Righteous Judge
Transcript
G'day guys, my name is Raz, I'm one of the pastors here, and today we're rounding out, we're finishing up our glory series, and today we're going to be taking a look at justice. And in particular, we're going to be talking about Jesus as the mind-blowing judge who's coming back at the end of days, a judgment day, to restore order to everything that's happened ever, which is a pretty big task for one day, but that's what we're doing. We're going to head to Revelation 20, so if you've got a Bible, or grab one of the Bibles in the row there, we're heading to Revelation 20, I think it's like the second last page or something like that. Just turn to the end and then go backwards.
Oh, there you go, it's page 602, that's helpful. 603, I assume, is the last page then. In Revelation 20, this is a picture that the apostle John has seen in a vision, and he's trying to put down in words what God has shown him about the very end of days. And so the language is pretty weird, there's some images that he's never seen before, and he's just kind of, out of a lack of words, just writing things like, it kind of looked like this. And so it's a little hard to understand, but we're going to read from verse 11. So this is Revelation 20, 11 through 15.
It says, Then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it. That's Jesus, big white throne. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened.
Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he also was thrown into the lake of fire. Imagine this. It's judgment day. All of humanity is there. That is a gigantic crowd.
He calls it a great sea of people. And they're waiting on their turn to come up and be judged. And Jesus is out there with, like, volumes and stacks upon stacks of books that have written in them everything that you have ever done. And you're going to be judged according to that. And then he's going to lean over to the second book and check your name off on the roll call. I imagine this scene, I mean, that's a scary scene to me.
That many books, intimidating. But I kind of, I see things, I imagine things through a more technological, I mean, I grew up with TV. So I just imagine things with a more technological kind of swing to them. So if I was to re, I mean, this isn't good practice necessarily, but if I was to reimagine this scene and explain what was going to happen, I think I would take a different approach than maybe what he was saying. And the same thing would be accomplished. But this is how I picture it.
So imagine, I'm doing my best to try and appeal to an American audience here. Imagine a gigantic college football scene. You don't have to know anything about college football because I don't. But I've seen the stadiums and they're huge. Imagine a huge, huge, huge college football stadium and all of humanity is in it. This is not the Gamecock Stadium.
This is not the Michigan Stadium that's, like, crazy big. This is not the NASCAR stadium that they transformed for one night. This is, like, the biggest stadium that has ever been seen because all of humanity has to fit in that stadium. And it's not okay for just one jumbotron to be in the middle with the four-sided thing. They're, like, scattered around the place. They need to be everywhere because everyone needs to see what's going on.
And one by one, each individual is called up. And on the big screen, everyone can see them walking out into the middle. And then the highlights reel from their life plays. Now, in John's vision, it gets read out of a book. But in my vision, it's not a biblically inspired vision.
But in the way that I think about it, your life plays out on the jumbotron. And everyone gets to see what you did. And it's not a highlights reel, like, check out all of my greatest achievements. This is, like, the lowlights reel. This is the slow-motion impact highlights reel. And I imagine it like when you are watching football and somebody gets, like, crushed.
And they play it, like, in slow motion from seven different angles. It's like, and then they amp up the volume of the pads clashing. So it's like, crack, every single time. And everyone in the crowd is like, ooh. You know when, like, there's the slow-motion replay of the guy's helmet comes off. And everyone's like, ah.
And, like, if you weren't watching, you hear the ah. And you're like, oh, what did I miss? That kind of thing happens over and over again. But as people are watching your life. Because all the little things that you did that you thought nobody knew about, that you thought got swept under the rug, that happened in secret, they're now being played on a jumbotron in front of everybody. They make fun of stealing candy from a baby.
But you remember that time you stole candy from a baby? That's going to play in the jumbotron. And everyone's going to be like, ooh, dude, what did you do that for? Every time you've done simple things, like roll for a stop sign, and then lied about it, that's going to play on the jumbotron. All the times you did something good, but you only did it because you wanted to receive praise. You only did it because you wanted people to know how great you are.
Somehow they're going to display that on a jumbotron, and people are going to see the selfish notion of your heart in that moment. The time when you lost your mind at your spouse for no reason, or lashed out at your kids, or the time in school when you were bullying that kid, all of it plays out on the jumbotron. Gigantic stadium of people watching. Every moment of your life that you're ashamed of gets played on that jumbotron, and the entire crowd is going, ooh, yeah. And at the end of your highlights reel, you ought to be judged for that. But Jesus looks over into his little black book and checks to see if your name's in there.
And if it is, good. And if it's not, then you get judged for it. That's pretty scary, right? You want to know at that point in time that your name is written in Jesus' little black book, right? Because that's like the only pass out of being judged for all the things that play out on that jumbotron. And here's the thing, though.
This is imaginary. This is hypothetical, but not really. Because this is actually going to happen. And here's the thing, though. But there's hope for that in Christians because while we know our highlights reel is not going to be the greatest, no one really wants to watch that happen, no one really wants to see all of those things that they've done play out on the jumbotron, we know as Christians that our name is going to end up in that second book.
And in that second book, that's where we have hope. And now that probably sounds weird for us to have hope in our name being in a book and not being judged by the highlights reel or the lowlights reel of our life. And I think that's because, I mean, it sounds weird for us to want that or to think that's good because we have a a continuously developing cultural understanding of what justice is. What's fair? Everybody on some level wants their way of seeing life means that they want things to come back to being fair. And everybody, well, not everybody, but there's a lot of different opinions on what is fair.
And that's why we lead to different political affiliations that everyone wants to achieve what's fair, but they disagree on what fair is, whether it's free health care or you've got to pay for your health care or it's competition in health care. Everybody wants what's fair, but we disagree on what fair is. And it's because culturally, we don't really understand justice. I don't think. We certainly don't understand God's justice. Or if we do, we have a culturally, we view it through a cultural lens.
So we're going to take a zoomed out look at justice. We're going to look at the way we think about justice. And then we're going to look at the way that God thinks about justice. And I'm going to be answering, I'm going to be asking a ton of questions, most of which, if you're a Christian, you'll probably be asked at some point, especially with culture getting more and more aggressive against Christianity. Everyone has some way that they're going to try and outsmart you or challenge you or challenge God. These questions are going to pop up quite a lot.
And I think when it comes to justice, it's typically going to be, how can a loving God pass judgment? Or some reiteration of that same notion, some reiteration of that same question. If your God is loving and kind and always talks about forgiveness, how can he send people to hell? That's a question that is going to come up repeatedly. And it snowballs. It gets more and more intense.
If your God is loving, why won't he just forgive people? Why can't he just forgive everybody? The whole topic kind of snowballs. And I think rather than answering each individual question like one by one, I think we'd be better served to zoom out, look at justice as the whole, on a whole, and maybe identify that because we misunderstand justice, we don't really understand the questions that we're asking in the first place. And I think it begins with a common misunderstanding. And that's the relationship between justice and revenge.
What is the relationship between justice and revenge? How are they the same? How are they different? I mean, typically we think justice, good, revenge, bad. But somehow we interchange them or we accidentally misidentify them as each other.
Let me ask you this. You're watching a movie, any action movie, any movie where the good guys and the bad guys literally fight. Any movie where that actually happens. What is it that you want at the end of that movie for it to be like, yes, order is restored, justice is accomplished. You're watching Harry Potter, right? You are seven movies deep into Harry Potter.
You're at the very end and they have the big wizard battle. Do you want the good guys to point their wands at Voldemort and abracadabra ropes that come out and bind him up? And he's just bound up. He's stuck there like that. And then they take him to wizard court and they say, guilty, you're a bad person. Go to Azkaban.
And he goes to Azkaban and spends the rest of his life in Azkaban. Is that how you want Harry Potter to end? No. There's no brave people here. You want the good guys to vanquish the bad guys. You want them completely destroyed, no longer in existence.
That's what you want to happen at the end of that movie. Let's be culturally relevant. Independence Day. At the end of Independence Day, do you want the U.S. Air Force to come up with a gigantic net that brings the mothership down and then one by one those aliens get marched off of that ship, taken into a court of law and then there's like a 10 year trial for each individual person because they know our legal system and they appeal everything and then they end up one by one in jail for the rest of their life. No!
You're cheering for a redneck McRedneck-y man to fly that plane into that spaceship and blow every single one of those dudes out of the sky. That's what you want and we cheer for it. That's how Hollywood programs us to want justice in the stories that we see. That's how we're programmed to cheer and that's just kind of how it is in our culture, right? How we want justice to happen is the bad guy gets completely wiped out, destroyed. When I was growing up my dad and I we used to watch a lot of James Bond movies and the game GoldenEye on Nintendo 64 was kind of like the game of the generation.
Programmed to cheer and that's just kind of how it is in our culture, right? How we want justice to happen is the bad guy gets completely wiped out, destroyed. When I was growing up my dad and I we used to watch a lot of James Bond movies and the game GoldenEye on Nintendo 64 was kind of like the game of the generation. GoldenEye is much more famous for the game than it is for the movie
But in the movie really good movie I watched it when I was like 9 or 10 I think that raises some questions about parenting in my house it's a very violent movie but my dad and I we used to bond over these things and so we're watching GoldenEye and at the very end of GoldenEye actually building up to the end there's two guys there's James Bond and there's Alec Trevelyan they are both together they're partners
They're on Team England that's a thing they were the good guys at one point at least in James Bond thanks man Team England they're on the same team together and at some point everybody thinks Alec is dead but actually Alec has rejected Team England and he's now on Team Russia and he comes back in the movie as the bad guy but they were once friends and now he's the enemy and so at the very end of the movie
In the climax of the movie or whatever there's this huge radar dish thing like a gigantic one absolutely crazy big and it's sending signals up to some Russian satellite thing out in the sky and there's a giant dish like this and a big arm that comes out the middle and the thing where all the rays kind of focus on and shoot out into space and that's so big that people can be inside of it there's computers and almost like
A space station looking thing up inside there and so James Bond has to shut the thing down so that Russia stops getting their signals and whatever and the other guy is trying to stop him and they're inside that little capsule thing like 300 feet dropped down to the radar dish and so they're fighting in there they've got their guns out because that's the kind of movie and they're shooting at each other and then of course
They can't use the guns because that's a lame way for someone to die so they hit the guns out of each other's hands and then they're punching each other and James Bond's losing because it's really intense and everybody thinks James is going to die and then he goes down the little hatch and he's down on a ladder and he's got one hand up and his other hand is flailing like this and there's like a 300 foot drop to his dead and the bad guy the bad guy comes down he puts his foot on and he's like and he falls down
And then he drops down and there's one last little platform right? Everything happens on that last little platform and you see James Bond he's in like that fetal position as he fell down there he's down there he's getting crushed and then the bad guy drops down boof on his feet and you're like this is it this is the end one nudge and James Bond is dead but no Hollywood uppercut
Bad guy slow motion off the platform surely gonna die 300 foot to fall to his death and then James Bond boof grabs him by the ankle what's gonna happen? I'm kinda out of breath and you think for a moment is James gonna let this guy live? and the bad guy looks up at him and he goes for England and James goes no for me and then he drops him and in that moment
The bad guy knows he's lost and the camera goes right up in his face he's like and then there's a top down view and then this bottom down view and then it goes to the wide angle view I'm no doctor but in my understanding of human physiology when you fall 300 feet and land on your spine you die not so camera comes right up close to Alec Trevelyan's face he's got a little bit of blood coming out of his nose
It was a big fall a little bit of blood and then his eyes go bing and he's alive and you're like no this happened earlier in the movie it's gonna happen again and then the camera cuts back up James Bond is up on the little platform the thing starts exploding and he jumps off grabs onto the bottom of a helicopter helicopter takes him off to safety and then and then the giant thing in the middle explodes off the arm
That's holding it up and a giant metal needle camera wide angle top down view bottom down view close up on the guy's face skewered through his body into the ground and at that moment nine year old Raz is like yeah high-fiving dad I wish I was at the cinema I wasn't allowed to be in the cinema but I would have been like high-fiving other people because justice had been served the good the guy who's a bad guy because he used to be a good guy but then he became a bad guy is dead
At least that's what we're kind of expected to cheer for right that's justice in movies that's what we want that's what we want to see happen and I think that we so often talk about justice but what we're actually cheering for is revenge because in that moment if James Bond wanted to bring Alec Trevelyan to justice he would have done the Hollywood thing where you can actually hold a person by their ankle and just bring him back up handcuff him take him back to England take him to the MI6 base
And he lives underground for the rest of his life but we cheer for what actually became personal and vengeful he was full of hate and spite for the guy and so he saw revenge so revenge is emotional where justice is is rational revenge is personal where justice is impersonal revenge is about vindictiveness where justice is about vindication revenge
Is about retaliation where justice is about restoring order so could it be possible then that when we challenge God's justice when we have questions about his justice when we say is that really fair what we're actually doing is questioning whether or not he's seeking revenge are your questions really asking is God just vindictive
Is God just retaliating so what then what then even is justice and how do we achieve it even in our world what does justice actually look like for us in normal everyday life let me ask you some hypothetical questions so you can self-diagnose self-realize some of the tension here in your own brain in your own way
Of thinking when is justice served is justice served when the thing that was done is undone is that when justice is served or is it when the thing that was done is paid back to the same degree that it was done in the first place is that when justice is done think about it like this if we're on the
Playground and I poke you in the eye you get to poke me back in the eye that's fair that's justice that's how playground rules work grow up a little bit you lend me your car and I wreck it how is justice served I owe you a car of equal or greater value right you don't
Get to just go wreck my car I don't have a car I borrowed yours but what happens for example if your child is kidnapped how is justice served is justice served when the child is returned it's just undoing the thing
Is justice served when you go kidnap his child that's repaying it one for one should there be some kind of a punishment and if there is a punishment how great a punishment should it be is it jail time
Is it a big fat fine is it death penalty is it public execution of you and all of your acquaintances so that nobody else makes the same mistake if the doctor is negligent and your child dies how is
Justice served in that situation do you get to go kill the doctor's child is that revenge or is that justice do you just get a big fat check from their insurance the
Practice insurance is that how justice is served or should that doctor go to jail I think we all know intuitively that somehow we can't always
Put our finger on it but somehow the punishment has to fit the crime somehow we have to come up with systems to make that happen but somehow
The punishment has to fit the crime and oftentimes the punishment is over and above just undoing what the crime was we don't expect that a car thief will achieve
Justice when they return all of the cars they return all of the cars and then they go to jail there is a punishment over and above undoing the thing that was done I was watching a presentation recently by a guy called
Michael ramsden he's a british apologist basically means he's a dude who goes around to college campuses and conferences and stuff like that gives speeches presentations on they call it a defense of the faith
It's really just a rational explanation of why christians believe what they believe and he's at this conference and they're about to go on a break and he says during this break we're going to
Have a whiteboard out front and we want everyone to come out and write the hardest questions they can possibly come up with so write your really hard questions on the whiteboard during the break and then at some point
During the break come and vote on the question that you think is the hardest question to answer and in the following session we're going to answer the really really hard questions which is brave to volunteer to do a 40 minute speech on
A topic that the audience gets to choose but he does that they go away on the break they come back from the break and there's a tie for first place two questions that have the same number of votes everyone says these are the two
Hardest questions to answer these are the two questions number one this is the first question how do you expect me to be happy in heaven if God has sent people to hell how do you expect me to be happy in heaven if God has sent people to
Hell the second question how do you expect me to be happy in heaven if the man who sexually abused me as a child is in heaven with me don't miss this the first question is saying how can I be happy if God Judges people and sends them to
Hell the second question is saying how can I be happy if God doesn't judge people and send them to hell you see the tension between the two questions one is saying if God upholds justice and punishes
People I cannot be happy and the other is saying if God doesn't uphold justice and punish people I can't be happy the same issue is addressed in both questions but they're pulling in opposite directions on our human
Morality meter in our own sense of justice we kind of we're unhappy with either option we simultaneously want God to punish evil but we also want him to
Be loving and kind and forgiving and give people a chance I have to admit that I feel this tension as well I think our society lives in this tension all of us have some way of
Comprehending it at least in our brain we feel like it's okay for some people to make it and it's not okay for other people to make it and we draw this line it can
Be anywhere and we say these people they're good enough these people they're not and my line could be here and your line could be there and somebody else's line
Could be all the way over there and we say at this point in time people are good enough and at this point in time I'm just uncomfortable with those guys making it into
Heaven and we all draw our own little lines in the sand and we see the world through that lens these people are good enough those so that we make it and anyone worse than
Us is probably not good enough I'm uncomfortable with them being in heaven with me so we have this criteria that makes us that gives us comfort of are the people good enough and we all have our own
Little lines and every time we do that every time we put a line down and say this is the fair spot for it what we're actually doing is saying God your line isn't as good as mine my line is better I'm
Fairer than you are my idea of what's right and wrong is better than your idea of what's right and wrong we should use my line because I'm more fair than you now God has a line as well he doesn't
Use our criteria luckily if he did use our criteria if he used the criteria of who's good enough and who's bad enough then his line is all the way over here there's one dude sitting by himself over there
God's only son Jesus Christ he's good enough everybody else fails the test if God uses our criteria of who's good enough and who's bad enough luckily
He does not use that he has a line but that's not what his line looks like so what does God's line look like how does he decide who makes the cut how does justice work in God's kingdom on who
Makes it and who doesn't I think there's a good chance you've heard this a thousand times but according to the Bible according to Christianity all of humanity stands guilty before God Romans
3 23 Says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 6 23 says the wages of that sin what you earn
By that sin is death all of humanity is guilty the punishment that everyone has earned is death think back to the stadium where each
And every person's low lights reel is played on a jumbotron in front of all of humanity you get to see how evil the inside internal inclination of each person's heart is
Every evil thought every evil desire every lustful glance every flash of anger every ounce of pride every action made out of self ambition
Every cruel intention every under your breath cuss word everything happens on the big screen and each and every time you're sinning against a holy
And pure and righteous God each and every human each and every human is in their core fundamentally internally wicked everyone's the same all of humanity
Stands there right with you and it would be unfair it would be unjust of God who is the holy and perfect judge it
Would be unfair of him to look at that sin to look at that guilt and just say it doesn't matter because that's not
How justice works it would be unfair of him some kind of reparation some kind of payment is absolutely necessary to pay for that guilt to pay
For that punishment that ought to come for your sin if a jury if in our world if a jury comes back and says this man is guilty we have we have decided upon the evidence that this man is guilty and the judge comes back and says yes
I've seen the evidence he's been judged by a panel of his peers this guy's guilty but you know what I'm loving I'm compassionate I'm merciful so I'm just going to let you go please don't kidnap any more
Children or kill them there would be public outcry that is not justice that is not fair that is wrong a reasonable judge cannot just let people off for the things that they're guilty of
So what does God do Romans 5 8 and 9 it says but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us since therefore
We have now been justified by his blood much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God so while we were sinners Christ died for us and he paid the penalty for our sin we were
Justified by his blood we're saved by his life we're guilty we deserve punishment he pays the penalty that's how God's mercy and his justice work together for our good at the cross because justice says
You did this now you deserve this that's how justice works we're not always the best at saying what you deserve but we know that if you did this you deserve this mercy says you did this
You deserve this but I'm going to give you this now typically mercy happens at the expense of justice typically if you poke me in the eye and I choose not to poke you back
In the eye I'm extending mercy to you and justice is not served I was ripped off that's how mercy typically works when you extend mercy to someone you do so at the
Expense of justice so does that mean that God gives up justice in order to give mercy in Christianity no he can't he must uphold justice
To be a perfect judge God looks into every single human heart and at the core of it he sees sin he sees us for who we really
Are and he says this is wrong this is not how it was supposed to be this is not how it was designed you
Are guilty you stand guilty before the king and moved out of compassion he does something about it and he does that at the
Cross that's where the penalty for sin is met that at the cross when Jesus dies on behalf of all of sinners he incurs
The wrath that sin deserves so that punishment is made on behalf of sinners but Jesus pays for it so that sinners don't have
To God doesn't exercise mercy at the expense of justice he exercises his mercy through justice at the cross we should hear that God's justice is
Coming and we should hear that he's going to judge the entire world and it should be terrifying because we should know that by
Our sin we stand guilty and deserve death and destruction but here's the game changer this is Romans 10 9 it says if you
Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved
If you put your faith in Jesus you will be rescued from the judgment that you deserve if you put your faith in Jesus
His death on the cross will pay your ransom for you when you put your faith in Jesus your name goes into his little
Black book that he checks off at the end of days to see who's in and who's out when God's justice comes there is
Hope even for the guilty if they have faith in Jesus you might not think about it this way but I think we actually
Want God's version of justice because if we were tried in our justice system where good enough makes it and bad enough doesn't then
You would have to pay the penalty for your own sin you want Jesus as your judge because in his system you don't pay
The price for your own guilt if you put your faith in him you aren't held responsible for your own penalty for the woman
Who's afraid of seeing her abuser in heaven if he's there it's because he put his faith in Jesus and God himself paid the debt
That that man deserved Jesus took the punishment if that man is unrepentant if he refuses to admit his guilt if he refuses to
Say sorry if he refuses to put his faith in Jesus then he will stand on judgment day the highlights real from his life
Will play out for everyone to see and then he will stand condemned and be judged for what he's done and in that moment
Justice will have been served but he pays his own penalty Matt's going to come back up and as we land the plane here I want
You to consider what this means for your life so this isn't just knowledge that you store in your head but this is a
Hope that you get to live the rest of your life by because it means that for Christians justice doesn't have to be served now
Justice doesn't have to be served now you we live in a world where injustice happens the guilty go free the innocent get convicted we
Live in a world where injustice happens but that's okay because as Christians we know ultimate justice comes at the end of days if
You wouldn't call yourself a Christian then my urge to you is to consider this it simply isn't enough to say I lived a
Good life I'm a good person I'm on the right side of the line all have sinned all fall short of the glory of
God and justice must be served and you get to choose do I want that justice to be served on me or am I
Willing to let Jesus take it on my behalf for Christians since we know that ultimate justice will be satisfied in Christ's return that
It's better than any human justice that his line is more fair than any line we could come up with where mercy and justice
Can both happen then we get to live in a system where we're satisfied and we're fulfilled by our faith in Christ a system where all of sin is
Paid for either by Jesus on our behalf or by those who don't call him Lord and justice will be satisfied in that the
Hope for Christians is that when you go out there and you stand before Jesus and your life is played out on a jumbotron it doesn't matter how shameful it is it doesn't matter how bad you were
It doesn't matter that the whole world sees it Jesus is going to look over into his little black book and see your name and you're going to be invited in and
Jesus has paid the penalty for you that's the hope that we have in God's justice system let's pray God we thank you that you sent Jesus to take our punishment
For us we thank you that by him our punishment can be paid and that we can be welcomed in pray that we'll put our faith in you and in your justice and that we can be satisfied that
It will come at the end of days and that we don't need it immediately that we don't need to see justice in this world immediately because you are a right judge you are a holy judge and you will judge
All of humanity equally based off of whether they have faith in Jesus not according to what they've done we praise you and we thank you for that in his name amen
Weaponized Homes
Transcript
Good morning, what's up guys? My name is Raz. I'm one of the pastors here. We're in this series at the moment called Extraordinary. And in this series what we're doing is looking at all of the little, little, independent, ordinary aspects of life and seeing how they can be given significance in order to make those ordinary situations in life extraordinary. And we've seen a couple of different ways so far in which that happens.
And today, that's our goal for this series. But what we're talking about today specifically is going to be hospitality. We're going to talk about how Christians in their everyday, ordinary lives can give significance to hospitality and invite people into their homes and into their lives. and that those people will be able to see a little, itty-bitty glimpse of the gospel in each of those moments. And that's kind of our goal for today. We're going to see what the Bible says about hospitality. But I think we'll find very quickly that it's quite clear.
There's not a whole lot of wiggle room. It's not one of those situations where we have our guard up and we want to kind of fight with it. So because it's pretty clear, we're going to kind of power through that. We're going to get through it pretty quickly. And we're going to spend most of our time today talking, looking at examples, seeing some kind of applicable ways that we might put this into practice in our lives or see how the concept of hospitality can transform the church in such a way that Jesus is made known through us in our homes, that kind of thing. We looked earlier in this series about how we have one Job.
And this is one of the first sermons is we have one Job. And that one Job that we've been given is to make disciples. And I think that chances are we could be neglecting the best tool that we have to accomplish that. And that's our homes. And so I'm going to pray. And then we're going to talk a little bit about why hospitality, what God says about why we should be hospitable.
And then we're going to spend most of our time talking about how to actually accomplish that. So let's pray. God, I thank you for the opportunity to look to Jesus as the ultimate example of how we can be welcoming to others. And I pray that as we look today at what it would look like to open our homes, to see people know you through interactions with us in our everyday life, that you'll be empowering us to go out and actually do this. That we can see the value and the worth of opening up our homes so that people can see Jesus in our lives. It's in his name we pray.
Amen. Before we launch headfirst into this, I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page definitionally about what we're talking about. So there's a chance that you might think, oh, I am hospitable. I'm a very hospitable person. I'm super welcoming at work. I'm super welcoming at other people's house.
I'm super welcoming on Sunday mornings. I'm a really hospitable person. And that's good. Those are all noble. We want that for you. We want that for your friends.
We want that for your life. That's great stuff. But definitionally, we're going to be honing in a little bit on what that hospitality actually looks like. I was going to go to a Bible dictionary for this, but I thought I'd ask Siri first. And I actually like Siri's definition a lot. So I asked Siri.
I'm sorry if I trigger anyone's phone in your pocket right now. I just realized that might happen. Siri's definition of what hospitality means is the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. Now, that covers a lot. But we're going to roll with it because I like it because it highlights two important factors about hospitality that we might overlook.
And the first one of those is that it's about reception. It's about receiving people in. It's not about going to people where they're at. It's about having people to you where you're at. And specifically for us, we're going to be talking about what that looks like in your homes, bringing people from outside of your sphere inside of your sphere. It also talks about the second thing is that it focuses on.
Now, it doesn't only allow. Like, it's not an exception clause, but it focuses on. It pushes us towards. It leans towards strangers and outsiders. Now, it's perfectly reasonable for you to be hospitable to your community group, to your friends, to the people that you're already surrounded by, like normal people that you interact with on a daily basis. But this definition pushes us a little bit in the direction of what would it look like to be hospitable to people outside of that normal sphere?
What happens when you have to push a cultural or a racial or a socioeconomic barrier in order to have someone else that you wouldn't normally hang out with in your life? What would it look like for a 27-year-old person to have a 60-something-year-old person they didn't know over in their house? How could they see the gospel in that situation? So we're going to kind of be leaning into that a little bit and leaning into that aspect of this definition. Okay, so why hospitality? Let's take a look at what the Bible says about hospitality.
And I think we're going to see pretty clearly and pretty early on that we are commanded repeatedly throughout the Bible to be hospitable. Some people seem, I think this is normal for us, I think this is cultural for us, to think that hospitality is optional. That if you have the right house or the right age kids or the right amount of money or add any kind of qualifier onto that thing, as long as you check all those boxes then and only then, maybe, you could consider being hospitable. But I think we'll see that there's not that much wiggle room because according to the Bible, hospitality is a command, not a suggestion.
And we're first going to look at Romans 15, 1 through 3. Typically what we'll do around here is open up the Bibles in the chairs, sit in one passage for most of the day. But we're actually going to be bouncing around quite a lot. So if you're not super quick with searching around the Bible for passages, everything is going to be appearing on the screen today. That's not normal for us, but because we're bouncing a lot, you can just check it out on the screen if that suits you better. We're going to be in Romans 15, 1 through 3.
It says, We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. We see in this that in Christian maturity, those who are strong have the obligation to lift up and benefit those who are weak. And looking to Christ, we see that he willingly took that burden onto himself. That was his goal as well.
He wasn't pleasing himself. He was sacrificing himself on behalf of others. He was sacrificing his comfort for the sake of other people. And when I look at that, and when I look to his example, I see this kind of glaring place in our lives where we kind of just don't really follow that. We don't sacrifice our comfort a whole lot, at least not in the way that Jesus does. And I think that way that we don't do it is in our homes, right?
In our homes, you get to... Homes are an interesting thing to think about. In your home, you get to control everything. Like, unlike anywhere else in the world. In your home, you are the boss and you control everything. Ish.
I mean, roommates, wives, like children, like you've got to compromise some, maybe on some of the things. But at least in the grand scheme of things, like you get to control the temperature. You don't get to do that everywhere. You get to control the sounds that the rooms make, like the music or the TV. You get to control the color of the walls. You get to control every little piece of what happens in our house.
And typically, I think, what we see that the purpose of home as is our refuge away from the world. Where we get to kind of ignore everything that happens outside and have our little space that's exactly how we want it. And if you think about it, like over time, as technology has increased, we've actually built homes specifically more and more to accomplish that goal. This may not be you, but this person exists. And you can definitely visualize this. You're driving home.
This may not be you, but somebody does this. You're driving home. And as you pull into your little driveway, you look up to your... I don't know what the thing's called here. We call it a visor. It's like the little flap thing that blocks the sun from your eyes.
Also a visor? Thank you. Good save. The visor thing. And you click the little thing on it and you push the button. And the button communicates with the robot inside your house.
And the robot inside your house opens the wall. And you drive your car through the wall inside your house. And you push the button and the shield comes down behind you. So that you get to block out everything on the other side of it. Like that is a real thing. And if someone's out on the street screaming your name, you can just like pretend that that never happened.
You can sit in the car until that shield goes right at the bottom. Then you get out and go into your house and pretend nothing ever happened. We recently bought a house and I was thinking of all the cool technology and stuff we could put on it. Put into the new house. And one of the new things that they've got is a doorbell that it senses movement. And so before someone even rings your doorbell, like if someone approaches your house, it'll text you a photo of that person.
So that you could be upstairs or at work or anywhere and you'll have a photo of the person who is approaching your house. And before they even ring the bell, you can decide to ignore them. And it's really easy if they're wearing like a Time Warner hat or something. But if it's just a stranger, you get to make that call. I'm too tired. I can't be bothered.
And the rest of us have to walk up to the little pokey hole thing where you look through. And then you decide. But they've heard you at floorboards creak by that point. They at least know your home. And we don't have the garage shield thing. So they can see my car as well.
So we always have to answer the door, at least sort of mostly. We've structured it. I mean, just as society, technology-wise, we've developed systems that mean we don't have to pay attention to the world. You can get your groceries delivered to your house. You'll get a notification on your phone with a photo of the guy delivering them telling you that it's there. And you can ignore it until you watch him walk away.
And then you can open the door and pull your groceries inside. And they're in a perfectly little refrigerated box thing. You don't even have to speak to cashiers anymore. Even if you go to Walmart, you prefer the line that you don't have to talk to anybody in. We've developed a cultural world, a technology world, where in our homes and in our lives, we don't have to relate to people. And I think at home, amongst all places, that's kind of where we focus on the most in keeping people out.
Because in your home, you're the boss, and you do what you want to do when you want to do it, right? That's the point. That's the point of being at home. Shut the door. Lock it. Deadbolt it.
Put the little chain thing on that doesn't look like it had stopped very much. Keep the world out. That's what home is. And yet in verse 2, it said, Let each of us please his neighbor for his own good to build him up. In following Christ's example, we ought to be taking that posture of sacrificing our refuge, sacrificing that safe zone that we have in order to be able to engage people and invite them in to build them up. And so it's not surprising when, if you kept reading in that section, you get down to verse 7.
And Paul says in verse 7, Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. In light of the gospel, since Christ has welcomed you, your role now in the world is to be welcoming to other people. And that includes into your safe zone, into your refuge, into your home. And if we are a people who are welcomed by God, we will be a people who are welcoming to others. Because hospitality is rooted in the gospel. Here's the gospel.
All of humanity was sinful. All of humanity falls short of the glory of God. We deserve nothing but death. In fact, we're told that we have earned the wages of death. All that we've accomplished, all that we've done, we deserve death as a result of that. But since God loves us, he sent his son Jesus, who lives a perfect life, so that when we killed him, his death was able to pay the penalty for the sin that we deserved.
His death was able to take that on for us. God welcomes us in, even though we are estranged from him. And for that reason, we're able to welcome others in. Our hospitality, our kindness to others gets to be a tiny little picture of the gospel. A tiny little image of what God has done for us. When we welcome others in, we get to show them what it was like when we were welcomed in.
Our homes are not refuges for ourselves. Our homes are weapons for the gospel. Our homes are a platform for building others up, not keeping them out. Let's look through some more examples. The next one is Leviticus 19. It's an Old Testament example.
This is God talking to the people of Israel. It says, this is verse 33 through 34. It says, 1 Peter 4, verse 8 and 9. It says, Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. If you ask me, that doesn't sound very much like optional language.
And I think that's because the Bible treats hospitality like it's expected. It's demanded. It's a command, not a suggestion. Actually, in Titus 2, it's one of two places in the New Testament that gives like a really good, clear definition with a list of what's required of elders in the church. What a pastor has to be in order to be qualified to be a pastor. And one of those things in the list is hospitable.
If someone is not hospitable, if a pastor is not hospitable, they are unable to model the Christian life for the church. If a pastor is unable to be hospitable, they are unable to pastor. They should not be leading the church. So, why hospitality? I think because it's demanded by and rooted in the gospel. Because in Romans 15, 7, that we just read earlier, it says, Therefore, welcome one another in as God welcomed you, as Christ has welcomed you.
We're told, be hospitable because God was first hospitable to you. Be hospitable because in so doing, you give these tiny little images throughout your life of what the gospel looks like. You were welcomed, and so you welcome. Here's a fun fact that I learned this past week. It tends to happen with people who've studied languages. You develop an interest for words.
I never really had that before college. And you start to see similar words and wonder, how are they actually related? Like, why would they be so similar in that way? And so this week, while I was, I mean, I've said already this morning the word hospitable like 500 times, and it made me think of like, what is the connection between hospitable and hospital, right? Those are very similar words, and there's got to be something going on there. Now, as I say this, this doesn't, the connection doesn't date back all the way to Jesus' time.
I'm not trying to say he meant this when I talk about this, but this is just an observation that the English words hospital and hospitable share a Latin root word. And that Latin root word is hospice or hospitalia, depending on the age in Latin. And that word in Latin means room for strangers or guest chamber. And I think that's really interesting, that hospitals were named after a place where strangers are welcomed and helped. And it got me thinking, and this isn't straight out of the Bible, this is like a step removed, but this is just observation. What would it look like?
I mean, we know that people who need medical attention end up at the emergency room at the hospital to receive that medical attention. What would it look like if people who need or require emotional or spiritual attention felt that same welcomedness in our homes? If our ability to be hospitable for those who need spiritual attention equaled that of hospitals to cure medical things, what would that look like in our lives? And I think that the more we're able to see that inviting people into our lives gives them that little picture of the gospel, the more we're able to see that our lives declare the gospel the more willing we'll be to open up our homes so that people can see that in our lives.
So what then does it look like to be hospitable? How do we do this? What does that look like in everyday life? How would that affect me? If you've been terrified all this time so far, because hospitality is just like a word that invokes fear in your soul. I think this is where we start making it easier for the rest of the time, right?
Because chances are that if the word hospitality or the idea of having people in your safe zone scares you, chances are that you're viewing it through a very, very cultural lens that tells you there's a bunch of expectations that you have to perform. It can be all kinds of different things, but most people who feel that pressure are thinking party planning, cleaning, like being presentable, cooking really, really well, making sure that the children are well behaved. Like if all of those things are piling on your soul that make you think, oh, this hospitality thing sounds horrific, then that's okay. Well, that's not okay, but we're going to kind of start dismissing those things because actually we don't need to be worried about what the cultural expectations of hospitality are so much as what real authentic biblical hospitality looks like.
Because hospitality is not about image management. And I think the cultural way of thinking about it is all about how to present a good image. So if your goal in anything is to impress people, then chances are you won't point them to Jesus. You'll point them to how impressive you are. So when you try to impress people, you'll point them to how glorious your house is, how great your cooking is, how clean you can be, how well decorated your house is, how good your children are, how great your music playlist is.
Look at your garden with all the pretty flowers. And what you won't end up doing is pointing them a whole lot to Jesus. That is, if this is your sole purpose in doing that, like if you're doing this so that people will recognize your talent, your ability, then you're pointing them to yourselves. Now you could be a naturally clean person. That's a perfectly fine category of human. And if you're naturally clean and you're naturally tidying, you naturally have flowers and you naturally, you know, just enjoy that kind of thing, that's fine.
You can invite people into that. I'm just saying a lot of people aren't like that and feel that burden to perform when it comes to hospitality stuff. But I think we'll find that there's more power in sharing your actual real life with people than there is in faking it so that you can present a good image. So for some people out there, life is chaos. That's fine. Invite people into that.
I enjoy chaos. Like our community group can be chaotic at times. We have multiple small children. We have a dog. There can be like up to 25 people sitting in a very small room. Like it can get out of control and I kind of thrive on those things.
But other people hate it and I get that. That means you're a different personality type. You're good. You're allowed to exist. For some people, life is structure. Calendars.
Life spreadsheets. The smell of carpet cleaner and bleach in the morning. We've got some of those people over here. If that is you, if that is your life, if you enjoy that kind of thing and you're not actually doing it as some kind of performance to fake it so that people think you're a great host, then that's fine. Be that. Invite people into who you are.
Invite people into your life, into your safe zone and accommodate them as you normally would do in life. Because if you're faking it, you're going to point to them to someone that's not actually you and Jesus isn't going to be able to be seen in that. Let me give you a picture. Let me tell you how that happens in our house. We host a lot, but I don't think we put a whole lot of thought into it. I don't think we really match a whole lot of the things that you're supposed to do when you host.
My wife, Christina, she hates the feeling of dirt and sand on the bottom of her feet. So we have hardwood floors in our living room. Almost every single day, she will sweep the hardwood floors because she hates that feeling of sand on the bottom of her feet. I wear shoes. Easy solution for me. Or socks.
Whatever. And I feel like the guests that come to our house will probably arrive in shoes as well. If they arrive in bare feet, then they'll pick up the sand on the way in anyway, and they won't even know that there was sand in the living room floor. So I'm not super concerned about the whole sweeping the floor thing so that people don't get sand on their feet. I am kind of concerned because we have a dog, and the dog has about five billion toys. I'm not sure where they all came from, but they are spread all around our house, including little chunks of bone that have been destroyed and distributed so that they can always be found easily.
I don't like that because it's kind of like a tripping hazard. I'm not so fussy about people's feet getting dirty, but I don't want them to break an ankle because this is American. You get sued for that kind of stuff. So I'll at least kind of kick all of those things into corners, maybe shut a door. But even that doesn't work so well in our house because whoever designed it, look, I only have bad thoughts for that person.
But our ground floor has one bathroom in it, and it's the master bathroom, which means we can't shut our door because then no one has access to the bathroom on level one. So they literally have to walk through our bedroom to get to the toilet if that's something that they need while they're there, which means our bedroom is like fair game. Like people are going to see it. So we don't even have that option in our house. Here's what happens if you come and eat at our house. Our dining room table has four chairs, four chairs that match the table.
We've got more chairs, but they don't match the table. If you're the fifth person or the sixth or the seventh or whatever, like added people, only four people get matching chairs. And I'm not really concerned with matching styles so much as matching heights. If you're the fifth or the sixth person, you'll be in a camping chair. And even if you're tall, your chin will be at table height, which depending on how you eat can be, I mean, it can be a great thing. You can just kind of scoop.
But what happens is most people end up having to eat out of their lap because the height difference thing. The point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't like you won't leave our house thinking, wow, everything was magical and perfect. Like there's some thing like we'll put a little bit of effort in here and there. Like, but for the most part, pretty. You're just coming in and seeing our life as it's lived. We've recently upsized from an apartment to a pretty decent sized house.
