Enemy Love
Transcript
All right, how are we doing this morning? All right, I don't know how to take that. We'll be in Matthew chapter 5. Hopefully we'll get better, wake up a little bit. We're in Matthew chapter 5. We're walking verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount.
We're spending a good bit of time this spring just walking through, studying what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, how we can apply it to our lives, how we can begin to live as if we know this, trust this, believe this. So we're just spending some time in these three chapters in Matthew. So Jesus kind of begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying he's building a culture. But he begins by proclaiming a message that's going to change the culture of the people who are going to follow him. He's beginning to say, I'm starting a kingdom, and this is what we're going to be like. This is what my people are going to be like.
And it's any of you who have ever gone from one culture to another, have gone even just in the U.S. You can go from southern culture to kind of the northeast or the west coast, and you'll see that there's just some differences in how people think and how they act, how they treat one another. If you ever go overseas, there's just some different cultural things that happen. And that's what Jesus is saying is he's building a culture. I remember in college I got the opportunity to go to Romania on a mission trip, and we were just serving with some churches that were already there, and we were traveling around and getting to preach in different churches.
And preaching in Romania was interesting because everything took twice as long because you would say it, and then your translator would translate it. And it's interesting, too, because you don't know, like, I like to cut up jokes and stuff, and I think that's probably even worse. When I was in college and preaching, like, that was like half of what I did. And that you just don't know the Romanian churches. It's like, I don't know what to do. So I remember the very first time I was going to preach in a Romanian church, I was thinking, I kind of hope I had something to kind of break the ice a little bit, try to get people on board with what we're doing.
And I walked up, and I stand in front of everybody. It's a small church. There was an aisle right down the middle, and there was just two little sections of pews, and one section had only men, and then there was a section of only ladies, except for my two brothers, who had sat on the ladies' side. Because we didn't know. We didn't know there was a men's section and a ladies' section, and that was a cultural thing for them. That's not really, like, not taught in the Bible as a way to do this, but it was just how they were expressing their culture.
And I remember walking up and being like, jackpot, I got a way to start this off. And my brothers didn't realize it until I pointed it out, that they were sitting in the ladies' section, and both of them were like, you could see them tense up like, should we move? What have we done? But they were real gracious towards us, not knowing what to do. But there's just something about, there's these different cultures where this isn't okay.
You stand out if you act this way. This is the way we're going to behave. And that's what Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount. He's saying, this is what my people are going to look like, and if you say you're a Christian, if you say you're a part of the kingdom, this is how you behave, and you should stand out. It should be odd in two ways. If you are a Christian in normal human society culture of the world, Christians should stand out.
He says, as a city on a hill, that there should shine, that there should be something different about us. And if you say you are a Christian and do not behave this way, if this isn't your posture, you should stand out among Christians. You should look weird. The church should have its own distinct, this is how we respond. This is how we act. This is our culture.
The reason I say that is because what we're going to look at today, Jesus says three very difficult, very hard sayings here that are difficult to apply, difficult to live with. And I know our attitude when reading the Sermon on the Mount a lot of times is to make it law. It's to immediately start saying, okay, well, what are the rules? Where does that apply? How far does that go? When Jesus is working to say this is what people are going to be like, this is the culture we're going to have, not to say here's rule number one, here's rule number two, here's rule number three.
He's painting a picture for a type of people. And that means that as we approach it, we're asking what's our posture, what's our attitude, how in general are we going to act? These are examples of that, not here's this rule and you just perfectly apply it and you're okay. And if you can kind of figure a way around it, that's okay because he's giving rules. He's not, he's giving a way of life. That means that as we walk through life, there are going to be things that aren't covered here, but then we're going to say, okay, well, how does that apply given the posture we're supposed to have as Christians?
If you don't get that, this is going to be really confusing. So does that make sense? We're on page where he's building a culture, he's making a type of people. Okay, cool. Let's pray.
And then we'll jump into the text. Lord, we ask for your help. We pray that you would bless the proclamation of your word. We pray that you would bless the healing of it. That we might receive it. That it might change us.
And God, we ask that you would bless the healing of it. That we would live this way as we follow you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. We're going to pick up in verse 33.
So Jesus is continuing to teach. Here's kind of what we're going to look like. Here's how my culture, this is the group of people I'm making. Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old. So he's been quoting the law, the Old Testament law, and how people have been teaching it.
And then he's been kind of correcting and saying, you've been following it like it's law. What I'm saying is follow the heart behind it, the culture behind it, the pattern, the posture behind it. So you heard it said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. That rule in the Old Testament was, if you promise God you're going to do something, do it. That was the rule. Don't swear falsely.
If you promise God, if you make a vow to God, follow through you. And he says this. But I say to you, verse 34, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair black, white, or black. And I know that we can now, by boxing, or beating up your head, especially with my church, but it doesn't stay that way. Let what you say be simply yes or no.
Anything more than this comes from evil. So this is the first difficult thing we're going to look at today that Jesus calls us to. And he's calling us to integrity, to honesty, to when you say yes, mean yes. And when you say no, mean no, don't have some sort of secret thing behind it. And when he talks about taking oaths, what they were doing is they would say, I swear by heaven. I swear by Jerusalem.
I swear by the earth or by my head. And then when they kind of weaseled out of the oath they had taken, they were like, well, I didn't make a vow to God. Had I made a vow to God, I would have followed through with it. But I just promised by Jerusalem. And so what Jesus says is, hey, all of it belongs to God. Heaven's his, the earth's his, Jerusalem's his, your head is his.
Stop it. Like he's in all of it. Not just when you say, I swear to God, does it shoot a flare up and he goes, oh, what was this about? Let me write that one down. No, he's paying attention to us on all levels when we're speaking. And he's saying, have integrity, be honest.
Quit trying to get away with things. So, here's what this means. Very, very straightforward. Tell the truth. You say something, it should be true. That's the point.
Be honest. Don't have to live a life. He says anything else comes from evil. The reason he says that is if sin hadn't entered into the world, we wouldn't need to have an extra special yes. Yes would be yes, no would be no. We wouldn't be tricking each other.
An oath is just, I double promise yes. This is an extra special yes. This one's a yesy yes. That's what an oath is. So when somebody tells you a story and you go, promise?
You're just saying, like, you swear? This really happened? Is this an extra special yes? Or is this one of those yeses that actually isn't a yes at all? That's what that is. That's why he's saying everything else comes from evil.
Like, the only way we had to start doing this was the lies in the world. This is when you say, I swear my mom is great. Or just you tell somebody something and they say, that's a lie and you say, that's money. It's the same thing. It's this. This one's for real.
They say, no, just when you speak. Yes or no. That's it. Quit all this other stuff. Let me give you an example of how this plays out. So when I was growing up, we used to do tactical misrepresentations of the facts.
The tactical misrepresentation of the facts, which is you represent facts. Like, it's true. And then you let them draw the conclusions they would like to do. I'll give you an example. In high school, I went to a bathroom. Took my shoe off.
Put it up in the air. Took my wallet out. Tossed it up in the air. I took my keys out of my pocket. Tossed it up in the air. And I walked to the nurse's office.
And I said, I'd like to go home. I was just in the bathroom throwing things up. Both of those statements were true. I would like to go home. I was in the bathroom throwing things up. Had the nurse asked what, I would have said, my shoe, my keys, and my wallet.
I'm going to head back to class. Or when I tried to play it off, it's like I had a really bad diet. Like, I just eat terrible things. She let me go home. It was excused. That's deception and is outside of what Jesus is calling us to here.
Technically, I did not lie. But in a way more real sense, yes, I did. So Jesus is saying, have integrity. I'll show you another way that this plays out practically in life. I go to my wife. I said, hey, the guys in my group, we're having a poker night on Friday.
Is it cool if I go to that? She says, yeah, that's fine. I mean, it's my one evening off, and I'll just stay home and watch Archer. And I say, you sure? She says, yes, fine. Do whatever.
That'll be okay. I said, okay. Then I go. And then when I come home. Yes, y'all, you're aware of what I'm talking about. So I walk in the house.
I'm also in the future. You walk in the house, and then she's sitting up. Archer's already in bed, and she's like, I cannot even know. I'm smart, so I'm like, what on earth are you talking about? You should have known. Like, I can't believe.
And it's like, you know what I'm saying? She said, it's fine. But secretly, it was a love test. And here's what happens as we begin to do this in life, where we let integrity kind of break down, is you can't even pick a restaurant when this begins to happen in a relationship. Hey, you want to go? Do you want to go to this burger place?
Yeah, that's fine. Oh, it's fine? So it's not fine. No, I'm okay with that. No, you know, whatever. You want tacos.
You always want tacos. Let's go eat tacos. You can just have 15 tacos and be happy in your little heart. It's like you cease to be able to even talk to each other. So if your spouse is just coaching on how to apply this, your spouse says, I want to go to this thing, and you think, I don't want you to go to that thing, don't say, sure, go to that thing with this secret.
I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go. Have a real conversation. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. This is one of the things we teach in premarital counseling all the time. Say what you mean.
Don't mean it. And then if you do this, here's how we handle this in my house. I'm sorry. Right. Um. But you said that you don't.
So it's not fine. No, I'm okay with that. No, you know, whatever. You want tacos. You always want tacos. Let's go eat tacos. You can just have 15 tacos and be happy in your little heart. It's like you cease to be able to even talk to each other. So if your spouse is just coaching on how to apply this, your spouse says, I want to go to this thing, and you think, I don't want you to go to that thing, don't say, sure, go to that thing with this secret. I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go. Have a real conversation. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. This is one of the things we teach in premarital counseling all the time. Say what you mean. Don't mean it. And then if you do this, here's how we handle this in my house. I'm sorry. Right. Um. But you said that you don't. So next time, don't say that.
And just make sure that you're not going to click the line. That'd be fine. it's not quite approached that way but it's close um here's the thing like be honest be be truthful uh and don't expect people to be able to figure out what you what you're doing here and don't intentionally deceive people Jesus is saying stop that just be honest for some of you in the room practically this is going to be very difficult because you have made a practice of deceiving maybe it's in small things maybe it's it's uh you just kind of some of you you feel like this is the only way you can do your job there's no way I could do my job as a salesperson if I just was completely honest there's no way I could do my job as a mechanic if I was just completely honest like this some people act like this well this is just how our our industry works that's not true there is a distinct way to be a christian in every industry you're in some of you just life is like this with your spouse you just kind of lie a decent amount um maybe even over small things the beginning for you because stopping yourself from lying when you really practiced in it is hard the beginning for you will be coming back and saying what I just said I know I said it this way I actually said it that way on purpose of you to believe this uh and not a need to be honest one of the some of some of us in life have met someone have known someone maybe in our family maybe we weren't here and we were too much just honest when I said yes and yes and said no and no and that was refreshing beautiful and helpful
Okay so if that was difficult I have good news it gets worse um go to verse 38 you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that is old testament law it is in three different places but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic let him have your cloak as well and if anyone forces you to go one mile go with him two miles give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you this is one of the most well-known uh passages uh that in the bible one of the most well-known sayings that Jesus has that we would turn the other cheek that we would go the extra mile we still use these terms uh here here's what he's getting at and I think it's helpful to understand the eye for an eye tooth for a tooth law that was given in the old testament was given as a way for Judges to judge properly it was not an interpersonal way to interact it was for Judges to make right judgment and it was to um limit excessive punishment as well as to a smaller degree keep from having a major issue happen and then someone gets a slap on the wrist but mostly it was it was saying payback isn't double you knock my out I don't get both of yours I just get one that's what an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth was was a no excessive punishment it led the punishment to crime and it was given to Judges to make wise judgment but they have begun to use it the same way we use it
So something happens to us someone at work lies about us makes it hard for us to get a promotion and we say well which means here it comes the bible's given me free reign to retaliate that I get to do to you what you did to me someone lies about you someone uh offends you someone harms you and we we quote it as well I get to retaliate I get to make it even I get to get even and Jesus says no that's not that's not our culture that's not what we look like um that's not how we're going to act I do think when you read by itself
Verse 39 but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil if you read that by itself it becomes you immediately want to say okay I have like a thousand questions I think two of the main ones that pop up are we're not allowed to stop hitler that side of the argument or the if someone breaks into my house I'm not allowed to defend myself I think that that those two questions are helped by the context because everything Jesus gives after this when he says don't resist the one who's evil because he talks about personal the personal implications of this so being slapped having someone take your property
Having someone impose upon your time and then having people ask to walk he's not talking about nations military laws this rule was actually given to Judges that's assumed that there would be Judges and rulings and laws but he's just saying quit applying this personally as I can retaliate against you the bible has other places where it talks about the rightness of an army the rightness of a military that he's going to never put his force so I think it's wrong to take this and push it into every aspect of life and say make sure they don't have cost
I don't think that's ever so appropriate in understanding the context of what he's talking about so he says in your personal life when it has to deal with your person you here's how we respond and so I want us to to look at what he is saying because I think it is very difficult if someone slaps you on the right cheek turn to him the other also he does not say attacks you although I do think if someone were to to strike you not just open hand slap you but to to uh punch you or attack you
That there is room for christians to hold this with some uh tension and say I think we've got to at least wrestle with the implications of Jesus so for the person who says I have a family and if someone breaks into my home I believe I'm called to defend myself I would say I think you have warrant there in scripture to pay attention to that to hold that view I also think you need to consider how to respond in a way that is in line with this that has some sort of a posture here so that when someone says
Uh they have their concealed weapons permit and they act like I hope somebody starts on with me I don't think that's in line with the culture Jesus is talking about I think that would be something that you would need to consider think about way out for someone who says I don't have wife kids if someone breaks in my house my main goal is just to get out of my house I don't want to harm them I believe that when he says that if they sue you and take your clothes that'll include being robbed and I'll just do what I can to get out of this situation even though
In south carolina I have the castle doctrine which means that I can uh kill that person and then walk away but I believe that I'm a christian I've been called to a different culture I think that's fair I think that's within this I do think Jesus knows he's mostly speaking to being slapped and being slapped is not a major physical injury it hurts your pride it is degrading let me give you an example you're at a restaurant you see a couple and it's tense and then one of them
Let's say the lady just to help you she jumps across the table and starts trying to like call the guy's eyes out and choke him I would think look at this situation this is a hot mess both of these people have serious problems like there's there's something that's happened in this relationship to cause this now let's say she splashes water on him and open hand slaps him and walks out I don't think what a terrible lady I think I want to look back at him does that make sense an open hand slap
When he's talking about being struck it is a you are beneath me you it is an affront of pride and character this is the same as if someone lies about you who undercuts your character I can tell you right now that if if another grown man comes at me and punches me I'm gonna be angry I'm gonna have a hard time handling that if he open hand slaps me I'm gonna come real close to me and here's why he punches me he thought I better do a good shot on the first one because this is about to get serious if he open hand slaps me his thought process was I'm gonna learn whatever I want
This guy is a weak, weak, small and I'm telling you the logical implications of me being an open hand slap are gonna be so much harder to deal with than someone just attacking you that's what Jesus is talking about he is addressing when someone comes after you your name when someone comes after you you're right when someone comes after you're self-warned you don't get to retaliate that's not the posture that we have they lied about me I'm gonna lie about this they kept me from getting a promotion I'm gonna keep them from getting a promotion or they got the promotion over me because they lied I'm gonna do everything I possibly can to get them fired
And he said no that's not our culture it's not what we're gonna lie he keeps going so personal pride personal insult and he says if anyone would sue you and take your tunic let him have your cloak as well you see Jesus is teaching that his people that the church and the people who follow him and his kingdom are not going to walk around demanding their rights that our goal as christians is not to say well this is my legal justification and this is my legal right but that we're gonna hold that with an open hand
That we're not going to demand and impose ourselves on others but that in situations where someone's wrongfully suing us or rightfully suing us we're gonna hold very weighty how do we respond when I'm talking about you and how do I show the praise when someone is evil and insulting me when someone is imposing upon me how do I show the praise how do I model the way that Jesus is responding up to see Jesus says if he sue you for your tunic that's your inner garment give him your outer garment as well he says respond
Not the way they would assume you would respond I'm gonna sue you and take your tunic man I'll give you I'll give you both right now and I'll make this right right now I'll see you in court no you won't let's handle it right now what you need what's restitution how can I be gracious right now he's saying these people are gonna look for if anyone forces you to go one mile go with them two miles you see what Jesus just did in these three instances he says if they attack your pride in your name
Your self worth if they attack your stuff or if they attack your time all christians are gonna hold down with another how many of you how many of us would say well I'll give some time but I won't give my stuff or how many of you say well I'll give my stuff but I'm not giving any time how many how many of us have said things like I can't be friends with that person they're just too many they just need too much for me I can't be friends with them they take up too much of my time I can't
I can't be around them anymore all they ever do is ask me for stuff and Jesus is saying his people are ready for that have an open hand because they have an open heart 42 give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow you the christians are supposed to be the people who follow Jesus who are his people and his kingdom are supposed to be open handed when someone asks
For something when someone asks to borrow something even though they haven't even given back the other thing they borrowed he says our response is yeah it's just stuff yeah it's just my time oh yeah it's just part of my reputation that's what his people are I want to specifically take a second on this one
The borrowing give to anybody who asks if you because of our location we live near columbia some of you live in columbia there is a decent amount of hand handling that happens and so one of the immediate responses to this is anybody comes over and asks for ten bucks as a christian I'm supposed to just give
Ten bucks that's one of my fun choices one of the things I've wrestled with in the parking lot and someone comes over and I have a really good inclination with the people that are telling me some story about having to get back to orange bird or their mamas and get enthrined and they've got to catch
Them like am I supposed to just hand them 20 bucks I want to say a few things on that real quick one is if you come to the conclusion yes yes Jesus says give to those who beg beg beggars that's what they're doing give to beggars yes I will give you the ten bucks
I'm not going to give them the ten bucks and let Jesus sort it out I'm going to respond faithfully to what he's called me to and just be open handed and give to beggars and let him sort out how they respond to that we're going to do you think that the people who are homeless in our city in those situations in our city are in those situations for a
Reason if we lived I grew up in edgefield if we lived in edgefield I think I would approach this passage differently we don't live in edgefield we live in columbia there are multiple homeless shelters in downtown that will help people get out of homeless situations so the way that my wife and I handle
This is we've had this discussion I've told her my wife said and I said and I said and I said and I said and I said and I said just give to those who borrow and her response was okay somebody walks over and says I want your truck appropriate christian responses here
I like my truck so I was like hold on a second uh move out of your house here are the keys this is your question it looks like again I think if someone said I think that's what Jesus called me
To and I'm going to just do this in faith I think there's some room for I don't know how I would say you're wrong although I'm not sure that's what he's getting at here's here's the way we handle this our yes is on the table someone comes and asks us for help if someone comes and asks us
For money if someone comes our yes is on the table although we will slowly over time define what that yes looks like giving you ten dollars a day so that you can stay on the street and keep a habit going is not us loving you that harms you so we put our yes on the table and then we say here's what we'll do we're actually
Going to invest more time we're going to invest more energy because we're going to try to help you get off the street rather than just doing this one time thing and then at times as we have done that as we have said we're not going to keep giving you ten dollars a day but here's what we will hope you do we'll hope you
Get in the same business we'll hope you get in the same business and we'll have other programs and we'll have people then tell us yes because there's a reason why they're doing this and at that point I feel like we have done it and we can do to say yes to actually give to those new people
So what I think people do this is what I'm just why I'm explaining this and trying to help I think what people do is say well giving that person ten dollars isn't going to help them they're just going to use it to further their habit and so they use not harming people with giving money to just say no and what I think we need to do is have a
Qualified yes that's what our church does we help people our goal is to put significant amount of money towards getting people off the street getting people jobs getting people in we don't just help them by maintaining the lifestyle they have help them by saying yes here's how we're doing it and I think that's what
Jesus told us that our stuff our turn and our reputation is made the ones that are okay here's how I do think at times we try to respond to this and I think Jesus covers it but I want to point it out we say okay yeah but they're ungrateful yeah I did that but they're a jerk
About it yeah okay okay I did I did go you know I was trying to do this but they're they're rude or they they waste it and that's why I think Jesus begins by saying do not resist the one who is evil because I think anything we could put in the yeah but there category
Eventually we'll just fit on the category I think Jesus covers that today at the beginning of the set right this is how we can do come on that's that's that's hard I think it's 42 43 this is our third difficult
Teaching that gives us respect you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy that's not in the law love your neighbor is but then people took it to the they kind of said well that's true and this has true so our response
The way we're supposed to live is to love our neighbors and hate our enemies he says but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you here's what happens as soon as God says love your neighbor our response is who's my neighbor we even see that in the in the gospels
Where somebody comes to Jesus and ask him that who's my neighbor and so Jesus says love your neighbor and love your enemies and now you shouldn't have any follow-up questions who's my neighbor love them all the way over to who's my enemy love them okay what Jesus
Just said was love people and he's going to tell us how to love our enemies but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you persecute means they are actively trying to tear you down destroy you destroy your
Way of life take you out remove you from the picture they are persecuting you they are actively that may be a co-worker that may be a neighbor that may be someone who just Acts like you don't exist they're doing things actively
To harm you and he says pray for them and don't pray things like God get them you may pray God change them God help me to love them but pray for them so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven for he makes his son rise on the evil and the good and sends his rain on the just
And the unjust so he says that God does this this is how he treats evil people the sun rises on them it sets on them rain falls on their crops just like it falls on good people's crops that God is gracious in creation
To all of them and that our response should be the same so here's let's think about this for a second we have enemies ISIS for example Al-Qaeda all the other number of people out there in the world who are actively trying to harm we have real enemies I believe that
That includes them so when Christians say I think we should just carpet bomb the Middle East and start over I want to respond no I don't think we can arguably we solve some problems but we can't that's not appropriate that's not
Our posture that's not like we can't do that we're supposed to love them we're supposed to pray for them pray for their hearts to change pray for us to be able to interact with them well pray for I think one of the ways you pray for someone who
Is actively seeking evil is that their plans wouldn't work out so that they have less to stand before God and be judged to her God help that to fall through be gracious on them let them change let their plans be terrible and not work but pray
For them but I also think this applies to normal everyday life and most of us will not interact with people from ISIS so those will and again if you are in military or desire to be in military I'd love to speak with you about that because I don't believe that's exactly
What Jesus is talking about here and I think there is some room for conflict inside of nations on nations we don't have time for it but for most of us who will not be facing an enemy on a battlefield I want to help
Us see something our culture we've gotten tribal it just means each one of us has begun to say this is the people I belong to my uncle my uncle Abel is from Nigeria when he was born
They cut tribal marks into his face and packed it with dirt and salt so that his entire life he is marked by which tribe he is he sees anyone whose face looks like that he can immediately begin to talk to
Him because he never was from my grandmother was on an airplane saw a guy with the same tribal marks as my uncle immediately was like she immediately knew you're from you're from Obamachal Nigeria like immediately because he
Marked himself he did but he finished him he was one of the last they kind of stopped this he's one of the last guys to have this done that last generation but we do this to ourselves we kind of announce which tribe we're a part by how we dress
By if you're ever in a meeting and everybody pulls out a computer you can kind of see which tribe you're a part of are these all PCs are these all Macs if you've ever met a person who uses a Mac and you open a PC
Around them you'll know they're a Mac person by how they go I said to someone the other day man my computer's slow he just walked off I was like well what the heck like this is the thing we've marked ourselves you can
Walk into a high school cafeteria and you can see people who've labeled themselves it's made easier by the fact that they're all together in chunks but you can tell is it a white guy with pink shorts he's announcing things about
Himself they made fun of us because when we ordained a pastor all of us had beards and we were wearing plaid we've marked ourselves we've done this in the way we dress in the way we speak we we've become tribal but see it's it's beyond
That get on facebook sometimes and you begin to see who belongs which tribe are they a part of and here's what happens we have grown increasingly unable to get all more people in office how many have been flipping to facebook
And told somebody to repost something from fox news limbaugh wire federalist I think that's what you know I think that's what you immediately thought okay I get it someone post something for
Black lives matter or reposted some article about how clinton should have won or somebody's posting stuff about make america great again and you immediately thought okay good to know who's your enemy who's the person who's destroying america
Who's the person who's ruining the family who's the enemy of progress you see we might would say this includes the refugees and this includes isis but then if we see somebody who is a part of an organization in the
U.s we think well I don't ever have to talk to them I don't have to be their friend you could do this during election time and see who had signs in their yard for bernie or for trump and you immediately
Could know well they're part of that group so they're my enemy I'm against them and Jesus says no love them pray for them care about them get to know them now this is hard how do you as a christian relate to someone who
You fundamentally want their plans to not work out how do you how do you relate to people who absolutely you disagree with on so many levels that's a good question and I think we'll figure it out as we try but I think we've gotten really really good at hanging out with our tribe and demonizing
Everybody else this happens in theological circles we're the only people who read the bible right God have grace on the idiots don't know how to study the bible like I mean this happens we do this and Jesus is saying love them get to know them care about them
Now you may not feel warm and fuzzy inside that's not the word he uses he uses a word that's an unconditional love for all the times you don't feel warm and fuzzy for the people who are very difficult this means that this is your neighbor who always parks in front of your house when you talk to him about
Him this is the co-worker if this kind of thing bothers you drinks out of your mug or actively will always ask you for help but will never help anybody help this is your boss who means you in front of other people there's some people in your life
Who have made themselves you in front of your your life who have you in front of your your life who have you in front of your your life who have you in front of your your life very good I think this is helpful for us to think about I was watching some of those animal planet
Like dog shows this was a while back but they catch a dog they rescue them from a terrible situation they set them down put a ball in front of them and then they reach down and snatch it have you all seen this like right when the dog is about to eat and if the dog tries to bite
Them they think oh it's violent put it down have you all seen that they do this I remember watching that thinking are you kidding me I would try to bite you if you snatched my plate away from me like and this dog just came out of a terrible situation how is it ever going to not act like that unless
People get around that care about it and change it and I think that's part of what we've got to understand as we say this person is toxic right but how do they get un-toxic they have some people who are unwilling to they have some people who sit them down and say hey we've got to talk this can't be how our relationship works I love you
I care about you I want the best for you but this isn't how we're talking to you I love you I care about you I'm not going anywhere but you got to be honest with me I love you I care about you I'm not going anywhere but we can't have it to where when you want attention you throw a fit or you set your house on fire figuratively to get people to come pay attention to you we've got to work on this
It's the only way they grow having a two-year-old has helped me with this the only way he'll act like a normal human in society is if there are some people around him who keep loving him through the fact that he has no clue how to do that and that's the way it is for some people that's what God's called us to who's your enemy and how do you begin to love them okay he says this verse 46 for if you love
Those who love you what reward do you have do not even the tax collectors do the same and if you greet only your brothers what more are you doing than others do not even Gentiles do the same you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect so what he just said was if you love the good and the bad the evil the just and the unjust those who are easy to love and those who are really hard to love you'll start looking like sons of your father
And then he says if you only love those who are easy to love but you get away from those who are hard to love everybody does that that's not what my people look like my people like a group of people who hold their reputation their finances their material their time their energy with an open hand and love all the people who are hard to love that's my people that's my church this is impossible without Jesus you cannot do this without Jesus some of you who are
Going to try to make this a long go okay I'm a white knuckle and love all the unlovable people it's not gonna happen and some people will break themselves over this rule and say well I'm done I can't I can't be like this is how it's supposed to work this is ridiculous to call me this you cannot do this without Jesus Disney's remaking Beauty and the Beast this will be a live action one this will be a real piece which you're seeing in the story
Line there's an 11 year old prince so she curses him until he turns 21 if he can find somebody to fall in love with him he won't have to see him she was a little heavy and they don't love you they don't okay then's the breaks kid so this is the story that unless he can find someone to love him
He will remain at peace and I love this story because I think we all so badly want that to be true but we know that through our decisions and our attitudes and actions we are thinking to learn but many of us are very aware of that and the hope that someone can do the wrong and love us and love us I think that's not that easy
And that's what happens in the gospel unless you see that Jesus has already done this for you he has no hope to live this unless you see that Jesus fulfilled all the promises of God and was perfectly honest and had perfect integrity on this world on your behalf you'll never be able to have it in any kind of real way
In life unless you see that when evil people imposed themselves on Jesus he actually did turn the other cheek he actually did allow them to take every bit of clothing that he had off of his back that he actually did carry a Roman cross up a hill that he actually did have everything robbed of him stripped of him that he actually
Was able to stop it as the son of God had all of the rights in the universe to stand and say this will not happen but laid them all down on our behalf and that he did that to pray for and care about and love his enemies whenever he ends until you see clearly that Jesus has done this for you and that's the only way you were saved in the first of your life and that was the
Only way to change from a thing so they're loving them because they're loving them and they're loving them and they're loving them and they're loving them only for Christ and I hope you're saved and I hope you're saved and I hope you're saved and I hope you're saved
And I hope you're saved and I hope I want to tell you two practical ways things that we can meditate on think about that I think will help us actually carry this out in life have you ever seen an adult argue with a child to the point that they both look like children have you ever seen this like it turns into like I can already tell like I've got a
Two year old he can barely talk I got so frustrated with him the other day I had to like set in his crib and leave the room and I know I should be like a well adjusted adult but it's difficult and I can tell you there's going to be a time where I'm with a four year old in Walmart and he's going to be like well I hate you I hate you yeah and look like another four year old like have you ever
Seen this like there are these moments where you want to look and be like hey unless you act like an adult that kid doesn't have a chance unless you see more clearly than the kid can this isn't going to work out and I think as Christians that's one of the positions we get to take in the world is that we get to see some things we're privy to some things
That other people aren't so we get to act differently and it's going to be really easy to act in the sense two things that I think we get to hold in our minds because of the truth of the gospel that will help us apply this one is the eternal ramifications of the mission that God has through Christ reconciled the world to himself and he has given us the ministry of reconciliation meaning that as Christians
We have a responsibility for the eternity of the world that they will one day stand in judgment before God and we all will and as Christians we believe we'll stand in judgment before God and say my hope is in Christ as that Psalm said earlier I'm clothed in his righteousness alone like the only thing I have is what Jesus has done for me and so what Jesus calls us to to be the father
To be imposed upon to love those who are harming us if we can remember that most likely we'll go into a Christless eternity and my interaction with them may be one of the only times that you can see the grace of life in the face of evil which is the relationship I have to Jesus grace in the face of evil I think it will help us we pray for the last Holy Spirit help me care about this person's soul
More than I care about my stuff help me care about this person's eternity more than I care about my time that they've asked for the second one is I think the eternal ramifications of God's blessing the truth is if you are a Christian your hope is eternal you have an inheritance that is undefiled unperishing and unfaded kept in heaven for you people can take all your stuff they haven't taken anything from you people can take
All your time that's a drop in the bucket of eternity people can take your life and they've just shot you into an eternity of true life and real life before the king I think if we'll remember the eternal ramifications of the mission and the eternal ramifications of the full and free blessings that we have in Christ we actually can live with a culture that Jesus calls us to we can actually begin to know
What we've done this kingdom and I want you to remember you saved sinners and pray for Jesus about good for those of us who have messed this up in the past who are terrible at this right now the absolute thing that we need to repent up I think the best I want you to know that we can and use the saved sinners and hope that we're there and we have an eternity to follow this morning God we thank you
For your grace thank you that you saved sinners that you loved us enough to die for the enemies that you loved us and that you called us to love so that we have a model for it and we also have to be about to do and the power to actually protect us I pray that you would help us to look like this that as years go by that this would be a good description of our church family that we would look
Like we belong help us to not retaliate help us not help us not
Marriage and Divorce
Transcript
Good morning. Grab your Bibles. Go to Matthew chapter 5. It'll be on page 473 if your Bible looks like this. Here's what we're doing. We're taking, we're just kind of walking through every week.
