this morning you've been refreshed. I hope that you've been reminded of the goodness of gathering, that it's not this competition between whether you're in a group or whether you come on Sundays. It's this beautiful ebb and flow that we see in Acts 2 and we're seeing here in Nehemiah 8, that the church gathers together and then we're scattered out. And so just to kind of bring us to a close, we gather to open the Bible, to let it have authority to speak truth into our lives. We gather to respond and to celebrate the gospel.
We stand and we sing and we proclaim and we pray and we give. And then we're sent out all mission together, that we accomplish the mission of Jesus as this church in our community groups. And it's this beautiful expression of the church being one all together and then going out together all mission. The band's going to come back up. Here's kind of how I want you to respond with this. I want you to have fresh vision and fresh eyes for Sundays.
And I want Sundays to be an important part of how you follow Jesus, that you see how good and how valuable it is, that you begin to let this be an aspect of how you build community with other believers, that you stand shoulder to shoulder, you stand side by side with other Christians and you sing at the top of your lungs and you remind yourself of what's true and you pray all together and you give together and then you go out so that you're sitting with and you're seeing people that are in your community group and in other community groups and you're going, yeah, let's go out. Let's be who Jesus has made us to be. He's made us to be His church. And so what we're going to do now is we're going to sing a song that says that.
We will be the church to live out your heart. Oh God, arise up in us. We'll show the world how you love. Take heart. You have overcome the world. That's the message.
That's the message of the church. It's the message of the gospel. And we stand and respond and sing those things at the top of our lungs because they're true and there's something beautiful about getting to do them together. together all as one big church family. Let me pray over us. God, I pray that you would let that sink in or that the joy of gathering with your family and gathering with your people would culminate in Sundays where we preach the gospel and we sing songs at the top of our lungs for your glory and for your namesake and then we're sent out together on mission to see more people come to know you come to love you and place their faith in you.
And so God, I pray that your spirit would move in us to remind us of who we are as your people. In Jesus' name, amen.
Truth and Love
1 Peter 1:22-2:3
Transcript
Hello again. We never do this, but I just want to take a second to do this. Just take a second and introduce yourself to the people that you're sitting near. Just take a second and do that. Turn around, say hey. Now don't get crazy.
I know how you guys are. Hey guys. Hey guys. Thank you. All right.
All right. Yeah, I actually thought that would be kind of like opening up a can of worms if we did that for too long. But I just want to just remember that we're in a room full of other people and we're getting to experience this together. And there's great joy and life to be found in that. But my name is Matt.
Again, I'm one of the pastors with Mill City Church. And I'm really excited to be looking at the scripture that we're looking at today. We're in the fourth week of our series. Where we're studying the letter of 1 Peter. And the title of our series is Misfits. And we've gotten a lot of really good feedback over the last three weeks.
Because what we're looking at is very appropriate with kind of what's going on in our culture. Apparently it's made for some really good discussion in some of our groups. And I'm excited about that. And hopefully today will be a continued forward motion in us growing and understanding what 1 Peter is talking about. And specifically, the section of scripture that we're looking at today has meant a lot to me based off of what's been going on in my life personally in the last month. And just so that we're all kind of on the same page.
For those of you who don't know, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world on June 8th. Come on. Come on. Guys. Guys. She's in here.
I want her to remember this. Come on. Come on. Come on. Give it up. Give it up.
Emerson baby. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that there wasn't more enthusiasm. But it's been great. It's been crazy. It's been difficult.
But it's been absolutely wonderful. And I'm glad they're here this morning. This is Emerson's first time hanging out with our church family. But Katie went into labor on a Sunday night. It was about midnight. And so we went to the hospital.
We got to the hospital. They wanted to make sure that she was actually in labor. And so it was about three and a half hours until Katie got an epidural. For those of you who have had children, epidurals seem like they're a really good thing. But when that lady finally showed up and said she had the epidural, I actually breathed a sigh of relief.
I think I was a little more anxious even than Katie was. Because watching her go through that pain, I thought I was going to have to throat chop a nurse. And I just didn't think that that was an appropriate thing for a pastor to do. So the son came up on Monday morning. And the nurse came into the room. And she informed us that the midwife that was supposed to deliver our baby had had a family emergency and was not going to be there.
And a doctor that we did not know was going to deliver this baby. And so it was like, okay, that makes this a little bit more uncomfortable. But it honestly was one of those small blessings that we can now look back on. Because as it came time for Emerson to be born, there were some complications that the doctor actually would have had to be in there anyways. The midwife wouldn't have been able to handle that. The doctor would have had to be in there.
So they rushed a team full of people in. As soon as Emerson was born, they rushed her to a table. They started cleaning her off. They started hooking her up to all kinds of machines. They put her in an incubator and started rolling her out of the room and said, Dad, you're coming with us. I'm freaking out at this point.
We're like racing through hallways. We end up in the special care nursery where there are more people with more machines to hook her up to. And they're just going as fast as they can. And they're talking hurriedly to each other. And I guess finally one of the nurses realizes that I'm standing there just like white as a ghost freaking out. And she turns around and says, we've got our stable.
It's going to be okay. You can come back in an hour. Second time I almost throat chopped to nerves. I was freaking out. And so, listen, I was just overcome with emotion. I walked out of the room.
And the first empty room I found, I just walked in and I lost it. I just started crying because I was so overwhelmed with emotion, not knowing what was going on. And so I went back to Katie. And they came and told us later that during labor, Emmy had breathed in amniotic fluid. Into her lungs, causing her lungs to be really weak, making it hard for her to breathe. And basically the whole process had kind of put her body in a state of shock.
So that for the duration of her stay, she was going to have to be in a special care nursery. So we knew we kind of had a long road ahead of us. She was hooked up to a CPAP machine to help her breathe. She was hooked up to IVs. And she had a feeding tube. And that's not the way you picture it going, right?
That's not what you're walking into this thinking. It's not the storybook ending. But we had the best nurses, had the best doctors. They took great care of her. She continued to get stronger. They took her off the CPAP.
They started feeding her. And when they started feeding her, rather than using the IV and the feeding tube, they said, for her to go home, she's got to feed eight times a day. Eight times in 24 hours. You do the math. That's every three hours this baby has to eat. Which means that, which meant that we had to be at the hospital every three hours.
If you've ever spent the night in a hospital, oh my goodness, you're a trooper. Like you should get a badge. There should be a sash and you should have badges. But we were never so relieved that when the nurses came in and said, your baby's healthy, you can go home. And we got to take our little girl home. And the last couple weeks have been incredible.
Because I just sit and think about the fact that two months ago, Emerson was inside Katie. A year ago, Emerson didn't even exist. I think about the miracle that that is. That God shaped her and molded her and has a plan for her life. I sit there and I stare at Emerson and I look at her little hands. And I look at her little feet.
And I watch her sleep and I watch the rise and fall of her chest. And I listen to the crazy noises she makes while she sleeps. You know, she sleeps with her mouth open. But she doesn't snore like me yet. It's coming. It's in her future, I'm sure.
But I just sit there and I look at her. And at the same time that Katie and I were going through all of this, I was studying this section of scripture and I realized that God's plan and his timing were perfect. Because what Peter's going to do to help us understand the gospel, he's going to talk about the gospel in terms of birth and infancy. So that in the same way that a mother gives birth to a baby and it's born into a family and then sustains its life by feeding it, Peter's going to say that the gospel gives birth to us into a new family. And then it's that same gospel that continues to sustain us during life.
The gospel, the good news of who Jesus is, is what brings us into the family and what sustains us for all of life. So as we look at this together, my prayer is for Christians that you're reawakened to these two beautiful truths that we're going to see today. That as we talk about them, as we dive into them, you're going, no, no, I want that. That actually gets to be true for me. And if you're in this room today and you're not a Christian, my prayer for you is that you'll actually see the beauty of the gospel for the first time. And not just what the gospel can save you from, but what the gospel actually saves us for.
So I'm going to pray and then we're going to dive into the scripture together. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that your word speaks into every aspect of our lives. God, there's nothing that we go through, no situation that we'll come across that your word doesn't instruct us in. And I thank you for this letter and I pray that through your Holy Spirit, you would allow us to see the gospel for the beautiful truth that it is and how it impacts our lives on a daily basis. In Jesus name, amen.
So if you've got a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We're going to be in first Peter. If you don't have a Bible, grab one of the blue and white ones that we have on the chairs. It's going to be on page 656. We're going to be looking at chapter 1, verse 22 through chapter 2, verse 3. And I know what some of you guys are thinking.
You're going, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's not stopping at the end of chapter 1? He's not stopping at verse 25? How scandalous. Just remember that it's a letter. The chapters and the verses were actually added later just for reference.
And so it's one big continual thought. Each little thing is going to build on the next thing. So we're going to look at this little chunk. And what we've been looking at in this series is that Peter is writing to a group of Christians about how to follow Jesus in a culture that doesn't line up with their faith. That first century Christians and first century Roman citizens were not besties. They didn't get along super well because they didn't have the same value system.
And what Peter is writing to them is how do you exist in life in a culture that doesn't agree with what you believe. And it's very timely for us to be reading this in light of what's going on in our culture. I want you to think back to your parents' generation or maybe your grandparents' generation. Christianity and our culture back then used to line up pretty well. The same type morals, same type values. But over the last couple generations that gap has continued to widen more and more and more.
So what our culture says about certain things and what we believe and what our culture says are beginning to move further and further apart. So what our culture says about sex, what our culture says about gender, what our culture says about marriage, about love, about power, about success is very different from what we believe. And what we're trying to do in this series is ask the question, okay, if that's true, what does it look like to follow Jesus in light of the culture that I live in? Okay? So that's what we're shooting to do today.
Let's pick it up in verse 22. We're going to go ahead and read the whole chunk just right up front to get the big picture. And then we'll walk back through it bit by bit. Okay? So verse 22.
Let's read it together. Here we go. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn infants. Long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Okay? So that's the whole chunk.
Now let's jump back up to the top. We're going to walk through it bit by bit. Okay? Verse 22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth.
Since this is a letter, this is basically a continuation of the same ideas that Peter has already written and that Chet's already talked about in the last three weeks. And in fact, this phrase pretty well bridges the gap between everything that he's already said and everything that we're going to look at today and in the rest of the letter. And if you change the order of those words around to make it a statement, it says this. Our souls have been purified by our obedience to the truth. Our souls have been purified by our obedience to the truth. And when Peter says truth, he's talking about the truth of the gospel.
So that our souls have been purified. Our souls have been made right by our obedience to the gospel. And here's the gospel. That the God of the universe, the creator of all things, created humanity to exist in a perfect relationship with him. But our first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God's good and gracious commands.
They sinned against God and they forever fractured the relationship that we were supposed to have with him. And what we see in the Old Testament is God's active pursuit to restore that relationship. He calls out a people to be his people and he says, I'll be your God. And he gives them laws and he gives them commands and he gives them the sacrifice system to teach them about who he is and how to live in a relationship with him. But the people continue to fall.
They continue to sin. And they cannot obey. No amount of work, no amount of effort could ever bridge the gap that had been broken. But God spoke. He spoke through prophets and said, one day I'm going to send a savior that will fix that relationship. That will restore it forever.
And then Jesus, the son of God, shows up on the scene. And he lives the perfect life in worship to the father that we could never live. He dies the death for our sins that we could not die as the sacrifice for our sins. And then he raises to life. He comes back from the dead showing that he had conquered sin, death, hell, and Satan. That's the gospel.
That's the good news. And when Peter says your souls have been purified by your obedience to the truth, what he's saying is it's the gospel. Your souls have been purified by repenting of your sins and placing faith in Jesus. Jesus, the gospel is the story of all stories for Christians. And so as he's coming out of what he's already written and going into practical applications of what that looks like, he reminds them that the gospel is what matters to them. The gospel is what changes everything.
Their souls have been purified by their obedience to the truth. And when Peter says truth, he's talking about the gospel. That's what Peter declares through the whole letter. That's what we've already seen. And Peter's writing to a group of people that they've already raised their hands and said, I know I'm busted. I know I'm jacked up in desperate need of a savior.
We've placed faith in Jesus. Now, what does it look like to follow him in our culture? And Peter says, don't run from culture. Don't retreat into Christian getters. Don't run from it. Don't primarily fight culture.
Don't necessarily wage war against it. Don't conform to culture. Don't be like them. Be holy. Be set apart. Peter says, follow Jesus in obedience.
Obedience to the truth. Obedience to the gospel. Following Jesus. Being willing to sacrificially suffer for the good of those around us. Why? Because Christians have a hope of the resurrection.
We know that this is not ultimately our home. That one day we'll go to be with our savior. And so if it means that for now to put the gospel on display, that we would be willing to suffer. We're willing to do that. Okay. What about this?
What do I do when our faith, when Christianity says this and our culture says something else? And I like what culture says better. Peter says, obey. Follow Jesus. And the reason you can follow Jesus even when you don't agree, even when you don't understand, is because he's proved that he's good, he's for our good, and he's trustworthy. And he's done all of that through the cross.
The gospel is the story of all stories for Christians. And that's what Peter's reminding them of here. He said, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, by your obedience to the gospel. And from here, what we're going to see are two beautiful truths that Peter's going to pull out and bring to light for this group of Christians that are living in exile. Okay. So jump back to 22.
We'll go ahead and we'll keep reading this time. Verse 22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. And what Peter just said there is he reminds them that the gospel, it's not just about what the gospel saves them from. That's what we just talked about. The gospel saves us from sin, saves us from death, saves us from hell, saves us from the enemy.
Peter wants to point them towards what the gospel saves us for. And Peter says that it's for brotherly love. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. But since you have been born again, there's that picture of birth. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. What Peter is saying here is that those that have placed faith in Jesus have been born again.
They have been made into a new creation. They've been given a new identity. And not only that, since they've been born again, they've actually been born into a new family. See that picture of birth that he's painting there? In the same way that when a baby is born, it is born into a family. Peter is saying that the gospel actually gives birth to us into a family.
It's the gospel that makes us into a family. Like it says, since you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. I just want to take a second real quick and help us understand what he's saying there by perishable versus imperishable. Because that can get, we can get a little tripped up there. Okay, perishable. My daughter Emmy was born through perishable seed.
She was born through perishable seed, which means that one day I'm going to pass away. My wife's going to pass away. Emmy's going to pass away. And the Freeman family line is going to end. And what Peter says is that you've been born again into this family through imperishable seed. That the gospel brings us into an eternal family.
Since Jesus is an eternal God, the family that he invites us into is an eternal family. Through the gospel, we're born again and brought into a family. When it came time for Emmy to be born, I was kind of on the fence about where I was going to be located in the delivery room. Several of you had given me some advice about where I should stand. I was very thankful for that. And I was just kind of, I was waffling back and forth about where I was going to be in the delivery room.
But there was this one kind of crazy intense nurse when it, when it really came time. And let's just say that my choice was stolen from me. The option to stand in the corner of the room and go, that was taken away. And let me say in clear and certain terms, my wife gave birth to Emmy. Emmy exists in this world because of my wife. And in the same way that Emmy exists in the world because of Katie, she was actually born into a family.
Emmy was born into a family where I'm her dad and Katie is her mom. And my parents were in the waiting room. Katie's parents were in the waiting room. My grandparents were in there, her brothers and sister. Emmy was born into a family. And what Peter's saying here is that the gospel in the same way makes us into a new creation by placing faith in Jesus.
And since that's true, we're born into a family. That's, that's the first beautiful truth. The gospel makes us into a family. So if you're a note taker, that's the first thing you want to write down. The gospel, the gospel makes us into a family. That point was actually going to be the gospel births us into a new family.
But I decided that probably wasn't the best thing to do. I think we get the point, right? The gospel makes us into a family? Yeah, okay, good. So he goes on from there.
It's not just, it's not just that the gospel makes us into a family. It's that part of the reason that we are saved is for the family. Read it again. Verse 22. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. So not only are we saved into a family, but we're saved for the family.
We are saved for a sincere brotherly love that we should love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Brotherly love. Family love. And I love that because it's actually a beautiful picture of what the gospel accomplishes for us. That God is our father and Jesus as his son bridges the gap between us and him. And through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, he actually brings us back into a right relationship with the father.
He reconciles that relationship. And since that's true, Jesus then also restores our relationship with each other. That we're actually able to have brotherly love for each other because of what Jesus has done. And let me say this. I know that as soon as we start talking about family, not everybody in the room is really excited about it. Some of you might have had a family where you had a dad who was abusive, had a mom that peaced out when you were five.
Maybe you had aunts and uncles that treated you poorly. And when you think about family, it actually brings up a lot of negative, hurtful emotions. Maybe even the family that you exist in now is very, very difficult. And so there's a little bit of pushback when we start talking about that the gospel makes us into a family. But here's the truth.
All of us know what a good family is supposed to look like. All of us deep down inside know that a father is supposed to love and to protect and to serve. That there's supposed to be genuine love and genuine care and closeness and unity in a family. That's one of the reasons I love that God chooses to relate to us as father. Think about it. We just celebrated Father's Day a couple of weeks ago.
Think about how beautiful that is. That God chooses to relate to us as father and he invites us into a family that is held together by the perfect love of Jesus. And that by existing in those family relationships with other believers, that's actually how you grow. That's actually how you begin to grow in your understanding of the gospel is by being in those relationships. You haven't just been saved into a family. You've been saved for the family.
And part of what Peter's saying here as he's writing to the elect exiles, what he's saying to us, that this is part of the way we set ourselves apart in our culture. That when our culture begins to look at the way that we live in relationship with each other, the way we serve, the way we sacrifice, the way we give our time and efforts to each other, they're getting a picture of the gospel. This quote comes from a book called Total Church. It's written by some church planners in the UK. It says this, Brotherly love is not a byproduct of being born again. It is its purpose.
Christian community is not a happy byproduct of our salvation or a convenient help to individual Christians. We have been saved to be God's people, to be Christ's bride, to be a new family. We are saved for the family. Part of the reason, part of the way that we grow in relationship with Jesus is by being in relationship with other believers. Sometimes I get in conversations with people when I'm talking about who we are as Mill City Church and the way we organize and the way we do things. And they'll say things like this, I'm a Christian, I'm just not a part of a church.
Or I'm a Christian, I just don't want to be a part of a church. I don't really see the point. I can follow Jesus on my own just fine without a group of other people. And the problem with that is that the Bible is not going to back him up in that position. That the majority of the New Testament is actually talking about how you grow in relationship with other believers. And in those conversations, I really don't want to make someone feel guilty.
I don't. What I want to help them see is that they're actually missing. That there are aspects of the gospel that you cannot grow in outside of being in relationship with other believers. It puts the gospel on display in a way that you cannot by yourself. And that's hugely important in our culture. I want you to think about our culture for a second because it's really self-centered.
Our culture says that the goal of your life is for you as an individual to be happy, to be successful, to be free. That your goal as an individual is to be happy, to be successful, and to be free. The problem with that is that the underlying current in that message is that other people exist for you. Other people exist only so far as you can be happy, as far as you can be successful, as far as you can be free. And what the gospel does is it flips that on its head and says that since Jesus has saved you and brought you into a family, you now get to exist for other people. You get to exist as a family serving other people.
Because it's in those relationships that you can only put aspects of the gospel on display. I want you to think about this. Let me give you a couple examples. Reconciliation. Because Jesus has reconciled us back to God, you can't reconcile outside of being in a relationship with somebody else. There's got to be some kind of conflict, some kind of drama.
That's how you grow in your understanding of the gospel and how you put it on display is by being reconciled. Repentance. Repentance is confessing our sin to God and confessing our sins to each other to seek about restoration. There's got to be some type of close relationship for that to be realized. Love. Love isn't just a feeling.
Love is an action that is expressed with other people. Generosity. You can't be generous outside of being in relationship with other people. Hospitality. You can't be hospitable outside of opening up your home to people on a regular basis. And all those things are pictures of the gospel.
And what our culture says is, you do what's right for you. Take care of yourself. And whatever time you have left, whatever money you have left, whatever resources you have left, give that to other people. And the gospel flips it and says, since Jesus has lavished his love on you, pour yourselves out for other people. And there will be great joy in it. But you will grow in your understanding of the gospel.
You'll fight for those relationships. You'll sacrifice for those relationships. You'll begin to treat someone that you met one year ago like flesh and blood family because the gospel is actually beginning to influence that relationship. From the very beginning of our church family, from the very beginning of our church, we've had people who aren't Christians hanging out with our community groups. And that's beautiful. People who don't yet believe what we believe.
And that's beautiful. Because what they're seeing is a group of people who genuinely love each other and care about each other and hold fast to their faith. And they extend that same love and welcoming to them, that it's a safe environment for them to actually learn and grow closer to Jesus. And I love that. That's absolutely what it looks like to have brotherly love, that by being in relationships with other believers, you're actually putting the gospel on display. And in all honesty, I could sit up here and tell you story after story after story.
And I'd love to share some more with you afterwards. But let me give you just a few examples of what this brotherly love looks like. And I'm not going to use names. I'm just going to kind of pull some stories from some of the groups that I know about. But some of you know that we had our air conditioning went out last summer.
Hashtag HVacalypse if you followed, if you were keeping up with the times. There was somebody that was in my group that for a solid week took all of his spare time, came and fixed our AC unit, and didn't ask for a dime in return in the blazing heat of August. Just sacrificially gave time because he was extending brotherly love for me. I know a guy who works 50 to 60 hours a week. One of the hardest working guys I know that on one of his only days off drove a hundred miles round trip to go help somebody move. I've heard stories of families that weren't able to pay for cars, to pay for a vehicle, and an entire group pitched in to help them do that.
I've heard about mortgages being paid for. I've heard about people going into the hospital and people bringing food and going to visit. And let me tell you this. The gospel making us into a family never became more real to us than when we were in the hospital with Emmy. The way that our group and the way that this church family rallied around us during that time was unbelievable. Calls, texts, emails, people bringing us food, people coming to see us in the hospital, people coming to our house.
The outpouring of love was crazy. There were times when I sat and tried to think of all the people that had reached out to us and it just blew my mind. And I can't imagine what that looked like to the nurses and the doctors as they came in because they were seeing brotherly love. They were seeing the gospel on display. And it was beautiful. And that's what the gospel does.
As we actually take the time and actively pursue those relationships with other believers, we start to understand the gospel in a brand new way. And what can happen sometimes, this can happen sometimes in our groups, is our mode of thinking begins to shift towards the fact that my group exists for me. That can happen, that can show up in the, are people meeting my needs? Are people reaching out to me? Are they inviting me? Are they listening to the things that I'm saying?
And what's cool about the gospel is it just frees us back up to realize that our group doesn't primarily exist for us, but that we exist for our group. Which means that we get to be the person that goes and works on somebody's air conditioning. If you're one of the three people who knows how to do that. It means that I'm going to answer my phone at 10 o'clock. It means that I'm going to go help that family move. It means that when I know there's a need, I'm going to open up my wallet.
Because it's part of how I grow in my understanding of the gospel and how the gospel gets put on display in our world. And honestly guys, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It is. It's just the tip of the iceberg to what this existing in the family that the gospel makes us into. It's just the tip of the iceberg. But I want us to keep moving.
Let's pick it back up in verse 24. Because Peter's going to point towards the eternality of this family. For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you. See the progression?
The word endures forever. The word is the gospel. I'm sorry. The word is the good news. The good news is the gospel. See how it goes?
The word endures forever. The word is the good news. The good news is the gospel. And since the gospel will endure forever, the family that it makes us into will endure forever. So when you think about the sacrifice and the time and the effort that you're putting in to build relationships, when you think about how tired you are on a Thursday and you're trying to go hang out with your group, realize that every bit of time and effort you're putting into, you're putting into that here on this earth is only practice for the eternity that you've been invited into.
You're just getting warmed up. It's just a warm up for what's coming. Verse 1, chapter 2. Let's keep going. Peter says this, So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
So since the gospel makes us be for brotherly love, out of the family we've been invited into, it says we're for brotherly love, that means there's going to be certain actions that we're called to do and other actions and behaviors that we're called away from. That if we're called to brotherly love, there's going to be actions and behaviors that we're called away from. That's what all of these have in common is that they can be against other people. And the reason that Peter's bringing it up is because these people were living in relationship with each other. These were real things. These were real conflicts that were actually happening.
These are real things that can show up within your community group, but it's the gospel that leads you away from them. It's the gospel that then reshapes your understanding that these aren't good actions. Malice? Hate? Deceit? How could you hate someone when you realized that Jesus took the wrath that you deserved from God on your behalf?
How could you hate someone? Deceit? Why would you need to lie? Jesus paid for your sins on the cross and you've been invited into a community of openness and honesty. Hypocrisy? You don't need to fake it.