We don't have enough furniture to fill it. There is like deck chairs and stuff in our living room. You'll be sitting on plastic. You're welcome. But that's just kind of like how normal life is.
It's not the prettiest, but that's what our house looks like. And it doesn't stop us having from having people over. And we just because I think it's easy, we do food most often. Like that's that's a thing. We were not amazing at cooking. And actually, I think it's become easier for us since we moved into the house because with a house, we got a grill and with a grill is really good, cheap and nasty food.
Right. Since getting a grill, we feel we feed people like brats, burgers and hot dogs all the time. Like all the time. Like if you're coming to our house, expect one of those options. Hot dogs are like 20 cents, 30 cents a piece. If you go all the way like to the premium ones, you might pay 45 cents.
I don't know what's in a premium hot dog. That kind of scares me even more. But tell you what, average food. People, people still love that junk. Like I've learned very quickly, feed, feed Americans hot dogs. They will be your friend.
It's just not the same in Australia. It's like, what is this? Like, what are you? Seriously? Okay. But in America, you feed a man a hot dog.
You have made yourself a friend. The food can be average. And the point in that is the food's actually not the important thing. The connection that you make with a person over the food is more important than the quality of the food that you present. As long as it's edible, I think you're okay. It doesn't have to be meals, though.
I think meals are really easy. But hospitality can take many forms. It can be coffee. It can be inviting people over to just sit and talk. It can be movies. It can be TV.
It can be games. It can be sports. It can be a whole bunch of things. I just think that, for us at least, meals are really, really easy. But it doesn't have to be anything special.
It's not difficult. Hot dogs by the pool, not very difficult. It doesn't take a whole lot of planning. You can pick all of that stuff up on the way. Well, you can't pick a pool up on the way home. But you can pick up the ingredients on the way home.
You don't have to forward plan for that kind of stuff. It's not a big ordeal. It's just inviting people into the life that you already have and interrelating as you do it. It's seeing opportunities in the normal to show people what life actually looks like for Christians. I'm about to give another example from our church family. And there's a number of reasons that I'm hesitant to do that.
One of them is that they're not currently in the room this morning, and I only found that out this morning. And so your immediate reaction to the words that I'm going to say, I'm just going to give you a heads up. I'm going to be talking about the Pabone family. And your immediate reaction to a lot of the things that I say, you're going to think that I'm kind of throwing them under the bus, that I'm making fun of them, that I'm being mean. Like your reaction is like, wow, that was a really mean thing to say. But I think the immediate reaction is something along those lines is that the baseline that we compare things to in order to decide whether or not that's right, if they're doing it good or if that is a mean thing to say is this cultural image based like this is what a hospitable person is supposed to look like.
And so when I talk about the Pabones and they break a lot of those rules, you're going to think I'm throwing shade on them and being like really, really mean to them. But what I'm actually trying to do is hold them up as a really good example of how you can be hospitable in everyday life. So as I talk about them, you get to think initially, wow, that was a really mean thing to say. But it's not. I promise you, I'm trying to say this is actually a really good example. And you know what?
I went to the extra step. Right here on my sermon sheet. That's Josh Pabone's signature. I want you to know that he's up in Kid City right now and his wife's out of town. But Josh has read this and he completely approves of this message.
And I feel like that validates everything regardless of whether or not you actually think it's me. I don't know if you know the Pabone family. The Pabones are community group leaders in our church. Most Sundays you'll see Josh up here playing bass and Nadine is very involved with Kid City. If you ever go to their house, let me just give you some advice. If you ever go to their house, you will experience what most people call chaos.
That's not mean. That's what their life looks like. They have four kids. You kind of can't avoid that. This is just who they are and what's involved. Let me give you some advice.
Wear shoes. That's not like a medical tetanus advice piece of advice. That's like they have kids. There's Legos around. Wear shoes. Like just avoid that trap.
They have four kids. At least one of them throughout the night is likely to sneeze on you. This wasn't supposed to be audience participation. Take hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is your friend. Not because their house is disgusting, but because they have kids and kids get sick.
And just do that. At dinner time, you're going to share the bench. You don't get your own seat. And this is probably genius. We could implement this in our house. But you share the bench at the Pabones house.
And you share the bench. The bench. You share the bench with at least two other children. Not other children. Two of their children. And you will have probably a child on either side or two children on that side.
And they know better. They're pretty well trained. But they just might anyway touch your food. And it'll be for something trivial. Like there's no reason for them to. They'll just be like, that's spaghetti.
Yes, it is. And you get to take your hand sanitizer and rub it on the spaghetti and go for it. That stuff's okay. You can eat that. I don't know if that's true. Don't do that.
The Pabones have the only cat in the world that I've ever seen do this. They might exist. But they have like Ninja Cat. His name is Lincoln. But it more takes after the vampire slayer version of Lincoln that you might know.
The one that knows karate. Their Lincoln will literally steal food out of your hand. Like, bam, gone. And you would think, when I say that, you would think maybe it's the food that you're like reaching down to feed him. No, it's the food that you're reaching up to eat. Bam, disappears real quick.
They have a dog, Miley. He's like little. He's like a little dog. Miley will bark at you for seven minutes when you arrive. And not like the cute little puppy dog bark. Like the, you're an intruder.
Get out of my house. Like that's their dog. And you'll sit down. And maybe ten minutes later, he'll jump up on your lap and start licking you. And then like, he's your best friend ever. And then a noise will happen.
And bam, straight off over to the noise. That's kind of, this is just what going to dinner at the Bones house is like. And it's not that they're doing anything wrong. They're not. That's just what life looks like in their house. They actually have some really cool mottos and sayings that they have to try and model this.
Just not only for their kids, but for their community group and the people around them. They do things like they address the mess. They'll say things like deliberately, like, sorry for the living room. It's kind of always like that. We didn't have an opportunity to clean up. They won't make too many excuses for it so much as just point to it and say, nah, that's how life is.
Just push it to the side. Take a seat. You'll be fine. That's kind of their attitude towards that. They actually have a scripted thing that they'll tell guests. They say, first time you come, you're a guest.
Second time you come, you're family. Oh, it's just like, it feels like a Hallmark card, right? It's just so warm and fuzzy. Second time, you're family. But what that actually comes with is privileges and responsibilities.
So your privileges are you don't have to ask to open the fridge or you don't have to, you know, like you get to, you treat the house as if it's your own house. But the responsibilities are you're now expected to help with cooking. If you don't cook, you'll probably be on dishes. Somebody has to maintain order in the house while the cooking happens so that nobody dies. You can have any of these responsibilities on top of like just being a guest in their house. Let me tell you, you probably won't go there and leave thinking, wow, that was peaceful and perfect and calm.
Their children were just amazing little butterfly angel faces. And the food was like three star Michelin hat, whatever the ratings are. And like it was just, oh, it was so picture perfect. It could have been a movie. It was magical. And if you do experience that, that was like the fake.
Like you experienced, like they upped their game to accommodate the social norms rather than actually introducing. You experienced the fake for bones. But in amongst all of this, let me tell you the really, really good part of how they do hospitality. I'm a pastor. I'm married. I'm going to have kids soon.
And I learned things about the gospel and about life from the Pabones when I'm at their house. When you leave the Pabones house, you leave having learned something about maintaining order in a house with four kids. You leave having learned how to make time for your friends in and amongst that kind of chaos. You learn for me or for other people. You learn for your future or current parenting what it looks like to talk to a child with patience and grace that is currently in complete meltdown mode. That's what hospitality actually looks like.
Because in each of those little moments, you get to see a picture of the gospel as a Christian interacts with someone, their children, their friends, their family, as a Christian interacts with someone in a way that shows Jesus. And when non-believers are invited into that kind of a mess, they get to see life, real life, not fake life. They get to see real life handled by a Christian. And they see an image bearer of God doing what they're supposed to do. They get to see that little picture of the gospel. And for non-believing friends that we have, they need to see Christians facing the same kind of challenges and obstacles that they do in everyday life, but doing it with Jesus involved.
That's how you give people those little snapshots of the gospel throughout life. Now, if you're normally clean, if you're normally not chaotic, if you're normally structured, be that way. Do those things. Apply all of what I just said about the Pabones to your normal everyday life context. But don't fake it.
If you're cluttered, be cluttered. If you're dirty, make sure people don't get diseases. But be you and have people over in your house to see what it's like to see you relate to others as a Christian. Our homes have to be places where real life happens and others are welcomed in. Because where else in the world will a non-believer get to see that if they're not invited to your house? How else will people see Jesus in your life if you set up your home in such a way that you're deliberately trying to keep them out?
How else will people see Jesus, that little snapshot, how else will they see Jesus in action in your life if you've set up your home in such a way that if they're invited in, you show them a fake version of you? At this point, I tend to realize that we make a lot of excuses. We come up with all kinds of different excuses as to why all of this doesn't have to apply to us. It can apply to other people and we can kind of help or whatever. All kinds of different excuses as to why we shouldn't be hospitable. And if we're honest, I think most of them are pretty lame.
I think there's a couple of categories. We'll talk about these kind of categorically. For our excuses, the first one is it might be something along the lines of my house is a disaster or my kids are crazy or I'm not a very good entertainer or I can't cook. Like it's bad if I cook. I think when you boil it down, most of these, like this category of excuse, the diagnosis behind it is that you've probably bought into this whole cultural image maintenance thing. That you can't be hospitable because you can't do it like culture tells you you have to.
Picture perfect, immaculate house, perfect children, everything's clean. You're afraid that if people see your actual life, they're going to think you're not good at that stuff. You're afraid that if people see your actual life, that's something to be ashamed of. But I think that this is the truth. You don't have to be anything you're not. And if you fake it, you'll be pointing them to something other than who you are and who Jesus is in your life.
And honestly, I think if you're faking it, you kind of just need to stop that. And instead, invite people into the life that you actually have without putting all of this emphasis on maintaining the image that culture tells you you're supposed to have. There's also a category for introverts. Statistically, 50% of the people in this room are introverts. And I'm sure there's a good chance that five minutes into this, you probably just the terrified meter in your brain switched off and you just potentially just haven't heard anything until I said the word introvert. If that's the case, welcome back.
There is hope for you. I'm sure it probably sounds, I don't know, something along the lines of impossible, condescending, something like that for an extrovert to stand up here on stage and say, this is simple, this is easy, everybody should do this. I get that. If you've got like a spectrum of like extroverts here, zeros like right in line with this guy, and introverts all the way over here, then I rank. I'm like king of the extroverts, 100%. People give me energy.
I love this kind of stuff. I always want people in my house. I always want people in my life. That's where I thrive. That's where I'm my best. I'm actually really sad and depressed if I have to spend too long by myself.
This is me over here. A lot of people find themselves somewhere in this category and the whole hosting and having people in my safe zone. That's kind of, it's just, it's scary and terrifying. If this is you, like you're at the extreme end of introvert, that whole example that I gave with the Pabones, I don't know if you guys know Josh Pabone, but if you look at this scale, like with me all the way at that end, then Josh is like, Josh is like over here. Josh reads Harry Potter and thinks, wow, I need to buy a house with a staircase and a little room underneath it. No one would think to find me there.
That's who Josh is. And those guys are kind of crushing this whole hospitality game where you invite people into the mess of where you are and how you do it. And so for introverts out there, it doesn't have to look like 20 people over at your house. That would crush you. But it does get to look like one person, two people, a couple, something like that.
Basic food, board games, TV, simple stuff. It doesn't have to be, like you don't have to get this kind of cultural thing where you become a party planner and a huge event thrower, holdery person. You get to do simple, small stuff that you would be doing anyway and you just invite someone in anyway. If you're going to be playing video games on the internet, make that friend come to your house, sit on your couch and play the video game on the same screen. Those kinds of things. That's not as terrifying as it sounds when I'm talking about like pool parties and hot dogs and throwing huge things.
It doesn't have to be a big step. But we come up with all these different excuses. And let me tell you who this affects. When you make excuses and decide, I'm not going to do these things. Let me tell you who that affects. The person who lives in the house across the street.
They've been there, I don't know, maybe a couple months, three months. They seem introverted. They do the thing where the robot lets them in and then they shut the world out. Like that's, they kind of seem grumpy. They never seem to have anyone over. You figure if I invited them over, they would just say no.
Like they sit by themselves. Like they don't want to do that kind of stuff. That's what you figure. But you don't know that they've only lived in Colombia that long. They've moved in from out of state. They literally have no friends.
They know nobody here except the five people that they work with. They sit at home and eat dinner in front of the TV. Pretty much every day. Incredibly lonely. Wishing they had more. If you could invite that person to eat dinner and sit in front of the TV at your house once a week, they just might do it.
And in that action, they would see a tiny glimpse of the gospel as they're welcomed in as a stranger. It might be like a co-worker, someone at work that you've never hung out with outside of work and so you've never bridged that kind of, there's a gap between co-worker and friend and there's like this imaginary thing where you've got to hang out outside of work to be considered friends. You've got this co-worker who you see at work, you talk in the lunchroom, you maybe talk when there's no one else around, that kind of thing. And you can tell that there's something weird going on at home, like you don't know what it is, but it's weird to talk about it right here where there's like customers around or whatever.
You can't just approach them on some heartfelt topics. But you know there's something going on at home, something to do with their family, something's a bit amiss. Maybe what that person needs, what that person needs most, is to see you in action with your family, to see how you react to your kids, to see how you react to your husband. What if the very thing that they're struggling with at home is something they get to witness in your own home? When we make excuses for not wanting to host people, for not wanting to have people in our house, for never reaching out to strangers, for never reaching out to guests, for only ever entertaining our own friends and the people who are already in our sphere and never bridging that gap, people who could be hearing the gospel, who could be seeing those little glimpses of the gospel, start missing out.
There are people all throughout our lives who are longing to connect, but we're so afraid. We're so afraid to be the first person to offer a hand. Culture's taught us that in order to do that, you have to present this image. You have to be clean. You have to be extroverted. You have to be a performer.
You have to be able to cook. You do not. You need to be genuine. You need to be real. And you need to be willing to have people see Jesus in your actual real life, not the fake one that you think you have to project. Let me take just a moment as we kind of land the plane to give a few suggestions of what I think will make beginning this process a whole lot easier.
The first thing is to budget for hospitality. With budgeting comes intentionality. And with intentionality, if you're intentional about something, you're much more likely to actually go and do it. And so if you set aside money each month, you're more likely to spend that money for that purpose. It doesn't have to be much. I know there's a lot of tight budgets in the room.
It can be five bucks. Five bucks buys a lot of hot dogs. We've covered hot dogs. You can make a budget that allows you to have people over. Budgets show intentionality. You won't regret it.
Second one, simplify. Simplify. You don't have to impress anyone with anything. You're not entertaining. You're connecting. Your food can be ordinary.
The food isn't the point. The conversation you have while you're eating the ordinary food is the point. Nobody has to leave impressed by the food. Keep it simple. It can be movies. It can be pool.
It can be coffee. It can be sports. It can be games. It can be anything. It doesn't have to be even food. Keep it simple.
Don't try specifically to be impressive in what you're doing. Number three is calendar. If you're not a calendaring type, I know that there's the chaotic type out there, come up with some kind of system. It can be Taco Tuesdays. It can be Neighbor Wednesdays. It can be every second Sunday of the month.
It can be anything. As long as you're showing specific intentionality, these are the days where we're going to deliberately have people over. So that kind of thing will make it more likely that you'll actually go and do it. And number four is my favorite one. I think that's because it's the most important. Number four is make it a team sport.
Like all good sports, like all good sports, hospitality is best played as a team. Ooh, shots fired. Golf isn't a team sport. Golf is boring. I'm sorry. I have a chip on my shoulder.
People beat me at golf. I'm hopeless at it. And any shot I can take, I'm gonna go for it. Hospitality. Play it as a team sport. You get to involve other Christians.
You get to involve people in your community group. And you get to do this together. There's a couple of reasons that I think that's really helpful, really beneficial. One is that you get to do the mission together. Another is that non-believing friends get to see how Christians interact with each other. When someone has a problem in their life, how a Christian will encourage that Christian with Jesus, not with advice.
How we'll give them the gospel instead of giving them some kind of good advice for their situation. They get to see that, and they get to see that little glimpse of the gospel. Another good thing about team sports is, with hospitality as a team sport, is that your non-believing friends might actually connect better with someone else. You would be a great starting point. That's planting the seed. But they might actually connect better with someone else in your community group or something like that.
You might be really socially awkward and just need to have somebody who's extroverted around at your house and be able to kind of bridge that gap. Guys, we are, we're serious about this as a church. We truly, truly believe that hospitable Christians, hospitable community groups can and will change this city. In fact, as a church, we're going to be putting those words into action, into practice a lot throughout the summer, like in the upcoming period of time. In our typical community group time, something that we coach and we train community group leaders, in our typical community group time, what we try to achieve is we try to catch up on life, we try to apply the sermon, we try to engage the heart, and we try to pursue slash review the mission.
Those are the things we try to achieve in a normal routine, week to week community group. Catch up on life, apply the sermon, engage the heart, and review slash pursue the mission. During the summer, we are going to be taking a deliberate step to remove the agenda, like the feeling that this is the list of things we have to accomplish throughout a community group. We're going to be deliberately removing the agenda from our groups so that they can be freed up to practice this hospitality stuff. We're going to be giving all of the community group leaders and the community groups a free pass on doing the apply the sermon stuff, a free pass on feeling this burden to be circling up in little groups and applying this thing and praying for that thing.
You can still do that, but the point we're going to be making is that for a good five-week stretch, your community group can be pursuing the mission the entire time. Grilling, chilling, going bowling, having a party at someone's house, doing the pool thing, whatever it is, for a good five-week stretch, we're serious about this, we want our community groups to be inviting in and enjoying time together, rather over and above doing the whole applying the sermon, engaging the heart kind of stuff. That's going to be different for us. We're used to the getting a big group and have a conversation about the sermon stuff.
This is going to be different for us. For a whole month, we're just going to be hanging out and inviting people in. But we're really excited that as a church, we're going to have the opportunity to grow in hospitality and to grow in our relationship that we have with non-believing friends. As the band makes their way back up, I really just want to... I want to encourage you to see past your fears. Because all of the fears have to do with a cultural expectation that doesn't actually have to exist.
And if we can see past our excuses, and if we can see past our fears, then we can look towards Jesus. He's the reason we do this. The gospel is the... The opportunity to give people that little glimpse of the gospel is the reason that we're doing this. And ultimately, we want to see people who are coming into relationship with him. We don't want to see hospitality be used as a tool where we get to glorify ourselves and how great we are at doing this whole hosting thing.
We want to take every opportunity to show that little glimpse of the gospel so that we can push people towards Jesus. We want to invest in real relationships, in our real lives, so that we can point other people to the love of our Savior. Let's pray. God, we thank you that you loved us first and that you modeled hospitality for us. I pray and thanks that you sent Jesus to die for us, to welcome us home. I pray that as we go about everyday life in the ordinary things that we're doing, that we can be striving to invite people in that they may see a glimpse of you in our life.
I pray that you empower us and our groups in the coming months to be a welcoming church that sees growth on account of people seeing gospel glimpses in our homes. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Ordination Sunday
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name's Chet. If this is your first time hanging out with us today, we're glad you're here. Things are going to be a little bit different than usual, so I want to start off by saying that. If you have been around a while, you'll realize that as we get going, but if it's your first time, I wanted you to know you kind of stepped into a different situation. Here's what we're doing this morning.
We're actually going to be ordaining Raz Bradley as an elder in our church. I'm very excited about that. It means a lot for our church family. And so we, in some ways, we're treating this a little bit like we treat weddings, which is here's what marriage is, here's what the gospel is, and then we spend some time talking kind of to the couple. And so this morning we're going to say here's what eldership is, kind of here's our story as a church, here's what eldership is. Let me let you get to know Raz a little bit, and then we'll spend some time kind of talking to Raz.
We'll talk to church family as well, but we're going to be talking to him some about what the Bible says, the role of a pastor, the role of an elder is. And so this is a big day for us. And I want to kind of tell you a little bit of history of our church family so you can see this. So Matt Freeman and I, Matt was up here, he was playing the guitar. He and I were roommates in college and both kind of felt called into ministry at the same time. I remember in college I really started, I grew up in a Christian home, and so I really started reading the Bible in college with one basic question.
Do I actually believe this? Do I actually believe that the Bible is God's word, that it's true, that it matters? Is this real? See, I grew up in a Christian home. My grandparents were Baptist missionaries to Nigeria. On my other side, Bob Jones, graduate, independent Baptist pastor and wife.
If I became a Christian, I got it honest. Like it comes family line to me. And so when I got to college, my question was, do I just believe this because my mama did? Or is this real? And so I really just started reading the Bible and asking that question, and I came to the conclusion that I believe it. I think the Bible answers some very fundamental questions for me, and it answers them kind of quickly in Scripture.
One of the things that you'll hear sometimes kind of arguments against Christianity is that it takes a really messed up world. It looks at the world which we know is chaotic and destructive and painful, and it says, no, there's hope and joy and happiness and magic. Like people will argue that Christianity doesn't have a realistic view of the world. But people will also argue that the world is beautiful and wonderful and amazing, and Christianity comes along and tries to spoil it for everybody and tell everybody it's terrible and horrible, and they should all feel bad about themselves. And the truth is Christianity steps into the middle of that argument and says, yes.
And it says that in the first three chapters of the Bible. It says that the world was created by a good God who made things wonderful, and that humans rebelled and brought sin into the world, and that messed everything up. Like if you tried to convince me inside of 30 minutes that the world was a wonderful place, I would believe you. You'd be like, look, rainbows. Like, yeah, rainbows, that's crazy. You'd be like puppies and babies and friendship and love and fried chicken, and I would be on board.
I'd be like, what a glorious land. But then if you immediately took 30 minutes to say, look at how terrible this is. Look at racism and hatred and genocide and natural disasters. The world just at times tries to kill us. What is that? Volcanoes.
It's like a beautiful mountain that spits fire out. And I would be like, you're right, this place is terrible. And Christianity steps in and says, yes, it was created by a wonderful God who made it beautiful and made it amazing, and that sin marred it. Not just us, but all of creation. That creation is an open rebellion against God. But it goes further than that.
It says this is actually a personal problem as well. That this issue of the world being amazing and being rebellious is going on inside of you. And when I read that in scriptures, I'm like, yes, I feel that. Because I think I'm wonderful. I'm special. When my parents told me I was a snowflake, I was like, you're darn right I'm a snowflake.
I was one of those kids. I was cutting snowflake construction paper in school, and they were like, see how your snowflake's different from all the other snowflakes? I was like, I do see that. And they're like, that's what you're like. And I was like, teacher, that's so true. Like, I know that.
I know that humans have value and worth. I see that. I believe it. It's like, I know it without having to be taught that. But then I also see all the stuff in me that is completely messed up.
Selfish. Hateful. Like, if we just said, hey, we're going to project your thoughts from the last week up here, I wouldn't show up. I'd just be like, no, we're not doing that. Because I know what I'm like. Because I have a wonderful wife.
I have a two-year-old son. I'm close. I don't do the months thing. And I care deeply about them. But there are times I'm at my house, and my wife's like, hey, could you help with this?
And my first response is, no. I don't say that. I fight that. But I know what I'm like. I know she's like, hey, could you get up? And my response is like, no, you get up.
He's your son, too. And then we get in the argument about, like, who had to give birth and stuff. And it just kind of breaks down. But I see in me this desire, this kind of this war of both. There's goodness. And there's also just open rebellion.
And the Bible steps in and says, yes. And so as I saw that clearly and that clicked so, so beautifully in my head, I began to ask, okay, so is what the Bible says true? That it's not God doesn't just sit up in heaven and say, now you need to be moral and you need to be good. But he actually looks and says, none of you are going to be able to do this. That all of you have rebelled. All of you have sinned.
All of you have fallen short. And he loves us so much. We're so valuable and yet so broken. That he steps onto earth, that he becomes a human himself and he steps into the brokenness. And that the cross is the celebration that our God both loved us and had given us worth and value. But also knew and hated so much the sin that was in us and the sin that was rampant in the world.
See, I see that if there's a good God, he can't be okay with sin. But if there's a good God, he can't just crush everybody, right? Like there's this balance of does he love us or does he not? And the cross says, yes, he loves us, but he hates our sin and he hates the brokenness in the world so much so that he'll take it onto himself. So in college, I came to the full conclusion that, yes, I do believe this.
And then I asked the question, so what's that mean? And I came to the conclusion that if I actually believe that, that humans were built for an eternity, that at some point we're going to stand before God and either we are going to say, I trust Jesus to be good on my behalf, to have died for my sin and to give me his righteousness, or I trust myself to be good enough. And the Bible says we all fall short in that people will be either saved by Jesus or condemned based on their own rebellion. If I actually believe that we're supposed to exist for an eternity, then everything mattered. Everything I did with my time, my co-workers, the guys I was playing football with currently, everybody in my dorm, like it mattered because eternity matters.
And God loved us enough to join us. And so we planted a church in 2013. I remember feeling specifically like we were supposed to start a church while I was in college. Matt showed back up to the room. And if you all know Matt, he's like just overly positive, aggressively happy. Like that's kind of his nature.
And I'm not that. And people periodically ask how we're friends. And it's like, I don't know, we balance each other out. But he came in the room and I said, Matt, I feel like I'm supposed to build a church. And he was like, oh, it's great. I mean, it's awesome.
Like with bricks and stuff. Like he was immediately happy but had no clue what I was talking about. And I was like, oh, no, but probably should find a different word. Like just with people and the gospel, like I think we should start one. And in 2013 we did with eight people sitting around my kitchen table with one basic simple idea. We think that Christians should be Christians in normal everyday life.
That everything matters. All the everyday stuff, your budget, your time, where you work, it matters. Because your co-workers matter. Your neighbors matter. That if this is true, that if God actually made a world that's rebelled against him and that everyone we know is dealing with the effects of sin, but only Jesus brings hope, then it matters. And there are a whole lot of people, the majority of people in our city, have no desire to be here this morning.
Christians. Christians. Y'all know what we do on Sundays is weird, right? Have you been a Christian so long you've forgotten that? Maybe you grew up in it. I know a lot of people in our church family just became Christians.
They know it's weird. Ask them. What we do is weird. Okay. You're going to tell people who aren't Christians they need to show up early in the morning on Sunday on a day they could sleep in. Most people immediately say no to that because it sounds terrible.
Hey, you remember how you were going to sleep? You know how it's cold outside? You know how your blankets are warm? Yeah. Okay. Get out of your blankets and come outside.
No. Then when we get here, we're going to sing songs to a Jewish guy who lived 2,000 years ago, but we say died. They're tracking so far. Came back to life. People don't do that. And then went into heaven alive in bodily form and later is going to come back to earth to judge it riding a horse.
We believe that. We're going to sing songs to him. Then we're going to open a book and talk out of it for 40 minutes. And then we're going to go try to do it. And I know some of y'all were just like, wait, did he say 40 minutes? Welcome to Mill City Church.
We're glad you're here this morning. I'm glad you came and joined us. It makes perfect sense if you're a Christian, if you actually believe what we believe. But if you don't, this is weird. And so what we believe is that Christians are supposed to be Christians 24-7 outside the doors in relationships with people at jobs that have nothing to do with Christianity. We're not all supposed to go take a full-time job being a pastor or teach at a Christian school.
Those are beautiful vocations and you should do that. But most of us should build doors at a factory. Most of us should work at CarMax. Most of us should go be a teacher at a public school where we can actually begin to love and serve and live like Christians. That we should move into neighborhoods and when we get a pay raise, we should stay in that neighborhood because of the neighbors we've built relationships with. That's what we started with, that simple idea that if we actually believe this, then everything matters.
So we had one community group in 2013. We said Christians should help other people become Christians. Group leaders should train other group leaders. Pastors should train other pastors. And churches should start more churches. So we multiplied, became two groups.
Then we became four. Then we started getting together on Sundays. The reason we got together on Sundays was because we wanted to be able to talk to everybody at once. And then we just kept training up leaders in our groups and multiplying leaders. And then we said that we wanted to raise up pastors locally because it doesn't have much to do with a resume. That the qualifications for a pastor, for an elder, are character qualifications.
And so we actually began the pastor and training process with Raz two years ago in 2015. And it was open-ended. Well, we started it in like 2014. And then we came back and said, this was too early. We don't want to do this. And he was like, okay.
And then in 2015, he had a great attitude about it. But he acted kind of like we were dumb and we agreed. And then in 2015, we were like, okay, we're for real this time. And he's like, all right, sounds good. And then he actually has been in pastor and training for two years. Some of y'all are like, wait, he's becoming a pastor.
I thought he was. Right. He's been doing this stuff for a while, serving in our church for a while. So let me tell you a little bit about Raz. And then we're going to actually look at what the Bible says about how elders should work and what pastors are supposed to do. So this is Raz and his wife, Christina.
If y'all don't know them, Raz is on the right. So Raymond Bradley, and I hope some of y'all just learned his real name is Raymond. And Raymond Bradley was born in Sydney, Australia, raised in Sydney, Australia. His wife is from South Carolina. And her name is Christina. She helps run our host team.
But Raz grew up in Sydney, not in a Christian home, not with a lot of Christian influences. He did go to a Christian high school, but that's just because it was a good high school in his area. His parents weren't ever like anti-Christian, but they were mostly like do whatever makes you happy. So they're not, they're for what he's doing now because they believe it makes him happy. But they're not Christians.
He didn't grow up in that environment. When he was 16, his mom had been diagnosed with cancer. And he began to really struggle with the idea of how does a good God allow suffering. And when he was 16, he placed his faith in Jesus. The following year, his mother passed away. And I remember talking with him and he said that he kind of felt like when that happened, he was standing kind of at a crossroads.
And there was this, this draw to, to just go chase after everything that makes you temporarily feel good. Come, come just do everything that kind of drowns the pain. And then there was this draw from Jesus that said, just said, come follow me. And he said, he really felt like he was kind of deciding, am I actually going to believe this? Am I actually going to be a Christian? And by God's grace in that moment, he decided, no, I'm going to follow Jesus.
I'm going to double down and I'm going to spend my life chasing after him. When he graduated high school, he was an electrician for a little while in Australia, which we periodically try to get him to do electrical work. But he argues that everything's 220 in Australia, so it doesn't work the same. Plus, he's on the other side of the globe, so his ladders disorient him because of the way gravity works. But he was an electrician for a little while.
Then he served with his church there as an Anglican church. And then he decided to come to the United States to get a master's degree at CIU. So he's been at Columbia International University for the past four years. He got his Master's of Divinity this past December, which we're very excited and proud of him for that. He's transitioned well into being an American. I've got a picture of him here with what I can only assume is one of his childhood heroes.
But he's transitioned well. He's learned how to fit in here. If you'll show the next one, it kind of proves that to you. There you go. He came here. He's like, I need to grow a mullet.
I need to run around with an American flag. I need to make fireworks happen a lot. So there you go. But he recently got his Master's of Divinity. For a while, he was a camp counselor at Bethel Christian Camp and is now on their board of directors. He works at the South Carolina Baptist Convention now.
And all of that is great. And I think his resume is probably really impressive. And I'm sure when you sit down with him to do an interview, his Australian accent makes him stick out in your mind. And so you remember him better. But that matters little when it comes to becoming a pastor.
Biblically, the qualifications aren't what do they look like on paper, but the qualifications are what's their character. And that's why we've walked through this process with him for the past two years. And continually did follow up on here are areas you need to grow, here's where you need to repent. Because it's character-based qualifications. And don't get me wrong. And we're excited that we'll have a pastor who can read Greek.
But we believe in raising up local pastors, local elders, so that we can actually know what they're like. And so we're excited today as our church gets to do something we haven't ever done before, which is take somebody who's been around for a while and have them become an elder here. To tell you just a few more things quickly about Raz. Raz is the type of guy, if you don't know him, he's the type of guy who is good at everything. So kind of the type of person you've hated most of your entire life.
He's the kind of guy that you spend a couple months trying to learn how to play a song on a guitar. And then he goes, what is this, a gore-tar? And he takes it from you, and then he plays it better than you. And he's like, that's neat. And you're like, oh, you know how to play the guitar? And he's like, that's the first time I've touched one.
That kind of guy, like you learn a game, and you're like, I'll teach this to Raz, and I'll be better at him than it. And then he's immediately like, once he learns the rules, he beats you in it. This is a perfect example. He decided, he and his wife decided they were going to knit hats. And when he told us that, when he told me that, I was like, that's cute. That's precious.
No, I love that you're going to knit. That's great. And then like a week later, he sends this picture. That he knit that. And it's like, I don't even know how we're friends. What on earth?
How do you knit that? And then I don't even think he knits anymore, because he defeated it. He won knitting. Y'all didn't even know it was competitive. He won. So here, this is just, as one of your pastors, if you're part of our church family, and even if you're just here today, you're one of Raz's friends, I want to make a request.
There are two things I have learned that Raz is not good at. One of them is putt-putt. Y'all don't know how happy that made me. Because he just melted down every hole. The second one, the second thing Raz is not good at is losing. Because he's been good at everything his entire life.
So here's what I need you to do. Because we compete in things periodically, and our church family hangs out all the time. If you are on Raz's team, I need you to intentionally be terrible. For his sanctification. For his growth. For his growth in humility.
Don't make it super obvious. But be terrible. I just, I'm just asking. I just appreciate that. That's just a rule to apply for the rest of your life. So here's what we get to do today.
We're going to talk a little bit about what it means to be an elder. What eldership is. And then we're going to actually bring Raz up here, and we're going to pray over him. And he'll be an elder in our church family. And so, if you will, turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. If you have one of the white Bibles, it'll be on page 590.
This was a letter written by the apostle Peter. The disciple of Jesus is written to a group of churches. So he's writing to multiple churches at once, and they're supposed to just kind of disseminate this letter around and read it in their churches. And in this section, in chapter 5, where we're going to pick up and look at the first four verses, he's talking specifically to elders about eldership. What eldering is supposed to look like. So let me just define some terms as we get started.
The Bible uses that word elder. It comes from the word presbyteros, which is a Greek word. That's where we get Presbyterian from. That's where we get the word elder from. The Bible also uses the word overseer, which is where we get the word bishop from. And Episcopalian, we get that word from the word that they use the word overseer.
It's translated in a lot of versions. It also uses the word shepherd, which is where we get the word pastor. So, in general, when we talk about it, elder is the office. The actual position, the title. And then oversee, shepherd are things that you do. But we just use the terms pastor and elder interchangeably because we think that the office is actually elder.
But most people say pastor around here. So that's why we're using the terms the way we are. And we believe that biblically there should be multiple elders, multiple pastors in local churches. We like that model. We don't think necessarily that everybody's wrong if they do that differently. But we see that in Scripture when it talks to elders, it's always plural unless it's talking about one specific person.
It'll say this person is an elder, but otherwise it's elders in churches. And so when Raz is ordained today, which is just a fancy word that means becomes a pastor, he'll be as much a pastor as I am, as much a pastor as Matt is. We take this very seriously because in some ways when we lay hands on Raz and ordain him this morning, he's our boss as much as we are his so that we mutually agree, mutually submit to one another and try to serve together as a team in our church family. So that's kind of how that works. Let me pray real quick and then we'll start reading the text. God, we thank you for your grace.
And we thank you for the weightiness of what we're getting to do today and that we get to celebrate this together as a church family. Pray that as we read your word, you would train us, teach us, change us, that we might look more like you. In Jesus' name, amen. 1 Peter 5, starting in verse 1. So I exhort the elders among you.
Exhort means urge or strongly encourage. I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Okay, so he begins to say, I'm exhorting you, I'm encouraging you, and then he gives his three qualifications for doing so. Here's why you should listen to me. And the first two make sense to me and the third one sounded really weird. And it took me a minute.
I had to kind of sit with it for a while to try to understand why he included it. So the first one is, I'm also an elder. I exhort you as a fellow elder. The second one is, as a witness of the sufferings of Christ. Meaning, I was there when Jesus died on the cross. I was one of his earliest followers.
I'm a disciple. Both of those sound like, yeah, okay, those are good qualifications for why I should listen to you. And then the third one is, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. And so I was like, okay, he ended the list with this, and he included it on par with, I'm also an elder, and I was there when Jesus died on the cross. I'm a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. And I think a short way to say that is, I'm going to heaven also.
I'm also going to be with Jesus for eternity. And so it's like, that sounds great, but so are all Christians who place faith in Jesus for their salvation. Like, that's what he does, is he brings us into his glory. He brings us into eternity with him. And it's like, so why is that in the list? It's because that's common to all Christians, but I think the reason Peter includes this is because it is absolutely uncommon to humanity.
That this is weighty, that Christians will partake in glory with Jesus. That we've been called into an eternity to not only just be there, but to reign with him. And so as I read that, I realized how beautiful it is that Peter includes it, because he's saying, I'm going to spend eternity with Jesus. I'm going to partake in his glory. I'm going to be a part of him being elevated and honored and declared worthy for all time. That's why Paul, at one point, when the Corinthian church is having an argument and they're about to take something to court, he says, don't y'all know you're going to judge angels?
Y'all can't even handle simple human matters? What he's saying is we're called into an eternity forever with Jesus. We should see the weightiness of that. And so Peter includes it in this list. And I just kind of wish that as Christians, we would grow out of just giving each other advice, but realizing that we hold weight because Jesus has redeemed us and called us into eternity. So that when you're with your community group and they're asking for like, I'm struggling with this idea, that we wouldn't just be silent, but we wouldn't just also just pop off with the first thing that pops into our head, but that we would actually carry and understand the weight of we've been redeemed and we're going to reign with Jesus.
And when we speak, there's weight to it because we're Christians. So that's why he includes it in that list. And then here are his instructions as to what an elder ought to do and then how an elder should do that. And then why an elder should do that. So he's going to start off with what he's going to say, how he's going to say, why?
What shepherd, the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight. So shepherd, the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight. We we use that word shepherd. The Bible uses that word shepherd a lot to give us this picture of a shepherd with sheep as Americans. I don't think we're very familiar with that picture. I'm not.
I think Americans are mostly familiar with cattle. If we're familiar with anything, we're familiar with cows. I used to actually help a friend work on a cattle farm like a cow. He had heifers and we helped them get fat. That was the job. Here's the thing about cows.
You don't get emotionally attached to them because you're going to eat them soon. That was the point of the cows. So we were going to help them eat to help others eat. That was the point. And so we didn't name them. We didn't become their friends.
You might become a friend with a dairy cow because you're going to see it a lot and it's going to hang around for a while. But beef cows, you don't. But with shepherds and sheep, there was a much closer relationship. That a shepherd would know his sheep, would care for them, would be with them, would sleep where they slept, would lead them where they were going to be. That when one of them got lost, he would leave the ones that weren't and go find the one that was. That he would, if a predator came along, a bear or a wolf, he would fight it, defend it.
So that a shepherd both feeds sheep and kills wolves. And that's the picture that we're given here where he says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. I want to point out two things, Raz, as we look at this. The flock is God's. It belongs to Jesus. These are his people, his church.
Paul says it this way when he's talking to elders in Acts chapter 20. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. That the church belongs to Jesus, that he purchased by his blood, that he loves and cherishes and cares for. And that he's called certain people to step up and to shepherd and care for them as well. But ultimately it's his flock.
It's his people. It's his church. It also says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. Meaning that pastors, elders should be a part of the church. Normal, everyday Christians. Like, I'm a Christian first before I get to be a pastor.
