Work, Enjoyment, and Savings (w/ QandA)
Transcript
Good morning. We're in our fourth week of our money series, just talking about money. We're actually wrapping everything up today. I am the type of person, and you probably know someone like me, that talks to the television. So I talk to my television.
I respond to characters. And I don't do this in movie theaters and stuff, but mostly if I'm by myself, I'm going to interact with what's going on. And so I'll – like if I'm watching a movie and something happens that is just unbelievable. So like the movie Shooter, where he's like a really great sniper, and they explain that to us. He's a really great sniper. And then later, bullets don't hit him.
They didn't explain that to us. So like he can shoot really well, but then like 30 military guys are shooting AR-15s at him, and he's just like sitting on a hill. And so I'm like, really? Come on. Are we serious right now? And then he blows up a helicopter and runs into the woods, and that's the end of the scene.
Like we don't even know what happens. Like so I respond to my television, and there are two things that I respond the most to that I'll talk to my TV the most. Like that's sports, football, the sport. I talk to football, and I will talk to TV preachers. So when I'm watching football or a television preacher, I'm going to be talking to my television a good bit.
So I will yell. Like if it's football, I'll be like, yeah, come on. Let's go, son, especially if there's like a really good defensive hit. Like I will jump up and shout, which annoys Anna, but like I've got to. I will complain about what people are doing. And then when I'm watching TV preachers, I do the same thing.
So if they're saying good stuff, I'm like, come on. Yeah, that's right. Preach, preacher. Like I don't really do that, but I do talk to the television. And mostly though I get really angry at TV preachers. And so we recently had a son, and I have been catching up on all of my middle-of-the-night television shows.
So I don't know. So maybe me and one other insomniac who like you have insomnia, you have a problem with sleeping, you watch the shows that I've been watching recently. So if you get up in like the first shift with our son, because he eats every three hours, you get to catch up on like late-night shows. So like the late show, the late, late show, the later than the late, late show. Like the – you get to catch up on those. If you get the second shift though, it's like 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, and nothing is on except for paid programming and television preachers.
I should watch paid programming, but I end up watching TV preachers. And if you watch TV preachers, you would assume 85% of the Bible is about money. Like that is what they talk about. So I'm watching a guy last night, and he has really cool hair. Because if you're going to be on TV and preach, you have to have really cool hair. It usually needs to start here.
It needs to be slick all the way back here. There needs to be some sort of throne that you and or your wife sit on or you and a panel of other people. And wife needs bouffant hair, and she needs to look – her face needs to look like she lost a paintball match. Like she's back here. There's usually a spinning globe. I don't know why there's a spinning globe, but on any of these shows, there's a globe that just slowly rotates in the back.
That's going on. And then what they do is they just talk about money. And they'll talk a lot about like sowing seeds and I didn't have any money and then I gave money and now I've got money. And look at my suit and then someone will come up and be like, I didn't have any money and then I gave money. And now God doubled that and then I paid back and he doubled that again. And now I'm super rich and that's what God wants.
And so if you watch them, you would assume that being rich meant that God loved you, God blessed you. Like if you are financially secure and stable, that is the sign of God's blessing. And that is incorrect. So having wealth can be a blessing and in the Bible it is a blessing. It is not the sign of God's blessing. And the Bible gives a lot of warnings against wanting to be rich, making that your hope, your aim, your goal in life.
So people react to that. They don't have TV shows because TV shows cost money. But the way they react is they say, no, you're holy and you're good and you love Jesus if you're poor. And that's actually a sign of God's blessing is to be poor and to give everything away and to eat dirt and crickets. And God loves you the most if you do that. And the more you smell because you haven't bathed, more holy.
Like that's like you have people that start pushing on this end. And the Bible also does not say that. It doesn't say that being poor makes you more holy. Actually, the Bible is going to kind of stand in the middle and give a lot of warnings towards wanting to be rich. And then give some teaching about that you're blessed if you're poor and that's okay. But there's not a rule of if you start having money, you have to give it all away.
There are times the Bible is going to tell somebody, yeah, you're rich and you need to give it all away. You're supposed to. But that's not the rule for all rich people. It's way more in the middle. And so what we're going to do today is we're actually going to spend some time. We're going to be in 1 Timothy chapter 6.
And we're going to look at just as practically as we can as we finish up this series. We're going to try to just run through some stuff really practically looking at money today. And then we're going to spend a little bit more time doing Q&A. So we've been having people send in questions about money. We're going to spend a little more time doing Q&A when we get finished this morning. But we're just going to take a minute to try to look at some real practical stuff when it comes to money.
So what we've been doing mostly for this series is we've been looking at more big picture. How should we view finances? So if I'm a Christian, if I say I believe this, if I say that I believe that Jesus was God who became a man, who lived perfectly on my behalf, who generously, blavishly poured out love and grace and gave up his entire life for me, and then is a king who rules over my life, that he rose from the dead, and he is the king of everything, if I say that is true, how does that affect how I handle my money? If I believe that there's an eternity, if I believe that my God is a generous God, if I believe that this is the truth, how does that affect my money?
And that's what we've been looking at. And today we're just going to try to kind of wrap up the series with some real practical teaching on how to handle money. And really what we've said in the first three weeks is give money away. And as Americans, we need to hear that. But you're not going to give all of your money away.
And so today we're going to spend some time saying, okay, what else do you do with your money? Like where does the rest of it need to go? And so that's where we'll be as we're in 1 Timothy, page 644, if your Bible looks like this. If you don't own a Bible, take this one with you. That's our gift to you. I'm going to pray real quick, and then we're going to hop in and read some in 1 Timothy.
God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love for us. And we pray, Lord, that you would speak to us, that you would give us freedom and wisdom when it comes to handling money. And we just thank you for the time we have together this morning. We love you, praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.
So we're going to be in 1 Timothy 6, 17 through 30. Raz, two weeks ago, spent some time here. We read through this text, and so we're going to read through it again. I'm going to quickly kind of recap some of the stuff he said because we're going to be looking at it from a different angle today. But as for the rich in this present age, okay, I'm going to stop there for just one second.
What Raz did was he explained to us that on the sliding scale of richness, and I'm going to swap. So I was poor here earlier and rich here, but we're going to swap that. Now this side is rich. Now this side is poor. So on the sliding scale of richness, down here you've got the poorest person in the world, probably in a third world country, probably lives in a garbage heap and picks around for food in that.
That's a real thing of children in our world live in garbage piles and look for food. So that's far end down there. Far end up here is like you've got your LeBron James, and then you've got the guy who pays LeBron James, and then you've got the guy who – Microsoft guy, Bill Gates, and then you've got like Warren Buffett. They're down on that end. And all of us are somewhere on this sliding scale. And as Americans, we're more towards this side of the scale.
But mostly what we do is we stand in line this way, and we say, I'm not rich because this person has more than me, and that's our logic. I can't be handling my money poorly. Look at how this guy handles his money. And I can't be rich because look at what that guy has and look at what my neighbor has, and so I'm not rich. And so what Raz said was, first of all, that logic doesn't make any sense. It's the same as saying I'm not full because you ate more than me, or I'm not wearing any clothes because you have on more clothes than I do.
Like the logic does – it's not sound, that I'm not rich because someone has more. And what he said was we needed to turn around, look this way, and realize how well off we are, how rich we are. And so as he walked through this passage, he was just trying to help us all see that really we all need to pay attention. So when it says to the rich, not many of us are like, shh, he's talking to me. I'm super wealthy, guys. Be quiet.
Like not many of us do that, but the truth is we're actually all very well off, and as Americans, for the most part, are more wealthy than many other people, and so we at least need to all pay attention and learn what he's going to tell them as he talks about finances. So as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, which just means prideful, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.
Okay, we're going to stop there. For some of you, that really bothers you if we stop in the middle of a verse. So you see the 20 at the front of that, and you want us to read to the 21. The verses were added later to be helpful. We can stop wherever we want, and we stopped at the end of the sentence, and we're okay to do that, just so you know. Those are just for reference.
That's not how Paul wrote it. He didn't write and go, you know what, I'm going to add a little 20 here. He didn't do that. He just wrote a letter. So we're stopping at the end of his sentence, which is, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.
If you have struggled with, you know, you need to complete it, go ahead and read the rest of the sentence to yourself. I'm not mad at you. We're just not going to talk about it. The rest of the verse. So, okay, so Paul finishes this up, and he says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so what he's saying is, Timothy, God has given you a deposit.
He's made a deposit in your life. And that includes everything. So when he's talking to Timothy, he's specifically talking about some of the gifts he's been talking to Timothy about, the responsibilities he has as being a pastor of this church. That's why he's writing the letter. But he's also including everything that's been given to him.
And so he says, guard the deposit entrusted to you. And so here's the deal. Timothy will one day stand before God and have to give an account for how he handled what he had been given. And so Paul says there's been a deposit entrusted to you. Handle it well. Guard it.
Defend it. Take care of it. Be wise with it. And that includes gifting. That includes ability, talent. That includes his finances.
That includes everything. He's to guard the deposit entrusted to him. And here's what's really cool that we need to all be aware of. Timothy will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to Timothy. And you will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to you. And I will be held accountable for what has been entrusted to me.
And so that's life, health, skills, ability, talent, finances, everything. There is a day when we will stand before our maker and we will give an account for how we handled what he gave us. Because everything we have is grace. It's on loan. Like you didn't pick the parents you have. You didn't pick the genetics you have.
You didn't pick the skills you have. Like I could work my entire life and will never play an instrument well. It will not happen. I cannot clap and sing at the same time. I was in a gospel choir. I proved that publicly.
I showed the world I can do one or the other. I can clap or I can sing. I'm not doing both at the same time. It's not happening. I didn't know we had to clap until the very end. They were just like, all right, now we're going to clap and sway during these.
And I was like, I've only practiced the singing. I needed an entire semester to work on this. Y'all are terrible, terrible people. But we've only been given so much. I had a college football coach. We had meetings with our head coach every once in a while.
And so I sat down in his office and he said, Chet, you have done everything that you can do with the potential that God gave you. He just, God sometimes gives more people more potential. Thanks. I think. What my coach said was, Chet, the best you could ever be is a four. And you're a four, man.
You nailed it. And you will never play. You will be a four and you will be on the bench. And that's okay because there are some people on our team that God gave them the ability to be an eight. And they're a six. And that's better than a four.
That's what he said. That's how the conversation went. I read between the lines. I knew what was happening there. It was also in his conversation where he was telling me that I would not be receiving any scholarship money ever from them forever for any reason whatsoever. So, yeah.
So, just so you all know, I reached my potential. Just so you know. But for some, but like we'll be held accountable for what we have. So, some people are like, what we cannot do. Timothy will be held accountable for what he has, what he's been given. What he cannot do is say, I'm not held accountable for what I've been given because Paul has more.
What I can't do is say, well, I can't waste this because he's, look at what he has. Look at how he's wasteful. Like, then mine doesn't count. We can't do that. So, we can't look at someone who has more money, more talent, more ability and say that, well, what I do with mine doesn't matter because they have more. It doesn't make sense.
We are all going to be held accountable for what has been entrusted to us. And so, specifically for us today, we're going to talk about money. That verse means everything. It is definitely more than money. It's not less than money. And since this is a series on money, we're going to talk about money, not your ability to play guitar or sing or serve or dance or run or whatever other talents you have.
And I don't know why all those are physical, looking at a spreadsheet. Whatever talents you have. We're not talking about those. We're talking about money. So, all of us will be held accountable for how we handle money. So, what we're going to do is take, as helpful as we can be, we're going to take a second to look at how we can handle money.
And so, we don't usually do this, but we've got props today to be helpful. I was really tempted to just stay behind the wall and talk for a little while, but that would have just been weird and only entertaining to me. So, these are five buckets on where your money can go. Taxes is one place your money will go. And we're going to talk through all of these. Debt is another place your money will go.
And some of you are already nodding. I can't see you, but you know. You know about that. You're nodding. Your heart is nodding. You know what's up.
Are these centered? Because I don't want to, like, make someone not be able to pay attention the whole time because they're off center. And I'll keep referring to them if you can't read the labels. So, this is a bag of golf balls, but it represents money. These are golf balls of money for everyone in here. This represents you will only ever make a limited amount of money.
You will only ever this month make a limited amount of money. You have a limited amount of money that will pass through your hands. And one of the things we've talked about is that everything has been entrusted to you by God, and you will be held accountable for how you handle it. However big your bag of golf ball money is, you will be held accountable for it. So, some of us need to be really excited. I'm kind of glad that my intelligence is where it is, and my amount of money I'll make is where it is, and my ability to play football is where it is, so I just have less to mess up.
I'll be like, yeah. I reached my potential. It was a three. Wasn't that great? Like, I had less to do, less to go for. So, some of us need to be real excited.
You're really mad you don't make a lot of money. Be happy. You have less to mess up. Okay, so, taxes. We will only talk about this for a second. These are five places your money will go.
They will fit into these buckets. Taxes, debt, saving, giving, and lifestyle. So, and every, that's it. That covers everything your money will ever go to. So, taxes. Some of us don't make much.
We're not going to pay much in taxes, but we have to pay taxes. Some of us make more. You will pay more in taxes. But you're going to pay taxes. The government is going to get your taxes from you. You do have one option if you really want to stick it to the tax man.
Again, don't pay your taxes. Then you'll get arrested. And then other people's taxes will have to pay for you. You'll get three meals and a bed. And you will doubly stick it to the tax man. Otherwise, you're going to pay taxes.
That's how that works. So, we're not going to talk about that anymore. The next one is debt. First of all, let me say this before we get into debt. Here's the first rule when it comes to handling money well. And we're just trying to be as practical as we possibly can be.
Rule number one, make a budget. Some of you need to be writing that down. You don't make a budget because you don't write things down. Now would be a good time to start writing things down. Write down, make a budget. Here's why you need to make a budget.