You don't need to fake it because your actions aren't wrapped up in the things that you do or don't do. You've got new value. You've got a new identity in Jesus. Envy? Why would you want something that someone else has? You've already been given everything you'll ever need in Jesus.
In fact, the gospel flips it for you and you get to be open-handed with the things that you do have. Slander? No, we get to encourage people with hope. We get to be people who bring the good news. See how the gospel impacts that? The gospel shapes the family and it shapes the way we relate.
And the gospel helps us when these show up. That actually we get to grow in our understanding of the gospel even when this stuff shows up in our community group. Let me show you how. Let's say you're talking about somebody and a Christian brother or sister calls it out and says, listen, you're talking about them, that's not an appropriate thing for you to be doing. You realize that you get to go to Jesus and ask him for forgiveness. And that part of that repentance is that you go and talk to that other person.
You get to ask for their forgiveness. You get to be open and honest because of the gospel. And then that person in turn gets to offer you forgiveness, gets to offer you grace. And in that relationship there gets to be reconciliation, restoration, and a great expression of love. You see that? The gospel even shapes when we screw up.
It even shapes when we screw up. So we've been called into this family for brotherly love, which means there are going to be things that we do for each other and actions that we're called away from. And in this next section of scripture we're going to see the second beautiful truth that Peter's pointing us to. So let's continue on. Verse number two. Like newborn infants.
Again, so birth and infancy. We're seeing it right here. Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Here's the second beautiful truth. The gospel sustains us for life. So the gospel makes us into a family, but the gospel also sustains us for life.
In the same way that newborn infants cannot survive without the life-sustaining milk from their mothers, we as believers should long for the pure spiritual milk so that we can grow, so that we can be sustained for life. And the question is, what's the milk? It's the same thing that Peter's been saying over and over and over again. It's the obedience to the truth. It's being born again. It's the gospel.
Not only does the gospel give birth to us into this new family, but it's actually the gospel that sustains us for growth in all of life. And let me try to help us understand what that looks like. See, I grew up with this false understanding of Christianity that was this. I understood the gospel that Jesus saves me from my sin, and I'm given new life in him. And then you kind of move that to the side, and the rest of life is me reading the Bible and trying to figure out what does it take to make God happy so that he'll bless me. So basically, the gospel was step one and then set it to the side.
And now it's like, what do I need to do? What are steps two through whatever? And what Peter's saying here, and what I've come to understand, is that my actions are not separate from the gospel. That it's actually the gospel that motivates all of my actions. It's what we've already said in the context of those family relationships. When there's strife, when there's drama, when there's conflict, when we're called to love, we get pictures of all of that in the gospel.
And now what I've realized is if the gospel is this big circle, all of my life is inside that circle. That there's not one thing, one thing that I go through in my life, not one word that I could utter, not one action behavior that I could do that the gospel doesn't motivate. And as I grow in my understanding of the gospel, who Jesus is and what he's done for me, it begins to answer the questions. It begins to help me understand how I should make decisions. What I should do with my life, what the purpose of life is, what my thoughts and feelings should be about gender, about sexuality, about marriage.
It's by growing in our understanding of the gospel. And Peter says, long for it. Long for the pure spiritual milk so that you can grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. And when it says tasted that the Lord is good, he's talking to Christians there. He's saying those that have tasted the truth of the gospel for the first time, they've tasted it. I can stand up here and I can tell you how good banana pudding is.
I can. I can tell you about it. I can tell you that it's one of God's greatest creations right up there with bacon and golf. Don't argue. You know it's true. All right, I can tell you that, but until you actually take a bite of banana pudding, you have no idea why I'm so crazy about it.
But after you take that first bite, oh, buddy, it's game on. And anytime you hear someone say the word banana pudding, they can get the B out. But you're like dropping whatever you got and you're taking off to figure out how you can be the first person in line to get banana pudding. You've tasted it. You've tasted it. And what Peter is saying is if you've tasted that the Lord is good, continue to go back to the gospel time and time again.
It's what sustains your life. Long for it. We should be in hot pursuit of the gospel because we've tasted that the Lord is good. We've tasted that the message is true and that it's beautiful. And I'm going to show my cards here because it's going to help us explain things going forward. The gospel is understanding who Jesus is and what he's done for us.
And primarily one of the ways that we do that is through reading the Bible. One of the primary ways that we grow in our understanding of the gospel to be sustained for all of life is by reading the Bible. Now, are there other ways to do that? Sure. You can listen to sermons like you're doing right now. You can discuss things with your group.
You can read books. You can read blogs. You can listen to music. But all of those things find their roots in the Bible. All of those things are based off of the Bible. So go to the source.
The Bible is primarily how we grow in our understanding of the gospel. And there's a couple of things I want to pull out here. Peter says that in the same way newborn infants long for pure spiritual milk, we should long for the gospel. So, Emmy. Emmy, my daughter, is the best baby in the world. You know, I'm not partial.
It's just true. And when it comes to babies, she's got a pretty even temperament. She's pretty chill. She doesn't get upset about a whole lot. But to be honest, there's not a whole lot she can do.
Sleep, eat, poop, pee. That's about it. Eating is her favorite. She's just like her daddy. Okay? So, Emerson can be doing anything.
She can be sleeping. She can be playing. But babies eat all the time, so they get hungry all the time. This is what happens when Emerson is hungry and she's waking up from her nap. You ready? Ready?
That's pretty good, right? That's pretty good. She loses her mind. She goes crazy because babies are wired in such a way that they will cry insatiably until they get some food. And what Peter is saying is that in the same way babies long for milk, we as Christians should long for the gospel. Should put in time, effort, work to grow in our understanding of the gospel.
The second thing is this. I want you to think back to Peter's time. There was no formula. There was no Gerber baby food. That if a baby was not able to nurse from a mother, it did not make it. That's why it was so important.
And when he's writing to the people, they understand that. That it was important for a baby to be able to nurse, to survive, to be sustained for life. When Emmy was in the special care nursery, at first they had her hooked up to IVs and she had a feeding tube. So she wasn't eating on herself. And it was not until she could feed on her own, without IVs, without a feeding tube, she didn't get to go home. And the same thing is true for us as Christians.
The gospel is what sustains us for life. And if we're not having a regular intake of the gospel, it's going to be difficult for us to understand how to follow Jesus. It's going to be hard for us to survive. And I hope you can see the connection between these two things. These two beautiful truths that Peter's pointing out in the gospel. That as you exist in these family relationships with each other, as you begin to pour out brotherly love for each other, you're growing in your understanding of the gospel, and you're pointing each other back towards Jesus.
Back towards the truth of the gospel. And as you read and study and grow in your understanding of the gospel, it's then going to point you back towards these family relationships that you exist in. It all works together and it's God's good and gracious gift to us to lay it before us like that. Think about how wonderful that is. Think about the 45 seconds of joy you had right at the beginning of the message as you got to say hey to someone that you haven't said hey to yet. Maybe you got to introduce yourself to someone new.
That those family relationships actually bring the gospel to light. The gospel makes us into a family and we're saved for that family. And that we get to grow in all of life sustained by the gospel. And as we come to a close this morning, I've got two ways that we can practically apply this as a church family. And a lot of times we don't land this practically. We usually don't land this practically, but this sermon lends itself to it.
Since the gospel has born us into a family and we're to be for that family, part of the way you can practically apply what we've talked about this morning is this. Number one, join a group. Get in a group. A huge portion of the New Testament talks about how we grow in our relationship with Jesus with other believers. Now, if it was up to us as a whole church family, if it was our whole church family was trying to get together on a regular basis and try to sync up our schedules, it would be nearly impossible. That's why it's so important for our community groups because it's smaller groups of people that set aside time to study the Bible, to pray together, to share meals together, to encourage one another, to help out when life gets tough.
It is beautiful. I want you to join a group. I want to invite you to do that. And some of you are going, ah, man, the practical application, I'm already a part of a group. I'm going to join another one? I'm supposed to be a part of two groups?
Here's how I want you to apply what we've talked about this morning. Fight for nothing less than what we've talked about. Don't let your community group be just a once-a-week meeting time where you get together, pray, and study the Bible. It gets to be so much more. Fight for time. Sacrifice for time because you understand that it's how you grow in your understanding of the gospel and it's what puts it on display in our culture.
Another thing is this. The gospel sustains us for life. So the second practical application is this. Read the Bible. Read the Bible. Get into God's Word.
To be gospel-centered means being word-centered. We believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. There is no error. And it was given from God to human authors written down to reveal who God is and how we're to live in a relationship with him. That by reading the Bible, we're going to grow in our understanding of the gospel. And here's the deal.
The more you read, the more you study, the more you'll begin to understand, the more you'll actually want to. And that both of those things will start to work together. The family relationships and reading the Bible will then push you towards the gospel. And I grew up. Listen, I grew up as a part of a church. And I heard sermons and lessons all the time about read your Bible.
The Bible's good. The Bible's God's Word. And they just went right over my head. I don't know how I missed them. And when I got in college, one of those sermons finally stuck. And the guy challenged us to read the gospel of John.
So I read the gospel of John. And then I read Acts. And then I read Romans. And then I read the New Testament. And then I read the Bible. And then I read the Bible again.
And then I read the Bible again. And the time that I'm spending in the Word is helping me grow in my understanding of the gospel. It's helping me grow in my love for Jesus and my need and desire to follow him. And so here's how we're going to conclude this morning. Usually the band comes back up and plays a song. We're not going to do that today.
Because I want to actually give you the opportunity. I want to give you the opportunity to do what we've actually talked about this morning. So here's what we're going to do. I want all of our group leaders, male and female group leaders and their apprentices, to just kind of spread out throughout the room. So y'all can go ahead and move.
You can go ahead and do that. Do that. They're so shy. Part of the way we exist as church families is in our community groups. And so I just want to take a second just so that you understand, like, who the leaders of our groups are, where they are. Like, clump together.
If y'all are in the same group, be together. There we go. I want to tell you a little bit about who they are, who the leaders are, where they meet. So this is Dave and Sherry Howeweiler. They have a group that meets on Thursdays in the Harbison area. This is Charlie and Stacey Earp.
They have a group that meets on Tuesdays at 630. They meet in – wow, I got a whoop. Well done. But they meet off of Fish Hatchery Road in the West Columbia area. Chet and Anna Phillips, Dan and Sean Stoyku. They have a group that meets at 630.
Is that right? Seven? Seven o'clock on Thursdays in kind of the Lexington area. You got Josh and Nadine Pabone and Raz and Christina Bradley are not here with us. They're on vacation. But they have a group that meets in downtown at the Canal Side Lofts.
It's a very trendy group to be a part of. But they meet on Wednesdays at 630. And then I'm going to stand right down here front. My wife and I have a group that meets on Tuesday nights at 630 in the West Columbia area. And here's what we're going to do as we finish up. When we're done, I'm going to pray.
The music's going to come back up. I want you to just go stand with your group. If you're a part of a group, I just want you to go stand with your group. Hang out. Just catch up. Talk.
We usually hang out for a while after we're done. And just enjoy those relationships. Just be reminded of what the gospel has made us into. Maybe you can talk about your favorite firework. What color it was and the sound that it made. It'd be really great to hear that going on all over the room.
It'd be like a firework show again. If you're not a part of a group, I want to invite you to join one. I want to invite you to be a part of one. And here's how you can do that. If you're not a part of a group and you came with a friend, just go to the group that that friend goes to. So when we get up, just go with them.
Go meet some of the people in that group. They're not all crazy. So just go meet some of them. If you're not here with a friend and you're just here on your own and you don't know which group to be a part of, just think about which group, which day, and which time is most convenient for you. Or maybe it's the location. Maybe it's the one that's closer to your house or closer to your job.
If none of those categories work for you, just choose one. And Charlie says choose him. But here's the deal. I know we have guests with us here today too. This is beautiful. Whatever church family you are a part of, you don't want to miss out on this.
And if you call this your church family, we want you to plug in and be bought in here. And part of the way you can do that is by being a group, being in a group. And for all of us, I want us to grow in our understanding of reading the Bible. So each week we've been sending out group discussion guides to our group leaders and personal studies. The personal study for this week is a reading plan for the letter of 1 Peter. It's a five-day reading plan with questions.
We want us all to get in a regular rhythm of reading the Bible and growing together. So I'm going to pray. The music is going to come on. And we're all going to move. Okay? Okay.
All right. So I'm going to pray. God, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the truth of the gospel that it makes us into a family. God, and I pray that through our groups you would help us grow, help us realize that it's the gospel that should motivate our actions. And by being in these family relationships and through growing in our understanding of the gospel, we're actually putting it on display for our culture.
We're putting it on display for the world. And so, God, we thank you that through Jesus you've brought us into your family. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Jesus and the Wounded
Transcript
All right, well, it's good to see you guys this morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Matt Freeman. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And I am very, very excited about the scripture that we're going to be looking at this morning. Um, because it's one of my favorite interactions that Jesus has with any person in the Gospels. In fact, it's one of the earliest stories that I can remember from my childhood.
And since then, it's just been one of my favorite stories. And I think part of that is because there's so much in this story that I think that all of us are actually going to be able to relate to. So I'm just really excited about it. Um, we're in the second week of our Jesus and People series. And what we're aiming to do in this series is take a look at the Gospels and try to answer the question, How does God want to relate to me in normal, everyday life? Okay, and I'm going to say that again.
How does God want to relate to me in normal, everyday life? And for most of us, it's kind of hard for us to imagine because God seems so far off sometimes in the day in and day out of our lives. And the New Testament kind of picks up on this idea. And here's what it says in Colossians 1.15. It says that He, when it says He, it means Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. So that when we look at the life of Jesus, when we look at the things that He said, the things that He did, the conversations and the interactions that He had with people, we're actually getting a perfect reflection of God's character and nature. So that's what we're doing in this series. We're going to the Gospels and we're looking where Jesus has interaction with people. And we're saying, okay, what do we learn about Jesus and how He relates to a person? And how is Jesus wanting us to relate to Him?
And then we're bringing it to our side and trying to apply it and say, okay, what does it look like for Jesus to relate to us in normal, everyday life? How is He calling on me to relate to Him? And last week, Chet kicked off our series by talking about Jesus and how He relates to the desperate. And we looked at the story. There were two different characters in the story. You had Jairus who was a synagogue ruler and his young daughter was sick and at the point of death.
And he comes running to Jesus in his desperation. And Jesus meets him in his time of need. There's a woman that had had a bleeding disorder for 12 years. And she runs up just to grab the hem of Jesus' garment. And she's healed. Jesus meets her in her time of need.
And what we're looking at this morning is a little bit different. And in fact, it's going to be a little bit harder for us to see because it's something that can be so easily hidden. And in a room this size, I would guess that we have people in this room that are struggling with the very thing that I'm talking about. That there's something in your past. Maybe it's something that you've done. Maybe it was something that was done against you.
Hurt, pain, and shame that you just don't want people to know about. Much less God. What would God think of me if he knew the things that I did? Would he love me? Would he accept me? What about other people?
Would they love me and would they accept me? And as we walk through this story this morning, if you begin to relate to the character that Jesus is talking to, my prayer for you is that you see very clearly how Jesus wants to relate to you this morning. And if we walk through it and you're not necessarily relating to the person in this story, what I want you to see is how Jesus relates to her so that we as Christians, so that we as a church can help people who are walking through this situation. Okay? So we kind of understand what we're listening for.
So if it impacts us, we want to see how Jesus wants to relate to us. And if it doesn't necessarily land, we're looking at how do we as Christians engage with people in normal everyday life who might be struggling with this. Okay? So I'm going to pray before we hop in. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to open up our minds, open up our hearts so that we can understand God's word. You guys pray.
Let's pray. God, I thank you for this morning. I thank you for the truth that is revealed in this story. I thank you for what we're going to get to see. God, I'm asking by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would open us up. God, that we would let our guard down, that we would very clearly hear from you this morning, that we would see how Jesus wants to relate to us, God, and how we in turn are to respond to him.
I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So if you've got a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We're going to be in the book of John, chapter 4. And the story that we're going to be looking at is commonly referred to as Jesus and the woman at the well.
And so if you don't have a Bible, just grab one of those blue and white Bibles that we have sitting on the seats. It's actually going to be on page 578. If you brought your own Bible, I don't know what page it's going to be on. Good luck. And if you're here this morning and you don't have a Bible, please just take one of those with you. That's what they're there for.
We want everyone to have a Bible. And before we hop in, I just want to set the stage for what we're about to do. What we're going to look at is a rather long conversation that Jesus has with this woman. And so we're going to walk all the way through the conversation. We're going to point out important details. We're going to look at the things that Jesus says, the things that she says.
And then at the very end, we're going to land on our main point and settle there for a little bit so that we can see how Jesus wants to relate to us and how we ought to relate to him. Okay? Make sense? All right. So here we go.
John, chapter 4. And we'll actually skip the first two verses. We'll start in verse 3. All right. He, and again, that's he meaning Jesus, left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. All right.
So here's the scoop. Jesus and his disciples have been down in Judea, which is the region where Jerusalem was. He had been teaching. He had been doing miracles. He had been making disciples. And now they're going to just another region that they had spent a good amount of their time in.
And scripture tells us that he had to go through Samaria. Okay? So if you were looking at a map, and I'm going to draw you an imaginary map right here. So use your imagination. If Judea is here, then Samaria was north, and smack dab in the middle of them was Samaria. Okay?
So they had to go Judea through Samaria all the way to Galilee. And the scripture tells us that they ended up in a town called Sychar, which is where Jacob's well was. And I love that John just kind of adds in that little detail. And the well plays a prominent part in the story. But this isn't the first mention of Jacob's well that we actually see in scripture.
We see Jacob's well all the way back in the book of Genesis. God comes to Abraham. He says, I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to increase your descendants, and I'm going to bless you, the whole earth, through your family. And we see the line go from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. And this is Jacob's well. And we even see it again later in the book of Joshua when the Israelites are coming out of Egypt and they're entering into the promised land.
There's Jacob's well. And here we are thousands of years later again. And Jacob's well is still a part of God's story. This is a small little theme that you see God's promise kind of continuing on through the scripture here. It's really cool. So verse 6, Jacob's well was there.
So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. And then John tells us, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. And honestly, verse 6 is actually one of my favorite parts of this story because I forget sometimes that Jesus was human.
Like I know that Jesus was the son of God, but he stepped out of heaven and he was completely human. And he and his disciples had been traveling for a long time. And he's worn out. It says it was about the sixth hour. And he's sitting beside the well. And he's smelly, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, like most of us are here in Columbia during the summer.
Okay, so very similar to that. And it says it was about the sixth hour. And that's a detail that most of us would just kind of blitz right by because that's not how we tell time. But the sixth hour was noon. It was midday. It was the hottest part of the day.
And Jesus is sitting by this well and all he wants is something to drink. And lo and behold, this Samaritan woman is coming up to the well. And Jesus is like, sweet. I'm finally going to get some water. But this is actually kind of weird.
Not that the woman is coming to the well to get water. That was normal. It was the fact that she was coming to the well in the middle of the day and that she was by herself. See, the way that most cultures in this town worked was early in the morning, all the women of the village would get up together and they would travel to the well. They would all go to the well together. It was kind of like a social event.
Sometimes even children would go too. And they would travel to the well to get water for the day, water to cook with, water to clean with, even to water like small plants and crops. And part of the reason they did that was because it wasn't the hottest part of the day. And they were going to have to lug this water back into the village. And so they'd go early in the morning and then they would come back. And if they needed water for the night, right before sunset, they would all travel back to the well together and then back down into the village.
And there are still some cultures in the world that are like this. A couple of years back, I got to spend a little bit of time in Burkina Faso, which is in West Africa. It's just below the Sahara Desert. So it's very much the same kind of climate, same kind of village life that you would have expected here. And that's just what the women did. They would get up early in the morning and you'd see just one person would come out and you'd hear chatter.
You'd hear laughter. And people would just go down to the well, women and children, and then they would come back together. So we just got a clue into the story because that's not normal. Now, we don't know exactly what it means, but the fact that she's coming to the well in the middle of the day and she's coming by herself is just kind of weird. Okay? So Jesus is sitting there.
He's tired. He's thirsty. He's like, jackpot, score. I'm finally going to get something to drink. And he asked her for a drink. In verse 9, The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
And then John adds in the note, For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Okay. Well, this conversation just went to a whole other level. Read that again. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
So Jesus just asked this lady for a drink. Not a whole lot to ask for, right? He's just tired. He's thirsty. And her response is kind of cold, kind of distance, putting him at arm's length. And what we're actually seeing unfold here is a nearly thousand-year-old feud between these two groups of people, between the Jews and the Samaritans.
And if you were with us back in the fall during our Bible story series, we actually touched on this briefly, that after the reign of Solomon, the nation of Israel split in two between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And what we see through the entire Old Testament is that God's promise, His covenant promise remains with the southern kingdom, with Judah. And the northern kingdom does okay for a little while, But over time they start to marry in with different people groups in the area. They start worshiping other gods. Assyria comes in and swallows them up whole and then spits them back out into the region.
And they resettle there. And by the time they're resettled in this area, they're not even referred to as Israelites anymore. They're being referred to as Samaritans. So the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other because the Jews looked down on them because they were half-breeds. They had gone back on their heritage. And the Samaritans hated the Jews because they excluded them.
They just pushed them out. In fact, if a Jew called another Jew a Samaritan, them's fighting words. I mean, that's like a four-letter word to them. Devout Jews at this time. Again, we've got to go back to our imaginary map. I'm sure you haven't forgotten it.
Devout Jews would have to go. Devout Jews so that they could go from Judea to Samaria. Here's what they would do. They would start here in Judea. They would cross the Jordan River. That's my river.
They would cross the river. They would go up the Jordan River until they were parallel with Galilee. And they would cross back over just so that they didn't have to go through the land of the half-breed Samaritans. I mean, that's hatred. That's pure hatred. That would be like me saying to get from Clemson to Charleston, two of the greatest cities in the world.
Amen. All right. To get from Clemson to Charleston, I'm going to cross over into Georgia. I'm going to go from Augusta all the way down to Savannah. And then I'm going to come up the coast to Charleston just so that I don't have to go through the heart of Gamecock country. And trust me, I thought about it.
And then I moved here, so there's that. In fact, people ask me all the time from back home, like, you moved to Columbia to plant a church? I was like, yeah. I mean, somebody's got to share the good news with the Gamecocks. Why does Matt secretly wear orange all the time? Oh, don't.
That's okay. It's okay, guys. You'll come around. And so Jesus is sitting by this well, and the Samaritan woman comes up, and he casually asks her for a drink of water. And she's just like, who are you, a Jew, talking to me, a Samaritan woman? You can just feel that tension.
But not just that. She plays the gender card, too. She says, you're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman. Because that's another thing. In that culture, men and women didn't talk to each other when they were alone like that, especially if they were strangers. So this conversation just keeps getting weirder.
She's coming to the well at a weird time. There's this weird kind of tension in this relationship. She's kind of being cold and calloused. And here's what Jesus said to her. Let's pick it back up in the story.
Verse 10. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Okay, you can picture this, right? There's a smelly Jewish guy.
I'm sweaty. I should say sweaty, not just smelly. He's smelly and sweaty. Jewish guy sitting by the well, and he asks her for a drink of water. And when she rejects him, his response is, oh, yeah? Well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.
And her reaction is like, say what? Bruh, you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. I think you've been out in the sun too long. Maybe you're just a little bit dehydrated. And before we go too far with that, it's not, it's probably not like that, where she thought he was crazy for this idea of living water, though we kind of get tripped up on that phrase. It was actually his ability to pull it off.
Because when he's using that phrase living water, living is exactly the same way that we would use the phrase running. We would be saying running water. Now, not like running water out of a faucet, more like you're standing beside a river, and this is running water. This is a constant source of movement. It's this continual welling up of water heading down a stream. So it's not like Jesus walked up and said, hey, you want some of my magic beans?
It's more like well water. I've got a constant source of water you don't even know anything about. And she, again, she's just kind of cold and calloused. And it's like, you don't have a bucket, and this well is deep. And she continues on in verse number 12. She says, who do you think you are?
Who you are in the gift of God. Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well. He drank from it himself. And Jesus responds in 13. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Okay, obviously at this point we're starting to realize that Jesus and this woman are having two different conversations. What she's saying is, give me some of this water so that I don't have to be thirsty again, so I won't have to keep coming up here to the well to draw water. That sounds great.