Raz, you get to be a Christian first before you get to be a pastor. I think it's been damaging and unhelpful. And I've heard in a lot of pastoral circles where pastors say stuff like, I really just need some people that I can be honest with. So I have to seek accountability and relationships outside of my church. I had a pastor one time tell me, he was moving to be a pastor somewhere else. And he said, I learned my lesson with my last church because I lived right near the building.
And I would like run into people that were a part of my church at the grocery store and stuff. And so this time I actually moved 30 minutes away so that that wouldn't happen. And that just hurt me inside. Because as a pastor, you get to be a part of the church. You get to be a normal Christian. You get to struggle with sin.
Like my community group that I get to be a part of is not impressed with me. They don't think I'm special. They had reservations about that snowflake speech I gave earlier. Like I get to be a normal sinner in love with Jesus. Following him in normal life. So you shepherd the church that you're among, that you're a part of, that you relate to in normal life.
Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. Oversight means lead. Make decisions for. Care about. Shepherd. Care about.
Defend. Protect. Love. Chase it down. And exercise oversight, which means lead. Make some decisions.
Be unpopular at times for what's best. One of the things I will tell you all about Raz is that he does love this church. And he does love Jesus. And he cares a lot about whether or not this church is actively seeking to follow and love Jesus. I have probably over the course of our church life existence from 2013 on, I have argued more with Raz than with anybody else in our church family. Maybe my wife.
She's in our church family. We argue from time to time. But Anna, then Raz. He cares. He cares a lot when he's come to a conclusion on something and he believes that this is the best course of action. We argue.
We butt heads because we both care. We both want to see things be good. I remember Raz went to work because he works at South Carolina Baptist Convention. He was working all day. He came to meet us when he got off work for us to argue for two hours about how membership ought to be done. Because we did that this past year where we said this is what it means to be committed to this church family to say, I follow Jesus, but I'm actually going to buy in here and serve here and give here and fight for health here.
And Raz and I argued for two hours about how to do that. And thankfully Matt showed up and tried to help. He made it a little bit worse, but it was good. And then Raz went to go play kickball with some people in his apartment complex. And I just remember texting him that night and I was like, man, I hope we get to argue a lot more in the future. And he sent back anytime.
And I knew he meant it. But you care and you fight for what matters. You seek to lead. That's the calling. That's what pastors should do. Shepherd and oversee.
Jesus is people. But then he tells them how. He says, he's going to say, not this, but this. Like, not in this way, but this way. So he says, not under compulsion, but willingly.
You shouldn't become a pastor because you feel like you have to, but you should actually desire it. You should want to. Being a pastor is hard enough. If you don't want to do it, I think it would be terrible. Like, you should desire to lead, to serve, to take on this position, to lay your life down on behalf of others. So he says, not under compulsion, but willingly.
Don't get into it because your parents want you to. Don't get into it because you think you have to, but get into it because you have a desire for it. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. So that people shouldn't become pastors. I think shameful gain is a couple of things. I think that can be, I want the title.
I want the honor that comes along with it. I think some of that's passing away. I don't think people care about pastors as much as they used to. Like, if you grew up in the South, people, it was like a more honored position than it is now. And some of that's okay. And some of it's probably good.
But I think people could get into it as like, I want a respectable, I want to prove to my dad. I want to like, it's a bad reason to do it. Shameful gain could also be monetary. It can be. I know of pastors who are wealthy. I don't know any personally.
But I've seen them on TV. And I've seen them on the internet. And I know that that's a thing in the U.S. That you can actually become a pastor to make money. If that is Raz's plan, just so you all know. He's done that very poorly.
He chose our church. He's not getting paid. So he's going to come on and eagerly. I actually believe that he models this well for us because he's continuing his job, his full-time job elsewhere. But coming on and taking on extra work and extra responsibilities here to serve in this capacity.
I also know that if he was not becoming an elder today, he'd be doing the same thing he's been doing. He'd be doing the same thing we're about to ask of him and wouldn't care. So I'm excited that everybody in our church family who is a pastor, myself, Matt, and now Raz, will have done what we're doing for free prior to getting paid for it. And would still be doing it if we weren't getting paid for it. So it says, Not for shameful gain, but eagerly.
Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. So that you lead by example, not by position or title or forcefulness or volume. That the pastorate isn't a place for bullies. But for humility and servanthood. I remember when I first, first time I sat down with Raz, he was first coming around and was wanting to hop in a group. And he'd been a part of Midtown and he was coming to talk.
Just give a cab coffee with me and ask like, what would it look like if I came and just hopped in with y'all and help start this church? I remember talking with him and I came back and I called Matt on the way home and I said, Hey, this guy named Raz wants to come hang out. He's probably going to hop in my group. He seems really smart. He seems really driven. He seems very knowledgeable.
He ultimately wants to be a pastor or missionary. I think he should hop in and I think we should not let him do anything. He can take out the trash. He can do some real service roles that no one will see him or know who he is. I think he's really probably would be great at almost anything. So let's not let him do anything.
And Matt was like, sounds great. So Raz hopped in and for a long time, we just kind of put our hand on top of his head and didn't let him do anything other than background cleaning. He's done a lot of stuff in our church family that nobody ever knows he did. And he didn't keep saying, hey, guys, I'm really smart. I'm important. I can read Greek.
Y'all need to let me do something else. He just did what we asked of him with a great attitude. And so then we kept asking more and more and more of it. That's what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 20, that he didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And that whoever would be first among you must be your servant. Whoever would be chief among you must be your slave.
Even as the son of man came to give his life. He says that. And so we believe that Christian leadership isn't climbing a ladder, but it's descending one. And it goes from service slavery to death. So if you can't take out the trash and if you can't clean up after everybody's gone and if you can't show up earlier and help everything set up.
And if you can't open your wallet and give money and not have anybody know about it, then you can't lead in the church. Because it only gets worse from there. The more people see you and the more you get elevated, the more you're called to slavery and to death and to giving up your life for them. Raz, realize that as you become an elder today, that's the call. Service, slavery, and death. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being an example to the flock.
The role of a pastor is to not be right or to prove to everyone that you are right, but to set an example, to serve them, to love them, to sit with people and cry, to listen and to listen and to listen and then to speak. And then he's going to say, why? So he says, what? Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. He says, how? Not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you.
Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And now he's going to say, why? And when the chief shepherd appears, that's Jesus, he will receive the unfading crown, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Jesus is the chief shepherd. On our order chart, Jesus is at the top.
We don't have a senior pastor that's here. We have a senior pastor in Jesus. That's what chief shepherd means. And it says, when he appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Raz, I believe that in that sentence, we have as pastors, both something that should keep us up at night and that should wake us up in the morning. He says that when the chief shepherd appears, meaning that Jesus is coming back, we won't get to shepherd and be pastors forever without the chief shepherd coming back.
He's going to come back. There's going to be a day when we stand face to face with him. Hebrews 13 says it this way. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Leap that up for just a minute.
There's going to be a day when every pastor stands before Jesus and gives an account for souls. For some of you who've grown up in church or have been a part of a church where the pastorate did not look like Peter just described it. It was domineering. It was for shameful gain. It was under compulsion. It was mishandled and misused.
Can I make you a promise? There will be a day when every person who shepherded one of Jesus's churches will stand before the chief shepherd and will be held accountable for souls. And Raz, I think that ought to keep us up at night. I think that ought to drive us to our knees. I think that ought to drive us to prayer and for mercy and for grace and for Jesus to be at work at us through His Holy Spirit that we would handle the care of souls of people who He died for to make His. That when we give an account we can say, Jesus, I trust in Your grace for me.
I trust in Your payment for me on the cross. And I trust that I tried to do as best I could. But I do have good news. Peter does not include that in this list to scare us. Although I do think it is kind of scary. Peter does not include it there for that reason.
Oh, can I say one thing, church family, real quick? From this passage since we read it that I think is, that also scares me. Can I just tell you all things I'm afraid of? It says, obey your leaders and submit to them. I think that word obey and submit is very terrifying for me as a pastor who's going to give an account for souls. That's one of the reasons why we want multiple pastors so that we can come to conclusions prayerfully together that the Holy Spirit can give us unity.
We don't do a whole lot of voting. We actually come to it like we, if one of us is saying, I have issues over this, we pray about it. We try to, we say, okay, well let's keep talking about it. Let's keep arguing about it. Let's, let's, so that when, because church family, it's one of the reasons we did membership this past year for you to say, this is where I'm plugged in. This is where I'm going to serve.
This is where I'm going to connect. This is where I'm going to give. This is where I'm going to labor because you're called to obey and submit in a local church. And I know as Americans, those words are cuss words. Liberty or death. I don't obey and submit to nobody.
Right? On the, on the other end of a gun, maybe. My cold dead hands, you know, like we're Americans, we say these things. Christians are called to obey and submit. And I kind of, as a pastor, I really just wish the author of Hebrews had said, consider the things they say. Think about, hold with some weight, but then at the end of the day, you're ultimately responsible for this.
Honestly, I think that actually means that there are house rules in churches. Here's what I mean. I got a two-year-old. Matt and Katie have a two-year-old. As they grow up together, there are certain things that we're called to that all Christian families should do that Matt and I are both supposed to do in our houses that are, this is what it looks like. And then there are house rules.
So when I was growing up, up until the time I left my dad's house, I was 18, I had to be in bed at nine o'clock. My older brother went to college, came back, was living at our house. My dad would say, if you're going to work for me, you're going to be in bed at nine o'clock. He was like 22. He had a bedtime and an early one. That stuck with me my whole life.
At about 9.30, I'm like, I better be getting to sleep. I can't be, I'm not a party animal. Like, when I met my wife, she didn't even have a curfew. I was like, what time do you need to get home? She's like, I don't have a curfew. And my first thought was your parents hate you.
Because my parents were so intense. It just turns out she never did anything real bad, so they didn't really police her that much. We needed a nine o'clock bedtime. So, those are house rules. As Emmy grows older, she may have to be in bed at seven. I don't know.
I may let my kids stay up late. Just kidding, it's nine o'clock. Or if you get loud or annoying before that, that indicates your sleepiness. If you're bothering me at 8.30, it's bedtime. Those are house rules. If I tell my kids to be in bed at 8.30 and they're up at nine, they are actually rebelling against their father, they are sinning, the Bible has told them to obey their parents, that's a house rule.
The Bible doesn't say children should be in bed at nine o'clock. Does that make sense? I think this means that in churches, whoop, I think this means that in churches there are house rules. I'm going to keep pointing like y'all know it's up there. Remember it, what it looked like. I think that in churches there are elders who actually have responsibility of making decisions and that the local church says, I'm a part of this.
And here's what he says though. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be no advantage to you. Church family, Raz is going to become an elder today. And by God's grace he'll get to do that for 20, 40, 60 years. And I hope that our church that at the end of the day he can say it was a joy that I got to serve that church. It was a joy that I got to shepherd and oversee those people.
When they had a problem, they talked to me, they didn't just leave. When they disagreed, we had heated debate because we both cared and we both wanted to do what mattered in the church. When there was something that was outside of, the Bible kind of gave us some guardrails, but we made a decision. They said, we're on this team. We're going to fight for it. We're going to lead in it.
We're going to, I pray that our church makes it a joy to be a pastor here. And can I just say, so far, I know Matt and I are blessed to be able to lead here. It's been a joy. I appreciate our church family. And I know how difficult those first two words are to obey and to submit. And I appreciate how much y'all care and fight and stay.
Thank y'all. And I really mean that. And I pray that we get to continue to do this, continue to pursue the city, continue to fight together. But Raz, as I was saying earlier, Peter doesn't include that to scare us. He includes it not to keep us up at night, but to wake us up in the morning. Because he says, when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
You're supposed to live your life as a pastor, serving, putting yourself last, taking phone calls at random times in the day and night that go get with people, go connect with people, go listen to people, go fight for things that matter when people don't care, go sit down with someone who's actively trying to run away from Jesus and do everything you possibly can to say everything you possibly can so that they won't. And what Peter is saying is do this humbly, continually, eagerly, and willingly. And one day, Jesus comes back and the king of the universe is going to honor you for your struggle and your fight for however long you did it. There's going to be a moment when the God of the universe who deserves all glory and all honor and is ultimately sovereign eternally, eternally, and infinitely worthy is going to pause for a moment and look at pastors and say, well done.
Thank you for hustling. Thank you for loving. Thank you for caring for my church. Peter says that so that you would always have a reason to wake up and fight because there's going to be a day when you stand before the chief shepherd and he pauses and honors you. The one, the one being, the one person in all the world that it matters to be honored by. So Raz, it's my hope and prayer that we get to do this a long time together.
We get to be really old, that we get to pastor well beyond our usefulness. I hope we get to do it while we're bad at it and can't even remember anything. Like, I can't remember stuff now. I hope it gets worse and I'm like 80. People are like, you should step down and I'm like, make me. Just kidding.
Raz is shaking his head because all of that was incorrect. But I hope we do get to do this a long time together. Serve alongside one another together. And I hope we get to raise up more pastors in our church family. I hope we get to send out more churches from our church family. And I hope we get to celebrate together all along the way as we chase after Jesus and his fame and his glory and his work here on earth.
Raz, will you come up here? Matt, will you come up here? Here's what we're going to do. We're going to lay hands on Raz, pray over him. Matt and I are and then we'll have a chance to do that as a church family. Raz, pastors are supposed to willingly, eagerly shepherd and oversee God's church until ultimately the Holy Spirit calls you to step down or Jesus comes back.
You get to meet him. By God's grace, are you willing to take on this role and responsibility in our church? Yeah. Okay. Let's step over here.
We're going to pray. Matt's going to pray and then I'm going to pray and then we'll have an opportunity to all pray together. Amen. God, I thank you so much for Raz. I thank you that in your divine sovereign plan that there was a friend that he went to school with that shared the gospel with him. Your Holy Spirit convicted Raz of the sin and he turned from the sin and he placed his faith in you and he's never looked back.
That every bit of Raz's life has mattered since that time. God, you brought him here to the States. You brought him to Columbia International. You brought him to Bethel Christian Camp. You brought him to the South Carolina Baptist Convention. You brought him to Midtown and to be a part of Mill City Church.
God, your hand has been on Raz every step of the way until the time where two of his friends get to stand on his side and pray over him as he becomes an elder of this church and Jesus, we praise you. We praise you for your work in his life. Lord, I thank you for the gifts and the talents and the abilities that you've given him but more than anything, God, I thank you for his heart. I thank you for how much he loves you and how much he loves his wife and how much he loves this church family and how much he loves seeing people come to know you and to worship you and follow you. I thank you for the people that he's been able to share the gospel with.
I thank you for the groups that he's been able to lead as a part of our church family. I thank you for the ministries that he's overseen and God, as he takes a step into being an elder in our church, I pray that you would help him continue to serve faithfully and humbly for many, many years. God, I pray that the three of us would look to you as our chief shepherd that you are the leader of our church and we submit and follow you and that we get to get after it for many, many years here in this city to see more people come to know the love of Jesus and to follow him in the normal, everyday life. God, in the name of Jesus, we commend Raz to you that by your grace you would empower him to keep him from stumbling, to keep him faithful, to help him to grow daily more in love with you, to see your people and the city more the way you see them.
That God, as he steps into being an elder in our church, that you would give him wisdom and humility and patience, kindness and love, that he would sacrifice, that he would be an example to our church family as he follows you, that he would help us look more like Jesus. God, I pray that he would be kept far from sin. I pray that he would be quick to repent, that through your grace you would help him to own his sin quickly, to be honest with his community group, to be honest with our church family, to walk as a broken, weak sinner, saved by grace, changed by Jesus. We ask God that your blessing be on him, that your blessing be on our church, that you would use our church family to help others come to know you in this city.
In Jesus' name, amen. Raz, if you'll step down here and Christina, if you'll come up and stand with him. They're going to stand down here and if you will, church family, if you, if you, we're going to pray for them now, just kind of together, collectively asking God to bless them, to use them in our church family to work through them. If you know Raz or you're in his community group, you're part of our church family and y'all want to come up here and actually lay hands on them and pray around them, I'd ask you to go ahead and move, move, go ahead and move and do that this morning. And we're just going to pray kind of silently.
If you, if you don't know Raz as well, but you're part of our church family, why don't you pray where you are. So, but we're just going to take a minute to, to kind of quietly stand before God on their behalf and ask him to work. through them, to bless them, to guard them, to use them. And then, when we've prayed here for a minute, I'll pray out loud and then, we'll sing, sing a song and finish up today. Let's pray. Let's pray.
Let's pray. Let's go. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, Amen.
In the name of Jesus and by your spirit, we commend them to you, Lord, and we ask you that you would guard them, guard their marriage, bless their service, help them to grow in their love for you. We ask you to work mightily in our church family for your glory and your name. In Jesus' name, amen.
The Generosity of Jesus
Transcript
Well, it's Christmas season. I hope you're as excited as I am. And I'm not talking about just like the Hobby Lobby Christmas season, like 11 months of the year. I'm talking about actual post-Thanksgiving, none of that setting up early stuff, Christmas season. My favorite transition of the year, because more than anything else, pumpkin spice disappears and peppermint enters in. Can I get an amen?
For real. What is it that for you, when you think of the Christmas season, what is it for you that really kind of piques your interest? Is it cold weather, cozy nights by the fire? Or maybe it's Santa Claus and, you know, his Christmas cheer and the ho-ho-hos and all the little kids who get exactly what they want. Or maybe it's when you try to take a photo of your kids with Santa and everything falls apart. Maybe it's the stress of buying the perfect gift so that everyone's happy on Christmas.
That's kind of hard to represent in a photo, but I stole this from a segment from Jimmy Kimmel, where they deliberately give hopeless presents to their kids. And she got a half-eaten sandwich. And her brother turns to her and says, can't you just be thankful for what you got? And she was like, no. Maybe Christmas season is your opportunity to let people know exactly what you want, either subtly or not so subtly from a stage. Maybe drop a hint here and there.
Maybe you're the type of person who goes completely overboard with your decorations. That's not us. I found it on the Googles. I promise. Maybe you're the kind of person who navigates seasons based off of what Starbucks is selling at the time. So you will know that, of course, the pumpkin spice latte disappears and the peppermint mocha comes out, which is perfect because there's nothing better than peppermint and chocolate combined into one thing.
I love it. Maybe for you, it's all about getting your entire awkward family together, regardless of whether or not you get matching pajamas or matching shirts or whatever. I particularly like in this photo all the kids who are like, seriously, we have to do this again. Maybe for you, Christmas is all about nostalgia, getting nostalgic about your favorite movies, the old school ones, the comedies, the kids' movies. Maybe you're being paranoid about being left alone by your parents. Maybe you're one of the type who actually thinks Will Ferrell's funny and you like Elf.
Shame on you. Maybe your name is Chet Phillips. And the only thing you think of at Christmas is sugar cookie eggnog and how it's been discontinued since 2011. And you blame Walmart, you blame Kroger, you blame Hood, you blame everyone. It's the Grinch's fault, Chet. Maybe you love Christmas because it's the only time of year that you get to legitimately pull out your Mariah Carey CD.
There is no other time. You cannot do it. It's fun to sit up. I'm actually going to take this off. It's melting my head right now. It's fun to sit up here and make fun of Christmas.
And I think we all get it and we all think it's funny because part of us knows, right? Part of us knows that even though it's fun, even though it's funny, even though we do all these crazy things, we've kind of collectively lost our minds. What in the world is any of that stuff about? It's fun. Don't get me wrong. I buy into it.
I love Christmas. But seriously, how did all of those things develop? Where did they come from? And yet still, even though we know we're insane, we break out the ugly Christmas sweater, we pump up the Mariah Carey, we decorate our trees, and we stress over gifts for no reason. And hey, I buy into it. I buy into any season where I can be in a foreign country and they take off their red, white, and blue glasses and put on red, white, and green glasses and have fun for an entire month.
Excellent. But here's the thing. In all the hype, in all the Christmas cheer, it's pretty easy to miss the point. And I know that there's plenty of people who will go around, be it in real life, kind of like on the streets, and on Facebook, being the Facebook warriors that they are, who will remind you that Jesus is the reason for the season. And it's true, and we know that, but the reminder doesn't really help. It doesn't do anything tangible.
And so we have all these people who say, Jesus is the reason for the season, and they share passive things on their Facebook wall, like, you know, random a cappella covers of songs by pentatonics that they come out with every year, like, Mary, did you know? Yes, she did, by the way. Mary knew. An angel of God came to her while she was a virgin and said, you're going to have a baby. His name will be Emmanuel, and that is God with us. Mary knew.
So maybe the song, this is just a suggestion, maybe the song should be, Mary, do you remember what the angel said when she came to you as a virgin and told you that you were going to give birth to Emmanuel, which means God with us? It needs a little work. I haven't fixed the timing of it yet, but at least it's true, guys. Every year at Mill City, we take time during this season, and we try to cut through the white noise. Culture gives a whole lot of messages about, this is what you need to do, this is what Christmas is all about, this is what you need to achieve this Christmas, this is where you've got to shop, that kind of stuff.
And we try to focus on what actually matters. What can we, how can we, during the mayhem of Christmas, during all the craziness that goes on, actually point people towards the gospel in a tangible way? What can we do to love our friends, neighbors, and our city like Jesus did? How can we, rather than buying into the Christmastime cultural consumerism, instead buy into Christmas, the kingdom message of Christmas? That's where our Give series, that's where our Give series comes from. Because Jesus, who was in very nature God, humbled himself and was born as a human baby.
That's Philippians chapter 2. He was rich and for our sake he became poor. That's 2 Corinthians 8. He gave himself up for us to deliver us from sin. That's Galatians chapter 1. The king of the universe, he had everything that is.
He sacrificed that in order to become a poor human baby. That's what we celebrate at Christmas. So, during our annual Give series, we remind ourselves that the season doesn't have to be about bells, doesn't have to be about ornaments, isn't all I want for Christmas is you, but instead we align ourselves with Jesus and we sacrifice what we have to show kindness to others. That's what our Give series is all about. We want to replace the material expectation of the culture with open-handed generosity. Let's pray for that.
Amen. Amen. Amen. God, we pray this morning that you'll be showing, you'll be diagnosing in our hearts where we believe a cultural narrative about Christmas. That it's all about us, that it's all about gifts, that it's all about decorations and good cheer. God, I pray that throughout our Give series, you'll be showing us ways where we can be sacrificial like Jesus and that we can be seeking after Him in the way that we love each other and love our world.
It's in His name we pray. Amen. You can grab a Bible, open up to 2 Corinthians 8, chapter 9. If you're in one of the blue pew Bibles that we've got, that's going to be on page 628. We're going to be sticking mainly to 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9 today. It's going to be our main verse.
We're going to read all the way up into it, but just to kick us off, I'm going to read chapter 8, verse 9. It says, Throughout our entire Give series, we're going to talk about generosity. How do we be generous? How do we sacrifice? What is generosity in serving? And how can we use that for mission?
Today, though, we're really going to get at the core of why. Why be generous at all? What motivates our generosity? Now, I have a pretty rational brain. I tend to see the relationships between all of life's elements somewhat like equations, like A plus B equals C. I'm typically very black and white, and I don't have a lot of wiggle room for the gray areas, and that can get you in trouble.
But I think, for the most part, it helps me see clearly where relationships kind of occur. And I'm going to use that a little later on to point out a very clear relationship in this verse to explain our motivation for generosity. But first, let's take a look at the immediate context, everything that comes up immediately before that in this chapter so far. So we're going to jump up to chapter 8, verse 1, and make our way up to chapter 9. So let's read from 8, verse 1.
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, and I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. Here's what's going on. Paul, the Apostle Paul, was taking up an offering for all of the churches, the poor churches down in Jerusalem. So if you've got the Mediterranean here, Israel's down here.
All the poor churches in Jerusalem down here really need some financial support. And all the way up around the coast is Macedonia. And the churches up here, who themselves are quite poor, answer the call and start funneling money through Paul down to the churches in Jerusalem. What's interesting is that he describes their giving as, he explains their state as being extremely poor. Out of their extreme poverty flowed a wealth of generosity on their part. They gave according to their means, and he says, beyond their means.
And they begged earnestly for the right to do it. And by generosity, notice also, just real quick, notice that he means money. It's talking about financial generosity. And even though they were poor, they gave over and above what anyone could possibly have expected from them. All the way to the point that Paul labels it as the grace of God that has been given among the church of Macedonia. That's huge.
He calls their extreme giving, out of their poverty, God's grace. There's a direct relationship between financial, generous financial giving and God's grace. Now oftentimes, and I'm guilty of this as well, oftentimes we convince ourselves, I'm just, I'm too poor to give money. Money is not a thing that I have a lot of, and so I'm going to give lots of time instead. Time is something that I'm rich in, so whether it's volunteer work or even if it's in the church, in ministry, that kind of thing, we tell ourselves, I don't have any money, so I can't give money, but I can give my time, so I'm going to give that instead.
And we kind of pat ourselves on the back and we think, I've done a good job of giving to the church. Notice that that's not really at all what's going on here, but I can understand it. In fact, I've been there and I've done that and every now and then I continue to do that as well. But when I first moved here, a lot of you will know I moved here from Australia just over four years ago. When I first moved here, I went jobless for three years. I was studying in seminary, no Job, no income, no anything, for three whole years, which meant that my ballot sheet was blood red for three years.
And you know what you make friends with, you know how to make friends at that time, you go to Walmart. Walmart became my best friend for three years. And you know what, guys? Walmart gets a hard time. But as a student from another country who's never seen anything like it, there is nothing better than doing your groceries while picking up a new pair of jeans and a microwave and a shower curtain and a pack of Sharpies at 4 a.m. in the morning.
Nowhere else in the world gives you that freedom. And America is all about freedom, right? Somehow, Walmart is both the best and the worst thing about America all combined into one thing. And I say that to say that I know what it means to be hurting financially and to kind of have to aim at that level of shopping. And for the longest time, I just, I couldn't give regularly. It wasn't a thing that I was able to do.
I literally had no income. And so all that time, I was serving in the church, this church, convincing myself that was enough. I'm doing the best I can. And what I didn't realize is that after what Paul says in verse 2, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. I was missing out on that abundance of joy. I was missing out on that because I'd convinced myself I need the money.
It's all mine. I couldn't, I couldn't give it away. An abundance of joy sounds pretty great to me. And yet, I robbed myself of it over money. Now I get it.
If you don't have a whole lot of money to spare, if you have already cut expenses where you think you can, if you're living kind of at the line, not below the line, but at the line already, and you're just doing what you can to keep the family safe and keep the family fed and that kind of stuff, giving financially is tough. It is. My guess though, is that there's probably some room, probably some room for all of us to cut something out, even if it's for a month or two, in order to make some room for generosity around Christmas. Now, there is a possibility that perhaps if you truly, truly are hurting, if you truly, truly cannot give, and in fact, you need the help yourself, I don't want you to hear from the message this morning that you need to give even though you need help.
Because actually, oops, actually, as the church, our response to people who need help is to help them. And so, in Acts chapter 2, which is kind of how we have designed our church, in Acts chapter 2, it talks about how they all sold their positions and distributed the money to those in need. And we still function like that as a church. So, if you're truly hurting, our response to you isn't, cut something out, give money away. Our response to you is, how can we help? So anyway, I don't know your circumstances.
I don't think anyone knows your circumstances except for you. But, I'm saying all of this to say, I don't want money. We don't want money to rob you of being God's grace to other people. Don't want your love of money and the ability to buy stuff for yourself to rob you of the ability of helping other people who need it. The church that Paul writes about, the churches of Macedonia, they gave more than they could really afford. But it also says that they begged for the privilege to do so.
That's kind of crazy. They wanted so badly to help others even when they couldn't really afford to. They didn't just scrape off the excess, they dug into their savings account. Now for us, I don't really know how to, it's hard to say what it would look like today, but it would be almost like if a homeless person gets $10, could probably get themselves food for two days if they chose wisely. But instead of doing that, they chose to take another homeless maid of theirs out and go get McDonald's and they share a meal together off of the $10 that he made rather than feeding himself for a couple days.
It's the family that literally survives on food stamps who invite their neighbor over to share a meal with them anyway, even though they need the food themselves. Now most of us, I think, are in a pretty different place to that, so I don't want to be a super downer, but most of us are in a pretty different place to that. And self-sacrifice is going to look different. It's not going to be so ambitious. But it can take some pretty obvious and easy steps.
Let's take just one pretty easy example and kind of walk down a ladder. Let's say you are the direct TV fully loaded package kind of family. Sacrifice for your family if you're already at that level may look like let's cut direct TV for a year and go to Time Warner Cable because it's cheaper even though the service is kind of lame. Let's just go down there. That way we save 30 or 40 bucks a month and we can set that aside and give that away. We're sacrificing as a family.
We're not going to deal with all that good stuff anymore. We're going to set that aside and go to something more basic. Maybe you're already at that second level and you think maybe we'll cut out our cable subscription and go to the internet only package pick up a Netflix account or something like that and just survive on that for a while. And then you can save another 30 bucks a month and distribute that however you feel is working for you. Maybe you're already at that level the Netflix level and you think maybe I should start reading my books that I've been saving for seven years and I don't know maybe learn to read again and just cut the Netflix subscription and then you've at least got what is it now nine dollars a month that can be given away to something.
Whatever it is for you we don't know your circumstances I don't know your circumstances I can't tell you what you should do or what's the right level of whatever whatever it is what does it look like for self-sacrifice to come for you because as Paul said in chapter 8 they did it out of their extreme poverty and an abundance of joy flowed out of it. Let's keep reading verse 5 he says and this when he says this he's talking about that abundance of joy coming from extreme poverty and sacrificially giving and this not as we expected but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Their primary allegiance was to God they were completely devoted to him and as a result through that relationship they were generous to the other churches just down the road who were struggling. Verse 6 Accordingly we urged Titus that as he had started so he should complete among you this act of grace but as you excel in everything in faith in speech in knowledge in all earnestness and in our love for you see that you excel in this act of grace also.
And in our love for you see that you excel in this act of grace also. Paul's saying good Job guys you're crushing it you've got this you've got the faith down you're excelling in faith you're excelling in speech you're excelling in knowledge you're saying good things you're doing good things you know some good stuff
Just don't forget to be a part of this act of grace as well. Don't forget to be a part of this sacrificial giving thing as well. and then look again at actually let's go to verse 8 he says I say this not as a command but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine Paul says
I'm not forcing you to give your money away nobody's telling you that this is a command and that you absolutely have to do it to earn God's favor you don't have to give your money away but when you do that sincere love reflects Jesus it shows how much you love Jesus
In your ability to give to others now let's look at today's verse which is verse 9 for you know by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for our sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich
Christ's grace that is the grace of Christ defines motivates and puts into perspective our generosity grace is an undeserved gift the gift that we did not deserve that he gave us anyway and Christ's grace to us is that
Even though we turned away from God even though we chose sin as our life direction even though we chose to reject a relationship with him he humbled himself to be born as a human baby so that we might pay attention to him
He became a human a perfect human one who was completely without fault so that in his death in his sacrifice he could atone for our sin that's the message of the gospel that while we were still sinners Christ died for us he took a step away from his
Throne came into our world and gave up his life in order to restore our relationship to the father that's what it's talking about when it says Christ's grace so let me say this again the grace of Christ defines motivates and puts
Into perspective a generosity that's a big statement that even though he was rich he became poor so that by us his poverty might become rich he had everything he gave up to be chilling in heaven where time space distance
Hunger pain none of that even exists and he gave up that completely full completely holy completely powerful he gave all of that up to become a human to be born as a baby which is
Basically a crying potato he gave up all of that to become a baby so that he could be bound to a place bound to a time feel pain feel hunger feel temptation to become
A traveling homeless unpopular preacher who would eventually be killed by the people that he was trying to save when he was killed he had one item of clothing that was worth fighting over that's all
That he had to his name was one item of clothing that people gambled over so they could have something that was left over from him and he did it all he did all of that left the throne came down
To earth born as a human baby so that we could know the father that's our God our God became a nobody so that nobodies could find God no other story talks about a God like that our God became a nobody so that
Nobodies could find God so I talked earlier about how I've got a logical brain I think this is where it kicks in as a result of what he said in chapter 8 verse 9 our generosity the way that we're open handed with our money our generosity is a reflexive response
To God's grace in our lives our generosity our giving sacrificially of ourselves is a response to what God has already done for us we don't give because we're good people we don't give because we're really into philanthropy we don't give because the Bible rule book tells me I
Have to in fact it says this is not a command we don't give because we're altruistic do-gooders we give as a response to God's grace so to put it in mathematical terms or physics terms God's grace is the action and our giving
Is the reaction God's grace is the action our giving is the reaction let me say that one more time God's grace is the action our giving is a reaction now the physics nerds in the room they're probably going to really like that because it
Sounds a whole lot like Newton's third law of motion and then you think about it a little harder and you remember that Newton's third law of motion says that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction emphasis on equal for every action
There's an equal and opposite reaction meaning that if we apply it to what we just said God's grace is the action our giving is the equal reaction go ponder that one you physics nerds but seriously the point is that we give
Because he gave first and we give in reaction to what he's already given to us it's not about us it's never been about us in fact our generosity is an act of grace and we're doing it in order to glorify Jesus
Not ourselves Christians they don't give to glorify themselves we don't give so that others will see us we give because we've seen Jesus our motivation isn't selfish our motivation cannot
Be selfish our motivation is that Christ gave up a lot for me so I'm going to give up a lot for Christ so what does that actually mean for us I actually think that at Christmas time that actually
Becomes an easier question to answer mainly because we're really hyper exposed to materialism at Christmas time and everyone kind of knows it even outside of the church
Outside of believers everyone knows that Christmas time is a really materialistic time so I think it becomes an easier question to answer now the best
Answer is just to pass on the cultural narrative to pass on the cultural narrative that Christmas is all about the perfect gift the
Ornaments the decorating the cheer the happy family the mariah carey album the starbucks whatever it is or complaining about the starbucks cup or whatever
It is Christmas isn't about all of that now those things can be fun no problem with enjoying them they're just not the point
And I think that's where typically we get it twisted as a church we don't just say don't get involved in the cultural narrative
We actually try to redirect so it's not just don't get involved in the cultural mess we actually say here's something better to get
Involved in and that's why we have a give series because we say instead of getting involved in that open up your wallets and
Give financially to something that's actually going to make an Christmas time is a time when a lot of people in our city who are already
In need feel it the most they feel the need year round but there's a certain pressure that comes along with just the Christmas
Time to buy the perfect stuff to be the happy family to have it all together that sting of being unable to provide is
Particularly harsh at Christmas time so as a church every year around this time we get really excited to give away all of our money we
Commit to giving at Christmas we see Christmas for what it actually is which is a time when we remember that Christ has done a lot for us and
So we can do a lot for him at Christmas we thank Jesus for his generosity to us and we give generously as a response and
If you're new around here part of what we do every year is we host the give series and then we pick a give
Project throughout the years we pick a give project and collectively as a church we commit to funding pulling off whatever we've chosen as
A project throughout the years we've done a couple things we've grown as a church so it's kind of progressively gotten bigger each year
We started off with what we called love bombs which is where we picked particular families who were in need around the city and
Each of our community groups raised support for whatever that family needed the next year we did we bought presents for over 100 kids
Families they otherwise probably wouldn't have got Christmas presents that year and on either side of this stage we set up boards with all
Of their names and a little cutout and people swarmed up to grab a name so they could go home and buy gifts for
Those people last year we were involved in flood recovery both in financially supporting it and in actually pulling off the work involved in
Flood it's been pretty exciting throughout the years to be involved in all of these different gift projects and so we're incredibly excited this year
To be partnering with a sub ministry of Christ Central Ministries called Samaritan's Well it's actually in Lexington Samaritan's Well is a shelter and a transition home
For women often with children who have come out of a variety of rough situations be it abusive or neglectful or homelessness and it's
A ministry that tries to help these women in those tough situations get back on their feet now usually what happens as we introduce a
Give series is we'll talk about generosity giving financially and we'll introduce the series on week one and then we'll just start collecting money until the end and
Then we'll deal with the money kind of at the end of the end of the series we're not doing it like that this
Year at all in fact today there's going to be an opportunity to respond financially this year we're shaking it up and we're going to
Respond in phases so if you're a position where responding financially immediately is a thing you can do then today is a great day for you if
You're in a position where responding financially immediately isn't necessarily something you can do you there are currently six women and they're combined seven children
At Samaritan's Well as a church we want to provide the opportunity for these families to celebrate at Christmas so this week as a church we're going
To commit to these six women and seven children each down here on our little janky old school pallet Christmas tree you'll see that
There's 13 little stockings that look like this each one of those represents one of the women or one of the seven children we
Want to provide a $50 gift card for each and every one of those stockings each and every one of those women and children
At Samaritan's Well as a church that's a total commitment of $650 and given the support that we've raised for previous give series I'm pretty
Handled that now remember you actually I know it's over here and you guys have a long way to go but you don't have to
Fight over it because there is subsequent phases and series weeks we're also going to be collecting money for other things as well now here
Are the rules slash guidelines for this week's phase one of our give project which is for Samaritan's Well rule number one only commit
To this give project as a response to Jesus' generosity to you do not commit for any other reason we don't want your money
We want a generous heart in our church that's rule number one rule number two this is more of a guideline let's take guideline
Number two I'm gonna swap it up halfway through if fifty dollars is a huge commitment but you still want to give and you
Have permission to pick someone and organize as a two or three or four or five if you need to break out your phone
Or text someone who's not here because you really want to give and you can't afford the fifty but you want to split it
Some way you have permission go ahead team up organize ways to get the Job done in and amongst yourselves That's guideline number two. Guideline number three. Do not push each other to the ground in a mad frenzy to come and claim one.
I realize I shouldn't have to say that, but I've seen you all respond to give projects before. And when 120 names disappeared in 17 seconds flat a couple years ago, I figured that given there's only 13 things over there, we just might have to make an announcement on that. Remember, if you miss out today because you chose to sit all the way over here and you didn't know that the Give Project was going to have stuff down the front and you didn't realize that those things weren't just decorations and you really want to do it, but someone else beats you there, you can sit in this front row next week. It's always empty. Rule number four. Once you've claimed a gift card, once you've claimed a stocking and you've committed to getting a gift card, we want you to be prepared to bring that back next week. There's going to be a table set up somewhere over there.
There's a Give table. And we're going to collect all of those next week so that we can actually make some moves on this Give, on phase one of the Give Project. So if you're going to pick one up this week, be prepared to come back next week to deliver on that. We're suggesting for gift cards kind of like a Walmart or a Target or a Visa card, that kind of thing. That way our families have some flexibility on whether they want to get clothes or toys or that kind of thing. We kind of want them to have a good opportunity to get whatever they need. Let's steer away from restaurants and that kind of stuff because we really want them to be able to buy some stuff that they might need. Rule number five. In order to give some time for the people
Who need help getting together and grouping up and stuff, in order to give them some time, we're actually going to wait. We're not going to respond immediately. We're not going to jump up right now. We're going to wait until the gathering today is kind of concluded. There's going to be songs. Chet's going to give some announcements, that kind of stuff. We're going to wait until it's concluded and when everything's over, that's when we're going to make a move and grab a stocking and respond to it then. Those are the five rules. We really want to aim to have all of those stockings gone today. That's phase one of our gift project. We're going to raise $650 to support these women and their kids celebrating Christmas together and we want to get that done today.
