Good Friday

Good Friday

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good evening. It is good Friday, you guys. I'm excited that we get to worship and look at the cross of Christ. We are going to jump straight into Matthew this evening as we follow Jesus, picking up the readings that we just finished, as we follow Jesus up the hill to be crucified. And as we walk through it, I want you to visualize the different scenes of Jesus going to the cross and on the cross. I want you to picture it.

There are moments where you have to close your eyes to do this. I invite you to do it. And the more that we picture and visualize what happened at the cross, the more we will begin to understand why we call this Good Friday. Let me pray and then we'll jump into the text. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the work that you have done. May we see it so clearly with open eyes.

And may we respond in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Verse 32. As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross.

All right. So where we left off on Sunday, Jesus was being brutally tortured and beaten. He is physically unable to take the cross up the hill. Now, there's a man named Simon of Cyrene who's passing through. He's from the region of Cyrene, which is in modern day Libya. He's probably here on pilgrimage to see to be a part of the Passover feast.

And they grab him and they say, help Jesus take this cross up the hill. So they come up the hill where Jesus will be crucified. Verse 33. It says, when they found when they came to the place called Golgotha, which means which means place of a skull. They offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it.

All right. So they move to a place called Golgotha, which is right outside the city walls. It's called place of a skull. This is where Jesus will be executed in Latin. It's where we get the term Calvary. He's taken up the hill of Calvary and he's given a drink of wine mixed with gall.

Now, it's debated whether this is an act of kindness or if this is further mockery. You can go back and forth on this. Gall is a bitter drink. It's mixed with the wine. And I would argue from the context of Matthew that it's probably a little bit of mockery. Mocking him.

This is what we're going to see, a lot of theme of Jesus' humiliation and mocking as you walk through these scenes in Matthew. He refuses to drink it. And then they nail his hands to the cross and nail his feet to the cross and raise him up. Verse 35 says, when they crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. And they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, this is Jesus, the king.

The king of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. So when he's raised up, there are men below him casting lots, gambling over his clothes. Which means either they're gambling over the clothes that will come off of him when he comes down from the cross or they have raised him up naked. This is deeply humiliating. This is deeply humiliating.

The crucifixion was meant to be humiliating. They are gambling over his clothes and they put a sign over his head to further mock our Savior. It said, this is Jesus, king of the Jews. Mocking him. Not realizing the irony of the king they're actually crucifying and killing. And then it tells us that he was crucified between two robbers.

Now the same word in the original language for robber is where we get the word insurrectionist, rebel. It's what we saw Sunday when we walked through Barabbas being exchanged. It's possible these men are also rebels, not just thieves, being crucified to the left and right of Jesus. And then the mocking continues. Verse 39, it says, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. They're mocking him.

Not realizing he was speaking of his own body when he made that statement. They continue to mock him. If you are the son of God, come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, saying, he saved others. He cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel.

Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him. For he said, I am the son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. I want you to see what type of mockery this is.

They are belittling. They are mocking Jesus' relationship with his own heavenly father. They are making fun of his relationship with his father. So much so that the robbers to this left and right start to join in on this. We know one of them finally repents in the end before time ends. But everyone here is mocking Jesus.

And this is an especially painful dig. Because right now, God the Father is pouring out his wrath on his son. But right now, Jesus longs to hear the loving voice of his father. And all he hears is silence and wrath. It says, verse 45, Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lay my sabachthani.

That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus has enjoyed eternal, joy-filled, loving fellowship with the Father. And in one of the darkest moments of all of history, he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That is a verbatim, that is an exact quote from Psalm 22.1. And if I had more time, I'd help you see that this entire section is fulfilling Psalm 22. The only answer he gets in this moment is wrath and silence.

And this moment is so dark that literally creation embodies it. This is a darkness hovers over all the land. Jesus is in physical agony. He is slowly suffocating. His flesh has been ripped to shreds. And for the first time ever, this perfect fellowship he's had with his Father is broken as God's wrath is poured out on him.

And it says in verse 47, Some bystanders hearing it said, This man is calling Elijah, which in the Aramaic would have sounded similar from the ground. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. Further mocking Jesus on the cross. Slowly suffocating and dying. Verse 50 says, And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Now, the wording of that is very intentional. I don't want us to miss this. Jesus is in control of all of this. Jesus is in control of all of this. He willingly submits to the will of the Father in the garden. He willingly journeys towards the cross.

He willingly allows sinful men to try him. To torture him. To beat him. To mock him. He willingly does this. And when it's getting ready to all be finished, he cries out with a loud cry and willingly yields his spirit.

And it is finished. And the work is finally done. And creation immediately feels the effects of this. Verse 51, it says, And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, Truly, this was the Son of God. So when Jesus breathes his last breath, an earthquake occurs. In the Old Testament, earthquakes come about alongside mighty Acts of God. And when the mighty work of Christ is complete, miraculous things start to happen. The first thing it says is that the curtain was torn in two. Now, it doesn't say which curtain that was, but from the context.

It looks like this is the curtain in the innermost part of the temple. The innermost part of the temple was called the Holy of Holies. This is where God's presence resided in. This is where He ruled and reigned from. And there was this thick curtain that separated this part of the temple from the rest. This part of the temple from the people of God.

Because God is so holy and He's so perfect, sin cannot be in the presence of a holy and perfect God. And when Jesus breathes His last breath, that curtain is torn in two. From top to bottom, when it is finished, there is no longer any separation between God and man through Christ. Through Christ, we get access to the Father. So the curtain is torn in two, and then it says that an earthquake happens.

Now, this is one of the strangest and most debated passages in the Gospels. And I don't have the space to really walk us through all the ins and outs of how this can be interpreted because there's a lot of different takes on it. But I'll give you the cleanest, what I think is the best way to understand this, that when Jesus dies, an earthquake happens, that there are tombs that are opened. And some of these tombs belong to recent followers of Jesus. And that when He rises as the first fruit of the resurrection on Easter Sunday, there are some saints that come to life. Again, that is debated.

If you want to debate that later, we can. But we're not going to spend a lot of time on that as we're working through this passage. As creation continues to react to the death of Christ, there's a Roman soldier, a Roman centurion, who sees all of this. And he says, truly, this was the Son of God. And that is pointing forward to the day, for the next 2,000 years, when Gentiles like you and me will make the same conclusion when we believe in Jesus. Truly, this was the Son of God.

Now, we could spend months walking through each of these pictures step by step. But we've been in the Gospel of Matthew for over a year, and I know that some of you are kind of tired at this point. So, but there's so much packed in here, and there's just a few things I want to focus on as we close out this evening. Matthew focuses on the humiliation of Christ. I mean, from when he's tried by the Sanhedrin, from the religious rulers, when he's mocked, when he's beaten, when they're putting the robe on him and treating him, mocking him as a king, all the way to all the parts that we see right here where Jesus is being humiliated, in the midst of all of it is a phrase.

And it's subtle. When they're mocking him, it says, if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. There's something deeper happening in that challenge. If you are the Son of God. You see, in Matthew 4, the exact same phrase, I mean, in the original language, is the exact same phrase is uttered by Satan as Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. If you are the Son of God, he says, turn these stones into bread.

If you are the Son of God, cast yourself off the temple. Don't you know that angels will come and save you? If you are the Son of God. You see, in that moment in Matthew 4, Satan is trying to divert the mission of God. He's trying to stop Satan. He's trying to stop Jesus right then and tempting Him.

If you are the Son of God. And Satan is still at work as he's on the cross and they're mocking him with the same phrase. If you are the Son of God. God should come and help you right now. If you are the Son of God. Come down off that cross.

We read the Jesus Storybook Bible to our kids regularly. And I love how they tackle this story. I love what it says. It says, it wasn't the nails that held Him there. Because in this moment, He could call a whole legion of angels. And in a moment, He could call down, He could flex His power, and all of His enemies would be silenced. in a moment.

It says, it wasn't the nails that held Him there. It was His love. It was His deep love for us. Jesus is derided with the same temptation of Satan. Abandon the mission. You don't have to go through with this.

You can leave now. You can flex your power. If you are the Son of God. It's not the nails that keep Him there. It is His love for us. Jesus could have taken the easy road.

He could have walked away at any moment. But praise Jesus that He did not abandon our hope at the cross. Praise Jesus that as He's on the cross, God has us in mind. For those of us who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, who have trusted in Jesus as our only hope, He had you in mind on the cross. His love for you is what kept Him there. This is our only hope.

That's why we call this Good Friday. Jesus is our only hope. If Jesus doesn't submit to the will of the Father, if He defends Himself at the trial, if He listens to the echoes of Satan, if He doesn't go through with this all the way to the bloody end, we're hopeless. We have no shot at redemption. We are sprinting towards hell without any hope. But because of His great love for us, we call this Good Friday.

We're going to sing the next song that we're going to sing. It's beautiful. I love the first verse of it. It says, Man of sorrows, what a name, for the Son of God who came. ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

What a Savior. We were ruined, hopeless sinners that God reclaimed by His blood. We call it Good because God so loved ruined sinners like you and me that He gave up His only Son to be crushed, to be crucified, and to die for our rebellion, for our sins. The band's going to come up and as they sing this next song, we are going to take the Lord's Supper. If you are a Christian, we invite you to take part in this meal. And as you take this meal, I want you to picture Jesus on the cross.

I want you to think about the suffering. I want you to think about the wrath of God, the Father being poured out on Him. That was meant towards us because of our rebellion, because of our sin. We have earned death, but Jesus died in our place. So Christian, whatever guilt you're wrestling with right now, whatever sin you're wrestling with right now, whatever shame you feel, I want you to know something.

That as you take this bread, which is symbolic of His body that was torn to shreds, when you take this cup, which reminds us of the blood as you take part in this meal, I want you to remember that when Jesus, when God the Father sees you, He doesn't see your shame, He doesn't see your sin, He doesn't see your guilt, He sees the blood of Christ who has covered it and His perfect standing in our place. So I want you to take part in this meal. I want you to remember why we call this Good Friday. And then when we get done, I want you to worship. I want you to sing. I want you to praise our Savior because He's worthy of it because He went to the cross for us.

And if you are not a Christian, I don't want you to take part in this meal. I want you to take part in Christ. I want you to see how much God loves you. How much He loves you that His love held Him there on the cross for you that you might believe. That you don't have to earn God's favor. He lovingly poured it out on the cross for you.

I want you to not take part in this meal. I want you to sit and reflect and take part in Christ and believe in Him. Don't miss this Good Friday. Believe in the Lord Jesus. Let me pray. God, I pray right now that for those of us that are in Christ, we would worship.

We would see You as so beautiful and good and glorious. As we take this meal, we'd be reminded of the gospel that saved us. Lord, lead us into worship and praise of You. God, if there's anyone here that has not trusted in You as their only hope, God, I pray that You would break through their heart right now. I pray that You'd be so overwhelming that their only response would be belief. We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Suffering Substitute

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

The Suffering Substitute

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. As I said before, my name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in Matthew 27, verses 11 through 31. You can follow along on the screen. You can also grab one of those blue Bibles around you.

It's going to be on page 486. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that Bible. That is a gift to you once you have a Bible that you can read at home. So, one of my friends from Louisville, Kentucky, when I lived there for five years, he was a church planner and was a pastor. And over the last few years, I've kind of watched, really online, he has kind of developed a following as he's stopped being a pastor. He's kind of moved into more being a motivational speaker.

He's done a TED Talk. And it's been kind of sad. I've watched him kind of depart from kind of the core teachings of our faith and really, really departing from the gospel. And about a month ago, he posted this graphic right there. If divine forgiveness requires payment, then it's not really forgiveness, the restitution. And I saw that and I was blown away.

I just was like, oh, okay. Now, my personal policy when somebody posts something on Facebook that's meant to be a discussion starter, that's meant to really be a little bit controversial, is don't comment. Just don't do it. Facebook is not a place for discussion. It's an angry place now. There's no nuance.

Like, it's just not, you know, it's not worth the bet. And I should say that that's probably the policy that all of you should have. It's when somebody posts something on Facebook, don't comment. Right? You're not going to have a discussion. You're not going to convince anybody of your position.

It's just going to devolve into a lot of angry ranting. It's just not the most helpful place to have discussions. It's much better to do it in person. So, having said that, I commented on that post. I reasoned in my head. I was like, you know what?

We don't have a lot of friends that overlap on Facebook. And I don't know. Like, it's kind of out on the Internet somewhere. I was like, I just want to respond. So I did.

And we had, I mean, we're friends. So, you know, we had a civil discussion. The big following that he has amassed, they were not happy with my take on this statement. So, I looked at that and I was like, that's insane. What it's saying is, is that if divine forgiveness, if God's forgiveness requires payment, then it's not really forgiveness, but restitution. Restitution being a payment for something that is wrong.

And a lot of people looked at that like, oh, that's really deep. That's profound. And I thought, only in a Western culture like ours could you divorce forgiveness from restitution. As if they were two completely different ideas and not two sides of the same coin. As only in our culture that is largely insulated from major injustices. Now, we have injustices.

We absolutely do. But in other cultures across the world where they face genocide, where there are people that are going into villages and hurting women and stealing children. That are going through major injustices. They would look at that and think that how in the world could you divorce forgiveness from payment? As if they're two completely different options. So I tried to have this discussion.

And I thought more about it over the last month. And the reality is, it's not based in the Bible. And one of the people that really like this idea, they don't like the idea of God's wrath. They don't like the idea of sin. They don't like those ideas at all. So it's not based in the Bible.

It's also not based in reality. I mean, for example, if I devised a scheme to steal your mother or your grandmother's retirement. Everything she's worked for her entire life. I stole every penny. And then I got caught. There's one of two options of how that really plays out.

It's either I pay restitution. I pay for the wrong that was done. Or she says, no, you know what? He obviously needs the money. I forgive him. But even in both of those examples, somebody is paying restitution.

Either I'm doing it or she's absorbing the debt herself. In her forgiveness, she's the one that's actually making the payment. There is no biblical reality. There is no reality in general. It separates the idea of forgiveness from payment. And that is because forgiveness is not free.

It costs something. Tim Keller, a pastor that we love and look up to, says the only way God can pardon us and not judge us is to go to the cross and absorb it himself. To make the payment himself. And today that's what we're going to look at. Today we're going to walk through that reality. As we see it very clearly.

We've been following Jesus as he's preparing for the cross. And now he is leading up to the cross. And we're going to follow him all the way up to before he walks up the hill. And as we walk through this today, we're going to see over and over again that forgiveness is not free. That it has a cost that Jesus paid. And my hope is, is for those of us who have trusted in Jesus, my hope is that that would lead us to a deeper affection and love for Christ.

And my hope for those of you that have not trusted in Jesus as your only hope. For those of you that do not know him. My hope is that you would see how much our God loves you. That he sent his son to die for you. So that's, that's the goal.

That's what we're going to walk through this morning. Let me pray for us as we walk through this passage. Lord, we love you. And we are thankful for what you have done for us. God, I pray that you would help us see that so clearly. You would become so beautiful to us.

And that you would work on our hearts and we would respond. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, so. Verse 11. Chapter 27.

Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, you have said so. All right, so context from last week. Chet walked us all the way up to the trial at the Sanhedrin. So, Jesus is arrested.

He's brought before the Sanhedrin. That's the religious leadership. And they put him on trial. And they're looking for a charge that they can, that they can charge him with under their law. Under the Old Testament law. And the charge they come up with is blasphemy.

Which is ironic because Jesus is God. And they charge him of this. But that's not enough to have him killed. All right? That they need the Romans to carry this out legally. Legally.

And the Romans don't care about Jewish law. So they're going to find a different charge to bring him to Pilate with. They're going to work on the charge of kingship. And they claim to be king. That he's an insurrectionist. That he's trying to lead a rebellion.

That's what they're going to bring to Pilate. Pontius Pilate is the governor of this region. He's the prefect of the region of Judea. He is a politician. He's a politician assigned with the assignment of ruling in Judea over the Jews. And in the Roman Empire.

That's not a glorious post. No one volunteers and gets excited about that post. It's not Greece. Right? He could have been in different parts of Greece. With deep into the Greco-Roman culture.

He could have been in places like Alexandria, Egypt. Lots of places he could have gone to. Been assigned to. That would have been good. But he has been given the task of being governor over the region of Judea.

And it is not a fun place to rule as a Roman governor. Because the Jews hate the Romans. They don't like the Romans. And the feeling is mutual. The Romans look down on the Jewish people. See one of the brilliant parts of Roman rule.

Is that when they conquered you. You liked it. It was nice. Once they conquered you. They brought their culture. And a lot of other places assimilated to.

They grew into being Roman. This Greco-Roman. They call it Hellenistic culture. They liked it. They liked what it had to offer. The taxes were high.

But they had roads and infrastructure. And all kinds of things. And they were kind of fine with being ruled. The Jews were not. They rebelled over and over again. They had a different faith.

A different religion that the Romans looked down upon. They didn't have a lot of shared values when it came to that. And so there is that kind of history between the Romans and the Jewish people. But there is also personal history between Pontius Pilate and the Jewish people. You see when he first came to rule in Judea. One of the first things he did was he took the Roman shields.

Which bore a graven image. And he set them up all around Jerusalem. And that is a violation of the second command. Of having a graven image. In the holy city. The Sanhedrin.

The religious leaders. They protested this. And they led a major protest against Pontius Pilate. Against the Romans. And you can look at two different historical sources. You can look at a historian named Philo.

Another named Josephus. When you piece them together. It looks like this was a major protest. That King Herod had to get involved. And it made Pontius Pilate look bad before Caesar. He got a slap on the wrist.

So there is that kind of tension. Also at one point Pontius Pilate went into the temple. Took some of the money from the temple. And built some water systems in the city. So the Sanhedrin.

And Pontius Pilate. Have some cultural history and differences. And some personal beef with one another. Now you might be wondering. That's great. You love history.

Why does that matter here? First off. History is nice. Gives you some context. But secondly.

It's important to understand what's happening right here. Because these two have to work together. Together. The religious leaders and Pilate have to work together. See Pilate needs the religious leadership. Because they help keep the people in check.

They make sure they don't rebel. And as we've seen with the religious leadership. They love power. They're in bed with the Romans. And they like the power that comes with that. So they have to work together.

All of that history comes into this moment. All of that division between these two political rivals. It comes into this moment. Where they bring Jesus to get authority. So that he can be executed.

So Pilate asks. He says. Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus does not hesitate. He says. You have said so.

Yes. He confirms. He is the king of the Jews. You might be thinking. Alright. Isn't that the charge that does it?

It's not. The reason why. Is because Pilate does not really care. Over who the self-proclaimed king of the Jews is. He didn't care about that. That's not something that's really important.

There is a king. Herod. He's got a weird spot in the Roman Empire. And he doesn't even like Herod at this point. So that's not enough to actually get him crucified.

He doesn't care about the customs. He doesn't care about the law. The Jewish people have. But what the religious leadership is trying to do. Is they're trying to mount a case. They're trying to help him see.

That the Messiah from the Old Testament. The king. Who Jesus is claimed to be. Is going to have a global reign. He is going to have a global reign. And that is going to put him at odds with Caesar.

We see that in John's gospel. When they say. You are no friend to Caesar. If you don't deal with this. So they're going to try to make a political maneuver against him.

Before his hand. And in the midst of this. Jesus confirms his kingship. To Pontius Pilate. But then he doesn't defend himself.

Verse 12. But when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders. He gave no answer. Verse 13. And Pilate said to him. Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?

But he gave him no answer. Not even to a single charge. So the governor was greatly amazed. So at this point. The religious leadership. Starts mounting their case.

Against Jesus. And Jesus is silent. He doesn't say. A word. And this stuns Pilate. He's like.

Can you hear what they're saying? Can you hear. What. What. What. The things.

The accusations. They're letting against you. He doesn't say. A word. And this is shocking. The pilot.

But this is to fulfill. What was spoken of in the prophet. Isaiah. Isaiah 53. He was oppressed. And he was afflicted.

Yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And like a sheep that before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. He does not defend himself. They keep making this case against them.

He is silent. Like a lamb that is being led to the slaughter. Because Jesus knows. He knows what the father wants. He knows what needs to happen. Our sin needs to be paid for.

And forgiveness is not free. He will not defend himself. This is a part of the plan. And if he wanted to at this moment. Remember what Chet said last week. He said he could appeal to a legion of angels.

In this moment. At this moment angels could come down by his command. And they would absolutely destroy his enemies. But he remains silent. Because forgiveness is not free. Verse 15.

It says now at the feast. The governor was accustomed to release for the crowd. Any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had been a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Alright. So now around this time.

Pilate had instituted really a political gesture. That around the Passover feast time. They would release to them one of the prisoners that they had. And it was kind of genius. Because the fear was around Passover. Is that this is the perfect time for rebellion to happen.

It's when everyone is coming in to the city. From all over the region. And they are celebrating the Passover feast. Which remember. Is the festival. That they helped celebrate.

To remember that God helped free them. From an oppressive regime. And the Egyptians. What better time. To start a rebellion. Against an oppressive regime.

At the yearly festival. Where they remember this. So this is a political gesture. Give them one of the prisoners. An act of goodwill. And see all of this is a political exchange.

And at this time. There is a prisoner named Barabbas. Now Mark's gospel tells us a little bit about who Barabbas is. He is an insurrectionist. Meaning that he is someone who has left. Had a rebellion.

And he is a murderer. He has killed at least one person. He is completely guilty. And the ones who were put on crosses. Were rebels. Were insurrectionists.

You can look at Jewish history. At the time when these rebellions would happen. The Romans would quickly put them down. And very forcefully. They would line the roads. Out of the city with crosses.

And they would put rebels. It was a brutal. It was a brutal form of torture and death. For those who would rebel. So it is fair to say.

That this day. Barabbas was set to be crucified. That Barabbas woke up that morning. Ready to face death. There is something called the death row phenomenon. It is the psychological building up.

That happens with prisoners on death row. And it is pretty intense. I was listening to a pastor. He had interviewed a chaplain. Who was a chaplain on death row. And he said that some of these prisoners.