We're walking through the Sermon on the Mount. So that's Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. And we're walking through and just kind of taking it as we come, seeing what Jesus says, trying to understand what his point is and what we can learn from what he says. We're kind of in a section, and we've been in it for the past couple of weeks, where Jesus is, in his teaching, he's pointing out our approach to the law and our general tendency, their approach, our approach to take God's rules and then try to figure out, okay, how do I work around these? To kind of approach with, am I just doing exactly what it says, then I'm okay.
And Jesus is basically running through a hit list and intentionally picking some fights, intentionally using as examples some very tense subjects to try to point out how we like to say, am I living the right way, am I doing the right action, and disregarding what the point of it was in the first place. That our hearts matter as well as our actions. And so Jesus talks about anger. He talks about how we treat people we dislike. He talks about lust. He talks about marriage.
Like, he just kind of goes through a list of hot button issues and just presses all of them, and then he keeps moving. So thanks for doing that. And so that's kind of, that's what he's doing. He's trying to show us how we approach the law. And basically, our general tendency is, what's the rule? Where's the line?
How close can I get to the line? How much can I try to wiggle around this? Is that exactly what was said? My granddad told me this story one time when he was growing up. It was in like the 1930s, and he used to just eat butter. Now, I don't know if that's a thing you do, and I don't know if it is, if anyone's ever told you that's weird, but it is.
So like every time I've been at a fair and seen that they have fried butter, I've just thought, gross. And I guess my granddad, when he saw that, was like, dear diary, jackpot. Like, he just would eat butter. And so to the point that his mom was going somewhere, now butter, then, like he had like, they had like a mound of butter on a plate in their, I guess like whatever kept stuff cold. Ice, chest, freezer, refrigerator thing, whatever they had in the 1930s. I know that butter was different because they weren't buying like sticks.
They had like a mound on a plate. She told him before she left, it was such an issue that she's leaving. She has to tell him not to eat the butter. So she's going somewhere, and she looks at him and says, do not lay a finger on the butter. And he says, yes, ma'am. She leaves.
He opens the refrigerator. Puts his hands behind his back. He leans in and bites a large chunk out of the top of their butter. Closes the door. Walks off. Just pleased in his heart.
She gets home, sees what happened, sees that it's clearly just he bit it. And he doesn't even get in trouble. She was like, well played. I did say finger. I would have tore him up. Jesus' point as he's going through the section is that's what we do with any kind of rules we're given.
That's the natural inclination of the human heart is to say what exactly is the rule. What words exactly were used. And then try to figure out how to get what we want in and around the rules. That's our goal when it comes to rules. And so he's pushing back on that and saying, you've missed the point. Like my granddad missed the point.
The point was don't eat the butter. He missed it because he just focused on, he knew the point. But he figured out a way to get around it. And that's our goal. So whenever we come to the Bible and we say, what exactly does it say?
Jesus is going through this and saying, no, you've missed the point. That's not how this was supposed to be approached. So as we study the Bible, we try to understand what was the point he was making. What's the point in the context we're given? We don't want to just take a verse and say, here's what these words are without understanding the greater context. But as we've been studying this passage, we also believe that we can put weight on the actual words here and bear down on it.
And so what we did was the first week we talked, we said, here's the big picture. Here's what he's saying about the law. Here's what he's saying about how we fail and how we approach the law. And then we've gone back through and we're just saying, okay, what exactly is he saying and what can we learn from it? And so today we are going to spend time on the Christian sexual ethic, what the Bible teaches and how Jesus approaches human sexuality and marriage, what the overall Christian sexual ethic is. And I've got a quote here from C.S.
Lewis. He's a theologian from the 1900s. And he says this when talking about Christian sexual ethic. He calls it chastity, which is just Christianity's approach to sexuality. He says chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it.
The Christian rule is either marriage with complete faithfulness to your partner or else total abstinence. And so we would even have to amend that now because when he was speaking, there was no gay marriage. But Christians actually have to step in now and make it even more unpopular by saying we actually believe the Bible says that it's heterosexual marriage with complete faithfulness or else total abstinence. And he's right. He says this is the most unpopular thing Christians say. This is the worst virtue we have.
And he keeps going. He says now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct is wrong. Or our sexual instinct as it is now has gone wrong. One or the other. And he says of course being a Christian I think the instinct has gone wrong. I want to quote another well-known theologian Scarlett Johansson.
I read this in the Huff Post this week. Scarlett Johansson is an actress. If that just threw you off you don't know who she is. She's talking about monogamy and she says that she appreciates it. She appreciates monogamy appreciates marriage but that it's so hard and so difficult not only for her but for everyone else that it's unnatural. She believes it's unnatural for us to be monogamous.
To have one person that you devote all of your romance and love to. And C.S. Lewis is noticing the same issue. This is so against how we think and feel and want to approach. It's so contrary to our nature that something has had to go wrong. Either Christianity is wrong or we're wrong.
And that's what Scarlett Johansson is pointing out. She's saying it's unnatural. Natural it's just so difficult that it cannot be what it was what it's supposed to be. This can't be what we're made for. And so here's what we're going to do is we look at what Jesus says today. We're going to look at the words he says which Jesus kind of just throws a one-two punch and keeps moving.
He says very harsh things very Just kind of brings the hammer down and then keeps going. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at what he says and then as best we can we're going to try to understand what the big picture Christian teaching is. We're going to look at a couple other passages in the Bible to help us get our our head around this approach to human sexuality. And I think today is just going to be a little hard. I think it's going to be it's going to be hard. We're going to have to keep fighting our own intuition our own instincts as we try to understand what the Bible is saying.
For many of us as we look at specifically divorce it's just going to be painful. It's just going to be a hard morning. That for some of us who come from families where divorce has played a big issue for some of us who have been divorced some of us who are maybe going through a divorce currently or some of us who are considering divorce and thinking that is our our current best option today's just going to be it's just going to be painful as we try to understand this but hopefully by the end we'll get to see why the Bible says what it says and why ultimately Jesus is better. But let's let's we've agonized over this in preparation and it's going to take us a while to kind of say what we feel like needs to be said this morning.
But let's pray pray for us pray for our hearts pray for the people around you this morning that the Lord would help us to listen. God we thank you that as painful as it is you don't leave us alone when it comes to difficult situations and difficult issues that when we've made a mess of things you step in you step in by teaching us you step in by addressing us and speaking to us but ultimately Lord you step in by taking our sin our pain our brokenness and dying on a cross for it that you step in by joining us in the midst of it so God I just ask that you'd help us to listen that you'd help us to to find words to speak to you with to pray as we wrestle through this and ultimately we ask that you'd help us to believe to believe that you are better that you are good
Even when we can't see that and we ask for your help in Jesus name Amen We said early on as we started the Sermon on the Mount that Christians are designed to look different and that this is one of the areas where Jesus just kind of talks about church being salt and light that we're supposed to stand out in culture and that sexuality and our approach to marriage is one of the areas where Christians are just going to look different you're just going to look weird you're going to stand out in how we think about this and how we approach this you're going to have people around you say are you kidding me and we're going to have to say no I'm not and here's ultimately why I think it works out even though I have some of the same difficulties
And reservations that you have but culturally we're kind of all over the place when it comes to marriage this is this is I don't know if y'all have noticed this if you're watching any movie that has to do with like romance and relationships if the main characters start off not married the movie ends with magical they got together they're going to get married wedding stuff how many cartoons are like it's a wedding and they just ride off like I was I've got a little kid now and I'm watching more Disney cartoons and my wife likes them
So we watch Cinderella and I'm pretty sure this is the one where they like no Snow White they meet in the woods and just sing to each other it's really weird and then then they get married and then at Cinderella they meet at a dance dance with each other and then her foot fits in the shoe boom they get married they ride off in a carriage and then it says the curtains close and it says I lived happily ever after and I'm like do you know how awkward
That carriage ride is? these cats haven't even talked to each other like he doesn't even know she's got the most annoying laugh in the world like this is going to be so difficult for them but that's how movies work so like Hitch or whatever the end credits is like a wedding and they're like dancing around or whatever and that's it we've reached it magic happy land but if the movie starts off with the couple married the marriage is the problem like if it's a relationship romance movie and it starts out like
There's conflict and there's drama and there's tension and there should be because that's what makes a good movie conflict and drama and tension if you watch a movie that doesn't have tension it's a bad movie but those are our two competing messages that we get marriage is the route to happiness and to fulfillment romance is how you know who you are sexuality is who you are and it's the route to becoming a complete person and because we believe so much that romance
And sexuality are the route to happiness we treat a lot of marriages like marriage is the problem marriage is actually what's hindering me from being full from being fulfilled from being complete and so it's Jesus is speaking into that when we listen today that's how we have to hear and here's the thing as Christians we're going to look crazy I saw this stat recently I thought it was very interesting the National Center for Biotechnical Information did a study and their website is a.gov website
I'm not quite sure where they fall in our government structure but they do testing on stuff they did a study and they just got a bunch of TV shows and they coded them and 82% of them had sexual content some form of relationship marriage sex some 82% of the shows they got they said that American youth and I couldn't figure out how they were defining that American youth
See 14,000 depictions of sex a year on television 14,000 so I had seen that statistic I thought it was really interesting and I was thinking I know this has to affect how we think about it like this amount of exposure to sex and sexuality and marriage and like the messages we're being told like I know that's got to affect how we're thinking about it and then I read this in a book called Switch
Talking about it's kind of a psychology book sociology book about how to get people to make decisions and it said in the 1980s a Harvard professor named Jay Winston heard about designated drivers from Scandinavian countries he heard that Scandinavian countries had this concept of a designated driver where when you went out drinking one person wouldn't drink so they could drive and he knew that they were having seeing good results
That people were being safer there was less fatalities and road incidents incidents so he wanted to bring that to the US he's a Harvard professor he wanted to create out of nowhere a social norm did not exist in the US as far as he knew he's one of the only people who'd heard of it that they were doing this in other countries so he decided that the best way to do it was just to expose
People to it even if it was fictional didn't actually exist in real life if it was fictional so what they did was they got 160 television shows primetime TV shows to give it 5 seconds 160 television shows to give the concept 5 seconds they got The Cosby Show Mr. Belvedere Cheers Who's the Boss LA Law if you recognize some of those shows you just dated yourself they started in 1989
1988 By 1991 3 years later they got 160 shows to give it 5 seconds 3 years later 9 out of 10 Americans had heard about designated drivers 37% of all Americans including infants had actually been a designated driver now the infants weren't but they included all of them in their study 54% of frequent drinkers had been driven home by one they made it up and just stuck it in cheers did it 160 times
In 3 years everybody knew about it 40% Americans had actually been one youth including us with our adult we get to watch all the shows we want a mature show I can watch whatever I want my mom ain't telling me what to watch youth see 14,000 depictions of sex a year how much are we seeing and if you are going to tell me that does not affect how we think about it I'm going to be very inclined
To disagree with you if you're going to tell me that the amount that we see depictions of relationships how to communicate to each other how we ought to think about marriage how we ought to think about love how we ought to think about lust how we ought to think about sex we're going to see thousands of these hundreds a week if 160 depictions of a designated driver can change an entire nation in 3 years how many years
Have you been watching TV it's absolutely having an effect on us and Christians are going to look crazy if we stick to what the Bible says so let's read let's read what Jesus says it's going to be difficult to read and let's begin to walk through how we're supposed to understand this and think about it pick up in verse 27 you have heard that it was said you shall not
Commit adultery so Jesus again is kind of saying this is what the law is this is what the rule is but I'm trying to explain to you what the intent was and the fact that your heart matters not just your actions but I say to you verse 28 that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart if your right eye
Causes you to sin tear it out and throw it away for it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away it's better for you that you lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery Jesus uses harsh language to talk about very sensitive subjects and ties it to the concept of absolute eternal weight when he says that this needs
To happen otherwise hell hangs in the balance and in a culture where romance and relationships and sexuality and marriage is held up as the way to find fulfillment and the way to define yourself this is just hard to take in a second we're going to walk through and kind of just say here's what he says here here's what
He says here here's what he says here before we do that I want to take one quick zoomed out view at the bible's approach to marriage to help us understand why Jesus says this as harshly as he does God designed male and female brought them
Together in Genesis it was the first wedding he kind of presided over it the goal was that there would be monogamy one man one woman together devoted to each other as husband and wife they would leave their parents they would cleave to one another they would
Be one flesh God intentionally in the beginning of the bible took a naked man a naked woman brought them together and said y'all gonna go be one flesh and that's the first
Marriage so he tied marriage with sexuality sin enters the picture and it gets really messed up and if you want to read a lot of graphic depictions of terrible sexual Acts you need to look
No further than the old testament where it doesn't mince words and talks about a whole lot of sexual deviance that happens it is kind of weird when you're reading the bible and you feel like this is inappropriate
That's an odd experience to have when you're reading the bible but that's what happens in Ephesians 5 paul says and we're gonna look a little bit more at it later but paul says that the secret to marriage the mystery about it is that
It was originally intended to point us to the gospel that when God presided over the first marriage he meant for it to point us to the gospel which is Jesus's love for his people Jesus's love for
The church Jesus's love for his bride that's what the church is called Jesus's bride that marriage is meant to point us there that's why christians believe that marriage is a paint by Numbers meaning that all of us should get the same
Picture that husband wife together for life is meant to be pointing us to a bigger more real to a true reality of Jesus's love for the church that's the secret behind marriage that was the point
Originally that's why christians are very rigid about what we believe about marriage and sexuality because we believe sexuality sex and romance were designed for marriage and that marriage was designed to paint one picture and point us to the gospel my wife and I went to johnston south carolina
Yesterday which you may not have ever heard of because it barely exists a friend of mine works kind of around the state and he called one time and said I just left the middle of absolute nowhere he said I thought kind of columbia was nowhere this is like you got to get lost in nowhere
To find this place and I was like what and he said johnston I was like that's where my wife's from that's where my high school was and you are correct it is in the middle of absolute nowhere we're coming back from there last night riding down highway one and
It's kind of you know highway one just kind of weaves its way through south carolina and every once while we'd see a sign that would say gilbert and point that way or lexington columbia and point that way and they'd have these little Numbers on them that meant this is how far
You are away these are the mile markers this is how far you're gonna go we'd ride for a little while in that direction we'd see another one that said lexington columbia and the Numbers had gotten smaller they want to on them the reason
Is it's pointing to an actual place it's got to point a direction it's got to have an actual number that corresponds to something because you're going to a real place christians believe the same thing about marriage and the gospel that marriage is meant
To point towards Jesus it's meant to point towards his love for the church it's meant to point towards and so that's why we get very rigid and specific about it's got to look like this it's got to be this way all husbands should act
Like this all wives should act like this like we christianity steps in and is very concrete about it because we believe it points to one clear picture sex designed for marriage it has two major functions recreation and procreation that means
It's fun and it makes children it's the way God designed it intentionally designed to be enjoyable intentionally designed in healthy adults to make children when everything is working properly there should be children I saw something
Recently that said that the reason there was an argument for easy access abortion and contraceptives that said pregnancy is just too great a cost for something as small and simple as sex and as a christian my response to that
Is there's a reason why sex causes pregnancy like it was meant to happen inside of a marriage where there was a male and a female there to raise a child like that's how it's supposed to work it kind
Of feels like if someone argued that they needed to lower the penalty for accidentally shooting someone with a gun because the penalty of you know killing someone and having to go to jail for it is just too great a cost for something as fun as pistols and my immediate response would
Be pistols were designed to harm people and you say no no I just use it for fun and it's like yeah but that we still have to have some regulations around this there's got to be some rules because that's what it was made for it feels the same
It feels like that's the argument it's like no it was designed for a purpose now I think immediately especially if you haven't been around the church much hadn't read your bible when someone walks up here opens a bible says hi I'm a pastor let's talk about sex there's this immediate like oh here we go women cover yourselves up hide
Sex is dirty wrong and bad save it for your spouse there's some sort of we just got liberated we just got free we just got to use our sexuality to give us power and now immediately it's like no get it out of here it's terrible it's gonna ruin society bible treats sex the way
It does because it believes it has greater value than you do it believes it's more powerful than you think it is there's a reason why you don't have to get a license to drive a moped if you hit someone on a moped you get hurt your moped
Isn't hurting anything like you run into my truck with your moped I'm hopping out hopping back in that's it like that's how it works like there's a reason why you have to get a license for a car and the reason why you have to get a bigger more intense license for an 18 wheeler
Because they're powerful they have more capability there's more to them there's a reason why the bible steps in and draws real clear distinct lines around sexuality and marriage because God designed it to be potent to be powerful it's because it's lifted up as it matters when Christianity
Says that you should dress modestly it's not because we have a low view of your sexuality it's because we have a high view of it I believe it belongs to you and to your spouse and you should like that's why like if you came to me and said oh you're so ashamed of your money with your safety deposit box I'm not ashamed
Of it I like it I don't want you to have it oh you got a safe you're ashamed of your money it doesn't make any sense and that's that's the same way Christianity treats it that it matters it's valuable so as we read through this I want you to just as as much as you can let's try to
Listen and see what Jesus is saying we're going to move to another passage in a minute to try to help us understand it more because they also disagreed with it both the Pharisees and his disciples there has to be greater clarification and we get
That later in Matthew so verse 27 you've heard that you should not commit adultery I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart Jesus ties lust which is a sexual
Desire that's carried out visually as adultery I do not think so adultery specifically means you've kind of cheated on your spouse you've broken that relationship with your spouse that's what the word adultery means he's
Saying that lust is the same thing going on in your heart he's pointing out that you've got to stop sin while it's in your head before it gets to your heart before
It makes it into action he's saying it's the same issue I don't think he means to say that if you lust outside of being married so a non-married person lusting free and clear I don't
Think when he uses the word adultery he meant to say that lusting outside of marriage is fine I think it's possible he actually means all lust is actually an offense against your spouse whether you have one right now or not
Because all sexual desire was meant for a spouse and nowhere else that's the rightful place for it then he says if your right eye causes you to sin tear it out throw it away it's better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off throw it away it's better for you
To lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell we spent all our time on that last week talking about the graveness of sin the seriousness of sin and how much more serious Jesus takes it than we do it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give a certificate of divorce he's quoting Deuteronomy 24 there and he's speaking into a situation where they said
The rule says give her a certificate and so there was consistent amount of write a certificate hand it off like you could just anytime your wife was disagreeable to you you could get a divorce and so Jesus is speaking and saying you think you're accomplishing this by following the letter of the law but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual
Immorality and that's a different Greek word than he's used so far he means active sexual sin so that would be for them it would also include like if you married someone who had told you they were a virgin prior to getting married and then you found out they weren't because that was a grave issue in their culture it would include that it would include sexual
Sin while married with another person any kind of sexual action so adultery he's saying unless there's this going on unless they've already broken the sexual relationship you make her commit adultery whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery and so what Jesus said was there is no route from
Divorce outside of them already committing adultery outside of them already breaking the covenant through sexual sin there's no route that does not lead to greater sin greater brokenness he teaches this on a regular basis he teaches it here in Matthew 6 he teaches
It in Mark he teaches it in Luke it seems like it was something that he taught on a semi-regular basis so jump over to Matthew 19 because Jesus has taught this so much this very
Kind of aggressive controversial idea that you can't just get a divorce and be fine you can't just say well we filed the paperwork we're good that he actually has religious leaders show up to question him about
It Matthew 19 verse 1 now when Jesus had finished these sayings he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond
The Jordan and large crowds followed him and he healed them there and Pharisees those are religious leaders came up to him and tested
Him by asking is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause he answered have you not read that he who created them from
The beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife
And the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined together let not
Man separate so his response to can't we just get a divorce when we want to his response to that marriage is a sacrament meaning that
It belongs to the church it doesn't it belongs to humanity God designed it from creation and gave it to humanity that's what Jesus
Goes back and says no this is a creation ordinance it's given to humanity therefore and then he ties sex to it he says they'll become one flesh that's
Specifically talking about sex he says that they'll become one flesh and let not anybody tear that apart is never the goal of marriage to get
A divorce and so they have an issue with this they respond and they said to him what I think we want to say
Then why did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away what they just said was Deuteronomy says
Write a certificate Bible boy he says haven't you read they said you read it was a tree and that's hard to take but
His point when he responds to them was he says the hardness of your heart what he says is Moses was riding into a
Very messed up situation where this had gotten out of control and because of people's hard hearts marriages were a train wreck and because
Of people's hard hearts they weren't going to fix them and so Moses had to decide a system for how are we going to
Handle this but that was not God's intention that's Jesus' answer and that sexuality was designed for marriage so that sex outside of that
Covenantal relationship in marriage leads to sin and once you have covenanted with someone the only thing that works to break that effectively is sex with
Someone else adultery and I'm so thankful for the disciples in this passage verse 10 the disciples said to him if such is the
Case of a man with his wife it is better not to marry I have struggled immensely with this section of the Bible and
With what Jesus teaches about marriage and when I read the disciples I just say thank y'all for saying that to him I have
Struggled with what I want Jesus to say about marriage and what I think he actually does say about marriage and the disciples step
In and they say hold on a second the only way to end a marriage is a sin train wreck that's it no this
Person was bad you're okay he says no the thing that destroys marriage is sin and ultimately when there is a broken marriage if people move
On and remarry there's adultery he says that in Matthew Mark Luke that if so in what he said in Matthew 5 if your husband divorces
You and she remarries she commits adultery do you know how hard that is to take if you actually think about that what if
She had nothing to do with the divorce what if he just sent her off and he said no what happens is when they
Get remarried there's sin that's how they start their marriage now he does call it a marriage he doesn't say they're never married again
Or that one doesn't count but he I stand with the disciples some where I'm looking at what Jesus says and I go hold
A second what about this type of marriage you're telling me there's no way to get out of that outside of it being broken down by sin
There's no what about this lady whose husband is like this husband whose wife is like this like I want to bring to him
Pastoral situations that I'm aware of so here's what he responds with and I think I think it's helpful it helps win me over
I think it's refreshing I'm not completely won over by his response but Paul helps us later and we're going to Ephesians 5 to
Read what he says but here's how Jesus responds not everyone can receive this saying but only those to whom it is given I've
Heard people read that before and go oh okay good so not everyone has to stay married just the people who receive what he
Just said but Jesus keeps talking that's not what he means not everyone who receives this saying but only those to whom it is
Given for there are eunuchs who have been so from birth and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men and there
Are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven without going into too much detail about eunuchs they
Were sexually abstinent he's saying that you can be sexually abstinent for receive it Jesus backs up what the bible says which is some