Once all of these have been claimed, this is still tentative. This is not necessarily happening but we want our groups particularly to be open to the possibility that if and when these women and their kids need help to go out and get the shopping done, like they may not, we don't know all of their situations, if they need a ride, if they want to go out and get dinner, like maybe your group could sponsor to take them out to dinner and then go to Walmart or go to Target or whatever to help them out when it comes time to actually using the gift cards. That's a great opportunity for us if we can make it happen to not just be a faceless church that sponsors them but actually to invest in them personally,
To begin a relationship, to invite them into our groups, to invite them into our lives and to make sure that they're actually building hearing the gospel as well. We want to make ourselves available to them so that gospel conversations can happen as best we can. Guys, I think we are, I think we have an exciting and incredible opportunity today to serve these women and since Christ loved us first, we get to respond with glad, sincere, and generous hearts. Let's pray for that. God, I want to thank you for the generosity of the Macedonian church and how they can be an example thousands of years later to us of what it looks like
To sacrifice so that others can have their needs provided for. Thank you for the Christmas season and that it's a joyful time where friends and family can get together. But I pray that that we will keep our eyes focused on you, that we will respond, that we will respond to the Christmas season as those who have been saved by your grace. I pray that you will work through us in this season to not buy into the cultural consumerism, to not buy into the cultural narrative that tells us that Christmas is
All about us, all about joy, all about Santa, all about gifts, but instead that it's about making Jesus known. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.
I realize I shouldn't have to say that, but I've seen you all respond to give projects before. And when 120 names disappeared in 17 seconds flat a couple years ago, I figured that given there's only 13 things over there, we just might have to make an announcement on that. Remember, if you miss out today because you chose to sit all the way over here and you didn't know that the Give Project was going to have stuff down the front and you didn't realize that those things weren't just decorations and you really want to do it, but someone else beats you there, you can sit in this front row next week. It's always empty.
Rule number four. Once you've claimed a gift card, once you've claimed a stocking and you've committed to getting a gift card, we want you to be prepared to bring that back next week. There's going to be a table set up somewhere over there. There's a Give table. And we're going to collect all of those next week so that we can actually make some moves on this Give, on phase one of the Give Project. So if you're going to pick one up this week, be prepared to come back next week to deliver on that.
We're suggesting for gift cards kind of like a Walmart or a Target or a Visa card, that kind of thing. That way our families have some flexibility on whether they want to get clothes or toys or that kind of thing. We kind of want them to have a good opportunity to get whatever they need. Let's steer away from restaurants and that kind of stuff because we really want them to be able to buy some stuff that they might need. Rule number five. In order to give some time for the people who need help getting together and grouping up and stuff, in order to give them some time, we're actually going to wait.
We're not going to respond immediately. We're not going to jump up right now. We're going to wait until the gathering today is kind of concluded. There's going to be songs. Chet's going to give some announcements, that kind of stuff. We're going to wait until it's concluded and when everything's over, that's when we're going to make a move and grab a stocking and respond to it then.
Those are the five rules. We really want to aim to have all of those stockings gone today. That's phase one of our gift project. We're going to raise $650 to support these women and their kids celebrating Christmas together and we want to get that done today. Once all of these have been claimed, this is still tentative. This is not necessarily happening but we want our groups particularly to be open to the possibility that if and when these women and their kids need help to go out and get the shopping done, like they may not, we don't know all of their situations, if they need a ride, if they want to go out and get dinner, like maybe your group could sponsor to take them out to dinner and then go to Walmart or go to Target or whatever to help them out when it comes time to actually using the gift cards.
That's a great opportunity for us if we can make it happen to not just be a faceless church that sponsors them but actually to invest in them personally, to begin a relationship, to invite them into our groups, to invite them into our lives and to make sure that they're actually building hearing the gospel as well. We want to make ourselves available to them so that gospel conversations can happen as best we can. Guys, I think we are, I think we have an exciting and incredible opportunity today to serve these women and since Christ loved us first, we get to respond with glad, sincere, and generous hearts. Let's pray for that.
God, I want to thank you for the generosity of the Macedonian church and how they can be an example thousands of years later to us of what it looks like to sacrifice so that others can have their needs provided for. Thank you for the Christmas season and that it's a joyful time where friends and family can get together. But I pray that that we will keep our eyes focused on you, that we will respond, that we will respond to the Christmas season as those who have been saved by your grace. I pray that you will work through us in this season to not buy into the cultural consumerism, to not buy into the cultural narrative that tells us that Christmas is all about us, all about joy, all about Santa, all about gifts, but instead that it's about making Jesus known.
It's in his name that we pray. Amen.
Sign of the Promise
Transcript
G'day everyone. My name's Raz. It's good to be with you here this morning. A show of hands real quick. Who here in the room has ever heard of the awkward turtle? The awkward turtle.
Okay, all of the millennials have heard of the awkward turtle. Excellent. The awkward turtle, I believe, was invented 10-ish years ago. It was kind of like just transitioned in right when I came out of high school. And I think this is what the internet tells me. I don't know if it's true or not.
The internet tells me that the awkward turtle was invented because people who were awkward in situations and conversations had this problem with their neck. Where they were speaking, something awkward would happen, and they would just kind of recede a little bit. So that their head tries to escape the situation and get inside their body. And that's kind of where the idea of a turtle comes along. But that was causing neck issues.
So, they invented this kind of hand gesture, which looks like this. Which is supposed to represent the turtle's body. Some people do it like that, but they're weird. It goes like this. And these are the little, what are they, they don't call them wings. They're like the flappers, whatever, of the turtle.
And whenever something really awkward happens in a conversation, you can kind of do the awkward turtle and just... Back yourself out of that conversation. And that's apparently... Look, when it came into existence, that was the thing that people did. Not saying it was good, not saying it was polite, but that's just kind of how it happened. For example, I'm not going to name names, protagonists in this story.
This is a true story. I won't tell you the person's name, but I'll give you a hint. He has a beard, and he was standing there about three minutes ago. This happened in this very room, and it was kind of just over there. And I was introducing my friend to my wife, Christina's mom. And in the...
Look, he's not very good with small talk. And we all know this. If you're friends with him, small talk is not one of his spiritual gifts. And so you kind of have to be prepared for situations like this. So I introduce him.
I say, this is Christina's mom. And this is what comes out of his mouth. He goes, oh, cool. Hi. So, how long have you been Christina's mom? And you can see in his eyes and in his brain, he's just processed the fact that he just said, how long have you been the mother of your daughter?
And his neck starts going like this. And then my neck started going like that. And Christina's mom's neck was like this. And everyone was like this. And that would have been the perfect time, permissible, to be awkward turtle. You can just back away from the creepy bearded guy.
That's how it's supposed to work. Now, I mention this. I mention this because this morning and for the next couple of minutes, we're going to have a good old-fashioned awkward fest. Between you guys and me, we're just going to get awkward real quick. Not because I like torturing people with awkward situations, although that's true. That's not the reason that this is happening.
We're going to have an old-fashioned awkward fest because we're in a section of God's story that sometimes churches in this world tend to breeze by. Not defining terminology, leaving people hanging in the dark a little bit. And so we're going to step through it. We're going to spend some time. And we're going to actually define terminology, make sure that everyone's on the same page, and get through it even though it's awkward. Okay.
Today we're going to spend pretty much our entire morning talking about circumcision. And I'm not talking about just like say the word and move on. I'm like, we're going to talk real quick about circumcision. And so for the people in the room who know, you know that the awkward total is about to come out. So I've prepared you well.
But for the people who don't know, and I don't want to call people out. I don't want to make you feel silly or whatever. But I just want to make sure that everyone knows exactly, clinically, what we're about to talk about so that, Lord forbid, nobody Googles anything this morning. That would be a travesty, and I've not done due diligence. So, without further ado, here is a very concise medical definition of the word circumcision. Circumcision.
I'm just going to put my hands here. Circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin covering the tip of the male genitalia. Now you know, right? Yes, I said that. Yes, I said that into a microphone on stage in a church gathering. It's going on the internet.
Internet. You're welcome, internet. You've been blessed this morning, internet. Now you're probably thinking, look, I would be thinking, if I'm where you were, what exactly does this have to do with covenant? Because we're talking about covenants, we're doing this whole series on covenants, and today we're just talking about foreskins and circumcision, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But in the passage we're about to read, God calls circumcision the sign of the covenant.
And for us to spend however many weeks talking about covenant and skip the sign of the covenant, just because it's awkward to talk about and no one wants to talk about circumcision, we would kind of be missing the point. So we're going to plow through today. We're going to try and understand what exactly was going on in Genesis when they talked about circumcision. And then we're going to say, we're going to try and work out what it means for us, and then work out where Jesus fits into the whole picture. Let me pray for us, and then we're going to open up God's word. God, I pray this morning that as we look into your scripture and talk about weird and awkward conversations, that you'll be opening our hearts and our minds to understand what it is you have for us today.
I pray that that will be true for us this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. If you've got a Bible, open up to Genesis 17. Genesis 17. Genesis 17, it'll be on page 8 if you've got one of these blue pew Bibles. Genesis 17.
What happens in Genesis 17 is about 15 years after what happens in Genesis 15, which is what we talked about last week. So last week we're in Genesis 15. About 15 years later than that, we find ourselves in Genesis 17. I'm just going to read the first chunk for us. Page 8, 17, verse 1. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty.
Walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. Real quick pause. God changes people's names pretty frequently, especially throughout the Old Testament, but it happens a little bit in the New Testament as well. It really just signifies a change in direction in that person's life.
It's almost like a graduation or a promotion. And typically the name that he gives them has some important meaning. So for Abraham, the name Abraham actually means father of a great multitude. Let's keep reading. From verse 5. No longer shall you be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.
For I have made you a father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God. Now, this is more or less a restatement of stuff we already know. If you've been with us for a few weeks, we've been talking about the covenant to Abraham for a while now.
And this is basically just a rehashing of the stuff we've already talked about. But you'll notice he's 99 years old. The guy's super old. And sometimes with old people, you just have to repeat yourself. Especially if it's been 15 years, right? So God repeats himself and says, this is the covenant that I'm making with you and your offspring.
And his covenant with them is that they will become a great nation, that they will inherit land and that God will bless them. Basically, that his people will be in his place and they will have his presence. That's kind of the theme that we've been drawing through all of the covenant series so far. So it starts off in Eden when God puts his people in his place and has his presence with them and in amongst them. And then the fall happens and everything goes wrong. And ever since then, we've been asking this question, how is God going to point us back to a new Eden, a new creation that will once again be God's people in God's place with his presence?
Now God kind of moves on and talks about some of Abraham's responsibilities. This is verse 9. God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people for he has broken my covenant. Whoa. Things just got real.
Now in order to understand this we're just going to quickly revisit some stuff that happened last week. Last week we're in Genesis 15 and in Genesis 15 if you're here you already know this but for the people who weren't here in Genesis 15 God and Abraham established their covenant and it takes the form of what we call a suzerain vassal treaty and in a suzerain vassal treaty this is not Bible words this is ancient history words this is just the way things happened in the old days. The suzerain was the powerful nation ruler or whatever. The vassal was a weaker nation that had been conquered by a superior nation and they make a treaty in which the weaker nation says I want you to look after me and in doing that I will serve you I will do what you tell me to do I'll pay the taxes and I'll come to your aid whenever you're leading wars.
And what they would do is they would have this little ceremony that would play out. And this happens in Genesis 15 between God and Abraham God being the superior power and Abraham being the weaker one. What happens is they get a bunch of animals birds and goats and that kind of thing and they split them in half and they create a lane like a pathway through the middle where there's animal carcasses on each side of the pathway and all of the blood flows into the middle to form like a walkway of blood. It's pretty gross. It's pretty grim. It's pretty gruesome.
And what would happen in the suzerain vassal treaty is the weaker party would walk through that pathway of blood. And what they're saying by doing that is that stronger nation if I break my promises to you you get to do this to me. If I break my promise to you you get to destroy me. And in Genesis 15 Abraham and God set up this kind of a ritual but the major difference that happens is that right when Abraham's about to walk through bam God puts him to sleep. Then instead of Abraham walking through God walks through and then walks back through.
God goes through twice. And what he's saying by doing that is that if Abraham if the weaker party let me start let me backtrack if God the stronger party breaks his end of the deal if the stronger party breaks his end of the deal the weaker party gets to split him in two. That's not normal. That's not typical. That's not how it usually happens in these ceremonies. But what he also said by walking through twice is that if Abraham breaks his side of the deal God will also be the one who's punished.
God will have the right to punish Abraham but instead will punish himself. Now we're here in Genesis 17 this is 15 years later and circumcision is now part of this picture and this picture is pretty gross. It's bloodthirsty. It's disgusting. It's got retribution. It's got punishment written all over it.
The whole picture is not particularly pretty. And I don't think it's meant to be very pretty. In verse 11 God says it it meaning circumcision it shall be a sign of the covenant of the bloodbath ceremony. It shall be a sign of that ceremony between me and you. In verse 13 he says so shall my covenant so shall this covenant be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant. He's saying very explicitly I want you to remember this bloodbath ceremony.
I want the weight of what happened in that ceremony in that agreement in that covenant I want the weight of that to bear down on you at all times. I want you to remember it. I want you to remember it so much that I'm going to make it a part of you. I'm going to cut it into your flesh so that you will remember it. Do not forget the covenant. That's what's going on here.
So the covenant was made when a bunch of animals were slaughtered as a symbol of what would happen if one of the parties broke their promise. And in that situation it is no wonder that when God decided this will be the sign of my covenant he made it something rather gruesome something a little bloodthirsty. The whole point is to remind them of the consequences of what would happen should someone break this covenant. And apparently at least it makes sense to me what better way to make people remember that than to threaten a man where men do not like being threatened. Now you may be wondering at this point in time how do women fit into this?
Is there a sign for the girls? Is only the male in the whole generation covered with the sign that kind of thing? My first response and this is look this is just my fallen brain being sarcastic and wanting to say this you did just hear what the sign for the guys was right? Are the ladies really wishing for their own sign at a time like this? Probably not. But a far more accurate you know biblically historically correct you know actual real reason for this that I probably should explain is that back then they had what they call a patriarchal society.
Right? Are the ladies really wishing for their own sign at a time like this? Probably not. But a far more accurate you know biblically historically correct you know actual real reason for this that I probably should explain is that back then they had what they call a patriarchal society. It's no better no worse than the way that we do things
In our culture it's just different it's thousands of years old and it's the way things worked back then and back then in a patriarchy there was a male who was the head of a household and he kind of held responsibility for that household and so for women living in that society they would be born into their father's household and their father would have responsibility for their household and when they get married they would move into their husband's household and then their husband
Would be the head of that household and he would hold responsibility for that household so when God makes a sign of the covenant with the males throughout the entire generation and for the rest of history when all of the males are circumcised they're covering their households with that sign of the covenant and so for women the sign of the covenant being made with men doesn't actually neglect women based on the way their society functioned entire households were being covered with the sign of this covenant
So look I guess you just get a free pass on this one and you get to be covered by the men's sign of the covenant let's continue pick up the story in verse 15 and God said to Abraham as for Sarah your wife you shall not call her name Sarah but Sarah shall be her name I will bless her and moreover I will give you a son by her I will bless her and she shall become nations kings of people
Shall come from her then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old shall Sarah who is ninety years old bear a child and Abraham said to God oh that Ishmael might live before you God said no but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him
As for Ishmael I have heard you behold I have blessed him and I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly he shall father twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation but I will establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year we're going to take we're going to pause for just a moment this is not a main point for this morning but it's important to cover because there's some names we just read that we need to explain
Not a main point this morning but in Genesis 16 which is the chapter of the Bible that we just skipped between last week Genesis 15 and this week Genesis 17 in Genesis 16 Abraham has a son he has a son and his name is Ishmael but that son is not born from his wife Sarah but from his wife's handmaiden Hagar now this is not entirely uncommon and it's not the wrong way for them to do things back then
Because they lived in that patriarchy and for a man who had responsibility over his household he would need to have an heir so that that heir could then in turn have responsibility for the household and so when Sarah is not able to have kids Abraham she actually convinced him to have a kid so they would at least have a son who could take over for the family and that son became Ishmael through Sarah's
Handmaiden Hagar that's kind of where Ishmael fits into it so when God so when Abraham says please let Ishmael stand before you God says no I'm going to establish my covenant through Isaac who is your son who you will have through your wife for the history buffs out there Ishmael this other son of Abraham's is where the Islamic religion draws their heritage from
We're not going to park here we're not going to make a big point of this but just because it's true the Islamic nation the Islamic people draw their heritage from Ishmael and that's why we get a lot of questions like don't Muslims and Christians and Jews all worship the same God it's because at some point in time they all point back towards Abraham
If you want to keep having that discussion we can talk about it later it's not a main point of this sermon because as it says God says no my covenant is not going to follow Ishmael it's going to follow Isaac and we're going to keep reading verse 22 actually let's go from verse 21 but I will establish my covenant
With Isaac whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year when he had finished talking to him God went up from Abraham then Abraham took Ishmael his son sorry then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born to his house or bought with his money every male among the men
Of Abraham's house and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day as God had said to him Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin and Ishmael his son was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin
That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised and all of the men of his house those born in his house and those bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him Abraham and his entire posse all of them were circumcised in one day now this is not a day that any of them were looking forward to
I'm sure if you're 99 years old and this happens this is a day that you're never going to forget but so it was God wanted his covenant people to be physically reminded for their entire lives to be constantly reminded that they were different people because the blood covenant applied to them now if you've been paying attention all series
You would know that this is actually the second covenant that comes paired along with a sign the first covenant that comes paired along with a sign is the covenant made to Noah what happens in Noah's story is he gets all the animals on his big boat big flood comes and at the end of that the animals
Come off and God makes a covenant with Noah and says I'm never going to destroy the earth again and as a sign to you I'm going to give you what a rainbow and that's beautiful right magic the colors and that when you see a rainbow I saw a rainbow yesterday it was perfect I said Christina look at the rainbow and she took a photo of the
Rainbow and so if I if I were in Abraham's shoes this is not what happened but if I were in Abraham's shoes I can imagine God saying I'm going to make a covenant with you I'm going to give you a sign and I'm thinking sweet I'm going to get the next rainbow I wonder what it's going to be right maybe it's a maybe it's a pretty butterfly a new butterfly one's not on my boat yet he's going to invent a butterfly and every
Time someone sees that they're going to remember the covenant that's what it's going to be it's going to be maybe because Abraham's smart at one point in time God said I'm going to number your family like the stars so maybe he's going to get the rainbow of the night sky right like the northern lights and every time you see the northern lights or whatever it's going to be you'll think ah the covenant this is how my brain works I'll be like yes this amazing
Sign is going to happen and God says here's what you're going to do surgically remove the foreskin and I'm like whoa whoa you what what happened to the rainbows man give me a rainbow but I'm not Abraham we don't know what Abraham thought we know what he did and what Abraham did was he and his entire family his whole household was circumcised that day now for the last couple weeks as we know from the last couple weeks God promised God's promises to Abraham are fulfilled in Jesus and gifted to the church by
The reconciling blood of what Jesus did on the cross the promise to to Abraham that God would bless all nations comes true in Jesus and then is given to the church to go out and tell the whole world so that when Jesus says go and make disciples of all nations that's the continuation of God's blessing to all nations through Abraham and we've been made a part of that family by the reconciling blood of Christ so what exactly does that mean for us when it comes to this sign of the covenant how does circumcision fit into all of this should we be
Throwing circumcision parties alongside of our baptism parties whenever we have them that was sarcasm people before we take a peek into the New Testament we're about to look into it it's important to note that the the not the definition of but the interpretation of circumcision kind of evolved over time a couple thousand years is years past between when Abraham this covenant with Abraham happens and Jesus comes into the world and the New Testament is written and in that time the Jews have continued to be circumcised eight days old but the meaning of that circumcision in their heads has kind of changed they they've
Forgotten the covenant side of it and it's become this way for them to symbolize in their flesh that they're a descendant of Abraham and they think in their minds that because they're a descendant of Abraham they're set aside they're God's people and they're just good what was meant to be a sign to remember that the covenant has become for them a sign of I'm a descendant of Abraham and therefore God loves me in a moment we're going to look at Romans in Romans Paul is writing to the Roman church and in the Roman church there's Jewish believers in Jesus and there's also non-Jewish believers in Jesus and they've kind of in some some debate about whether or not the
Non-Jewish believers have to become circumcised in order to become real God's real family so we're going to put this on the screen this is Romans 2 says for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly nor is circumcision outward and physical but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit not by the letter his praise is not for man but from God see Paul reminds us that the point of circumcision is a matter of the heart it's a matter of faith it's a matter of commitment to God's promise that happened in Genesis 15 with the whole blood ceremony he's saying that if you think you're good if you think you're completely saved because you have a scar that was given to
You at eight days old that makes that identifies you as a descendant of Abraham you've missed the point a Paul says here that circumcision is a matter of the heart and it's your heart that shows your attitude and your disposition towards God the Jews misunderstood the sign of their covenant what God intended in Genesis 17 was that they would keep covenantal relationship with him but what they ended up believing was that they were the in crowd I'm a descendant of Abraham so I'm good right but they were wrong the sign was never about that the sign of the covenant was don't forget the blood ceremony which they'd forgotten Colossians 2 is going to come up it says in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by
Putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ Christ's circumcision is made without hands it is not a physical circumcision the sign is not physical not an external sign it's internal it's a spiritual thing that's happening verse 12 says having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead we consistently explained baptism as an outward sign of an internal change that's exactly what's going on here Christ paid the penalty Christ has already paid the penalty he fulfilled the promise made to Abraham and when when Christ died on the cross when Christ died on the cross and his blood was spilled he fulfilled everything that happened everything that was bound to happen as a result of that ceremony in Genesis 15 when God said if
You screw up I'm going to punish me and he walked through that blood that happened when Jesus died on the cross that happened when Jesus paid the penalty for our sin we no longer need a physical sign of circumcision because Jesus has fulfilled the covenant that it points to so since Jesus the sign is taken on a new form it's no longer physical and external it's internal it's surgery of the heart and it's performed not by human hands but by the Holy Spirit the sign of the covenant then shows itself through your actions and the way that you respond as a result of who you've become in Christ now this next point is important this is a comparison of how it worked then and how it works now so it's going to come up on the screen for the avid note takers who are going to want me to repeat this 50 times God's covenant with Abraham God's covenant with Abraham was marked with physical blood from sacrificial animals and the physical surgery of his people God's covenant with us is marked with the
Physical blood the sacrificial Christ and it's marked with the spiritual surgery of our hearts I'm going to repeat that once more because it's crucial God's covenant with Abraham God's covenant with Abraham was made with physical blood of sacrificial animals and physical surgery of his people God's covenant with us is marked with the physical blood of the sacrificial Christ and the internal spiritual surgery of our hearts what was a physical external sign for Israel is now an internal spiritual sign for us it is embedded and convict and we are convicted in our heart and soul and it will be evident in how we choose to behave in this world for Israel the day-to-day reminder was embedded in their flesh for us it's embedded in our soul in our hearts and in our minds in such a way that Galatians 5 says for in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith only faith working through love it does not matter if you're circumcised or uncircumcised externally as long as you have faith and it works itself out in love
So what then does it mean for us today to have this circumcised heart internal heart change leads to external actions if you've been convicted in your heart and soul it will be evident in the way that you choose to behave now let me be clear when I say the word behave let me be clear what you choose to do the physical actions you take does not affect your salvation status what you do does not affect your salvation but what you do does reflect what you believe and what you believe does affect your salvation here's the problem that I think Christians often face here's a here's a problem that I think we often face if we've been around the church for a really long time if we've been in community groups if we've been reading the word we all know the different things that we ought to do we know the kind of things that we ought to do but we also have this separate category of things that we actually want to do and we distance them we know that we ought to think when we are gonna open our way big** we know the way we're supposed to think that we are supposed to think that we are supposed to be a light in this world we know that we're supposed to hate evil and love what is good we know that we're supposed to bear Each reordas burdens we know that we're supposed to preach the gospel to all nations we know a bunch of stuff that we ought to do do, but it's not always what we actually want to do. Tim Keller, he's a well-known pastor in New York. He says it like this. He says, a circumcised heart looks like this.
When what you ought to do and what you want to do are the same thing. That's what a circumcised heart looks like. When what you most ought to do and what you most want to do have become the same thing. Now that's all well and good, but it's kind of intangible. What exactly does that mean? Well, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, where do you see change in your life? In what ways has your heart taken a new direction so that you now want to do things that you ought to do rather than what you've always wanted to do? What thing, what thing did you think you would never give up? This whole Jesus thing, this whole church thing was never going to affect my desire to do this. And if that's changed, then that is an indication of a circumcised heart. So for example, you may, you may be, I don't know, just super lazy. And your idea of an ideal Saturday is a Totino's pizza, stick it in the fridge, not in the fridge, in the oven.
Putting it in the fridge isn't going to do anything. Put it in the oven, sit in front of Netflix all day and binge watch. Who even cares? Saturday, you do what you want, right? And someone calls you and says, hey, I really need help moving this table. Will you come and help me? And you lie. You say, sorry, I'm busy. I guess that's not a lie. You've got a plan. It's just a really bad plan. And so you're lying to your friend and you say, no, I'm not going to do it. And then you go about doing what you want to do rather than what you know you probably ought to do. And then over time, you start hanging out with a community group, start reading your Bible, you start coming along to Sunday gatherings and you start learning some stuff. You start getting to know the people and you start to love the people. And for some reason, something unexplainable is happening inside of you and you actually want to help these people. And so when someone calls you and says, hey, I'm moving house this Saturday, will you come help? That actually sounds more desirable to you now. The thing that you ought to do has kind of become the thing that you want to do.
Maybe you're completely different. Maybe that's not you. Maybe you've never understood the whole Jesus-y no sex before marriage thing. Maybe that's never really, you know what people say, but it just doesn't affect you. And so you've gone from girlfriend or boyfriend to girlfriend or boyfriend. You've lived with people. You've maybe even had kids with people. And so you're living in this situation. You've got a kid, that kind of thing. And you're basically, you've got to pretend marriage. You're basically married. You never actually got married. There's no paperwork. There was no ceremony. But look, it's more or less the same thing. You just don't like labels. You don't like commitment. And the whole Jesus thing isn't really going to affect that. And then you start hanging out with church family. You see what marriage looks like in other people. You see what Jesus-honoring marriage looks like in other people in the church. And you start to think, maybe they do have it right.
Maybe that's a pretty good option. And suddenly you desire that for yourself. And so you decide, maybe we should get married. Maybe commitment isn't that bad of a thing. Maybe I should just do it. And in the meantime, maybe we should live separately until we actually get married. And what you know you ought to do, and what you actually want to do, are slowly becoming the same thing. Maybe for you, money is a big deal. Money kind of is a two-sided coin, ironically. And there's the people who are savers. And there's the people who are spenders. And so for the savers, when it comes to money, there's a number in their bank account, where if their bank account is on or above that number, they're good. They're fine. They're safe. And they know that if anything happens, they don't need to rely on anyone. They don't need to take out loans. They just know they're good because I've saved up that many dollars. And I can protect myself. I'll be okay. I'll make it through.
I'll be good. And then they've got accounts set up for the Disney trip in 15 years, and the kid's first car, and the braces, and all that kind of stuff. They don't even have a girlfriend yet, but they've planned for all of that. Money is a big comfort thing for these people. Then there's the other side, which is the spenders. And the spenders think, new Xbox. Bam, got it. New sound system. Bam, got it. Curved TVs. Bam, I bought three. These people rack up debt. Maybe they won't rack up debt. Maybe they have tons of money, but they use that money so that they get the stuff that they want. Boats, cars, flashy lights. Ooh, everything. Anything that'll make them feel good in that moment. Because that's all the stuff that they want to do. For the other people, they want to save. They want to feel comfortable because money is a buffer zone. For these people, money is what they want to spend it on things because things gain them approval or power or whatever it is that they want comfort in their own lives. And so these people, whoever it is with this money issue going on, they start hanging out with church family. They start reading the Bible. They slowly get convicted of how money should actually be spent in this world. That I'm just a manager of the money that God has given me in this moment, in this time for me to have control over temporarily now. But they see that there's actually better uses for that money. And so when someone in their community group needs help financially, they help them out. They want to help them out. When they see that the church is trying to change West Columbia, they want to impact West Columbia with the gospel message. They give financially to the work that the church is doing what they ought to do and what they want to do are slowly becoming the same thing. That's what it looks like when a heart has been circumcised.
The problem that the Jews had in Jesus day is that they remembered their circumcision, but they distorted its meaning. They pointed to their outward signs and said, look, I'm worthy because I'm a descendant of Abraham. And because I'm a descendant of Abraham, I'm good. But it's never been about the outward sign. It's never been about that. The outward sign only ever existed to point people to covenantal faithfulness in what God had done in that covenant, covenant to the promises that God had made to humanity and to Abraham in that covenant fulfilled in Jesus. That was the point of circumcision and they'd missed it. As Matt makes his way back up here, I want to ask you all, are you changing? Can you look back? Can you look back and see change? And if so, is the change that you see a changed heart? Is it just, is it just outward signs or is it a changed heart? And if so, if it is a changed heart, praise God, praise God, because what you want and what you know you ought to do have slowly become the same thing.
And you get to live in God's grace, understanding it better and better every single day, because what you know you ought to do and what you want to do are both happening at the same time. If you're only concerned with yourself or your outward appearance, then your heart isn't changing. And what you actually need is internal spiritual surgery. The answer to your problem is not a simple external change. It's an internal spiritual surgery of your heart. You know, we started this morning awkwardly talking about circumcision. And when God instituted circumcision, it was intended to remind people consistently of the blood covenant. It was supposed to seal in their flesh an identity as a people made in God's image to serve him and to love him and to have faith in the promises that he had made to humanity. The sign is not the same for us anymore.
It may no longer be a physical surgery, but we are still marked as God's people. God's surgery is of our hearts. His circumcision of our hearts is what aligns us so that what we know we ought to do and what we want to do get to become the same thing. The circumcision of our heart is what helps us to love and desire what God loves and desires. Let's pray for that in our lives today. God, I pray, I pray that you will continue to show us what we ought to be doing and help us, help us to want to do that. I pray for those in the room who look to outward signs as a means of showing that they've earned salvation. And I pray that you will perform surgery on their hearts. God, I pray that, I pray that you will continually align our desires with your desires so that what we ought to do
And what we want to do become the same thing. Amen. We have communion set up in the back. And in communion, we remember Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross. The bread represents his body which was broken for us on our behalf. And the grape juice, it represents Christ's blood that was spilled to pay for our sins. This is a thing that Christians do. So if you're not a Christian, you might want to just stay where you are. But if you're a Christian in the room, as you take communion, thank God. Thank Him for the sacrifice that He made in Christ to pay the penalty of that blood covenant. And pray for yourself that what you know you ought to do and what you want to do
Can become the same thing.
When what you ought to do and what you want to do are the same thing. That's what a circumcised heart looks like. When what you most ought to do and what you most want to do have become the same thing. Now that's all well and good, but it's kind of intangible. What exactly does that mean? Well, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, where do you see change in your life?
In what ways has your heart taken a new direction so that you now want to do things that you ought to do rather than what you've always wanted to do? What thing, what thing did you think you would never give up? This whole Jesus thing, this whole church thing was never going to affect my desire to do this. And if that's changed, then that is an indication of a circumcised heart. So for example, you may, you may be, I don't know, just super lazy.
And your idea of an ideal Saturday is a Totino's pizza, stick it in the fridge, not in the fridge, in the oven. Putting it in the fridge isn't going to do anything. Put it in the oven, sit in front of Netflix all day and binge watch. Who even cares? Saturday, you do what you want, right? And someone calls you and says, hey, I really need help moving this table.
Will you come and help me? And you lie. You say, sorry, I'm busy. I guess that's not a lie. You've got a plan. It's just a really bad plan.
And so you're lying to your friend and you say, no, I'm not going to do it. And then you go about doing what you want to do rather than what you know you probably ought to do. And then over time, you start hanging out with a community group, start reading your Bible, you start coming along to Sunday gatherings and you start learning some stuff. You start getting to know the people and you start to love the people. And for some reason, something unexplainable is happening inside of you and you actually want to help these people. And so when someone calls you and says, hey, I'm moving house this Saturday, will you come help?
That actually sounds more desirable to you now. The thing that you ought to do has kind of become the thing that you want to do. Maybe you're completely different. Maybe that's not you. Maybe you've never understood the whole Jesus-y no sex before marriage thing. Maybe that's never really, you know what people say, but it just doesn't affect you.
And so you've gone from girlfriend or boyfriend to girlfriend or boyfriend. You've lived with people. You've maybe even had kids with people. And so you're living in this situation. You've got a kid, that kind of thing. And you're basically, you've got to pretend marriage.
You're basically married. You never actually got married. There's no paperwork. There was no ceremony. But look, it's more or less the same thing.
You just don't like labels. You don't like commitment. And the whole Jesus thing isn't really going to affect that. And then you start hanging out with church family. You see what marriage looks like in other people. You see what Jesus-honoring marriage looks like in other people in the church.
And you start to think, maybe they do have it right. Maybe that's a pretty good option. And suddenly you desire that for yourself. And so you decide, maybe we should get married. Maybe commitment isn't that bad of a thing. Maybe I should just do it.
And in the meantime, maybe we should live separately until we actually get married. And what you know you ought to do, and what you actually want to do, are slowly becoming the same thing. Maybe for you, money is a big deal. Money kind of is a two-sided coin, ironically. And there's the people who are savers. And there's the people who are spenders.
And so for the savers, when it comes to money, there's a number in their bank account, where if their bank account is on or above that number, they're good. They're fine. They're safe. And they know that if anything happens, they don't need to rely on anyone. They don't need to take out loans. They just know they're good because I've saved up that many dollars.
And I can protect myself. I'll be okay. I'll make it through. I'll be good. And then they've got accounts set up for the Disney trip in 15 years, and the kid's first car, and the braces, and all that kind of stuff. They don't even have a girlfriend yet, but they've planned for all of that.
Money is a big comfort thing for these people. Then there's the other side, which is the spenders. And the spenders think, new Xbox. Bam, got it. New sound system. Bam, got it.
Curved TVs. Bam, I bought three. These people rack up debt. Maybe they won't rack up debt. Maybe they have tons of money, but they use that money so that they get the stuff that they want. Boats, cars, flashy lights.
Ooh, everything. Anything that'll make them feel good in that moment. Because that's all the stuff that they want to do. For the other people, they want to save. They want to feel comfortable because money is a buffer zone. For these people, money is what they want to spend it on things because things gain them approval or power or whatever it is that they want comfort in their own lives.
And so these people, whoever it is with this money issue going on, they start hanging out with church family. They start reading the Bible. They slowly get convicted of how money should actually be spent in this world. That I'm just a manager of the money that God has given me in this moment, in this time for me to have control over temporarily now. But they see that there's actually better uses for that money.
And so when someone in their community group needs help financially, they help them out. They want to help them out. When they see that the church is trying to change West Columbia, they want to impact West Columbia with the gospel message. They give financially to the work that the church is doing what they ought to do and what they want to do are slowly becoming the same thing. That's what it looks like when a heart has been circumcised. The problem that the Jews had in Jesus day is that they remembered their circumcision, but they distorted its meaning.
They pointed to their outward signs and said, look, I'm worthy because I'm a descendant of Abraham. And because I'm a descendant of Abraham, I'm good. But it's never been about the outward sign. It's never been about that. The outward sign only ever existed to point people to covenantal faithfulness in what God had done in that covenant, covenant to the promises that God had made to humanity and to Abraham in that covenant fulfilled in Jesus. That was the point of circumcision and they'd missed it.
As Matt makes his way back up here, I want to ask you all, are you changing? Can you look back? Can you look back and see change? And if so, is the change that you see a changed heart? Is it just, is it just outward signs or is it a changed heart? And if so, if it is a changed heart, praise God, praise God, because what you want and what you know you ought to do have slowly become the same thing.
And you get to live in God's grace, understanding it better and better every single day, because what you know you ought to do and what you want to do are both happening at the same time. If you're only concerned with yourself or your outward appearance, then your heart isn't changing. And what you actually need is internal spiritual surgery. The answer to your problem is not a simple external change. It's an internal spiritual surgery of your heart. You know, we started this morning awkwardly talking about circumcision.
And when God instituted circumcision, it was intended to remind people consistently of the blood covenant. It was supposed to seal in their flesh an identity as a people made in God's image to serve him and to love him and to have faith in the promises that he had made to humanity. The sign is not the same for us anymore. It may no longer be a physical surgery, but we are still marked as God's people. God's surgery is of our hearts. His circumcision of our hearts is what aligns us so that what we know we ought to do and what we want to do get to become the same thing.
The circumcision of our heart is what helps us to love and desire what God loves and desires. Let's pray for that in our lives today. God, I pray, I pray that you will continue to show us what we ought to be doing and help us, help us to want to do that. I pray for those in the room who look to outward signs as a means of showing that they've earned salvation. And I pray that you will perform surgery on their hearts. God, I pray that, I pray that you will continually align our desires with your desires so that what we ought to do and what we want to do become the same thing.
Amen. We have communion set up in the back. And in communion, we remember Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross. The bread represents his body which was broken for us on our behalf. And the grape juice, it represents Christ's blood that was spilled to pay for our sins. This is a thing that Christians do.
So if you're not a Christian, you might want to just stay where you are. But if you're a Christian in the room, as you take communion, thank God. Thank Him for the sacrifice that He made in Christ to pay the penalty of that blood covenant. And pray for yourself that what you know you ought to do and what you want to do can become the same thing.
Submission to Authority
1 Peter 2:13-17
Transcript
G'day everyone. This is where you say g'day back. Good morning everyone. My name is Raz, it's good to be with you this morning. I hope everyone slept well last night because today's going to be pretty uncomfortable for most people. Today's going to be a little bit tough for us and that's because so far Peter's been talking a whole lot about who we are, why we're classified as elect exiles, what makes us misfits, why Christians are different to everyone else in society.
And it's been okay, we've been understanding a little bit more about our identity, but he's turned a corner. Last week he turned a corner and now he's going to start telling us what that means for our lives, how that changes, how we behave. And today we're going to be reading the section where he talks about submission to authority. It's one of those sections in scripture. Doesn't happen often for me, but it's one of those sections in scripture that I think everyone would be a little bit more comfortable if it just wasn't there or if it could just be ignored for some reason or if we could just delete little sections that annoy us.
It's like if I, if for some reason, and it's probably lucky that I didn't have this option, but if for some reason I was invited to the Bible writing club and I had my choice of what made it in or not and I was on the phone to God or Jesus or whoever and there was sections that was like, don't murder. I'd be totally stoked. I'd include that. Don't murder. Don't steal. Don't steal.
Got it. Don't lie. Yeah. I kind of like it sometimes, but I'll include it for now. Honor your mother and father. Yeah, I'll use a pencil for that one.
Honor your mother and father. Be subject to every human authority. Hang on. Can you repeat that one? Be subject to every... God, I...
The reception's a little... AT&T. I can't really... I think I'm in the... I'll call you back tomorrow. Be subject...
I would just skip it. And no one would ever know. But I wasn't invited. And here it is. In our Bible. Be subject to every human institution.
I think that human nature instills in us a certain distrust, a certain defense mechanism against human institutions, especially human authorities. We don't trust our boss to pay us right, so we invent pay stubs. Everyone can keep track of how much they're paid. We don't trust banks to keep our money safe, so we keep records of it. We don't trust schools to educate our children, so we do it ourselves. We invent homeschooling.
We don't trust the monarchy, so we invent America. But we don't really trust America and democracy all that much because we still feel the need to keep guns in our back pocket just in case that government gets out of line, right? Amen. Amen. Just in case. So seriously, we have this problem with authority, and we're not good with it.
And Peter's done good so far. He's talked well. He explains why we're misfits, why we are different from society. And then he turns this corner and he says, be subject to every human authority. And we're just like... And for that reason, I think today is going to be pretty tough for us.