You will be held accountable for everything that has been entrusted to you. You will be held responsible for it. Now, the best way to begin to plan on how to handle it is by having a budget, which is just where you write down where your money is going to go. If you are in this room and consistently you get to the end of a month and you think, where did all of my money go? You need to make a budget. Because you either tell your money where to go or you will wonder where it went.
Those are your two options. You're either going to tell your money where to go or you just will be like, what? Where did I spend my money? And then eventually you start planning a budget and you're like, how much money did I spend at Taco Bell this year? Yes, a lot. That's really personal.
I'm just confessing. I spend a lot of money at Taco Bell. I like that place. Okay. So make a budget.
Have a plan. Write something down. It's very simple. At the top you will write down how much you make and then you will write down how much you have to spend and that's really it. You'll start walking through that. Some of you are like, I don't make enough money to have to make a budget.
All you really just said was, making a budget will be very, very easy for me. That's what you just said. So if you think, I don't make enough money to have to make a budget. No. You just said, making a budget is easy. Okay.
This much money. Rent. Food. I'm done. I did it. My budget is made.
The truth is this. Some of us think, I don't make much money and I don't handle it well now, but I will handle it better later when I get more. That's not how that works. Not really how that works with anything. So we as Americans believe that.
I'm a terrible boyfriend. I'll make a great husband. There's no logic in that. You will just have more to mess up. You will just be a terrible husband. That's how that works.
I've said this before, but girls, if you're dating a guy and he is a terrible boyfriend, do not think that marrying him will fix that. You will just be married to someone who is terrible and that will be your fault. Okay. That was for free. So make a budget.
Make a plan. Handle your money. Pay attention to where it's going. Tell it where to go. So that's step one when it comes to money.
Okay. Debt. The goal with debt is that we would not have any. The goal with debt is to get out of debt. That's the plan. So there are a couple of different types of debt.
Most of us can't pay outright for a house, so we'll get a mortgage. That'll put us into debt. Now, a house is different in some ways because it is a, and the word has just left my brain. It's an asset, but it's an appreciable asset. Thank you very much. That's the word I was looking for.
It's an appreciable asset, which means that if you buy a house now for $100,000 and 10 years later you sell it, it should still be worth $100,000 or more, which means that at any point you don't get upside down in it most of the time. And being upside down just means that you owe more on something than it is worth. So if you had to sell it because the mafia was after you and you had to move and you had to sell and run away, you couldn't because you owe more than it's worth. Does that make sense? But a house is an appreciable asset.
So housing debt is one thing. The biggest problem for us as Americans is consumer debt, which is where we go into debt to buy things that we can't afford for our lifestyle. Our lifestyle bucket consistently just pours itself into our debt bucket, just so you know. So you have a limited amount of money and you're trying to decide what kind of pants am I going to wear. So you have an option for Wranglers from Walmart.
You could go with pants from Old Navy and that's going to cost you a little bit more. Or you could go with something from Buckle. And then if you went with pants from Buckle, you don't have that amount of money. So what you're going to do is get a credit card that just says, I don't own money, but I will in the future probably. And so then you just pour a bunch of money in here. Some ladies get, what are they called?
Credit cards at retail credit cards. And then you think, oh, I need to get this now because it's on sale. And so you pay interest, which is money for nothing other than just having something now on something that's on sale. And so you take something that would be cheap if you had the money and you make it more expensive over time because you put it in your debt pile. Does that make sense? So the goal is get out of debt.
Now, student loans. Should I just put the whole? Okay. Student loans. We're done. That was it.
Y'all have a good day. Some of us have student loans. And here's the thing. We're Americans. The average American has about $15,000 worth of consumer debt. And then you start adding on student loans and medical bills and different things.
This is not feel guilty, feel shame. It is make a plan, make a budget, and let's work to get out of debt. If you are choosing student loans, like if you haven't made that decision yet, consider going in-state, consider going public, not private because you are going to add on extra debt that really isn't going to help you too much in the future when you can get the same kind of degree somewhere else cheaper. That would be my advice there. And don't use student loans to pay for expenses if you can help it and get a job. Otherwise, though, we have debt.
So the goal is make a plan to work to get out of it. Don't assume I'm going to be in debt forever. Psalm 22, 7, Proverbs 22, 7 says, The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. Some of you are working 40-hour-a-week jobs just to pay the lender, which means your job isn't so much for you as it is for the person you owe money to. You are a slave to the lender. That's how it works when we borrow money.
In some small fashion, we become a slave to the lender. And as Christians, we're supposed to be slaves to Jesus, which means that we shouldn't be in so much debt that we're not freed up to move and to do what God asks us to do. Not freed up to, if he tells us to go be a missionary in another country, that we can't because we have so much debt. So the goal would be get out of debt. Now, be honest with your community group about this. Be real with where you are.
We have people in our church family who are good with money. They know math. They think through things well. They can do spreadsheets and magical things with computers. And so we actually can help do financial counseling or have somebody from our finance team sit down with you and just help you make a budget. Like we want to be as helpful as possible.
But the goal with that would be to get out of it if you can. Savings. Okay. Savings is one of these where it's, we kind of want to stay in the middle. You can't go too far one side or the other. So here's the thing that you need to know.
Saving money is okay and smart. Proverbs 21. Yep, save some money. That's number three. And we can go back to that in a second. Proverbs 21.20 says, Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it.
Which just means that it is smart, wise, to save up. Because you're going to have emergencies, you're going to have problems, and it is foolish to just use all, to have your budget match your income. It is helpful to save some money. So, really practically, if you are in debt, pay minimum payments until you can get something into savings. Get an amount into savings so that if you get a flat tire, if your washing machine breaks, you don't have to go into more debt to pay for it. So get something into savings so you can handle emergencies so that you can then begin to work on your debt, and if something comes up, it doesn't derail you.
Have something in savings. And here's the thing. Timothy says this, and I think this is really beautiful and helpful when it comes to thinking about savings. Talking on verse 18, talking about the rich. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. Which means they have finances ready to share.
And then he says this, thus, so by being ready to share, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future. Okay, what is storing up treasure for yourself for the future? I'll give you a hint. It's saving. That's what storing up treasure for yourself for the future is. That's savings.
That's all that is. So what he says is, people who have money, the part of the purpose of saving is to be ready to share. So that when someone in your group needs help, someone in your community group, someone you're in life with needs help, you hold your savings with an open hand. For people who have an emergency and you don't have savings, credit card is not your first option. Church family is. Our church is.
That's part of the reason we pull our money together is to help each other. It's part of the reason your community group exists. So don't just put it on a credit card, go talk to somebody. We should have people who save with an open hand ready to share. He also says this, verse 17, as for the risks in this present age, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. Perfectly good to save.
Don't put your hope there. Don't have your life there. Don't have all of joy and purpose of life is in savings. And also for couples, saving is not automatically more holy, just so you know. So some of us feel really self-righteous because we like to save money and our spouse likes to spend money.
Both of them can be very selfish, self-motivated, chasing after what makes us feel good. So someone likes to be able to look in the bank and see money and that makes them feel comfortable. And someone else likes to wear shiny shoes and that makes them feel comfortable. And we're both chasing after the same thing. We just have a different motivation. But we should save some and we should save with an open hand and that's okay.
Okay. Giving. This is what we've talked about for a lot of weeks. We're going to skip over, but that's just, we're going to come back to it, but that's just meaning that you give money away. Doesn't help you. Doesn't go to you.
That's giving to the local church, giving to friends, giving to people who need help. Like some of your money is just not going to terminate on you. That's giving. Everything else goes into this bucket. The lifestyle bucket. And so some of us say, well, I really just pay my bills.
Yes. But you, through your lifestyle, have chosen what type of bills you're going to have. Does that make sense? So when you buy a house or rent a house, you're choosing what kind of life am I going to have? What kind of house am I going to have? What's my mortgage going to look like?
How big is this apartment going to be? What kind of internet am I going to have? Am I going to have Netflix? Am I going to have cable? Am I going to have direct TV? Am I going to get the Hoppa?
Like what's the plan? What am I choosing with how I'm going to live? Where am I going to get my purse? Walmart. Dugan and Burks. I don't know if that's the name, but Dooney.
Maybe her name's Dooney. Dooney and Burks. What's the one with all the really weird patterns on it that looks kind of awkward and like super colorful? What? Louis Vuitton and Prada. So like, yeah.
Where's that coming from? Like I asked Anna this stuff yesterday and I don't remember any of the words she said. Sorry. I should have been paying more attention. So, but like we make lifestyle choices. What kind of car am I going to drive?
Does it get me to and from work? Or does it tell everyone I'm awesome as I get to and from work? We're making lifestyle choices. Does that make sense? So everything else is going here.
So here's what you need to know. Question your choices. Jesus says that life is not found in the abundance of possessions. And when he says that, he is talking to Americans because we believe that. Millions of dollars are spent every year to get us to be here and to be here and to know that that's what makes us okay. That's what makes us good.
That's what tells the world we're fine. That's what communicates to the world who we are and what we care about and what we value. And that's how people know you. And he says that life isn't found in the abundance of possessions. Life isn't there. That's not where joy and freedom and fulfillment come from.
So, when it comes to the lifestyle bucket, the fourth thing we need to know is we think about money. So we need to make a budget. We need to get out of debt. We need to save some. We need to plan ahead, know that there's going to be a rainy day. There's going to be some problems.
We need to provide for ourselves and we need to enjoy. I'm going to read you all one of my favorite passages in Scripture that I just think is great. This is in Deuteronomy. So it's in the Old Testament law, Deuteronomy 14, and it just kind of shows us some of God's heart towards why he gives us things. You shall tithe, which means 10%, and it means set aside for God, for his purposes. You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from year by year, from the field year by year.
This is Deuteronomy 14, 22 through 26. I'm just going to read through it really quickly. You don't need to flip there if you want to. Write down the reference. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell, so this is before Jerusalem, but that's where the temple is, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock. So meat, wine, oil, grain, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.
So part of tithing was to enjoy it for the purposes of fearing God, knowing that he's the one who provides. But then he keeps going and it gets really cool. Fear the Lord your God always, and if the way is too long, so you live too far away from Jerusalem for you, so that you may not be able to carry the tithe, which, like, I have a ridiculous amount of wine and grain and goats that I'm going to have to take up there. When the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money, and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household.
That's cool. God says part of your money, part of the reason he's given you your money is to enjoy. He says bind it up, take it, go before him and in worship, eat, celebrate with whatever you desire. Oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink. Some of you are like, he told them to buy wine. What verse is this?
Like, I'm quoting that to my grandmother. Like, how's college going? I've been worshiping a lot. Sorry. What he says is that part of how you worship, part of how you celebrate, part of how you, you trust God and rejoice is by taking what he's given you and using it to celebrate, using it for enjoyment. So let me tell you this, part of your budget, even if it's very small, needs to be set aside for the purposes of enjoying it with worship.
So not just enjoying the thing itself, but letting it roll up and worship for a good God who provides for you and who invented that thing. God, creator of the universe, invented flavor. He made steak delicious on purpose. He made bacon more delicious and then he gave someone the idea to wrap bacon around steak. Can I get an amen? Somebody say praise the Lord.
This is real. Now, that's a real thing and we should sometimes order a steak and enjoy it and celebrate that we have a good God who blesses us, who we can trust, who even when money fills really tight, we should set some aside to enjoy, to celebrate that we have a good God who provides and cares for us. Some of us feel like we can't enjoy our finances because we're so worried and that's why he says, no, set some aside and celebrate and rejoice before me and enjoy it because I'm a good God who provides and takes care of you. That actually is in this passage that we read earlier in 1 Timothy. It says, verse 17, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
Which means that some of us, because we're unwilling to enjoy things, are putting our hope on riches and not on God who's provided you with the ability to enjoy something. Some of you are now going to pull that out on your spouse. See? I'm just worshiping. I'm just loving God. Like, I'm just, that's why I want to, like, and maybe you should.
Maybe y'all should have a discussion about the ability to enjoy your finances. Now, that probably was really helpful for two people who don't feel like they can enjoy their money. For everyone else, because we're Americans, that's not the goal of life. It's not just to enjoy, not just to celebrate, but we do have a good God who invented amazing things and invented flavor and enjoyment and roller coasters and all of that for us to enjoy and to celebrate and we should set aside money sometimes to do that. Should be okay with that. He invented gluten because he's a good and loving guy and you should partake.
So those of you who aren't actually gluten intolerant, stop promoting this gluten-free nonsense. I was at Raz's house the other day. He's gluten intolerant. He said, you want a cookie? And I said, sure, because I know what cookies taste like. And then he handed me a gluten-free cookie and I was like, this is not a cookie.
I don't know what this is and I'm very, very sorry for the way you have to live your entire life. So we have a good God who gave us things to enjoy and that's okay and we should. Now, this bucket, this one is the fun bucket. This is the one where a lot of joy is found in giving things away. And so, what we need to know, the last thing we need to remember and to hold, and this is what we've been talking about this whole time, is we want to give as much away as possible. We want to give as much away as possible and what I don't mean by that is wait till you're done with your whole budget, wait till you get to the bottom line and ask, how much of this can I give away?
No, when we set a budget, some of it needs to be towards saving and a lot of it needs to be, I want to make certain lifestyle choices so that I can give a lot away. Here's the difference between you and your neighbor if you are a Christian, just so you know. Your neighbor, for the most part, is going to be operating with these four buckets. Lifestyle, debt, taxes, saving. And there will be some giving. But for a Christian who knows that everything has been given to us generously from a lavish God, we automatically have places we want our money to go that our neighbors don't.
So if you live next to your neighbor and he makes the same amount of money that you do, it's quite possible that you should look like you make less because you automatically have places you want your money to go. You automatically because you know in response to God's generosity you have places where you want your money to go. And this is where you get to plot on people. This is where you get to have a lot of fun. This is where you get to find out about a need and sneak over in the middle of the night and stick money in somebody's mailbox. Do you know how fun that is?