People are going to receive marriage and they need to stay married some people can't receive that they're not given to marriage some people
Are going to be abstinent abstain completely from sexual activity and that's fine and if that's what you want to receive receive that so
The disciples say hold a second you mean to tell me there's no way out of my marriage and it'd be better off to
Not get married and Jesus says yeah that's fine and let me just say for single people in the room Jesus says yeah that's fine
You don't have to be married to be a complete human you don't have to have sex to be a complete human that's not
The path to fulfillment that's not the path to happiness that's what we believe as Christians he's not married he never has sex this
Seems so crazy to our culture who are so sex crazy that we made the da Vinci code which is like obviously he had to
Have a secret girlfriend nobody's that happy without a girl or some sort of love interest we have all these kind of like and
Jesus says no I'm a full complete perfect human for the next person who says this in the Bible and says it more forcefully
Is Paul he says that in first Corinthians chapter seven he like doubles down on it he says I wish all of y'all would not
Get married and then you could focus more on Jesus mission he says the guys who are worried about making their wife happy the
Wives are worried about making their husband happy he says I'm just trying to do what Jesus wants I got all the free time
In the world people are like I gotta get home my wife is cooking dinner he like I ain't gonna get home I'm working for
Jesus that's what Paul says I wish y'all could not get married but if you want to that's fine that's what Paul says not
Exactly like that I paraphrase a little bit but that was his point you can be a full complete human and never get married
But he says if you do get married the point of marriage is to stay married that's the goal that's that's Jesus' stance on
This I want to take a second before I kind of got down to I figured out as I was working through this my
Biggest argument against this and that's where I want us to end this morning but before we get there I want to take a
Second and just kind of with what we've said so far I want to sum up a few things if you are single I want
To take a second and speak to single married if you are single some of you are going to get married that's good the
Bible says marriage is good some of you are not going to be married Christianity is the first group people who came along and said
You can be a full complete human and never be married that's great it's celebrated some of you are going to get married some
Of you aren't that's fine for those of your goal as you follow Jesus is to abstain sexually until you get married that will not
Make all of your married sexual activity magical and amazing I don't I think that's been told to people in the church like if
You save yourself for sex it's going to be the most amazing thing no sex is designed for marriage it's designed to be good
Saving yourself sexually for marriage is designed because you are supposed to devote yourself to your spouse and covenant with them and say everything that belongs
To me belongs to you that's what sex is supposed to be marriage is not going to save you it is not how you level up
As a person some of you are thinking I've got problems but when I get married it'll fix me I'm lonely and sad but when I get married
It'll fix me if I can just get married then I'll know I'm cared about then I'll know I'm complete then I'll know I'm whole
That is not going to happen and if you would like to know whether I'm telling the truth ask a married person if getting
Married fixed them or made them whole and complete and utterly satisfied it doesn't work that way wasn't designed to the Bible never points
To marriage as the you're fine so if you're not married you're single in the room marriage is fine it's good don't believe it's going
To fix you it's not how you level up as a human it's not how you become a whole person it's not true if
You're not married in the room and you do not you're not going to get married you're not supposed to God has laid that
Out for you that's not how life is going to work for you you're fine you're a full complete human I do want to
Talk to the married people in regards to single people married people stop stop acting like marriage is the thing that has to happen
To your single friends stop acting like they don't count as a person until they are married stop asking them who they are dating
Stop watching them have a conversation with a friend and walking over and going stop it just stop if you have a single friend
Who is trying to date people and want you to set them up go for it if you have a single friend who has
Not asked you to do that stop marriage did not complete you did not fulfill you did not magically make you an amazing person
It did married people we have to if we believe this if the church actually believes this if we are going to stand with
Any amount of credibility and look at a person who has been divorced and say that we believe that you should not get remarried
If we stand with any amount of credibility and look at someone who struggles the same gender attraction and say that you should live
Your entire life not married if we're going to stand with any amount of credibility and look at someone who says I just don't
Think I'm supposed to get married and we're going to say we agree with the apostle Paul that that's beautiful and you should spend
Your life for Jesus mission if we're going to say that with any amount of credibility we have to open our homes on holidays we have
To open our homes on random Thursdays we've been taught that the route to life the time to have a roommate if you're a
Certain age we've over sexualized everything we've got to open our homes Anna and I struggle with this because we're both friendly kind of introvert
People we struggle at times with wanting our house to just be the place where we sit and don't think or interact with people
And we struggle with that being how we interact with each other we have to work on that but we struggle with not wanting
People but we've got to we've got to open our homes we can't just say oh that's great be alone forever we've got to have
People over for Christmas and Thanksgiving and we've got to have them over random nights of the week to help us raise our kids
And to help us love well and serve well also and this one's going to sound weird and it's weird to me and I've
Been working on it and it's still weird we're going to have to physically touch single people in non-sexual ways super weird to say all
Right got it out there this means put your arm around somebody we have acted like if you were single and you need physically
To be touched get a cat or a dog if you're single and you want someone to act like they like you get a
Dog if you want someone you have to pursue and they hide from you and act like they don't care about you get a
Cat we should be able to sit down put arm around somebody sit close to them share a couch hug somebody for longer than
Two seconds guys that's super weird for me I don't like touching people I'm working on it I got some people that I'm intentionally trying to be like
Hey good to see you and like keep my hand there like longer than I want to which was beyond the first time I
Touched them so but I believe it's important also we've got to quit stealing the word love from the Bible and making it only
Mean romance how many times have heard first Corinthians 13 read at a wedding that's the one that says love never fails love never gives
Up love never ends like I'm not quoting it perfectly but I think I actually started singing some sort of a pop song in
The middle of that but you know which one I'm talking about the word there Paul's writing to a church not a couple he's
Writing to his people writing to the church and saying this is our love for each other we've acted like if you're not in
A relationship you don't get the real full meaning of love that's not true the reason that's good to read at weddings is because
It's meant to be single people you get to live a full robust real life people who are not single who are married have deep
Meaningful friendships with people where you share intimate details about your life with single people let them do the same it makes what Jesus
Says tenable we have to follow up our actions with what we say we believe okay married couples in the room take divorce off the
Table don't bring it up in arguments don't hold it over top of each other don't think about it that's not the intent I say
This to people periodically even if your goal is just happiness on earth best shot at that is the spouse you're married to that's
The way the Bible lays it out best shot is the spouse of your youth that's the best shot you got at it divorce
Is painful and traumatic harmful every person that you're married to is a sinner and broken there's no shame in struggling there's no shame
In getting counseling we do counseling there's a recovery program we'll help if you're in our church family we'll help pay for marriage counseling we
Think it's perfectly fine at times to say we've had the same argument 1300 dimes we only know how to run this track we need
Somebody else to talk to that's fine all good marriages that last have seasons where they could have just hung it up you talk
To any marriage that's last any couple that's lasted they have seasons where they say yeah we could have just walked away this five
Years was terrible if you are married in the room and this is not your first marriage I have a couple the answer to
That is quite possibly with as strongly as Jesus says it quite possibly and the next question is so what do I do how
Does that work there's a story in John chapter 8 where they catch a lady who is in committing adultery at that moment they
Bring her to Jesus and they say we just caught her adultery what are you going to do the law says we should kill
Her and Jesus says whichever one of y'all is sinless throw the first stone the rest of us will follow you one by one the
Bible tells us starting with the oldest to the youngest so young people in the room who think you're sinless pay attention to the
Old people who put their stones down and walked away Jesus looks at her and she says am I not condemned he says they haven't condemned
You and neither do I go and sin no more there's forgiveness in Jesus and your marriage counts your marriage is real every time it's
Talked about Jesus treats it like a marriage stay married repent where you need to repent and move forward in the freedom that Jesus
Doesn't condemn you you get to move on don't make it worse fight for this marriage make this marriage good and beautiful make it
Point to the gospel you're free and forgiven there's hope if you are divorced and single your marriage was not meant to end that way and I'm sorry
Marriage is painful divorce is painful I'm going to talk about that on the ride home divorce is painful in some ways it's more painful than a death there's a lot of regret and shame and despair and guilt and I want
You to know Jesus pays for our guilt he takes our shame where there's regret he's a redeemer meaning he steps into broken messes cleans them up makes them more beautiful than they ever were where there's despair
He's our hope the bible never holds up marriage as the thing that's going to fix us it never holds up romance is the thing that's going to fix us or make us whole it always only singularly solely
And forever points to Jesus to do that there's hope for you given the circumstances of your divorce you may not be supposed to get remarried we would love to talk with you about that struggle with you over that
Wrestle through the scriptures together on that and then walk with you in life whichever way that plays out romance is not essential to our happiness and fullness and that was the biggest complaint
I had as I was reading what Jesus had to say about marriage and divorce is that I feel like when Jesus says if you get a divorce you should not get remarried or when he looks at single people and says some of you should just be single
Forever I have been indoctrinated to believe that marriage is one of the primary ways if not the primary way that romance is the primary way sexuality is the primary way to define who you are and to
Find fulfillment and happiness and the Bible never even comes close to saying that so when the Bible looks at anyone and says you shouldn't get married it does not think it just robbed you of happiness although I would have a hard time saying that
Because there's a part of me that believes I am if I have to counsel a divorcee and say I believe the Bible tells you that you should not get married again there's part of me that thinks there went happiness but Jesus never thinks
That the Bible never says that it never holds marriage up that way it never looks at romance that way it only always points to Jesus singularly and solely for our joy and hope and delight and satisfaction and fulfillment and it even
Does it in the midst of when it's talking about marriage go to Ephesians 5 as we finish up this is what wins me over this is what makes me go okay I trust you even though I don't like some of this even though I would have tried to lay it out differently in my own
Wisdom and even though I know that that time is very lacking verse 25 Paul's talking to husbands and wives he's talking beginning in 22 to wives we're going to pick up in 25 as he paints a beautiful picture of what a husband's supposed to look like and he's going to tell us why he says it
That way so page 569 if you have one of the white bibles in the rows chapter 5 verse 25 husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so he says here's how you ought to love he's pointing to Jesus this is the picture of
Love that we have that Jesus loves the church and he gave himself up for her the church is everyone who's placed their faith in Jesus that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot
Or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish in the same way husbands love their wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes it and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are
Members of his body therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh this mystery and that that word's also secret this mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church however even though it refers to
Christ and the church let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband Paul says the secret behind marriage the mystery behind marriage is that it ultimately points us to the really good husband it ultimately points us to the true
Husband Jesus who loves pursues and gave himself up for the church marriage is not the fulfillment completion road to happiness Jesus is marriage is only ever meant to point us to Jesus so if you're married
That's how you ought to love that's how you ought to serve if you're not married that's how Jesus loves and serves that's the way it works all of it ultimately is pointed to Jesus and his love for
The church and his love for his people only he can ever fulfill us make us whole mend our souls love us the way that a good husband ought to love English theologian J.I. Packer
Explains it this way it says through setting his love on human beings God has voluntarily bound up his own final happiness with theirs it's not for nothing that the Bible habitually speaks of God as a loving
Father and husband of his people God was happy before they were made he would have continued happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned but as
It is he has set his love upon particular sinners and this means that by his own free voluntary choice he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again until he
Has brought every one of them to heaven he has in effect resolved that from now on and for all eternity his happiness shall be conditioned upon theirs a good husband a good father has their happiness
Wrapped up in their children in their spouse can't be fully and unmixed happy without the other being happy and fulfilled and complete and what
It says is that Jesus looked at the church and says I'm tying my happiness to yours when we want to respond that this is
Against our happiness and we want to use a trump card do whatever makes you happy Jesus has said I love you and therefore I've
Tied my happiness to yours and I'm also worked up some questions that we get frequently asked when we talk about this we're going
To do some Q&A here in a second I'm going to pray for us Raz is going to come up here and we're going to
Walk through a few questions but let's pray God we thank you for your word we thank you for your help we pray that
You'd help us to trust you to believe in you to follow you even in places where we don't understand where we don't know
Why things are working the way they're working or why your word says what it says pray that you'd help us to look to
The cross to know that you are for our good that you have joined yourself with us both in our despair and in your
Happiness in Jesus name we pray amen we do this from time to time where we do some Q&A we usually try to open it up
For people to send in questions this time specifically we also had some questions that we just know get asked on a regular basis
When we talk about this topic we answer a few questions and then we hope that this kind of Q&A is just the beginning
Of it we are wide open about any of this so this is Raz he's one of our pastors I'm going to read out questions we're
Going to tackle them pretty quickly give a biblical answer rather than a case by case kind of answer because there's a million hypothetical situations that
Everyone can dream up when each question comes up on the screen so let's look at the first one okay the first question is when
Is it okay to get a divorce let me start by saying that that's pretty similar to the question that the Pharisees asked the Pharisees came and said
Is it okay to get a divorce for any reason so to ask the question when is it okay to get a divorce or really to
Ask any question that presupposes that divorce is an option is going to be difficult to answer because it's kind of the wrong question if
Divorce is presupposed as an option then the Bible is going to say stay married the answer is marriage is not supposed to end in divorce and so this is one of those questions that
Is saying I'm looking for a divorce what are my options here and the Bible's immediate response is going to be marriage is good you're married you should stay married divorce
Is not an option unless it really has to be now that opens the door for when does it really have to be and that
Makes this question become actually a whole lot more serious because if it's asked in an inquisitive way then it's missing the point but if there's some
Serious sin issues going on in someone's life it really has to be a more targeted question about which how bad does the sin
Have to be how frequent is the sin can it be resolved is staying married no longer an option and I think typically we
Get our intentions in asking this question are typically off that that haven't been said the two kind of most common cited specific instances
Are the ones we read today in Matthew 5 and 19 where Jesus says except for sexual immorality which would be active sexual sin in the marriage in their
Culture would also have included sexual sin prior to the marriage because they would have said that that broke the covenant you had lied about being
Sexually pure it's a little bit different in our culture and usually people know what they're getting into when they get married sexual immorality also Paul in
1 Corinthians 7 has to address a different situation because when Jesus talks the church hadn't begun yet fully when Paul is writing two churches and saying if
You are a Christian you got married you and your spouse are married everything is fine but you became a Christian and suddenly your
Whole life view has now changed about what is okay what is not okay and your spouse says I don't want to be married
To you anymore and they just leave they're not a Christian but they just say I'm kind of done with this because I can't
Handle you being a Christian and our life being this way Paul says you're free which there is some argument over whether or not that
Means free to not chase them down or that means free to get remarried ultimately all of the situations that lead to divorce are
A mess and they're painful and we want to walk shoulder to shoulder with you through it be as helpful as possible help fight
For your marriage to last and to get past this stuff but we want to have any of those conversations we can I think
Also because the Bible doesn't say this the next follow up question is what about abuse so our response to that first of all
Is if that is you and you are in this room we want you to come talk to us Paul says this in 1
Corinthians that I think helps us with that if I can find it I I am going to read it out loud to the
Married I give this charge not I but the Lord this is verse 10 the wife should not separate from her husband but if
She does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife I think that helps
Us out where it's like you shouldn't do this this isn't the goal but if you have to leave leave but with the goal
Being reconciliation not moving on and so to get out of an abusive situation to get out of a broken situation is actually okay
You should do that we want to help we have some full grown men that want to talk to your husband and but the
Goal should be reconciliation that your husband would repent that you can work this out or that you would stay unmarried because of how
Messed up it's gotten so what kind of like Paul lays that up let's go to the next question does being a new creation in christ mean
That a marriage that happened before you became a christian does it mean that that marriage doesn't count because you're not a new creation yeah
Sure does being a new creation in christ mean that a marriage that happened before you became a christian doesn't count okay so new creation in
Christ that's a quote from Galatians and more specifically probably second corinthians five um that's kind of taken out of context I have heard that and I've heard pastors say
That I've heard people say you know once you become a christian whatever happened in the past doesn't count I think when Jesus says bases it off of
Creation and just applies it across the board to all marriages I don't think that's actually true I think you're taking that out of context and
Applying it to something that that it's not meant to apply to what he's saying is you are made new all of your old
Sins pass away the same way that all of us are free not condemned from all of our sins we are a new creation
But that does not change some of the consequences of what's happened in our past and how we ought to move forward in faithfulness
And obedience so no I don't think so I think if that were true then we would have seen Jesus telling people once they
Become a christian they have to get remarried and there is that never ever happens if people are not it is never considered invalid
And even when he talks to the woman at the well he refers to all of her marriages as marriages all of them are
Considered treated as if they were all actual marriages does the bible ever clearly say what sexual immorality is first of all we do
We usually I only want to ever make the bible define a word when I kind of want to disagree with what I think it means
So that may not be you that is me also just when I'm going to I'm going to help show y'all what I do whenever I
See something in the bible and I really want to know what it means Raz what's that word mean in Greek he does Greek
I did that a bunch for this sermon is that a real question yeah sure okay so the Greek word that is translated into
English is sexual immorality is a word in Greek it's pornea and pornea used to be translated to fornication back when people used to say that word in English but they don't say that
Word anymore so it doesn't make sense to kind of cram into the biblical vocabulary so sexual immorality is the word that they the
Phrase that they used to translate pornea and what pornea means in Greek is any sexual act that occurs outside of a heterosexual monogamous for life
Marriage so a lot of people say what does that mean though what does that include that includes a bunch of things anything that is outside anything that is sexual and physical outside marriage is included
In that that's prostitution incest that is sex before marriage that is it covers a lot of things and I think what Chet was saying is that we want to argue with definitions that's only ever a thing when we want to get away with something when we want
To say what I'm doing doesn't count nobody hears you shouldn't murder and says yeah but let's define murder see what the Greek word said let's see what 10 different translators translated as oh they all said murder I wonder if it counts
If it was an accident I wonder if it counts if I did it to 50 people at once nobody makes arguments trying to justify things nobody questions the definition of a word until they're trying to justify something at least that's the most often time I want to maybe you're just curious
But that doesn't usually happen question they didn't have this at least not in the form that we have it does that apply to pornography that's a good question we have taught from this platform in the past that sexual immorality that pornography and
Sorry for the language masturbation falls under sexual immorality as a result of Che was saying just during the sermon that we sweated this passage a lot in the past week we kind of went Pharisee on it and tried to define terms and understand it like to the letter of the law
So that we could teach clearly on this which I think at times we were missing the point but this question came up for us today we were missing the point today no no no not today during the week sorry during the week when
We were trying to dissect this passage and find out what does it actually say we were pulling a Pharisee move and saying yeah but does it actually mean this and sure Jesus was saying stay married the question was does pornography count there are there are
Three terms that we used from the Matthew passage in Greek it doesn't matter what they were in Greek in English they are lust adultery and sexual immorality through discussions this week and research and trying to dig into the Greek text I think most likely now it
Doesn't really matter at the end of the day but most likely pornography fits more into the lust category and less into the sexual immorality category at the end of the day Jesus just said any man who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery in their heart and that's a big deal and we're not saying no longer an issue
You guys just go ahead and deal with like no it's still in the same category we still have sin issues when it comes to pornography and masturbation and stuff but it's probably not one of the categories that Jesus has just said you can get divorced over this it's I think it's ripped out of that category because if if somebody's struggling with
A pornography addiction we wouldn't say your next step is to get divorced that's just I think that misreads the text even if someone was struggling with sexual immorality we wouldn't say that and that's not what Jesus would say either the goal is to reconcile to repent
And to move forward okay yeah let's go to another question what if someone gets married and then they realize realizes and then realizes they made a mistake our third question answerer also I would be inclined to agree with him that
That there and this is what this is what this is what the conversation I get to have with people when they ask I'm just not sure if the person I'm married to is the one because we've pumped that idea into the world that you have a soulmate
Or whatever one true soulmate which by the way comes from Greek mythology where souls used to be have like two heads four arms four legs and the gods cut you in half and you have one true soulmate that idea does not come from scripture
It comes from some weird soul cut nonsense stuff from mythology here's our answer to that and here's the Bible's answer to that are you married to them they're the one I have good news for all you married people it's the
One you found them that's how it works stay married fight for the marriage you have you're married to the one keep it going make it work and yes in some ways you're going to realize you made a mistake
Because you're going to think I thought this was going to fix me and be magical and they're terrible and also I've learned I'm way more terrible than I thought and so yeah fight for it make it good and seek counsel where you need it
But yeah you're married to the one so go make it work that's the last question if you have more questions hang out with the community group this week talk about it as a group I think that would be a really good way to handle
I would suggest probably don't come up with hypotheticals because as soon as you come up with hypotheticals you're probably asking the wrong question also if something was unclear today from what was said because periodically things are just come over talking to me I'll be hanging out right here to make sure that that it's clear and if
You're gonna be upset I at least want to make sure you're upset for the right thing not something I should have said better all right you wanna pray for us and we'll get sure let's pray God we thank you for Jesus and the power that he has to reconcile us to you even though we're fallen even though we're sinful I pray for the
People in our church family who are dealing with some of the mess that occurs when when sin enters into a marriage and starts destroying things and I pray that they will seek you that they will seek what it is that you're calling them to and I pray that as a church family we can rally around those people and encourage them to seek Jesus in all things pray for a church family in general that we would hold marriage tightly with a
Biblical standard that we would hold sexuality tightly with a biblical standard and that we would constantly pursue you with our lives in all of it it's in Jesus name
Relationships in the Kingdom
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in Matthew chapter 5. We have been walking through the Sermon on the Mount. We're in our fourth week.
We'll be in Matthew chapter 5. It's on page 473. If you have one of the white Bibles, it's in the row. So in this section, we actually kind of walked through this part last week. We looked at Jesus' big point through this overall section where he's basically saying, you've heard the rules, you've heard the law, but I'm saying it's actually more than that. It's greater than that.
It's deeper than that. It's not just about your behavior, but it's also about your heart. And so we said that we were kind of looking at that idea and that we were going to spend a couple of weeks looking specifically at the topics he covers as he goes through that. And so he says, again, it's not just the rules, but it's about what's going on inside of you that matters. And so specifically as we kind of look at this, we have, I think, an advantage over the disciples who were hearing it for the first time. Because here's how this works.
We know about the cross. If this is your first time ever hanging out with a church, you still most likely know that Jesus died on a cross. If you ask people about Jesus, they'll say he died for our sins. Whether or not they believe that or not, whether or not they really know what that means, they've heard it. Most likely. We get to look back at everything we read, everything Jesus teaches, all of Scripture.
