Him We Proclaim
Colossians 1:24-29
Transcript
Wow, alright, that good. Goodness. Felt like I was at a rock concert there for a second. With all that shouting. Can we do something? We don't do this often and we don't do it for some reasons, but also don't want us to not do it for bad reasons.
Let me explain what I'm talking about because that's getting confusing. We don't always clap for or make a big deal of much of what we do on the human side of things when we get together, but there is an appropriate amount of that, an appropriate amount of appreciation for the people that put in and serve and work, and we actually get to praise Jesus in praising people. That's an appropriate thing to do, and so can we just for a second, can we just clap for everybody that just helped lead worship, and everybody that just... It is okay for us to appreciate that, and they put a lot of work into it, and are very...
They love Jesus, and they want to help us love Jesus, and they want to point to Jesus and everything, and that's not always found, especially among people that are talented in different ways, and so I just want to... We appreciate all of that, and we need to, and it's good for us to. We're in Colossians. It's our fifth week of walking through the book of Colossians, and so grab your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, there should be some at the end of the row, and so if you need one, look at the people down the row from you, get them to pass one to you, or do like a weird shimmy thing where you crawl all the way down to the end of the row and grab one.
So we'll be in Colossians. It'll be... We'll be in chapter one. It's our fifth week in Colossians. So how...
How are we doing? We've been in Colossians for five weeks. Are we... Are we growing? Are we changing? Are we seeing Jesus for who He is?
Are we learning that we're a y'all, that we exist in community with one another? Are we putting knowledge into practice? And as we practice that knowledge, are we learning more things like how to do stuff, how not to do stuff? You know, are we? Are we doing that? Has it been good for us?
Are we growing? Are we learning? It is our fifth week, so we're at half to today. We'll be halfway through. And I know some of you may be looking at the book of Colossians and doing some maths. We've been five weeks in chapter one, and there's three chapters left.
And so some of y'all might be calling lie on us being halfway through. But the last three chapters are going to move a little more quickly. The first chapter was pretty dense. And so we'll actually spend two weeks in chapter two, two weeks in chapter three, and a week in chapter four. So the maths currently is working out.
We're in Colossians 1. I'm excited about what we're going to get to talk about tonight because it's foundational for how we are as a church. Kind of who we believe we are and how we operate. And so it's something that actually this passage went into part of how we operate and part of what we talk about all the time when we talk about being a gospel-centered community on mission. And so I'm excited to get to talk about this passage in the context of Colossians because it's affected our thought process and how we do what we do as a church family. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop in looking at Colossians 1.
God, we thank you. We're excited to be able to gather as your people, to be church family. And so we just pray that we would make much of you and that you would teach us and lead us through your Holy Spirit to understand clearly your word as we walk through this section of Scripture. So we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Colossians 1, starting in verse 24.
This is the Apostle Paul. He's writing to the church at Colossae. Every time he says you, he's saying y'all. He's using the Greek word for y'all, which is a plural you. And so verse 24. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.
And in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body. That is the church. All right, we're going to stop. We're going to walk through this section. We have a problem sometimes when we come to Scripture. I think we get used to it.
Sometimes studying Scripture. We're going to get together on Sundays and we're going to open it up and we're going to study Scripture. We're going to read from the Bible. We read from the Bible on our own and we read from the Bible in our community groups. And I think sometimes we get used to the Bible. And so we don't always approach it in such a thoughtful way.
And so we'll read something in the Bible that honestly doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And our response will be, hmm, okay. Like we just don't think about it. We're like, hmm, sounds good, Apostle Paul. Like it doesn't affect us and like we don't have to approach it thoughtfully. And so what Paul says here is I rejoice in my sufferings.
I rejoice. I rejoice. I'm excited. I'm pumped about. I have joy in my sufferings. And we'll read that and go, hmm, sounds good.
When we should read it and go, do what now? I mean, really, if he's rejoicing in suffering, we have one of two options when it comes to the Apostle Paul. If he rejoices in sufferings, either he's crazy or he knows something we don't know. It's possible it's both because a lot of times crazy people know things you don't know. But that's just because they're crazy.
So that really gets smooshed into option one. So really, either he's crazy or he knows something we don't know. And so when you read that, when you read that he rejoices in sufferings, don't go, hmm, sounds good. Let's look at that a little bit. And so what is he saying? How can he rejoice in suffering?
That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make sense to us. That's not how we operate. Now, for those of us who have been around the church for a while or been in a community group for a while or studied the Bible for a while, this concept may not be super new to us. We may understand that that's something that Christians ought to be able to do. But we're not good at it.
And we don't really do it. So even though the concept may not be new to us, we can't act like we understand it or completely have it down when it comes to actual suffering in our lives. And for those of us who've just started hanging around church stuff, just started being, maybe just became a Christian or are just learning, checking this whole Jesus thing out, that's a pretty ridiculous statement to rejoice in suffering. To actually, not bears. He doesn't say I bear suffering or I put up with or I find some sort of a purpose in. He says I rejoice in it.
Like I'm excited about it. And that doesn't make any sense. And so, especially when it comes to like Americans, we're told that the American dream is the pursuit of our happiness. If our goal, if the most important thing in life for me is my happiness, is self-fulfillment, suffering beats that every time. Every time. Suffering always beats half my happiness.
So when my happiness and suffering lace up their shoes and head to the court, suffering dunks on my happiness every time. That's how it works. My happiness never comes away with a W on that one because happiness and suffering, happiness loses. And so what Paul is saying when he says I rejoice in suffering is that obviously he's not banking on his own self-fulfillment and his own happiness. He's writing this from a jail cell and he says I'm excited about my suffering. So he's not banking on what we're banking on.
It's not based off of his own self-fulfillment and his own personal happiness. Now, what we're going to see as we go through this passage is that this is not the point of what Paul is talking about. His point here is not how to rejoice in suffering. That's not what he's telling us here. He's talking about something completely different. But him saying that he rejoices in suffering illustrates for us what he is going to be talking about.
It pointedly shows us and demonstrates for us that what he is going to be talking about is real and it affects every aspect of his life. So I just wanted to point that out because it's a little bit bizarre for us and we can't just brush past that. And what we're going to see as we walk through is that he's actually in saying that indicating the weight of what he's going to spend the rest of the time talking about. So what's his reason? If he can rejoice in suffering, he's got to have some sort of a reason. So he says it.
Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. So it's for y'all's sake. For y'all's sake. Or when Anna and I lived in Virginia, they would say y'all's. Which is the plural, plural version of y'all. And so she worked at the bank and they'd mess up money stuff and somebody would look at her and be like, well, I think it's y'all's fault.
And Anna would be like, that's not a word. Although y'all's maybe not isn't either. If you ever have to text y'all's, it just looks ridiculous. But anyway, what he says is for y'all's sake, for plural, your church's sake. So he says, I rejoice in my suffering for y'all's sake.
And in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body. That is the church. Quick time out. That last sentence is confusing. What he is not saying is that he is completing the atonement for sin. So that's not what he's saying.
When he says the afflictions, filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. What he's not saying is that he somehow has to suffer to help continue to atone for sin. Or that we as Christians have to continue to suffer to atone for sin. That's not what he's saying. So Jesus, when he died on the cross, fully and completely forever paid for our sin.
Atonement was finished. When Jesus on the cross said, it is finished, he meant it. When he uses the word affliction, which is actually a different word than what is used when it talks about Jesus' suffering in the Greek. He's talking about the continuation of the effect of the cross on the world. That he is suffering. He's facing afflictions to continue to spread the gospel, to continue to move this forward.
And so what he's saying is he's taking part in affliction as a Christian, as part of the body of Christ, and for the sake of the church, the body of Christ. And so he's not saying he's continuing atonement. Is that clear? We don't need to get super bogged down here, but that's what he's saying. So what he says is it's for the sake of the church.
It's for the sake of those who would become believers, those who would place their faith in Jesus. So when he says for y'all's sake, he's talking about the church in Colossae. And so he's saying basically that he can suffer because of the mission to see more people meet Jesus. That he can suffer because the mission to see more people meet Jesus, to see the church grow is actually bigger than his own personal comfort, his own personal self-fulfillment. But what we'll see, and when it comes to mission, is that yes, the mission is bigger, but there has to be a reason for the mission.
And as he keeps going, we'll see that there is a reason for the mission. We just recently, in June 6, celebrated D-Day, the 70th anniversary of D-Day. And so there were some cool things that happened around that. There was a guy in Britain who was 89 years old who wanted to go to the Normandy celebrations. They were all the people that had stormed Normandy were going to go celebrate. And the people whose caretakers weren't able to kind of organize something for him to be able to go.
And so he just put on his best suit, pinned his medals to his suit, put on a raincoat, and dipped out. He was 89 years old, and he just left where he was because they weren't able to work it out. And he made it over to Normandy. They were looking for him later, and it was like, I went where I wanted to go. I'm a grown man. I do what I want.
I didn't need permission to come here the first time. I don't need permission to come here the second time. And so I thought that story was interesting. Whenever I think about the storming of Normandy or Operation Overlord, I always think about my favorite Vin Diesel movie, which is Saving Private Ryan. It's my favorite Vin Diesel movie because he's only in it for like 20 minutes, and he dies, and it's great. But that movie does a really good Job of showing what that looked like, what the Operation Overlord looked like when the Allied troops took back the Beechins of Normandy, France.
And here's the thing. The Allies knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing. They knew how to do it. So they knew what they were trying to do.
They were going to take back the Beechins of Normandy to begin pushing out the Germans. They knew how to do it. They knew how to operate the machinery and the weaponry that they have. And they knew how to work in relationship to one another. But in order to do it, they had to know why they were doing it.
They had to know why it was worth all of the loss of life, all of the pain, all of the suffering that would come with it. They had to know why. And so when Paul talks about the mission, and when he talks about how he walks through this, and how he can rejoice in suffering, he's going to tell us that it's for the mission, but then he's going to explain why it's worth it. So they suffered in the mission of Operation Overlord, but they knew why it was worth it. They knew what they were going after. Why it was worth celebrating every year since.
Why we celebrated it this year is because of the why, not because of the what and the how. And so what we're going to look at is, yes, we're going to talk a little bit about the what. We're going to talk a little bit about the mission. But we're going to land in, and Paul's going to land in, why. So, what we see first is the mission. That's what he's going to talk about, and then we'll talk about why.
He says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I, Paul, became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, for y'all, to make the word of God fully known. So he's still talking about the mission, and here's what he says. He says, I was given this because of the stewardship of God. So God, creator of the universe, who's working to redeem and to save people and to bring them back in relationship with himself, has a stewardship.
He commands and controls his mission, and he invites humans into that. He invited Paul into that because of the stewardship from God. So God, who's overseeing all of this, gave some of it to Paul. And Paul says, It was because of the stewardship of God that was given to me for y'all. So he's talking about the Colossians church.
Now this is how this worked for Paul. Paul was a Jewish guy, super smart, had the equivalent of like several PhDs, was on the fast track to go be a part of the Sanhedrin, maybe even high priest one day, fingers crossed. And he was super zealous for Judaism. So he began to persecute all Christians, all of those who rose up against and began to proclaim that Jesus was God, that he died in our place for our sin, that he rose again three days later. So he began to persecute them.
And he was very zealous for it, which means he enjoyed it and liked it and was good at it. And so he was persecuting the church, deserved to be destroyed and crushed by Jesus, who's in control and in charge of everything. Jesus shows up, knocks Paul off his horse, makes him blinds and says, Why are you persecuting me? And then he says, I'm going to show you how much you'll have to suffer for my sake. Jesus, instead of crushing him, rescues him, gives him grace, saves him from his sin and invites him into his mission, gives him the stewardship of his mission. And so Paul becomes a missionary for Christ.
In Christ's name begins to proclaim the gospel that Jesus gives grace to those who don't deserve it. He goes to Ephesus. In Ephesus he's proclaiming the gospel. We know that Epaphras most likely becomes a believer in Ephesus. Philemon may have been with him. It's possible that Epaphras led Philemon to Jesus when he went back to Colossae.
Ephesus begins to proclaim the gospel in Colossae. The Colossian church is born. Those who submit to Jesus, repent of their sin and are rescued by grace by him in the Colossae. People begin to meet in homes, Philemon's home and some other homes. And Paul looks at the Colossian church, writes this to the Colossian church, whom he hasn't met and says, God in his stewardship gave it to me for y'all. And what's really exciting, heavy and intense is that each of us who know Jesus have a for y'all.
We have a for y'all that God in his good stewardship of his mission has handed over part of it to us for a y'all. So Paul says it was given to me for y'all. So there was a guy named David Thomas who became a believer. He lived in South Carolina. It's not Dave Thomas who made cheeseburgers. It's David Thomas who lived in South Carolina, started serving as a part of his church, started working with students and small children.
While he was doing that, one of the students he was working with named Matt Freeman became a believer. Repented of his sins, accepted Jesus as his savior, as his substitute for his sin, became a believer. And so Matt grew up as a Christian, felt called into ministry. Eventually, while he was in college, started working at a church where he was serving. At that church, he met a female that he was picking up what she was putting down. And he talked to his roommate, who was a complete prophetic genius, about dating this girl.
And his roommate, who's really smart and ruggly handsome, told him, you should not date someone that you work with at a church. That would be stupid. And because Matt completely appreciated this prophetic advice and because he knew the wisdom that his roommate had, began dating her anyway. Which totally worked out for him. They got married. Her name was Katie.
They then felt called to be a part of a church plant in West Columbia. Felt called by God, who in Acts 17, it says, sets our boundaries so that God knows where we are, has us where we are on purpose, knows where you live, knows your address, knows why he has you in relationship with the people he has you in relationships with. So he set your boundaries. So God who set our boundaries, Matt and Katie feel called to be a part of a church plant in West Columbia, and since they feel called to be a part of a church plant in West Columbia, they moved to Northeast Columbia because that's what you do. Made no sense to me.
But God who sets their boundaries had an idea of what he was doing. And so while they lived in Northeast Columbia, they became friends with the Gillens. While they became friends with the Gillens, they invited them to be a part of community group, invited them to start being a part of church family. Daniel Gillen becomes a believer, repents of his sins, and follows Jesus, accepts Jesus as his atonement for his sin, begins to follow Jesus. Daniel invites DJC to come be a part of things. DJ starts hanging out with their community group.
DJ meets Jesus, repents of his sins, and starts following Jesus as his sacrifice, as his atonement, as his king, because of the stewardship from God that was given to David, that was given to Matt, that was given to Daniel, that was given to DJ for y'all, for a y'all that's not over with yet. That's how that works. And each person in this room has had the king of the universe extend some stewardship of his mission to us for a y'all. And he sets our boundaries, and he knows who we know, and he knows why he has us on the street that we're on, and it's been given to me for y'all, as Paul says, and each of us has a for y'all that we toil, struggle, pray for, build with, spend our time chasing after because of the stewardship of a great God and king who knows what he's doing when he hands out his mission.
That's what Paul says. Paul says, first of all, the mission's bigger than my personal self-fulfillment, than my personal enjoyment and my personal happiness, so that I can be in prison and I can rejoice because of the stewardship of the mission that was given to me for y'all. So, what that means for us is that the mission's bigger. Mission's bigger than how we want to spend every weeknight. Mission's bigger than how we want to spend our money. The mission's bigger than how we want to be viewed by people.
I know my wife and I have this conversation all the time because I harass my neighbors because I'm just trying to talk to them, just trying to build a relationship with them. And they'll look at me and go, they're not going to come outside anymore. I can see people from my backyard. And so I'll see people. She's like, they're in their backyard. You can't go talk to them.
And I'll be like, watch me, which I do creep people out. And so I got to work on it. But the mission's bigger about whether or not I want to be seen as creepy or not. Like, we got to start talking to people. We got to build relationships with people. It's bigger than how we want to spend our time, how we want to spend our money.
And we know that. And now Paul's going to tell us how it's bigger, why it's bigger. Why it's worth it. Why it's worth the suffering. So we'll start in 25.
Of which I became a minister, just means servant, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for y'all, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints, all those who have placed their faith in Jesus. That's what saints are, holy ones, made holy by Jesus. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles, Gentiles are all non-Jewish people, so me and most everybody else in this room are Gentiles. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So what Paul says is the reason the mission is bigger, and what he's been called into, is to proclaim this mystery, the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Paul says it's about the gospel. And the two ways he describes that, the two ways he puts that out, is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you is a profound mystery. A couple weeks ago we spent some time talking about how big Jesus is, how he rules over everything. And what Paul says is that, yes, that's true, and he dwells in those who have placed their faith in him.
That's crazy. It's a profound mystery, but it's been revealed that the God of the universe would indwell, would live in, those who place their faith in him. And so what he says is, when he does that, that's our hope of glory. So, glory is, it kind of just means like shining. And so like, if you took a hot red poker and stuck it in a fire, and then you pulled it out of the fire, it would glow for a while. It's glorying with stuff coming from the fire.
But what he means here is that we, one day, will spend eternity with Jesus in glory. Where there aren't, there isn't pain, and there isn't shame, and there isn't guilt, and there isn't brokenness anymore. And so what he says is, the reason he can do this is because of the gospel, which is that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived a life in perfect relationship with God, died for our sins, so was crushed, as he says earlier in Colossians, that he, through his body of flesh, by his death, was crushed on our behalf, so that we might place our faith in him, and so that our sin that deserves to be punished, might be punished on him, and his righteousness, which deserves God to love, and share, and glory in Jesus, can be given to us, and that Christ can dwell in us, and that we have hope of glory. Our hope is not in this life.
So that's why Paul can say he rejoices in suffering, because his hope isn't here. He has a hope of glory because of Christ. It's not here. It's not in his personal satisfaction. It's not in how everything works out for him. It's not in his happiness.
It's in Christ. He has a hope of glory that's in Christ. I am. My granddad's name was Chester Phillips. It's actually who I'm named after. He was a pastor.
Bob Jones, Independent Baptist pastor, for a long time. He graduated from Bob Jones, so he went to, let me see, let me tell you some of his story. He went to, he was in World War II. He was in London during the bombing of London. He spent most of his time on a ship. He was a medic because he made glasses beforehand.
He and my grandmother got married like the week before he left. And so he left. World War II ended. He came back. He went to Bob Jones, learned how to be a pastor, went through their school. When he graduated on Friday, he began preaching at his first church on Sunday.
So he graduated on Friday. They moved on Saturday, and he started working with his first church on Sunday. He was not super comfortable with public speaking, and so my grandmother one time came down in his office, and she said in his office, he would always have his Bible laid out, his notes laid out, and he would have a brown paper bag over here on the right. And so she asked him one day, finally, after he'd been pastor for some years, she'd been married to him for a while, she said, what's the brown paper bag for? And he said, well, sometimes when I'm working on a sermon, I have to throw up.
Because I don't feel good about it. And that's why the brown paper bag's here. And so, but he was a pastor for a long time. I remember I was a part of his church when I was little, and he used to go to his office after he taught, and he'd open his drawer and give you a moon pie, because he loved Jesus, and moon pies are great. And so he'd give you a moon pie. And when I was seven, six-ish, five-ish, somewhere around in there, he started having trouble driving.
And my grandmother started noticing that he was drifting some, and it was like he wasn't seeing very well. And so she taught him to go to the doctor. He didn't like going to the doctor. He went to the doctor, and he had a brain tumor in his head. And so they said, we've got to operate. It's big.
It's just going to be a problem. And so they operated. They removed it. When they removed it, it was as if he had had a stroke. And so his whole left side of his body no longer worked. And so he had to do a lot of rehab to even just be able to walk.
And talk in a coherent manner. And so he found out he had a brain tumor. And then within just a few months was no longer pastoring and was not going to be able to. He wasn't able to open the Bible and proclaim God's word anymore. He was doing well to walk and to kind of communicate. And so they did not think he would have much longer, live much longer after that.
But he lived for another 15 years. Was still a complete trip. He was hilarious, enjoyable to be around. I remember one time we were at the beach, and I was about to go out swimming, and he called me over. He said, Jack, come here. So I came over to him.
He said, Now look. He's sitting in his wheelchair. He said, If you start drowning, I want you to call me. I said, Okay, yes, sir. He goes, Because I've never watched anyone drown, and I'd love to see that. I was like, Yes, sir.
I got you. That's just what he was like. But I remember about two years ago, he passed away. He was 87 years old, had been confined to a wheelchair for a while. Pretty much every day he'd had since his brain tumor operation was grace. And when God called him home, it was grace.
And I cried. And we knew it was coming. And I was genuinely sad and broken over it. And I cried. And I don't cry over much. Because there's something about death and suffering that strikes all of us as wrong.
There's just something in it. That even though we know it's coming, and even though 100% of people are going to die, and even though it happens all the time, it is as common as births. It is as common as getting colds. It is as common. It happens to everyone. There's something in us all the time that screams, this is not how this ought to be.
This is not how this is supposed to work. All of us, when we come to death, when we come to suffering, when we're faced with pain. And what the Bible says is that you are correct. That is not how it's supposed to be. That God created the world in a relationship with himself, and that we as humans rebelled. We ran from him.
The Bible says that we're the problem. That because of self-fulfillment, because of our desire to be God, because of our desire to prop ourselves up, that we rebelled, and that we're the problem. I read a thing the other day that was talking about the deadliest animals on earth. Wolves, sharks, elephants, hippopotamus, mosquitoes came in second to humans. Because we kill more people than anything else. Because we're the problem.
We're broken. We're greedy. I saw a picture of a shark swimming next to a scuba diver, and it said, one of these is the most deadly animal on earth. And the other one's a shark minding his business. Because we're the problem. But what Paul says, and what scripture tells us, is that Jesus didn't stand far away from our suffering.
Didn't stand far away from death. Didn't just crush us for our rebellion, but that he came to earth, he gave up all of his good things, so that he could live as a human, in the relationship with God that we could never accomplish. That he could live perfectly on our behalf, and that he could be crushed. That he could step into suffering, pain, and death. That he could bleed and die on our behalf, and that in him, not only can we face suffering, not only do we have purpose in suffering, but we also have hope of glory, that one day it'll be worked out again. That it'll be back right.
That that thing inside of us that screams that this is wrong, will be straightened back out, and it won't be wrong anymore. That we'll have hope of glory, where we'll spend eternity, with our great God and King, who's rescued and redeemed, and has made everything right again. Who's wiped every tear from every eye. Death and pain are no more. And that we get to celebrate and worship him for eternity. That's what hope of glory means.
And that's what the gospel is for us. And that's why we can suffer. That's why we can face pain. And that's why we can rejoice. Because God and his good stewardship has given this message to us for a y'all. And suffering isn't the end of it for us.
Suffering has purpose for a Christian. And we have hope set somewhere else other than on ourselves. It doesn't terminate on us. And it doesn't terminate on our happiness. Our hope is set with him in eternity. So that's why Paul says he can rejoice in suffering.
Because of Christ in him. Christ in us. And our hope of glory. So, here's what this looks like for us. So it's the gospel that empowers us for mission.
It's the gospel that empowers us in life. It's the gospel that lets us walk through suffering. That lets us walk through pain. It's the gospel. It's that Jesus stepped into our suffering. That he rescues us.
And that in him is our hope. Jesus. It's not set in anything else. It's in Jesus. And so here's what Paul says this looks like. We'll start in 27.
To then God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery. Which is Christ in you? The hope of glory. Him. Jesus. Him we proclaim.
Warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. So Paul in this passage talks about suffering. He talks about affliction. He talks about toil and struggle. And he says it's all about Jesus.
And he says it's him we proclaim. Warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we can present everyone mature in Christ. This is foundational for us as a church. What he's talking about is that it's the gospel that we point each other to. It's the gospel that we point ourselves to. It's the gospel that we point each other to in community.
It's the gospel that we point everyone to. It's Jesus. We talk about Jesus. We make much of Jesus. All the time. That's it.
That's all we do. It's how we view the world. One of the ways we talk about this is gospel fluency. So fluency is when you can speak a language without having to think about how you're speaking that language. Does that make sense? So I took Spanish classes in high school and in college.
I'm not fluent in Spanish. I took like years of this stuff. Not fluent in it. Like if we're ever I can say ¿Dónde estás la biblioteca? And Puerto del Baño, por favor. So if we're in a Spanish speaking country and I get lost go to the closest library and check their bathroom because that's all I know how to say.
And I honestly may not even be in the bathroom but I'll have permission to go there. Because that's what I can say. I can ask where the library is and I can ask for permission to go to the bathroom. I can say other things like the cake is moist but I don't know how often that's going to come up in a conversation. So I mean if I say it enough people might give me money to go away.
Like I don't know. But I can't. I'm not fluent. So what happens when I speak Spanish is I have to think English words. I have to then match that up with a Spanish word and then say Spanish words. And then when someone says Spanish words to me I have to catch the Spanish words match them up with an English word so that I understand what we're talking about.
That's not fluency. Fluency is what's happening right now in English where I'm saying English words and your brain's got concepts. Like you understand what's being said. And then you when you were talking to me would think concepts say English words. I would catch English words think concepts. We wouldn't have to line it back up.
Does that make sense? And so what he's saying is him we proclaim. We talk about Jesus and we talk about gospel fluency. What that means is is that's how we view the world. Through the lens of the gospel. It's Jesus that we see everything through that we point everyone to.
All the time. I've seen those commercials for night view glasses. Have y'all seen those? It's glasses that are yellow. And they act like they're somehow going to give you night vision. I love those commercials.
People give actors in infomercials a hard time. But you've got to know how to act in an infomercial because you're selling garbage. And you've got to pretend like it's good. So you've got to at least have some acting skill. But in those commercials I love it because they'll be like it's like look at how dark it is.
And then they put yellow glasses on someone and they're like I can see everything. Or they'll just show like looking at nothing and then they'll show sunglasses fall over it with yellow and then everything like lights up. And that's ridiculous. That's not how that works. It just makes everything yellow. And so I really want them to put the glasses on someone and then be like wow it's dark and everything's kind of yellow now.
But the truth for us is that that's what the gospel is. The gospel is our night view glasses. It tints everything. It affects how we see everything. It's how we communicate. It's how we think.
It's how we view the world. It's the gospel. It's Jesus. We point to Jesus in everything. It says him we proclaim warning everyone teaching everyone so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. So what that means is that the gospel is primary for us.
We point to Jesus primarily in everything. So when we gather with our community groups we talk about gospel fluency. What that means is when somebody confesses sin or when somebody's struggling with something we don't pop off with just good advice. We don't just look at someone and be like well if you ate better and exercised more you'd be happier. Maybe that's true. And that may be really good advice for 97% of Americans.
But we give gospel first. It's Jesus we proclaim. It's Jesus that we point to because he's our hope. We don't have hope anywhere else. Our hope isn't in diet and exercise. Our hope isn't in the best type of Job to have.
Our hope isn't in this technique for parenting. Our hope is in Jesus. So it's him we proclaim. So this works on a personal basis. This is what Paul's doing. He's proclaiming the gospel over his own suffering so that he can walk through life.
It's what we do. So what we don't do is this. We don't say here's the rule so follow the rule. We say here's the gospel so follow Jesus. Here's how the gospel applies. Follow Jesus.
So the Bible has rules. It has things that ways that we honor God ways that we live. Talks about generosity. I want everyone in this room to be ridiculously generous but not because that's a rule. I want the gospel to so penetrate our souls that we can't help it. That he who was rich became poor so that in him we might be rich.
That God left everything to be made nothing so that in him we could have everything. If that doesn't make us generous I want that to be what drives us so that we can look at someone else and go absolutely I want you to have some of this because I've already been given everything and my God became nothing and I know that everything doesn't terminate on me. My wealth is not for my enjoyment but it's been stewarded it's been given to me for you for this to move forward and for me to walk in light of the gospel. So yeah we want to be generous but because of the gospel yes we want to love ridiculously but because we've been loved but because we know that he's so loved us that he would die for us he would take our place so that we can love.
Of the gospel yes we want to love ridiculously but because we've been loved but because we know that he's so loved us that he would die for us he would take our place so that we can love. That's just how this works. It works in community it works with us
The y'allness of us that he's talking to. So when we have sin issues you know what that means? The gospel applies which is sin's a big deal so we address it we don't pretend like sin's not a big deal we talk about it
Openly and honestly but there's forgiveness we just assume Jesus is going to do what he does which is allow forgiveness bring redemption bring reconciliation we deal with sin issues as a church family we don't allow weirdness between people that's not okay because the gospel is true not because that's a rule
But because Jesus overcomes all of that so we talk to people we can disagree we can repent we can pray for one another we can forgive because we've been forgiven we just invite Jesus in all of it and it's him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone so this is how
We talk to our friends who don't know Jesus I was working at Sears a buddy of mine asked me he said man I used to get married he said you got any marriage advice I said yeah but I'm going to have to talk about Jesus because otherwise it's going to be confusing as crap my advice only comes from Jesus so I got to talk
To you about him first he's like okay so we talked about it because that's how I view the world that's the only way that makes sense and I honestly have found that that's not a pushy way to talk to somebody about Jesus because I'm telling them true things about how I view the world the reason
A lot of us have a hard time talking about the gospel is because the gospel hasn't penetrated how we walk through life it's clunky and awkward so it's like this weird weapon that we carry and smack people with but it doesn't affect how we walk through life so that's why we only talk about Jesus we proclaim
Jesus we point to Jesus when we get together we're going to talk about Jesus when we gather in our community groups we're going to talk about Jesus and so before you ever heard people be like I just want to go deep I want to learn deep things from the Bible and I always
Grew up thinking that you became a Christian because you learned the gospel because you repented of your sin because Jesus died on your behalf and then you learned good deep Bible things what Paul says is that it's the riches of the glory of this mystery which is Christ in us
The hope of glory you want to learn deep things dig into the riches of the glory of this mystery dig and dig and dig and dig into the gospel you are not going to find the bottom that's not going to be tap dry it's not going to it's not ever going to run
Out that's what we dig into that's what we dive into and that's why we proclaim Jesus all the time it's how we view the world he works in among us all the time so we proclaim Jesus all the
Time that's us I want to point to one more thing before we wrap up tonight he says this him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone
Mature in Christ we're going to grow in maturity we grow in maturity in Jesus we grow in maturity in the gospel penetrating deeply into how we live life and here's the thing maturity in Christ is for everyone it's for everyone
It's not for a handful of people and then a bunch of other people gather together and there's some sort of a big religious organization that's not the goal the Bible does have elders and pastors and people that teach but we teach I spend time each week working on things to teach and to talk about the Bible because
We're called to equip saints and we want everyone to be mature everyone to grow in how the gospel applies to everything maturity is for everybody growth is for everybody that we would grow in our community groups that we would begin to proclaim the gospel to each other Colossians is going to talk about that later that we would teach one another we'd admonish one another we'd lead one another celebrate
Worship with one another and that we proclaim the gospel to each other and that we'd all grow in maturity let's do that as a church let's talk about Jesus so much that we all just grow up in maturity in Christ let's let's have this room of people know how the gospel applies to finances how the gospel applies to our time how the gospel applies to our friendships it's going to be awkward it's going to be clunky there's going to be some confusing conversations there
Are going to be times that we say hey that's really good advice but how does Jesus work here how do we proclaim Jesus in this situation and you're going to go how does the gospel apply to buying a dog it does and it's going to be awkward to try to figure it out and talk about it but it applies to how we spend our time and how we spend our money and how we view the world so it applies to everything and we're going to all talk about Jesus so much that we all grow in maturity and become
Mature in Christ and it's going to be really good and a lot of fun man's going to come back up here and here's what we're going to do we are the y'all that Paul's writing to we are the church we are a group of people that exist in relationship with one another and what happens when you have a bunch of people exist in relationships with one another is that things get frustrating things get weird and sometimes people get their feelings hurt and sometimes there's struggle and there's
Pain and in this room there are people that are going through some things and so what we're going to do is we're going to respond as Christians we're going to respond and we're going to proclaim Jesus into this situation we're going to invite the gospel to bear in our lives and so what that means is some of you in here may just be struggling with some life just may be difficult right now you just need some you need some church family to come around and to pray with you and to talk with you about how your hope
Isn't in this situation but it's in Jesus and how the gospel works to bring life and to bring rejoicing and suffering here so you're just going to invite some people to pray with you you're going to go sit with somebody you're going to go talk to somebody you're going to go open up a little bit some of us in here need to confess some sin we need to have the gospel apply so that we know that sin's a big deal and that forgiveness is inevitable for those who repent that Jesus forgives and that reconciliation and
Redemption happen when we invite Jesus in so some of us are going to move around the room we're going to talk to somebody we're going to confess some weirdness we're going to confess some how we've been upset or frustrated with something it's going to get awkward but it's going to be so good because we're going to invite Jesus to be a part of it some of us just need to pray we just need to talk to some people anybody who's playing an instrument right now feels like they need to talk to someone they're going to put their
Instrument down and they're going to go talk to a person we care way more about being church family and applying the gospel than we do about a baseline no offense Josh that's what we're going to do we're going to cut the lights off we're going to they're going to play some music we're going to pray we're going to talk to each other we're going to move around that little thing that just popped in your head that you don't want to talk about that's what you're going to talk about that person that just popped in your head that's the person you're
Going to talk to we're going to follow the Holy Spirit we're going to invite Jesus to be a part of this we're going to pray with one another we're going to walk with one another and we're going to proclaim him always only we're going to proclaim Jesus because he's our hope. He's our life. And he's how we walk through everything. I'm going to pray and then we're going to move. Real quick before I pray. If you're in the room and you don't know Jesus, this is open for you to repent of your sin and to have Jesus be your hope and have his death apply to your account. So you can tell him. That seems awkward or you have questions. You can talk to a human.
We'd love to proclaim him. Let's pray. God, we ask that we'd be a church family, that the gospel works in and around everything. That's how we'd view life. So that God, we'd be able to rejoice in suffering because we know the truth of where our hope lies. And God, I thank you that in your wisdom you've given us a for y'all. That each of the people in this room who have placed their hope and their faith in you, that you've extended your mission for those around them, for those that they would toil and struggle to proclaim you to. And God, I pray that we would, that we would proclaim Jesus,
Warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we might present everyone mature in Christ. Holy Spirit, I pray that you'd work right now. Show us who we need to talk to. Enlighten us into how the gospel works in and among us so that there can be forgiveness, so that there can be reconciliation. We're going to move around the room, God. We pray that your Holy Spirit would move around as well. Teaching us, leading us, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
He's our life. And he's how we walk through everything. I'm going to pray and then we're going to move. Real quick before I pray. If you're in the room and you don't know Jesus, this is open for you to repent of your sin and to have Jesus be your hope and have his death apply to your account. So you can tell him.
That seems awkward or you have questions. You can talk to a human. We'd love to proclaim him. Let's pray. God, we ask that we'd be a church family, that the gospel works in and around everything. That's how we'd view life.
So that God, we'd be able to rejoice in suffering because we know the truth of where our hope lies. And God, I thank you that in your wisdom you've given us a for y'all. That each of the people in this room who have placed their hope and their faith in you, that you've extended your mission for those around them, for those that they would toil and struggle to proclaim you to. And God, I pray that we would, that we would proclaim Jesus, warning everyone and teaching everyone so that we might present everyone mature in Christ. Holy Spirit, I pray that you'd work right now. Show us who we need to talk to.
Enlighten us into how the gospel works in and among us so that there can be forgiveness, so that there can be reconciliation. We're going to move around the room, God. We pray that your Holy Spirit would move around as well. Teaching us, leading us, in Jesus' name. 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.
Cosmic Jesus, Cosmic Gospel
Colossians 1:14-20
Transcript
Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 through 20 when talking about Jesus says this. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. Let's pray. God, we ask you to make much of your name tonight. We pray that you would show us that it's all about Jesus.
And help us to genuinely see that and to know that and to feel that as we study this text. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. How are we doing tonight? Good. This section in Colossians, we're in our third week of Colossians.
This section is one of the densest Christological sections. So it's just this real dense passage about Jesus. And so we're in our third week. We're going to go verse by verse through the book of Colossians throughout the summer. And so we've actually entitled our series Colossians. It's all about Jesus.
And so that's what we're going to see is Paul, who's in prison, writes this letter to the church in Colossae. He makes it very clear that it's all about Jesus. That everything and all creation, that our lives, that the way we live, the way we work, the way we relate to one another, the way we operate as a church is about Jesus. And so that's what we're going to walk through tonight. That's what we're going to look at. I get highly frustrated at the church.
I get very frustrated when I see this in myself, when I see it in just how kind of the American church works. I don't know much about other. I can't speak to other areas of the church, but I kind of have a good handle, I think, on the southern church and the American church. And I get really frustrated with human-centric Christianity. Christianity. When we make Christianity about us.
Now Christianity and what Jesus accomplished for us in the gospel is very good news for us. But at no point is it about us. My wife and her brother Sam, she's got an older brother named Sam, they grew up in the Edgefield, Johnston area of South Carolina. And the movie That Darn Cat, it's a movie that was filmed in Edgefield. I think there was an older version and they remade it with Dougie Doug. You may know him from Cool Runnings.
If you ever get the chance to see the movie That Darn Cat, don't do anything else with your time. It's just not good. I mean, as awesome as Dougie Doug is, it just didn't come out right. But the movie That Darn Cat was filmed in Edgefield. And so when they were filming it, she was little, her older brother was little, and they were invited to like, everybody can come, be in this movie, in this one scene. You just got to sign a waiver and then you can all be in the background.
It was like a fair or something. And so there's this one scene in That Darn Cat that every time we watch it, we have to pause it because as the camera is panning along, following the main characters, you can see this part of Sam's head. Just the top. And, I mean, that was his big breakthrough. He is now the top of the head model that you hear all about. He models, you know, hats and you can see the top of his ears.
No. And Anna was next to him. So her big debut was just messed up because she was a foot shorter than she needed to be. In some ways, if Sam would sit people down and say, I want to show you a movie that I star in. I want to show you a movie that's about me. And then watch the movie and then pause it at that spot and go, did you see the top of my head?
Told you. That's a little bit of what we're doing when we act like Christianity is somehow about us. We're taking this epic story of redemption that God works throughout history and we're turning it around and saying it somehow centers on us and it does not. And so what we're going to do tonight, we're going to walk through this section of scripture and we're going to see that it's all about Jesus. Always Jesus. Only Jesus.
All about Jesus. We're going to see that it's all about Jesus and that Jesus, as God, is for his own glory. That he rescues and redeems for his praise, his glory, his name. Okay. So we're going to see that it's all about Jesus and that he actually, even in salvation, is for his own glory, his own praise.
And then we're going to talk a little bit about how that's really good news for us. That in Jesus being for his own glory and in everything being about him, it's actually really good news for us. It's not about us, but it's good news for us. And so that's what we're going to talk about. But we're going to spend some time talking about Jesus.
And so this section of scripture is dense. Every line is, it's very potent. And so we're going to have to go through and we're going to have to dig in and try to take every bit that we read and talk about it. And here's what I want for us. Here's what I want us to understand. We're going to try to look at Jesus as he is.
As he is creator. As he is massive and magnificent. We're going to try to take that view of Jesus. I love in the book of Revelation, John, the apostle who knew Jesus in life, who actually in his gospel he wrote, the gospel of John, he just refers to himself as the one who Jesus loved, which my younger brother was asking me the other day. He's like, do you think that annoyed all the other disciples? Like, just to be like, and the one who was Jesus's favorite was there.
And like they're later reading it and be like, seriously, John, really? Like, but he knew Jesus, was very close to Jesus. And then when he sees Jesus, not as Jesus was as a Galilean peasant, as a man, but when he sees Jesus in his glory, he starts off with his, in the book of Revelation, he says, I was in the spirit. And he said, Jesus shows up and he explains what he looks like. And he goes, and I fell over like I was dead. John's like, I'm pretty sure I died.
And then he woke me up and was like, don't be afraid. And I was like, have you seen you? He doesn't say that. But that's, that's the Jesus we're trying to look at tonight. The, the, not Jesus as he was, Jesus as he was when he was a Galilean peasant, but Jesus as he is. Creator, God, sustainer, ruler of all things.
And so it's going to be hard for us. It's an uphill battle. And here's, especially with this being a dense passage, I want to show you something. This is a volcano. So that's a volcano.
That's an erupting volcano. I think it's in Hawaii. This is also a volcano. Not quite the same though. And as we walk through this passage, we'll be tempted to do that. We'll be tempted to take and have all this rich depth and magnificent, magnificence of Jesus.
And we'll be tempted to say, and here's this theological fact we can learn. And here's something else we can learn and just put in our brains. And, and yeah, we'll be talking about it, but we'll miss it. See, both of those pictures are of a volcano, but one of them has been robbed of its awe-inspiring gravity of its nature. And so as we walk through this text, we don't want to do this. We actually want to see this.
We want to see Jesus with the weight and the gravity that surrounds him. We want to see him as he is, highly exalted. And so we're still going to have to unpack the text, but, but don't walk through and just take in Bible knowledge and facts about Jesus and categorize them and, and miss the weight behind it. So what we're going to do is before we hop in, we're going to pray. If you're not a believer, I would invite you to pray. The worst thing is you think some thoughts towards someone who doesn't exist.
The best thing is you talk to the God and creator of the universe, and he hears you and responds. But for believers in the room, we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to show us this when it comes to Jesus. We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to impress upon us the weight and the glory of our God. And so I'm going to give you a second. You're going to pray that and I'm going to pray for us. And then we're going to hop in.
Amen. God, we ask as your people that you wouldn't let us miss Jesus's greatness. You wouldn't let us grow accustomed to studying your word and learning things about you to the point that we fail to see you. And so we ask you to do what only you can do. That's to open our eyes, open our ears, and open our hearts and overwhelm us through your Holy Spirit with the greatness, the glory of who you are. We ask, God, that you would show us clearly yourself tonight.
We pray this in faith. In Jesus' name. Amen. So verse 15, we're in Colossians chapter 1. It says that he is the image of the invisible God. So this whole section is going to say he over and over again, and it's referring to Jesus.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. So when it says image of the invisible God, in the Old Testament, God, the creator God, he makes everything. He calls the Israelite people to be his people, and he does not show up in a form. He doesn't have a body. He doesn't say, this is what I look like. And so all the other gods that other nations have around them have, you know, they have something that represents them.
They have totem poles. They have Asherah poles. They have carved images. They have idols. They have all this. And God says, you don't.
He says, I'm the creator of all things. He says, I'm the only God. And you don't sketch me out. You don't carve me up. You don't draw me down. You don't make an image of me at all.
Anything in heaven, anything under the earth, anything in the water, anything on earth, nothing. And so throughout the Old Testament, he's the God that they have no image for. I mean, that's actually still true for us. We don't depict God the Father. We can depict Jesus because he came and lived as a Jewish man. And so we kind of have an understanding of what he would have looked like as a Jewish man in that time.
Sometimes you see the Holy Spirit depicted as a dove because it says in Luke that he came in the form of a dove. But we don't depict Jesus. We don't depict God the Father. I was actually at a wedding yesterday in a Catholic church. Beautiful, beautiful church. And at the center, they had this stained glass of Jesus.
And above it, they had this stained glass of this old guy with a big white beard. I'm assuming that's supposed to be God. And we're not supposed to do that. The Sistine Chapel, the famous Sistine Chapel where there's this old naked white guy like touching naked Adam. I don't know who that old white guy is, but he's not God because we're not supposed to have any image of God. But what Paul is saying is something radical, something spectacular.
What he's saying is that Jesus is the image of God. And he's the image of the invisible God. So if you want to know how God treats people, how God interacts with people, how God has friends, how God deals with those who are rebellious, how God deals with those who are religious, who are moral, who are uppity, you look at Jesus. And you have a really clear understanding of how God interacts, how God loves, how God moves. And so he's the image of the invisible God. It says he's the firstborn of all creation.
Okay, so firstborn can mean two things. It can mean first in order or it can mean first in status. It does not mean here that he was the first thing created. Because what it says next is for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. And it keeps going. But he's not the first created thing.
He's firstborn in status. So this was a patriarchal society. So the firstborn male was the highest in status. And they would refer to other people as the firstborn, which just meant they were in charge of. So when it says he's the firstborn of all creation, it means he's over top of all creation.
Because by him, everything that was made was made by him. It says for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Okay, so heaven, all the stars, all the stuff you see in the sky, all the things beyond the stars that we can't see, all the visible things, and all the invisible things. So heaven where people go when they die that know Jesus, have been rescued by Jesus, created by Jesus. On earth, all the visible and invisible things, created by Jesus. It says whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
Every political system that anyone has ever been afraid of, every regime that's ever set itself up that people have submitted to is underneath Jesus. It's created through him and for him. So the U.S. government, the CIA, Russia, Mexico, England, Rome, all of them submit to and are under the authority of Jesus. All of them. The Taliban, all of them, under Jesus. For him to raise up, for him to lower, for him to do with as he pleases, he rules over all of it.
And it also says visible and invisible. So it's not just earthly kingdoms, earthly dominions, but it's also spiritual ones. Every power, every spirituality, every aura, every spiritual anything under Jesus. It means all demonic powers. Satan and Jesus aren't at odds with one another like Jesus versus Satan. It's not how that works.
Jesus rules over everything. It's like Godzilla versus Bambi without legs or something. I mean, it's not even, it's not fair. Because he created and he rules over. His enemies operate only in what he allows them to. So it says that, For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Everything. By him, through him, for him. He's before it and in him it all holds together. Everything.
Nothing is excluded in that when it says heaven and earth, visible and invisible. At that point it's like, Oh, what? Okay, no, yeah, you win. All things. I got it. And he goes through and he says it's by him, through him, for him.
And he's before it and he holds it together. That means it's all about Jesus. All of it. Take just a second. Look around this room. It is not overly impressive.
But it was all created by, through and for Jesus. The architectural thought process that went into it. The human ingenuity. Everything. The humans in here. Our similarities and our startling uniqueness.
By, through, for Jesus. Your ability to look around this room and have your brain process what you're looking at without having to force yourself to do it. Currently there's air being pushed out. Oxygen. That was made oxygen by trees. Which doesn't even make any sense.
I've got a science teacher in here. She probably just got annoyed by that. Oxygen. Oxygen. That was made oxygen by trees. Right now is being pushed out of my mouth over vocal cords into a mouth with a tongue that's manipulating noises.
Noises that you learned as a child that are shooting through the air landing in each of your ears and your brain is immediately processing what is being said. You're not having to think about it. You're not having to make it happen. You are automatically. Explosions. Of concepts.
And understanding. Are going on right now inside of your head. in your brain. In a chunk of tissue surrounded by bone. A chunk of tissue that is now thinking about itself. That's weird and Jesus is just getting started. Your brain thinks about itself.
Your brain named itself. Your brain comes up with things to protect itself. Like I think helmets are a good idea. Your brain is like yes I think so. Now your brain is thinking you know if I named myself why didn't I come up with something better?
Like laser power thunder thought muscle or something. It's too long but we'll come up with something good. All of it. By him. Through him. For him.
While we were doing this. While we were talking about this. You were inhaling and exhaling oxygen. You weren't thinking about it. Your heart. A chunk of meat inside wrapped with bones and flesh wrapped around it was pumping continuously.
Blood that was taking oxygen nutrients throughout your entire body. It's happening all the time. It was pumping life through you. Indescribable. Intangible. But we know it when it's not there.
And we know it when it is. Life. Life. By him. Through him. For him.
He's before it. And he holds it together. And it's all about Jesus. Every bit of it. Everything we do is about Jesus. All of existence.
All of creation. How we live and move and have our being. It's in him. Everything we do. When you go to the store. By him.
Through him. For him. You buy milk. The people that came up with the idea of how to package milk. Invented plastic. The guy who squeezed the milk out of an udder into a jar for you.
The ingenuity that came up with the diesel engine that brought it to you. And the idea for refrigeration. All of it. For his glory. For his name. For his praise.
Every bit of it. So, real quick. For fun. We're going to walk through and look at some things that he has designed. That he has created. That are by him.
Through him. And for him. For his glory. For his praise. For his name. That are just to give us a glimpse.
A hint. A shadow. Into his greatness. And his goodness. And his massiveness. This is the New England mohawk bird.
I actually don't know what the name of that bird is. But. But it was made by Jesus for his glory and for his name. I know that. That. Okay.
That's a micrograph. And all right. First of all, I've got some people in here. We're going to look at some stuff that has to do with like science. And I've got some people in here that are like doctors and science people and all that. If I say something dumb and someone looks at you because they think it was dumb, just do this.
Like, that was correct. Okay. The last time I was in a science class, I was in high school. So, but I did do some research. This is a micrograph, which is basically, they looked at it under a microscope, took some pictures, and then digitalized it so you could see it better. That is a dust mite.
Those exist in your carpet, in your couches, in your pillow. So when you go to sleep tonight, just listen very carefully. You'll hear them crawling around, partying, celebrating. But don't worry, they just eat skin cells, so that's not creepy. By him, through him, for him. That, those are, to take away the horrible image of the dust mite, those are baby foxes, by him, through him, for him.
That is the angel oak that is in Charleston, South Carolina. When the person took that picture, it was taking in sun's rays and popping out oxygen all over the place. A lot of good oxygen around that tree. That is a really cool looking fish. That's the Norwegian, spiky fish. By him, through him, for him.
For his glory, for his praise, for his name. Moment of silence for the Krispy Kreme. I'm just kidding. That is DNA. That's like a digital version of it. It's not actually DNA.
I don't think we have actual pictures of it. But DNA is in every cell in the human body. All of the DNA for all of the cells in the human body is in every cell in the human body. So if DNA filled up this room, each cell comes to the DNA and takes this much information so that it knows what it's supposed to do. But all of the DNA for every cell is in every cell.
But each cell knows what information it needs so it can do the appropriate thing. for his glory, for his name. Those are red blood cells and a white blood cell. It's pumping through your body right now, taking oxygen, nutrients, white blood cells fight off disease. It's part of your immune system. That's why they look so gangster. That is the human circulatory system.
That's where all the blood is going right now in each of us. except for it's not going to the feet or the hands of every female in this place for some reason. Those are negative 10 degrees right now. That's a sunset on the Pacific Ocean by Jesus, through Jesus, for Jesus. This is the Himalayan mountains. He carved them out to display his glory, to show his greatness, to give us a glimpse into who he is. All of culture, all of creativity, in the Old Testament, God makes man and woman and He tells them to go Edenize the earth, to go, He gives them the cultural mandate to go build the earth into what it's supposed to be.
All of that is to point to Jesus and to give Him glory. That is the horsehead nebula. Nebula are gases out in space. That's just floating around out there doing its thing. I took a picture of it with the Hubble telescope. The next one is the crab nebula, also just gases floating around out in outer space.
Just beautiful things that, as far as I know, have no purpose whatsoever other than to show off God's glory, His greatness, His majesty and His power. The next thing, we're not going to go there yet. Oh, what? We just, maybe we are. All right.