This is where you get to send a certified check in the mail so it just shows up. There's no way like they just Wells Fargo sent me a check. Like what? Why would Wells Fargo do that? Like this is where you get to just go pay for things for people. This is where you get to just this is where you get to send some of your money for God's mission.
Some of you will never step foot in Africa. Some of you will never learn another language. Some of you have tried. It's not going to happen. You're American. You speak American.
You don't even speak English very good. You speak American. That's the way it is. But, so you're never going to translate the Bible into another language for a people group that's never heard it but you can actually send some of your money and get to be a part of that. You can actually send some of your money with a missionary and get to be a part of everything that happens in that country and when you get to eternity part of your money went ahead to that. You actually got to as Paul says here verse 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
So what he says there is he's kind of a play on savings because he's telling them to save for the purposes of giving it away and what he says is that by giving stuff away that's actually a better savings account. You save it for a better future. You have a better savings with a better treasure for yourself for a better future and he's talking about eternity and some of us need to start sending some money on ahead to that better savings account. I'm going to tell you a story about a guy named John Wesley. John Wesley started like that's where the Wesleyan church comes from and the Methodists and I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what he did and this is the idea of giving as much away as you possibly can.
In 1731 John Wesley started doing ministry stuff and they paid him 30 pounds which is like English money and back in the day that was enough to live on but for our sake because we're Americans and we don't use pounds and the exchange rate has changed a lot so that 30 pounds I don't know buys you like a cheeseburger now. We're just going to say $30,000 because let's assume that's enough for him to live off of and we're just going to keep the ratio that way so where it's 30 pounds I'm just going to have three zeros and call it $1,000 so that we can actually pay attention to what's being said here. So they paid him $30,000 he decided looked at his budget looked at his lifestyle and decided he could live off of 28 so he gave two away $2,000 away that first year. The next year his salary doubled to $60,000.
So he gave two away $2,000 away that first year. The next year his salary doubled to $60,000. How sweet is that raise? Like your boss calls you in and they're like we're going to give you a raise this year we're going to keep up with inflation no your boss calls you in and says we're doubling down on you like what? That sounds great.
Most of us though would have our budget our lifestyle begin to expand to our new income. What he did was he was like well I can live off of 28 so the next year he gave away $32,000 over half of what he made he gave away do you know how much fun that would have been? Think of what the stuff he could do with it like he doesn't make a whole lot
Of money but now he's being able to go hey you're going on that trip yeah let me let me just pay for that oh you're going to go there and try to plan a church yeah let me just pay for your salary for a year like that's cool the next year they moved it up to 90 he still was like well I can live off of 28 so he gave away
62 In his lifetime he got to where he was making 1400 pounds so adding three zeros that's 1,400,000 he never got much over his lifestyle being 30 pounds he towards the end of his life was giving away 1,370,000 of a 1,400,000 salary now how much fun would that be because we believe no no no the fun would be with the boat that you got and the fun would be
With your beach house and he said no I don't want a whole bunch of stuff I want my money here I want to send as much ahead as I possibly can I want to leverage as much as I can possibly can he actually got contacted by the tax service because they just assumed he was under reporting his property tax because they saw his income and were like there's no way you only own the stuff that you're talking about so they actually
Contacted him and had to question him a little bit here's the thing this is where the fun is this is where the joy is so ultimately as Christians we want to try to get this one gone so that we're just working with these four we want to enjoy celebrate Christians aren't supposed to be unhappy grumpy people just so y'all know
We're supposed to throw the best parties like Jesus showed up to a party at Cana and he made the party better that's how that works Christians should throw great parties Christians should throw great parties I'm just saying that we should enjoy we should celebrate like we have
A son every time he laughs I don't smack him and say stop it God hates happiness we don't do that that's not how that works we're supposed to enjoy but we're supposed to make intentional lifestyle decisions so that we can put as much here as we possibly can we should save with an open hand we should pay
Taxes and not go to prison that's how we ought to handle our money as Christians we ought to have a budget we ought to have a plan because we will be held accountable for it now just because we always do this flip over to Ephesians chapter one I want us to help us see one more thing as we finish up our series
On money we're going to read from verse 3 to verse 14 and then I'm going to help us see how the gospel the truth about who Jesus is and what he's done for us impacts our money on both sides and I'll explain what I mean by that so we're going to read through this really quickly it's just a
Really awesome passage blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ if you have one of these Bibles on page 633 verse 3 through 14 blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
Places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in 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 which means he just poured it out on us we didn't earn it
With which he has blessed us in the beloved that's Jesus in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses that's our sin according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us
The mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose
Of his will who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in him it affects our money on both sides which means
That as Christians we have an inheritance we have a salvation we have a better home that we're going to and that absolutely affects our money we have a generous God who lavished everything on us and that affects how we
See our money how we handle our money and what we believe it's for and how we handle our money will not save us will not justify us will
Not let us stand before God and say look at how well I handled my money I'm okay so we have a lot of freedom there aren't hard and fast rules on a
Lot of these things we have freedom to trust God and to know that if we mess up we get to repent and that
We've been saved by Jesus not by our ability to be smart with money we should try we will be held accountable for it but
We get to repent and we're saved by Jesus so there's a lot of freedom when it comes to money there's not a whole lot of
Tension and am I doing this right am I doing that wrong am I going to mess this up is he going to be
Mad at me we've been saved by how we see it but it also isn't used with this really clenched fist and this really
Terrible fear that we have a good God who wants us to enjoy things who's provided for us and we get to rest in
His ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross I'm going to pray and Matt is going to do Q&A to finish up this series
God I thank you for your grace thank you for how wonderful you are to us I praise you Lord that you made things
Good and enjoyable on purpose and I pray Lord that you would help us all to grow in wisdom and how to handle our
Money for your glory and for the good of those around us and for our joy we love you we praise you in Jesus
Name amen one more thing I will say questions on saving or giving or anything talk to us we do counseling on money and
Different stuff like that it can be really helpful as you try to think through some stuff part of the reason we do a
Song after the message part of the reason we are not doing that is the majority of our questions that you guys sent in
Were actually in this category and so we wanted to if you ask the question and you feel like we didn't answer it well
Or didn't go into the specific thing that you were asking just come and talk to us afterwards we'll try to clarify and go
More specifically into your situation but we do want to answer as best we can for everyone also if we say something that you're
Like I don't know that I agree with that don't but at least we know that we've clarified okay so I'm going to kind
Of take us through our questions and we've got a good bit so I'm going to walk through it pretty quickly all right we've talked a lot
About giving does serving count towards that or does it have to be money okay so serving and giving aren't like opposed to one
Another we are all supposed to do both when we should relinquish the things that we own that we get really attached to for
Some reason most of us seem less attached to our time and more attached to our money and so sometimes we say stuff like
I serve so I don't have to give and we're actually just defending our money and so the same way we tell someone who
Says I give so I don't have to serve we should all be doing both now some of us make more money and are
Gifted in giving and we'll give more and some of us make less money and we'll serve more but all of us are called
To both serve and to both give at what point does debt credit cards student loans mortgage etc. become sin or are they necessary
Evils yeah I think with credit cards that you probably should cut them up or freeze them in a block of ice specifically if you
Have a really hard time with handling them well and constantly putting things on them consumer debt mostly we should just pay for the
Things that we use there are some things like student loans like medical bills and mortgages that are a little bit different but everything
Else we really need to with our money with our time and just like the scripture you read the person who owes is a slave
To the lender and so if that is you if you are in debt be working be having a plan to get out of
It let your group in on that let other church family be a part of you helping you do that I get that we
Shouldn't go in debt but what about saving isn't saving a huge amount of money specifically to ensure a sum for retirement just as
Disobedient doesn't it show a lack of trust in the Lord's provision I think that it can show a lack of trust in the
Lord's provision I don't think it automatically does some of us like retirement is forced on us in America especially in certain vocations and
So having some money saved for retirement isn't bad the question is your hope there is that where your trust is is that the
Goal of life is to just enjoy to rest to retire then maybe maybe that is very disobedient and have you sat with the
Lord on it it doesn't I don't think it necessarily has to be and the Bible calls us to be generous and so for
The person who's in debt and for the person who just may be continuing to save the call is to be generous and so
The person who is in debt would be actively seeking to be out of debt so that they can be generous and the person
Who is saving is saving with an open hand realizing that at any point all of this belongs to the Lord and they can
Use it but it it's a heart level issue so absolutely every person on either side of that equation needs to sit and ask
The Lord where their hearts are and all of us have to save some so I get paid once a month so I don't
Just try to spend all of that or give it all away that day and then just hope that over the next three weeks
The Lord takes care of me part of us they are wrong I do think there is more of a chance that they would
Place their hope there so if you don't have much money it's harder to place your hope there because you don't have it does
That make sense so like when I don't have much money I'm not trusting in it because it ain't there so it's harder sometimes
If you have a lot of to to put more trust there although we do sometimes put trust and hope in the future money
We will make when we become awesome at something is it wrong to save invest for the future if you are faithful in giving to
Ministry and others I would say no just the way that question is worded if you are faithfully giving to ministry to our church to
Church family to others you have an open hand I would just encourage you that if you are saving and investing make sure that
What you are saving and investing you are also approaching it with an open hand too but I think someone who's faithfully giving and
Serving who's approaching things with the attitude of generosity that we've been talking about I think that's good yeah and I would add to
That that I agree with what Matt just said all right saving for future needs is hard I would rather just spend money got
Any tips on making myself save do it okay next question no put it in your budget early so go ahead and work to
Shrink your lifestyle your expenses and put saving at the top so have income giving and saving right off the top and then live
Off of 80% live off of 75% live off 70% if at all possible and that's the best way to do it and if
You have to start really really small $5 I'm going to save $5 from every paycheck so that you start building in the habit for
Yourself and then you can slowly grow that as that works more so some people have a really tight budget give away $5 save
$5 Change it to I'm going that's $10 does that make sense so on both giving and saving put it early in the budget
Don't wait to the end and then you'll actually do it should we strive to be debt free or should we carry some debt to
Minimize our taxes the person who asked this question is in a different tax bracket than I am yeah so we actually tried to
Look this up online because I have no clue about this question we sent Matt's dad a message and he's a CPA did he
Respond to that he did and said he would be willing to actually talk with that person specifically about the way you're looking at
That the Bible is going to say don't be a slave to the lender pretty clear on that but more specifically if you'd like
Some more information on that question we can get you in touch with him yeah so for all the other people that is not
A helpful answer but that's a very intense question that we did not know anything about and the Bible doesn't say much about that
Other than to pay your taxes and to try to stay out of debt next question can I spend anything on myself or should
I feel bad when I do that you should feel bad everybody else can spend money on themselves you are okay to spend money
On yourself obviously not all of it there but no shame no guilt it's not the goal of your money but it's okay how much
Is enough retirement savings cushion yeah that's a good question different people will tell you different things the guy who's on the radio all the Dave
Ramsey says you want to have three to six months of living expenses saved not income but living expenses in case you get hurt in case
There's something like that if you have an emergency he would tell you if you're trying to get out of debt to save a
Thousand dollars really quickly or save five hundred dollars really quickly and then begin to work off debt really that is the question to
Continually ask yourself given your lifestyle given what you need to continually ask is this enough am I putting too much here am I hoarding here that's the question
To keep asking versus that's what I would say and in the same way that we look at giving sit down with the cross not
A calculator be asking the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to you be talking with your group about them next question that we
Have we did math and we know when Jesus is coming back no I'm kidding yeah so here what I like about that question and
I think it's a little bit tongue in cheek whoever sent it in but I like the fact that whoever sent that in understands
That whatever they have saved when Jesus comes back or when they meet him no longer means anything or is worth anything so like
We said in the first week our money is kind of like playing the game uno when the game is over whatever you're penalized
For whatever cards are still in your hand like they were useless to you there's a story Jesus tells where a guy makes a
Lot and he says oh I'll just tear down my build bigger barns and God says you're a fool because you're going to die
Tonight and so yes saving for retirement is fine but always hold into your head I don't know if I'm actually going to make
It to retirement and the day I meet Jesus everything I have in a bank account no longer was useful to me was no
Longer helpful everything I gave away actually I sent on ahead I used to serve for his glory and for his name so just
Having that eternal perspective is important
Gospel Giving (w/ QandA)
Transcript
My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, excited to be in our third week of our money series. And so you knew it was coming. We're talking about money, so today we're going to be talking about tithing. I mean, you had to have been getting yourself prepared for this. And the funny thing is, I know our church family, so I know that some of you are like, yeah.
And some of you are like, I didn't know that was coming. I don't even know what the word tithe means. So we're just going to spend some time this morning, really. We're in our third week of this money series, and we're going to take some time to kind of ask some questions when it comes to tithing. And what we realized with money in general is that as a church, we're very much, we're going to talk about Jesus. We're going to talk about the gospel.
We're going to make much of Jesus every time we get together. We're a band that plays one song, kind of like Rush. But we're a band with one song. That's all we're going to talk about is Jesus. And as we're getting started, there were a lot of things we wanted to talk about, wanted to coach ourselves up on and understand. And then we just realized that we hadn't ever spent any time talking about money specifically, and that the Bible treats it very much as a gospel issue, as a heart-level gospel issue.
And so that we needed to spend some time talking about it as we talk about Jesus, as we grow together as Christians. And so today we're just going to be asking, what is tithing? Really, the word tithe just means a tenth. So it's an Old Testament concept, but tithing just means a tenth. So tithing is giving a tenth.
And most of the time when someone in a church setting talks about tithing, what they mean is giving a tenth of your income right when it comes in to the local church. And so really we're going to ask a bunch of questions like, is that a Christian concept? Is that for the New Testament? Is that just an Old Testament thing? Is it a flat 10% for everybody? Does it matter how much money you make?
Like, are you supposed to... Like, we just... There's a bunch of questions when it comes to this topic. And so we're just going to try to spend some time looking at those questions this morning and really trying to kind of dive into that. And here's the thing. We have a...