We get to look back at it through the cross. We get to understand the full implications of it because we know the whole story. See, the Bible is, from beginning to end, it's telling a one cohesive story. From where it begins in Genesis to where it ends in Revelation, it's one cohesive story that God is telling that he's unfolding throughout time. So, the disciples would have heard what Jesus taught, and then continued to go with him and walk with him, and they wouldn't have known the full extent of his meaning until after he rose from the dead. And then they would have to go, Oh, that's why he said, Like, I feel like they had these conversations, like, You remember that time where he said this, and we were all like, I have no clue what he's talking about?
I now know what he was talking about. Like, they got to do that. Like, if you, let me give you an example of this. There are some movies that you can never watch the same way twice. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, Like, you can't watch them, and then watch them again, and something, like, The Sixth Sense does such a good job that if you watch it, when it's over, you're like, I'm gonna need to watch that again. Because you almost, like, want to argue with, they didn't trick you that well.
And you watch it again, you're like, this all makes sense. Like, does that make sense? Like, you see what I'm, like, I've said sense so many times right now, because of the name of the movie. The Sixth Sense, We can't watch it the same way twice, and that's the way it is for us with the gospel. We can't look back at what Jesus is doing. We can't look back at the Old Testament without seeing it through the lens of the gospel.
So when Proverbs tells us how much God cares about the poor, we get to go, Yeah, but not just cares about them, but comes one of them. When the Bible tells us how close he is to the brokenhearted, we get to say, Yes, he's not just close to them, he becomes, he joins us. When the Bible says how much he hates sin, but also how much he loves us, that fully gets unraveled, that picture gets made crystal clear in the cross, where he hates sin so much he dies for, but loves us so much he was willing to die gladly for us. So as we read this text today, we're going to read it as Christians. We're going to continually look back through the cross to help us understand fully what Jesus means here, the greatest extent of what he's trying to say.
So we're going to be talking about anger and reconciliation. So anger and then our broken relationships and how we need to mend those. So today is going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to pray for us, and then we're going to start reading the text. God, we thank you for your grace. Thank you for the gospel that we get to stand before you, being made holy and blameless and above reproach because you died for us, because you actively came to reconcile us to yourself.
I pray that today specifically your Holy Spirit would be at work in us to help us to see, see our hearts, see our anger, see our relationships the way you see them, that you would lay us bare, that you would expose us before you and before your word, that you would graciously and in your kindness lead us to repentance. In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to pick up in verse 21. Chapter 5, verse 21. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So Jesus says, you've heard not to murder. He doesn't disagree with that, but he says, you've heard if you murder, you'll be liable to judgment. What I'm saying is that if you're angry with your brother, you'll be liable to judgment. He says it's not just your actions, it's not just this major big sin. You ever notice that in our community groups or when you're talking in the Christian circles and you'll say stuff like, I know I have sin, it's not like I've murdered anybody.
And Jesus is saying that actually isn't really coherent. What's going on in your heart? Are you angry? Are you holding on to anger? Like he sees everything and it all matters. It's not just your actions or your big bad sins.
It's actually what's going on internally. Now, we spent a good bit of time on this in our Killjoy series where we talked about anger and kind of how it's killing us and robbing us of joy. We did a little more time than we can today on kind of a theology of anger. Here's the thing. The Bible tells us that God gets angry. It also tells us that we should, in certain circumstances, be angry.
Romans actually says, be angry and do not sin. So anger is an emotion. It also is an appropriate response to brokenness and sin and legitimate harm that has been caused. Like there are certain things we should be angry about. But the question is, what are we doing with our anger?
How are we responding in our anger? And so Jesus says that when you are angry at someone, realize that that's to be questioned. That's to be examined. That God is going to look at our hearts. That we are liable for judgment in our anger against each other. And specifically here, I think because he's going to use the word brother throughout, that he's specifically helping them see deep, meaningful Christian relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ, but also just relationships with those we're around, that we know personally.
He's going to go further later and talk about loving our enemies, but mostly today it's going to be about our relationships with those in front of us. Okay, let me help you see a picture of this and what Jesus is getting at. Let's read back through this and kind of help us see what he says and then I want to give us a few examples. But I say to you, this is verse 22, I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. So that's an internal anger.
Then he says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. So he's increased the judgment, not just judgment, now it's the council, you're going to face more people, but it's, you've acted on it now. You've said something, you've flown off the handle or you've been talking behind someone's back, so it's, you've insulted them. Then he says, whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So it seems there that he's either just gotten more specific, so you're angry and then more specifically a type of anger is insult and more specifically a type of insult is saying you fool.
I think he's also saying that that's internal, it's what you've acted on and then we'll see in a minute that fool, in a lot of ways, kind of has to do with your attitude towards them, your contempt of them. All right. Hopefully in your life, you have known some grandmothers. I want you to think back to, hopefully, hopefully you had your own grandmothers, but also hopefully your life was enriched by other people's grandmothers or other grandmotherly type ladies just kind of making you one of their grandkids. I hope that's happened. It's wonderful when it does.
I hope that you've been invited to as many loving, grandmothery type relationships in your life as possible. I want you to think about the fact that maybe it's your grandmother, maybe it's just some lady that lives on your street. I want you to picture for a minute a sweet, gentle, I mean, makes a mean pecan pie grandmother. We'll still let you eat it if you pronounce it pecan. Like she's sweet, loving, here's what I think, here's what I think we need to see and what I think Jesus is pushing on us a little bit. If you got to know her and got to talking with her, you might find over time that there's a certain group of people that she would never attack, never go out of her way to harm, never murder, but there's a certain group of people that she doesn't have much nice to say about them, isn't really going to give them much time in her life, isn't really going to care about them.
Maybe she draws that line straight across racial lines. Maybe it's not that well defined, maybe it just has to do with skin tone, but those people don't have much value to her. She's maybe not going to pop off with a lot of racist things, but maybe you just, as you get to know her, you realize there's a whole segment of people that she just isn't going to have anything to do with. Maybe it's not that at all. Maybe there's just a few individuals in her life that you found out you're not even really allowed to talk about in front of her. She'll say stuff like, we don't mention Clara Jones in this house.
That's all I have to say about that. Because there's something that's happened, there's some sort of a relationship, there's something that's broken down. Maybe it's just a type of person. Lazy. Those people with, those people who, every once in a while this stuff just comes out, and here's the thing. All of us know intrinsically, feel the weight of, I'm going to be held accountable for my actions, that all of those who have murdered, every time you watch one of these shows about murders and they talk to the family and stuff, they'll often say, I know one day he's going to meet his maker.
I know one day she's going to have to be held accountable for this. We know that intrinsically. But what Jesus just said was, every murderer on death row is going to have to stand before God and be liable for judgment. But so is every little old lady. She's going to have to walk up and lay her heart bare before God. Every single one of us is going to have to lay our heart in front of him, depending on our attitudes and our anger and our contempt for others.
There's a person you went to school with, very quiet. You don't remember him. You vaguely do. If someone showed you a picture, you might kind of remember. That's just quiet. It was not warm, but friendly, cordial.
Some of you work with this guy now. Like he went to school with some of you and now he's at some of your jobs. Like you, kind, not going to cause any problems. Not going to show up and disrupt anything. It's just, yeah, there, doing his homework, doing his job. but inside, seething with anger towards teachers, friends, boss, family, just eating away at. Not going to hurt anybody.
This person isn't going to show up with a weapon. You knock everything out of their hand. They're almost like going to apologize to you and pile it all back up, but there's something inside of them at work. That's what Jesus is talking about. That little old ladies and kind gentlemen, he's looking at our hearts. He's looking on the inside to see what's going on.
So, let me ask a few questions. Help us see this a little better. But I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Okay, so some of you are like a match. Your anger fires up, fires off, blazes up, and then it's gone. That's it.
You knock the thing over and then you're like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have acted like that. You, maybe, you just, you, and then you, like you can't, but there's like, he says every time there's anger going on, like that's questionable. Some of you aren't a match. You're like a smoldering coal. Nobody even knows you're on fire. But you're just, inside, you're smoldering.
Every once in a while it flares up. I know, like I have a fire pit in my backyard and sometimes I'll have a fire and then I'll hose it down and I'll go inside and it'll be completely out and I'll come back later and it's caught on fire again because there was stuff still down there smoldering. Some of you, that's the type of anger, that it's a long-term burning anger. So, who do you have bitterness towards? Who do you have anger towards? Whose name makes you just kind of go, who is it you don't want mentioned around you?
Who, what situations and circumstances are you most likely to be set off? Jesus says all that deserves to be questioned, looked at, repented of. He says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Okay, some of you are good at insults. Some of you aren't good but you give it the old college try and you get in an argument and you're just gonna, you're just gonna say something. You're just gonna take a shot.
Some of you know how to completely destroy someone. The closer you get to them the better you are at it. Some of you, you're not insulting anyone to their face. You just have a whole lot to say about them when they're not around. And he says, that's an issue. That's, don't just think, well I haven't done this big action.
I haven't just actively harmed them. He says, no like, insulting someone. Be liable to the council. And then he says, whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So as I was reading about this, that could just be an example.
He could just be giving you an example. He is not specifically, some of you maybe have heard, don't ever call somebody a fool. Call whatever else you want. But Jesus said, don't say you fool. That's not, like it's either just an example of an insult. One of the commentaries I read said it actually means empty headed person and that it in some ways is more of a tone or a posture than a specific insult.
So really it has to do more with contempt than anything. It's people that you've written off. So can I, let me just tell you how this works for me. Let me be a little honest with you here. Um, so I'm kind of, uh, self-righteous, religious, meaning that I think I can follow rules and do a good job. I'm not overly rebellious.
It's just kind of my, my MO. So, um, when I read the Bible, I'm mostly, other than, by God's grace, realize that he justifies me. I try to justify myself as I read. So, as I was reading through this, uh, whoever murders, okay, I haven't. So, it's like, cool. Uh, but I say to everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable for judgment.
And when I really got to thinking about that, I don't have a very short temper. I used to, um, and I would get angry and punch people. I don't do that, um, as much anymore. Uh, by God's grace, I'm not, I don't have a short of temper. I was thinking about it recently. I thought like maybe I've grown.
It also may just be that I'm not on playgrounds anymore. So nobody's putting their hands on me. Um, so I don't know if we went into the lobby and you started pushing me how I would handle it. But for the most part, in normal adult society, I don't have a big temper. I don't really throw stuff or cuss or anything like that. Uh, sorry, that's, yep, I can't, I don't cuss when I'm angry.
Um, then it says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. I, I mostly kind of take myself off the hook there because it's like, well, I only sarcastically insult people, but those are my friends. I don't really use words as weapons and arguments. Like I'm, that's not really my thing. Mostly because when I get angry, I don't talk well. Um, so that's not really, I, I don't, I try not to say stuff behind people's backs.
So, so far in this list, I'm kind of like, I'm okay. Uh, and then it says, whoever says you fool. And that I really think is contempt. It's just writing someone off. And this is where Jesus just flays me. Let me, let me give you some phrases from my vocabulary.
He's an idiot. And the way, when that comes out is you're telling me a story about someone who's done something that was what I think an idiot would do. And I do my hand like this to mean you don't have to acknowledge them. He's an idiot. Uh, I, I, this is in my vocabulary. I can't stand him or I can't stand people who, or, and it makes me sick when contempt is the belief that because of our actions, attitude, intelligence, life, circumstances, we're better than someone else.
Now, I don't know where Jesus called you out. That's where he called me out. I don't know if for some of you, you've, you're really good at holding a grudge. I'm not. I don't think that's any particular, I'm not bragging. I don't, I actually think it says that my memory's not that good.
Some of you are very good at holding a grudge. Some of you fly off the handle all the time. Maybe you're quick to repent. Some of you, maybe you're, you, you use words as ballistic missiles. I don't know, but I, I feel like every single one of us at some point on here, there's something as Jesus begins to unfold our heart that begins to show up. But it keeps going.
So, okay, so he starts this sentence with so, meaning in light of the fact that all of this makes you liable for judgment, in light of the fact that if your attitude of anger continues, you stand held accountable for it, in light of that, so, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come offer your gift. So what he's saying is if you're, if you're bringing your gift to the altar and these were Jewish people he was talking to, so they would have gone to the temple and they would have brought first fruits from there, if they had fields, they would have brought fruit, they would have brought, they could bring wine as an offering, they could bring grain as an offering, most often they were bringing an animal for a sacrifice. They'd bring a goat or depending on their wealth status they would bring like a small bird.
Here's why they were bringing it. If they're bringing a sacrifice they're bringing it to the altar to say, God I have sinned and I need to be forgiven. So he says, if you're going to the altar and you're going to worship, you're going to repent, you're going to stand before God and say, I need you to forgive me because I have fallen short. He says, but if you're doing that and you haven't tried to make restitution with your brother or if you're doing that for some other reason but you realize there's someone who has something against me, he says, go, leave it, stop. God doesn't want it right now, you need to go talk to your brother.
Later in Matthew he's going to say, if you have something against someone else, you need to go to them. So just so you know, if you've sinned against someone, you know they're mad at you or you just know somebody's frustrated with you or if you're frustrated with somebody, the responsibility is on you to start the conversation. As a Christian, we're supposed to go to the people that we have broken relationships with and try to work them out. Go to the people that we know have been hurt by us, go to the people that we've been hurt by and talk to them. You see, Jesus is saying that your relationships with others matter in your relationship with Him.
Indicate your relationship to Him. That you can't say, I repent of this thing but actually not try to make restitution. That God, I want you to forgive me for what I said and you're just praying but you're not actually talking to them. Practically for us, we don't take goats to places. Nobody brings a burden here for us to sacrifice it. One of the ways I think this applies to us is that you've sinned against someone and you asked Jesus to forgive you but you don't ever talk to them about forgiving you.
So you're going to pray, God, I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. And He's going to say, why didn't you talk to your wife? Why didn't you talk to your friend? Why don't you go reconcile with them? Why don't you go ask them for forgiveness before you come sit with me and talk about forgiveness?
I think that's what Jesus is getting at there. To realize that we can't go to God in repentance without also going to our brother in repentance that we've wronged. To realize that true repentance shows up in the way we live our life. And here's why. I said earlier we were going to look back through the cross. Here's why.
I'm going to show you this is in Colossians. For in Him, this is Colossians 1, 19 through 22, for in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. That's Jesus who is God with us. And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, that's the church, those are Christians who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds. He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.
As Christians, we believe this. We believe that we were alienated from God, that we were enemies of God, that we had actively rebelled against God and harmed God and completely deserved destruction and wrath, but that God became a man and went to the cross on our behalf to reconcile us, to bridge the gap, to buy us back, to redeem us, to cover all the wrongs that we have done. That's what we say we believe as Christians. That's the centerpiece of our faith. And that's why I think Jesus takes reconciliation so seriously because it's the task He is here to accomplish. He's coming to redeem us and reconcile us back to God.
When I was growing up, I have two brothers. I still do. But I have two brothers. I have an older brother and a younger brother. Now, if you are a middle sibling, don't come up to me after this and say, oh, isn't it worse to be in the middle? You are wrong.
It's great to be in the middle. Being the middle kid is the best. You are confused. I don't know why. Have you ever talked to middle siblings? They're like, oh, being in the middle.
It's like, no, it is amazing. There's so many great things about being in the middle sibling. All right, so my older brother, like if you're the oldest, a couple of things that are problems with that. One is, when do you get to start being free and leaving the house? When you turn 16 or when you are able to get a car or a friend who's also 16 and your parents are like, but if you're the middle, when do you get to leave? When your older sibling turns 16 because your parents do this.
They're going somewhere and you're like, I want to go. And they're like, no, you can't go. And then you go to parents and you're like, he won't take me. And then they look at him and say, take your brother with you. And you think, thanks, my parents are going to bat for me. Do you know what it is?
They want both of you out of the house. It's not that they care about y'all's relationship. They care about some quiet. But like, that's, when I was growing up, I got to hang out with my older brother. Like when I was 13, like just picture this, I get to hang out with my older brother who's driving and go do older brother stuff. Like I did, I was allowed to hang out with him as long as I didn't talk and I was cool with that.
And so he was like, just keep your mouth shut. That's one of the ways I developed my sense of humor, which still I wish sometimes my older brother was with me. Because here's what would happen. We'd go out somewhere and I would just like mumble a joke to him and then he'd be like, shut up. I'd be like, okay. And then I would mumble a joke and he'd go, that's pretty good, say it out loud.
And then I would say it out loud and people would laugh. And he helped me develop a filter. And there are days when I wish he still stood next to me so I could whisper the thing I just thought and him go, please never say that out loud. But then I could come home and my younger brother was like nine and I could immediately go from hanging out with like high school kids and keeping my mouth shut to playing Legos and it just meant I was a good older brother. I could grow up quicker and slower. It was great.
Also, when my older brother did anything, my parents were like, oh my goodness, our first kids are driving. Oh, he's mowing the lawn. Like there's pictures of everything. When he went to college, they were like, he's going to college. And then like, I just, nobody noticed me. I just started driving.
They were like, here are the keys. Go get milk. When I went to college, they were like, bye. Like my parents, like my mom cried when they dropped Logan off at school. My parents were there for like 15 minutes with me. They were like, here's your room.
All right. Here's five bucks. Bye. Bye. When my younger brother left, it was like, our baby's leaving. We're going to be all alone.
They freaked out about everything that he did. I just got to skate. Now, if you want like pictures of your childhood, sure, being in the middle is terrible. I get that. We really, like my older brother's a thousand videos of them just filming him when he's like an infant and they're like poking him and making faces and laughing. We have a video.
I kid you not, my mom pans the camera over to me. This is Chet. He's about nine months old. This is all he does. And then immediately goes back to Logan and is like, tell me a story. And they follow him around for like an hour.
And then there's a thousand videos of my younger brother because he was at home while we were at school. And so if you want like your history to be documented, don't be in the middle. But otherwise, I don't want to hear it because it's great. But here's one of the issues I have being a middle brother. My older brother would pick on me, you know, older brother stuff, smack you because they could get away with it, trick you into eating food, like sawdust. He put sawdust in salt one time and told me it was flavoring.
It was not. It was sawdust. Hold you down and like do the like, see how long they can make their spit go and suck it up before it hits you in the face. You know, good older brother things. And so when my dad would like fuss at my older brother, he would take his time on any amount of him picking on us. He would like try to explain to him how bad it was and how I felt or whatever.
But then when I did it to my younger brother, my dad would look at me and go, don't you know better? He would look at me like, how on earth are you doing this to your younger brother with as many times as if I had to have the conversation with your older brother about doing this to you? And I honestly feel that is the response we deserve when we in the church have broken relationship after broken relationship where we are unwilling to reconcile. That it honestly, it's like God's looking at us going, do you actually believe what you say you believe? Do we? You see, when I say, too much has happened or we're just too different or have you seen what they did or what they said, like it's, the gap between us is just too far.
We can't be reconciled. We can't have a good relationship now. What we're saying, if you are a Christian, is that somehow this gap between you and an individual is further than the gap between you and the God of the universe? The sins that they have committed against you are greater and more heinous than the sins you committed against the creator of everything? That the distance that has to be traveled, that the time that's like, is greater than us and God? You see, if we actually believe that Jesus Christ forgave us of our sins and reconciled us to the creator of the universe, then we can be reconciled with anyone.
That he can actively go to work because the gap between us and other humans is minuscule compared to the gap of infinity between us and God that he bridged through the cross. Here's what I think is happening and two major issues when it comes to this. Here's something I think maybe we argue with. We'll say, yeah, but he was legitimately wrong. Like, the sin is real. And here's what I want you to see.
As Christians, we are more set up than anybody to specifically call out sin, to address it fully, and to forgive. Most of you, your families, if they weren't Christians, operated on one of two systems. Your friends operate on one of two systems. You do something actually wrong or someone does something actually wrong and the system is we acknowledge that it was wrong and we punish because we don't have any other way to acknowledge. Or we acknowledge that it was wrong and we cut ties. They lied.
They actively harmed our relationship. Like, you legitimately acknowledge it. But then what do you do from there? Punish for an amount of time maybe through silent treatment or punish for an amount of time until you feel better or feel like you're over it or just completely write somebody off. The other option is we don't talk about it. We just cover it up, sweep it under the rug because there's no way to handle it.
Christians, we get to walk into every situation and just pull the rug back. Fully and freely address the actual sin that is present knowing we have a broom and a trash can. That Jesus Christ redeems us from sin. Forgave us. We are fully equipped to forgive. To acknowledge sin.
That's what Jesus is doing on the cross. That's what God is doing on the cross. To fully acknowledge it and pay for it. 1 John 4.20 says this. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
John is not mincing words. He was there when Jesus said this on the mountain. He was there when Jesus died on the cross. He was there when Jesus rose again. And John writes a letter to a church and says if anybody says I love God but he hates his brother that's a liar. I want to help us see why.
2 Corinthians 5.17-21 says this. Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away behold the new has come. All of this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That ministry of reconciliation in small picture is how we relate to one another but the big picture is that we help other people be reconciled to God. That we actually believe that everyone you know and work with can be redeemed of their sin and reconciled back to God.
He's given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses that sin against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ meaning we represent him on earth. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him that's Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus reconciled us to himself gives us the ministry of reconciliation and here are two major issues I think that have gone to work that we need to realize when it comes to our relationships with others when we're not willing to reconcile. First one is this we've let some other story become our main story. You see for Christians this should be the story. This is our main story. This is the framework we build our life around that there is a God who we were meant to relate to perfectly that we have rebelled that our sin has broken that but that Jesus has redeemed us and forgiven us and we get to spend an eternity with him and we've been given a ministry of reconciliation seeing other people come to knowing that wherever we work wherever we play wherever we live that we're active in the part of trying to reconcile people to God because this is what God's given to the church.
But some of you some of us we have such anger over politics because we've allowed the American story to outweigh the gospel story. We have such anger we've completely have contempt for other races because we've begun to believe that our family history our genealogy our skin tone has become a bigger story than the gospel story. Some of us have broken relationships with individuals because our personal happiness has become bigger than the gospel. We're actually supposed to understand that reconciliation is one of the primary tasks we're called to both that people would be reconciled to God big picture and in small picture we'd be reconciled back to people.
But when we're unwilling to forgive and unwilling to reconcile it's because we've begun to believe that something else is bigger and more important. And here's the biggest issue with this. If a Christian is not willing to reconcile is not actively trying to reconcile we are lying about the gospel. We're the group of people that stand and say you can be forgiven of anything and you can relate back to God but I'm unwilling to forgive this person and I'm unwilling to have a conversation with them. We are a liar. And we stand lying about the gospel.
That Jesus redeems sinners and welcomes people back to himself and that all of us can be forgiven. Our behavior means that we actually don't believe that. That's what John is saying. That we can't say I hate this person and I love God because that's not how it works. That God actually goes to work in our heart to change us. I think one of the ways this works is not that our forgiveness of others and our relationship status with others saves us.
The Bible would never say that. But it does say things like you'll be forgiven the way you forgive and you'll get the measure with which you measure out and as he keeps going in this passage in Matthew 5 he says this verse 24 leave your gift there at the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to the court lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. I think that's practical advice about how to not go to court with people and try to reconcile quickly.