The next thing, I want to explain it real quick before we look at it. They took the Hubble telescope. They pointed it off at nothing. They just pointed it in an area of sky that when looking through the Hubble telescope was completely black. And then they took a picture and they opened up the shutter, which is how light comes into the camera of the Hubble telescope, for 11 days. So for 11 days, they just opened it up and received as much light as they possibly could.
They pointed the most powerful telescope out in outer space into nothing, opened the shutter for 11 days. And what they came up with was the deep field, ultra deep field. That's the picture it took. 10,000 galaxies. 10,000 galaxies when they pointed our best telescope into nothing. I'm going to read it.
Leave that up there. I'm going to read a passage. Short one from Isaiah 40. It says this, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? Do that real quick. That's the hollow of your hand.
90% Of the ocean is unexplored. We can't even get to it. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span? That's the measurement of a span. Enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance. Every time I see something like that, every time I hear that the universe is expanding, we don't know how big it is, we just know it's getting bigger.
Every time I hear that, I think, well, Jesus' hand is bigger than I thought. Creator of the universe marked it off with his hand. 10,000 galaxies when we point into nothing. It's all about Jesus. Only, always, about Jesus. Just to give us a glimpse, to give us a hint at his greatness, his massiveness.
See, he created it all for his pleasure, his will. Let's read the next section here. So it's all about Jesus and it says, 17, And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. The church is all of those who have been rescued and redeemed by Jesus, by what he accomplished on the cross. Those who have placed their faith in him for salvation, for him to rescue us, not by our good works, not by our morality, not by our hard effort, but by his.
He's the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. So Jesus came to earth, this massive God, creator of all things, came to earth, existed as a human, and died. He humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, and then he rose from the grave, which makes sense because I don't think death could handle it. But he's the firstborn from among the dead, meaning that we might would be raised from the dead as well, but he's first.
It says he's the firstborn from among the dead that in everything he might be preeminent, meaning he's before and over everything. That in the church he's the head and he's the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. You see, we have a cosmic God, and through the cross we have a cosmic gospel. You see, when God created everything in the Garden of Eden, our first parents rebelled against him, desired to be their own gods, and when they did, not only were we cursed with sin, not only are we broken and off and marred, but the earth was cursed because of our sin.
So that Romans 8 would say that the earth groans in pains waiting for Jesus to come back, waiting with eager longing for the revealing of sons of God. So you have sin of moral kind. The reason we lock our doors, the reason we have police force, the reason we have jails is because of humans running around being sinful and broken and messed up. And then we have brokenness in the earth so that what should have just given nutrients to the earth, what should have just given water to the crops now goes through and tears down and demolishes cities. We have hurricanes and floods and earthquakes because the earth has been marred and broken by our sin.
And so Jesus, in being after his glory, it says he reconciled all things to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross. That it wasn't just about us, but that it's about him and him reuniting everything that he created for his name, for his praise, and for his glory back to himself. It's all about Jesus. And in reconciliation, it is not about us. And when he made us right with himself, it wasn't about us, it was about him. It was about his desire to bring everything back in alignment with himself.
At this point, there may be a bit of... kind of taking those verses, just a few verses, and kind of pulling a lot out of them, trying to say that everything was about Jesus. Because we want to push back and say, no, no, no, no. It's because he loved us so much that he saved us. Yeah. He loves us. But because he's loving, not because we're lovable.
You have a roommate. You know people aren't lovable. Those foxes, maybe. Humans, not so much. So yeah, he loves us because he's loving.
And so for the praise of his name and for his glory and for his fame, he rescues and redeems. But I'm going to show my work. We're going to go through the Old Testament. All of it. I'm just kidding. We're going to go through some verses in the Old Testament that God declares.
We're going to look at one in the New Testament where God just declares this is about me. This is about my glory, my name, my fame. So here's what we're going to do. It's a good bit of verses. I'm going to read through them quickly. But you're going to have to kind of stay with us as we go through this.
They will be on the screen if that helps you. If that doesn't help you, then don't look at the screen. But we're going to run through verses where God clearly says this is about me. This is about my glory, my name, my fame. Ephesians 1, 4-6. Paul says this.
He says that he chose his people for his glory. It says, In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. That's where Jesus died on the cross and rescued us and made us into family. For love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. It says he rescued us for his praise of his grace. God created us for his glory.
Isaiah 43, 6-7 says this. I will say to the north, Give up. And to the south, Do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name whom I created for my glory. Whom I formed and made.
Glory just means to show off my worth and my greatness. It says God called Israel for his glory. Jeremiah 13, 11 says this. For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, and so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they may be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of his name. So in Exodus, when the people he had just rescued from Egypt rebel against him, he spares them, doesn't destroy them for his name.
Ezekiel 20, 14 says it. I acted for the sake of my name that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. God later, when he takes them into his kingdom and when he has prophets and they rebel against him, he makes them into a nation but he doesn't cast them off for their rebellion. Isaiah, I mean, 1 Samuel 12, 20 says this. Do not turn aside from following the Lord for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. Isaiah 49, 48, 9, and 11 tells us that he defers his wrath, that he doesn't destroy us when we deserve it for his name and his glory.
For my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory, I will not give to another. John, 1 John 2, 12 says this.
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. We're going to end in this one in Ezekiel. It's long, but it's good. Ezekiel says this. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. In this section, he's going to talk about what he's doing in salvation, what he accomplishes for us in Christ.
So he's explaining that in salvation, he's doing it for his glory, his praise, his name. It says, And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations in which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God. When through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes, I will take you from the nations and gather you from the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. That's what he accomplished for us in the cross, that he sent his spirit into us, gave us a new heart, he doesn't make us better, he makes us new. It's what he accomplished for us in the cross and he says, I'm going to do this and he ends with this, it is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. God is for his own glory.
It is all about Jesus. He is the creator God and in salvation, in reconciling everything back to himself, he is for his own name, his own glory, his own praise. It's all about Jesus. All of it. Okay. So how is that good news for us?
How is it good news for us that God would be about God's glory? God's glory. First of all, we hear that and we're like, well, isn't that a little narcissistic? Who does God think he is? God actually has a very good view of himself. He thinks he's God.
And that question, when we're tempted to ask it, is a little bit like, okay, bro, who do you think you are? Honestly, if God was pointing to someone else, something else other than himself, he would not be God. If God created all things and then said, you know what? A really good thing to pursue with your life is? Money. Oh, go for power.
Power's the best. You don't want to praise me. You don't want to give me glory because power, I made power greater than me. Go for comfort. If God was pointing to something else, he wouldn't be God. And actually, in being good and being holy and being loving and calling us to himself, he's actually being very good and gracious to us.
So we look and say, okay, how is God, in being for his own glory, good news for us? Okay. God created everything and it rebelled against him. But in his goodness, he didn't destroy it because he is good and he is loving. He rescued and he redeemed to bring it back in alignment with himself because of his great name, his holiness. We're going to see how this comes together for us.
Here's what happened. Let's go back to 18. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him, through Jesus, to reconcile, bring back into a right relationship, to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. You see, we weren't reconciled to God.
We weren't in a good relationship with him. We were rebellious and separated from him. But Jesus, who all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, Jesus came and he lived a perfect life on our behalf and for his glory and for his name and in reconciling all things to himself, he bled out on a cross. You see, the creator of wood, of trees, of human ingenuity was laid out on a piece of honed wood specifically designed by creative humans to inflict the maximum amount of torture. See, the creativity of humans that he had created had gotten together and decided a great way to torture someone and to extend and prolong agony before death.
See, the hands that marked out the expanse of the universe were laid out on that wood and had a metal spike driven through them. Oxygen was pushed past vocal cords into a mouth manipulated by a tongue that shot through the air and entered into his ears and all that was designed to praise and glorify him was used to revile, curse, and bring him shame as he hung on a cross. The creator of oxygen had it denied his lungs as he hung gasping for breath. He who designed red and white blood cells and the circulatory system that pumps through all of us right now had his falter and fail him as his ripped open body poured his blood and his DNA out onto puddles in the sand so that the animals that were designed for his glory might come lick it up.
The creator of everything took our wrath to make peace by the blood of his cross for his glory and for his name and to show his magnificent love and greatness. That he didn't destroy us and he didn't tell us to earn it but he humbled himself and he stooped on our behalf. You see, if you saw a man stop and pick up a hurt baby bird your mind would not immediately think wow, that must be the best baby bird of all the baby birds. No, you'd think the man was good and gracious to care for something that couldn't care for itself. And so when we see Jesus stooping to rescue and to redeem we don't think wow, we must be so lovable.
We think wow, he must be so good and he must be so loving that this God who created all things might have a part of his creation rebel against him, hate him, run from him and that he instead of destroying them as he ought would stoop become one of them and suffer at their hands so that he could rescue them so that he could make peace by the blood of his cross. He is great and he is holy and we praise his name. So God is for his glory and he's for the praise of his name. That's what Ephesians says that he rescued us he adopted us as sons to the praise of his glorious grace. If God is for his glory if Jesus and the cross is for his glory and for the praise of his glorious grace he is not for your begrudging submission.
He's for your joy. If he's for his glory he's for your joy. If he's for his praise he's for our joy. He can get our begrudging submission. The God who measured out the universe can get you to submit to him but he's for his glory and his praise. So we start asking how do we respond to this?
The band's going to come back up and I want to unpack for us quickly how we respond how we look at this God this creator God this Jesus who made all things by him through him and for him that he's before all things and in him all things hold together and that he was willing to die to rescue us not because we were worth it but because he's worthy not because we're good but because he is and so there are these moments when I periodically be talking to someone and they go I just don't I just don't feel worth it I just don't feel like I deserve this there are these moments when we sit back and we think about the cross and we think I'm small I'm insignificant and I'm dark and twisted and off and I don't deserve this exactly see it's in those moments when we think that that we've actually gotten it right it's in those moments when we think I don't deserve this I'm unworthy absolutely that's why he's to the praise of his glorious grace that's why Ephesians 4 says that he rescued us for the praise of his glorious grace grace is that he gave us unmerited love favor unearned we can't morality God into owing us something we can't behave enough so that he has to give us life and joy and peace none of that but we can in those moments when we realize our lack of worth we can praise his grace we can praise that he rescued and redeemed us because he's good because he's holy and you see God being for his glory and being for our joy comes together in our praise of his glorious grace praise is joyous grace is good that we didn't deserve this and we didn't earn it but he gave it to us because he's good I like football I'll be watching football games sometime and something will happen I'll be sitting down and I'll just I just can't stay seated like I'll be at my house by myself holding nachos jump up after like a big hit because I used to play defense and just be like boom son you'll be at games sometime if you're in the stadium and someone will break a play and everyone just hits their feet and you just start yelling because you've been caught up in something beyond yourself and when he's after the praise of his glorious grace he's not after your begrudging submission he's not after you to be afraid of him and so you've been to him he's after you to be so overwhelmed by his goodness to have the spiritual synapses and receptors of yourself just be overwhelmed and flooded by that this God this creator God would rescue and redeem that he would love us when we're unlovable that he would those of us who don't deserve it who haven't earned it that he would give us unmerited grace and favor and he would rescue us and make us right with himself because of his own goodness and so we praise his grace with everything we have we praise him with all of our lives we praise him not to earn anything but because it's already been given to us not to put him in our debt because our debt's already been paid we just praise him with how we live with how we work with we stand and we sing we praise him because it's all about Jesus and he is for his glory have no doubt about that he's for his own glory but that means very much so that he's for our joy that we would be so engulfed in his greatness that we would cease to worry about ourselves we would cease to seek our own small glory and we be caught up in a greater story invited into something so much hugger so much bigger so here's what we're going to do we're going to praise his grace if you're in here and you don't know Jesus I'm going to tell you that he is after his own glory but he's not after your begrudging submission he doesn't want you to work harder he doesn't want you to go earn it he wants you to know that he's already accomplished everything on your behalf and that you can praise his name because he is good and he is loving and he is holy and he does redeem and he does rescue and that he did make peace by the blood of his cross and the rest of us are going to stand up and we're going to sing we're going to praise Jesus because it's all about Jesus we're going to praise his grace because he rescues and he redeems and we who in making much of himself invited us into a life that we can believe and poured grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon us I'm going to pray and then we're going to praise God we praise your name Jesus it's all about you and I pray that through your Holy Spirit you would teach us how to praise you would teach us how to give you glory how to be so caught up in your glory that we are overwhelmed by joy Jesus you've created and made and hold everything together and you stooped and you died on our behalf and you poured grace on us so God we praise your name Holy Spirit move and show yourself to us in Jesus name we pray amen to
Maturity in Christ
Colossians 1:9-14
Transcript
You got to be strong to move the new podium. Goodness. Everybody give. Where's Charlie? Charlie, raise your hand. Charlie.
Charlie. Charlie made this for us. It is actually very beautiful. Well, I hope everybody's doing good tonight. Just wanted to say thank you for coming and worshiping with us. I know it's Memorial Day weekend, and so I hope you have taken some time to just rest and relax and spend time with family, but also to remember the sacrifice that people have made on our behalf so that we can actually have the religious freedom that we have together as a church family.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Matt Freeman. I'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church. And you're not usually used to seeing me in this context. I'm usually leading worship. But I am humbled and honored to share God's word with you tonight.
So if you've got a Bible, you're going to want to have it. We're not going to be putting the scripture on the screen because I want you to have a Bible in your hand. So if you've got one of the ones that we had by the door, that's actually going to be page 638. And I've got a couple of guys. Basically, they're going to walk to the front of the room and then walk to the back. And so if you need a Bible, just lift your hand up.
They'll be happy to hand one to you. And that's our gift to you. So if you don't have one, we'd love for you to take that one and keep it. Or if you know somebody who doesn't have a Bible and you'd like to take one with you, we've got plenty. That's what they're for. All right.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate that. All right. So last week we began a brand new series and it's entitled Colossians. It's all about Jesus. And so we're going to be spending the next 10 or so weeks, basically the entire summer, walking through Paul's letter to the church at Colossae.
And what's really neat about this is, first of all, Paul's writing to a relatively young church, a church that's about six or seven years old. So it's good for us to hear what Paul's writing to a young church. And he's writing to a relatively healthy church. So what we're going to see is that Paul is writing to encourage this church in the gospel. And he's going to do so in a couple of different ways. He's going to point them to the sufficiency of Jesus.
He's going to point to how they should be living out their faith in the context of community. And he's going to take some time to talk about how their actions are actually lived out, how they walk out their faith on a day in and day out basis. So I'm very excited to talk with you tonight. But before we do so, I just want to pray and ask that God would speak to us. If you would, let's bow our heads and pray. God, truly, I am unworthy to stand before your people and preach.
I'm thankful that your grace has covered me and has made me new. God, that I do not stand here in my own flesh. Holy Spirit, I'm asking that you would speak through me, that you would encourage your people tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. So as we're hopping in, I want to ask a question.
How many of you in this room, at a heart level, in some form or fashion, just wish you were better? Okay. I would say that most of us would follow. At some stage in the game, we just wish we were better. Wish we were a better dad. Wish you were a better wife, a better student, a better athlete, a better worker.
So you start thinking things like, if I could just get that promotion, if I could just set aside a once a week date night with my spouse, if I could just get my bench press up 15 pounds, if I could move from a B to an A, if I could move from getting $3 an hour, getting paid $3 more an hour. So I don't, in fact, I don't think there's anything that we do or anything that we experience, even ourselves, that we don't wish in some form or fashion was a little bit better. And I'll show you. All right, so let's say you go to a nice restaurant and you sit down and you start eating. What's the first thing you're going to start talking about?
Five other places. Kids, that's great. Ha ha, yeah. Five other places that you've probably eaten. So instead of appreciating the piece of bacon that's on your plate, you're going, oh, I've had peppered bacon before.
In fact, I've had beef wrapped in bacon. What is this? So at some stage in the game, we wish things were better. Another way to look at it would be if you are walking out of the movie theater and you said, that was the best movie I've ever seen. And it would have just been perfect if Mark Wahlberg would have been the lead actor. Yeah, you're right.
Nobody says that. That's true. Oh, Mark Wahlberg. And I know some of you are sports fans. Okay, so let's say you're watching Carolina play, and Carolina pulls it out in the last couple of seconds of the game. The quarterback throws a game-winning touchdown.
In fact, he threw four touchdowns in that game. But all that we can seem to talk about is the two interceptions he threw in the third quarter that might have cost us the game. Instead of realizing that he won the game, we always want things to be better. I do this. Some of you guys know that my wife Katie and I make pallet art. You can't tell, right?
I mean, there's not pallets anywhere. But I'm sure you guys are familiar with Pinterest. But Katie was on Pinterest, and she found this cool do-it-yourself project. She goes, why don't we try this? So we did.
We took a Sunday afternoon, and we took an old pallet, and we cut it down, and we put the boards together and basically just made a frame. And then we painted it and painted the South Carolina flag on it. And, of course, we painted the base color orange because we're Christians, right? And we hung it on the wall. And it took us about five hours to do it from start to finish, and we were really proud of it. Honestly, we were very proud of it.
But now that I look at it on the wall, I realize that it's gigrundous. It takes up like a whole wall in our man cave. And if you look at it, the boards are kind of cattywampus. It's not actually square. It's not the dimensions of a flag. And so we started to do more and more of them.
And I was like, okay, I want to get better. The next time I actually put the boards side by side, and I made sure it was square. And then it was still a slow process. I mean, I was hand sawing things, guys, like this. Okay? So I bought a Sawzall.
So I have a reciprocating saw so I could cut the nails and cut the boards. All along the way, I wanted my process to be better. And the reason we approach things in life like that is that we, deep down, we have a deep desire within us to actually be better, to accomplish something, to do something big, to make much of the lives that we've been given. And I would say that this is especially true for those of you in the room who are Christians. Christians, I'd imagine that some of you sitting there as Christians have had the thought, I wish I was a better Christian. I'm sure you have.
I'm sure you've had that thought. I wish I was a better Christian. I wish I read my Bible more. I wish my prayer life was stronger. I wish I had faith to submit my finances to Jesus. I wish I had boldness and courage to serve in Kid City.
I wish I could just tell my boss about Jesus and his people who are wired to do better, to be better, to search for more. Paul is actually going to be writing this letter to the Colossians, the section we're looking at. He's going to be talking about what it looks like to grow in maturity, to grow into maturity in Christ. So, again, if you've got your Bibles, we're going to be at Colossians 1, verse 9, 638 in the Bibles that we have by the door. Let's read this together.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So, that's the chunk we're going to be looking at tonight.
And if you're a note taker, our title for tonight, the title of our sermon is actually Maturity in Christ. That's what we're going to be talking about. And when you hear that word maturity, you're automatically going to associate it with growth. I think that's the thing we think about the most when you're putting maturity in your mind. You're thinking about growth. And that's going to come in all different forms and fashions.
Okay? So, you're going to see physical maturity like Mitch Stoiku, who has all of a sudden grown four inches in like four days. For real. I don't know what the Stoikus are feeding him, but he's ginormous now. So, you've got physical maturity. You've got emotional maturity.
I don't know if you guys got to see the kids playing around before they went back to Kid City. But we've got parents who are getting to teach their children to obey, to be able to control their emotions. So, that's fun. And they need your prayers. Thank you. I'm sure they're wanting that.
There's also like mental and intellectual maturity. So, we've got students of all ages in the room. We've got middle school students, high school students, college students, those that are doing postgraduate work, and some students that are in seminary. And what we're actually going to be dealing with tonight is spiritual maturity. And we're going to be seeking to answer one question. And I'm going to ask it in a few different ways.
That way, we can actually put a handle on it. The question we're going to try to answer is, how do we spiritually mature in Christ? How do we do that? How do we grow to be more like Jesus? How do we learn to follow Jesus more closely? And as you might have picked up in our first reading of the text, Paul's going to address this idea of growing in maturity in Christ in two different ways.
So, he's going to talk about the pursuit of knowledge. As he says, I want you to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And he's going to talk about the pursuit of actions. So, how do we actually walk that out? And if you think about it for a second, we're going to lean probably one way or the other when it comes to those two ideas. The pursuit of knowledge to grow or the pursuit of action to grow.
You're going to grow in one of those two ways. So, some of you are like, okay, I want to read a book. I want to take a class. I want to go sit down and have a conversation with somebody who can actually help me grow, help me mature, tell me things. Some of you are like, nah, I don't want a book. I don't want anybody to tell me.
I just want to jump in and give it my best effort, and I'll learn as I go. I'll learn from my mistakes. I'll give you an example of how this plays out. Okay, so let's say you're going furniture shopping, and you're looking for a bookcase. So, of course, the first place you're going to go is Big Lots because you're classy because you want a good Big Lots. This is a true story, so I'll go ahead and give the spoiler.
So, Katie and I moved to Columbia, and we were actually looking for a bookcase. We went to Big Lots, and we got the $20 bookcase in a box. And the way that – I know, it's shameful – the way that Katie and I would build that bookcase would be completely different than each other, completely different. If Katie's going to build that bookcase, here's how it's going to go, and I can say this because she's in Kid City. Katie's going to carefully cut the box open. She's going to take the front that actually has a picture on it and set it to where she can see it.
She's going to pull out all the tools and lay them on a rag because she doesn't want to get the carpet dirty. She's going to take all the pieces and lay them out all over the floor so that she can see them and organize them by size, color, and shape. And then she's going to take the owner's manual, and she's going to read it three times to make sure that she's got it all done. And seven hours later, she's going to have a perfectly built bookcase that will actually hold books. Now, me, on the other hand, I'm going to rip this box up beyond all recognition. I'm going to find the owner's manual, too, and I'm going to unfold it so that I can put my tools on it.
I don't want to get the carpet dirty either. And then I'm going to find pieces as I go, and I'm going to put this thing together. And seven hours later, I'm going to have a bookcase, too, and it may or may not hold books. I don't know. I don't know. So Paul's going to address the church at Colossae in how they grow in Christ.
And he's going to talk about the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of action and how those are actually going to work together. And as people who are wired to actually be better, to do better, to strive for more, I want us to listen as to how we can grow in Christ. Let's jump back into the text, verse 9. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
So, the first thing that we're going to see in the text is actually our first point for tonight. So, if you're a note taker, this is going to be our first point. We grow in maturity through both knowledge and action. So, while we may have a propensity to lean one way or the other, what we're actually going to see is we're going to grow in both. We're going to grow in both knowledge and in action. And I love the way this verse starts off.
I love it. Jump back there with me. It says, And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray. Who? Who's praying here? What we looked at last week is that Paul and Timothy are actually writing this letter together.
And it actually, verse 3 that we looked at actually begins kind of the same way. They're talking about what they're praying for the church at Colossae. And what they're actually praying is that they would be filled with knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. They're praying for wisdom, understanding, and the knowledge of God's will. And it even qualifies it there. It says spiritual.
And that word spiritual is going to be of the Holy Spirit or from the Holy Spirit. That's a big prayer that Timothy and Paul are praying, that they may be filled with the knowledge of His will, growing in understanding and wisdom. And I love that. I love that. Paul and Timothy are imprisoned in Rome. They don't even know these people.
And in a jail cell of sorts, they are praying. They are laboring in prayer that they would grow, that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that they would grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. And I just love that. And so if you're wanting to, that's a great prayer. If you're wanting to pray something for our church, if you're going, man, I actually want to grow in praying things for our church, that's actually a great place to start. And so that's what Paul's praying.
He says, I want you to grow in understanding, in knowledge, and in wisdom. Why? Why does he pray that? Let's keep going. As we're going into verse 10, it says, So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Okay, so we see it.
He clarifies why he's praying that. So Paul and Timothy are praying that they would grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And the word that Paul's going to use there for to walk is literally going to refer to all of life. So Paul says, I'm praying for this so as to help you walk in all of life. And I think he's being very intentional there. He's using that word because he doesn't want them to grow in understanding, wisdom, and knowledge for knowledge's sake.
He wants them to grow so that it will actually affect all of their lives. How many of you have ever seen the show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? You ever seen that show? Okay, I was down on it when it first started. I didn't know if I was going to like it. But the premise of the show is that they take architects and attorneys and surgeons and they put them on this TV show.
It's basically like a game show where they're having to answer questions against elementary students based off of the standards that the elementary students are learning. And so you'll have an architect standing there and they'll say, okay, you choose a category. And he'll go, okay, fourth grade geography, fourth grade geography. Okay, sir, what is the capital of Wyoming? Idaho? Yes, Sally?
Cheyenne? And it's just a really funny show. And what that show is actually exposing is the fact that all of us, all the way through school, have learned things that we're never going to use again. Ever. I don't need to know what the capital of Wyoming is unless I'm there or I'm on that show. Those are pretty much my two opportunities.
But basically what he's exposing here is that we're not to learn things just to know them. It's that knowledge should actually lead to action. So what he's showing here is that this idea that we pursue either knowledge or action is not what we're going for, but actually that both of them work together as we follow Jesus. I want you to think about it like this. The more you know about Jesus, the more you want to follow him. And that leads you into action.
And by doing things, you actually learn in the process, which drives you deeper into action. You see how those work together? As you start to grow and know things, you start to do. And as you start to do, you learn more things. And it becomes a cyclical process. And what Paul is saying here is that knowledge should lead us into action.
And the group that we can look to that exemplifies this the best is the disciples of Jesus. I want you to think about this for a second. I want you to think about the disciples of Jesus. This was a ragtag group of numbskulls comprised of tax collectors and fishermen. And Jesus comes to them and he says, come follow me. And so they drop everything and they start following Jesus.
And Jesus teaches them and he trains them. So he helps them grow in knowledge and understanding. And then he sends them out. He sends them out two by two and they cast out demons. And they heal the sick. And then they come back.
So their knowledge impacted their actions. And they came back and they talked about it. And Jesus continued to pour into them. And then we see the disciples getting to be involved in things like the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus used them as part of that. So we see this cyclical process of knowledge leading to action, knowledge leading to action.
And we've read the Gospels. We know that the disciples don't get this right all the time. Peter, right? That's who you want to think about? Peter. So in the same chapter in Scripture, Peter says, you are the Christ.
And then a little bit later, Jesus has to say, get behind me, Satan. This is the same Peter that would deny Jesus three times. But what we see is they continue to grow. Even as they messed up, even as they screwed up, they continue to grow and mature in Christ. And when Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the grave, he gave him a new commandment. He said, go and make disciples.
And what we're going to see is these same disciples that were the stumbling bumbling as they followed Jesus, the same disciples that Acts is going to say in chapter 17 that they turned the world upside down. They turned the world upside down. So that's what it's actually going to look like for us. And the way that we do this as believers, the way that we grow in knowledge and action, is we do that in the context of community. That's going to be our greatest place to actually grow in these things. And remember, Paul's writing to a church.
He's writing to a group of believers. And so every time you see that word you, I want you to think about it not as you rugged band of individuals, but you in the context of community, you the church. What Paul's saying here is you can't live out your faith. You can't grow to maturity in Christ outside of living with other believers. We did a series back in the fall. I'm actually wearing the band from it called One Another, where we actually walked through the one another's in the New Testament.
We only did like seven or eight, but there are even more than that. And I'm telling you, you can't do one another's without others. See how that works? How those words work? And this is where I think I've seen our church grow a lot. So we see where it says, be hospitable to one another.
We see that in scripture. So as a church, that means we open up our homes. That means we host community groups in our homes and we welcome people in and we serve them a meal. And when guests come, we want them to feel welcome too. That's why we have a host team for our gathering, so that as people come in, that they feel welcome, they feel loved. We want to be hospitable.
We see where it says, forgive one another. We do that in the context of community. So that when someone in my community group, I say something that's offensive or hurtful because I feel conviction, I get to go to them and repent of my sin and ask for their forgiveness. And they get to extend that forgiveness and grace back to me because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. And we get to be reconciled. Scripture is also going to say that we should bear one another's burdens.
That means that if someone doesn't have enough gas money to get to my house to hang out with our community group, I'm not okay with that. That I'm going to step in and bear burdens. And I'm going to tell you, this is where I have seen our church grow. And I'm glad to be a part of believers like you guys. I've seen people bear each other's burdens like never before. And it's been beautiful.
And it's been messy. And we've gotten to walk through it together. I've seen car payments made. I've seen people go and buy groceries and take it to someone's house. I've seen a mortgage paid. I've seen rent paid.
I've seen power bills paid. And not just monetary things. Just giving of their time. People moving from place to place. When the Pabones were moving off of Fort Jackson, I saw our church family rally around them night after night after night to make sure that they could get out. I'll give you an example.
On Friday, I was driving back to my house. And this is the worst, okay? Because this happened a lot. I was rolling up my passenger side window. And I got it to the top. And I went, kick, kick.
I said, oh, no. And I looked. And slowly, my window began to fall into my door. And there it was. And I knew that storm was coming. I knew that storm was coming.
And I was freaking out. And I didn't know who else to call. I knew one person. If anybody would try to help me get it back up, it was Daniel Gillett. And so I texted Daniel. I'm like, dude, I don't know what to do, man.
Can you help me? And I knew Daniel. I was going to the northeast. I knew Daniel was about 30 minutes away. He was on the way. And he's like, come on, man.
We'll get it up. And so at 2.30 on a Friday, when he had multiple jobs to do, he and I were out there sweating together, not knowing what we were doing, pulling parts of my door up, using like little wooden shunts to put up in there to just block my window up. And 30 minutes later, the window was up. That guy, he bore my burdens. He did. And that's how we grow together as a church family.
I want you to think about it like this. I'm just trying to give us some handles. If somebody came to me and said, Matt, I want you to run a race, I would immediately say no because that doesn't sound fun at all. But if they came and said, Matt, I want you to run a race, but you can only pick one leg. I don't even know. Okay.
I like that one. I like that one too. I can't run without two legs. Okay. I've got to have both my legs. And the same thing is true as we grow into maturity in Jesus.
I want you to think about it as two legs that you have to have. You have to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And that has to be put into practice so that as you grow in your understanding of who Jesus is and what he wants for your life, that leads you into action. And through those actions, you continue to grow in your knowledge of him. It's a cyclical process. And what I want you to understand is that we get to grow.
We don't outgrow the gospel of grace. We don't. We grow more deeply into it over time as we pursue Jesus and give our lives chasing after him. That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. He's praying this prayer.
He said, I want you to grow in wisdom and knowledge and understanding so you can walk through all of life with other believers, bearing each other's burdens, loving one another, walking that out together. And he's going to continue. He actually qualifies how we're to walk. Jump back into verse 10. Verse 10. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
So that's a game changer. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Guys, my nickname in our house is destructor. Guys, I'm clumsy as all get out. I can't walk a straight line. How in the world am I going to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord?
How are we going to grow in this together? He keeps going. Keep reading. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. What an incredibly intimidating task. What an incredibly intimidating task.
Walk back through it again. It says, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Fully, not partly. Not sometimes. Not on our best days. Fully pleasing to the Lord.
Bearing fruit. Good fruit. In our lives as evidence of our salvation. And ever increasing in the knowledge of the God who holds the universe in the palm of his hand. And as people who are wired to be better, to do better, this creates a problem. Because we were tracking with Paul's prayer.
We were really excited about it. Yes. I want to grow in my wisdom and knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is. And I want to let that play into my actions so that I can follow him and I can walk in a manner worthy of. And that sentence starts to go. And what we start to do, as you hear that, you start to think, huh.
I wonder if I walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. I mean, I don't really think I do. Maybe I need to start doing this and this. I mean, I need to stop doing that. I need to stop doing that. And I need to do this and this.
And what we do is we start to pile up all these things that will actually help us walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And as you're listening, you're probably starting to feel a tremendous amount of weight and pressure stack up. Because you're saying, yes, I want to grow in knowledge. I want to grow in my understanding of who Jesus is. Yes, I want that to impact my actions. But if I'm supposed to walk this out in a manner worthy of the Lord, I don't think I can do it.
And so you start thinking like this. Okay, all right, so what can I do to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord? All right, so I need to start listening to more sermons. I'll start listening to more sermons. So I'll listen to a guy like Francis Chan.
But maybe not just Francis Chan. I probably need a more intellectual thinker, a reformed guy, somebody like John Piper. But I don't just need Piper. I need somebody who's more of like a topical communicator who's easy to relate to. I need somebody like Perry Noble. So I need to be listening to all of those sermons.
And I need to make sure I'm doing my devotional every day. Oh, but before I do my devotional, maybe I should go check my email and see when the next Beth Moore series is coming out. Because I want to make sure I do that study. Got to be in that one. And when I'm doing my Bible reading, I need to make sure that I'm reading from the Pentateuch, from the history of Israel. I need to read from the Psalms and wisdom literature.
And I need to read from the New Testament. Every day. Twice, let's say. Maybe I should find out what the Pentateuch is. Who knows? But I probably need to start going to more conferences.
I probably need to go to a conference once a month. I can go to a conference about how to love Jesus more. How to be a better dad. How to help dads be better dads. How to be a dad of dads. Like God is a good dad.
Two dads of dads. Yes. Huh. But I know I work eight to ten hours a day. But I need to make sure I take some time to go by the homeless shelter before I go to my Bible study group.
Wait a minute. I need to spend time. I need to spend time praying. Prayer. I need to make sure that I'm praying for everyone. And he's not just talking to individuals here.
He's talking to a church. So how are we going to stack up as a church? We need to have a prayer calendar with everybody's name on it. We need to make sure that each one of our community groups is multiplying every two months. And we need to make sure that anybody who comes in our doors meets Jesus as soon as they walk in. Because the Holy Spirit is so present.
And all of a sudden, what we realize is that we'll never stack up. And on top of that, you start saying to yourself, I could be doing better. I could be helping people more. I could be making more time for Jesus. And the truth is, a lot of the things I said were actually good things. They were.
Reading our Bible is great. Praying is great. But what we do is when we're faced with this walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, we realize we can't do that. We don't stack up. There's no way I'll be able to do that. Yes, I want to pursue Jesus.
Yes, I want to let that affect my actions. But I just don't know how I'm going to walk that out. And if I can't do it, there's no way that the people around me are going to be able to help me do that. But the good part is that was only the first point. And so Paul actually keeps writing. So let's keep reading.
Verse 11. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And our second point tonight is going to be this. We are redeemed and reconciled to God in Christ. Everybody take a deep breath.
Let it out. So while Paul calls on the Colossian church to seek after Jesus, to pursue him and know more about him, to grow in our understanding of who he is, and to let that impact our actions as we grow in maturity, he's quick to remind them that it is not those actions that make them worthy of the Lord, but it is the work that Jesus has done on our behalf. And that's good news. So church, what I'm saying to you is that you don't become a better Christian. You can't. And that's actually good news.
And some of you might have just pushed back right there. Oh, no, no, no, I can get better. I can, I can be better. What I'm, what I'm telling you is you can grow in maturity, but you can't qualify your role. You cannot change your relationship to God on your own actions. And that's good news because Jesus has actually done that on our behalf.
This is what Paul's doing. He's actually encouraging them in the gospel. He's saying you get to pursue Jesus. And because you've already been qualified, he's already made you right with God. That's what this whole section is actually encouragement. Pick it back up in verse 11.
He says, may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the father. So Paul's going to step in here with encouragement. He said, I want to encourage you to be strengthened with all power. What power? The power that raised Jesus from the dead, the power that exists in the hand of an almighty God who created the universe from his glorious might. And he's praying this so that in the midst of being in a culturally diverse area as a young church, they might be able to continue to endure, to be patient, to have joy all the while giving thanks to their father.
Why? Because it's already been accomplished by Jesus on their behalf. You see, the language here is not, look, look back at it. The language here is not what you do, but what he has done. Catch that because it's the most important thing you'll hear tonight. It's what he has done.
This is the past tense. This is what already has been accomplished. Paul says, it's not about what you do, but what Jesus has already done. Look at the verbs that it used. He says, he has qualified you, has delivered us, transferred us, redeemed us, and forgiven us our sins. It's already accomplished in Christ.
This life is going to be difficult. We're going to have our ups and downs as we pursue Jesus. But what Paul's encouraging him, and he's saying, you're already saved. This has already been accomplished on your behalf. You get to pursue Jesus. So let's walk through 12 through 14 to see how that encouragement continues.
Listen with ears, trying to hear what Jesus has already done. He says, beginning of verse 12, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And so as a people who are wired to be better and do better, we hear this and we go, no, no, no, no, I can do it. I can earn it. And what Paul's saying is, you don't have to.
It's already been accomplished on your behalf. And so I want us to walk back through these verses and see how Jesus was already better on our behalf. We talk about as a church that we want to be fluent in the gospel of Jesus. We want the gospel of Jesus to be so ingrained in our hearts that the only way we can speak to each other is to encourage each other in the gospel. That when we're having life issues, it's not just wisdom and advice. It's hope in the gospel.
It's truth in the gospel. And that's exactly what Paul's going to do here. He's offering them hope in the gospel. Verse number 12. It says, Giving thanks to the father who has qualified you. Who qualified who?
Did we qualify Jesus? No. It says that Jesus has qualified us. That's not based off of our actions. In no way can our actions, even on our best day, can they stack up and give us a better quality of relationship with Jesus than what Jesus has already done on our behalf. But not just that.
He didn't just qualify us. It says that he's to share in an inheritance of the saints in light. Not only qualified, but giving us an inheritance, an eternal inheritance, an inheritance that started when the gospel was proclaimed to Abraham, that he was going to make, that God was going to make Abraham into a nation, that they were going to be a blessing to the whole world. And we see the history of redemption go through the Old Testament until it gets to Jesus. We are part of that inheritance. Until we step into an eternity, it's an eternal inheritance.
And not just that. It says an inheritance of the saints. We talked about this last week. In no way would I ever qualify myself as a saint. Some of you are shaking your head yes. I agree.
What saint means is holy ones or consecrated ones. What that means is those who have been made holy. You get that? It's past tense. Again, we're holied ones. You're holied.
You're actually made holy by Jesus. He keeps going. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. Did you do that? Can you do that? No.
But when Jesus went to the cross, Satan thought he'd won. He thought he had seen the Son of God dead on a tree. He thought it was over. But three days later, by the power of God, Jesus walked out of that grave, conquering sin, death, Satan, and hell on your behalf. And in doing so, it says he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Guys, as peasants, we don't walk into the presence of a king.
That's not how that works. The only way that you get audience with the king is you get invited in. It says you've been transferred into the kingdom by the king. The king has invited you in. He keeps going. The kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption.
The root word there is redeem. That means you have been bought with a price. The price of the Son of God that would give his life to shed his blood on your behalf. He did that. It's already been accomplished. And in doing so, it says the forgiveness of our sins.
He paid the penalty for the forgiveness of our sins. So in no way can you shove your 401k before God and say, this gives me, I've earned it, I've made enough money. But what this is saying is that Jesus has already accomplished this on your behalf. The price he paid was much greater than anything that you could offer to God. And that's actually really good news. That though we have done nothing to merit redeeming, yet God in his grace has given us forgiveness.
And so church, what I want you to feel is the burden lifted. That pressure that you mounted on yourself that says, I'm not good enough. I want to be better. Feel it lifted. Because what Paul is saying is, it's already been accomplished. You've already been qualified.
You've already been redeemed. So go and live this life pursuing Jesus. And if you're sitting in this room tonight, you're going, I want that to be true for me. And it's not. I want to tell you how. The way that you're qualified by Jesus, the way that you're redeemed by Jesus, is that you place your faith in him.
Is it believing and understanding who he is and what he has done for you. You confess your sins. You confess your faith in Jesus. You ask for the forgiveness of your sins. You place your faith in him. And you follow him for the rest of your life.
And if you want to talk a little bit more about that, I'd be happy to sit down with you after we're done tonight. But that is how you get to be qualified. And so to kind of sum up where we are, we looked at in point one that we're pursuing Jesus in both knowledge and action so that we can walk to live a life that is worthy of the Lord. And what we realize is we actually can't do that. We don't have the ability to. But the good news is we've already been qualified.
We've already been made right with God. So where does that leave us in terms of growing in maturity? It brings us to our third point. We are set free by Jesus to grow in maturity in Jesus. That's what it brings us. That's our third point for tonight.
We are set free by Jesus to grow in maturity in Jesus. And we like to say this phrase a lot. And I think it's very helpful in this situation. You may want to jot this down. Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning.
Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. So what we're seeing here is that Jesus in his grace invites us into a relationship where we get to give much effort, but not in a way that earns our salvation, but because we actually already have salvation. So our attitude begins to change. Instead of I have to do these things so that Jesus will love me, it becomes I get to do these things because Jesus loves me. We actually want to grow in maturity through knowledge and action because of the great love that Jesus has shown for us.
And this is a cyclical process. That as you grow in knowledge, it's going to lead you into action, which will lead you into more knowledge and more action. that the gospel would actually impact our actions and that we continue to grow more and more in spiritual maturity. And we get to do this together. This gets to affect all of our life together. It's not because I know things about God and do good things that I get to be in Christ. It's because of what Jesus has done on my behalf.
I get to be in Christ. Therefore, I pursue him in knowledge and wisdom that lead to action. And it gets even better than that. So you're not just left on your own to have to do that. From the very beginning, he said that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in spiritual wisdom and understanding. He actually gives us the ability to do that.
I want you to understand this. Check this out. It says that he has give thanks to the father who has qualified us through the work of the son. And we are given the ability to follow him that we may be filled with his Holy Spirit. You see how that works? Salvation actually begins and ends with God.
We say we see the work of the Trinity all through salvation. And I want you to realize, as a church, this is going to be messy. And that's the best part. Are we always going to be good at this? No. There's going to be times where we mess up, where we make mistakes.
And in that, we get to repent. We get to ask Jesus to forgive us. And we move forward learning from the mistakes that we've made. You want to see somebody who's growing in maturity, who's growing to be more like Jesus? What do their actions look like? How do they relate to community?
What does their schedule look like? Where does their money go? Are they building intentional relationships with people who don't know Jesus? Because knowledge without action doesn't make sense. As we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is, it's going to lead us out, and that's going to impact our relationships. And that's why we as a church, we're wanting to read through the book of Colossians.
That's why as a church, we want to grow in our ability to read Scripture. We want to read the Bible. We want to pursue Jesus and let that affect our actions. We want to grow in setting aside time to intentionally have relationships with each other. We want to gather as a church family. We want to get together with our community groups.
We want to set aside time where our community groups are inviting friends who don't know Jesus to come hang out. We want to grow in serving other people. So be encouraged. You are free to actively pursue Jesus because you have already been qualified. So that when you're reading your Bible, you're doing so because you get to, not to earn God's favor.
That when you're praying, you're praying because you want God's will to be done, not to earn God points. You tithe and give your offerings, not to pay God off, but because he who is rich became poor on your behalf. And so I'm going to invite the band to come back up as we're closing up. Church, I want you to be encouraged tonight. I want you to know that you get to pursue Jesus wholeheartedly because of what he's done for you, because he has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.
That means as a church, we pray for one another. We confess and repent of sin with one another. We bring people into community. We make disciples. We're generous with our money, with our time, with our resources. It means we meet the needs of people in the church and outside of the church.
Why? Because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. Jesus has qualified us. Jesus was better on our behalf so that we could live a life not trying to be better, but instead giving much effort to grow into maturity in both knowledge and action as we follow Jesus because it's all about him. Let's pray.
God, I thank you that our relationship with you is not based off of our actions. It's not based off of how much we know. But God, it is fully based off of you. What you have done on our behalf, that you have changed us from the inside out. You've qualified the relationship. And so I pray that you would lead us in a life where we are free to give much effort as we follow you.
In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand and sing as we respond.
Our Identity in Christ
Transcript
We're going to be walking verse by verse through this book of the Bible over the course of the summer. So we're spending the next 10-ish weeks in Colossians. And so I'm going to pray and we're going to hop in. We've got a good bit of stuff to do tonight to walk through and to kind of intro this series. And so I'll pray and we'll hop in. God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather as your people to study your word.
Pray that you would speak to us tonight, that you would move among your people, that you would draw us closer to yourself. And that we would see more about you and who you have designed us to be. Who you have made us through the gospel. And so God, we thank you and we praise you. And we just thank you for this opportunity to try to make much of your name and to learn what it looks like for us to follow you. We ask your Holy Spirit to be present, to be moving among us, leading and changing and pointing to yourself.
And so we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So we will be in Colossians chapter 1, verse 1, where we'll be starting tonight. We're going to do three-ish things tonight. First, we're going to talk a little bit about why the book of Colossians, about just kind of intro the book of Colossians and why we would study it verse by verse, walk through it.
Then we'll talk about some major themes that we'll see in the book of Colossians as we walk through it over the next 10 weeks. As we spend the summer hanging out in the book of Colossians, we're going to talk a little bit about what we'll see, what we hope to learn, what we hope to understand from it. And then we'll actually unpack the first eight verses and kind of see how Paul starts this letter off to the Colossian church and how he lays out kind of their identity and how we see that in his beginning of this letter. So as we saw in the video, Paul's in jail. He writes this letter to the Colossian church.
He writes a letter to the Ephesian church, which is very similar to the letter he writes to the Colossian church. It's longer, kind of unpacks some scenarios a little more clearly, whereas Colossians is pretty dense. And so we'll have to take it chunk by chunk as we walk through it because of how dense he makes it. One of the cool things about the book of Colossians, one of the reasons we're excited to look at it, is he's writing to a church that was fairly young and fairly healthy. From what we can tell, the Colossian church was doing OK. And the reason I say that is because when Paul is writing to a church that is not doing super well or that it's off in certain areas, he doesn't mince words and he's pretty clear about what he's talking about.
So book of Galatians, Paul starts off like this. Hey, I'm Paul. What the heck is wrong with y'all? And so he kind of jumps right in. In Corinthians, he's dealing with specific issues that they're dealing with and he addresses them very clearly. He says, you've got an individual who's doing this.
That's not OK. I always laugh when I see that a church is like Corinth Baptist Church because I'm always like, have y'all read the letter to the Corinthians? Because they were pretty messed up. I don't know if you necessarily want to line up with them. But in Colossians, he doesn't really do that.
When you read commentaries on Colossians, they're all over the place as to why people feel like he wrote the letter. And so you'll have people say that it was false teaching outside of the church that he was addressing. It was false teaching inside of the church because Paul does in this letter use some words that he doesn't use other places. And so it seems like he's addressing something. One, I've heard some say it's Gnosticism. Some say it's Judaism.
There was one commentary that said Paul's addressing Judaistic Gnosticism and Gnostic Judaism. What the heck does that mean? It's like the guy didn't want to make a decision. So he's like, well, kind of a little bit of both also and as well, too. And so when we look at it, though, because he doesn't come out swinging against anything specific, what we feel like he's addressing a relatively healthy church that was relatively young. So it's a fairly young church plant and they're doing pretty well.
And so I'm actually really excited that we'll get to spend some time here because in some ways, as Paul writes to this church, it is it's addressed to us in some ways because we are a young church plant just trying to figure out what it looks like to follow Jesus and to be church family. We don't have any major issues. We don't have a building that's about to get repoed because we don't have a building. See how that works? We we don't have major issues with dissension or people causing problems or huge sin areas that we've got to deal with. Like we're we're doing OK.
We're learning what it looks like for us to be church family, for us to grow together, for us to follow Jesus well in the city. And so in some ways, I'm excited because I feel like Colossians is a little bit addressed to us. And Paul's just going to because he doesn't have things he's got to address. He's got a pretty clean slate to say, hey, here's what it looks like to follow Jesus. Here's what it looks like to be church family. And he's going to address some areas where they kind of maybe have gotten off.
But for the most part, it's a pretty clean slate. I honestly think he's writing to the Colossian church because he wanted to write to Philemon about Onesimus. And he was like, well, it would be awkward just to send that guy a letter. So I'll also send one to the church and we'll address some things they need to work on. But that's what we're looking at.
So we see Paul's in jail. He's writing this with Timothy. He's writing to the Colossian church. One of the things we hope to see. So there's a little bit of like, why would you go through a book of the Bible verse by verse?
That may be a question in some of your brains. It may be a, why haven't we done this sooner in some of your brains? And that's fine. Some people will argue that the way to get together and teach the Bible as good Christian people is through the Bible verse by verse. I would argue that that is a good way to teach the Bible. And we'll talk about why in a second.
I don't think it's the way. If I did, first of all, that's what we would have been doing all along. Second of all, the problem with that, the problem with people that come out and say this is the only way to teach the Bible is that when the people in the Bible teach the Bible, they don't do that. So when you read the sermons in the Bible, they're all over the place. Jesus will be like, I did this. And he just quotes two sections of Isaiah and just skips all the stuff in the middle.
Peter and his sermon in Acts 2, he's all over the place. He's like this, and we know this is true, and this from this passage, and this. Y'all want to meet Jesus? And people were like, yes. So it's hard to make an argument in my brain that you have to work through the Bible that way because the Bible doesn't work through the Bible that way.
The people in the Bible don't. But here are a few reasons why we do think it's good and healthy and helpful. One is for context. We often study the Bible, and we'll look at something in one. We'll look at something in Luke. And then the next week we'll gather together, and we'll discuss something in Corinthians.
And the next week we'll gather together and discuss something in Zechariah. And after a while, you just don't have a whole lot of context for where we are in the biblical narrative. And so it's helpful to stop and to just go verse by verse through a book of the Bible so that we have context. Because context is important. If I told you that I stood up and at the top of my lungs yelled, you slant-faced moron! Well, you might want to know what the context was.
Like, was I talking to a slant-faced moron? Was I at a football game? Was I at a candlelit dinner holding my wife's hand? Like, context makes a difference. It changes what we're looking at. And so as we read through Scripture, it's very helpful to know what came before it, what we're looking at here, and what's coming after it.
I'll give you an example. Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I love that verse. Paul says it, though, right after he talks about being poor and wealthy, hungry, naked, well-clothed, well-fed. And he says, I've learned to, in all circumstances, be content. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
It had very little to do with his benchmarks or ability to win football games. It's a good verse. I like it. But what he meant was I've learned how to, in Christ, be content no matter where I am in life. And so it's helpful for us as we study Scripture to know what we're studying, where it lies, and what comes before and what comes after it. And so that's one of the reasons.
Another reason we want to do this is we want to grow as Bible people, as Bible readers. And so we're very excited for our church family to just be able to walk through a book of the Bible together over the course of the summer. I think it will be good for us. I've heard of a professor who would start off his class. He was an atheist professor. He would start off his class in college by saying, who here believes that the Bible is the Word of God?
People raise their hand. And he'd go, okay, who among you has read the entire thing? And then he'd go, I don't think you believe it's the Word of God. I think he's got a point. For people who say, I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and then we don't spend a lot of time studying it, reading it, learning it, growing in it together. It's a little bit like, ah, something's missing there.