Would build themselves up. If they were going to face the gas chamber. For example. That they would. Days leading up. Would have moments of just really heavy breathing.

And intense breathing. And really simulating what it is like to be in the gas chamber. Gasping for breath. That those who had been hung before. That they would have this preparation. Where they almost could feel the rope around their neck.

In the days leading up to execution. That there is this. There is this weight to being executed. And Barabbas wakes up this morning. And is feeling and sensing. Maybe even possibly sensing what it is like to be on the cross.

You have to lift up your chest. As you are slowly gasping for breath. As you are slowly suffocating. He is in the cell. Awaiting a grim fate. But then something happens.

Verse 17. So when they had gathered. Pilate said to them. Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas. Or Jesus.

Who is called Christ. For he knew that it was out of envy. That they had delivered him up. So Barabbas is waiting in his cell. And there is commotioning happening out in the courtyard. There is political maneuvering that is happening out there.

You see Pilate offers up two different people. And he could have chosen anyone else besides Jesus. He could have chosen a less notorious criminal. It is his choosing. But he chooses the notorious Barabbas.

You see the politics at play here? He presents both of them. Because he understands the motives of the religious leaders. He understands they are envious. They are jealous. And if he can put Jesus alongside Barabbas.

Then it makes it a tough choice for the crowds. All right. The notorious prisoner. Or the Jesus who he knows about. This is the first time that Pontius has heard of Jesus. Jesus.

For three years he has been a celebrity in the land. This traveling sage. This prophet. Who thousands of people have traveled out to hear preach. Who have gone to be healed. It is his job to know what is happening in Judea.

When Jesus comes in and out. When he comes in this very week. Just a few days before. And the people are chanting. Hosanna. Hosanna.

He knows about Jesus. He is this good prophet. That the crowds love. So he puts Jesus alongside Barabbas. Understanding what is at play here. What the religious leaders are doing.

Thinking. That he can get past this. With this political play. But while this is happening. Matthew adds a wrinkle. That the other gospel writers don't include.

Verse 19 says. Besides. While he was sitting on the judgment seat. His wife sent word to him. Have nothing to do with that righteous man. For I have suffered much because of him today.

And a dream. So even more so. While he is on the judgment seat. His wife sends word to him. And says. Don't have anything to do with Jesus.

I have had dreams. I have had nightmares. I have been afflicted because of him. We don't know what the content of those dreams were. But it is enough to scare her.

In this moment. To send word to him. To say. Don't have anything to do with Jesus. Jesus. And while this is going on.

The religious leaders are making political moves of their own. Verse 20. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd. To ask for Barabbas. And destroy. Jesus.

So the crowds. Are there. And the religious leaders are working their way through the crowds. Now crowds can turn very quickly into a mob mentality. Very fast. When I was traveling years ago.

And study abroad. I was in India. And one of the travel warnings we had for India. Was when you were there. If you see a crowd form. They form very quickly.

And a lot of people. Get out. Because they have a lot of protests. And those protests are violent. Very quickly. With mob mentality.

We saw that. And we've seen that here. In our own country. That when a crowd gets together. It just takes a little bit stirring up. And all of a sudden.

It can turn to violence. And that is exactly what is happening here. And the religious leadership. They know how to work a crowd. Working their way through the crowd. Whispering lies.

They probably. It's possible they've even stacked the deck a little bit. Put people in the crowd. Said we're going to free Barabbas. Barabbas. We're going to chant for Barabbas.

We don't need this Jesus. He's going to bring problems for us. Barabbas. Start the chant. Barabbas. Barabbas.

They're building up the chant. Verse 21. Then the governor again said to them. Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said. Barabbas.

So they've won the crowds. They've got them stirred up. Barabbas. Barabbas. They're chanting for the notorious criminal. Verse 22.

Pilate said to them. Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? So Pilate has lost this political game. He tried it. Presenting two different options. They want to free Barabbas.

Okay. So what do you want? What do you want me to do with Jesus? So they all said. Let him be crucified. And he said.

Why? What evil has he done? I want you to see the shock that's in Pilate there. He says. What evil has he done? You see.

The crucifixion was a Roman punishment. It was not a Jewish punishment. They had a great disdain for this punishment. They didn't like it. And it is shocking to him. That they would ask for crucifixion.

That's overkill. Right? That's something that's reserved for rebels. Who have rebelled against the Roman Empire. That is a step too far. It doesn't make sense.

That a beloved prophet. That they would make a move on him like this. He does not deserve the cross. But it says. But they shouted all the more.

Let him be crucified. All the more. Let him be crucified. It intensifies. They want him on a cross. The Sadducees.

The religious leadership. The Pharisees. They have won the crowd. Pilate has lost control. As it intensifies. As they want crucifixion.

Pilate is shocked. Jesus is not. This is a part of the plan. This is part of the plan. Forgiveness is not free. It has to be paid for.

Verse 24. So. When Pilate saw. That he was gaining nothing. But rather that a riot was beginning.

He took water and washed his hands before the crowd. Saying. I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. And all the people answered. His blood be on us.

And on our children. Pilate is a politician. And he is a coward. But it is better for one man to die. Than to have a riot. That he has to answer for later.

Because. Having riots. Not being able to control. Your region. Would get you removed. It eventually does.

For him. Because he cannot control this region. So the coward. The coward washes his hands. Which actually doesn't absolve him of guilt. But in his mind it does.

And the people foolishly in the crowd say. Let Jesus' blood. Be on us. And our children. Verse 26. Then he released for them Barabbas.

And having scourged. Jesus delivered him to be crucified. So Barabbas. Is released. He gets to go home. And Jesus is scourged.

Which is a horrific punishment. Scourging. It's called flagellation. Flogging. Was a brutal form. Of torment.

One commentator. Describes this. He says. A Roman scourging. Was a terrifying punishment. The delinquent was stripped.

Bound to a post. Or a pillar. Or sometimes. Simply thrown to the ground. And was beaten. By a number of guards.

Until his flesh hung. In bleeding. Shreds. Hear that. Hung in bleeding. Shreds.

The instrument. Indicated by the Markan text. That would be Mark's gospel. The dreaded flagellum. Was a scourging. Consisting of leather straps.

Plated. With several pieces of bone. Or lead. So as to form. A chain. So.

It's an illustration. Of what this is. The flagellum. Was a tool. It wasn't just a whip. It had.

Bits of bone. Or lead in it. And the goal. Was that. As you whipped the person. That it would latch.

Into their flesh. And rip out. Chunks of skin. And they would do this. Over and over again. Their backs.

Their legs. It was meant to. Absolutely. Fillet. And mangle the flesh. Of the person.

Who was being punished. He goes on to say. No maximum number. Of strokes. Was prescribed. By Roman law.

Unlike Jewish law. That kept it at 39. So we see. In the book of Acts. That. That they.

They get a flogging. Like this. And the Jewish law. Says. Nope. Not more than 39.

40 Might kill you. 39 is enough. The Romans did not have that. They did not have mercy. They were some of the most brutal. The most brutal.

People. That would. That. Their torture methods. Were. Were unreal.

They. They. They wouldn't stop. At 39. They. They would.

To the point of almost. Killing people. It says. And men condemned to flagellation. Frequently collapsed. Then died from flogging.

Josephus. Who's a historian. He records that. He himself. Had some of his opponents. In Galilee.

Scourged. Until their entrails. Were visible. That they. They would be. Scourged so.

Badly. That so much. Flesh. And muscle. Would be ripped out. That their entrails.

Would be. Exposed. The torture itself. Was enough to kill. Somebody. And then.

They're going to put a cross. On his mangled. And bloodied. And ripped apart. Back. But not yet.

Because they're going to humiliate him first. Verse 27. Then the soldiers. Of the governor. Took. Jesus.

Into the governor's headquarters. And they gathered. The whole battalion. Before him. I've pictured this in the past. I've missed that part.

The whole battalion piece. I've imagined. I don't know. It's because. This is from the scene. Of the passion of Christ.

Or whatever. But I. I've imagined. It's just a few people. But it's not.

It's a battalion. Of soldiers. Six hundred. To a thousand. Soldiers. Are going to mock him.

And his. Bloodied. And mangled body. Is brought before him. And they're going. To make fun.

Of his kingship. It says. And they stripped him. And put a scarlet robe on him. And twisting together. A crown of thorns.

They put. It on his head. And put a reed. In his right hand. And kneeling before him. They mocked him.

Saying. Hail. King of the Jews. And they spit on him. And took the reed. And struck him on the head.

And when they had mocked him. And they stripped him. Of the robe. And put. His own clothes on him. And led him away.

To crucify him. So these Roman soldiers. They also have heard of Jesus. And they see the charge. He's going to be charged. As a king.

Okay. Let's make fun of his kingship. So they take a scarlet robe. And they put it. On his back. Now.

Mark's gospel. And John's gospel. They call this a purple robe. Which means either. They're describing the same color. Which happens in some cultures.

They don't have a whole lot of differentiation. Between certain colors. Or it's two robes. The purple one. On his back. Ripped off.

And these are. These would have been. Not smooth. Robes. These would have been rough. Blending into.

His mangled flesh. Being ripped off. And they're. They're mocking him. They're mocking him. As a king.

And they take. A crown of thorns. And don't think. Like rose thorns. These would have been. Thorns.

Native to that region. These are longer thorns. And they take. A crown of thorns. And they force it. On his head.

To mock him. They take a reed. Stick. Made it look like a king's scepter. They put it in his hand. And they bow down to him.

Hail. King of the Jews. Hundreds of soldiers. Laughing. Mocking. The king.

Of the universe. And they spit on him. And they. They take the reed stick. And they hit him. On the head.

It is a brutal. Mocking. A brutal. Torture. But this is to fulfill Isaiah 53.

It says. But. Isaiah prophesied about this. He said. 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. Peace. Does not come. Without a cost. Forgiveness. Is not free.

And we see that so clearly. And we will pick this up. On good Friday this week. As we continue. As he goes up the hill. Now.

One of the things. That sticks out about this. Is how absolutely. How absolutely. Injust. This is.

How absolutely. Unfair. This is. How corrupt. And how evil. This is.

I mean. This situation. Is gross. I mean. Jesus. Is completely innocent.

Of all of these charges. He's only displayed. Kindness. And goodness. Towards. The people.

And then he gets arrested. By these religious leaders. And then he becomes. A political pinball. Between two. Godless.

Groups. The religious leaders. And Pilate. And the Romans. And then. These weak.

Feckless. Cowards. Debate. Over the God. Who made them. Over the God.

Who thought them. Into existence. They debate. Over his life. And then they plan. To murder him.

To murder the ruler. Over all things. And Pilate. In his political maneuvering. He presents. Two different options.

You can have. Barabbas. Or. Jesus. You can have. Jesus.

The prophet. Whom all the crowds love. Let me think. Guys. We've been in the gospel of Matthew. For over a year now.

Think of all. Of the beautiful displays. Of our savior. Of how good he is. Of how righteous he is. Of how kind he is.

You can have this. Jesus. Or you can have. Barabbas. You can have this. Notorious.

Criminal. This. Murderer. And the religious leadership. The ones. Who are supposed.

To uphold. Justice. And mercy. And righteousness. They start a chant. To free.

Barabbas. And they take Barabbas. When you look. At all of it. It's not fair. It's not fair.

That Barabbas. Avoids the cross. That was meant for him. And Jesus takes his place. And when you come to that conclusion. And when you fully absorb that.

As the reality of this situation. It is then. That you can begin to appreciate. That Jesus died in our place. It is then. That you can begin to appreciate.

And fully understand. That the reality is. Is that we have sinned. Against a holy and perfect God. That our sin. Over and over.

Is a violation. Of his good will for us. That we rebel. Against the God. Of the universe. That we are insurrectionists.

With our lives. That we hurt. Other people. Over. And over. And over.

And over again. That we are. We are prisoners. In a cell. Awaiting our sentencing. Our just.

Sentencing. Against. For sending against the God of the universe. And we are brought up. Out of. The cell.

And there is an exchange. That happens. For those who trust in Jesus. We point to him. And we avoid the cross. And he goes to the cross.

For us. That is what theologians call. Penal substitutionary atonement. Theologians like to use big words. All that means. Is that.

There is a penalty for sin. That's the penal part. For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6. 23. That we deserve death.

Because of our sin. But God. In his rich mercy. Provides for us. A suffering. Substitute.

That Jesus takes. Our place. My buddy from Louisville. Has lost the thread. On the gospel. There is no reality.

Where forgiveness does not cost. That there is no. There is no. Reality. Where our sin. And rebellion.

Does not cost. And here is the deal. We may not. Play out that same thought exercise. We may not. Come to that same.

Intellectual. Conclusion. But the reality is. Is that for many of us. Practically. We live that way.

Practically. Our lives. Show that we believe that. Because over and over again. We just don't think. Our sin costs.

We don't think. Our sins. That big. Of a deal. We dismiss it. We rather live our lives.

On our terms. And we'll justify it. And we won't think. It's that big of a deal. So much.

Of southern Christianity. Is just. Claiming. To be a Christian. And living your life. On your terms.

And it's this. This thought process. That because God is good. And because God. Is loving. That it'll all just work out.

In the end. That it's forgiveness. Doesn't have this real cost. And we can live our lives. On our terms. And that is an eternally fatal.

Belief. No. Our forgiveness. Costs. Rebellion. Costs.

Paul. In Colossians says. In Colossians 2. He says. In you. Who are dead.

In your trespasses. In the uncircumcision. Of your flesh. That's the sinful nature. Of your flesh. God.

Made alive. Together with him. That's through. Faith. God made alive. Together with him.

Having forgiven us. All our. Trespasses. All of our sins. By canceling. The record.

Of debt. The record of debt. We have an endless. Record. Of sins. That stands.

That stands against us. With its. Legal. Demands. The legal demands. His death.

This he set aside. Nailing it. To a cross. That is the heart. Of the gospel. That in our sin.

That in our rebellion. That we have. Rebelled against God's. Good design. That we are waiting. In the cells.

In the prison cells. Of our sin. And death. Awaiting to be sentenced. And God loves us so. Much.

That he doesn't leave us there. That he steps in. That he steps down. From heaven. That he comes to live the perfect life. That we could not live.

And that he comes before us. And we are brought out of the cell. And all we have to do. Is say. I believe in you Jesus. My life belongs to you.

I trust you. And he says. Good. Take my perfect record. And I will take your place. And he goes to the cross for us.

It is not fair. That God in his rich kindness. Redeems. Sinners. And man. It has a cost.

And I want us to sit in that. This morning. If you are. If you are a Christian. This morning. If you have trusted.

In Jesus. As your only hope. I want you to sit. In this painful. Beautiful. Reality.

I don't want us to stare. To stare away from. The cross. And the brutality of it. It teaches us. Grace.

When we look at the cross. When we think about what they did. To Jesus. It reminds us. That we can never earn that. We can never do what Jesus did.

And praise God. That we could not. That we don't have to earn his favor. That no amount of good works. Could make this right. That we look to the cross.

And we say. Praise God. It teaches us repentance. It motivates us to repentance. That there are moments. When we become so tempted.

When the lusts of our flesh. When our sinful selfish desires. Arise. And present to us. The option of sin. We get to in that moment.

Remember. No. No. We get to literally just picture the cross. And say. No.

No. No. My life was bought with a price. It was too costly. And I'm not going to run. To sin.

I want Jesus. It leads us to worship. Y'all. It's. It's. It's all over the songs.

That we sing. That we respond. And we sing. About the blood of our savior. About what Jesus has done for us. It motivates us.

And it inspires us. To love God. That he's so loving towards us. That he came to die on a cross for us. If you're a Christian. I want you to sit in that reality this morning.

And I want you to see Jesus as beautiful. In worship. If you are not a Christian. If you have not trusted in Jesus. That's your only hope. My hope this morning.

Is that you would see. That God loves you so much. That he did not leave you. In sin and brokenness. We all have sin. All of us have our junk.

We've all rebelled against God. And this morning. He has you here. And he wants you to see. I love you. Can't you see.

That two thousand years ago. I came for you. I died for you. I bled for you. So that you might believe.

My hope this morning. Is that you would see. That his arms are open. And he wants you. And that you would believe. That you stop running.

And sin. That you stop trying to earn. Your salvation. By your own good works. By your own merit. My hope is that you would trust.

Only in the finished work of Christ. He wants you. My hope is that you believe. Because forgiveness is not free. But he wants to give it to you.

Freely. The band is going to come up. And I want us to sit. In these truths. As we prepare to respond. If you are not a Christian.

Please. Do not delay. Don't walk away from this. Don't walk away from conviction. My hope. Is that you would trust.

In Christ. That right now. As we sing songs. You would take a moment in your seat. And you would pray. Pray for God to reveal himself.

Ask Jesus to forgive you. Of your sins. And give your life. And trust. In him. If you are a Christian.

I want you to take a few moments. And just be reminded. Of how good your Savior is. About how beautiful his blood is. About how much our sin costs. And it doesn't lead us to shame.

It doesn't lead us to guilt. It leads us to praise. Because we get to look at our sin. And then we immediately. Get to look to our Savior. Let me pray.

Let me pray. Lord. Your kindness. And your mercy. And your goodness. Are so profound.

And so beautiful. God. I pray. That you would help us. In this moment. See it.

Clearly. Don't let us run away from it. Don't let us hide from it. God. I pray. You've got to work in our hearts.

Right now. If there's anyone here. That's not trusted in you. God. I pray. That you would become so beautiful.

So good. That you would win their hearts. And they would believe. God. I pray. For those of us that are Christians.

Lord. We love you. Help us see. The brutality of the cross. As beautiful. And may it lead us to worship and praise.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Jesus in the Garden (Matthew 26:30-46)

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

Jesus in the Garden

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in Matthew 26 verses 30 through 46. That's on page 486 in a blue Bible that is around you. If you don't have a Bible at home, we encourage you to take that blue Bible with you.

That is our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read on a regular basis. There are moments in life that absolutely punch you deep in your soul. There are moments where you endure an immense amount of suffering and loss and grief. There are moments in life where you feel so overwhelmed by life itself, by the moment, by the things that you face. This has happened a few times in my life.

One that sticks out the most was my freshman year of college. My freshman year of college, I remember I was in my dorm room. I was taking a nap. I woke up to a bunch of missed calls. I called my father back and found out that my brother-in-law had passed away. I called my brother after that.

He confirmed that he had passed away, that he had actually taken his own life. And when all of that hit, I just felt completely overwhelmed and grief. I remember getting in the car and driving to my sister's house and walking in and seeing her and just the agony of that moment, embracing her and all of the pain that came with that was so surreal. And I also remember in that moment, I remember questioning God from a place of frustration and anger that was just, why? Why would you let this happen? Why would you let this happen to my sister, to my niece, to my nephew?

Why? And this frustration, this anger and this questioning the character of God that just said, why? Why? There are moments that all of us will walk through in life where we endure suffering and loss and grief and pain. And some of you may have been through this and even gone through that and questioning the character of God and asking, why? The reality is, is that you will face moments like this.

If you have not suffered, you will. It is a guarantee in life. Everyone suffers. It is as sure as death and taxes, you will suffer. That is a part of the reality, this side of the fall. You will face situations in your life that absolutely just throw gut punches at your soul.

But as Christians, we have a different approach to this. We have a different understanding. The Bible says a lot about this. Therefore, we have a different response that we are called to in those moments. And my hope is, is that this morning, as we walk through what is a very heavy passage, that we would watch Jesus as He prepares for the moment of the cross. As He prepares for suffering.

And my hope is that we would learn and that we would glean from Him so that we would be able to suffer well. Which is the hope for any Christian in the midst of suffering. So it is heavy. Let me pray. And then we will jump into this passage. God, I pray that you would help us be present this morning.

I have no doubt that there is an immense amount of suffering, even right now in this room, that people are walking through, that people are facing. God, I pray that we would be able to learn. I pray that we would listen. And I pray that you would mold us and shape us to be a people that suffer well by the power that you give us. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, verse 30.

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Okay, so this is the transition from last week. Last week, the past two weeks, we're at the Passover meal. And then Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. We walked through that last week. And at the end of this meal, they sing a hymn.

They sing. And I just want to point that out. That Jesus leads the disciples in singing. That singing is good for your soul. It sings truth deep into your soul. So maybe the person that doesn't like to sing when we're together on Sundays, whether it's for your self-conscious, or maybe it's prideful reasons, or you're a dude and you're like, I don't sing.

It's just not what I do. It's just not manly. Which if you think that, one day you can meet the King of Kings and tell him he was effeminate for leading the people in singing. No, it's good for us to sing. And he sings as they close out this moment. And they head to the Mount of Olives, which is a hillside that sits just above the city of Jerusalem.

So it's a hillside that a lot of pilgrims who were coming in for Passover would have camped out. And he takes them to the Mount of Olives. It's verse 31. Then Jesus told them, this very night you will fall away on account of me, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. So again, we've been seeing this.

Jesus is making it clear. This is going to happen. I am going to suffer. I am going to the cross. And he says, and you are going to abandon me. Which had to be a little bit of a shock for the disciples.

Thinking, no, this can't be possible. But he quotes, this is not just going to happen. It's been prophesied. Zechariah 13, 7 from the Old Testament is this prophecy that says that the shepherd is going to be struck. And when the shepherd is struck, the sheep will scatter. Fearfully scatter and abandon him.

He says, but 32, but after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee. Now there's two things. One of them is very obvious from this. He is declaring that he's going to rise. He's saying that his death is not the end. That resurrection is going to happen.

So that's the clear thing that we see on the surface. But what I love buried in this is a picture of how good our great shepherd is. That in this moment, he just said, you are going to abandon me. You are going to leave me. And he says, but don't worry. When I rise, I will meet you in Galilee.

That I am going to. It's this picture of he sees their failures and still he restores them. I love that we have a good shepherd that restores those even when they are faithless. So, verse 33, Peter hears this and he disagrees. Peter replied, even if all fall away on account of you, I never will. Which that's Peter.

We've seen it over and over again. He's all in. Like he's just full hearted. Doesn't even realize he just put the other disciples down. If they fail and fall away, I won't leave you, Jesus. I'm in.