About how to not go to court with people and try to reconcile quickly. I also think that in the bigger scope of what he's saying here it's an image of do not face the king do not face the true judge when you haven't been actively seeking to reconcile and to work out your relationships don't have a line of accusers
That stand and point to you as a liar who said you believed the gospel but didn't actively try to practice it. And here's what I think it is as the Bible addresses this and on a regular basis we'll be talking about because we forgive the way Jesus forgave
And we reconcile the way he reconciled and we get to join him in this I think it's like income verification so when you go to get a car and they're like no credit check or you go to apply for a house and they say it's no credit check
A lot of times they want income verification some of you went to get a mortgage and you had to give income verification what you were showing them was that this money is in my account and will be continually put in my account
You weren't working you weren't proving it you were just bringing them some pay stubs you were just bringing them some let me show you how it comes in I think that's the way forgiveness it's just proof of how much grace and forgiveness and love
And peace and joy have already been applied to our account by Jesus it just shows it it's just a paper trail if you begin to see somebody who has a life of continually being at peace with those around them forgiving reconciling pursuing
It's just a paper trail it's not earning them anything it's just showing what's in their account that's why it matters that's what it is is that we're showing that infinite grace and infinite forgiveness and infinite joy
Have been applied to me have been given freely to me and so I actually have a well that never runs dry that I can pull from when it comes to loving and relating and forgiving okay let me show you a practical way this
Shows up and then we'll wrap it up for the day as we kind of walk through this we live in the south there are a lot of churches on a decent regular basis I get to talk to people who are just kind of visiting and they'll say yeah we're here we're just
Checking this out and we've got some other ones kind of on our list to check out and here's the truth I have I know a good bit of pastors in the area I have like five to ten churches that I could immediately recommend to people that I think are healthy
Biblical pursuing Jesus pursuing the gospel trying to see people come to know Christ like I'll help you make that list that's the conversation I actually have with people when they say they're visiting and they're going to keep checking out other churches
I'll usually say okay two pieces of advice check some of these out make your search quicker these are ones that I appreciate secondly don't do that forever because you get in this weird shopper mode with church and you're showing up trying to
Figure out does this meet my needs and it's weird it's not good for your heart that's not the way Christians were intended to work but here's what I know to be true because there are so many churches around here and because I know how people work
If you hang out with our church long enough we will offend you and not just the like American version of offend where we hear a thing and go I'm offended I'm talking like legitimate sin against you we were wrong offend you or and or you will offend us
Sin against us you were wrong offense we will harm you or you will be harmed by us wait that's the same thing we will harm you or you will harm us we sometimes jokingly say that's our mill city guarantee
Like that's how that's going to work we're a group of sinners and let me tell you what's going to happen you're going to have two options when you become have a relationship breaking down when you have frustration between you and someone else
Or someone in your group is really just making it hard for you to even show up because you're so frustrated with them mad at them they continually pop off with offensive things they say stuff that maybe they don't know is offensive sometimes they do
It on purpose sometimes they've actively gone to work to seem to harm you here's what's going to happen or you've done the same and you don't know how to get leave or grow leave go to
Another church they'll show up do you know how excited they'll be if you just show up to another church next week they'll smile at you they'll say how are you doing it's nice to meet you what's your name they'll say come do
This thing come join in this thing like it'll be so easy you can leave or you can grow you can begin to do what the bible actually says christians ought to do and if you leave
And stick with another church it'll be another year maybe two years maybe six months here sometimes it's like two months it didn't take as long you'll have
The same opportunity you can leave or you can actually begin to look like the bible says christians look like which is to have really tough conversations to
Actively have to forgive someone to have to repent of sin some of you I don't know you it's your first second Sunday hanging
Out with us you're here because you chose leave from your other church and as lovingly as graciously I can say this to you I would vote that
You go back and grow and if you need help trying to think through that some of you maybe that was the situation and
You've been here for six months now you're in a group you've been here for a year now here's what I want to tell
You next opportunity you get grow choose grow choose repent choose look like Jesus says we ought to look like so here's what we're
Going to do because we want to look like Christians here's what we're doing today we're going to practice this by practice I mean
We're going to do this first if you are in here and you are not a Christian I want to join Paul in saying
We appeal to you we plead with you we implore you is what Paul says to be reconciled to God I want you to
Know that your sin can be forgiven I want you to know that Jesus does love you he does want a genuine actual personal
Relationship with you I want to implore you repent of your sin and be reconciled to God if you haven't done that yet I
Would love to talk to you about how to do that how to place faith in Jesus how to begin to follow him if
You are in here and you say I am a Christian here's what we're more than we understand that there's going to be pain
There's going to be death before there's resurrection we understand there's going to be death before there's life that we have to acknowledge our
Sin that we have to work it out before we get to be freed from it so we're going to have some conversations in a
Second we're going to start playing some music and we're actually going to We're going to repent of an attitude of contempt where we just wrote somebody off, where there's somebody sitting on the other side of the room here that you just won't talk to anymore because you read something on Facebook and learned that they were an idiot, so you don't have to listen to them anymore. We're going to repent. We're going to ask for forgiveness. We're going to go to people who have hurt us and we never told them. So, some of you, this is going to be, you're going to have to talk to your dad, you're going to have to talk to your kids, you're going to have to talk to your spouse. I've got a few kind of guidelines for us and things I want to address before we do this. First, I want everybody to begin by praying and asking the Holy Spirit,
When we get started here in a minute, I want you to just bow your head and pray and say, Holy Spirit, if there's somebody I need to reconcile with, if there's somebody I have pain with, if there's someone I need to talk to, I need you to tell me. Some of you already know. Some of you don't. Some of you have attitudes towards people that have grown up over time and you don't even realize anymore. I used to work on swimming pools from the time I was like 13 until I was coming out of college. Even beyond that, I worked on them some when I moved here. I would go to people's houses all the time. I would have to go around behind their house and work on stuff. And here's the thing, I am aware that dogs bite people, but I'm not overly afraid of them. So I would go to people's houses, dogs would come out. I'd just kind of, you know, stare them down, make sure they knew I would fight them if they came at me and, you know, could get to work.
Except for Cocker Spaniels. If I walked into someone's backyard and saw a Cocker Spaniel, I would like start sweating. My heart rate would start beating and I would be like. And if y'all don't know what Cocker Spaniels look like, they're small and like curly haired, cute, fuzzy little kind of dogs. And I was like, like had something going on. Like I could, like I don't. And it took me a while to remember that when I was growing up, my neighbor had a Cocker Spaniel that used to bite me every time it saw me. I apparently had like bottled that up and forgotten about it. Because I remember leaving someone's house and being like, why did that dog scare me? And then she'd be like, oh well. And then later saw another Cocker Spaniel and was like. And it was like, what is wrong with me? The reason I say that is some of us are going to need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal something to us that has grown up.
And we haven't, we don't know. Some of you, that's going to be your spouse. You're getting along really well. You actually in some ways are flourishing. But there's something that happened that y'all never really talked out. That you never really forgave. And it's begun to change how you relate to one another. Some of you, that's going to be a sibling. Some of that's going to be your children. That you're holding some sort of frustration over something that you never really talked about. And it just affects how you relate a little bit. It's just a misstep every once in a while. But it needs to be spoken about, forgiven, confronted, confessed. So we want to ask the Holy Spirit to show us. We want to listen. If you pray and say, Holy Spirit, who do I need to talk to? And a name comes to your mind. Don't think no. No, I don't. Ask why. Ask how.
Ask what about.
We're going to go to people who have hurt us and we never told them. So, some of you, this is going to be, you're going to have to talk to your dad, you're going to have to talk to your kids, you're going to have to talk to your spouse. I've got a few kind of guidelines for us and things I want to address before we do this. First, I want everybody to begin by praying and asking the Holy Spirit, when we get started here in a minute, I want you to just bow your head and pray and say, Holy Spirit, if there's somebody I need to reconcile with, if there's somebody I have pain with, if there's someone I need to talk to, I need you to tell me.
Some of you already know. Some of you don't. Some of you have attitudes towards people that have grown up over time and you don't even realize anymore. I used to work on swimming pools from the time I was like 13 until I was coming out of college. Even beyond that, I worked on them some when I moved here. I would go to people's houses all the time.
I would have to go around behind their house and work on stuff. And here's the thing, I am aware that dogs bite people, but I'm not overly afraid of them. So I would go to people's houses, dogs would come out. I'd just kind of, you know, stare them down, make sure they knew I would fight them if they came at me and, you know, could get to work. Except for Cocker Spaniels. If I walked into someone's backyard and saw a Cocker Spaniel, I would like start sweating.
My heart rate would start beating and I would be like. And if y'all don't know what Cocker Spaniels look like, they're small and like curly haired, cute, fuzzy little kind of dogs. And I was like, like had something going on. Like I could, like I don't. And it took me a while to remember that when I was growing up, my neighbor had a Cocker Spaniel that used to bite me every time it saw me. I apparently had like bottled that up and forgotten about it.
Because I remember leaving someone's house and being like, why did that dog scare me? And then she'd be like, oh well. And then later saw another Cocker Spaniel and was like. And it was like, what is wrong with me? The reason I say that is some of us are going to need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal something to us that has grown up. And we haven't, we don't know.
Some of you, that's going to be your spouse. You're getting along really well. You actually in some ways are flourishing. But there's something that happened that y'all never really talked out. That you never really forgave. And it's begun to change how you relate to one another.
Some of you, that's going to be a sibling. Some of that's going to be your children. That you're holding some sort of frustration over something that you never really talked about. And it just affects how you relate a little bit. It's just a misstep every once in a while. But it needs to be spoken about, forgiven, confronted, confessed.
So we want to ask the Holy Spirit to show us. We want to listen. If you pray and say, Holy Spirit, who do I need to talk to? And a name comes to your mind. Don't think no. No, I don't.
Ask why. Ask how. Ask what about.
Religion vs The Gospel
Transcript
Hi, good morning. Like I said earlier, my name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are walking through the Sermon on the Mount, some of Jesus' best-known, most-heard teaching that he has. It's the longest section of him just straight teaching in the gospel. So we're going to be in Matthew chapter 5.
And what we're doing today is we're going to kind of take a big-picture look at a large section of this. And then over the next couple of weeks, we're going to come back and look at the specific things that he says as he's walking through. But I want us to kind of zoom over it a little bit today and look at his major point that he makes. And then the next couple of weeks, we'll spend some time looking at the individual parts and exactly how we try to apply some of that as Christians. Jesus is teaching his disciples. He's begun to train them what it's going to look like to be his followers, what it's going to look like in his kingdom that he's setting up.
And they were thinking really small. They were thinking he's setting up an earthly kingdom. Jesus is going to set up an eternal kingdom. But he's beginning to teach, here's what my people are going to look like. Here's how you're going to act. Here's how you're going to be.
And today he's going to say some stuff that I think is very helpful for us. Before we get started this morning, I have a question for us, something to think about. What does God want from you? What does he expect? So if you're...
I think it's a fair question for most people that believe that there is a God. I think it's a fair question to say, well, what does he want? What does he want me to do? How does he want me to act? If Jesus is making a group of people, they're going to be called Christians, Christians, what does he want them to be described as? If we took a poll in the United States and said, what are Christians like?
People just had to write down what they thought. What would God actually want them to write? What do you want them to say? What does he want? Well, I think that most of us, or the most often heard answer you'll hear will be, God wants us to be good people. He wants us to be good.
And then I think it's fair to ask, okay, well, what does that mean? Does that mean following the rules? God's got rules. Learn the rules. Follow the rules. Learn your rules.
You've got to learn your rules. Is that it? Is that the point there? Have you ever met a person, you don't have to look at them right now if they're here with you, that cares, cares so deeply inside their little heart and soul about the rules? Have you met this person? Maybe you know one of them that is pleasant.
I don't know if I've ever met one that was overly concerned. Like that was the purpose of their life was to know the rules and obey the rules and follow the rules and learn the rules. And you've got to know the rules. And when they enter into any situation, what are the rules? Their following of God was, I've got to behave. I've got to know the rules.
It does something to a person. And it's not pretty. Those people don't turn out to be gracious, loving, helpful people. Like it hurts their little soul. I don't know. Like they're not pleasant.
Later you find out if you know them long enough. They actually aren't that good at following the rules. They just over time got good at pretending like they were. So if you were to say that God really just wants us to follow the rules, I would argue he at least wants us to not turn out like that. To do that well. So some people are going to reject that.
They're going to say, no, it's not. It can't just be about the rules. They're going to say, no, being a good person, it's about your heart. It's about being happy. Some people tell you, God just wants you to be happy. God just wants you to love.
It's about your attitude way more than it's about your ability to follow rules. It's really more about your intentions. That sounds really nice. It feels very flimsy though. Kind of like it falls apart if you think about it for a while. That you're really going to argue with me that all God wants from people is this like happy, floaty, if you felt good inside, then you did it.
It's like no rules. Doesn't care at all. There's no guidelines. And then people will start adding in, okay, well, this guideline and this guideline. And you'll find if you get to people that really say, no, God just really wants us to be happy. They still have a set of rules that they will aggressively adhere to.
They may have spread the boundaries out, but they're going to say, no, okay, this type of happy person. Not that type of happy person. This type of person whose intentions are okay. Not sociopathic people whose intentions they thought were okay. There's still going to be some sort of fencing in. And so I think it's helpful for us to ask, what do you want?
What are we supposed to look like? How is this supposed to play out in life? Jesus is going to answer that today. Okay. And I think it'll be helpful for us to see it. I know that the disciples, they had to have this question.
As they're trying to figure out what it's going to look like to follow Jesus, they had to have this question. See, they're Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. They had the Old Testament. What we have is the Old Testament. That was their Jewish law.
And Jesus is coming along and he's saying stuff that has to do with it. He's some sort of a religious teacher, but he didn't go through the normal route to become one. And so they have to have some serious questions about what are we going for here? How much are you going to follow after the Old Testament? How much are you going to, which they would have just, I guess, just called it the Testament. How much are you going to follow after that?
And how much are you going to, like, what are we changing here? And so Jesus begins to answer that. In Matthew 5, verse 17, I'm going to pray before we start reading the text. God, we thank you for your word. Pray that it would train us and change us. God, we ask that you would help every person in this room today clearly see their own heart as it stands before you.
We ask that because you love us and you're good to us and you're gracious. In Jesus' name, amen. Matthew 5, verse 17, you'll be on page 473 if your Bible looks like mine. Do not think, this is Jesus speaking, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. Okay, so that's our Old Testament. The law is the first five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and then the prophets is going to include everybody else.
We kind of have divided them differently. We'll have history books and we have the wisdom literature and the prophets. But Jesus is just saying, don't think I've come to abolish all that you've been taught, all that you've been trained, everything you've studied, every Sabbath. Don't think I've come to abolish that. Don't think I've come to get rid of it. They had to have that question in their mind.
Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. So Jesus just said the entire Old Testament law, the prophets, every time a prophet stood up and said, this is what God is like, this is what he cares about, this is how you ought to act, this is how you ought to care about injustice, this is how you ought to care about the poor, this is how you ought to handle your money. Every time a prophet did that, in our pages of the Old Testament, that's in force.
That applies. He's not coming to get rid of that. Every law in the Old Testament that says this is how to live, this is how to act, this is how to treat your neighbor, all of it is in force. It still applies. That's what he just told them. He said, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass until it's all accomplished.
Okay, so an iota or a dot, that would be the same in English as saying, those are just two really small marks in their writing, that would be the same as saying, not a dash on a T or a dot on an I. Not the cross of a T or a dot of an I will pass away from it until all is accomplished. And he says, until heaven and earth pass away. Now, I don't know how heaven's doing. I'm pretty sure earth is still here. So let me just throw this out there.
The law is in force for all of your lives because when the earth passes away, I'm pretty sure you're not going to be doing so well. Now, some of you are like, I'm getting on a spaceship. Best of luck to you. The rest of us are not going to be doing well. The law is in force. That's what Jesus just said, until it is accomplished.
Let's keep reading. Therefore, because that's true, because the law is in force, therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness, that's your morality, your goodness, your standing before God. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. He just brought the hammer down and it's completely lost on us.
He said, unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees and all these Jewish men just went. And we were like, who? That doesn't mean a whole lot to me. Scribes were the people who studied and memorized the Old Testament. They were the lawyers. See, their law, their Old Testament law applied to their civil laws, their ceremonial laws, their religious laws, their moral laws, and their laws relating them to each other.
And scribes are the people that knew them in and out. If you had a question, you went to a scribe. And what they said was binding on you. They would say, this is how you have to apply that. So the scribes were constantly getting together and riding up and saying, this is how we apply this now.
Here's how we apply this now. Here's how this looks now. Here's how you do this now. Now, the Pharisees were the leading religious party of the Jewish people that were the most strict. To the point that Jesus at one point when he's talking with them, he says, you strain out a gnat. Because that was an unclean animal.
They couldn't drink it. So if a little bug got in their drink, which all of y'all were like, I would get it out too. Sure. But they didn't get it out because they didn't want to drink a bug. They got it out because that bug was unclean. They cared so much about following the rules.
They were the best rule followers. And what Jesus just said was, your righteousness, your rule followingness has to exceed those who've made it their life practice. Has to exceed those who've, this is what they've built their entire life around. See, the Jewish people looked up to the scribes. They looked up to the Pharisees. They thought they were the ones crushing it.
They were the ones that God loved. They were the ones that were doing it well. It would be like if he looked at you and said, you have to out follow God. You have to out perform, out righteous the Pope. And it's like, bro, this is his whole Job. That's all he does.
And he wakes up in the morning and thinks, don't mess up being the Pope. That's what scribes and Pharisees did. Like, he says that's what you have to do. You have to exceed them. And he begins to explain his argument before he even says that. What he said was, anybody who relaxes any part of the law will be called least.
But those who enforce all of it will be called great. You see, what the Pharisees were really good at was saying, this part of the law doesn't matter as much as this part of the law. They followed the ritualistic ceremonial law to a T. But Jesus is going to argue with them consistently that they forgot about justice. That they forgot about mercy. That they forgot about love.
He says, you're doing great over here. You've missed weightier things. And so Jesus is going to say, all of it matters. All of it. And then he's going to, over the next section while he's teaching, he's going to begin to show you, not just the rule part, but the heart as well. Not just the external actions, but what's going on inside of you as well.
So if you don't mind, because Jesus was teaching this, they were just going to hear it. I am going to just read some of the sections he's going to hit in a second where he begins to show you not just this, but this. It's going to be hard to follow along if you're trying to read as well because I'm going to skip around and I'm going to pay no notice to how well you're keeping up. I'm just going to read through some of this to help you see it. So I would just encourage you to listen because they would have heard it this way.
Jesus is going to just kind of say, not this, but this, and I'm going to walk through this fairly quickly. You see, Jesus is going to, as he's teaching this, he's going to say, it's not just the rules. It's also the heart, but it's actually, it's both. For the people who say, it's just our intentions and whether or not we're loving, he's going to say, no, rules matter. And for the person who says, yes, up top, Jesus, rules matter, he's going to say, you're kind of a jerk and your heart needs to change. It's not, it's not picket signs.
It's not peace signs. It's both. And I don't mean like a picket sign with a peace sign on it. I just mean both have to be in play. So here's what Jesus is saying as he begins to teach.
You've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. And whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says fool will be liable to a hell of fire. You've heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery.
But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Again, you've heard that it was said to those of old, you should not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for it is a footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath on your head, for your head cannot, you cannot make your hair white or black. Let what you say simply be yes or no. Anything else comes from evil.
You've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the cheek, turn the other to them also. You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
See, what Jesus just went through and said is your righteousness, your goodness has to exceed the scribes and Pharisees. It can't just be, I behave well. I've never murdered anybody. He says, no, are you angry though? Do you look down on people? Do you have relationship issues?
Do you have people that you're holding bitterness towards that you haven't reconciled with? Some of you are saying, I've never cheated on my wife. I've never cheated on my husband. I'm perfectly chaste when it comes to hearing. He goes, yeah, but how's your heart? You see, Jesus begins to go through and say, it's not just your actions, but it's your intentions.
It's both. It can't just be, oh, my intentions were good. He says, no, the rules matter. But it can't just be, I follow the rules well. He says, no, your heart matters. And then he says something that's terrifying.
We're going to put it on the screen. It's in your Bibles. Verse 48. As he finishes this up, he says, you, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.
He means it. It's not hyperbole. It's not exaggeration for effect. You see, earlier when we said, what does God want from us? And I think if we had handed out index cards and everybody had written something down and we passed them up here, sat up here for a little while and just read them, I doubt that anyone would have written perfection, nothing less. I think all of us would give room for effort, intention.
What Jesus just said was, he walks through and says that God is paying attention to what you do on the outside. And that the God of the universe is paying attention to what's going on on the inside. And his standard is perfection. Now, remember your English class. Just for a second, picture yourself in English class. Teacher gets up.
Says, I've got an assignment for you. It's a 25-page paper. Immediately, you die a little inside. They begin to go through the rules on, you know, MLA or Turabian or what kind of citing you're going to give, what kind of bibliography you need, how many sources you need, what the regulations are on how many spaces and on your footnotes and how they want the title page. They begin to go through all of this. And then they say, teacher looks at you and says, now, here's how this paper is going to work.
It's 25 pages. Using this rubric, this guidelines. I'm going to proofread these. I'm going to have a friend of mine who proofreads for a national publication proofread it. I'm going to run it through a computer program to proofread it. We're looking for every English grammar rule that has ever been made.
All of them. We're going to be keeping up with compound possession errors and alternate subject and verb agreements and punctuation and spelling and everything. And if you make a mistake, we will stop grading. You will receive a zero. And this is 100% of your grade in my class. I say we revolt immediately.
Complete anarchy. Do you know how much, how many people would be, if this is middle school or high school, how many moms and dads are showing up and being like, you've got to be kidding me. How many of them are like, I want her to write a 25 page paper and I'm going to grade it. And she gets fired. Like how many people would be showing up? Like how many, how many crying 19 year olds are in the dean's office?
Do you know Jesus just stood Jesus. And looked at those who were going to follow him. And, and by looking at them was looking at us and said, all of it matters. All of it applies externally and internally. And the rule, the system is perfection. Now, as best I can, I want to explain a few things to help us get to this point.
Because I think for some of us, we're immediately going, either he has to be exaggerating or I'm done. Part of the problem is if he's telling the truth and if he speaks on behalf of God, you can't drop this class. You live on earth. You belong to him. You don't get to exempt. You don't get to, you don't get to, there's no add drop to being a human.
You stand before a holy God. But let me explain to you kind of how we got here. Here's what the Bible says. The God of the universe is good. And out of his own goodness. Out of his own beauty.
Out of his own truthfulness. Out of his own grace and love. He created the earth. He created it because he was loving. Not so that he could have something to love. But because his love overflows.
He created it because he was good. He created the earth good. That the earth existed. He made humans specifically to mirror him. To image him and to exist in a relationship with him. The Bible says very quickly that humans, because they existed, because they had personhood, they could then choose between worshiping God or trying to exalt themselves.
If you hadn't read it, spoiler alert, we chose ourselves. We chose ourselves. I want to be most important. I want to be most highly honored. I want to chase after the things that I think will make me happy. That's what humans did.
That's where hatred and racism and genocide and theft and murder come from. That we broke the good world that God had made. Here's what the Bible says. God made this world good. It rebelled against him. And that God, the God, the creator God, is a good judge.
He's a good judge. So I'm explaining what that means. Good Judges condemn the guilty and release the innocent. That's what a good judge does. For example, I say there's a doctor. Great doctor.
Amazing doctor. He's like Dr. House from the show, but likable. Like Dr. House and that other doctor that hangs around with him. Like if you mixed them together and he was as good as Dr.
House, but like friendly and kind of like a good person. He works at a hospital where they bring him the toughest cases, not only from that hospital, but from around the U.S., around the globe. He figures them out and he does it with friendliness and a smile. He cures you of your random disease and then gives you a cookie. Like he is amazing. He goes on trial because it turns out.
This is hypothetical. Don't get stressed out. Turns out he's also a serial killer. Yeah, right. A little messed up. He, he, like three people a year.
Not patients. Just, you know, random people. His lawyer is not going to stand before the judge and say, judge, I motion that we just throw this case out. And here, here's why. Math. My client last year saved 100 lives.
That's close to two a week. That would have died otherwise. We've got affidavits signing. This guy said, I was going to die, but then I didn't. 100 of them. And he only killed three people.
100 Minus three. He's at a plus 97 for the year, judge. How many people did you, how many lives did you save last year? The judge is not going to say, good point. The judge is going to say, guilty. Because when the question of perfection comes in, the question is not, what's the good stuff you've done?
The question is, have you ever done something wrong? Has he broken the law? You see, Jesus just looked at his followers and said, all of it matters. All of it's in force. And when you stand before the judge of the universe, the question is not, are you mostly good? The question is, where and when and how have you failed?
And he's a good judge who doesn't acquit the guilty. He's a good judge who doesn't let you walk. Now, for some of us, we're going to, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I get your little scenario. I understand how that works. Can't be like 51% good and 49% bad or whatever.
That I don't get to erase my bad deeds with good ones. I get that. But you're going to tell me that the God of the universe, not just with murderers, not just with heinous people, not just with genocide, but that he's going to look at someone like, I'm going to go to jail for life over unpaid parking tickets. That's it. That's how God works. If I've lied once, if I've broken the rules once, if I've stepped out of line once, if I, sure, okay, I've lied.
I've broken some relationships. I've got some people I'm still mad at I won't talk to. Yeah, I've intentionally said things in my life to hurt someone's feelings, went out of my way to do it. Yeah. But the God of the universe is going to make me walk in front of him and then he's going to declare me guilty over small stuff like that?
I understand that argument. I understand that feeling because I feel it. Let me explain the problem with that. Let's think about art for a second. I like to draw. I like to paint.
My mom for Christmas gave me some oil paints. So I've been watching Bob Ross on Netflix. And painting. Little Bob, like happy trees and happy clouds and all that kind of stuff. They're not that great, you guys. To be honest with you, I'm trying to learn.
Bob Ross is way better than me. But I put some energy into him, put some effort into him. But I'm not, I mean, like most of us aren't like, you don't know much about fine art. Maybe you do. But we've heard of people like Michelangelo, Van Gogh.
We know about the Mona Lisa. We know about the Sistine Chapel ceiling. So let's say you messed up one of my paintings. Let's say you did it on purpose. You were mad at me. I did something to hurt your feelings.
So you were like, I'm going to hurt his painting. And then you feel bad about it. So you come to me and you say something along the lines of, look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have poured paint all over your painting. It's not that big a deal.
I hope you can forgive me. And you really wouldn't think it was that big a deal. And here's why. I'm not that good of a painter. It's not that good of a painting. You're like, I'll buy you some more paints.
I'll get you another canvas. Let's call this one a wash. I'm sorry. But if you walked into the Sistine Chapel and threw a paint-filled water balloon at the ceiling, or if you walked into the Louvre and you threw ink or paint on the Mona Lisa, there's no getting that back. You've messed up something that's priceless. Michelangelo can't step back in and do another one.
And here's the problem, the massive problem with us when we look at the God of the universe and say, seriously? I lied seriously? I intentionally said something to hurt someone's feelings? Seriously? I broke a relationship and you're going to hold that against me? You're going to declare me guilty for eternity?
Seriously? Seriously, what we're saying to the God of the universe who created truth and beauty and love, he painted them as on a tapestry that he wove them into the world so that love actually exists. It's real. We feel it so that truth is actually beautiful and glorious because he's beautiful and glorious because he poured himself into these. When we look at him and say, seriously? I just lied.
What we've done is we took the beauty that was truth and we intentionally marred it and we intentionally broke it. When we say, look, it's just a relationship. It's just unforgiveness. What we did was we took love and we intentionally harmed it maybe again and again and again. And we've looked at God and said, you're really small and your glory doesn't matter that much. Can't you just let this one slide?
It's not that big a deal because what we believe is that he's not that big a deal. That he's not very glorious. He's not eternal. He's not beautiful. That love and truth aren't actually as beautiful as he says they are. You see, the reason a lie works is because truth exists.