And so I think it's helpful for us as a church to just say, hey, we're going to just unpack this book of the Bible together. We're just going to walk through it together. Another reason we do this is Paul later, when writing to Timothy, when they're not in jail together, maybe they slipped each other notes while they were in jail together, but he definitely wrote him letters when he wasn't. So we have 1 and 2 Timothy later, when they're not in jail. Paul tells Timothy, who is a young pastor, I don't know if you all know this, relatively young as far as pastors go. Paul tells Timothy, who's a young pastor, he says, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.
And to devote yourself to these things so that everybody can see your progress. And so it's actually really healthy and good for us as a church who have young pastors to just say, we're just going to walk through a book of the Bible. We're not going to jump around. We're not going to try to come up with topics to discuss. We're just going to walk through a book of the Bible. And guess what?
One of my goals, and our goals as we lead as pastors, is for you to see progress. Not that we'd be great at stuff now, but that you'd see progress. That we'd move from like a D minus to like a D, and we could just be really excited that we have a D. So that's the goal. We're going to move that way. And so one of the reasons we think is that it's helpful for us to do that.
So before we hop in, I want to unpack three major themes that we'll see in the book of Colossians as we spend 10 weeks here. So three major themes that as we walk through Colossians, we're going to unpack and spend time talking about. And then we'll actually get into one of those, really kind of two of those tonight as we enter into the beginning of this. So the first major theme we'll see is that it's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus. Everything.
Colossians is going to have some of the highest Christology in the Bible. And Christology is just how we understand Jesus. It's the study and theology of Jesus, and it's going to have some of the highest Christology where Paul just goes off on how amazing and massive and great Jesus is. How terrifyingly huge Jesus is. And then he's going to, as he unpacks Colossians, he's going to say, we do this and we're these kind of people because of Jesus. And we walk through life like this because of Jesus.
And so as we unpack the book of Colossians, we're going to see that it's all about Jesus. That he's the head of the body of the church and that we take our cues from him. We talk often about Jesus as a Galilean peasant. We think of him as a poor, homeless man who lived 2,000 years ago. And he was. So Jesus pre-exists in eternity past.
He comes to earth for like 33 years. That's what we just spent time talking about. That Jesus was a man who was a God who became man, who died in our place for our sins, and who rose again. He did that in about 33 years span. And then he exists. He rose, ascended into heaven in bodily form, and exists in eternity, future, forever.
He was a Galilean peasant who suffered for about this much of time. Creator. King. Everything exists in him, through him, and for him. And he made all things. And he will rule all things.
And so we often think of Jesus as a Galilean peasant. And he was. And he humbled himself for our sake. And we need to love that. And we need to grow to understand that. But we also need to realize he's high and exalted, massive and scary and good.
And so we get to talk about that. We'll get to see that it's all about Jesus. We'll get to see that we have a communal identity as we unpack the book of Colossians. We have a communal identity, which means that we exist in relationship with each other. One thing about a lot of the books in the Bible, and especially Colossians, every time you see the word you in Colossians, Paul is actually using the word y'all. The Greek word y'all.
So for us, we can use you as a singular you or you as a plural you. But most of us in the South would use y'all as a plural form of you. And so when you see the word you, he's referring to them as a people. One of the things that annoys the snot out of me is when I watch movies and they have someone pretending to be a Southerner and they just can't get it right. I was watching one where a guy was supposed to be from North Carolina and he called chicken barbecue. And I was like, nope.
Now, North Carolina does make vinegar-based barbecue. So they hadn't quite got it right. But they at least know it's pulled pork. But there would be movies where somebody would look at somebody and call him y'all, and it's an individual. And it's like, unless you're talking about him and his family that you know about, you wouldn't call him y'all. You'd call him you.
And if you were talking to a whole group of people, you'd call him y'all. And every time Paul uses the word you in Colossians, he's saying y'all. And so as we read through it, we'll say y'all some just to help us frame up our minds around that. Now, here's the other thing. When we hear y'all, we think of, yes, a collective group of us made up of rugged individuals. There's a bunch of us individually.
That's how we think about it. That is not how they would have thought about it. They would have understood themselves in community, as a team, as a people. That's how they thought about it. When we try to, the term for self-sufficiency in the U.S., there are certain cultures, when we try to translate that, we can't. They don't have a word for it.
The closest word in certain cultures is a form of a mental disorder where someone believes they exist outside of community. So they were trying to translate self-sufficiency, and they were like, I don't think you want to use this word because it's a mental disorder. We don't exist outside of community. And that's much closer to how they would have understood themselves. They lived and exist in relationship to other people. And when they became believers, they had a new family.
A lot of them would have been disowned by their family, but they would have had a new family. They would have been y'all. They would have understood themselves communally. The best thing we have to this would be maybe the military. So if Patton stood in front of his troops and said, we must take this land, and I need you to do it.
There wouldn't have been a guy in the middle who was like, I don't think I can do that by myself. Well, come on, Carl. That's why you're part of a platoon, which is a part of a company, which is a part of a battalion. When he said you, he meant the team, and they would have understood that. Just as if a coach stood in front of us and we were on a team, we understand ourselves in context of the team. And so when he says y'all, understand yourself not as a rugged individual who's a part of, but as a y'all, a team, a collective, a family, interconnected forever.
So we have a communal identity. The next thing we'll talk about, and I'm really excited about because we're awful at this, is we need a discernment radar. Discernment is basically the ability to tell if something is true or not true, good or not good. And so as Paul writes to the Colossians, it seems as if they have all of these outside influences, and he's helping them figure out how do we decide, how do we filter what we bring in. For the most part, you will see one of two operating systems for that among American Christians. There is no filter whatsoever.
Or if someone says it, and they were on TV, they got their own show, so they're probably pretty smart. The guy was holding a book. His name says doctor. Like, there's no filter whatsoever. It's just this person said it, and he had cool hair, and his wife looked like she lost a paintball match, but she's sitting on a throne. So I'm pretty sure we need to believe it.
No filter whatsoever. Or we only believe these 12 people who say things, and we're going to start our own little compound and our own little commune, and we're not going to trust the internets. Like, there's that. So our goal would be to be somewhere in the middle, to have a discernment radar, to actually filter what comes in, but to filter it well. And so we are bombarded by all kinds of other influences. We see thousands of advertisements, each of them preaching a false gospel to us, which says that you need this to be happy.
Your life is not complete without this. We have television shows that would say they promote no religion whatsoever, but they're promoting a worldview. Every movie you see promotes a worldview. We are bombarded with ways to think about life, ways to think about romance, ways to think about God, ways to think about our relationship with each other, ways to think about politics. We are bombarded, and we have to have a discernment radar. So we'll get to spend more time on that later.
We're not very good at it as a whole, but we'll get to spend some more time on it later. We won't spend much on it today. We're going to spend a couple weeks on it, and I'm really excited about getting into more of that, just mostly because we suck at it. All right. So tonight we're going to be looking at the intro of Colossians, and basically we're going to see how Paul frames up for them.
What we're going to do, so we're going to read through the first eight verses, and then we're going to read through the first eight verses, and we're going to read through the first eight verses, and we're going to read through the first eight verses. several times and unpack how Paul addresses this group of people. So we'll talk a little bit about what he says, but we'll also talk about how he understands them to exist because it's foundational for us as we grow as a church and as we move through the summer. All right, I'm going to pray again. We're going to hop in and talk through this stuff.
God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather, to study your word. I pray that you would speak to us, that you would lead us as we walk through Colossians, as we kick off this series where we try to study and learn more about you. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Colossians 1.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother. So Paul, apostle means sent one. He's specifically talking about those who had seen Jesus after death. So he says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother. To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. When Paul starts writing this letter, he writes to them and the first thing we're going to see is that they have a gospel identity.
That they have a gospel identity. How he understands them to exist. So he's writing to the church and they have a gospel identity. He says, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae. Saints is the Greek word that means holy ones. So in the Bible, God is called holy.
So in the Old Testament, they say God high and lifted up and there's these angels next to him and they're singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And when Paul writes to the Colossian Christians, he says holy ones. And when he says saints, he doesn't mean like St. Patrick. He means all believers have an identity of holiness in Christ. That we are holy.
We're made right before God because of Jesus. So he writes to them first in their gospel identity. So he says, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints. Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you.
As indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing. As it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. And he has made known to us your love in the spirit. All right, so what we're going to do is we're going to quickly walk through and see how Paul addresses them in their gospel identity, their communal identity, and their missional identity.
So his gospel identity. We'll just walk back through and I'm going to point out the areas where he's talking to them as a gospel people. To the saints and faithful brothers, that's verse 2. So he calls them saints, he calls them holy ones. In Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. So he says our relationship now is that God, the creator of the universe, is our Father.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you since we heard of your faith in Christ. So they have faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. So what Paul says to him is he says you're holy because you have hope laid up in the gospel. That your hope is laid up in heaven because of the faith that you have in Christ. So we praise God who is our Father because of who you are, who he's made you into.
And so through the gospel, Jesus died on our behalf. He took our sins. He rose again and he gives us his righteousness. So Paul understands them to have a gospel identity. He also talks to them out of their communal identity, that they exist in relationship with one another. So he starts off and he says to the saints and faithful brothers.
So that's the Greek word for brothers and sisters. What he's saying is siblings, those who've been made into a family. So that they have a communal identity. To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints. They go hand in hand.
Faith in Christ and love for all the saints. He says we're praising God for this. We thank God that you have faith in Jesus, that he's allowed you to have faith in Jesus, and that you have love for all the saints. And that's how that works. I've met people before that say, man, I love Jesus. I just don't have much time for the church.
I just don't care about it. And it's like, that's not how that works. They're one and the same. Like, when we have faith in Christ, we have love for all the saints, all the other Christians, all the other believers. I was talking to a guy at work one time at Sears, and he said, yeah. He said, he found out I was a Christian.
He said, yeah, if I was a Christian, if I was religious like that, if I was a Christian, he said, I'd just keep it to myself. He said, I wouldn't feel like I need to go be a part of a church or go to church or whatever, hang out with other people. I'd just read, do my own thing, study or whatever, and then I wouldn't have to be around people. I said, that's cool. You wouldn't be a Christian. He was like, what are you talking about?
I said, well, that's not how Christianity works. I was like, you get reconciled to God because he pays for our sin. He fixes the relationship we have with him. But he also, because he takes care of sin, he reconciles us to each other. So I said, every relationship you've ever had broke down because of sin.
They sinned against you, you wouldn't forgive, or they wouldn't apologize. You sinned against them, you wouldn't apologize, or they wouldn't forgive. You slowly drifted apart because you're sinful. You hurt each other and wouldn't fix it. I said, but the gospel gives us the way to fix that. That God reconciles us to himself and to each other.
I said, so you get relationships, you get family, and you would get to walk through life being able to have the ability to reconcile and to forgive and have relationships with one another. He looked at me, and he was the quietest he'd ever been. He never shut his mouth. But he looked at me, and he said, I've never heard of it like that before. I said, yeah, this is how it works. I said, so you could have your own little private faith and not be a part of the church, but I'm not sure you'd be a Christian.
Because Christianity involves us and gives us church family. So, yeah, we grow in our love for Jesus, but automatically his spirit comes in and makes us begin to love one another and to grow in our love for each other. So, he talks to them out of their communal identity. He says that you have faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints. Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth the gospel, which has come to you. As indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.
Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. So, we have, he talks to them out of their missional identity. That they are, the gospel bears fruit and grows. Just what it does. He says the gospel bears fruit and grows just as it has among you since the day you heard it.
Like the gospel just moves. It grows. It bears fruit. And it changes people. And so he says just as you learned it from Epaphras, just as this guy came in and began to proclaim to you the gospel. That in Jesus you can have forgiveness.
You can have life. You get family. He says it bears fruit and grows. And so we have an identity that moves forward. That we can be met by Jesus. Our sin can be covered.
And we can have life in him. And the gospel bears fruit. It grows. It expands and it moves. And so more and more people get to be a part of it. And so when he talks to them, he talks to them out of gospel identity.
He refers to them as saints. He calls them brothers. He talks to them out of their communal identity. How they exist in relationship with one another. And then he says the gospel keeps moving. It keeps bearing fruit.
It keeps growing. And people keep learning the truth. The grace of God in truth. That we're sinful. That we're broken. And that we need Jesus.
And that we're met with overwhelming grace. That we don't have to earn it. And we don't have to be good enough. And we don't have to be smart enough. And we don't have to be moral enough. We don't have to keep it together.
But we're met with grace through truth. So, if you're a Christian in the room, you have a gospel identity. You have it. You're not seeking to earn it. You're not working for it. You have it.
You are a saint. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy.
You are blameless. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. You are holy. Now, I don't know about y'all.
But I know humans. And I know y'all in this room. Holy isn't a super good descriptor for us. It just isn't. But it's not based off of us.
I remember when I was growing up, my older brother Logan. He used to lie. Oh. He'd lie. He's like four or five. He'd look at grown people in their face and just lie.
He was good at it, too. But you could tell he's lying. He's like four. His stories didn't make sense. But he would just lie.
I ain't never heard of that before. I ain't never seen that. I don't know that kid. Like, just, I mean, just lie. And my dad used to tell him, he'd say, Logan, there's going to come a day when you're going to need me to believe you. There's going to come a day when you're going to need people to believe you.
And if you keep lying, that's going to be a problem. If you lie all the time, swear and lie through your teeth at people, it's going to be a problem because you're going to need people to believe you. So we were hanging out with my extended family. And Logan basically, like, led a rebellion. Logan, he got all of our cousins, like 14 or 15 of them, and just led them in the most, like, heinous of crimes he could possibly think of as a four- or five-year-old. And so my aunts were livid.
I mean, they were ready to string him up. And so they had all gathered. And it was really funny the amount of anger they had towards, like, a five-year-old. And so they had all gathered, and they were standing there, and they were like, he did it. I know he did it. He got all them involved in it.
And, I mean, they had lost it. And so my dad's sitting there, and Logan's sitting there. And my dad looked at him and said, Logan, did you do that? He had. Everybody knew he had. And Logan went, mm-mm.
I didn't have anything to do with that. And my dad looked at him, and he looked at my aunts, and he said, Logan doesn't lie. And if he said he didn't do it, he didn't do it. My aunts almost lost it. And he stood in between them, and he said, he doesn't lie. That boy doesn't lie.
He wouldn't tell a lie. And if he said he didn't do it, he didn't do it. And Logan went and looked at my dad like, now, you and I both know that's not true. I mean, couldn't believe that that's what my dad did, that my dad stood in the gap and took the blame and was willing to lie and take sin and on my dad's integrity get him off. And there are times when Jesus looks and he says that we're holy and blameless and above reproach. And I look and I go, you and I both know that's not true.
That's not a good descriptor for me. That's not how that lines up. But we have a gospel identity. We have been made holy and blameless and above reproach because Jesus took our sin onto himself and he was crushed for it and he gave us his righteousness so that we stand before God as Christians who have placed our faith in Jesus holy, blameless, and above reproach as if we had never sinned and always done what we were supposed to. That there is no reproach, no complaint, no sin that can be levied against us, no condemnation, nothing. We're holy and blameless and above reproach.
And if you're a Christian in here, you have a gospel identity. You do stand before God holy. If you're a Christian in here, you have a communal identity. You've been invited into a family. It says that to the saints and faithful brothers, he says to the faith you have in Christ and the love you have for all the saints. So we have a communal identity.
We've been invited into a family. Later in Colossians, he's going to say that Jesus is the head of the body, his church. So he's the head, we're the body. We are interconnected and designed to exist in relationships with one another. We have been made into family together. You're in it.
If you're a Christian, you're in family. Just the way regular family works. You didn't get to pick them. You're in it. Jesus rescues and he makes us into family. And it is a beautiful, hot mess.
It is. Every holy person in this room is a part of your family. And we're holy because we have a gospel identity. We ain't keeping it together too good. We get to walk through life together, repenting and forgiving and getting on each other's nerves and celebrating together and growing together because we've been made into family. It's who we are.
In Christ, we are brothers and sisters. The Bible says that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. And Paul here says that God, our father, who's the God and Savior, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he calls him our father and then he immediately calls him Jesus' father. And later he's going to say Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. That we are family.
An eternal family. That will last forever. And that's our identity. That's who we are. And then if you're in here and you're a believer, you have a missional identity. You are sent on a mission with Jesus.
That Jesus in eternity past, when we sinned, when we rebelled against him, that they chose that Jesus would come, that he would be perfect on our behalf, that he would die for our sins and that he would rise again so that we might have life and hope and faith in him. And then he invites his church into that mission to share that, to spread that, to move that along. And we can't help but share it. I remember when I first found out that the gospel was actually good news. Like I always thought that the gospel was this. I thought it was that Jesus could save me from my sins.
I deserved wrath and punishment, but Jesus died so that I could not be punished, not go to hell, and that he saved me from my sins. And then I was supposed to learn how from the Bible to be a good moral person. To behave well. That's not really good news. It's like when your dad's like, I got good news. We're cleaning the garage today.
I don't see how that... I don't think you know what good news is. And so when I've got good news, Jesus saves you from your sins, and now you get to be a really good person and try really hard and be moral and keep it together. Ugh. When I realize that the gospel applies to everything, that I'm already holy, already blameless, I just get to follow Jesus? That the gospel applies to how I treat my wife and how I see my money and how I walk through life and that I've been given a family to walk through life together?
That actually became good news. And I love sharing good news. My wife and I, we run a pretty tight budget, but any kind of excess money we have pretty much goes to food. We thoroughly enjoy eating out. And when I find a good restaurant, I'm going to tell you about it. I actually base directions off of restaurants.
So people will be like, you know where Thomas Road is? And I'll be like, do restaurants. They'll be like, you know where Taco Bell is? Yes, I know where Taco Bell is. All right, well, you're going to go over there, you're going to take a left of Krispy Kreme.
All right, I got it, I'll be there. Like, that's how, if they say a restaurant I've never heard of, I'll be like, I haven't heard of that, is it any good? Like, we quit talking about directions. I need to know about this restaurant you know about that I don't know about. So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to help you all out right now.
I'm going to share some good news with you all. If you've never eaten at J Gumbos, it's in downtown. It's open only in the middle of the day. So if you want J Gumbos at suppertime, you were wrong. You won't have it. But you can have it at lunch, and it is delicious.
My personal recommendation would be Jean Lafitte, or Jean Lafitte. If you call it Jean Lafitte, just to mess with them, they don't appreciate that. Although that is how it would be pronounced if you're, I don't know, not Cajun. But anyway, and then the other one is Egg Roll Station. Right down the road, super, super good Chinese food. Super, super sketchy.
So if you have a problem with that, do takeout. It's still delicious, and their egg rolls are great. So, but when I find out about good news, I can't help but share it. Like, when I find out about good restaurants, I can't help but tell people about it. You don't have to talk to me long for me to start sharing things that I enjoy and appreciate. And it's the same way with us, and when we begin to realize the goodness that is in the gospel for us, we can't help but share it.
We can't help but say, hey, look, I know you think that you're supposed to work this out on your own, and that you're supposed to be a rugged individual who gets everything done, and is super good, and super holy, and that earns your right. You're not going to. But you don't have to. You get to have faith in Jesus that he already accomplished that on your behalf, and you get to walk through life with a new family and a new identity. And we can't help but share it. And the gospel, it's just what it does.
It bears fruit and grows. So, this is us. This is who we are. Paul's writing to a church plant. He's explaining to them as he goes through the book of Colossians what it looks like for them to follow Jesus. But he starts off, and he kind of just lays out.
We see how he approaches them, how he speaks to them as to who he thinks they are. So, he talks to them about how the mission, how the gospel's moved forward among them. He talks to them about who they are in Christ and who they are in relationship to one another. And that's us. When we talk about being a gospel-centered community on mission, when we say that's what we want to do, we want to be a gospel-centered community on mission, we didn't make that up. We made it the way we word it.
But we see it here. We see it as how the Bible lays it out. So, it's just what we do. It's what Jesus does. It says here, I want to read verse 5. We started as a church plant in March of last year.
We just started meeting in my home. Just a handful of us. And then we actually got to watch the gospel bear fruit and grow. We got to watch it bear fruit and grow among us, personally, individually. And we got to watch it bear fruit and grow among a people. So, when Paul is writing this, he's saying, We also thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for y'all.
Since we have heard of y'all's faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that y'all have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for y'all in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to y'all, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among y'all since the day you heard and understood the grace of God and truth. And that's what we've gotten to see. We've gotten to see the gospel move and grow among a people. And it's been beautiful. And that's who we are. That's who we get to be.
And so we began to multiply more community groups because we just want to live in relationship with one another, centered underneath the gospel, around the gospel. Jesus is the head. We're the body. We just follow him. And so we look to Jesus to see what it looks like for us to walk through life. And we live on mission, which just means that we get to invite people into the gospel and into family.
That's us. That's what we've gotten to do. And it's been exciting and it's been great. Sometimes I look at my community group and we're all over the place. Age-wise, thought process-wise, there are some conversations in my community group that just get downright painful. Because people are trying to talk to each other and they just don't connect.
It's like they have nothing in common whatsoever. We had a conversation about heavy metal music the other day. And that was just hilarious. Because a couple of the guys knew what it was. One guy didn't. And I stood there making jokes just to be annoying.
But I was really confusing people. And so that was a lot of fun. And after a while, our group just was like, well, do you like food? Yes. Do you like Jesus? Yes.
All right, cool. We can be friends. Like that's just how it works. That's how our community group connects. We are just a bunch of people brought together by the gospel. And we get to walk through life together.
In a minute, they're going to release some children from back there in Kid City where we try to put the gospel on their level. And they're just going to be like running laps around here. I'm pretty sure they teach them the gospel and then just inject sugar into their faces. Like I don't even know really what happens back there. But it's going to be a mess and it's going to be beautiful.
That's who we get to be. When my family gathers together at Christmas, there's a whole bunch of us. People knocking stuff over, but we're family. People getting on each other's nerves, but we're family. And that's what we get in the church. That's who we get to be.
If there's one thing we know from every Christmas movie we've ever seen is that life's better with family. That's all we know. You can have anything else you want, but family makes life better. And so the truth is for us as a church, we get a gospel identity and we get a new family. We get people to walk through life together with, through good times, through bad times, to celebrate, to enjoy life together. We get brothers and sisters in an eternal family that will last forever.
So we set aside time for it. We carve out time in our busy schedules. And it's going to be hard for us as Westerners, but we carve out time to be family. To hang out with each other, to share meals together, to laugh and do fun things together, to throw parties together. Because we care about it, because it's who we are. It's our identity.
So when we talk about being gospel-centered communities on mission, all we're saying is we're just going to be who we are. So that's how we operate. That's what we do as a church. So we gather together on Sundays as groups to talk about Jesus, to open the Bible and see what it says. The rest of the time, we're just community groups for people being church family throughout the week. And that's how we function.
I talk to people periodically because we're a church plant. And they'll be like, so what are you all going to do when you grow? So more of what we're doing, I guess. Like we're going to have more groups. We've got five community groups right now. We started as one last year.
We're praying that we would have ten towards the end of the year. That more and more people would hop into what we have in the gospel. That more and more people would be freed up by the fact that they don't have to be good enough. Jesus was good enough on their behalf. And that we get a family. We're not alone.
We don't have to do this alone. As we read scripture, sometimes I feel like that private that raised his hand to Patton and said, I can't do that by myself. We read scripture and we're like, man, that sounds really hard. Right. But it's not designed for us to do it by ourselves.
It's for us to walk together in relationship with one another. To have life together. To be in community. To be family. To be family. To be the body that God's made us into.
And so. If you're here. And you're not a Christian. Here's what I would say to you. Hop into a community group. Be a part of us as we walk through life together in relationships.
We'll get together and we'll talk about Jesus. And this is a great place for you to hang out and hear things about Jesus. But we'd much rather you got to see what it looks like among a bunch of people. We'd much rather you got to see what it looks like when somebody can't pay a bill. Somebody's got a flat tire. When somebody gets really annoyed with someone else.
We'd love for you to see what it looks like for us to be family. To tangibly walk out the aspects of the gospel. When we connect with one another. Love one another. Relate to one another. And have nothing in common other than we eat food and love Jesus.
So if you're hanging out and you're not a Christian. We would invite you into a community group. To come be a part of what it looks like as we're a gospel people. If you say, no thanks. I don't know Jesus and that makes me uncomfortable. And I don't want to go hang out at your house.
I would say, I understand that. And would welcome you to keep hanging out with us on Sundays. We'll play can jam. We'll go eat meals afterwards. Not at people's houses necessarily. We'll study and talk about Jesus.
And this is a really safe place for you to do that. Because we're not here because we're good and moral and awesome. We're here because we know we aren't. And Jesus is awesome. We don't use a lot of big words. Because we don't know a lot.
And the big ones we do use are Bible words. And we'll try to explain them. So we think it's a really safe place if you're not a Christian to hang out. A really good group of people to be around. Actually, when I moved, I felt like I was moving to plant a church. That God had called us to plant a church.
And after a while, I realized that Jesus was just saying, Ah, you can come be a part of what I'm doing. You can come be a part of the family I'm starting. You can come be a part of the people that you'll get to know and love and walk through life together. You can come be a part of that. And I don't know about the plant a church thing, but you can come hang out with my church. Be a part of my people.
And I was like, all right, Jesus, that sounds good. And I've actually gotten to see the gospel bear fruit and grow, and it's been wonderful. If you're hanging out and you are a Christian, we would say hop into a community group. Walk in family with us. Be who you're designed to be. So we have a gospel identity.
We have a communal identity. We have a missional identity. Hop in. Walk through life. Carve out time in your schedule to be in relationships with others. And that's difficult, and sometimes we have seasons of life where our schedules don't line up and work around it.
But figure it out. It's good for us. It's healthy. If someone's a Christian and they say, I want to hang out, but I don't really – I just want to do the Sunday thing. But with as much love as I can say, I don't think that's good for us.
I don't think that's – I think you're missing out. And I think it – we're not designed as a church to operate that way. So the way that we use our spiritual gifts, the way that we walk through life, the way that we serve and pastor and love and shepherd one another is only in our community groups. That's how we are. And so there are a lot of churches where service opportunities and being able to use your gifts take place other places, and you have that opportunity. But for us, we feel called to be this, to be in community throughout the week, loving and serving and inviting people into what we have.
And if you're a Christian in here and you're a part of a community group, hop in more. Pour into what it looks like to be in life with each other, to walk through life together and to live out the identity we have where we get to bear fruit and grow together as the family that Jesus has made us into. Paul says he's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. That we get to, as Jesus changes our hearts, grow in love for one another and grow as we walk together on mission. And so some of the things that we're praying through is we'll walk through Colossians, but we're praying that we would grow in what it looks like to be community.
That we would grow in the depth of understanding of what it is for us to be gospel people. And that we would continue to invite more and more people into normal, everyday life of us following Jesus. Messing up, repenting, growing, getting to see what that looks like as they walk with us as we pursue Jesus in obedience to him. And so that's our hope. That's our prayer. And we pray that we'll continue to multiply more and more groups of people who love Jesus, walk with Jesus, and follow Jesus in normal, everyday life.
And we pray, and we're going to sing and celebrate the fact that we've been made into Christ's family. God, I thank you that my identity is not based off of who I am, what I do, what I accomplish, how smart I am, how hard I work. I thank you that you have made us holy. That we are saints. And God, I thank you for as difficult as it is that we get to be a part of family. That we get to walk through life with a team.
That we don't have to be alone, but that we get to have successes and failures together. As the people that you've made us into. God, I pray that you would help us to grow in our understanding of what that looks like. To grow in what it looks like to invite more people into that. To open our homes and open our hearts and to grow in our understanding of who you've made us. So that we might move forward in what it looks like to invite more people into that.
God, we pray that you would bear fruit and grow among us. So the gospel, through your truth and your grace, would bear fruit and grow. More and more people would hop in and we'd have more and more growth and maturity. And repentance and love. God, we need your presence. May you help us to grow in our love in the spirit.
May we make much of your name. Help us to be your people. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You've got to stand and sing with me.
Resurrection and Return
Transcript
We are in our third week of our Jesus series, and so we've just set aside three weeks coming out of Easter to just talk about Jesus. We said we were going to look at some specific aspects of who He was and what He accomplished and what the Bible says about Him. And so the first week we kind of spent some time talking about who He was as a human, that He has had a disproportionate effect on the earth. So that Jesus lived in a rural hick town of the Roman Empire where there are things like Uncle Daddy's and that kind of stuff. He kind of grew up in this area, and He lived to be about 33. And when He died, He had about 120 people following Him, and it really didn't make a whole lot of sense.
He never did any of the things you're supposed to do to be famous. He talked a lot about a kingdom, but He didn't do what you're supposed to do to be a king. He didn't do what you're supposed to do to lead a rebellion against the Roman Empire. It didn't make sense, the impact that He's had in history. And so we just looked at the fact that not only is that true, but He also walked around claiming to be God. And so then we looked and said that He is God, that Jesus is God who became a human.
And then that last week we spent some time talking about the crucifixion, that Jesus' primary mission, the reason He came to earth was to die, to be crucified. And so we looked at what it means for us that God died, what the crucifixion was and what that accomplished on our behalf. And so tonight we're going to be looking at the resurrection. We're going to be talking about the fact that Jesus didn't stay dead. He came back to life. So resurrection, we're not saying that He came back as a life force.
We're not saying that His spirit came back. We're not saying that He was reincarnated into some other form. What we're saying is that Jesus resurrected, that He, Jesus the man who was God, was taken to a cross, was beaten brutally, was hung on a cross, was murdered, was executed, had a spear run through His side after He was dead, was laid in a tomb after being wrapped up in some cloths and put pounds and pounds of ointment and wrappings, grave clothes on Him. And that three days later that same Jesus, that same body was walking around talking to people, eating, letting people touch the holes in His hands and the holes in His side that He was resurrected, that He came back to life.
And so that's what we're going to be talking about tonight. We're going to be spending some time looking at the resurrection and Jesus' return. And we're going to be coming out of 1 Corinthians 15. And so the resurrection proves all the other stuff that Jesus said and did. It affirms it. It confirms it.
It proves it. So Jesus walks around saying that He's God, and that's awkward. Like, I would suggest to you, don't say that at work tomorrow. Just don't be like over at the coffee maker and be like, yes, you know, it's kind of hard for me to wake up in the morning because I'm God. Like, I just wouldn't suggest it. And so, you know, but Jesus walks around saying He's God.
He talks a lot about this kingdom, that He's going to set up a kingdom. And He keeps saying, I'm going to die. Like, He keeps telling His disciples He's going to die. So the point that He's talking about His kingdom and He's like, okay, this isn't how you set up a kingdom. This isn't how you lead a rebellion. So He's talking to His disciples.
He's like, all right, we're going to set up a kingdom. And they're like, all right, what's the plan? He's like, well, first, I'm going to die. I mean, to the point that Peter takes Him to the side and is like, I don't think you understand how this works. Like, a kingdom needs a king. I think you're doing it wrong.
Like, you shouldn't die. This isn't how this is going to work. Like, we agree that you're going to be king. Dying isn't a good process for that. It's going to be hard for you to lead this. So, like, if I was going to lead a rebellion, I wouldn't say, step one, murder me.
Like, that's just, you just don't do that because then what would happen to the rebellion? Like, it wouldn't work out well. And so Jesus says He's going to be king, and His purpose is to die. And so His disciples think that's weird. He doesn't do what you ought to do to set up an earthly kingdom. But Jesus was setting up an eternal kingdom, and He knew something His disciples didn't.
And so what we're going to do is we're going to hop into this text. And this is what Paul saw in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 12. And so we started in 1 Corinthians 15 on Easter, and we walked through the first bit where Paul basically says, that I delivered to you as of first importance that which I also received, that Jesus, that Christ, died in accordance with the Scriptures, died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures. And then he goes through all these people that Jesus, after He rose, talked to and saw.
And then he goes to this part where we're picking up in 12. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. So what Paul's saying is that he's talking to this church, and he's proclaiming Christ is raised, but he's saying some of you are saying there is no resurrection, that Jesus didn't raise from the dead. And so he's going to unpack this, and basically what he's going to say is, let's look at, he's going to walk through and say, let's look at what it means for us if Christ was not raised.
So if the resurrection verifies and solidifies everything for us as Christians, Paul's going to unpack this as, okay, I just want to let you know, if there is no resurrection, this is what that means for us. And so that's what we're going to look at now. Verse 13, But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. So he's saying it's a waste of time.
So what Paul would say is, this right here is a waste of time if Jesus hasn't been raised. And I would agree with him. Paul says preaching is in vain. So he's like, I wouldn't be doing this. I went to school to play football, and I got a business degree. I wouldn't be doing this if Christ hadn't been raised.
Like, that's, I just, I wouldn't be here. And y'all wouldn't be here either. So he says our preaching is in vain, our faith is in vain. He says we are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testify about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. And so what he's saying is, he's talking to a Jewish audience. So they believe in God, and he's saying, look, we're even lying about God.
Like, we're making stuff up about God, and that's not okay, because we're going to meet him one day, and we probably shouldn't have run around lying about it. He said this is a problem. So, for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, that's verse 16. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
So what he says there is, if Christ has been raised, your sins are still on you. Like, you haven't been forgiven of them, he hasn't taken them away. And those who have fallen asleep, and fall asleep just means, it means died. It's just a nice way of saying died. He doesn't mean falling asleep. He doesn't mean, like, if Christ hasn't been raised, and that guy fell asleep, well, then he's perished.
He means died. And what he's saying is that they've died in their sins, so they're in trouble. Like, they still have issues between them and God, and so it's a problem now. They've not only died, but they've perished, if Christ hasn't been raised. We're still in our sins. And then he says this, if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
So what Paul's saying is, if Christ hasn't been raised, people shouldn't be mad at us. They should feel sorry for us if Christ hasn't been raised. What Paul's saying is that the Christian life should look so radical, should only make sense in light of the resurrection, that if Christ hasn't been raised, we've really made some bad decisions. If our hope is only here, so that we're told as Christians that Jesus is going to save us from our sins, that we're going to be taken to heaven and live in eternity with him, but our hope is only here, then we're in trouble. If when we die, Christ hasn't been raised, then we're in trouble, because we as Christians have lived our lives in a way that only makes sense.
We've banked on the resurrection. Now, I think that was true for Paul. We're going to look at a passage where he kind of lays out some of the stuff that's happened in his life. I don't know for American Christians how often that is true. I just don't know if my neighbors look at me and go, if the resurrection isn't true, if what Chet tells me about Jesus isn't true, I feel sorry for him because of the decisions he makes. It would be like if you had a friend who was trying to start a business, and they were banking everything.
They had cashed in everything they had to get this business going. They had leveraged all of their time, all of their effort, all of their money, all of their savings to get this business going. You'd be looking at them going, I hope this business works out for you. And if it does, it'll be a good thing. If people want this product, if this works out. But if it doesn't, I feel sorry for you because you don't have anywhere else to go.
Like all your eggs are in that basket. That's what Paul says it's supposed to look like for Christians. Now, my wife and I were watching the movie Walter Mitty. It's a recent movie with Ben Stiller in it, and I enjoyed it. It had a little bit of like independent film kind of qualities to it. So it was like slowly killing Anna the entire time that we watched it.
We got to the end of it, and she's going, oh, how long is this movie? And I'm like, shh, shh. Because they're in the end. It is the part where they're saying the things that connect everything, and you're finding out. It's all coming together. And she's going, oh.
And I said, shh. And she goes, you can't be serious. She's looking at the side of my face. You can't be serious. You're enjoying this right now? And I'm like, I'm trying to watch the movie.
No, seriously, say this movie is garbage. Just say the movie is garbage. I'm like, be quiet. She's like, this is garbage. You can't honestly be enjoying this. So I had to pause it and be like, look, I am enjoying this, and you need to be quiet because they're saying things.
But in the movie, maybe I just gave you a little bit too big of a picture of what it looks like when I'm watching this. But in the movie, Walter Mitty works at Time Magazine, and what he does is he develops films. So he's in this creepy-looking basement thing with one other dude, and they send in pictures. And Time Magazine has pictures of all over the world. So war-torn regions, the tops of mountains, like anywhere that seems, you know, they're on shipping decks and oil rigs, and they're sending him all these pictures.
And all he does is he shows up to work, and he develops the film. And so in the movie, Walter Mitty has all of these, like, people will be just talking to him, and then he just, like, zones out and is imagining that he's doing some kind of a great cliff dive thing or fighting people and saving stuff. Like, all of this kind of, the whole time he zones out. And I feel like sometimes we've all got a little bit of Walter Mitty in us. We've all got a little bit of times where we just, we dream of pouring our lives out for something. We dream of having our life mean more than what the American dream says it's supposed to mean.
We have these moments when we're like, I wish I was just a part of something bigger. And that my overall goal wasn't just to stack up comforts around myself. Like, is that my goal? I have these moments where I'm like, is my goal to have a certain Job so that I can retreat to my home in the evenings and have a screen and then hopefully get a bigger screen and a bigger screen and better sound system and a comfortable couch so I can just sink into comfort and escape from the world. There are these moments, certainly, we have dreams where we've thought about maximizing our comfort. We've had dreams where we've daydreamed about maximizing our vacations or our sex life or our toys or anything.
We've had dreams, but we're not particularly proud of those. I'm not even drawn to those, but I feel like there's something in all of us that says, God, I wish I could just be a part of something where I leveraged everything for something bigger, for something that mattered more. I just wish that I could have my life be the adrenaline rush of pushing my chips all in on something. And what Paul is saying is that is the Christian life and that if Christ hasn't been raised, we are most to be pitied. People should feel sorry for us. And Paul, when he says this, it's true for him.
I'm going to read you all part of 2 Corinthians. It's his second letter he wrote to the Corinthians. I'm just going to read through it really quick. It's in chapter 11 if you want to check it out later. But he's talking about his life with Christ and he says this, For with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.
Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship. Through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
And apart from these things, there's daily pressure on me for the anxiety for all the churches. What Paul's saying is I've leveraged everything. Banking on Jesus. I've leveraged everything on Christ. And he says, And if the resurrection isn't true, you should just feel sorry for me. Because I've put everything in on this.
It's the same thing we see with the disciples. We see the disciples after, the guys that hung out with Jesus were trained by him for three years. After he dies, they're hiding. They're like scared. They're inside locked doors in Jerusalem. It's like these huddled up.
They're fearing that somebody's going to try to come get them. All the time it says that they're locking their doors. And at one point, Peter's like, I guess I'm going to just go fishing. I'm going to go back to what I was doing. And so they're afraid and they're confused and they don't know what's happening. And then Jesus shows back up and starts talking to them.
He rose again and starts talking to them. And then we see in the book of Acts, all of the disciples are sold out for the gospel. There's one point where they're taken in front of the Sanhedrin, the same people that crucified Jesus. And the Sanhedrin says, we want you to shut up and quit talking about Jesus. And the disciples say, you do what you got to do. We're not going to stop talking about Jesus.
It ain't happening. And so they beat them. And it says, the disciples left rejoicing that they'd had the opportunity to be beaten for the name of Jesus. That's a different crew than the guys that were hiding. That's a whole different group of guys. Every single one of those 11 guys was martyred, murdered for their faith in Jesus.
And all of them were like, I'm not shutting up. I've gone all in on this. I saw him. I saw him face to face. I touched him. I watched him eat.
And I'm going all in. I'm going all in that there is a resurrection and that this thing that Jesus has started, his kingdom, is true and it's real and I'm all in. And so what Paul says is for Christians who've gone all in, if the resurrection isn't true, people should feel sorry for us. And then he says this in verse 20. So verse 19, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied, but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.
So he just turns everything back on his head and he says, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. This is what Paul's saying. Paul's saying, I may have pushed all my chips in, but I got a winning hand. Paul's saying, I may have invested everything I have. I haven't diversified at all, but I've got a guaranteed return on investment. My ROI is on lock.
That's what Paul's saying. And that's true for Christians. We can push everything in and in fact, Christ has been raised. Not a moment, not a breath, not a dollar, not an ounce of sweat or blood that's poured out for Jesus is going to return void because Christ has been raised. You know what that means? It means that Christians can live the life we've always dreamed about living.
It means that we actually have something bigger to pour ourselves into. Something that actually matters, that actually has worth, that actually has value. It means that Christians ought to be leveraging everything we have for the gospel because in fact, Christ has been raised. This little warm up, this prelude that we have on earth is just that. We've got a little while to pour everything we have out for Christ because he has been raised. We've got an eternity to come and we can live lives poured out for what is important, for what is true and what is right.
We get to. Verse 20, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So what that means, first fruits is the first fruit you get from a harvest. So when you have a harvest and you get a little bit of fruit, that's your first fruits. And what it's saying is that Jesus is the first fruits from the dead, first fruits of those who are going to be raised. And what the first fruits mean is that there is a harvest.
So the first fruits are just the first to come of the rest of the harvest. And so all it's saying is that Jesus rose, but he's just the first one. Everyone else is going to be resurrected as well. We're going to be raised to life. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. the Bible's very clear. We were intended to live forever.
I don't know if y'all know that. I just want to make that clear. We were intended to live forever. Sin caused death to enter into the world, but we were designed, we have souls that are designed to live forever. And everyone in this room will die and will live forever. So everyone in this room will die and will continue on, our souls will continue on for eternity.
But he says, For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. Let me unpack that real quick. Adam. Of Adam and Eve fame. You may have seen pictures of him naked in a garden with some lady.
That's Adam, Adam and Eve. He was the first man ever created and he kept it together sinlessly for like a chapter in the Bible. And then he sinned, he messed it up, botched it up. And so Adam started off with a clean slate. He and God were in a right relationship and he had a clean slate so that he could choose to follow God, to live in the right relationship with God and thereby add righteousness to his slate or he could choose to rebel against God to worship himself as God and thereby mess up his slate, not have a clean slate anymore. He chose to rebel.
So Adam chose to bring sin into the world and when he did he ushered in death. All of us were born without a clean slate. Everyone in this room, we weren't born with a clean slate. We were born with the slate that Adam gave us which is a sinful, messed up, broken slate. Like our hearts didn't start off good and get turned bad. They started off bad.
Anybody who has little kids knows this. And I can just tell you we were all little kids at one point. Nobody, we talked about this some last week, we had to be taught how to be generous. We had to be taught how to share, how to love. We had to be taught that certain things are virtuous and good. Like we sing little songs to teach kids like honesty is the best and you shouldn't lie because then you'd be a jerk.
Like we teach them little songs to teach them about truth and honesty and generosity and sharing. Like we don't, nobody has to teach kids songs about how to be selfish and how to be mean to each other and when someone has something you want punch them in the face. Like we don't have to tell that to kids, they just do that on their own. And so none of us were born with a clean slate. We were all off. We're all twisted.
We're all broken. We're all pointing in the wrong direction. And so in Adam all die. In Adam we're all born. We're going to live and we're going to die. We're going to be sinful and broken and twisted and off and in Adam all die.
And then it says in Christ all shall be made alive. Now in Christ Jesus comes this is what we talked about. He came and he lived a perfect sinless life. That he lived in a right relationship with God and that his purpose was to die. The Bible says that our sin was placed on him and that Jesus was crushed. He bore our iniquities by his stripes were healed.
That Jesus died for our sin. He took our sin. The Bible says he became our sin and that in him we become righteous. That Jesus takes our sin and he dies for our sin and that when he rose again he conquered sin and death and hell on our behalf and that we can have life. Let me tell you this. Those of us who are in Christ you do not have a clean slate.
Jesus does not give you a clean slate. He gives you a slate that has his righteousness already applied to it. He doesn't just clean our slate and give it back to us. He takes our sin he cleans our slate off and then he applies his righteousness his account his goodness his humility his generosity his love it's applied to our account. Everything you've ever looked at in a human and thought man I like that about that guy. Man I wish I could be more like that girl. everything Jesus had and did and modeled for us perfectly and that has been applied to our account.
About that guy. Man I wish I could be more like that girl. everything Jesus had and did and modeled for us perfectly and that has been applied to our account. I'm so glad let me tell you something for those of us in Christ you don't want a clean slate you want Jesus' slate you want to sit behind him in class and Mark down his answers that's how you want to do that. That's how that works. Jesus doesn't
Hand us a clean slate I'm so glad because if Jesus had taken it and said alright I took your sin slate's clean now keep it together I'd have been like keep it together yes is up to me to do good from now on yes oh crap is it bad to say that in front of you and Jesus would be like and he'd give it back and he had to Mark it up and I would have kept it together for like
14 Seconds I don't even know depending on how much I breathed in between the time he handed it to me like that's not how that works though his slate is applied to our account we were made righteous in Jesus and so all of us are going to die in Adam but in Christ all will be made alive we'll all be brought back we'll all be given life for those of us who are in Christ who have placed our faith and our hope in the resurrection who have banked
On the resurrection not our good deeds not our hard work not on our ability to clean our slate and add good things to it but on the resurrection on the fact that Jesus died in our place for our sins so that we might have life in him so it says this 22 for as in Adam all die have you noticed that all die raise your hand in this room if you're going to die okay exactly now
There's a little bit of us that's like man that was kind of morbid why did he make us raise our hand for that like if I had said raise your hand if you get hungry everybody would be like oh I'll get hungry and he wouldn't have been too worried about it but it's like man I didn't want to raise my hand and say I was going to die like that was just kind of rude like why would you bring that up there's something about us that never sees death as normal or okay
It's as natural as breathing it's as natural as birth it's as natural as eating and sleeping but there's something about us that screams inside of us every time death is brought up or occurs this is wrong this is broken and this shouldn't happen because it shouldn't Adam had a clean slate and he messed it up we weren't supposed to die we're going to live for eternity
But Adam's ushered in death Jesus brings in life so for as in Adam all die so also in Christ shall all be made alive but each in his own order Christ the first fruits then at his coming those who belong to Christ okay so Jesus rose again over 2,000 years ago rose again wasn't reincarnated didn't come back as a spirit came back as Jesus the Jesus who was walking around talking to people talks and trains
His disciples for a little bit longer appears to a bunch of people talks to people and then he ascends into heaven bodily like he takes off into heaven I don't know what that looked like I think it was cool but he ascends into heaven and we're told that he rules and reigns as a king over all of creation and that he's coming back so he rose again and he's coming back and he's going to
Claim all of those who are in him so it says but each in his own order Christ the first fruits then at his coming those who belong to Christ you don't belong to Christ by being good if that was the test if Jesus came back to get moral good people he'd come back to the earth and be like oh okay there aren't any that's how that would work the Bible says we've all sinned
And fallen short and in Christ all are going Adam all are going to die Jesus comes back and gets those who are in him who've placed their faith and their hope in him not in their works not in their effort not in their good deeds or ability to think well in him in his death and resurrection on their behalf so he comes and gets all of those
Who belong to Christ then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and every power for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet so Jesus comes back he rescues his people and he destroys his enemies Jesus came humbly once Jesus suffered once Jesus died
Once he doesn't do it again when he returns he claims his people and he destroys his enemy every kingdom every power every authority everything that's ever stood up in opposition to the one true and right king of this world will be destroyed by Jesus and brought and put under his feet we often think of Jesus as a Galilean peasant and he was but he is no longer
He is a reigning king and the picture that the Bible brings up all the time is this king who returns to rescue his people and to crush his enemies the Bible talks about being led both his enemies and those who he set free being led in triumphal procession so that Jesus rides out he gets his people and he crushes his enemy and like a warrior king he leads them back into the city
To God those who he's taken captive and the captives that he set free that those of us in Christ will get to follow in that train celebrating the fact that we were slaves to sin we were given to death we were going to be destroyed by every rule and dominion and power and that Jesus showed up and destroyed them on our behalf and rescued us Jesus is king and he's God and he rules
And he reigns forever and his kingdom there is no end and so what he came to accomplish when he came to die he wasn't setting up a kingdom that could run from the time he was 33 to the time he was 80 his goal wasn't a 47 year kingdom his goal wasn't to own the little piece of the world that Rome had or to carve out a niche and own Jerusalem that's not the kingdom
That Jesus came to set up he came to destroy our ultimate enemies of sin and death and Satan and hell so that he might be king of all that he has created that he could be king over every breath and every atom and everything that exists in all of creation because he created it all it belongs to him and it is his and he is king over it it says this the last enemy to be destroyed is death for God has put all things in subjection
Under his feet we stop there Jesus Jesus destroys death I love that the grim reaper dresses up like Jesus for Halloween because Jesus is the only thing scarier than the grim reaper that's how that works the grim reaper checks under his bed for Jesus like that's Jesus it destroys death so I just want to let you know as a Christian when you go to die feel free to with your last breath say hey death
Jesus is coming for both of us I'm just not scared about it see those of us in Christ Jesus is going to return and he's going to take us to be his and he's going to destroy all of his enemies so that in heaven in his reign where he is king there is no sin and there is no pain and there is no death he comes to set it back right to the way it was at a great cost to himself a great cost to himself
That we might be his people and that the world might be back under his rule and his reign the band's going to come back up and play and I just want to wrap this series up I want us to talk for just a second Jesus is God who became a man who lived perfectly sinlessly on our behalf he's God who went to the cross to die because we had rebelled against him and we deserved wrath
And pain and punishment and destruction and that Jesus took that wrath and pain and punishment and destruction on our behalf that he put his sin put our sin on himself and was crushed for it as God's enemy all of God's enemies will be destroyed and Jesus was crushed as God's enemy so that we who were God's enemies
Could be made right with God and when it comes to the end the process is the same everyone will be made alive those who are in Christ who have had him be crushed on their behalf will be alive in him for eternity in his joy and his peace because his righteousness has been applied to our account and those who remain outside of Christ will be destroyed
As God's enemy will be crushed as Jesus was crushed on our behalf so Jesus is God who became a man he's God who died on our behalf and he's the God who rules and reigns who rose from the grave and who is returning to make his church his own to bring his people to himself and to rule over eternity and we
Who are Christians those of us in the room who say I follow Jesus he's died on my behalf let me tell you you don't have a clean slate you don't you have righteousness God looks at you the same way he looks at Jesus all of Jesus' grace and humility and generosity have been applied to us and we can go all in we get to
We get to leverage everything we have for the expanse of the gospel nothing is too much Jesus has already given us everything nothing is too much nothing he could ask of our time of our finances of our life of where we live and how we work and how we interact with our neighbors it can never be too much because he's already given us everything so if you're in here and you're a Jesus follower you say
Jesus' account has been applied to mine my sins have been put on him he's given me his righteousness I just want to invite you to go all in to live like Paul to leverage everything you have for the gospel that doesn't mean you move to Africa maybe maybe Jesus tells you to if he does pack your stuff that might just mean that you leverage everything you have in your neighborhood everything you have
At work that you walk in community and repentance and you pursue everyone around you with the gospel and here's the good news you don't have to be good at it because your account is not clean your slate is not white clean it's already righteous because of Jesus I'm not saying go earn it I'm saying hop in with a clean slate that already has all of Jesus' righteousness applied to it
And if you're in here today and you're not a Jesus follower in fact Christ has been raised we can have life and hope in him so I would just invite you to believe to repent and to to know that Jesus paid for your sin that in Adam you are going to die but in Christ you can be made alive real life
True life joy and hope for eternity in Jesus so if you're a Jesus follower go all in and if you don't follow Jesus if you haven't repented of your sin if you haven't placed your hope in him you're still working to prove your worth and your merit in life you're still working to be good enough I would invite you
To realize you never will be but in Jesus you can be so we're going to sing we're going to praise Jesus the God who came who lived perfectly on our behalf who died in our place who rose again and is coming back to rescue his church and crush his enemies Jesus we thank you for who you are we thank you for your grace thank you for the love that you've poured out
On us and we thank you that you are king and God I pray right now that as a warrior king you would advance your kingdom in the hearts and lives of the people in this room that God you would bring about repentance that you would conquer all of the areas in our souls and our hearts where we set up defenses against you that God as king
You would expand your kingdom of grace and of love and of mercy we thank you that in you we have life in Jesus name we pray amen
Crucifixion
Transcript
So we'll be in Mark chapter 14. We're in our second week of our Jesus series, and we're just looking at who Jesus was, why he came, what he accomplished as the most influential man in history. We wanted to just cut out some time to talk about him. And so that's what we're doing, just some three specific things we're going to be looking at. So last week we looked at kind of the historical Jesus and how he comes to us through history, how he has unquestionably altered human history.