And then Jesus says, truly, I tell you. Jesus answered this very night before the rooster crows, you will diseminate me three times. That when the sheep scatter and they abandon him, Peter will have even a more tragic abandonment. He's going to deny him three times what you're going to see in the next few verses. He's going to abandon him. Verse 35, but Peter declared, even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.

He's defiant. And all the other disciples said the same. So, Peter, bold in his stance, I'm not going anywhere. The other disciples were like, no, we would not abandon you, even though it's going to happen in just a few hours. Now, what happens next is one of my favorite moments in all the Gospels. It's one of the most powerful moments in the Gospels.

And it's unbelievably helpful for us to look at and examine and to see what happens next. Because it gives us incredible insight in how to be people who respond well and prepare well for suffering. So if you've ever been in a situation where you have suffered, if you've ever grieved the loss of someone or death, if you've ever wrestled with deep sin, if you've ever faced adversity, if you've ever felt overwhelmed by life in general, this is a helpful passage for us to pay attention to and examine. Verse 36. Then Jesus went to them to a place.

Went to them to a place called Gethsemane. This is the Garden of Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. So with the reality of the cross setting in, gets his disciples together. And he takes them a little further into the garden. He says, I need to get away to pray.

And then verse 37 says, And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. That's Peter and James and John. The three that he spent more time with. He takes them in further into the garden. He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful even to death.

Remain here and watch with me. Jesus is sorrowful. He is troubled. He is in deep distress. To the point of sorrow and anguish. That it's the point of death.

And he tells them, Stay here. Stay near him. I'm going to go further into the garden. And what he is going to do is, he's going to have some solitude before his heavenly Father. Verse 39. And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And this is where we get to see the why behind why he is so sorrowful, even to the point of death. Why he's in such deep distress. It has to do with the cup that he just mentioned. What is the cup that Jesus speaks of? Well, first off, you've got to take it in the context of what he just quoted.

He quoted Zechariah 13.7, which is a prophecy where God is speaking. It is God speaking, saying that He is the one who will strike the good shepherd. Zechariah 13.7 says, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me, declares the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. I will turn my hand against the little ones. That is God the Father saying, I will strike the Son.

That God and His sovereign plan brings this about to where Jesus is the one who will be struck. And it is God the Father's plan to do so. The cup that is mentioned here is the cup of suffering that has been prepared for Christ. It is a cup of suffering. The cup was referenced in Matthew 20, just a few chapters back. In Matthew 20, James and John are having an argument over who is going to sit at the left and right hand of Jesus in what they thought was going to be this political movement.

Their mom gets involved and tries to argue on their behalf. And then finally we get to a response where Jesus answered. He said, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? They said to Him, We are able. He said to them, You will drink my cup.

But sit at my right hand on my left. It is not mine to grant. The cup is the cup of suffering. He says, You will drink my cup. James later on in Acts 12 is beheaded for his faith. John is the only disciple that is not martyred.

But later on, history tells us that he was thrown into oil to be boiled alive. He somehow survives that. We don't know how. And then ends up in exile on the island of Patmos where he dies. It is the cup of suffering that God prepares. It is also, not just the cup of suffering, it is the cup of God's wrath.

When the cup is spoken of in the Old Testament in passages like Isaiah 51, 17 and Jeremiah 25, 15. It is God's wrath, the cup of wrath that is poured out. And that is what's being referenced here. It is the cup of God's wrath and it is an immense amount of suffering. And that is what Jesus is about to drink. An immense amount of suffering for the sins of man.

He will, in the next few hours, be beaten. He will be tortured. He will be nailed to a cross. And there is a crazy amount of physical agony and suffering that is involved in this. But it is not just that.

It is that He is going to be bearing our sin on the cross. And it is not even just that. It is that this perfect fellowship that He has had with God the Father for eternity is going to change in this moment. Because on the cross, He says, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He calls out to the Father in agony. The physical and spiritual suffering.

He calls out and He hears nothing but the wrath of God poured out on Him. He has had this fellowship with the Father that will change in this moment. All of that is what He is preparing for. That is the cup that awaits Him. That is what He is trying to get ready for. And then it says, as He is anticipating this and going a little further, He fell on His face and prayed saying, My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me.

If it is possible, Jesus says, take it. He doesn't want to suffer. He doesn't want that there is a part of Him that is very human. He doesn't want to suffer in this way. He doesn't want all the pain and suffering that awaits. But physically and spiritually that awaits Him, He doesn't want to go that route.

But He prays one of the most helpful prayers in all of the Scriptures. He says, Yet not as I will, but as you will. Not as I will, but as you will. in this moment of deep distress, He prays what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount. That Your will would be done. This isn't what I want for myself, but Father, this is what You want. Not my will, but Your will.

I don't want to suffer in this way. But God the Father does because He wants to rescue wayward sinners. And our only hope is Jesus to take steps in faithfulness and to take steps towards the cross. So, Jesus, anticipating all of this, falls on His face before the Father in deep distress. And He doesn't just do it once. He does this repeatedly.

Verse 40 says, Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. Couldn't you men keep watch with Me for one hour? He asked Peter. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It's not just prayer.

It's persistent prayer that Jesus models for us. That He needs to keep going back. And He's telling the disciples, No, you need to prepare yourself. You're not going to be ready when temptation comes. What a self-aware thought that the flesh is weak. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

It's something that we need to have so clearly in our own minds. Sometimes the Spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Therefore, we need to go back to the well of God's strength in prayer. He gets away again. 42, He went away a second time and prayed, My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done. Praise again.

It's not possible. May Your will be done. Pray some more. Verse 43, When He came back, He again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. So He left them and went away once more and prayed the third time saying the same thing.

And we're on into the night. He keeps going back. He keeps praying, preparing to face what He is about to face. And through prayer, He is going to find the strength to take steps forward in faithfulness. And He is going to bear the sins of humanity and take on a punishment that no one has ever endured or will endure. Verse 45, Then He returned to the disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting?

Look, the hour has come and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer. It is time. Jesus will be arrested and He will be taken towards the cross. The disciples will abandon Him in fear as Jesus steps forward in faith.

Now, how does this help prepare us for suffering? What can we learn from this that would help us be better sufferers? I think there are five things that we can learn from this, from Jesus in the garden praying. And the first is that God ordains and purposes suffering. That God ordains. He chooses that we would suffer.

It is an uncomfortable truth that we don't like as Western American Christians. We don't like this idea that God and His sovereign plan allows and ordains suffering to happen. It's something that we just rather ignore because just generally in our culture, we don't like the idea of suffering in any form or fashion. I was reading an article by Tim Keller. He's a pastor that we look up to immensely. He wrote it in the Atlantic this week.

Tim Keller is, he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and I follow him a lot and just reading and listening to him and it just, it doesn't sound very hopeful. And he wrote this article on facing death and suffering and he, in one part, quotes a memoir from a doctor. This doctor practiced medicine in India and in America and he's comparing the two different systems of medicine, the two different people groups and the two, how we respond differently to suffering. And he quotes this doctor in his memoir. He writes, in the United States, I encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs.

He wrote in a recent memoir. Patients lived at a greater comfort level than I had previously treated when he was in India. But they seem far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it. He's making an observation that in India where they have more suffering, they seem to be better prepared for it. That in America we're more insulated from, we're more guarded against, we don't like to think about the aspects of suffering and death. And when it hits us, we're far more traumatized by it.

And then Tim Keller diagnoses this with his own thoughts. He says, our beliefs about God in an afterlife, if we have them, are often abstractions as well. If we don't accept the reality of death, if we, we don't need these beliefs to be anything other than mental assents. He says, for us, it really just becomes mental agreements with the idea of suffering. That we can hear about it, read about it, absorb that idea, but it's just, it's more of an abstract concept for us. It's not something that's concrete.

Because we're so guarded, our culture doesn't like to look at suffering, doesn't like to face the aspects of death. We insulate ourselves from it. It's a downer. Death and suffering, it's just something we don't want to look at. Like I start the sermon off with a heavy story and it's like, oh man, this is one of those days. We don't like to deal with this.

It's just an abstract concept. And what this passage calls us to do is to stare deep into it and reckon with this idea of suffering. And not just suffering itself, but the purposes that are behind suffering, the mysterious purposes. Now when we look at Jesus and why He suffers on the cross, why does Jesus take the full cup of God's wrath? Why does God purpose that His Son would take on the greatest suffering that anyone ever knew or will know that skeptics will call this is divine child abuse? Why is this?

It is because our world is marred by sin. It is broken. It is because we are broken. It is because we hurt one another. It is because we hurt ourselves. It is because we rage against God in our own rebellion.

We spit on His good will, on His good pleasure. We wreck one another. We wreck this world. And that type of rebellion has a cost. And we are not able to pay that cost. So God in His deep love comes.

He comes to pay the cost for us and to pay the penalty to rescue us and redeem this world. That is why Jesus had to suffer in the garden. That is why He had to suffer. And that is what He is preparing for in the garden. So why does God allow us to get sick?

Our loved ones to die? Why do we suffer? We get some answers. We live in a fallen world. We live this side of the fall and sin and death are a reality. And sometimes we get more answers behind why Jesus suffers than we do at times.

Maybe it is to prepare us for greater things. That is a little bit of what 1 Peter is getting at. There is some sanctifying aspects of suffering that prepares us for greater things. Maybe it is that our suffering gets to be the comfort to somebody else. When you go through something that is difficult and you come through the other side that you get to be a comfort to someone else who is walking through it. Sometimes we get those answers.

Through prayer, discernment, the scriptures. Sometimes we just don't know. We don't get all the whys behind why we suffer. But there is one clear thing that we see. There is some very good news in the midst of this. The good news that comforts us in the midst of suffering is that God is not distant.

God is not distant. Jesus sympathizes with our suffering. That is the second thing I think this passage helps highlight. Jesus sympathizes with our suffering. He is not unable to understand what you are going through. We don't pray to a God who is distant and removed from the aspects of suffering.

Look at 37. It says, In taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful. Even to death, remain here to watch with me. He knows what it means to suffer. He is able to empathize with the struggle.

He has been here. He has lived it. You have been in a situation where somebody, you endured a loss of some type. Somebody died. People just feel like they have to say something. They will be like, I am so sorry.

A couple years ago, I lost my dog. It is like, oh no. this isn't going to go well. You cannot relate in this moment. I want to as quickly and awkwardly end this conversation because it is just not helpful. You have people that try to commiserate. It is like, no, you don't get this.

You don't know what I am going through. Jesus doesn't have a dog story. He chose to come to this world and endure suffering on a regular basis and then suffering on a way that we will never comprehend. him. That is what the book of Hebrews gets at in Hebrews 4. We don't have a high priest who is unable to empathize us but one who is able to sympathize us in every way. He has come.

He has endured suffering so that we pray to God. It is not that we are praying to someone who is distant, who doesn't understand. No, he chose to. He chose to come into this broken world. He can sympathize with our suffering. That is one thing that we see absolutely here.

Third, we see that we don't need to be alone in the midst of suffering. Jesus could have, after the Passover meal said, guys, I'm going to go. I'm going to go to the Mount of Olives. Y'all stay here. He could have done that. He takes the disciples with him.

He takes them with him into the garden. He takes three that are close and nearby. And yes, he absolutely has solitude, which he does regularly, but they're right nearby. He could have chosen to do this alone, but he doesn't, because we're made in the image of a communal God. We are designed to be around one another. So you don't need to be alone in the midst of suffering.

It's not good for your soul. I've said this over the years, that when someone is suffering, when someone has endured loss, you don't always have to say something. You don't have to feel the void of silence. You can just be there. It's called a ministry of presence. You're just there.

You can cry with them. You can sit with them for hours in silence. A lot of times, they don't remember what anyone said, but they remember who was there. And that matters. The third thing we learn is we don't need to be alone in the midst of suffering. The fourth is that we are not sufficient to handle our own distress and suffering.

We are not sufficient in and of ourselves to handle our distress, to handle our sorrows and suffering. Jesus models this by praying. There are passages like this where we're trying to reconcile, which we can't because it's a mystery, that God is fully God. Jesus is fully God and he's fully man. The fact that he is in this moment in need, it's hard for us to wrap our minds around, that he's fully human in this moment. He needs the Father in his humanity.

He comes to him in deep distress, in deep sorrow, that the weight of the full cup of God's wrath that is waiting for him in just a few hours, it's right there. It weighs heavy on him physically. It shows up. So much so that in Luke's gospel, it adds that as he's praying humbly to the Father, an angel comes and ministers to him. He's in need in this moment. He models that we are not sufficient to handle this on our own.

We're not sufficient to handle our own distress, our own troubles, our own sorrows. Here's the deal. Many of us have a category for this, that we're not sufficient, we're not, we can't handle this all ourselves when it comes to the bigger moments of life, when it comes to being overwhelmed and huge, watershed, life-changing moments of suffering. But I want to speak to those of you that feel that sense of distress and overwhelming in everyday aspects of life. I just want to speak to you for a moment. For those of you that struggle with the general category that we have today, it's called general anxiety.

I just want to speak to you for a moment, because I think this passage also has a helpful way to think through this, that is actually good for you to process and think through. There is a categorical difference between distress that Jesus is enduring in the garden, and the category of anxiousness that is a spiritual mistrust of God that doesn't trust in His sovereignty, a need for control. Those are two different things. The Bible has different categories for those. Go back to verse 37. It says, In taking with them Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.

The word for troubled there means deep distress. It is a different word than what we see for anxious that's used in the scriptures. So Philippians 4, Do not be anxious in anything but through prayer and supplication, make your request unto the Lord. That's a different word. When Jesus says, Don't be anxious about this life. That's a different word than this word for distress.

And here's the deal. If you looked at Jesus in this moment with our modern kind of psychological lens, you see Him praying in the garden. Probably, we don't know, probably, He's sweating immensely. Luke's gospel either says that He's praying and there's sweat that's like droplets of blood, meaning it's thick amounts of sweat, or He's so deeply distressed distressed. There's a rare medical condition where blood shows up in your sweat. It's hard to tell from the text.

Both of those means He's in deep distress. And with modern psychological lens, you look at that and say, oh no, maybe Jesus is actually anxious. But He's not. He's in deep distress. And here's why that's so incredibly important for you to understand. You have a physiological response, all of us.

I mean, if you saw a snake in a path, you would have physiological changes. If you saw a car slam on brakes in front of you, you'd have physiological changes that would happen. You would start to breathe heavier. Your heart would start to race. Adrenaline would spike. You would feel a cold sweat.

That's a physical response that you have to something that is difficult. Some of you have a more sensitive response to that in lots of things. You see your kid on top of a play set. They don't text or call like they were supposed to. You have a presentation that's due at work. You have an assignment that you've got to present.

And you feel that you wake up and you feel this feeling. This isn't the gray area here. But you feel this feeling of distress. And here's why this is so incredibly important for you to understand. When you read passages that say don't be anxious about anything, what you translate that is don't feel the feeling that I feel so regularly. And you've got to know yourself.

There's a difference between a feeling of distress, which is a physical, very human response that Jesus feels, and not trusting the Lord that leads to anxiety. What stands in the middle of that is the recognition and understanding that you are not sufficient to handle your own troubles. It is the fifth thing that we see from this. Choose the God who can handle your troubles and sorrows. That is what we see so clearly here. Jesus feels this distress in the garden.

But you know why does it lead to sin? Because He stops in that moment and He gets on His face and He prays. There's a difference whether you feel this on a regular basis or you feel this in the most difficult moments of suffering in life. what stands in the way between that being just distress and leading to an anxiety that does not trust the Lord is prayer. It's getting on our face in faith and praying, acknowledging that we can't handle this ourselves, but God can. So you have one of two options in this moment.

You can trust God or you can say that I'm sufficient in and of myself, that I can handle this myself. I was talking to Scott Hill about this this week. He's one of our older members. And he says really two responses. It's either this vertical response where you are praying to the Lord or it's more of a circular response. And I love that because I know exactly what he's getting at.

It's a circular response of just crazy. You feel this deep distress. You feel it coming on and then all of a sudden you don't go to the Lord. You want to deal with it yourself and you choose to deal with yourself and then all of a sudden it leads into this anxiety where you're not trusting the Lord. Your thoughts are consumed. But then that physically affects you, right?

And then you feel it and then it causes more distress. And it's this cycle where you feel distress and you try to handle it yourself and it leads to more anxiety and it goes on and on. And what God is trying to teach us to do is to break through that and humble ourselves before the Lord and pray from a desperate place. I mean, Jesus falls on the ground and prays desperately as a physical posture of deep prayer in the midst of distress. That sometimes you've got to fall on your face. In the most difficult moments of life, you've got to get on your face and pray.

That if you are overwhelmed at work, sometimes you need to pause, get on your knees at your desk and pray. Scott was talking about sometimes he just holds his hands out, that physically gets in a posture of prayer. Jesus in John 17 looks up to the Father and prays. One of the things I teach in counseling is deep breathing and I'll do deep breathing exercises, which I always tell people. It's very awkward to breathe with somebody deeply for two or three minutes. It feels very new agey, but I'm sold on it.

I think it is very helpful that there are moments whether you're tempted to look at pornography or you're tempted to fall more into a spiral of anxiety to just in those moments regulate your breathing. Because when you breathe a lot and you get more and more stirred up, your adrenaline spikes, your heart starts pumping and you can't think clearly. And I teach now, pause and just deep breathe. Learn to breathe deeply. And when you do this, it regulates your heart rate, starts to decrease, it floods your brain with oxygen, there's physical changes that happen within you so that you can think clearly.

And then I say, get on your knees and pray. And remember the gospel and rehearse truth and pray. There's some physical things you can do to get to a posture of humility before the Lord. Life is going to throw a lot at you. It is going to throw haymakers at your soul, which in boxing is a huge punch. That it's going to absolutely come at you.

And you have a fork in the road in all of these circumstances. If you are a Christian, you can, in that moment, come to the Father humbly in prayer. Or you can see that you are sufficient to handle yourself. And if you see yourself as sufficient, you will physically bear the weight of that, which will affect you physically. You will, like I've done in the past, question the character and the goodness of God. Or you can come to him humbly in prayer.

You can get on your face and cry out to him. And you can echo the same prayer of Jesus. Not my will, God, but your will be done. I don't want to lose this battle of cancer. I don't want to lose my job. I don't want to wreck my career.

I don't want to fail this test. I don't want to lose this child. I don't want to lose this parent. But not my will, God. Yours be done. That's the model that Jesus gives us.

That we get to come to the Father and pray. In the midst of distress, in the midst of trouble, in the midst of all the swirling suffering that surrounds us. We get to choose the path of Christ and fall in the same line that he did. And I thank Jesus that he chose the path that he chose. I thank Jesus that in that garden as he's praying and he's overwhelmed and he's sweating and he's physically weak that he chose to get up and go to the cross. Because that's the only hope that we have.

The only hope we have is Jesus on the cross. And my hope for us as Christians is we'd see what Jesus did. And that we'd follow the same path in prayer. Matt's going to come up. And I want us for a moment to reflect upon the things that are happening in our life. The things that that are heavy for us.

That are burdensome for us. The troubles that we face. The suffering that's in front of us. And I just want us to do that. I want us to pray. Maybe you need to get on your knees in front of your chair.

Maybe you hold your hands out. But I want us to pray. If you are not a Christian, I want you to see that the God of the universe did not leave you in a world that is so filled with brokenness and sin. He didn't leave you. He came for you. He loved you so much that he got up out of the garden and he went to the cross for you.

So that you don't have to be alone. So that you would have a God who stands in the heavens and hears your prayers and knows what you are feeling. We don't always get the responses we want. There are times we will pray and God says, no. But the path of faith is acknowledging that ultimately God's will is best.

So if you are a Christian, I pray that you would, that would be so clear for you this morning as you pray. If you are not a Christian, I pray you would be so overwhelmed by the love of Christ that you give in to him and believe. Let me lead us in prayer and then take a few moments in silence before we respond in singing. Lord, this world is so painful. we feel sin deep within us. We see it all around us. We see the hurt.

We see the pain of death and suffering and loss. And it is overwhelming. And that is okay. Because you are able to handle it. God, I pray right now that the Christians in this room who are struggling that they would respond in prayer not just now but for a lifetime they would respond in choosing the path of faith and trusting you and they would lay their burdens before you. And you would comfort them.

You would comfort us. You'd be near to us. You'd be gracious to us. And God, I pray if there's anyone here that does not believe this that has not trusted in you may your overwhelming love be so clear right now in this moment that they would believe. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Good Government

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

Good Government

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning my name is spencer i'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church of casey so this is our second week in a row where because of some coveted exposure we're being cautious and we're live streaming so you're joining us online welcome uh glad you're joining us uh we as a Church believe that Jesus is better than everything else because this is true we get to be a Gospel-centered community on mission which is really important for us individually and as a Church right.

Now as culture is is raging as there's all types of of chaos whether it's coveted whether it's the economy or right now in a heightened political climate which is why we're walking through this series messiah 2020 that no matter what we are walking through we don't have to shift with the rest of culture we have a hope that is secure we are Gospel center that our hope is completely bound up in Christ crucified and raised from the grave that our hope is eternal and we live as eternal people in this world living out the Gospel together that's the hope that we that we celebrate on sundays as we sing songs and worship as we sit.

On the authority of God's word it's also the hope that we get to be grounded and centered in in community groups so one of the things we have in our Church is we have community groups which are smaller groups of our Church family that that live life together that that meet regularly that open up the Bible that eat meals together when it's not in a season where we have to not eat meals together uh but we do this to live out the Gospel together to celebrate who.

Jesus is to keep us centered in the Gospel as a Church family so if you're new welcome we'd love to invite you into that to connect you to some of our groups one of the easiest ways to do that is to go to our website millcitycasey.com and you can go to our community groups page you can fill out some information and we can connect with you and kind of tell you more about our groups which one might be good for you to check out.

If you are not new and you call this Church home we invite you to give we believe that our response to the Gospel is generosity and we open up our wallets in doing that so if you're part of our Church family you can give online you can also come by during the week and drop off checks at our office so i'm going to uh to pray for us that i'll prepare our hearts for worship and i'm going to call us to worship from psalm 95.