But Jesus isn't talking about spiritual water. He's not talking about physical water. He's talking about spiritual water. He's talking about something completely different, and she's missing it. Think about what Jesus has said. He said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you, you'd have asked me and I would have given you living water that would become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
And this metaphor is found all throughout the Old Testament. We're going to see in just a little bit. She's not unaware of these Old Testament passages. She's not unaware of these prophecies. And what Jesus is saying is that this promised Messiah, this promised Redeemer, this river of life that can well up, that can save and bring about eternal life, I'm right here. If you knew who I am and the gift of God, and she is completely missing it.
Verse 16, Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. And the conversation just changed. You ever been in one of those conversations where two people are kind of going back and forth and back and forth, and finally somebody says something and it feels like the air gets sucked out of the room?
That's this moment. You can almost imagine. You can almost imagine her. She's kind of perturbed. She's annoyed with this whole conversation. She's finally got her water bucket.
She's just going to head back down into the village. And Jesus says, Go call your husband. She leans back over her shoulder. I don't have one of those. And Jesus says, Yeah, I know. In fact, I know that you've had five husbands, and the man that you're with now is not your husband.
What you have said is true. Stops her. Dead in her tracks. And now for the first time, all of the details, all the little things that we've begun to see in this conversation begin to add up. The fact that she's going to the well in the middle of the day. The fact that she's alone.
The fact that she seems a little bitter. A little calloused. Playing the Samaritan card. Playing the woman card. What this woman, the way I would describe her, is she's someone that is wounded. This woman, whether it's things that she's done, or things that have been done against her, over her life, she's just built up this brick wall around herself, so that people can't get in.
She's been hurt too much. She's gone through too much. And she just wants to keep people out. And I feel like so many of us in this room kind of do the same thing. We don't want to let people in. And it now begins to make sense why this woman was going to the well in the middle of the day by herself.
And here's what I want us to do. We're going to take a time out. Because so often when we read through scripture, we'll go right by that. And we won't think about the implications of what Jesus just said. What he just brought to light. But I want us to just imagine for a second what life actually would have been like for this woman.
Okay? So Jesus just said that she's had five husbands. Here's the options. Okay? Either all five of her husbands have died, all five of them divorced her, or some combination of that. Okay?
So all five died, all five divorced her, or it was some kind of combination thereof. And most scholars believe that the way the text reads and what it's implying here is the divorce. And here's how divorce worked at that time. Only men could initiate divorce. You ever been in love? Some of you are married.
I hope you're in love now. And it just didn't work out. And you had your heart break. Imagine being this woman, and she's married, and she's been told not once, not twice, but five times, you have no value to me. And this was a public thing. It was done in public.
He would write her a letter, and he would kick her out of the house in public shame. And this has happened five times. And this is the worst possible scenario for her, because she's a woman in a culture that did not value women. And this is a side note, and this one's just for free. This is one of the reasons that I love Jesus, and I love our faith so much, is because for centuries, Christians have been on the forefront of fighting for women's rights, that they would be treated with value, and dignity, and honor, and respect. But that's not what this woman had.
This woman actually had no rights outside of either her father or her husband. No economic standing, no status, no ability to go get a job, no ability to go buy land, nothing. And so when she is kicked from her house, she is left with absolutely nothing. And all a man had to do was to find one little fault, and he could write her a letter, and kick her to the curb. Could you imagine the shame and the pain that she felt? And not only that, what do you think life's like for her right now in this village?
Do you think she has any female friends? No. She's the woman that everyone whispers about. She's the one that they all want to gossip about. And when she walks by in the marketplace, wives whisper to their husband, look at that tramp. I better not ever see you talking to her.
Men probably made jokes at her expense as they heard stories from her divorced husbands. It's probably why she stopped going to the well with the other women. She could feel the judgmental glances. She could hear them whispering. She could hear the giggles. And she just couldn't stand it anymore.
And now the only place that this woman feels accepted is with a man who doesn't even have the decency to marry her. Just use and abuse her. Can you feel that? She's just eking out an existence at this point. She doesn't care about respect anymore. She just wants to survive.
And you've got to imagine at some point she's had to ask the question, what is fundamentally wrong with me? I'm broken. I'm damaged. I'm incapable of being loved. And the truth is, there's some of us in this room this morning that are feeling the exact same way. You've got stuff stored up from your past, things that you've done, things that have been done against you, pain and shame and hurt and regret, things that are in your past, those skeletons in your closet that you don't want anybody to know about because you don't know if you'll be loved.
You don't know if you'll be accepted. Maybe it's a loved one that you feel was stolen from you too soon. You've got bitterness locked up inside. Maybe it's the shame that you feel from being molested by some evil jerk when you were a child. Maybe it's the drug addiction that you hide from your family and friends, unable to cope and figure out what to do next. Maybe it's how a church treated you when you found out you were pregnant before you were married.
In fact, that may be more people in this room that would care to admit that a church or a Christian may have treated them poorly and there's so much pain and there's so much hurt. What if it's the secret that you're hiding that you're actually secretly attracted to the same gender? Maybe it's your living situation. Having to lie, having to fake it with your family and friends that you're living with someone you're not married to. You feel alone and isolated and you've just kind of decided that this is how life is going to be. You've gotten really good at faking it.
When the subject's brought up in a conversation, you've gotten really good at just kind of steering it the opposite direction. Pretending on the outside that you're fine while on the inside, you are an absolute mess. Asking the question, how could God ever love me? I'm so dirty. I've got so much shame. I've got so much regret.
And what has happened is that you've allowed the past to define who you are. As the past has begun to define who you are. And this woman is in the exact same situation. She is at the end of her rope. She's hurt. She's got so much pain and she doesn't know what to do with it.
She's got this brick wall that she's built up around her. And Jesus, brick by brick, is tearing this wall down and she finally goes on the final assault. She finally throws it all out there. Verse 19. Pick it back up. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming, He who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Jesus and this woman keep going back and forth and back and forth and finally she throws out her card.
I know that when the Messiah comes, I know that when the Christ comes, He'll be able to tell us all these things. He'll be able to answer all the hard questions. He'll be able to help me cope with what's happened to me. He'll love me. He'll accept me. And Jesus lovingly in the midst of this conversation through her pain and shame and regret says, I who speak to you am He.
I'm right here. I didn't walk away. I didn't go anywhere. The pain and the shame and the regret. I know you've had all that. I know you've had five husbands.
I know that the man you're with now is not your husband. And I'm right here. And if you're sitting in this room this morning and your heart is breaking and all the words that I'm saying, realize very clearly that Jesus' response is exactly the same to you. And it's the main point of everything that we're talking about this morning. And it's this. Your past does not have to define who you are.
Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. Don't just hear it. Let it sink in. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. In this conversation Jesus just walks up and lovingly starts pulling down the bricks in this wall.
Samaritan, I don't care. Woman, I got that. Okay? Five husbands, I don't care. Jesus lovingly pulls down the bricks in her wall. And that's exactly what He wants to do with you.
He wants to lovingly bust through that wall. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and a new identity with Him. Let me ask you this question. Why do you think you're sitting in this room this morning because Jesus is saying I'm right here and it gets even better. It keeps going guys.
Verse 27. Pick it back up. Just then His disciples came back. They marveled that He was talking with a woman but no one said what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water czar and went away into town and said to the people come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to Him. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. This woman met Jesus and it changed everything. The scars that she thought would never go away were healed.
The pain that she thought would never subside went away. The shame that she carried was finally set aside because she was filled up by Jesus. She didn't even care about the water bucket anymore because she had found the gift of God. She had found Jesus and by that Jesus had filled all the empty places in her. All the void in her He had filled it. Her past no longer defined who she was.
She had been given new life and identity in Him. And in fact she's so overwhelmed by who Jesus is and what He's done that she just straight up leaves the water bucket and goes running back into town yelling at the top of her lungs come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? To the same women who had whispered about her to the same men that had shunned her likely to the same family and possibly some of her ex-husbands that had kicked her out because her past no longer defined who she was and the people could see it. It says the people actually came out of the town and followed her and what we're seeing in this story is a beautiful accurate picture of exactly what Jesus ultimately does for all of us.
Jesus came to this earth to take care of all of our past. All of our sin. All of our shame. All of our regret, hurt and pain. Our inability to get things right or to do good things and He died the death that we should die. Jesus paid for our past and He swapped His life for ours.
So He gives us a new life and identity in Him. He rescues us. He redeems us. He calls us fully loved, fully accepted. We are made sons and daughters. You see, this woman's past was not too much for Jesus to handle.
That's why Isaiah 53 says this, He was pierced for our transgressions, sins. He was crushed for our iniquities, another word for sins. Upon Him was the chastisement or the punishment that brought us peace and by His wounds we are healed. The reason this woman was able to run back into the town and yell at the top of her lungs is that she had left her old identity behind and had found her new identity in Him. She didn't care what people thought anymore. She wasn't living in the past.
She was looking to Jesus for her identity and for her life. Do you see the invitation that's being extended to you this morning too? Because Jesus has the same response to all of us. Maybe you're sitting in the room this morning and you're not a Christian. You're just kind of checking this Jesus thing out. His response is the same to you. your past does not have to define who you are.
Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. And you're saying, Matt, you don't know what I've done. You don't know what's been done to me. And what I would like to share with you is the gospel is that salvation is not based off of your work, but Jesus' work on your behalf. So whether it's the things that you do well or the things that you do that are bad or the bad things that have been done against you, Jesus says, I can take care of it.
You don't have to live in the past anymore. I'll give you new life and identity in me. And maybe you're in the room this morning, you're a Christian, but you would say you're in that category. That there's not a day goes by that you don't think about that thing, that that feeling doesn't creep into your mind, that you're not reminded of shame and pain and hurt. Jesus' response is the same to you. Your past does not define who you are.
You've already been given a new life and a new identity with him and Jesus is just saying walk in it. Don't let the past define who you are. You've been given new life and a new identity with me and you've been given a group of people that you get to walk through life with that at some point have all raised their hands and said, Jesus, take care of my past. Give me a new life and identity in you. You don't have to keep that brick wall up. You get to share it and let it out.
You don't have to carry those burdens and that baggage anymore. And maybe you're a Christian in the room and this story doesn't necessarily resonate with you. You wouldn't say that you're wounded or that you're kind of haunted by your past. Jesus shows us very clearly what it looks like for us to relate to someone who's wounded. Their past does not define who they are. Jesus gives them new life and a new identity in him. which means that we sit and listen not in judgment or condemnation but in love and compassion.
It means we open up our homes and create environments where people can be open and share the mess of their lives. There are going to be times where you have to sacrifice money, time, resources. You're going to have to pour yourself out so that others can be filled up. That's exactly what Jesus did for this woman. And you get to do so by pointing them towards Jesus. Raz and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to stand and sing a song in a second.
And I want you to respond however you feel like Jesus is leading you to. If you're not a Christian and you have this feeling, you have this sense, Matt, I want that to be true for me. I don't want the past to define who I am. I want this new life. I want this identity. The Bible says that you're to repent of your sin, which means that you're just willing to admit it and turn away from and you place your faith in Jesus for this to be true, that he can give you new life and new identity.
If you're a Christian in the room and you're wounded, as we stand and sing, if you just need to let it out, go grab somebody in our church family, go off to the side and talk to them about it. Let it out. Let them pray over you. Let them point you back towards the gospel. Some of you may need to make a phone call and talk to somebody during this time. And for all of us, we're going to stand and praise Jesus because our past does not have to define who we are.
We're given new life and a new identity in him. Let's pray. God, please let that be true in this room. I pray that that truth would sink into our hearts, that it wouldn't just be in our heads, that it would actually be in our hearts, that we would understand that that's true. And Holy Spirit, we pray that you would move in this time, that you would draw us close to you, help us to realize that our past doesn't have to define us. We're given new life and a new identity in you.
Amen.
Church as Family
Transcript
It's good to see you guys this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And it is an honor and a privilege to continue on with you guys in our Anchor Series. So we're in about the middle of it.
And the question that we've been seeking to answer is, what does the Bible say about the church? And then from that, how do we live that out as Mill City Church, as a local church body, as a gospel-centered community on mission? And so we've kind of taken it in those chunks. For three weeks, we looked at what is this idea, what does it mean to be centered around the gospel, the good news that Jesus saves? So we took one Sunday and just looked at the gospel message as we see it from the book of Romans.
We looked at Romans 1 through 6. And we see that we were created to worship God, but we choose to worship other things instead. We saw that we all fall short, and there's no amount of work that can fix this. But Jesus died to pay our debt and to make us right with God, so we're saved by His work and not ours. That's the gospel message that we're saved by Jesus' work and not ours. And coming out of that, it's the message, but it's also more than that.
It's how does that impact our lives on a day-in and day-out basis. So two weeks ago, we looked at the idea of gospel fluency. Since the gospel is the story that changes everything for us, it impacts everything. It impacts the way we think. It impacts the way we speak. It impacts the way we view the world and live in a relationship with other people.
And then last week, we just took that a step forward. Since the gospel applies to all of life, it actually applies to my individual life. And we talked about what it looks like to apply the gospel to our hearts, because our hearts are prone to wander and to drift. And when we speak that gospel truth back into it, it brings us back into right understanding of living in relationship with God. So today, we're switching gears just a little bit.
We're moving from this idea of gospel-centered to talking about what it means to be a community. And what we're going to see throughout the entire New Testament is that the way that believers grew in their understanding of the gospel, grew in their understanding of how to follow Jesus, was in the context of community, of living in real relationship with other people. And I think part of the reason that is, is that the society in that day, the culture in that day, was very communal. Like people had to live in a relationship with each other, which is actually very different than the culture that we live in.
We live in a very individualistic society, where most people are just kind of looking out for number one. So the money that they make from their job, or how they spend their time, or with their hobbies, is we live in an individual society where most people will say, you take care of you, you take care of your family, and then whatever else you have left, whether that be time, or money, or resources, whatever, you can use that to, to be in relationship with other people, or to bless other people. And so we see that. That's one way to think about it. I heard someone say that it seems like in America, the goal is for you to work a good nine to five Job, to get a good paycheck, to be able to go home, and not have to talk to anybody, watch TV for four hours, and then go to bed.
Like that's the individualistic American dream. And I don't think, I don't think it's because we don't want to be in relationship with other people. I really don't think that's it. I think we just don't feel like we need to be in relationship with other people. That people aren't a necessity. That relationships aren't important.
Don't enhance life. Don't make it better. And the culture of Jesus' day didn't see it that way. They needed each other. And as we look at places in scripture today, what we're going to see is that this idea of community, or relationships, it's expressly taught, some, but it's way more just implied in the relationships that people shared as believers, as they lived out this community together. That's what the culture was like at the time.
And Jesus shows up on the scene, and begins to preach a gospel to everyone, that salvation is for everyone. He's preaching to the Jews. So the Jews were God's chosen people that lived in relationship with him, that he said that he was going to love, and to bless, and to multiply. And Jesus comes preaching a salvation for everybody. And through his death and resurrection, he opens up access to God for everyone. And the entire New Testament is this beautiful story of all these different kinds of people coming together and figuring out what it looks like to follow Jesus in relationship with each other.
And the Bible is going to describe those relationships as a family. That's the word that's going to be used. So today, that's absolutely what we're talking about, is the idea of church as a family. And I just want to say this, before we dive into the scripture, I realize that family is not the easiest thing for everyone to talk about. So we all come into this room from different backgrounds, different experiences.
And in fact, when I said the word family, some of you went ahead and checked out, because you don't want to talk about it. The pain, the emotions, the feelings that you have, whether it be from a divorce, or some type of abuse, or just a bad home life that you grew up in, or are a part of now, you don't want to talk about family. And so what I want to ask you this morning is regardless of your background, regardless of how you walked into this room, I just want you to open up your mind and open up your heart to this idea of family that the Bible is going to talk about. Because I believe if you do, it will change everything.
Just like it did for Josh and Nadine, it will change everything for you. And I'm going to pray that God would help us to do that. So you guys pray with me. God, we ask that you would help us grasp this idea that you have made us into a family. God, it wouldn't just be something that we know or something that we recognize, but it would change us. God, it would change the way we live, the way we speak, it would change the way we lived in relationship with other people.
God, I pray for everyone in the room, regardless of the family background that we've walked into this room with, I pray that you would redeem that idea and you would give us a beautiful picture of what your word says you have invited us into. I pray that you would do that through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so if you got a Bible, go ahead and grab that. And if you didn't bring one with you, look to your right or to your left, because this scripture isn't going to be on the screen. So just grab one of those Bibles that we have sitting on the seats.
We're going to be in Galatians chapter four. Galatians is in the New Testament. If you got the blue and white Bible, it's going to be page 623. And if you don't have a Bible, we want you to take that one with you when you leave. We have lots of these and we want everyone to have a Bible. So please take one of these with you when you go.
Okay, the book of Galatians is a letter that Paul is writing to a church that's in the Southern province in the Roman Empire. Okay, and what we know from the book of Acts about Paul is that Paul becomes a Christian. He becomes a believer and he starts going on these different missionary journeys. Yes. Well, and you know what? I'm a little dyslexic, guys.
I told them it was. So if you go to 623, I don't know where you're going to be, but if you'd like to join us in 632, sorry about that. But anyway, so this is a letter that Paul's writing to the church in Galatia. So when Paul became a Christian, he began to go out on these missionary journeys and one of the areas he ends up is in Galatia. Paul shares the gospel. People become Christians.
They begin to follow Jesus. He begins to teach them what it means to be a disciple and they start a church there. And then Paul moves on from that place. And we know that by this time, there are many churches in this area. And what Paul, the purpose of Paul writing this letter is to continue instructing them in how to follow Jesus in normal, everyday life as a church family. And that's important for us.
That's important for us to remember that Paul is speaking to a church family because I want us to listen to this as a church family. I want to hear this as a collective. So chapter 4, verse 4 on page 632, if your Bible looks like this, let's read it together. Verse 4, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Okay, let's stop there. All right, this is what we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks.
This is the gospel message. What it said here is that God sent Jesus, born of a woman, conceived of by the Holy Spirit, which meant that Jesus was fully God and fully man. So Jesus was God in human form. And it says that he sent Jesus to be under the law. The law, God gave the law to his people to tell them how to live in relationship with him and with each other. So it says that he sent him to be under the law.
But here's the catch. Nobody could live up to the law. That's what we talked about in our first week, is that no amount of work could fix this. Nobody could live up to it. And so it says that he sent him to be under the law to redeem those who were under the law, which is this beautiful picture that Jesus comes and he lives a perfect, sinless life. He perfectly obeys God's law, perfectly lives in relationship with God, and then he dies to pay for the fact that we never could have lived perfectly in relationship with God.
And in doing so, he paid for our sin. That's the gospel message, and that's important because Paul, before he goes into how this plays out, he just sets the stage again. He said, here's the gospel that Jesus came to redeem us, and then it begins to give us the practical outworking of what that means. It continues on. We'll read verse 5 again and keep going. to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. To redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And that's beautiful. That the reason that Jesus came wasn't just to save us, but it was to adopt us as sons. That Jesus, in doing this, was creating a new family that was made possible for those who placed faith in him. And I want you to think about this idea of adoption for a second. I want you to think about adopted parents versus biological parents. And this idea of adoption.
How many of you know someone who's gone through the adoption process? Okay, so kind of all across the room. It's insane what you have to go through to adopt a child. So you have to fill out a ton of paperwork. You have to have all these different background checks. You have to go through interviews.
They come to your house and look through how your house is set up. They not only interview you, but they interview your family. They interview your friends. And then when you add into that the cost, oh man, it costs a ton of money. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. And especially if you're adopting somebody from overseas, you have to pay for the adoption and pay for the plane ticket to go over there.
And a lot of times ending up in another country, you're just paying to fly out there for another interview. And then you've got to fly back and then they let you know and then you get to fly back over and you get to pay for another ticket as you bring your adopted child home. Adoption is very costly. And it's absolutely the same thing for God. It costs Jesus his life to adopt us into his family. And in an adopted family, and think about an earthly family for a second.
Biological children and adopted children have the same rights and same status within a family. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? The parents could have could have left them, not provided for them, not protected them, not cared them, just left them out on their own. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? And it costs a lot. And that's absolutely what's true for us.
That God was willing to allow his son to be murdered to bring us in to adopt us into his family. It gets better. It gets better. Keep reading with me. Go back to verse 6. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. I'm going to read that one more time. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir. So for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them, it says that God sends his spirit into them to cry, Abba, Father. Just this beautiful picture of family. And we can kind of gloss over that and not catch it because Abba is actually the Aramaic word that means Father. but it's way more relational than Father is for us. It's much more akin to the word Daddy. How awesome is that?
I want you to think about that. The creator of the universe is allowing us to be brought into a family where the relational tie is where he's our Daddy. That's absolutely beautiful that we've been, as verse 7 says, that we're no longer slaves. We're not slaves to sin. We've been made sons. And God is our Daddy and not only sons but an heir.
The inheritance that we have as sons is salvation, is God himself. It's his presence. And the reason that it says sons and not sons and daughters, it's not trying to be exclusive. So it isn't just saying only the males. No, no, no. What God is showing us is actually the nature and the value of the adoption that Jesus' redemption brings us.
You see, in this culture, the way that inheritance was passed down was from male descendant to male descendant. It was passed from father to sons. And the way that females were blessed in this culture or taken care of was through the finances that were provided by the males. And what Paul is saying here is that men, women, and children alike are given the new standing as sons in this new family. Which means that all of us are heirs. And here's another thing.
Don't miss this. Not only are we given Jesus' right standing with God, we're also given his relational standing. not only does Jesus take care of our sin, but we're seen as sons. We're given his relational standing as well and it changes everything. What we're looking at is the theology behind this idea that we've been made into a family, that we've been changed forever, that our identity is no longer in ourselves, but it's in Jesus and in this family that he's invited us into. That's what we mean when we say that Mill City Church is a gospel-centered community on mission. That's what we mean.
It's a family and we're not just talking about it in means of the relationships that we're aiming to grow. No, no, no. This is a declaration of what God has made us into. We've been made into a new family for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them. That's why the New Testament letters are written to brothers. It's a shout-out to this family of people that come from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds.
I want you to look around the room for a second. Not for real. Y'all still looking at me. Look around the room for a second. Okay. For those that have placed faith in Jesus, you have been made into a new family.
Just as much family as your flesh and blood family. real family. That's what Jesus has made us into. All right. So we're tracking. We're getting this idea. We're understanding.
Like we can see it very clearly from Scripture. This isn't just something that we talk about. It's absolutely true. It's what Jesus has done. He's made us into a family. So the question then becomes, okay, I'm on your team.
That's true. How does that play out in life? What does that actually mean? How does that affect me on a day in and day out basis? And what we're going to do is we're going to take a zoomed overview. We're going to zoom kind of through the New Testament here.
We're going to look at a little bit of Jesus' interactions with people. We're going to look at how the early church lived in relationship with each other as we see it in Acts. And we're going to kind of talk about the New Testament so that we can begin to see this idea of church as family. What does it look like? Because here's the deal. This wasn't so much commanded as it was assumed because of their culture.
You're not going to see Jesus sit down. You're not going to see two chapters in the gospel where it says Jesus sat down and told them how to be family. It doesn't say that. It just shows how they followed him in relationship with each other. It's way more fish than water. Y'all get that illustration, right?
No. That's why I'm going to explain it. Okay. If I was going to, so if I was going fishing and I was telling you about the bass that I was trying to catch, all right, you tracking with me? I'm going to tell you about that bass. At no point do I have to tell you that that bass is in water.
No point do I have to do that unless I'm talking to the part where I hooked him, battered him, fried him, and then we ate him together, which is the intended purpose of the fish's life. But if I'm telling you about the fish, if I'm telling you about what the fish ate, how it moves, how it breathes, at no point do I have to remind you that the fish is in water. And that's very much the way the Bible treats this idea of living in family. It's not, it's expressly taught some, but it's way more understood in the relationships that we're going to see. So again, if you're a note taker, you may just want to jot down some of the references rather than try to flip back and forth in your Bible because we're going to kind of go all over the place.
The first place I want to go is Matthew 12, 46 through 50. Matthew 12, 46 through 50. We're going to have it up here on the screen. It says this, while he, and this is talking about Jesus, while he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Okay. So Jesus is hanging out with people and it says that his mom and his brother show up and someone says, hey, your mom and your brother are outside. And he said, who are my mom and brothers? It's not like Jesus forgot. He didn't just have a moment there because he then points to his disciples and he says, here are my mom and brothers.
Whoever obeys my father's will is my mother or, I'm sorry, I said father or mother, mother or brothers. Okay. Here's another one. This is another interaction of Jesus with people and this is going to come from John 19. Okay. This is at the end of Jesus' life.
He's giving his life. He's on the cross. It says this, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.
And from that hour the disciple took her to his own house. Okay. So Jesus is on the cross and it says the disciple whom he loved, which is John, which is my favorite. Like John calls himself that. This is John writing the gospel. You know, it's a little cocky, John.