In our culture, we have a saying, put your money where your mouth is. And what we mean by that is, if you believe so strongly in something, if you're going to talk big game, we'll back it up. If you really think that you're telling the truth, back it up. And a lot of times that we mean money specifically, a lot of times we just mean like, you know, live that way. Or like if you're talking smack, you're about to fight somebody and they're telling you they'll beat you up. And you say, well, put your money where your mouth is.
You don't actually mean give me money. You mean let's fight. Let's do this. But I actually, I like betting. Confession time. If that's bad.
I don't do it a whole lot, but I do like betting because I feel like it makes trivial things more interesting. And so recently I lost a bet to Matt Freeman about... I lost a lunch. We bet lunch on it. We bet whether or not Cracker Barrel has omelets. And that was the bet.
And I know and love Cracker Barrel and basically have their menu memorized except for the low-carb stuff because why would you go to Cracker Barrel to eat anything low-carb? But we got into a discussion about whether or not they had omelets and Matt said they did and I said they didn't. And so we bet Egg Roll Station on it, which would be $6.26 because you have to pay cash and that's what you're going to spend when you go to Egg Roll. But anyway, we'll talk about that later. So we bet Egg Roll Station on it.
We went to Cracker Barrel and Matt said, can I get an omelet? And our waitress said, yes. And she was wrong. There are no omelets on the menu, which was really what I was trying to bet. But Matt got by on a technicality because our waitress said yes because she understands that if you have all of the ingredients, you can just fold it over and it's an omelet.
But I have had waitresses say no before because it's not on the menu. But anyway, I'm still bitter about it. I just need to get that off my chest. But we have this idea. We have this idea of put your money where your mouth is. And here's what the Bible is going to say.
It's actually going to say that you put your money where your heart is. That your money, that your treasure follows your heart and vice versa. So that if you move your treasure, your heart will follow. And if your heart moves, your treasure will follow. And so the Bible is going to say that to the extent that something gets your money in your budget is to the extent that you value it and really that you love it. And so some of you are thinking, okay, so I love carowinds 1%.
And it's like, well, not really that specifically. More, how much when you add up, how much you're willing to spend on vacations, how much you're willing to spend on cable or satellite, how much you're willing to spend on comfortable things in your house, like a really nice couch. Eventually, you begin to see that if you look at your budget, okay, I value comfort this much. Or you can look and, okay, I value control this much. Or my family, the way I think about my family, takes up this much of my heart. That's what the Bible is really saying when it comes to our money.
It shows us our heart. So any amount of discussions on the topic of money immediately get intense. You ever notice that? Like when you get into an actual discussion on money, you feel tense, the conversation feels tense, and it's because we're talking about heart-level things. So when you question your roommate's spending habits, and suddenly the conversation gets really like, whoa, I didn't mean for this to be this dramatic.
Or husbands, wives, when you say something really smart like, why on earth would you spend that much money on this? Are you crazy? And suddenly you've entered into a minefield, and you didn't realize how intense this was about to get. It's because it's all heart-level stuff. And so that's why, if you're hanging out with a church on Sunday, and it's like, we're going to talk about money immediately, you go, ugh. Because it's a heart-level issue.
So, with all of the questions that we have about tithing, what is it? How do we do it? What are the rules? How should we approach it? Where does this come from? Honestly, to really answer it, and to really have it take hold, we have to have a heart-level answer.
There has to be a heart, it's a heart-level issue, so it has to have a heart-level solution. Otherwise, we'll just have some information, but it won't actually change us. It won't actually move us, because when our heart moves, our wallet follows. And if we move our wallet, our heart will follow. And so really, for us to answer this question, we have to have a heart-level solution. We have to have a heart-level answer.
So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop into 2 Corinthians. Well, we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 today. That's on page 628. It's going to take us a minute to get there, because we've got to do a little bit of background work, but that's where we're going to land. So let me pray real quick for us.
God, we ask that you would lead us, that you would give us your wisdom, that as we study your word, you would help us to grow in what it looks like to follow and to submit to you. And God, we praise you, and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So 2 Corinthians chapter 8, page 628, if your Bible looks like this, towards the back, if your Bible doesn't. And what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be talking through how are we to, as Christians, view tithing. And tithing, when we say that, what we really mean is how are we to view giving to the local church and giving towards mission kind of on a regular basis.
And the truth is, what we're going to see is that our giving should be based off of the cross, not a calculator. Then when it comes to the answer that is given in the text is that our giving is based off of the cross, not a calculator. And that's really, that it should be based off of the gospel. So where does tithing come from? Let's answer that question first.
Where does this idea come from? It begins in Genesis when Abraham meets a guy named Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is the priest of Salem, which ends up being Jerusalem. And he gives him 10% of everything he has. And so that's where the idea just kind of originates is that there would be 10% given to a priest, kind of a religious, someone in between you and God kind of thing. And then in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers, it's taught as a part of the law.
So Numbers 18 and Leviticus 20 are basically going to say that you give 10% of your increase. So 10% of whatever comes in, and this would for them would have been goats, sheep, grapes, like whatever came in, you would give 10% to the Levites, to the priestly class because those are the ones that were running the sacrificial system. Those are the ones. And so they didn't get land. They were one of the tribes, but they didn't have any inheritance. And so you were to give it to them.
Actually, you were giving it back to God. And then God said, I'm giving it to them. And that's what Numbers 18 and Leviticus 27 says. Deuteronomy 12, 14, and 26 says that the tithe serves three purposes, still 10% off of increase. And what it said was, it's to go to the Levites, the priestly class, for them to do what they do in the temple. A portion of it is for you to celebrate.
So they were supposed to take the tithe and eat it in celebration in front of God to celebrate His provision. And if the temple was too far away, you were supposed to sell the stuff, take the gold, go to the temple, go to Jerusalem, buy whatever you wanted. It says buy meat, buy wine, wine, strong drink, and drink it and eat it in the presence of the Lord as a celebration. That it was a reminder of God's good things. And so for those who even didn't have a whole lot and were just getting by, they were still supposed to take a portion of their money just to celebrate with. And the other reason it exists was for taking care of the widow and the poor.
So that was the three reasons for the tithe in Deuteronomy 12, 26, and 14. 12, 14, 26, if you want to do that in the way Numbers go. Then we see a few examples. Second Chronicles, Nehemiah and Malachi are all going to talk about the tithe and how it works. Malachi, God's actually going to show up and tell him, you haven't been tithing and you've been stealing from me. You haven't been giving and you've been stealing from me.
And then he's going to do something that he doesn't usually do. He's going to say, test me. Test me and see. Apparently they weren't giving because they didn't think they could afford it. And what he says is, test me and I will provide for you and I will open the floodgates of heaven and I will take care of you if you'll trust me. Now, Old Testament's pretty clear on it.
It's 10% of increase. Most of the time when tithing is taught in the church, every time I've heard it, someone goes to the Old Testament and says, here's the rule. And so even as we were praying about it and talking about it, we knew we were going to need to address this issue and as we started working on it, we just opened the Bible and started reading everywhere they talked about the tithe. And the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. Doesn't come up. There's no verse in the New Testament that's like, it's not like in second opinions where it's like, hey guys, keep tithing like we used to.
Just pretend like the church is the temple now. You're welcome. Like the New Testament doesn't say that. Paul never writes it. Jesus doesn't really address it. Jesus talks about it twice while he's fussing at Pharisees.
So he's in the middle of yelling at people, which I don't know if y'all know, Jesus does that. He yells at people. So he's in the middle of yelling at people and what he says is, you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, which are spices. So he's saying, you tithe, you're so legalistic, you tithe out of your spice rack. So when they went and got spices, they would have said, okay, let me measure out 10%.
So if y'all have a spice rack, go home, measure out 10% and then you gotta bring it in little bags. But if a cop finds you with a bunch of little bags of spices, good luck. But just be careful on the trip. Don't drive too fast. But no, he says you tithe out of your spice rack and what he says is, this you should have done without forgetting the way to your things of the law.
And that's the only time Jesus addresses it. Paul never talks about in any of his letters. And so the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. And so for us, we have to look at the Old Testament and say, how are we to understand this as Christians? Because the law was given in the Old Testament and then Jesus tells us, Romans 7 tells us that he fulfilled the law on our behalf so that we're no longer bound by the law but we've been set free. We died to the law when Christ died for us and that we're now bound by the law of Christ.
And Jesus says he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. And so there are certain aspects of the law that have been fulfilled and there are certain things that the New Testament clarifies when it comes to the law. And so the Old Testament law kind of breaks down into three things if you're trying to just do this really quickly and kind of look at it. They had civil law which was because they were a nation. Because the nation of Israel existed they had civil law which was like if my bull breaks out and kills your bull I've got to give you my bull. That's the rule.
And we have civil laws like you can't drive too fast. Look at the sign. Do what it says. And so the civil laws for Jerusalem don't really apply even though when we've crafted laws we look to see kind of what God thought was fair and we took some of those out but they don't really apply to us anymore because we don't live in Jerusalem. We live in the United States. So the civil laws aren't really for us as much and the tithing does kind of fall into that category some.
They had ceremonial laws which was how they related to God through the temple system. Through sacrifices through clean and unclean laws through some dietary laws and basically what that was teaching them was this. God is holy and you are not. He is clean and you are unclean and there are things that make you unclean and it was a consistent reminder of that and even when you were clean when you had done everything you had to do to be clean when you showed up at the temple you still needed a sacrifice. So God's teaching us in the Old Testament that the best of us still need Jesus.
Still need a sacrifice on our behalf. But the ceremonial laws don't really apply to us anymore because Jesus fulfilled that in his sacrifice on our behalf when he died on the cross when he rose again. So we're not bound to that anymore. And then there's moral law which is like the Ten Commandments. So moral law is just here's how humans ought to interact with each other.
Don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Don't covet your neighbor's stuff. Don't steal. And those still apply. Those are still things that we would look and say this is how God thinks we ought to interact with each other so we should still follow these.
And really when it comes to looking at the Old Testament you have to look at the context and you have to look at what the New Testament says about it. That's why people will say stuff like oh yeah? Well the Old Testament says not to cut the corners of your hair. Nice flat top, hypocrite. Or oh yeah? Well you're not supposed to eat shellfish.
Let's go burn red lobster to the ground. Like people accuse you of these things but they don't really apply anymore because Jesus has paid for and taken care of those aspects of the law. And there are certain New Testament passages that just say things like you can eat whatever you want. God declares it all clean. And that's why if you ever eat bacon praise Jesus. So there are certain things that when we're looking at how do we apply this and then the Old Testament speaks on it and teaches on it and then the New Testament is silent.
It begins to you begin to ask the question why? Like why doesn't the New Testament address this? Hebrews talks about it a little bit but all it's talking about is the story of Abraham meeting the priest of Salem. So why doesn't the New Testament address it? Why doesn't the New Testament talk about it? Why doesn't the New Testament say how we ought to handle it?
Because we've got a lot of questions, right? And nowhere in the New Testament which the New Testament is pretty straightforward on most things does it address it. And here's what I think as we began to read it and began to look at it here's why I believe that the New Testament when you see how the New Testament starts treating money the way the New Testament is going to talk about money post-cross it actually begins to make sense why tithing isn't mentioned. Why there isn't a rule given why 10% isn't there and here's a way to think about it. My wife and I just had a son his name's Archer he is two and a half months old I don't know if you know many two and a half month olds he's the best.
So just take the greatest two and a half month old you know just go a level up and that's kind of what Archer's like you'll get to kind of be able to imagine him now. Just kidding. Anyway no I'm serious but we have a two and a half month old and right around the time that Anna got pregnant Matt and Katie realized they were going to be having a baby as well and so everybody we were kind of wanting to see if it was going to be two boys or if we knew we were having a son if they were going to have a boy or a girl and once they found out they were having a girl Emerson Lane Freeman who when I wrote all of this that we're about to talk about I just assumed Matt and Katie wouldn't be here so some of this is going to get a little awkward for them because I felt like I had the freedom to say whatever I wanted to but they apparently don't have their baby when they're supposed to.
[QA NOTE — 2026-05-10] The remainder of this sermon is missing from the cleaned transcript because Whisper produced a single unpunctuated mega-sentence at the tail of the audio. The raw text in transcription_work/ contains the rest. Recommend re-running the cleanup with timestamp-based punctuation restoration, or capturing the missing portion manually from the audio.
Genuine Generosity
Transcript
G'day everyone. That means good morning. You can say g'day back or you can say good morning, whatever. My name is Raz. It's good to be here this morning. I'm willing to bet everyone here at some point in their life, at least a million times, has heard the phrase, is money is the root of all evil.
Yes? We've heard this phrase, money is the root of all evil. Nope. Money is not the root of all evil. Money, in fact, I believe, is very, very good. In fact, if you think back to a time when money did not even exist, think back to a time when no one traded money, they just traded stuff.
We commonly know it as the Stone Age. Other people know it as settlers of Catan. The idea is that I need to produce something for myself that I can trade with other people to get stuff that they produce. So I might produce a whole bunch of sheep, which are pretty useless, and you might produce a whole bunch of timber or wheat or something like that. And if I want some wheat, I need to convince you to trade your wheat with me for my sheep because I don't have any money. Problem is, you might not want sheep because sheep are pretty useless.
And so I have to convince you somehow to give me some timber so I can build my road. But you don't want me to build my road because then I'll beat you. But that's not how it works in real life. Everyone needed to produce something so that they could trade with other people. And that's how it worked. I would produce something.
You would produce something. We would swap. No one had any currency or anything. And so every individual person needed to produce something for themselves. Most people would try to live off what they had on their own land. But every now and then you would need to trade.
And the problem is, my stuff that I have is only worth as much as you're willing to trade me for. If you don't want to trade with me for the stuff that I've got, then I'm in trouble and I just don't get what I need. Enter into this situation money. Money comes in and suddenly everyone has this unique, special thing that you can trade for anything. Money holds value in and of itself and everything's value is measured against money. Sheep have a dollar value.