Father i thank you that we get to worship because of your great love because you came and you rescued us and you redeemed us that we get to uh sit in an eternal reality and out of that we get to praise we get to sing songs i pray you prepare hearts for worship prepare our hearts to to be to sit under your word we ask us in Jesus name amen i'm going to call us to worship from psalm 95 it says this oh come.

Let us sing to the lord let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation let us come into his presence with thanksgiving let us make a joyful noise with songs of praise for the lord is a great God and a great king above all gods in his hands are the depths of the earth the heights of the mountains are his also the sea is his and he made it and his hands form the dry land oh come let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before the lord our maker for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand wherever you're joining with us today let's worship together praise the lord the almighty oh my adoration shelters us under have you not seen how our desires have been granted surely his goodness if this praise to the lord oh let all that is in me adore all that hath life and breath come now with praises before again me again.

Lord now my my life is our first treasure may i reach heavens still be my vision i once was lost in darkest nights first i would refuse to upon display your suffering is hallelujah all i have is Christ hallelujah is my life the truth in any way you choose is is Jesus God all we have to claim before you is Jesus and we're thankful this morning that as your Church we are thankful for the cross of Christ we're thankful that he rose from the grave.

Lord this morning as your Church we pray that you would speak to us that that would be the cry of our heart that all we have is Christ and so we pray that you would reveal yourself through your word that you would speak through chet as he comes to preach in Jesus name amen my fellow americans good morning my name is chet phillips i'm one of the pastors here we are in our second week of our messiah 2020 series we're only doing three weeks on this we're taking a brief pause from the Gospel of Matthew to try to get some sound footing to kind of catch our bearings in the middle of the american political.

Season which seems to be unending at this point but we are in an election year and we wanted to address and begin to ask the questions how as Christians ought we to approach politics how should we think about it what should we do what shouldn't we do and just try to catch our breath and get some firm footing so the primary goal of this series is to help us understand that Christians ought to approach politics distinctly from the rest of our neighbors that we ought to have a distinct approach and understanding to government and two politics.

Because we are first and foremost Christians before we are citizens of any earthly place we said last week that we think we ought to look more similar to believers around the globe than just those who happen to vote like us in our own nation and so that's our goal we've got three weeks to do it what we said last week was that we cannot approach politics in the same way as our cultural allies and those who are across the aisle from us we can't approach it the same way.

Because the way we're currently pushed to approach politics is to have a high amount of fear so that we'll give our sole allegiance to a political party or a political leader and then work with a bit of anger and animosity and venom to conquer our political enemies that ultimately our culture is telling us we need a messiah we need a savior we need someone to come in and fix all of our problems to give us a hope and a future and we already have a messiah we already have a savior we already have a hope and a future we are already citizens of an eternal kingdom.

Therefore our approach to politics has to be distinct and so we just tried to dismantle some things last week and this week we're beginning to build it back up a little bit so we're asking the question is okay if we shouldn't approach it as if we need a messiah and if we shouldn't approach it with this amount of fear and anxiety and anger how should we look at politics how should we approach this is government good should we have a government that's kind of where we're starting it's like what's a what's a baseline approach to an understanding of how the Bible treats government.

Because some of us in christianity and some of in our Church family would want to say well politics is just too corrupt our system is too broken Christians shouldn't participate at all others would say well Christian's primary role is the Gospel and the proclamation of the Gospel and that we're spiritual beings and that we ultimately need to see God work so we just need to preach the Gospel and let the world sort itself out but reality is we're called to love.

God and our neighbors and that does mean that we have to live in the place we are and interact in the place we are i have two sons i have a five-year-old and a two-year-old and the two-year-old is just beginning to speak uh he's just kind of putting some stuff together and there's times where they'll be off playing together and um you hear him laughing you'll hear him play and then all of a sudden there'll just be chaos screaming shouting arguing.

And then i'll hear the pitter patter of little feet down the hall my two-year-olds are running down the hall crying and he his brother's name's archer but he pronounces it shasha or arsha he hasn't gotten it yet but he'll come down the hall and he'll say and i know what he's saying he's looking at me and he's saying father i beseech you without your good governance it's anarchy it's become lord of the flies the strong rule over the week and you must come rule and give some boundaries.

So that we might have life and have it flourishing i look at him and say i understand son but really he's asking for good government and the reality is we all need good government and God designed government to be good for our sake in the garden prior to sin he tells adam and eve that they would rule and have dominion and that they would multiply and flourish but God meant for there to be some guiding principle some rules some leadership prior to sin and we don't outgrow government we aren't saved from government we're actually saved into a government that.

Jesus is a king and we're told in isaiah that his of his government and his peace there will be no end so we're not moving to heaven and entering into this free no government system we're moving in and having a king that God's design for government is good and that we're in the middle now where there is sin and it's meant to function in a certain way and so we need to understand how to approach it so what we're going to try to aim at.

Today is the understanding that government is good because it was instituted by God to limit evil and promote good for the good of those governed the government's good because it was instituted by God to limit evil and promote what is good for the sake for the good of those governed and that as Christians we ought to participate but we ought to participate as those who have an eternal perspective so let's pray and we'll jump in God we thank you for your grace we pray that as we seek to be good citizens of your kingdom who have been placed here that we would be good citizens of where we are with an eternal perspective working towards.

The good of our neighbors we thank you for government and its intended design for us and we pray that we would grow in our understanding and appreciation of it today in Jesus name amen go to romans chapter 13. we're going to be looking at romans chapter 13 verses 1 through 7. this is Paul writing to the roman Church and he's talking to them about how they ought to think about government he's done a lot about how they ought to interact with each other and how they ought to approach the.

Lord but he's talking now about how they ought to approach the being citizens in where they are so it says this romans 13 verse 1 let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God i'm going to read that again for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God therefore whoever resists the authorities resist what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad would you have no fear of the one who is in authority then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is God's servant for your good but if you do wrong be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of God an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer therefore one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath.

But also for the sake of conscience for because of this you also pay taxes for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing pay to all what is owed to them taxes to whom taxes are owed revenue to whom revenue is owed respect to whom respect is owed honor to whom honor is owed so Paul says that all institutions are instituted by God and that there are for our good for your good and i can feel it even as i'm reading that.

Because i can feel it in myself but i can feel it in us that we we just want to hold on i got a question like there's the the ultimate american question that just rises in us is what about bad governments what says don't don't resist them but but i have what about bad governments what about in algeria where they're shutting down churches what about in china when the government's overreaching when they're saying that you can't even be a Christian when they're rounding them up or arresting them or making them have only certain places and certain ways that they can meet what about.

When there's a king who puts taxes on your tea but won't let you have representatives in parliament what do we do when there's blatant governmental evil and overreach that's the question we want to ask immediately to push back on this because the idea that God is over all institutions that he's working through all of them for our good does not seem like that always plays out that way and there are times where it feels like the government is overstepping we currently in our culture right.

Now have people who are standing against government authority we have those who are marching who are standing in roads and blocking off bridges and protesting we have churches that are saying even though the local authorities have told them they can't meet they're going to anyway and it really depends on which side of the aisle you fall on as to which one you're saying yes and amen and oh how dare you but we currently have this question even playing out with us and it's what do we do.

And so i think we have to answer that quickly before we can get into God's good design one the good news for bad government is that all government is under the authority of God the good news for us in bad government is that all government is under the authority of God which means that it will be judged it will be held to his standards and judged according to his purposes and that even in the midst of bad government God can work good he does this throughout the old testament he raises up leaders he lowers leaders he raises up kings he lowers kings he raises up nations he lowers nations they work at his discretion he.

Can revoke them or install them as he wills and so that those that do evil at times are used for God's purposes even pagan kingdoms the babylonian kingdom was used for God's purposes for his people to to punish them to correct them as judgment on his people but then he sent the persians in to punish and correct the babylonians and to bless his people and God does this throughout history so even in the midst of a place where Christians are in a bad government they can hope and trust that.

God is good over it secondly the primary role for Christians is not to just transform our governmental systems or to seek power but to testify to an eternal truth to testify to an eternal kingdom that's our primary role that's what pastor wang yi who's a pastor in china who was arrested by the communist government he had pre-written this and told his Church to publish it if he had been arrested for more than 48 hours i want to read an excerpt from this he says as a pastor my disobedience is one part of the Gospel commission.

So he's disobeying the government by having house churches Christ's great commission requires of us great disobedience the goal of disobedience is not to change the world but to testify about another world he goes on from that to say that he doesn't believe that Christians ought to be changing the institutions but that they ought to be primarily focused on eternal things he says this all acts of the Church are attempts to prove to the world the real existence of another world the Bible teaches us that in all matters relating to the Gospel and human conscience we must obey.

God and not men for this reason spiritual disobedience and bodily suffering are both ways we testify to another eternal world and to another glorious king so that the primary role of Christians is not just to transform government not to have all the policies that we wish we would have but to proclaim another kingdom and so when there is a bad government we still have a primary role to play in proclaiming another kingdom which does at times mean as weighing ye is walking out some form of disobedience.

For the greater purposes of God but not for the greater purposes of our political candidate party or system of choice if this is attention that you're trying to work out i would encourage you to read first Peter chapter two i would encourage you to read all of wang yi's letter it's called my letter of uh faithful disobedience i would encourage you to read dr martin luther king jr's letter from a birmingham jail as a kind of a starter on how to ought we to think about Christians interacting with governments.

When government's not operating properly but primarily today we're looking at God's good design so we're going to focus on that not when it goes wrong because it does go wrong in sin and we do have hope that God is an authority over it and we'll judge it but what's his good design for government you see government matters because people matter life matters joy matters there's the people around you matter and so God has designed it for us to have government the reality is without government there are those who would say wouldn't it be better.

If the government just wasn't involved wouldn't life be better if there just was no government the answer to that is no it wouldn't without government the strong make the rules the weak are pushed to the side sin reigns every time a even an evil government falls immediately it's not like oh good the government's gone now everybody can be nice to each other that's not what happens when a bad government falls there's sin women are raped children are abducted people are murdered.

God instituted government however flawed for good purposes so this is what he says that we ought to be subject to the governing authorities and even there as he walks this out Christians ought to begin looking different than those around us he says be subject to the governing authorities pay your taxes you ought to pay what is owed to those who tax you it says pay honor oh give honor to those whom it's owed so that Christians ought to be respectful you ought to be able to speak about whoever's in leadership over you in a gracious respectful way even as you disagree with them and that right.

Now just doing that will make Christians look distinct from those in their political party that if we can see the good in others and we can speak to the good and others if we can acknowledge where they're right acknowledge where we're wrong and speak in an honorable way of those that we vehemently disagree with will begin to look more the way he's designed for us to look but see the primary role of of good government is to discourage what is evil and to encourage what is good and he gives more attention on discouraging what is evil that's the basic approach the basic role of government it's that to be under God's authority discouraging evil carrying.

Out God's wrath on the wrongdoer and promoting what is good i mentioned my boys earlier but that's the system primary system of governance at my house i want my boys to grow up i want them to love Jesus but much of the work i'm doing with them is i'm just looking at discouraging what is bad and encouraging what is good and if you're a new parent start there is this behavior good will it help them live in our house does it make me like them is this the type of person i want to be around will this help them live in society encourage that is this behavior bad does this make me not want to.

Live with this person you see children have parents for a reason they're meant to have some governance they would not be better off without you they will make terrible decisions and you're supposed to help them grow into a person that can live in the world very simply at my house one of the rules is if you cry and throw a fit you don't get what you're crying and throwing a fit for it makes my decision easy you don't get to watch that you don't get to eat that you don't get to do the thing you wanted.

Because if i give it to them after they cry and throw a fit what i've taught my children is that in order to be happy they need to be miserable and that's not good for them and the reality is that small scale picture of parenting is ultimately what govern government is supposed to do for us as we are adults and still sinful that they're meant to hold evil at bay and encourage what is good he gives again more attention to discouraging evil.

But let's talk about the encouraging good for a second that they're there for our good this means that governments the Bible doesn't give us a system kings parliament a senate a house of representatives a president voting not voting it doesn't give us that it just says that government was designed these things are instituted for our goods so that there would be some system some oversight and someone who avenges what is wrong and promotes what is good so some of the ways that happens here you can we.

Then get into debates about how big should it be how little should it be how much should they promote how much should they discourage but the reality is under God's authority then there's just some how are they going to practically walk that out as long as they're in line with what God says is good and bad so some examples our government promotes generosity it promotes charitable work charitable organizations don't have to pay taxes our Church doesn't pay income tax we don't pay uh property tax we don't pay tax on the land that we live we people who give money to charitable organizations get tax benefits that's them encouraging things that they think are good our.

Government gives money towards education that's them encouraging things that they think are good that help for human flourishing and that's okay that's inside the bounds of the role of government they discourage evil and there are some places where they they maybe don't discourage it but they least shouldn't encourage it the reality is it's not a it's not against the law to lie if you want to tell people that your benchmax is higher than it really is if you want to tell people that the fish you caught was way bigger than it actually was.

If you want to tell people that you caught a lot of fish when you didn't that's all sin but there's no government control over that but then the government does step in when there are places where people are lying in business or they're lying about a business ben johnson was telling us in lebanon they the government recently took up 40 tons they confiscated 40 tons of expired chicken the chicken was dating back to 2016 that was being sold in markets there they came and confiscated it.

Because the government was like this is unhealthy this is unsafe and you're lying about it and the government's put some restrictions around that and they're discouraging something that's bad it's not good for their people to all be sick with eating bad chicken so they step in and those are some of the roles of government how much how far where those are the things we get to discuss but that's inside the realm of God's good design for government the Bible says that they carry the sword he is the servant of.

God an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrong doer that he does not carry the sword in vain this is one of the primary functions of the government to have a military to have police that's good they're servants of God for our good one of my favorite scenes at the end of the movie the guardians of the galaxy and if you haven't seen it it's like a heist movie but in space one of my favorite scenes is after these criminals who are the main people you're following they save this planet.

And so they tell them that their criminal records have been wiped clean because they saved the planet because they came together and did something good they wiped their criminal records clean and so they're talking to the police officer and one of them says okay well let me ask you a question now that my my slate's wiped clean what if i see someone who has something that i want more than they do and i just take it the police officer says yes that's theft that's that's against the law you will go to jail.

Because that make any sense i want it more than they do and they just kind of push him out of the way and then one of the bigger meaner guys on their team looks at him and goes okay well let me ask you something if someone does something that i find irksome so i remove his spine and the police officer looks at him and goes yeah that's that's murder that's like one of the worst things you can do you would also go to jail and as that's meant to be play out.

For humor but the reality is with no laws with no one enforcing what is good with no one avenging what is wrong the smartest the strongest the meanest often succeed people just do what's right in their own eyes they just take advantage of those who are weak those who are smaller that government is meant to be a good avenger on your behalf in romans chapter 12 the chapter before this Paul's talking to them and he tells them that God is the primary avenger don't be avenged.

When someone does you wrong but leave it to the wrath of God that God is the avenger of all wrongdoing but then in romans 13 he says secondarily God has given the sword to governments to avenge on his behalf for our good my brother is a police officer he's a sheriff's deputy and he is according to romans a servant of God for our good that when someone breaks into someone's home and takes what doesn't belong to them when someone harms someone.

When someone uh because they're bigger physically abuses someone that God has instituted for there to be those who are avengers for the good of those who live in this area that they might have someone to call they might have some resource to go to that God has designed this for our good they're those in law enforcement in our Church family those who've been in military and our Church family and that's a good thing to do they're servants of God for our good.

And so they ought to act as servants of God for our good the the part there that that adjusts how we approach politics and how our politicians act and how our military and police is that they serve God first and foremost and so they ought to act in line with him and therefore work from there so this plays out that that is one of the primary ways that we get to push our government towards what is good is by bringing them in line with the word of.

God and we're going to talk more about that next week and how we we actually get to play that out personally as we interact with our world and as we live out as people who live here but some examples of how this has worked in the past william wilberforce became a believer and he began to push the english government to get to abolish slavery he began to say that you're under God and slavery is wrong so you're out of bounds and what you're allowing and you need to abolish slavery he also pushed.

For uh good treatment of animals because of the same thing he was like no you ought not there ought to be some laws that prohibit this sort of behavior in the u.s one of our greatest thinkers and writers and speakers is frederick douglass who was a freed slave who had no political agency whatsoever could not vote had just earned his freedom had been property most of his life but he began to push he began to speak he began to proclaim he was a amy pastor at one point and he began to push those in leadership and said government ought to be in line with.

God and he pushed for the abolition of slavery he pushed for better rights for women because he said this is what God has designed for us and our government ought to be in line in promoting what is good and holding back what is evil and it worked him and others were able to push to get us to line up with more of God's will and God's good design for us and this is one of the ways that we get to participate as americans you get to vote you get to call your elected officials we live in a place where we have representation that we're supposed to have those who are in our leadership represent us.

Spencer was telling me this week that he had heard that they were getting rid of the adoption tax credit that some of the leaders in south carolina specifically those in the republican party were pushing for this because we live in a primarily republican state and most of our leaders are in the republican party they were pushing for getting rid of the adoption tax credit and so he said he called he called every leader in every in the districts he was in.

So his senators his congress people and he said if you're a republican and you're saying you're pro-life then you also need to be pro-adoption you need to help promote this that's what he called and told them and they ended up not passing it and so two of our pastors right now are in the process of adoption and they get to apply for this tax credit so spencer asked me to tell them on his behalf matt razzier welcome spencer fought for what was good.

So that we might promote what is good in our government and we get to do the same thing that God designed government to be a generic grace-filled good for the world that we're meant to have it and so we ought to be in subject in subjection to it paying taxes honoring those that are our leaders praying for them because God designed this to be good to help us but the reality is while government is good and is meant for our good it does have limitations.

So go back just a few pages to romans chapter 8. so in romans Paul has been walking through salvation he's been walking through our need for Christ by the time we've made it to romans 12 13 and forward he starts giving more practical advice but prior to this he's been giving a lot of theological understanding and so in romans 8 he's talking about the law of God to the law that God gave to Moses and the people of Israel so this is ceremonial law this is the law that of how of his moral law how they ought to relate to.

God this is uh state law how they ought to relate to one another this is the law that God handed to Moses so when it says law here in a second it doesn't just mean the laws we have on the books it actually means the law that God gave to Moses so here's what it says romans 8 verses 3 and 4. for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

For sin he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit so what Paul is getting at there is that the law that God gave to humanity could not ultimately fix human hearts it could not redeem them it could not change them it was a good law but it could not do he says God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do the reason i want us to.

See this is that if the law that God gave to Moses could not change human hearts i hate to break this to you but we will not pass a law in the united states that will be capable of doing it if the law given to the people of God after the Exodus could not ultimately fix them but was meant to show them their inadequacies and their need for Christ then any law we pass any good we promote any evil we prohibit will not ultimately be able to fix our hearts and this is important.

For us as Christians to understand government was given as a good for us but it cannot ultimately fix what is wrong with us it can hold evil at bay it can promote things that are good but Christ has done what the law cannot do he has come in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin to condemn sin in the flesh Jesus Christ came that he took on sin that he died for our sin so that as we place faith in him we might walk in the spirit not in the flesh that we might be changed internally that our hearts might be changed that we might be made new we touched on this idea last week.

When we read a quote from russell moore but what he was getting at was that we could actually get the the right president the best president the right congress the best congress the right policies the best policies but if we do all of that and get the wrong savior we have failed and so Christians are not looking for a savior we have one but we understand that government is good and therefore we ought to participate and promote it as those who understand it is good.

But it is not ultimate we cannot place all our hopes there we cannot place all our trust there we cannot believe that it will fix us that it will save us it will change everything for us that we know ultimately it's good but it's limited and therefore we participate in what is good but we trust that only Jesus will ultimately save us and change our hearts and so we work towards that end i love this quote from martin luther king jr getting at this idea he says it may be true that the law cannot make a man love me.

But it can keep him from lynching me and i think that's pretty important i love that quote and i think it gets at this idea that we believe that government is good that we ought to have it that it's good to have police it's good to have those promoting what is good and prohibiting what is evil and policing that and overseeing that and caring for that and working towards that that they're servants of God for our good so we appreciate our politicians we appreciate those who are in leadership we pray.

For them and we hope for good ones and we trust that God oversees all of that and that ultimately laws will not fix what is broken in us that we have hope for God to do that for our good through Christ so we participate but understanding the limitations we do not give our full hope and our full heart to it we trust that Jesus will ultimately change us and that we need him over and above the good government that God has given us.

So i want to push on those who are politically apathetic have no desire for it it's such a drain on you you think it's a waste of time i want you to see that God designed it for good and that we need good loss we need good oversight we need good to be promoted and evil to be prohibited and i want to encourage you to begin participating there are some people in our Church who should run for office we should have Christians that are holding public office and they should be Christians there's this idea that they should check their christianity at the door.

But nobody else has to do that the the secular humanist doesn't have to check that at the door in order to help make good laws and so we don't believe Christians should either we think you should go and be a Christian and you should help promote what is good and discourage what is evil and that you should use the Bible because ultimately all authority is derived from God you should use that as a good example of how you ought to do this.

So we think some should run for government run for office we think that those who would say but it's too corrupt and therefore you don't want to participate i would push back and say if it's too corrupt we ought to participate all the more we're given avenues for it as Christians in the united states there are some places where we wouldn't but we ought to push we are to participate we are to seek to have that changed so that this can be a good that.

God has given us you ought to vote and here's the thing about voting it's difficult when we only have two parties and you don't like either of the candidates the reality is if you as a Christian are not allowed to vote for anyone who has holds a policy that you disagree with or you as a Christian are not allowed to vote for anyone who holds a moral position a personal position moral action that you disagree with you will not vote so we need to be able to vote understanding that it is not a full endorsement of the character it's not a full endorsement of everything.

But that we've looked and said we think a good bit of this lines up with the heart of Jesus for the good of our nation and we're going to participate and where they're wrong and where they're off we're going to acknowledge it we're going to push for better we're going to practice different things in our personal life that help make up for the fact that i voted here but now i've got to make sure that i come up with some of the deficiencies here.