Take it easy. But it's true. He did. He did love John. And as he's dying, he gives the care of his mother to his disciple. And it's not that Jesus didn't have other brothers.
We just saw that in the passage before and we know that from other passages in scripture. But there's some amount of, but they didn't believe in him yet. We know that from, we know later that they become Christians and they follow him. But he hands care over of his mother to his disciple. So Jesus begins, is beginning to change this dynamic.
He's beginning to shift our understanding of earthly family and this new faith family that he's creating. And then Jesus rises from the dead and then he ascends into heaven. And so these believers, these disciples and others that he had spent time with, they just go into action. They begin living like the words, the things that Jesus had taught them, the things that Jesus had showed them. And we get a very clear picture of that in Acts chapter 2. We get to see this, this new family playing out.
Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42. You might be familiar with this. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple, I'm sorry, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. It says that they shared all of their possessions, that they spent time together, that they prayed together. What you see there is a picture of a new family, that their understanding of family had been radically changed.
They realized that the only way that they could follow Jesus was in the context of these family relationships with other believers. And that makes perfect sense when you tie together with what we've already seen that Paul says to the church in Galatian, the Galatian church, they've been made into a new family and so they're absolutely going to live that way in their relationships with other people. But here's the problem with that. That messes with our Western minds, right? When I say that you should be living in relationship with other people and sharing your faith with them and that's actually how you grow, don't, don't, some of us just kind of go, really, I think I can handle it on my own.
In fact, the thought of Jesus ignoring his mom and his brothers when they came to visit makes most of us cringe. Right? Just a little bit. What about honoring our mothers and fathers? Isn't that one of the commandments is Jesus saying that I shouldn't obey that commandment? No, he's not saying that.
I mean, we see very much that Jesus has a deep love and compassion for his mother. He entrusts her to one of his dearest friends and his disciples. But what all of these passages are emphasizing is this idea that the new family is going to play as significant a role in our lives just as much as our earthly family. So is Jesus saying that we shouldn't spend time with our spouses or with our kids? No. But is Jesus saying that this new faith family is to be viewed the same way?
Same amount of love? Same amount of care? Same amount of compassion? Energy? Absolutely. Now, before mothers start to take off their shoes and hurl them at the stage at the thought of not being able to spend time with their children, it's not to the exclusion of our families.
It's an extension of it. Think about the entire New Testament for a second. Again, this is the zoomed out version. Jesus spent the three years of his ministry with twelve dudes. Some of them were fishermen. Some of them were tax collectors.
One of them was a zealot. And here's why that's funny. A tax collector basically worked for the Roman Empire getting money for them. A zealot was someone who absolutely wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire. So next time you're in a conversation in your community group, realize that the tax collector and the zealot probably wouldn't have had a whole lot in common too.
But, they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. It was in relationships that Jesus poured into them and they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. And then Jesus ascends and we see the early church doing the same thing. And now the barrier has been broken down. Salvation isn't just for the Jews, it's now for the Jews and the Gentiles which means it's for everyone. And this early church is learning how to live in relationship with each other because they've been separated for so long the door has been thrown wide open.
As you read the letter to the church at Rome, at Colossae, at Philippi, at Thessalonica, you're going to read through it. And what those letters are going to be is it's going to put the gospel on display and then it's going to talk about how do you live that in relationship with other people. In fact, more often than not when you're reading those letters, when you see the pronoun you, it's usually not singular. More often than not it's going to be plural. The idea that the letter is being written to y'all. It's not written in there like that but it is to y'all and it's to be understood and lived out in the context of community.
In fact, if you just read through the New Testament you're going to see a whole bunch of these things called one another's. Okay? Fill in the blank, one another. The greatest example of that is love one another. It doesn't say love yourself. It implies the fact that to grow in our understanding of love means that it needs to be between two people or a group of people.
Love one another. That's how we grow in our understanding of how Jesus loved us is with other people. And that's just one of them. And I just tried to brainstorm all the ones that I could think about and just kind of create a list. Listen to this. Love one another.
Pray for one another. Serve one another. Bear with one another. Encourage one another. Teach. Be at peace.
Be devoted to. Give preference to. Same mind toward. Edify. Admonish. Accept.
Greet one another. Have patience with. Speak the truth in love to one another. Be kind. Be subject to. And on and on and on.
This idea of relationship. And they got that. That the way they grew in their understanding of the gospel and how to follow Jesus was in the context of relationships. You see what the New Testament is pointing us to? Family. Real family.
And it's not to the exclusion of your earthly or your biological family. Instead of thinking of them as distinct and different, the goal is to begin viewing them as the same. Same amount of love. Same amount of compassion. Not that your children aren't going to get your time, but you're actually throwing open the doors of your family so that your children receive more love, more care. Now let me be clear.
I understand that not everybody grew up as a part of this idealistic, earthly family that I've been describing. Maybe you grew up in a home where your parents split up, in a home where there was abuse. I get that. And in fact, you're kind of cynical towards this whole idea of church family like I'm talking about right now. But all of us know what a good family should look like.
Every single one of us. Whether you have that, have that or not, we all know what it should look like. And all of us have this intrinsic desire within us to belong, to be accepted, to be a part of that. All of us want a father that instead of raising his fists, open his arms in love. All of us want a father that will speak words of love and care and not tear us down with abuse. And what I'm telling you is, what the New Testament is screaming to us is that you've been invited into that family.
Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of whatever baggage we come in with, the New Testament is going to say is that Jesus redeems people into this family, which is really good news. You know why? It means that no person in that family is going to be perfect. That the entrance exam to that family is not, you've got your mess together. No, no, no. The entrance exam is, I don't.
That the reason we get to come and be a part of that family is because Jesus redeems us and brings us into relationship. And so, yeah, it's a messed up, jacked up family, just maybe like the one that you grew up in, maybe the one that you know, but here's the difference. The gospel changes us. Jesus works and he changes us and he brings us into real relationship with each other. And as we open up our homes and open up time with each other, it over time, as the Holy Spirit works in that, helps us grow closer to him. And there's a lot of love and there's a lot of joy.
And so that's what we mean. When we say that we're a gospel-centered community on mission, that we're a people redeemed by Jesus to look like and to live like family, and so we just act like it. That's how we express ourselves. That's how we grow in our faith is with other people. And so the question then becomes, okay, I'm with you, Matt. I'm tracking.
I understand that this is what the Bible says is what Jesus has done. That I see that this is how that plays out. How does that impact my life now? How do I begin living like that is true with the people that are in this room, the people that are in my community group? And so we're going to talk. I'm going to give you just a few practical, tangible handles for how this plays out.
But our community groups are going to talk about that this week too. And so I want you to be thinking about what would it look like for us to live in a relationship with each other. And the first way is this. The first way to begin thinking about how do I exist in family with other people is to ask the question, how do I exist as family with my earthly family? Seems pretty simple, right? Try to answer that question.
Okay, how do I relate to my family, my earthly family already? And so for me, the way that I'm going to answer that question is I'm going to think about Katie. I'm going to think about the way I relate to Katie. So Katie and I spend time together. We share meals together. We go to the grocery store together.
We read the Bible together. On Friday nights, we go to the grocery store and we buy cookies and we go home and we bake them and then we shamelessly eat all 24 within 24 hours. We go on walks together and it's the same way that you relate with your family. You fight and you forgive and you reconcile. You defend each other. You help each other.
You laugh together. You do Pinterest projects together. Yeah, I said Pinterest projects. You do it. You know, it's true. You pay for things for each other.
You give gifts to each other. You see how beautiful that is? It's not to the exclusion of the family you already have. You're just opening that up for other people. You begin to ask that question. It sets the stage for how we live in relationship with each other.
And I'm going to be really honest with you guys. This is absolutely from my heart. Katie and I moved to Columbia two years ago to be a part of helping start Mill City Church. And the only people we knew in the city were Chet and Anna and they had moved here three months before. We spent time praying and planning and asking God, what do you want this church to look like? What is this going to look like?
And then we started with our first community group meeting in a home and right off the bat I knew that something was different. It was real. There were real relationships. We spent time together. We shared meals together. We played spike ball together.
I began to love and care for the people that I was in a group with and they shared that same love and care for me. And then it went from one group to two groups, two groups to five groups and as we continue to grow as a church, that's our understanding. That's how we view ourselves in living in relationship together is in this idea of family. And Katie and I have this conversation every now and then. It's like, how did we ever exist without this? I never want to go back.
I never want to miss out. Life is so much better, has much more, I don't know, it's just better. I just love being in relationship with other people and it has changed my life. It has changed my walk with Jesus. It's improved. Like Katie and I have grown closer in our marriage.
It's changed everything. And so when you start to ask that question, how do I view my earthly family? It begins to answer the question, how do we relate to each other as church family? Let me give you a couple of scenarios. Think through this. Okay, if we really are family together, think through these scenarios with me.
You get a call in the middle of the night from somebody in your community group. It's not look at the phone and move it to the side. No, they're family, right? So it means I'm going to answer the phone and I'm going to run to help, whether it's something that's happened or their car's broken down or if they just need to talk, they're family. I'm going to answer the phone. Short on bills?
Can't pay their mortgage? Don't have enough money to buy groceries? Absolutely. I'm reaching for my wallet. Because they're family. I'm going to help.
There's relational drama in your group because of a fight. You're family. You're not running away from each other. You're going to stay and you're going to talk about it. You're going to be open. You're going to be honest.
You're going to forgive. You're going to reconcile. We've got college students who live with us, who live in this city with us but have family that live other places. What if you had a college student that didn't have money to travel home to see their family? What then? You're going to put them in the minivan and you're going to grandma's house and they're going to have to choke down the same terrible stuffing that you do.
Just part of it. When you start answering those questions, it begins to show us how we should relate to each other as church family. And I've got some examples of this. Tati and I have been putting hardwood laminate in our house. We're expecting our first child in May and wanting to do some house improvements. And so I told someone in my community group that I was going to be doing that and they said, I want to help.
Okay, we were going to be working on it on Friday. Well, that Thursday that person got sick. That Thursday night their child had to go to the hospital and it had to get stitches. And the next day he couldn't even go to work because he was so sick. But you know who showed up at my house that afternoon?
Drove an hour to my house to help me even though he didn't feel good. Stayed till nine o'clock on a Friday night and whose wife and children completely understood because we were family. We get that. He was willing to sacrifice. That's a beautiful picture of family. I have heard countless stories of people having trouble with their car.
I've heard stories of people riding with each other to go check out a new car that was an hour away. Of people stopping work in the middle of the day and going and taking care of somebody's vehicle. Of coming together to help people get a vehicle. Not only vehicles but like AC units. Like if there was something going on like an HVACalypse. People running to your rescue.
Absolutely. I almost died that week guys. I'm for real. But because I'm in church family came to my rescue. Helped me in my need. I've heard of stories of people trying to organize birthday parties and kids going I want church family there.
The people they're rattling off aren't their classmates. They're rattling off church family. Adults that they want to be there. People sharing in life experience together. Stories of people who have had to go to the hospital or had a family member that had to go to the hospital dropping everything in the middle of the day and just taking off. Because it's family.
It's real church family. Just as much family as our earthly family. See how beautiful that is? And that is absolutely the picture of the gospel. That Jesus opened up the door so that all of us could be welcomed in through his redemption. That we were offered forgiveness and grace and we've been made sons and heirs.
And so that's the way we live that out is as a church family. And I want to point out just a couple of groups of people where this is especially beautiful. The church has family for new Christians. For some of you when you placed faith in Jesus your old friends your family wanted nothing more to do with you. You might have had to leave old habits and old patterns behind. And what's beautiful about this is that the church steps in and helps and loves and serves.
That it's real family. It's real relationships. And so what you left pales in comparison to what you now have. The church is family for people who are single. Our culture says that the goal is to get married and have 2.5 kids and have a house with a white picket fence. Yeah, is the Bible going to say that marriage is a blessing?
Absolutely. Is the Bible going to say that singleness is a blessing too? Yes. But unless the church opens her arms unless we're opening our homes unless we're opening our tables to people what we're asking single people is to be alone. That's not the case when you have real church family that you're throwing open the doors and inviting and welcoming people in. And it's especially beautiful for people who come from broken homes.
If you come from a home where you didn't have a dad who was there or you had a parent who was abusive or you didn't have real loving relationships with people the church's family redeems that for you. Jesus invites you into a family where the entrance exam is Him. It's Him. He welcomes you in. He's the one who redeems you in. And the most beautiful and captivating part of this idea of church's family is this.
Is this last scripture that we're going to look at from Revelation. And I want us to read it together. And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you are slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on earth. The striving that we put forth now together as a family is just practice for what we've been invited into. That one day all those that have placed faith in Jesus from every tribe nation language and tongue are going to sit at the table with Jesus our Savior and Lord and we're going to share a meal together and we're going to be together as a family for eternity.
You see, Katie won't always be my wife but she'll always be my sister so that when Katie and I open up our homes to people when we go out of our way to make time for people in our church family we're just getting a little bit of practice in for what eternity is going to look like as we share in relationship with Jesus forever because we know that our citizenship is in heaven just like Philippians says and so that when we open up our homes open up our time it helps us grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and it's just practice for the eternity that's waiting for us. Bianca's going to come back up and we're going to continue to sing this is going to be hard this is it's going to be messy we're going to have to fight everything inside of us our natural tendencies and the things that we think we're going to have to we're going to have to learn how to grow and how to sacrifice time and as we do so Jesus works in that and he brings us closer to him and he brings us closer to each other and he gives us real family and I say this all the time and it's absolutely true here it's messy it's beautiful and it's worth it and so we're going to stand and sing in a second and there are three ways that you can respond to this the first one is this you can become a Christian and you can be a part of this family so if you've been you've been listening the whole time like I want that I want that to be true for me but I know it's not it says that to be a part of this family is for those who place faith in Jesus that Jesus redeems them and saves us and brings us into this family so right where you are as we sing this next song just cry out to him place your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sin ask him to change you from the inside out and then tell somebody don't leave here without telling somebody that news the second thing is this join a group if you've been hanging out with us on a Sunday and you've been hearing us talk about this idea of community groups join a group that is absolutely where we grow and what this looks like on a day in and day out basis you can't become family with people in an hour and a half on a Sunday you just can't do it it's not possible and you don't want to miss out on that and the third thing is this if you're already a part of a group don't settle for anything less than the beauty of what we've talked about this morning let me pray for us God I pray that you would teach us what it looks like and what it means to be family that you've opened up the way for us to live in a relationship with you and in doing so you have invited us into a family God I pray that you would teach us what that looks like that we would grow in our understanding of you as you work through the relationships in our church in Jesus name Amen
The Fiery Furnace
Transcript
My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors with Mill City Church and I'm really excited to share with you our message for today. I got the privilege to open up the Bible Story series and actually get to close it for us this morning. And I think it's been a fun and enjoyable series for us as a church. And the question we've been seeking to answer along the way is, who is the Bible actually about? Is it about us or is it about Jesus?
And along the way we've had to ask other questions like, okay, how do I read the Bible? Am I supposed to learn a moral or am I supposed to learn some facts? Do I insert myself into the story or do I kind of sit off as a third person just viewing what's going on? And as we've walked through this series, what we've been able to see is that the purpose of the Bible is to reveal God to us. It's to tell us about God, specifically through the Revelation of his son, the person and work of Jesus. And that's what we've been looking at.
As we've been walking through this series, we've been trying to answer that question, who is the Bible actually about? And as we've walked through it, another thing that we've been able to see is that because we know the end of the story, it impacts how we read the beginning of it. So since we know what God's ultimately going to do through Jesus, it impacts, changes how we walk through the Old Testament, how we read the Old Testament. It's very similar to the way that you'd watch the movie Titanic. Okay? We know the history of Titanic before the movie in the 90s came out.
We already knew what had happened. And so the whole time you're watching this movie, as you're watching Jack play cards for the tickets to get on the ship, and he's hoofing it. He's hoofing it to try to get on the ship, and he gets on, and you're just like, no, that's not going to end well for you. And he and Rose fall in love. The whole time, you know what's going to happen. You know that the ship is eventually going to strike an iceberg.
It's going to go down. Jack and Rose are going to end up in the water. Well, Jack's going to end up in the water. Rose was on the door that both of them could have fit on. Rose was super selfish. She looks at Jack.
She goes, I'll never let go. I'll never let go. And then she, like, wakes up from her cold stupor and pries his dead hand from hers and lets him sink to the bottom of the ocean. Rose was a liar, guys. But because we know the end of the story, it impacts how we watch the whole movie.
The same thing is true of the Bible. We know the end of the story, so it impacts how we read through the Old Testament. And as we walk through stories like Adam and Eve in the garden, as we looked at Noah's ark, the journey of Joseph, last week David versus Goliath, we've gotten to see how they each give us glimpses into different aspects of the gospel, what God is ultimately going to do through Jesus. We've seen righteousness. We've seen how sin can be taken care of. We've seen grace.
And we've seen victory. And today, as we bring our series to a close, we're going to be looking at one of my favorite stories in the Bible. We're going to be looking at the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace. And I'm really excited to share it with you this morning. But before we hop in, I just want to pray that God would use this Old Testament story to reveal himself to us.
So you guys join me. Let's pray together. God, we are asking that you would speak to us this morning. In our own ability, we do not have the capability to look at your word and understand on our own. And so, God, we are asking that by your Holy Spirit, you would speak to us this morning. God, that we would hear from you, that we would understand in a greater way who you are and how we are to live in relationship with you.
In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, our story from today comes from the book of Daniel, chapter 3. So if you've got your Bible, go ahead and grab it. If you don't have one, we've got the blue and white Bibles on the seats. It's going to be page 480. And you're going to want to have it today because we're going to read all of chapter 3.
Scripture is not going to be on the screen. If you're with us this morning and you don't have a Bible, we would love for you to take one of these with you. We have plenty of them. We want everyone to be able to have a Bible. So go ahead and grab one of those and take it with you.
Now, in our series, three out of the five stories that we covered came from the book of Genesis. So we could have called it Genesis plus two more stories, but we went with Bible stories. And last week, we made a pretty big jump from Genesis all the way to 1 Samuel. And I want to take a little bit of time because we're moving even further down the timeline to get from the story of David versus Goliath to the story that we're looking at today. So if you've got those Bible stories handout cards that Raz was talking about at the very beginning, go ahead and grab those.
They're in the seats behind you or directly in front of you. Grab one of those. Take that with you. That's a helpful study resource. Raz is one of our community group leaders. He's a seminary student at CIU.
Just did a wonderful job putting that together so that you could actually see the chronological timeline of the Old Testament because it helps you as you're reading through to know where to actually place the story in the history. So go ahead and grab that. All right. Let's see if I can do this for us. Last week, we looked at David. We looked at David and Goliath.
And David defeats Goliath. And eventually, he's going to become the king of Israel in place of a guy named Saul. And David was a good king. He's known as the quintessential king of Israel. And he had his own flaws. He had his own shortcomings.
But David was a good king that led the people in following the Lord. After David comes his son Solomon. Solomon's known for his wisdom. He wrote several books that we have in the Bible. Solomon also got the opportunity to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem where God's presence was said to dwell. So he was very wise.
And he had lots of riches. And he had a lot of wives. And I don't know how wisdom and wives work together. I guess that's where riches came in. I guess he was able to take care of them that way. But after Solomon, that's when things start to go south.
The kingdom splits in two. Splits between one of Solomon's sons and one of the commanders of his army. So we have a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. And as generation after generation passes, the people begin to abandon God. The kings lead them in worshiping foreign idols and making sacrifices to foreign gods. And God in his grace sends prophets like Isaiah, like Micah to come and to warn the people.
To tell them to repent and turn back to God. Or they're going to be conquered by another nation and sent out of their homeland as exiles. That's what the prophets were saying. And while there were some kings along the way that heeded that wisdom, heeded that prophecy, over time they become more and more depraved and move away from the Lord until eventually the northern kingdom is going to be conquered by Assyria. And then after that, all of the known world in that time is going to be conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire. And that's where we find ourselves in the story today is with these exiled Jews in the land of Babylon that survived the destruction and are now living in captivity.
Now, I want to take just a second to paint that picture up for you. Because when it comes to reading the Old Testament, it doesn't seem real to us. It seems tall tale-ish or like it's a fable. This was real. It's not just the Bible that supports this. Historical documents from the time tell us that this actually took place.
This actually happened. So just go there with me for a second. Imagine that you're an Israelite. You're one of God's chosen people in the promised land. And a bigger, badder empire from the east comes in. And they go into your holy city and they destroy the temple where God's presence was said to dwell.
Most of your family and friends, they're killed. And those of you who are left are carried off to a country with a culture you don't understand. A language you cannot speak. And God's that you do not serve. Welcome to Babylon. I swear these exiles are.
They're living in captivity. And the other side of the prophecy did say this. That there would come a time that after these Jews had been exiled from their homeland, there would come a time where they would repent and God would rescue them out. And they would get to return to their homeland. So that kind of gives us a little bit of the background.
And now we can jump into our story a little bit. So now in Daniel, we're going to look at chapter 3. In chapters 1 and 2, what we see is that this, as the exiles are coming into Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar wants to take all the best of the young people, all the elite people, and he wants to bring them into the palace. And here's what it says. This is like his gauge on what he wants coming in. He says, Youths that were without blemish, good-looking, skillful in wisdom, and endowed with knowledge.
So didn't you feel kind of bad that you didn't get to go to the palace? Like, oh no, not only am I not smart, I'm not good-looking either. But the reason that King Nebuchadnezzar wanted these youths was to train them, to teach them culture and language. This was an expansive empire, and he wanted people who knew different areas to be able to rule over them. And eventually what we see is that some of the Jewish exiles actually find favor in King Nebuchadnezzar's eyes. Daniel, who wrote this book, and three of his friends whose story that we're going to look at today, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they rise to power, and they're put over top of different provinces, those three specifically over the province of Babylon.
And while they're in the worst possible scenario for them, while they're in the worst possible situation, we see that God's still with them. God is still with them in this scenario. So Daniel, Daniel chapter 3, verse 1. A lot of setup for us this morning. Go ahead and turn there. Verse 1.
King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth 6 cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Okay, we don't know a whole lot about Nebuchadnezzar at this point. This is kind of our introduction to him. But what we see is that Nebuchadnezzar has an image set up that's 60 cubits high, 6 cubits wide, and is made of gold.
The most powerful man in the known world at this time is flexing his muscles just a little bit. And we talked last week about what that measurement of a cubit was. It was a rudimentary measurement of fingertip to elbow, and it was about 18 inches. Or if you're me and have T-Rex arms, it's more like 14 inches. But the standard man was about 18 inches, which means that this statue is 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide.
It was made of gold. And this thing was real. There are Babylonian documents from the time that actually talk about this statue. This wasn't just a made-up thing. It was actually real. And those documents nor scripture actually tell us what the image was.
Some people think that it was an image from a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had back in chapter 2. Daniel actually interprets that dream from him. You can read that story. Others think it was an animal, which would have matched up with other religions in that area of the world at the time. But regardless, this image had an intended purpose.
And we get to see a little bit of it in the next verse. Verse 2. Verse 3. Then the satraps, the prefects, and the governors. Okay, at some point, do you feel like Nebuchadnezzar's just giving out titles to all of his friends? I'm pretty sure he made satrap up.
That's not a thing, right? Like he's going around the room. He's like, okay, Frankie and Steve, you guys are going to be counselors. Johnny, you'll be a governor. And Rufus, you'll be a magistrate. What about Carl?
Carl? I didn't forget Carl. See, Carl is going to be a satrap. A what? A satrap. What's that?
Shut it, Carl. You're a satrap. I don't know. There's all these different titles within the provinces. But it continues on.
Continuing on in verse 3. The justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. So the most powerful man in the known world summons everybody from every part of his empire. And it was huge. This empire would have stretched from the bottom of Egypt to the Persian Gulf.
It was huge. He summoned everybody, even the people with made-up titles. Everybody's coming. And I want you to imagine no expense spared Woodstock style. Because it says he set it up on the plain of Dura. He set this thing up on a level piece of ground so that as many people as possible could get to it, could see this image.
And now they're all standing. They're all standing in the shadow of this image. And it continues on. Verse 4. All right.
Time out. You guys know that I'm a musician. So that any time scripture expressly points out something about singing or about music or about instruments, I'm automatically drawn to it. And so you go back through this list and you're clipping along. Horn. Yep.
Pipe. Yep. Liar. That would have been like a stringed instrument, very similar to a guitar. Trigon. Don't know what that is, but it sounds cool.
Harp. That's an interesting choice. Bagpipe. Bagpipe. In the middle of all these Eastern instruments, who snuck the Scottish guy in? Wes William Wallace.