The passage itself is actually pretty straightforward. We're going to step through it. We're going to talk about it. But it's pretty straightforward. It's not too hard to understand. What's difficult is how do we apply what he's actually saying.
So we're going to spend a bit of time talking about what the Bible actually says. Then we're going to spend most of our time talking about what it actually means, how it impacts our life. Before we open up, let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity we have to learn from your word. Help us to sit under the authority of scripture today. Fill us with the spirit.
Convict us. Just help us to digest what you have for us from 1 Peter today. Pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. If you've got a Bible, open up to 1 Peter chapter 2. If your one looks like this, it's on page 657.
And we're going to be starting at verse 13. It's got a big heading, an ugly heading it says, Submission to Authority. Like I said, Peter turned a corner last week. He was talking about a whole lot about who we are, what our identity is. And he's turned this corner and he starts giving instructions, ways that we ought to live as a result of who we are and what our identity is. So we're going to start in verse 13.
It says, Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it's to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Let's go back up to the top.
Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Hmm. I don't know about you, but for me, that's tough. Let me tell you what I, what I wish that said. I wish it said, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, unless that human institution is run by morons. Then you get to do whatever you want to do.
Or, be subject to every human institution, unless that human institution makes really dumb rules. Then you can just ignore the dumb ones and keep the good ones. These seem like much nicer, much prettier Bible verses to me. But, I turn to 1 Peter, I look at it and there's just this line, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. And I keep wishing it said more. I keep wishing there was some clause to get you out of doing it.
Some way of like manipulating it and thinking, oh no, it doesn't say that really. Like a, like maybe an emoticon, like a winky face or a, a lol JKS or a, something like, I even looked in the Greek and they didn't have emoticons back then. So that didn't help me out at all. There is no way about it. It's just simple. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.
Just sitting there in the Bible, being authoritative for my life, grinding my soul. That means simple things. We're supposed to listen to our boss. We're supposed to listen to our schools, listen to the police, listen to the government. Nobody really wants to do any of that, right? Maybe, maybe in an ideal world, where all of those things actually worked the way they're supposed to.
Or, if they worked exactly the way I wanted them to. Maybe we would be okay with it then. But when your boss makes you stay late, when the schools start telling you what clothes you're allowed to wear, when the police tell you you're not allowed to drive 90 miles in a school zone, who wants to listen to that junk? No one. He goes on. Whether it's to the emperor's supreme, or to governors as sent by him, to punish those who do evil, and to praise those who do good.
Now this bit's a little bit tricksy. Back in Peter's day, the emperor was like supreme leader, ultimate authority on everything, dude. We don't have anything quite like that. This is the guy who could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, because he's the emperor, and you don't have a say, because you're not the emperor, he's the emperor, so you be quiet. He is not Obama. That is not a valid jump.
He's not Obama. He's Kim Jong-un. He's the guy who tells you, if you don't have the right haircut, I can kill you. So there's the emperor, who's the supreme leader dictator, and then he says there's a governor. Now the governor is a representative of the emperor.
He's also pretty powerful. He can do some pretty crazy stuff. He's got a lot of authority, but to make big changes, he needs the authorization of the emperor. Neither one of these positions of power translates well into American society. But Peter says you're supposed to submit to all of them as well.
They have more power than anything that American society has. To disagree with the emperor was to have your head chopped off, and he said submit to him. It's different for us. Obama can't just say off with his head. He disagrees with me. We have certain freedoms, certain rights as Americans.
Well, you do. I don't. They allow free speech. They allow the right to protest. They, well, they don't allow for it, but there's things like civil Acts of disobedience that exist, and they're more acceptable in our culture. We'll talk a little bit more about that later, but it's not a direct equivalent.
He goes on in verse 15. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Basically, when you act obediently as a law-abiding citizen, like a real law-abiding citizen, not like the movie, people around, they won't be able to give you grief. They don't have accusations. They don't have any ammunition against you saying that you don't actually care about what the Bible says. I'm pretty bad at this.
I think a lot of people are pretty bad at this, but I'll tell you about me. Stop signs. I've been continually convicted lately about stop signs because my wife harasses me when I do not stop completely at stop signs. Stop signs can be dumb, right? They put them in some weird locations. There's a street at the end of, like our apartment is here, and then you go up that street, and it's just a bend in the road.
It's not an intersection. It's just a bend in the road. There's a stop sign there. What? Seriously? I'm the worst at this, and I just think, that's a dumb stop sign.
I can just run that. No one's ever, like, no one's going to stop me. Everyone else thinks it's dumb. There's no, I'm definitely not going to get hit. There's no other roads. Dumb stop sign.
I'm just, no. No. Christina is like, Razz, there's a stop sign. Razz, you should stop me, stop me, and it's a stop sign, and then it comes back at every other stop sign, every other stop sign, and it's that stop sign, you don't stop at this stop sign. I'm the worst at this. I really am, and I'm convicted, because ever since I've been talking about this sermon with Christina, she's been dialing it up a little bit, like, you know this is real.
Yes, I know. I'm sorry. I'm the worst of sinners. I'm the worst of sinners. I'm not good at this. I apologize.
I repent. But seriously, what happens is, when you break laws simply because you disagree with them, when you think, this is dumb, it doesn't apply to me, this rule is stupid, bad policy, bad law, I'm just going to ignore it, you're actually not proving anything. I don't prove anything by ignoring it. I give the world excuses to think I'm a hypocrite. When you disregard meaningless laws, when you disregard anything that you think is meaningless, you're discrediting yourself as a moral authority. And that's what he's saying to avoid.
That's what he's saying. Don't fall to the ignorance of fools. Don't be a fool in the way that you act. You cannot silence the ignorance of fools when you act like one yourself. There's a right way, which is submitting to the rules, the policies, the authorities. And there's a wrong way, which is, my way is better than that.
Now, fools make foolish arguments, like I did. This one doesn't make sense. This stop sign doesn't apply to me. That is a foolish argument. Fools make foolish arguments, and it just gives everyone else ammunition. Let me give you a silly example of foolish arguments from fools.
This is near and dear to the hearts of many Mill City folk. There's a consistent debate out there about which would be the best Mexican grill fast food restaurant. If I were to silence the ignorance of fools, I have options. I can do illegal things. I could destroy every Moe's in existence. That is an option.
There would be no more argument that Moe's is better than Chipotle because Moe's no longer exists. Now, I would be a fool to do that. I would spend the rest of my life in jail. I would have proven my point, but I would have failed to be a law-abiding citizen. There's an alternative method, and that method is called appealing to objective reality. Objectively, and you can use your superior intellect whenever you're against one of these Moe's folk.
Use your superior intellect. Chipotle is objectively better than Moe's. Period. Easy to prove. You can put them side by side and eat them both. Now, a fool, a fool will come back with foolish arguments.
Like my stop signs don't apply to me. A fool will say something like, they don't greet me on the way into Chipotle. Fool! That does not apply to anything to do with food. I do not care if they greet me or not. They don't even greet me when I go to Moe's anyway.
I think they know that I like Chipotle more. I asked if we got free stuff for them not greeting us, and apparently there used to be a rule, and it's not anymore, because they're not good at greeting you. That's not even a good excuse. That's not a rule. That's stupid. That is foolish.
But you don't let them know that you think that's foolish. I'm sorry. I'm getting really distracted. I'm passionate about this, okay? Hopefully one day, the ignorance of fools will be silenced using good methods like superior intellect. Let's move on.
That was distracting. Verse 16. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Christians are free. Free from the law, free from sin, free from evil. We talk about this all the time, but what Peter's saying is that as we have freedom in Christ, as we're free as Christians, we choose to be orderly.
We choose to submit ourselves to human leaders. Peter's saying here that Christians don't use the freedom that they have to go out and ignore human authorities, to break laws, to do whatever they want, and think, I'm free in Christ, so I can just ignore that stop sign. It's the classic case of rebellion, saying, Christ loves me, so I can do whatever I want. I'm free to sin, I'm free to do whatever, because Christ's love covers all of my sins. Christ didn't die to free us so that we could sin. He died to free us from sin, to protect us from the power that sin has to control our lives, to destroy us, to control every action that we do.
It's what Chet talked about last week with the passions of the flesh. We're free of that because of Christ's sacrifice. That's what it means to be free as a Christian. Verse 17 says, Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. This section is a little more important than it might seem. It's four simple instructions, but there's a little bit of a hierarchy at play.
He starts with, Honor everyone, love the brotherhood. That means that we treat, we treat everyone with respect. We treat everyone with dignity. We're all created in God's image. We're all created equal. There's no one that's better, no one that's worse.
And that means there is, there is never a reasonable time to speak bad about people publicly. That means there is never a reasonable time to rant online about other humans. Even if it's cryptic and they don't know it's actually them. There's no names, it's people, it's just someone. There's never an appropriate time if we're honoring everyone to rant about each other. Called to honor everyone.
And he says, love the brotherhood. That's his way of saying, when he says love the brotherhood, it means there's a certain different way that we treat the brotherhood. And by brotherhood, he means the family. He's specifically talking about the church. There's, it's not often that when it comes to everyone or the church, that there would be some kind of opposition. But when there is, which is rarely, there would be a certain extra something that goes towards church.
You would, you would have an extra amount of love for people who are in the church. Basically what he's saying is, because we're elect exiles, because we're misfits, misfits look out for each other. In general. But at the same time, we honor everyone. And the next bit is, fear God, honor the emperor. This is a, this is a surprisingly big one.
We've talked about how the emperor has no direct equivalent in American society. But for the purposes of this verse, and because in verse 13, he says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. You can pretty much sub in any human authority. Fear God and honor your parents. Fear God and honor your boss. Fear God and honor the government.
That's how it works. They are to be honored, treated with respect. They are not to be treated like you would God, as in fear and reverence, but they are to be treated with respect. Now, when push comes to shove, Christians have this extra allegiance to God. The fear, the reverence aspect. If, if a human authority and God's moral law are diametrically opposed, we would go with God's moral law.
That's what he's saying with the hierarchy of fear God, but honor the emperor. Now, we are not always going to agree with things that our leaders say and do. Very rarely will we agree with the things our leaders say and do, but even then, he's telling us to honor them. America is proudly democratic, as it should be. I'm all about it. But every now and then in a democracy, someone that you don't like is elected.
Every now and then. Sometimes, for some people, it feels like someone you don't like is always elected. But, there will be people in power that we don't necessarily like. But just because we don't like them does not mean they're fair game for slander and hate, which is too easy to fall to. And when he says, fear God and honor the emperor, he means it. Fear God and honor the government, he means it.
Be honorable in the way you talk about them. With things like Facebook and internet anonymity, it's so easy to see a picture with a slogan that shows why someone's such an idiot and we can just like it and we can share it and it's just this public persona of us driving garbage online when we're not being honorable to everyone. We're not being honorable to a human authority. We're not being honorable to the government and we're not being honorable to the emperor, if he existed. We're to honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. Treat people with respect, dignity, even if you don't like them, honor them.
So that's the Bible comprehension part. It's pretty simple. Unless a human institution is diametrically opposed to God's law, to what God has said for us, then we're to follow the human institution. Now you might be tracking along pretty easily so far that that's all pretty digestible. It's a little uncomfortable. We don't love that kind of information, but it's not painful.
But when some government, boss, organization imposes something on you that you really, really don't like, you're faced with a choice. You obey or you disobey. And the question becomes, what should a Christian do when they disagree with a human authority? That's what we're going to spend pretty much the rest of our time talking about. What should a Christian do when they disagree with the human authority? Now let's start with something pretty easy.
In our society, there's a whole lot of freedom. In America, all about freedom. You get to choose things like which career path you want. That was a little different than in Peter's day. If you were born into a carpenter's family, you would be a carpenter. If you're born into a farmer's family, you'd be a farmer.
We get to choose, which means we kind of get to choose bosses in a way. We kind of get to choose which organization we work for. So what does it look like to fear God foremost and honor our boss? Fear God and honor the organization. Well, your boss is probably going to make you do things you don't want to do. The organization as a whole is probably going to have some dumb policies.
And I know from experience that that can be pretty dang annoying. I worked as an electrician in Australia for a number of years. This annoyed me more than most people, but on a construction site in Australia, it doesn't matter who you are, what your profession, anything like that, you must wear a hard hat, safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves, high visibility vest, and steel cap boots. I don't know if it's the same here, it's probably something pretty similar. If you're on a construction site, that's what you've got to wear. I did a lot of brand new apartment buildings and stuff like that.
So we would go in, everything would be done, landscaping's done, elevators are running, lights are all on, paint is done, everything's in except humans and furniture. And because it's still technically a construction site, you would have to wear your hard hat, glasses, hearing protection, gloves, high visibility vest, and steel cap boots in case you needed to kick someone or be seen by someone, be seen by the forklifts that weren't there anymore, all of that kind of stuff. Bump your head on something. So the thing that I would hate the most is when they're doing their final inspections and there's a light out and I would, because I'm going to a construction site that day, I'd have to wear my hard hat, my glasses, my gloves, my hearing protection, my high visibility shirt, my steel cap boots so I could change a light bulb in a finished apartment.
Now I see the point of your rules on a construction site but this should no longer be a construction site. It annoyed me like crazy and so I would just ignore some of them like I wouldn't wear a hard hat. Here's another one. This one's funnier. This one's better. This is something you can practice for yourself.
When you go to Chick-fil-A, which isn't going to be today, dang it, but you can do it any other day, you go there and you say thank you to a Chick-fil-A employee. They are obligated to say my pleasure and you can thank them again and they will say my pleasure. It is Chick-fil-A policy that if somebody thanks you, you must say my pleasure. So you thank someone and they give you their pleasure and then you thank them again and you say, no, seriously, thank you for what you do and they say my pleasure. You can try that one on repeat and it's an actual thing. Now, for the most part, that seems like a good policy until someone like me or Chet goes in and says thank you too many times and we start really frustrating some Chick-fil-A employees.
It feels like a dumb policy, but when you're a Chick-fil-A employee and that happens, is it really that hard to just submit to the rules? To submit to the wearing a hard hat? To submit to whatever it is? Maybe your company changes the rules on clocking in and it's now clunkier, it takes more time, it's frustrating, maybe it takes five minutes. Excellent. That's the first five minutes of your work day done.
It's going to frustrate you, but it's not that big of a deal. Workplace stuff is typically not that big of a deal. Now, realistically, even if your boss is unfair, even if he really is a jerk, nine times out of ten, 99 times out of 100, the right call is going to be follow the instructions of your boss. Even if they're frustrating, even if they're dumb, even if their policies are stupid, even if you disagree, the right call is going to be to follow your boss. It's a better witness, it shows them that you take them seriously, it honors them. Now, the fear God, honor your boss thing comes into play.
If your boss starts telling you, do things that are illegal, lie to clients, rip them off, steal things, then you have an obligation to fear God instead of honoring your boss. You may get fired. That might happen, but in that case, your boss is a jerk anyway. You get to move on with your life, and at least you've valued your dignity and relationship with God above your boss. Now, what happens if it's not just your boss, it's like a governmental thing? How do you fear God and honor the government?
That can be pretty difficult. The government makes you do a lot of things you don't really want to do. When you go to an airport, the TSA makes you take your shoes off, they make you take your laptop out of your bag, they make you chug your water, they make you do a full body scan, I don't want to do any of that. The Bush administration introduced the US Patriot Act, which meant that the government was essentially allowed to spy on all of its citizens. They could read text messages, record phone calls. Nobody really liked that.
The Obama administration introduced the Affordable Care Act, friendly one known as Obamacare. It forces a lot of people to pay extra things for healthcare that they wouldn't have previously purchased and they're now forced to. People don't like that. No one likes being told what they can and can't do. No one likes being told to take their shoes off when they think it's stupid. No one likes any of that stuff.
Government gets their hands into things all the time and we don't want our phone calls recorded. We don't want to take our shoes off. We don't want to pay extra charges because no one can tell me to do anything right. I have a right. I have individual rights. I have liberties.
This is unfair. The problem with that mentality of thinking is that at no point in time does the truth, at no point in time does the gospel ever emphasize individual rights. At no point in time. I know this is hard to stomach. This is hard to digest. This is very countercultural.
But at no point in time does Jesus, does Paul, does Peter, does God ever emphasize individual rights. It's just not in there. Let me be super specific, super clear, and abrasive. the only right, the only right that humans have, the only thing we can stand before, a holy God, the only thing that we can stand before him and force him to give us, the only right that we can demand from God, is his wrath and our punishment. punishment. The wages of sin is death. We all sin, we all deserve death, and the only right that we have, the only thing we can demand from God is that he punish us for it. It's the only thing.
Our individual right is that we be destroyed. The gospel does not emphasize individual rights. God has rights, Jesus has rights, he sacrificed those rights, he set them aside so that he could come down to earth, be tortured, be killed on our behalf to free us from sin. We only have any rights that are given to us by the free will of God. Outside of that, we have none. None.
We're never told in scripture to fight for our individual rights, we're never told in the gospel that we deserve anything outside of death. And so far, all the way through 1 Peter, all the way through this letter so far, he's told us that we're misfits. He's told us that even with the rights that America gives us, we have to be equipped to have them violated. Christians are equipped to suffer. Christians are the ones who are equipped most to not have rights anymore, to have their rights denied to them. that's the uncomfortable truth of the gospel. Now, while I'm up here being all abrasive and stuff, hypothetically, and just in case you are armed this morning, this is a hypothetical. hypothetical.
Hypothetically, the government may eventually, might, may eventually start imposing laws that impose on the Second Amendment. They would be an unpopular government. They would not be popular around Mill City Church, they would not be popular in the South, they would not be popular in much of America, but it could happen. They might start with ammunition, box limits, caliber restrictions, they might include crazy taxes on ammo, so you've got to pay through the nose to get what you want. Then they, once they're done with ammunition, they might come after automatic weapons, semi-automatic weapons, ARs, gone, can't have them anymore.
Then maybe they come for pistols, no more concealed carry, no more any, like you can't walk on the street anymore with a gun, done, can't even own a pistol anymore, too dangerous. Then they could come for shotguns, air rifles, BB guns, airsoft guns, pea shooters, pitchforks, sharp sticks, knives, whatever you've got, they're going to come for it. They could overrule the Second Amendment, they could introduce another amendment that says there's no more Second Amendment, they could do it all in one foul swoop, and then your right to bear arms is now gone. It is now illegal to own a gun. That would be a crazy day.
Most of you are probably thinking, over my dead body, right? That's the South mentality on this, but it could happen. What would Peter say to us, what would Peter say to Christians if that was to happen? I don't think you really need me to tell you. It's written there. You can read it.
It's written on the screen. Let's get it up on the screen. It says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Just got real, right? Not the most popular of thoughts, right? Now you feel why I thought this was going to be a hard sermon, right?
Peter tells us that unless the government is starkly opposed to God's law, unless starkly opposed to God's law, we submit to that human institution. In this case, if the Second Amendment was overruled, Peter would tell Christians, give back your guns. Unless it's opposed to God's law, we follow human laws. That is uncomfortable, right? Well, here's a reality check for us. Peter was writing in a different time.
We like to use this excuse sometimes that it doesn't apply to us because things were different for them back then. Everything was different. It's a different culture. It's a different whatever. Here's a reality check for us. Peter was writing to Christians in the time of Emperor Nero.
When he said, submit to human institutions, whether it be to emperors, supreme, or to governors, as sent by him, he was talking about Emperor Nero. When he said, fear God, honor the emperor, he was talking about Emperor Nero. Now, the history buffs in the room know that Emperor Nero has a pretty bad report. No one really liked him. Here's what Tacitus, Tacitus was a Roman historian. Here's what he wrote about Emperor Nero's treatment of Christians.
This is Nero when he was in power. This is how he treated Christians. Besides being put to death, they, that's Christians, besides being put to death, they were made to serve as objects of amusement. They were clothed in hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs. Others were crucified. Others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed.
Nero used Christians as candlesticks in his house. he continued, Tacitus continues, it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good, but to gratify the cruelty of an individual. That is the dude that Peter is saying submit to. That guy, Nero, using Christians as candlesticks in his house, Nero, submit to that guy. We hear all this stuff about submit to the government and we try to get out of it and we do whatever and he's saying submit to that guy. We fear tyrannical leadership. We fear what would happen if the government took too much power, too much control.
We fear tyrannical government. We don't even know what that means. We don't even know what that is. Peter was writing to the people with a tyrannical government, not us. Now, are there times when the government is wrong? Yes.
Should we stand up to them? Yes, I think so. But, it comes under this idea of fear God, honor the emperor. Fear God, honor the government. There must be an aspect of this is opposed to God's law, and that's why I'm standing up to it. You all know Martin Luther King Jr.
You know what he fought for. At the point in time when he was around, when he was a big name, the government was wrong. Racism was wrong. Segregation was wrong. The systematic oppression of black people was wrong. You all know that he pushed for civil disobedience.
He told his followers, to go out and deliberately break the law. He told them to do that. That would not be honoring the government. He told them to do that and to accept peacefully any of the consequences. But listen to what he says about it.
This is from his letter from a Birmingham jail in 1963. He writes, one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. If you peacefully break a law that is a government law and that law is opposed to God's law, do it openly, do it peacefully, accept the consequences, and hope that the community sees that the law is unjust.
That's what Martin Luther King said. His movement is one of very few examples, very few examples of a time when this concept of fear God, honor the government, was actually done well. It looked for him a whole lot more like a letter from prison than it did revolution. It looked a whole lot more like weakness than power. It looked a whole lot more like Jesus than Mel Gibson in the Patriot. God.
Now we're focusing pretty hard today on what it looks like to submit to every human institution while we're fearing God and we're honoring everyone. And I know that that's not easy. I know it's uncomfortable. I'm not telling you to ignore politics and not be politically active. Be politically active. Be involved.
Vote. Want good things for this country. That is a good and honorable thing. Use your voting power to influence the direction the country takes. We get to exercise these kinds of personal freedoms as the human institution that we submit to allows us to. The American government says you've got the freedom to vote.
Vote. But we have something so much better than control of the government. We have something so much better than control of the government. Being in control of the government, being in control of the government is not what Peter says is the goal. It's the exact opposite of that. He's telling us to be misfits, be outsiders.
The goal is to be who Christ has made us to be, in his image, living our lives to propagate the gospel. We weren't told to overthrow evil governments. We weren't told that. We were told to fear God and honor them. keep in mind that when he said that, he was talking about Nero. You want to talk about an evil leader, Nero's the guy. Fear God and honor Nero.
Fear God and honor the government. Like I said at the beginning, this is, for me, one of the toughest sections of scripture. And I know that as Americans, it rubs like sandpaper against you as well, your flag-waving, hot dog-eating, baseball-loving, NASCAR-attending souls. I know it's hard. This is the truth of what Peter's telling us this morning. As the band comes back up, I want us to know this from what Peter says.
The gospel is better. The gospel is more fulfilling and more powerful than individual rights. The gospel is better than your individual rights. There will be things that you have to submit to that you don't want to, but the gospel is better. Your hope, your hope is not in the USA. Your hope is not in some old, crusty documents signed in ink by old white men.
That is not where we put our hope. Our hope is in the cross signed with blood by the Son of God who sacrificed his rights on our behalf to free us from sin. When you have to take your shoes off at the airport, when you have to pay health care you don't want, when the government spies on your text messages, even if the government starts taking guns away, the gospel is bigger, better, and more powerful. Your identity in Christ supersedes your identity as an American. Your identity in Christ supersedes your individual rights. Your hope isn't in America.
Your hope is in Christ. Christ. That is what it means to be a misfit. That is what it means to be an elect exile. And that is what equips us, even when it's hard, to be subject to every human institution. Let's pray.
Father God, we humbly submit to you and know that it's your will that we submit to human institutions. I pray that as we leave today we can be convicted of the ways, the insignificant ways where we just set aside the law, set aside policies, set aside our bosses, set aside our parents, pray that we can repent of that. God, we want you to be the focus of everything in our lives. When you say submit to human authorities, Lord, I pray that we can take that seriously. God, we know that we have so much more in the gospel than we're offered by the government. We have so much more in the gospel than we're offered as Americans.
I pray that we can submit to you, submit to Christ, and know that all of our hope is found in him. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Genuine Generosity
Transcript
G'day everyone. That means good morning. You can say g'day back or you can say good morning, whatever. My name is Raz. It's good to be here this morning. I'm willing to bet everyone here at some point in their life, at least a million times, has heard the phrase, is money is the root of all evil.
Yes? We've heard this phrase, money is the root of all evil. Nope. Money is not the root of all evil. Money, in fact, I believe, is very, very good. In fact, if you think back to a time when money did not even exist, think back to a time when no one traded money, they just traded stuff.
We commonly know it as the Stone Age. Other people know it as settlers of Catan. The idea is that I need to produce something for myself that I can trade with other people to get stuff that they produce. So I might produce a whole bunch of sheep, which are pretty useless, and you might produce a whole bunch of timber or wheat or something like that. And if I want some wheat, I need to convince you to trade your wheat with me for my sheep because I don't have any money. Problem is, you might not want sheep because sheep are pretty useless.
And so I have to convince you somehow to give me some timber so I can build my road. But you don't want me to build my road because then I'll beat you. But that's not how it works in real life. Everyone needed to produce something so that they could trade with other people. And that's how it worked. I would produce something.
You would produce something. We would swap. No one had any currency or anything. And so every individual person needed to produce something for themselves. Most people would try to live off what they had on their own land. But every now and then you would need to trade.
And the problem is, my stuff that I have is only worth as much as you're willing to trade me for. If you don't want to trade with me for the stuff that I've got, then I'm in trouble and I just don't get what I need. Enter into this situation money. Money comes in and suddenly everyone has this unique, special thing that you can trade for anything. Money holds value in and of itself and everything's value is measured against money. Sheep have a dollar value.
Wood has a dollar value. Bricks have a dollar value. And suddenly people who produce different things can use this unique resource to trade with each other. Money sounds pretty good. Money sounds brilliant. And you fast forward a couple thousand years, lots of thousands of years of money being used.
And now we have professions like athlete. That couldn't have existed before. No one said, hey, I'll give you a barrel of hay if you jump over that stick. I'll give you a sheep if you sing me a song. It just didn't exist. Everyone was producing things.
And so now because of money, CEOs, managers, farmers, musicians, athletes all have this thing that they can trade. They can use money to buy what they need to survive. Money is a good thing. It is not the root of all evil. Money is the root of all evil is actually a misquote. There's a similar quote.
Money is the root of all evil is a misquote. A misquote is a good. Misquote is a fine under particular circumstances. They're good if you're trying to win an argument that you're not going to win otherwise. You can always quote Shakespeare or Einstein. You don't need to know the quote.
It just has to be close enough that no one really knows. They're also good for annoying nerds like this one. This one. It says, use the force, Harry, by Gandalf. And there's a guy from Star Trek. His name is Jean-Luc Picard.
And all of the fonts are wrong. If you're a nerd, it kills your soul. Misquotes can be good. But the quote we're actually looking for is from 1 Timothy chapter 6. And it reads like this. It says, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
Hear the difference? The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Money in and of itself is not evil. It's the desire for money. The longing. The desire to have more and store it up and keep more and more for myself.
The idea that money will fulfill me. These are all different kinds of evil. Money in and of itself is actually a good thing. It allows everyone to trade. This love of money is the source of all kinds of evils. That's why the author of Hebrews, he says, keep your life free from the love of money.
Be content with what you have. It's the desire for more and more. It's actually what causes all the problems. Now, my goal today is not to convince you that you saving money is sinful. It's not necessarily. It could be.
My goal is not to convince you that your spending habits are in and of themselves evil or that your money is evil because that's not necessarily true, though it could be. My goal for today is to convince you that giving money away freely to other people, those who need it, those who don't need it, just giving it away with no benefit to yourself is actually a source of great joy. That's the goal for today. Being generous is a source of great joy. Let's pray.
We talked about the lens through which we culturally see money and how that lens can kind of corrupt our understanding. We talked about some big principles about how we should actually view money, but we didn't really get into the kind of nitty-gritty of how that applies to our lives. So the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk specifically about how that generosity, how that lens impacts the way we use our money. There's two big principles from last week that I want to highlight. The first one is that, let me just check it so I get the words right. The first one is, we cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead.
We cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead. The idea is that we are going to die. You are going to die. Everybody dies. Easy. You cannot take the money that you've stored up with you once you've died, but you can send it on ahead.
And what that means, what this idea of storing up treasures in heaven means is that the way that we interact with money now, the way that we manage money now, can impact what we will have for eternity. When you are generous with your money now, when you give it away with no kind of selfish greed ambition for yourself with that money, when you just give it away, you're actually storing up treasures for yourself later. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. The second one that we looked at, the second principle that we talked about was that God owns everything. I am his money manager.
God owns everything. I'm his money manager. The idea here is that God created the world, created us, created everything in it. Psalms talks about how he is the owner of everything in the world. We read other places where he says, all of the silver, all of the gold belongs to me. Everything in this world is God's.
I'm just the guy who temporarily uses it while I'm on earth. That's how our approach to money should be. And so when we ask any question that starts with this idea of, what should I do with my money? How should I spend my money? Who should I give my money to? What percentage of my money should I give?
We've already misunderstood. We've already believed a lie that the money we're talking about belongs to me in the first place. And so this principle is that the money belongs to God. You're just the person who gets to control it temporarily. The opposite of this, the opposite concept of this entire lens that we're looking at money through, is kind of how the world talks to us about it, how culture talks to us about money. The American culture in general is big on making it yourself, the American dream, making lots of money, getting a job, moving on in the world.
If you've ever seen a show called Shark Tank, you've probably seen this guy before. His name is Kevin O'Leary. Shark Tank is a show where billionaires like this guy invest in other people's products, other people's time and effort, and try to help them become billionaires as well. They're all obsessed with money. This guy is the epitome of it. They call him Mr.
Wonderful, which is totally wrong. He's a massive jerk. He treats everyone like scum. And when he was interviewed about money, this is something that he said. He said, you may lose your wife, you may lose your dog. Your mother may hate you.
None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like. That's pretty bold, right? That's pretty bold. Now, I know none of us would quite say it like this.
No one in this room is rich enough or brave enough to say that. But we can understand where this comes from, given our culture. We can understand this concept that money is worth dying for. Get rich or die trying. We can understand this concept that anything that gets in your way of getting rich is just an obstacle. It's kind of how our culture views money.
Whether we like it or not, a small part of us that does understand that also sympathizes with it. We might not go to the extremes of saying we're going to trample our mother and our dog and our wife and stuff. But we understand what it means to desire so much to have more money that we would do things for it. That we would push things out of the way to get more money. When culture is so overexposed on an issue like money, a little bit of that seeps into us, even if we deny the overall premise. And it's kind of horrifying that we could sympathize with something like that.
Open up a Bible, if you've got one, to 1 Timothy chapter 6. If you've got a Bible that looks like this, it's going to be on page 644. Page 644. 1 Timothy is a letter. It was written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy. Paul was getting really old.
He's a bit of a geezer at this point. He planted a whole bunch of churches. He was the main primary leader of those churches. And he knew he was going to die soon, so he was setting up other people to kind of take over those roles. Timothy was one of them. He was leader at this time of the church of Ephesus.
And Paul is just giving him some instructions on here's how the church should be run. We're going to be in 1 Timothy 6 from verses 17 to 19. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty. That means arrogant. Charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.
Thus, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. Okay, back up to the top. Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, well, I don't know about you, but I know I am completely off the hook at this point in time. And as I look up at everyone, I didn't see anyone like, shh, quiet the people next to them. He's talking to us.
We need to listen. None of that happened when I said the word rich, because we all kind of think we're off the hook at this point in time. I understand that, because none of us are rich, right? We live in Columbia, South Carolina. That's not a rich city. Most of us, we don't own our own houses, not at least outright.
We probably don't drive a flashy car. We've probably got some loans to pay off. We're not like all those rich people out there that exist. Those rich people who own a nice house and own a flashy car and don't have any loans. They live on their cash. They're the rich people.
But then those people look at the other people with five houses and ten vacation homes in six countries, each of them with a Lamborghini. And they say, I'm not rich. That guy's rich. And the process continues. I'm not rich because someone is richer. It's all a bizarre trick, really.
It's all this trick that we tell ourselves to disassociate with this label. Rich. What does it mean to be rich? It's actually a very weird logic. I'm not rich because someone else is richer. Let me prove it to you.
I poke holes in this all day. If I substitute the word rich, it's no longer I'm not rich because someone else is richer, and add in something mundane. Clothes. I'm not clothed because someone else has more clothes than I do. What? I'm not full because Matt ate more food than I did.
What? What? It's true most of the time. It's true most of the time, but that's not how logic works. It's not this case of I'm not rich because someone else is richer. The logic is flawed.
I went to Belize a few years ago. Belize is a country in Central America. It's on the Caribbean side. They don't associate themselves with Central America. They're a Caribbean country. Let me tell you what it looks like to be rich in Belize.
If you're rich in Belize, you probably have a door on your bathroom. Your bathroom will be just in the corner of your square house, and you'll probably have a door instead of just like a curtain on your bathroom. You will probably, if you're rich in Belize, have a lock on your front door instead of a dog. The only building in all of Belize that I went to that had air conditioning was the airport. So we arrived, thought, this isn't so bad, and then spent two weeks sweating out in the sun all day long.
Fun fact about Belize. There's not that many flushable toilets. There's a few. They're around. If you plan your day, if you're a good planner for that kind of thing, you can plan when you need to use the bathroom, and you can find a flushable toilet. They're not everywhere.
Even the ones that you do find, you are not allowed to flush anything down it, including toilet paper. They have a little trash can that sits in the cubicle. So you can go, and then you can clean up, and the toilet paper goes in the trash can. Keep in mind, these houses are not air conditioned. If you've got a window, you're lucky, and it's probably 120 degrees with 100% humidity. Kind of gross.
But that's actually the rich, the wealthy lifestyle in Belize. It's kind of crazy. You want to learn a thing or two about luxury, you go to a country like that, and then come home. Then you experience luxury when you come home. And that's what happened for me. I spent two weeks in Belize, came back, and then found myself on day one eating three full meals, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet, flushing my toilet paper.
It was amazing. And then I would just pick up whatever I was doing from before I left, like watching TV shows on Netflix. The kind of stuff that normal people do. Not rich people. Kind of different when you come home. I will probably continue to play the I'm not rich card.
This Trump card. I'm not rich. I'll probably continue to play that card for the rest of my life. I probably will. But I'm going to be doing that from my air-conditioned department, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet that I can put my toilet paper in.
I'll probably be on my iPhone, maybe watching subscription television while I'm at it. None of that makes me rich here. Excellent. We measure richness in the Western world in kind of a bizarre way. We have like this sliding scale where we are able to, in our own minds, measure what rich actually is. And so if we have the poor, the poorest of the poor don't have a single dollar, probably in thousands of dollars of debt, whatever.
These people all the way over here that have absolutely nothing. And then all the way at the other end of the scale, the sliding scale of richness, you have Bill Gates and his buddies over here who have billions and billions of dollars. We're all going to land somewhere in the middle, probably on this side of the middle, probably. And we're going to look this way and say, that's where rich begins. Because we want to disassociate ourselves with this label of what it means to be rich. We're not rich.
All these people in front of me are rich. How could I be rich when they've got so much more than I do? And we push away this label because we're scared of it. Being rich comes with more responsibility. I have to look after more people. I've got to finance well.
And so we disassociate ourselves with richness saying that's something for all those people. And we don't really pay attention to all these people. We never turn around and say, wow. I am incredibly blessed. Look at all these people that I could help out. Look at all these people who have nothing compared to me.
This is how we evaluate richness. This is how we generally associate whether or not I'm rich. This is our criteria. Am I at this mysterious line on this side that I have to cross eventually? Then I become rich.
That's how it works. But the closer we get to that line, the further up that line moves because no one wants to be rich. At least we avoid it. Instead, I want us to evaluate it slightly differently. I want us to evaluate it like this. Answer the question, could I survive on less?
Could I survive on less? Would my family and I die? Would we cease to exist if we had less money, less stuff? Now, if a decent percentage of our income disappeared overnight, gone, it could be 5% for you. That might be a big deal. It could be 45% for you.
That could be a big deal. If a massive drop happened in our income overnight, we would probably have to make some lifestyle changes. That's natural. If we're forced to live on less, we make lifestyle changes. We might have a smaller house without two spare bedrooms that we keep just because the in-laws might come eventually but never do. We just have to vacuum an extra room every week.
We might have to cancel subscription television, HBO, that kind of thing. Maybe we would have to use a dumb phone. My suggestion is and always will be that you just get rid of the dog. That's a money pit. But there's no reason to do that to yourself.
It just costs money. But in the process of all of this, being forced to live on less, we would probably have to rely on God a little bit. Probably. But I'm willing to bet we wouldn't die. Willing to bet we could all live on less. Now, I don't know if I've proved my point or not, but I'm willing to bet also that when you got here today, you arrived by vehicle in a car.
Car. You probably are wearing clothes. At least I think you all are. You probably ate some food this morning. And you probably used a fully functional flushable toilet. If all of that is true, I'm just going to read the rest of this and assume it applies to us.
Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty or arrogant, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Rich people. That's us. Don't set your hopes on money. Don't set your hopes on money.
Set them on God. Now, you might think, I don't have any money. That's fine. Don't set your hopes on it anyway. For people who've got lots of money, don't set your hopes on it. It could go in a flash.
Some bank could go bankrupt and you lose everything. Your trust fund could disappear overnight. Don't put your hopes in the money that you have. For people who don't have any money, don't put your hopes on the money that you hope to have in the future. When the mortgage is paid off. When the car is paid off.
When the student loans are paid off. When the job gives you the promotion they've been promising. To say, I'll just be good. I can give more then. I can be okay then. I'll be comfortable then.
It's still putting your hopes on money. It's just future money that doesn't exist yet. It could be 10 years away. It could be 25 years away. Don't put your hopes in money. Put your hopes on God.
He's the provider of everything that we need. You can't take it with you. What's the point in hoping in it? When you start to get worried. When you start to get worried financially. Are you more likely to turn to your bank account.
And make sure that there's still that buffer zone in the bottom of it. And say, sweet. I'm okay. I'm good. I'll survive. I got the buffer zone.
Or are you likely to think. God has made promises to me. He's going to keep them. I'll be okay. When you're stressed. When you're anxious.
Are you more likely to find comfort in bankofamerica.com. Telling you you've still got that much money left. Or are you willing to find comfort in the fact that. God predestined you. He set you up since before the world began. He knows the number of hairs on your head.
And he has a plan for your life. Which one of them is more comfort to you. Sadly I think. A lot of people find comfort in this. Arbitrary amount of money. That's kept in their bank account.
We know that money is temporary. We know we can't take it with us. We can't take it with us when we die. Why put our hopes in it. Instead put your hopes in God. In verse 18.
They. That's the rich. Are to do good. To be rich in good works. To be generous and ready to share. Thus.
Storing up treasure for themselves. As a good foundation. For the future. So that they may take hold of that. Which is truly life. Paul is saying that for those.
With money. Those who are rich. Do good things with it. Be generous with it. Be hospitable with your house. And your stuff.
When you do. You store up treasures for yourself. In the future. And attain that. Which is truly life. That's a crazy thought.
But you. Can't take it with you. Send it on ahead. Store up treasures for yourself. In heaven. Where.
Moth and rust. Don't destroy stuff. Every time you. Be generous. Now. Every time you give away.
Not. Not expecting anything in return. You're storing up treasures for yourself. In heaven. It gets to be joyful in the moment. You have a lot of fun doing it.
But you're also storing up treasures in heaven. That's exactly what he says to do. Now. The early church is described as incredibly joyful. These are the guys who are around. Right after Jesus kind of ascended.