So you can vote it's not a full endorsement but then you ought to participate in a way that helps compensate start local if you're having a hard time getting motivated to be involved in politics start local this is something i need to grow in is paying attention to our local officials our local leaders caring about them knowing what they're for knowing what they affect but we ought to be involved in the local politics of our city not just our national politics pray that we're meant to pray.

For those who are in authority over us pray for their good not just pray that they would do what we want them to do but that the lord would use them that he'd give them wisdom that he would guide them that he would save them that we would pray for our leadership and lastly trust Jesus government is good and it's a blessing and we should be thankful for it we should be thankful for those who serve for our good they serve under.

God and his authority but we should ultimately trust him that even where things are bad and difficult and things where things are mishandled because we have sinners filling all the offices in our land we would trust that Jesus is working that he will judge what is evil and that all governments are ultimately instituted through him and therefore work at his will and when they get out of line he can remove them or he can bless them and he works through them.

For his good purposes even though we can't always see them so trust him to change hearts trust him to oversee the government we're in and participate in a healthy way understanding that it's good but it's not ultimate so for those of you who have placed too much hope in our political systems too much hope in a political party i would encourage you again this week to repent to begin to detox to begin to break that down so you might understand that it's good.

But ultimately we need God over top of it we need God down here with us changing our hearts and for those of you who've rejected all of this i'll push you to be involved to be engaged because it's a good gift from God that's meant for our good and for the good of our neighbors let's pray God we thank you for your grace your love towards us we pray that you would bless our nation that you would bless our leaders that you would change their hearts that you would give them wisdom and that they would be good servants of yours to discourage evil to promote good.

For the good of those who live in this land i pray that you would help us to not place too much hope in political parties or political systems but to trust you and we pray that you would help us not to be falsely wrongly apathetic towards something a gift that you have given us that we might be engaged for the benefit of our neighbors oh my God like you there is your grace your love exceeds the heaven's reach my my your faithfulness my my guilt and cross laid on your shoulders in my place you broke my bones glory to your.

Lord all right so uh just a couple announcements before we close out uh if you are are new we'd love to uh love for you to check out one of our groups one of the easiest ways you can do that is go to our website go to our community groups page and to fill out some information we'd love to be able to journey with us as we walk through this series as we uh walk through the Gospel together every week in groups come join us uh we'd love to get you connected there.

If you are a part of our Church just a reminder again you can give online uh by going to our website and you can also give by coming by the Church coming out of the building during the week and dropping off checks i want to close us with a word from hebrews 13. it says now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good they may do his will working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through.

Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever amen you guys have a great day.

Prayer

Prayer

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

Good morning, my name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bible and head to Matthew chapter 6. We are in the third week of our Abide series. And what we are talking through is that if you are a Christian, if you've placed your faith in Jesus, if the Holy Spirit has regenerated you, you are in Christ, that you abide in Him. And then Jesus in John chapter 15 gives it as a command.

He says, Abide in Me. I'm the vine, you are the branches. And unless you abide in Me, you cannot bear fruit. You can do nothing without Me. And so what we are walking through in this series is as we abide in Christ, as we stay connected to Him, we're focusing on the part that connects to the vine, and He pours life into us, and He works through us, and then we bear fruit, and then we have joy, and then it shows up in life, but we stay connected to Him. And so the title of this series is Abide, Ancient Practices for Enjoying God.

So that we are going to learn certain practices that Christians have done forever to help us appreciate and enjoy what Christ has accomplished for us on the cross, what He has already purchased for us, this good and real relationship with God the Father. My wife and I periodically go on dates with one another. My four-year-old son asked his mama, he said, Why do sometimes other people come to the house and watch us, and y'all leave? And my wife got real close to his face and said, It's because we're sick of you. She didn't. It would be awesome if she did.

She said, Because your dad and I like each other, and we want to go just be with one another. We want to go hang out with one another. Now we go on dates, not so that we can get married, not so that I don't go on a date with my wife so that she'll fall in love with me. We go on dates because she's already madly head over heels in love with me. But we go on dates to enjoy what we already have.

And so what we're talking about in this series is that we get to do that with God. Christ has already done all the work. He's already purchased us. He's already placed us here. And we get to enjoy this real relationship with the Father. And these are practices that help that, that aid that.

And so one of the things we're talking about today is that we're going to be talking about prayer. And as we get started, I want to discuss this concept with you. I heard this recently and I thought it was helpful. It's the idea that the things you do, do things to you. So the things you do, do things to you.

That you are constantly, by your actions, training yourself. You're constantly, by your actions, equipping yourself for something. So let's talk about Kung Fu for a second. Boneweed's part of our church family. And he practices Kung Fu. And one of the things they do, is they take a bag, like a canvas bag, and they put mung beans in it.

So if you've got some mung beans laying around the house, and you were wondering what to do with them, put them in a canvas bag. And then you punch them, for about 15 minutes a day. You punch a canvas bag with mung beans. The first day you do this, the first time you hit it, you'll think this isn't that hard. It's kind of soft. This is kind of nice.

I hated these mung beans anyway. And you'll, you'll go to punch. And after about 15 minutes, your hands will be swollen. You'll wake up the next day, and you'll look like some sort of terrible thing has happened to you. And it takes a while to train your hands. But eventually, you can get to where you punch mung beans, until you just kind of turn them to powder.

And then when you're able to do that, after 15 minutes a day, for a considerable amount of time, you change to gravel. And you put gravel in the bag, and you punch that. And once you can turn gravel into, into dirt, or tiny rocks, smaller gravels, you go to lead shot. So, lead balls. And you're not able to do anything with those. They stay the same.

But you are able to punch things. I don't know if you've ever punched someone in the face. Your face is relatively soft. It doesn't feel terrible to punch somebody in the face. But if you're used to punching still shot, it's probably like your hands getting to take a nap on a pillow.

It's like delightful. And so, they would practice this to make their hands, they would practice this to change themselves. And in reality, we understand this. That if you play guitar for a long period of time, you get calluses all over your fingers, so that you can play. The first time I tried to play a guitar, I was like, this hurts. And so I quit.

I was bad at it anyway. But, you train yourself. And so, thinking through this, that if I wanted to make my hands really tough, I wouldn't say, well, I guess I should just punch this for eight hours today. It's, no, you have to do it slowly over time. You have to work your way towards it. It doesn't just happen overnight.

And in reality, when we're talking about reading our Bibles, when we're talking about prayer, we're talking about the same thing. That it is better for us to learn how to habit this, to have a practice of this, to make this a normal part of our lives, because the things we do, do things to us. They change us. So as I was thinking through this, if you practiced playing the piano an hour a day, if you practiced Kung Fu or Karate an hour a day, or two hours a day, and you did this for years, you would be pouring yourself, you'd be changing yourself. And so what I realized was, I am soon going to be a Kung Fu master of my cell phone and my television.

I've been diligently training for years. In reality, if you watch two hours of television a day, if you watch an hour of television a day, you are sitting, turning your brain off, accomplishing nothing, and you're training yourself. You're pouring into yourself. I've realized I used to spend some time on Twitter. I stopped because it was bad for me. For a couple of reasons.

One, Twitter is kind of aggressive. And so the more I looked at Twitter, the more sarcastic I got, and the more aggressive I got. And that's not a good turn for me, you guys. I didn't need to add to that. I need to come the other direction. And so that wasn't helpful.

Also, you're just kind of flipping through. They're real short. And I realized by the end of me, if I was looking at Twitter for 15 minutes, by the end of it, I wasn't even reading whole tweets. I just, I got to think about the other day, I was sitting in a doctor's office in the waiting room. And I got a magazine out, because I had my little boy with me, and we were, I was just showing him the pictures. But I got to thinking, if someone sat down in a waiting room, and flipped through a magazine, the way we flipped through Facebook or Twitter, they would look like a crazy person.

Like, you just, you wouldn't spend any time on it, you would look insane. But what happens is, we're flipping through our phones, and we're making ourselves more frantic. We're making ourselves, we're increasing our ADHD. We're lowering our attention span. We're pouring into ourselves. We're training ourselves.

We're equipping ourselves for no good purpose. And so what we're talking about is, that we might learn, how to daily practice, things that slowly over time change us, and make us into something else, that build into us. So we're going to talk about prayer today. And the point of this is not, that you would be able to do the most amazing prayer today, but that we might learn how to pray, so that you might practice this for the next 30 years. You might practice this for the next 20 years, 40 years, so that it builds into you, and changes you. So let's pray, because that seems like a good way, to start a sermon on prayer.

And then let's see what Jesus has to say about this. God, we thank you, that we get to speak to you as our Father, that you love us, and you know us. And we pray, that you would empower us to pray. That you would teach us to pray. That we might practice, and slowly walk with you for years. That you might change us, and grow us.

In Jesus' name, Amen. So we're going to talk about how. We're just going to try to look at some real practical, how do we pray? Because the point is, we need to learn how to make this a practice for ourselves. How to install this into our lives, and this becomes a normal thing that we do. So we're looking at Matthew chapter 6.

We're going to pick up in verse 5. This is Jesus teaching about prayer. And so we're just going to walk through this text, and we're going to exegete it. We're just going to pull out of it, what's in it, and talk through it. And then we're going to, at the end of this, kind of talk through this joyful experience, that we get to have in prayer, and how the Holy Spirit empowers it. So let's walk through and see what it says.

It says, And when you pray, you must not pray like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues, and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. That's what makes them hypocrites. They're not actually wanting to pray. They don't actually want to delight in the Lord. They don't actually want to enjoy Him, know Him, speak to Him. They just want other people to see them praying.

So he says, Don't do that. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. So if the point of their praying, was just to have people look at them, and people look at them, you did it. You get your reward. That was it. But when you pray, go into your room, and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret, will reward you. Okay, so this is the context for prayer. First of all, he's saying that you get to speak to your Father who sees in secret, and He rewards prayer. That there's a reward for us that we would spend time praying, that it works into us, that the things we do, do things to us, that God sees us, rewards us. I think that's practical here and now. It's also reward in eternity.

But he says, Go into your room and close the door. If we would learn to do that, we'll actually start praying. If we would learn to have time where we got away from everything, and where we closed the door, when we got away from everything, and found time to be alone, and set it aside, that's the first thing that has to happen if we're going to make it a practice of praying, is that you have to find time for it. You have to make time for it. You have to have a consistent ability, and you have to get away. The other way that the Gospels will say that Jesus would always go off to desolate places to pray.

So he would go, here he says, Be alone, close the door. And he says he would go to desolate places. One of the things I realized with me praying is that it is not a desolate place if my phone is with me. I'm imminently reachable. I'm also very easily distracted. So if I'm trying to pray, and I quit praying, and just start thinking about things, in about two seconds, my phone will magically appear in my hand, and I will be doing something else.

Maybe I'm the only person who has that problem. I am not. So one of the things I've had to learn is that if I'm going to read and pray, and I need my phone with me for some reason, have to be reachable for some reason, which we just feel like we do, we don't, but if I need it, I will actually just take my phone as far as I can reach, and toss it away from myself. That way, when I suddenly, aimlessly, without thinking, try to grab it, my arm can't get to it. And then I go, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be praying. The other thing I'll do is I'll just leave it inside, and I'll just sit on my back porch, but what we have to do is find some way, so for you, that may be, you've got to find time with your spouse where they're going to watch kids for just a little while, so you can have 10, 15 minutes to go pray, and actually pray.

Don't be like, honey, I need to pray, and then go take a nap. No, pray. But find some time, if it's really early, if it's really late, whatever you've got to do, find some time to get away and pray. And if we'll make a habit of that, just getting away, just closing the door, it'll already begin to build into us this habit, so that we can begin to become people who pray, and this can begin to work in us. Verse 7, And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases, as the Gentiles do. Okay, so Gentiles are non-Jewish people, and so they were aware of their prayer practices, these pagan practices, where they would chant, where they would repeat the same things over and over again, where they would have these big ceremonies, where they would extend everything out, and he says, don't do that.

Don't heap up empty phrases, as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him. And then He's going to say, pray them like this. Let's talk about that for just a second. I think sometimes we think, if we're going to pray, it's got to be long, it's got to have good, flowery, empty phrases, that sound nice. You hear somebody else pray sometime, and you'll be like, that was an express lane prayer.

That was fast pass, like that got to walk past the line, that was so good. And it's like, that's not how it works. He just says, pray. Talk like you're talking to your Father. We're not praying, having to use big, empty phrases. There's a story in 1 Kings, chapter 18, about Elijah, for real this time.

I got that wrong, two weeks ago, I said it was Elisha. Kind of wants me to give credit to Elisha, for this story, just to make up for it to him. But this is Elijah, and there are 450 prophets of Baal, and there is Elijah. And so they get on this mountain, they're going to have a God showdown, so they're going to have the 450 prophets. They said, we've got to choose. He says, don't quit going back and forth.

We're going to pick a God. We're either going to follow Baal, or we're going to follow the Lord God. And he says, so get your prophets together. I'm the only one on our team, but that's cool. And y'all set up a sacrifice, and I'll set up a sacrifice, and we'll pray, and whichever God answers from heaven with fire is God. Y'all can go first.

So 450 prophets of Baal set up their sacrifice, and then they start praying. And it says that for hours, they prayed and did their lame dance. I don't know what their dance was like, but it was lame. So it wasn't as cool as dabbing. It was way lamer than that, you guys. They're hopping around.

They're praying. They're chanting. They're saying stuff over and over. They go for so long that Elijah begins to make fun of them. He walks over to them while they're chanting and praying and repeating the same things and begging and asking. And he says, um, you think maybe he's just like deep in thought?

Is it? Think he went to the bathroom? He for real says that. He said, oh, maybe he left. Maybe he's on a journey. Does he have like an answering service?

He'll probably, he'll probably get back, you know, in a little while. He said, oh, maybe he's asleep. And he lets him go for a long time. And then they're still going on. They're cutting themselves. They're doing all this stuff and trying to make their prayer be powerful enough to make it up.

And he goes, okay, everybody over here. He pours water all over his sacrifice. He prays once. Fire comes down from heaven. He's like, grab him up. We're killing him.

It's a dramatic end to the story. God answers very quickly when Elijah prays because he does hear. And Elijah does not have to do all these things to make his prayer good enough. And that's what Jesus says. He says, that's something people who don't understand God do. That's not something you have to do.

You get to talk to God like he's your father. And then he says, your father knows what you need before you ask him. Now, do not apply that in a way that makes it, makes it where you don't have to pray. He's telling us to pray. He's saying when you pray, but when you pray, understand that he loves you. He knows you.

He knows what you need. And you can just go talk to him. You don't have to make it amazing. You don't have to say it over and over again. And so reality, what, what the Bible tells us is this. In your individual prayer, your prayer today does not have to be, you don't have to say the same thing over and over again.

You don't have to make it amazing. You just get to talk to the Lord like he knows you. But, you can say the exact same thing tomorrow. And you can say the exact same thing the next day. He actually tells a story to his disciples about a widow who had been deprived of justice. And he said she went to the judge every day and said the same thing.

And he says he took the stories told so that they might always pray and never lose heart. And that's what we're supposed to do. It's supposed to be a continual daily practice. Not, I'm going to go pray for three hours and it's going to be the most amazing praying I've ever done. And that'll be it. That'll cover me for a month.

It's not that. It's learning how to make this a practice where we do this over and over again. And did y'all hear he says he's our father who loves us and knows what we need before we ask. I have an 18 month old. His communication skills are very poor. He says this, mostly in regard to food.

If he's saying this, it's because he thinks he can eat whatever he's pointing at. He says, meh, which is some mixture of more and mine. Also only says it around food. And he says, bye, which means I'm ready to leave this place and go to sleep. If I pick him up, he'll go, bye. And we're like, you're not leaving, buddy.

And he's about to be real sad because he's ready to go to sleep. But here's what I don't do. I don't look at him when he wants to eat something and go, until you learn English, you will never eat in this household. That's not how it works. I try to figure out what on earth he's talking about. I'll hold things up.

This, this, this. It's like, well, buddy, you got to learn more words, but okay, what? This? And it took me a while to realize when you held up what he wanted, he would take off running. He was going to the place to stand next to where he wanted you to pour his food out. So I would be like, I guess he changed his mind.

I'd put it up. He'd come back mad at me. Like what? We just worked out a deal. We found it. I'm over here.

He'll run and smack an Ottoman and he just wants you to pour food on top of it. When he runs out, he'll say, ma, ma. You got to go get more. We learned what he was saying so that we could serve him. And here's what happens. We just went on vacation and we preemptively thought through.

He's going to need to sleep. He's going to need to eat. He's going to, and we planned ahead. We were ready prior to him asking for things to give it to him because we love him. And that's what he's saying that when you go to pray, God knows you, loves you. Sometimes I think my prayers are equivalent to me going, ma, dis.

And God's going, I love you. And yes, slowly, over time, he's going to teach me some words because he loves me. But he's not making it to where you have to say the perfect thing. So everybody, take a deep breath. You can pray. You can pray consistently.

You can pray well because you have a good father who wants to hear you and wants to equip you. And so, now he says, pray like this. And this prayer, you guys, is simple. This prayer will not have anybody going, oh my goodness, you just prayed, son. It won't. Somebody called on you to pray and you prayed this prayer, they'd be like, good, that's fine.

It's not the most eloquent, it's straightforward because he's saying you're talking to your father who knows you and loves you. So y'all ready? First thing, we're going to kind of break this up into chunks. I'm going to try to explain that these, I think, are sections of things that you can pray about. But he says, pray then like this.

I'll read the whole thing. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.

That's his prayer. So when they asked Jesus, how should we pray? It's in Luke. They come to him. They say, how should we pray? Jesus says like this and he actually gives a shorter version of this because he's saying you get to talk to your father.

It gets to be clear. It gets to be straightforward. These are the types of things to pray about and it doesn't have to be amazing. It's better for you to learn how to pray five minutes a day, ten minutes a day for the next 40 years than to try to work really hard to be able to pray some big amazing prayers and not have it be a habit and a normal thing for you to do. So he says, pray then like this, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Hallowed means honored. May you be honored and worshiped above everything else. May you be more important and more glorious than everything else. I use this prayer as my model prayer. When I'm praying through things, I try to follow these sections. I was praying the other night with my four-year-old and I said, Lord, may you be, and I lost the word for a second and my four-year-old son went, honored.

And I was like, yeah, I apparently say the same thing all the time when we're praying, but he was ready. He knew that's how we're going to start. May you be honored above everything else. What that means is, may we love you. We just talk about idolatry for a couple of weeks and what we said was that our problem in idolatry is that we place things above Jesus. That we love something more than we love him and so we start our prayers off by saying, may you be above everything else.

May you be honored. May you be cherished. We worship. So this is kind of at the beginning of your prayers, spend some time worshiping. It doesn't have to be long. It's one sentence here, but you can spend as much time as you want saying, God, you are good and you are big and you are holy and you are righteous.

Worship. That'll help the rest of your prayer because you'll remember who you're talking to. But he says, our father, that's also, that you're remembering that he loves you like a father, like a good father. Some of us have very bad examples of what a father is. He is a good father who loves you, who knows you and you get to go to him and he wants to hear you and he knows your needs. Our father.

Also, it's communal, so it's not my father. So he's saying, when you pray, acknowledge that we all belong to him, that this is a communal thing. It's not just you alone. Then it says, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So he begins by being worshipful.

He begins by setting kind of the tone for how he's going to pray and it says, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so I would say another section or the next kind of thing to think through is kingdom prayers. So the kingdom, a kingdom, is the extent of the reign of the king. And so we're praying that God's kingdom, that Jesus' kingdom would advance. And so that's, we're praying, this is where you would pray that the people around you would meet Jesus. This is where you would pray for your neighbors.

This is where you would pray for the place that you work, that God's kingdom would break in there, that people would be welcomed in, that people would repent, that people would love him. You'd pray for his kingdom. This is where he says, your will be done. This is also that we would surrender, acknowledging that God's will is above our will and so that we would pray that his kingdom would come but that ultimately his will would be done in whatever situation we have going on. So when the kingdom advances, that's people meeting Jesus, it's also kingdom life.

So it's people who come to know Christ but it's also, Jesus walks around healing people. It's because he's practicing what he's going to do in the cross which is reverse the effects of sin. And so this is where we'd also pray for healing. This is also where we'd pray for restoration in relationships. This is also where we'd pray for all the good things that Jesus can do, reconciliation and hope and joy. This is where we'd pray for somebody who we know that's walking with depression.

This is where we would pray for God's kingdom to work in their heart and their soul. They might know him, love him, feel loved by him. Spencer, when he was first coming down here was working closely with a lady who was helping him work on some church plant stuff and she's actually helped a lot of church plants do some paperwork and get some things started and he recently saw this past week that her son who's 17 years old had been in an accident and the doctors came to him and said, he's brain dead, he's going to be brain dead and y'all just need to go ahead and start being prepared for him to pass. And so they just started praying and they put out as much as they could to other people to be praying.

The internet's very helpful in that way. They put up a GoFundMe that basically just said we're asking for healing and we're asking for in this situation that we're going to either need to fund a lengthy recovery or we're going to have to pay for a funeral. We don't know which but we're raising support. Spencer told me about that earlier this week. He was praying about it. He came back in and said he's moving his fingers.

He can mouth I love you. They told him to blink once and he did. They told him to blink twice and he did. Now that's a long way away from healthy but it's also a long way away from brain dead. He's now starting to say some words. He's recognizing faces.

There are times where we're praying and we're saying Lord let your kingdom advance here and your will be done. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are about to be stuck in a fiery furnace because they will not worship another God other than the true one the real one. They look at the king who is about to burn them and they say our God can save us our God will save us but if he doesn't we're not worshiping that. And that's one of the ways that we get to pray. Our God can save our God will save but even if he doesn't Lord your will be done. Even if you choose not to in this situation we trust you we won't worship or love anything else.