And so he kind of comes to us as a force through history. And so what we looked at last week was we just kind of talked about that and what historians have to say about him. And then we talked about the fact that part of the problem we have with Jesus is that he walked around telling people he was God. And so that kind of makes it difficult for us to approach him in a neutral way. It'd be like if you had, I don't know, like a really good high school science teacher. And I mean, they were just the best teacher.
They won Teacher of the Year awards all the time. They were great at like teaching kids science things like, you know, Bunsen burners and other science terms. And and then and then they started telling people they were God, like they would tell their students, you know, towards the end of the semester, just so, you know, the reason I'm a great science teacher is because I'm actually God as a human. No, no, we can no longer treat you the same science teacher. You're done messed up now like we can't. There's nothing we can do at this point.
So then parents would have problems or you you could no longer be like, yeah, OK, so he's eccentric, but he's a really good science teacher like that wouldn't fly. We would have a problem now. And that's kind of the problem we have with Jesus is because he comes to us through history. And we can't just be like, well, he was a really good teacher. It's like, no, because he walked around saying he was God. So it makes it hard for us to approach him in a normal way.
And so what we looked at last week was kind of our options when it comes to Jesus because of this, so that he is either lying to us, knows he's not God and he's lying or is crazy, genuinely thinks he's God, but is not or that he is God. So those are kind of our options when it comes to Jesus. Just for you all who weren't here, we kind of landed on the he is God one. So that's kind of why we get together, because we believe that he is God. And so what we're looking at tonight is his death. All around the world, Christians gather together to study scripture and sing about the cross, sing about blood, sing about all kinds of.
I remember when we were going, we were going to a concert and a buddy of mine was going with us and I told him it was a Christian concert. I was like, hey, man, just so you know, there's going to be a bunch of people like singing about a cross and singing about a blood, singing about blood. And it's, you know, it may be a little weird for you. And he's like, no, the last concert I went to was Oz Fest. So shouldn't be too much different.
OK, but but we do and we get excited about that and we sing about that. And it's even on jewelry now. So people wear cross jewelry. Believers and unbelievers will have crosses or cross tattoos. And it'd be similar to like wearing an electric chair around your neck. That's an instrument of torture, an instrument used for execution.
So I'd be like, hey, check out this sweet lethal injection needle I got on my arm. So we kind of had in the church, we've gotten used to this symbol and we celebrate it and we sing about it. And so what we're going to look at is Jesus's death. We're going to take tonight to just kind of unpack it and we're going to look at it in two ways. So we'll be in the Gospels and then we'll jump to Romans.
And what we're looking at is how did Jesus's death work as Jesus was a man? So Jesus came and was a man. He was God who was a man. And so what were the aspects of his death? If you looked at it as a man hanging on a cross, what did he go through? And then we're going to look at the fact that since he was God who was a man, what did he accomplish for us in his death and the fact that he died for us and rose again.
And so we'll be spending some time in the Gospel of Mark. And just so you know, the Gospels, which are the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are not biographies of Jesus's life. They aren't. We have very little information about his birth. Matthew mentions it. Luke talks about it.
That's why every Christmas when we're going to celebrate Jesus's birth, you're going to read from Luke because Luke's the only guy who spends any significant amount talking about it. We know one story about Jesus when he was 12. That's it. The rest of it picks up when he's about 30, covers about three years of his life very quickly, and then all of them hone in on the last week of his life, his death, burial, and resurrection. And so some people have even called the Gospels passion narratives, which passion just means the suffering of Jesus, passion narratives with long introductions. So the Gospel writers, if you pay attention to how they wrote their Gospels, were, hey, I really want to tell you about the cross, but if I start there, it'll be confusing.
So let's talk a little bit about who Jesus was, what he did, why he went to the cross. Now let me unpack the cross so that Matthew, 33% of it is last week of his life to death, burial, and resurrection. Mark, 37%, Luke, 25%, and the Gospel of John is 42% the last week of Jesus's life. So he lived for about 33 years, was in ministry for about three, and all of them are going to spend a disproportionate amount talking about the last week of his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. And that's why Jesus comes to us as a force through history, because of this moment. And so that's what we're going to be unpacking tonight.
So we'll be picking up in Mark 14, starting in verse 53. I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll get started. God, we ask you to meet with us, to teach us. God, we need the cross. We need you to have died in our place. And so God, I pray that you would show us through your word and through your Holy Spirit what that meant, how that worked, and how that applies to us now.
So God, be with us tonight, lead us tonight. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. We're going to pick up in chapter 14, verse 53. And they led Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes came together.
Okay. So what we have skipped, what has just happened, what has just preceded this, is Jesus was with his disciples. He washes their feet. They share the last supper together. And so that's where we actually get communion, or the Lord's table, or the Lord's supper, whatever different people call it. Can the Catholic church consider it a sacrament?
We consider it a sacrament, too. But anyway, that's where Jesus says, this is my body, this is my blood. It has the wine and the bread, and says, it's broken for you, that's poured out for you. It's a covenant in my new, a new covenant in my blood. And he kind of walks through that. Then they go out into a garden, and he invites his disciples to be praying.
He goes off and is praying by himself. His disciples are exhausted, so they keep falling asleep. Jesus is praying. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, was a physician. And he tells us that Jesus prayed with such intensity that he sweat drops of blood. This is called hematidrosis, which is actually where, because of intense stress levels, Jesus, understanding that he was going to the cross the next day, because of intense stress levels and increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, capillaries that feed our sweat glands burst.
And so Jesus' capillaries began to rupture, and he began to sweat drops of blood due to an increased level of stress. Not only was he going to be going to the cross the next day, enduring torture and persecution, he also was going to be facing the wrath of God and taking the wrath of God in our place. That's actually the term for that is propitiation, that Jesus took God's wrath on our behalf. And so he knew that he was going to be doing that and being separated from God. So Jesus is eternally God within the Trinity, and for the first time in ever, in all of eternity, and for the only time in all of eternity, Jesus would actually be separated from God and clothed in our sin.
That he would actually, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 5, 21, that he became our sin. And so Jesus was going to, that actually might be 2 Corinthians, became our sin so that we could become righteous. And so Jesus, in this moment, is praying fervently and is stressed beyond, it's very rare that this would happen. And so I just wanted to point out in that, in the fact that Luke points that out for us, because we don't think about this often, Jesus had a heart that pumped blood through veins and arteries. He had capillaries. He had the ability to have an increased stress level.
He had the ability to have capillaries rupture. He sweats. Jesus was fully man. And so there are times when we would almost approach the cross as if Jesus, because he was God, somehow got out easily in it or was able to withstand it more because he was God. But he was fully man so that his blood pressure could increase to the point, with stress levels to the point that he would actually have hematidrosis.
And so Jesus stays up all night praying. And then Judas, who was one of his disciples, has betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. And a band of men come with clubs and swords to take Jesus. And so they arrest him and take him to the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders come together to put him on trial at night. And so Jesus has not slept. And that's where we pick up in verse 53.
And they led Jesus to the high priest and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. And Peter had followed him at a distance. Peter's one of his disciples right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. Now, the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death. But they found none for many bore false witness against him.
But their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, we heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands. And in three days I will build another not made with hands. Yet even about this, their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?
But he remained silent and made no answer. Jesus in John chapter 18 says that no one takes his life from me, but I lay my life down and I pick it up again. And so Jesus is going to the cross willfully, who is in control the whole time and laying his life down. He's not making a defense. He's not a victim, although he was victimized, but he's not a victim unwillingly. He is going to the cross willingly because he is in it going to accomplish something for us.
And so high priest stood in the midst of them and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? 61. But he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am.
And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witness do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, prophesy.
And the guards received him with blows. So Jesus standing before the high priest, they're accusing him of things. He's not saying anything. And the high priest stands up and says, you tell me, are you the son of the blessed? Are you the Christ? And Jesus says, I am.
And you'll see me coming at the you'll see me seated at the right hands of power and coming in the heavens. And so the high priest tears his clothes and says, you've heard his blasphemy, which he he says, you've heard him just declare that he is God. He's mocked God because he is a human has declared that he is God, that he's the son of God. And this is unacceptable. What do you what is your decree? And everybody says he deserves death.
So then they take him. They put a bag over his head after they've spit on him. They put a bag over his head and they begin to take it says they receive him with blows and they begin to hit him and tell him to prophesy. And the reason they put a bag over his head. Two reasons. One, so he can't see who's punching him.
So they can mock him and say, who prophesied to us. You know, you're a prophet. Tell us who punched you. But the other reason is so that he can't see where the punches are coming from so that he can't prepare. So that in having his head covered, there's no way for him to to to flinch or to be prepared for when they're going to hit him or how they're going to hit him.
And so they put a bag over his head after spitting on him, beat him and then hand him over to other guards who receive him with blows. So they take him, hit him as well. We're going to skip the next section. We're going to pick up in chapter 15. The next section is talking about Peter. So we're just following Jesus through the story.
15. And as soon as it was morning. So this has happened all night. Chief priest. The chief priest held a consultation and the elders and the scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.
Pilate is the governor over the Jewish territory of Jerusalem. He worked for the Roman government. So Jesus was just on trial with Jewish religious leaders and then is now being handed over to Roman officials. And the reason the Jewish people would have handed him over to the Romans was they weren't technically allowed to perform capital punishment. So they had to now take him to the Romans and convince the Romans you guys need to kill him.
The other reason that the Jews would rather do this is because they didn't want to offend the Jewish people that thought Jesus was a prophet or held him in high esteem. So there was a little bit of if the Romans kill him, we're a little bit less culpable. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And so when they accused Jesus, it's a blasphemy. It's of what we talked about last week where he claims to be God.
But in order to get the Romans to kill him, they didn't care about Jewish religious matters. They had to say, hey, he's saying he's the king of the Jews. And in being a king of the Jews, he's setting himself up in opposition to the Roman government. So they wanted him to be tried on treason. Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, you have said so.
And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you. But Jesus made no further answer. So that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the feast, so this is the feast of the Passover, he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have them release for them Barabbas instead.
And Pilate again said to them, what then shall I do with the man you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him. And Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him.
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. The reason the gospel translations and the gospels are going to just kind of brush past scourging and just say having scourged Jesus is because they all knew what that meant. They understood what the process of scourging was, whereas it doesn't really connect with us. We don't know what scourging is and haven't seen it and it's not something normal. It would be the same as if we said, yeah, he's condemned to the electric chair.
We understand what that process is, how that works. But when they say it was scourging, the reason they just kind of go past that is because they would have understood what that meant. So I'm going to just briefly take the time to explain what scourging was. So he was scourged at the hands of the Romans. Romans had perfected torture. They had existed for a while and they had taken the time to perfect torture so that they could rule and reign over this large area of territory with great fear in people's hearts.
And so scourging was usually 39 lashes because they found that at 40, people died. So they would refer to it as the 40 minus 1 because they were going to do 39 lashes, which is the most they felt like they could inflict on you before you died or just passed out and it was no longer able to keep scourging you effectively. So what they would have done is it would have been one man with a whip or two men with a whip known as a flagrum or a cat of nine tails. And it would either be one man who would rotate sides or two men who would take turns. And so they would take the person being scourged and they would put them on a post so that their hands were up or they would put them over a post just so that they were stretched out so they could get to this area, to the torso area.
And so they would have their back to them and they would take a cat of nine tails, which was leather straps. On the end of the leather straps, usually nine straps, would be metal balls, glass, bone, or hooks at the end of the straps. And the reason was the balls were used for tenderizing the flesh, much in the way that a butcher would tenderize meat. And so they then would have the glass bone and metal to catch into the skin so that when they pulled it out, it would catch here. And if they were good at it, they could bring it all the way around. And so for 39 lashes, they sat there and ripped Jesus's flesh off of his bones.
And so he would have been flayed open with flesh hanging and quivering and tender hanging open all the way around from his ribs to his back. That's why in Psalm 22 where David is prophesying about the cross, where Jesus hanging on the cross says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the first line of Psalm 22. They didn't have Numbers that was added later for our benefit, but the Numbers aren't there in the original text. And so they would have used that to describe that Psalm. And so Jesus is referencing that Psalm, which was written hundreds of years earlier, to describe in prophetically what Jesus was going to go through.
And in that Psalm, it talks about, I can see my ribs. So it is very likely that Jesus was so ripped open that he could see his ribs. You could see bones sticking out. The other thing that they would do while they were in that process is they've excavated these torture chambers in Rome. There are pockets in the wall that held salt. And so periodically during this process, they would go get handfuls of salt and throw it into the wounds of the victim.
So that that did two things. It increased pain and scarring and it cauterized it so that it would quit bleeding so that they can continue to torture the person for a longer amount of time. So having scourged Jesus, flayed him open, he handed him over to be crucified. Verse 16. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace. That is the governor's headquarters.
And they called together the whole battalion and they clothed him in a purple cloak, twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on him. So they took a crown of thorns to mock him and stuck it down into his head so that thorns jabbed into the tender flesh around the top of his head. So they put it on him and they began to salute him. Hail, king of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down to him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him.
Crucifixion was invented by the Persians in about 500 B.C. Most scholars believe it was perfected by the Romans. So it spread throughout the known world, but the Romans got really good at it. At one point, the Romans crucified 6,000 people at one time. They used crucifixion for Roman citizens were not crucified unless it was the most high treason because they considered it such a gruesome death. They only used it on those who were not Roman citizens.
Females were very rarely crucified. And on certain occasions when a female was crucified, they crucified them facing the cross so that people didn't have to see a woman suffer in such a see the face of a woman as she suffered in such a way. So what crucifixion was, Josephus, who was a Roman historian, referred to crucifixion as the most wretched of deaths. Ancient philosopher Roman Cicero asked that decent Roman citizens not even speak of the cross because it was too disgraceful for the subject of the ears of decent people. In Deuteronomy 21, the Jewish people refer to crucifixion or being hung on a tree as being cursed by God.
That in the law of God, it is a curse on those who are crucified. And so Jesus was crucified and cursed by God in our place. So it would have been in a public place. It would be similar to when we used to put people in the stocks in the center of a town. If we were going to crucify someone today, we'd probably do it over at Harvison in the way to the mall or something like that in the middle of Carolina's campus. That's kind of how they would do it.
So they took him out on a public place kind of outside of the city but on a place that entered into it so that many people saw him. And the Bible tells us that he carried his own crossbar and that a guy named Simon of Cyrene carried it. And so we understand that to mean that Jesus carried it for as long as he could because he had stayed up all night, because he had had the increased stress level, and because he had been scourged already. And so they would have taken a 50 to 100 pound crossbar and put that on him, on his shoulders and back that had already been torn open by the whipping that he had received.
And he would have carried it. It had been similar to a railroad tie. And he would have carried it as far as he could. Then Simon of Cyrene carries it the rest of the way. Then they would have placed it onto the top of the upright that was going to be used.
He would have been laid down, and they would have driven nails through. Scripture says his hands, most likely it was through here. The Greek word for hands includes anything from the elbow down. And so it was most likely through here in between these two bones in this nerve center, which is one of the most dense nerve centers in the human body. And so nails would have been driven through here and through the top of his feet. And then that crossbar would have been slid over into a pre-prepared hole.
And so Jesus would have slid and dropped into place. Because it was through these nerve centers, involuntary twitching most likely was associated with crucifix. And so Jesus would have hung on the cross. Twitching. They were usually naked or almost naked. Some were crucified at eye level.
We believe Jesus was crucified higher, which they also did so that you were more visible. And we know at one point when he goes to get something to drink, they put a sponge on a stick. So if they'd have been able to reach him, they might have not needed the stick. So Jesus then hung on the cross for six hours where in order to breathe, he would have had to have lifted up, twisted his arms, and pulled so that he could get enough air. Because the way you usually die on the cross is through exposure, starvation, or asphyxiation, suffocation. And so you have to lift yourself up in order to breathe.
So every time Jesus exhales or makes a statement, it was at great cost and great pain to him while he was on the cross. And so Jesus hangs on the cross for six hours while he's being mocked with his back that has been ripped open by scourging, rubbing against the cross every time he has to lift himself to speak. We know that it was a holy day. And the Jewish people, because of Deuteronomy 21, consider crucifixion a curse by God. So they would always take people who were crucified off of the cross at night.
That's actually in the law in Deuteronomy 21. So the Jewish leaders go and ask the Romans to break the legs of those who were crucified so that they wouldn't stay on it overnight, even though sometimes people who were crucified could stay on it for upward to a week, just depending. Jesus had been scourged. A lot of times crucified victims weren't necessarily scourged prior to hanging on the cross. And so when they go to Jesus six hours or so into it, he has already died. They break the legs of the other two men who were crucified with him.
Seeing Jesus has already died, they take a spear and they drive it through his side into his heart. We're told that none of his bones were broken, but when they did this, that blood and water came out, which in medical terms means he most likely died of asphyxiation, which means that basically due to suffocation, his heart exploded. And so that's where water and blood would have come from if the spear had pierced his heart sack. And so Jesus died. Gruesomely, horrifically, publicly, in the most shameful way that humans have invented to kill someone, Jesus died. And so the Bible is going to say that Jesus is God who became a man and that Jesus as God, fully capable of stopping this, fully capable of taking another route, fully capable of not going to the cross, lays his life down on the cross on our behalf.
So that Jesus as God died. And so what I want us to look at in the last part of tonight is why. What did Jesus accomplish in his death? Why would God see it important enough to become a man? And the way we see scripture playing out is he didn't become a man just to see how things were going, that God became a man with the express intentionality of dying. He continues to train his disciples.
I'm going to die. I'm going to be handed over into the hands of evil men. I'm going to be crucified. Three days later, I'm coming back. And he says that over and over again. Jesus came with the express purpose of dying.
And if he was God, and he was, why? Turn with me to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three. It's just a flip to your right. Page six, 11. If you're holding one of the Bibles that we have, we're asking the question now.
So if that's how God died, why did God die? Did he have to? Romans three, verse 21. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Righteousness means rightness or justice or goodness. So the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
And the law and the prophets is referring to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and then the books of prophecy in the Old Testament. Bear witness to it. The righteousness of God. So the rightness or the justness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
So verse 23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of the God. Here's what the Bible is going to say. Why Jesus died. Why Jesus came and why Jesus as God died. God in the beginning created the world to exist in a relationship with himself and the world rebelled. That humans who he made to be image bearers of himself chose to rather worship themselves, love other things more than they love God.
And that they thought that we believed that we have our own best interests at heart. That God doesn't know what's best for us and that we can make wiser decisions than he can. So we as humans rebelled. That we are sinners. That's what rebellion against God is. That's what choosing to pursue the things other than God is.
And so we are sinners by nature and choice. Which just means that we're born sinful. And then after that we choose to be sinful. And here's how we know that. I'll give you some examples. Nobody ever had to teach you how to lie.
Ever. You just knew. Nobody sat with a three-year-old. Like you didn't have an uncle that sat you down and said, Alright, let me explain something to you. I know you're three and it's going to be a little complex. But let me help you out.
If you do something and then your mom kind of takes that tone with you. The one that makes you feel uncomfortable inside like you're about to get in trouble. Just whatever she's asking. Just say the opposite happened. Or say you don't know. Or that you weren't involved.
Like it's hard. Like you can't even really explain that to a three-year-old. It would be hard to explain the concept of lying. But three-year-olds know how to lie. And you can hear people running. Something crashed.
You run into the other room. There's a kid holding a lamp. He's holding the power cord. Runs over to a broken lamp. Did you break that lamp? It doesn't seem like something I do.
Nobody has to teach them that. You can have a little kid three years old have Cheeto powder all over their face in their hair. Have you been eating Cheetos? No. I don't even like Cheetos. Nobody explains that to them.
Do you have to sit down a child and explain to them how to be selfish? No. You've got to teach them how to share. You have to teach humans how to be generous. You have to teach us how to be honest. And even as we grow up and we know, everyone in this room knows that life and society would be better if we were all just honest with each other.
And life and society would be better if we were all just generous. And let me tell you something. We lie and we're greedy. All of us. Because even though we know it's wrong, we still choose to pursue it. I lock my doors at night and sleep with a Springfield 45 in the bedside table.
I don't do that because I'm afraid of raccoons. I do that because of humans. I don't think a possum is going to bust up in my house and pick the lock and break in in the middle of the night. I think that a human might. Because the reason that the earth has problems, the reason that we have struggle and strife and war and infanticide and murder is because of humans. Because we're sinful and we're all sinful.
And so the Bible says that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's what Romans 23 says. Romans 3.23. What we just read. So what that means is, and so we'll sit and say, well, yeah, okay.
But I'm not that bad. Like if you lined up all the humans, I mean I may be near the middle, but I'm going to be on the good side of the middle. And so we either believe, we'll either believe that we have to be mostly good. So I've got to be like 51% good. You know, if I'm just 51% good, I'm okay. I'm mostly good.
I'm a pretty good person. Here's the problem with that. That's not how justice works. My wife and I, my wife, Anna, loves murder shows. Loves them. Creeps me out.
She loves them. The other night we started to wash one. It was late at night. I don't like washing them late at night. I wash them with her during the day because I can get something else in my brain before I go to sleep at night. We were washing one the other night.
We cut it off. And she looks at me and goes, are you going to be okay? I was like, yep. And it got started. And I was like, no. And I cut it off.
Because I don't like them. I don't like having that in my head before I go to sleep at night. And the reason I think that is is because, first of all, they mess with me. I'll be laying in bed thinking. I always like the ones. If we're going to watch one, I like it when it was like someone they knew murdered them.
Like their spouse murdered them. I'm a little less worried about that. But the ones where it's like they were watching TV and men entered their house. And I'm like, we're watching TV. Messing my head. I'll be looking over my shoulder like.
And she just goes to sleep at night because in the division of labor at our home, if someone broke in our house, that's my job. Like it ain't going to be like, hey, you know the chart, honey. It's Tuesday. You got to handle it now. I'm a Monday, Wednesday, Friday guy. Like that's not how that works.
So she just goes to sleep. I lay in bed with my eyes wide open. And I'll be like. They'll be like, he was so normal. I'll be like, I wonder if I. If the person who works at my hardware store murders people.
Like I just mess with my head. And so we were watching one the other day and it was a doctor had killed his wife. And when he went to trial, this is how this worked. The prosecution was trying to prove that the doctor had killed his wife. And the defense was trying to prove that the doctor had not killed his wife. That was the point of contention.
The defense did not come in and say, hey, judge, okay. He killed her. Pretty obvious. But we have verified fact reported cases of 50 lives that he has saved as a doctor. Eyewitness accounts of all the lives he's saved. And the judge looked and said, oh, that means he's plus 49.
49 Humans he's saved. He's only killed one. He's plus 49. Innocent. That's not how justice works. If the doctor was some sort of a serial killer and he said, look, of course, okay.
I kill one person a month. But I save five lives a month. I'm plus four a month. I'm doing great. And we somehow think that our God, who is a just God. We can stand before him and say, yeah, I'm sinful, but I'm mostly good.
And I hate to break it to you, but the Bible is going to come out pretty hard on you're not even mostly good. That your heart is twisted and marred beyond belief. And the truth is none of us would like to sit down and have our thoughts and our actions displayed on screen for everyone else to watch. I know to the Lord I would not. Because we're messed up and we're broken. And the Bible says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The other thing that we do is we'll say, well, okay, yeah, I'm messed up, but I'm better than other people. On the bell curve of humans, I'm on this side of it. That's not what it says, though. What it says is we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The test for us is not, are you better than other humans? So we in some ways think that sin works like running from a bear, which means you don't have to be faster than the bear.
You just got to be faster than the person with you. But that's not how it works. We all sin and we fall short of the glory of God. And we are all guilty. And our God, who is a just God, says that we're guilty. When we read through scriptures as Americans, as Westerners, we read through the Old Testament and you talk to people, the biggest issue we'll have is with God's justice.
We'll say, who does God think he is to destroy a city? Who does God think he is to flood the earth and kill all of those people? Who does God think he is to take a man who stole something and then take his whole family out and stone them? But see, the Bible doesn't have that problem. When you read through the Old Testament, when you read through the New Testament, scripture is saying, how does God forgive people? The Bible doesn't have a problem with his justice in the Old Testament.
It's God's mercy that's confusing. It's the fact that people who do rebel against God receive favor from him and are not destroyed. So you see, King David receives favor from God. He's on his roof one day while his army is out fighting. And he should have been with them, but he's on his roof and he sees a beautiful woman. He lusts after her.
He finds out who she is. They say, she's the wife of Uriah, one of your men, one of your soldiers who's out fighting. And he says, bring her to me. So they commit adultery and then she gets pregnant. After she gets pregnant, David decides the best way to handle this is to murder Uriah. So he has Uriah murdered.
Then a prophet comes to him and says, because you've done this, God says that that child's not going to live. But the Lord says, I have hidden away your sin and you won't die. And the Bible says, how does that happen? How is that justice? If you're Uriah's parents, is that justice? That he gets to stay king and he doesn't get punished for his sin?
Let's keep reading. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. Propitiation means that he diverted the wrath. He accepted God's wrath on our behalf, that God has wrath for sin and sinners. And Jesus received it on our behalf through his blood that he shed on the cross. To be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness, his rightness, his goodness, his justice. Because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. So Paul is telling us this is how this makes sense for him to give grace and mercy to people who deserve destruction. He overlooked it because Jesus was going to take wrath on our behalf. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So that God can be both good and the one that makes us good.
That he can be both righteous and the one who makes us righteous. That he can be both just and the one who justifies, makes us right with God. God propitiated, poured his wrath out on Jesus so that he can be both just and justifier. And so in the cross what we see is God's wrath and his mercy. In the cross what we see is God's justice and his ability to justify us. What we see is his hatred of sin and his great love for us.
And so there are three things that Jesus accomplishes and that he makes certain on the cross. The first one is that our sin is a big deal. It's a big deal. You cannot watch God hang from a cross after having his back ripped open and think that sin is somehow a light offense. Rebellion against the most high God is treason of the highest sort. We cannot downplay our sin.
The cross negates our ability to do that. Our sin is a big deal. With every lash, with every nail, with every hour that passes Jesus hung on that cross, God with an exclamation Mark declares that our sin is a big deal. Be not uncertain at all. And in no uncertain terms, our sin is a big deal. The second thing that is made certain for us is that God loves us.
He loves us. So that scripture is going to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Gave him. It doesn't mean he just came. It means he gave him up. He died.
Gave his only son that whoever believes in him might not perish, might not be destroyed, might not have the wrath of God met out on them, but might have life. So people will say all the time, God loves you. Great. That sounds good. God loves you. He wants good things for you.
That sounds nice. How do you know? I've had people before say, we don't need to talk about the cross. We need to talk about God's love. Okay, but if God loves us, how do we know? The cross is how we know.
Jesus on the cross once and for all proves that God is good and that he is for our good. That he loves us beyond measure. And the third thing we see is that we can be made right with God. That God is both just and justifier. That he makes us right with himself. That we who are sinful and broken and rebellious can stand before God and be justified.
Can be free. Can have life and righteousness. Jesus, people will say that we don't need to talk about the cross. That we need to talk about God's love or his mercy or how he's a good father. But we don't need to talk about the cross.
We don't need to talk about atonement. We don't need to talk about propitiation. That God has wrath for sin and sinners. But when I look at my life. When I look at my sexual sin and my rebellion. When I look at my pride.
And all the times that I thought that by being good or doing moral things. I could present something to God and he would owe me. When I look at how sinful I have been. I don't want to get rid of the cross. I need it too badly. I don't want to downplay the cross.
I need it. I need Jesus to pay for my sin. Because without Jesus paying for my sin. I'm hopeless. A vague promise that God loves me does nothing for me. When I've rebelled against him actively since the day I was born.
We need the cross. Because our sin is a big deal. But our God loves us more than we could ever comprehend. That he was willing to come and die to rescue his people. To make us right with himself. The band is going to come back up.
And we're going to celebrate the cross. We're going to celebrate that God became a human. And that God died in our place so that we could have life. It says that. 24. Or 23.
For all have sinned. And fall short of the glory of God. And are justified by his grace as a gift. Meaning we don't earn it. He freely gives it to us. We're made right with God.
Freely. It's a gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. To be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness.
Because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time. So that he might be just. And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Jesus. We approach Jesus with faith.
Faith that our sin was met out. Our punishment was met out. Jesus took it all on the cross for us. And so what we're going to do is we're going to celebrate the cross. And if you're in here tonight and you're not a Christian. And you haven't placed faith in Jesus.
Place faith in Jesus. Because all have sinned. All have fallen short. And all can be justified by grace freely through faith in Jesus. So place your faith in Jesus that he has rescued and redeemed with his blood.
And that the cross, your punishment that we all deserved was met out on Jesus. That we who are rebellious and deserve destruction and wrath can have life and freedom and hope. Because of what Jesus has already accomplished. That he died for our sins and that he rose again. Came back to life fully conquering the grave. Place your faith in Jesus.
And we'll pray and then we'll sing. God we thank you that you are just and justifier. That we can receive grace as a gift. That we can be made right with you because of Jesus. Not anything we do. Not anything we earn.
Not how smart we are. Capable we are. How religious we can be. But that we can repent of our sins. That we can admit that we're broken and that we fall short. And that we can have life in your name.
Jesus. We have life in your name and your name only. And we praise you. We ask that through your Holy Spirit you would save people tonight. That God the just punishment for our sin would be met out on Jesus. And that we would be set free forever to walk behind you as those whom you've rescued through your blood.
We love you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Y'all stand and let's sing.
Incarnation
Transcript
We're going to talk about who he was, why he came, what he accomplished. So we're just going to spend three weeks talking about Jesus and some specific aspects of his life, of his death, of his resurrection. So that's kind of what we'll be doing for the next three weeks, and I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be good. Tonight we'll be specifically talking about the Incarnation, and we'll talk more about what that means later. If you'll turn with me to Philippians chapter 2, it's going to take us a long, long time to get there tonight.
I want us to approach this a little bit differently. If you don't have a Bible, just raise your hand. We've got some guys that will be handing them out. If you don't own a Bible, take that one with you. That's our gift to you. But we do want you to, we're Bible people, so we'll always be in the Bible together when we get together.
So it will take us a while to get there tonight. Don't worry, we will get to Philippians 2. Just for the record, if we ever get together and we don't eventually get to Scripture, we did it wrong, and I shouldn't be allowed to talk anymore if we just get together and talk about things and never unpack Scripture. But the reason we're going to approach it a little bit differently tonight is I want us to not approach, we're talking about the life of Jesus and the impact that he's had, and I want us to just for a little while not approach it as Christians, not approach it as people who automatically believe that what the Bible says is true, not approach it as people who study the Bible to find truth.
I just want us to look a little bit at first at Jesus, the man from history. I just want us to investigate it more as skeptical Americans as we get started tonight. And so if you can do that, if you can kind of take yourself out of Christian, ready to just unpack Scripture mode for just a little while, and we're going to get there, but I want us to approach it more as skeptical Americans just looking at who Jesus was as he comes to us through history. And so that's kind of what we're going to be doing tonight. I'm going to pray, and then we'll get to talking. God, I thank you for this opportunity to get together.
I pray that your Spirit would be here, that you would lead us, and that you would teach us and draw us to yourself. Ultimately, Jesus is about you, so I pray we'd make much of your name. And may you reveal yourself to us every time we gather together with church family, whether that's in our homes or at a restaurant or here when we get together on Sundays. And so, God, we praise you, we thank you, and we ask you to be active and at work with us tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. My granddad, when he was somewhere between 5 and 10, was at a barbershop getting his hair cut.
As he was getting his hair cut, a man walked up on the street and kind of turned and started looking in the window and sat looking in the window at my granddad for just a minute or two. And then he just kind of turned and walked off. And my granddad had kind of made eye contact with him and noticed the guy was looking at him. And as he walked off, the bartender said, son, do you know who that was? Oh, sorry. The barber.
Yes, my granddad had a drinking problem from the age of five. Sorry. The barber, thank you. The barber said, son, do you know who that was? And my granddad said, no, sir. And he said, that was your daddy.
And so my granddad hopped out of the chair and ran over to the window, his hair half cut, and watched this guy walk down the street. And that was the only time he ever saw his actual father. He had an adoptive father, Papa Holloman, who ended up being a good dad and a good granddad. And it's funny, but the man who should have used his life to impact my granddad chose to peace out, chose to not be a part of it. And somebody who didn't have to be involved chose to step in and be a father to him when he didn't have to. And that's how life works.
Life affects life. So our lives have been the most radically impacted by other lives. That's just how living on the planet Earth works. So whether it was coaches or teachers or parents or grandparents or friends, the end of a life or the beginning of a life, life affects life. We bounce around into each other having massive impact on one another. And there are some lives that have an impact on the few lives around them, and then there are some lives that impact millions and billions of lives.
And so what we're going to do tonight is we're actually going to look at the life that has had the most lasting impact on the history of the world. We're going to take some time for the next three weeks, and specifically talking about his life tonight, to just look at Jesus who has had a massive impact on the history of the world. Just as humans, we owe it to ourselves to investigate the human who has impacted the world more than any other human. We have to just be logically coherent and intellectual beings. We've got to look at and investigate this life. And so that's what we're going to spend some time doing.
So I want to read some quotes to you. This is from H.G. Wells. He wrote A Short History of the World. He's a British author and historian. And this was in a conversation he was having about this book, A Short History of the World.
Because in the book he included Jesus. And so he says this. He says, I'm a historian. I am not a believer. But I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history.
Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history. So that's a British historian. He's saying, look, I'm not a Christian. I have no reason to puff Jesus up or to sell him to you. All I'm doing is looking at history. And he's the center of it.
He's easily, irrevocably the center of all history. In 1999, Time Magazine, which is not a Christian publication, was doing some stuff on the past centuries, past millennium. And it says this in Jesus. It refers to Jesus as man of the millennium in this article. And it said, It would require much exotic calculation, however, to deny that the single most powerful figure, not merely in these two millenniums, but all human history, has been Jesus of Nazareth. Not only is the prevalent system of denoting the years based on an erroneous 6th century calculation of his birth, but a serious argument can be made that no one else's life has proved remotely as powerful and enduring as that of Jesus.
It's an astonishing conclusion in light of the fact that Jesus was a man who lived a short life in a rural backwater of the Roman Empire and who died in agony as a convicted criminal. So Time Magazine said, It doesn't make sense. He shouldn't have had this impact. But Jesus is not only the man of the millennium, but all of history, Jesus. And I've got one more. This is from a Yale historian.
His name's Jaroslav Pelikan. He says, Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost 20 centuries. If it were possible with some sort of super magnet to pull out of history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? So what he's saying is if we just had history and it was some sort of metal and you just took a magnet and sucked all the things that Jesus impacted out of it, history wouldn't look the same. That he's the most dominant figure in history.
Jesus broke history in half. That's what the Time Magazine article said. We based the date off of him. You can't sign a contract without making reference to Jesus. You can't do it. What you say is, Oh yeah, Chet Phillips, this is 2014 years since Jesus was born.
He was a carpenter and he lived in the middle of nowhere and eventually he was killed when he was about 30. Yep, that should about do it. I've signed my contract. Like that's what dates are. We're referencing Jesus' birth. He is the most influential man that has walked on the planet and that's crazy because his impact shouldn't be that.
It doesn't make sense from historically who he was. It doesn't make sense from where he lived, what he did, what he accomplished. He didn't live past the age of 33. He never did any of the things you're supposed to do to get famous. And he didn't have any of the things that we have that help us get famous. Like he didn't have the internet and the ability to film himself doing something funny with a cat.
Like he didn't have that. But there are some things, if you want to get famous, if you want to imprint your name on history, there are a few things you can do. You can write a book. Have you ever heard of Mark Twain or Tolkien or Hemingway or Shakespeare? You can paint. So he could have been an artist.
He could have painted pictures. You ever heard of Picasso or Monet or Rembrandt? If he wanted to make himself famous, he could have done that. He could have written songs or music like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vanilla Ice. You know, all the major ones. But he didn't.
He didn't do any of the things that you're supposed to do to be famous, to imprint your name on history. He never led a rebellion. He wasn't a king of earthly kingdom. He never did any of the things that when you look at him in a historical perspective that would say, oh yeah, absolutely, this man should have marked history. Absolutely. Because he was born to an unwed mother in the middle of nowhere and then he was a carpenter for 30 years, which we all know is what you're supposed to do to get famous, be a carpenter.
And then he led a group of guys around for about three years, did some, you know, taught them some things and then he died and had about 120 people that were really bought into what was going on. Nailed it. Absolutely he's going to be famous. That's not how that works. And so he never did any of the things that you're supposed to do to impact history, to when you look at him from a historical perspective. And so it's as if you were walking along, skipping rocks at a pond and you picked up a rock and you threw it in and when it hit, it didn't skip, but it caused a tsunami wave that threw all of the water out of the pond.
And then you looked and the rock was just sitting there on the bare bottom of the pond by itself and you would go, that's weird, and keep on walking. No, you would want to investigate what was different about that rock. You would just assume that that rock wasn't the same as the other ones you had been throwing. And in some ways, when we look at history and say, yes, absolutely, Jesus is the most impactful man in history, but he was just a man who taught some things and died when he was 30. It's not logically coherent. And so as intellectual beings who investigate the world around us, we have to do something with Jesus.
He comes to us through history and we have to do something with him. We have to investigate this a little bit. And so I just want to let you know before we hop in, what we're going to do tonight is we're going to look at some eyewitness testimony about Jesus. But I want you to know that my skeptic's radar is fully functioning. I don't just believe things because people tell it to me. I never really have.
I got that honest because my dad's like that. He'd be like eight telling my dad a story and you'd be like, guess what happened? And you tell him, he'd go, that didn't happen. That's stupid. And you're like, what? But a guy at school told me.
This doesn't make any sense. How did they make the phone call? And it's like, I don't know how to make the phone call. Right. And then how would the people have known to show up? Tell your friend he's lying.
It's like, well, I don't know if we'll still be friends. Well, you shouldn't be friends with people that lie to you. And so he would do this and this is how I grew up and that's kind of how I am when people start telling me stories. I just automatically, if it doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense, I just, I'm not buying it. And I've gotten better with Anna's help. I don't immediately tell people anymore.
I haven't fixed my face yet. So if you're ever talking to me and I do this, that, I mean, okay, sure. Sure, you think I'm stupid. That's fine. But, but I won't cut you off to tell you all the reasons why what you're telling me doesn't make any sense. I might sometimes.
But, but anyway, I just wanted you to know, I don't, I don't just approach things blindly. And so as we go into looking at what scripture says, I want to, all of us to approach it like skeptics just for a little bit. So there's some of us in here that we believe the Bible because it's the Bible. And there may be some of us in here who we don't believe the Bible because it's the Bible. You're automatically, oh, that's the Bible so it can't be true. Or you're automatically, well, it is the Bible so it has to be true.
And I just want us to approach it with a little bit more investigation before we hop in and start looking at this eyewitness testimony. And so I want to give you some facts about scripture, about what we have when we study the Bible really quickly that helps me appreciate what it is. So the way old documents work, so I'm going to go into professor mode for a second and just track with me. The way old documents work is this. You want to get the original document that was handwritten. We don't have many of those for anything.
After about the Middle Ages, we don't have them for hardly anything at all. I don't think we have them for anything. So what you want to do is then get to a copy of the original document that was close to when it was originally written. So if something was written today or something was written, let's say something was written at 0 BC, we want to get as close to it as we possibly can of a copy of what was originally written. So we'd like to get to 200 or 300 or somewhere around in there.
Then you want to have multiple copies of the original so that you can match them together. So if you have 10 copies of something, you read this one and this one and this one and this one to kind of match them up. You may have heard the argument that scripture's not really reliable because what happened was it was written in Greek and Hebrew. That was translated into Latin and other languages, but that was translated into English. The next translation was off of that English translation and the next translation used that English translation and the next translation used that English translation.
And so it's like the elementary school whisper game. And so you whisper something and the next person whispers it and by the time it gets to this person it's a jumbled up bunch of garbage. That's not how scripture works. That's not how the Bibles that you're holding work. They always go back to the original manuscripts and we have more manuscripts now than we've ever had. So when a Bible translation comes out it's looking at the original extant copies of manuscripts that we have.
So to compare this the Bible to other things we have in antiquity. So we believe the history stuff we learned in class. Let's investigate the Bible the same way. Everything we learned about Caesar and his wars comes from a document called the Gallic Wars. We have about ten of those. The closest one to when it was originally written is 900 years.
So it was originally written on this date 900 years later we have a copy we have ten copies that we can compare and that's what you're taught in school about Caesar and a lot of the wars that took place and how they took place and what he did and Carthage and all of that. The copies of scripture we have 24,970 copies of scripture in 15 languages that are in 90 to 95% agreement with each other. Which means when you compare the 24,000 across the board they agree 90 to 95%. Now that is before the printing press. A lot of those were done in the middle ages when you had monks just sitting and writing out things.
If you went back to just 300 years and only looked at the Greek we have about 5,600 copies of Greek manuscripts that were handwritten copies of Greek manuscripts. This beats everything else we have in antiquity. Everything else prior to the middle ages the Bible beats it. As far as what copies we have of it. The next best thing is Homer's Iliad. The closest copy we have is about 400 and we have got about 650 copies of those.
So everything you read about Homer that really long poem that was kind of confusing. The Iliad and the Odyssey. We have a pretty good amount of copies of those. We're pretty sure that's what Homer said or wrote. The Bible is actually more trustworthy than that. It's the most trustworthy document in antiquity.
The most well-attested to event in history. Ancient history. Outside of something we have on video is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ because of the amount of copies that we have that we can compare to each other and the way we view history. So, one more thing that I think is helpful when I approach this and look at it and I'm automatically skeptical about things. if you just look at quotations from church fathers. So, Christians who were writing things to each other and to churches at the beginning of Christianity existing. If you took about the first 300 years you'd have about 36,000 quotations of the New Testament.
We don't recreate the entire New Testament but much of it can be recreated just from reading the original church fathers. So, the reason I say that is when we look at scripture we're looking at historical accounts of eyewitnesses that is what we know is that what was written is what we're reading. Now, if you want to say well, sure, they wrote wrong stuff. Fine. I'm fine with that. If you want to say that John made stuff up I disagree with you but I'm fine with you saying that that's at least logically coherent you can make that argument.
But, if you want to say that what we have is not what John wrote I disagree with you because that's not accurate when you when you compare the manuscripts. Does that make sense? Okay, so, when we look at this we're at least looking at what was written by them when we study this. So, what we're going to do is we're going to look at some eyewitness testimony about Jesus. So, what we have is a guy who was born in the middle of nowhere to an unwed mother who lived for about 30 years as a carpenter. We don't know much about his childhood.
We do know that he existed from all kinds of documents not only scripture but other historians and everything. We know that he existed. We know that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and we know that he's had a more long lasting impact on the rest of history. So, we have a human who should not have had a major impact who did. Has had more impact than anyone else and didn't do any of the things he should have done to accomplish that. So, we've got to ask the question why?
We have to do something with Jesus when it comes to this. So, we're going to get to Philippians. I'm going to show three verses in the New Testament in the Gospels eyewitness accounts about Jesus that really mess up our ability to approach Jesus in a good way because Jesus walked around telling people he was God and that messes up our ability to approach him in a normal way. That really throws us off. When Jesus starts telling people he's God we can't just approach him the way we'd approach any other human. So, I'm going to give you a few examples of that.
John 5.18 says, But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now and I am working. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath which is why they were arguing but he was even calling God his own father making himself equal with God. Okay, so, we refer to God as father all the time. Jewish people did not do this. So, when Jesus says this it automatically they're like, whoa, because they understand how father-son relationships work. The son of a duck is a duck.
Son of a goat is a goat. Yeah. So, when Jesus says my father is God he's claiming to be God and the Jewish people immediately recognize this and that's why John writes that. So, when I say God is my father we're used to that language but Jewish people were not. Jesus is the one who introduced that language and invited us into the family. John 8.
So, it's another argument with religious people. He says, Your father Abraham, so Abraham the father of the Jewish nation rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. So, the Jews said to him you are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was, I am. So, they picked up stones to throw at him but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Okay. Also, doesn't immediately register with us. I am is the name that God used when he showed up to Moses in the Old Testament. So, actually, the uppercase in your Bible, if you see uppercase letter Lord, all uppercase, that's actually the I am. It's the name that God, proper name God gave himself. So, they would have actually avoided using the I am statements like this.
Jesus says them a lot and the reason I like this one is because we would say, well, he doesn't really say he's God. The people there knew immediately what he had said because they picked up rocks to kill him. They understood what was happening. So, he says, before Abraham was, I am, and they were like, oh, no, he didn't. Get your rocks, he's going down. Like, they immediately reacted knowing that what he had said was blasphemous.
You're not allowed to say these things. We have to kill you. Like, that's not okay. And I'm going to give you another example. He hid from them there. So, it wasn't like they changed their mind.
It was just, he got away. Mark 14, 60 and 65. This is, 60 through 65, 64. This is the night before Jesus is going to be crucified. He's on trial. It says, the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, have you no answer to make?
What is it that these men testify against you? So, a bunch of people were accusing Jesus of things, but he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, what further witnesses do we need?
You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. So, he looks at him and says, are you the Christ? Are you the son of the blessed? Are you the son of God?
And Jesus says, I am. And you'll see me seated at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Very clearly looks at him and says, I am. They tear their clothes and say, we don't need any more testimony. We just watched him say he was God. We just watched him blaspheme.
He must be destroyed. So, for everyone who would like to say, well, Jesus was a good guy and he was a good teacher, there's a problem with that. He walked around telling people he was God and that only gives you a few options. You only have a few choices when it comes to Jesus because he told people he was God. Like, you've got to make a decision on that. He's the most influential human in history and he told people he was God and so we've got to do something with that.
So, I'm going to help you out. I'm going to give you the four options that are logically coherent options that you can choose from but you've got to choose one of them. No choice is a choice, just for the record. You've got to do something when it comes to Jesus as he comes to us through history. So, I'm going to give you four. The first one is legend.
You can say that what we have in scripture was later made up. This is the least likely one and I don't think it's easy to argue if you study it for a while you'll realize that this can't be the case. But, what you could say is that people came, Jesus actually existed, he was a human, nobody argues with that at all anymore really because we've got so much historical fact pointing to Jesus. You could say he was a human but his followers made up all the stuff about him. All the mystical, all the miracles, the fact that he rose from the dead, his followers made it up, wrote it down, told people, or people made that up later is what people say.
Well, the problem with that is it was written, the documents about his life and the story about his life was written and spread with people who still existed when he was around. So, it's really easy to debunk a legend. That's not how legends work. Legends have to happen hundreds of years later because when you're making things up about some fantastic thing that took place, it's easy to discredit it and so it stops quickly. I can't be like, hey, y'all, remember when aliens took over Columbia in 1982? You'd be like, no, that never happened.
I'd have to wait hundreds of years before I could get that story going because I've got to have people around who weren't here, didn't know anything about it. If I started making up stories about a person that y'all knew, you'd just say, nah, he never did that and it would be easy to debunk it. It would be easy to get rid of it and so the problem is we have manuscripts that were written within 50 to 100 years after Jesus was around. Within about 150 years, they were on four continents in three languages. So whoever was making this up would have really had to have gotten to work spreading the story and people would have still been able to just say that that didn't happen.
But you can say he's a legend, he's legendary, he's made up. The next three are a little more options for you. You can say, and this is kind of C.S. Lewis lays this out, he calls it the trilemma, but you can say he was a liar. So you can just say Jesus knew he wasn't God and he tricked people and that's an option.
You would be saying that the most influential man in history was an epic con man who's conned billions of people, tricked billions of people. He was a liar. You could say that his followers were liars. The problem with that is that all 11 of his disciples were martyred, which means murdered for their faith, except for one who was boiled alive in oil, he just didn't die. And then he was exiled to an island where he died of old age with like a melted face. But all the other ones were murdered for faith in Jesus and so if it was an elaborate lie, I just got to feel like one of them would have been like, you know what, time out?
No, we made it up. Never mind. We made it up. Or you could argue that maybe they didn't know about it but then you'd have to do something with where the body went because the argument is that his disciples then stole his body and hid it and that's why it wasn't in the grave. They never produced a body and said here's Jesus, he didn't rise from the dead. But you could say he was a liar, that he tricked a bunch of people and that's actually logically coherent although he'd have to be pretty good at it.
You could say no, he wasn't a liar, he was crazy. He was a lunatic if you want him to all start with L's. I don't use that word, I say crazy. But he was a lunatic, he was crazy. And so the most influential man in history was akin to Charles Manson or Jim Jones. He was nuts.
And the truth is this is how we would treat you if you said the stuff Jesus said. So if I was like, dude, I heard people, you've been telling people you were God and you were like, I am. And you'll see me seated at the hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. I'd be like, okay. Did the unicorns tell you that? We would just assume, I got some people I need you to talk to.
Like, you need help. So if you want to say that, okay. What you're saying there is that he genuinely believed he was God but he was crazy. And so the most influential man in history who's had the most impact on our society and the way we view life was crazy. Or, your fourth option and what I would suggest you go with is that he was telling the truth and that he is Lord. Amen.
Those are our four options when it comes to Jesus. And this one to me actually makes the most sense because it explains the impact he's had in history. If somebody walks around and has this kind of an impact and changes the world the way that Jesus has and he walked around claiming he was God, we've got to do something with that. Philippians 2. Told you we'd get there. So this is what we're going to look at.