And I'm going to read a passage that we. We talk about a lot. As Mill City Church. We. We kind of believe that this is a model for. For how we do our community groups.
That's from Acts chapter 2. 42 through 47. As I highlight some things. Words are going to come up on the screen. It's not the whole passage. It's just chunks of it.
But. But that's the kind of the bits that I wanted to highlight for you. This is from Acts. Acts 2. 42. 42.
42. 42. 42. 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. That's the Bible.
And the fellowship. To the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul. And soul. And wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together.
And had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings. And distributing the proceeds to all. As any had need. And day by day. Attending the temple together.
And breaking bread in their homes. They received their food. With glad and generous hearts. Praising God. And having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number.
Day by day. Those who were being saved. Sell my stuff. And give it to people who need it. There's. Something about that concept.
When I do it for myself. When I see other people doing it. That just makes you happy. It brings joy. To see those who need it. Receive it.
And to be responsible. For allowing those who need it. To receive it. Is a source of great joy. It really is. It physically shows.
As I give money away. As I give things away. It physically shows that. I'm not the point. I don't need this. God is the point.
Other people need this. It's a tangible. Physical representation. Of me giving away. That which I don't need. And making God the point.
The guy that we've been talking about. The author of this book. Treasure Principle. His name is Randy Alcorn. We referenced him last week. Great book.
I think you should all read it. He says it like this. Generosity. Is the only antidote. To materialism. Generosity.
Is the only antidote. To materialism. When I. Give stuff away. I break. The stranglehold.
That that stuff. Has on me. We know that we cannot serve. God and money. And so when we give. Money away.
We break the stranglehold. That money has on us. We allow God. To be the focus. Of everything that we do. Generosity.
Is the antidote. To materialism. Materialism. Being the attachment. That we have to money. And stuff.
Now it's not easy. We know that. There's this guy. That Jesus met. It's recorded in Matthew 19. They call him the rich young ruler.
He comes to Jesus. And he says. I've kept all the commandments. I've done everything I should have done. What do I need to do. To inherit eternal life?
And Jesus kind of sees through him. He sees through the facade. He sees what's actually going on. In this guy's life. And he says. To himself.
Money is this guy's problem. So he says to him. Sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. And come follow me. And the guy leaves.
Upset. He leaves upset. Because he cannot see that which is truly life. He cannot see what it means to follow Jesus. And not be attached to his money. He's put all of his hope.
All of his comfort. All of his power. All of his everything. In money. He believes money is where his source of joy will be. Because he's unwilling to get rid of it.
To attain true joy. To receive true joy. To follow Jesus. He refuses. Because he has his hopes in the wrong place. You can loosen the grip that money has on your life.
You can loosen the grip that stuff has on your life. By simply giving it away. Selling it and giving it to the poor. It can be to the homeless. It can be to a thrift store. It can be to people in your community group.
It can be to an organization. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be clothes. It could be a car. It could be the money that you've been saving for a big vacation.
That you've always wanted to take. In all of these situations. You're saying. It's not about me. God has blessed me with this stuff. I choose to bless other people with it.
And I guess to be a source of great joy. There's no reason to not be happy about meeting the needs of other people. Now it can't become legalistic. Legalistic meaning. I'm just following the rules. It can't become legalistic.
Like. I have to do this. In order to be saved. Wrong. It can't become prideful. It can't become.
Hey everyone. Check me out. I give all my stuff away. Also not that good. In both situations. You're still using generosity.
You're using generosity as a tool. To earn favor with God. You don't earn favor with God. God has freed you. Of his own goodwill. There's nothing for you to do.
To earn favor with God. Because you're free already in the gospel. This is all. How you react. According to the gospel. It's not something you do to earn it.
Your generosity should be because. You want God's money. To be a blessing to God's people. So you bless God's people with God's money. That's your motivation. You want people to be blessed.
So you bless them. It will probably mean budgeting slightly differently. For some people. It will probably mean budgeting. Budgeting. You should budget.
For other people. It will just mean budgeting differently. Some people set up what they call a benevolence fund. Benevolence means. Giving to those. Giving away from what you are not using to help others.
Now that doesn't mean. Just use the fringe stuff that you never use. It means budgeting so that you've got fringe stuff. It means budgeting so that you've got a section of your income. That you're deliberately setting aside. To give away to other people.
That's something that someone with a lot of money might be able to do. You could set aside 40% of your income. And say I'm just going to give all that away. I'm going to set it aside. As a church. As a church.
Most of our financial support has happened. Within the context of our community groups. And so far it's been pretty amazing to see. Just within the little cells that we've got. We've seen a lot of people. In crazy ways.
In beautiful ways. Support each other financially. We have seen groups pay bills. Replace stolen property. Pay for counseling for people who need it. Completely outfit pregnant couples with baby stuff.
Because they couldn't afford it themselves. We've seen them fix cars. Buy car parts for each other. Pay travel expenses. Pay for hotels. When people were in a dangerous situation.
And needed to be temporarily removed out of them. We've seen mortgage payments paid. Gas for people to get to and from gatherings. In their community group times. We've seen prescriptions filled. We've covered each other's meals.
Our Christmas and birthday gifts. For families that have kids. And they weren't going to be able to get anything for them. We've seen our groups. When they want to go out to get a meal together. But there's a big family in that group.
That can't afford to take all of them with them. We've seen our groups sponsor the kids. So that everyone could go out in a big group. And eat together. And it's crazy. It's beautiful.
So far our groups have been nothing short of heroic. Incredible. At meeting each other's needs. If that isn't exactly how it should be. I'm not sure that we're doing it right. I think that when you see that happen.
You get overwhelmed with joy. Thinking that's exactly what family should be like. That's exactly what church should be like. People meeting each other's needs. And if it doesn't get you a little bit overjoyed inside. If it doesn't make you.
Even if you've got a stern face. Smile a little bit. Then you might just. I don't know. Be Voldemort or something. Our groups are amazing.
They meet each other's needs when they come up. And what's amazing and beautiful is that. Joy doesn't just come from the people who are getting stuff. You might think. Score. Someone bought me a free meal.
Victory. Yay. You might think. Score. Someone paid my bills for me. Victory.
Yay. And that only those people who are receiving things. Are the ones who are receiving. Or joyful about it. It's not the case. Those who have been meeting those needs.
Are equally. If not more joyful. That they were able. Out of their abundance. To be able to sacrifice. And give to people who needed it.
More than they did. There's something joyful about that as well. And that's why we've seen families. In our church. Who've needed to receive things. At one point in time.
Turn around and be generous. At another point in time. And bless others. Those who've needed things. In the past. Have turned around.
And provided food hampers. For people whose budget. Didn't have anything left in it. For the rest of the month. Who've catered events. From their own pocket.
Christina and my wedding rehearsal dinner. Was completely catered for. By other people. Largely by Mill City Church. People wouldn't even. Accept money from us.
Because it was a joy to them. To be generous to us. It's not obligation. It's joy. There's nothing that says. You need to do this for us.
Because we did something for you. No. It's joy. People do it. Because it's fun. Because it makes it feel good.
And within our church family. It's been pure joy. Over and over again. To see bills paid. To see people make it. When they didn't think they were going to.
And it's all because of this principle. It's God's money. Not mine. How am I going to bless people with God's money? It gets to be joy for me. Now I like challenges.
Actually I take that back. I don't like challenges. I just take them really seriously. It's not always good for me to accept a challenge. But I do anyway.
You're probably thinking to yourself right about now. Look at that amazing beard. It's red if I hold it up to the light. It's not if I don't. Sometimes. It's growing longer and longer.
And the only reason for its existence in all of its glory. Is a challenge. A challenge made by my wife. In front of 25 people. To get it down to here. It's currently in the regret stage.
It will probably continue to be in the regret stage. Until it stops falling out everywhere. Which it is doing now. Another challenge. If you're friends with either of us on Facebook. You've probably seen.
We've become rather artistic lately. Particularly in the realm of beanies. That's why people walk around now. Looking like minions. Ninja turtles. Vikings.
Whatever we can come up with. Started out as a challenge. I think we won. Challenge me to do something. I'm going to learn how to do it. And I'm going to trample everything in my path.
Until I can conquer that challenge. Puppies. Children. Doesn't matter. I'm going to get out of my way. Today I'm going to issue you a challenge.
I want you to take it as seriously as I do. I want you to take it seriously. I think it comes straight out of the verse that we've read. I think it comes straight out of the verse 18 and 19. They say, You're to do good. Be rich in good works.
Be generous and ready to share. Store up treasures as a good foundation for the future. And take hold of that which is truly life. Now I don't think there's anything particularly hard about my challenge. But I don't think it's particularly normal for us.
It's quite abnormal for us. Here's the challenge. Give generously to someone this week. Give generously to someone this week. It could be someone you know. It could be a family member.
It could be from your community group. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be a meal. I think you can. You've got some freedom here.
You can be pretty creative. You can do above and beyond that thing. And remember, generosity is not conditional. It doesn't have to be because someone needs it. You can just do it as a surprise. That will still bring joy for them and for you.
If you're like me and you're prone to a little bit of pride, you might want to do this for a complete stranger instead. The benefit of doing it for a complete stranger is that they typically don't come and thank you. Especially if you make it anonymous and you hide and that kind of thing. They won't be able to come and thank you. But you still get to see the effects of your generosity.
You still get to see what happens as a waiter goes over to a table and tells a family that their meal has been paid for and they look at each other like, What? This happens? What? And you get to smile to yourself and strut out of that restaurant thinking, I just made their day. Oh, yeah. And if it's a Monday, you get to think, I just made their week.
Oh, yeah. It doesn't have to be for any reason. It doesn't have to be for any particular person. You can go to a drive-thru and pay for the person behind you. You might want to make sure it's not a bus. You can go to a drive-thru and just pay for the person behind you and then drive off and they'll never know it was you.
But you'll know that you just made that person's day. You made that person's week. You made that person's month. Who knows? You might not have much money. That's okay.
Spare $5 from your budget this week. Go to Starbucks on Tuesday because that's the start of this week and everyone's going to feel like it's Monday. Buy someone coffee at Starbucks. Watch how that transforms that person's morning. They don't want to go to work. They want to sleep in.
And you just bought them coffee for no reason. That's going to crazy bless them. They're going to have such a good day because some random stranger bought coffee for them in the morning. So countercultural. If you've got quite a bit of money, you're in luck. You get to go crazy and you get to be super creative.
Go to start small. Go to a mechanic and pay someone's bill while they're gone. $500, $800, $1,200. Who knows? That is going to transform someone's day. That might transform someone's year. They might not have been able to pay for those tires.
They might have been pulling out their credit card for the first time. They might have been maxing out their credit card and you just paid that bill off for them. That's going to make someone's day. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Go to the DMV and make waiting at the DMV a little less torture.
That would be a fun way to spend some money and bless people. And you know what? All of it comes as a reaction to the gospel. All of it comes as our response to what God has done for us out of his generosity. While we were still sinners, Christ came and died for us. God gave generously to us.
He sacrificed his only son to come and pay the sins of the world. To pay your sins, to pay for my sins on the cross so that we could be reconciled to him. That's what it took for him to be generous. And for us, it gets to be as easy as money, which we can't take with us. There is great joy from being generous. It feels good to bless people financially.
And you know what? Instead of laying treasures for yourself here on earth, you get to set them up for yourself for eternity. Lay treasures up for the future. Where they won't grow old, they won't rust, and moths won't eat them. You get to keep them forever. Let's pray.
Father God, we praise and thank you that you have blessed us with so much. We thank you for the opportunities that we have as those who can live on less to bless others abundantly this week. I pray that as we go out this week and think about the ways that we can be spending our money, the ways that we can be budgeting, the ways that we can be looking out for other people, that you be giving us discernment on how much, you be giving us discernment on when, you be giving us discernment on in what manner, but that overall we can be generous and that our generosity will come from a heart that is just loving you, responding to what you've done for us the way that you would like us to. Pray that this week and weekend, give to others with a glad and generous heart.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
A Prayer from the Deep
Transcript
We're in week two of Jonah, and this week is going to be especially puzzling for us because we come up against an aspect of God's character that most of us have heard of before but never really get, most of us don't truly believe in our souls. We're going to come up against this aspect of God's character: his deliverance does not depend on our excellence or our behavior. Now when I use the word deliverance, I'm not talking about delivery as in delivering a baby, although pretty much everyone has that on their mind at the moment. I'm not talking about delivery as in two-day free shipping for Amazon Prime members, which is always on my mind. I'm talking about the kind of deliverance that's more like a rescue against all odds, something that no one expects to happen, something that seems to defy logic.
Like when your wife, trying to be sweet and nice, says to you, "Let's watch a movie together, a romantic movie," and you go, "No." Then she entices you, she makes it sweet, there's popcorn involved and hot chocolate involved, and you know that the night is going to be horrible anyway. You're looking forward to hot chocolate, but not a romantic movie. And then it comes on, and you know what? It's kind of cute. The movie wasn't so bad. It kind of, you know, that movie delivered against all odds.
But beyond that, we're talking about deliverance where the God of the universe, creator of the heavens, creator of the seas, the dry land, creator of land animals, sea animals, birds in the air, insects... I don't know why he did that... the creator of man says to one specific man, "I want you to do something for me." And that man says, "Nope." Then God sends a giant fish, of all things, a giant fish, and says, "I'm going to make you do what I told you to do." And the giant fish scoops him up, travels I don't know how far, and spits him out and says, "Get on your way." We're talking about that kind of against-all-odds deliverance, something that should never, ever have happened, that blows our minds, that doesn't seem to make sense in any way. And we're going to learn that when God does deliver, it's not based off of anything that we do, but purely on his grace.
Now, we typically oppose that notion. We don't really believe it. We think that on some level, in some capacity, I can do something that contributes to this transaction. Most of us on some level still think that if I just do something, if I just be good, that will contribute something to this scenario. And even people who don't believe in God say, "If God did exist, surely good people would be blessed and bad people would not." This whole human transactional understanding that we have of what's fair and what's not fair is that good people deserve good things and bad people deserve bad things. It's kind of just ingrained in us.
But today's passage is tough because Jonah is a guy who knows a lot of the Sunday school answers. Obviously his parents sent him to kids' church, and he learned it from a very young age. He knows how to say good things about God. But then when it comes down to doing them, when it comes to getting out there and doing what he's told, he bails and does the exact opposite. It's tough because Jonah's the guy, he's a prophet of God, he's supposed to be the one who knows what to do and does what God says, and then abandons that. So what happens? What happens when someone says one thing and does the opposite? What happens when someone knows what they're supposed to do and chooses not to do that? Does God still deliver people like this? Will he only rescue the people who actually deserve it, who do things to earn things from God? And what happens to someone who thinks they have it all right, thinks that they're doing the right things, thinks that they know things about God and that that will save them, but actually do the wrong thing? And could that be me? Could I be that person?
Go ahead and open your Bibles to Jonah chapter 2. If you have a Bible that looks like this, it's on page 502. If you have a different Bible, then it's right between Obadiah and Micah. You're welcome. Somewhere in the middle you'll find it. Jonah chapter 2. We're going to read the whole thing up front. We're going to make observations about it, so leave your finger in there. We're not going to do the thing where you read a passage, talk about it, read a passage, talk about it. We're just going to read the whole thing up front, so keep your finger in there. Basically, the whole time, it's Jonah praying, and that's why we would do this up-front thing. The whole time is Jonah's prayer. And what's interesting about reading other people's prayers is it gives you an insight into how they think. It gives you an insight into how they relate to God themselves, how they see themselves before God, and how they think God relates to them. And we're going to see that in Jonah chapter 2.
Father God, we praise you and we thank you for this morning. And we pray that you can reveal things to us from your word. And we pray that, most of all, we will grow in our love for you and not depend on ourselves to be saved. We know that we will come up short if that is the case, and we praise and thank you that that is not. Please be moving in our hearts this morning that we may learn from your word and put it into action in our weeks. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, we're going to read the whole chapter up front. But we're going to start in the last verse of chapter 1. So chapter 1:17.
> And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
> Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying,
> "I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
> and he answered me;
> out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
> and you heard my voice.
> For you cast me into the deep,
> into the heart of the seas,
> and the flood surrounded me;
> all your waves and your billows passed over me.
> Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight;
> yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'
> The waters closed in over me to take my life;
> the deep surrounded me;
> weeds were wrapped about my head
> at the roots of the mountains.
> I went down to the land
> whose bars closed upon me forever;
> yet you brought up my life from the pit,
> O LORD my God.
> When my life was fainting away,
> I remembered the LORD,
> and my prayer came to you,
> into your holy temple.
> Those who pay regard to vain idols
> forsake their hope of steadfast love.
> But I with the voice of thanksgiving
> will sacrifice to you;
> what I have vowed I will pay.
> Salvation belongs to the LORD!"
> And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. (Jonah 1:17-2:10 ESV)
So Jonah got thrown into the ocean by the sailors in chapter 1. He got swallowed by a giant fish, and while he was living inside that fish for three days, this was the prayer that he prayed.
Now let's keep one thing in mind: Jonah got here by disobeying God. This wasn't just like a random thing that he decided to do. Jonah got here by disobeying God. He was told to go to Nineveh, and instead he planned to go to Tarshish. He was told, head east, but he headed west. The dude is now trapped inside a giant fish.
Most times when we think about this, and in fact most times when it's illustrated, when it's in a cartoon, maybe in a Bible story sermon series, it gets cartoonified. It gets made nice. There's theme music, like, trouble. And so the life of Jonah is summarized in disobedience, swallowed by a fish, delivered out on land, on your merry way. Let's time out and go back to the living-inside-a-fish thing for just one moment, because it intrigues me.
I've smelled a fish before from the outside. It wasn't very nice. It was okay. And then you put a knife in it, and you slide it open, and the guts fall out, which is gross. I know that. I'm sorry. But that doesn't smell any better. Jonah was inside those guts for three days. I have been on a boat before. I've felt this thing that I thought was imaginary called seasickness. Boats rock. I guess submarines would be even worse. They would go underwater and move around a good bit. Jonah's inside a fish. Those things wiggle, and then they jump, and then they dive down, and then they go up. And he's inside the thing, like floating, presumably in fish guts and water and nastiness. I assume he probably got seasick. I would. He probably vomited, and then it splashed back up on his face when the fish went down. Jonah was from the Middle East. He probably had a giant beard. He got fish guts in that beard. They don't come out real quick. I have a little itty-bitty mustache, and I get smells stuck in that, and it's right under your nose. Jonah was inside a fish with little fish-gut smells inside his nose. It cannot have been nice.
And what's worse is, I assume there's no light in there. I don't know if you've ever been in pitch black before. I have. It's terrifying. If you go down this hallway that way, the guys' bathroom lights are on a motion sensor. Do you know how stupid crazy that is? When you go to the restroom in the morning and the lights time out and you're stuck in pitch black in a restroom in a foreign school, you will never be more thankful for your iPhone in a moment like this. Jonah does not have an iPhone. He's feeling sick. He's inside a fish. But thankfully, this is the time when he chooses to pray.
Now, I know that's what I can be like sometimes. I wait until the final moment. I wait until life gets really tough. Maybe not that tough. But I wait until life gets tough, and that's the moment that I choose to pray. It's almost like when things are going good, things are going well, life, you're feeling healthy, you've got enough money to get through this week, you're feeling okay, there's not really any need to pray. And then as soon as you get chopped off at the knees, suddenly you're sick and you've got no money because you spent it all on medicine. Suddenly, now it's time to pray. And we've got a little bit of this urgency in times of need like that.
Now, in this whole story, the first time we hear of Jonah calling out to God is once he's been thrown off the boat. This is a time when he needs something to rely on. I don't know if they have this saying in America. I kind of grew up with it, at least in the church. Someone coined the question way back in the day: is Jesus your steering wheel or your spare tire? Do you turn to Jesus when you've got a flat on the interstate? Does he only ever come out when life is tough in the moment, and then as soon as the problem's fixed he gets put back in his little spot in the back? Or, alternatively, is Jesus your steering wheel, the one who guides the path at all times, gets you from A to B, completely relied upon for direction?
Now, it might be old, I don't know, that might be the first time you've heard it, but it's a valid illustration of what's going on in this situation. And you could say that, given that he hasn't prayed up until this point, he's left it until the very last of minutes. The time came for prayer earlier, and he didn't until he was drowning in the ocean. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with calling out to God in times of need. In fact, definitely call out to God in times of need. I say that, I do that, the Bible says that. The question is in motivation and attitude in the whole situation. What's going on in the thought processes, and what drives you to pray in that situation?
We have a guy here who's done a serious wrong by God, that God's chosen to rescue anyway, at least physically in this moment, at this point in time, and regardless of his disobedience. You might expect this to be the time when Jonah starts to repent. That is, he acknowledges his own sin and apologizes for it, feels broken about it, and says, "God, forgive me." You might expect this to be a time when he realizes how disobedient he is.
And on the surface, when you read through this passage, there's a bunch of things that look really good that he says. A number of really good things. In verse 2 he says, "I called to the Lord." Good. You should do that. In verse 4, "I will look upon your holy temple." Good. In verse 6, "You brought my life up from the pit." True. In verse 7, "I remembered the Lord." You should do that. Remembering God is good. Verse 9, "I will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord." Good. Good. It sounds like Jonah's on the right track, at least that he's starting to get it.
But actually, what we see of Jonah's character up until this point, and spoiler alert, in the future as well, is that he has a very self-centered understanding of his faith. He has a very self-centered attitude toward how he relates to God. He thinks that things he can do are what govern his relationship with God. We actually find in this prayer the inner workings of a man who is so self-centered that he ignores his own sin the whole time. He believes that he deserves to be rescued. Now, whether he thinks he's entitled to it because of his position as a prophet, some people probably would feel that. Maybe he feels that he's entitled to it because of his heritage as a Jew. Most likely, he thinks he's entitled to it because of what he does. This prayer is all about Jonah because he thinks he's earned something.
Now, there's a difference between these two kinds of prayers. One kind of prayer focuses on self and the other focuses on God. A prayer that focuses on God, a legitimate, authentic, heart-changed prayer, would sound like this: God, please have mercy on me. I'm busted. I'm broken. I'm sinful. I can't do anything right. Please save me from me. Jonah's prayer, not so much like this.
Now, maybe I'm throwing you under the bus and lumping you in with my own sin here. We typically pray in a way that treats God like an exchange program. We typically pray in a way that says, "God, if you'll just give me this, then I'll give you that. God, if you'll just deal with this, then I'll stop doing that. God, if you get me out of debt, I'll stop using credit cards. God, if you help me get healthy right now, if I feel healthier by the end of the day, I swear I'm going to quit smoking. God, if you just get me a girlfriend, I promise I will stop playing video games until next week." And we treat the whole situation like it's a cosmic exchange program, like we have something to offer God. That's kind of how Jonah does it.
Let's read some of the things that Jonah says. He doesn't start with, "God, you rescued me, I'm a sinner." He starts with, "I called out to the Lord and he answered me. I cried out and you heard my prayer." I initiated this relationship. It's my turn to speak, and I've done something to earn your attention right now. Then in verse 3, when he should be recalling all the things that God has done for him, instead what he says is, "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me." You put me here. This is your fault.
What Jonah's already forgotten can't have been more than a day later. What Jonah's already forgotten is that he put himself here. He was thrown into the ocean by the sailors who came to him and said, "What do we do?" And Jonah said, "Throw me overboard." Jonah disobeyed God, ended up on a boat where the sailors thought they were all going to die, ended up throwing Jonah overboard, and now he's saying, "God, you put me here."
Then toward the end of his prayer, right down at the end, in verse 8, he says, "Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love." Here's one of those cases where that is a true statement. Those who have idol issues, have idolatry problems, they do forsake the hope of steadfast love. But what Jonah does is he puts these people over here and separates himself from them. Jonah doesn't see himself as one of those people. He's talking about the pagans, the sailors, the guys who were on the boat who threw him over. He says those who pay regard to idols do not have your steadfast love. What he doesn't realize is he's a part of that group, and actually the sailors are less a part of that group because they renounced their idols, they feared God, and they made sacrifices to him. It's a true statement, but he doesn't understand what he's saying.
And then he says, "I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will pay." Basically he's saying, I'm not like them. I have it right. And for the record, in the rest of the book of Jonah, there is no evidence that Jonah ever makes good on any of these vows. He never makes sacrifices, he never vows anything or comes through with any of this stuff. He might sometime in the future after the book ends. We don't know. But what we have here is a bunch of empty vows, empty promises. So while on the surface it looks like he's saying a bunch of good things, we actually have a guy who doesn't really believe the things that he says.
What Jonah doesn't see is that he's blinded to his own sin. What he doesn't see is that he doesn't think he's busted, broken, and disobedient. He thinks he deserves salvation. And even in his last-minute prayers to God, his emphasis is on himself, what he's done to earn that favor in the first place. And it's almost this half-hearted, last-minute, inside-the-belly-of-a-fish prayer to, yep, thanks for that.
Now, I know it sounds like a kind of a downer that we can be like that as well, that we think of this as a cosmic exchange program where we give him this and he gives us that, and it can sound bad to us that we can't do anything. It sounds really horrible that we have no power in this. But actually, if you see it in perspective, it's a massive relief. Because if God was a cosmic accountant and he had a list, a balance sheet of all your credit and all your debt, all your pros and your cons, all your good and your bad, your bad would be through the bottom. And you might be able to chalk up some good things, but you could never possibly tip that balance to the good-person status that we assume exists but doesn't. It's actually good news because we don't have a God that weighs us in the balance like this with a good and a bad list. We have a God who sets the list aside and loves us regardless. It means that we don't have to try to get more good than we do bad.
Now at the end of the prayer, the very last line of his prayer, he says, "Salvation belongs to the Lord," which is again a great statement of faith. You can't deny that he knows some good things. But what's interesting is this is a person reciting a textbook answer that doesn't understand what that means. It's like he studied for the exam but didn't understand the content.
Now, if you've passed high school, you're probably familiar with this concept of studying for exams but having no idea what's going on in that class. At least in Australia that was the case for most of us. For example, I took trigonometry. I can tell you the cosine rule. I'm pretty proud of it. A squared equals B squared plus C squared minus 2BC cos A. You impressed? Yeah. I even know the song. That's how I remember it. A squared equals B squared plus C squared minus 2BC cos A. And then you clap. A squared equals B squared plus C squared minus 2BC cos A. People in exams would clap in Australia. It was crazy. Thing is, I know it's to do with triangles. Something to do with sides. Cos means an angle. I know that. I have no idea how to use that. I may know the formula, but I still can't pass the exam. And it's the same thing that's going on with Jonah. He studied the formula but failed the exam. He knows things about God, but doesn't understand how that impacts life.
Now I reckon at this point in time God is pretty disappointed with Jonah. After the whole running-away thing, I can't imagine that he's in the good books, even though Jonah for some reason thinks he is. And I like to imagine the whole scenario. If Jonah's thoughts were right and God did like him, maybe it would be different.
We've established that being inside a fish is a gross way to do things. So if Jonah was in God's good books and God wanted to rescue him in a nice way, perhaps it would have looked differently. Perhaps it would have been he parts the sea and Jonah gets to walk back. That could have been nicer. Perhaps it could have been he's just back on land. But the funniest thing, and the best thing to me in this whole story, is that that's not how it happens. God kind of gives him a little slap on the back of the head, a bit of a bruise on his ego, and has a fish vomit him. That's the best.
God says, it says that God spoke to the fish, which I think is also funny because he... I don't know if it's a pet or if it's like, fishy, fishy, fishy. Fishy, fishy, go and vomit Jonah out on dry land. I just imagine the fish being like, woohoo, and then going off and doing that. It could have been even nicer with the fish. God can speak to fish, obviously. He could have said, fish, deliver Jonah to the dry land. Or fish, go and open your mouth on the beach and let him walk out. But instead God says, vomit him out. Make sure he gets the point that he's done something wrong. Make sure he gets a little bit of fish guts in his beard for the rest of the walk. I love it.
And that's how chapter 2 ends. Brilliant. Jonah walking on his way to Nineveh from the beach covered in fish guts and rancid smells that take weeks to go away. And that's the story of chapter 2. That's how Jonah got from in the ocean to a fish's belly, prayed to God, spit back out onto the sea.
Now let's pause for a second, set that entire story aside, and let's think for a moment on how it could have happened differently, what it could have looked like if Jonah actually got it, if Jonah understood from the start how it all could have happened. Option number one would be God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh, and Jonah goes to Nineveh. Yeah. Option number one.
Option number two: God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh. Jonah says, no, that sounds scary, I don't want to do that. Maybe I should. And then he goes back and goes to Nineveh. That's option number two. That's valid. That could have happened, would have worked. God would have been pleased with that. Option number three: Jonah, go to Nineveh. No, bump that, I'm getting on a boat, I'm getting out of here. Oh, this was a bad idea. Something's going to go wrong, I can just tell. Guys, turn the boat around, we're going to Nineveh. Turn around, go to Nineveh.
Option number four, this can go all day. Option number four: God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh. He says no, he gets on a boat, gets on the boat, goes to sleep, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. The storm comes, the sailors come to him and say, Jonah, pray to your God. And he goes, I should have done that earlier. He prays to God, the boat turns around, they go back and they go to Nineveh. At any point in time in the story, Jonah had an option of repentance. At any point in time in the story, Jonah could have done something. The only thing he could have done is repent. He could have said, God, I was disobedient. And he chooses not to.
The entire time, he is strictly disobedient. He sets himself up in his prayer as someone who deserves to be saved, when the exact opposite is true. But that's exactly the point. He doesn't deserve to be saved, but he is. Our actions do not govern God's deliverance, because he doesn't choose to save people based on their individual merit. He doesn't choose to save, to rescue people from sin, based on how good of a person they are.
And yes, we have this sense that there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. We have this sense in us that there are small things we can do to influence God in some way, small transactions we can make where he will bless us if we do good for him. And if we think that, then we're just like Jonah. And if you think you're off the hook and that you're not like that at all, then you've proven that you are on the hook, but you're blinded to the hook and you're a whole lot like Jonah.
What we see in the story of Jonah is the prayers of a self-righteous man, one who thinks what he does will give him credit against God. But he's blinded to the fact that he's a sinner and has something to atone for before God. Yeah, God chooses to rescue him physically, at least by means of the fish in this moment. But the fact that he was physically saved by a fish does not necessarily transfer over to spiritual salvation, spiritual deliverance. There's a difference in this case between physical deliverance and spiritual deliverance.
And honestly, we don't know about Jonah at this point. So far, he has yet to repent. He's yet to admit that he's a sinner and ask God for help. And so the jury's still out on Jonah. But here's something interesting. Seven hundred and fifty years later, when Jesus was walking around, he was on the way to Jerusalem and he was confronted by a crowd, and he spoke to an incredibly similar situation. He spoke to a situation where there was the group of guys who thought they knew everything, thought they had it all under control, thought that God liked them because of the things that they had done, and they held it over other people.
So I don't want you to turn there, but I'm going to read from Luke 18. This is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
> He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:
> "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
> The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men,
> extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
> I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.'
> But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'
> I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:9-14 ESV)
Seem pretty similar? The Pharisee emphasizes his own importance, his achievements, his credentials. He listed reasons why God ought to love him. And then he distances himself from other people. He distances himself from the tax collector. He distances himself from people who he thinks God doesn't love. He says, I'm not like them at all. And the tax collector, he beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
There's a massive difference between these two guys, and sadly Jonah's a whole lot more like the Pharisee. Only, at least the Pharisee actually did do some stuff. Jonah didn't do anything. So when it comes to spiritual deliverance, God chooses to deliver people not based on their merit, but by their faith and trust in him. God doesn't choose to deliver based on merit. He chooses because of his abundant mercy and amazing grace. That's what puts the tax collector, this guy who's lived a life of sin, miles ahead of a Pharisee who lives his entire life by the rules, trying to obey and do things to earn favor with God.
But Jonah did nothing to deserve being saved by God. He ran away from him and tried to escape him. So yeah, God did save him physically. We know that it's not because he deserved it. He definitely didn't. It's because God doesn't save on account of merit. He saves on account of his love and mercy. Now we don't know if Jonah even will be delivered spiritually. The jury's still out on that. But we know the truth that repentance and faith in Jesus are what grant deliverance.
I'm going to invite the band back up. We're all going to zoom out a little bit and try to land this plane. Let's distance ourselves from these figures, these characters, these stories. How do you picture yourself and your relationship with God? Do you picture God as the cosmic accountant, the one who keeps score of all the bad things you've done and weighs them up against all the good things? Or do you see God as a loving father who sets the score aside because he loves you?
When you pray, do you bargain with God as if you've got a stack of chips that he wants and that you can offer him things and that in return he'll give you things? Or do you praise him for what he has done in your life and beg him to forgive your sin? Do you see clearly your own sin and live rightly based on the merit of Jesus? Or do you point out the sin of other people and try to live by your own merit before Jesus? Is God the hero of your story, or are you the hero of your own story?
Do you trust yourself to make every good decision? Do you trust yourself with the steering wheel? And do you treat Jesus like the spare tire that only ever comes out when life gets tough? Or is Jesus your steering wheel, who guides every direction that you ever take? Do you know stuff about God like Jonah does? Or do you actually know God and understand God?
Jonah had one thing right. Jonah knew that salvation belongs to the Lord. But Jonah thought that his actions at least in some way affected what God does. We know that only faith in Jesus can save. Your only hope in salvation is trusting in God. It's the only way. The things that you do will not and cannot earn it for you. So trust in him, not in your own ability, not in your own talents, not in your own credentials. Trust in the God who laid his life down so that you wouldn't have to do that. Only he can truly save.
Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that you are the only way. We thank you that we can rest in your love, knowing that by the death of Jesus we can be saved. We thank you that you're not a cosmic accountant. We thank you that you do not give us a score based on the good and the bad that we do because we know that we can never match up. We thank you that you forgive us of our sins when we ask of it and that we can be saved through our faith in Jesus. And it's in his mighty name that we pray. Amen. Amen.
Everyday Mission
Transcript
G'day everyone, my name is Raz. This morning we're turning to our last chapter of Anchor Series. If you've been with us for the last little while, you'll know that we're talking about what it is that anchors us as a church. What it is that we turn to, what it is that makes us foundationally a church, and what we believe and how we believe the church functions as we're out in the world. And if you've ever seen anything that we've ever printed, t-shirts, cards, giant banners, you'll see that we use the phrase, a gospel-centered community on mission all the time. For the first five weeks of this series, we've talked about what it means to be gospel-centered.
The first three weeks, we've talked about gospel-centered. The next two weeks, we've talked about what it means to be community. And today we're kind of turning to what it means to be on mission. But immediately we've run into this problem when it comes to the word mission. And that's that lots of different people use a different definition of the word mission, particularly when it comes to the church. This is kind of common in English language in general, and particularly for me, miscommunication based on wording.
I'm from Australia, and I live in America, and so I say things different, and I get in trouble all the time. For example, if I learn something for the first time, or something makes sense for the first time, I might accidentally, this would be wrong, but I might accidentally say, ah, I just joined the dots in my head. Everyone knows you don't join dots in America. You connect dots in America. And for someone to suggest that joining is the same as connecting in this country is craziness. Similar confusions can also get you in trouble sometimes.
In America, you have a kind of footwear that is commonly referred to as the flip-flop. In Australia and other areas of the country, other areas of this country and other areas of the world, it's not called a flip-flop, it's called a thong. This can get you in trouble at times if you're not careful. Hypothetically speaking, and I'm not saying that this happened to me, but it might have, you might be away on a youth camp with a bunch of teenagers, explain a card game to them in which one of the rules is that when something happens, you remove your thong and slap the person next to you with it, and suggest that you are going to do that repeatedly to a 15-year-old.
It could happen to anyone. I'm not saying it happened to me. It was obviously a friend of mine. But the main problem that we have with this word mission is that different people use the same word to mean a bunch of different things. There's some people who think that mission means overseas. You've got to be out of here.
You can't be in America because that's not mission. You've got to go to China. You've got to go to Russia. You've got to go to Belarus, wherever that is. You can't do it here. You've got to be somewhere else.
And some people say that's trash. That's not the truth. What you've got to do is cross a cultural barrier. That would be talking to Chinese people who are here in America or talking to people who don't speak English. If you speak Spanish and you speak in Hispanic neighborhoods about the gospel, that would be mission. But other people say, no, that's trash as well.
Every time you leave your house and talk about Jesus, you're on mission. Some people say there's like this umbrella category of mission and evangelism is under that. But some people say, no, that's trash. There's an umbrella category of evangelism and mission is under that. And some people say missions and some people say mission and they get confused between the two of them because they're two separate things. And so you could be on a mission trip, but refer to it as a missions trip and people think you're weird.
And you're just like, I don't know if it's missions or mission. The problem is there's too many different people in the world who use the word to mean different things. There's too many definitions. So this morning, we're going to be looking pretty specifically at what Jesus said about it, what Jesus said about mission. And we're going to look at the great commission that he sent his church to accomplish. Ultimately, though, God himself has his own mission.
And that is to bless all of humanity, all of creation, to bless all nations and bring them back, reconcile them, bring them back to himself. And he does that through his son, Jesus Christ, who he sent to pay the penalty for our sins, to reconcile us to him. And then Jesus himself invites us into that work and sends us out into the world to continue it. And we're going to look at Jesus' words today on that topic and how that applies to us here in Columbia, South Carolina. Let's pray.
Father God, we praise you and we thank you for the work that you've done in Jesus Christ on our behalf. And we thank you that you've given us a mission. We thank you that you've trusted us with that mission. And we pray that we can do it to your glory for the rest of our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if you've got a Bible, go ahead and open to Matthew 28.
If you've got one of these blue ones, it is on page 542. It's right at the end of the book of Matthew. If you get to Mark, you've gone too far. This is the very last little paragraph in the Gospel of Matthew. At this point in time, Jesus has come to the earth. He's been born as a baby in Bethlehem.
He's lived the first 30 years of his life. Then he was sent out and he preached the word for three years. He gathered disciples to him, preached. Then he died and he resurrected three days later, proving that he was God. And then we're going to step into the story in that period of time between when he was risen from the dead and before he ascended back into heaven. This is right in that period of time.
This is from chapter 28, verse 16. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, this is the Great Commission, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Jesus, he comes out swinging. He makes his point hard and fast. He says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. I'm the boss man. And so when you're at work and the boss man comes out and says, I'm your boss. I have the authority here.
You know he's about to say something that you have to do. And he's allowed to do that because he's got authority and you don't. Jesus comes out swinging. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. It means that whatever comes next is pretty important and he expects us to do it. But it's also really encouraging because he says, I'm Jesus.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. You are my disciples. Go out and make disciples. Let's read. The Great Commission. It says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. It doesn't really leave a whole lot of room. His command is, make disciples. Make disciples of everyone. It says, make disciples of all nations. It's a translation from a Greek word, ethne, which really means ethnicities, all people groups.
It's not just saying all nations that we've given names to and have territories. It's not saying China, Russia, England, France. It's saying all people, all people groups. Everyone. Make disciples of everyone. And that's really it.
When it comes down to it, that's the basis for what we're talking about when we use the word mission. The mission is to make disciples. Make disciples of everyone. And the cool thing for the guys that Jesus is talking to is that they were his disciples. He's gathered his disciples together and said, go and make disciples. He's perfectly modeled to them for the last three years what it looks like to make disciples.
And then he sends them out and says, go and do for other people what I've been doing for you. Now, when we make disciples, what we're really doing is making followers of Jesus. That's what a disciple is. It's a follower of Jesus. It's taking someone who doesn't know Jesus and introducing them. But it's also taking people who do know Jesus and giving them next steps towards Jesus as well.