I'm really sorry. That's a terrible Scottish accent. That was terrible. I apologize. And speaking of terrible, this would have sounded terrible. I'm serious.
If you look, it was a horn and a pipe and a stringed instrument and a harp and a... I guess they were trying to scare them into submission to make them bow down. I don't know what the intended purpose was here. But all these different instruments, and in verse 6, And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe... Let's just call them the band, the really terrible band.
The band and every kind of music. All the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. So they assemble all these people, and at the sound of the band, everyone's to bow down, or they're going to get thrown into a fiery furnace. Bow down or die. So all the people, including the Jews who had been exiled from their homeland for doing this same mess, have to bow down at the sound of the music to this inanimate object that's made by human hands.
The herald just said that King Nebuchadnezzar had it set up, which means that the elements would have been melted down and poured out by human hands, cast by human hands, shaped by human hands, lifted into place by human hands, could not move on its own without human hands. Bow down and worship. That's what's facing all the people that are standing beside this image. And it continues on. Verse 8. Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews.
Okay, Chaldeans would be similar to southerners. It was a regional designation, so these were people from Babylon. They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. You, O king, have made a decree. You, O king, have made a decree. Lost my place.
That every man who hears the sound of the terrible band and every kind of music shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Okay, so there is likely some type of jealousy going on here.
Scripture does not tell us that. But these are hometown boys. And they are talking about the Jewish exiles. And this is a slap in the face to the king. Not only are they disobeying him, but these aren't even his people. These are conquered exiles.
These are people that he treated graciously and had them trained and gave them food and shelter and clothing. And now they're not bowing down to the image that he set up. And they're doing it in front of the entire empire. Nuh-uh. Not happening. And Nebuchadnezzar is hot.
Jump back with me. Verse 13. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now, if you are ready when you hear the sound of the band and every kind of music to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good.
But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands? So Nebuchadnezzar brings them in and he's going to give them another chance. But it's an ultimatum. Either you bow down or you're going to die. Bow down or I'm going to throw you into a fiery furnace.
And verse 15, the tail end of verse 15 really gives us a picture of what's going on here. Basically says, if you won't worship my gods, which God do you think is going to save you from the fiery furnace that I'm going to throw you in? And we get to see how they respond. Verse 16. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace.
And he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. And I love that. Don't you love that? That's why it's one of my favorite stories in the Bible. The king says, I'm going to kill you.
And those guys aren't fazed by it. They simply answer the question to which God could save them. And they say, our God, our God can save us. But even if he doesn't, we'd rather die than serve your idol. Don't even bother striking up the band again. You're going to have to kill us.
We won't bow down. You see what these guys are saying here? Don't miss the beauty of what's going on. Here's what they're saying. They're saying, our God can deliver us. He will deliver us.
But if he chooses not to do so, we still trust him. Even if we are to die, he is still in control and has a greater purpose. That in the midst of the worst possible scenario, they have placed their full trust in God. And let me just say this. It's not because these guys had super faith. Nobody's arguing that these guys had incredible faith and courage and trust.
But it's not even that they had faith that everything was going to turn out all right. They have faith in God no matter what the outcome is. They trust him. Him. Period. And that goes so far beyond our understanding of trust and faith.
So often with us, our trust and faith is very circumstantial and can be very conditional. So a lot of times it goes like this. God, I place my faith in you if... Fill in the blank. God, I trust you as long as... Fill in the blank.
We have fill in the blank faith. It's circumstantial. It's conditional. That when things in our lives are going well, when we're up on top, God, I trust you. I have faith in you. And as things take a turn for the worse, as we're like these guys and we're facing death and we're facing suffering, our faith and our trust begin to diminish because we're thinking about our trust.
We're thinking about how much faith we have rather than the trustworthiness and the faithfulness of our God. And that's what we're seeing in the story. These guys look at Nebuchadnezzar and they say, he's completely capable. He's infinitely good and wise. And whatever happens to us, it's inside of his plan and control. We trust him.
Verse 19. Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace.
Now, it looks like Daniel is super fond of lists. Okay? But the Bible doesn't just throw out random facts for no reason. There's a purpose in that. We're going to come back to it. We're going to see it.
Verse 22. Because the king's order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Well, that didn't go well. These guys stood up for their God and they still get tossed into the fire. King Nebuchadnezzar was so enraged that he had the furnace heated seven times more than it could be.
I don't even know how they were supposed to measure that. That they had them bound in their clothing with ropes. And the mighty men of their army went to take these guys and throw them into the fire. And it was so hot that it killed the guys who were throwing them into the fire. And they're tossed in. And it seems like that should be the end of the story, but it's not.
Pick it up. Verse 24. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king. He answered and said, But I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire.
And they are not hurt. And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar's mind is blown because he looks into the burning fiery furnace. And instead of hearing screams of agony, of pain, seeing men riling around in pain on the ground, he sees men walking around. Unbound. Unharmed.
And he goes to count. One, two, three. How many men did we throw in there? And I'm looking at this man. He can't even describe what he's saying because he says, The fourth looks like a son of the gods. He looks like a divine being.
Verse 26. Pick it up. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace. He declared, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out. Come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire.
What else was he supposed to do? Nebuchadnezzar runs as close to the fire as he absolutely can. And he yells for him to come out. They're walking around inside. What else is he going to do? Come out.
Come out. And this is like a movie. It's like one of those movies where the hardcore guys go into the abandoned warehouse and they wreck shop and they're, you know, killing people. And they're coming out. And the warehouse is like blowing up behind them. And there's fire.
And there's smoke. And they're walking out with the gangster truck. And everything's blowing up. Don't act like that's not the music that's going on in your mind. When you imagine yourself in that story. And they come walking out of the fire.
Verse 27. And the satraps. Good. Carl's back. The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not sensed.
Their cloaks were not harmed. And no smell of fire had come upon them. All the fire was able to do was burn the ropes off that they had used to bind them. When they walk out of the fire, they don't even smell like smoke. I think that's why Daniel included those details. Hats weren't messed up.
Garments weren't messed up. They didn't even smell like smoke. God had delivered them. And Nebuchadnezzar's reaction is priceless. Priceless. Verse 28.
Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrath, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him and set aside the king's command and gilded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any God except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree. Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrath, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way. Nebuchadnezzar says, Bump that. I'm switching teams. I'm on that God's team.
And anyone who speaks a word against the God of Shadrath, Meshach, and Abednego will be ripped to shreds. Whoa, take it easy, king. Their houses will be leveled. Goodness. Moses. Holes cutting their favorite t-shirts and their favorite goldfish drowned.
How are you going to drown a goldfish? Shut it, Carl. You're a satrap. Figure it out. He loses his mind. He does a complete 180.
The most powerful king in the known world says, Nobody will speak a word against these guys. And verse 30. Then the king promoted Shadrath, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. And we get to the end of the story and we're pumped. What a story. These three guys in the face of imminent death placed their full trust in either God's deliverance or his providence.
And they're thrown into a fiery furnace. But that's not the end of the story. Nebuchadnezzar looks inside and he can't even explain what he's seeing. He goes to count. He says, one, two, three, four. One of them looks like a divine being.
One of them looks like a son of the gods. And we're getting a glimpse into what God is ultimately going to do in the gospel through his son as Jesus steps into the fire on our behalf. We get a picture of it. Right there. In the middle of this story. What God is ultimately going to do through Jesus.
And Nebuchadnezzar is puzzled and he's looking inside. He doesn't even know what's going on. He says an angel. The translation of that is a messenger. So whether it was an angel or a messenger that Nebuchadnezzar saw or something else completely, entirely different, one thing remains constant.
God is with them. And once again, we get a perfect picture of the gospel in this story. We're once again reminded that the Bible isn't about us. What we see, what we see in the story is that the God of the Bible, the one true God, the God of Israel, the God that these men refuse to dishonor and to disobey, he doesn't just deliver them out of the furnace. He joins them in it. We get a glimpse of his character here.
Why he's so trustworthy. He doesn't just keep them from harm. He walks with them in it. And as we continue to read, as the story of the Bible unfolds, this isn't a God that just calls for faith, that just calls for obedience, that sits far off and expects greatness from his people. No. He would join his people.
That Jesus would step out of heaven and step into the furnace. That Jesus would become a human. That Jesus would face temptation. That he would live and love perfectly. And he would go to a cross. And he wouldn't leave unscathed.
He was brutally murdered. See, what we see in this story is that three men step into an execution, and they're joined there by their God. And they're delivered. What we see in Jesus is that Jesus goes to a cross, and he switches places with us, and he dies. And we're the ones that walk out of the furnace free. We get a glimpse into the gospel in this story.
But the cool thing about it is that Jesus doesn't stay dead. Jesus walks out of the grave three days later to defy the furnace, to defy death and punishment and offer life. What we see is that these men have faith, and they're joined in the furnace, and they're granted life. And we're offered the same thing. We're offered the same thing. That we're offered to join a God who isn't unfamiliar with pain and suffering, a God who died in our place on our behalf, who took our execution.
The character of God is fully revealed to us in Jesus to show us that he is trustworthy, that he is faithful. And the cross ultimately proves that. Jesus stepped in, and through his death and resurrection, he proves that. And just like with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the purpose of their suffering was to bring glory to God. These three guys were in the face of death and suffering. And when they're thrown into the fire, they don't know what's going to happen.
But as they're brought out, Nebuchadnezzar makes a decree that no one can speak a word against the God of these guys. God's name is made known throughout the entire empire. And in the same way, in the suffering and the death of Jesus, God had a greater purpose. That through the sacrificial death of his son, the debt of our sin would be paid for. And that as Jesus dies on the cross, we who are sinful get to walk away. And so, how much more do we, on this side of the cross, understand God's faithfulness and his trustworthiness in the midst of our trials and sufferings?
How much more can we claim, just like these guys, that our God can deliver, he will deliver, and even if he chooses not to, in my present circumstances, we ultimately know that he delivers us from sin, death, and hell through the cross. That as we go through hard times, as we go through suffering, he doesn't sit far off. He joins us in it. And so, since we know that God is ultimately going to deliver, we get to face trials and sufferings, realizing that he might not change our present situation. You see, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fire, it wasn't the strength of their faith that could save them.
It was the object of their faith. It was that God was faithful. God was trustworthy. And they knew that it might not mean that God would change their situation. And the same thing is true for us. He might not change the present situation that we're going through.
The oncology report might come back and you still have cancer. You may go through the third month and not be able to pay your bills. Work may continue to be a living nightmare because you have a boss that constantly demeans you. And what we see in this story is that God is faithful and he's trustworthy. That no matter what happens, our hope is not in our circumstances, but it's ultimately in the fact that God will deliver us. That he joins us in the furnace to walk with us through it and that in the end it brings glory to his name.
How much more do we on this side of the cross get to say, I know that my God's going to deliver me. It doesn't matter what I'm walking through right now. That I can endure suffering. I can endure trials because I know that he's faithful and I know that he's with me in it. He joins me in the suffering and ultimately it brings glory to his name. Raz, Bianca, and Josh are going to come back up.
The response this morning is to place your faith in Jesus and not in your present circumstances. Some of us in this room are walking through really difficult life situations right now. And you're asking the question, God, where are you? Where are you? I don't feel you. I don't see you.
Everything that's going on in my life is a mess. Where are you? Just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were joined in the fire. We know perfectly how willing Jesus is to step into the furnace on our behalf. That ultimately Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego show us what it looks like to walk in relationship with Jesus because we have a God that endured suffering for us. And that we don't look at the flames.
We don't look at the furnace. We're not looking at our present circumstances. We're looking to the God who's faithful and who's trustworthy. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego look to the guy on their left. We look to the cross. The cross proves that God loves us.
It settles that so that no matter what we're walking through, we can trust God. And listen, I don't know why suffering and trials happen the way they do. I don't. I don't know why that situation may not change. I don't know why that relationship hasn't gotten any better. I don't know.
But what I do know is that God is good. And He's for our good. And He loves us. And He's got a plan. He's got a purpose in the midst of our suffering and our trials. And we look to Jesus as we walk through it.
Because He's with us. And ultimately, He delivers us. Place your faith in Him because He's faithful. Trust Him because He's trustworthy. We're going to stand and we're going to sing praises to Jesus. And I'm inviting you, if for the first time, to let go.
To stop looking at the flames and to look to the cross. Let's pray. God, we praise You that You are not a God who sits far off, that leaves us in this mess by ourselves, but You join us in the suffering. And in doing so, You swap places with us. That we can place our faith in You for the forgiveness of our sins and for salvation. God, I'm praying that all across this room, Lord, that You would awaken that within us.
Instead of looking at our present circumstances and our trials, God, give us a picture of the cross that proves Your love for us. God, awaken faith and trust within us because You are faithful and trustworthy. In Jesus' name, amen.
Adam & Eve
Transcript
We're really excited about this new series. I'm Matt. I'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church. And so I hope you enjoyed the video. If you came in late and you weren't able to see the whole thing, we will be putting it up on Facebook and we'll send it out through Twitter so that you can view that. And you've got the handout, so you want to keep that handy.
You can stick it in your Bible. Or again, we've got the paper copies for you over there on that table. For most of us, we grew up with some type of familiarity with the main stories of the Bible, right? So whether you grew up in church or you didn't, these stories are not even unfamiliar to our culture. So even in our culture, there's TV shows, there's movies that are made, there are even musicals.
So an example of that would be Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you've seen that, I'm sorry. If you haven't, don't Google it. It's interesting. And then they just made a movie about Noah starring Russell Crowe, who was the main actor in Gladiator, which I've heard that's an amazing movie, but about the only thing it has in common with the story of the Bible is that there's a guy named Noah. There's a flood and a boat.
And then we're all kind of familiar with the story of David and Goliath, which I love that story because I played defensive line in college, and I'm kind of short. And so I was always going up against guys who were like 6'4", 6'5", and so it was always like, I've got a channel on my inner David, and I can take all of these guys down. But that's what we're going to be covering in this series are some of the main stories of the Bible. And most of you know this, but I grew up as a part of a church, and so I heard these stories all the time. I heard them in different places. One of the places I heard them was in Sunday school.
Some of you might have grown up in Sunday school, which is the worst name ever. Like, kids don't like going to Monday through Friday school. I don't know how Sunday school is going to make it any better. And then you had the week-long adventure during the summer called Vacation Bible School. Again, words mean things, so I don't know who got to come up with all of these names. But one of my favorite places to study the Bible and to learn Bible stories was on Wednesday night, and this group met in the gym, and it was called the RAs.
Oh, some of you are nodding your head. Yes, the RAs. That stands for Royal Ambassadors. Fancy, I know. No, for real, we had a pledge. You look at me like this isn't fancy.
As a royal ambassador, I will do my part to help old ladies with liberty and justice for all. See, I even remember the pledge from when I was in the RAs. So I heard these Bible stories in all kinds of different places, and I don't think this is going to surprise any of you, but growing up, I was referred to as a husky child. And so there was always some kind of incentive to pay attention when the teacher was talking. And in fourth grade, I had a Sunday school teacher that had this big brown bag full of flavored Tootsie Rolls. Let's just say I learned a lot in that class, got a lot of questions right, and my fourth grade picture tells the tale.
I mean, it's just... And even in RAs, the best one in RAs was, if you guys will listen for 10 minutes, we'll go outside and we'll play football. Deal. I'll listen for 10 minutes if we get to go outside and play football. And most of the time, we were studying the main stories from the Bible. So basically, the teacher would begin.
He would tell the story, or we'd read the story from the scripture. And then he would ask us questions, and the aim of the questions was to take us towards some kind of moral application. So you may be familiar with the story of Job and all the terrible things to happen to Job. Well, the moral of the story in Job is that we just have to have patience and wait on God no matter what's going on. Or maybe you've heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These three guys were thrown into a fire because they refused to bow down to a statue.
And they walk around in the fire, and they aren't hurt by it, and they come out. And so, of course, the moral of that story is you need to keep your faith in God no matter who picks on you. That's kind of the moral application. And then the one you're probably most familiar with is Jonah and the whale. And so the moral of that story is if God calls you to do something, you better do it or you can get swallowed by a fish. And nobody wants to get swallowed by a fish.
And so I grew up hearing these stories, and here's how I was taught to process them. What's the story? What's the application? And so I get in conversations with people sometimes, and they ask me, How am I supposed to read the Bible? Am I supposed to glean some kind of moral truth from it? Or am I just supposed to be kind of learning the facts?
Am I supposed to insert myself into the story? Or am I supposed to kind of like step out and be a third person and just learn stuff? How am I supposed to read the Bible? And the aim of all of those questions is what leads us to what we'll be addressing in this series, which is how do we properly read and understand the Bible, especially when it comes to some of these big stories. So we're going to be beginning, if you want to grab a Bible, we're going to be beginning in Genesis chapter 3, which is on page 2 in the Bibles that we have for you on the seats.
But before we do, I just want to pray that God would speak to us during our time. Let's pray together. God, thank you that we don't have to wing this, that our faith is not dependent on our ability to somehow figure out who you are, but you've actually chosen to reveal yourself to us through your word. And God, we praise you for that, and we thank you for that. And what we ask for this morning is that your Holy Spirit would open us up to understanding who you are and how we relate to you as it comes from the story of Adam and Eve. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. So again, our story is going to be in Genesis chapter 3, which is on page 2. But since we're at the beginning of the Bible, I want to give you a quick back story of chapters 1 and 2 to kind of get us to the main story that we'll be talking about today. So you can kind of follow along in your Bible if you want to. But what we see in Genesis chapter 1 is that God speaks and things begin to happen.
God says, let there be light. The God of the universe speaks and creation begins to happen so that light separates from darkness and land separates from water and he creates plants and animals and ultimately humanity. And he does it over the course of six days. And at the end of six days, he says that it's very good. And then on the seventh day, God rested. And as it moves into chapter 2, what we get is just a zoomed-in picture of part of God's creation.
So in chapter 1, we see that God speaks creation into existence. But when it comes to humanity, we get a much different picture. As you can kind of see in verse 7, it says that God with his hands takes dust and he forms man and he breathes the breath of life into him. And I want you to get that because it's really cool. God speaks creation into existence except for humanity. God sets the stage for the intimate relationship he desires with humanity, even in creation.
It's just a really cool picture. And Adam exists in relationship with God. And God takes Adam and he puts him in the midst of a paradise in a garden called Eden. And Adam gets to live in relationship with God. God gives him things to do. He has dominion over creation and he's to work in the garden.
There's even parameters to how he relates to God and the things that he does within the garden. God says you can eat the fruit of any tree in the garden except for one, just the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat that or you'll die. And Adam's like, that's a sweet deal. I can do that. I can handle that.
And in relating to God, God wants to find a helper suitable for Adam. He doesn't want Adam to be alone. It's not good for Adam to be alone. And so God gives Adam the responsibility of naming all of the animals. I mean, you got to picture that for a second. The Adam gets the responsibility of naming all the Adam.
So go with me there for a second. First animal. Adam's ready. Okay. First animal comes in. Rhinoceros.
Sweet. Got it. Nailed it. Next one. Keep them coming. Flamingo.
Next one. What in the duck-billed platypus? We'll call this one. And I guess Adam got bored after a while. There's so many. It's just kind of like cat.
Next. Dog. Next. How many of these things are there, really? I mean, how many animals? And obviously, Adam was speaking English.
Duh. So that's what he called those things. So just erase all of that from your memory. Because obviously, he wasn't speaking English. But at the end of naming all of the animals, there's not a helper found suitable for Adam.
No helper is found among the animals that's suitable for Adam. And so what we see in 21, if you've got your Bibles, it's the same page that you're on. So we might as well read it. Starting in verse 21. It says this. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. So what happens is that God puts Adam to sleep, takes the rib, with it creates a woman. And he brings the woman to Adam. And in the original language, Adam sings. That's what that is. Adam is so pumped up about the creation that God had just brought to him that he, homeboy, sings.
He's so excited. And it says that they became one flesh together and they existed in this garden. And I love that God paints the picture from creation of what biblical marriage gets to look like. One man and one woman joined together in covenant relationship with God and with each other. And it was perfect. In the midst of a paradise, there's Adam and Eve enjoying each other, enjoying God's creation.
And they were naked and not ashamed. Amen. Let's pray. I think that's the end, right? That's where we want the story to stop. It's like, oh, don't go further.
But the problem is we actually have to go further because the Bible does. So while we want to stay in paradise where everything's good, we're going to move on to chapter 3. So now I want you to go ahead and grab your Bible. The verses are not going to be on the screen. So I want you to have it in your hands.
It's looking at Genesis chapter 3, verse 1. I'll give you a second to flip there. Verse number 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman. All right, it's already getting weird.
We've got talking snakes. Hang on to that. We're coming back to it. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.
But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, we don't get this right off the bat. We don't, but we should have known something was up when Eve starts talking to a snake. And what we find out from context is that this is Satan in the form of a snake. And what we see in scripture is that Satan was a created being who rebelled against God.
And it's going to use descriptors like the father of lies, deception, schemes, tricks. And so we shouldn't be surprised that when Satan shows up in the garden, he does so in the form of a disguise to talk to Eve. And he comes to Eve and he says, did God say that you couldn't eat of any tree that's in the garden? And Eve responds, no, just not the one that's in the middle, because if we eat of that one, we'll die. And Satan deceptively says, you won't surely die. At least not immediately.
And the reason that God doesn't want you to eat of the fruit is because you'll be like God. You'll be like God. And God doesn't want that. He doesn't want you to be like him. So, so yeah, yeah. It's just the knowledge of good and evil.
He just wants you to be like him. It's really not that big a deal. It seems like Eve takes the bait. Okay. Verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And see, now you understand the reason why I wanted to stop at the end of chapter two, because humanity made it two chapters and then blew it. That's what we see in this story is that Eve falls for the deception of Satan and takes the fruit and she eats. And then she gives some to her husband who is standing passively by while she's talking to a snake. That's another sermon for another day.
And he eats of it. And it says immediately their eyes were opened to the fact that they were naked and ashamed. Have you ever had that dream where everything's going good? And then all of a sudden you look down, you're no longer wearing clothes and you're in front of all your friends and families. You ever had some of you are squirming in your seat like, no, that's the worst dream ever. However, they feel that shame for the first time.
And here's why. Because when they, God had commanded Adam, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So that when he ate, he knew the difference between good and evil. And for the first time, humanity felt the weight of rebellion against God. Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. It wasn't just that they were naked and ashamed.
They knew the depth of their depravity at that moment because they had rebelled against God. And so they made loincloths for themselves. Pick it up in verse 8. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you?
And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit. She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done?
The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So God shows up again. He walks in perfect relationship with his creation and God's looking for his creation. And he calls out to them. And Adam says that he's hiding because he was afraid because he was naked. And God says, who told you?
Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to? And Adam just dodges the question. In fact, Adam has the audacity to say, the woman that you, the woman that you put here to be with me, she gave me the fruit. So Adam actually blames God and he blames the woman.
And then God turns to the woman and he says, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. And what we're going to look at in the rest of this story is that because there has been sin, because there was disobedience to what God commanded, there's ultimately discipline and punishment. And so what we're going to see in successive order is the punishment that's handed down to the serpent, that's handed down to Satan, that's handed to Eve, and then it's handed to Adam. Jump back with me to verse 14. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.
On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.
And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.
So there is punishment. Because there is disobedience to God's word, there is punishment. And the punishment for the serpent is that it would be the lowest of all creation. And we see that with Satan. That he is cast away from God. The furthest from God.
The woman would have pain in childbearing. Yes, ladies, you get to thank Eve for that. That she would have pain in childbearing. And ultimately there would be struggle within the marriage relationship. Where the man would abdicate his God-given role of leading in the family. And the woman would fight him for it.
There would be struggle within the marriage relationship. And for men the curse is that he would work his entire life toiling, struggling by the sweat of his face. And very little would be yielded from it. And what we see in the rest of the story is that God makes clothing for Adam and Eve. And he walks them out of the garden. And that's the end of the story.
Now, I want us to time out for a second. And just zoom out. Take a breath. Because the room got heavy. Because we feel the weight of the story. I want you to take a breath for a second.
Remember, the point of this series is to figure out, What am I supposed to take away from this story? So growing up, again, the way that I began to read the Bible was this. What's the story? And what's the moral application? And more often than not, whether it be in Sunday school or RAs or even hearing it preached, This is the way I was taught this passage. Here's the moral application.
The first part is this. The way that we exist in relationship with God is by our actions. The things that we do. That's how we relate. Our actions. The second part is the actions that we can choose.