This is actually what scripture says. Scripture's going to say that yes, Jesus walked around over and over again saying he was God and the scripture's going to explain to us what that looks like because that's the position that scripture takes. That Jesus was God who became a human. Verse 5. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. What it's saying is that Jesus was in the form of God.
He was in the same substance of God that he was God. And he didn't account equality with God a thing to be grasped. He didn't hold on to that equality. He didn't say that this is where I rightfully need to be for all time but he actually it says he emptied himself so he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. So that God our God became a human.
That's actually called the incarnation. That's what we're talking about tonight. That's what theologians would call the incarnation. What that means is like if you made chili con carne it just means chili with meat so that's the appropriate and correct type of chili to make for the record. Chili con carne and so when we talk about the incarnation what we're saying is that God took on flesh that he had meat. So if you ordered something at Taco Bell con carne it just means with meat so our God had flesh.
He became a human so he incarnated it says being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross and so here's what scripture is going to say very clearly that Jesus was God who became a man. He didn't cease to be God but it says he poured himself out so he basically took onto himself humanness and wrapped it around his divinity so he was God while he was a human but he released some of his divine attributes so divine attributes of God being that he's immutable which means he doesn't change Jesus changed he had to get haircuts he grew he got taller it says he grew in wisdom so he learned things like don't touch pots that are hot that kind of stuff he gave up his ability to be everywhere at all times he gave up his omnipotence he gave up all of his being all knowing all the time he actually we see him submitting himself to the Holy Spirit leading him and helping him understand people's thoughts but he poured himself out became a human was still God but wrapped humanity around that and that he lived a perfect sinless life on our behalf and that he submitted himself became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross so that Jesus died on a cross in our place for our sins it says therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father when it comes to Jesus we have four coherent options he's a legend he's a liar he's a lunatic or he's Lord and what scripture says is that everybody at some point is going to realize he was Lord the difference is are we going to realize it prior to dying or are we going to realize it when he comes back conquers his enemies and puts everything under his feet because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and so we have the option and our goal as a church family is to see more and more people this side of eternity knowing that Jesus is Lord but you've got some options and you've got to if you're going to be an intellectual being who's coherent with history as it's presented to you you've got to figure out something to do with Jesus you've got to have a landing point somewhere you can't be neutral when it comes to Jesus because he doesn't give you that option and so I would encourage us to wrestle with that I would encourage us to ask those questions to investigate that and to walk that out in church family together as to where we land on that and what that looks like for us as he is as we would believe Lord of everything that he Jesus is God who became a man and who died in our place for our sins that's what we're going to talk about next week we're going to focus in on his death and what it looks like so we look like what it looks like when God becomes a man makes sense God becomes a man most influential man in history okay that's what it looks like when God becomes a human let's look at what it means when God dies and what that looks like band's going to come back up I'm going to pray and we're going to spend some more time worshiping God I thank you for your grace that you would be willing to become a man that you would humble yourself you would pour yourself out and become obedient to the point of death even death on a cross God I pray that your Holy Spirit would enlighten us and give us faith that we might draw near to you and that we might bend our knees and confess with our mouths that you are Lord that we might give you much glory in doing that God we love you and we praise you in Jesus name Amen
Easter Sunday
Transcript
Well, my name is Chet Phillips. I'm excited to be here. We're going to be looking in 1 Corinthians 15 tonight. We're going to spend most of our time there. We will jump at one point back to the Old Testament. We'll be in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
If you don't have a Bible, just hold your hand up and we'll get some to you. So just hold your hand up so we'll hand them out. We've got some guys that will be coming around. If you don't own a Bible, take that one home. That's our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible.
If you do own a Bible, leave that one here. Bring yours with you next time or we'll let you borrow it again. So it will be 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. And so this is what he says, verse 1. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you.
Gospel meaning good news. Of the good news I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried.
That he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Okay, we're going to stop for just a second. Paul says, I delivered you as of first importance. As primary, as foundational. I delivered you as of first importance that Christ died in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried and that he rose again in accordance with the scriptures.
You may have heard a lot of things about what the Bible is about. You may have heard a lot of things about taught from the Bible. That it's some sort of a do's and don'ts list. So it's the do's and don'ts of the destined and damned. Or it's God's guidebook to life. It's God's road map to life.
You may have heard somebody open it up and teach you how to 10 steps to be a better whatever. To be a better father, a better wife, a better son. Paul says, I delivered to you as of first importance the gospel. That Jesus died, that he was buried and that he rose again. The Bible doesn't come out swinging against evolution. The Bible doesn't come out joining a political party.
Jesus doesn't vote straight ticket Republican. I'm sorry. He doesn't. He never rode an elephant. He did ride a donkey, but he wasn't a Democrat. He wasn't.
I hate to break it to you. He shatters all of our preconceived notions. He shatters all of our political parties. He doesn't come out chasing after some cause or or anything other. First importance is that Jesus Christ came to earth, that he died for sinners, that he was buried and that he rose again. That's what the Bible is going to come out swinging on.
It's going to come out fighting for pointing to Jesus. Paul says, according to the scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament, New Testament fighting for and pointing to Jesus. So if you're in here tonight and you'd say, I'm a believer, I'm a Christian, I follow Jesus. That's first importance for you. That's foundational. You grow in the gospel.
You don't grow away from it. You don't enter in by the gospel and then learn the deep things of God. You grow in the gospel. That's the foundation for us. And if you're here tonight and you're just checking out this whole Jesus thing, we're glad you're here. We think this is a very safe place to come check out Jesus.
We're not going to be pushy about things and we're all rough and messed up. And we just want you to invite you to hang out and be messed up with us. We all need Jesus. None of us are special or great, but we believe that Jesus is. We'd say, welcome. Come hang out.
And when you approach the Bible, this is of first importance. So you've got to answer and wrestle with the question, did Christ die for sinners? Was he buried? And did he rise again? That's it. That's the one you've got to wrestle with.
Then you can argue about study and dig into all the rest of it, but that's of first importance. And so that's what Paul comes out and says. And so that's what we're going to be digging into tonight. You see, Jesus was a good man, but that's not why people follow him. He was a moral man, but that's not why we're in this room tonight. He taught good things.
That's not why we're here. We're here because he was crucified. He died. He was put in a tomb. And then on Sunday this morning, he walked out. That's why we're here.
That's why people follow Jesus. That's why billions, with a B, people gathered today to celebrate Easter because of this. And so that's what we're going to talk about tonight. So we're going to look at. So we're just going to walk through this passage.
Verse 3. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture. Okay, so Christ is Jesus. You've heard Jesus Christ. Christ is not his last name. It's an office.
It means Messiah. So his last name would have been Son of Joseph is how they would have said his last name. So Christ isn't his last name. Christ is the office. So this is Jesus.
The Bible tells us that Jesus was God who lived a perfect life. He was the Son of God, came to earth, lived a perfect life in our place. He says, Christ died for our sins. I want to unpack that real quick. God created and designed the world to exist in relationship with himself, and we have done that very, very poorly. We have loved.
The Bible would say that sin is us loving anything else more than God. Us loving and pursuing and setting as our highest aim anything else more than God. And we know this is true, that when we love something over and against something else, it messes us up. We have disordered love. So that if I love success, or someone loves success more than anything, then they'll work really long hours and neglect their children.
Or if you love your status or approval more than the truth, then you'll lie and you'll bend the truth to make yourself look good. Because you love that more than you love honor and you love dignity. If someone loved wealth, if money was their highest aim, then they'd be willing to do whatever it took to get there. So they'll bend the rules as much as they have to to get to money. And so the Bible is going to say that when we come out loving anything else more than God, when he's not our highest aim, that we've rebelled against him and that we have sin. And so Jesus comes living a perfect, sinless life to die for sinners.
So Paul says that he delivered you as a first portents, that what I also receive, that Christ died for our sins. The Bible says in Romans 6.23 that the wages of sin is death, that what we earn when we sin is death. So we punch the clock and we earn at the end of the time to hand us a paycheck and that's death. That's all we can earn with our rebellion. That's all we can earn with our sin. Jesus never sinned, so he never earned death.
And then he died in our place, swapping places with us. So Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That's verse 3. We're going to flip back to Isaiah 53. It's kind of in the middle of your Bible. This was written, what we're about to read was written 700 years before Jesus was born.
So we're going to come back to 1 Corinthians. We're flipping to Isaiah 53. So hold your finger where 1 Corinthians is because we're coming right back to it. Unless you like to live dangerously and then you can take your finger out. But you're going to have to find it again later.
So anyway, Isaiah 53. This was written by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born. So this is what Paul is saying when he died in accordance with the scriptures. It's over and over again in the Old Testament. We're just going to read this one chapter just for the sake of time. Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. This is talking about Jesus. There was nothing innately wonderful about him. He was a Galilean peasant.
He wasn't in a palace. He wasn't a king. He didn't strut around and people automatically bow to him. There was nothing, no beauty, no form of majesty that we should look at him. Verse 3. He was despised and rejected by men.
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. Old Testament law said that anyone who was hung on a tree was cursed by God.
And so Jesus was nailed to a cross on our behalf. He was stricken, smitten by God. Verse 5. But he was wounded for our transgressions. And he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
So he took our punishment so that we might have peace. And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted.
Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And like a sheep before it shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. So Jesus when he was on trial. When he was being accused. When they were taking him and beating him.
When they were putting a bag over his head and punching him. So he couldn't see where the blows were coming from. So he couldn't flinch. He couldn't prepare. He never defended himself. He never stepped up and told him.
Wait I don't deserve this. He kept his mouth shut. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation. Who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living. Stricken for the transgression of my people.
And they made his grave with the wicked. He was crucified in between two thieves. And with a rich man in his death. He used a borrowed tomb from a rich man. Named Joseph of Arimathea. He borrowed a tomb.
Which was okay. He wasn't planning on using it long. With a rich man in his death. Although he had done no violence. And there was no deceit in his mouth. So Jesus was sinless.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. So Jesus died for guilt.
And then those who believe are his offspring. Or those that come from that. They're set free from them. Out of the anguish of his soul. He shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one.
My servant make many to be accounted righteous. And he shall bear their iniquities. That Jesus took our sin. Our iniquity. And he makes us be accounted righteous. That we aren't actually righteous.
That before God we are. Because he took our sin. And gave us his righteousness. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many. And he shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because he poured out his soul to death.
And was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many. And makes intercession for the transgressors. 1 Corinthians 15. So that's what Paul's talking about.
When he said Christ died in accordance with the scriptures. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. This was not a new idea. This had been being prophesied. Over and over and over again. That someone was going to come.
Someone was going to be stricken. Chastised so that we might have peace. That through his stripes we would be healed. That we would. As Zechariah said. We would look on the one whom they pierced.
That Jesus was going to die. So that we could have life. Okay. So. Verse 3. For I deliver to you as of first importance.
This is it. This is foundational. That what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried. Okay.
Okay. So far. Weird. But relatively normal. It's weird. But it's pretty normal.
Okay. So. Jesus. It says he died for our sins. So that's.
That's a little weird. People can die for a cause. Or they could be martyred for something. Or they could be. You know. Die for a country or something.
When it says he died for our sins though. It's talking about an actual trans. First action. Where our iniquity was laid on him. Our sin was laid on him. And he was crushed on behalf of us.
And he actually accomplished something in his death. Not just. You know. He died for his country. That kind of thing. So.
So that's a little weird. But he died and was buried. That's pretty normal. Pretty. Most people do that. I was reading a study the other day.
And I don't remember who. Put it out. But the death rate. On planet earth. Is hovering right around 100% right now. It stays up there for the most part.
From what I can tell. The mortality rates. Staying pretty high guys. So it's like. Something like 10 out of 10 people. Are going to die.
Yeah. I know. It's crazy. I'm thinking they should fix this at some point. So. That's pretty normal.
He died. That's what. That's what people do. He died and was buried. That's pretty normal. Okay.
Especially if you crucify someone. That's. That's what happens. He was executed. That's just a process. By which we speed up death.
And so he was. Dead and buried. Verse 4. That he was buried. That he was raised. On the third day.
In accordance with the scriptures. Okay. Now that got really weird. You see. The Bible is going to come out. And say that Jesus didn't.
Stay. Dead. That. On. Friday. He was crucified.
That he bled out. That after he died. Professional executioners. Said he was dead. And then. Just to be certain.
Took a spear. And ran it into his side. Piercing his heart. Then they took him down. Wrapped him in claws. And put him in a cave.
He was dead. Dead. Buried. And then on Sunday. He was walking. And talking.
That's weird. He was alive. Not. Not an apparition. He was alive. See.
This is why we get together. And celebrate. This is why Christians. Billions of Christians. Are all over the world. To celebrate.
Because Jesus. Didn't stay dead. He didn't come down here. Just to start some new form of religion. He didn't. Because he didn't do any of the things.
You're supposed to do. To start some new form of religion. He wrote down. Zero things. That we know of. Zero.
Like if I was going to start a new religion. First thing you do. Is you write out. How you get to be in the religion. So like.
Eating at Cracker Barrel. Makes you more holy. Like you know. I'd have a list of things. You know. I'd be up at the top somewhere.
Like biscuits. Equal sacrament. Like I don't know. It's like. It's important. He didn't do this.
The only time we ever know. That he wrote anything down. It was in the sand. If you want. Just. I'm going to help you all out.
If you want. What you're writing down. To last a while. Sand. Is a horrible medium. For that.
It really is. That's why. When you have like. Your beach girlfriend. You write that out in sand. Doug.
Hearts. Jess. Until the tide comes in. If you. Heart. Jess a little more.
Get a tree. And a knife. You know. Or do something classy. Like. A putt putt place.
You know. Just carve that in. At one of the little things. At a putt plus. Or. Or.
You know. Put it in stone. Write it down or something. But if you write it in sand. So he.
He didn't do. What it takes to. To start a religious movement. He got. A ragtag bunch of scrubs. That he.
Taught things to. That he built with. But he wasn't. Trying to push forward. Some religious agenda. Every time there.
A bunch of people got around. Jesus said. His hardest. Stuff. And ran people away. John chapter 6.
One of my favorite. Chapters in the bible. He tells people. To drink his blood. And to eat his flesh. And what he's talking about.
Is that they. You have to embrace. The cross. To be a Jesus follower. That Jesus following. Does not come.
Without the price of death. And they said. We think it's weird. That you said that. So he said it.
Six more. Times. And then they leave. And I think he was like. Good. I didn't think.
I didn't want to say it. Seven times. My goodness. And he looks at his disciples. And says. Y'all leaving too?
And they were like. No. And that's weird. But no. We're going to stick around. He didn't do.
What he was supposed to. To start a religion. But he didn't come. To start a religion. He came. To die.
Of first importance. Jesus Christ. Came to live. A perfect life. And to be crucified. On our behalf.
To be buried. As scripture said. He was going to be. And to on the third day. Rise again. That's what he came to do.
And that's exactly. What he did. That Jesus. Died. In our place. And he rose.
You see. If we just had Friday. We just had good Friday. And they said. That Jesus died. For our sin.
That would be nice. But we wouldn't know. We could say that. But we wouldn't know. We'd always be. Stuck.
Going. Did he really? Did he really accomplish it? But we don't just have Friday. We have Sunday. When Jesus rose.
And God put his seal. Of approval on him. And assured us. That our hope. Is not in vain. But that Jesus is alive.
And that the grave. Has been conquered. And that we can have life in him. And that our sin. Can be covered. All right.
Let's keep going. Four. That he was buried. That he was raised on the third day. In accordance with the scriptures. And then he appeared to Cephas.
Which Cephas is just. Peter. It's just in a different language. But both mean rock. Appeared to Cephas. Then to the twelve.
Then he appeared to more than. Five hundred brothers. At what time. Most of whom are still alive. Though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James.
Then to all the apostles. Okay. So. Jesus. Comes back to life. And starts walking around.
And talking to people. He appears to five hundred people. At one time. I love that Paul puts that in there. And he said. Some have fallen asleep.
But most of them are still alive. So what Paul is saying. Is I'm writing this. When there's a bunch of people. Who can. Verify what I'm saying.
At this time. When he wrote this. Cephas was still around. James was still around. All they had to do. Was be like.
Hey. I got this letter from Paul. Is that true? Yeah. That's true. Oh.
Okay. Like that was easy. Like. You could fact check this. It wasn't. Some kind of something.
Written hundreds of years later. He's writing it. He said. Most of these people are still alive. You can go ask them. But.
Jesus. All right. So Jesus. Dead. Alive. Eating.
Laughing. Walking. Talking. Alive. Still had scars. But alive.
He shows up. I love when. He shows up to his disciples at one point. And they freak out because they think he's a ghost. Which is appropriate. That's how death works.
You don't see those people again. Like. You don't talk to somebody and they're like. Yeah. I had to go to my grandmother's funeral. But it's okay.
I'll see her at vacation this summer. No. You won't. That's not how that works. So Jesus died.
And then he shows up and starts talking to him. And they all think he's a ghost. And I love this. So they're freaking out. They think he's a ghost. And Jesus says.
Do ghosts have flesh and blood? And then he takes some food and he eats it. To prove that he was actually alive. He was actually there. What I love about that was. Jesus doesn't say.
Hey fool. Ghosts aren't real. What he says is. Ghosts don't have feet. It's like. Wait a second.
I got to have a follow up question. Like. It's almost like he smacked one of them. Could a ghost do that? I don't know. I've never met one.
But Jesus shows up. And he was alive. He ate with him. He showed Thomas the scars in his hand and in his side. He was alive. He really rose.
Really had a body. Let people touch him alive. So Jesus died and he rose. And that's good news. And I'm about to show you. Give you an example of why that is good news.
So. Verse 7. Then he appeared to James. Then to all the apostles. Last of all. As to one untimely born.
He appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles. Unworthy to be called an apostle. Because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God.
I am what I am. And his grace. Grace just means unmerited favor. Unearned love. It's grace. It's just given to us.
And his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary. I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I. But the grace of God that is with me.
So Paul says. I'm unworthy to be called an apostle. Because I persecuted the church of God. Let me tell you why this is such good news. Paul. Was the worst.
And that's great. Because that means I've got hope. Paul persecuted the church. Anybody who had the name of Christian. He hunted them down. Killed them.
Enjoyed it. He said he was zealous for it. He was looking for more opportunities. To go snatch people out of their homes. Have them arrested. Or murdered.
He was zealous for it. He had papers of people he could go arrest. And was on his way to do it. And Jesus showed up. And should have crushed him. But Jesus shows up.
And says. No I'm going to give you grace. You haven't earned it. And you don't deserve it. I'm going to give you grace. And that's great news.
Because you know who can get unearned grace. Everybody. You know who gets to be a Christian. Murderers. Liars. Perverts.
Addicts. Broken people. Thieves. Religious. Uptight. Snobby.
Prudes. People. Get to be Christians. None of us. Has anything. That we bring to God.
And say. Look at what I've earned. Look at what I've done. Look at what I've accomplished. None of us. We all get.
Grace. Which is. Unmerited. Unearned. Jesus's. Love on us.
For no other reason. Than. He's good. And he's loving. You see Paul. It had nothing to do with Paul's goodness.
Or badness. It had everything to do with Jesus's. Goodness. Your relationship to Jesus. Has nothing whatsoever to do with your goodness. Or your badness.
It has everything to do. With Jesus's. Goodness. And regardless of how messed up we are. Which I'm going to be honest with you. Very messed up.
Jesus is very. Very. Good. And his grace is sufficient. For all of us. And that's why that's.
Good. News. You see. Paul. When he met Jesus. He had a Friday problem.
Some of us in this room. We have a Friday problem. We just had. Good Friday. We just celebrated. Good Friday.
When Paul met Jesus. He had a Friday problem. Which meant that he. Did not know. That he deserved. To be crushed.
For his sin. Paul did not realize. That what happened to Jesus. On the cross. Was for Paul. That it was the punishment.
That Paul deserved. That Paul. Deserved to have met out on him. That it was met out on Jesus. In his place. Some of us are in here.
And that's. That's where we are. We've. Minimalized. We tried to act like. Our sin isn't a big deal.
That our rebellion. Our love of other things. Other than God. Our disordered love. Aren't a big deal. Aren't a problem.
That. That's some sort of social construct. That. That's not a real thing. We have. Sin.
And even for the people in the room. That would say. I don't believe in this whole concept of sin. I would ask this question. Why do you feel guilty? Why do you feel like you don't measure up?
Why do you often feel like you're falling short of some ideal that you don't believe exists? We have sin. And some of us need to realize that Jesus on Friday paid for our sin. That he was beaten. Brutally beaten. That he was hung on a cross.
Nailed through his hands and his feet. That he hung there for six hours. And that he died. Because we have sin. That deserves to be punished. So Paul when he realized his sin.
Then had a Sunday problem. Which was now that I see my sin. Now that I know how unworthy I am. I deserve to be crushed. And I'm not sure that you're capable of taking this away. But see Jesus rose on Sunday.
Conquering sin on our behalf. That our sin can be paid out on Friday. And taken away on Sunday. That Jesus in the gospel. Rescues us both from the penalty. And the power of our sin.
That he takes it away from us. So some of us in here are saying. I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm broken. I know I'm messed up. I know this isn't right.
But Jesus rose from the grave. He takes away all sin. There are no sins too big for Jesus to take away. There is no problem too big for Jesus to handle. You sin like a human. And he saves like a God.
You are not bigger and badder than Jesus is. And he is capable of rescuing all of us. And it's given freely to us. And this is very good news. That we can admit our sin. Admit that we're broken.
And be set free. And be rescued. And redeemed. I love naps. They're the best. It's an awkward transition.
But it was a really good statement. That's true. I love naps. I love them. They're the best. And so any chance I get.
I'll take a nap. I can take a nap. I can fall asleep inside of like five minutes. So I can take a nap for like seven. Like and I'll be fine. Like that's great.
Seven minute naps. Wonderful. So I remember one time when Anna and I first got married. We had. I don't know what we've been doing. We were worn out.
Or we had a day off or something. So we decided to take a nap. And it was one of those naps where I slept on my face. Like you know how good that is. And you just. You just.
You sleep flat out. Like that's how tired I was. Like I didn't even bother to get comfortable. I just like slumped over. And was sound asleep. And.
But we had to be somewhere. So I had set an alarm. And I had an old school alarm that I've had since. I was starting middle school. And that thing. Still have it.
It's one of those. Eh. Eh. Eh. Eh. Alarms.
Like the ones that are pure evil. It's like. I think it's made out of cats or something. It's awful. And so. It makes that.
Eh. Eh. And so I had set that alarm. It goes off. I mean I was out of it. But I start waking up.
And I'm like. Oh. Okay. So I sit up. My alarm's going. Eh.
Eh. Eh. And I reach for it. And I reach for it again. I had been sleeping like this. And both of my arms were sound asleep from here down.
I mean. Done. But. This was like the best I could do. And so the thing. And it's torture.
Because now I'm awake staring at this thing. I just woke up. Which. I'm grumpy. And this alarm's going. Eh.
Eh. Eh. And so I'm sitting there. And I look over at Anna. She's gone. Doesn't even notice it.
And so I'm looking at her like. I really wish she would help with this. But she. She's. She's asleep like this. Like every once in a while.
I swear she's sleeping. Knows I'm looking at her. And she's just faking it. She's sleeping like she's on the front of a Hallmark card or something. And so I'm staring at her. And it's not even.
She hadn't even flinched. And I'm going. Wake up. You know. And so I'm thinking like. What do I do?
Do I go back and forth. Get my arms going. And then I could. I could pop her. You know. I guess I could have talked loudly.
But I was half asleep. I'm not thinking through this right. To wake her up. So. But she looked so.
You know. Just. Like I just was like. Well. I can't. So.
I turned back around. My alarm's going off. Still. Eh. Eh. Can't do anything about it.
I was really glad. That it was just the alarm that had gone off. And it wasn't like a home invasion or something. I'd have been in trouble. Unless. I've thought about this.
Unless I could have convinced them. That I knew something they didn't know. Because what would have happened was. I would have jumped out of bed. And gone. And then tried to kick them.
And they'd have thought. I don't know what kind of kung fu stuff I'm getting into here. But you can take it down brother. Eh. So I'm sitting there.
Staring at this alarm. And there's nothing I can do about it. I look over at Anna. She's completely oblivious to the fact that we have a problem. And I know that we have a problem. And can't do anything about it.
And the truth is. Some of us are sitting in those two seats tonight. Some of you are sitting and saying. I know I have sin. I know I have brokenness. I've been trying to fix it.
And I can't. And some of you. Have been oblivious to it. But it's still a problem. And what we needed. Was for a third party to walk in.
And fix the situation. And what every single one of us in this room needed. Was for a third party to step in. And fix the situation. And his name was Jesus. And he lived a perfect sinless life.
On our behalf. And he was crushed. For our iniquities. He was. The chastisement of us. Was placed on him.
For our sins. He was beaten. He was bruised. By his stripes. We can be healed. That he would make many.
To be accounted righteous. Because he would take on. The iniquities of the world. Jesus stepped in. And he solved the problem. By going to the cross.
And he assured our hope of salvation. By rising from the dead. That in Jesus. We can have life. And hope. Everyone in this room.
Has sin. And the truth is. Your sin. Will be paid for. The question is. Will it be paid by you.
Or by Jesus. At some point. We will stand before the creator. Of the universe. Jesus has given us. The opportunity.
To have our sin. Paid for. Forever. Because sin has. Consequences. Grave.
Consequences. So much so. That the son of God. Had to come to earth. And be crushed for it. But we have the hope.
Of salvation. That we can place. Our faith. In Jesus. And that all of our sin. All of the worst.
Of all of us. Can be placed on him. And he can die for it. And that on Sunday. He can rise again. And take it away forever.
And that through him. We can be accounted. Righteous. That God can look at us. And say. That we're beloved.
That we're cared for. And that we're okay. Because when he looks at us. He sees Jesus. And that's grace. And that's good news.
And that's why billions of people. Have gotten together today. To celebrate that the grave. Is empty. And that Jesus. Is alive.
Man's going to come back up. We're going to sing. And we're going to celebrate. That Jesus has paid our debt. And set us free. That in him we have hope.
And life. Forever. That the grave. Is empty. That Jesus did die. But that he didn't.
Stay dead. Let's pray. God. I thank you. For your grace. I thank you.
That someone like Paul. Who actively. Worked to destroy your church. Can be rescued. Because that gives hope. For all of us.
That we don't earn grace. So that we're all. Able to receive it. God. I pray that you would help us. See our sin.
Very clearly. Feel the weight. Of our sin. Our rebellion. Our love for other things. Other than you.
Very clearly. So that we can know. And love the cross more. So that we can grow. In our love. For the gospel.
More. You said that those. Who are forgiven more. Love more. And God. We pray that you would help us.
See the weight. Of our rebellion. So that we can see. The greatness. Of our God and Savior. We love you.
In Jesus name. Amen.
John 2: The Wedding at Cana
Transcript
All right, if y'all turn with me to John chapter 2, that's where we're going to spend some time tonight. We kind of have a week right here in the middle of, we just finished up our Idol series. We had the opportunity to share a meal with First Baptist West Columbia last week. And we'll be doing baptism gathering and then Easter. And so we just want to take tonight to kind of camp out in this one story, spend a little bit of time talking about it. So let's, if you don't have a Bible, Quentin and Isaac will help hand them out.
If anybody will just lift up your hand, we'll just hand you one real quick so everybody does have one. So we can all be on the same page. So it's John chapter 2. It'll be page, I don't know what page it'll be. It's on there if we, at some point you'll see what page, yeah, page 556, there we go. All right, I'm going to pray and we'll help him.
God, we pray that you would move in us to make us more like you. God, I pray that through your Holy Spirit you would show us more of your character, more of what you came to accomplish tonight as we study in John chapter 2. We thank you for your grace and that you do invite us to celebrate, that you do invite us to be a part of the celebration that you have begun through your grace. And so we praise you and we thank you. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.
It costs, on average, $25,000 to get married or to have a wedding in the United States. The average wedding in the United States is $25,000. In Lexington County, weddings run usually between $18,000 and $31,000. That's crazy. I've had the opportunity recently to be a part and get to see a bunch of different weddings. And weddings are interesting.
So you're getting together to celebrate. Two people are getting married. You're celebrating love. You're celebrating, depending on if some of them are celebrating the covenant of grace that is Jesus and the church if it's a Christian wedding. Some of them are just celebrating this couple. But you're getting together to celebrate.
And there's a lot of different random traditions and things. I know I've been to weddings where people braid a cord or weddings where they set things on fire. They light candles and then those candles light other candles. And then they fall down and set plants on fire and stuff. So you set different things on fire at weddings.
But as far as traditions go, people pour sand. I performed a wedding. The first wedding I ever performed, they said, we don't want to do anything fancy. They were like, we want to get this over with. Because they were real uncomfortable in front of people. I said, that sounds great.
From the time they walked in to the time they walked out was 12 minutes. It was the best wedding ever. And it's really awkward to do a wedding. Because I have to stand still. Because usually I move around. So I have to stand still the whole time.
My leg got to shake and I couldn't make it stop. I have to read what I've written out. Because if I just say something stupid tonight, let me just be real with y'all. I can just stop and be like, take that back. Or I can just move on. And the only person I embarrassed basically was me.
Unless I said something theologically incorrect. If I say something really bad at a wedding, people remember that stuff. You can break friendships over it. But weddings, so I was at a wedding with all these different traditions. I was at a wedding where, it was my cousin. It was a Greek Orthodox.
He was marrying a Greek Orthodox girl. They put crowns on their heads. And had a stream that connected them. And then they walked laps around the table. I don't know what that was to symbolize. And I'm not sure my cousin did either.
Because on the third lap, he walked around like... Like he had no clue what he was getting himself into. I was at one where it was a Jewish wedding. So they did Mazel Tov. And they broke the thing. They have different ceremonies.
Different things you do at receptions. My cousin is a first generation Nigerian American. At Nigerian weddings, they do a thing where there's a dance. And everybody goes and puts money on them while they're dancing. And so they're dancing. And you're walking out and just like sticking money on their head and stuff.
There's that. At my brother's wedding, he's married to Elise who's Polish. And has a Polish background. And so he had to wear a necklace with like little babies on it. Little plastic babies. And they had to do this thing where you like had to pay to dance with them.
And then at some point, he could come back in and pay to dance. It was really... It's just that we have all these random traditions. And all these different things that we do to celebrate weddings. And what we're actually going to look at tonight in John chapter 2. Jesus is at a wedding.
He's come to take part in the celebration that people have celebrated forever. God oversaw the first wedding between Adam and Eve. And so we see Jesus in the very beginning of his ministry. Kind of what he's getting started in John chapter 2. John's written by one of his disciples. Close friend to his.
John chapter 1. John's basically explaining that God became a human. So he says God became a human. He came and dwelt among us. And then Jesus recruits a couple of disciples. He starts getting people to follow him.
He actually gets two from his cousin, John the Baptist. Two or three from his cousin, John the Baptist. And then they kind of recruit some friends. So at this point Jesus has had disciples for all of about five days. Week tops. And he's got about five of them.
So he's got five guys following him around and starting to begin this journey of following Jesus and seeing what this looks like. So that's where we are. John chapter 2 verse 1. On the third day, they don't really know the third day of what. I think it's the third day from the last thing that happened. So he's had disciples for about three days.
But it could be the third day of the wedding. It could be the third day of the week or the month. It just says the third day. So on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
Okay. So Jesus' mother was there. We find out later that she's pretty intimately related to the goings-on at this wedding. So we don't know if she's related to someone in the wedding party or if she's just a close family friend. But she kind of knows behind-the-scenes things.
So it seems like she's somehow related. But it also says that Jesus and his disciples were invited. So it wasn't just like the, hey, mother of Jesus, you're invited and anybody else you want to come. It actually says specifically that Jesus and his disciples were invited. Now weddings at this point were a big deal.
So they, I mean, it was like a week-long celebration. And so it was a big deal. You would invite, basically the whole town was invited. You'd invite all your friends, all your relatives. But it's kind of funny.
Scholars and different people who write commentaries and stuff on this, some of them I've actually heard, they try to figure out why Jesus was invited. I've heard the theory that it would have been good to invite a prominent local teacher to your wedding. Maybe that's true. But Jesus wouldn't have been a prominent local teacher at this point. He had five disciples he'd recruited the past week. And some of them he stole from his cousin.
So he wouldn't have been a prominent local teacher. But it is kind of funny that people, we genuinely, people have a hard time kind of figuring out why Jesus would have been invited. People say maybe he was related or whatever. But I, bear with me, just want to put this out there and don't get mad at me. Maybe, maybe Jesus was fun to be around. It's crazy talk.
Walk with me here though. Maybe Jesus was fun to be around. Maybe he was enjoyable. I know, for some reason, it's crazy, we don't ever think about that. We just don't. The Bible doesn't really have a whole lot of jokes that Jesus makes.
Although, if you want to talk, I think there are some that I think are quite funny. Usually when he's fussing at religious people, he pops off with some pretty funny stuff. But it's not like him just telling knock-knock jokes to people and those kind of things. And we just really don't think about it. But I think he was enjoyable.
There's something in our brains, and I don't know why this is. We think that God would become a human and that as a human, God would be boring. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The God who invented galaxies and molecules, who thought and spoke into existence everything that we know. Monkeys, giraffes, zebras, the duck-billed platypus. He invented these things.
Steak, bacon, the idea to wrap one of those around the other one. He came up with this. The God who invented these things, who came up with laughter. The concept of laughter, which is basically where things don't fit together in our brains, and our brain kind of trips over itself, and then we just exhale a bunch of air, and that process releases chemicals in our brain. Like we just blow air out of our mouths. And some of us throw our nose, and you probably should stop it.
Just open your mouth. You're going to snort. It's going to be awkward. But he came up with this process, but he would become a human, and he'd be boring. Like his disciples would walk over to each other and be like, oh my goodness. All right, now I'm following Jesus because he's the Messiah.
But if you ever had him corner you and just talk and talk and talk, it's a good thing he invented sleep. Otherwise, I'd feel real bad for falling asleep while he was talking to me. Like, it doesn't make any sense. So I just wanted to put that out there. Jesus is at a celebration with friends who he ends up giving nicknames to. Just put it in your brain.
Maybe he was enjoyable to be around. Not a party animal, but we see him at parties and celebrations all the time. We see him engaging in celebrations, and going to parties, eating with people. He gets accused of being a drunk and a glutton. Not because he was, but because he was hanging out with people who were. And because he wasn't yelling at them and fussing at them.
He was gracious and kind and hospitable and enjoyable. So he's at a party, being humble and gracious and kind and hospitable. And he's got his disciples with him. So, verse 2. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples when the wine ran out. Okay, that's a problem.
Some of you just throw little parties, and you know that's a problem. It's a bigger problem here. Weddings in this day most likely lasted a week, and you invited all kinds of people. So when the wine ran out, which was the predominant drink that people would drink, you would drink water, but the water wasn't always sanitary. So a lot of times, most people just, you would drink wine.
It was a very common drink to have. But when the wine ran out, it basically meant send everybody home, party's over. Celebration has ended. We're not having this feast anymore. The feast has ended. Everyone has to go home.
And they're in an honor culture, which we don't understand. We do not have an honor culture. The most honor culture stuff we have is southern, like, hospitality. Like, you don't talk back to your parents. You say, yes, sir, no, ma'am. You hold open doors.
You give up your chair for ladies. Like, those kind of things. That's about as close as we get, but we don't really have this notion of being cursed or being dishonored. I mean, like, I crack jokes on my dad when I'm hanging out with him. I don't go over the line because he's big and can get intense. But we have that kind of a relationship.
But that wouldn't have happened here because of the way they treated patriarchs, the way they treated. And so the closest thing I know of when I think about an honor culture is Japan. Japan has an honor society. Maybe less now as they've had more Western influences. But I remember watching 2010 when they had the earthquake and the tsunami.
And everybody was just, it was bad over there. And they would bring in water trucks. And I remember watching a water truck and then seeing a picture of Japanese people in a single file line that just went, looked like miles. And everybody would think, that's absolutely crazy that they would just get in a single file line. That's just what they just do because it would be dishonorable to do anything else, to form a mob around it and assault each other. So they just lined up.
And my wife and I, we like documentaries, especially stuff about war. I was watching something about World War II. After Pearl Harbor, the United States rounded up Japanese people, put them into camps. Because really, the U.S. was like, we don't know if this is going to be a problem. Like if they're going to side with Japan and just start causing problems on the U.S. So they didn't.
And it ended up, wasn't a good plan and was kind of a bad way to handle it. But they would go to those camps and recruit people, recruit soldiers to join the U.S. And they did. They'd show up and say, who wants to join? And they'd say, I do. And the Japanese soldiers ended up being some of our best troops.
They didn't send them to the Pacific. They sent them into, but the generals used to fight over who got the Japanese because they were such good soldiers. I watched one where a guy volunteered, wasn't in one of those camps, volunteered. His dad was dropping him off at the train station. He looked at his son and he said, this country has let us live here. They've let us have a job.
They've defended and protected us. They've given us a life. Do not dishonor this country. He said, you don't come home before you dishonor this country. And that was what he told his son when he dropped him off. That's more akin to the culture that we have here.
So to run out of wine ended the celebration. But more than that, it began your marriage in dishonor. That's how you started off was taking a step forward in your relationship in dishonor. So it was a big problem. So when the wine ran out, feel some weight to that.
It wasn't just, oh, the party's over. And it wasn't just, well, the party that was going to last till midnight has to end at 10. It was the celebration that would have lasted a week. It's cut in half. It's stopped days early. We have to announce to our guilt, to our shame, that we've messed this up, that we didn't prepare well, and that we're going to have to end the celebration.
You can all go home. So that's kind of what's going on. So it says, So this is the mother of Jesus talking to Jesus. She said to him, They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.
His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. I love this. Our God became a human who had a mama. That's crazy. He didn't just zap down here. God decided to give honor to infants, to give honor to the whole system that he had designed.
And our God became a human who lived as a child and who had a mother. And we get this instant. There's only like two or three in the Gospels where we get to see him kind of interact with her. And I love this. So she shows up.
He's got his disciples there. Because we find out later they're there. And she says, They're out of wine. And he says, Woman, what does this have to do with me? Now, just for the record, That's not disrespectful. You could say woman.
Like if I said that at my house, That's a good way to get slapped. Like my mom telling me to do something. Woman? No, that's not how that works. But in their culture, This wasn't like a disrespectful term.
It'd be kind of like when you say, Yes, ma'am. But he says, What does that have to do with me? And he says, My hour has not yet come. Basically meaning, It's not time for me to show everybody that I'm the Messiah. It's not time for me to just step in and do these kind of things in front of people. This wedding that you're part of is not my public proclamation that I'm God.
That's kind of how he responds. So his mom comes. And you know his disciples are watching this. Because it's always interesting. Like you ever go hang out with your friends, And you see them kind of interacting with their parents. And you just like, It makes you kind of uncomfortable.
But you're always like watching to see how they interact. And so sometimes it's just weird. Like I remember being at my friend's house sometimes, And they would talk back to their parents. I would just get like, Oh, like so uncomfortable. Because like, You talk back to my mom, My dad might just appear. I don't know what would happen.
He'd just jump out from behind something. But some people would talk back to their mom, And I'd be like, Dude, that's your mama. Shut up. Just do what she told you to do. Like I will leave if I need to leave. Or when people get fussed out by their parents in front of you.
And they're like, Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. And you're just like, Like you're behind her. So his disciples are watching him as he interacts with his mom. And so she says, They're out of wine. He says, What does this have to do with me?
And then, I love this. So this is the interaction. They have no wine. Jesus said to her, Woman, What does this have to do with me? It's so great. He's 30.
It's just the way moms act. Like my mom could come to my house and be like, You need to clean your room. And I'd be like, Yes ma'am. That's just how it works. So he says, They have no wine.
Jesus says, What does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. She didn't even respond to him. He says, What does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.
And she looks at him. She looks at the servants. And she says, Y'all do whatever he tells you. And she walks away. And you know, The disciples were like, And they've got to be thinking, How on earth is he going to supply wine? They heard this news.
They're like, Well, party's over. The celebration has ended. This is a bad deal for them. But she's asking him to supply wine. And you know, They're thinking, How is he going to do this? Like, But she's just put it on him.
They're out of wine. Do your thing. And she walks out. So Jesus is just standing there. I can just kind of imagine him just looking at her. She walks away and being like, I don't even know.
Looks at his disciples. They try to act like they weren't laughing. Like, so. Alright, so. So, Then Jesus, So his mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there For the Jewish rites of purification.
Each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water. Okay. So, Now I'm making this up. But this is just how I see it in my head.
She's walking off. Jesus is sitting there. And he's going to do this, But it's not a big public thing. And he looks over and he sees these six stone water jars For the Jewish rites of purification. These stone water jars were designed for them to wash their hands And do some ceremonial washing. To, What they were trying to do was uphold the law Of the clean laws, Clean and unclean laws, Which were given by God in the Old Testament To show the Jewish, The Israelite people, That they were not clean.
To teach them that sin defiles us. That sin separates us from God. That we cannot, In our sinful state, Just approach him. So it was to teach us how often we make ourselves defiled. And even if you were living up to the clean laws, When you came to the temple, You still had to have a sacrifice on your behalf. You still, In the tabernacle, Had to have a sacrifice on your behalf.
And so what it meant was, You can be as clean as you want to be. You still need a sacrifice. So these laws were designed to point to Christ. That in our religion, We will never clean ourselves up enough. And our sin does defile us. Well what they had done, What the Jewish people had done, Was they had added layer upon layer upon layer, Lump upon layer, On top of this.
And so, These ceremonial washings, Jesus didn't do. His disciples didn't do. And he didn't do. He did the ones that were prescribed in the law. He lived under the law. But he didn't do these, Because we see in Luke, At one point he goes to a party, A dinner party at a Pharisee's house.
And they're all washing their hands, Doing the ceremonial stuff. And he just goes and sits at the table. And it's like, They're all looking at him like, How on earth is he going to eat, If he doesn't wash his hands? And then they get in a big argument. And it's great. And it doesn't say he leaves.
So I assume he just started touching things, With his unwashed hands. It's like, Give me some of those potatoes. I don't know. I'm making that up. But it doesn't say he leaves.
I assume he stayed and ate with them. So he doesn't do this. He doesn't do this. This was added on top to prove How good and how religious they were. So it would be similar to when someone's like, I've never watched an R-rated movie.
It's like, Well, that's good. That doesn't earn you points or anything. And Gladiator was great. So Terminator 2 is pretty good. Like, I don't know. You may want to bend that one a little bit For some of them.
It's okay if people feel convicted To do some of that. That's fine. But it doesn't add points. And it doesn't, You don't pile up your religious duties To prove to God that you have worth. That doesn't happen. And so that's what this was.
It was for them to ceremonially walk under. Look at how blameless I am. So I imagine, He's thinking, How am I going to supply this wine? He sees these jars And he gets this look on his face. And he cracks the smile. And the disciples don't know What that smile means yet.
They've only been around for about a week. The smile is, I'm about to tick off religious people. I think he cracked that smile a lot. I think he had this look in his eye like, Okay, now this could work. And so he tells them to fill it up. They fill it up.
And it says that there are Six stone water jars there For the Jewish rites of purification. Each holding 20 or 30 gallons. So they fill these up to the top. He says, Take that out And take it to the master of the feast. And it says that that water turned into wine. So Jesus Took six stone water jars, Filled them up to the top, And turned them into wine.
This teaches us a few things. One is, Jesus just made 120 gallons of wine. That's 619 bottles. I did the math. That may not connect well with us. That's 150 boxes.
Is that better? Y'all received that a little better? 150 boxes of wine. He didn't do this. This wasn't like a one night kegger thing. What this shows us is They had way underestimated How much wine they were going to need For this celebration to last an entire week.
So that's what it's telling us. He supplies what they needed. And maybe even above what they needed. But it wasn't like, Let me do some ridiculous thing For this one night. It wasn't that. So he supplies what was needed.
He makes all of this into wine. Steps in. And continues the celebration for him. Now, I've had the opportunity Because I like this story. To be able to talk about this With other groups before. And other churches.
And I used to get invited To go speak at churches On some Sundays and stuff. I would always at this point Kind of point out that What I would say is this. I would say, We're not going to get into Whether or not That wine was alcohol Or not alcohol. Or whether it was capable Of making somebody drunk. We're not going to get into How that plays out. Because that's not the point of the story.
And it isn't the point of the story. But, This is the first time I've had the opportunity To talk about this With my church family. That was actual wine Capable of making somebody drunk. It was actual alcohol. Still not the point of the story. And it is not to Highlight or key in On alcohol at all.
And I know that alcohol Can be destructive And cause problems. I know that In a very real way. But, It was actual alcohol. And so that shows us That God doesn't tempt us To sin. We know that from James. He's not tempting us to sin.
I love what Martin Luther said. Martin Luther said, Men can go wrong With wine and with women. Are we going to outlaw women? That's kind of a helpful way To think about that. Because that's true. God designs these things That are good And for our joy.
And we know from scripture That getting drunk is not okay. Very clear about that. But wine is actually a gift And it's made for joy And all these other things. And so he does make wine. I just wanted to point that out. If you want to talk more about that Would be happy to have that conversation.
That is not the point Of what's happening here. So he makes this wine. And so he sends it out. He says, Fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, Now draw some out And take it to the master of the feast.
Nobody knows what a master of the feast is. And all the stuff I read, It's like, Your guess is as good as ours Is basically what commentaries say about it. There's no real parallel To anything else in history That they know of. So what we do know Is that he was in charge of something But he didn't know That they were running out of wine apparently. Or that they were out. He may have known they were running out.
He didn't know they were out. But he was in charge of Basically like overseeing this ceremony. So, Now draw some out And take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. When the master of the feast Tasted the water Now become wine And did not know where it came from Though the servants Who had drawn the water knew The master of the feast Called the bridegroom And said to him So, Okay. Getting married He calls the bridegroom Which is just the groom.
This guy, The bridegroom Is having a rough time. I want you all to feel this with me. Getting married Is rough. It's hard. It's basically the worst. Being married is great.
Getting married is the worst. Like the process, The two day process That you go through Where you're dressed up In an outfit You would never wear ever And stuck up in front of people And you have to recite things And you mess it up And you're going to pass out And you don't feel good. Like that whole process, I assume it's good for females. I hope so. I hope my wife enjoyed our wedding day And our reception and all that stuff. It was, I was glad when it was over.
It wore me out. She's in Kid City Helping take care of people. So I told her I was going to tell her That getting married was the worst. And she said, I know, You've told me before. So, But it is. I remember the, We had our rehearsal dinner Which is the night before you like Practice getting married.
And we ate. And the groom's family Usually kind of puts that on. So we were at a barbecue place. That's right. Because we're, But I couldn't even eat it. It was the worst.
You know it's bad If I can't eat barbecue. Like I'm sitting there looking at it. And I just, My stomach was just like, I don't know how I feel about this. It's just like, Tying itself in a knot. And so, This guy has to go through this for a week. I only had like two days.
I had, You know, Rehearsal dinner. Rehearsal, Rehearsal dinner. Wedding. Reception. And then we were done. This guy's in the middle of like, A week long thing.
With family. And people coming in out of town. And all these friends you hadn't seen. Everybody wants to talk to you. And these people are arguing about decorations. And they don't even know each other.
And this grandmother keeps setting something up. And the other grandmother keeps taking it down. And like, It just becomes this big thing. And so he's in the middle of this week of this. And he's running out of wine. So he's about to start his entire marriage off.
This celebration. It should be this joyous occasion. He's about to start it off in dishonor. And that's a problem. He knows that at some point, So he's having these conversations. Because he was apparently related to how the wine was working out as well.
Because the master of the feast calls the bridegroom to talk to him about how he had planned out the wine. That's what he's about to have that conversation. So he calls the bridegroom. So the bridegroom knows this is coming. He's been having probably argumentative type conversations with his bride. We're running out of wine.
I know. I know we're running out of wine. We're really running out of wine. We're getting low. I know. I realize that.
We're about to be out of wine. What do you want me to do about it? Like, How do you want me to? Well, I want you to not have invited all your guzzly friends over. They're doing the fight and smile. You know, Because people are around.
So it's like, They got that going on. It's not a pleasant situation. And they're fighting and smiling. She's asking him to do things in the past. And that's how you know it's gone really bad. Like, When the only way to fix it is to have a time machine.
Like, It's like, I want you to have done this. I want you to have gotten more wine. It's like, That's not going to happen. Do we have anything constructive? Like, I can't go back in the past and have those conversations. It's like, You realize that's impossible, right?
Like, This isn't even helpful in this conversation. But anyway, So they're doing that. He knows at some point they're out. At some point he has to stand up and say, Hey everybody, Thank you for coming out for this joyous occasion. We didn't plan ahead well. We didn't prepare well.
I was not able to supply what was needed. I was not able to take care of this. And you all need to go home now. I'm going to begin my relationship with my bride in public shame, guilt, and dishonor. Thank you for being here. Party's over.
He knows that's coming. It's on the way. I don't know if they tried to water things down. I don't know what happened, but it's on the way. And then he sees Master the Feast holding a glass of wine. Let's do this thing.
It's over. So he comes walking up to the Master of the Feast. He's got a smile on his face, really ticking him off. Master of the Feast called the bridegroom, said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first. And he's thinking, Yeah, we did. And they drank it.
And when people have drunk freely, Too freely, some might say, Then the poor wine. Mm-hmm. Busted that out two days ago. It's gone too. But you have kept the good wine until now.
I did what now? I wonder if he tried to play it off. Yeah, that was a thing I wanted to do to kind of mix it up. I've been to these before, And they always serve the good stuff first, But I was saving it. It's got a good year. Like, I don't know.
I don't know if he just smiled and walked away. Like, I don't know if he's ever talked. So the Master of the Feast calls him over and says, This is the best wine we've served. Like, you did this wrong. You're supposed to serve the best wine first, Then the poor wine. And you busted out the best wine now.
This is the first of his signs. Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, And manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. Okay. So John calls this a sign.
He doesn't call it a miracle. It's a different word. So he, It's a different word in Greek and in English. But he uses the word sign. And what he's saying is, This shows us, He says this is the first of his signs, That he accomplished, That he did. And he manifested his glory.
What Jesus does in this, Is he teaches us something about his nature, And his character. And, He shows us ultimately, What he came to accomplish. So Jesus teaches us, Because it's a sign, He teaches us something about his nature, And his character, And ultimately what he came to accomplish. And whenever we learn, As believers, As people who follow Christ, When we learn something about the nature, And the character of God, It applies in both ways. It applies to what he came to accomplish. It also applies to how we follow him.