Wood has a dollar value. Bricks have a dollar value. And suddenly people who produce different things can use this unique resource to trade with each other. Money sounds pretty good. Money sounds brilliant. And you fast forward a couple thousand years, lots of thousands of years of money being used.
And now we have professions like athlete. That couldn't have existed before. No one said, hey, I'll give you a barrel of hay if you jump over that stick. I'll give you a sheep if you sing me a song. It just didn't exist. Everyone was producing things.
And so now because of money, CEOs, managers, farmers, musicians, athletes all have this thing that they can trade. They can use money to buy what they need to survive. Money is a good thing. It is not the root of all evil. Money is the root of all evil is actually a misquote. There's a similar quote.
Money is the root of all evil is a misquote. A misquote is a good. Misquote is a fine under particular circumstances. They're good if you're trying to win an argument that you're not going to win otherwise. You can always quote Shakespeare or Einstein. You don't need to know the quote.
It just has to be close enough that no one really knows. They're also good for annoying nerds like this one. This one. It says, use the force, Harry, by Gandalf. And there's a guy from Star Trek. His name is Jean-Luc Picard.
And all of the fonts are wrong. If you're a nerd, it kills your soul. Misquotes can be good. But the quote we're actually looking for is from 1 Timothy chapter 6. And it reads like this. It says, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
Hear the difference? The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Money in and of itself is not evil. It's the desire for money. The longing. The desire to have more and store it up and keep more and more for myself.
The idea that money will fulfill me. These are all different kinds of evil. Money in and of itself is actually a good thing. It allows everyone to trade. This love of money is the source of all kinds of evils. That's why the author of Hebrews, he says, keep your life free from the love of money.
Be content with what you have. It's the desire for more and more. It's actually what causes all the problems. Now, my goal today is not to convince you that you saving money is sinful. It's not necessarily. It could be.
My goal is not to convince you that your spending habits are in and of themselves evil or that your money is evil because that's not necessarily true, though it could be. My goal for today is to convince you that giving money away freely to other people, those who need it, those who don't need it, just giving it away with no benefit to yourself is actually a source of great joy. That's the goal for today. Being generous is a source of great joy. Let's pray.
We talked about the lens through which we culturally see money and how that lens can kind of corrupt our understanding. We talked about some big principles about how we should actually view money, but we didn't really get into the kind of nitty-gritty of how that applies to our lives. So the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk specifically about how that generosity, how that lens impacts the way we use our money. There's two big principles from last week that I want to highlight. The first one is that, let me just check it so I get the words right. The first one is, we cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead.
We cannot take it with us, but we can send it on ahead. The idea is that we are going to die. You are going to die. Everybody dies. Easy. You cannot take the money that you've stored up with you once you've died, but you can send it on ahead.
And what that means, what this idea of storing up treasures in heaven means is that the way that we interact with money now, the way that we manage money now, can impact what we will have for eternity. When you are generous with your money now, when you give it away with no kind of selfish greed ambition for yourself with that money, when you just give it away, you're actually storing up treasures for yourself later. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead. The second one that we looked at, the second principle that we talked about was that God owns everything. I am his money manager.
God owns everything. I'm his money manager. The idea here is that God created the world, created us, created everything in it. Psalms talks about how he is the owner of everything in the world. We read other places where he says, all of the silver, all of the gold belongs to me. Everything in this world is God's.
I'm just the guy who temporarily uses it while I'm on earth. That's how our approach to money should be. And so when we ask any question that starts with this idea of, what should I do with my money? How should I spend my money? Who should I give my money to? What percentage of my money should I give?
We've already misunderstood. We've already believed a lie that the money we're talking about belongs to me in the first place. And so this principle is that the money belongs to God. You're just the person who gets to control it temporarily. The opposite of this, the opposite concept of this entire lens that we're looking at money through, is kind of how the world talks to us about it, how culture talks to us about money. The American culture in general is big on making it yourself, the American dream, making lots of money, getting a job, moving on in the world.
If you've ever seen a show called Shark Tank, you've probably seen this guy before. His name is Kevin O'Leary. Shark Tank is a show where billionaires like this guy invest in other people's products, other people's time and effort, and try to help them become billionaires as well. They're all obsessed with money. This guy is the epitome of it. They call him Mr.
Wonderful, which is totally wrong. He's a massive jerk. He treats everyone like scum. And when he was interviewed about money, this is something that he said. He said, you may lose your wife, you may lose your dog. Your mother may hate you.
None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like. That's pretty bold, right? That's pretty bold. Now, I know none of us would quite say it like this.
No one in this room is rich enough or brave enough to say that. But we can understand where this comes from, given our culture. We can understand this concept that money is worth dying for. Get rich or die trying. We can understand this concept that anything that gets in your way of getting rich is just an obstacle. It's kind of how our culture views money.
Whether we like it or not, a small part of us that does understand that also sympathizes with it. We might not go to the extremes of saying we're going to trample our mother and our dog and our wife and stuff. But we understand what it means to desire so much to have more money that we would do things for it. That we would push things out of the way to get more money. When culture is so overexposed on an issue like money, a little bit of that seeps into us, even if we deny the overall premise. And it's kind of horrifying that we could sympathize with something like that.
Open up a Bible, if you've got one, to 1 Timothy chapter 6. If you've got a Bible that looks like this, it's going to be on page 644. Page 644. 1 Timothy is a letter. It was written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy. Paul was getting really old.
He's a bit of a geezer at this point. He planted a whole bunch of churches. He was the main primary leader of those churches. And he knew he was going to die soon, so he was setting up other people to kind of take over those roles. Timothy was one of them. He was leader at this time of the church of Ephesus.
And Paul is just giving him some instructions on here's how the church should be run. We're going to be in 1 Timothy 6 from verses 17 to 19. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty. That means arrogant. Charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.
Thus, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. Okay, back up to the top. Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, well, I don't know about you, but I know I am completely off the hook at this point in time. And as I look up at everyone, I didn't see anyone like, shh, quiet the people next to them. He's talking to us.
We need to listen. None of that happened when I said the word rich, because we all kind of think we're off the hook at this point in time. I understand that, because none of us are rich, right? We live in Columbia, South Carolina. That's not a rich city. Most of us, we don't own our own houses, not at least outright.
We probably don't drive a flashy car. We've probably got some loans to pay off. We're not like all those rich people out there that exist. Those rich people who own a nice house and own a flashy car and don't have any loans. They live on their cash. They're the rich people.
But then those people look at the other people with five houses and ten vacation homes in six countries, each of them with a Lamborghini. And they say, I'm not rich. That guy's rich. And the process continues. I'm not rich because someone is richer. It's all a bizarre trick, really.
It's all this trick that we tell ourselves to disassociate with this label. Rich. What does it mean to be rich? It's actually a very weird logic. I'm not rich because someone else is richer. Let me prove it to you.
I poke holes in this all day. If I substitute the word rich, it's no longer I'm not rich because someone else is richer, and add in something mundane. Clothes. I'm not clothed because someone else has more clothes than I do. What? I'm not full because Matt ate more food than I did.
What? What? It's true most of the time. It's true most of the time, but that's not how logic works. It's not this case of I'm not rich because someone else is richer. The logic is flawed.
I went to Belize a few years ago. Belize is a country in Central America. It's on the Caribbean side. They don't associate themselves with Central America. They're a Caribbean country. Let me tell you what it looks like to be rich in Belize.
If you're rich in Belize, you probably have a door on your bathroom. Your bathroom will be just in the corner of your square house, and you'll probably have a door instead of just like a curtain on your bathroom. You will probably, if you're rich in Belize, have a lock on your front door instead of a dog. The only building in all of Belize that I went to that had air conditioning was the airport. So we arrived, thought, this isn't so bad, and then spent two weeks sweating out in the sun all day long.
Fun fact about Belize. There's not that many flushable toilets. There's a few. They're around. If you plan your day, if you're a good planner for that kind of thing, you can plan when you need to use the bathroom, and you can find a flushable toilet. They're not everywhere.
Even the ones that you do find, you are not allowed to flush anything down it, including toilet paper. They have a little trash can that sits in the cubicle. So you can go, and then you can clean up, and the toilet paper goes in the trash can. Keep in mind, these houses are not air conditioned. If you've got a window, you're lucky, and it's probably 120 degrees with 100% humidity. Kind of gross.
But that's actually the rich, the wealthy lifestyle in Belize. It's kind of crazy. You want to learn a thing or two about luxury, you go to a country like that, and then come home. Then you experience luxury when you come home. And that's what happened for me. I spent two weeks in Belize, came back, and then found myself on day one eating three full meals, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet, flushing my toilet paper.
It was amazing. And then I would just pick up whatever I was doing from before I left, like watching TV shows on Netflix. The kind of stuff that normal people do. Not rich people. Kind of different when you come home. I will probably continue to play the I'm not rich card.
This Trump card. I'm not rich. I'll probably continue to play that card for the rest of my life. I probably will. But I'm going to be doing that from my air-conditioned department, sitting on a fully functional flushable toilet that I can put my toilet paper in.
I'll probably be on my iPhone, maybe watching subscription television while I'm at it. None of that makes me rich here. Excellent. We measure richness in the Western world in kind of a bizarre way. We have like this sliding scale where we are able to, in our own minds, measure what rich actually is. And so if we have the poor, the poorest of the poor don't have a single dollar, probably in thousands of dollars of debt, whatever.
These people all the way over here that have absolutely nothing. And then all the way at the other end of the scale, the sliding scale of richness, you have Bill Gates and his buddies over here who have billions and billions of dollars. We're all going to land somewhere in the middle, probably on this side of the middle, probably. And we're going to look this way and say, that's where rich begins. Because we want to disassociate ourselves with this label of what it means to be rich. We're not rich.
All these people in front of me are rich. How could I be rich when they've got so much more than I do? And we push away this label because we're scared of it. Being rich comes with more responsibility. I have to look after more people. I've got to finance well.
And so we disassociate ourselves with richness saying that's something for all those people. And we don't really pay attention to all these people. We never turn around and say, wow. I am incredibly blessed. Look at all these people that I could help out. Look at all these people who have nothing compared to me.
This is how we evaluate richness. This is how we generally associate whether or not I'm rich. This is our criteria. Am I at this mysterious line on this side that I have to cross eventually? Then I become rich.
That's how it works. But the closer we get to that line, the further up that line moves because no one wants to be rich. At least we avoid it. Instead, I want us to evaluate it slightly differently. I want us to evaluate it like this. Answer the question, could I survive on less?
Could I survive on less? Would my family and I die? Would we cease to exist if we had less money, less stuff? Now, if a decent percentage of our income disappeared overnight, gone, it could be 5% for you. That might be a big deal. It could be 45% for you.
That could be a big deal. If a massive drop happened in our income overnight, we would probably have to make some lifestyle changes. That's natural. If we're forced to live on less, we make lifestyle changes. We might have a smaller house without two spare bedrooms that we keep just because the in-laws might come eventually but never do. We just have to vacuum an extra room every week.
We might have to cancel subscription television, HBO, that kind of thing. Maybe we would have to use a dumb phone. My suggestion is and always will be that you just get rid of the dog. That's a money pit. But there's no reason to do that to yourself.
It just costs money. But in the process of all of this, being forced to live on less, we would probably have to rely on God a little bit. Probably. But I'm willing to bet we wouldn't die. Willing to bet we could all live on less. Now, I don't know if I've proved my point or not, but I'm willing to bet also that when you got here today, you arrived by vehicle in a car.
Car. You probably are wearing clothes. At least I think you all are. You probably ate some food this morning. And you probably used a fully functional flushable toilet. If all of that is true, I'm just going to read the rest of this and assume it applies to us.
Verse 17. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty or arrogant, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Rich people. That's us. Don't set your hopes on money. Don't set your hopes on money.
Set them on God. Now, you might think, I don't have any money. That's fine. Don't set your hopes on it anyway. For people who've got lots of money, don't set your hopes on it. It could go in a flash.
Some bank could go bankrupt and you lose everything. Your trust fund could disappear overnight. Don't put your hopes in the money that you have. For people who don't have any money, don't put your hopes on the money that you hope to have in the future. When the mortgage is paid off. When the car is paid off.
When the student loans are paid off. When the job gives you the promotion they've been promising. To say, I'll just be good. I can give more then. I can be okay then. I'll be comfortable then.
It's still putting your hopes on money. It's just future money that doesn't exist yet. It could be 10 years away. It could be 25 years away. Don't put your hopes in money. Put your hopes on God.
He's the provider of everything that we need. You can't take it with you. What's the point in hoping in it? When you start to get worried. When you start to get worried financially. Are you more likely to turn to your bank account.
And make sure that there's still that buffer zone in the bottom of it. And say, sweet. I'm okay. I'm good. I'll survive. I got the buffer zone.
Or are you likely to think. God has made promises to me. He's going to keep them. I'll be okay. When you're stressed. When you're anxious.
Are you more likely to find comfort in bankofamerica.com. Telling you you've still got that much money left. Or are you willing to find comfort in the fact that. God predestined you. He set you up since before the world began. He knows the number of hairs on your head.
And he has a plan for your life. Which one of them is more comfort to you. Sadly I think. A lot of people find comfort in this. Arbitrary amount of money. That's kept in their bank account.
We know that money is temporary. We know we can't take it with us. We can't take it with us when we die. Why put our hopes in it. Instead put your hopes in God. In verse 18.
They. That's the rich. Are to do good. To be rich in good works. To be generous and ready to share. Thus.
Storing up treasure for themselves. As a good foundation. For the future. So that they may take hold of that. Which is truly life. Paul is saying that for those.
With money. Those who are rich. Do good things with it. Be generous with it. Be hospitable with your house. And your stuff.
When you do. You store up treasures for yourself. In the future. And attain that. Which is truly life. That's a crazy thought.
But you. Can't take it with you. Send it on ahead. Store up treasures for yourself. In heaven. Where.
Moth and rust. Don't destroy stuff. Every time you. Be generous. Now. Every time you give away.