So we can, God has rules. The second part is we can either choose to obey those rules or rebel against those rules. And the third part is this. If you accept God's commands and you follow his rules, you'll be blessed. And if you rebel against his commands, you will be punished. So let me break it down just a little bit shorter.
God has rules. We obey them. Or there are consequences. And so in the story of Adam and Eve, what we see is that God has rules. They disobeyed God. And so there were consequences.
Everything was going good until they screwed up. And then after they sinned, it was never the same again. And so the application for me was that God has rules. And I have to do good. And I have to be good to exist in relationship with God. Because it's on me to do what I have to do to be in relationship with God.
That's what I got from the story. And so I grew up scared. Scared that I was going, that not if, but when. When was I going to screw up? Scared that I had to earn God's favor or to face his punishment. That in the end, God actually cared more about my behavior than he did about me.
So I started looking at life like it was all a series of tests. Tests to see that if I would honor God. And so that if I was doing well, if I was doing the things that I was supposed to do as a Christian, that God would be blessing me and that I would have an overall good life. But when I screwed up, when I messed up, there would be punishment. And life as I know it would begin to diminish more and more each time. That in the end, I was going to let God down.
And some of us feel that. Some of you, that's the way you understand Christianity to be. So that you feel this burden that you'll never be able to achieve what God has set forth for you. That you're going to screw up. You're going to mess up. You think that the way that you relate to God can only be through your actions.
And if you sin and you're disobedient, that ultimately, you're just going to be punished and cast out. And the truth is, if we read the Bible like it's about us, that's what we'll get out of it. But here's something that's absolutely beautiful about the Bible that we get to see this morning. The Bible is ultimately to reveal God to us. So that the aim of Scripture is ultimately to point us towards Jesus.
The truth that can set us free this morning is that the Bible is about Jesus, not about us. And so from the very first story in the Bible, God's going to set the stage for how we understand Him. And understand how we relate to Him. And I know you're thinking, yeah, but what we just saw was that it's based off of our action. That's how we relate to God, right? So if we're doing good, we're in good stead with God.
If we're doing bad, we're not. I want us to jump back into the story and see the good news that's actually here. So grab your Bibles again. We're going back to the story, to verse 14 and verse 15. Now what we're about to look at is referred to by theologians.
This actually has a name. It's called the Proto-Evangelion. All right, I know, big word. Proto meaning first, like prototype. Evangelion meaning good news. So theologians, guys that study the Bible refer to this as the first good news.
And I know you're already looking at it going, wait, wait, wait. This is the curse of Satan. This is the curse to the serpent. How in the world is this good news for us? How does this teach us about how we relate to God? Jump back there with me.
Verse 14, the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. So again, this is the curse of the serpent.
It starts off, it says you're going to be cursed. You're going to crawl around on your belly. Dust you're going to eat all the days of your life. So in comparison to Satan, the lowest of all creation. And then in verse 15, it begins to take a turn. Look at it again.
It says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. So it says enmity. Enmity between you and the woman, between the serpent and the woman. Enmity, another word for that would be hostility. Yeah, we would agree with that. We would agree that there's hostility between us and Satan, the offspring of Eve.
But it seems, if you keep reading, that it's being a little more specific here. Look at the last little bit. It says, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Who's he? I thought we were talking about the serpent and Eve. But now all of a sudden, there's this he.
And if you jump back in the verse, it says that there's going to be enmity between you and the woman. Okay? Between your offspring and hers. And what we begin to realize is that it's not just talking about any offspring of Eve. It's actually pointing towards a very specific descendant of Eve. And if you think about this, what it's saying, it says, you will bruise his heel, but he will bruise your head.
And if you think about it, if a snake were to strike at the heel of a man, it could hurt. But the heel of a man to the head of a serpent would kill it. And what we see is that this very specific descendant of Eve is going to do this thing. And here's what's cool about the Bible. It works together. It connects.
And what we see in Luke's gospel in chapter 3, he's given us a little family history of Jesus. And he's tracing Jesus' line back and back and back. And this is how it finishes. Son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. So it traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to being a descendant of Adam and Eve.
A very specific descendant of Adam and Eve. And what we see in Isaiah chapter 53 is this. When Isaiah is writing about what he sees, what is to come with the Messiah, the one who would save, the one who would redeem, it says this, he would be bruised for our iniquities. It says he would be bruised for our sins. And as we begin to put the story together, it's like, wait, no, no, this isn't just a curse. God is setting the stage for what he's ultimately going to do.
That Jesus would go to the cross carrying our sin and carrying our shame. And Satan thought he had won when Jesus went to the cross. He thought he had killed him. But Jesus would walk out of the grave three days later conquering sin, death, hell, and Satan stomping the head of the serpent. And what we see is from the very beginning, from the first rebellion of man, that God is setting the stage for what he is ultimately going to do. That this story is not ultimately about the fact that we're going to screw up, that we're going to mess up, we're going to be punished and cast out.
It is ultimately pointing us towards what's true about what Jesus is going to do. This story tells us that it's not about our action. It's not ultimately about our action. It's ultimately about what Jesus would do on our behalf. And it sets the stage for the whole scope of the Bible to be able to point us towards what's true about Jesus and the gospel. And since that's true, that becomes the lens by which we read the entire Old Testament.
It's not what is this story, where do I find myself in the story? It is what does this story ultimately teach me about Jesus and the gospel. It's not how do I need to act, behave, respond, work it out on my own to earn God's favor. It is how do I grow in understanding what Jesus has already accomplished for me and how does that impact the rest of my life as I live with him. Because if we read the Bible without Jesus as the main character, we'll miss the point. And as Christians, we get the benefit of knowing the end of the story before we ever start reading the beginning of it.
And that's a little bit of what we're starting to see in this story. I want you to think for a moment about the movie Titanic. Okay? We all know about the story from history, and you've probably all seen the movie before. You cannot watch the movie Titanic without knowing that the ship at the end is going to sink. Think about it.
So you're watching Jack in one of the opening scenes. Jack's sitting there. He's playing cards. He's playing cards, and they're all throwing in their bets and stuff. And then two White Star Line tickets hit the table. And you're watching.
You're going, oh, no. Uh-uh. That's not good. Jack wins, snatches the tickets, throws everything into a bag, and heads out the door. And you're like, oh, man. Oh, no.
No, that's ain't good. Maybe he'll trip. I don't know. Maybe he'll get hit by a car. Oh, maybe he won't make it to the ship. Maybe the ship will pull away.
Ship, go. Go, Titanic. Go. Oh, he's on the ship. Okay. Great.
Because we know the end of the story. And all along the way, as Jack saves Rose, as Jack and Rose fall in love, as there's betrayal, as the ship strikes the iceberg, all along the way, you know the end of the story. And it informs how you watch the beginning of it. And you know that ultimately, Jack and Rose are going to end up in the water. And Rose is going to say, I'll never let go, even though she does let go. And really, Rose was super selfish.
Because if you watch the movie, there was room for both of them on the door. It's absolutely ridiculous. A little selfish. Right, Rose? I mean, maybe both of you could have made it. But you can't.
You can't watch that movie without knowing the end of the story. The same thing is true of the movie The Sixth Sense. When you've watched the movie The Sixth Sense, you realize that the character that Bruce Willis was playing the entire time was dead. He was dead the whole time. And if you've never seen The Sixth Sense, I'm sorry. I just blew that for you.
But you can't watch it the same again. And the same thing is true for us as Christians. And I want you, let that seep in for a minute. You cannot read the Old Testament without knowing ultimately what Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And we get a picture of it, even in this story. A story where we think that it's all about our action and what we've done in condemnation.
And we get this beautiful picture of ultimately what Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And so as we flip the moral on its head, what we see is this story isn't. This story isn't about the fact that God has rules. And that Adam and Eve sinned. Therefore, they had to be punished. And even though there was this vague forgiveness type thing, that life was never the same.
Chapter 3, verse 15 tells us that the ultimate idea of Scripture is this. In the end, Jesus is the hero. Jesus steps in and through his life and death and resurrection forgives us of our sins. Takes away the debt of our sin and offers us a way back into relationship with God. In fact, it's his perfect relationship that's applied to our account. Paul's going to pick up on this in the New Testament.
When he's writing to the church in Corinth and to the church in Rome, he's going to draw this comparison between Adam and Christ. This comparison between Adam and Jesus. And he's going to say that through one man came sin. Through Jesus came grace. Through one man came death. Through Jesus came life.
So much so that when you begin to think about it, you begin to understand that Adam's disobedience in the garden led to sin entering the world through a tree. And that Jesus ultimately would accept his father's will in the garden and would take our sins with him to a tree. And there he would pay for them. And what we begin to see is that the grand narrative of scripture is to point us towards God's redemptive act that he accomplishes through Jesus. Raz and Josh and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to spend some time responding and thinking about what we've heard this morning. If your understanding of Christianity has been that it's about your action, that the way that you relate to God is through your action, whether good or bad.
So whether that's you doing really good things, really moral things to earn God's favor, or sinning and rebelling against God, therefore facing his punishment. My encouragement to you this morning is to let the truth of what we've talked about set you free from that. Realize that the story of Adam and Eve isn't ultimately about our behavior and God's punishment. It's about the fact that though we are sinful and rebel, Jesus steps in and saves us. And it's not about our ability to do good things or to act right. And so my invitation to you this morning is to surrender.
To stop. To realize that you have a God that loves you so much that he would send Jesus to take your sin to a cross to die for you so that that could be the way that you get to relate to God. So the invitation this morning is to realize that you get to place your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and for salvation. And so I'm going to pray for us and we're going to stand and sing and respond. Let's pray together.
God, thank you that that's true. Thank you that ultimately it's not about us. God, knowing, you knowing that we were going to rebel, that we wouldn't be able to follow your commandments, you step in and save the day. And so that when we stand before you, we're not pleading our case, we're not pleading our morality or our ability to do things well, we're not condemned because of our actions. But this morning we get to stand and we get to place our faith in you for the forgiveness of our sins and for salvation.
God, and I know in this room people come with all kinds of different backgrounds and experience. And so God, while we may know that the gospel is true, that Jesus saves, that even we live our lives in a way where we don't believe that to be true, where we still think we've got to earn it, or when we mess up we feel condemned. But God, ultimately, we are brought into relationship with you by Jesus. And we thank you. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Missional Community
Colossians 4:1-18
Transcript
All right, well, again, I'm glad you guys are with us for tonight because we're actually coming to the close of our summer-long series, Colossians. It's all about Jesus. And it has just been so good for us to walk through this as a church family. And if you're adding up, we've covered Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3. And so tonight we're actually going to be looking at all of Chapter 4. So if you've got your Bibles, go ahead and grab them.
We've got much ground to cover tonight. If you don't have a Bible, if you just look kind of in between the seats, we've got some of our blue and white Bibles for you. If you don't have a Bible, we'd love for you to have that one. Take that one. That's our gift to you. And church family, if you know someone who doesn't have a Bible and you'd like to take one to them, please, that's what those are for as well.
Okay, so again, we've got much ground to cover tonight. But it has been so good, so good for us to walk through this letter as a church family over the summer. Wouldn't you guys agree? It's been good just for us to study this because Paul is writing this letter to a relatively young church and a relatively healthy church. And so it's been great to walk through because he's legitimately pointing them to the fact that it's all about Jesus and how that plays out in their personal faith and in their relationships. And so for us as a young, healthy church, we've been able to look at that and see how can we continue to grow and continue to move forward.
And we've gotten to grow in a couple of different ways. First of all, we've been able to grow in our understanding of the gospel. So if you think back over the last, over the first chapter and the second chapter, we see beautiful language where Paul basically makes us drink from a fire hydrant in terms of trying to understand about Jesus. He's going to use beautiful language like Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He's the creator of all things. He's the son of God.
He's going to talk about what Jesus does, that he reconciles all things to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross. And in light of that, the gospel being who Jesus is and what he's done, what does that mean for us? Paul's going to write and say that we were a people who were alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. We're incapable of fixing that relationship on our own. But based off of what Jesus has done on our behalf, it's going to use language like redeemed, transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son, qualified, forgiven.
And so we've been able to walk through that and grow in our understanding of the gospel. And over the last four weeks, what we've done is we've transitioned a little bit. And we've moved from this vertical idea of focusing on Jesus. And in light of that, in light of who we are, we've transitioned and started to look at, okay, in light of that, how am I supposed to live? So in light of who I am in Jesus, how am I supposed to live?
And basically we've seen the way that our faith impacts relationships. Paul's going to say things like seek things that are above, put to death sinful practices. He's going to talk about the things that we should put on, characteristics, marks of a Christian should be that we love one another, that we forgive one another, we bear with one another, patience with one another, that we should be open and honest with one another. We should encourage each other with the word of God. We should let the word of God dwell richly in us. And this past week, what we looked at is how the gospel impacts some of our most important relationships.
We talked about husbands and wives. We talked about parents and children. And we talked about masters and bond servants, whereas the way we looked at it, we looked at employers and employees. And so what we're going to see in chapter four is that Paul ends this letter with a resounding call. And what we're going to see is that churches that are focused on the gospel and are living that out in community, the natural outflow of that is going to be mission. And that's what we're going to be talking about tonight.
We're going to be talking about mission. And so I'm really excited about it. We've got a lot of ground to cover. And so before we jump into the scripture, I'd like to pray for us. You guys join me. Let's pray.
God, thank you for inviting us into what you're doing. Thank you for bringing us into a relationship with you, for bringing us into a church family, into a community of believers. God, my prayer is tonight that you would teach us what it looks like to be a part of your mission, to live on mission. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so if you've got your Bibles, we're going to be in Colossians chapter four, beginning in verse two. And if you've got the blue and white ones, it's actually going to be page 639.
Here we go, 4-2. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. And again, we're going to start with the first couple of verses, so read it with me again.
Verse two, verse two and three. Once again, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison. I love this. I really do. All throughout the letter that Paul is writing to the church at Colossae, he is talking about prayer.
From the very beginning to the very end, he's encouraging them in what it looks like to pray. And he's encouraging them to be steadfast in prayer, and he's saying, pray for us. Now remember, Paul's currently in prison, and his prayer is not, Lord, help me get out of jail. What is he praying? Look at it again. He says, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, to declare the gospel to those that are in.
I love that. Chapters one and two, we're going to use language where Paul says things like, I struggle and I labor in prayer. We're going to see that even later in this chapter. And every time I get there, it just strikes me. And I have to stop and think, man, when was the last time I struggled and labored for something in prayer? What about you?
And that just strikes me as odd, because I know that Paul and Epaphras and others that we're going to see later are in jail. And I'd be praying to get out of jail, but they're not. And the reason that they're not is they've realized that they get to still be part of the mission right where they are. They're not praying to get out of jail. They're praying that they would make the most of the opportunity that they have in jail to share the gospel. Because Paul, Epaphras, and some of these guys realize something that's hugely important for us as a church.
And I want us to grasp this. What we see in Matthew 16, Jesus says that he's going to build his church. And then he gives his mission to his church. And we're going to see that Jesus is going to send his Holy Spirit on the church to bring about repentance, to bring about change. And I'm going to use that word a lot tonight, so I want to make sure we unpack it. Repentance is realizing that we have sin.
It's confessing our sin, believing that Jesus can forgive it, and turning away from it. That is active repentance. So the Holy Spirit bringing about repentance. Paul realizes that he gets to be a part of the mission still. And he's asking for opportunities because he realizes that it's not about him. It's not his job to save people.
He just gets to be obedient. That's why he's praying for opportunities. And so Paul is pouring himself out for the gospel and for the mission. And since mission is what we're looking at tonight, I want us to have a good working definition of mission. I want us to really understand what it means. So think about it like this.
Paul is going to say in Colossians that it's all about Jesus. Everything. All of life is all about Jesus. It's all about the gospel. It's all about the Son of God who stepped out of heaven, who died on the cross for our sins, who was risen from the grave and gives his mission to his church. It's going to be all about the gospel.
And he gives the mission. Here's the mission. We see it in Matthew 28. He says, go and make disciples. So it's cool.
He looks at his disciples and he goes, go and make more. Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. So what we see is the mission is the people of God sharing the gospel in relationship with each other to make more disciples. It's relational. It's relational. It's disciples living in relationship with each other in community, going out and making more disciples.
So with that in mind, let's keep moving. Check out verse 4. And I'll tag it with a little bit of 3. That God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Okay. So what we're talking about is making disciples.
We're talking about sharing our faith, sharing the gospel. And for some reason, when we start talking about this in church, all of us begin to get anxious. Our heart rate begins to raise. We just get nervous. I don't know about you guys. It's just one of those things.
When I start thinking about telling somebody about Jesus or sharing my faith, I just get nervous sometimes. Because it's hard. And our culture says be tolerant. And I want to share my faith. And what we see here is that Paul is saying that he wants to declare the mystery of Christ. And in verse 4, his prayer, he's asking them to pray that he would make it clear which is how he ought to speak.
And so for us as we're moving forward, as we're talking about how do we actually share the gospel with people, I want to give us just a few quick things. And if you're a note taker, you're going to want to jot these down. A few quick things that we can think about that will help encourage us in terms of sharing the gospel. The first thing is this. Paul asks for prayer that he would make it clear. So we get to do the same.
So when you're thinking about sharing the gospel, Paul asks that he would be able to make it clear, which is how he ought to speak. And he's talking about the mystery of Christ. And so what he's talking about there is the gospel. He's talking about the gospel of Christ that he would be able to make it clear. So part of our prayer as Christians is asking God, help me to grow in the gospel so that when I have opportunities to share it, that I will be able to make it clear.
This is why we talk about our community groups all the time. Because that's actually where we get to grow in how we share the gospel, how we speak the gospel to each other. Think about your community groups. When somebody has a prayer, we're going to encourage them with the gospel. When somebody's struggling with a sin issue, we're going to point them to what's true in the gospel. When people are making life decisions, we're not just going to give them wisdom or advice.
We're going to give them the gospel. So in our community groups, we get to grow in the first stage of sharing our faith, which is knowing, knowing the gospel, growing in it. So the second thing is this. We're going to mess this up. We're going to mess this up. There are going to be times when you're intentionally building a relationship with somebody, and you go to start telling them about Jesus, and you're going to get about two minutes in.
It's going to be great, and then a dog's going to start barking, and then your 12-year-old cousin with braces is going to walk over, and it's just going to, like, dissipate in front of you to the ground in a pile of ashes. And it's just going to be, oh, okay, well, that was good. Even in those circumstances, when it doesn't go the way you want it to go, you get to grow in your understanding of the gospel, that it's not about you. It's about the fact that Jesus does the work, and as you think about it, it's not over. You get to go back and have another conversation with that person. You get to try again.
The gospel is true for you. Third thing is the gospel is true for you. On all accounts, the gospel is true. It's Jesus that builds his church, and it's the Holy Spirit that brings about repentance. We're just, whoa, yes, resounding. We're just called to be obedient.
So realize that we get to grow in our understanding of the gospel. There's going to be times that we mess that up, but ultimately, we're just called to be obedient. And one of the most encouraging things for us is that as we begin to grow in our understanding of the gospel, the Holy Spirit will begin to use that and teach us what to say in conversations. Now, that's not always going to be this warm, hair-tingling experience where the Holy Spirit just takes over. It's not always going to be like that. Sometimes, yes.
Sometimes, no. Now, I'll give you a couple examples. I remember walking into work, and the first person I came in contact with, I just asked them how they were doing. And five minutes later, they have tears rolling down their face, and I just walked over, and I just shut the door. And we kept talking, and we talked for probably 30 minutes. And I got to, he talked about his family and about his job, and I just encouraged him.
I told him what was true for him in the gospel. I had been praying for this opportunity for months. I got to pray with him. It was unbelievable. And I walked out, and I can't tell you. I can't tell you what I said.
I cannot tell you parts of that whole conversation because the Holy Spirit just took over. It was amazing. On the other side, around that same time, I was having a conversation with a guy, and he was talking about his girlfriend and how, well, it wasn't his girlfriend. They were talking, as the kids say. They were talking, and she wasn't returning his phone calls, and he was texting her all the time. At the same time, he was getting passed over for promotions at work.
And the whole time he's talking, I'm sitting there praying, God, help me encourage him in the gospel. Give me the words to say. And we literally got to the end of the conversation, and he's looking at me, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, man, that stinks. That stinks. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'll pray for you. That's all I had. That's all I had. I got to the end of that conversation, and that's all I had was I'll pray for you. And I did. And I got to come back and have more conversations.
But the pressure's off. The pressure's off for us as believers because we get to live our normal, everyday lives asking for opportunities and watching Jesus do work. What Paul teaches us here is as we ask for open doors that we can speak the gospel into, that we would speak it clearly, he's going to start doing work. We just get to be obedient. And he's going to turn a little bit. Look with me in verse 5.
So there's going to be a little bit of a change. He says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. What is the best use of our time? What is it? One of the best ways we can think about this is what was the best use of Jesus' time?
Jesus spent time with people. All people. And Jesus didn't sit around waiting for people to come to him. He went out to them. He went to the lonely, to the rejected, to the hurting, to those that were sick. And at the same time, he went to those that were religious, those that were wealthy, those that were popular.
And Jesus, as he walked through normal everyday life, he took the opportunity to pour into others. Normal everyday life, he did the extraordinary. Walking. Fishing. Sharing meals. Having conversations.
And that's what he's calling us to do. That's what it looks like, church, for us to make disciples, is to use our normal, ordinary, everyday lives that he's given us with the gospel being of first importance. And letting that impact our conversations, our relationships, our activities. And I want us to catch the beauty of this. That's ordinary, but not insignificant. Ordinary, but not insignificant.
And as we begin to pray for open doors, asking for the Holy Spirit to work, no day will ever be small. Think about that. No conversation will ever be a waste of time. No family meal will ever be a drudgery. No day at work will ever be just a day at work. Everything has meaning.
Everything has purpose. And so this is actually a really good gauge for us as Christians to see how we're walking in wisdom towards outsiders is, how are you spending your time? I want you to think back on this last week. This is the easiest way to do it. Think back over your last week. I'm going to keep talking to this.
Start thinking back. In our day and age, we have more time than any generation on the face of the earth has ever had. With the advancement in technology, we've got microwaves and fast food restaurants and dishwashers. We've just got more time to do things, which means two things. One, we can waste more time. All right?
So we've got more time to waste. And the second thing is, with all these advancements in technology, we've got more to distract us. So a really good diagnostic for us as Christians is, how are we spending our time specifically towards outsiders, towards those who don't know Jesus? How are we doing there? Because what we start to think is, did I go out? Man, I didn't go walk.
Okay. No. Think normal, everyday life. Normal, everyday life. How are you walking in wisdom towards outsiders? How are you making the best use of your time?
Think about your family. This is kind of what we talked about last week. Husbands and wives, are you making the best use of your time? Are you spending time together? Are you pouring into each other? Are you encouraging each other in the gospel?
Parents and children, are you spending time together? Are you spending more time staring at the TV than you are staring at each other's faces? It's a good gauge. It's a good gauge for us, especially for those of you who have family members who don't know Jesus. How are you leveraging your time so that you can be around them in normal, everyday life? Loving them, serving them, helping them, encouraging them.
What about at work? This is a big one for us. Think about work. Think about this last week. You at work. How well did you work when your boss was around versus when your boss wasn't around?
How about this? When you finished your tasks at work, did you just do your own thing or did you look to go help somebody else? When you were on break at work, did you sit and look at Facebook for 30 minutes? Or did you have a conversation with people that were in the break room? Who's having a tough time at work that you know about and just needs some encouragement? Who's lonely, isolated, just needs somebody to love them?
That's what it means to make disciples. It's to live like the gospel is true in every relationship, in every conversation, in every action. No action, nothing that we ever do is without meaning. And it's everything. This is your waitress. This is the lady at the bank when you go to deposit your check.
It's everywhere. It's every circumstance. Let me let you guys in on me a little bit. I'm not standing up here saying I'm perfect at this. Not. It's hard.
And you guys know me. I think you know me well enough that I love people. I do. I love you guys. If you don't know it, I'll hug you afterwards. But I do.
I genuinely love people. But I'm slightly introverted. I know. You wouldn't know it. But being around people drains me big time.
It just sucks the life out of me. It just makes me really, really tired. And so there are days when I wake up and I'm excited about spending time with people. And every person I meet, every conversation, I just want to encourage them. I want to point them towards the gospel. And then there are days that I wake up and I just want it to be about me.
I don't want to answer my phone when people call. And so this is hard. This is something that we've got to learn and grow in and realize that we get to be a part of Jesus' mission of saving the world in our normal, everyday lives. Like I said, I'm not perfect at this, but let me give you a couple of good stories. Over the last two weeks, excuse me, not two weeks. Over the last two years, I've had the opportunity to work at Dick's Sporting Goods.