He is our example, And those who have the spirit of Christ, Dwelling in us, We are to follow him by his example. We're to grow to be more like Christ. That's what Christian means. It means little Christ. So when we see this, When we learn about the nature, The nature and the character of God, We learn how we ought to be.
So, Jesus steps in, Into the party, Into the celebration, And he brings the better one. That's who we're supposed to be as a people. We're supposed to take part in the regular rhythms of celebrations of our culture. To be a part of them, And to supply what's lacking. That's what he did. They were running out, And he supplied what was lacking.
So for us, That means we show up, We bring the better one. That's who we are, When it comes to celebrations and parties. That's Jesus' people. That means that, That doesn't mean necessarily alcohol. It means that maybe you show up, And you're, Hey, I'm hanging out. I'm going to be here with y'all.
I'm going to be gracious. I'm going to be humble. I'm going to be helpful. And when the night's over, I'm giving people a ride home. Because y'all are going to be here doing this anyway. I'm just going to supply what's lacking.
Someone who's capable of driving. Maybe it means, Hey, I'm going to show up. I'm going to be the guy who stays late and cleans up. I'm going to be the guy that helps make this mess go away. Maybe it means you show up with plates and plates of carbs. Maybe that's, Maybe that's what we do.
Like, I don't know. But we, We're Jesus' people. We show up hospitable, Humble, Generous, And we supply what's lacking. That's what he does. He steps into the situation, And he supplies what's lacking. He doesn't, In all religious cultures, The way people think about it is, The most religious people have climbed up on a mountain.
They've separated themselves. They, They don't even wear normal clothes. They, They, You know, Some of them don't even speak, And they, They sit and they just think about things. Or they, They, They kind of separated themselves from culture. The most holy, Perfect being that has ever walked on the face of the earth, Did not separate himself from culture. He stepped into it.
He stepped into the normal rhythms of everyday life. Jesus walked in celebrations. He shared meals with people. He walked through normal life. He didn't just float around. He didn't go up on a mountain, And make people come up to just hear his teaching.
He, He stepped into culture. And that's who we get to be as his people. We get to walk in the normal rhythms of everyday life, Making things better. We don't just do this at celebrations, Although we do this at celebrations. But we do this in normal life.
That's what we do in this city. Our community groups should be praying, And looking, And walking with each other, And trying to figure out, How do we supply what's lacking in our city? Is this school having a hard time making its grades? Well then we show up, And we help do tutoring programs. Is this area of our city never taken care of? Are these people not loved?
Well then we step in. Is this area, Do these people need to just know how to have a generic budget? Know how to pay their bills? Well we step in. We coach them up. We love.
We serve. We clean. That's us. That's Jesus' people. We just step into normal life, And try to figure out how to supply what's lacking. So he shows us something about his nature and his character.
That he's humble. That he's gracious. And that genuinely he just steps in and helps them. This was going to be bad for them. And just in his grace he just makes it okay. He saves them from dishonor.
But not only that, It shows us ultimately what he came to do. It's one of the reasons I love this story so much. See Jesus when he came to earth, He came to do exactly what he did here. He came in and we're lacking. We're not capable of solving this problem on our own. In this story, We're the bridegroom.
We're running on empty. Headed for shame. Headed for guilt. Headed for destruction. That's us. And Jesus steps in and he does two things.
He removes our pretense of religion. So he takes away their ability to ceremonially wash. You cannot wash your hands in wine, But you can continue a wedding celebration. You see Jesus steps in. He removes our ability to posture ourselves up in front of him. To justify ourselves through our own works.
He takes that away from us. And he invites us through grace. His freely offered grace into the celebration. He invites us into the feast. What he did in this story is what he came to do for us on the cross. The night before Jesus died, He took a cup full of wine and he says, This is the wine in the new covenant, My blood which is poured out for you.
And so Jesus went to the cross And he poured out his blood To supply what was lacking on our behalf So that we might have life. So that we might have joy. So that the pretense of our religion. So that all the things that we think we can put in front of him To say that we're worthy. That we're good. That we can do this on our own.
To be taken away forever. And to be freely offered to us Through grace. To enter into his celebration. The Bible begins. After God creates everything. He has the first wedding celebration With Adam and Eve.
Jesus, his first miracle is at a wedding ceremony. And the end of the Bible, It ends with the wedding supper of the Lamb. Where Jesus, our groom, Takes his bride, his church, To himself. He makes us his. He tells him in the night before he's going to die, He says, I'm not going to taste of this again Until I taste it new with you in the kingdom. Jesus hasn't drunk anything, Any fruit from the vine Until he celebrates with us At the wedding ceremony, The wedding supper of the Lamb.
At one point, Jesus is going to crack the sky open. He's going to call us home. And that's when the celebration really begins. That's when the joy And the life really begins. And we, as his people, Are to be a foretaste of the kingdom, Which is a never-ending celebration With Jesus, our King. We're to be a foretaste of that.
We're to be the best partiers. If there's one thing that Christians are known for, It's for their ability to party. Am I right? Can I get an amen? Somebody. That is not true.
That is not what we're known for. But it should be. That's us. We have Jesus who stepped in And brings the better wine. Who steps in and supplies what's lacking. And ultimately, We'll have a celebration feast With him in heaven.
We're to be a foretaste of that kingdom. And we're the only people Who have something to celebrate. Jesus is alive. Our sin is gone. We are free. We have hope and life in him forever.
I don't have to prove my worth. I don't have to show the world that I'm good. I don't have to justify my existence. Jesus already has. We have something to celebrate. We should be the most partying people on the planet.
Because we actually have something to celebrate. We're not running from something. We shouldn't be caught up in debauchery. But we should be joyous, celebratory people Who walk in the normal rhythms of everyday life Celebrating because that's who we are. Because we've been freed up to do that. And we don't have to seek joy out of it.
We have joy given to us by Christ That we get to walk in. That's us. Now, There may be somebody in here tonight. You don't know Jesus. And you're saying, I feel way more like the bridegroom. I'm empty.
And I'm trying to fix a problem I can't fix. And it's just progressively gotten worse. I'm headed towards shame. Towards guilt and destruction. And all I want to let you know is that Jesus, on your behalf, Has already fixed the problem. I just want to be the master of the feast.
Just to call you over and say, Hey bro, I don't know if you know this. Here's what's already happened. Jesus had died on our behalf. He took our sin onto himself So that we might be free. So that we might have life and joy forever.
That our sin could be taken away. That he could be crushed for. And that we could be given life in him. When he rose from the dead, He conquered sin and guilt and shame forever for us. And he's invited us into, By grace, Not to clean ourselves up, But by grace to join him in the celebration. Next week, We're not going to meet here.
We're going to meet at 3pm at Willow Ridge Church. To celebrate the baptism of 8 people Who are part of our church family. 8 people who want to go public With the fact that Jesus has stepped in on their behalf. And supplied what was lacking. That he has taken care of the problem they couldn't fix. And to proclaim to everyone who is present.
That Jesus is God. And Jesus is King. And he has rescued and redeemed them. And made them his own. And we're going to lose our minds. We're going to clap.
And we're going to scream. And we're going to yell. And then we're going to have a party. We're going to eat popcorn and snow cones. And we're going to play games and celebrate. Because we have something to celebrate.
That Jesus is alive. That he does rescue. That he does redeem. And that he has made us his. And that we don't have to prove it. We don't have to earn it.
We are just caught up in the celebration through grace. That's what he's supplied for us in the cross. So that's us. Can that be us as a church? Can that be us as a church family? Can we be the best partying church in West Columbia?
Can that be us? Can we celebrate more? Can we infectiously invite other churches to take part in that? Can we infectiously invite other people who don't know Jesus to celebrate with people who do? Because we're the best at it. Let's do that.
Let's let that be us. Let's celebrate and lose our minds next week. And let's continue to keep doing that. Following Jesus in grace. Clapping, singing, dancing. And having a party until he calls us home to the real one.
God, we thank you. That through grace. You have invited us into the celebration. We didn't work it out on our own. We didn't earn it. We didn't achieve it.
We didn't knock it out. We didn't fix the problem. But you did. God, we thank you. And we praise you. And God, I pray that you would make us more like Jesus.
That we would celebrate well. That we'd be humble. Gracious. Enjoyable. That we would supply what's lacking. When it comes to our streets.
Our neighbors. Our jobs. Our city. We love you. We ask for more and more of your grace. And your Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
Jesus is Better than our Idols
Transcript
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. It's going to take us a minute to get there tonight. We're actually going to be in two separate chunks of Scripture because we're going to be unpacking two separate ideas. But we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. If you don't have a Bible, just throw your hand up, Mitchell, and be able to grab and hand these out. So we've got some back there for you.
My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, and it's just good to see everybody. Decided to get all our groups together. So we are in the fifth week of our Idol series. Thank you, Isaac. We're in our fifth week of our Idol series.
We've been unpacking for the past four weeks that sin for us does not primarily look like us breaking rules. So for most of us, we grew up with an understanding or our understanding of religion or Christianity is that God has rules, and you don't want to break His rules. And it's bad when we break His rules. But for the most part, sin is actually, we don't break God's rules until we have first placed something else as primary, as more supreme, as more important to us than God. So even when God sets up the Ten Commandments, He sets it up as, you will have no other gods before me, and you will make no idols, no graven images for yourself.
And then He gives the rest of them. So we actually don't break the other Ten Commandments until we've first broken the first one. We've first said that something else is functionally more important to us than God. And so that's what we've been talking about. We've been unpacking this idea of idolatry. St.
Augustine Okat from the 4th century, he was a pastor in Africa, wrote the book Confessions, wrote a lot. He's considered a church father. He said that sin is a disorder of love. And that's kind of how we've been looking at this, that when we love anything more than we love God, it leads us into sin. And we see this in other areas. So if you love success more than your family, then you'll work too much and not spend time with your children.
If you love the way people view you more than you love the truth, then you'll lie about yourself so that you can look good. And so the truth is for us that it's actually when we love something too much, when we place too much value on something, that we begin to turn away from God and we begin to chase after other things. And what we unpacked was basically we actually want God to be God. That was what we spent the first week talking about and how idolatry is us worshiping something other than God. The second week we looked at how we can turn anything into a God. So we take good things, turn them into God things, and that actually becomes a very bad thing.
The third week we spent some time talking about what that actually does to our object of worship and to us when we do that, how we ultimately begin to destroy. So if it's a relationship, we'll slowly destroy that relationship because we have to take from it to validate ourselves, to give ourselves worth, and ultimately idolatry destroys us. Last week we spent some time unpacking that really we have heart-level idolatry. That it's not always just the object of what we're chasing after like money, but most of the time it is actually something deeper. That we're actually seeking power or control or approval or comfort and we're just money is the best way to get it.
And so we actually have heart-level issue and so God actually has to change our hearts for that to work out, for us to grow in that. So what we're actually going to look at tonight is we're finishing up the series and we're just going to spend some time talking about Jesus. And we're going to do it by looking at some lies that our idols tell us. Jeremiah 17.9, we read this the other day, but I think it bears repeating. It says this, this is prophet Jeremiah talking, he says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?
So the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. This makes like most animated movies really scary. Because there's always like a cricket or a bird or something that shows up and it's like, follow your heart wherever it will lead you. Like whenever you see that, stand up and yell, don't do it kid! It's a trick! Your heart is going to destroy you.
It's a bad idea. Don't listen to the cricket. Do that next time. It will be very helpful. But that's the truth, that our hearts are desperately sick.
No one has lied to you more than you have. No one has more often worked to deceive you more than you have. No one has stolen more joy from you than you have. It's just no one has. I remember the first time I heard that, someone was like, unpacking that idea. And they were like, no one has lied to you more than you have.
And I was like, that's not true. Wait a second. That's exactly what I would say to me if I did lie to me. This is getting really fishy. But it's true.
And so what we're going to spend some time is looking at the fact that our hearts and our idols lie to us. And we actually have to, we're going to just spend some time unpacking that and replacing those lies with what Jesus actually accomplishes for us. And so we said early on that most of the time our idolatry is not just something bad. That most of the time it's actually a good thing. It's a gift that God gave us to enjoy and to appreciate and to take part in that we've turned into something ultimate. So it's marriage, it's relationships, it's success, it's approval, it's comfort.
All these things given to us by a good God who wants us to enjoy life. And then we make it as ultimate. We begin to define our life around it. And then it becomes a very big problem. I remember when I was, I don't know, I was a little kid. But this story is not about me.
It's about my younger brother. So he's a couple years younger than me. He was like four or five. So that makes me seven or eight or something. We went to the Universal Studios and they had the Jaws ride. I don't know if they still do, but that ride was great.
And my younger brother, really, four or five, I don't think he was even, like, hadn't even made it to kindergarten yet. And one of his favorite movies was Jaws. That cat watched Jaws, Aliens, and Terminator on repeat. Like when I was growing up watching like Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Aladdin, this cat was watching Jaws. You can question my parents' parenting ability later. If you would like.
But he was like five. And so we're at Universal and they're like, we're going to do this Jaws ride. And he was amped because he loved the movie Jaws. So he gets on the ride and you're in water and you're going along and he's just eating it up. And then over the radio, the person's like talking to somebody, you know, in an earlier vessel. And they're like, we've got problems here.
There's a giant shark. And you hear like water gurgling into the mic. And my little brother was like, he's seen the movies. He knows what's going to happen. He looks at my mom and he's like, this is not okay. And my mom's like, no, it's fine, it's fine.
He goes, it is not fine. He said, I heard him go glo-go-go-go-go-go. Which meant, you know, they drowned. So we're going along. She's telling me, it's okay, it's okay. And then he just sat in the absolute perfect spot.
And I think it's because we have a good God who wants to give us good gifts. And he was being gracious to the rest of my family and everyone else on the boat. Not so much to Vince. So Vince is sitting and the animatronic Jaws pops out of the water and bites the side of the boat right where he is. He stands up in his seat and goes, we're all going to die. He is just streaming down his face.
He has lost it. He hasn't fully grasped the idea of what a ride was at this point. I guess he was questioning my parents' idea of, we're actually going to go see this Shark Jaws and this will be fun. Like, what on earth is wrong with these people? My mom was able to calm him down. And then after the ride, I mean, still, they had to explain to him, this is just a ride, this is how this works.
Once it clicked, once he got what it was intended for, it was his favorite ride. He ended up riding it like three or four times. And he loved it. But he was believing something that was wrong about it, which just ultimately ruined the ride for him. Once he realized how it was intended to be used, how it was intended to be operated, then it was actually something he could enjoy. Anyway, that's what we're doing tonight.
We've been believing incorrect things about our idols. They've been lying to us and we've been believing it. And we're going to replace that with the truth that is ours in Christ. And once Jesus is in the right place, everything else just gets to be what it is. So money can just be money if Jesus is God.
Your marriage can just be your marriage if Jesus is God. Then we actually can take all the good things that we've been treating as ultimate things and it's been destroying us. We can put them in their rightful place and actually enjoy them as Jesus trains us in how to do that. And so all we're doing is taking some lies, replacing them with truth so that we can operate and follow Jesus the way we were designed to. So here are the two lies we're going to walk through and then we'll jump into the first one.
So idolatry is a heart issue. It's us taking and chasing after something that we think is going to do these two things. This is the primary lies that our idols tell us. I can give you worth. I can give you life. So whatever it is that we're chasing after that we've put in the place of God, those are the two things that our idols and our hearts lie to us and tell us.
I can give you worth. I can give you life. First lie, I can give you worth. So we use our idols to justify our existence. They tell us that they can give us worth and value in the world. Basically, our idols come to us and say, I can make it okay for you to live on an overpopulated planet and suck up air.
I can make it okay. I can make it to where each day you have a reason to wake up, you have a reason to walk in life, and when you die, you weren't a waste of space. That's what our idols tell us. So whatever it is we're pursuing, and this is why you'll see men a lot of times will work and work and work and work and work and retire and die. Because what they had been using to define that the reason they had value in the world no longer existed for them. Because they had believed that work gave them worth, and when they weren't working anymore, they didn't really have a reason to wake up in the morning.
Because our idols tell us that they can give us worth. They tell us they can justify our existence. The movie Rocky, which is a great movie, and it's old. It's like, I don't know, it's old. But it's a very good movie.
It's one of the two good movies that Sylvester Stallone ever did. So there's the first Rocky, and then there's, Rocky II is okay. And then there's Rambo First Blood. And the greatest arm wrestling movie of all time, Over the Top. But that's a really narrow category.
So it wins that category, but I'm pretty sure it's the only one. Because everyone else is like, no, we're not making a movie about arm wrestling. Anyway, I get distracted. In Rocky, he's going to fight Apollo Creed, and he tells Adrian, who's his girlfriend, he says, I don't even want to win. I just want to go the distance. I don't even have to win.
I just want to go the distance, because then I'll know I'm not just some street bum. All of us have something that we're looking at and saying, if I can just do that, then I'll know I'm not a bum. If I can just have that, if I can just accomplish this, if this would just work out, then I'll know I'm not a bum. Then I'll know I haven't failed. Then I'll know I haven't fallen short.
Then I'll know I've had worth. I'll know I'm not a bum. That's what our idols are telling us, that they can give us worth, that they can justify our existence. But they can't. They ultimately let us down. They ultimately fail us.
That's what we spent the past four weeks talking about. That when we achieve them, we feel the need to achieve something else, to chase after something else. I remember in high school I played football. The best thing you can do in high school football is win state. I remember telling my mom when I was a freshman in high school, I think our team will be good enough by the time we're seniors to win state. She was like, okay.
I remember when they were doing class rings my sophomore year. I was like, nah, that's okay. I'll just get a state ring and wear that. My mom was like, you may not win state. Do you want a class ring? And I was like, no, I don't.
We won state my senior year. And that was cool. I did not wear that ring to college or my Letterman jacket because I appreciate not being made fun of. I didn't cease to exist after winning state in high school. It was nice. It was fun.
It was cool. Everything that we look at and say, this will prove my existence. This will give me value. This will show that we get it. And then it's like, ah, I probably should pick something bigger next time so it takes a little longer to get there. I probably should have something else that I find value and worth in so that I can pretend longer that this will fulfill me.
2 Corinthians chapter 5. I have some good news for us. Verse 21, one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. 5.21. For our sake, he made him. So he, the first he is God, made him.
The second, the him is Jesus. So for our sake, God made Jesus to be sin. We're going to come back to that. Who knew no sin. So sinless Jesus became sin on our behalf.
So that in him, in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Our idols promise us that they can justify our existence and they cannot. The word justify when the Bible uses it is talking about a legal transaction. So it's as if you were acquitted in court.
So that you were tried and you were declared not guilty. They can never try you on that again. So when the Bible speaks of justification, what it's saying is that we've been acquitted in God's court. But not only that, the great exchange has happened. Where Jesus actually became our sin. So that in him, we could become God's righteousness.
Did y'all bring your idol with you? I got mine with me. I carry it around with me all the time. I just happen to have a representation of it this week. Y'all catch that? Okay.
Jesus became everything I wrote on this. So last week, we took the time to sit down and write out what it is that we think will give us value. That we think will give us life. That we think will bring ultimate joy and fulfillment. And Jesus became it. He became everything you wrote down on that disc.
Everything that he's begun to reveal to you over these past few weeks. He became it. He became our posturing for power. He became our lying for approval. He became our incessant need to have others validate us. He became the darkest, most broken parts of our souls.
He became sin. And he was crushed for it. So that in him, we can become the righteousness of God. We stand in God's court and he declares over us the same thing that he would declare over Jesus. That we're approved. That we're valued.
That we're loved. God is not indifferent towards Jesus. He prefers him. He loves him. He lavishes on him. And we are in Christ.
We are the righteousness of God for those of us who have placed faith in Christ. And God prefers us. And he loves us. And he lavishes on us because of Jesus. Once you go to the Supreme Court in the U.S., you don't go anywhere else. Once the Supreme Court's made a decision on something.
They don't appeal down to a lesser court. When the God of the universe speaks that we're the righteousness of God because of Christ, we don't appeal down to a lesser court. We don't say, yeah, but popular opinion at work. Like, that's an appeals process, God. And I've got to run this by my wife. That's not how that works.
We are the righteousness of God because of Christ. I don't even fully know what that means, but I know it's great. That means that we don't need the approval of people because the God of the universe approves of us because we're in Christ. The most powerful being in the universe lavishes on us, cares for us, loves us, so we don't need to seek to have power on earth. The God of all comfort declares that we are in him forever, that we have always been made right, so we don't have to spend our days chasing after some piddly form of comfort that is soon fleeting. The God who orders the universe has already secured the end for us.
Our need to pretend like we have control fades away. Jesus gives us worth. Our idols do not. Jesus gives us never-ending, everlasting worth, and our idols cannot. The second law. I can give you life.
So the first one is that they can justify our existence. They can give us a reason to live. They can prove that we're worth being around. And the second one is that they can give us fulfillment and validation and satisfaction and joy. They can give us life. And it's really kind of squishy.
But we think this. Life was the best term I could come up with to describe what it is our idols are telling us. Because it's not like I can give you the ability to suck oxygen into your lungs and to keep your heart beating. That's not what your idol tells you. But it's this.
Okay, so you were in elementary school. And you were like, ah, elementary school is okay. But middle school is where it's at. And then you got to middle school and you were like, I was really dumb in elementary school. Because middle school is the worst. This is horrible.
Like that's the closest to purgatory I think I've ever been. Middle school. So you're in middle school and you're like, this is the worst. High school. High school is where it's at. When I get to high school, I'll have life.
That's where joy will be found. High school people, that's it. High school is the promised land. You get to high school and you're like, I'm going to need a driver's license for this to work out right. Like, high school is good, but driver's license. What if I have a driver's license?
I get that taste of freedom. Then I'll be okay. And then you get your driver's license. And after a while, you're like, ah, I just want to get out of high school. I just want to be done with this place. I want to have some freedom.
I want to be away from my parents or whatever. And then you start saying, if I could just go to this school or if I could just get this job. And then it's, if I could just get this promotion or if I could just graduate with this degree or if I could just get married. And if we could, oh, if we could just get married. If we could just have children, you have children. Maybe we should have gotten a dog.
Like, it's always around the corner that we keep telling ourselves that's where life will be. Because you're doing that now. We're all looking and saying, ah, if we could just, hmm, get into that type of house. If we could just get to where we didn't have to worry about our bills. If we could just get to this next stage. Always around the corner we're saying, life will be here.
Life will be here. Life will be here. And the reason that we do that is because we haven't found it yet. None of us have reached the point where we are like, that's it. Even when we get a taste of it, it's soon fading and we realize we need something else. Colossians 3.
Just a few flips to the right. Verse 1. If then you have been raised with Christ. So this is those who are in Christ. Those who are believers that place their faith in Christ. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is.
Some versions say set your heart on. So if then you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on the things that are above. See, our idols are where we set our hearts. And the reason we know that is because when they're up, we're up. And when they're down, we're down. So if it's relationships, I'm in a relationship.
I'm good. All of life is good. This relationship isn't good. Or I'm out of a relationship. I'm bad. All of life is bad.
My worth comes from having finances, having money. That's why when the stock market crashed. When all of that happened with the housing market and with Madoff. There were so many CEOs that hanged themselves or jumped out of windows. Because where their heart was set had just dropped off. And where they had their life centered was gone.
And so whatever it is that we're riding the wave of and then crashing back down with, it's where our hearts are set. But it says to set our hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth. So this is basically what we were talking about where God says, you cannot make an idol out of anything that has been created. Which leaves us one option. God can be our God.
Because he's the only thing that's not created. So that's what that's saying. Don't set your mind on anything that's on earth. Don't chase after anything that's been created. Set it on Christ. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. For you have died. We have died to our old selves with Christ, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will appear with him in glory. Our lives are not going to be found for those of us who are in Christ anywhere other than him. They're not just around the corner.
They're not going to be found in the next promotion. They're not going to be found in the next relationship. They're not going to be found if we can just make this work, this scenario play out. They aren't anywhere but in Christ. That's amazing. That our lives are in him.
We don't have to search for them. We don't have to chase for them. We don't have to try to find them. He has it. Our life is hidden with Christ. I heard a pastor talking one time, and he was working with a lady who had some serious relationship idolatry.
That she consistently was seeking approval from men. And the only way she kind of knew that her life was okay was when she had a man. That they validated her. So she was talking with a counselor, and the counselor told her, it was a lady. The counselor told her, you need to get off of this man habit you're on. And you need to get a job.
You need to get your own career. You need to pursue that. And then you'll be self-sufficient, and you won't need a man all the time. You'll have your own thing going. And this pastor said he was talking to her, and he's like, well, what did you think of that advice? And the lady said, I agreed that I didn't need to have a man for approval.
But I did not want to just swap out a typical female idol, relationships, for a typical male idol, career. She was like, I didn't think that was a good trait, to just swap idols. And he said, okay, well, what has helped you in this? What has grown you in this? And she said Colossians 3. She said, I memorized Colossians 3, and every time I enter into a conversation, start getting to know a man, I say to myself, my life is hidden with Christ in God.
My life is not hidden in you. So she'd say, I'd start a relationship. I'd be like, you might be a great man. You might even one day be my husband, and you may be a great husband and a great father. But my life is not hidden in you.
I don't need you to complete my life. And that is true for us in Christ, and that is great news. That our next job promotion, our next career, our next good grade, our ability to graduate, our ability to get this situation to work out, our ability to enter into a relationship, our ability to have our children grow up and be happy and healthy and fine, our life is not hidden there. It's in Christ. So practically, do you know how free this makes us as Christians?
Do you know how good that news is? That nothing outside of Jesus is going to bring us worth. And because our worth is centered in Jesus, nothing outside of Jesus can take it from us. And nothing outside of Jesus is going to give us life, and because our life is centered in Jesus, nothing can take it from us. I was recently reading Justin Martyr, where we get the term martyred from. He was writing a letter to the Roman government to tell them basically they shouldn't kill Christians because Christians were great.
That was basically his argument. He was like, look, Jesus told us to pay taxes and to not cause problems. You want all your citizens to be Christians. Killing us is dumb. His letter didn't go so well because we got the term martyr from his name, just for the record. He said, spoiler alert, I don't think it was well received.
But in that letter, he said this. He said, I want to make something clear to you. You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us. That's the freedom that we have in Christ. I can lose my job. That doesn't harm me because my worth and my life don't come from it.
I probably should get another Job because paying bills is nice and eating is fun. But my life and my worth don't come from it. This relationship that I'm in with Anna, my marriage, is great. And it can be going really well, and it can be going really poorly, and it doesn't destroy me. She's my wife. She's a sinner I'm married to.
I'm a sinner she's married to. I got the better end of that deal, for the record. And we just get to walk through life together. Because worth and value in life don't come from it. So we actually just get to be teammates who walk through life together.
You can graduate or not graduate. You can be in a relationship or not in a relationship. Your kids can turn out wonderfully or be the worst children the world has ever seen. And your worth and your life are always forever sealed in Christ. Now that's freedom.
People can like you or not like you. Life and worth are in Christ. So what this means for us is that as we wrote down our idols, and as the Holy Spirit in His grace began to reveal to us where we had inordinate love, where we had begun to worship something more than God, what we get to do is approach Jesus in faith. That He is capable. That He has accomplished what He says He'll accomplish. That He has taken our sin and given us His righteousness by His grace and His grace alone.
And that we have died with Him when He was brutally murdered on a cross. That our sin was nailed to it with Him. And that we died. And our life is hidden in Him. When He rose again, we rose again. And one day when He cracks the sky open, we'll appear with Him in glory.
When He does that, when we see the Creator of the universe snatch heaven open to reclaim His children, it says our life will appear with Him. We'll finally say, there's my life. There's that quiet nagging I've had my entire life. That's where it's hidden. It's hidden with Christ in God. And we'll be forever with Him.
Forever free. Forever loved and approved and comforted and given grace. Because He is good. And only He is good. And we are not. So we get to approach Jesus in faith and faith alone.
We don't have to be good at getting rid of the things we wrote down on these discs. We don't have to be good at crushing all the things that God began to reveal to us that we pursue. Because Jesus is great at it. Now that's good news. My value and my worth and my life are found in Jesus forever. And I get to approach Him in faith that He is big enough and He is capable of destroying all the would-be gods that would take His place.
So the band's going to come back up. And we're going to do things a little bit differently tonight. We're going to sing one song. I'm going to come back up and talk to us just for a few more minutes to kind of give us some instruction about how we're going to end this. Now we are a church family.
We exist as God's church. This isn't a show. So we respond. And so we sing one song on the front end and we're going to celebrate and sing a lot on the back end. We're going to take some time to respond to who Jesus is and what He's done. So we're going to sing one song.
I'm going to come back up and talk to us a little bit. But we get to approach God in faith. We get to come to Jesus knowing that these things have a hold of our hearts, but that He is the one who can grab our hearts and make it His through His grace and not anything that we do, no work that we bring to the table, no awesomeness that we have. We come empty handed to a God of grace who rescues and lavishes and loves and redeems. I'm going to pray and we're going to sing. Jesus, we thank You that in You, because You were willing to become our sin, because You were willing to take our wrath, we have become the righteousness of God.
That our worth and our value is forever sealed in You. And Jesus, we praise You and thank You that our life is in You and You alone, and that we will forever, never be able to find it on earth. That in all the things we seek, it will come up wanting because it is in You. So God, I pray right now that You would stir our hearts to love You more, that Your Holy Spirit would draw us to Yourself. And for those of us who are walking through life, seeking our worth and our life somewhere other than You, that You would capture us and make us Yours in Jesus' name. Grace is open freely for everyone.
Life is only in Jesus. The worth and the validation and the life that we're seeking, that we're constantly chasing after, all the things that our idols represent are given to us fully, and freely and forever in Jesus. And we get to approach Him in faith. Not our own ability, not our own ability to run from our idols, not our own ability to fix our heart, but faith that He is gracious and that He is capable. And that He is good. That on the cross, when He died in our place, when He took our sin, He proved once and for all that He is good, and that He is for our good.
And we get to approach Him in grace. So what we're going to do, because He is gracious, because we get to approach Him in faith and faith alone, we're going to sing a few more songs, and we're going to spend some time just talking to Jesus, praising Jesus for who He is, and you get to, if you would like, if you want to approach Jesus in faith, we've got a trash can set up over here and a trash can set up over here, and you can go throw your idol away. Not because you are able to get rid of it, but because Jesus is. All you have to do is want to get rid of it. All you have to do is surrender to the fact that He is capable of destroying all would-be gods.
You don't have to be good at it. You don't have to even get to the point where your heart isn't still going to chase after it some, but you're going to go say to Jesus, I don't want to chase after this. I don't want to seek my worth and validation from this. I don't want to try to find life in this. Life and worth and value are in you and you alone forever. And I want you as God, who are capable to step in on my behalf, just as you did in the cross, where you stepped in on my behalf to rescue and redeem.
I want you to step in and rescue and redeem. I heard this the other day, you're never too weak for a redeemer. You're never too small to come to someone who can rescue and redeem. And so we just approach Jesus in faith. Faith that He's capable. So we're going to sing a few more songs.
We're going to celebrate that Jesus is God, that He is good, that He is capable, that He does destroy idols. And we're going to approach Jesus in faith that He can. It may be a daily process of you continuing to approach Jesus in faith to get rid of your idols. But He's capable and He's faithful.
Deep Idols
Transcript
We'll be in Ezekiel chapter 14. We are in the fourth week of our series looking at and studying idolatry and kind of what the Bible has to say about that and how that plays out in our lives. Ezekiel is kind of in the middle. Maybe to the right, page 454 if you've got one of our Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you, we actually just hold your hand up. We'll grab one for you.
Aubrey will hand you one real quick. So if anybody need one, we've got some right back there. Okay, so we're in the fourth week. We've been doing this for three weeks now. How are we doing? We've been talking for the past four weeks about idolatry, kind of looking at what Scripture says about idolatry.
Are we beginning to see that in our own lives? Are we changing? Are we walking that out with community? Are we just hearing things, learning things, and not allowing it to affect us? So we got together on our first week of this series, and we talked through that God is the only God, and that we actually would want Him to be God, that it's actually best for us if He is God.
The next week we talked about how we'll take good things and turn them into God things, and then that becomes a very bad thing when we actually put that weight on something that is not God and how we'll take things that He gave us to enjoy, meant to be enjoyed, and we'll treat them as if they are God. We spent last week talking about broken cisterns. Basically what happens when we do that, how we have to work really hard to prop up our made-up God, and then ultimately we either crush it or it destroys us, and that God is the fountain of living water that brings us life. So my question is, are we seeing areas in our lives that we've placed too much weight on, that we've begun to take something good and care too much about it?
Are we looking at, are we walking that out in community? Are we doing that, or are we just hearing things, learning things, talking about things? So hopefully we are in relationships kind of walking this out and growing in the gospel. That would be the hope. That's why we do this. That's why we walk things out in church families.
So what we've been addressing, though, is that idolatry is the worship of anything other than God. So we've talked about how we often think of sin as breaking God's rules, but that we don't first break rules until we have first decided to worship something, to give more importance, more value to something other than God. So when we talk about Adam and Eve in the garden, God created them in a perfect relationship with himself. They kept it together for really like half a chapter because part of that they weren't even made yet. So it kind of tells the story twice.
So maybe if you add up both half chapters, they got a whole chapter of the Bible where humans had it together. So just so you know, if your life looks like that, lots and lots of chapters. If you're messing it up and half a chapter of it is good, that's how humans look in the Bible. So you're on pace with the rest of us. But they ate from the tree they were not supposed to eat from.
And so they certainly broke a rule. But first, their value system changed. Prior to breaking the rule that God had given them, they first decided that they wanted to elevate themselves, that they were more important. And so they swapped God out for themselves, and then they broke a rule. And so that's what we've been talking about. The sin is not primarily us breaking rules.
That when you look at the Ten Commandments, we don't break any of the other ones until we've broken the first one, which says, you will have no other gods before me. So that's what we've been talking about. What we're going to talk about tonight is heart-level idolatry. And that's what we're going to be looking at in Ezekiel. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop in.
God, we thank you for your grace. We ask you to show up in a very real way tonight. We love you, and you are good. Speak to us through your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Some of what we're going to be talking about tonight, I think, has previously been said better, or as my English 4 teacher would say in high school, more better.
She told us one time, y'all got to start doing more better on these tests. And I was like, I don't think we've got much of a chance. But there's a guy named Tim Keller that we've stolen some of these ideas from. He unpacks idolatry very well as it applies to us in American culture. And so I would recommend the book Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller. If you're interested, if you've been kind of growing and understanding this, idolatry as we walk through it, Tim Keller says things really well.
Some of what we'll talk about tonight is stuff that, like I said, I think Tim Keller has said previously, more articulately and smarter-y. That's one thing Presbyterians have going for them. They're usually pretty smart. They have a lot they have to go through to be a Presbyterian minister. Other denominations and that sort of thing, they're like, can you read? Kind of.
All right, go at it, boy. You want to yell at people about Jesus? Yes. All right, you're in. So Ezekiel chapter 14, verse 1.
Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. Okay, so Ezekiel is a prophet. He's writing this down. This is stuff that happened. So when he says they came before me, that's Ezekiel.
He's a prophet. They are in Babylon at this time. So they are in the Babylonian captivity, which means that they had been in Israel and the Babylonians had come down and snatched up a bunch of them, the king and other high-ranking people, and took them back to Babylon. And the reason that happened was because in the Old Testament, God set up the nation of Israel as his people, and as long as they were worshiping him as God, he defended them. He protected them. And so people would show up and be like, we're going to conquer you.
And they'd be like, no, because you don't know who God is, and that's going to go really poorly for you, so you might want to go home. And they would be like, yeah, right, and then God would just crush people. And then whenever they would begin to make alliances with other countries, begin to trust more in Egypt than in God, begin to trust more in other gods than in God, God would basically just say, okay, sure, if you want to pray to gods that don't exist, pray to them when people show up to capture you. And so God would lead the Israelites into captivity basically to train them, basically to show them that the gods they were trusting in, the alliances they were making, the things they were letting their heart chase after were really bad for them.
And ultimately weren't going to bring them joy and satisfaction, so he would allow them to go into captivity so that he could bring them back to himself. He actually may be doing that with some of us right now. In his grace, he may be identifying in our hearts areas of idolatry and sin that we've begun to place too much importance on something that is not him and that ultimately will not satisfy, and it's actually very loving and good for him to do that. It's the worst. Don't get me wrong. It's horrible and not enjoyable at all, but it's very, very good for us.
He's been doing that with me. It's not fun going behind the woodshed of grace, but it's very, very good for us. And so as he identifies idolatry and areas in our heart that we kind of get off, that we begin to drift, it's actually him being good to us. And that's kind of the situation they're in right now. So it says, Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me.
Elders of Israel would have been the chief leaders of the Israelite people in Babylon at this point. So chief leaders come and sit before Ezekiel, came and sat before me, and the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Stop right there. All right.
Leaders of Israel come and sit before God, come and sit before Ezekiel to have Ezekiel ask God something for him. Basically like, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to lead? What do we need to do? And what God says is, their idols are not visible. They've set them up in their hearts.
So these were Israelite leaders. They were not bowing down to other gods. They were not worshiping and chasing after other gods. If they were, it would have been obvious. When they showed up, Ezekiel would have just been like, hey, why don't y'all get rid of the idols you have in your house? Why don't you get rid of the totem poles and the asherahs?
And why don't you get rid of your Baal idol worshiping things? But they don't. They show up, seem like they've got it all together, and God says, their idols have been set up in their hearts. That's very scary for us. What that means is, that we can be walking through life, functionally looking like Jesus is our God, functionally being a part of church family, functionally looking like God is our God, but actually, at a heart level, be in love with and chasing after and worshiping something else. And so he says, the idols that they have have been set up in their hearts.
Therefore, speak to them, verse 4, Therefore, speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Anyone of the house of Israel, who takes his idols into his heart, and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him, as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, Repent, and turn away from your idols. Repent means confess and change. It means actually turn away from.
So don't just say, Oh, this is an idol I have in my life, but actually turn away from it. Repent, and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations, for any one of the house of Israel, or the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart, and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I, the Lord, will answer him myself. What he says is, they come to talk to you, I'm going to talk to them. I'm not going to speak to you and let you talk to them.
I'm going to speak to each one of them individually, as it comes to the idols that they've set up in their heart. What we're going to do, is we're going to pray, and ask this same God, to do the same thing for us tonight. He promised to do it for the people of Israel, we're going to ask him to do it for us tonight. So, all of us in here who are believers, I would like for you, because it is his grace and his goodness towards us, to show this to us, I would like for you to ask God to show you areas in your heart, that you've begun to place too much weight, too much value, that you've begun to put some hope in, put some worth in, get validation from, that is inordinate and not appropriate, areas that you've taken idols into your heart.
So, I want you to ask him, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal that to us. If you're in here tonight, and you're not a believer, and you're just hanging out, and checking out this whole Jesus thing, I would ask you to do the same thing, to ask God to reveal to you, where there may be areas in your life, that you're pursuing something, that's not going to satisfy you, because he says that he's going to do this, so that he may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel. That's what we want. And if you're in here tonight, and you don't know Jesus, ask him to do that. Here's the thing, this is the trade off, if you don't know Jesus.
If he's real, it's on him to show that to you. Like, if Shakespeare is going to meet Romeo, Shakespeare's got to do that. Okay? Think about it a little while, that makes sense. Okay? So, that's on God to reveal himself.
So, if he's real, then cool, you're talking to the creator of the universe, and it's actually very good for you to meet him, because if he's real, this is true, and you need to know it. If he's not real, you just fired off some chemicals in your brain, for no reason whatsoever, and that's not a huge waste. So, think some thoughts. If he's not real, no harm, no foul, if he is real, you might actually get to encounter the living God, and that would be really cool. So, everybody though, we're going to pray this together, that God would reveal this to us, that he would speak to us. So, I'm going to pray, but let's, we'll be quiet for a second, y'all can pray, and then I'll pray.
God, you promised your people many years ago, that you would reveal their idols to them, and we as your church, ask you to do the same for us. That you show us in areas in our hearts, where we've begun to seek validation, where we've begun to console ourselves, where we've begun to seek worth, and God, we ask that through your Holy Spirit, you would lay hold of our hearts, that they might be solely yours, because in that, there's freedom, and there's life, and there's joy. So, speak directly to us tonight. God, I pray that there's some people in here, who don't hear a word of anything else I say, because you are dealing with them.
That's far better. And we love you in Jesus' name, and ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so, what God is saying here, is that we can functionally, at a heart level, have something that we pursue, and it alters, how we walk through life. So that these men, looked like they had everything together, but they had, at a heart level, at a deep level, idolatry, set up.
What that means for us, is that, idolatry is always, the sin beneath the sin. So that it's always, idolatry, prior to us, sinning in any other way. So when we think about, our sin, a lot of times, it's not, that we have a problem with lying, or that we have an issue with money, or that we have an issue with, with relationships. It's actually something deeper, something at a heart level, that's driving that. So that a lot of times, money and relationships, and all of the manipulation, and stuff that we do, is actually the object, not the operator.
The operator is what's driving, that. So that's what we're trying, to unpack tonight, and I'm going to try, to give us some different ways, to think about that, so that we can begin, to see that in ourselves. The other thing, that that means, is that if it's at a heart level, that means that, behavioral change, will not solve the issue. It means that, adjusting how you look, how you act, how you behave, is not going to fix the problem, if it's a heart level issue. I'll give you an example, of how this plays out, and how this can be the operator, not the object. Matt and I, have been friends for a long time, we roomed together in college, which some of that was cool, and some of that was not.
I like my roommate better now, her name is Anna, she's way better, of a roommate. I think Matt, likes his roommate better now, as well. But we roomed together in college, we got to know each other, and then there was a while, where we weren't around each other, and then we moved back down, and moved to this area about, I don't know, a year and a half, two years ago, something like that, and started working on, on being a part of this church plant together, and what's cool is, we've gotten to kind of, be friends again, in a different way, and you get, you get around each other, you work for a while together, and you start realizing, man, you're kind of messed up. Like that's kind of what you realize, the more you're around people.
That's actually why we, walk out, church family, in community groups, because the truth is, you can't help somebody, walk closer to Jesus, unless you're around them. You just can't do it. Like how am I going to know, whether you're pursuing Jesus, if I'm never around you, and your spouse? How am I going to know, if you're pursuing Jesus, if I never see you, with your roommates? If I never see how you handle stress? I mean how am I going to know?
I'm going to tell you something. I can fake being really, really good for an hour on Sunday. That's easy. But you hang out with me, for a long period of time, you're going to realize, man this guy is sinful, and he needs Jesus. And that's why we walk out, community, in life, in normal everyday life, doing normal everyday things together, as Jesus' people. But as Matt and I have gotten to do that, what we realize is that we both lie, periodically, and we shouldn't, but we do.
And it happens in quick, kind of circumstances. And so what will happen is, let me tell you how, this is how Matt lies. I was talking to him about it the other day. I'm going to confess his sin first, and then we'll focus more on me. Matt will do this. Matt loves being early to places.
It's his favorite. It's the worst, but he loves it. So he loves being really early to places. It makes him way more comfortable, in just life in general. He wants to be early, kind of allows him to, take a deep breath, know everything's going to be okay. I do not operate that way, but we go to the same places a lot, to meet with people, and do different things.
And so it doesn't make any sense, for both of us to drive our trucks, which get like, 12 miles to the gallon, or something. And so we end up riding together a lot, and so what Matt will do, is he tricks me, and I just recently discovered, this took like a year and a half, so you can see how quick I am on things. What he does is this, he wants to be there like an hour and a half early, but he knows there's no way, I'm going to sit in a parking lot with him, for an hour and a half, before we have to meet with somebody. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's early guys, so he really wants to leave way early, to like change two tires on the way, I don't know what he's wanting to do.
So what he'll do, is he will tell me about 15 minutes earlier, than he knows I am willing, like would want to be. So like if we wanted to leave at 3, he'll tell me 2.45, if I wanted to leave at 3, because he actually wants to leave at like 2.30. And then what he does, is he shows up early to leave. He knows the entire time, that he's going to show up 10 minutes early, to my house to pick me up. And he's like, I'm just early, oops. So he'll tell me he's going to be somewhere, sometime, and it's intentionally 15 minutes later, then he knows he's coming.
And I recently was like, man, you're kind of lying to me, aren't you? And he's like, yeah, that's not right. He didn't realize he was doing it. And then I, he's called me out on this, I didn't realize I would do this, but I forget things, all the time. I'm the worst at it. So what I do, is somebody asks me, hey man, did you do that?
Or Matt will ask me, hey, did you do this? Because Matt remembers everything. Hey man, have you gotten this done yet? And I'll go, oh, I'm going to do that tomorrow. All that means is, I have completely forgotten about this. And if I remember, I'll do that tomorrow.
So I just act like I scheduled it for the next day. Oh yeah, I was going to get up early and do that tomorrow. Now I'm going to have to get up earlier than I had planned, because I've got to do that tomorrow. That's how that works. So what I should say is, I completely forgot, and I will now get that done.
But I don't want to say that, because the truth is, I want people to think I'm awesome. That's really one of my major goals in life. See, Matt and I are both lying, but we're lying for completely different reasons. Matt is just pursuing some comfort, some level of ease in life. And so, since I would never do that, I feel really superior to him when he does that. I'm like, how on earth could you lie like that?
What a jerk. And then when I lie, Matt remembers everything, so he feels superior to me in two ways. One, he would remember, and second of all, he wouldn't lie about it. And so he gets to feel really superior too, but the truth is, we're just lying for different reasons, and we're defending different things. I just want people to think I have my stuff together. I just want people to think I'm awesome.
I could care less whether they like me. So somebody's like, man, that guy's a total jerk. Well, whatever. That guy's really stupid. What? No, I'm not.
I'm smart. Like, I will defend you thinking I'm great. I don't care whether or not you actually like me. We are lying, and we can go after lying. We can go after the behavior, and we can say, we need to stop lying. We shouldn't lie.
But the truth is, until we change what's underneath that, we won't actually fix the problem. We won't actually root out what is there, because we have heart level issues, things that our actions are pursuing, that are a bigger deal. So what we're about to do, is we're going to walk through four, kind of broad, major categories, to just help us get a lens for this. To help us get a lens for, sin beneath the sin, what actually might be driving us, to get a look at the operator, not the object. Then I'll try to unpack it some, with some, we'll talk about money, and I'll give us some other examples, to kind of show how this plays out in life.
Here's what I want though. Don't argue with the categories, when we go through these four things. Don't get derailed, in trying to blend them together, or be like, I feel like these are the same, like just don't do that. The reason is, they're made up. So it's really not worth it.
Like I'm as willing to argue with you, about these categories, as I am about breeds of unicorns. I'm just not going to do it. Like you want to talk about, Irish stompers and palominos, because it's like, they don't exist. So you can argue all you want to about them. So this is just to give us a helpful lens.
Okay? So just track with me, walk with me through this. It's just to help us see this. So the first one we're going to talk about, is power. So if you had power, as you're operating idolatry, as something to sin beneath the sin, what that would mean, is you would say something, along the lines of, life has meaning and purpose, if I have success, if I have influence, if I win.
If I'm on top, that's how life has meaning and purpose. Your worst nightmare would be humiliation. Because your ultimate goal, is to have people think you're great. To be powerful in life, however you define that. And so, your worst nightmare would be, to have people look at you and think, man, this person doesn't have their life together. They are the worst at this.
They are terrible. They have blown this. They've failed. People around you feel used, because they're just objects, in your ability to have power. And your problem of motion is anger. I will also let you know, as we walk through this, just to be helpful to you, if it's not one you deal with, you will think, man, that's the worst.
Just so you know, you'll be like, oh my goodness, how could anybody be like that, until we get to the one that you deal with, and then you're like, well, that one seems reasonable. Just so you are aware, when I interact with some of the other ones, I'm like, that's really stupid for you to care about that. And then we get into my area, and I'm like, no, this is smart. This is what you should pursue. This is why everyone wants to win. So, okay, power, approval is the next one, just kind of a broad category, to help us have, life has meaning and purpose.
If I have affirmation, if I have relationships, if I feel loved. That's how I know that life is okay. Okay, worst nightmare is rejection. To have people not want you around, not care about you, to think very little of you. People around you feel smothered, because you need them to love you. And your problem with emotion is cowardice.
You would rather lie to someone's face, than hurt their feelings, and say some true things they probably need to hear. So, you will, people ask you questions, and you'll bend the truth, and you'll do some different things, because you really just don't ever want to get into a conflict. You'll let people walk all over you, when they shouldn't be, when it's actually appropriate for you to, to engage them in that. But, that's because you want their approval. Comfort. Life has meaning and purpose, if I have freedom, and privacy, and no stress.
Like, I just don't have to worry about things. So, your worst nightmare is stress and demands. Some of the other areas of idolatry, actually feed off of stress and demands, and appreciate it, and enjoy it. It destroys you. Stress stresses you out. It's like you get multiply, overly stressful, because something's stressing you.
People around you feel neglected, because you really just kind of want to be to yourself. So, you're not checking up on people, you don't care too much about how things are going on with them. The majority of the time, you're kind of withdrawn. And, your problem of emotion is apathy. It's just really hard to get you to care about things. The last one is control.
Life has meaning and purpose, if I have discipline, self-discipline, if I have certainty, and if I have standards, if I know how things are going to operate. Your worst nightmare is uncertainty. So, having a situation that's not going to work out, that's all you can think about. You don't know how this is going to end up, at the end of the month. You don't know how this is going to work out, at the end of the week. You don't know how this conversation is going to go.
You have no control over how you're going to pay this bill, and it drives you crazy. People around you can feel unloved, because you don't care so much about them, as much as you care about how they're fitting into your system. And your problem of emotion is worry. You just, you worry about a lot of things, because anything that brings uncertainty, brings worry. Okay, that's just to give us a lens. Let me, let me explain how that operates.
We would look at certain people in life, and we would say, man, they're idle. What they chase after, what they love, is money. They love money. Maybe. Most likely, they love what money gives them. And the reason I say that is, because if money was just green and folded, people wouldn't care about it.
It's actually what money does, that we appreciate. Nobody, gets amped up about monopoly money. None of you have a bank account, that just has monopoly money in it. None of you keep that at your house, hidden somewhere. Because monopoly money, doesn't do anything for you. The only time you care about monopoly money, is the seven hours you're playing that game.
I don't even know how you win monopoly. I always, it just ends when someone flips over the board, and yells at their grandmother. I'm pretty sure that's how monopoly ends. And then you're not allowed to play it again, for like three years or something. And it's a good three years spent. Like it was enjoyable, to not have to play that game again, for three years.