And so we pray that he can that he will and so we get to pray these types of prayers. St. Augustine who ended up being a great leader in the church said he used to walk by and see his mama holding on to his shoes and praying that the Lord would save him. And he thought that was nice. He knew she cared about him but then he ran off and did whatever he wanted. and then Jesus saved him. And I wonder if he ever looked at his shoes and was like oh my goodness.

But we pray for the kingdom to advance. We pray for people to be saved for the Lord to work. verse 11 give us this day our daily bread. We pray for physical needs. This is also where we see very clearly this is a daily prayer. So this is pray this is how you pray on a regular basis give us this day our daily bread.

So for some of you who are in sales you ought to pray every day. Lord help me sell things today. For some of you who work in different places you pray for what you've got going on that day. Will you provide for me today? Will you care for us today? Will you provide the needs we have today?

And it says our daily bread so this is where you pray for other people's physical needs. Lord help me pay bills. Help me have enough food. Help me provide for my children. Help me to care. Help me to and you pray daily that he would be at work in our needs.

And he loves you. He hears you and he gives good gifts to his children so you can pray. Specifically I heard a pastor one time who's in China he said he needed a bike to do some ministry and so he said he started praying for a bicycle and he said when he prayed for his bicycle he prayed for what size? He prayed for what type? He gave a specific color. And you think hold on a second when I first read that I thought you just take the bike the Lord gives you son.

That's what I thought. And his point was he said now let's think about this if I have a good father who is wealthy and I believe that he might actually give me a bike if I was telling my dad this wouldn't I tell him what type? Wouldn't I talk to him like I believed he could do it? Wouldn't I lay it out for him? So I think there's some freedom for us to just know we're talking to a good father and just talk to him about what he can say no.

We're going to get to that in a minute. You can ask for something dumb and he can say no. My son my 18 month old is allergic to eggs milk wheat oats peanuts there's five of them and I may have missed one. When I'm eating cake he stands underneath me going ma nobody this this is poison to you. It's delightful to me but it is poison to you and I'll try to find him something else and there are times where we ask the Lord for stuff but you get to talk to him about your physical needs your actual needs and you get to be specific and you get to trust that he's good. Verse 12 forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not to temptation but deliver us from evil.

Psalm 86 -Prayer

Prayer

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

All right, how are we doing this morning? Okay. We're going to be teaching on lament at some point in the Psalms, so y'all just go ahead and get ready for that. It'll help you be really mournful and sad. Well, as we get started this morning, I want to take a second and I want you to kind of picture something with me. So it's Monday morning, first day of the work week, first day of the school week.

Some of you work retail. It's Monday. It's just a day. And you decide, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it, and this time it's going to work. I'm going to do it, and this time it's going to be good.

I'm going to set my alarm a little bit earlier. I'm going to get up before I have to. I'm going to wake up before I've got to start getting ready. I'm going to wake up before the kids do. I'm going to wake up before my roommates do. I'm going to wake up before I have to get to class or to work.

I'm going to do it this time, and it's going to be good. I'm going to pray. And I don't know for you, so you set your alarm. You get up. Maybe it's 30 minutes earlier. Maybe it's 45 minutes earlier.

I don't know how quickly you move in the morning or how much time you thought. Maybe you were like, I'm going to pray, and you set your alarm 10 minutes early. I don't know what you went for. And you went to your favorite chair. You went to maybe your desk. You went to just the living room, went and sat on the couch.

Maybe you went and sat at your kitchen table. Some of you, maybe you have a front porch, and you can kind of look out at some trees or something. Maybe you went out on your porch. I don't know your morning. I don't know what you went for. Maybe you got a cup of coffee.

Maybe you got one of those fancy, like, one-cup things. Maybe you're the person who brews, like, a whole pot for yourself. I don't know if you do redneck coffee. Some of y'all are holding Mountain Dews in the morning or some jolt or something. Some of y'all, you know, maybe you got a cigarette in your hand. I don't know what your morning looks like.

But you got up. You're going to read. You're going to pray. You're going to do this. You're finally going to pray, and it's going to be good. You're going to actually pray good stuff, and God's going to listen.

He's going to respond, and there's going to be this conversing, and there's going to be relationship. And there may be even some moments where it's like hands in the air. You don't ever do that, but maybe you will this morning. It's going to be good actual prayer the way that other people pray. The way you have never prayed, but the way that other people pray, you're certain of it, and you're going to do this. So you go.

You got up. That was hard. You did it. Man, you feel like almost the battle is won at this point. I am awake, and I have time. You go to your chair.

You go to your table, and you sit, and you start praying in your head, and you realize pretty quickly that you did not start very good sentences, or maybe you don't realize really quickly, and about four minutes later, you realize you're just thinking about nothing, or you're replaying an old TV show in your head, or you've started just thinking about your day, so you decide, okay, I'm going to pray out loud. And you say, God, and then you realize that volume sounds weird for how early it is, and the fact that you're by yourself, so you go, God, like, sorry, like it was too loud, and then you're like, and you start praying some more, but then you get mumbly, and you go back to your head, and you get distracted again, and then you're like, no, I need something to wake me up, so you get your computer out, you're going to play some music, or you get your phone out to play some music, something, you've got to have some background noise. And so ten minutes later, you're checking email, or you're on Facebook, and you realize, I should never have gotten this out. Some of you didn't even intend to get it out, it just magically appeared in your hand.

There was three seconds where your brain was still, so your hand was like, I know what to do, and just stuck it, went down and got your phone for you. Some of you used it as your alarm, so that was the first thing. You didn't even get to your chair, you were already flipping through stuff. Eventually, time's up, and you feel like, I really should have slept that extra 30 minutes. And in some ways, you may be a little more frustrated, a little more disappointed. I don't know, some of you, maybe you actually prayed.

Maybe you fought through and you prayed, but it ended up being kind of just like a list of things. You just kind of listed out maybe the things that were going on in your day. It was, maybe you prayed about just some stuff you're worried about. Like, maybe you prayed and you're like, cool, I prayed, but you leave still feeling like, I didn't quite, there wasn't, like I didn't feel the fellowship. Like that Bible word that people use that means some sort of like good, potent, juicy friendship. Like, I didn't feel that with God.

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't commune with the Holy Spirit. These words that the Bible uses, like I didn't feel that. Some of you were like, I didn't even really pray. So I'm not surprised that I didn't feel that. And so what we're going to do today is going to be a good bit different than, than normal Sundays for us. It's not, not, not crazy different, but it's, it's going to be different.

And I got to explain why. One of the, one of the reasons we're going to do, what we're going to do today is, is that I have just described to you many a morning of my own. And I leave feeling like I'm the only person who does not know how to pray. And then I'll read about these other people like Luther and Calvin and Mueller and missionaries and all this kind of stuff. I read this one about this guy and it was like, he, he, he went in, he told somebody who was helping him. He said, look, I'm going to go pray for an hour.

Come get me after an hour. And the guy went in after an hour and saw him and he was just, just too into it. And so he just left him alone. And finally, after four hours, he was like, okay, it's been too long. And he went and got him and said, hey. And the guy said, man, as soon as he tapped him, this is a missionary.

And he got up and said, man, an hour really flies when you're, when you're praying and relating to God. And the guy was like, yeah, it was four hours. I read that story. And do you know how depressed I was? Like, I've, I've, this is, I've set an alarm on my phone for three minutes. So that when it went off, I could remember that I was supposed to be praying and had gotten distracted.

So that I could pray for about a minute before my brain's like, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, just off on something else. And I, I have, at times feel like I'm the only person who doesn't know how to pray. Like, I feel like everybody else has got this and everybody else is praying well. And, and other, other pastors, they wake up at four in the morning and they go pray and they, they sweat and tears roll out of their face. And then they just go and seize the day. And, and it's just not like that.

And, um, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of us feel like this. Anybody who has tried to pray has found it exceedingly difficult. Anyone who's spent any time actually trying to pray has found it difficult to get started, to get going, to continue. Um, and so what we're going to do today is what we've been doing in our Psalm series. You can go and grab your Bible and flip to Psalm 86. Um, if you have one of the white Bibles, it'll be on page, uh, 283.

And if you don't own a Bible, we just encourage you to take this one with you. It's our gift to you. We want you to own a Bible. What we're going to do is we're going to have the Psalms help teach us how to pray. They're going to help teach us how to pray. And, and we're going to approach this a little bit differently, uh, than normal.

So when you went to learn how to drive a car, and some of you haven't gotten there yet, but I'm going to explain a process that you'll get to do at some point. Most of us though have, when you went to learn how to drive a car, you, you got the, the book, the little, you know, you had to pass the like written test first. And so they were like questions like, what do you do at a stop sign? Uh, every single one of us skipped the, what to do at a four-way stop because no one in South Carolina knows how to do that. I'm assuming that paragraph says, pull up, get uncomfortable, point to someone and say, anyway, um, and I know we don't know how to do it because my wife and I argue about what's actually correct.

I'm going to get a book. I've just realized I need to read this and figure it out. So you read the book. You remember most of it. You took the written test. At some point, someone sat you in a car, pointed to things, said that one gives it gas.

And that means it's going to go forward. That one's the break. That's a clutch. Uh, you know, they explained how to do things. And then at some point you just got in the car and they sat next to you and you drove. And in order to learn how to drive, you, you had to stall out.

You had to grind gears. You had to hit the brakes way too hard. Or you had to be going up towards a stop sign that you apparently couldn't see while the driving instructor was over there tapping the floor or your parent was. Or they had their own brake. You remember that one? And they could put the brakes on it for you.

And so you were driving along. And that was one of the things that happened with the driving instructor. With me, I'd be driving and all of a sudden the car would stop. And I'd be like, what's wrong? And he'd be like, you don't stop appropriately. That's how I learned the word impetuous.

My driving instructor said, you are impetuous. I said, what does that mean? He says, you try to make a decision quickly and decide just to punch the gas. And that was at that moment I learned why I was a bad quarterback in high school. Because I think he might be covered. Throw it.

Interception. He was. He was covered. I shouldn't have done it. At some point though, you had to get in the car. And you had to drive.

And what we're going to do today is we're going to show you how the Psalms, how you can use the Psalms to sit next to you and help train you in how to pray. You will mess stuff up. You will pray bad theology. You will pray things that are not even remotely close to being true about God. But the Psalms are going to train you.

What I'm saying is there are going to be times where you stall out or you grind gears or you run a red light. But the Psalms get to sit next to you and hold your hand and train you in how to pray. And that's what we're going to do today. We're actually going to practice that. We're going to walk through it. And I'm going to show you how you can use the Psalms to train you how to pray.

The reason I say it's different is that usually we read a passage and we explain what it's talking about. And we talk about it. Maybe we give some principles or some points of application. We're going to do less explaining today and more saying you might pray like this after you read that. You might pray like this just to try to help you see how you can actually sit and do this. And so really what we're trying to accomplish is I'm trying to sneak into your house on that Monday morning and stick this in your hands.

So that your phone cannot magically get in your hands because something is already in your hands. And so that you have a guide and a help for learning how to pray. I want to read a quote because this helps my brain so much. It's from Tim Keller's book on prayer. And this is a quote from Tim Keller's book where he's quoting someone else. He's quoting Eugene Peterson and then he's like interacting with what Eugene Peterson says.

So he says, Eugene Peterson reminds us that and now he's quoting Eugene Peterson. Because we learned language so early in our lives, we have no memory of the process and would therefore imagine that it was we who took the initiative to learn how to speak. However, that is not the case. Language is spoken into us. We learn language only as we are spoken to. We are plunged at birth into a sea of language.

Then slowly, syllable by syllable, we acquire the capacity to answer. Mama, Papa, bottle, blanket, yes, no. Not one of these words were a first word. All speech is answering speech. We are all spoken to before we spoke. And then Tim Keller goes on.

He says, in the years since Peterson wrote, studies have shown that children's ability to understand and communicate is profoundly affected by the number of words and the breadth of vocabulary to which they are exposed as infants and toddlers. We only speak to the degree we are spoken to. They go on to argue. Or Keller goes on to argue that that is what the scriptures get to be for us in prayer. We get to plunge ourself into the word and allow it to train us in how to speak and how to pray. And how to talk to God, to give us the words first so that we can answer, so that we can respond.

God has first spoken to us. I have a two-year-old. And when he started trying to learn how to speak, my wife and I talked about it. We had to sit down and I told her, we are not going to talk to our son. I want him to figure it out on his own. We're not going to let other people talk to him.

We go see family and they'd be like, hey, buddy, shh. I couldn't even tell him why I shushed him. Because I'm not allowed to talk around him. That's crazy. Nobody does that. You talk to a kid like it understands you.

It does not. You just say things. Is that offensive? He, her. They do not. You talk to the child like they understand what you're talking about.

I remember the first time my son responded with a full sentence. It scared me because I was not prepared for that. You get so used to them just kind of being there. But not. I was. I walked in the room.

I said, boy, where's your mama? He said, I don't know where mama is. And I was like, oh, God. There's a tiny human in my house. And even after that, he still will at times look at me and go, Jim and I'm the shoes. And I'm like, Jim and I'm the shoes.

And I'm like, Jim and I'm the shoes. Isn't where I got. I got shoes. He's like, uh-huh. Like, what about shoes? Jim and I'm the shoes.

And I have to sit and try to figure this out. And what I'm saying is there are going to be times where you're trying to pray. And you're looking at God and you're saying, Jim and I'm the shoes. And I'm not talking about a prayer language. I'm talking about you're praying bad theology. It doesn't make any sense.

What you said was not even remotely close to being coherent. But God loves you and is going to listen to you. And the Psalms are going to train you. So, yes, for a while in prayer, you will pronounce hippopotamus, hop-a-piss. But that's okay.

It's okay that while you pray for a while, you don't quite get it. But you're going to use God repeatedly looking at you and saying the correct words. Repeating it, looking at you and calling more out of you and speaking into you in order for you to learn how to pray. Some of us have completely removed the Bible from our praying and then wonder why we have such a hard time praying. It's because we're not allowing God to speak into us first so that we might respond. And so what we're going to do today is I'm going to show you how you can, on a Monday, get up earlier.

And some of you, that's crazy talk. Stay up later. Your brain doesn't work in the morning. That's fine. It's not God's more listening in the morning. Find a time to sit, open the Bible, and use the Scriptures to train you how to pray.

So we're going to practice that this morning. We're going to actually read, and I'm going to say, here's kind of what David's saying. And then I'm going to say, but maybe this is what you would pray. And that's how we're going to talk through it. And we'll kind of try to keep moving. But it's just going to be, here's what David's saying, but here's maybe how you would sit if you open this Psalm.

And we're using Psalm 86 to train you how to pray. Here's how you would pray. And you can use all of Scripture to do this. The Psalms are easier because they are directed towards God, most of them. There are places in Paul's letters where he's talking about prayers. There are places in Paul's letters where he's talking about theology.

It's easier. You can use all of Scripture, though. Another really good one to use is the model prayer that Jesus gives just to go through his words. Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Sorry.

I memorized the King James Version. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. To go through that and lead it, let it lead you in prayer. But we're going to use Psalm 86 this morning. I'm going to pray as we get started because that seems wise. And then we'll start.

God, we ask for your help that we might become a praying people. We ask for the humility to realize that you will first speak to us before we will ever appropriately, correctly, and joyfully speak to you. That relationship begins on your side. But we ask, Lord, that in that, as you have first spoken and as you have first worked to relate to us, we pray that we would respond well and that you would train us well through your word. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Psalm 86. At the top, it says it's a prayer of David. So this is David. He's praying. We're going to read his prayer. And we're going to try to watch and listen and try to see how we might would respond to God.

So if you sat down, you opened it up, you've got your Bible. You're going to read a little bit and then you're going to pray, whatever it makes you think, whatever it leads you to say. That's what we're trying to do this morning is for you to see how this process would work. So incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me. For I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly.

Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. Okay, let's stop there. Like I said, I'm going to do a little bit of saying. Here's what he's talking about and then I'm going to show you how you might pray it. So this is David.

He's praying. He starts off by just saying, God, listen, I'm poor and needy. Listen to me. I have nothing to offer you. And then he says, preserve my life. He actually had people at this time trying to kill him.

So he means that very literally. Help me not be murdered. Preserve my life, for I am godly. Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. So David starts off by saying, God, I actually have nothing to offer you.

We see a really beautiful principle for prayer here. Because he starts off with humility. I'm poor and needy. Like if you're going to do anything, it's going to be you doing it. It's not because I earned it. It's not because I'm valuable.

I just, I'm poor and needy. But then, then he says, preserve my life, for I am godly. Save your servant. You are my God. So then he says, I'm poor and needy, but I belong to you.

I'm your servant. I'm trying to follow you. Save me. And he has this like humble confidence. And so maybe you start your prayer like that. Maybe you start off by saying, God, there's nothing in me that would make you have to respond to me.

Maybe my sin has separated me from you that I don't actually deserve for you to listen. But I've placed my faith in Jesus and now I know I belong to you. That you are my God and I ask you to answer and to be good to me. Maybe that's how you pray, how you begin your prayer. But it's you read these words and then you just think about what they make you think.

Maybe as you're getting started in the morning, you're just going to read the words back. Read them out loud. Pray them out loud. Let's keep going. Verse 3. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day.

Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. So he says, be gracious to me, which means give me what I don't deserve. Be good to me beyond my, what I've earned. So he's not saying pay me my wages. He is saying just give me some money. Like he's not saying here's what I've earned.

I punched the clock. You owe me. He's just saying be good to me. Like just because you're good and you're wealthy and you're rich and you have like be gracious. That's what grace means, that you get something you don't deserve. Something good that you don't deserve.

And then he says, gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. I love that he says gladden the soul of your servant. Do you know why he says that? Because he wasn't glad. There was no joy in him right now. He's mournful.

He's sad. And so he's asking God. He said, I'm bringing you my soul. And I'm asking you to bring back some happiness, to bring back some life, to bring back some joy. And so maybe you focus in on that. Maybe that's true for you that moment when you go to read this, you realize I'm not happy.

There's no joy in me right now. And you just begin to ask God to gladden your soul, to take away the tears. Maybe you're fine, but you pray it anyway. You're like, God, make it better. Bring joy to my soul, even though I'm doing okay right now. He says, for to you, O Lord, are good.

For you, not for to you. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Listen to my plea for grace. In the day of trouble, I call upon you, for you answer me. So you just read through that?

You're sitting there? And you see what David is doing is he's looking at God and saying, here's what you're like. Here's who you are. You're good. And you have steadfast love for all who come to you. Like he's just saying, this is the person that you are.

And this is one of the things that happens in Scripture all the time. And it happens in the Psalms a lot. They remind God who he is. They just say, this is what you've said about yourself. This is what you've said you're like. And I don't believe it's that God has forgotten.

But this is a normal, healthy, good way to pray. To say, I'm banking on you being who you said you are. It's a little bit like if you tell a five-year-old, if he eats his meal, he can have cake afterwards. He's never eaten the meal and forgotten about the cake. And he'll say, but you said, if you say, if you behave here, we'll do this. Or any kind of promises.

Like they remember that. They can't remember anything you told them. But your children will remember the good promise you made. And you get to go to that. You get to go to God and say, you're like this. You said you were going to do this.

You said this is who you are. And so in that moment, David's reminding himself. But he's also reminding God. So maybe for you, that is a reminder. And you just realize as you're praying, God, I'm not believing that right now. I'm not believing that you're good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love.

I don't see that right now. Maybe that's what you pray about. Maybe that's the first time you've ever really heard that. That in your mind, God's always been really big and harsh. And so maybe rather than being a, you're just like, Lord, help me believe this. Help me.

Like that's beautiful. Maybe for a moment, you just see God. And you see that he's good and he's forgiving. Forgiving means that he doesn't hold your sin against him. That you can show up with a lot of problems in between you and he. And he'll forgive you.

He'll wipe it away. He'll make it okay. You don't have to fix everything before you come to him. And that he abounds in steadfast love. Meaning it's not going anywhere. He abounds in love for all those who will come to him.

So maybe for a second, you're able, just the only way your brain can wrap around this is you picture your grandmother's house. Maybe, maybe when you had run away from home, you, you had rebelled as much as you possibly could and have nowhere to go. You showed up there to someone you knew was good and forgiving and abounded in love to all those who came to their door. And maybe for a picture, you can just kind of, you feel yourself almost just drop in your bags and having someone wrap you up and look at you and say, I forgive you. Like, I love you. This isn't going to ruin us.

And so maybe that's what you think about. And maybe that's what you pray. You say, God, help me always to remember you're like that. I mean, to know that and to feel it. Maybe you just praise him because he is like that. He keeps going.

Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Listen to my plea for grace. In the day of trouble, I call upon you for you answer me. So David's saying, when I'm in trouble, I call to you because you'll answer. And he says, listen to my plea for grace, meaning I need you to step in and do things because you're good, because you are forgiving and abounding in steadfast love. The word grace is used a lot in the Bible.

It's used a lot in the church because we are Christians. So we're grace people. We believe that we are saved by the grace of Jesus, meaning that he earned salvation for us, that we're OK because of what he did. But someone I've recently this past week, somebody told me something they had memorized about grace to help them define it. And I thought it was really helpful. They said grace is G.R.A.C.E. is God's riches at Christ's expense.

We get all the riches of God. We get all the joy and all the love and all the greatness. And Christ paid for it that we get. That's what grace means, that everything good that comes from God was paid for by Christ. It's like we got an all expense paid vacation. And the only person you can celebrate when that happens is the person who paid for it.

And so maybe you just spend some time after you read that, you just praise God for grace. That you'll get to spend an eternity with him in joy and love that your sins not held against you because he's good, because Jesus paid your debt. So in verse seven, he says, in the day of my trouble, I call upon you for you answer me. There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name for you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God.

So what David said is that there's none like you, like when it's a day of trouble, I run to you because nobody else is like you. You're big and you're glorious and everything you do is more wonderful than anyone else. And I run to you because you alone are God. And so maybe when you read that, because the point is you're going to allow these words to help you have words or to help reveal things to you so that you might have. In some ways, you're using the Psalms to be conversation cards, topics that help you. You ever had those or like some people have those books where it's like it just is a bunch of questions to try to give you something to talk about.