So they might already know him, but not be very good at knowing him. And we just need to teach them some more things about him and how that's involved in life as well. And we push people baby steps towards Jesus. And that's what it means to make disciples. Now, it might not seem super logical to us in the English translation. It is logical.
It's really logical once you understand the basis of how this works. In Greek, and if you want to geek out with me, I love this kind of junk later. So we can talk about this. In Greek, there is main verbs and supporting verbs. It doesn't work the same in English. We usually rely on sentence structure and word order.
But in Greek, there's main verbs and supporting verbs. And so in this sentence, the main verb is make disciples. And then all the supporting verbs tell you how to do that. So we're commanded, make disciples, and then told what it is you could do in order to make disciples. And we're told the other three verbs, the supporting verbs, are go, baptize, and teach. That's how you make disciples.
As you go, you baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And you teach to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Let's look at go. What does it mean to go? Here's what it looks like. As we make disciples, we go.
It's not saying pick up your bags and leave. Go. Get out of here. It's saying as you go, as you go about life, as you go about daily life, as you go about your rhythms, as you go to work, as you go to school, make disciples of everyone. It's inherently movement-oriented. It doesn't imply that you can stay and do nothing.
You are supposed to go. But some people have twisted this word go. It's what causes most of the confusion with the Great Commission and what it means to be in missions in general. Some people say when it says go and make disciples of all nations, that's why you've got to get out of here. That's why, because he says go all nations. It's like, it makes a lot of sense to leave and go to another country.
But actually he's saying as you go about your daily business, be making disciples wherever you are. This is when definitions become important. And this is where I want to help us out a little bit by clarifying all the different types of missions. And I think all it usually needs is a helping word. Because people say the word mission and think of a bunch of different things, when if they had have just clarified, it would have made a whole lot more sense from the beginning. So let's clarify.
Let's talk when it means to go and make disciples of all nations, and you're thinking of get out of this country, go to another country, be a missionary, which is a perfectly legitimate life, a perfectly legitimate way to be in obedience to Jesus, to get out of this country, to go to China and make disciples over there. That's perfectly legitimate. Let's call that overseas mission. Let's call that overseas mission. And it immediately cuts the confusion. Overseas mission is when you leave your country to go to another country and make disciples there.
It's perfectly legitimate. But the thing is, the Great Commission is bigger than overseas mission. The Great Commission is bigger than that. Then there's another group of people that say, when it says go and make disciples of all nations, that's quite easy in the U.S. because all the nations have come here. Australia has come here. Chinese students have come here.
Indians have come here. Lots of Hispanic-speaking, Spanish-speaking, Hispanic countries, people have come here. It's easy to make disciples of all nations right here. And what they're talking about is what we're going to clarify as cross-cultural ministry. Taking the word to people from another area so that you can empower them to reach people from their area and the gospel spreads cross-culturally. Let's call that cross-cultural mission.
But the Great Commission is bigger than that as well. It's perfectly legitimate. Take the gospel. Go, all nations. Perfectly legitimate. But it's not the end.
It's not the end. Let's call what the majority of us aim for. What is also perfectly legitimate within the Great Commission. Let's call what we do everyday mission. That's what we're aiming to do. Everyday mission.
And the thing is, not everyone is called to overseas mission. Not everyone is called to cross-cultural mission. But everyone, if you call yourself a believer, is called to everyday mission. It's without exclusion. If you're a Christian, if you're a disciple, if you call yourself a Christ follower, you're constantly hanging on the word of God for truth, for life, for sustenance, for direction in life. Your job now is to make disciples of all nations.
And you can do that just here. It's to make disciples of everyone in daily life, in the normal goings about of what you do in your daily life. Make disciples. So this includes everything. The only thing that it really excludes, and exclusions are annoying, but the only thing it really excludes is laziness and apathy. So that would be 14 hours of binge Netflix by yourself, home alone, secluded from the world.
Video games until 4 a.m. by yourself. Maybe talking to people on a headset, but that's not the same. Beating people is not fun like that. The only thing that's excluded in going to all people is not going to anybody. So what does this really mean?
What are we supposed to do? What's the structure? How do we do the next thing? Well, the next instruction is baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Interesting you should mention that. Shameless plug.
We are having a baptism party in a couple of weeks. A baptism is what happens, what we do when a person who doesn't believe in Jesus becomes a believer in Jesus and publicly declares to friends and family and anyone who's there, I am now a person who completely trusts in Jesus Christ as my Savior and my Lord. And then we grab them by the face and power dunk them in water and lift them up again and we cheer because Christians are fun. And grabbing people by the face and almost drowning them is fun. Don't almost drown them. You get to hold your breath.
It symbolizes the death to the old life, the cleansing by Jesus, and then the raising to new life. And we do that as a representation of the work that Jesus has done, but also a public declaration of faith so that everyone in our family and our friends and in our lives know that we believe in Jesus. And we're commanded to do that. That's the second step in what it means to make disciples. It's beautiful. The last instruction says, teach them to observe everything that I've commanded.
This one, this one's a process. This is not like on the checklist of how do I make a disciple. Tick, done, tick, done, baptized, good, taught everything about Jesus. Tick, done. It's not like that. It can't be done so simply.
This is pretty much what we've been talking about for the last five weeks. It is teaching each other all that Jesus commanded is gospel fluency. It's speaking Jesus into every life situation whenever it comes up. It's repenting from our idolatry. It's understanding that we need to live in the context of relationships with other people. It's beating the gospel into our head repeatedly.
It's grabbing other people's heads and beating the gospel into their heads repeatedly. It's repenting and growing in community and teaching each other all that Jesus has commanded us to obey. It's a lifelong process that we do in the context of a gospel-centered community. And that's exactly what we've been talking about for the last five weeks. And so that's it. That's the mission.
That's what we're called to do. Make disciples. Make followers of Jesus out of everybody. As you go, we make disciples of everyone. We baptize them. And we walk with them in the context of community to teach them everything that Jesus has commanded.
That's the Great Commission. That's our mission. That's what it means to be a gospel-centered community on mission. And it seems like a heavy burden. Like a giant task. Make disciples of all nations.
It seems out of reach. It seems so intangible. Like you can't just touch it and feel it and do it. It's out of our reach. But notice how Jesus bookends the Great Commission.
If you look down, he says, He begins with, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus has unlimited power to do as he pleases. Then he gives us the Great Commission. He says, Make disciples of all people. And then he says, And I am with you until the end of the age. We're not alone in this.
Especially if we do things in the context of community. We have teammates around us. You're sitting next to your teammates now. But also, Jesus is in us, in our teammates, in our communities, working his miracle magic to allow us to transform lives. You're not alone in this. And so, the burden is not so big.
What does this mean for us? What does it mean for us in Columbia, South Carolina? How do we make disciples? Well, you probably don't feel like a massive world changer. The normal structure of a day is wake up, make breakfast, shower, go to work, eight hours there, boring, go home, maybe stop at the grocery store to pick up some groceries, maybe work out if you're anyone but me. You might make dinner, eat dinner, watch some TV for a little bit, and go back to bed.
There's next day, same thing again. There's not a whole lot of time within that structure for world changing, for disciple making, for all the nations and all that jazz. So, what is it that we can do in the context of that? Well, it seems like making disciples is the job of someone else. Full-time pastors, full-time missionaries, people who get paid to do that kind of thing. Not necessarily true, or at least not as far as Jesus is concerned in the Great Commission.
Here's what's different about you, and here's what's different about your life. If you're a part of the church, if you're part of this church, if you're part of any church, then you're part of Jesus' plan. And if you're part of Jesus' plan, then he has empowered you with his mission to go and make disciples of all nations. And if you're sitting here today, you're surrounded by teammates on all sides. If you're sitting here today, you're surrounded by teammates. If you're in a community group, you're surrounded by teammates who all want the same things as you do, which is to make disciples of all nations.
And you have Jesus' promise that he will be with you till the end of the age. And he's there with you, and there with your community group, and that he has entrusted you with the message of the gospel, and there is nothing insignificant about that or your life. There's nothing insignificant about that. When you drive around Columbia, and I assume if you're here, most of you have driven around Columbia a good bit. If you drive around Columbia, do you see a city that is completely and utterly wrecked and transformed by the saving power of Jesus and his grace? I know when I drive around, that's not exactly what I think about.
When I moved here about two and a half years ago, I was coming here to go to CIU, a school just here in Columbia, and there was some vague statistics about the city on the website. They say that there's between 600,000 and 700,000 people, which I assume now that I'm here kind of includes the surrounding areas, and that there's 800 churches within that area. And my mind was blown. I'm from Sydney. There's like 800 churches in Sydney and 15 times that population. And so I was like, man, that's awesome.
This city is going to be amazing. It's going to be like the evangelical Vatican. There's going to be amazing angels singing on every corner. And then I got here, and I didn't have a car for a while, but when I got a car, I started driving around. And I was like, man, what are all these 800 churches doing? What's going on in this place?
And I stayed here for a bit, and not too long after I was here, the city tried to make homelessness illegal. What? This is a city with 800 churches, and they're trying to make poverty a crime? What? What? And then you learn a little bit more about the culture.
I didn't go out a whole lot, but you know that there's areas that you're not supposed to go at night. Everyone knows this. You don't go over there at night because, you know, guns. And I'm like, what? This is a city with 800 churches. That's like a church for every 900 people.
What's going on? And then I learned the most shocking statistic of all, and that's that there's seven Moes in this city and only three Chipotles. How on earth is anyone supposed to live in hope when Moes more than double a Chipotle in any given city? Crippling statistics. But seriously, what would it look like?
What would it look like in Colombia if every street, if every street had a gospel-centered community on it? It doesn't have to be a Mill City-sponsored community group. It can be any church. It can be any group of believers. What would it look like if this city had a gospel-centered community on every street or in every office building or a factory or school, if they had a gospel-centered community on every sports team? The city would be rocked and it would change everything.
What would it look like if people everywhere you turned, when you went to Walmart, when you went to get groceries, when you go to the downtown Soda City markets, what would it look like if everywhere you looked was people empowered by the Spirit to love, forgive, repent, and show mercy like Jesus did? We would be living in a very different-looking city. Here's our plan. If you're a note-taker, this is a good time to start taking notes. Here's our plan. Step number one.
Start by being you with all your interests, with all your desires, with all the things that you like. Start by being you, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. Start by being you, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. That's what we call being gospel-centered. Step number two is get in a community group. A community group is a group of people who are doing step number one.
A community group is a group of people who are being themselves, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. And they do it together. That's called being a gospel-centered community. Step number three. Go out into your life and invite people who don't know Jesus to do things with your community group. That's called being a gospel-centered community on mission.
Step number four, and this is the easiest one, it should go without saying, let Jesus do his thing. Jesus in the Great Commission says, and surely I will be with you until the end of the age. He's going to be there. He's going to be helping. Let Jesus fulfill his promise. You do what you've been called to do and let Jesus do what he said he's going to do.
And that's, he's going to change people. He's going to transform people. If you think it's your job to do that, you're wrong. Your job is to show them the gospel. As we go about our daily lives, we invite those we encounter to hang out with our community group and take next steps towards Jesus. That's what it means to make disciples of everyone.
But what does that look like for the church in general? What does it look like for churches out in the world? There's two main kind of categories, two main strategies that exist for churches and how they operate. The first one is what we're going to call a come and see mentality. Come and see the church. This is any church that typically has like, their main mode of operation is the Sunday service, the Sunday gathering.
Come and see what we have to show you. You've got to come to our event, our thing, our building. Come to us and we'll show you how to live, whatever that looks like. American culture has taken this to the extreme. They've kind of exploded it. You can watch it on TV.
You can watch it on the internet. You could go to an actual church building and still watch it on TV. You could hang out with laser beams and fog machines and like professional musicians and it's this big thing of come and see. Come and see what we've got to show you. That's one mode of operation. The second mode of operation is what we're going to call go and be the church.
So it's no longer come and see the church, it's go and be the church. Now if you haven't guessed, our primary mode is not come and see the church. And if you're here today and that's what you were thinking, then this is it. It's not the best thing in the world. It's okay. But we believe that we're primarily called to go and be the church.
And if you haven't experienced that before, it's actually, for us at least, a lot better than this. If you're here today and you're just coming to see the church, then you're actually missing out. And we're called to go and be the church. And to go and be the church, it means leaving here today and not thinking the church is over. Because church isn't just Sunday morning, church is Monday night. It's Tuesday at lunchtime.
It's Thursday when you hang out with your group. It's Friday when you walk the dog with friends from your community group. It's Saturday when you go and play with your Frisbee disc golf club or whatever you do on Saturday morning, Saturday night. Family doesn't cease to be family when they leave your house after dinner. And for some reason, we think that church does when we leave here. That's not true.
Church family exists all the time. We're called to go and be the church. Well, what do we do with this then? Who is the target audience, for lack of a better word? Who's this mission for? Who do I take it to?
Well, my question is, who are you already around? Who are you already around? Let's think specifically and practically about this. I think, I think there's two main categories, two main categories of people in our lives that this would include. There's friends without hope and there's strangers without hope. Let's talk first about friends without hope.
This is people you already know. This is not necessarily friends, but colleagues, workmates, family members, people who you're on a first name basis with have had conversations with before. This is friends without hope. It's not strangers without hope. What do we do with our friends that we already know who don't have hope? Well, it's actually pretty simple.
After all, you're a pretty normal person. Your friends are pretty normal. Hanging out with you wouldn't be torture, I don't think. It could be. You don't have to be weird and creepy about your faith. You don't have to slam Bible verses down people's throats all the time.
You get to be you in love with Jesus. Granted, you're in love with Jesus. You get to be you and do normal things anyway. And in the context of friendship, you can show other people what it means to be a Christian. Here's an example. You might work Monday to Friday.
You've got a nine-to-five Job. You work Monday to Friday. You don't know everyone there, but you know most of the people there. Actually, there's this one lady there who annoys you quite a bit. She's pretty annoying. And the annoying thing about annoying people is how annoying they are, which can be frustrating.
And frustration springs from annoyingness. And I'm a master of being annoying, but I hate being annoyed. And she's an annoying person, which is annoying. Annoying. Annoying. Annoying.
Am I being annoying? That's the goal. Never mind. There's this annoying person at work. You don't know a lot about her. You don't want to know a whole lot about her.
You kind of just wish she would leave you alone, but you're stuck with her for eight hours a day. You do know one thing about her. She loves her dog. She doesn't have photos of kids and family up and around her desk. She's got photos of her dog. You know this lady is crazy about that dog.
And so you think, huh, how am I going to reach this lady? You go to your community group. You hate dogs, obviously, because you're an intelligent person. But you know there's some unintelligent people in your community group who like dogs as well. So you go to your community group and you say, community group, does anyone like dogs?
Does anyone want to start like a Saturday morning dog walking thing? And they say, yeah, sure, why not? And boom, perfect. You've got this avenue to invite this annoying lady from work to hang out with Christians. And the best thing about it is that once she gets involved, assuming she does, once she probably does, she likes her dog, once she gets involved, you get to put her in a group with your friends who get to do all the heavy lifting for you. You no longer have to deal with her.
Your friends do because they can bond over the dog thing. She'll probably rock up with her dog in like one of those tote bags for the walk. It might be weird, but you can get over that. People are weird. The heavy lifting is done by others. All you've really done is orchestrated a situation where someone that you know, a friend without hope, is hanging around with Christians doing things that they like doing.
Here's another example. You have a friend, he's a guy, he's been not around Jesus for a while. He's grown up in church, thinks he knows some stuff, but at some point in time, you don't really know what happened. He got burned by the church, doesn't really trust Christians, doesn't really trust the church anymore, doesn't hang around with anyone. You've invited him a few times, you've said, hey, come hang out with us on Sundays, and he's just not biting on that. He doesn't like that idea.
The thought of being around Christians, being judged, he's got some things that he's ashamed of, he doesn't really want to buy into anything like that, and you think, dang, hitting a wall. And then, one of the guys in your community group says, hey, let's all get together and shoot guns at a range, and you think, bing, perfect, he's a guy, guys like shooting guns, at least around here they do. And you think, this is perfect. I'm going to invite him to come and shoot guns. And he bites. You say, hey, do you want to come and hang out with some of my friends and shoot guns all morning?
And he says, yes, obviously. And all you've done is orchestrated a situation where a friend without hope gets to hang out with friends who know Jesus, and he gets to see that they're not that weird after all. He gets to see that they're just normal people who love Jesus and go about their lives in light of the fact that they love Jesus. It's not, you don't have to be a weird guy who dresses up in a suit and puts his bow tie on and carries a clipboard and a huge Bible and knocks on people's doors and says, would you like to know Jesus today? I mean, you could. There's no way to make friends.
Instead, orchestrate situations with your current friends your community group mainly where you can invite other friends easily to that and they're going to say yes because who doesn't want to shoot guns and walk dogs? One of the biggest hurdles for people becoming Christians is that they don't know what Christians look like. They think that you're weird Bible-thumping, praying, sitting in a circle, holding hands, singing Kumbaya. You could do that. That's weird. You're just you being in love with Jesus, doing it in the context of your community group.
And you get to do that and do fun things and invite people in. That's called being a gospel-centered community on mission. Dog walking, fishing, crafts, coffee, breakfast, football, soccer, which is actually football, frisbee, Pinterest parties, painting each other's nails, jams. Yeah. I know you ladies know what jams are and if you're a married man you probably know what jams are as well. I know you ladies love that stuff.
Invite your friends to that. It's fun. Jams, everyone. When you and your community group have this great commission outlook, every day is full of disciple-making moments. When you and your community group have this great commission outlook, every day is full of disciple-making moments. We meet people where they're at and we allow them to see Jesus through us and our community groups.
Now let's turn to that second group, the group called Strangers Without Hope. This is the category of people that you don't know. This is someone who when you saw them on the street you would not know their name or anything about them. Strangers Without Hope. I think, and I think I'm right in this because I think it, I think that the most underutilized, most overlooked, most underthought, most duh kind of people group that would fit this category in our lives is our neighbors. And it's interesting to me because I remember this guy called Jesus who said, the greatest command is to love God and love your neighbors.
But I know you guys, I know you're Bible scholars and academics and when he says that, he's not saying you're actual neighbors, he's saying love everyone, which is great because for some reason that means we get to ignore our actual neighbors. Despite the fact that he said the words love your neighbors. It cannot not mean neighbors when he says love your neighbors, even if he means love everyone. I've been reading this book recently, it's called The Art of Neighboring. My wife and I are planning to move into apartment community soon and we're just reading a bunch of things that's involved in that and how to make friends with your neighbors.
I've been reading this book called The Art of Neighboring and they have this diagnosis test in the book. It looks like this, it's a three by three grid, the middle square represents your house and so you put your name in your house. There's eight other squares around that and they represent the houses of the eight geographically closest houses to your house. So it's not Bob who lives down the street and three houses down around the corner, it's the eight closest people to your current house. The diagnosis test is this, step one, write the names of your eight closest neighbors. Write all their names in the boxes, each one represents another house.
Step number two, in the middle of the box, write some basic thing about those people. It can't be an observation that you could see from the street, it can't be that he drives a red car or that he gets up at seven in the morning to go to work, it has to be he's a carpenter, he likes fishing, something that you would only really know from a conversation, a basic level conversation, hey how are you going, picking up your mail, what do you like, that kind of thing. The third diagnosis, which you would write at the bottom, is some deeper level issue that's happening with that person at the time. Can't find a job, family member in hospital, that kind of thing, some deeper level something that's not just a basic conversation starter.
Now according to the book, and I think that these statistics are inflated, 10% of people can fill out the names of their closest eight neighbors. So in a room this size, it's probably seven or eight of us. And I think that's inflated. Maybe, I don't know. The second step, only 3% of people can fill out a basic something about those eight people. So in a room this size, that's maybe one or two.
Less than 1% can fill out an important something underlying life issue of all eight of their closest neighbors. Less than 1%. So in this room, it's probably zero. It might be, might not be, but it's probably zero. Now I'm not saying this to make you feel like a bad neighbor because I'm a bad neighbor as well.
I filled out three boxes and then guessed the name of the fourth box because I wasn't really sure. My point in this isn't that I'm good and that I know how to do this and you don't. My point is that none of us are really good at this anymore. And when it comes to this category of strangers without hope, our neighbors are an incredibly obvious one that we just don't put a whole lot of effort into. But what would it look like if Christians made a habit of getting to know their neighbors and caring for them, looking after their kids, helping them in times of need or even knowing when times of need exist.
Here's a crazy thought. Get your community group together. Throw a block party. They don't really exist anymore, but you can do it. Throw a block party. Invite ten of your closest neighbors.
How hard could it be? Set up a grill. Get some hamburgers grilling. Smoke up the area so that everyone can smell it down the street. Set up cornhole, can jam, frisbee, whatever you've got. Set it all out on the street.
Invite ten of your closest neighbors to come and hang out. And even if only three of them turn up, get to know them. Have the people in your community group. Get to know them and invite them to some stuff. Have a plan for what you're going to do the week after. Hey, we're all going fishing next week.
You want to come? Great. You know that field at the end of your street? Why not start a weekly soccer game there? Or t-ball game there? Or kickball game there?
Get all the kids from your neighborhood. If you don't have kids, don't do this. But if you've got kids, start up a regular game and you get to hang out with all these people from your neighborhood and it gets to be this regular rhythm that everyone gets to enjoy in the neighborhood. Why not start at work and get coffee with one person from work every Monday? Get to know them a little bit. Find out what they like doing.
Do something like that with them. Help the old lady next door taking her groceries. Take a buddy from work out to get wings. Get your group together and go to the markets. Either the nice ones downtown or the sketchy ones out on Augusta Road. Everyday mission is not as scary as it seems.
Making disciples of all nations doesn't have to be this heavy burden that we feel all of the time. It's not only for paid missionaries. It's not only for paid pastors. It's for us in the context of our community groups, our gospel centered communities who are out on mission. We can fulfill the great commission when we're intentional with the time that we already spend. It's not about freeing up time to make time to do this in excess.
We're already spending time anyway. Let's be intentional with the time that we already spend. We do it in the context of our gospel centered community. community, we have teammates who are there, surrounded by Jesus, who are able to help us out. So here's what we're going to do. Let me just explain everything and we're going to do it after I'm done explaining. Everyone should have a Mill City blue card.
If you don't have a blank one near you, you can get a blank one because there's some empty chairs. There's also some more at the back. Take out a blank card and take out a pen. We're going to write down the names of anyone who's come to mind throughout this entire time. Anyone who we know exists, who's a friend without hope. Write down anyone you work with who you want to reach with the gospel, who you want to invite to something.
Write down your neighbors. If you've got that annoying person at work, write that annoying person down. If there's a person that you don't like being around at work, write their name down. Then you're going to write down something that you know about that person next to it. It doesn't have to be important. It can be they like dogs.
It doesn't have to be super important. Write down whatever you can think of when it comes to that person. If the only thing you can think of is that they really annoy me, write that. Then we're going to spend some time praying for those people. We're going to play some house music and spend some time praying for those people. You can move around.
You can get people from your community group together. You don't have to stay where you are. And we're going to pray for those people. See if we can think up some kind of way to present to our community group that we can reach those people. Then on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, whenever you meet with your group, bring this list along.
This list is gold to your group. And in your group times, you get to talk about those people that you want to reach. You get to talk about things that you can do together, that you can make rhythms, fields that you can play soccer at, places you can walk your dog. Rangers where you can go shoot guns. You get to bring that list to your community group and brainstorm different ways that you as a group together can be a gospel-centered community on mission. So I'm going to pray.
We're going to play some music. Take some time to write some names down. Feel free to move around. And then after a few minutes have gone by, a chat's going to come up. This is it for us. We're going to spend time praying.
There's no more songs. Ted's going to come up later and close up with announcements and stuff, but this is what we're doing today. We're thinking about people that can be reached, people that we already know, things that they like doing, and we're going to pray for them. So I'm going to pray for us and then that's what we're going to do. Father God, we praise you and we thank you. We know that you can do immeasurably more than we expect, and we pray that you do that as a result of today.
And we know that you have the power to transform this city, and we pray that you use us to help do that. God, be showing us people in our lives that we can reach. Be showing us people in our lives who need hope. Teach us how to reach them and empower us with your mission. Pray that we can reach Columbia, that we can reach our friends, that we can reach our neighbors, and pray that you be with us until the end of the age as we do it. It's in your name we pray.
Amen.
Joseph
Transcript
Hey everyone. It's good to see you this morning. My name is Raz. And if you're here for the first time, you've come in at the midway point of a five-week series called Bible Stories. And in this series, we're looking at a bunch of Old Testament stories that everyone's at least vaguely familiar with. And we're zooming out and we're looking at the big picture of the whole Bible and what God's story says about those stories in the Old Testament.
Now, it might be your first time hearing this. If you haven't been with us so far in this series, it might be your first time hearing this. And I'm sorry that I might be the one to break your heart first thing on a Sunday morning. But the Bible was not written about you. I know that it's very easy to want to see ourselves in the Bible. It's very easy to want to picture ourselves as the hero of many stories.
But the Bible isn't about you. The Bible isn't about me. And I think I would be a great main character. But I'm not. And Jesus, luckily, is the main character of the Bible. And if anyone's going to be a better character than me, it may as well be Jesus.
Today, we're going to be looking at the Old Testament story of Joseph. The story is 13 chapters long. It cripples my soul. I'm a perfectionist. And it cripples my soul that we're going to have to skip bits. And it pains me to skip bits.
I love to dig into every individual word to find out what that word means in its context. But we're going to have to skip chapters at a time. We're going to have to summarize chapters. We're going to have to read just certain specific points. But we've got to power through because it's a 13-chapter-long story.
And we're going to cover it all today. So be aware that there's going to be summarized chunks. We're going to be skipping chunks. If you have one of these little timeline aid things that Chet was talking about earlier, if you don't, you can just feel free to go walk and get one now. There's a bunch of them up the back. Like, Joseph is kind of near the top.
Joseph is still in Genesis. And last week we looked at Noah. Noah's right up there under Adam. Joseph is 13 generations after Noah. So we don't know exactly how much time that was, but we know it was 13 generations.
And the biggest, most important thing that's happened between last week and this week, between Noah and between Joseph, is Abraham. Abraham made a covenant with God. You can read about it in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15. God promised Abraham three major things. He promised him he would have a big family, that his family would outnumber the stars. And that was a big promise given that Abraham was super old and had no kids at the time.
He promised the promised land to Abraham, which we know of as kind of the Israel area. And he promised that God's blessing would flow through his family to the nations. And as we look at the story of Joseph today, we're going to see a little bit of that blessing as it kind of sinks down through his family. Before we jump into the story of Joseph, I'm going to pray for us and then we can open up to Genesis 37. Let's pray.
Father God, we thank you that you have a great main character of your story and that we get to learn about him week to week in our community groups and on Sundays as we gather together. We pray in thanks that you love us enough to send a savior in the form of your son. And we pray that you can teach him, teach us about him today. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Now, this first bit of the story is probably the most familiar. We're going to be looking at Genesis 37 to begin with. And this is, for you musical fans, the section where the whole Joseph and the Technicolor dreamcoat kind of kicks in. It doesn't stick around for very long, though, as we'll learn. We're going to start in 37 verse 2. It's on page 20 if you've got one of these Bibles.
If you don't own a Bible for yourself, these Bibles are kind of scattered around the place. You're free to take one of these. We want you to have a Bible. So if you don't own one, just grab one of these and go home with it. We won't mind. We're going to start in verse 2.
It says, These are the generations of Jacob. Jacob is Joseph's father, and he also has the name Israel. So in a moment, he's going to turn up and he's going to be called Israel. It's the same guy. It's Joseph's dad. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers.
He was a boy with the sons of Bilhar and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Okay, so we've got a weird family already. There's multiple wives. Joseph has 10 older brothers, and they're spread across all the different wives. And Joseph, our boy, brings a bad report of them to their father.
He is a tattletale. He's got 10 older brothers, and he rats them out to their dad. He's not starting well. Verse 3. Now Israel, that's his dad.
That's Jacob. Same guy. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made for him a robe of many colors, also known as a technicolor dreamcoat. But when his brothers saw that his father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.
So we've got a frustrating family. A family that most of us would not want to be a part of. There's actually four wives, four mothers. That would be tough. He picks favorite sons and gives them gifts that the other sons don't get. And the sons hate him for it.
This sibling rivalry playing a part. Joseph doesn't help his cause by being a tattletale. Kind of shoots himself in the foot there. He's probably not the most popular kid around, and we're going to read just now about how he makes his problem worse. Verse 5. Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more.
Good Job, Joseph. He said to them, Hear this dream that I have dreamed. Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field. And behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around my sheaf and bowed themselves down to my sheaf. His brothers said to him, Are you indeed to reign over us?
Or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Nice one, Joseph. Crushing it, playing the younger brother card, and telling your brothers that they're all going to bow down to you, metaphorically from a dream. Killing it, Joseph. You're working yourself up.
It's just kind of sad to see him dig a hole that he's already dug even deeper. Now, Joseph, he has a second dream after this. We're not going to read about it. He does have a second dream. And the second dream is similar to the first one, except he dreams that the sun and the moon and 11 stars all bow down to him. And then he doesn't tell it just to his brothers.
He tells it to his whole family, including his moms and dad. And they complain to him. And they say, So what? You think that our entire family is going to bow down to you? And they rebuke him, tell him to can it, and to sit in his hole and be quiet. Now, time passes, and the ten older brothers are out.
They're shepherds. They're pasturing the flock. That means that they're out sending the sheep out and looking after them out in the wilderness or whatever. They're not necessarily close to home. They didn't really have fields like we do. And so they're out shepherding the flock, pasturing the flock.
And Jacob, which is the dad, sends Joseph out to check on his brothers, to see that they're doing okay, to bring back a report, let him know if everything's going okay. We're going to pick this up in verse 17. It's at the top of page 21. In these Bibles, anyway. It says, So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him from afar.
And before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him. And we will see what will become of his dreams. But when Reuben heard it, Reuben is his eldest brother, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, Let us not take his life.
And Reuben said to them, Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit here in the wilderness. But do not lay a hand on him. That he, that's Reuben, might rescue him, that's Joseph, out of their hand to restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the Technicolor dream coat, the robe of many colors that he wore, and they took him and threw him in a pit.
The pit was empty. There was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat, and looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, myrrh, and they were on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him. For he is our brother, our own flesh.
And his brothers listened to him. Then Midianite trainers, Midianite traders passed by, and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt. Joseph's brothers, his family, hated him so much they were ready to kill him. But as soon as the opportunity arose, they decided they weren't going to kill him.
Instead, it would be better to make money off of him instead. And so they sold him to be a slave in a faraway country. This is sibling rivalry to the absolute extreme. Joseph is stabbed in the back, square in the back, by his brothers, his older brothers, ten of them. The guys who are supposed to love him the most are the ones who betrayed him. Can you imagine what it feels like to sit in the bottom of a pit after your brothers have just beaten you and thrown you there and overhear their conversation about how and when they're going to kill you?
And then they pull you up out of the pit and decide not to kill you, and you're relieved. And then you're heartbroken again when they tell you you're going to be sold as a slave and sent to Egypt. Well, the brothers, they've committed this crime. They've committed this sin against Joseph. But they've got to do something about it to cover it up.
Joseph is the favorite child. Jacob is not going to be happy about his disappearance. So they take his coat, they take the coat of many colors, and they cover it in animals' blood. And they take that home to Jacob and they say, look, Joseph has been killed by a wild animal. And they convince their dad that Joseph is now dead. So they hate their brother, they betray him, they sell him as a slave, and they cover up what they've done by convincing their dad that he's dead.
And we're going to pick the story up with Joseph. He's now in Egypt. And we're going to skip to chapter 39. It's at the bottom of page 21 in these Bibles. He's now in Egypt, and he's been sold to a guy called Potiphar. Verse 1 says, Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had brought him from the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there.
The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. Okay, that's important. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, even though he was a slave. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became successful. Now, Joseph, as a successful slave, impresses his master, Potiphar, and we're going to pick it up at verse 5. It says, From that time he made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had.
The Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field, and he left all that he had in Joseph's charge, because, and because of him, he had no concern about anything but the food he ate, which is kind of interesting. You elevate this guy, who was a slave, and you say, You can control everything over my house, but you better not tell me what to eat. I'm going to eat candy for breakfast, and you cannot stop me, Joseph. That's what he says. Now, the plot kind of thickens.
It gets a little weird. Potiphar has an interesting wife. We don't learn her name, but she plays a pretty significant part of the story. In our society, we've kind of got a crass name for ladies like this. Cougar. Potiphar's wife is an incredibly blunt one at that.
Read on. It says, Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. He's 17. And after a time, his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, Lie with me. Subtle, right? But he refused and said to his master's wife, Behold, because of me, my master has no concern of anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.
He is not greater than I am in his house, nor has he kept back anything from me except you because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her or lie beside her or be with her. Joseph is turning out to be an incredibly awesome dude. He's standing up under tough circumstances and sexual temptation, and it's possible that Potiphar's wife was hideous and that would be a good reason to reject her, but probably not. Potiphar was a rich guy.
He was influential. He had Pharaoh's ear. He probably had a cute wife. He was probably able to substitute her out for a younger model whenever he kind of got bored. What we see here in Joseph is actually that he's standing up righteously under really tough circumstances. Joseph's motivation might seem pure, and it is, and we read on.
Verse 11, But one day when he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house were in the house, she, that's Potiphar's wife, caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me. But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. So the cougar sets up a trap and pounces, and then Joseph bails immediately. But he leaves his coat behind. And this is a side note. This isn't important.
Joseph is the only guy in the Bible to lose two coats. Do not lend coats to Joseph. It's not important, but I noticed it, so I thought I'd tell you. Well, Potiphar's wife, she doesn't like getting rejected. She doesn't handle rejection well, and she actually accuses Joseph to her husband of sexually attacking her. And she's got his jacket, so she shows him his jacket as evidence.
And so she accuses Joseph of sexually attacking her. And so Joseph gets thrown into prison as a result. So we're going to read from verse 20. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. And he was there in prison. Now, that's got to suck.
Because Joseph didn't do anything wrong. In fact, Joseph did everything right, and not just to impress Potiphar, but he actually did it for the right reasons because he feared God. Now Joseph finds himself in jail for not committing adultery. It doesn't make any sense. Can you imagine how it feels at that point in time to be Joseph? Betrayed by your brothers and sold as a slave.
Finally, things look up and you're elevated to a reasonable status in that house. And then you get accused of something you haven't done when in fact you've done the right thing by your master and by God and you end up in jail. Verse 21. But the Lord was with Joseph, and he showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it.
The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge because the Lord was with him, and whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed. When anyone else would be swimming in their well of bitterness, Joseph finds success. He seems like a trustworthy dude. He finds himself in prison, and even as a prisoner, the prison guards put him in charge of all the other prisoners because the Lord is with him. He's a prisoner with integrity, and especially for one who ought to be a bowl of tears, who is crying and whining because life has it out for him. Now this next little section, it all happens in chapter 40.
I encourage you to read it. I'm going to summarize it for us because it's a little bit wordy. Two guys end up coming to prison with Joseph. Joseph's in charge of the prison. Like, he's still a prisoner, but he's in charge of everything that happens in there. And two guys get thrown into prison.
One of them is the cupbearer to Pharaoh. A cupbearer's an important Job. He makes sure the Pharaoh doesn't get poisoned. And the other guy's a baker for Pharaoh. So the cupbearer and the baker get thrown into jail with Joseph.
And they start having some weird dreams. They're having funky dreams, and they don't understand them. They don't know what it means for their lives. And Joseph, who's in charge, notices that they're distressed. And so he goes up to them and asks them, and they say, we're having these dreams. We need someone to explain them to us.
And Joseph says, all right, I can explain them to you. So the first guy, the cupbearer, says, I've been having this weird dream. Tell me all what it means. And Joseph says, actually, the interpretation of your dream is positive. We really, this is good news. You, you're going to be reinstated as the cupbearer to the king.
And the cupbearer is stoked. He, he gets to go back to his job. He gets to go back to being in Pharaoh's good books, and he doesn't have to be in jail anymore. And Joseph says, hey, make sure when you get out there and you have Pharaoh's ear again, remember, remember what I've done for you. Remember me. I'm kind of wasting away here in jail.
Don't forget me. And then he turns to the other guy, and the other guy, the baker, tells him his dream. And, and things get awkward pretty quick. The baker tells him his dream, and, and Joseph suddenly starts like, loosening his collar, standing out of the sun, and says, hey, bro, I've got some bad news for you. Just as the other guy was elevated back to his position, your head is going to be elevated from your shoulders. And for some reason, he tries to make a weird, poetic kind of illustration of that to be a graceful way to tell the other guy that he's going to have his head chopped off.
Nice, Joseph crushing it again. He, he tells the other guy that he's going to, that he's going to be executed in three days. And lo and behold, everything that he predicts in three days times happened. The cup bearer gets elevated back to his status, and the baker gets killed. And then we read in the very last verse of that chapter, 40 verse 23, it says, yet the chief cup bearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. And it really begins to start feeling like Joseph is life's punching bag.
Because he does everything right all the time and gets the tough end of the stick. He's following his dad's instructions, gets sold as a slave by his brothers. He follows Potiphar's instructions righteously and chooses not to commit adultery with his wife and gets thrown in prison. And he does right by these two guys and explains everything correctly to these two guys and then he gets forgotten. Even though he said, don't forget me. Two years go by.
Joseph has been in jail for two years. And the pharaoh himself, the ruler over all of Egypt, he starts having weird dreams. And you would think the cup bearer who's right next to him would be like, hey, I know a guy, but he doesn't. The pharaoh calls all of the wise men of Egypt, he calls all of the magicians in Egypt, anyone who might be able to tell him about his dreams and calls them all into himself and he says, guys, tell me what these dreams are all about. And they all say, we don't know. And then at that point in time when Pharaoh's losing his mind, his cup bearer says, oh, yeah, there's this guy that I promised him I wouldn't forget about him.
It was a couple years ago. Pharaoh, he's chilling in the jail. Maybe he can help you out. His name's Joseph. And so Pharaoh says, all right, give him a chance, brings Joseph up and Joseph comes before the pharaoh himself. Pharaoh explains his dreams to him and Joseph says, I can tell you what they mean.
He says, you're going to have seven good years. Seven years of plenty is what he says. And in the seven good years, you're going to have lots of crops, going to have lots of water, going to have all your animals and cattle and livestock are going to do really well. Seven really good years. And then, after the seven good years, throughout all the land is going to be seven bad years. Seven years of famine is what they say.
So there's going to be no crops, no animals, no water. There's going to be seven bad years. And what you need to do, Pharaoh, this is what Joseph said, what you need to do is put someone good and wise and knowledgeable in charge during the seven good years so that they can store up food and they can prepare for the seven bad years that are going to come later. You need to be prepared for that, otherwise everyone's going to die. And Pharaoh says to Joseph, this is chapter 41, verse 39. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has shown you all of this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are.
You shall be over my house and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. So Joseph has gone from favored child to slave to ruler over Potiphar's house to prisoner to ruler over prison and now he is set second in charge over all of Egypt. It's a bit of a rollercoaster of a story but it's actually only now that the story gets super interesting. We're going to sum to summarize the next couple of chapters actually.
The next couple of chapters tell the story of Joseph's family. They're back in Israel. They're back in Canaan, kind of the area on the eastern bank of the Mediterranean and they've run into this seven years of famine. No one was prepared for it. They just had seven good years and then suddenly famine hits and no one was prepared. So his family, which is quite big at this stage, Jacob is still alive.