But nobody cares about monopoly money. If money was just green paper that folded, we wouldn't care about it. So what we would say is, man, this person's idol is money. But the truth is, it's probably more likely, one of those four things, or something else, that money gives them. Let me explain how this works. Since your operator may be power, or comfort, the object becomes money.
Because money is a really good way, to get your idol. So if, if power, we're going to go through all of them. So power is the one we started off with. If your idol is power, money, does that really well. It gives you influence. Political candidates listen to you.
You get to be in the important rooms, because you have wealth. It goes before you, as little soldiers, that conquer the world for you. There's actually a guy on Shark Tank, that says that, every one of his dollars, is a soldier, that goes out, and recruits more soldiers for him. But see, it is, it's just a great way, to get power. So it's not that you love money, it's that you love power, but money is a really good way, to get it.
To have influence, and to win. It's also a tangible reminder, of your winning. If you're in business, and you're making more money, you're winning. And that money, is the scoreboard for you. If it is approval, money is a great way, to get approval. You buy me a pizza, I approve of you.
That's how that works. You give me things, I like this guy. This guy, with the wallet, this is great. But it really is, it's a great way, to have friends, to be able to, to feel loved, by pouring that out, on other people. So, it's even, you know, the grandmother, who always gives the best gifts. That may be, because she's very generous, and she loves her grandkids.
It also may be, because it's a great way, to get approval from. To have them over, to have them be a part of things. Comfort, money, is a pad, to life. Comfort, you don't want stress, you don't want people bothering you. Buy a lot of land, and put a fence around it. It's great.
You want privacy? Privacy fence. It's wonderful. You can pay people, to stand there, and keep other people out, if you have enough money. But, for us, it's more like, buying a really nice couch, and getting to go on vacation. It just buys us comfort.
We don't have to worry, about stress and demands, if we have enough money. But ultimately, money is just serving, our need for comfort. And, the last one, control. There's not a whole lot, of uncertainty, if you have enough Numbers, in your bank account. What's going to happen next year? I don't know.
I got cash. What's going to happen, if you lose your job? Cash. How are you going to handle this, if your car breaks down? Cash monies. There's not a lot of uncertainty, and so, some people, they look like, they're really good with money.
Serving their God of control. You can actually have, a marriage relationship, where they argue, all the time about money, and the wife, let's say, is always, so you sit down with these people, and he's like, look, all she wants to do, is spend money. She wants to buy things for herself, she wants to go on vacation, she wants to eat out all the time, we never cook at home, she just, all the time. And it's wasteful, and it's ridiculous, and I need, we need to save money, and we need to have enough money, in our bank account. Truth is, that may be a wise decision, but he may be, being just as selfish, with every dollar, he puts in a bank account, because it's serving his idol, of control, as she is, every time she spends it, on her idol, of comfort or approval.
Now, biblically, does it make more sense, to save money, than to spend it on everything? Yes. But it may be, just as idolatrous. So, a lot of times, the object, the surface level thing, we can see, is just that. It's an object, but it's not the operator. It's not the heart level issue, we have.
So we can step in, and change the behavior, and never root out, the heart issue. Never have, our holy God, step in, and lay hold, of our heart. Which is what he says, he's going to do, in Ezekiel. So you can have someone, that has a power idolatry, and in high school, the best way to do that, is to play sports, and be really good at them. So in high school, pour themselves into sports.
Very good athlete. And you would look and say, oh, that is idol of sports. Then he gets to college, and he's not as good, an athlete in college. But he's really good, at chasing women. And that's a good way, to exert power. And so he quits, playing sports.
And he starts chasing women. And you say, hmm, his idol is women. It's just the best way, to chase after power. Then maybe he, enters into politics. He gets into, to realm of thought, and he ends up, chasing power that way. So he quits chasing women, because that will get you, in trouble in politics, for the most part.
And he starts, going into politics. At some point, this guy, chasing after his power idol, could enter into the church, and become a, quote unquote, Christian. And it'd actually, just be a really, really good way, to serve his power idolatry. Because Christians, are the only ones, who have truth. And now he's one of the, owners of truth. And in Bible studies, when you get around, in your community group, he's the guy, who has all the answers.
He's the one, who knows all the best theology. He's the one, who can shout anybody down, when it comes to, Bible vocabulary, and where to find things, the best. And the truth is, it's just because, it's a great way, to exert power. And he's never let Jesus, take hold of his heart. You could have a female, she's growing up through school, best way to get approval, make good grades, and obey her parents. Very obedient, very good student.
Gets to college, grades are still important, but man, getting guys to like you, is a great way, to get approval. So she starts having, she has to have a boyfriend, at all times. Because she has to have, someone there. Her parents are further away. She has to have someone there, who shows that she has worth. So that other people, can see that she has worth, because her value, comes from approval.
Then she eventually, gets married, and the best way, to get approval, is to be the best wife, and mother, and best soccer mom, and have the most, well kept house, and kids. And throughout life, things actually look, fairly normal for her. But the whole time, she's bending her life, and walking out her days, pursuing her idol, of approval. It's very important, that we dig down deep, and find our heart level issues, and allow Jesus, to replace them, and to take them away. So, let me explain, how we do this. How do we fix that?
If that's true, if we have heart level idolatry, if we can take idols, into our heart, how do we fix that? Okay, let's go back to lying. Let's go back to, mostly Matt, but sometimes me. when it comes to lying, I'm just kidding. What we could say is, so when I lie, I could say, I shouldn't lie. Bad Christian. Bad, bad pastor.
Like, you should not lie. Pastors shouldn't lie. I'm pretty sure, that's in the handbook, somewhere. And I'm not supposed, to do that. And what I could do, is say, what if someone found out? That's really horrible, for me to do.
What if someone found out? And all I'd be doing, is pressing on my own fear, and my own pride, to adjust my behavior. So fear is, what if someone found out? And pride is, I should be better than this. And so all I'm really doing, is increasing, idolatry in my heart, to adjust my behavior. And that actually, in the long run, is going to be a very big problem.
So all I'm doing is saying, prolonging, so I'm just, adding into my idolatry, which has to do with, power and approval. And I'm just prolonging that, and saying, on the long run, it's actually better not to lie, for your ultimate goal, of power and approval. So I'm building into fear and pride, to change my heart. This is actually how we train children a lot. You don't want to be like, those bad people do you? Pride.
You don't want to go to jail, like they do. Fear. And all we're doing, is increasing idolatry, in their heart, which eventually, will be a very big problem. Because we're taking the operator, to adjust the object, we're increasing this. And that's an issue for us. That's how that plays out.
Y'all remember, a couple years ago, when, Siegfried and Roy, one of them, we'll just say Siegfried, because his name's more fun to say. Which, Roy, that's great, that that matches with Siegfried. That's just, that's a great coupling of names there. Siegfried, and Roy. One of them got attacked, by their tiger. Y'all remember this?
Their big, white tiger, or whatever. And they were all surprised. And it's like, bro, that's a tiger. That's what they do. That's like, he's never attacked me before. Well, he's a tiger.
Like, that doesn't, he's a trained tiger. Yeah, but he's still a tiger. And what happens for us, when we build into our idolatry, to adjust our behavior. Yeah, we're just a trained tiger. We're just training ourselves, training ourselves, to have a bigger issue later. Tigers are always going to be a problem, because they're tigers.
If you want to own a pet, own a pet you can take. That's pretty much how that works. Like, maybe you need a stick, but, have y'all heard the, I saw a thing, a dude called 911, a cat had pinned him into it. Have y'all heard this? Oh, it's the best. A cat had pinned him, and his whole family into it.
He called 911, and was like, we got a cat. He said, it's a big, Malaysian, or I don't know cat names. Himalayan. It's a big Himalayan cat. The lady on the phone was like, okay, and he said, it's a big cat. How big is it?
He's like, I don't know, like 22 pounds. She beeps over and goes, because she's a 911 operator, she gets a hold of the police officer, and she's like, guy, I want y'all to come help him with a cat. Is that a thing you do? Like, because I could just tell him to deal with it, if you want me to. And the cops are like, no, I will do that. They ended up sending an animal controller, whatever.
But, but, so if you, if whatever level you can take, you know, that's the level you need to own, just for the record. This is just a helpful tip. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about. If you can't take a 22 pound cat, don't own one. Get like a hamster. All right.
But what happens for us, when we build into ourselves, that's all we're doing, we're training a tiger. And that's why people will say, I can't believe I did that horrible, horrible thing. I wasn't raised like that. I know better than that. And it's like, yeah, but you've been just feeding the tiger, and then when something came along that seemed worth it, you went for it. Because all you've been doing is feeding into your heart, your heart level idolatry to adjust your behavior.
And let me tell you something, when it comes along, and suddenly your heart level idolatry sees something big enough, your behavior is going to change. Okay. So why do we lie? Why do we constantly seek approval? Why are we greedy? The truth is, our hearts are off.
As we've been walking through this series, and we begin to see areas in our lives that it's like, I've placed too much weight there, our hearts are off. We have heart level issues. We said early on that the biggest issue is not that we sin, or not that we break rules, but that we first chase after something other than God is God. When the Old Testament says, you will have no other gods before me, Martin Luther actually says that that's the same as when the New Testament says, you shall trust in Jesus through faith for salvation alone. Do the exact same thing, that your justification will come by faith in Jesus alone.
Justification just means how you have worth before God. Faith in Jesus alone, and you will have no other gods before me, are actually the same thing. When we sin, yes, it's idolatry, it's also a failure to trust in and believe in the gospel. For Christians, when we sin, we are actually functionally at that point failing to believe the gospel. So sin is, first and foremost, idolatry, and for Christians, it's a failure to believe the gospel.
What that means is, we have to replace our heart level issues with the truth of the gospel, and that actually changes us. We have to replace what is real for us because of Jesus, to change our heart level problems. So, what happens is, idols don't rarely just disappear on their own. They're always replaced by something. So someone who, as we walk through life, is really just lazy, may suddenly cease to be lazy if they start placing a lot of value on sports.
And they may quit placing a lot of value on sports if they place a lot of value on making money. But the idol is just being swapped out. It's never just gone. That's what we've talked about. You will have something that you worship as God. All it means is that something has taken ascendancy, has risen to a greater place in our hearts every time we change from one aisle to the other.
Thomas Chalmers, born in 1780, he's a Scottish calf. He says it this way, the heart's desire for an ultimate object, which just means something as supreme, something to be worshipped. The heart's desire for an ultimate object may be conquered, but its desire to have some object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is through the expulsive power of a new one. And as Christians, the expulsive power of the gospel is what rids us of all heart-level idolatry. When the gospel becomes so true to us, that we don't need any of these other things, when the fact that Jesus Christ, who was God, lived on earth a perfect life on our behalf, and died in our place, took the nails, the lashes, was hung from a cross, bled out the death that we deserved, so that we might be reconnected to God.
Jesus, when he's praying, calls God Father every single time, except for one time. When he's on the cross, he calls him God. Now the Bible doesn't say this, but it would seem that the relationship that Jesus had with God, as his Father, was broken, so that we might actually have one with the Father. That we might actually be adopted, because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. That when he rose again three days later, he rose on our behalf to give us life. New life, real life, not pursuing smaller things, not chasing after stuff that won't satisfy, but life in him, that ultimately fulfills and gives us everything.
Only when that becomes real to us, are we able to replace the idols that we've set up in our hearts. Only when Jesus regains and reclaims his throne, are we able to dethrone everything else. All the would-be gods that have shuffled in, and taken up a residency in our hearts. Only through Jesus. Always through Jesus. What cannot be dispossessed, what cannot be gotten rid of, may be dispossessed, if we are able to have a new affection, and so the truth is, we'll walk through life chasing after new affection, after new affection, after new affection, until the one thing, Jesus, the one true God, replaces it forever, and takes up home where he ought to be.
So here's what we're going to do. We've been talking for four weeks. Next week is our last week, that we'll be talking through this. We're going to play some music now. We're not going to, the band's not going to come back up. We're just going to play some music, because we as a church family are going to respond to this.
We've set up over here, we've got clay discs and Sharpies. And as God, through the Holy Spirit, has begun to reveal to us tonight, and through the past four weeks, areas that we have placed too much hope, too much life, too much joy, too much faith, too much worth, begin to get our validation from. The things that we've set up as idols in our heart, what we're going to do is, we're going to grab a clay disc, and we're going to write it down on it. Because the truth is, if we have idols set up in our heart, we carry them with us everywhere. I just want us as a church family to be honest about it.
So we're going to write down, I'm going to grab one, I'm going to write down the things that God's begun to reveal to me, that I have placed too much value in, too much worth in, that I've begun to seek validation from, and place my hope in. And I'm going to prayerfully write that down, asking God the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what that is, and then I'm taking my disc with me. And I want us as a church family to carry these with us, so that we can see the weight of our idolatry. Because most of us don't have something set up at home, that we go back home and worship. But we do have something set up in our hearts, that we carry with us all the time.
And so I just want us to be honest about it. I want you to put them in your purses, I want you to put them in your pockets, I want us to sit them on our dashboards, I want us to make ourselves very aware, that this little thing that we've written down, affects how we live. I want to bring them with you, when you meet with your community group. You've brought it with you every time you've come so far, you might as well just have a representation in your pocket. And I want us to be very honest and open with Jesus, and with church family, about what it is we've been pursuing, what we've been hoping would give us life and joy and satisfaction.
And then, when Jesus lets us, we're going to break home. So I don't know what that's going to look like for us. We're going to, next week, we're just going to spend some time talking about Jesus. We're going to spend some time talking about how He fulfills the promises that our idols make to us. So we'll have an opportunity next Sunday to break them.
If Jesus meets you on Tuesday and tells you to break it, break it. But don't just break it because it's convenient. Don't just break it because it's getting on your nerves. Because we actually, by God's grace, want these gone from our hearts, not just from our dashboard. We actually, by God's grace, want Jesus at the throne of our lives, because that's where joy is found, and that's where hope is found, and that's where life is found. And we don't want to walk through life chasing after things that will not satisfy anyone.
We don't want a little God. We want a big God. A holy God. A righteous God. That actually brings life. So we're going to play some music.
As you pray, and as God reveals you, and if He leads you, go grab one. We've got plenty of Sharpies. Move around the room, and in a minute I'll call us back. Pray over us. And we'll be done for that. I'm going to pray now.
God, I pray that through Your Spirit, You would reveal to us the idols in our hearts, so that You, God, as You say in Ezekiel 14, 5, that You may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from You through their idols. God, may You lay hold of our hearts. May our hearts belong to You and You alone. Because God, in You is life and hope and freedom. We don't have to work really hard to prove our value because Jesus proved our value when He died for us and He gave us value. He assigned it to us.
I don't have to be successful. I don't have to prove my worth. I don't have to walk through life trying really hard to show the world that I deserve to be here. Jesus Christ gives us value and hope. So God, through Your Holy Spirit, work in us now.
Call Your people to repentance as You called Your people here. And may we change and may we draw closer to You and may we draw closer to each other as we grow in replacing the lies that we believe with the gospel. We love You, Lord. Amen. outros, amen.
Amen. on our behalf.
God, we thank You that You change us by Your grace and may Jesus get all the glory. Amen.
Broken Cisterns
Transcript
Alright, if you've got your Bible tonight, turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 2. We'll be spending some time in Jeremiah chapter 2 tonight. My name is Chet Phillips. I get to be one of the pastors here. I'm very excited about being here tonight. We are in the third week of our Idol series, which is where we're taking some time to walk through and see what the Bible has to say about idolatry.
And specifically how idolatry is not just something that people used to deal with or that is something that only takes place in other countries, but that is actually a heart level issue for us. And so what we talked about the first week was that we were looking in Exodus chapter 20 and we talked about how God starts off by saying, You shall have no other gods before me. And so we just talked about what that looks like for us to have always have an object of worship and that we as humans will always have an object of worship. If you don't have a Bible, we actually have some. I forgot to say that.
So Jack and Mitch can help hand those out. If anybody doesn't have a Bible, if you want to raise your hand, we'll get one to you. So and if you don't own a Bible, just take that one home with you. That's our gift to you. So anyway, we've talked about how we always will have an object of worship.
We will always have something that is supreme in our lives. And so we just kind of discussed in week one why we would actually want that to be God. And we talked about how Jesus is the only God who was crushed in our place, who was crushed for us and that all other gods will eventually crush us. Last week, we talked about how we just kind of turned and looked at all of the things we can worship, how God basically says not to take anything and make it into a God and how we are as humans capable of turning anything into a God. And so one of the things we've said is that sin is not primarily us breaking rules.
So that God hasn't laid it out as I am God. Here are my rules. If you follow my rules, then we'll be good. If you break my rules, then you'll be in trouble. That's not how he lays it out. First of all, he rescues before he gives the law to his people.
So he chooses and rescues and redeems and brings them out of slavery before he ever says this is how we're going to relate to one another. And the way he sets up the law is I am God. There are no other gods. And so for most of us, we feel like sin is primarily me just breaking God's rules. But actually, the way he designs it, the way he lays it out is object of worship is first before rule breaking is.
And so Martin Luther actually said that we don't break any of the other commandments until we first broken the first one, until we've taken God and decided that something else is more important to us, something else is more supreme. That's when we'll lie. That's when we'll hate. That's when we'll do all the things that we're not supposed to do because we've actually decided that in this moment something is functionally greater to me than God. And it actually makes sense because our primary way to relate to God is not based off of works. It's not based off of rules.
It's not based off of following rules. I'll give you an example. Let's say that I ran an underground gambling casino out of my backyard in one of my sheds or something, which would be pretty amazing because I have pretty small sheds. It would be hard to get a lot of people in. Let's say I did that.
And let's say that I did not report this on my taxes and I did not tell Anna about it. Let's just say I had some form of income that wasn't illegal because I realize that in my story that's probably illegal and I can't do that. So it wasn't illegal, but I didn't tell the IRS and I didn't tell Anna about it. If I got caught, if the IRS audited me, the way that the auditor would relate to me would be completely different from the way that Anna would relate to me on the same issue. So the auditor would basically be like, all right, you owe us this much money, pay it plus interest or you're going to jail.
That's it. Anna, who I did the same thing, same situation, still money, still didn't tell her about it, she's going to approach me in a completely different way. She's going to be like, why didn't I know about this? Why on earth would you have hidden this from me? The auditor is never going to look at me and be like, an entire year? You kept this a secret for an entire year?
Like the auditor is not going to cry. He's not. He's going to be like, pay up or go to jail. That's something to you. Because the way I relate to the IRS is based off my ability to follow their regulations. And the problem between my relationship with the IRS and my relationship with Anna would actually be much different.
Because Anna and I have a whole lot of other issues that we need to talk about. Trust. We've got to talk about our communication. We've got to talk about all of the times that I told her things that weren't true. Why I wasn't willing to share this with her. And so it actually makes sense that when we feel like sin is just breaking God's rules, that he's going to say, no, it's deeper than that.
And the issue is bigger than that. Because God does not primarily relate to us on our ability to follow his rules. It's not that if we behave, then we're in. And if we don't behave, we're out. God's actually going to look at us and it's going to be that, no, if we're sinning, it's actually indicative of something deeper, something bigger, something greater. And so that's what we're talking about.
That's what we're trying to dig into a little bit. It's trying to understand how not only does our sin indicate where we are a little bit off, but actually how we might have set up idols in our own lives. And so we'll be in Jeremiah chapter 2. I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in. God, we thank you that you're good. We ask you to speak to us tonight, that you would reveal your truth and yourself to us through your word.
God, I pray that we would grow closer to you and that your Holy Spirit would have free reign in here tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So the prophet Jeremiah, he's going to speak. God's going to be speaking through him. And so basically what God's going to do in this passage, this section of text, is he's talking to the nation of Israel and he's going to lay out two symptoms that they have.
And then he's going to give them their diagnosis. So he's basically going to say, you're doing this and you're doing this, but here's the main problem. So we're going to talk about the two symptoms and then we're going to talk about the diagnosis. I'm going to go ahead, spoiler alert, the diagnosis is idolatry. For those of you who are type A people, you now want to kill me because you know point three before we get to talk about the first two. So you're welcome.
And we're going to go ahead and move forward. So he lays this out this way. He says, The word of the Lord came to me saying, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord. So this is Jeremiah speaking on behalf of God.
God says, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt. Disaster came upon them, declares the Lord. So God starts off by saying, I remember how we used to relate to one another.
I remember your love for me as a bride. And so God over and over in the Old Testament is going to say that he relates to the nation of Israel as a husband to a bride. In the New Testament, we're going to be told that the church is the bride of Christ. And so the relationship stays the same. Jesus is our groom, which I'm a man that's a little weird for me, but OK. It's that there's a real, genuine, intimate relationship there.
And that's why in the Old Testament, it's such a big deal when Israel runs away from God. It's as if a bride had left her husband. And so there's when we talked about in the first week about God being jealous for us, not of us. So God doesn't look down from heaven and go, man, this hipster thing is pretty cool. I wish I could get in on that. And I mean, when, you know, moon shoes came out, he wasn't like, oh, I love a pair of those.
Like that wasn't a thing. He's not jealous of us. He's jealous for us the same way that a husband would be for a bride. And so he fights for that relationship. And it's actually fitting. And he ought to.
So it says that I remember your devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. So then we're going to move down to verse four. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and went after worthlessness and became worthless? Some other texts are going to translate worthlessness a little different. Some will say worthless idols.
The word there is the Hebrew word, Abel. I don't read Hebrew, but I have a computer program that does for me. It's H-E-B-E-L. I don't know how to pronounce it, Abel. So that's how it's spelled out in English.
If you spell it out in Hebrew, it's some squiggly lines that don't mean anything. But the word worthlessness there is used in the Old Testament for nothing, for vanity, for worthlessness. And it's also used for idolatry. So it will be idols. And so some will translate that as worthless idols. But here's what he's saying.
This is the first symptom he lays out for him. He says, you went after worthlessness and you became worthless. We become like what we worship. So whatever we set up as supreme, we will over time become like that. And we spent some time talking about it the past couple of weeks. So here's my question.
Are we becoming more like Jesus? If he is who we worship, over time, we'll become more like Jesus. That's just how that works. If you look out, if you've been a Christian for a while and you look out over the past three years. I'm not talking about last week. I'm talking about the past, or as long as you've been a Christian.
Some of you haven't been a Christian for three years. But if you've been a Christian, are you becoming more like Jesus? When you look out over the past three years, you've grown in some areas. So we might say, well, I'm in better shape than I was three years ago. Some of us will be like, well, my waistline grew over the past three years. And I now can breathe heavier at the top of a flight of stairs than I used to.
That's kind of where I am. It's like, man, I remember when this didn't make me tired. So I've got to get back in shape. But there's certain things. Maybe we've grown. You could say, ah, my portfolio.
It's better. My net worth is. I've grown in that. And so the question is, what are we growing in? Because we become more like what we worship. So are we becoming more like Jesus?
Do we hate sin more? Are we quicker to repent? More open in confession? Do we care about our neighbors more? Do you care about your neighbors more now than you did two years ago? Do you care about your coworkers more now than you did three years ago?
Because the Bible says that we're predestined to be conformed into the image of his son. And that's a slow, messy process. That's what we say when we talk about being in community groups. We say, hey, come be a sinful jerk with us. Like, come be messed up with us. That's what we're going to do.
You're going to spend your life annoying somebody. Come annoy us. Like, let's annoy each other together in community groups. That's what it is. But over time, we grow to be more like Jesus.
So he says, you went after worthlessness and you became worthless. So I would just have us ask and begin to look at what are we becoming more like. Verse 6. They did not say, where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in the land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through where no man dwells. And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.
The priests did not say, where is the Lord? Those who handled the law did not know me. The shepherds transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit. So here's what he says.
He says, I rescued you out of Egypt. And that's where we've been the past two weeks where we've been looking at the Exodus. He says, I rescued you out of Egypt. So I took you out of the house of slavery. I made you my people. And then I walked you through a desert of deep darkness, pits and destruction and despair where no one goes.
And I kept you safe. It's basically like, I walked you down dark alleys in New York and nobody messed with you. That's kind of what he's saying. He's like, I took you into the wilderness where nobody goes. Everyone who goes there just kind of dies. And I took care of you all for years.
And then I brought you into a good place. A place that's plentiful. I brought you things to enjoy. So we talked about last week, we said that God doesn't tell us not to enjoy things, not to love things. He doesn't say, I have created bacon. Now stay far away from it.
He did for a while, actually. But then there's grace and there's some stuff that happened in the book of Acts. And so you should read it. It's amazing. We get to eat bacon now because we're Christians. And so, but he doesn't say, he doesn't not want us to enjoy things.
He just doesn't want us to worship them. So he said, I actually brought you and gave you good things. And then you quit following me. The people who taught from the law didn't even know me. Your prophets prophesied by other gods and you went after things that don't profit. Not only did you chase after other gods, but you went after things that have no life in them, have no fulfillment in them, that will give you no abundance.
You went after things that don't even bring profit. And so what he says here in this section is basically, I rescued you, I made you my people, I brought you into a good land, and then you acted like all the other nations around you. You worshipped their gods and you looked like them. So the second symptom is, he says, you chased after worthless things and you became worthless. And then he says, you went into other nations and you went into, I brought you and made you a people and then you looked like all the nations around you. And so the second question I have for him, I think Jeremiah is pointing it out to the nation of Israel is, do we look like the rest of the Americans we know?
What I mean by that is, we would say, if we're Christian, I would say that I was in slavery to sin. That I could not get out of it, I could not save myself, I could not rescue myself, I was in trouble. And that Jesus rescued me, and that he brought me through my mess, and he's still doing that. And that he's actually blessed me with good things. With life and joy and peace in him. The Bible says that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing.
And so I would say, I know that Jesus is God and that I have an eternity to come that I'll spend with him. But if I view the world the same as everyone else, it doesn't seem like that's true. So what he's saying is, I made you into my people, I brought you through this, and then you started looking like everyone else. So what I'm not talking about is what beverages you partake in or abstain from. What we're not talking about is what rating of movie you're willing to watch. We're talking about some deeper stuff than words you may use or don't use.
What I'm asking is, we're not talking about like culottes. You all know what culottes are? You know what culottes are? Okay. Culottes are great. Because there's certain Christian groups that, I say culottes are great.
I've never really been around culottes. I just, I think the concept is funny. There's certain Christian groups that females aren't allowed to wear pants. So they believe in that. And that's okay. That's fine.
You believe females shouldn't wear pants. But then there's certain things that are hard to do, like run around and play games and do stuff in dresses. So they invented culottes, which are pants that look like a dress. Which is really confusing to me because it's like, what's the goal? To just look like we're doing stuff right as long as it's a secret that we're actually, like, it has more to do with appearances than, and a buddy of mine became a Christian. I met him up at Liberty.
He became a Christian and got a job at a Christian camp. And one of the first nights they were like, they were giving out the rules to all the counselors. And they were like, no, we don't believe in mixed bathing. And that's just a Christian terminology for guys and girls shouldn't swim together. But he'd only been a Christian for a couple of months.
And he was like, uh, yeah. No, I don't believe in that either. He said he was sitting in the meeting being like, I don't know if they know. I'm not sure a whole lot of people think that's okay. That's not like a big problem in society. Now, I know in other camps all the children just get to bathe together.
And so he's like, no, yeah. And he said he found out like a week later they meant swimming. And he was like, oh, I see why that was important to cover now. But he thought it. So that's not what I'm talking about.
What I want to know, and what I think he's pointing out here when it comes to our idolatry, when it comes to how we view the world, do we treat money the same as people who don't know Jesus? Are you thinking about your tax return the same way as your neighbors are? Do you treat relationships the same way? So that you think about marriage or you think about dating the same way that our culture does. Do you think about work? When you get in a conversation with a co-worker, do you talk about work and your boss the same way they do?
Is work just this thing you go to to get a paycheck and your boss is the worst because all bosses are the worst, but this one is specifically the worst because he's a moron. Is that how that works? Because we're supposed to fundamentally be different. Our hearts are supposed to be resting in a different place. Our hope is supposed to be grounded somewhere else. And if everything we do is just the same as our culture, I'm not talking about small stuff, I'm talking about fundamentally, like if we looked at your bank account next to your neighbors, do you all spend the money the same way?
Does your money just terminate on you? Or do we as Christians have places that we want our money to go because we know it's not ours? Places that we know that I've only got a short time here and then I've got an eternity of good things. My good things aren't here. Do we act like that? Do we treat relationships like the goal is for me to find some happiness in it, and once that stops, this doesn't need to exist anymore?
Or do we fundamentally view them differently? So those are the symptoms. He's saying, basically, your hearts are far from me. You're chasing after worthless things. You're becoming more worthless. And you look like all the other nations around you.
You're chasing after that which does not profit. Verse 9. Therefore I still contend with you, declares the Lord, and with your children's children I will contend. For cross to the coast of Cyprus and see, or send to Kadar and examine with care. See if there has ever been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. So God looks at him and says, He says, look, go to the countries around you. No, no, no, go. Go check them out. Nobody does this. No country does the stupid stuff you're doing.
They have gods that don't even exist, and they keep them. I'm real, and you swapped me out for stupid stuff. No, no, go. Go to Kadar. Same God they've had. And they carve that cat into rocks.
Go check him out. It's the same one. I'm real, and you swapped me out for stupid stuff. He says they exchanged their glory. They changed their glory for that which does not profit. I think we get this on small scale.
So let's take it away from thinking about God and other things. Movies where a dad only cares about work, and he has a family, so he neglects his kids all the time. So Hook was like that. The old Robin Williams movie where he was Peter Pan. Elf is like that. The dad doesn't care about his kids.
It's any other movie ever, pretty much. That's how that plays out. If a dad has a job, he loves it and hates his children. And we'll watch it and be like, don't you realize your family is important? And then he finally gets it at the end, and we're like, yeah, tell your boss he can shove his job and go hang out with your kids and figure out how to buy food later. We get that.
We get that on a small scale. I hung out with a guy named Jeffrey at Sears in Lynchburg. He was great. I was a fan of Jeffrey. He was a bigger guy. He had grown up in California and knew Spanish, so he kind of had a Spanish-y sounding voice.
I think his dad was African-American. His mom was Samoan. And apparently having an African-American dad and a Samoan mom makes you look all Hispanic because everybody just thought he was from Mexico or some Hispanic country, and he wasn't. So it was a lot of fun because people would say racist things to him, and I got to discuss it with him, and he was like, what the heck was that? But he was talking to me about it.
Basically, he did three things. He worked at Sears, sold drugs, and played video games. That was all Jeffrey did, pretty much. I assume he slept and ate, but that's pretty much what he did. And when he would play video games, he would come in sometimes and be like, dude, I was playing video games with this guy at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, in the evening, and I could hear this cat talking to his daughter and telling her to go away because Daddy's playing video games. He was like, I almost lost it.
He's like, I can't play with that guy anymore. And so here's a guy who understands that it's dumb to trade out things that have value for things that don't. And so what God's saying is, hey, you've swapped out your glory for something that doesn't profit, for something that at the end of life will have had zero meaning, and we have a real and genuine relationship, and I exist. So that's what he's laying out here. And so he says, I'll keep reading, he says this, Verse 11, Has a nation changed their gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have honed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. He looks at the heavens and he says, Be shocked.
Be appalled. Be utterly desolate. And I think he says it to the heavens because I think he may be speaking to the angels that actually know him, that are in his presence. And he's like, Do you see? The angels in his presence, first of all, are superior to us in look and power and that kind of thing. Every time they show up in the Old Testament, they have to say, Don't be afraid.
There's one lady who goes and tells her husband, I met this awesome man, and I bet that made him feel great. He's like, Really, honey? You've got to call him awesome to my face? And then he walked up and was like, No, that was a good assessment. This guy's pretty awesome. I'm paraphrasing.
I'm just kind of helping you all. That's how I read it. So they, in God's presence, praise him continuously because he's worth it. And so he looks at the heavens and says, Be crushed by this. My people have swapped me out. Be appalled.
Be shocked. Be utterly desolate. Be crushed by this. There's some weight behind what we take lightly. He says, My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and honed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
So, okay, what we know is that swapping out a fountain of living water for a cistern is immensely stupid. That's what we know from context. So he says, Be utterly desolate. Here's what they've done. But here's the thing.
When he's bringing the hammer down with this living water cistern analogy that he's explaining this, that everybody in their culture would have been like, They did. What? That hits home with none of us. None of us are like, Oh man, cisterns are the worst. Nobody says that. We don't even know what that is.
Like, What's a cistern? Because we're really spoiled when it comes to water. Like, immensely spoiled. Like, we, even in our society now, so not even just then, but in the world now, we are spoiled when it comes to water because we can get it anywhere. It's free. Like, we complain that water has no flavor.
We'll complain when it's like, What? They're going to charge me 50 cents for the cup? This is ridiculous. I'm getting water. This should just be free. You should be able to get it anywhere you want it.
The only time I've ever had to go without water, Anna and I both grew up in the middle of nowhere on wells. And so when your power goes out and you have a well, you have no water. That's how that works, which is actually kind of funny because now that we've moved here to the big city, when the power goes out, Anna will remind me that we no longer have water. And I've had to explain to her, I think twice now, that we still have water. Like, she'll be like, Power's out, so, you know, no water. Basically, which is like, be careful with how much we use and you can only flush a certain amount of times.
I'm just coaching you up. I just want to remind you. And it's like, no, no, no. We have water. And she's like, no, the power's out. And I'm like, yeah, but like water towers and we don't have a well that runs off of electricity.
But when you grow up nowhere, you only have limited amounts of water. I remember when the power would go out, we would have to, we had a swimming pool so we would take buckets to fill up the back of the toilets. And one time it was really cold but I took a bucket and dumped it on my head on my back porch to try to rinse off because if you go without water, that's the most I've ever gone without water. It was like two days in an ice storm with no water. That's it. And I was really whiny about it.
Like, I've learned that I like water. It's very useful for things. When he says this, what he's saying is, so here's how societies work then. You want to build a city? You need flowing water. Like, you need a river.
That's why all large cities built up around rivers. That's why Columbia is here. We built up around a river. Columbia, West Columbia was built on the fall line to power mills. West Columbia started as all the mill villages that ran. That's why Gervais Street Bridge was built to get all the people who worked in the mills across the river.
But, Rome was on the Tiber. You've got Egypt on the Nile. You've got Babylon and Assyria on the Tigris-Euphrates. You've got, Israel was built on the Jordan. You want a big city, you have to have a river. And that's what living water is.
Living is either flowing, it means living, or running. So it's like moving water. Then you had wells. So you weren't near a river, you dug a well, that's groundwater, that actually wasn't that bad, although those could run dry. And then third, also here, worst, was a cistern. And a cistern was, you dug a hole and it caught rainwater.
And that's, and they were difficult to keep up, like you had to keep plastering them. They didn't have good plaster then, they would cave in, you'd dig them again, and then the water would get really gross. If you had water in it, depending on when it rained. And so what he says is, they traded out a river and built their life on a cistern. And this cistern doesn't even work. And everybody went, whoa, that's dumb.
That's ridiculous. So nobody would be like, I have dug this cistern. And upon this cistern, we will found our city. And we will become a great people. And we will water a plant. And, yes, just one.
And if, and we will have one person gets to drink water every day, if it's rained recently. And soon, as we multiply, we will all die of dehydration or dysentery. Who's with me? Like, you don't, you don't build a cistern, you don't build a city on a cistern. It just doesn't happen. It doesn't support life.
And what he's saying is, they've swapped me out who gives life for things that they have to work on and manage and that will ultimately kill them. That's idolatry. Taking God who gives life, who brings life, and swapping him out for something else that ultimately destroys. I got some pictures because we don't, it doesn't bring anything to mind. This is Caesarea Philippi. That is a, a freshwater spring in Caesarea Philippi.
That's what you can build a city on. That's flowing fresh water that naturally just pops out and turns into that. This is a cistern, a modern cistern, so it's about as nice as they look. This is also, that's in Mount Arad or Arad or however you want to say that or however they say it. And then, the next one is in southern Israel and that's a cistern as well. I work for, my dad owned a swimming pool company, so I worked for that one for a long time.
The best I can picture is a cistern, is a swimming pool that the pump doesn't work and it's just filled up with water. And let me tell you, you don't want to drink that. And that's what we're doing when we swap God out for something else. And here's what he says. He says, they've swapped me out for that which does not profit. He says, broken cisterns that can't even hold water.
What happens when we do that, two things. It crushes us or it crushes the cistern. And ultimately, it'll do both. But what I mean by that, how that plays out is this. If I make money a God, that's a problem. But if I make Anna a God, that's worse.
If you make your job a God, that's a problem. But if you make your children a God, that's worse. Because they cannot provide satisfaction and fulfillment, you will crush them. What will happen is, you ever had expectations for something and then it just didn't work out the way you had kind of painted it up in your brain? So like you just expected this date was going to be great and then it could have been a decent date, but because it wasn't what you had painted up in your brain, it wasn't any good.
I did this some when I have gifts like at Christmas and stuff. I did this past Christmas. Somebody handed me a gift and I was holding it and it just seemed like the right shape and weight to me for some reason. I wasn't really squeezing it or doing a whole lot with it because I didn't want to be like, you know, like a six-year-old. So I was just kind of behaving myself but I had kind of just decided that it was a bag of coffee.
And that means a lot to me because I really love coffee. And so I just decided, I was like, sweet, I think this is a bag of coffee. And then when I opened it up, it was socks. Well, here's the thing. I needed socks and actually have worn the socks. I was very appreciative of the socks.
But when I thought it was coffee and then it was socks, the best I could come out with was like, oh, yeah. Like that was all I could do because it was immediately like, no, this is great. Yes. Like, you know, you just kind of stick your eyebrows up and nod your head a lot. Like, you've given people gifts before and they've done that. They're like, and you're just like, well, I missed on that one.
Like, I don't know what I was shooting for, but I didn't hit it. If you walk through life expecting a relationship to provide fulfillment and satisfaction, if you walk through life expecting your spouse to be that for you, you will live your life going, ah, because they could be a great spouse, but they'll be a terrible God. And you'll slowly steal from them. You'll have to take from them to make yourself feel valued and loved and validated and over time, you'll slowly just be looking at them going, ah, and stealing from them and crushing them. Same thing with your children. Your children will have to be perfect.
They'll have to make great grades. They'll have to always work everything out because your validation depends on it. Your worth depends on it. And when they don't, it'll crush you or you'll crush them. We build our lives around broken cisterns that cannot support life. That cannot bring joy.
That cannot ultimately satisfy and fulfill. This happens prior to being married. This happens prior to entering into relationships. There's a lady at Sears who, I didn't work with her, but they told me about her. That's why she was infamous. She had a list of 50 things that her future spouse was going to have.
The only thing I know is one of them on there was a hairy chest, which, great. Like, not even like character qualifications. It was like random stuff, left-handed. Like, I don't know, like a mole on his forehead. I don't know what she had put on this list. She had 50 things.
They said that she had shown it to them. Spoiler alert, she was still single last I heard. She might as well have been looking for a golden unicorn. She'd have the same chance of finding it. To expect a person to validate and fulfill, she's never going to find that guy and if she ever marries somebody, she's going to destroy them. There's only a few options when that happens.
We can, we can blame the idol. So you can get married and just assume, well, it's this, this spouse. You can just assume my kids are terrible. If I had those kids, this would work out great. You can blame the category. So you can just be like, all spouses are the worst.
Or you can blame, marriage is the worst. Things were great until we got married and that destroyed this. You can blame the whole system. You can blame, you begin to, you can blame yourself. I'm the one that messed this up. But ultimately, as we enter into this expecting anything to validate us outside of God, anything to bring us ultimate fulfillment and joy, it'll be broken and we'll be slowly killing ourselves because it cannot, will not, sustain life.
Your entire life will be Indiana Jones 4. You'll just be slowly disappointed over and over again until it's over. And you'll be glad it's over. If you've seen Indiana Jones 4, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well done. My favorite part about Indiana Jones 4 was right before it began when I could have not watched it.
So when we build up these expectations, everything will fail because we'll functionally be walking into a relationship and not just looking for a good spouse that we can walk through life together with, but looking for something to be God. Looking for something to give us what only God can give to bring us life and joy and hope and satisfaction. That's how it works with jobs. That's how it works with everything that we can say that, no, this would sustain my life. I can build my life around this. Body image, self-esteem, whatever.
It'll fail. Pleasing your parents, making good grades, being the smartest of your siblings, being the most successful. successful. All of it. What will happen is it will control you because you have to have it. Anything you have to have controls you. And if you get it, it won't satisfy.
And if you fail it, it will curse you forever. I love the quote that C.S. Lewis has on this because a right view of God changes this for us. And C.S. Lewis says this in his book The Weight of Glory. It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. See, so often we think that we just have our passions are too strong. What C.S. Lewis is saying is like, no, we are just too easily pleased with stupid stuff.
We just too quickly run to a cistern and say, this will do it. When we are passing up living, flowing, life-giving, water, when we are passing up a God who brings joy and life always, here is what happens. When God becomes God, everything else can just be itself. When God's God, my marriage can just be my marriage, which is really nice. If Anna expects me to be perfect, she's going to be very disappointed. Extremely disappointed.
But if she knows that I'm just a sinful guy that she happens to live with and we're married and we're going to go through life together, then we just get to be friends who are married. We're just a team attacking life together. We get to repent and move forward. And it's really nice. If our marriage isn't going well, that doesn't destroy us. We get to work on it.
Because our marriage is ultimately about Jesus, not about us. If it's not the happiest moments we've ever had, that's fine. If we don't have a whole lot of money, okay. Because it's not about us. Your kids get to just be your kids, which means they can mess up. Your parents get to just be your parents.
They don't have to be perfect all the time. Your grades can just be your grades. Your money is just money. And you can have a lot of it or a little of it and it can... It's just money. Your value, your worth, your life isn't wrapped up in it.
When God is God, everything else gets to be what it is and then it's actually there's a lot of joy there. There's a lot of life there. There's a lot of hope there. Jesus died to rescue us from slavery and to make us his people. He died in our behalf for our idolatry. For the fact that we have rebelled and run from him.
And he's made us into his own. And we get to worship him and have everything else just be what it is. To actually build our life on something that will sustain, will fulfill, will bring joy. Because when we fail him, he forgives. Always. Because our merit and our worth isn't based off of us.
We entered into the relationship with him based off of his merit, his worth. So he always forgives. And when we're doing really well, we don't have to get prideful. We just get to enjoy it. Be a part of it. Because it's always about him.
And then everything else just gets to be what it is. everything else will be destroyed by the weight of glory except for Jesus. He actually was designed to stand under it. He's worth it. The weight of glory does not crush him. It'll crush your spouse. It'll crush your kids.
It'll destroy your job. If you base it off of your success, you'll crush yourself. because you aren't designed to bear the weight of glory. But Jesus is. And he's able to handle it. And he doesn't disappoint. He doesn't fail our expectations.
He exceeds them. So, the band's going to come back up to play. Here's verse 12 and 13. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate, declares the Lord.
For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. And honed out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold no water. Some of us are worn out. We're stressed out.
We don't really know where to turn. Some of us have been building our life around a cistern. And we're dying. We've been basing our existence off of something that cannot satisfy us, that does not bring life and never will. The invitation is open and free to come to the fountain of living water where joy and fulfillment and refreshment refreshment and satisfaction and life are found always. There's peace and rest with Jesus.
So we're going to celebrate that that is open to us, that was open to us at God's expense. He paid for it on the cross. We deserve destruction for our rebellion, but He suffered in our place so that we might be able to come to Him freely based not off of our merit but off of His. Jesus died on a cross and three days later He rose again and we are invited to base our life off of a life-giving, running, fulfilling, satisfying, validating God. some of us are exhausted and it's because we've been trying to maintain a pit that was never designed to build our lives around. We've been trying to drink from dry dirt and it's killing us.
But we can come to Jesus and we can have freedom and we can have hope and we can have joy and we can have life forever. God, we thank You for Your grace and I pray that Your Holy Spirit would draw us ever deeper into the life that is in You, that You would fulfill us and You would satisfy us and You would help us see where we have begun to trust in something that will not fill us up, will not make us complete, will never be able to satisfy. God, I pray that You would show us where we've begun to build our lives around something that ultimately we will have to prop up and that ultimately will destroy. We love You and we praise You.
In Jesus' name.
All Gods but God
Transcript
So how we doing? They always give me a hard time for asking how everybody's doing. I think we've moved beyond that point, so I'm going to start asking questions like, How was your week? How are your finances? How's your mom doing? Those kind of questions.
To kind of move it on beyond just how you're doing. But last week we began our Idol series, and so we started the first week. We were looking at Exodus chapter 20, and that's actually where we'll be again tonight. And we'll be on page 40 in the Bibles we have. If anybody needs a Bible, we've got some right here. They'll hand to you if you just raise your hand so we can all be on the same page.
But what we talked about last week was that we are designed as humans, created by God, to live in existence in relationship with God. And so that all humans are designed to live in a worshipful relationship with God. And that when that relationship was broken, it wasn't that we ceased to worship. It wasn't that we ceased to have a God. It just we began to worship other things. And so something else began to have supremacy in our lives.
And so what we talked about was if we are designed to worship and by default are going to be worshiping something, why would we want it to be God? And so what we discussed was that Jesus, we looked at Romans 5, Jesus rescues and redeems while we're weak, while we're broken, while we're sinful, that he buys us for himself through his death to save us when we had no merit of our own. So that we were made his prior to any amount of value or worth or goodness that we have. And that he's the only God that does that. That all other gods base our relationship with them and our existence in the world off of how well we're doing.
And Jesus bases it only, always, forever off of himself. And so there's actually a lot of freedom and joy and life in having Jesus be our God. And so that's what we talked about last week. So we're going to be in the same passage this week and we're going to kind of turn our focus. And I think for us in our culture, we don't think about idolatry very often, if at all. And so you may think about it as kind of something that people used to do or people in other cultures do.
I know that if you walked around in New Testament Rome, in the Greco-Roman world, they had gods for everything. I'm not kidding. They had gods for like everything. They basically just went through and if it was something that people appreciated, they were like, well, let's just give it a God. Let's just assign that a name.
Let's build a temple for it. Let's have a shrine for it. Cities had gods that, so there was like the big gods that most everybody knew about. And then there were a lot of smaller gods. And so they were like, all right, well, the sun and stars and storms, that'll be a God. And we'll have a God for beauty and sex.
And that'll be a God. And we'll have a God for – they had them for different cities. They had them for different vocations would have gods. I was reading Poseidon was the God of the ocean and horses. And I just don't know how that went in the God draft, like who was representing Poseidon. It was like, all right, we'll take the ocean.
And they came back around and they were like, all right, we also – we want horses. They were like, you already got the ocean. Yeah, but there's like not a lot going on there all the time. And he only has a few people to mess with, you know, and boats and stuff. So we want horses and we want fire.
You can't have fire and horses. You've got to pick one. Horses. We want horses. So I don't know how that worked out.
I guess that made seahorses really cocky because they were like the only thing that was both, in the ocean and a horse. And so – but that's – they had gods for everything. And the truth is we think about like, well, we don't really do that. Honestly, I think they just had a little bit more social integrity to go ahead and admit what they were up to. Whereas we would be like, ah, we don't do that. But if you're going to say that we don't, as a culture, worship power and wealth, if you're going to say as a culture we don't worship beauty and sex, we're kidding ourselves.
They just said, well, we're going to do that. We're going to care that much about it. Let's go ahead and just deify it, give it a name, and have a house we can go to, make it a little bit easier. And so really we culturally still have idolatry all the time. We'd say, well, we're not – but not like them. Like we wouldn't worship some sort of inanimate object that had some kind of image engraved on it, unless of course it was like green and folded and had an old dead guy's face on it.
Then maybe. Maybe we'd work for that. We wouldn't have big statues that represented things. Like they had Baal and he had a giant bull statue that you would worship a bull that would represent fertility and wealth. And we wouldn't do that unless, of course, we're talking about bull markets and we build one in front of the New York Stock Exchange to represent wealth and power. We wouldn't practice child sacrifice unless it was to the God of choice and personal freedom.
So to act as if our culture does not have idolatry, we just don't have names for it. The truth is it's all around us all the time and as individuals, idolatry isn't just something that other people deal with. It's a human problem. John Calvin said that the human heart is an idol factory, that from the womb, from birth, we are adept, we are great at making idols. And so what we're going to shoot for tonight is we just wanted to develop a lens for seeing idolatry in our culture and idolatry, more importantly, idolatry in our own hearts and our own lives. And so we want to just get a framework for how do we even begin to investigate this?
I remember growing up in school, it was just, and I don't remember exactly what year it was, but there was a year when I went back to school and like I showed up and I was like, there are girls here. And that had never really dawned on me before. Like they'd always been there, but I'd never really noticed them. And in some ways our goal tonight is let's pull back a little bit and start to look at where idolatry crops up in our lives. They're there. Let's just get a lens to see them.
That's what we're shooting for. And that's what we're going to be in Exodus chapter 20. So I'm going to pray and we're going to hop in. God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you are alive and you are real and you are active. We pray that through your Holy Spirit you would lead us tonight.
That this would not be just a good get together of friends and a good talk and some good singing. But that God, it would be worship. It would be a gathering of your church where you, through your Holy Spirit, instruct and teach and admonish and use your word to enact your will. So we love you and we praise you and we pray this in faith that you will work among us. In Jesus' name, amen. Exodus chapter 20.
We're starting verse 1. And God spoke all these words. So this is God talking to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai after he's rescued them out of Egypt. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And so we see how God rescues a nation for himself. That he makes a people for himself and he rescues them out of slavery.
And we actually, this is just a small picture of when Jesus is going to rescue the world out of slavery. So the Egyptians were, the Israelites were in slavery to the Egyptians. But the Bible tells us that ultimately as humans we're enslaved to sin, to our own desires. And that Jesus would come to earth, be the son of God, that he would live perfectly on our behalf. He would die in our place so that we might have freedom in him. That we might have life in him.
So he would be killed on our behalf. That he would shed his blood on our account. Be buried, rise again to life and live forever. And that in him we can have life. And so we just see here a small picture of what ultimately God's going to do for all of creation, all of humanity. And so it says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above. Or that is in the earth beneath. Or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God.
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. We talked about last week that God doesn't set it up as here are my rules, follow my rules. Those who follow my rules are good. Those who follow my rules are bad. Breaking rules is bad.
He sets it up as object of worship. He says I am God and there are no other gods. And do not worship any other gods. And so we don't break rules. We don't break any of the other ten commandments until we've broken the first one. That it's only after we have taken something and put it in the place of God.
And said that at this moment you are more supreme to me. You are more real to me. You are more powerful to me than God is. And so I'm willing to turn from him because I see you as more supreme. And so the example I gave was if I was willing to lie to Anna or unwilling to confess sin to Anna or to my community group. What I'm saying is God I know that you don't like lying.