Some of you have used those to get to know people. Some of you have used those to to make like you maybe it's the person, you know, really well, but you'll end up talking about the same thing all the time. How's work? Good. How's your day? Good.

How's the kids alive? All right. Like, that's it. So you're like, I got these conversation things so that I can ask you, would you rather fight one duck sized horse or whatever? One horse sized duck or a thousand duck sized horses like those kind of are like, what's your biggest dream or what's your favorite movie? Like just things you wouldn't ask each other because I know you.

It's like, I don't need to know your favorite movie is. We're married. Well, what's my favorite movie? I don't know. Like I like those kind of things is a conversation starter. And that's what that's what the Psalms get to be.

It leads you to pray about things you might would not otherwise pray about. It helps you push your brain somewhere you might not otherwise go. And so it trains you not only in new words to say in ways to talk about God and what he's like, but it also helps you for someone who's prayed a lot, not pray the same thing every day, but actually be pushed in a different area to pray about something. But maybe when you read this and you see that it says the day of trouble, I call upon you. Maybe some of you. When he says in the day of trouble, I call upon you for you answer.

There's none like you among the gods. And you see that little G gods. Meaning that there are people that claim there's things that set themselves up as gods as worthy of worship and worthy of devotion and worthy of praise. But only you are big and only you are the big capital G God. Maybe when you read that, you realize that you are unlike David. Maybe the Holy Spirit reveals to you that in the day of trouble, you do not run to God alone, but that you run to a lot of little G gods.

Maybe you realize in this moment as you're reading this and you have to confess to God that actually whenever there's a day of trouble, I run to MasterCard. Whenever there's a day of trouble, I run to the bank, to my bank account, just to see a certain number of zeros so I can feel okay again. Maybe when there's a day of trouble, I run to the approval of others. And I'm not just talking about the love and the health of a good relationship with a friend, but I actually will intentionally go get around my Christian friends and be really mopey and fish for compliments because I need them to fill me up again.

And I know they'll take the time. I know they'll take the time to pump me back up. And it's not healthy. It's just a way for me to feel okay again. And you begin to realize that in the day of trouble, I do not run to you. So maybe you confess.

Maybe you repent. Maybe you spend some time talking to God about him changing that in your soul. Maybe you didn't see that at all. Didn't even think about it. All you focused in on was verse nine. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.

And so maybe you spend time praying for missionaries that all the nations are to come. You say, Lord, help me not to be a racist and to think that people who speak English are somehow better than people who do not. And God, I pray for all the people that are in other countries right now where it is very difficult for the gospel to be proclaimed. I want to spend some time right now praying for every single pastor, church leader, missionary that is currently in a prison that will receive beatings at the hands of those that have incarcerated them today. And I want you to give them hope and I want you to give them joy.

I'm praying for the underground church in China who has to hide. And when they gather, they don't all get to just roll out at the same time. Y'all, this section gets to leave. It's like when you go to a wedding and they let tables go eat. You get to leave two or three at a time, two or three at a time, two or three at a time. It takes for everybody to get here because you have to show up two or three at a time because you can't all just show up to a place without the cops finding you.

And she spent some time praying for that. Maybe you noticed neither one of those. You just saw all nations and thought, I'd like to see the nations. And you prayed that God would help you take a European trip someday. I don't know. I don't know where you are.

I don't know where God's working with you. That's okay. Like the point of this is for you to be able to take the Bible and pray and not have to have the best theology and not have to know where this connects to other places. Because as you continue to do this, you'll begin to know. You'll begin to see. You'll learn new words.

You'll have a bigger vocabulary. You'll have a greater health and understanding of theology. Every once in a while, just to help my soul, I'll go read through old journals I have right when I felt called to church planting. And I can go read through where I wrote stuff. And there's some stuff that if I preached it here, I would get un-eldered. There would be a meeting.

They would say, you cannot do that anymore. You should go read your Bible but not say words out loud to people. Because it was something I read and I would read it and go, oh, that's exactly what this means. And it would be so clear and I'd write it out like this. And then I would read somewhere else and go, that is not what that meant. And that's okay.

And that's what we're going to use in the Psalms to help train us and to teach us how to pray. Let's keep going. 11. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart.

And I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love towards me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. All right, I want us to do something. I want to take just a second, starting in verse 11, of 11, 12, and 13. I want you to read that again.

I'm going to read it out loud again. I want you to read it again with me. And I want you to think about what you might would pray. What that leads you to think. Where the Holy Spirit's guiding you. Something you might pray about.

Now, teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart. And I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

I want you to look at that. And I want you to take just a second to pray something. I'm going to give you about 30 seconds. I just want you to pray something. That this leads you to think about and to pray as we practice this together today. Okay.

For some of you, that was not helpful. For some of you, maybe it was. Some of you, when you pray, you are going to have to pray and read out loud for the sake of your mind. Some of you can do things inside your head very well, and that's fine. But I don't know.

I don't know what you prayed. Maybe you read, teach me your way, O Lord, and you have a decision that you're having to make. So you see, teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. And you just say, God, help me to make a wise decision here. Help me to make one that lines up with your truth. Help me to take the right path.

Maybe you read that I'm, that unite my heart to fear your name. And you thought, why would, why would I want to be afraid of God? And so you prayed, God, I don't understand why I would want to fear you. That doesn't sound great. But he's asking for it, so maybe it's a good thing to ask for.

So help me to have the appropriate good kind of fear that he's talking about. Maybe you read that and you realized you're too afraid of God. And so you said, God, I'm scared of you. I can't do it in a way that my heart's involved. I'm just terrified. I don't know.

Maybe you saw that he says that I will glorify your name forever and that you've delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. And Sheol is the place of the dead. And so maybe you thought, God, you've set me free from hell. And because I will be set free from hell and I will spend eternity in heaven with you, I will glorify your name forever. Because I will be there because Christ paid my debt. And so forever me being in heaven will be a testimony to the goodness and the grace of God and the name of Christ.

Maybe you got distracted, thought about something else. That's cool. It doesn't end at verse 13. You get to keep reading. We'll go to 14. So David is saying there's a band of men who are trying to kill me.

They don't trust you. They don't follow you. And turn and be gracious and save me and give me strength. Show up and do something. That's what David's praying. So maybe as you're reading that, you think about there are people who don't set God before them.

And so you pray about injustice. You pray about all those who are actively harming others. Maybe you don't see that. You don't think about that. Maybe you just read Insolent Men. Then you think, man, this is David's just praying to God about the things that stress him out.

So you pray about hospital bills. You pray about the things that are making you fearful, making you lose sleep. Maybe you see Insolent Men and the only person you can think of is your husband. And so you pray about him for a while. And that's good. You might not would have otherwise prayed for your husband that day.

Maybe you see a band of ruthless men and you think about your three sons that tear your house up ruthlessly. You pray for them and you ask that they would set God before them. That they would grow up to be a group of men who do set God before them. I don't know. But the point is you're allowing God to speak to you and you're learning how to pray.

And eventually you do line up more with what is being said. Seventeen. Show me a sign of your favor that those who hate me may see and be put to shame. Because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me. I do want to say something here. David, when he's praying, says, show me a sign of your favor.

He's saying, show up. Let me see so clearly that you are good. That you are all these things you've said you are. You're forgiving. You're gracious. You're good.

You're abounding in steadfast love to all those. Show me a sign. Do something. And we gather because we already have the sign of God's favor. That he is good. That he does abound in steadfast love and that he is forgiving.

You see, we gather this morning because of the cross, which is the sign of God's favor. That he put an exclamation Mark in the middle of history. That he is good and that he is for us and that he does forgive sin and that we can have hope. That we can go to him and be welcomed and loved. Not because we're good or because we've done anything, but because Jesus has accomplished it all for us. And so when we get to this point and we're praying together, maybe we just get to say thank you for the cross and help it be forever in front of me.

That I would always feel as if you were showing me the cross. That you were showing me the sign of your favor. The grace and the goodness and the forgiving love that you have poured out on us and all who believe. So like I said, today's a little different. We approach this differently than we usually would and hopefully it helps. Hopefully it shows you how you could walk through this.

I don't know if you got up early tomorrow. I don't know how long it would take you to walk through this and to use it to pray. But I do know it will help you pray. It will help you have words. It will help you have things to talk about. It will train you in how to speak to God.

It will clear up for you your mind. It will help you focus. And so I would encourage you to begin using the Psalms to teach you how to pray. There's a lot of them. By the time you go all the way through, they're good. You can start back over.

You won't remember them. You can do it again. It's like The Office, the TV show. You can just watch all the way to then and then just start back over. It's just good. Keep being good.

Psalms are better than The Office, by the way. God's called us to pray. But He doesn't leave us alone. He holds our hand and He equips us. He gives us the words to speak because He speaks to us first. So don't feel, I need to pray, I should pray, and then just try on your own.

But ask the Holy Spirit to guide you through His Word and use this to help. And we can't afford to not do this. Life's too hard. There's too much struggle. Too many decisions we have to make. There's too many people dying and going to hell for us to not be a group of people who pray.

And so let's collectively as a church begin praying and begin allowing God to teach us how to pray through His Psalms. The band's going to come back up and we're going to finish out by doing this. I'm going to read through Psalm 86. I'm going to pause at different points and just give a little bit of time for you to pray along with Psalm 86. Then I'm going to pray collectively for us as we walk through this entire Psalm again.

Then I'll say amen and we'll stand and sing. So I'm going to read, stop. You're going to pray where you are. If you need to mumble, that's cool. There'll be some music playing. If you need to keep your eyes open, that's good.

If you're like me at this time in the morning, you bend over, close your eyes. We'll have to wake you up when we get done. Then I'm going to pray and then we'll sing. Psalm 86, a prayer of David. Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me. For I am poor and needy.

Preserve my life for I am godly. Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. Amen. God, we ask this morning that you would listen to us and that you would help us to always pray in faith that you do listen. God, we're poor and needy.

We have nothing that we can offer you. You owe us nothing. We have accomplished and earned nothing. So we ask you to listen, to love us because you're good. Because that's who you are. And God, we, those of us in this room who place faith in Christ, you have made us the righteousness of God.

That you have swapped places with us so that Jesus became our sin and we became righteous. So we are godly. And we are your servants. And you are our God. God, we ask that you would bless this church. That this would be a place where people would lift up our souls to you.

That we would feel free and welcome to cry to you here. That among this people you would gladden our souls. That there would be a joy in your church. That in the midst of pain and in the midst of darkness, that we would bring ourselves to you and to each other. And that you would bring hope. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble, I call upon you. For you answer me. God, we believe that all of our days of trouble are caused by sin. And that the ultimate day of trouble is when we stand before you in our own sin.

The ultimate day of trouble is when we stand before you having to pay our own debt. And so we pray for our friends and our families and our neighbors and our city. That there would be pleas for grace. That you would listen because you are a good and forgiving God. Abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. We ask, Lord, that everyone who does not know you would call upon you.

That even those in this room right now that don't know you have not yet placed their faith in Christ would call upon you. Because you are good and forgiving and you abound in steadfast love. That you would offer grace. And listen. There is none like you among the gods, O Lord. Nor are there any works like yours.

All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord. And shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God. God, you are alone. You alone are God.

God. You alone are holy. You alone are worthy. You alone are valuable. All of your works are wondrous and good. And you do promise that there will be a day when every tribe and tongue and nation and people will gather around your throne.

That you will claim someone from every people group. That you will claim someone from every ethnicity. That we will gather and praise your name. That all nations that you have made will glorify your name. And we ask, Lord, that we get to be a part of that here. That this will be a church that sent people.

This will be a church where missionaries are called and raised up and sent out. Where we send money and we send people and we send effort to see the tribes and the nations and the languages proclaim your glory. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord, my God, with my whole heart. And I glorify your name forever.

And I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. God, we are people in need of wisdom. We pray that you would teach us your way. That we would walk in your truth.

That you would unite our hearts to fear your name. We thank you that you do save from death. That you died that we might live. O God, insolent men have risen up against me. A band of ruthless men seeks my life. And they do not set you before them.

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious. Slow to anger. Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. God, you forgive sinners. Insolent men do not have to be crushed in their rebellion. But can be welcomed by a merciful and loving God.

You redeem us from all of the poor choices we've ever made. You wipe away everything that would mar us. And dirty us. And separate us. You are good and gracious and abounding in love. And faithfulness.

Turn to me and be gracious to me. Give your strength to your servant. And save the son of your maidservant. Show me a sign of your favor. That those who hate me may see and be put to shame. Because you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

God, through the gospel, you are our comfort and our help. And we pray that we would be a people that forever remembers the sign of your faithfulness. The sign of your favor. That you love us and gave yourself up for us. And that we have hope and joy forever in you. Give us strength to continue to obey.

To serve. To love. And give us grace to do it all with joy. May we praise you, our helper, and our comforter. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Small Talk and God

Small Talk and God

Chet Phillips

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Transcript

Well, all right, how we doing this morning? All right. Grab your Bibles, go to Matthew chapter 6. Maybe that'll wake you up. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 6. We've been walking through verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount.

We're just spending a couple times, a couple, spending some time and several weeks in this section of text where Jesus is teaching his followers what it's going to look like for them to follow him, what it looks like to be his people. We spent last time we were together, we talked through a section where Jesus is basically saying not to practice your righteousness in front of other people, not to to pray or to give or to be generous or to serve for the purpose of having other people see you and think, wow, look at how they pray, give and serve like to not have people look at you and think, what a wonderful person. And he says, if you do that, if that's your purpose, if that's your goal, if you stand up and pray and you pray so eloquently that it was like you poured honey in everyone's ears and it was so beautiful and they thought, man, I'll never be able to pray like that. What he says is, if that was your goal, goal accomplished, everyone thinks you're great at praying.

They can listen to it. I'm not going to. That's basically what he's saying. If your goal is to serve in a way that shows everyone how well you serve and how, how sacrificial you are and how generous you are. And that was your goal was so that everyone could see how great you are. You did it.

Well done. Everyone saw how great you were. Everyone saw how sacrificial you are. It doesn't actually count. Like I'm not rewarding that. And so he says to do all of these things in secret.

And then he rewards them. And in the middle of that section, he says, here's how you ought to pray. And so we just kind of moved past it last time. We're actually focusing in on it today. And we're just going to talk about how do we pray? How basically he's going to talk about what makes prayer effective and how do we do it?

Like, what do we say? And those are the two things we'll spend our time looking at today. So let's before we talk about prayer, let's pray. It just feels right. So let's do that.

Lord, we pray that you'd bless this time we have this morning, that you'd help us to grow in what it means to pray, understanding prayer, and that this would be a people that prays, that we would be a church that prays for your kingdom and your glory in this city. In Jesus' name, amen. So let's pick up in verse 5. We're going to look at Jesus is saying, don't do this, but do this. And we're going to kind of see what he's hinting at here, what he's teaching us here. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.

Now, a hypocrite is someone who pretends to be something on the outside, but is actually something different on the inside. So he says, don't be like them, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. So that's what we were just talking about. He's saying if your point of your prayer is to be seen, well done, you did it. That's all you get, though.

So, verse 6. But you, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And so as he begins, he's basically saying prayer is about you and God. Prayer is about you and the Father. That's it.

So that's why he says go into your room, close the door, pray in secret. The point of prayer is for you to communicate, speak to, relate to God. That essentially prayer is a conversation with God. It's listening to him and talking to him. That's what prayer is. Now for some of us, when you hear that, that prayer is a conversation, maybe you get a little uncomfortable.

I know that we have, increasingly I've had people tell me they have social anxiety. I think it's just because we've labeled something, people now know what to call it. What they mean is when they get around people, they get uncomfortable. And there's a lot of people I know that just like having small talk is very awkward and difficult. I'm not the best at it. I do have this in my favor.

I don't feel uncomfortable when things get uncomfortable. So I've been in conversations and thought, oh, this has gotten awkward. But there's part of me that just kind of enjoys that. I just look around at the people who are like really struggling with the fact. So it makes me not the best person to have small talk with because you may be sweating bullets and feeling terrible.

And I'm like, this is interesting. Like this just, sorry, that happens. But I do know there are a couple of things I've worked on to try to be better at talking to people. Because when we started a church, one of the things you do as a pastor is you have to talk to people. And I wasn't the best at it. So I've worked on a few things.

And I can tell you a few things I've worked on. One of the things I was told, I was told that it's better in a conversation to be interested rather than to be interesting. And so they just said, just ask questions. So I do this. And I remember I met one of the guys who's in our community group now. I met him when we were working at Sears together.

And after we'd been talking for a little while, he goes, dude, are you like in school to be a cop or something? And I was like, well, why? And he goes, you just asked me 20 questions in a row. Like that's enough. And I was like, oh. This guy named Quincy brought one of his friends to our community group a couple weeks ago.

And I was talking to him. And legitimately he looked at me and said, okay, that's too many questions. I'm done. Stop asking me questions. And I was like, I'm overdoing this, I guess. But what I thought was being interested has turned into an interrogation.

And this is also part of the problem that I have is that this is my listening face. So if you're talking to me and I'm interested in what you have to say, this is how I'm going to be looking. And if it gets more interesting, there's a good chance, like if we're at a table or something, I may just start leaning in. So I've been in conversations with people where they start getting uncomfortable because they think I'm disagreeing or I'm upset by what they're saying. And with just cause, did y'all just see my face? And so they start being like, well, maybe, maybe it's not quite that.

And like, like you start trying to retract some of what they're saying. And when they do that, I get more interested in like, what are they, what are they talking about now? And so there's times where people get uncomfortable and I do this. And I start looking at them like, what, what, why did you stop talking? What are you, you know? And then I realized, oh, I look like a crazy person.

And so I've tried to work on this, but it makes it worse. I'll go. Raise my eyebrow, smile a little bit. And I do that some of the people who know I'm working on this. So they'll be talking to me and I'm going, and they're gonna do this worse.

You really got to quit that. But for some of us, when you hear, uh, it's a conversation immediately, you go, oh, I'm terrible at conversations. Like I, I don't know how to carry on a conversation. And it feels like if prayer is a conversation that makes it even more difficult. I'd love for prayer to be something that I, I recite. I'd love for prayer to be something that I memorize.

When Jesus says, this is the model prayer. And he says, this is how you ought to pray. I'd much rather just memorize that and say it. But no, what he's saying is it's a conversation. It's you talking to God, but he's going to give us some help there. So he says in verse seven, when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do.

Gentiles were non-Jewish people. Um, so that'd have been the Greeks or Romans that were around them for, they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him. So the two things that Jesus is going to help us with today, it's going to tell us what makes prayer effective, what actually makes it work. And then how do we do it? And in this section right here in verse seven and eight, he's answering what makes it effective because that's the, that's the thing he's addressing.

He says, the Gentiles think that they'll be heard for their many phrases. I think they'll be heard because they talk so much because of their presentation. And I think that's what some of us think that if I'm going to have to talk to God, my presentation has to be good. I have to say the right words and in the right way. And I have to kind of know how to pray. And sometimes you'll hear someone else pray and you'll think, well, that's how you're supposed to pray.

I can't do any of that because we begin to believe that it's how we present it, what we say, the words we use, the phrases we use. And that's what he's saying. He's saying that Gentiles think this is how you have to do it in order to be heard. And their tactic, their method was to just say things over and over again. And he's saying it's not that. It's not your presentation.

Because imagine if you got to go in front of Congress to lobby for something or to make an argument for something, something you deeply care about. We would be very concerned with our presentation. What do we look like? What are we saying? What are we asking for? Are we going to have charts?

Are we going to use PowerPoint? Are we going to have some sort of well-crafted argument? And he's saying that there's a temptation for people to believe that when I pray, I have to present it well. I have to pray correctly. And he just says, no, that's not what makes it effective. And he tells us in 8 what makes it effective.

Do not be like them. For your father knows what you need before you ask him. And then he says, pray like this. So he says, what makes it effective is not your presentation. What makes it effective is that God is your father. That he knows you.

He knows what you need. He's intimately related to you. He cares about you. He's paying attention to you. That image of a father is a beautiful imagery. I recently became a dad.

We celebrated my son's two-year birthday. Two-year-old birthday. His second birthday. There we go. We celebrated his second birthday. I don't know.

St. Patrick's Day. Two days ago. And being a dad, I get this picture a little more now. And I understand what he's saying. And he's like, I am supremely interested in my son.

Like, if we're in a group of other children and I hear them, like one of them crying. I'll go, oh, is that? And I'll look. And if it's not my kid, I suddenly don't care anymore. It's like, not mine. Doing great.

Rock and roll. Like, you get to where you can tell the difference between your kid crying. I've been in rooms with dads and we have a kid in the other room. And they'll go, whose is that? And I'll be like, no, it's not mine. That's not what he cries like.

That you get, you care. I have never been that interested in children. They come over and tell you stuff. And I'm just like, uh-huh, that's great. Yeah, mm-hmm, all right. But my son, when he wants to tell me something, like I sit on the floor and just listen to him babble.

He doesn't even know how to use words right yet. And I think everything he says is really interesting. It's not even English. He's learning a little bit. We did ask him the other day how old he was. And he said, come on.

I don't know. And I was like, I am so proud of you. Most parents would be proud if you knew how old you were. I'm proud of this answer right here. But I'm very, like, and that's what he's saying.

God's saying, I'm your father. So with my son, I've held him until he fell asleep. I went and laid him in his crib. I've taken his shoes off so he'd sleep better. I've watched over him. I've disciplined him because I care about him.

One of the things that we talk a lot about, my wife and I, is like, how do we raise him? How do we care for him? How do we discipline him? One of the things that's implemented at our house is if he's throwing a fit, if he's crying, he doesn't get anything. Except for maybe spanked. Because we don't want to train him that the only way to be happy is to be miserable.

The only way to get what you want is to throw a fit first. So if he throws a fit, he doesn't get anything. I'll say, look, you're not getting anything from me like that. You better stop crying unless you want to get spanked. And he's beginning to learn crying and throwing a fit isn't the best way to be happy. It's a good way to get spanked.