And it's been incredible. So much I have learned there. And I'll give you a couple of stories. I remember walking into the break room one night and there was a girl on the phone. She was talking to her grandma and she was visibly upset. They were arguing, you could tell.
She hung up the phone. And I just, I remember what I was having to eat that night. I was having spaghetti. That's important. I would remember that detail. And I asked her, I said, you okay?
Everything okay? She goes, well, my grandma and my whole family, everybody's putting all this pressure on me to get married because I'm the last of my sisters to get married. And I mean, I've got a boyfriend. I guess he's my boyfriend. He cheats on me all the time. And if he just wise up, he could be my, she just went off.
And she just went on. And I finally stopped. I said, hey, can I encourage you for a second? She's like, you know, she was just letting it go. I said, can I encourage you for a second? I said, your boyfriend sounds like a jerk.
I said, I'm really sorry. I said, I'm really sorry that your family's putting this weird pressure on you. But let me tell you what's true for you. You have a father in heaven who loves you very much. So much so that he sent his son, Jesus, to die on a cross to forgive you of your sin, to bring you into a relationship because he loves you and because he pursues you.
And your identity and your value don't have to be wrapped up in some guy. It can be in him. Tears just welled up in her eyes. Thank you. You're welcome. Hope you break up your boyfriend.
He's a jerk. That was great. It was just a really cool opportunity. Here's another one. When somebody new shows up at work, you have a full license to play the 20-question game daily for a month at least. So this guy named David Hoewaler shows up at Dick's Sporting Goods.
And he's a recent graduate from Clemson University. And so I knew he was great, obviously. And so I just took that chance to build a relationship. I started asking him questions. We figured out that we had a lot in common, that we had a lot of the same interests. We started hanging out outside of work.
I invited David and his wife to come hang out with the first community group of Mill City Church. When it came time to multiply, David and his wife came with our group and started meeting in our house. It came time to multiply that group again. And the guy who was going to be leading the group was in the military and was going to have to do some training. And he was going to have to go overseas. And so David stepped up.
David said, I'll lead. And so we trained him as an apprentice. David started leading a group. In the spring of this year, David did an internship with our church where he got to be a part of our teaching team. And he got to learn more and be over kind of what happens on Sunday in terms of sound and music and videos. We got to the end of that semester and he wanted to keep doing everything that he was doing.
David just took a job this week and we asked him, David, what do you need to pull back on? He said, nothing. He said, I'll keep working my job. I want to keep doing the things that I'm doing. That guy's a leader in our church. And it started with a conversation of, when did you graduate from Clinton?
Normal, ordinary life. And eternity's impacted by that. But it's not just work. Don't think work. Katie and I lived in an apartment when we first moved here. And the last weekend we were there, they threw a pool party.
So it's like, oh, great. Now that we're leaving, you're throwing a party. It's like, bye, guys. There, Katie struck up a conversation with a lady. And they were about our age. And so we invited them to come hang out with us.
They came and had a meal at our house. We invited them to start hanging out with our community group. And five months later, Daniel Gillen became a Christian and was baptized. The Gillens were so pumped up about what was going on, they invited their friends, the C's. The C's started coming. And two months later, DJ met Jesus.
And DJ's going to be baptized in the fall. Started with a conversation by a pool over a hot dog. Normal, everyday life. Ordinary, but not insignificant. We begin praying for open doors and we get to see what God does. We start looking at every conversation, every relationship as an opportunity to encourage people in the gospel.
And we get to watch the Holy Spirit begin to change people. When Jesus calls us to go and to make disciples, this is what he's talking about. Everyday mission. No second of any day is ever a waste of time when it's lived to the glory of Jesus to see his mission go forward. Verse 6. May your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
The speech of a Christian should be generous and gracious. Not complaining. Not whining. Not cutting. Not cursing. But the speech of a Christian should be gracious.
And it should be seasoned with salt. It should be seasoned with the richness of the gospel. That for us as Christians, the gospel should be our native tongue. The gospel should be the lens through which we start to look at the world. How we start to analyze everything. So that when somebody comes to me and asks me for marriage advice, I can't help but tell them about Jesus.
Because I'm called to love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. When somebody comes to me and wants to talk about finances and how I handle my money, I get to tell them that Jesus gave everything for me. And so nothing that I have belongs to me. I have everything that I need in Jesus. So I'm going to handle my money a little bit differently.
When somebody comes to me talking about trials and struggles, I get to point them to a Savior who suffered for them on their behalf. Seasoned with salt. Not open the salt shaker and dump it out. Okay, so you don't have to walk around with your Bible at work being like, Oh, you look down. Can I encourage you? And just seasoned.
Seasoned with salt. Asking for opportunities that you would make it clear. That's what it says. So that you may know how you want to answer each person. Seasoned with salt. The gospel impacts everything that we do.
And salt's cool. The fact that he uses this is interesting. Salt brings out flavor. It preserves. Salt can also irritate. So don't be that characteristic of salt.
But what's cool about salt is it doesn't necessarily have a flavor in and of itself. But if you take salt and you put it on five different types of food, it's going to bring out the flavor in different ways in all five of those different foods. It's going to bring out five different types of flavors. And so when he says be seasoned with salt, he's saying be you changed by the gospel. You. You in love with Jesus.
Your personality. So some of you in the room are introverts, even more introverted than me. And you're freaking out right now. You're like, oh, he's talking about people. And I just, I want to go sit in the corner and read a book. No, no, no.
Be, be you in love with Jesus. You have been uniquely and wonderfully designed by Jesus to make disciples just the way you are. So you get to pray and look for those opportunities as well, just like all of us. See, church, that's the mission. People that have been changed by the gospel, that are living that out in community, begin praying for opportunities. They begin looking at their lives, looking for every day, every second opportunities that they can encourage someone.
Speak the truth of the gospel to them. That's what mission looks like. Get this. Disciples begin to live like the gospel's true, letting it impact their relationships. They begin inviting their friends into community. Their friends meet Jesus.
Their friends become disciples of Jesus. We're back here. Those people begin to make more disciples. It's cycles of disciples. We go make disciple after disciple after disciple. That's what the mission of the church is.
It's to go and to make disciples. So let's keep going. Look at verse 7. We're going to walk through this kind of quickly, and I'm going to try to highlight who all these people are, because there's a lot of different names in here. But what we're going to see is a lot of different names, a lot of different people, and what that means for the mission of Jesus.
Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. Okay, so Tychicus, the first time we're going to see him is actually in Acts chapter 20. We see him in Acts chapter 20. Paul picks him up in Asia Minor, and now he's with Paul in Rome, and he gets the honor of delivering the letter, just like the video showed, to Ephesus, to Colossae, and to a person.
And he gets to deliver the letter to Philemon. So he's a part of the mission. It continues. Verse 9, And with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. Now, from the video, Onesimus was a runaway slave. Onesimus ran away from Philemon, and he's found himself in Rome.
And then Rome, he hears the gospel, and he becomes a Christian, faithful brother. And Paul is now entrusting to him also the letters. Go back to Ephesus, to Colossae, and to Philemon. So you can see this playing out, right? Onesimus is walking with the letters. Okay, all right.
Ephesus, Colossae, Philemon. That one wasn't so comfortable for him. But Paul sends him back. So a runaway slave gets to be a part of the mission. Keeps going. Verse 10, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you.
Aristarchus. We see that Paul picks him up in Acts 17 in Thessalonica, and that he's with him in Rome. It continues on. Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him. Mark got to be a part of one of the first missionary journeys.
And during the journey, Mark leaves. Mark leaves in the middle of the journey. And so Paul and Mark are actually at odds. And what we see here is years later that they've been reconciled because the gospel is true. And now they're together in Rome. A prison is a pretty good place to get over your differences, right?
So Mark is a part of the mission too. And Jesus, who is called Justice. All we know about him is the next part. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. All we know is that he was a Jew who converted to Christianity. He became a follower of Jesus.
That's all we know. And now it starts talking about people who didn't have a Jewish background. They were Gentiles. Epaphras. We know this guy. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.
For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Herapolis. So this is Epaphras. Epaphras who planted the church of Colossae and is now in prison with Paul in Rome. And again, we get to see that struggling. He's struggling for them on their behalf in his prayers. I love that.
Luke, the beloved physician, greets you. We see him pick up. He's picked up in Acts. I think it's Acts 18. Luke. Dr.
Luke. Namesake of the Gospel of Luke. Author of the book, The Acts of the Apostles. And Demas. All we know about Demas is that he's with them now and later we're going to see Paul and Luke together and Demas isn't there anymore. It's gotten hard and Demas has left.
It says, I think he chased after worldly things. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, another church that's in the area, and to Nympha and the church in her house. Nympha got to host her church family in her home. How cool is that? And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.
All these names, all these people, what we get to see is that the mission is big. That we get to go and to make disciples, but it's a team sport. It's fishermen. It's slaves. It's men. It's women.
It's all of us working together. It's a bunch of people that have been changed by Jesus and joined together in his mission. And it's not a super special team. It's a bunch of people that have been changed by Jesus and invited in. It's a team sport. We all get to make disciples as a part of a team because the mission's big.
Continues on. I'll read 16 again and keep going. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.
Remember my chains. Grace be with you. One of the major things that we've talked about all throughout Colossians is that anytime you see the word you, it's actually kind of the Greek translation of y'all. So Paul's writing this to the church. And so they would have understood this not just as individuals, but as a collective, as a body of believers. And this is one of the only times in the letter where it's the singular version of you.
Look at it. Verse 17. And Paul writes for them to tell this guy, Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you received in the Lord. Archippus, this random guy who is not a major character in this story at all, has a specific ministry that he's been given in the Lord just for him and for him alone. He has a personal ministry as a part of the team. And I want us to realize tonight that just like Archippus had a specific ministry in the Lord just for him, Jesus has a specific ministry for each one of us as a part of the team.
That he has uniquely and creatively designed each one of us to be right where we are doing the things that we're doing with the gifts and abilities that we have for the gospel so that we can go out and make disciples. And in doing so, we grow in our relationship with him. You see, the epic, grand narrative of the history of the world has been given to us. Jesus promises to build his church and to send his Holy Spirit to bring about repentance in people that the church can move forward and make disciples. And 2,000 years later, we're still doing the same thing. It gets better.
I've read the end of the book. Jesus comes back to get his church. We ain't going nowhere. We're not going anywhere. The mission is big and it's going to continue until Jesus comes back. That's a big promise because you've been invited into a mission where the victory has already been won.
And that's huge for us. So this epic, grand narrative of saving the world is accomplished in the ordinary. In the ordinary, but not insignificant. Every one of us has a mission. Every one of us as part of the mission of Mill City Church has a role. Let me help you see it.
I want you to ask yourself these questions. This is how you start seeing it. What are the gifts and abilities that you have? What are you passionate about? Where has the Lord placed you currently in this stage of your life? Where do you work?
Where do you go to school? Who is your family? What are the names of your neighbors? What are the worst areas in our city? You see, each one of us has a part in the ministry. Don't miss this.
Jesus calls us to make disciples. And the way that we do that is we begin praying for open doors with our family and our friends, with the people that we serve so that Jesus would build his church. The Holy Spirit would bring people to repentance. And the gospel would move forward. And what we see in the narrative, in the letter of Colossians, is that Paul is going to say that people that have been changed by Jesus, living that out in the context of community, led by the Holy Spirit, the mission is going to move forward. And every one of us has a different Job and a different role.
Each person has a role as a part of the team. And this means that we've got to constantly remind ourselves that the church is people. The church is not a building. The church is not an activity. It's not a club or an organization. It's a group of people that have been rescued by Jesus, transferred from death to life.
The church is people. And the church is God's chosen vessel to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and there is no plan B. We are the mission. We get to take the mission forward. In the 1940s, around the time of World War II, there was a ship that was commissioned to be built. It was the SS United States.
And it was supposed to be the biggest and baddest ship on the ocean. It was a troop carrier. The SS United States was built to carry 15,000 soldiers at 51 miles per hour and make it to any destination in the world in less than 10 days. That means she was faster than any ship on the ocean at the time. But see, by the time it was finished in 1952, World War II had ended.
And in the 17 years of service that the SS United States had, it was only put on standby one time, and that was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And so at the end of 17 years, a ship that had been designed to carry troops into battle was retired and was converted into a luxury liner. The SS United States, which could carry 15,000 people, had its barracks converted to state rooms that could carry 2,000. It became a luxury liner for presidents and for heads of states and for celebrities who wanted to make it across the ocean in style. Mess halls were converted into four restaurants, three bars, two movie theaters.
The deck was kept open, but they put in a heated swimming pool. They installed 19 elevators. And people that rode on the SS United States got the luxury of being on the first air-conditioned ship on the ocean. The SS United States was designed to be a troop carrier and was converted into a luxury liner. You see, the faces of soldiers that are preparing for battle and their conversations are much different on a troop carrier than they are sitting by a pool eating bonbons. The allocation of resources on a troop carrier are different than that of the opulent wealth of a luxury liner.
The troop carrier is going to go as fast as it can because it's got an urgent mission where the luxury liner just takes its time. It just goes at its own pace. And what Paul is going to consistently say throughout this letter, he's pointing to the church at Colossae that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, that all things were created by Him and for Him, that He spoke creation into existence, including us, humankind, and we rebelled. We decided we wanted to be like God, and we broke the relationship. We brought sin into the world, a relationship that we were incapable of fixing, that the Old Testament sacrificial system and the laws were a mere shadow of the atonement and the reconciliation that needed to be done.
But God promised that He would rescue, that He would redeem, that He would save, that He would accomplish salvation for His glory, and Jesus steps into history. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life. He trained up His disciples. He did miracles. He taught. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I'm going to give my life as a ransom for many.
And Jesus goes to the cross. And on the cross, the wrath of God is poured out on Jesus so that we could be forgiven of our sins, so that we could be offered redemption. And Jesus dies, and they place Him in a tomb. And three days later, Jesus walks out victorious, showing that He conquered sin, death, Satan, and hell. And He hung around with His disciples for 40 days. And He told them, I'm giving you the mission.
Go and make disciples until the end of the age. And I'm ascending into heaven, but one day I'm coming back. But don't worry, I'm going to send my Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit descends on 120 ragtag believers, and the gospel moves forward. The believers go from 120 to 3,000. The gospel begins to move from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.
And now Paul and Epaphras are in prison. And 2,000 years later, the mission is still moving forward. The church is a troop carrier, not a luxury liner. We have been designed for mission. We have been invited into the mission of Jesus. The ministry of the church is not designed to be a blessing to the body just as a means of itself.
But we're to be the agent through which Jesus works by His Holy Spirit to save the world. We're the mission. And so as Paul comes to the end of this letter, he's shown them that the gospel is the most beautiful thing in the world, and changed by it as people who are living in community. We get to use our ordinary, everyday lives on mission as we make disciples. That people who have been changed by the gospel and choose to live that out in community will change the world on mission. Mill City Church is a gospel-centered community that has been called into the greatest mission the world has ever seen.
Mill City Church is you and you and you and you, y'all, us. And we've been called into it. The band's going to come back up. This summer's been great for us. We've grown. We've been able to grow in health and what it looks like to be healthy.
And when I say healthy, I mean we've grown in our understanding of the gospel. We've begun confessing and repenting of sin. We've grown in what it looks like to live in relationship with each other and community. And we are at one of the most beautiful places in our church history that is a people that have grown to understand the gospel and are living that out in community. It's time to go all in. The church is a troop carrier and we've been designed for mission.
And I just want to tell you a little bit about our future. Here's where we're going. That because of those things, we get to, over the next couple of months, we're going to be focusing on mission. Next Sunday will actually be our last Sunday here at FBC West Columbia. And then we're moving our gatherings to Glen Forest School. And the reason we're doing it is we're doing it for mission.
We've got the opportunity to go into a school that is underloved, underappreciated, underfunded, that has very little volunteers. And we get to go in. We get to go from a place that's free to where we're actually going to pay to use the space because it's going to help the school. We're going to go from a church to a school. We're going to get to serve them. We're going to adopt them.
We're going to be moving our gathering time from the evening to the morning for mission. We're leveraging ourselves for mission because what we're saying is we want our church family to get up and to worship together on Sunday mornings and then to use the rest of the day to live normal, everyday life with people on mission in the afternoons and evenings. So that means that to see the mission of Jesus go forward, you might have to invite people over to your house to watch the Broncos play. It may be that you need to go play a round of golf. Or invite your neighbors over for a cookout. That's what it looks like to live on mission.
We're going to get into that neighborhood. We're going to get into the neighborhoods around Glen Forest. Not only that, the teaching of our church is going to be very missional over the next couple of months. Dawn of the church is Acts 1 and 2. It's the beginning of the mission. And then the Sunday in between, we're going to be throwing a party.
We're going to be inviting people from the surrounding neighborhoods. And we're going to be inviting our friends. Then on September 7th, we're launching Kingdom Come. It's a series where we look at how the kingdom of God moves forward in the lives of people. Our community groups are going to be focusing on a who. We're going to be focusing on areas like West Hill, like Glen Forest School, USC, and Midlands Tech.
And all along the way, we're going to continue to see our church family make disciples and bring people into community. We're going to continue to see group leaders trained and groups multiplied out. We're going to see our church continue to grow. And then we're going to multiply more churches. We're going to continue to have an impact in the city because we want to see marriages mended. We want to see children and parents relating to each other the right way.
We want to see darkness driven back in our city. And so in a second, we're going to sing. We're going to sing and pray that God would give us the courage that we need to step up and to step out. The mission's big and we've been invited in. And so I'm going to ask you that as you sing, pray for courage. Pray that God would lead us.
Jesus has called us into a mission that he's already won. And we need everybody to get on board the truth carrier. It's time to go all in. And it's time for each one of us to fulfill the ministry that Jesus has given to us. Let's pray.
God, we are humbled by the fact that you would call us in. That we would get the opportunity to be a part of your mission of saving the world. In normal, everyday life. God, when it's about the mission, when it's all about Jesus, we put our preferences to the side. We put our wants and desires to the side. And we chase after you with everything.
Because the gospel's true. Or teach us what it looks like to live on mission. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand as we respond and sing. That we, when we yap. If we love others.
Amen. Amen.
Maturity in Christ
Colossians 1:9-14
Transcript
You got to be strong to move the new podium. Goodness. Everybody give. Where's Charlie? Charlie, raise your hand. Charlie.
Charlie. Charlie made this for us. It is actually very beautiful. Well, I hope everybody's doing good tonight. Just wanted to say thank you for coming and worshiping with us. I know it's Memorial Day weekend, and so I hope you have taken some time to just rest and relax and spend time with family, but also to remember the sacrifice that people have made on our behalf so that we can actually have the religious freedom that we have together as a church family.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Matt Freeman. I'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church. And you're not usually used to seeing me in this context. I'm usually leading worship. But I am humbled and honored to share God's word with you tonight.
So if you've got a Bible, you're going to want to have it. We're not going to be putting the scripture on the screen because I want you to have a Bible in your hand. So if you've got one of the ones that we had by the door, that's actually going to be page 638. And I've got a couple of guys. Basically, they're going to walk to the front of the room and then walk to the back. And so if you need a Bible, just lift your hand up.
They'll be happy to hand one to you. And that's our gift to you. So if you don't have one, we'd love for you to take that one and keep it. Or if you know somebody who doesn't have a Bible and you'd like to take one with you, we've got plenty. That's what they're for. All right.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate that. All right. So last week we began a brand new series and it's entitled Colossians. It's all about Jesus. And so we're going to be spending the next 10 or so weeks, basically the entire summer, walking through Paul's letter to the church at Colossae.
And what's really neat about this is, first of all, Paul's writing to a relatively young church, a church that's about six or seven years old. So it's good for us to hear what Paul's writing to a young church. And he's writing to a relatively healthy church. So what we're going to see is that Paul is writing to encourage this church in the gospel. And he's going to do so in a couple of different ways. He's going to point them to the sufficiency of Jesus.
He's going to point to how they should be living out their faith in the context of community. And he's going to take some time to talk about how their actions are actually lived out, how they walk out their faith on a day in and day out basis. So I'm very excited to talk with you tonight. But before we do so, I just want to pray and ask that God would speak to us. If you would, let's bow our heads and pray. God, truly, I am unworthy to stand before your people and preach.
I'm thankful that your grace has covered me and has made me new. God, that I do not stand here in my own flesh. Holy Spirit, I'm asking that you would speak through me, that you would encourage your people tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. So as we're hopping in, I want to ask a question.
How many of you in this room, at a heart level, in some form or fashion, just wish you were better? Okay. I would say that most of us would follow. At some stage in the game, we just wish we were better. Wish we were a better dad. Wish you were a better wife, a better student, a better athlete, a better worker.
So you start thinking things like, if I could just get that promotion, if I could just set aside a once a week date night with my spouse, if I could just get my bench press up 15 pounds, if I could move from a B to an A, if I could move from getting $3 an hour, getting paid $3 more an hour. So I don't, in fact, I don't think there's anything that we do or anything that we experience, even ourselves, that we don't wish in some form or fashion was a little bit better. And I'll show you. All right, so let's say you go to a nice restaurant and you sit down and you start eating. What's the first thing you're going to start talking about?
Five other places. Kids, that's great. Ha ha, yeah. Five other places that you've probably eaten. So instead of appreciating the piece of bacon that's on your plate, you're going, oh, I've had peppered bacon before.
In fact, I've had beef wrapped in bacon. What is this? So at some stage in the game, we wish things were better. Another way to look at it would be if you are walking out of the movie theater and you said, that was the best movie I've ever seen. And it would have just been perfect if Mark Wahlberg would have been the lead actor. Yeah, you're right.
Nobody says that. That's true. Oh, Mark Wahlberg. And I know some of you are sports fans. Okay, so let's say you're watching Carolina play, and Carolina pulls it out in the last couple of seconds of the game. The quarterback throws a game-winning touchdown.
In fact, he threw four touchdowns in that game. But all that we can seem to talk about is the two interceptions he threw in the third quarter that might have cost us the game. Instead of realizing that he won the game, we always want things to be better. I do this. Some of you guys know that my wife Katie and I make pallet art. You can't tell, right?
I mean, there's not pallets anywhere. But I'm sure you guys are familiar with Pinterest. But Katie was on Pinterest, and she found this cool do-it-yourself project. She goes, why don't we try this? So we did.
We took a Sunday afternoon, and we took an old pallet, and we cut it down, and we put the boards together and basically just made a frame. And then we painted it and painted the South Carolina flag on it. And, of course, we painted the base color orange because we're Christians, right? And we hung it on the wall. And it took us about five hours to do it from start to finish, and we were really proud of it. Honestly, we were very proud of it.
But now that I look at it on the wall, I realize that it's gigrundous. It takes up like a whole wall in our man cave. And if you look at it, the boards are kind of cattywampus. It's not actually square. It's not the dimensions of a flag. And so we started to do more and more of them.
And I was like, okay, I want to get better. The next time I actually put the boards side by side, and I made sure it was square. And then it was still a slow process. I mean, I was hand sawing things, guys, like this. Okay? So I bought a Sawzall.
So I have a reciprocating saw so I could cut the nails and cut the boards. All along the way, I wanted my process to be better. And the reason we approach things in life like that is that we, deep down, we have a deep desire within us to actually be better, to accomplish something, to do something big, to make much of the lives that we've been given. And I would say that this is especially true for those of you in the room who are Christians. Christians, I'd imagine that some of you sitting there as Christians have had the thought, I wish I was a better Christian. I'm sure you have.
I'm sure you've had that thought. I wish I was a better Christian. I wish I read my Bible more. I wish my prayer life was stronger. I wish I had faith to submit my finances to Jesus. I wish I had boldness and courage to serve in Kid City.
I wish I could just tell my boss about Jesus and his people who are wired to do better, to be better, to search for more. Paul is actually going to be writing this letter to the Colossians, the section we're looking at. He's going to be talking about what it looks like to grow in maturity, to grow into maturity in Christ. So, again, if you've got your Bibles, we're going to be at Colossians 1, verse 9, 638 in the Bibles that we have by the door. Let's read this together.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So, that's the chunk we're going to be looking at tonight.
And if you're a note taker, our title for tonight, the title of our sermon is actually Maturity in Christ. That's what we're going to be talking about. And when you hear that word maturity, you're automatically going to associate it with growth. I think that's the thing we think about the most when you're putting maturity in your mind. You're thinking about growth. And that's going to come in all different forms and fashions.
Okay? So, you're going to see physical maturity like Mitch Stoiku, who has all of a sudden grown four inches in like four days. For real. I don't know what the Stoikus are feeding him, but he's ginormous now. So, you've got physical maturity. You've got emotional maturity.