The reason it snuck past somebody, the reason you're still getting away with it is because somebody's actually believing that it's truth where you've counterfeited it and then you've begun to look at God and say, you need to cut me some slack. It's not that big a deal. I think you're getting a little carried away. I think you think a little too highly of yourself. Do you know how arrogant we are? That we would look at the God of the universe who demands that we be perfect to be in his presence and say, you've got to be kidding me.
Do you know how small we are? Do you know how much we've intentionally destroyed all the beauty and the glory that God has woven into the world? And do you know how little we care? You see, Jesus stood and said, perfection is the standard. And we want to argue because we actually don't believe God's that perfect or the truth is that glorious or the justice matters that much or the mercy or the love really are as beautiful as we say they are, as he says they are. We believe God's really small.
So what do we do? If that really is God's standard, if Jesus really does speak on behalf of God, if that really is the condition that all of humanity finds itself in, that we're going to, it's not just a 25-page paper, it's your life, and the standard is perfection, what do we do that one day we're going to stand before a good judge and we are going to bring with us all of our sin, that we're going to walk before him with everywhere we've ever failed, what do we do? Go back to verse 17. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. You see, Jesus stood before his followers and he's going to press into them how much their sin matters and how much perfection is real and how much in order to walk before God you have to be blameless. But he said as he began, I've come to fulfill it and I've come to accomplish it. And Jesus uses the term accomplished a couple of times in the New Testament. And I want to show you three of them because I think it helps us understand what he's talking about here. This is from Luke 12.
I have a baptism to be baptized with and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. He's talking about what is going to happen at the end of his life, which is the cross. That's his baptism that he has to be baptized with. In Luke 18, he says it this way. He takes the 12 aside. See, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written about the Son of Man, that's himself, by the prophets, will be accomplished.
You see, Jesus said he's going to fulfill the law and the prophets. John 17, this is right before he's going to the cross the next day. I glorified you on earth. He's praying. He's talking to God. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
You see, what stands at the center of Christianity is not that we're supposed to be perfect. What stands at the center of Christianity is a cross and an empty tomb. You see, if this is where it ended, with God sending Jesus to declare to us be perfect, then this would stand at the center of Christianity or some teaching that Jesus had. But Jesus' teachings are pale in comparison to the cross. Because what Jesus came to accomplish was the cross, where he came to fulfill the law and accomplish what it said was going to be accomplished in the prophets. So Jesus stepped in, lived a perfect, sinless life on our behalf, and died on the cross for us.
I want to read a section of Isaiah 53. I'm going to run through it kind of quickly. But I want to show you how he fulfills the prophets. This is Isaiah. Who has believed what he's heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he, that's Jesus, grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he's borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, that's Jesus, my servant, make many to be accounted righteousness. He shall bear their iniquities. You see what the Old Testament promised over and over again was that God was a good judge.
He was not going to acquit the guilty. But then prophets began to say there's going to come someone who's going to carry the guilt for us. There's going to come someone who's going to bear our transgressions, bear our iniquity, bear our sin. Who's going to take all the times that you stepped out of line in your heart or in your actions. And he's going to place them on himself and he's going to die for them. You see Jesus lived perfectly.
And he fulfilled the law. He loved perfectly. He obeyed perfectly. He fulfilled the law. That he could walk before God blameless. That he could stand before the Father and say test me, try me, weigh me.
And God would have to accept him. So he didn't deserve death. He didn't deserve punishment. He didn't deserve wrath. He was holy and blameless. But he not only fulfills the law, he fulfills the prophets.
Which says there's going to be one who's holy and blameless. There's going to be one who's righteous. And he's going to take the sin of us. He's going to take our guilt, our pain, our punishment. And he's going to die for it. And by his righteousness, many will be accounted righteous.
He's going to pay our debt so that on our debt it says zero. Jesus means it when he says perfection is the standard. But see what the Bible says is that Jesus is our perfection. And that we get to be clothed in his righteousness. And we get to walk before the Father blameless and pure and holy. So Colossians says that he's going to make us holy and blameless and above reproach.
Corinthians says that he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we could be made into the righteousness of God. I think we often have the question how? How does that work? How does placing faith in Jesus, how does me trusting in Jesus transfer all my sin to him so that when he died that God punishes him for me. And then takes his love and his grace and his redemption, his righteousness, puts it on me and then loves me. How does that work?
The Bible doesn't really answer that question very clearly. But the Bible tells us very clearly that it works. That Jesus' death on the cross in our place works to give us his righteousness to take away our sin if we place our faith in him. So Jesus says in John, he says, the work is to believe on him whom you've sent. That we're to believe in Jesus and our sin can be taken away. That's the gospel.
That Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets and that those who place faith in him are made perfect. If you are in Christ, you are perfect. Your sin is gone. When you walk before God, he's not going to have anything to weigh against you. He already condemned Jesus for it. You can't be condemned.
I want to take just a second. You see, we have to go from saying the law is my righteousness or my behavior is my righteousness or my intentions are my righteousness. How do you answer the question when I meet God, what will I say he needs to equip me on account of? What am I going to say I tried? Am I going to say I was mostly good? What the Bible says is we get to stand and say Jesus is my righteousness.
If I get to walk before God and say I'm made holy and righteous and blameless because of Jesus, not because of anything I've done. Jesus is my righteousness. Christ is my righteousness. He's what makes me perfect. He's what makes me okay. So I want to take just a second to help you see how this begins to show up.
You see, if we believe that our work, our intentions, our ability to behave, if we believe that that's what makes us okay, it does something to us. It hardens our hearts. If you believe that your effort is what makes you okay before God and he's going to weigh you based off your actions and your intentions, it doesn't soften you. It doesn't grow you in love towards him. It hardens you. He becomes like a boss or a landlord, not a father.
If you had a father who looked at you and said, in order to be my child today, here's what you have to do. And then you can be my child. And then you can share my table. You wouldn't grow in love towards that father. Your heart would harden towards him. You see, but Jesus says our heart has to change and our actions have to change and that he's ultimately going to fulfill this for us.
So I just want us to show when it comes to acceptance, if you believe that it's based off of your work or if you believe it's based off of Jesus' work, that's what we're going to talk about as we finish up our time this morning. I just want to help you identify this in your heart because some of you may be sitting here and saying, yeah, I believe that. That's basic. That's Christianity 101. I get it. Jesus made me okay.
Y'all talk about this every week. I've been here a couple of weeks. This is all y'all talk about. Some of y'all, you're saying that. That's cool. Come back next week.
We're going to talk about the same thing. Jesus is awesome. We're going to talk about him every week. But some of you say you believe that, but then you actually live as if you still think it's based off of you. Some of you are going to say, no, I believe the gospel. I believe that Jesus died for sinners.
But then you're going to live your life. You're going to practically walk as if you think he's going to weigh you at the end of your life and not base it off of Jesus. And I want to help us identify this a little bit. Acceptance. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to call one religion because that just religion says I'm going to do my work and this is what's going to make me okay.
So we're going to call this religion just any amount of my effort, my works, and then we're going to call the other one gospel. Is that fair? Doesn't matter. I'm doing it anyway. Acceptance. Religion says I obey, therefore I'm accepted.
The gospel says I'm accepted, therefore I obey. One of the ways that begins to show up is what's your acceptance of others? How open to you? Do you have standards they have to meet in order to be okay? Do you have standards they have to meet in order to be able to be a good member of your community group? You may actually believe that you have standards that you have to meet for God.
Motivation. Why you do what you do. Religion says, religion's motivation is based off of fear and insecurity. I have to put in work to be okay. The gospel's motivated by grateful joy. Jesus is good.
He's glorious. He's a king. He loves me. I get to follow. I get to live. I get to pursue.
I get to be generous. Obedience. Religion says I obey God in order to get things from God. I obey him so that he owes me. The gospel says I obey God to get God. I delight in him.
I delight to resemble him. One of the ways this shows up in your community group, if somebody's struggling with something, what's your go-to? Here are the rules you need to follow. Here's how you messed yourself up. It's because you're sinning. Or is it, let me tell you how Jesus is good.
You see, those who believe in the grace of God will go grace first and still care about the rules. They understand that the rules still, obedience still matters, but they know that Jesus pays for our disobedience. So we get to say, hey, let me tell you the good news right now. You're not going to be punished for your sin because Jesus was. If you're in Christ, you're okay. Now, let's repent.
Let's change. Let's own our sin and let's move on. Here's how the difference is in how you handle circumstances. Religion says, when circumstances in my life go wrong, I'm either angry at God or myself. Because religion believes if you're good, you deserve a good life. So when your circumstances go bad, you're either mad at yourself because you must have been bad, you must have done something wrong, or you're mad at God because he owes you.
I did true love weights. Where's my husband? Those of you who grew up in youth groups. I'm not watching those kind of movies. I've been really generous. I've how on earth can you do this to me?
Or if you haven't been behaving well recently, God's punishing me. But see, the gospel, circumstances in life go wrong. I struggle. But I know my punishment fell on Jesus. That while God may allow this for my training, he's going to exercise fatherly love. He's not punishing me.
He's not mad at me. I'm not being, he's not looking at a particular sin and saying, I'm bringing the hammer down. He's saying, I love you. I'm going to train you. I'm going to be with you. If you believe that God punishes us for our circumstances, you have a lot less grace for people in bad circumstances.
You may not realize you do that with yourself, but if someone around you is struggling, how much are you going, yeah, but I bet they did something. They really brought it on themselves. How they handle criticism. When you're religious and you're criticized, it crushes you because your life is based off of your perception of yourself. I have to be good. I have to be okay.
I have to be well-liked. Criticism destroys you. If you believe the gospel, criticism is unpleasant. It's not going to get nice. But it doesn't destroy you.
You realize that your value isn't based off of how much people like you or how well you do at things. You get to rest in the grace of Christ. The other thing that happens is if you're religious, you actually become way more critical because you need other people to be bad so that you can be seen as good. Here's a difference in prayer. I forgot to say this. Tim Keller made this list.
He's a pastor in New York. He's really smart. I did download it from the internet. Here's what happens in prayer. Religion says my prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I'm in a time of need. The main purpose in prayer is to control your environment.
Prayer, when you believe the gospel, consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. The main purpose of prayer is to fellowship with God, to appreciate and enjoy Him. Here's how confidence works. Religion, your self-view swings between two poles. You're either living up to the standards and so you're prideful and confident or you're failing miserably and you're depressed. That's the only way religion works.
Either you're doing a good job and you got swagger or you don't want to see anybody. If you're religious, when you sin or life gets hard, you disappear. We'll see you again in a couple weeks when you get it back together. Because you can't be around people unless it's going well. You're depressed. You can't talk.
You can't answer your phone. You can't let people know you're having problems. Your confidence just bottoms out because it's based off of you. And let me explain to you. If you're religious, your confidence is going to bottom out because it's based off of you. But in your gospel, people who believe the gospel have humble confidence.
You know that you're terrible. You know that you're a sinner. You know that you have nothing to offer God. You know that if you stood before Him on your own account, you would not be labeled perfect. We can't even do the 25-page paper thing. I don't even know all the Old Testament laws.
I'm so grateful that Jesus fulfilled them. I know I'm a sinner. You know that. But also, you know that you get to walk before God because of grace, because of Jesus' work. It can't be taken away from you. His effort, His achievement.
You get to walk before God because of Jesus. You get to walk before God with Him looking at you the way He looks at Jesus. You have absolute humility and absolute confidence. Last one, identity. In religion, your identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard you work, how moral you are. And so you look down on those you perceive as lazy or immoral.
Your identity is tied to your effort. In the gospel, your identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for you. You're saved by grace. So you don't look down on those who practice something different. Because you know that only by grace you are what you are. And you can rest.
Knowing that they're not taking away Jesus' good work. Your sin does not out-sin His grace. Your rebellion can't crush the cross that we get to be repentant. We get to place faith in Jesus. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing.
We're going to sing. That's the gospel. That's our hope. That God's standards for us are immensely high. But that He loves us so much that He achieved them for us.
That nothing less than perfection will do. But He loves us enough to accomplish it, to rescue us, to redeem us, to make us His. If you're in the room and you are not a Christian, you can be. Because Jesus did all of the work. If you've ever looked at the church and said, what a group of messed up people. They're such hypocrites.
Right. We're the first people who raised our hand and said, I messed up. I can't do this on my own. The people who are still religious and are trying their hardest to be perfect, they look way better than us. The people who followed Jesus around were the people who said, I have no chance to attain perfection. And Jesus says, yes, but I attained it for you.
You just get to trust Him. You get to push all your weight onto Him. You get to stand before the God of the universe one day and walk confidently before Him. That you know He'll welcome you as a father welcomes a son. Because Jesus has gone before you to take your guilt and your punishment. That you have no fear walking into that courtroom to face that judge.
Because He's not a judge, He's a father. That for those of us in Christ, one day we will be greeted and welcomed and given a seat at the table. And not a person there will say, look at what I've done. Every person there will say, look at Jesus and what He's accomplished for me. That my sin does not follow me. My sin does not scar me.
My sin does not stay with me. I love the fact that when Jesus rose from the grave, He could still show the scars in His hand and the hole in His side. The only person marked by our sin in heaven is Jesus, not us. And there's not a soul who will boast in anything but Christ in that kingdom. So if you have something to boast about, and it has to do with your effort, your work, your intelligence, your ability, you will not be in that kingdom.
When you walk before the king, when you stand before the judge, and you say, weigh me and try me, you will be found at fault. You will be declared guilty. You will be condemned. But when you walk before the king and say, Jesus was condemned for me, and I stand on grace and grace alone, that there was a Christ who came, who fulfilled the law, who fulfilled the prophets, and I trust in Him with all my heart, and I believe in Him, and everything that I have, and that He alone is my righteousness, and He alone is my hope, and He alone is my life, you're welcomed. Because that's the perfection that we get to attain through Christ.
If you don't know Jesus, I beg you to place your faith in Him. Because one day we all stand before the king, and He'll either be a judge or a father. You'll either be held accountable for your sins, or Jesus will. You'll either stand on your own righteousness or His. Let's pray.
God, I pray that with perfect clarity through your Holy Spirit, we would all see our standing before you. That we would see in our hearts clearly how we would stand before you without Christ. And that we would see in our hearts clearly how we can stand before you with Christ. And for those of us who placed our faith in you, I pray, Lord, that we would rejoice, that we would rest, that we would worship, that we would boast in you. And that for those in the room that have not yet placed their faith in you, who are still trying to prove themselves, who are still trying to work it out, who are still trying to stand before you and say, here's why I need to be welcomed, or here's why you're wrong, and this system is broken.
God, I pray that through your grace you would humble them, that you would rescue them, that you would make them yours. That right now they'd make a conscious decision to follow you. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Cultural Apologetic
Jan 22
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're in our second week studying through the Sermon on the Mount. We'll be in Matthew chapter 5. We'll be on page 472.
If you have one of the white Bibles in the rows. If you don't have one of these, we'll be in Matthew chapter 5. There's a New Testament scholar and he's a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. And he wrote a short book. His name is Larry Hurtado. He wrote a short book entitled, Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries?
So it's a short book with a long title. Why on earth did anyone become a Christian in the first three centuries? And here's his basic point. He said, if you're a historian and you're kind of honest about history, we have to ask this question. We have to look at history and ask, why would anybody become a Christian? Because when Christianity began in the Roman Empire, it was aggressively, widespread, vastly persecuted.
It was the most hated religion that existed. If you became a Christian, if you associated with Christians, if you said, I'm a Christian, declared yourself a Christian, there was social pressure. You could be kicked out of your home. You could be kicked out of your friendships. There was financial pressure for a lot of Christians weren't allowed to be in the guild. So let's say you were a blacksmith and you became a Christian.
There was a good chance they would just say, well, you can't be a blacksmith anymore. There was actual physical, like you could be arrested or murdered. And so he actually says, nothing like the repeated and increasingly hostile stance taken by the Romans towards Christians existed. Like there's, we've never seen anything like it. How increasingly hostile and how aggressive they were towards Christianity. So you have that on the one hand, that Christians are aggressively hated.
And it grew. It grew so fast that three centuries later, it was the majority of the Roman Empire. That Christianity grew so quickly. And he basically says, you look at history and you've got to ask why. He says, you know, like if you look at the first three centuries of Islam, Islam grew in its first three centuries. But they did it by conquest.
He said they did it on a horse with a sword. But Christianity grew at the other end of that sword. It grew through persuasion. It grew through relationships. It grew through talking people into, hey, jail guard. Would you like to also be arrested?
Like, like it grew that way. It grew in crazy ways where Christianity flourishes while being persecuted. And he says, why? And as we begin to look at the Sermon on the Mount again today, as we pick up where we left off, we're going to see that Jesus actually begins to build in this dynamic into his very earliest followers. That you're going to stand out and be disliked, but also it's going to be very compelling and beautiful. So people are going to hate you, but I'm going to work in that.
That's kind of Jesus begins to build that into his followers. And so if you'll look in Matthew chapter 5, we'll pick up in verse 1. I'm just going to kind of summarize the first 10 verses. That's where we spent our time last week. It's online if you weren't able to be here with us last week. The first 10 verses, Jesus is doing what we call the Beatitudes, which is basically the blessedness, the beautifulness.
Here's what flourishing looks like. Here's what the good life is. And he starts to say, here's what my people are going to be like. So he starts talking about characteristics of the people that are going to follow him. And he uses this kind of like all of those who type language. So everyone who, and it's kind of, we said last week, it's like at your first day of basic where the drill sergeant, well, maybe he comes out.
I've never been, so I'm just making stuff up. I also can't talk the way drill sergeants talk because I'm pretty sure I'd get fired. But go with me here. First day of basic, drill sergeant comes up and says, for everyone who's mean as a rattlesnake, who's never had any fear, who doesn't know how to quit, and kind of goes through this big thing and says, you'll do fine, welcome to the army or something. And like, that's kind of what Jesus is doing. He's saying for all those who, he's painting this picture of this is the type of person we're going to be.
And if you were in basic and you were standing in formation and you were listening to the drill sergeant, you'd be soaking up everything he said because you knew this is what I'm going to have to be. This is the type of person I'm going to have to be like. That's what Jesus is doing. And he just got done in Matthew chapter four, healing people, traveling around. It says he would heal paralytics and people that had never walked. He would just tell them to get up and walk.
It says he had rule over spiritual forces. Those who were under demonic oppression, he was just commanded to leave and it would. And so now he goes up on this mountain and he starts teaching his followers. It says he's talking to his disciples and they're hanging on every word he says. Because he's in control of everything. He's shown his power.
And now he's saying, here's the type of people we're going to be. Here's the type of people I'm going to make. And so what he says is those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. He begins to lay out. This is the type of person he begins to say, if you're like this, this is the blessing that God answers this, that God responds to this. This is the type of people we're going to be.
And so in verse 10, he says this, he's finishing this up. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then he turns in verse 11, he says, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you. So he, he turns from all those and now he's beginning to directly address his followers. And that's, we're going to pick up today. I want to pray before we jump too far into this, um, as we, as we try to see what, what it looks like, uh, as Jesus shifts and begins to specifically train them, what it looks like for us today.
So let's pray. God, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to study your word, uh, to gather, uh, and to spend devoted time to learning, uh, so that we might spend the rest of our time to living, um, that we might actively walk as people who have been changed by you. We pray Lord that you would bless this time that we have, and that you'd help us to look more and more, uh, like your son in Jesus name. Amen. So he takes this, this, all those who language.
And then he begins to specifically start training. He says, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and other, all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. So rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So, uh, Jesus is, he's been the whole time saying stuff that's completely backwards from what we think blessedness looks like. What, what the good life looks like.
So he said, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. And he says, blessed are you when you're persecuted. And, and immediately it's like, no, like that's the stuff I don't like, but he's saying, no, this is actually good. It's good when people make fun of you, revile you, misrepresent you. Persecution just means to be subjected to something that's bad, to be subjected to something that's uncomfortable.
So, uh, we, we mostly use the term for very aggressive, uh, beatings for people to be, uh, murdered or put in jail. So Christians in America can be persecuted because it just means for a purpose, because of your identity, because of your, your, uh, claiming to be a Christian, that someone subjects you to something uncomfortable. I just want to say though, as all the Christians in this room, as we are Americans, let's not use the term persecuted when it comes to someone in our office, disliking us. I realize you may be subjected to some discomfort, but you just sound silly given what's going on in other parts of the country, other parts of the world.
So we can be reviled. You can technically be persecuted, but don't say that. I don't sound being, just say they don't like me. They're misrepresenting me. I think this happens all the time. Misrepresentation is one of the biggest ones I see in our culture.
And we're blessed for it. You ever watch a TV show and then they introduce a Christian character? And if you've been a Christian for a while, uh, as soon as they introduce a Christian character, I'm like, crud, because I know they're not going to be likable. Like I know how we're viewed in culture. They're going to be, uh, aggressively, um, judge, judgmental, aggressively hypocritical. They're going to be one of the characters that says all this stuff and then Acts a completely different way.
Other than Ned Flanders, most of them are very hypocritical. Ned Flanders is just goofy. Now I know that you may have met Christians like that. Super judgmental. I would say they are also misrepresenting Christianity, but Jesus says, this is what's going to happen. People are going to say things about you that aren't true.
They're going to misrepresent you. They're going to straw man you. They're going to argue against you. They're going to call your names. And that's blessed. And here's what he says.
And I don't think this would have been lost on his original hearers. And I think it's huge for us today. Verse 11, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. So just remember that, that what we get to do as Christians, when we're called names, when we're misrepresented, when we're cussed, when we're called narrow and bigoted, and all the things that are going to be thrown at us, he says, just be happy.
Because you get rewarded for that. But then he says this, your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. What he just said was, this group of people I'm making comes in the line of the prophets. Now that's huge. And I don't think it was, I don't think the disciples missed what he just said there. Let me explain what a prophet was.
In the Old Testament, we have prophets. Your book, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, like these people were prophets and they spoke on behalf of God. They were humans that stood in and said, this is what God is like. This is what God cares about. So Jesus just stands in front of his followers and says, I'm making you into this type of people.
And then he says, and rejoice, because they've done this to all the prophets. Meaning that, this is what you get to do. This is the role and the office and the position that you get to fill. That the church that Jesus is building has a prophetic role in culture. That the church is the group of people that get to say, this is what God is like. And this is what God cares about.
Now, that should get your blood pumping. That's exciting. That's weighty. And it's kind of terrifying. Because how's the church doing on that? Are we able to say, look at the church in the U.S.
Look at the church around the world. That's what God's like. That's what God cares about. But that's what Jesus is saying. This is the role that my people are going to fill. Now he's going to tell us how.
So he told us, like, the way we're going to exist, the type of personalities we're going to have, the characteristics we're going to have. Then he tells us the office you're going to fill, the following a prophetic office. And now he's going to start talking about what that looks like. So verse 13. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? So I've heard sermons, and I think it's worth thinking through and spending some time meditating on all the different characteristics of salt. I don't know if that's his main point, but let's just, for just a second, talk about salt just so that we're all thinking about the same stuff. Salt is in the white shaker on your table. It's the one that has fewer holes because it comes out faster if they're the same color. Like, you've got to look at the top and try to figure out which one's which.
It's the one that has fewer holes. That's the salt shaker. If yours has more holes, you did that wrong. If you get home, you've got that backwards. All right.
Salt was common. It was used to flavor things. So if you add salt to chicken and to green beans, it doesn't make them both taste like salt. It makes the chicken more chickeny and the green beans more green beany. If it starts taking like salt, you added too much. Salt was also used to cure meat.
It still is, but they had to do it a lot more because they didn't have refrigerators. So salt was used, if you were going to eat meat, you either ate it right now or you salt cured it or you died. Like you got botulism or something. You had only three options. You couldn't wait and eat it without salt curing it. So they would salt cure meat.
It would preserve. But see, I'm not sure that's Jesus' main point. I want to make one observation that I think immediately should stand out to us. He did not say, I'm building a people and you're the gold of the earth. He didn't say, I'm building a people and you're the diamonds in the rough. No, He said, you're salt, which is common and cheap.
Its value actually outweighs its cost. It's very useful. It just doesn't cost much. There are salt mines all over the place. He says, you're salt. You're going to be everywhere.
But His main point that I think He's making because it's what He actually says is you are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? So He just got done talking about persecution. So He says, you're going to be disliked, but be excited about that. You're the salt of the earth, but if you lose your saltiness, you're useless. What He's saying is when you're persecuted, don't stop. Don't stop doing the stuff that people dislike.
Don't start shaving off the rough edges of Christianity. You're going to stand out. You're going to be disliked, but you can't just say, well, let's just get rid of all the stuff people don't like. That's heard repeatedly, culturally right now. That's said repeatedly to the church from culture and from other people in the church saying if we would just get rid of this thing, then everyone would like us. If we would just get rid of this, I've heard, if we would just get rid of the cross.
Like, I mean, it's okay to kind of, like, I know it's in there, but we talk about it too much. It's too bloody. It's too gory. It makes God sound crazy. I've read these articles. If we would just get rid of that, then people wouldn't have a problem.
It sounds so archaic. Let's not talk about God's judgment. Let's just talk about His love. It's like, yeah, I'm for talking about God's love, but the Bible talks about both. It's actually His love that makes Him hate sin so much. He's not indifferent to us.
He loves us. So He hates sin. I've heard, if we would just give up on this social issue, if we would just change our stance on this political issue. We're so backwards. We're behind the times. We're getting left by history.
If we would just get rid of this, then we'd be fine. But let me explain what happens. Because this has happened in churches, in our culture, in the U.S. Now, if you came to my house and I said, you should add some salt to that dish. And you said, oh, I don't want salt. I don't want to change the flavor of this.