But I've disciplined him because I care about him. I want him to be well adjusted and have joy. And when Jesus says, your father knows you, he knows what you need. He's interment related. He's saying the same thing. God's looking and saying, I've watched over you while you slept.

I've cleaned up your messes. I've disciplined you because I care about you. I've walked with you through life. And I'm interested in you and what you have to say. I'm interested in what's going on with you. And this promise is not fully realized or is only fully realized through the gospel.

You see, Jesus is talking to his disciples and he's saying, this is what my people are going to look like. And when he says, he's your father, Jesus actually purchases that right for us. For those who have placed faith in Christ, he purchases that right for us on the cross. I'm going to read a few sections. Galatians 4 says this. Ephesians 1 says this.

I'm going to read something from Romans 8. But it says, for all those who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into the fear. But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs.

Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. He's saying that through Christ we've been adopted into the family that the Holy Spirit's come into us. And it's not that God is like our father. If you are a Christian, God is your father. That you've been adopted into the family. Later in Romans he says this.

For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. In order that he, that's Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brothers. That Jesus is the eldest brother in God's family. And that all those who place faith in him have been adopted and are children and heirs. When he says he's your father, he doesn't mean, here's an image. He's saying this is the reality.

For those who will follow me. For those who will belong to me. For those who are mine. When you pray, you're praying to your father. And he loves you. And he cares about you.

And he knows you. And that's what makes prayer effective. You don't have to do it well. You don't have to craft good arguments. You don't have to pray eloquently. One of the things I've noticed by having my son who doesn't, cannot articulate what he wants.

Is that I'm trying to figure it out. When he comes to me and says, I don't go, look at here boy, unless you learn to enunciate clearly, you will never get anything in this household. And then push him. I don't do that. I don't. I go, pat pat.

What the heck is a pat pat? I try to figure it out. And that's what he's saying. When you come to your father, you don't have to come to him with eloquence. Or the right words. Or a perfect formulated argument.

You don't have to flatter him or butter him up. You just get to come to him because he cares about you. That's what makes prayer effective. Is that God, if you are in Christ, has redeemed you, adopted you, has made you his own. And his love is for you and over you. And he is your father.

He's not like your father. He is your father. Prayer gets to be that when we speak to him. But then Jesus does help us with the second question, which is, okay, that's the tone. That's the attitude. That's the posture of the conversation.

But how? How do we actually pray? And I think when we're asking that question, what we really mean is what do we pray? So I remember being in middle school and asking my dad, how do you talk to girls? That was a legitimate question I had. Hey, like, how do you talk to them?

And I knew English, how to formulate sentences. What I really didn't mean was how. What I meant was what on earth do you talk to a girl about? How do you begin this? What are the topics? What do you say?

Like, what's the appropriate? How do you pray about? How do you pray about? Like, that's what I think Jesus is answering when he says, pray like this. I think he's answering us. What do you pray about?

What do we need to talk to God about? What are the things that should be on our prayer list? And so here's my hope. As we walk through this, we're going to kind of just go through and say, here's what he's talking about. And my hope is for us as Christians, not only that we would be praying, but that as we walk through this today, if you see anything and you think, oh, I don't ever pray about that. That you'd put it on like it would become a normal way for you to pray.

Normal topic for you to pray about. Because I think that's what he's helping us with here. So let's pick up in verse 9. Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. So remember, he's saying our Father.

To remember who you're speaking to, he's our Father, but he's also our Father in heaven. So he's vast and massive and glorious and good. And then he says, hallowed be your name. Some of you maybe have different translations. You may have translations you may have. May your name be honored as holy.

That's a good translation. We don't really use the name hallowed. But it means may you be above everything else. May you be honored, respected, revered, glorified. So when he says this, when you begin to pray, some of what we pray about needs to be just praising God for who he is, for his gloriousness, for his goodness.

And this isn't flattery. This isn't me in high school talking to one of the cafeteria workers and slightly flirting with her to try to get an extra cookie. That's not it. It's not when you talk to God, you've got to butter him up first with like, oh, God, you're so special. And then secretly bring out the thing you really want. No, this is the appropriate way that we would begin praying.

That we would acknowledge how good he is. And this is what we do naturally for all things that are good and massive and glorious. So, like, let's say you ran into, it's always been interesting to me, when people meet someone famous, they spend the first little bit usually telling the person who they are and why they're famous. You're Michael Jordan. You're the greatest basketball player who's ever lived. And Michael Jordan's thinking, I'm so glad you told me that because I did not know.

You're Aaron Rodgers. Like, you know, like we would just, you're Neff Campbell. Like, I don't know. You just be popping off with like, you tell them who they are. That's like one of the ways that we would react. The other thing that we do when we see something glorious, we were watching a sunset last night, hanging out with my family.

And we're talking and we would just all stop and be like, look at that. And then you say things like, it's so orange. And the person next to you goes, yeah. He's saying that's one of the ways we ought to begin praying is by coming to God and saying, God, you're glorious. You're honorable. You're beautiful.

You're loving. Not only does it, is it the appropriate response for us when we see someone so good and so glorious, but it also puts us in the right frame of mind to who we're speaking to and what we're talking about. I think the other thing that we need to see here when we say and begin praise with, hallowed be your name. May you be above all else. We're also praying, God, help me to love you more than I love money because I'm so tempted to think that it is above all else. Help me to love you more than I love romance and relationships because I'm so tempted to believe that they're above all else.

Help me to love you more than I love success and approval and having everyone clap and pat me on the back and tell me I'm great because I'm so tempted to believe that that's above everything else. God, may you be above everything else. So do we pray like that? Is that part of your normal praying to praise God, to glorify him? Verse 10. He says, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So God's kingdom and Matthew talks a lot about it or Jesus talks a lot about it in Matthew's gospel. God's kingdom is his rule and reign on earth. It's his righteous rule and reign on earth. And it's it's also the advance of the gospel. All of those who believe in him and faithfully follow him. That's his kingdom.

And it's it's his justice and his equity and his righteousness and his care for the poor. It's that's his kingdom as it moves forward. It's all the good things that come along with those who've been changed by the gospel and their work on earth. And so one of the ways we ought to be praying is that God's kingdom would advance. That's us praying for justice. That's us praying for fairness, for truth.

That people who commit crimes would be caught and convicted and people who did not commit crimes would would not be convicted. That that would be handled well. That we would we pray for God's right rule that people wouldn't take bribes. That that there would be fairness and equity and love. But it's also us praying that people would meet Jesus.

That for many of us and many of our friends and for the majority of the people in the city, they're facing a Christless eternity. That there will be a day when they stand before the king and all that will matter is that Jesus pay for your sin or are you going to. And that we would care and pray and say, God, this would be lists of names for us. God, be at work. Let your kingdom advance at my job in school. Let your kingdom advance over my neighborhood and begin asking specific people that God would save, that his kingdom would advance in.

I think when he says your will be done, I think we also have the freedom to any time we really have no clue what should happen or how something should work out. We just get to say, God, let your will be done. Let the way this should look in heaven look here. The way I should respond if I was a perfectly heavenly creature, let me respond that way. Empower me to do that. I think we also get to pray that his kingdom would advance in our hearts, that we would love truth and justice and honesty and all the good heavenly qualities of Jesus so they would be at work in us to change us.

So do you pray about those things? Is that a normal way for you to pray? Is that on your prayer list? If not, it should be. Because these are the things that Jesus is saying we ought to pray about. Verse 11.

Give us this day our daily bread. Um, this is just you get to pray for provision and normal daily stuff, small stuff that he would. This is where you get to say, God, I have a light bill. Could you help us pay that? I've got doctor's appointments coming up and I'm gonna have to be able to pay a copay or I've got insurance debt. Oh, that we just begin to pray for normal stuff.

Will you feed us? Will you care for us? I also want to point out that this is a daily prayer. He says, will you give us this day our daily bread? Meaning that he assumes you'll be praying to God daily and about these things on a very regular daily basis. Um, all the things that he's given us here.

This is normal stuff. I've heard some people before. For some of us it seems like there are some people in this room who maybe never pray prayers in this category. I've had someone tell me before, like, their shoulder was hurting and I was like, well, I'll pray about that. And they said, no, don't bother God with trivial stuff. And it's like, first of all, he's outside of time.

So he's okay. Like, he, he's good. He's not busy. He can handle it. Second of all, he's your father and he cares about you. So he cares that your shoulders hurt.

He may not fix it, but we can pray about it. Like, we, you can pray about all the normal stuff. For a lot of us in this room, this may be the only stuff you pray about. That it's only, uh, stuff that's coming up, stuff that's on your schedule, stuff that's going on. And that's, that's good. We ought to pray about that.

We ought to pray about our bills. We ought to pray about our life situations. We ought to pray about the things we need. He says he knows what you need. Go ahead and ask him. He cares.

But that shouldn't be all that we pray about. But this is the area where we would be praying about paying bills, getting a job, got a test coming up. I remember when I was in school, I always prayed, Lord, help me remember everything I studied and help me guess well. That was my test prayer. Everything I actually studied, let me remember that so that I didn't waste that time. And also, let me just, just work some, some of your grace on this test.

But that's, we get to pray about those things. The last, the last section we're going to look at here, it kind of shifts, I think. But still things that we ought to be praying about regularly. So he says, and forgive us our debts. This is verse 12. And forgive us our debts as we also forgive, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. I think we're familiar with the term debt. It means that we owe something. So some of us have school debt or credit card debt or house debt or car debt or debt, debt, debt, debt. And when he says this, he's talking about not just, not financial debt, but actually a sin debt. So that's why some versions will say, forgive us our sins or forgive us our trespasses, where we've stepped over the line, where we've missed the Mark, where we've harmed someone or we've sinned against you or others.

And he says, forgive us as we've forgiven those who've sinned against us, meaning that when we sin, we have debt with God and debt with others. So that there's a human debt from sin and a debt with God, a cosmic, eternal debt of sin. And so he says it's a normal daily thing for his followers who are speaking to the father to repent of sin, to ask for forgiveness. And here's what I want us to see here. This is actually a beautiful invitation into some freedom and joy and grace that I don't want us to miss out on. So I've heard some people before say that when you become a Christian, Jesus pays for all of your sin, past, present and future.

And that is true. All of your sin is covered, that you stand clothed in righteousness because of Christ. And so then they'll follow that up with, so Christians don't actually have to repent anymore. They don't have to acknowledge their sin anymore. It's already paid for. So you should not ever be as a Christian.

Just don't worry about it. Go, you're free. And I've also heard people say, no, you've got to repent of everything. And you've got to think about it and you've really got to figure out what it was. And you've got to know exactly. And you've got to take that to God.

And if there's anything going on, you better repent, repent, repent, repent. And really what Jesus is saying is that, first of all, can I just point out? Jesus, who's training his followers what it looks like to be his people, goes ahead and assumes they're going to daily have some things to repent about. Now, if Mill City Church doesn't say amen about anything, I think we say amen about that. We're going to have some stuff to repent about. There's going to be some things that we mess up, that we fail in, that we hurt each other and hurt God and rebel.

Like he just assumes. He's talking to his disciples, the 12 guys who he's training. He says, look, guys, when y'all talk to God, go ahead and know you've got some stuff to talk about. That's so freeing to me. And what he's saying is you're invited to have your debt forgiven. That you ought to acknowledge your sin on a regular basis and repent.

But that repentance is a celebration of the fact that my debt is paid. You get to go to him and say, forgive it. Forgive this debt. If there was going to be a place set up in downtown Columbia where all you had to do was show up and get debt forgiven, how long is that line? How long is that line? How amazing is that store or government program?

Where just your debt's wiped away. And that's what he's saying is you get to come to God and say, thank you. This is a celebration of the cross that Jesus paid our debt. And so we get to ask for forgiveness. So if you're a Christian, it should be a normal thing for you to repent.

For you to acknowledge sin where you've sinned against people in your community group or people in your family. And you repent. You go to God and say, forgive me. Wipe this debt clean. And you go to them and talk to them about it and ask for and repent there as well. So it's a good mixture of both.

We should acknowledge our sin. But when we acknowledge it, it's not grovelly fear based. It's celebration. Jesus, be at work in me. Continue to forgive me. Help me to walk in the forgiveness you've bought.

It's joy. He clarifies, though, because he says a statement here that I think he says, give us. No, sorry. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. So he either means kind of at the same time as we or in the same manner.

And so then in 14, I think he clarifies for us. So jump down to verse 14 because he's going to kind of answer what he was saying there. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. I think it's easy to not like those two verses, not because they're confusing, but because they aren't. What he said there was pretty clear.

Your forgiving of others is how you will be forgiven. If you forgive others, you're forgiven. If you don't forgive others, you're not forgiven. Now, Paul and Jesus later are going to flip this and say it as if you're truly forgiven, you will forgive. So Paul says we must forgive as we have been forgiven.

So he's saying that our action comes from the forgiveness we've received. Jesus here makes it sound like your forgiveness comes from how forgiving you are. Here's the thing. They're tied together. And here's why this matters immensely. And here's why this matters immensely.

If you genuinely understand the sin debt that was between you and God and the bridge that had to be, the chasm that had to be bridged by Christ on the cross and the amount of sin that was forgiven you, you are enabled to, by the gospel, forgive others. You're able to. You will. That's the way this is laid out in scripture, that you will forgive. So Jesus here says if you're not forgiving, you aren't forgiven.

If you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven. And here's one of the issues I think we have. When we say I'm a Christian, which means I believe that God has forgiven my debt. And then we look at someone and say, but I could never forgive them for what they've done to me. Because what they've done is real. Actually harmful.

Actually damaging. And you say I could never forgive them. Here's what you have articulated. I am bigger, more glorious, and any crime committed against me is more heinous than crimes committed against God. And that is not true. And that is not the gospel.

Our sin debt committed against God is so heinous, wicked, despicable because he is so glorious and so good that once he forgives that, we're able to forgive everyone else. I do want to help us out here. Forgiveness does not mean that you feel good inside or that it is not difficult. I have people say to me before, it's like I want to forgive him and I choose to forgive him, but I'm still angry or I still hurt and I'm still trying to process this and I'm still. And it's like, yeah, our model for forgiveness is a cross. It is not easy or comfortable.

Jesus chose to go to the cross in order to forgive us and we choose to forgive because we believe that he did that for us. And so Jesus is saying that as we forgive, it may be a process, it may be painful, it may hurt. We're choosing to absorb the pain ourselves rather than put it on them. So Jesus says, as we pray, repent and acknowledge our need to forgive others. Verse 13. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So he says, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us or forgive us our debts as we've forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So lead us not into temptation. The Bible kind of lays out that we have three enemies. The flesh, the world, and the devil.

That we actually are your own worst enemy in some ways. You've lied to yourself more. You've tricked yourself more. You've harmed yourself more than anyone else has. That you actively choose to rebel against God. That you're at war with yourself.

So that's the flesh. The world is that the systems that exist around us that help us sin, that help us rebel. Well, so maybe you have a hard time controlling your eating habits. And you're battling yourself. But then, you know, snowballs just opened back up.

And they've opened one on every corner. Krispy Kreme exists. And so do buffets. And it's like it's just so difficult. Maybe you have lust issues. That you struggle with pornography and lust in every television show ever.

That's one of their goals. And they've made the internet have free, accessible pornography. That's our flesh and the world. That temptation exists around us. And then the Bible says that we actually have a real spiritual enemy. The same way that we have a real spiritual God and a real spiritual savior.

Who joined us in humanity and died on our behalf. That there are spiritual beings and we have a real enemy. That is actively waging war to keep us from Christ and to send us to hell. We have three enemies. Jesus says it's normal daily for Christians to pray about all three. The flesh, the world, the devil.

That we would pray, forgive me of my sin. Keep me from temptation. And deliver us from evil. There's some translations that will even say the evil one. Being as explicit as possible. So deliver me from temptation means we get to pray.

God, these are the things I struggle with. Help them not show up. Keep me far from them. When temptation comes, help me get away. It's not a sin to be tempted. It's a sin to sin.

Jesus was tempted. When Satan came to him and gave him temptations to sin. They were actually tempting. That's what a temptation is. It's not just a band. It's something that tempts you to sin.

So when Satan looked at Jesus and said, I'll let you be king of everything without a cross. I'll let you go straight to a throne without a cross. That was actually tempting. But Jesus resisted. He was delivered from temptation. This also can be basically us praying.

So if you have a little kid and you're walking through a store, you may intentionally skip an aisle. Because you just don't want to have to argue with them about they're not getting the things on that aisle. This is saying, hey, God, drive the cart far away from the aisle. Or if you're southern, keep my buggy out of that aisle. Whichever you'd rather say. But that's the prayer.

Keep me from temptation. And then deliver me from evil. That we as Christians would actively be aware that we don't just wage war against the flesh. But that we have an enemy that we can't see. And that we should be praying that his works and efforts would be thwarted. And that God would keep us far from him.

Keep him far from us. And that we would be delivered. It seems to me that people often will pray, maybe one or two of those, that maybe you're one of the people that notices your own sin very clearly. And that when things happen, you are always very quick to say, I'm sinful. I'm to blame. Some people will more quickly notice that the world tricked you.

That your friends are tempting you. Or that the world is tempting you. So you'll pray about this. Other people may be more willing to acknowledge that Satan is at work and blame things on him. And Jesus says yes to all three. So pray about all three.

Don't just acknowledge your flesh. Don't just acknowledge your world and your terrible friends that try to tempt you. And don't just acknowledge that you have an enemy. Acknowledge and pray about all three. Okay. We have a good father who cares about us.

Who intimately knows us, loves us, and has adopted us into his family at the cost of his own son. That Christ came to pay for our sin and to bring us to the Father to open up a seat at the table for us. So we get to pray. Three practical points on prayer. Set aside time. Jesus says go into your room, close the door.

Do that. Some people say, well, I pray, you know, just small times throughout the day. Or I pray, you know, when I'm riding. I pray when I'm driving. Or I pray when I'm in the shower or something. And it's like that's great.

And I think we should be praying. But I also think he says have an intentional time where you get away from everything. You close the door and you pray. And so I would just say for us as a church as we're going to pray, make some time. We make time for the things we care about. Make time to pray.

To spend some time talking to the Father. Secondly, just talk. You get to speak to a Father that cares about you. It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be well planned out. Just talk.

Just pray. Just speak. Converse. It can be really awkward. That's fine. He knows you're awkward.

This isn't a first date. He knows you. You're not tricking him. If you show up, if you went into this room and wrote out a beautiful, eloquent prayer and then came into this room, he just saw you. Just talk to him. You're okay.

It doesn't have to be pretty or special. Just pray. Talk to him about the things you care about. Talk to things about worrying you. Talk about nothing. Just tell him he's great for five minutes.

That's fine. That'll help you. Pray. Thirdly, to help you learn how to pray and what to pray about, I would encourage you to do two things. Open your Bible and read it as a conversation. So let's say we're reading through the Sermon on the Mount.

You're reading through it at home. You're in your room. You've intentionally set this time aside to pray. And you come across something where he says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. You may need to stop right there and say, God, I don't believe that. And I have such a hard time being meek.

The only times I felt like I inherited anything, I fought for it. And I have such a hard time believing that. Help me to believe that. Help me to understand that. Treat it like a conversation. When you hit something, you realize you need to repent.

When you hit something, it's just like, God, that's so beautiful. Because I'm mourning right now. And you say you're going to comfort me. Thank you for being the God who comforts those who mourn. Just use it as a conversation to teach you how to pray. Secondly, you can pray Psalms or epistles.

So you can pray Psalms or there are sections in Paul's letters where he says, this is what I'm praying for you. So you can just steal. I'm going to pray that for my group for a week. I'm going to pray that we would all understand the height and depth and length and breadth of God's love for us. That's my prayer for us right now. So you can just pray sections of scripture.

The same way that a child learns how to speak by having someone else speak to them. There's a reason my son said, come on. He didn't get that, make it up on his own. He got that because that's what has been spoken to him. So have God speak to you.

Use the scriptures to teach you how to pray. I also just want to point out that at the back end of that prayer, there's a section where Jesus is basically saying it's normal for Christians to pray. Keep me. Protect me. Defend me. Keep me from sin.

Keep me from falling. Keep me from running. Keep me close to you. And that ought to be a way that we pray. We praise God for his gloriousness. We pray for his kingdom to advance.

We talk to him about all the normal things going on. We acknowledge our sin. And then we say, God, keep me close to you. Keep me with you. Help me make it to the end. Band's going to come back up.

And we're going to sing. And praise God for his goodness. And celebrate that this is how we get to pray. Let's pray together. Father, you're glorious. You're holy.

And I pray that we would revere you and honor you and love you above all else. We ask, Lord, that your kingdom would come. That you would use our community groups to advance your kingdom on earth. That there would be more joy and more family and more love and more grace and more forgiveness and more justice and righteousness and equity. And more and more and more people who have been saved by the grace and the forgiveness that are found only in Christ. We pray that your kingdom would come through our community groups.

We pray that your kingdom would come in our community groups. That we would repent of sin. That we would acknowledge your holiness. That we would learn to obey. That we would learn to agree with your word and submit to it. We ask, Lord, that your will would be done.

In all the situations going on right now that we don't know how they should end up. We don't understand fully where you're at work. We can't even see beyond the next two steps in life. We pray that your will would be done. That it would look the way it ought to look. That it would look as if heaven for a moment touched the earth.

We ask that in your name. We pray, Lord, that you would provide for us. That you'd help us to pay bills. That you'd work in our health. That you would help us to do well in school and at work. That you'd help us to raise our children.

Or to grow up and to treat our parents well. We ask that you would daily take care of us. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to see our sin clearly. That we would repent often and celebrate in the grace and the joy that's offered to us. That repentance is a privilege that we have. That we don't carry debt because you paid for it.

And God, we ask that you would so free us up in the forgiveness and the payment of debt that you've given to us. That we would forgive everyone who sins against us. That those who've been holding on to bitterness would see your glorious grace for them. And that they would be empowered to forgive. God, keep us far from temptation. And keep us far from the enemy.

That his works would not be present here or active here. That we would walk in the full conquering freedom of Christ the King. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Y'all stand listening.