Not. Not expecting anything in return. You're storing up treasures for yourself. In heaven. It gets to be joyful in the moment. You have a lot of fun doing it.
But you're also storing up treasures in heaven. That's exactly what he says to do. Now. The early church is described as incredibly joyful. These are the guys who are around. Right after Jesus kind of ascended.
And I'm going to read a passage that we. We talk about a lot. As Mill City Church. We. We kind of believe that this is a model for. For how we do our community groups.
That's from Acts chapter 2. 42 through 47. As I highlight some things. Words are going to come up on the screen. It's not the whole passage. It's just chunks of it.
But. But that's the kind of the bits that I wanted to highlight for you. This is from Acts. Acts 2. 42. 42.
42. 42. 42. 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. That's the Bible.
And the fellowship. To the breaking of bread and prayers. And all came upon every soul. And soul. And wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together.
And had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings. And distributing the proceeds to all. As any had need. And day by day. Attending the temple together.
And breaking bread in their homes. They received their food. With glad and generous hearts. Praising God. And having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number.
Day by day. Those who were being saved. Sell my stuff. And give it to people who need it. There's. Something about that concept.
When I do it for myself. When I see other people doing it. That just makes you happy. It brings joy. To see those who need it. Receive it.
And to be responsible. For allowing those who need it. To receive it. Is a source of great joy. It really is. It physically shows.
As I give money away. As I give things away. It physically shows that. I'm not the point. I don't need this. God is the point.
Other people need this. It's a tangible. Physical representation. Of me giving away. That which I don't need. And making God the point.
The guy that we've been talking about. The author of this book. Treasure Principle. His name is Randy Alcorn. We referenced him last week. Great book.
I think you should all read it. He says it like this. Generosity. Is the only antidote. To materialism. Generosity.
Is the only antidote. To materialism. When I. Give stuff away. I break. The stranglehold.
That that stuff. Has on me. We know that we cannot serve. God and money. And so when we give. Money away.
We break the stranglehold. That money has on us. We allow God. To be the focus. Of everything that we do. Generosity.
Is the antidote. To materialism. Materialism. Being the attachment. That we have to money. And stuff.
Now it's not easy. We know that. There's this guy. That Jesus met. It's recorded in Matthew 19. They call him the rich young ruler.
He comes to Jesus. And he says. I've kept all the commandments. I've done everything I should have done. What do I need to do. To inherit eternal life?
And Jesus kind of sees through him. He sees through the facade. He sees what's actually going on. In this guy's life. And he says. To himself.
Money is this guy's problem. So he says to him. Sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. And come follow me. And the guy leaves.
Upset. He leaves upset. Because he cannot see that which is truly life. He cannot see what it means to follow Jesus. And not be attached to his money. He's put all of his hope.
All of his comfort. All of his power. All of his everything. In money. He believes money is where his source of joy will be. Because he's unwilling to get rid of it.
To attain true joy. To receive true joy. To follow Jesus. He refuses. Because he has his hopes in the wrong place. You can loosen the grip that money has on your life.
You can loosen the grip that stuff has on your life. By simply giving it away. Selling it and giving it to the poor. It can be to the homeless. It can be to a thrift store. It can be to people in your community group.
It can be to an organization. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be clothes. It could be a car. It could be the money that you've been saving for a big vacation.
That you've always wanted to take. In all of these situations. You're saying. It's not about me. God has blessed me with this stuff. I choose to bless other people with it.
And I guess to be a source of great joy. There's no reason to not be happy about meeting the needs of other people. Now it can't become legalistic. Legalistic meaning. I'm just following the rules. It can't become legalistic.
Like. I have to do this. In order to be saved. Wrong. It can't become prideful. It can't become.
Hey everyone. Check me out. I give all my stuff away. Also not that good. In both situations. You're still using generosity.
You're using generosity as a tool. To earn favor with God. You don't earn favor with God. God has freed you. Of his own goodwill. There's nothing for you to do.
To earn favor with God. Because you're free already in the gospel. This is all. How you react. According to the gospel. It's not something you do to earn it.
Your generosity should be because. You want God's money. To be a blessing to God's people. So you bless God's people with God's money. That's your motivation. You want people to be blessed.
So you bless them. It will probably mean budgeting slightly differently. For some people. It will probably mean budgeting. Budgeting. You should budget.
For other people. It will just mean budgeting differently. Some people set up what they call a benevolence fund. Benevolence means. Giving to those. Giving away from what you are not using to help others.
Now that doesn't mean. Just use the fringe stuff that you never use. It means budgeting so that you've got fringe stuff. It means budgeting so that you've got a section of your income. That you're deliberately setting aside. To give away to other people.
That's something that someone with a lot of money might be able to do. You could set aside 40% of your income. And say I'm just going to give all that away. I'm going to set it aside. As a church. As a church.
Most of our financial support has happened. Within the context of our community groups. And so far it's been pretty amazing to see. Just within the little cells that we've got. We've seen a lot of people. In crazy ways.
In beautiful ways. Support each other financially. We have seen groups pay bills. Replace stolen property. Pay for counseling for people who need it. Completely outfit pregnant couples with baby stuff.
Because they couldn't afford it themselves. We've seen them fix cars. Buy car parts for each other. Pay travel expenses. Pay for hotels. When people were in a dangerous situation.
And needed to be temporarily removed out of them. We've seen mortgage payments paid. Gas for people to get to and from gatherings. In their community group times. We've seen prescriptions filled. We've covered each other's meals.
Our Christmas and birthday gifts. For families that have kids. And they weren't going to be able to get anything for them. We've seen our groups. When they want to go out to get a meal together. But there's a big family in that group.
That can't afford to take all of them with them. We've seen our groups sponsor the kids. So that everyone could go out in a big group. And eat together. And it's crazy. It's beautiful.
So far our groups have been nothing short of heroic. Incredible. At meeting each other's needs. If that isn't exactly how it should be. I'm not sure that we're doing it right. I think that when you see that happen.
You get overwhelmed with joy. Thinking that's exactly what family should be like. That's exactly what church should be like. People meeting each other's needs. And if it doesn't get you a little bit overjoyed inside. If it doesn't make you.
Even if you've got a stern face. Smile a little bit. Then you might just. I don't know. Be Voldemort or something. Our groups are amazing.
They meet each other's needs when they come up. And what's amazing and beautiful is that. Joy doesn't just come from the people who are getting stuff. You might think. Score. Someone bought me a free meal.
Victory. Yay. You might think. Score. Someone paid my bills for me. Victory.
Yay. And that only those people who are receiving things. Are the ones who are receiving. Or joyful about it. It's not the case. Those who have been meeting those needs.
Are equally. If not more joyful. That they were able. Out of their abundance. To be able to sacrifice. And give to people who needed it.
More than they did. There's something joyful about that as well. And that's why we've seen families. In our church. Who've needed to receive things. At one point in time.
Turn around and be generous. At another point in time. And bless others. Those who've needed things. In the past. Have turned around.
And provided food hampers. For people whose budget. Didn't have anything left in it. For the rest of the month. Who've catered events. From their own pocket.
Christina and my wedding rehearsal dinner. Was completely catered for. By other people. Largely by Mill City Church. People wouldn't even. Accept money from us.
Because it was a joy to them. To be generous to us. It's not obligation. It's joy. There's nothing that says. You need to do this for us.
Because we did something for you. No. It's joy. People do it. Because it's fun. Because it makes it feel good.
And within our church family. It's been pure joy. Over and over again. To see bills paid. To see people make it. When they didn't think they were going to.
And it's all because of this principle. It's God's money. Not mine. How am I going to bless people with God's money? It gets to be joy for me. Now I like challenges.
Actually I take that back. I don't like challenges. I just take them really seriously. It's not always good for me to accept a challenge. But I do anyway.
You're probably thinking to yourself right about now. Look at that amazing beard. It's red if I hold it up to the light. It's not if I don't. Sometimes. It's growing longer and longer.
And the only reason for its existence in all of its glory. Is a challenge. A challenge made by my wife. In front of 25 people. To get it down to here. It's currently in the regret stage.
It will probably continue to be in the regret stage. Until it stops falling out everywhere. Which it is doing now. Another challenge. If you're friends with either of us on Facebook. You've probably seen.
We've become rather artistic lately. Particularly in the realm of beanies. That's why people walk around now. Looking like minions. Ninja turtles. Vikings.
Whatever we can come up with. Started out as a challenge. I think we won. Challenge me to do something. I'm going to learn how to do it. And I'm going to trample everything in my path.
Until I can conquer that challenge. Puppies. Children. Doesn't matter. I'm going to get out of my way. Today I'm going to issue you a challenge.
I want you to take it as seriously as I do. I want you to take it seriously. I think it comes straight out of the verse that we've read. I think it comes straight out of the verse 18 and 19. They say, You're to do good. Be rich in good works.
Be generous and ready to share. Store up treasures as a good foundation for the future. And take hold of that which is truly life. Now I don't think there's anything particularly hard about my challenge. But I don't think it's particularly normal for us.
It's quite abnormal for us. Here's the challenge. Give generously to someone this week. Give generously to someone this week. It could be someone you know. It could be a family member.
It could be from your community group. It can be cash. It can be gift cards. It can be a meal. I think you can. You've got some freedom here.
You can be pretty creative. You can do above and beyond that thing. And remember, generosity is not conditional. It doesn't have to be because someone needs it. You can just do it as a surprise. That will still bring joy for them and for you.
If you're like me and you're prone to a little bit of pride, you might want to do this for a complete stranger instead. The benefit of doing it for a complete stranger is that they typically don't come and thank you. Especially if you make it anonymous and you hide and that kind of thing. They won't be able to come and thank you. But you still get to see the effects of your generosity.
You still get to see what happens as a waiter goes over to a table and tells a family that their meal has been paid for and they look at each other like, What? This happens? What? And you get to smile to yourself and strut out of that restaurant thinking, I just made their day. Oh, yeah. And if it's a Monday, you get to think, I just made their week.
Oh, yeah. It doesn't have to be for any reason. It doesn't have to be for any particular person. You can go to a drive-thru and pay for the person behind you. You might want to make sure it's not a bus. You can go to a drive-thru and just pay for the person behind you and then drive off and they'll never know it was you.
But you'll know that you just made that person's day. You made that person's week. You made that person's month. Who knows? You might not have much money. That's okay.
Spare $5 from your budget this week. Go to Starbucks on Tuesday because that's the start of this week and everyone's going to feel like it's Monday. Buy someone coffee at Starbucks. Watch how that transforms that person's morning. They don't want to go to work. They want to sleep in.
And you just bought them coffee for no reason. That's going to crazy bless them. They're going to have such a good day because some random stranger bought coffee for them in the morning. So countercultural. If you've got quite a bit of money, you're in luck. You get to go crazy and you get to be super creative.
Go to start small. Go to a mechanic and pay someone's bill while they're gone. $500, $800, $1,200. Who knows? That is going to transform someone's day. That might transform someone's year. They might not have been able to pay for those tires.
They might have been pulling out their credit card for the first time. They might have been maxing out their credit card and you just paid that bill off for them. That's going to make someone's day. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Get 12 dozen Krispy Kremes. Go to the DMV and make waiting at the DMV a little less torture.
That would be a fun way to spend some money and bless people. And you know what? All of it comes as a reaction to the gospel. All of it comes as our response to what God has done for us out of his generosity. While we were still sinners, Christ came and died for us. God gave generously to us.
He sacrificed his only son to come and pay the sins of the world. To pay your sins, to pay for my sins on the cross so that we could be reconciled to him. That's what it took for him to be generous. And for us, it gets to be as easy as money, which we can't take with us. There is great joy from being generous. It feels good to bless people financially.
And you know what? Instead of laying treasures for yourself here on earth, you get to set them up for yourself for eternity. Lay treasures up for the future. Where they won't grow old, they won't rust, and moths won't eat them. You get to keep them forever. Let's pray.
Father God, we praise and thank you that you have blessed us with so much. We thank you for the opportunities that we have as those who can live on less to bless others abundantly this week. I pray that as we go out this week and think about the ways that we can be spending our money, the ways that we can be budgeting, the ways that we can be looking out for other people, that you be giving us discernment on how much, you be giving us discernment on when, you be giving us discernment on in what manner, but that overall we can be generous and that our generosity will come from a heart that is just loving you, responding to what you've done for us the way that you would like us to. Pray that this week and weekend, give to others with a glad and generous heart.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
God's Money and My Faith
Transcript
We are starting our first week in our money series, and we're really excited to be able to spend some time talking together about money. We know that when we talk about money, we can get a little uncomfortable. It's kind of one of those issues you're not really supposed to talk about in our culture. You don't ask somebody how much they make. You don't ask about people's finances. And so we just know that in general, spending some time, we're going to take four weeks out to talk about money and finances and address some of these things that it can make us a little uncomfortable.
So we decided to start, thought it would be helpful today, to start by talking about a concept that the Bible says has a lot to do with how we view finances and how we think about money, but that isn't money directly to kind of ease in this morning. So we're going to kind of start off in one area, and then we'll move into money. You are all going to die. Isn't it nice to talk about something a little bit easier than money kind of transition in? We're all going to die. Like every single one of us, it's very clear.
This is the way the world works. At some point, we will take our last breath. We will buy the farm, kick the bucket, take a dirt nap. Like we're going to die. And the Bible says that our mortality, the fact that we won't be here forever, should have a lot to do with how we view finances. Our mortality should have a lot to do with how we think about possessions and how we think about money.
And so I just wanted to kind of ease in talking about money. We thought we'd address death first. Let's pray. We'll be in Matthew chapter 6 this morning. We'll pray together, and then we'll flip over there. God, we thank you for this time we get to get together and address really important issues.