I want it. And I said, oh, no, no, no. My salt actually quit being salty a long time ago. It doesn't do anything. It's the same flavor as what you have because it tastes like nothing. Go ahead and add it.
Your immediate response would be, why should I add it if it's exactly the same flavor? That's what's happening in the church. When we actually get rid of all the things culture doesn't like and we say, we look just like you guys, the immediate response is, then why do I have to wake up early on a Sunday? Why do I need to come to your thing? Why do I have to be a part of your little community group? Why on earth would I give y'all money if you look exactly like I do?
I'm already crushing it. I already look exactly like me. I don't need to be at your thing. See, the church can't do that. That's what Jesus is saying. When we give in to cultural pressure, we lose our saltiness and we're useless.
Jesus just looked at his disciples and said, stay salty, my friends. That's what he said. Keep it. Even though people are going to like it. Even though they're going to tell you to stop. Stay salty.
That's what Jesus is telling us. Then he keeps going. That's him pointing to the you're going to be disliked part. You're going to stand out. You're going to be all over the place. You're going to be calm.
And this is one of the reasons why we talk about everyday church, everyday discipleship when we say normal everyday life or the everyday stuff of life or in your normal rhythms of life. We say this all the time. If you read anything, we write that phrase way too much. Normal everyday life. The everyday stuff of life. In your normal rhythms of life.
Where you work. Where you play. Where you go to school. We say this all the time but that's because salt is supposed to be everywhere. We're not supposed to be distinct and separate. We're supposed to be distinct and then in every single dish.
You're supposed to be at the school you're at. You're supposed to be in the job you're at. You're supposed to be in the neighborhood you're at. We're not supposed to all start communes and go live on a mountain. Jesus said this on a mountain but then he made them all leave. They didn't get to stay.
That's what salt gets to be everywhere. Flavoring everywhere. Preserving everywhere and being all up in the middle of everything. That's what the church gets to do and being disliked for it. Welcome to the club. That's what Jesus is telling them.
You're going to be hated but it's okay. You hold a prophetic office. This is how it's always worked. Verse 13. Nope. That's where we just were.
Verse 14. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. So Jesus looked at his disciples and said you're going to fulfill a prophetic office.
You're going to be disliked. You're going to be salt. Salt. Don't lose your saltiness. You're also going to be a light in darkness. People don't light a lamp and then cover it.
Like you've never been to someone's house and they have a lamp. You say it's really dark in here and they go oh I've got a lamp it's lit but it's under that really big blanket. Nobody does that. You wouldn't light a lamp and then put a giant shade over it that kept it from being bright. There's no point. That's what he's saying.
Like I'm lighting a light and the goal is for it to be seen. A city on a hill can't be hidden. Now we live in this area and it's Columbia like lights everything up and there's also street lights everywhere. I don't know where y'all come from if you're familiar with what it's like to be in the middle of nowhere and it be really dark. I didn't know the difference until I moved here. I used to live in Edgefield.
There's nothing in Edgefield. I mean there's some people there and they have like a school and like a hospital but if you get hurt and you can make it to another hospital maybe you should do that. Like there's not a whole lot going on in Edgefield. I remember my cousin coming to visit us one time and he got all lost trying to find our house and then he was like why is it so daggum dark out there? Y'all can't afford some street lights? And I remember thinking what?
Like I've never even noticed that. And then I went home for Christmas this year and I'm riding down the road that leads to my parents' house and I was like it's really dark. I'm glad I know where it is because it's aggressively dark out here because I've gotten used to street lights and I felt a little bad. I was like the little redneck inside of me is dying a little bit. But I've gotten used to street lights and I remember thinking it's really dark and that's what he's saying because in their culture they didn't have street lights.
You had lights but you'd put them out at night and the only things that would still be lit up were cities. I actually looked this up this morning because I remember them talking about it in school but I couldn't remember the exact distance but they did a study out in the middle of the desert they had people get up on top of mountains so that they were higher up and the curve of the earth didn't mess them up and they lit candles and they measured how far a human can see one candle. 30 miles when there's nothing else in the way. When it's pitch black you can light a candle 30 miles away. That actually said that that's due to the curve of the earth that humans could probably see it up to about 100 miles but we're not really able to test that because we don't have tall enough stuff.
What Jesus just said was is the church is a city on a hill that you can see from miles that you can't hide it. The church is supposed to be not only like salt in the middle of everything but like a city on the hill shining drawing people in beckoning people. So if you lived in this time and Jerusalem was up on a hill and if you were able to see clearly to it in the middle of the night and you saw it 30 miles away that meant that if you were walking you were still a day and a half away if you walked all day long. Most likely three days if you were like us and took some breaks. Military troops when they walk all day long can make about 20 miles.
I was like seven need a nap. I'm going to need some of that salt cured meat I brought with me. Like that's what he's saying that you could see it so far away and it drew you in that that's the church. So the church is a prophetic office that is both salty and disliked and yet attractive and beautiful that it draws people in. That's what Hurtado was talking about when he wrote why on earth did anybody become a Christian in the first three centuries. What he was saying was the church was so hated but people kept coming.
And I want to say why why this matters before we get into some of the other stuff Jesus is going to talk about and how I think we can think about it. Verse 16 In the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Now in the Greek they have a different word for you and you plural. So they're much like Southerners who have you and y'all. This is y'all. That's what he's talking to.
In the same way let y'all's light shine before others so that they may see y'all's good work and give glory to y'all's Father who is in heaven. That's what he's saying. So he's talking about the church collectively has good works that stand out in culture. We have viewpoints viewpoints and opinions and cultural changes about us that make us stand out in a negative way and we also have good works that make us stand out like a city on a hill. That Jesus is creating a group of people that are going to stand out for him. I think it's important for us to see that he's talking specifically to y'all because later in the Sermon on the Mount he's going to say do all of your good works in secret.
But here he says do it like a giant city on a hill. And here's what he means and here's one of the best ways I think I can explain this is the church collectively is supposed to have good works. You individually are supposed to just be lumped in with the group. So we do a give series every year at the end of the year. We raise money. This past year we raised money for Samaritans as well.
We're actually in the process of getting that furniture that we're going to buy for them. We're going to be taking it over there towards the end of the month or the beginning of next month. We're actually going to rally everybody to kind of get together help load this in help clean it up. If you're not able to do that we'll try to take some pictures. But here's the thing with our give project.
We're showing up in the name of the church in the name of Jesus. We're not walking over there and saying hey we just want to give you a list of all the individuals and how much they gave. That's not the point. We're not going to stand up here and talk about how much we collectively gave our collective generosity us as Jesus followers collectively not individuals how much people gave. That's what he's talking about. Like you individually should do some good works but you should do them in a way that it clumps up together with what Christ looks like what his bride looks like on earth what the church looks like.
In a way that it clumps up together with what Christ looks like what his bride looks like on earth what the church looks like. So here's I mean we've done the same stuff with stuff we do here at Glen Forest stuff we've done at Hope Bridge stuff we've done at Gentle Pines we've had groups and our church family has gone over on a regular basis to Gentle Pines which is an apartment complex over here. One of the best stories I heard this past year
When we were doing Thanksgiving stuff was people who came over and said I just moved here and I was talking to one of my neighbors and said I was a little bit worried that my family wasn't going to be able to do a Thanksgiving meal and they said oh no no no there's a church that comes over here every Thanksgiving you're good you'll get to have a Thanksgiving meal with your family and that's so cool and that's collective church
Getting to point to the Father and here's why that matters the church should have good works that are seen so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who's in Heaven not to y'all but to your Father see that's that's what Jesus came to do Jesus came to have have all of his works point us to the Father that he that he would die for us
That he would rise again conquering death and sin for us that he came to redeem us to bring us back to the Father to give us back to the God who is infinitely valuable infinitely worth worship and glory so that the church everything we do good works wise is infinitely worth it because we point to a God
Who's infinitely worth it that's the reason why this matters the church stands in a prophetic office where we're supposed to stand out and people are going to dislike us but also it's going to be beautiful it's going to draw people in and it's going to point them to the Father because it's going to say here's what God does among a group of people not just
Oh I have a neighbor and he's really nice but actually no let me come invite you to hang out with my group let me show you what a group of people look like let me invite you to a city where everybody's different that's the point this is actually why membership matters why we took the time last year to say this is what membership means this is why church discipline matters because the church collectively holds a prophetic office that's why it matters that we police each other
That's why Paul writes stuff like if someone in your if someone he said I don't judge the world I'm not talking about people who aren't in the church people who are in the church if they claim to be a Christian and they're actively pursuing sexual morality don't even eat with them don't have anything to do with them follow the processes of church discipline with them aggressively pursue
Them changing their hearts because the church stands in a prophetic office we say this is what God is like and this is what he cares about so we have to care about how each other follow Jesus and pursue Jesus together that's why we want to be in community groups where you're knowing people and they're confessing sin and we're growing together because we're
All standing and saying that collectively we represent God that matters it's weighty okay to try to help us see this I want to spend the rest of our time there's tons of these where we get to be salty and gracious where we get to have the characteristics that he talks about being poor in spirit and mourning and humble so some of y'all some of you I know y'all some of y'all
Heard be salty and you got so excited because you're like everybody already doesn't like me and I'm super annoying at work you didn't think that you don't think you're annoying you think you're standing up for the truth I don't know why you sound like a redneck when I'm making fun of you but I know some of y'all some of y'all saltiness is easier the aggressive kind of
I'm not backing down stance church stance I get that but he says to do it as those who are meek those who mourn those who are poor in spirit those who are peacemakers like the characteristics the way we hold vehemently to what we believe in has to be gracious and loving and welcoming and kind compassionate now some of y'all you're great at that you're great at being humble and meek
If it means quiet but when it comes to actually standing firm in some beliefs and not just cowing down to what everyone else around you you struggle with that we're called to do both to be salty but graciously humbly now Jesus as he continues the sermon on the mount is going to walk through several different areas where I just have as I've been reading this was just thinking that these are good examples because he keeps pushing this this is all one big message
He gives it's not separate little ideas he keeps pulling this idea all the way through and this is areas where we get to be prophetic in our culture that they got to be prophetic that they got to stand out as salt and light and we get to also and so I just want to point out three areas that Jesus is going to get to in the sermon on the mount that I think we have a distinct opportunity as the church in the United States to absolutely be outlandish crazy subversive
Frustrating and attractive beautiful like I think there's a couple of places where we get to do that in our culture that Jesus gets to and that I just want to point out as we think through this to try to help us understand more fully how to do this the first one is enemy love so Jesus says don't pray for those who persecute you bless those who curse you love your enemies
If someone strikes your cheek give them the other also if they take your cloak give them your other one like he he goes aggressively against retaliation and enemy hatred now American culture has shifted aggressively to being very no matter what the issue partisan very much here's the line these people are okay and these people aren't because it's easy to pick on this I want to talk about red states and blue states
Democrats and republicans because it's all fresh in our minds even from this past week where there's inauguration but also protest here's one of the things that has begun to break down our culture has lost the ability to disagree graciously we've lost the ability to do that you see that was one of the things that the early church was so beautiful that stood out so so crazily they were in a culture that valued power
That valued honor it was a shame and honor culture so that when someone disrespected you you disrespected them back you had to keep your honor they were they were into a culture where they were persecuted and hated and what did they do they loved their enemies they prayed for them they were gracious and humble they looked outlandish subversive to what everybody valued but it was also beautiful they forgave those
Who had harmed them but see our cultures American cultures lost that y'all watch nightly news we could play this would be like a sobriety drinking game watch the nightly news and take a shot every time one of them says that was a really good point I just changed my mind you don't even have to buy alcohol it's not going to happen they don't have discussions where one of them goes that was really valid I've never thought about that before they don't have discussions they just wait for the other person to try to catch their breath so they can shout something else
And then the person who's hosting always gets to go they always have the last word because they have like the button that shuts that person's screen down sometimes if you listen to talk radio they'll cut the person off and then just get to talk about whatever they want to you can tell that the person on the phone is no longer on the phone anymore they got to say about two sentences they cut them off and then they just start it'd be great like I would like to get one of those for my marriage but we've lost the ability we've lost the ability
To disagree we've lost the ability to humbly be able to listen to somebody I have to fight for this whenever I get in arguments with my wife I had to do this the other day where because when she says good points I don't want to acknowledge that they're good I want to win that's the point of the argument I had to stop myself and go no you're right about that I'm wrong but see Christians are in a distinct position so if you if you hang out with really blue people or if you hang out
With really red people you know what I'm talking about so if you're in a really democrat circle or really republican circle I want you to do something because this is where we get to be really salty next time they're just blasting someone I want you to go out of your way to say something nice about the other side yeah but I really appreciate how they hold this position I think they do this better than we do and watch them look at you like because here's the truth only Christians don't have our value based off of our position
In response to other people's position see if I place my value in being a republican or being a democrat then I actually need the other side to be wrong I need them to be terrible people I need them to be the people who are ruining our country so that I can be okay if you're in school you're in high school and you're in the cool group you actually need people to not be cool they have to be not cool people so that you can still be cool there has to be
Someone on that if you're in the not cool group you're edgy everything y'all y'all are into is super weird nobody gets what y'all are talking about because it's all alternate and you have to like spend an hour on the internet just to find this thing and even when you watch it no one understands what the point was if that's you you need really basic mainstream people who don't get it you need people who point out how weird your clothes are
Right you need them they have to exist and they have to be weird they have to be so different from you if you're cool you have to have uncool people but Christians don't need that we know we're poor in spirit we're meek we're humble we know that our only value comes from Jesus that's it we don't bring anything to the table that makes us good or smart or right or the best we get Jesus
So guess what whichever group you're in whichever side of the aisle you're on Christians get to be the leaders in saying that was a really good point they do that better than us let's open our table up to everybody you're welcome to sit here you're welcome among me I'm going to try to understand you I'm going to start having events where the church gets to be the leaders and pulling a bunch of people around the table that don't think like them don't look like them and they don't have to
Demonize them or make them the bad guy this will make you stand out be disliked if you're in the cool group and you make a non-cool friend and you bring them to the cool group you have now made all of your friends less cool but it's beautiful and the reason the church is in a position to do this is because our God who was our enemy tore heaven and earth apart to make his enemies
His brothers that's what the cross is that's who his people are they didn't understand that when he was saying it but they were going to get to see it later how much he would go how far to the ends of the earth God would go to love his enemies so the church is in a distinct position in our culture in their culture and in our culture to hold this to be salty but attractive second one that Jesus is going to get to later and we'll spend more time on is the Christian sexual ethic what Christians say
About sex in their culture was crazy it was crazy Christians so in their culture if you were married probably the wife shouldn't sleep around but the husband was expected to anyone that was below his kind of level if he slept around with someone on the same level that was looked down on but anyone who was below slaves prostitutes just whatever you were supposed to it was normal
It was accepted Christians came along and said oh and it was also accepted that you would sleep around a lot before you got married and Christians came along and said no one man one woman monogamous forever relationship that's the only place that sex exists Jesus was even going to say like lust isn't okay which is just so far a step beyond what they were even thinking about like he like so
They just came along and said no and they seemed it was subversive it was outlandish and they stuck to it it was crazy fast forward 2000 something years Christians haven't started seeming more normal when it comes to sex I don't know if y'all have picked up on that we're holding to the same stuff and we're very much disliked for it we're narrow minded we're bigoted we're crazy you're made fun of if someone finds out that you are waiting till marriage
To have sex they have like a thousand questions why this is the first one what what it's probably the second one after you've answered why we just look backwards here because we believe Christians believe that marriage points to the gospel that it's actually a picture of Jesus' love for the church so that all marriages on earth are supposed to be a paint by Numbers they should all look the same because we're all trying to point to the same picture and they should be forever
All of life because that's Jesus' love for the church doesn't change his continued pursuit his continued love it doesn't change we believe that that sex exists as a covenantal renewal so it only happens in marriage and that humans are fine if they never get married and never have sex that's the other thing that seems crazy to our culture you've got to be married to become a complete person to level up to move to the next stage if you live your whole life not married what are you doing? and if you're not married
And not sleeping around you're insane at least American culture says you are church Christian culture says no it's fine because we believe wholly different things about marriage we believe that it images God's love for us that Jesus' pursuit of us his continued love for us like y'all see this where we get to stay salty but also be winsome and attractive and gracious in our opinions and the way we hold it
And the way we pursue it and the way we love people in our church family who are single and are going to remain single for life the way we invite them over to holidays the way we treat them like family the way we expand what Jesus says family looks like we get to to look differently in the way we rally around couples that are hurting and people that have gone through divorce and how we love and how we serve and how we pursue and how we remind them what matters
And what's true Jesus is going to get to that the third issue that I think is helpful for us to see this picture of us being salt and light is how the church is supposed to love the poor see Jesus starts talking to them about love for the poor and giving to the poor and relating to the poor and mourning and being poor in spirit and that's completely backwards from their culture that was one of the things that stood out so starkly against the Roman Empire that people were even writing letters
And saying we got a bunch of Christians in our area and not only do they take care of their poor but they're taking care of our poor not only are they taking care of their sick but they're taking care of our sick also the way Christians went out of their way to adopt children and to rally around those who were hurting and sick and diseased you see we're set apart even now to do this distinctly to outpace our culture and how generous we are to outpace our culture and how much we love the poor
You see our culture American culture is fine with love for the poor but your family is going to think you're weird if you start giving up on the American dream to mourn with those who mourn if you start giving up on the idea that happiness and wealth are tied together and that happiness is the point of life and you start embracing mourning and poverty you're going to have people start saying wait what are you doing that's
You know they're poor for a reason right they've caused that themselves they're all crazy they're on drugs and we get to say yeah sure maybe okay but I've been blessed I have a God who was beyond rich who became broken and poor and humble for me I have a God who's beyond powerful who took on the ultimate position of meekness for me
I have a mansion in the sky you talk about sounding crazy I have a hope that bank accounts can't touch I have a wealth that makes America look pathetic and China who owns all of America's money also look pathetic I have a security that is well beyond the $100,000 backed up by the US government I got more gold than Fort Knox I got a hope and an eternity that is so secure
And a promise that every time a dollar walks out the door it's sent to eternity it's not lost Jim Elliot who ended up dying for his faith as a missionary I love this quote he wrote it in his journal he says he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose and the church is in a distinct position to say who's hurting who's hurting
Because Jesus chases who's hurting that was the point of the cross and we get to stand shoulder to shoulder and we get to walk money out the door I hope and pray that as our church family that every year at about this time when you start looking at your tax returns and you start I hope everybody gets to hit the charitable giving Numbers that lets you start doing the tax deductions on that I hope every single one of us see that number
Rise every year I hope every one of us has a lower standard of living I'd love to have a church where nobody had cable or direct TV except for one person so we could throw some Super Bowl parties but I'd love for us to have a church where so much money walked out the door where so many people were not just given a hand not just given but actually we're just like I'm going to hold your hand until we get there I'm not just going
To give you a hand up I'm going to give you a hand like I'm going to be with you this whole time I'm going to help you have money in your savings account part of my money in my savings account isn't even designated for me it's for you like that the church gets to be so radically distinct there because we have such great promises that we get to be salty that people get to think you're crazy that you get to look weird
And you get to say yeah I know but we get to be so beautiful and what happens and why that matters and why we actually have to live this see our apologetic has to move beyond being able to prove to somebody that the tomb was empty I think that's helpful being able to prove to somebody that it makes more sense that God created the world I've watched some of that stuff it's very helpful for me I believe that stuff is true but our apologetic
Has to start being a lived out church culture one where we get to say no no no let me show you a group of people let me invite you to my community group where you get to see a people whose view on relationships whose view on finances whose view on people who they disagree with is so radically different that you're going to be uncomfortable but it's going to draw you in we have to live this we have to be able to point to the church in the U.S. and say that's what
God's like and that's what he cares about that was Jesus' point that's the prophetic office that he's called the church into the band's going to come back up I have a few questions for us are you doing this are we doing this do our community groups look like we believe that we have an eternal hope and an eternal husband we have a God who broke the divide between heaven and earth
To rescue his enemies to take their pain as his to die their death do we look like that? see it's not it's not just big stuff it's simple stuff where we get to love our enemies where we get to be generous it's not just politics it's your neighbor who's in the homeowners association who is the just the most frustrating person who's ever existed who gets out of their car and measures your grass with a tape measure and you think you're at my house I think
What's the law I can kill you and I don't get in trouble like and you throw a party and you invite them and your neighbors are like why is that guy here? or if they don't come and your neighbors start talking about them you step in and say hey guys I don't think this is helpful I don't think this is appropriate for us to talk about this person like we get to love our enemies and so at lunch tables in break rooms we get to we get to be generous to the poor
Every month as we set our budget that we get to start setting aside money that's not going to be ours and we just start praying Jesus this money belongs to you all this money belongs to you so help me start setting my budget like I believe that and help me start seeing needs that I hadn't seen before and help me be willing to hand money to people who are ungrateful and don't deserve it so that I'll understand how ungrateful
And undeserving I am help me to actually live so that I could look at my bank account and say yeah she believes in eternity he believes in eternity they have a hope and a kingdom and they can't be touched they have unfading treasure come in to be salt and help us to collectively as a church shine are we doing this this is what our groups look like if not let's start let's start looking like a group of people that can say this is what God's like and this is what he cares about if you're not in a community group
And you're not a Christian my invitation to you is get into a community group we eat a meal we talk about Jesus you don't have to talk you can just eat you don't have to eat there's a lot of carbohydrates in most of our groups so if you're on a diet bring some salad but come be around a group of people that get to try to live like this is what Jesus is like this is what God's like this is what he cares about that gets to repent of sin that gets to care about what our actions look like that get to care about what each other's actions look like because we hold a prophetic office
But get to do that with meekness humility peacemaking if you're a Christian and you're not in a group get in a group so we can begin to collectively live this out in more practical daily ways so that your group can start serving your group can start giving ultimately let's all begin to pray that our group would be filled with generous humble people who go out of their way for the hurting who care about people enough to start awkward conversations we get to live this we get to point to it
That's our call that's the office we hold as a church we get to hustle until one day we get to meet our king and enter into the kingdom that he's prepared let's pray God we thank you that all of this is in response to your cross that all of this is in response to your love that all of this is in response to what you've already done for us the way you've already loved your enemies the way you've already pursued those
Who had nothing to offer God I pray that we would look in our community groups in our church that your church in this country in this city in this state that we'd begin to be able to point and say that's what God's like and that's what he cares about that when we when we pointed to what we believe and what we do the immediate response would be oh yeah that makes sense I see that if you believe that of course you'd act
This way God we thank you and we love you and we ask for your Holy Spirit to help us in Jesus name Amen
Kingdoms at War
Transcript
If you ask that question, what's wrong with the world in any group, no one says, what? Wrong with the world? I think we're good. Pretty sure we're crushing it right now. I'm pretty sure ISIS and Ebola is how things are supposed to work. I don't know why we would want to try to fix this.
Nobody does that. The truth is, everybody in this room may have a different opinion on how to fix the problem that we have, but nobody has a question as to whether or not we have a problem. Like, systematic, history-wide, worldwide problem. Right? So we're in our third week of talking about Jesus as king, that Jesus is a king and he's an eternal king.
And so here's what I want us to look at today. If Jesus is an eternal king, and if there is cosmic level problem, a cosmic level brokenness in the world, doesn't that kind of get put on his plate? Like, if he's an eternal king, if we're going to believe that, if we're going to say that Jesus is an eternal king that rules and reigns over creation forever, isn't this problem kind of his problem? That's how that works. So if you're a king and you're over a kingdom and your territory is fine and you're at peace, but everybody's dying from the plague, your kingdom's not doing so hot.
Or if everybody's well-fed but there's an army advancing, you can't, as kings, say, oh, we're doing good for another week or two until they get here. Like, you can't do that. And this is who we would take this complaint to, correct? It would be on his plate. So, like, nobody's gone to the mayor of West Columbia and said, what are you going to do about ISIS? What's your plan for fixing Ebola in Africa?
Nobody's saying that to the mayor of West Columbia, and if they are, he's going to be like, leave. Like, I have no, like, I've never sat down and written a letter to President Obama that was like, dear President Obama, what are you going to do about the ridiculous amount of potholes on the road to my house? Like, that's not going to make it to his desk because that's not his level of problem that he deals with. Does that make sense? So if we have a cosmic, worldwide, everybody agrees that there is an issue, that there's brokenness, that something is off, that this isn't how it ought to be, then doesn't that go to the king of the universe?
If Jesus is that king, doesn't that get put on his plate? So what we're going to do, we've taken the past two weeks and we've kind of looked at how Jesus' kingdom advances in a really personal manner. So we've looked at when Jesus shows up and declares that he's king, you can no longer remain neutral to that, just like if someone walked into your house and declared themselves king and owner of your house. You can't remain neutral. You can't be like, uh, all right, sounds good. Can I sit on my couch?
Like, you've got to address this problem. So Jesus shows up, declares himself king of the universe, and so we have to respond to that, and we said that we can respond like the wise men do in Matthew chapter 1 and 2, where they worship, or we could respond like Herod, where he tries to kill Jesus and defend his kingdom. Last week we looked at how we respond to Jesus as king, and that's through repentance, which is just acknowledging that we're sinful, that we're broken, and that we need him, that we need him to accomplish on our behalf what we can't accomplish, that we're not going to fix this problem, and that we need him to do it. So what we're doing today is we're zooming out.
We're going to take a very wide look at what the kingdom is, what Jesus came to accomplish, how he addresses this issue. I'm going to tell you that the Bible does agree with you that there's an issue, and it does say that Jesus addresses it, so it does actually get put to his desk. And we're going to zoom out. So if we were going to look at the kingdom, what we've kind of done is we've zoomed in on how it actually plays out personally. So if I was going to talk to you about the Roman Empire, we could zoom in on some random guy.