He's the father. There's about 70 descendants in the family. So his kids have had kids, have had kids and there's 70 people in total and he's trying to look out for his family and he's trying to buy food off his neighbors but no one in the area has got food and they hear that Egypt has some food. So Jacob sends the ten older brothers of Joseph down to Egypt in search of food. And then they come down to Egypt and Joseph is in charge. And so they come before Joseph himself to beg for the right to be able to buy food.
They beg Joseph for the privilege to buy food from him because Egypt is the only place that was prepared. They walk into a room with the younger brother they betrayed years ago and they don't even recognize him. They have no idea that he's the one standing in front of them. He's a whole lot older. He's probably decked out like an Egyptian. They sold him as a slave.
They think he's either dead or serving some master in a house somewhere. And they don't even recognize that this man in front of them this powerful man who has the ability to let them die or give them food they don't recognize that's their little brother that they betrayed. But Joseph recognizes them. Joseph was never going to forget his older brothers. The ones who betrayed him and sold him as a slave. How could he forget them?
I can only imagine what would be going through my head if I was Joseph at that time. Revenge. Look at these guys. They've come in and they're bowing before me just as I had predicted. They're weak. You're weak and you're pathetic.
I should crush you. I should do back to you what you have done to me. You have made my life miserable and here's my chance to pay you back. Now I'm strong. Now I have power.
You're weak and you're pathetic. I should crush you. I should do back to you what you have done to me. You have made my life miserable and here's my chance to pay you back. Now I'm strong. Now I have power. Now I have influence and I can do whatever I want to you and I can repay all the evil that you did to me. And we read we read about Joseph and the situation that he's found him in this bizarre tone of events where he can now crush his brothers
And we're cheering for him saying get him Joseph get him lay into him get him back they betrayed you man they stabbed you in the back kill him and then he he doesn't at exactly the point in time when you would expect Joseph to repay evil for evil he chooses not to and in fact he has nothing but forgiveness and mercy and compassion
For them he sends them back to get their whole family bring the whole family down to Egypt where he can set them up for life he hooks them up he not only forgives them he sets them up so they can have the good life from there on out we're going to skip a couple chapters we're now in chapter 47 starting at verse 11 it says this is now on page 27 in these Bibles it says then Joseph
Settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt in the best of the land in the land of Ramesses as Pharaoh had commanded and Joseph provided his father his brothers and all his father's household with food according to the number of his descendants Joseph had the power he had the authority and he would have been completely justified in that moment in punishing his brothers for what they'd done to him and yet instead
He does everything that he can to look after them now soon Jacob that's the father of the whole clan Jacob that's Joseph's dad he dies and with the death of the dad suddenly all the brothers get this renewed sense of paranoia they know that Joseph was Jacob's favorite child and so Jacob loved Joseph Joseph loved Jacob back and with the death of the father
They get this renewed sense that suddenly Joseph's going to change his mind and want to punish everyone and so they send him a letter the letter's not truthful but they send him a letter and we're going to skip to the end of chapter 50 this is now on page 29 this is right at the end of Genesis in verse 15 it says when Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead they said it may be that Joseph will hate us
And pay us back for all the evil that we did to him so they sent a message to Joseph saying your father gave this command before he died say to Joseph please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sins because they did evil to you and now please forgive the transgressions of the servants of the God of your father so they admit that they had done a whole lot of evil
To him and they expected it to be paid back Joseph wept when they spoke to him his brothers also came and fell down before him and said behold we are your servants but Joseph said to them do not fear for am I in the place of God as for you you meant evil against me but God meant it for good
To bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today so do not fear I will provide for you and your little ones and thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them now Joseph Joseph has perspective Joseph has righteous perspective and what I mean by that is that Joseph is able even in the midst of everything that's happened to zoom out
And see the entire story for what it is he sees the bigger picture and we get caught up in the details we get caught up in the pain and the hurt and the betrayal and we want we want to be justified in him taking that out on them we want justice in that and Joseph sees the bigger picture because he has perspective we would completely expect Joseph
To want to repay that evil that's our mentality we have this mentality of an eye for an eye and that's justice and yet Joseph has this higher perspective the bigger picture and he says you meant evil against me but God meant it for good it doesn't matter to Joseph that his brothers sold him as a slave because he realizes that that had to happen for him to end up in Egypt and he realizes
That once he gets to Egypt he had to rise to power and then end up in jail so that he could meet the king's cupbearer and he had to meet the king's cupbearer so that someone could tell Pharaoh that Joseph knows how to interpret dreams so that when Pharaoh has bad dreams Joseph gets to meet Pharaoh and he had to meet Pharaoh so that he could become second in charge of all of Egypt so that he could save everyone he doesn't get caught up
On the little details he sees that everything happened so that he could come to power in Egypt and keep everyone alive and this idea of perspective zooming out and seeing the bigger picture that's kind of our goal in this entire Bible stories series we want to zoom out from each individual story and see it in the grand scheme of God's story because the Bible is God's story and each one fits into it and so if we look at this story
With perspective it changes the picture see we're tempted at every stage in the story to want to be the hero we want to be we want to be like Joseph we want to stand up under sexual temptation even though that's not a reality for us we want to we want to be patient in affliction like Romans 12 says and yet that's not at all us we want to be merciful we want to have forgiveness we want to do all of these things
That we see in Joseph but it doesn't really reflect us at all and that's because that's not at all what's going on in this story if you think about it with some perspective if you zoom out like we've been talking about you see the bigger picture Joseph he suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to love him so that he could eventually save those people
Who betrayed him Joseph was able and justified in administering punishment to those people and instead shows mercy and kindness and grace to them Joseph was condemned but God required that for good and while we want to see ourselves as Joseph we want to see ourselves
In this story it doesn't sound a whole lot like us instead it sounds a whole lot more like Jesus but we still want to play a part in stories even though we shouldn't force our way into stories we still want to play a part but if we see it with this perspective if we
See it in this bigger picture we kind of play a role in the story if anyone in that story is us it's the brothers the ones who betrayed the guy who's ultimately going to save them that's us and it's it's sad it's not fun
To think about but we're we're Joseph's older brothers we betray the guy who saves us but chapter 50 verse 20 it's a game changer it's going to come up here it says as for you you meant evil against me but God meant it for good
To bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today is there a clearer picture of the gospel than that but Joseph and this whole story is just one little man in a little region thousands and thousands
Of years ago who saves his family it's kind of a small story on the grand scheme of God's story what Jesus does for us is infinitely bigger than the story of Joseph as Joseph's brothers meant evil against
Joseph mankind as a whole meant evil against Christ to our very bones we are rebellious we consistently place our own desires our own wants and our own thoughts above that of
God and we betray him day after day after day it was mankind that crucified Jesus it was under mankind's hand that Jesus suffered unrighteously unjustly sorry not
Unrighteously and and yet God uses all of that evil that mankind did to Christ so that he could eventually die on the cross to save mankind the evil that mankind did to Christ had to happen so that
God could save everyone to bring about the many people should be kept alive that's how God's sovereignty works that's what God's plans do they happen the way that he means them
To happen and sometimes in the case of Joseph and in the case of Jesus and in the case of many others suffering has to happen for them to get from A to B suffering is the way that God gets them from Canaan to Egypt to slavery to ruling over everyone so that they
Can save everyone else's lives Joseph he he mercifully rescued his own family from starving and Jesus is completely different he's completely bigger Jesus rescues all of humanity from the consequences of their own
Sin eternal death Matt's going to make his way back up here and as we kind of land the plane there's any number of beautiful responses that we can have to a story like this
This story is a massive picture of the gospel and we can respond in many ways but I want us to zoom out and see the bigger picture I want us
To respond in light of God's plan for all of salvation you see I think we're so exposed to the idea that we are
Sinful and that God forgives us and that Jesus paid for our sin on the cross we're so exposed to that it kind of
Just washes over us in a way where it doesn't hurt anymore we don't feel the pain we don't feel the betrayal we don't
Feel the agony of it and yet we read a story like Joseph's and suddenly it's a human character it's not God anymore it's
A human and we can relate to how it feels to be betrayed we relate to how it feels to be punished when you
Don't deserve it and then we suddenly understand how crazy it is to receive mercy we understand how crazy it is to receive mercy from the
Person that you betrayed most and yet we zoom out and we realize that our situation before God is immeasurably worse than the brothers
Before Joseph we've separated ourselves from God and creator who made us to live in perfect relationship with him and we sin against him
Daily and yet he offers the same mercy to us our sin and our betrayal is immeasurably worse and his mercy and love is
Immeasurably greater and so when Joseph's brothers are given blessing and freedom even when they don't deserve it how much greater is the blessing
And freedom that we receive even though we don't deserve it how much more blessed are you in light of knowing Jesus mercy know
That he has every right just as Joseph did to punish you for your sin every right to punish me for my sin every
Right to punish all of mankind for sin yet he chooses not to instead he chooses to free you from your guilt to free
You from all that you are struggling with in life there's no more pain there's no more burden and there's no more guilt because
Of the mercy that he's shown you and you get to live a life that is set up for success you get to live
A life as he plans as you respond to him the same offer that Joseph gives to his brothers Jesus gives to us and
I pray that we can accept his offer let's pray father God we know that we know that you are powerful beyond measure and that we've sinned
Against you we pray we pray we pray that we can live according to your will for our lives we pray in thanks that
You show mercy to us when we don't deserve it we pray we repent of our sin and we pray that you will continue to bless
Us in this life so that we can become more and more like Christ who pours himself out for us so that we can
Live and so that we can live the good life we praise you we thank you and we love you amen
Reconciliation
Colossians 1:21-23
Transcript
Well, g'day everyone. It is great to see everyone here tonight. My name is Raz. I feel like I don't really have to introduce myself because I just got a five-minute spotlight before, but I do have to defend myself because Chet called me out. This day we played putt-putt, I was the only person to lay down prone on the ground and do like a pool shot and score a hole in one. That deserves some credit, I think.
And so I may not be so good if you do it the conventional way, but give me some pool shots and I'll be all right. As he said, it becomes a healthy thing for churches to do as they continue to grow to be training new leaders. And so this is kind of what we're going to be doing tonight, and this is why I'm here. I've been in and around Mill City for a while. I've been leading a group with the West Columbia guys with Aubrey, and I've been on the teaching team for a while and helping out on Sundays as well and really just growing in a bunch of different ways on how to serve a church family and what it takes to run the church as it is from behind the scenes.
I'm currently studying in seminary at CIU. I pretty much wake up every day, read the Bible, study it, write a paper on it, submit it, and go home and sleep. That's pretty much my day every day. I enjoy it. It's really good. If you haven't tried it, maybe you should.
It's a great thing to do. We are, if this is your first week, we are currently in the middle of a series on the book of Colossians. So far, week one, we kind of looked overall introduction to the series. Paul is the author of the letter. He's writing from a jail, probably in Rome. He writes the letter to the church of Colossians.
He writes the letter to a group. He writes the letter to y'all. And so he uses the word you throughout the whole book, but pretty much the whole time he's doing it, the Greek word is the Greek word for y'all. It's a cool thing that the Greeks have that we don't have or that I don't have in conventional English, but southerners do, so it's great. We've got y'all. So it's a letter to y'all.
Week two, Matt taught that when we mature in Christ, when we grow in maturity towards Christ, we take knowledge, and that knowledge builds into action, and that action ends up turning back into more knowledge, and that more knowledge builds into more action, and that kind of pushes us forward towards Christ, and that's how we mature in Christ. In the third week, which was last week, we looked at the preeminence and the supremacy of Christ, how he is creator and supreme over all things. Everything was made through him and for him. He was before all things, and he has power over everything in creation.
This week, we're going to continue looking through the book of Colossians, but before we get there, if you haven't met me before, you're probably realizing that I'm not from Columbia, South Carolina by now. I am, in fact, from Australia, or as we call it, Australia, mate, something like that. It's not so much a fun fact about me as it is a warning, because everyone in America knows that dangerous things come from Australia. It's also a bit of a warning, because I tend to say things that make total sense in English-speaking countries, but this isn't an English-speaking country. This is an American-speaking country.
And so I might say things that mean everyone else in the world that speaks English would understand. Some examples might be, I'm not going to say any of these tonight, but except for now, chicken burger. I can see all of your brains just going, but it's actually a thing. You take a burger bun, put chicken on it, it becomes a chicken burger. Football. It's a ball, and you kick it.
It's football. You spend the whole game kicking it. You call it soccer, but you're wrong. Anyway, If I say anything, if anything comes out, it probably makes sense. You just have to think about it. In your brains, you can just join the dots.
Or if you're American, you can connect the dots. Whatever. Coming from Australia, we have a number of kind of unique cultural traditions, unique cultural things that we have that other countries just don't have. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Some of them other countries should probably adopt.
One of those is this thing that we have called reconciliation. Reconciliation is a word that existed before we kind of stole it. It's a word that means whenever two groups of people get in a fight, or two people get in a fight, and then they come back together. That's called reconciliation. But in Australia, it has this very special meaning.
You see, back in the 1800s, when the British folk, the white people, they came in and they took over. They kind of pushed everyone away. They did that thing that they did back in the day. I don't know why it was a rule, but they took their flag, and they just kind of stuck it in the dirt, and that meant that they owned the whole country. For some reason, that was a legitimate enough reason. It was like, you guys, you're already here, but you don't have a flag.
I don't understand. Why didn't you put a flag in the ground? You could have kept it, but you didn't. So we took it, and now it's ours. I've been reminded recently that in case the zombie apocalypse ever becomes a thing, America still owns all that land up on the moon, because they were the first ones to kind of do that, just in case you're paranoid like that. Anyway, back in Australia, the leaders who kind of colonized the area, they were looking at the way that the Aboriginal parents were raising their children, and they decided that it was not good enough for society.
They decided that rather than allow Aboriginal parents to raise their own children in their traditional ways, they would regulate that. They would make sure it was done correctly. And so they introduced laws. One of them was called the Aboriginal Protection Act. It actually didn't protect them at all. In fact, it was this specific thing.
They regulated the lives of aboriginals, aboriginals being the natives that were there. I don't know if I mentioned that. And so we come to this low point in Australian history, the absolute most disabicable era of Australian history, and it's what we call the stolen generation. There was a period of time where for 50 to 60 years, they actually didn't allow Aboriginal parents to raise their own children anymore. They decided they were being such bad parents, such horrible parents, that they were raising their children to be tribal and barbarians. And they said, we can't have that.
So they just started taking them. They started taking the Aboriginal children and sending them to white families and saying, you guys raise these kids to be civilized members of society. And so it ended up being that it got quite hostile, as you would imagine. The Australian kind of settlers, the British people, the white guys, they pushed everyone out, they stole their children, and they alienated themselves from everyone else. By alienated, I mean they separated themselves from them. They pushed them away.
They were hostile. They were evil towards them. They separated themselves from the aboriginals. And that's where we started with this idea of reconciliation. Back in the late 60s, the white guys, they kind of came to their senses. They decided this was kind of out of control.
We had gone too far and that something needed to be done. And so a referendum was held. A vote was held. The Australian public decided that we would give the aboriginals all of their rights back. All of the laws in the Constitution that prevented aboriginals from having rights were taken out. And we started on this road of reconciliation, trying to fix the problem that we'd created when we'd ruined that relationship.
Now, National Reconciliation Week is like a holiday in Australia now. It's really fun. I remember when it started in 1996. I was in the third grade. It was great. It was incredibly culturally insensitive.
They wanted to raise awareness for the aboriginal reconciliation. And so what they did was they said to all of the elementary schools around the place, host big aboriginal reconciliation events in your schools. And so what we did in the third grade is we had a corroboree. A corroboree is like a traditional dance thing that the aboriginals did. It was like a party. And so in the school assembly, all of the guys in the third grade ripped their shirts off and painted themselves with aboriginal paint and did like this little dance thing.
It was incredibly culturally insensitive. It's not politically correct at all. But that was like the inauguration of, hey, we're going to be reconciled to these people now. Now, I don't know if it worked or not, but it did raise awareness. And so that's a good thing, right? Instead of looking back and being angry about the past that had happened, everyone in Australia agreed that looking forward to a reunited future, a reconciled future was the way to go.
And so that's kind of this nuanced meaning of reconciliation in Australia. And now tonight as we open up Colossians, we're going to continue through into a section that is all about reconciliation. It's not between two groups of people. It's not between like the aboriginals and the white Australian conquering folk. It's between a holy God and all of fallen humanity. If you've got a Bible, you can open up to Colossians 1.
We're going to be starting in verse 23. If you don't have a Bible, there should be some kind of at the end of the rows. You can pass them down to each other. If you don't own a Bible and you've got your hands on one of these looking ones, you can take that with you. We want you to have it. It would be great for you to have the word of God within your reach at all times.
So make sure you grab one if you don't have one. We're going to be starting in verse 23. But before we do, I'm just going to pray for us real quick. Father God, thank you that you stepped down from heaven on a mission to bring us back to you. Be with us tonight as we learn from your word. Work in us to create a people who strive to become more like Jesus in all things.
Amen. All right, two weeks ago, Matt, he taught on a passage just before this one. He taught on a passage in verse 9 and 10. As I said earlier, it starts off with knowledge turning into action and that action turning into more knowledge and that more knowledge kind of growing and snowballing into more knowledge and action and more knowledge and more action. And that pushes us towards Christ. That is the process in which we mature in Christ.
This weekend, and that's really good news. This week, our passage today, it would be similar except that we have this problem. We have a rather big problem. And this is our problem. Our problem is that we were alienated from God. If you look down, verse 21, it says, And you, which is really the Greek word for y'all, and y'all, the church that's meeting in Colossae, and y'all, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.
When a group is alienated from God, their knowledge and their actions, they snowball in the same way. Except, instead of snowballing knowledge and action, knowledge and actions towards Christ, when you're alienated from him, you still have knowledge and you still have actions, but they're snowballing in a direction away from him. It says that we are hostile in mind. We have hostile knowledge. And it says that we're evil in deeds. We have evil actions.
And so our knowledge and our action, it still snowballs, but it pushes us further and further away from Christ. We are already alienated and we're becoming more alienated. It's a pretty horrible problem if you think about it, being alienated from God, being separated from the creator of the entire universe. That's a massive issue for us. I've got a photo of a kid, a little kid. He's pretty cute.
I don't know if any of you have seen him before. Some of you might have. There's a video of this kid. He went viral not that long ago. He's got sprinkles kind of on his face. I don't know if you can see that.
There's little red things all over his face. He's been eating some sprinkles. The original video was pretty long, but I've cut it down for us. We're going to watch it now. Check out what this kid does when he eats his sprinkles. What are you eating?
I think. You didn't eat anything? Yeah. I think. Are you telling me the truth? No.
You didn't have any snacks? Nope. Can you explain to me why the sprinkles are empty? Well, they're not empty. Did you eat those sprinkles? No.
I did not. Did you eat those sprinkles? No. I did not eat those sprinkles. Sprinkles. John.
You have sprinkles on your face. Oh, no. No. I did not eat sprinkles. All right.
He's pretty cute. I'll give him that. But he's digging himself a hole. He's fighting a war that he's never going to win. And it's a pretty big problem. You see, he's taken this knowledge.
He likes sprinkles. Who doesn't? He's taken this knowledge and he's done some kind of an action. His action being he went and ate some sprinkles. Even though he knew, knowledge, that he wasn't supposed to. Then his mom asked him if he did that.
And he said, no. He knew that he had, but his action was lying about the fact that he didn't. And then he lied again. And then he lied again. He told five lies saying that he never even ate the sprinkles and they were attached to his face. It's a pretty big problem.
He has alienated, whether or not he knows it, he's probably like three years old. He has alienated himself from his mother. It's a pretty big deal when raising a child to know that that child is willing to lie directly to your face. That's cause for concern. And he's alienated himself from his mother. Now, in our lives, when we have similar things, we've all done this before.
We've lied and then had to cover up that lie with another lie. And then someone called us out on that lie. And we're like, oh, no, that's not true either. And we told another lie to cover up the lie that covered up the other lie. And it snowballs like that all the time. We've done this before.
It's not new to us. And no one's been like, what? That's never happened to me. Because this is something that we generally accept as something that happens. But in our lives, it's usually something bigger than sprinkles.
It's usually something bigger that will cause more of a problem, that will alienate us more. When I was in Australia, before I came here, when I was in Australia, just after high school, I worked as an electrician for four years. And for four years, I worked with or for this guy called Joel. He wasn't my boss when I first started working as an electrician. But then as I continued to work as one, he started his own company.
I ended up working with him. So I was working with this guy, Joel, for most of the time that I was an electrician. When I first met him, he was deeply, heavily into drugs, alcohol, parties, that kind of thing. He would go a week at a time without sleeping. And he would go out at night, come to work the next morning, play with electricity, and then go back out that night. It was crazy.
I didn't know how he did it. I like sleeping for 10 hours a night. So I could never do that. But we ended up becoming friends. We ended up bonding in quite a few different ways. And over the years, he ended up taking some of the things that I was saying about Jesus.
And I had the privilege of walking him back through the doors, inviting him into church family, the church that I was serving at in Australia. And then we went for about a year, and it was really good, really smooth sailing. He was on the right track. For no real reason that I know of, one day he called me up and fired me on the spot over the phone. It was over something that I had done, but I had done exactly the way that he had told me to do. And for whatever reason, that reflected badly on him, and he wouldn't take the blame for it, so I ended up taking the fall for it.
Now, I don't know if it's the same over here, but the unions in Australia are pretty powerful. They don't let things like that happen. And so what happened was I ended up not working there anymore, but instead I was stuck in a legal dispute with him over all the money that was owed to me and over the fact that I was fired for no reason and this kind of thing. Now, at that point in time, it was about as alienated as friends could be, sitting on opposing ends of the table in a courtroom. It was pretty horrible. But here's the thing about human disputes, human alienation.
It has its limits. There's this kind of invisible scale that's sort of understood about how split up, how much distance there are between people. And so if we look at Joel and my relationship and think, yes, we understand that they are alienated, we understand that they are separated, but it's not that big a deal. It doesn't affect that many people. They might be alienated that distance on our arbitrary scale. They might be a span's distance apart.
The aboriginals and the Europeans back in the day, that was probably a bigger deal than me and Joel. On our arbitrary scale, they might be kind of a wingspan separated. That's more distance to cover to bring reconciliation. When we think about our problem, our being alienated from God, it doesn't really work on this scale that we've got. We were alienated from God in a way that would be like from here to Pluto and back and do it again 500,000 times. And you can compare that with the span and the wingspan.
It doesn't compare when we try to say, oh, I understand what alienation is because I've experienced it in the human world. We have this very serious problem. We are alienated from God. But Paul, he doesn't stop with this separation. He doesn't stop with you've been alienated. He continues.
He says, you are hostile in mind and evil in deeds. It's the difference between being separated from someone and just not caring anymore and being separated from someone and then them throwing bombs at you from afar. We're not just separated from God. We're actually evil in deed and hostile in mind towards him. We are his enemies. And that's a pretty big deal as well.
I don't know if any of you ever go to the movies and cheer for the bad guy. That would be weird unless the movie is one of those ones where you're back to front and you're cheering for the bad guys to get out of jail or something like that. Usually we go for the good guys. No one goes to the cinema. Do you call it a cinema? Theater?
Movies? Go to the movies. You go to the movies and you don't cheer for Voldemort or Darth Vader. You cheer for Luke Skywalker. You cheer for Harry Potter. Maybe.
But if you turned our relationship with God into a movie, you have the good guy, the holy, blameless, above reproach, merciful, loving, sinless father in heaven. And you have sinful, depraved, hostile in mind, evil in deed humans. If it were a movie, you'd go for the good guy. And you would be expecting at any point in time God to just crush everybody. That's how much it takes for God to crush us. It's a big deal that not only are we separated from him, we are hostile towards him.
We are enemies with him. And so we find ourselves with this problem that we're alienated from God. And we need a solution because this problem exists. And something that we tend to do is we try to solve our own problems. That's something that particularly men in general, they want to do. They see a problem.
They want to solve it. But that's not exactly how it works. We desperately need something to bridge this gap. But it's not possible for us in and of our own power to do that. Usually when relationships are broken in the human world, we will call someone up. We'll schedule a lunch meeting.
We might text them these days if that's how it's done. And we'll try to set in motion some kind of plan to get back on the right foot with these people. And then after that lunch happens or whatever it is, it takes years of backpedaling and kind of trust earning in order to truly reconcile a broken relationship. But that's not exactly how it happens here. Because when it comes to our relationship with God, our alienation isn't, fixing the problem of our alienation isn't something that's on us. Because it's all about Jesus.
And so here's our solution. Our solution is that we have been reconciled by Christ's death. If you read verse 22, it says, He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. When Jesus was crucified and killed, when he was sacrificed on our behalf, his sacrifice completely solved our problem of alienation. At no point in time does Paul suggest that maybe there's something that we as humans should do.
We should start doing. At no point in time does he say, follow these rules to get back into God's good books. At no point in time does he say that reconciliation is something that we have to achieve for ourselves. The solution is that we've been reconciled by Christ's death. Our sin, our hostile minds, our evil deeds, they separated us from God in a way that we can't undo for ourselves. Reconciliation was something that we absolutely needed.
We had this problem that we were separated. We absolutely needed reconciliation, but we had zero control over it to fix it for ourselves. Back in the day, the Jews, they knew that we had this problem. They knew that we were alienated. They knew that something was wrong in the world, but they thought differently about what the solution was. The Pharisees, they were a Jewish group that adhered very strictly to the law.
The law was technically biblical, but back in the day, they kind of perverted it. They changed it. They added things to it. The law they believed would reconcile them to God. By following the rules of the law, they could build these little baby steps that would get them back towards God, even though they'd been alienated 500,000 times the distance to Pluto and back. They thought they could do something in and of themselves to reconcile themselves.
And so they strictly followed the law, but they never wanted to break the law, so they invented new rules along the way to stop them from getting all the way to the law so they could never break the law because they didn't want to break the law. And so they come up with some very interesting things that they have to follow. An example would be Sabbath laws. We know what the Sabbath is. The Sabbath is a holy day that you're not supposed to work. It's the day of rest.
On the seventh day, God rested, and so we're supposed to imitate that and take time out as rest. But the Jewish people, they said that we weren't allowed to work on the Sabbath. But that wasn't strict enough. That didn't define it enough. We needed to decide what work was. And so over the years, as technology has improved and society has kind of progressed through history, we have to redefine and redefine what work is.
I lived in a section of Sydney called St. Ives. It's like a neighborhood called St. Ives. The elementary school that I went to was in St. Ives.
The church that I served at was in St. Ives. St. Ives is actually the densest Jewish population in Sydney. There's a massive synagogue there. And because there's a synagogue there, that's kind of the area that a lot of Jewish people move to because you're not allowed to drive a car on the Sabbath.
Driving a car counts as work. In fact, turning the key to unlock the door counts as work. You can't unlock the door of your car on the Sabbath. And so what they do is they all move into the area that the synagogue is in so that they can just walk there on the weekends. But some interesting cultural dynamics occur in St.
Ives because there's a lot of other things that they're not allowed to do on the Sabbath. They're not allowed to lock their own door when they leave to go to synagogue. They're not allowed to turn the lights off when they leave because operating a light switch counts as work. They're not allowed to push their pram. The baby carriage. What do you call it?
Stroller. They're not allowed to push a stroller to synagogue because that counts as work. And so interesting things would happen. They would make friends with their neighbors. They were very good missionaries. They would make friends with all of their neighbors because when they needed something done, the neighbor had to do it.
Sometimes they would pay it. If you need to shut your door and lock it, you need to get the neighbor to come over and turn the key for you. If you want the lights turned off when you leave, they've got to come and turn the lights off for you. Sometimes they would pay 13-year-olds to push the stroller to synagogue for them because they weren't allowed to do that kind of stuff. I remember playing tennis at one of my friends' house. He lived next to a Jewish family.
I was the guy who hit the tennis ball over the fence. I went over and knocked on the door. They weren't allowed to open the door to see who was there. They were like, open it. I was like, okay. Then I opened it.
Then I had to walk through, open the back door. I had to walk around, turn the light on. I had to open the fence, the latch gate, pick up the ball, throw it back over the fence. Then I had to close everything on the way back out because they weren't allowed to do any of that. As humans, we do these strange things that we think will earn us some respect from God. We do these things that will earn us our own salvation somehow.
I don't know why we do it, but we do. Adherence to the law is something that the Jewish people in St. Ives do. It blows my mind how strict and how nuanced and how small it gets. But at the same time, they have this belief that if they just do something, then they can create reconciliation for themselves.
Our world, it's not super different. If we set Christianity kind of aside on its own, Christianity is over there by itself. Every other major religion, every other major philosophy teaches some method of fixing yourself, making yourself better, saying a certain number of prayers per day, giving a certain amount of money, doing a certain number of good deeds, reading enough self-help books to fix your problems. Our world preaches this message that we can fix ourselves, and that's not at all what Paul is saying in this book of Colossians. The Bible that we have, it's not a list of rules that we can follow and that will earn our own salvation, that will reconcile us to God by following the rules.
That's not it at all. The Bible is here to point to the fact that we have been reconciled by Christ's death, that he has already done all of that for us, and we don't have to. As I said, when we fix alienation in our own lives, we start with a phone call, we start with a text message, we set up a lunch date, and we start this process of years and months of backpedaling to try and fix a broken relationship. That same guy, Joel, that I was telling you about, my boss back in the day, I don't know what God has been doing in his life. Whatever it is, it's massive. Even against the court rules that he's not supposed to contact me after the whole lawsuit thing, he ended up Googling my name, looking me up, finding me on Facebook or something, finding out what I'm doing with my life, and then he sent me this email.
It's great. It says, Hey, Raz, God has put it on my heart to make peace with you. I'm really glad to hear that you're doing so well and have stepped out in faith and are studying the Bible full time. I just wanted to apologize for anything that I have ever said over the entire time that we knew each other that was not of God or anything that may have offended or hurt you. I would also like to remind and thank you for being the one who reintroduced me to the church and walked me through the doors so that I could begin to learn the ways of God and have God change me from within. It meant, this was about a month ago that I received that email and I can't really explain how much it means to me to see someone who I knew to be so broken at the time come up with something like that.
It's a great story of the beginnings of human reconciliation. But here's the thing, human reconciliation, like I said, it has its limits. There's only so much that happens, there's only so much ground to cover when humans become reconciled. It's also a two-way street. Joel could have sent me that email and I could have ignored it, I could have deleted it, but it takes two to tango, so to speak. If we want to be reconciled with other humans, two people need to work together to fix whatever broken relationship has happened.
That's also something that Paul says is not the case with God. Paul says, the way it works with God is that reconciliation is completely one-sided. We have been reconciled by Christ's death. We've done nothing. Now, I'm not a pet person. I have to confess, I'm not a pet person.
I think pets are absolutely the worst. And I can see the devastation in some people's eyes already. All I have to say is that you're absolutely wrong and that you made a mistake if you have a pet. That's simply the rules. You shouldn't get them. You shouldn't get cats.
You shouldn't get dogs. Absolutely the worst choice ever. This is a photo of my sister and her pet dog. Aw. His name is Harley. He is a, he's a Kishond.
A Kishond is a dwarfed husky or as Matt likes to call it, a dwarski. He's cute. I'll give him that. That's about all he is. He, the thing about long-haired dogs like that in Australia is that it's like 90 to 100 degrees every day. The thing stinks 24-7.
I'm not even kidding. It just smells so bad. And my sister's two and a half years older than me. She moved out of home two and a half years before I did. The dog became the house's pet instead of her pet, which of course was never the plan. I never wanted to look after the thing.
I pretty much hated Harley since he walked through the doors. But it ended up being my responsibility, at least in part, to feed the dog, to make sure the dog was clean, and to make sure when it was dirty that it didn't come in the house. Harley got old, as dogs do. He developed a medical condition where he could no longer eat tinned dog food, canned dog food, I don't know what you call it. Moist food. He couldn't eat it.
He could only eat like the dry sawdust looking stuff. If he ate the canned dog food, now this is not polite to say, especially when you've got a microphone on, but I'm going to say it anyway, he would get hectic cases of doggy diarrhea. Keep in mind that this is a ridiculously hairy dog. Yeah. Am I right? Pets are absolutely the worst.
And so when my parents were out of town, when my sister was off and away, and it was my responsibility to deal with Harley, and he got his hands or his mouth or whatever on something squishy, and then he ate it, it would be my job to either clean up the mess that was made or keep him outside stinking until someone else came home to deal with it. I just hated the dog. I'm going home in two weeks and I'm kind of really thankful that he's not around there anymore. Sorry, I just had to say that. Okay, we can take that down there. I don't even want to look at him anymore.
Here's the thing about me and Harley. If reconciliation, and it didn't happen, but if reconciliation was ever going to happen between us, he was pretty much powerless to do anything. If reconciliation were to happen, which it didn't, it was completely my business to make that happen. I would have to do everything in that relationship to fix the problem. Now, I'm not saying that we're God's little pets and I'm not saying that he hates us, but the relationship dynamic is a lot more similar to that than of me and Joel, Joel and I. It's completely one-sided.
We have nothing to do with the fact that God reconciled us. He chose in and of his own power to do it all on our behalf. We did nothing. Our own efforts achieved nothing and no amount of law-keeping, rule-following, good deeds that we can come up with are ever going to do something on our behalf to reconcile ourselves to God. We had nothing to do with how we were reconciled, but our solution is that we have been reconciled. And so, now that we have been reconciled, we can look back in hindsight and see that distance, that separation that we had from God, that 500,000 times here to Pluto.
We can see that that existed before and we can realize and understand the length that God went to to pull us back towards him, to reconcile us to him. And as a result of that, we become a changed people. So what does it look like for us to be a changed people based on the reconciliation that we've been given? What does it look like for us? How do we live out that result? Well, here's the result.
The result is simple. We continue in faith. Look down at the second half of verse 22. It says, In order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. As a result of what Jesus did, we have now been made holy, blameless, and above reproach. Before the solution, when we were alienated from God, we were alienated, hostile in mind, and evil in deed.
And then the solution occurred. Then Christ died on the cross, and we were reconciled to God. And now we're no longer any of those things. We're no longer alienated. We're no longer hostile. We're no longer evil.
We are holy, blameless, and above reproach. It's a massive transformation. It's a complete 180 degree turn. And so something happens. Something occurs externally in our lives when we are changed in such a massive way. We become a new people.
We're no longer alienated. We're no longer hostile. And so we continue to strive for holiness. We continue to strive for blamelessness. And we continue to strive to be more and more above reproach as we continue on. Our knowledge turns into action, turns into knowledge, turns into action.
We mature in Christ, and we get pushed closer and closer towards Him. As a result of the reconciliation we've experienced through Christ's work at the cross, we will live lives that continue in faith. And we don't shift from the gospel that we heard. That's why we call ourselves a gospel-centered community on mission. We don't want to be shifting from the gospel that we heard. And that's why we're gospel-centered in community.
That's why we rely on our community, on our church family, to make sure that we're staying gospel-centered because verse 22 and 23 say we never want to shift from the hope of the gospel that we heard. And yet, somehow, for some reason, we allow ourselves in little ways to slowly creep away from that. All the time. We do it all the time. Sometimes, sometimes we let our pride get in the way of the gospel. Sometimes we let pride creep slowly into our lives and start straying us away from the gospel that we heard.
Sometimes we think that we have some power in and of ourselves. Sometimes we think that if we do follow the rules, if we do keep the laws, that because I am a good person, God owes me something. We allow our pride to slowly make us start creeping and straying away from the gospel. And when that happens, we are actually at most in the need of the gospel in the first place. When that happens, we are in need of our gospel-centered community to breathe the gospel back into our lives. Sometimes it is not pride.
Sometimes it is more like shame. Sometimes we allow ourselves to think that we don't deserve reconciliation. Sometimes we think, God couldn't forgive me for what I have done. Sometimes we think, I am damaged goods. God couldn't love someone who has experienced all of the junk that I have had to experience before. Sometimes we let shame in through the doors and it redirects us.
It shifts us away from the gospel and we slowly start creeping away from it. And at times like this, that is when we are in most need of the gospel. That is when we are in most need of a gospel-centered community to breathe the gospel back into our lives. Sometimes, sometimes it is not shame. Sometimes it is more simple. Sometimes it is laziness.
Sometimes we think, I don't need to read the Bible today. I don't need to read it this week. I don't need to read it this month. I already know most of it. Sometimes we think, I'm kind of tired. I've got a big assignment tomorrow.
I don't want to do anything tonight. I'm not going to go to my community group. There's plenty of volunteers on a Sunday. I don't need to go there. I don't need to plug in in any way. I just kind of want to chill out, do life my own way.
When we find ourselves letting laziness in through the doors, we shift away from the gospel. And that's when we most need the gospel to be breathed back into our lives. In fact, in all of these cases, in each and every one of these cases, we find ourselves straying from the gospel, but we also find ourselves not living out the intended result of our reconciliation. reconciliation. We know that we were alienated, we know that we've been reconciled, and as a result of that, we continue in faith. But as we let ourselves stray from the gospel, we cease to do this.
It all relies on the fact that we continue in the faith, we continue not to stray from the gospel, and we continue to live our lives in light of the fact that we have been reconciled. It reminds us constantly that we are powerless to save ourselves. It reminds us constantly that we need to live in a community of committed believers who are willing and able to breathe the gospel back into our lives. It convinces us consistently that we need our gospel-centered community, that we need our church family in order to be living out this intended result. It's not a game for the lone ranger, because the lone ranger will allow himself to shift from the gospel, and then they will not be living out the intended result.
We need our gospel-centered community, we need each other to live out the results of our reconciliation. Now the band is going to make their way back up for us. But maybe you've been sitting here tonight, maybe you've been hearing all of this stuff about alienation, you've been hearing this stuff about reconciliation, and you think to yourself, I already know and understand this. I already know that we've been reconciled, and I already know that we should continue in faith. So what?
Well, how is that playing out in your life right now? How are you continuing in faith, stable and steadfast? Are you ever shifting from the gospel? How honest are you being with yourself about your shifting from the gospel? How honest are you being with your church family about whether or not you've shifted from the gospel? gospel? Can you identify any ways, even the small little ways, in which you have shifted from the gospel, and honestly, do other people know about them?
Maybe you've been sitting there thinking something completely different. Maybe you've been thinking, God could never be reconciled to me. I could never be reconciled to God. Maybe you're thinking, you don't know me, you don't know what I've done, God hates me and he always will. Well, you're right on one count. I don't know what you've done.
But I do know this. We are humans and we have very limited power. And as we learned last week, God has infinite power. He is infinitely more powerful than us. And so any power that you have to alienate yourself from him, any power that you have to separate yourself away from God, he is infinitely more powerful to bring you back to him. He is infinitely more powerful to reconcile you to him than you are to alienate yourself from him.
And if you haven't yet, you can put your faith in him to do that. You can accept the reconciliation that he has already accomplished for you and offers freely to you. If reconciliation to God is something that we so desire, which we should, then I've got news for you. Nothing that you are capable of doing is going to achieve it. Nothing that you are capable of doing will ever reconcile you to God. Because it's not about you and it's not about what you do.
It's all about Jesus and it's all about what Jesus has already done to reconcile us to him. Let's pray. Father God, I just thank you that though we were so alienated from you, though we pushed you away, that you reached down and that you solved our problem for us. I pray and thanks that you have reconciled us to you. Lord, I pray that as we go about our lives this week, that we can be remembering that it's all about Jesus, that we can be living out the intended result of that reconciliation, that we can continue in faith praising you and loving you more each week. Turn our knowledge into action, into knowledge, into action towards Christ.
We love you, God. In Jesus' name, amen.