Nobody in this room is going to live a life not affected by money. No one in this room is going to live a life where money doesn't play a major role in how their life plays out. And so, God, we just want to humbly come to you, come to your scripture, and learn how we ought to see money, view money, understand money. And we pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would teach us today as we do that. We love you, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
So we'll be in Matthew chapter 6. The page number is on the screen behind me. I believe it's 526, I think. Yep, 526 is where we'll be today. And so here's what we're doing. Today we're mostly going to talk about big picture principles, foundational things for how we approach money.
The next three weeks we'll talk very practically about money. So today we're going to talk about principles. Next week we're going to specifically talk about generosity when it comes to giving money away to other people, to causes and that sort of thing. The following week we're going to talk about tithing and giving to the local church. Like is tithing still something we're supposed to do? Is that an Old Testament concept?
What does giving to the local church mean? How does all that play out? So that's what we'll spend our time on two weeks from now. And then the final week we'll talk about kind of working, spending, and saving. So the Bible's pretty clear that some of your money is meant to terminate on you and should be used for your enjoyment and your pleasure and for looking out for the future.
And so we're going to spend a little time talking about that. So we're really trying to address where is money? How are we supposed to handle money? Where is it supposed to go? And so we're going to talk about giving it away to people in the local church towards mission and then spending it, saving it, buying a steak, seeing a concert, that kind of thing. So, but today we're going to talk specifically about some big picture principles.
And then because we want this to be as helpful as possible, one of the reasons we wanted to do this is we, as a church family, have a lot of new Christians and a lot of people just hanging out and checking out Christianity. And that's a beautiful thing for us. And we just have a lot of questions when it comes to money, when it comes to how do we handle this? What do we do with that? What does this look like? What's the rule is kind of the question a lot we get.
And so we just wanted to address that. We also, over the next three weeks, are going to do some Q&A. So send in your questions to Twitter, Facebook, whatever. We're going to spend some time after each sermon just kind of answering some of those questions as best we can. Also, the Bible has a lot to say about money. Jesus talks about money a lot.
And so we have to talk about it some. To really address it. It's a big deal in your life. And the Bible Acts like it's a big deal. So we want to talk about that.
The one thing I do feel like we need to address, every time a church talks about money or takes time to do a series on money, it feels a little bit like, oh, so y'all need some money? Like it just feels like, oh, y'all hurting? Like, you know, what's going on? And so I just wanted to clearly say, we don't need money. Like we don't need your money right now. We're not in hurting or anything like that.
We're church plants, so we're not rich by any means. We try to do things very cheaply. We try to handle money really well. But we're not hurting for money. The Lord has graciously provided for us. And so this isn't a, hey, light's about to be cut off.
We've got to get kicked out of here. We've got to talk about some money or things are going to turn bad on us real quick. That's not what this is. It really is that we just have a lot of questions. It's an important issue. It's a big issue.
Now, that having been said, I want to be clear. Every time I've hung out and been in a church and they started talking about money and then the pastor said, we don't need your money. We don't want your money. I've always been like, come on. Tell the truth. Like, be real with me.
So I want to be real. I want to be honest. We don't need your money. We're not hurting for it. We want your money. Like, we agree with what we're doing here.
We pay for stuff. We rent things. We pay pastors. Matt and I are able to be full time because people generously give here. We are able to support church plants. We're able to do a lot of things.
And so we like money. It's not evil. We want more of it so we can use more of it for more stuff. For Kid City, for all the stuff we do now, we're starting to get student groups started. So don't hear me say, like, fakely, we don't want money.
No, we want it. It's good. We're going to use it. The more money we get, the more we're going to give away, the more we're going to spend. But that's not what this is about.
And we're not even going to talk about us, like, the church money stuff today. We're going to talk about some big picture principles. So Matthew 6, we're going to start in verse 19. And this is Jesus teaching, and he's going to take in this really short section. He's going to lay out some big picture principles, some foundations for how we ought to view money. 19.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. Where thieves break in and steal. So treasure specifically means possessions, because he's talking about rust and moth and thieves. Like, you know, you can't be like, well, I treasure my children. No, he's talking about possessions. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where the thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. No one can serve two masters.
For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Okay, so that's where we're going to spend our time today. And so Jesus says some really clear, really concrete things there. And it's also, though, if you look at the section, it's kind of confusing. Because here's what he does.
He says, don't lay up treasures in heaven. Or don't, don't lay up, do lay up treasures in heaven. Don't lay up treasures on earth. Lay up treasures in heaven. So he's talking about money and possessions.
Then he says something about your eyes and lamps. And if your eye is a lamp and your lamp doesn't work, then you're in the dark. And how dark your darkness is if the lamp is broken. Like, if the light in you is darkness, how dark would that be? Is kind of how he ends it. Then he goes right back into, you can't serve God and money.
So he goes, money, lamp, eye thing, money. And he says this really like, you can't serve God and money. Feels a little bit like this intense, like really drove the point home. And it's like, what were you doing in the middle here with the light stuff? Like, it confuses me. It's a little bit like if you, if you did this on a paper in elementary school, you would make a C.
Like, my mom and I went to the store. I love puppies. Puppies are soft and great. At the store, we bought milk and cereal. Your teacher would circle the middle sentence and be like, what was all that about puppies? What were you doing?
Like, were there puppies at the store? This is not how you write stuff. And so he says money, eyes, money. And so what we have to understand is that the eye section has something to do with money. He hasn't changed the subject. He didn't randomly like, oh, he doesn't have ADD.
It wasn't like, oh, I forgot to tell you this earlier. Now let's talk about money again. Like, it has to do with money. And so here's really simply what I believe he is saying there in that section on eyes. When he says that, the eye is the lamp of the body, and if you don't see well, basically what he's telling us is when it comes to money, it's a vision problem more than anything else. It has to do with how we view money, with how we understand money, with how we see it.
And that the truth is a lot of us are just blind to how big of an effect money has, how actually weighty it is, how much control it has. And we're blind to how we ought to view it. And so that's why he's going to unpack some big principle things here. And really, that's what we're doing today. We're looking at principles, foundational things, so that we can actually know how to do practical things. And that's how life works.
That's how your life works. You have principles that guide how you practice, how you live, what you do. You have a foundational belief set that affects how you live. It affects how you handle money. It affects how you think about relationships, love, and marriage. It affects really everything you do, how you work, what the goal of life is.
You have some big picture principles that affect the practical things. A real easy way to think about this or to explain it is before I ever started dating, I had an understanding of what the principles behind dating, like what the goal was. And so I went in. I had some good principles and some bad principles. One of the good ones I had, one of the things I understood about dating was the point of dating was to get married. Like it was supposed to be fun, but it wasn't just about fun.
Just for the record, if you're dating someone and that's not fun, since dating is about marriage, stop dating that person because marrying someone you don't have fun with would be terrible. Just doing basic math there. But I knew that when I started dating that the goal of dating was marriage, was to find someone to marry. So I went into dating, always asking the question, is this person marriable? And for all the couples in here dating, this just got way more intense, you were like, dude, go back to talking about money. Like, stop this.
But I went into dating relationships knowing that I was looking for someone marriable. And then once I had like a framework for dating, once I had some principles, then I had practical questions. Like, how do I actually get a girl to go on a date with me? Once on that date, how might I get her to kiss my mouth? Like, I had practical questions. Does the wiping away the hair thing work or is that just in movies?
Like, what do we got going here? Like, you have practical questions. And so the next three weeks, we're going to have practical questions we're going to address. But today we're going to handle some big picture principles, foundations for how do we look at money? How do we think about it? And that's what Jesus is talking about.
And the first thing is we don't see money clearly. Money for us, I'm going to just try to quickly say a few ways that we just don't see how big of an effect money has. Money has a lot to do with how you view yourself, what your identity is. So you'll meet people who grew up with not a lot of money and have a lot of weight in, we were poor and we fought through. Like, we didn't have all this stuff. We didn't have, you know, and we fought and we made it work and we, you know, we had family and that's what mattered.
We had our neighborhood and that's what mattered. You'll meet people that had money and that completely changes their worldview. When we use labels like rich and poor, it's an identity label, not an adjective as much as it is like the type of person. And depending on how you land finance wise, it really has a lot to do with who you believe you are. Boils down to money, level of money. And we don't realize that.
For some of us, money just makes decisions for us and we don't even have to, like, we don't think about it. We don't think about the fact that the overarching decision-making process in our life is money. So if a job offers you more money, accept it. Why would you not accept it? It offered you more money. So people will just pick up and move somewhere.
They don't question anything about their family or church family or relate, like, just, oh, it's going to pay more money. And then we'll, like, and this will happen in, like, community groups. Hey, I'm moving here. This place is going to pay me more money. And the whole group just says, sweet, congratulations. And we don't ask the question of, do you realize your only way you decided was money?
College majors. I love history. But you can't make money studying history. So I'm going to do this major. I'm going to go be an orthodontist. Why?
Because of money. Do you like teeth and mouths? Nope. But I like dollar bills. Like, and that's how people make decisions. Job decisions.
Big, life-changing decisions. Not joy. Not giftedness. It's not just money. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to land?
Where are you going to be? How are you going to live? Just money. You're just following the money. We make big life decisions off of it. It affects who we think we are.
It affects how, like, and we just don't even realize it. We don't think about how much money is behind the scenes having control over things. In some ways, money is the Illuminati of our souls. Like, Jesus here says money has a lot more secret control than you think. And we're like, yeah, okay. Like, every time anybody talks to me about the Illuminati, I'm like, sure, okay.
But that's what Jesus is saying. There's a little bit of, like, we don't see it. We don't see how much power it wields. And then at the end, he's going to try to help us see it. So as he goes through this, he's helping us see money clearly.
How we ought to view it. And so that's what we're looking at. We're going to start back up at the top. And we're going to look really at three big principles that Jesus is going to kind of lay out for us. We did get some of our illustrations and some of our thought processes from a book called Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. It's a very good book.
It's really short. We suggest it. So once we realize we don't see money correctly, we need to then approach and say, okay, Jesus, how ought we to see money? How ought we view this? And so 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. All right, that's simple enough.
Jesus says the goal on earth is not lay up treasures for yourself. Another way that we're blinded, some of us, our goal on earth is arrive, be comfortable. Just get to the place where I can just have the things I want and rest and not worry. And your whole life goal is a financial goal. It's a money goal. And what he's saying is, no, that's not the goal.
Don't lay up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But what he's saying is, everything you have will rust, will rot, will eventually end up in a dump. Every Apple watch is going to be garbage at some point. Some of you are like, they already are garbage. Sure. But so is your Samsung Galaxy.
It's going to end up being garbage. Everything, everything you have is going to be garbage. Some of you right now drive a really beater car. At some point, it was really nice. I mean, as nice as a geostorm can be. But it was nice.
It was new, came off the line, you know. And now you drive a beater car and that's where all cars are headed. All of them. Will be junk. Will be a clunker. That's how that works.
And so what Jesus is saying is, don't pile up garbage. That's not a smart thing. And then he says something that's weird. So we understand that. We understand you can't take it with us. The Bible says that clearly in a couple of places.
That's really what he's saying is, all the stuff you have when you die is no longer yours. Like you cannot take it with you. Ecclesiastes 5.15 says, As he came from his mother's womb, he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. 1 Timothy 6.7 says, For we brought nothing into this world and we cannot take anything out of it. I heard somebody ask John D. Rockefeller's money manager at one point, said, How much money did he leave when he died?
And the money manager said, All of it. And that's how that works. Everything you have, you can't take with you. But then Jesus says something interesting that I think is something we don't really realize. He says the back end. So don't lay up treasures on earth.
We're like, Okay, yeah, I kind of understand that concept. Can't take it with me, although it's probably enjoyable to have it here. You know, I just know that eventually it ends. But he says, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. So what he just said was not material things are bad.
Treasure is bad. That's not a Christian belief at all, that material world is bad. Christian belief is that God made the material world and it's very good. There's a reason that bacon is delicious, that riding a roller coaster is fun. Or terrifying for some people. It's still fun.
There's a reason. Like material world, that's why we like soft things and like holding something very well crafted. And when you see a really nice car, you just want to stare at it. Like material world is good. But what he says is, don't put all the weight here.
Seek real treasure. Because the Bible tells us that we were all designed for eternity. And that when we die, we will continue on into eternity. And it's not a ghosty, floaty, feetless, specter eternity. It's real. We have real bodies.
We'll have real things to do. We'll live in real places. We're going to spend eternity on a new earth for Christians. We'll be on a new earth with, he just renews creation. So what he's saying is send it to a place where sin doesn't exist.
Where it's not broken. Where it doesn't rust. Send it to a place where you can actually have it forever. That's why in another place, when he's talking about the same concept, Jesus says, Why would you be, if you can't be trusted with that which is not yours, why would someone give you that which will be yours? Give you real possessions. Give you something to actually own.
What he's saying is, everything you have now is on loan and eventually will no longer be yours. But everything then, you'll keep forever. Because you won't die and it won't rust and moths won't eat it. So what he's saying is, seek the treasure. Just send it on to eternity. You know how, you know how every time you get something new, or you get a box that has something new in it, but it's got wrapping paper around it so you don't know what the new thing is, and your little heart is like, yee.
Like, you know how you get excited about stuff? Like, every time your birthday was rolling around as a kid, or Christmas was coming up, or someone's like, I have a surprise for you. Like, you're just like, ooh, things, treasure, candy. Like, we just get excited. Every time you buy something new, hold a new gadget, like, there's just something in you. There's like an emotional, spiritual reaction to stuff.
Am I the only one who feels this? I feel like everybody has someone inside of them going, yee. Like, that's not true. We have this, and what Jesus is saying is, that is not in and of itself wrong. You're just too easily pleased. You're pointing it at the wrong stuff.
Seek real, eternal treasure. So the first thing we need to know, and if you're taking notes, write this down. I cannot take it with me, but I can send it on ahead. That's the first big principle. I cannot take it with me, but I can send it on ahead. What he is saying is that, and he ultimately says it's through generosity, through giving things away, that we actually get eternal stuff.