We could talk about Milanitis, the guy who sells horseshoes. And we could learn some things about the Roman Empire, but we wouldn't learn the wide scope of how it got started, how it ended, where its territory was, by just looking at this one guy. Just like watching Honey Boo Boo tells you something about America, but not everything about America. It's telling us something. You can learn some things, but just not everything that you would need to know, hopefully, about America. And so what we're going to do is we're going to zoom out.
I'm going to pray, and we're going to look at Jesus' kingdom as it affects, as it works on a bigger, more cosmic level. God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather and to study your word. I pray that you would reveal to us, show us, teach us about your kingdom, about how it works, and how we are invited into and involved in it. So God, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, in Jesus' name. Amen. So we will be in Matthew chapter 4 and 5.
So we've looked in Matthew chapter 1, Matthew chapter 2, and 3, and now today we'll be in 4 and 5. But we're going to start, zoomed out a little bit further. So we're going to go to Colossians 1, we're going to show it up here. This is in the book of Colossians. We studied this over the summer, and I just want to point something out to us. So it says, 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 in Jesus, we have redemption, which means He buys us back, He makes us His again, He forgives our sins, which means there's brokenness personally in our lives, and that Jesus forgives that, that He steps in and takes our place and forgives us our sin, and that through that, He invites us into His kingdom. So the first half of that says, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Here's how the kingdom works. We've said this repeatedly, but a kingdom advances against another kingdom. Kingdoms are by their very nature militant. And so Jesus' kingdom, if He's an eternal king, is going to advance against a much larger issue than just the small answers that we would give to what would fix the problem.
So that if I was going to raise an army, if I was going to begin to take over territory, if I was going to begin to claim area, I would start with my neighbor's house because I can declare war on that. Like it's pretty even. I can go over to Mr. Kirchtoffer and tell him that I'm claiming his house. He's like 90, but he's been in like every war that America's ever fought. So I don't know.
I think I could take him, but he's scrappy. I can't declare war on Russia. I mean, I could. We could decide right now that I'm going to declare war on Russia. Y'all could vote. We could say we were doing it.
Russia wouldn't care. Wouldn't do anything about it. They wouldn't even show up on their radar. See, what happens is when Jesus shows up and declares that he's a king, they think, okay, militant advance against the enemy. And everyone in the room thinks, Rome. Jesus is going to overthrow Rome.
Here's something I know. When I asked earlier what the problem with the world was, none of you immediately thought Rome. They're the worst, but they're no longer existing kingdom and they're funny hats. And they're still showing up in our movies like Gladiator. If we could just get rid of Rome, we'd fix the problem. But that's what all the disciples thought.
When Jesus showed up and he said he was going to set up a kingdom, they all thought, okay, he's going to overthrow the Romans. But the truth is, three, four hundred years later, if he'd have showed up, everybody would have thought he was going to attack something else. He was going to handle something else. If he showed up a hundred years later, they would have thought he was going to handle something else. If he showed up today, we'd say, hey, here are the issues. Attack these.
Advance your kingdom here. And if he shows up a hundred years later, the answer would be different. So he's going to zoom out. He's going to see much larger issues than we see. Roman Empire lasts like 400 years. Jesus has bigger fish to fry.
You see, he has a kingdom that advances against the domain of darkness. When it says that Jesus, he's delivered us from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved son, what it's saying is that that's the war that is being waged. That Jesus is not advancing against the Romans because he's got much bigger enemies to deal with. Just like America could declare war on Russia and I can only declare war on Mr. Kirchstaffer, which now I'm thinking about it, I may need some allies, so we'll talk afterwards. You face enemies on your same level.
And so when they say, aren't you going to handle the Romans? It's not even on Jesus' radar for what his kingdom advances against. He's going to advance against the domain of darkness. So here's what's happened. When God created the world in the book of Genesis, he creates it, he says everything's good except for Adam shouldn't be alone, so he makes him a teammate to go through life together. He gives them both dominion, so he makes man and woman in the image of God and he gives them dominion over the earth and then he says that that's good, that he declares this good and right and then there's the creation that he has rebels against him and so that his good order fractures.
See, Satan shows up in the form of a snake in Genesis chapter 3 and he deceives Eve and her husband who was with her wasn't deceived but he joins in passively, lets her be deceived, watches and then just partakes in the rebellion understanding what he was getting himself into. Not fully, but he went tricked. And at that moment, God's good creation rebelled against him and there was a cosmic level brokenness and darkness enters into what was once light and good. And when Jesus comes back, when he shows up and he says he has a kingdom, he doesn't mean I'm here to overthrow the Romans, he means I'm here to reverse the effects of sin and brokenness in the world.
I'm here to advance against the domain of darkness that began with Satan, sin, and death. And can we agree that death is a bigger enemy than the Romans, than the Russians, than ISIS? Death's a bigger issue. Death wins, you just gotta wait a little while. So he says I'm gonna face a cosmic level enemy because there's cosmic level brokenness and this is I'm a cosmic level king, I'm an eternal king, so this is what I advance against.
So that's what Jesus comes to set up his kingdom against, that's what he comes to advance against. And here's the thing, so we would say, okay, hold on a second, hold on a second, so the world, we sinned, we rebelled against God, there was brokenness, Satan enters in their sin which just means that we no longer love Jesus like we ought to, we no longer love God, like they ought to, but they chose to make themselves God, they chose to care more about themselves than anything else and so we would say, well why doesn't God just get rid of evil? Like if he's God, if this is a cosmic level problem, we all agree there's something wrong with the world, why didn't he just fix that? Because he'd have to get rid of all of us because of the collateral damage at this point.
You see, when the United States gets into a conflict with a country like Iraq, or Afghanistan, which we've been over there hanging out for 10, 15 years now doing stuff, we have the capability to make that a black spot on Google Maps. Y'all understand that, right? Like the United States has the capability of creating craters where there used to be countries. we don't because of the collateral damage of the people who are a part of things that would get caught up in it. And so God could erase evil but he'd have to erase us because the truth is we've actually joined in the rebellion. We're selfish, we're greedy, we're a part of the problem.
Russ was very correct when he raised his hand and said he was. I am. We're a part of the rebellion and the brokenness, the sin that pervades the world. It's infected our souls. And so, God has an option, show up and destroy everything and get rid of evil. But he cares about us.
So what Jesus does is he comes to live a perfect life. So he doesn't rebel, he doesn't get infected, he doesn't join the domain of darkness but walks in light and then he dies in our place for our sins. So that he's headed to the cross and he's going to die so that darkness, our darkness can be put onto him and so that his light, righteousness can be given to us. So that our sin can be put onto him and so that his good things can be given to us. So that he who didn't deserve to die can die on behalf of those who do so that he can swap places with us.
He's advancing against the cosmic enemy which is sin. Ephesians 6 says this, it's a sister letter to Colossians. It says, For we do not wrestle and wrestle there just means hand-to-hand combat to the death. So it's not like WWE where they get to come back after they wrestle. It's like gladiatorial things where it's like, you lost, you don't exist anymore. Too bad.
So we don't wrestle, we don't have hand-to-hand combat to the death against flesh and blood which means our problems aren't worldly problems but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So that Jesus' kingdom advances against darkness wherever it shows up. And see, the thing is when we say that these are issues, when we name off ignorance, when we name off racism, when we name off all the things that cause problems in our world, those are just a part of how darkness shows up, how sin shows up and works itself out. But it's not the biggest level problem.
So, Jesus chooses to show up and handle the actual problem that we're facing. His kingdom advances not against the Romans but against darkness. He has a kingdom of light that advances against darkness. So, jumping to Matthew 4, we're going to look at Jesus walking around and doing some of the stuff that he does. and it helps make sense of a lot of what Jesus did while he was on earth. It helps clarify, at least for me, a lot of what Jesus is doing. So, what we've looked at is that Jesus has a cosmic kingdom that advances against a cosmic enemy, Satan's sin and death.
He came just for the sole purpose of going to the cross so that he could die and so that he could disarm, as Colossians says, that he disarms the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame because he canceled the record of our debt. So, the enemy wants us caught up in this and he wants us to be destroyed. And Jesus pays for our sins so that he was destroyed on our behalf so that we don't have to be destroyed as we place faith in him. Here's what Jesus does, Matthew 4, 23, 25. We looked last week at verse 17 where it says Jesus showed up and from that time Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
So, he repents, he declares that the way we respond to the kingdom is repentance. Admitting that we're broken, admitting that we're wrong and we need him to show up and then he starts telling us what he did. And he went throughout all Galilee, this is verse 23, he went throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, that's where Jewish people gathered on Saturdays, not unlike this, what we're doing right now, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel, which means good news, the gospel of the kingdom. So, he's proclaiming, he's going around in Galilee, all this area, this area in Judea and he's proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, that he has a kingdom, that it is coming and that it is good news and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
So, his fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, which is spiritual enemies, epileptics and paralytics and he healed them and great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. So, Jesus walks around and I think most of us are familiar with this, Jesus walks around and he heals people, casts out demons, which the Bible is very okay with spiritual things. We're Westerners, we're not for the most part. Like maybe we like that show where they go around and they talk to ghosts or whatever, which I was watching that one time, they were in an ancient Chinese lair.
Chinese people have layers, tomb, I don't know what Chinese people have, but they were in one of these and they're walking around and they're looking for a ghost and they got like that little boom, boom, you know, ghost detector thing they have because they sell those, I think it's sharper image if you're looking for one, if you think you have a ghost in your closet or something, boom, boom, boom, and then this 2,000 year old Chinese ghost comes over and says, get out and they freak out and they run and you're like, oh my goodness, there's a ghost and then you're like, wait, that ghost spoke English. So that was weird. Like this Chinese guy, he's been dead for a long time so he's got time to read and he's like, I'm tired of all these Americans coming in and poking around, and I need to learn English so that I can freak him out because every time I whisper Chinese things, they're just like, what was that? So he learned English just to get rid of, but no, the Bible, we're not super okay with spiritual things but the Bible is.
Like this Chinese guy, he's been dead for a long time so he's got time to read and he's like, I'm tired of all these Americans coming in and poking around, and I need to learn English so that I can freak him out because every time I whisper Chinese things, they're just like, what was that? So he learned English just to get rid of, but no, the Bible, we're not super okay with spiritual things but the Bible is. The Bible is very clear that there are spiritual powers, spiritual things that we cannot see,
That there is an enemy on a cosmic level, that Satan is real, he was created by God, he is not as powerful as God, it's not a yin and yang thing but he is real, demons are real, the Bible is very clear about that, doesn't go into explaining a whole lot of how they work, what they do because the Bible is very focused on Jesus all the time and the Bible is very clear that Jesus has authority and power over these spiritual beings and at no point does the Bible get demon focused although they are there. So Jesus shows up though and he heals people and he casts out demons and he heals paralytics
And he lets blind people see again and I always just kind of thought this was like something he did on his way to the cross and it was just something he kind of, he did because he was God and he could and so while he was here he might as well heal people because it would be kind of rude not to because he can and so when people ask he should that's only, just good manners I always just kind of felt like it was that or maybe it was just he was going to show us that he was God and so like by healing someone
He shows us that he's God but I always felt like they were separate things I always felt like teaching, telling people about the gospel and healing people and even the spiritual warfare stuff which is what the stuff dealing with demons and stuff gets called a lot that they were separate things and that the kingdom was kind of somewhere over here but the truth is when Jesus heals somebody he's actually just pointing to the work that he's going to do on the cross when he casts out an evil spirit he's just pointing to the work that he's going to do
On the cross because all he's doing is advancing his kingdom against the domain of darkness which is sin and the effects of sin which is death and pain and brokenness and so when Jesus walks around on earth healing people when he walks around on earth meeting needs of those who are hungry and broken and outcasts when he walks around on earth welcoming people in who are isolated all he's doing is in every way advancing his kingdom against the bigger problem
Which is darkness pain sin Satan death so when Jesus raises someone from the dead it's not a parlor trick or just something to show that he's God it's actually what he's going to do on the cross which is reverse the effects of sin which bring about all these things so Jesus walks around doing this on earth and it's not separate from from the the kingdom
And it's not separate from his work on the cross so Jesus let me just this is helpful to understand Jesus when he goes to the cross inaugurates his kingdom when he walked around on earth he begins to proclaim that the kingdom's coming when he goes to the cross and he dies and then three days later rises again he inaugurates the kingdom which means that the kingdom exists now
And on that bumper video it said the kingdom is already but not yet that's a good way to say it the kingdom already is here but it's not yet fully consummated it's not yet fully rationalized realized pretty sure what I just said before that didn't make any sense but if it sounded good it did alright moving on that he inaugurated the kingdom it's already
But not yet but it's not fully yet realized which means that when he returns and destroys all of his enemies and welcomes those who've had their sin covered that at that point is when every tear will be wiped away from every eye there won't be pain brokenness sin anymore everything will be grace mercy love it'll be back to the way it's supposed to
So when Jesus walks around on earth and he heals somebody he's pointing to what he's going to do on the cross and he's pointing to how the kingdom's going to eventually work because there is no cancer in the fully consummated kingdom there is no brokenness death and pain in the kingdom and so he's saying when he tells somebody I'm healing you and the kingdom of God has come near he's saying this is what it's going to be like and this is what
I'm going to accomplish on the cross and that's that's how he advances against the actual enemy so he wasn't wasting time he was actually moving his kingdom forward every time he healed somebody every time he pushed the enemy back because he's advancing against the domain of darkness okay so chapter 5
Says that Jesus seeing the crowds he went up on a mountain and when he sat down his disciples came to him and then he says a bunch of stuff that we don't that seems the exact opposite of how we would understand the world to work so he says blessed are you who are hungry blessed are you who mourn blessed are you who are persecuted and it's like I thought blessed meant good stuff that sounds terrible
But what his point is is that his kingdom is working in an opposite way it's an upside down kingdom as opposed to the way we would think the world works that he didn't come to make everybody happy and whole now that he didn't come to fix everything now but he came to take care of our big problem which is that there is brokenness that there is pain in the world
And that it's caused by sin and he's saying blessed are you who are hungry now because you'll realize that there's brokenness pain and you'll turn and find me but verse 13 is what we're going to look at how we get to be involved in the kingdom you are the salt of the earth but if salt has lost its taste how shall its saltiness be restored it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown
Out and trampled under people's feet you are the light of the world okay who's the light of the world who's the light of the world you are okay who's he talking to disciples people listening to him followers of his who else does the bible say is the light of the world Jesus yeah we're in church
That's the correct answer to most everything Jesus okay so Jesus is the light of the world and says that he's the light of the world and then at this point he turns and looks at his followers and says you are the light of the world Jesus is the light of the world his followers are the light of the world that's a pretty
Amped up promotion for those who would follow Jesus so that's an important role if it's what he fulfills as well and then he says that his church that the people that follow him are this he says you are the light of the world a city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand
And it gives light to all in the house in the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven okay Jesus' kingdom advances against the domain of
Darkness and then he looks at his followers and says you're the light of the world just right after he's walked around healed he's gathered big crowds and he's shown how the kingdom advances against darkness he then looks at his followers and says you're a part of this this is what you're supposed to do
This is what this is supposed to look like you're the light of the world we're advancing against darkness you know there's something great about light before we get into that God cheats just so y'all know when he gives illustrations when Jesus gives illustrations about who he is and what he did he created everything
We're going to look at some parables he gives next week about what he's like see when we're going to give an illustration about something we have to think okay I guess it's kind of like a tree and we have to think about what already exists but when God was creating things he got
To make it however he wanted to so when he says you're you're like light or I'm light or I advanced against darkness he already set up how darkness and light work so it's really not fair does that make sense like he created it so it gets to work how he wants it to work when God says that he's lighter that he advances against
Darkness do you know what's beautiful about that light never has a hard time getting rid of darkness it just doesn't he don't turn on a light in a room and it's got to take five minutes for it to push the darkness out of the room that's not how that works darkness is the absence of
Light so Jesus's kingdom advances against a domain of darkness and his followers are a city on a hill and the light of the world that we actually have because of Jesus the ability to advance against the domain of darkness when he says they're a city on a hill in that day when you needed something
A city was a great place to go it had walls and there was safety in a city there were certain cities that were actually cities that there were cities of refuge so if something was bad was going on or you did something bad you could actually run to the city and it was basically like home base so like you made it in the city like I can't get me I'm in the city you got to have a
Trial now you can't just kill me out there in the street and that was what they did so you went to the city to have fairness to have rule to have law to have protection if you needed something you went to a city because the city would have it and so what he says is that the church is a city on a hill that can't be hidden and that good works are to point to the father that people should see the
Church's good works and point to the father and give glory to our father in heaven so what Jesus says is that he's got a kingdom that advances against darkness in all forms and he's got a church that exists on the mission to advance that that we get to be a part of the same advancement against brokenness against pain against poverty against hunger against the enemy's work to bring about strife and pain and hurt that's what the church gets to do
And he empowers that and he accomplishes it but that's us so very practically how does that work what do we get to do what does that look like as we join Jesus on his mission I just want to cover a few things just to make just to make this this very practical so it's practical so we can understand what it looks like for us to join him to be a part of advancing the kingdom against darkness so we see that he heals people we see that Jesus so he meets
Physical needs we see at different times where Jesus feeds people so he meets physical needs that way as well he talks to his followers about being generous about giving things to people who are in need he also deals with spiritual ramifications of things so he addresses sin he addresses spiritual enemies so like we get to join in all of these things as the kingdom advances first thing we do real practical ways we pray the church gets to pray which
Is just us understanding that we don't accomplish this that we need God to show up that we need Jesus to be a part of moving this kingdom forward that if this is going to advance against the domain of darkness if we're going to push back darkness in West Columbia and Columbia we're going to push back darkness where we live we're going to need Jesus to show up so we pray we understand that it's what he accomplished on the cross for us that moves things forward anyway so we pray as the church we pray we give generously
Which means that as followers of Jesus we realize that he left his throne to give everything on our behalf to die in our place for our sins and so that everything we have is now held with an open hand it's his and it's whatever he wants us to use it for and the Bible says that that we've already been given everything in Christ and you know what that means it means you have nothing to gain you've already been given everything in Jesus and you have nothing to lose because you've already been getting everything in Jesus and so Christians are generous we give generously we open our wallets we
Write checks we help pay for things for people we give to local churches we give to missionaries we we give we pay for food we give generously if we own something it we share it we serve just means we give up our time our energy and our effort to push back darkness which means that it's Christians run soup kitchens do hospice care run clinics because Jesus did that because Jesus met physical needs that way because Jesus said that he didn't come to be served but to serve and so we get to join in the kingdom advancing as we push back the tangible effects of sin which is sickness and pain and hunger so Christians get to join in and advance the kingdom in a small way when we do these
Things we fight for relationships it's sin that tears up relationships every relationship you've ever had go poorly is due to sin and nothing else unforgiveness saying mean things to each other being too prideful to to communicate once something went poorly and so Christians know that Jesus overcame way more to have a relationship with us overcame everything and so we fight for relationships we're not okay with awkwardness just so you know that's a rule for Christians that's a rule here we're not okay with awkwardness not awkwardness like man that person makes conversations awkward because they breathe through their mouth not like that awkwardness like there's something weird between us and we're not
Going to talk about it awkwardness like they hurt my feelings but I'm not going to say anything we don't we don't that's that's not okay amongst Christians because we fight for relationships because Jesus gave us the ability to overcome it means that we fight for relationships with people who don't seem to have friends we befriend them because we know that Jesus went out of his way to befriend us who weren't very friendly he did not sit in heaven and say man that chad is one cool cat I want to get to know him he didn't he didn't say it about any of you either he overcame it for us and befriended us and cares about us because he's great so we fight for relationships we tell everyone about Jesus so it starts off by saying that he went around proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and that's what we do we tell everyone about Jesus we tell
Everyone about the hope and the life that can be found in him we tell everyone about how he's affected our hearts on a very real basis we tell everyone about the fact that we're messed up we can't fix this but Jesus came live the way we were supposed to died in our place he lived the way we were supposed to and died the way we were supposed to so that we don't have to die the way that we that we were supposed to and that we can have his way that he lived applied to our account we tell everyone about Jesus it is not an invitation we talked about last week it's not an invitation to come be amazing it's not an invitation to come have good morals it's not an invitation to come be really good behaviorers it's not it's an invitation that repentance is I'm messed up I need Jesus okay so we pray we give we serve we fight for relationships and we tell everyone about Jesus and you want to know
What's true we can do that anywhere we get to be a part of the kingdom anywhere I was having a conversation earlier this morning God wants Christians to be contractors and to stay contractors God wants Christians to be doctors and nurses and to stay doctors and nurses God wants Christian bus drivers Christian school teachers Christian plumbers there's no hierarchy in Christianity when it comes to following Jesus so it's not like foreign missionary Pope I don't know where you come from Pope foreign missionary bishop pastor Sunday school teacher deacon others who follow Jesus and read their Bible some others who don't read their Bible like it's not there's not like categories for it and God isn't like if you do this you're more special that's not how it works now there's supposed to be pastors and missionaries and they're supposed to be leaders in the church but they're supposed to be Christians who go to school forever
And then go do something else that they learn how to do they're supposed to be Christians who go to school to learn how to do something and then go do something that has nothing to do with what they learn how to do and they use that job to pay off their school debt and that's what because we can do this anywhere we can be a part of the kingdom anywhere you can do that at work you can pray for your co-workers say my boss is an idiot we'll pray for him most bosses are idiots pray for your heart while you pray for him see how you can so you pray you pray for your co-workers you pray that Jesus would show up that he would work in your in your place of work you can give this hey let me take you out to lunch hey I brought an extra honey bun in my lunch you want it people love carbohydrates give be generous you can give you can go out of your way to serve people when you hear hey I realize you're having car trouble can I can I help with that you
Can serve so if there's car trouble and you know how to fix it you can serve if you don't know how to fix it you can be like here's 10 bucks good luck is the gas tank on empty no I'm out of my expertise level here's $10 talk to a pro like you you can serve you can hey I've realized you're coming up on a deadline can I stay late and help you do that you can fight for relationships which means you show up early you stay late you talk to people and not just the people that are going to help you advance you can you can when you have the opportunity for someone who nobody else at work likes which every work has those people if if your work doesn't it might be you you can go out of your way to talk to those people to to share a time with them to say hey to them to ask them how they're doing you can fight for relationships at work and you can tell everyone about Jesus when you get the opportunity to share about Jesus when you get the opportunity to tell them about
What you have in Christ and the truth is if you're doing those other things you'll get opportunities and if you're doing those other things people won't mind listening to it because it won't be like hey I know I don't know you and I've never talked to you but here's this pamphlet or let me shout things at you it'll be no that's just who I am this affects how I exist in the world let me talk to you about Jesus you can do that at school you can pray pray for your the other students you can pray for your your instructors teachers professors you can give you can hey notice you miss class you don't copy my notes you can serve you can go out of your way to help people hey I'm doing pretty good in this section I don't mind helping I don't mind helping you study this hey I'm doing terrible in this section will you help me study this which isn't serving
But you may need to ask somebody that some point fight for relationships you can sit with the people that nobody sits with you can talk to people in class that nobody talks to you can do this anywhere and God wants us to do it everywhere that we are the light of the world which means that where you are God has you there on purpose some of you think my job is terrible and I want a different Job and God's holding on to your collar and saying nope I got something more important for you to do than just make money I got something more real and eternal and long lasting for you to do than just get a degree I got way better things for you to do than just play a sport I've got you here for a reason and we can do that everywhere you want to know what's
Beautiful about what we talked about last week that we approach the kingdom through repentance we're gonna be terrible at that there are gonna be days where we're the worst at it we don't pray we don't give we don't serve somebody tries to talk to us we're like hey shut up I'm not here to be your friend and then we get to repent and God doesn't love us more on the days that we get it right and he doesn't love us less on the days when we get it wrong we get to follow him in repentance Jesus has already accomplished everything on our behalf for those of us who placed our faith in him he's already done all of this for us and he's invited us into a cosmic level world-changing mission you see the disciples when Jesus rose from the dead and they look at him in
Acts chapter 1 and they say at this time you're gonna set up your kingdom you're gonna overthrow the Romans now and he says not now I've got a mission for you more people need to be invited in because at that point Jesus could have set up his kingdom and he would have saved all the people who knew him at that point and he would have destroyed everybody else and he hasn't done that yet because he wants all of us that know him to be everywhere infecting the world with the truth that we have in Jesus and spreading the kingdom band's gonna come up and play we're gonna sing and then we get to go be the church we get to go be a part of God's cosmic level mission we get to be a part of pushing back darkness by sharing food by praying for people by building relationships by serving people in tangible ways we get to be a part of
The kingdom advancing in our city every day and it's beautiful that everything that you do gets to have a level of intentionality to it now that you didn't understand or comprehend or or know or fully think about all the time we actually get to be a part of the kingdom advancing in our city when we go to work this week when we're having a random conversation with someone this week I'm gonna pray we're gonna sing God thank you that you did not solve the problem of the Romans I thank you that you showed up to handle a cosmic level brokenness in the world that you have a better vantage point than we do so that you address sin God I thank you that you've invited us into that that in your grace you didn't destroy evil and in your grace you're not coming back just yet so that we continue to to serve and love and advance your kingdom
In tangible ways and point people to Jesus we love you we thank you I pray that your Holy Spirit would empower us to be that to be a city on a hill to be a light in the world and God help us repent as we follow you we love you we praise you in Jesus name amen house and let's go 감사합니다 you you you you you you you