I don't know if you guys got to see the kids playing around before they went back to Kid City. But we've got parents who are getting to teach their children to obey, to be able to control their emotions. So, that's fun. And they need your prayers. Thank you. I'm sure they're wanting that.
There's also like mental and intellectual maturity. So, we've got students of all ages in the room. We've got middle school students, high school students, college students, those that are doing postgraduate work, and some students that are in seminary. And what we're actually going to be dealing with tonight is spiritual maturity. And we're going to be seeking to answer one question. And I'm going to ask it in a few different ways.
That way, we can actually put a handle on it. The question we're going to try to answer is, how do we spiritually mature in Christ? How do we do that? How do we grow to be more like Jesus? How do we learn to follow Jesus more closely? And as you might have picked up in our first reading of the text, Paul's going to address this idea of growing in maturity in Christ in two different ways.
So, he's going to talk about the pursuit of knowledge. As he says, I want you to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And he's going to talk about the pursuit of actions. So, how do we actually walk that out? And if you think about it for a second, we're going to lean probably one way or the other when it comes to those two ideas. The pursuit of knowledge to grow or the pursuit of action to grow.
You're going to grow in one of those two ways. So, some of you are like, okay, I want to read a book. I want to take a class. I want to go sit down and have a conversation with somebody who can actually help me grow, help me mature, tell me things. Some of you are like, nah, I don't want a book. I don't want anybody to tell me.
I just want to jump in and give it my best effort, and I'll learn as I go. I'll learn from my mistakes. I'll give you an example of how this plays out. Okay, so let's say you're going furniture shopping, and you're looking for a bookcase. So, of course, the first place you're going to go is Big Lots because you're classy because you want a good Big Lots. This is a true story, so I'll go ahead and give the spoiler.
So, Katie and I moved to Columbia, and we were actually looking for a bookcase. We went to Big Lots, and we got the $20 bookcase in a box. And the way that – I know, it's shameful – the way that Katie and I would build that bookcase would be completely different than each other, completely different. If Katie's going to build that bookcase, here's how it's going to go, and I can say this because she's in Kid City. Katie's going to carefully cut the box open. She's going to take the front that actually has a picture on it and set it to where she can see it.
She's going to pull out all the tools and lay them on a rag because she doesn't want to get the carpet dirty. She's going to take all the pieces and lay them out all over the floor so that she can see them and organize them by size, color, and shape. And then she's going to take the owner's manual, and she's going to read it three times to make sure that she's got it all done. And seven hours later, she's going to have a perfectly built bookcase that will actually hold books. Now, me, on the other hand, I'm going to rip this box up beyond all recognition. I'm going to find the owner's manual, too, and I'm going to unfold it so that I can put my tools on it.
I don't want to get the carpet dirty either. And then I'm going to find pieces as I go, and I'm going to put this thing together. And seven hours later, I'm going to have a bookcase, too, and it may or may not hold books. I don't know. I don't know. So Paul's going to address the church at Colossae in how they grow in Christ.
And he's going to talk about the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of action and how those are actually going to work together. And as people who are wired to actually be better, to do better, to strive for more, I want us to listen as to how we can grow in Christ. Let's jump back into the text, verse 9. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
So, the first thing that we're going to see in the text is actually our first point for tonight. So, if you're a note taker, this is going to be our first point. We grow in maturity through both knowledge and action. So, while we may have a propensity to lean one way or the other, what we're actually going to see is we're going to grow in both. We're going to grow in both knowledge and in action. And I love the way this verse starts off.
I love it. Jump back there with me. It says, And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray. Who? Who's praying here? What we looked at last week is that Paul and Timothy are actually writing this letter together.
And it actually, verse 3 that we looked at actually begins kind of the same way. They're talking about what they're praying for the church at Colossae. And what they're actually praying is that they would be filled with knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. They're praying for wisdom, understanding, and the knowledge of God's will. And it even qualifies it there. It says spiritual.
And that word spiritual is going to be of the Holy Spirit or from the Holy Spirit. That's a big prayer that Timothy and Paul are praying, that they may be filled with the knowledge of His will, growing in understanding and wisdom. And I love that. I love that. Paul and Timothy are imprisoned in Rome. They don't even know these people.
And in a jail cell of sorts, they are praying. They are laboring in prayer that they would grow, that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that they would grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. And I just love that. And so if you're wanting to, that's a great prayer. If you're wanting to pray something for our church, if you're going, man, I actually want to grow in praying things for our church, that's actually a great place to start. And so that's what Paul's praying.
He says, I want you to grow in understanding, in knowledge, and in wisdom. Why? Why does he pray that? Let's keep going. As we're going into verse 10, it says, So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Okay, so we see it.
He clarifies why he's praying that. So Paul and Timothy are praying that they would grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And the word that Paul's going to use there for to walk is literally going to refer to all of life. So Paul says, I'm praying for this so as to help you walk in all of life. And I think he's being very intentional there. He's using that word because he doesn't want them to grow in understanding, wisdom, and knowledge for knowledge's sake.
He wants them to grow so that it will actually affect all of their lives. How many of you have ever seen the show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? You ever seen that show? Okay, I was down on it when it first started. I didn't know if I was going to like it. But the premise of the show is that they take architects and attorneys and surgeons and they put them on this TV show.
It's basically like a game show where they're having to answer questions against elementary students based off of the standards that the elementary students are learning. And so you'll have an architect standing there and they'll say, okay, you choose a category. And he'll go, okay, fourth grade geography, fourth grade geography. Okay, sir, what is the capital of Wyoming? Idaho? Yes, Sally?
Cheyenne? And it's just a really funny show. And what that show is actually exposing is the fact that all of us, all the way through school, have learned things that we're never going to use again. Ever. I don't need to know what the capital of Wyoming is unless I'm there or I'm on that show. Those are pretty much my two opportunities.
But basically what he's exposing here is that we're not to learn things just to know them. It's that knowledge should actually lead to action. So what he's showing here is that this idea that we pursue either knowledge or action is not what we're going for, but actually that both of them work together as we follow Jesus. I want you to think about it like this. The more you know about Jesus, the more you want to follow him. And that leads you into action.
And by doing things, you actually learn in the process, which drives you deeper into action. You see how those work together? As you start to grow and know things, you start to do. And as you start to do, you learn more things. And it becomes a cyclical process. And what Paul is saying here is that knowledge should lead us into action.
And the group that we can look to that exemplifies this the best is the disciples of Jesus. I want you to think about this for a second. I want you to think about the disciples of Jesus. This was a ragtag group of numbskulls comprised of tax collectors and fishermen. And Jesus comes to them and he says, come follow me. And so they drop everything and they start following Jesus.
And Jesus teaches them and he trains them. So he helps them grow in knowledge and understanding. And then he sends them out. He sends them out two by two and they cast out demons. And they heal the sick. And then they come back.
So their knowledge impacted their actions. And they came back and they talked about it. And Jesus continued to pour into them. And then we see the disciples getting to be involved in things like the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus used them as part of that. So we see this cyclical process of knowledge leading to action, knowledge leading to action.
And we've read the Gospels. We know that the disciples don't get this right all the time. Peter, right? That's who you want to think about? Peter. So in the same chapter in Scripture, Peter says, you are the Christ.
And then a little bit later, Jesus has to say, get behind me, Satan. This is the same Peter that would deny Jesus three times. But what we see is they continue to grow. Even as they messed up, even as they screwed up, they continue to grow and mature in Christ. And when Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the grave, he gave him a new commandment. He said, go and make disciples.
And what we're going to see is these same disciples that were the stumbling bumbling as they followed Jesus, the same disciples that Acts is going to say in chapter 17 that they turned the world upside down. They turned the world upside down. So that's what it's actually going to look like for us. And the way that we do this as believers, the way that we grow in knowledge and action, is we do that in the context of community. That's going to be our greatest place to actually grow in these things. And remember, Paul's writing to a church.
He's writing to a group of believers. And so every time you see that word you, I want you to think about it not as you rugged band of individuals, but you in the context of community, you the church. What Paul's saying here is you can't live out your faith. You can't grow to maturity in Christ outside of living with other believers. We did a series back in the fall. I'm actually wearing the band from it called One Another, where we actually walked through the one another's in the New Testament.
We only did like seven or eight, but there are even more than that. And I'm telling you, you can't do one another's without others. See how that works? How those words work? And this is where I think I've seen our church grow a lot. So we see where it says, be hospitable to one another.
We see that in scripture. So as a church, that means we open up our homes. That means we host community groups in our homes and we welcome people in and we serve them a meal. And when guests come, we want them to feel welcome too. That's why we have a host team for our gathering, so that as people come in, that they feel welcome, they feel loved. We want to be hospitable.
We see where it says, forgive one another. We do that in the context of community. So that when someone in my community group, I say something that's offensive or hurtful because I feel conviction, I get to go to them and repent of my sin and ask for their forgiveness. And they get to extend that forgiveness and grace back to me because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. And we get to be reconciled. Scripture is also going to say that we should bear one another's burdens.
That means that if someone doesn't have enough gas money to get to my house to hang out with our community group, I'm not okay with that. That I'm going to step in and bear burdens. And I'm going to tell you, this is where I have seen our church grow. And I'm glad to be a part of believers like you guys. I've seen people bear each other's burdens like never before. And it's been beautiful.
And it's been messy. And we've gotten to walk through it together. I've seen car payments made. I've seen people go and buy groceries and take it to someone's house. I've seen a mortgage paid. I've seen rent paid.
I've seen power bills paid. And not just monetary things. Just giving of their time. People moving from place to place. When the Pabones were moving off of Fort Jackson, I saw our church family rally around them night after night after night to make sure that they could get out. I'll give you an example.
On Friday, I was driving back to my house. And this is the worst, okay? Because this happened a lot. I was rolling up my passenger side window. And I got it to the top. And I went, kick, kick.
I said, oh, no. And I looked. And slowly, my window began to fall into my door. And there it was. And I knew that storm was coming. I knew that storm was coming.
And I was freaking out. And I didn't know who else to call. I knew one person. If anybody would try to help me get it back up, it was Daniel Gillett. And so I texted Daniel. I'm like, dude, I don't know what to do, man.
Can you help me? And I knew Daniel. I was going to the northeast. I knew Daniel was about 30 minutes away. He was on the way. And he's like, come on, man.
We'll get it up. And so at 2.30 on a Friday, when he had multiple jobs to do, he and I were out there sweating together, not knowing what we were doing, pulling parts of my door up, using like little wooden shunts to put up in there to just block my window up. And 30 minutes later, the window was up. That guy, he bore my burdens. He did. And that's how we grow together as a church family.
I want you to think about it like this. I'm just trying to give us some handles. If somebody came to me and said, Matt, I want you to run a race, I would immediately say no because that doesn't sound fun at all. But if they came and said, Matt, I want you to run a race, but you can only pick one leg. I don't even know. Okay.
I like that one. I like that one too. I can't run without two legs. Okay. I've got to have both my legs. And the same thing is true as we grow into maturity in Jesus.
I want you to think about it as two legs that you have to have. You have to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And that has to be put into practice so that as you grow in your understanding of who Jesus is and what he wants for your life, that leads you into action. And through those actions, you continue to grow in your knowledge of him. It's a cyclical process. And what I want you to understand is that we get to grow.
We don't outgrow the gospel of grace. We don't. We grow more deeply into it over time as we pursue Jesus and give our lives chasing after him. That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. He's praying this prayer.
He said, I want you to grow in wisdom and knowledge and understanding so you can walk through all of life with other believers, bearing each other's burdens, loving one another, walking that out together. And he's going to continue. He actually qualifies how we're to walk. Jump back into verse 10. Verse 10. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
So that's a game changer. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Guys, my nickname in our house is destructor. Guys, I'm clumsy as all get out. I can't walk a straight line. How in the world am I going to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord?
How are we going to grow in this together? He keeps going. Keep reading. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. What an incredibly intimidating task. What an incredibly intimidating task.
Walk back through it again. It says, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Fully, not partly. Not sometimes. Not on our best days. Fully pleasing to the Lord.
Bearing fruit. Good fruit. In our lives as evidence of our salvation. And ever increasing in the knowledge of the God who holds the universe in the palm of his hand. And as people who are wired to be better, to do better, this creates a problem. Because we were tracking with Paul's prayer.
We were really excited about it. Yes. I want to grow in my wisdom and knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is. And I want to let that play into my actions so that I can follow him and I can walk in a manner worthy of. And that sentence starts to go. And what we start to do, as you hear that, you start to think, huh.
I wonder if I walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. I mean, I don't really think I do. Maybe I need to start doing this and this. I mean, I need to stop doing that. I need to stop doing that. And I need to do this and this.
And what we do is we start to pile up all these things that will actually help us walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And as you're listening, you're probably starting to feel a tremendous amount of weight and pressure stack up. Because you're saying, yes, I want to grow in knowledge. I want to grow in my understanding of who Jesus is. Yes, I want that to impact my actions. But if I'm supposed to walk this out in a manner worthy of the Lord, I don't think I can do it.
And so you start thinking like this. Okay, all right, so what can I do to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord? All right, so I need to start listening to more sermons. I'll start listening to more sermons. So I'll listen to a guy like Francis Chan.
But maybe not just Francis Chan. I probably need a more intellectual thinker, a reformed guy, somebody like John Piper. But I don't just need Piper. I need somebody who's more of like a topical communicator who's easy to relate to. I need somebody like Perry Noble. So I need to be listening to all of those sermons.
And I need to make sure I'm doing my devotional every day. Oh, but before I do my devotional, maybe I should go check my email and see when the next Beth Moore series is coming out. Because I want to make sure I do that study. Got to be in that one. And when I'm doing my Bible reading, I need to make sure that I'm reading from the Pentateuch, from the history of Israel. I need to read from the Psalms and wisdom literature.
And I need to read from the New Testament. Every day. Twice, let's say. Maybe I should find out what the Pentateuch is. Who knows? But I probably need to start going to more conferences.
I probably need to go to a conference once a month. I can go to a conference about how to love Jesus more. How to be a better dad. How to help dads be better dads. How to be a dad of dads. Like God is a good dad.
Two dads of dads. Yes. Huh. But I know I work eight to ten hours a day. But I need to make sure I take some time to go by the homeless shelter before I go to my Bible study group.
Wait a minute. I need to spend time. I need to spend time praying. Prayer. I need to make sure that I'm praying for everyone. And he's not just talking to individuals here.
He's talking to a church. So how are we going to stack up as a church? We need to have a prayer calendar with everybody's name on it. We need to make sure that each one of our community groups is multiplying every two months. And we need to make sure that anybody who comes in our doors meets Jesus as soon as they walk in. Because the Holy Spirit is so present.
And all of a sudden, what we realize is that we'll never stack up. And on top of that, you start saying to yourself, I could be doing better. I could be helping people more. I could be making more time for Jesus. And the truth is, a lot of the things I said were actually good things. They were.
Reading our Bible is great. Praying is great. But what we do is when we're faced with this walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, we realize we can't do that. We don't stack up. There's no way I'll be able to do that. Yes, I want to pursue Jesus.
Yes, I want to let that affect my actions. But I just don't know how I'm going to walk that out. And if I can't do it, there's no way that the people around me are going to be able to help me do that. But the good part is that was only the first point. And so Paul actually keeps writing. So let's keep reading.
Verse 11. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And our second point tonight is going to be this. We are redeemed and reconciled to God in Christ. Everybody take a deep breath.
Let it out. So while Paul calls on the Colossian church to seek after Jesus, to pursue him and know more about him, to grow in our understanding of who he is, and to let that impact our actions as we grow in maturity, he's quick to remind them that it is not those actions that make them worthy of the Lord, but it is the work that Jesus has done on our behalf. And that's good news. So church, what I'm saying to you is that you don't become a better Christian. You can't. And that's actually good news.
And some of you might have just pushed back right there. Oh, no, no, no, I can get better. I can, I can be better. What I'm, what I'm telling you is you can grow in maturity, but you can't qualify your role. You cannot change your relationship to God on your own actions. And that's good news because Jesus has actually done that on our behalf.
This is what Paul's doing. He's actually encouraging them in the gospel. He's saying you get to pursue Jesus. And because you've already been qualified, he's already made you right with God. That's what this whole section is actually encouragement. Pick it back up in verse 11.
He says, may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the father. So Paul's going to step in here with encouragement. He said, I want to encourage you to be strengthened with all power. What power? The power that raised Jesus from the dead, the power that exists in the hand of an almighty God who created the universe from his glorious might. And he's praying this so that in the midst of being in a culturally diverse area as a young church, they might be able to continue to endure, to be patient, to have joy all the while giving thanks to their father.
Why? Because it's already been accomplished by Jesus on their behalf. You see, the language here is not, look, look back at it. The language here is not what you do, but what he has done. Catch that because it's the most important thing you'll hear tonight. It's what he has done.
This is the past tense. This is what already has been accomplished. Paul says, it's not about what you do, but what Jesus has already done. Look at the verbs that it used. He says, he has qualified you, has delivered us, transferred us, redeemed us, and forgiven us our sins. It's already accomplished in Christ.
This life is going to be difficult. We're going to have our ups and downs as we pursue Jesus. But what Paul's encouraging him, and he's saying, you're already saved. This has already been accomplished on your behalf. You get to pursue Jesus. So let's walk through 12 through 14 to see how that encouragement continues.
Listen with ears, trying to hear what Jesus has already done. He says, beginning of verse 12, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And so as a people who are wired to be better and do better, we hear this and we go, no, no, no, no, I can do it. I can earn it. And what Paul's saying is, you don't have to.
It's already been accomplished on your behalf. And so I want us to walk back through these verses and see how Jesus was already better on our behalf. We talk about as a church that we want to be fluent in the gospel of Jesus. We want the gospel of Jesus to be so ingrained in our hearts that the only way we can speak to each other is to encourage each other in the gospel. That when we're having life issues, it's not just wisdom and advice. It's hope in the gospel.
It's truth in the gospel. And that's exactly what Paul's going to do here. He's offering them hope in the gospel. Verse number 12. It says, Giving thanks to the father who has qualified you. Who qualified who?
Did we qualify Jesus? No. It says that Jesus has qualified us. That's not based off of our actions. In no way can our actions, even on our best day, can they stack up and give us a better quality of relationship with Jesus than what Jesus has already done on our behalf. But not just that.
He didn't just qualify us. It says that he's to share in an inheritance of the saints in light. Not only qualified, but giving us an inheritance, an eternal inheritance, an inheritance that started when the gospel was proclaimed to Abraham, that he was going to make, that God was going to make Abraham into a nation, that they were going to be a blessing to the whole world. And we see the history of redemption go through the Old Testament until it gets to Jesus. We are part of that inheritance. Until we step into an eternity, it's an eternal inheritance.
And not just that. It says an inheritance of the saints. We talked about this last week. In no way would I ever qualify myself as a saint. Some of you are shaking your head yes. I agree.
What saint means is holy ones or consecrated ones. What that means is those who have been made holy. You get that? It's past tense. Again, we're holied ones. You're holied.
You're actually made holy by Jesus. He keeps going. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. Did you do that? Can you do that? No.
But when Jesus went to the cross, Satan thought he'd won. He thought he had seen the Son of God dead on a tree. He thought it was over. But three days later, by the power of God, Jesus walked out of that grave, conquering sin, death, Satan, and hell on your behalf. And in doing so, it says he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Guys, as peasants, we don't walk into the presence of a king.
That's not how that works. The only way that you get audience with the king is you get invited in. It says you've been transferred into the kingdom by the king. The king has invited you in. He keeps going. The kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption.
The root word there is redeem. That means you have been bought with a price. The price of the Son of God that would give his life to shed his blood on your behalf. He did that. It's already been accomplished. And in doing so, it says the forgiveness of our sins.
He paid the penalty for the forgiveness of our sins. So in no way can you shove your 401k before God and say, this gives me, I've earned it, I've made enough money. But what this is saying is that Jesus has already accomplished this on your behalf. The price he paid was much greater than anything that you could offer to God. And that's actually really good news. That though we have done nothing to merit redeeming, yet God in his grace has given us forgiveness.
And so church, what I want you to feel is the burden lifted. That pressure that you mounted on yourself that says, I'm not good enough. I want to be better. Feel it lifted. Because what Paul is saying is, it's already been accomplished. You've already been qualified.
You've already been redeemed. So go and live this life pursuing Jesus. And if you're sitting in this room tonight, you're going, I want that to be true for me. And it's not. I want to tell you how. The way that you're qualified by Jesus, the way that you're redeemed by Jesus, is that you place your faith in him.
Is it believing and understanding who he is and what he has done for you. You confess your sins. You confess your faith in Jesus. You ask for the forgiveness of your sins. You place your faith in him. And you follow him for the rest of your life.
And if you want to talk a little bit more about that, I'd be happy to sit down with you after we're done tonight. But that is how you get to be qualified. And so to kind of sum up where we are, we looked at in point one that we're pursuing Jesus in both knowledge and action so that we can walk to live a life that is worthy of the Lord. And what we realize is we actually can't do that. We don't have the ability to. But the good news is we've already been qualified.
We've already been made right with God. So where does that leave us in terms of growing in maturity? It brings us to our third point. We are set free by Jesus to grow in maturity in Jesus. That's what it brings us. That's our third point for tonight.
We are set free by Jesus to grow in maturity in Jesus. And we like to say this phrase a lot. And I think it's very helpful in this situation. You may want to jot this down. Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning.
Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. So what we're seeing here is that Jesus in his grace invites us into a relationship where we get to give much effort, but not in a way that earns our salvation, but because we actually already have salvation. So our attitude begins to change. Instead of I have to do these things so that Jesus will love me, it becomes I get to do these things because Jesus loves me. We actually want to grow in maturity through knowledge and action because of the great love that Jesus has shown for us.
And this is a cyclical process. That as you grow in knowledge, it's going to lead you into action, which will lead you into more knowledge and more action. that the gospel would actually impact our actions and that we continue to grow more and more in spiritual maturity. And we get to do this together. This gets to affect all of our life together. It's not because I know things about God and do good things that I get to be in Christ. It's because of what Jesus has done on my behalf.
I get to be in Christ. Therefore, I pursue him in knowledge and wisdom that lead to action. And it gets even better than that. So you're not just left on your own to have to do that. From the very beginning, he said that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in spiritual wisdom and understanding. He actually gives us the ability to do that.
I want you to understand this. Check this out. It says that he has give thanks to the father who has qualified us through the work of the son. And we are given the ability to follow him that we may be filled with his Holy Spirit. You see how that works? Salvation actually begins and ends with God.
We say we see the work of the Trinity all through salvation. And I want you to realize, as a church, this is going to be messy. And that's the best part. Are we always going to be good at this? No. There's going to be times where we mess up, where we make mistakes.
And in that, we get to repent. We get to ask Jesus to forgive us. And we move forward learning from the mistakes that we've made. You want to see somebody who's growing in maturity, who's growing to be more like Jesus? What do their actions look like? How do they relate to community?
What does their schedule look like? Where does their money go? Are they building intentional relationships with people who don't know Jesus? Because knowledge without action doesn't make sense. As we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is, it's going to lead us out, and that's going to impact our relationships. And that's why we as a church, we're wanting to read through the book of Colossians.
That's why as a church, we want to grow in our ability to read Scripture. We want to read the Bible. We want to pursue Jesus and let that affect our actions. We want to grow in setting aside time to intentionally have relationships with each other. We want to gather as a church family. We want to get together with our community groups.
We want to set aside time where our community groups are inviting friends who don't know Jesus to come hang out. We want to grow in serving other people. So be encouraged. You are free to actively pursue Jesus because you have already been qualified. So that when you're reading your Bible, you're doing so because you get to, not to earn God's favor.
That when you're praying, you're praying because you want God's will to be done, not to earn God points. You tithe and give your offerings, not to pay God off, but because he who is rich became poor on your behalf. And so I'm going to invite the band to come back up as we're closing up. Church, I want you to be encouraged tonight. I want you to know that you get to pursue Jesus wholeheartedly because of what he's done for you, because he has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.
That means as a church, we pray for one another. We confess and repent of sin with one another. We bring people into community. We make disciples. We're generous with our money, with our time, with our resources. It means we meet the needs of people in the church and outside of the church.
Why? Because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. Jesus has qualified us. Jesus was better on our behalf so that we could live a life not trying to be better, but instead giving much effort to grow into maturity in both knowledge and action as we follow Jesus because it's all about him. Let's pray.
God, I thank you that our relationship with you is not based off of our actions. It's not based off of how much we know. But God, it is fully based off of you. What you have done on our behalf, that you have changed us from the inside out. You've qualified the relationship. And so I pray that you would lead us in a life where we are free to give much effort as we follow you.
In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand and sing as we respond.