I know that you say that confession is actually good. That repentance is actually good. But approval of my community group of my wife is more important to me. Their opinion of me is more important to me than yours. And so we actually swap God out. Put something else in his place.
And that's what leads us into all other Acts of rebellion. So the first one is to actually break rule number one. Which is to place something else in supremacy. To remove God from where he is and put something else there. But he starts off.
He says you have no other gods before me. And then he. So what we did last week is we kind of turned towards God. And just said let's look at why we would want him to be God. What we're going to do this week is turn and take a look at all the other things that we can worship. So what does he say is idolatry?
What does he say we can worship? You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above. Okay. That is in the earth beneath. Alright. Or that is in the water under the earth.
Oh, okay. What he's saying is that humans are able to make an idol out of anything. The category he included is all of creation, everything. So his options are you can worship things that aren't created. Wouldn't that just be you, God? Yep, you got it.
You nailed it. The only uncreated thing is God. So he says nothing that's created are you allowed to worship. You're not allowed to make anything into a God. You're not allowed to take anything that I've made and turn it into a God. Just don't do that.
Now, notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say don't enjoy. He doesn't say don't you dare appreciate anything that's been created. He doesn't say how dare you love something that I made. He doesn't say any of those. He says don't worship.
Don't bow down to and serve. So what we often think about when we think about idolatry is we think about the pursuit of the overwhelming desire for something bad. That idolatry is us turning from God to chase after something bad. But the truth is far more often we idolize good things. That God gave us for joy and pleasure and appreciation in life. To things that he gave us to enrich life.
Things that the Bible says are good gifts from God. The reason we do that is because it's actually a lot easier for us to believe that they will bring joy and satisfaction and fulfillment. Much easier. And that's why they'll begin to drift and take a place of supremacy. So most of us aren't like pet rocks.
Pet rocks are great. And they're going to bring the ultimate joy and satisfaction and value in life. I've got to have pet rocks. Like nobody like it's like dude that's just dumb. Like you can't even make that argument. Like I just like I don't even like we're not even going to debate.
I'm not even going to like we're not even going to go scripture there. I'm just going to tell you you're stupid. You go away. Like that's how that works. But we get into a relationship.
Like I'm far more likely to believe that Anna who's my wife can bring me ultimate joy and satisfaction and validation. That she can supply everything I need in life. I'm far more likely to let my heart begin to drift there. Because it's actually a good gift that God gave for me to have a wife. And there is joy there. And there is hope there.
There is satisfaction there. But it's not ultimate joy, satisfaction and fulfillment. There's not ultimate validation there. And so far more often we'll take something good like work. God designed work. Adam had a job in the Garden of Eden.
We're not going to get to heaven and sit around all the time. We got stuff to do. I don't know what it's going to be. I know it's not going to be as bad as the stuff we're doing right now. We're not going to be as annoyed with our bosses. But he had a job prior to the fall.
So God gives work. It's actually good for us. It's designed for us. And so as we get into it, there starts to be a little bit of, no, this actually can validate me. This actually can bring me joy and satisfaction and hope and fulfillment. And we take a good thing, we turn it into a God thing, and it becomes a very bad thing.
That is how idolatry plays out most often. Taking a good thing. So like I really want to make good grades and please my parents. Like I really just want to fit into it. I want my parents to be proud of me. God actually designed it to work that way.
You should want to honor your parents. But then when it becomes an inordinate desire, we take something that's good, base our life off of it, and it begins to destroy us. So we take a good thing, make it a God thing, and it becomes a very bad thing. Okay? So he lays out, not don't enjoy, not don't appreciate, not don't have fun with.
He doesn't say, hey, hey, I made steaks, but you better not eat them. No. God designed good things. Because there's meat in heaven, just so you all know. The Bible says there's meat in heaven. It says zero things about vegetables.
There's meat in heaven. There's no death in heaven, so I don't know how that works. Like, is the meat still talking to you? I'm not sure how this works. How do I taste? Delicious.
Now stop talking and trying to eat. I don't know. Y'all, we'll figure that one out. So anyway, what he says though, you shall not make for yourself carved image or anything, likeness of anything that is in heaven above or earth below. He says don't take anything and make it into a God. And he includes all categories because the truth is we are able to take anything and make it into a God.
Okay. But what's he say? He says don't, you shall not, this is verse 5, you shall not bow down to them or serve them. Don't bow down to them or serve them. So when you bow down, you're paying homage to, you're giving honor to something.
You're bending to something. And then when you serve, the word he actually uses there is slave. So don't be a slave to. Don't let your life be guided by in service to anything other than me. We talked about last week that that's actually for our joy that he says that because he's good and he's for our good. And so when he calls us to worship him, it's not begrudging submission, but it's actually for our joy.
When I was growing up, my dad, he explained this to me later and I've seen how it played out in the rest of life as well. But he was like when y'all were kids, I made like 90% of all the decisions that faced you. I just made them for you. You got to make about 10% of the decisions. As you got a little older, maybe I bumped that back to 80%. He said you weren't like a 12-year-old trying to decide what time you were going to sleep.
I had already decided for you. 9 o'clock. My older brother will tell you that you didn't necessarily go to sleep at that time, but you were at least in a bed with the lights off. You may stare at the ceiling if you would like, but you're going to be in the bed. He was like you're not 14 trying to decide whether or not you're going to get your ears pierced. I've already decided that for you.
Your options are don't get your ear pierced or have me assault you. Those are your options. We knew our options. None of us have our ears pierced because we valued our face more than our ears. But he was like I've made decisions for you.
And the truth is as you go through life, you have things over top of you that make decisions for you. Like when you get a job, when I go to Sears, which I won't be doing much more because they don't exist anymore. At least the one I was working at. We shut that thing down. I guess my sales weren't that good. But I knew I was going to wear clothes, but I had a certain like I could wear.
I knew I was going to be wearing khakis and some form of a blue shirt. Like I could wear black pants if I really got crazy. But I had decisions made for me. When I went to college and was playing football, I was on the team. I had a lot of decisions made for me. I was like where are you going to be most of the time running and getting yelled at.
Like that decision has already been made. Like that's when we place something over us, we serve it. And it does not work for us. It begins to make decisions for us. And so when God says don't worship anything, don't place something in supremacy over your life, don't serve it, what happens is if we place money as the pinnacle of what we're chasing, we think that I can control this. But the truth is it begins to make decisions for us.
Because if you're going to serve money, certain things are going to have to happen and certain things are not going to happen. When we place health there, when we place physical beauty there, decisions already begin to be made for us. And so when God says serve me only, the decisions he makes are actually like good ones that are healthy for us and enjoyable and there's life in them. And so he says don't bow down to and don't serve or slave for anything other than me. So I want us to take a second and to begin to unpack what it looks like for us to begin to identify these things in our hearts.
And again, predominantly, as we walk through this and as you begin to pray through this and walk through this with the Holy Spirit, this most often will not be bad things. Most often will not be things that are in and of themselves. You can immediately identify and be like, that's sinful. Most often in idolatry it will be something good that we've given an inordinate amount of power to, that we've begun to place in a place of supremacy. And so there's going to be automatic pushback and automatic defense for some of these things. But what we're not saying is all of these things are automatically bad.
We're just saying they should not take the place of God in our lives. I remember Anna and I were dating in high school and she was – we were pumping gas one time. Well, she had a Explorer. I couldn't remember what it was. She had a Ford Explorer. It was really big.
And she ran it into things. And after she ran it into a ditch, she got bumped down to smaller vehicles. She's gotten smaller and smaller with her vehicle, but she has not ceased to run into things. I was – you know, so at some point we may have to expand it back up just so that if she gets in an accident, she wins. But not worried about conserving gas, more like just winning an accident.
But she took her Explorer and she was on empty and she was with her tennis team and she decided she was going to go ahead and fill it. It was the first time. She had only been driving for a little while. First time she's ever going to get a full tank of gas. She was real excited because she was going from like E light all the way full. So she fills it all the way up.
She goes to pull out of the gas station, stalls out. Her car runs over across the road, gets stuck in the middle of everything. Then she has to get the whole team to come help her and like push it into a ditch. Really, really confused as to why her car no longer works. Because the one way she knows how to work on cars, which is similar to the one way I know how to work on cars, she doesn't have gas. Yes, I don't know what the problem is.
The problem was it was diesel fuel that she filled her car up with. Now, nobody would argue that diesel fuel is a bad thing. It just doesn't work well in a car that runs on gas. As we walk through this, there's a lot of things we're not going to argue are bad. They're not going to work well in the place of God. A marriage can be a really good thing, but it makes a horrible God.
Approval and relationships with people and being loved can make a very good thing, but it makes a horrible God. Good grades, hard work, wealth, money, possessions, all good things given to us by God, but they make horrible gods. So as we walk through this, be willing to sit with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to begin to train us to look for areas in our life that we are pursuing a good thing as if it is a God thing. So these are just some questions, and they may not, not all of them are going to apply to everybody. Some things may be helpful, may not be helpful. Take the ones that are helpful, use them, begin to sit with the Holy Spirit on that throughout this week.
This is actually why it's really important that we walk through life in community, that we actually get to walk through this process together. We get to begin to discuss, hey, I started thinking about this. How am I doing here? Have you all noticed this in my life, that we actually get to walk this out in this process? And so I'm just going to start giving some questions. The first one, though, area that we, since our hearts get tied to our idols, we see, we can begin to question our motives and our attitudes and our emotions when it comes to idolatry.
And the first one we're going to look at is guilt. So again, I'm just, we're asking some questions to help us begin to have a lens to identify. What is it in your life when you think back on it you feel most guilty about? You feel most ashamed of or you feel just heavy every time you think about it. You feel as if you failed in that area. Now that does not necessarily define idolatry, but it might.
It might be that you failed a God that you worship. And so you just can't get over this mistake that you made or this choice that you made because of what it was that you were trying to live up to but never did. So sometimes when we go to identify our idols, we can look towards guilt, anger. What do you get most frustrated about? When are you most likely to go off? And this will be different for different people.
So having someone interrupt your schedule or throw your schedule out of whack, probably always frustrating. But if you lose it, it's possible that you have an inordinate amount of hope and life and joy tied up in control and being able to be in control. If someone disrespects you and you fly off the handle, it's quite possible that we've got a little bit too much wrapped up in how other people view us and how much self-worth we have. Do they not know who I am? How dare they? So what do you get most frustrated about?
A lot of times we get really angry with... If there's someone that you're really angry with, a specific person, it's possible we're really angry with them because they're blocking us or denying us access to our idol. What do you fear most? What's your biggest nightmare? What do you automatically run to defend if it's addressed? Someone in your community group is like, Hey man, I just want to talk to you a little bit about this because I kind of see this in how you handle this area of your life and you automatically...
You've got like Bible verses loaded into a pistol to shoot back at them. This is why it's okay. What do you automatically run to defend? The last one's pride. What do you feel shows, validates you as a human? What do you feel you can always kind of rest in?
Yeah, everything else is going bad, but I've got this. What do you run to when life is crazy to show you that everything's still going to work out? You get on the internet, check your bank account? Anna and I do that if we either would like to cry or have a good laugh. I mean, what do you run to? What do you try to steer conversations to?
When you're in just a normal conversation, what are you trying to hope that it gets to? I was in a science class in college. And you had your class and you had a lab and we had a lab and in that lab, a teacher would be talking about stuff and there was a dude who would start so many sentences. And I don't remember his name, but I remember his nickname. He would raise his hand and be like, now this summer when I was in space camp, we used to be like, dude, I don't think that sounds the way to everyone else the way you think it sounds. But he'd try to bring it up all the time.
It wouldn't even really apply. He'd be like, now this summer when I was in space camp and we were learning about space rocks, photosynthesis. He was like, I don't even know. Have you ever seen people do this? I've done this. You turn the conversation in a really weird way.
That was a great story about your grandmother. Want to know how many push-ups I can do? It's like, dude, I don't even know. I don't know how you got there. But what is it that you're likely to try to show to people so that they can know, hey, I just want to let you know I deserve to be on earth.
What is it that when it gets attacked or affronted or assaulted a little bit that you just can't handle it? What is it that you're so proud of? The other way this shows up is what are you most annoyed by? What are you most likely to talk bad about? Because the truth is if you don't find much pride in something, you're very unlikely to talk bad about. So I'm never going to get in an argument about LeBron James and Michael Jordan because I could care less and I have no affiliation with either of those cats.
When you say King James, I'm more likely to think about the version of the Bible than the dude who dunks on people. Okay? That's just the way I am. You want to get an argument about Clemson and Carolina football? High five. Let's do this.
Up top. Matt, up top. Get in here, buddy. I have some association with one. I care a little bit about one. And so what are you most likely to talk bad about?
Will you go off on how somebody raises their children? I can't believe that they would have kids that acted like that because my value and worth is wrapped up in how good mine are. Okay. That's to begin to frame up in our brains how do we ask questions? How do we look at what it is that we seek to validate us to find life in, to find joy in? What have we begun to shift out and put in the place of God?
Now here's what happens. We talked last week and we went to Romans 5 and we talked about how Jesus rescues us while we're weak. How he rescues us while we're his enemies. How he does not base our standing with him off of us, which is really good news. That Jesus saves us outside of any merit or worth that we could ever bring to the table. But let me tell you what happens a little bit when you start talking about idolatry.
There's a little bit of come to Jesus and he'll fix all of this. Come to Jesus and he'll make all of this good. And a lot of times what we do is we just bring our idolatry with us and we slap a Jesus fish on top of it. We just kind of spray paint a cross over top of it. I, I, um, there's a whole segment of people that went through the true love waits thing. It didn't reach Australia, so Raz was really confused about it as we were talking about things.
But true love waits didn't make it across the pond. But, uh, what that was, was there was youth groups where they'd come through and they would do basically abstinence training for youth. And, uh, it was basically, you, you, you don't need to, the Bible says, not to, to fornicate, not to have sex outside of marriage. That, that that is not the way we're designed to act. That monogamous married relationships are the best ways to, to live life. And so you would, you would get like a promise ring or whatever.
And so the ideal behind it is actually really good and healthy and fine. But there were times that it was sold as put in purity work and Jesus will bring you perfect spouse. You do the work of behaving yourself and in comes great marriage. And there is a group of people, 20 to 30, 35, that are really mad at God because they put in the purity work. Mr. Prince Charming hadn't shown up.
Mrs. Perfect hasn't shown up. Hadn't worked out. And God owes them. Truth is quite often we come to Jesus with, okay, you're right. I shouldn't serve money.
I should give my money to the church. And if you give your money to the church, if you give your money to the church, he will open up the gates of heaven and he will flood you with possessions and things and wealth and power. So we come to God and say, all right, God, I'll give you my money as long as you're going to pay me back. So, Jesus, I will worship and serve you as long as you worship and serve money. Some of us come and get involved with church because it's the best way to have a good family. Jesus, I will be here.
I will serve and I will work. But my children better not rebel. And the truth is, God does bless. And it is a great way to raise a family that knows and loves the gospel. And it is a great way to have a good marriage. But God does not promise us all those things.
And Jesus is not interested in serving our idols. So the truth is, there are Christian versions of all of those things we just talked about. Guilt? What is it that we still think Jesus is unable to save us from? What is it that we still think he's mad at us about? What is it that you think Jesus can't forgive you of?
Because the truth is, Jesus says he forgives and he redeems and he takes away all our sin. And it's never based off of us. And if we look at God and say that my sin, I know you forgive, I know you redeem, but there's no way you can forgive this. What we're actually saying is, Jesus, I didn't fail you. I failed something more important than you. If he's unable to forgive it, we're taking it as if there is a higher court.
Anger? What are you mad at Jesus about? What are you frustrated with God about? What hasn't he given you that he was supposed to? What hasn't he blessed you with that you thought he was going to by now? That doesn't mean you don't wrestle with God.
That doesn't mean you don't pray about things. But if there's a constant source of frustration and anger when it comes to God, it's possible that he's just not giving you your idol. Fear? Fear? What are you afraid God will ask you to do? What are you afraid he'll take away from you?
What are you hoping we don't talk about in the Idol series? Gotcha. What have you already been thinking? Well, I just kind of hope we don't cover that. And if we do, he's got a couple of verses here. And maybe I just won't be a part of my community group that week.
And pride. Oh, this is a good one. And I don't want to talk about it because I'm like all of these categories. What do you bring to God that you think somehow shows value and worth of why you are worth rescuing? See, we know that we're supposed to come to God with empty hands to receive grace. Far too often we're like, yeah, my hands are empty except for this really awesome thing I did.
It shows up in a couple of different ways. There's truth idolatry. Which is where we think we have the better truth when it comes to Christian truth. So we're the group that's got it together. We know the right things. We know how to study this.
We've got good hermeneutics. We get into a debate with an Arminian. We can crush them. Those Calvinists are morons. Whatever. We know where to go.
We know what version of baptism is the best. I would argue that we do. But I set them on this category. And what happens is you begin to take pride in having the best version of truth. We're the Christians who have it together. We begin to gain this air of superiority.
And the truth is we're not in Christ because we were redeemed when we were broken and weak and enemies. We're in Christ because we know the good stuff. There's gift idolatry. I really put in a lot of great work for Jesus. There are nights he goes to sleep just glad I'm on his team. That's what we begin to think.
That there's somehow because he uses us or because there's work being done. That we somehow have the good gifts. And that we're not rescued and redeemed because we're broken and weak. But we're rescued and redeemed because we can do good things. And then there's morality idolatry. I obey really well.
I am so obedient. You tell me a rule. I'll tell you how I haven't broken it. And we begin to think that we, our place in Christ is not based off of our weakness. Not based off of the fact that we were enemies and he rescued us. But based off of the fact that we can behave very, very well.
And God's disappointed in those who can't. Those who fall short. Those who are constantly gathering with my community group and confessing sin. They need to get it together. Those who gather in my community group and they confess the same thing. Two weeks in a row.
Three weeks in a row. Seriously bro? You can't get it together yet? You know Jesus loves me because I've got it together right? Don't think. Because we're a part of church family.
And because we say that Jesus is God. That this hasn't creeped in. That idolatry doesn't creep up in our hearts consistently. And so here's the truth. We'll come to Jesus with all kinds of things that we want him to serve and work for. And we'll get really frustrated when he doesn't.
But he says, I am God. And there are no gods before me. And Jesus is not interested in serving our idols. He'll have no part of it. And so the truth is, some of us are very frustrated with Jesus for not giving us something that we really want. That we know that if we just had this, we'd be happy.
Why is he punishing me? I've been really good. If I could just have this, I'd have joy. I'd have life. I was just hanging out with my brother and his seven-month-old daughter. And the way she interacts with the world, she's really cute.
She looks just like my brother did when he was that age. And he was a really cute baby. I'm just hoping that at some point, her face doesn't keep looking like his. Because that's not going to be a good look. But the way she interacts with the world is, ooh, what's this?
That's what she does. Like, I really want this. Let me put it in my mouth. That's how she interacts with the world. Anything. Electrical cord.
Shard of glass. This is shiny. Let me stick it in my throat. There are times when he's sitting with her, when they're doing something. She's crawling around playing. And she picks up something.
And he didn't even know it was there in the carpet or whatever. They have to dive and, like, wrestle things out of her hand. Because the only thing she wants to do is really just stuff it in her mouth. And she'll cry and fight and fuss because he just stole joy from her. She was about to discover how amazing needles were in one's mouth. And he took it away.
And there are some of us fighting and fussing and yelling at Jesus because he refuses to give us something that will ultimately destroy us. Jesus is willing to let you be unhappy for your joy. And he's not interested in serving your idols and giving you things that are going to destroy you. And the truth is the Bible would tell us that that is actually part of God's wrath. For him to let us have the things that we want that will destroy us. And it's his grace on us when he identifies our idols and when he blocks us from things that we would be able to tell ourselves and lie to ourselves that I will find joy and significance and value and validation and hope and life in this.
And the truth is if we walk through life always wealthy, always healthy, always being approved of, always in power, always having what it was that we thought would give us life and we never realize that it can't, it is God's wrath on us because we will die and realize that we were in rebellion against a holy God and we will face the God that we never realized we needed. All of our gods will fail us and it's God's grace on us when he keeps us from them. When Jesus demands that I am God alone and there are no other gods before me, it's for our joy, it's for our life, it's for our hope, and he is not interested in serving our idols. Let's read it.
And some of us have found this out. Some of us have gotten the thing we thought would bring us hope and joy and life. And we said, ah, it didn't. My heart lied to me. When Jesus died on the cross, he proved once and for all that he is good and that he is for our good. He shed his own blood, gave his own life so that we might actually have one.
He is good and he is for our good and he is to be trusted with everything. And so the Bible says, the prophet Ezekiel says that God is going to give us a new heart through his spirit. And so here's what I want us to do. As we walk this out in church family, as we gather with our community groups this week, I want us to begin to question our heart and begin to ask the Holy Spirit to show in us areas that we have been chasing after something where we have been deceiving ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to begin to renew our heart and give us a new heart so that we might actually chase after the things of God.
So that we might actually chase after things that bring joy and life and real fulfillment and real value and real satisfaction and quit chasing after cheap substitutes. The band is going to come back up and play. And I just want us to take some time to question our hearts. Don't trust your heart. Trust the Holy Spirit that gives you a new heart. And here's the thing.
Some of us will begin to be faced with areas that we have begun to trust and love and pursue something else and will feel guilty or ashamed of it. Don't. Be excited that God in his grace revealed to you something that was ultimately going to destroy you. Be excited that he loves you enough to step into your process and pursue you. That he is good and that he's for our good. And that he wants life and joy for us.
So as we wrestle with our idolatry, as we gather with our community groups to walk this out in normal life, be very excited that God has you in the place he has you. And that he loves you in his grace enough to pursue you through it. Jesus, we thank you that you are gracious. That you are good and that you are for our good. I pray, God, that you would wreck us with your grace. That for those of us who have come to you claiming faith but really pursuing something else.
Being willing to serve you as long as you serve our other God. I pray that you would reveal that to us. I pray, God, as we've pursued other things, good things, good gifts that you gave us that we've tried to turn into God things. I pray, God, that you would begin to reveal that, lay that bare through your Holy Spirit. Draw us closer to you where real life and real joy is found. We praise you for your grace.
We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.
No God but God
Transcript
For most of us, our understanding of idolatry is you go to maybe a foreign country and – or like it's a worship of like a totem pole or something carved out of gold or it's in the Old Testament when they worshiped a golden calf. Like our concept of idolatry is worship of some sort of inanimate object. Or you think about like if you went to India and you walked into someone's home and they had set up their entire house. They had designed their whole home in the way they sit facing this little box that had an image in it. And so we would think, well, we don't have any kind of idolatry here. Like we wouldn't design our house facing a box.
And it's ridiculous to think that in India they would face all the couches and the whole home would point to this little box and there would be an image in that box. And that image wouldn't even tell jokes or solve major life problems in 30 minutes. Like they can't even change that image quickly by pressing a button. And so it's ridiculous that they would do that. The Bible is going to be pretty clear though that idolatry is not just a problem they had in the Old Testament, not just an issue that has to do with certain groups of people or certain nationalities or anything, but that it's categorically a human problem.
That if we are humans, we struggle with and deal with idolatry. And so we thought we would take five weeks to talk about idolatry. And idolatry is simply this. It is worshiping anything other than God. So placing anything other than God in a place of supremacy in our lives.
And so we're going to be taking five weeks. Tonight we're going to basically be just talking about why we would actually want God to be God. So if we're going to talk about all the other things we worship, let's actually talk a little bit about why we would worship God. Why would we do that? If God's God, why would we want Him to be God? Next week we're going to talk more about the things we actually do worship other than God.
Third week we're going to talk about what happens to us and to those objects that we worship when we place the weight of glory on them. So we take what should be placed on God and we place it on those objects. And then week four we'll spend some time unpacking more internal ways that we idolize things. And week five we'll talk about how Jesus actually is better than all that we idolize. So they'll kind of blend together and we're going to talk about Jesus every week because that's pretty much all we do, which is good.
That's what we're supposed to do. And so we'll do that. But that's kind of how we've laid it out and how we plan on walking through it. And hopefully the Holy Spirit will lead us in that. And it'll be helpful for us to see where we are. So the Bible opens with God making everything.
So he just creates everything that exists. And so it basically lays it out this way. There's God and then he creates all of creation and he puts humans in dominion over the rest of creation. So humans are kind of in to manage and take care of all other things that exist. And so it's God, humans, rest of creation. And so that's why humans are allowed to eat cows and hunt and farm and do all the things that humans are able to build buildings and pave roads.
That's okay. But it's also why it's not okay for us to just destroy everything and mow down every tree because we want paper for things and we just cut down and kill all the animals. That's not okay either because we're supposed to have dominion and care for. So that's why it's okay to have a car, but it's not okay to throw your bottle out the window. That all fits in biblical. And so we start mixing this up some.
So like you'll have people that take created things like tadpoles and elephants and dogs and they'll kind of raise them up to human level. So they have like rights the same that humans do or maybe they pull humans down. And so it's like my dog should have the same rights as my children. And biblically the answer would be no and we should make fun of you. So like does that make sense?
Okay. But then we also do the thing where we'll take animals and we'll move them to the position of God, which is even weirder. So it's like cows are gods or this animal is a God. And so we've actually let them not even just like move them to our level or pulled us down. We've let them jump over us, which was a major fail. Sometimes we pull ourselves up to God or we pull God down to us, but we're designed to exist with God, us, creation.
And that's how God designed it and he made it. And we crushed it. We were great at, crushed in the good way, great at existing in that relationship for fully two chapters of the Bible. And so, I mean, we did great. And then in the third chapter we were like, you know what? Because we exist, we'd like to worship ourselves as God as opposed to you.
And so Adam and Eve begin, they swap, they work to swap places with God and they want to be like God. And so that's what happens in the Garden of Eden. And so we're going to be looking in Exodus chapter 20 tonight. And so I'm going to take a second to get us there. But we'll be in Exodus chapter 20.
It's going to be on page 40 if you have one of the Bibles that we have. I believe 40 is right. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand. These guys are going to hand some out so that we can all kind of be in the same spot. So if you'd like a Bible and if you don't own a Bible, feel free to take that home with you.
That would be our gift to you. So we'll be at Exodus chapter 20. Here's what happens. So we swap ourselves out for God in Genesis 3. And then from that point on, basically the Bible says that humans used their good brains, because we have the best brains of all of creation. You've never met like a horse that does math better than you.
If you have, I'm sorry. You're really bad at math. But we used the best brains that God had created to come up with all of the evil things we could possibly come up with. So it said that the man's heart was intended on evil all the time. So it was like woke up and was like, I figure I'll do something evil, and then maybe I'll take a nap or eat lunch and then do something horrible.
That'd be great. And so that's basically what happened. And so humans categorically just rebel against God. And so in Exodus 20, where we pick up, God has taken a people and he said basically this. I created the world to exist in relationship with me, but humans didn't want to. So I'm picking you as a nation, you as a people, to exist in a relationship with me.
So we're going to model to the world what this is supposed to look like. And so they had been, as the Israelite people, they had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. And God had shown up. He had taken Moses and said, go tell Pharaoh, who's the king of Egypt, that I want my people, let my people go. I think God wrote a song about it. But if you don't get that joke, it's probably good because it was kind of dumb.
I don't plan these things. Sometimes they just pop out of my mouth. I wish I could catch them and put them back in. But anyway, so God takes Abraham to go talk to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And I want to take them and they're going to be my people. And Pharaoh says no.
And God, just across the board, picks Egyptian gods and shows that he's more powerful than them. So he does the plagues of Egypt and it's basically God showing that I'm more powerful than your gods. Like you think this is a God? Cool. Watch me smush him. Okay.
Is this one of your gods? Watch this. I schooled him. Is this one of your gods? And so he does that. And then eventually Pharaoh lets the people go.
God separates the Red Sea so that the Israelites can cross through. The Egyptians chase them. God closes that back up and they drown. And this is where we pick up where God is on Mount Sinai talking to Moses and he's giving them the Ten Commandments. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in into Exodus chapter 20.
God, I thank you for your grace and I pray that you would lead us and teach us tonight to understand more about who you are and how we are designed to follow you in worship and what it looks like a little bit for us when we choose not to. And so God, I pray that you would just give us wisdom and clarity and that your Holy Spirit would speak. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Exodus chapter 20. This is the Ten Commandments.
So where we pick up, it says, And God spoke all these words. This is God talking to Moses, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is under the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Okay. That's the first two commandments of what we call the Ten Commandments. What you understand is the Ten Commandments, what they argue about in front of courthouses and in schools is the Ten Commandments. And primarily, our understanding of how we relate to God is that God shows up and says, I've got rules and you must follow them or you're going to be in trouble. And so that sin is us breaking rules. That God has rules and sin is when we break God's rules.
And that's most often our primary understanding of how we relate to God. But that's actually not how he sets it up. He sets it up as object of worship. His first two commands aren't rules to follow. They are who you worship. And so that's a big deal.
God's not saying I've got rules that you need to follow. That's what Matt talked about last week, where we kind of understand those who follow the rules, who lace up their shoes and who are good little boys and girls, God loves them. And those who disobey the rules, God smites them. That's kind of how we understand it. Or in the story of the two sons where the older brother was like, I've obeyed. I've served.
I've been good. I'm the hero in this story. I'm the good guy. But it's not about following rules. It's about object of worship. And as Matt unpacked that last week, we saw that the son's heart was actually very far from the father's heart.
That he didn't care that his father was hurt. That he didn't care that his father was excited. He just wanted to obey rules and get stuff. So, that's not how God sets it up. He doesn't set it up as rules to follow. God sets it up with this.
I am God. Nothing else is. Nothing. Nothing in heaven. Underwater. On earth.
Pretty much covers everything. He says, don't carve anything. And don't make any kind of likeness of anything anywhere ever. It's me. I'm God. Nothing else is.
He doesn't set it up as commands, but as object of worship. And here's what. Sin is not primarily us breaking rules. Sin is us swapping gods. Sin is us. So that in the moment when we choose to sin, what we have functionally said is that something, someone, is more important, more supreme, bigger to me than God is.
So God says, I am God. And nothing else is. And that's how he sets up how he's going to relate to his people. And when we think of sin as breaking rules, the problem is we don't break any of the other Ten Commandments. We don't break any of the other commandments at all until we've chosen to place something else in our life as more supreme than God. And that is idolatry.
So that when Anna asks me a question and I want to lie to her, when somebody asks me a question and I just met and I want to lie to them about it, lying is one of the Ten Commandments. Like, I shouldn't lie. I'm not supposed to bear a false witness. I'm not supposed to say things that aren't true. And that's a rule. But the problem is, the problem isn't that I break a rule of lying.
The problem is the first thing I say is, hey, you know, Jesus, at this point, I value Anna's opinion more than you. I know you don't want me to do this, but she's bigger right now. I know that this isn't something that honors you, but I really, really need the likes on Facebook. It's a big deal. Does that make sense? Are you tracking?
So we don't break any other commandments until we've first broken the first one, which is we have swapped something out as functionally greater for us. That's what we saw on that slide there. It's where Romans says that we swapped out worshiping the creator for the creature, that we believe the truth, believe the lie rather than the truth. And we swapped out and worshiped creature rather than creator. Okay, I saw a comedian one time and he said that he's not a Christian, but he was talking about God and stuff. Because, you know, things to make fun about and jokes about or whatever.
But he said, he goes, I imagine after God created everything, that at some point he was a little surprised that humans just ate everything. That in heaven at some point an angel was like, oh God, you're going to want to come see this. You know those animals you made? They're eating all of them. And he said it's kind of funny because we were like, oh, oh cows, I'm going to go. Just went around eating everything and then got to dogs and cats and we're like, no, no, no.
This one lives in my house. It's my friend. I've named him Friskers. But the truth is we did humans domesticated dogs. So we own dogs.
You have friends that own dogs. You most likely don't have a friend who owns a tiger because they're harder to domesticate. But we've got people own dogs. And when we first domesticated dogs, we domesticated them for like an actual useful purpose. So like they help us herd cattle or they help hunt or chase people down who've escaped from prison.
So they're like really good at smelling. So what we would do is we'd take a dog and go, all right, I'm going to own a dog and I want it to be helpful to me. So I'm going to breed it for this purpose. And so we'd say, well, this one's good at this. This one's good at this. Let's breed them together.
Hey, this one's better at that. Oh, this one's good. Let's breed them together. And finally we have breeds of dogs that are designed for a purpose, for work or for hunting or for protection. Basically this dog, hey, this dog is going to really like you and really hate everyone else. It's a great dog.
You just put it near your house. It'll like you and it'll bite strangers and you won't have to worry about things. And so we bred dogs. But now what happens is humans' life changed. And so now we started breeding dogs and their sole purpose is to watch TV with me in my one-bedroom apartment. Like that's why this dog exists.
It has nothing else that it's good at other than sitting on a couch. Like that's the goal of this dog. So like I work at Sears. People walk through with like a work dog that's there for a certain purpose to help certain elderly people need a dog to like alert people. Some people come through and they have a seeing eye dog. And then you'll see like a woman with a dog in her purse.
That dog serves zero purpose other than to, I guess, get in the way of her finding things and leave stuff in her purse that she doesn't want there. Like I don't know. Like I've seen them pushing like a baby carriage with a dog in it. And I just want to be like, please just get out. This is ridiculous. But it's like, oh, you have a child.
Oh, my goodness. So I looked up things on the Internet. We now have a Bugs, which is a Boston Terrier and a Pug. We have a Golden Doodle, which is a Golden Retriever and a Poodle. We have a Labradoodle, which is a Labrador and a Poodle. We have a Poma Poo, which is a Pomeranian and a Poodle.
We have a Yorkie Poo, which is a Yorkie and a Poodle. I think it's fun just to breed them with a Poodle because then you get to say Doodle or Poo at the end of their name. So I think people are just like, half of it's got to be a Poodle. It's just so I can say Poo all the time. We have a Bascotti, which is a Basset Hound and a Scottish Terrier, which I'm pretty sure Bascotti, it was bred to be eaten with coffee. I think that's the point of that dog.
These dogs, sole purpose, designed to live in a relationship with a human. That's it. They are designed to live in a relationship with a human. You've never been flipping through National Geographic and seen the sheep-oos of the Serengeti. That's not a show. You've never heard a news report of campers being attacked by a wild pack of Labradoodles.
It just doesn't happen. You can't go into Appalachian Mountains because of those roaming Labradoodles. You've got to hide all your food. They love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They'll come get you. It's not a thing.
It's not a thing you worry about. But these designer dogs, if they're not with a human, they do this funny thing called they die. That's it. They don't hunt. They yip. They basically run around in the wild and say, I'm defenseless.
Come eat me. That's all they do. They don't have opposable thumbs, so they can't work a can opener, so they'll never get food. Like, they just can't. They were designed, they were created to live in a relationship with a human. And what I want us to understand is, in a very similar way, humans were created to exist in a relationship with God.
We were created by a good God who made us and designed us to exist in a relationship with Him. And outside of that, we do not ever exist without something as supreme in our lives. It is a design flaw in humans. It worked great for the first two chapters of the Bible. And after chapter 3, when we chose to place something else in a point of supremacy in our lives that was not God, it became a very big problem for us. We were created by God to exist with Him in the place of supremacy.
And what that means is, because we're designed that way, humans do not have the choice of, I will worship God, I'll worship the God of the Bible, or I'll have no God. No God is not a choice for a human. We always have to have something in that place. So the question for us is, do I want to have a good God or a bad one? Because no God isn't an option. We were designed to have something in the place of supremacy.
And so you'd say, well, what about like atheists? Okay, they've just put something else there. Science. That's what they base life off of. That's how they know whether they're in or whether they're out. That's how they know whether their life has meaning.
It may just be their brain. And you'll meet a lot of people who would never say, my God is popular opinion. But you can watch their life and see that it is. That that takes the place of supremacy in their heart. We tracking? Does that make sense?
Okay. So, the question I want to ask tonight is this. I want all of us to ask this. If our options are good God or bad God. If our options are God, the God of the Bible, or something else. What I want us to ask is why would we want it to be God, the God of the Bible?
We exist as a church plant because we think it should be God, the God of the Bible. We gather in homes throughout the week and walk through life together because we think it should be God, the God of the Bible. I pray for the people I work with because I want them to know God, the God of the Bible. But I want us to ask the question, why? If I'm going to worship something. Let's just assume I was designed to worship something.
I'm going to worship something. Why would I want it to be God rather than any of the other something else's? And I want you to ask that question. If you're in here tonight, I want us to try to answer this question. So, if you're a believer, if you say, I worship God. I worship God in Christ.
I worship Jesus. He's my God. Then I want, hopefully, to encourage us into why that's a good thing. Why you should be very, very excited that Jesus is your God. And if you're in tonight and you say, I don't worship God. And you may be even arguing, I don't have something I worship.
Okay. Okay. I'd like to submit that you do. And I just want you to help ask the question. If I'm going to spend my life worshiping something, is comfort a good one? Is partying a good thing to worship?
Is that a good God or should I pick something else? I'll just at least ask that question. And hopefully you'll see why we think Jesus would be the best thing to worship. So, that's what we're asking. If we've got options, why God? So, I think I need to address something here.
I think I need to address two quick things. One is, for some of us, the answer will be, and mostly for people who grew up in church or grew up in the south and are kind of used to this, the answer will be this. The reason we worship God is because God's God. Checkmate. Can't fight logic. Like, you know, but legitimately, that's kind of an answer.
And in some ways, that's fair. But most often, if you get that answer, it's because there's this vague belief that God is somehow like a cosmic mob boss. Like, he shows up and is like, I offer you my protection. If you follow my rules. If not, things can go very, very poorly for you. Like, that's kind of how we treat God.
It's like, alright, if I obey him, things will be good. That's why a lot of times, and the Bible doesn't say that, a lot of times people get really frustrated with God for promises he never made. For not keeping promises he never made. And we think, if I'm bad, then he'll come, you know, knock me to the ground and smite me. Like, God's waiting in heaven going, mess up. Just mess up, just one time.
I'm just looking for something. Like, he's got his laptop open, he has a smite button, and he just puts his cursor over someone and just presses smite, and it just like blows up or whatever. Like, he's a cosmic mob boss. And some of us have that understanding. And what, biblically, the Bible would say, actually, that's not the God of the Bible. So, if you believe in a cosmic mob boss, I don't know where you got that from.
It's not here. He's not waiting to crush you. And we'll get into that in a little while. He is God. And so, some people, when you have that, well, God is God. And so, some people on the other side will say, well, God shows up and says, I'm God, worship me.
Isn't that a little narcissistic? Who does God think he is? He does think he's God, just for the record. Like, that's why he shows up and says, worship me. He's kind of allowed to say that. The other thing is, when we argue that God is narcissistic, we're assuming that he should point us to something else.
That God should show up and be like, I'm God. And I created everything. And I just wanted to let y'all know, money, that's a really good one to chase after. I'll give you my top five things that y'all should pursue outside of the good God who created all of this. And so, the truth is, first of all, he is God, so it's not narcissistic for him to claim to be God, just for the record. That's how that works.
And he does deserve worship. And here's why. It's actually good for him. And so, in this passage, he says, I'm a jealous God. He says, you shall not bow down to them or serve them. That's verse five.
For I, the Lord, am a jealous God. I heard Oprah one time say that she was hearing this taught at one point. And she was like, wait, wait. God's jealous of me? And that it kind of messed up the whole Christianity thing for her because she was like, wait. If God's jealous of me, like, first of all, she had the right conclusion.
If God's jealous of you, you probably shouldn't worship him. That's not a very powerful, mighty God. Like, if he's in heaven going, oh, that's it. Man, if I could just be Chet. My brain would be smaller. I'd make bad decisions.
That would be great. I would have bad knees. Weird breath in the morning. Like, I just wish. Like, if that was true, then I wouldn't worship God because that's really sad. Like, if y'all were like, I want to be like you, I'd try to talk you out of it.
But if God did it, I'd be like, okay, this is enough. When he says he's jealous, he's not jealous of. He's jealous for. However, so, like, if I watched Anna talking to a guy and I felt jealous. Anna's my wife. If I saw her, like, after we got done here, she's hanging out talking to somebody.
Or I'm out at a store and I see her just talking away with some guy or in high school, whatever. And I feel jealous. I'm not jealous of her. I'm not going, I want to talk to that guy. I wish he'd look at me like that. Like, I'm not, that's not what's, that's not what's happening.
I'm not going with his cool, gelled hair and his sparkly, sparkly brown eyes. Like, I'm not jealous of her. I'm jealous for her. I want to physically destroy him with my bare hands. Because I care about her. And the truth is, that's actually appropriate.
She's my wife. If she was talking to some guy and they were holding hands and you're like, dude, I was holding that guy's hand. I was like, yeah, whatever. You'd be like, bro, you're the worst husband I've ever seen. Like, what are you doing? Like, you'd coach me up.
It's appropriate for me to want to physically assault someone who's messing with my wife. That's the right response. That's how that should work. And so when God says he's jealous for us, he's jealous for the relationship he designed to exist. So for me to go to Anna and say, I want you to love me.
I want us to have time together. I want us to connect. I want there to be joy in our relationship. That's appropriate. And as a husband, I should work to pursue that. And so when God says I'm jealous, he's meaning he's jealous for us, meaning he wants the relationship.
He doesn't want us chasing after other gods. He wants us to have the one that we're supposed to have. He wants us in the appropriate relationship. It's the same thing with a good father. The Bible talks about God as father. A good father wants a relationship with his children.
None of us argue, you know what? Those kids would be way better off if they didn't have that good dad. Nobody's making that argument. A good father is healthy for children. Statistics back that up. Kids are designed to have a father and have a father that protects and that leads and that defends and that cares for them and that trains them.
And so when a father fights for the right to be around his children and doesn't want to be replaced by a video game, doesn't want to be replaced by a coach, doesn't want to be replaced by any other person at all, but wants that relationship. It's appropriate and it's fitting and it's good. And when God declares, I want this relationship, it's not odd, it's right. It's appropriate, it's fitting, and it's the way it's designed to be. And the truth is, it's actually, not only is it good and fitting, it's actually for our joy. Because we become like what we worship.
In Jeremiah 3, God says that they chased after worthless things and became worthless. We become like what we worship. That's just how that works. So you meet somebody and they care about physical fitness. They worship physical fitness in a way. Or they wouldn't put it that way, but they just care about it.
They just, I like paying attention to diet and to exercise and those kind of things. Those people slowly over time become more physically fit. That's just how that works. If you worship basketball, over time you learn more about it. You grow to be better at it. Or you realize you're not good at it and you find something else to care about.
Or you learn all the stats and everybody's names. Like you've got a few options there. But that's kind of, that's how that plays out. So someone who's like, I don't worship things. I just like, I don't want rules and I just want like, I just want people to stay out of my business. And I just, I just want to be left alone and I have structure and I have all these things I've got to do.
And it's like, okay, well eventually you won't have a job. And it's a good thing you don't like structure because you're going to be wearing sweatpants. Because you won't fit into your other pants anymore because you had no structure on anything. And all you ate was cheeseburgers and Oreos and played video games. So well done.
And we slowly become more like what we chase after, what we pursue. And so when God says that he's jealous for us, when he wants that relationship, God is joyful. And he's merciful. And he's good. And so it's actually for our good to have God as the object of supremacy in our life because he draws us into himself. And we become more like what we worship.
So we have more grace for each other. We have more joy in our lives. It's good for us. But I want to point something else out to you. Verse 1. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me. God does not start off by handing out rules. He doesn't even start off by addressing this object of worship. He starts off by rescuing. He says, I'm the God who sets you free from slavery. He didn't say, alright Moses, we're going to go get them out.
I need you to pass out these regulation sheets and once everybody's following them, I'm going to come rescue you. He didn't show up and say, get it right. That guy just lied. Ten more years. He didn't do that. He shows up and rescues and then says, I'm the God who rescued you.
Now here's how this relationship is designed to work. So, we see this actually playing out in the New Testament. And so in Romans 5, and flip there with me because that's where we're going to spend most of the rest of our time. I'll refer back to some of that other stuff, but we're going to unpack Romans 5. So we see this playing out because God shows up and rescues before he ever says, this is how this relationship is going to work.
This is what you have to do to follow me. This is what this looks like. So, functionally in life, we will say, this situation, and we'll define for ourselves like a functional hell. We'll spend more time unpacking some of this next week, but this is a functional hell for me. Like being single is a functional hell. That would be the worst.
But being married and being in this relationship, that would be heaven. That's where you graduate to married life. And so for us, we have a functional savior that bridges the gap between our functional hell and our functional heaven. So we have something that, so getting married, finding a significant other is going to rescue us from hell and put us into heaven. Does that make sense? And so when we pursue those things, when we place our hope in those things, when we chase after anything else, we swap God out and make something else supreme.
The problem with that is that none of those functional saviors are a savior like Jesus is. Or a God like God is. And biblically, Jesus is God who came to earth. So, let's look at Romans 5, and we're going to unpack this. Verse 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith.
Justified just means made right. We've been made right before God by faith. Faith just means that we place our hope, our faith in God. So it is not, faith isn't working. It's not me doing something really well. It's actually me realizing that I can't and just being like, God, I just trust that you've got this.
Like, this is on you. So we've been justified. We've been made right by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, we've been made right by His death, so justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.
Paul says that Jesus died for us while we were weak, while we were sinners. And he says, look, somebody might die for a good person. They might. They might dare even to die for a good person, but nobody does what Jesus did. Nobody. Like, none of us are going to go knock on the door of a prison and be like, who's your worst death row inmate?
Who's the guy who did some really heinous, horrible stuff? I want to die for that guy. I want to swap my life out for him. I'd really love for him to get extra years because I took his place. Paul says, no one does that. But that Jesus died for us while we were weak, meaning we had no value of our own.
We had nothing to show Him that we had merited salvation. Nothing to show Him that said, we deserve to be died for. We deserve for you to be killed in our place. While we were weak, while we were ungodly, the opposite of pursuing Him. We were pursuing everything else while we were sinners. And it says, while we were His enemies, Christ died for us. no other God does that.
Work does not do that. Work does not die for you. Work does not forgive you. Work does not offer you grace. Work bases your salvation, your life, your hope, off of how well you stand in it. So when you're getting promotions, when you're getting the attaboys, when you're getting bumped to a better office, when you're making the sales, it's going really well.
But when that stops playing out for you, when that stops working out for you, it does not forgive you. It does not offer grace. It does not die for you in your weakness. It does not rescue you when you are at its enemy. Approval? The approval of other people.
Basing your life and your hope off of how other people feel about you. They do not ever die for you. They do not ever base their caring for you off of anything other than how well you fit up in their structure. Money doesn't love you. None of our gods do anything for us like Jesus does. Jesus rescues us while we're weak, while we're broken, while we're his enemies.
And he makes us right with him, not based off of us, but based solely, always, only, off of him. So that we stand forever right with God because we are in Christ. So we will only be right with money when we're in money, functioning appropriately. We will only be right with approval when we're walking through that well and gaining the approvals of others. And when that falls off, because it's always only based off of us and how things are working out, and Jesus only, always, is based off of him forever. Because at no point did we ever merit anything that gave us worth or value.
We were weak, we were ungodly, we were sinners, and we were enemies. And he died to give us life. The reason we want God to be our God is because he's the only God who does that. He's the only God that rescues us based off of himself and not off of anything else. Only, always, based in Christ and never given back over to us. And that is good news.
That Jesus rescues us on his own merit, on his own back, with his own blood, through his own death, so that we might actually have hope and life. All other gods that we worship will eventually fail us, will eventually crush us. There is no freedom in chasing after approval. There is no freedom in it. Having to check status updates, having to see how people care about you, there is no freedom in it. It enslaves us.
And God shows up and says, I'm the God who sets you free from slavery. If we base our life off of money, that does not free us, it enslaves us. And Jesus shows up and says, I'm the God who sets you free from slavery. All other gods will crush us. Jesus was crushed for us. Our life is only, always based in him.
And that makes him a good God. And a good savior. And the reason we want to proclaim it to others, and the reason that we care about other people, is because every other God will eventually destroy you. You will eventually fail it. Your health will fail. Your physique will fail.
Your money will fail. Your family will fail. If you base your life off of your children, and you're happy while they're happy, and things are good while they're good, and whether or not they're enjoying themselves, eventually that will fail, and it won't forgive, and it won't offer grace. It doesn't die for us when we're weak, and when we're its enemies, but Jesus does. All other gods will crush us. Jesus is the only God that was crushed for us.
And it offers us freedom, and life, and hope in him. It says that, verse 10, For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Jesus died on a cross in our place. Adam and Eve stepped out and swapped themselves for God. They wanted to be God, and we consistently throughout our lives have looked at God and said, something else is more important to me than you.
And Jesus stepped down, and he swapped himself, who was God, for us. So he stepped in and took the place of man, so that he might die in our place, and he was brutally murdered, placed in a grave, and three days later, he rose again to life. Jesus is not dead. He is alive, and we have hope in his life. He gives us life in his life. And there's joy, and there's freedom in that.
Having God be your God is captivating, but it never places us in captivity. It sets us free. So that in Christ, if my worth is always in Christ, you know what that means? It means I don't have to be good at everything. It means I can do really stupid stuff, and it doesn't crush me, because my value doesn't come from it. It also means that I can be successful, and it won't destroy me, because my value doesn't come from it.
My hope's not wrapped up in it. All my joy isn't based in it. It sets us free. Worshiping Jesus, having Jesus in the place of supremacy, does not crush us, because he was crushed for us, and it gives us life and freedom and hope forever. So the band's going to come back up.
I want us to do a few things. We're going to take the next four weeks, and we're going to unpack what it looks like for us, as we swap out other things as functionally greater in our lives than Jesus, that we would rather worship and love than Jesus. And so as we gather together in our community groups this week, we're going to begin to unpack that idea. But here's what I want to happen tonight. If we're in here tonight, and you say, I am a Jesus follower. I am a Christian.
My hope is in Him. Then I want us to celebrate. I want us to celebrate that only, always, and forever is our life based in Him, is our salvation based in Him, is our joy based in Him. And if you're in here tonight, and you would say, Jesus isn't my God, I want you to know that He was crushed for you. That whatever it is you're pursuing will eventually crush you. And some of you are aware of that, because it's happening now.
Because you are failing your God, and your God is not forgiving. And I want you to know that you can have life, and joy, and hope forever in Jesus, through faith, and faith alone. Which is where you go to Jesus and say, all my faith is placed in you. That you died in my place. That my hope is in you, and nothing else. God, I pray that you would speak to us, that your Holy Spirit would move in this place tonight.
That we would, you would, through your Holy Spirit, enlighten us to what it is that we have functionally placed us greater in our lives than you. That we might repent. That we might turn from that. That we might run to you. That we might quit serving false things, God. That we might serve you and you alone.
In Jesus' name.