Jim Elliott was a missionary, and he's the guy from the movie End of the Spear. If you've seen that, he showed up in a place to help people meet Jesus and immediately was murdered. And he said at one point, wrote in his diary or his journal or whatever. I guess he's a man, so it was a journal. If you were like, nice diary, he'd be like, it's a journal, bro. I don't know him.
Maybe he thought it was a diary. Jim Elliott says this, He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. That's what Jesus is saying. It's not foolish of you to give things away, because you're actually gaining something that will never be taken from you. It's not foolish.
In a lot of ways, money, how we handle money, how we view money is like playing the game Uno. The goal of Uno is to be, you win when you run out of cards. And if the game ends and you're stuck with cards, there's a penalty for that. And the truth is, when we die, all of the stuff we've amassed around us immediately becomes useless. And all of the stuff we got rid of has eternal value. It's forever.
And that's what Jesus is saying. He's just trying to help us understand that we get to have true riches through generosity. So next thing he's going to point out to us. Well. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Verse 21.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. We spent some time talking in the Give series about one of the implications of this is that you can actually know what you care about by looking at your checkbook. You can know what you care about by checking out your bank statement. But here's the other thing that I think we miss on this. Our heart goes with our treasure, and so there's a lot of joy offered to us in this statement. There's a lot of joy offered to us in the statement, where your treasure is, there your heart is also.
Because what he's saying is you can take your heart and you can put it in eternity. You can take your heart and you can, by moving your treasure, by giving things away, knowing that you receive rewards in eternity, you can take your heart and move it to eternity where it's safe and secure. So we think that getting nice things is nice. But the truth is, whenever we get nice things, we get more worried about our stuff. Like our heart goes with it. So if you ever had a house and like, really, if someone broke in and stole everything, you were out 50 bucks, you might not even lock your door.
Like you wouldn't even care. I had a friend of mine said, his brother used to say, man, I wish somebody would steal my identity. And then the bill collectors could call them. Like he just didn't have anything, so he wasn't worried about it. And that's the way it works. But when you get a nice house, suddenly it's like, well, I kind of need an alarm system and I need some good insurance and maybe a moat with some crocodiles.
Like I'm really worried about this stuff now. Like if you, if you're, some of you, your car, somebody runs into you today. You're going to lunch with your community group or whatever. Somebody runs into you at a stoplight. You get out and just go. You good?
Ain't worried about it. Like you walk around, look at your bumper. It'll ride. You get back in your car. You don't care. If they totaled your car, you out 600 bucks.
You figure it out. Some of you though, like when you get, you get a nice car. My brother saved up and was able to get in high school. We were able to, he was able to get, my actual parents were able to give it to him. He got a used Camaro and then he spent a lot of time working on it and getting it real nice. And we were riding one day to the beach and he came around a corner because he ran into people all the time.
He came around a corner. His name's Logan. He's part of our church. You can ask him about it later. He came around a corner and ran into a Mustang of another guy who was probably in high school, college or whatever. It was the prettiest car accident I've ever seen.
A Camaro just, I mean, front of the Camaro crush, back of the Mustang crush. Both of them were just like, like little hearts were hurting. They almost got in a fight because the guy in the Mustang, like Logan didn't just run into his Mustang. He ran into his heart. Like something he treasured and valued and cared about. He just ran into it.
Some of you, if your car, like you've got names for your car. If your car got ran into, you'd jump out and be like, Tina. They'd be like, is there a child or something in the car? No, it's my car. Because wherever we move our treasure, our heart goes with it. And there's so much joy offered in sending your heart to eternity.
So much joy offered to you when he says, give it away. You won't worry about it. You won't care about it. And your treasure is secure. Nobody looks at eternity and says, I lost 3% this quarter. You don't have to worry about it.
So he's offering us joy. And that's the second kind of major point that I think is helpful. It's heaven, not earth. And this is for Christians. Heaven, not earth, is my home. And that's where my treasure and heart, I'm saying this wrong.
My treasure and my heart should be there. Heaven, not earth, is my home. And my treasure and my heart should be there. That we actually get to push our hearts towards eternity where we get to rest. You don't have to worry about it through giving things away. We're going to skip the eyes, the lamp part because we kind of talked about that.
Him just explaining that we just don't see this clearly. 24. Kind of the last major principle he's going to cover is, No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, Or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and money.
And even there he's hinting at how much control money has that we just don't think about. Really what he's saying here is that either you will serve God, And by extension, money that is in your possession will serve God. Or you can serve money. But you can't do both. So if money is the main goal, you're serving it, And you're not serving God.
Don't kid yourself. Or you can serve God, And the money that has been entrusted to you can serve him as well. So, kind of the principle here is this. God owns everything. I am his money manager. Because everything we have is on loan.
So, God owns everything. Let me quickly just show you some verses where the Bible says that. Psalm 24.1 says this, So he actually claimed you too, just so you know. He's like, I own you. You'd be like, no, I'm free. No, you ain't.
Haggai 2.8, The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. Deuteronomy 8.18, You shall remember the Lord your God, For it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. In Exodus 19.5, it's a longer verse, But in it, God says this, All the earth is mine. So, here's the deal. Everything that passes through our hands, Every bit of money that is in your bank account, In your wallet, Under your mattress, Is God's. It's not yours.
It has been entrusted to you. And as a money manager, You will eventually sit down and settle the account with God. So, a money manager looks like this. So, you're a money manager. You work for a really, really rich lady. Super rich.
And you manage her money, Because you're good with money. So, you watch all of her accounts. She does her thing, Making money or whatever, And then you help handle it. So, you help invest it. You're paying attention to what's growing, What's not growing. You're watching it.
You're investing some. You know, you're diversifying her funds. And you're investing in different areas. And you're, Now, because you're her money manager, You pay yourself a salary. You make sure that you're taken care of. You're going to discuss that with her.
But you're going to pay yourself a salary. You have the ability to handle money. But it's not your money. And every once in a while, You're going to sit down with her and say, Let me show you what I'm doing with it. Let me show you where it is. Let me talk to you about your money.
When excess money comes in, It doesn't go to your account. When you die, You don't leave all her money to your children. That would be frowned upon by her, I think. And what we've got to realize is that everything we have is on loan. And the Bible is clear. Jesus tells a lot of parables to this effect, That at some point, We're going to sit down and give an account.
What's beautiful is that through the cross, It's not going to make or break us. Jesus has already paid for our sin. We get into heaven scot-free because Jesus paid our debt. We are perfectly loved, perfectly taken care of. But we are going to give an account for how we handled the time and the money that we had, The talents that we were given.
Yeah, the Bible is clear on that. So at some point, We're going to sit down with him and give an account. So Jesus very clearly says, And we tried to make it into some principles, And took some of how Randy Alcone words it to help us remember it. But I cannot take it with me, But I can send it on ahead. Heaven, not earth, is my home. My treasure and my heart should be there.
Everything belongs to God or everything is God's. I'm his money manager. That is how we ought to begin to view money. And then we can start answering the other questions. Where can it go? How can I use it?
What's it supposed to look like? The real practical questions, But those are some of the principles. Now, one of the things that Jesus says, And he says it really clearly, Is, Go for the treasure. Go for the reward. Serve and give and be generous, Because you will receive back in eternity. So immediately we say, Alright, time out.
Isn't that selfish? Like if I'm only being nice, And only giving because God's going to pay me back, Aren't I just being selfish? And the answer to that question is no. And the first reason is, It's Jesus' idea. We didn't make it up. So if you made it up, Maybe.
Like if you make something up, It's probably pretty busted. Just for the record, Like question it a little bit. You might have just come up with a pyramid scheme, You know, And involved Jesus. Like I don't know. But Jesus came up with this idea.
And here's, He says it a lot. I'm going to run through quickly. Just places where Jesus mentions this. Earlier in this chapter, In chapter 6, He teaches on giving. He says to do it secretly, So you'll receive a reward from God. He says the same thing about prayer and fasting.
Do it secretly. You'll receive a reward. Luke 12, He says, Sell your possessions, Give to the poor, Buy money bags in eternity, Where treasure does not fail. Luke 6, He says that persecution gains us reward, And that we should celebrate when we're persecuted. That we should actually be excited When someone attacks us because of Christianity. That it gains us, He says you'll have great reward in heaven.
Your reward is great in heaven. It'd be like if I told you I'd give you a million dollars If you let me punch you in the face. When I punch you in the face, You're going to start laughing. That's going to be the most fun. You've ever had being punched in the face. Because you just got a million dollars.
Like you excited. That's what he says. Somebody starts punishing you because you're a Christian. You should be like, This is great. I'm just racking up treasures in heaven. This is amazing.
That's what he says. He says you'll be excited. Luke 6, Love and lend, And your reward will be great in heaven. Matthew 19, Luke 18, He tells a rich man to sell everything And to give it to the poor And that he'll have treasure in heaven. Several of Jesus' parables Have to do with settling accounts And being rewarded With how you handled what he had, How the people handled what the king gave them. Matthew 9 and 10 Says this in both of them.
He says, Even a cup of cold water Given to someone because they're my follower Will not lose its reward. He's keeping track Of cups of cold water. So we all need to set up a free lemonade stand. And just be like, Ka-ching! Like that's what he's saying. Like you will receive reward for this.
And here's why This isn't bad. Here's why it's not selfish. In order to live And to do this radically To the point that the New Testament Is going to call us to, We have to trust Jesus. He comes from eternity And tells us This is how you ought to see it. But in order for us to do it, We actually have to have our faith in him.
We have to trust him. Y'all know Wayne Brady And y'all love him. So, Everybody thinks Wayne Brady's the best, I'm sure. He has a new show, Or had a show. It probably got canceled. I hope it did.
It was kind of terrible. But, Let's Make a Deal. Anybody seen this show? It's weird. But in the show, What they do is, They will give you something So you can have this now, Or, And they constantly are trading.
So they'll be like, You can have a thousand dollars, Or we'll give you What's in this mystery box. And then you're like, Oh, Oh no, What's in the box? Like, But I also want a thousand dollars. And so the whole point is like, Trading, And then they have things called zonks, Which is where you open the box, And the word zonk comes out, And you don't get nothing, Go sit down. That's how the game works. So, What Jesus is saying is, You're playing, Like, Life is us playing, Let's make a deal.
And there's a moped in front of us. And they're like, You can have the moped, Or, You can have what's behind curtain number one. And we're like, That moped looks pretty sweet. How many cc's is that thing? Like, That's what we're doing. And what Jesus is saying is that he's walking out from behind the curtain, And saying, Don't take the moped.
I know what's behind the curtain. Don't take the moped. And in order for us to actually begin to leverage things, Leverage our money, Leverage our finances, View this the way, We have to trust Jesus. We have to have faith to do it. And so it's not wrong, And it's not selfish. It's actually us, Continually pushing more faith, More of our trust into him.
Hebrews 11, Talks about this, Talks about, Some people call it the faith chapter, But it kind of runs through a bunch of Old Testament saints, And it basically says this, This is the point of Hebrews 11. Abraham was told to move, Leave his family, And he's going to go to a land that's not his own, But God's going to give it to him. But God didn't give it to him, He gave it to his descendants. So Abraham, When he dies, Owned none of the land, Except for a cave that he buried his wife in, And he got to be buried in next to her. Isaac, Same thing. He goes through, He says that Moses, Left the palace of Egypt, Where he was treated like a king, Because he believed that the persecution of Christ, Was of more value, Than the pleasures of Egypt, Because he was looking ahead to his reward.
It says that all of these saints, All of these Old Testament followers of God, Trusted that they were invited into a better country. Trusted that they had been given a greater reward. Trusted that, Although their life was terrible now, Although they had given up everything to follow, Although they were consistently not gaining a whole bunch of stuff for themselves. That they had a better reward coming, And that they had faith. Now here's the thing.
We're not going to do this. We're not going to apply any of these principles. Like if we stop here, We're just going to be like, Yep, That's true about money, And I should think about it that way. But we don't really have the ability to do anything with it. Until, Until, Eternity, Is as real to us, As it was to Jesus. Until we see, It as clearly as he saw it.
Then we'll actually begin to be able to leverage some of what we have. Flip over to Hebrews chapter 12. We're going to look at this really quickly. We're going to begin to try to help ourselves see, And know what Jesus is talking about when he says this. You see, Hebrews chapter 11 keeps going. It says that there were prophets who wore sheepskins and goatskins, Who lived in caves and holes in the grounds, Who were persecuted and mistreated.
That the world wasn't worthy of them. That they were stoned. That they were sawn in two. They were put to death by the sword. And that they did this so that they might gain a better resurrection. That they believed through sacrifice, That life would be better in eternity.
Because they trusted God. They trusted him, Took him at his word. And then it goes into chapter 12 and it says this. Therefore, Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Talking about all of the people that followed God, Trusting him through sacrifice and pain, Even when it didn't pay off in this life. Let us also lay aside every weight and sin, Which clings so closely.
And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Looking to Jesus, The founder and perfecter of our faith, Who, For the joy that was set before him, Endured the cross, Despising the shame, And is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him, Who endured from sinners, Such hostility against himself, So that you may not grow weary, Or faint hearted. That we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, And that for the joy that was set before him, He endured the cross. That Jesus could look and see so clearly what was to come. See so clearly the eternity that was to come. See so clearly the new heaven and the new earth, That were going to be created by God.
See so clearly that with joy he went to the cross. That he knew the joy that was set before him, And so he was able to sacrifice, Until we see eternity that clearly. We may be generous, But we won't be generous to the extent that the Bible says. We may view our money sometimes correctly, But we won't be able to approach it the way that the Bible says, The way that Jesus talks about, Until we know and feel and believe, That we have a greater hope. That we have a greater home. That eternity is real and really offered to us through Christ.
Until we look at the cross and see so drastically, Starkly and clearly, That Jesus knew, That an eternal hope and an eternal joy, Was offered through sacrifice. Sacrifice. When we see Jesus that clearly, When we consider him, When we fix our eyes on him, Then we are able to begin, To trust and to believe, And to taste and see, The joy that is set before us. To see what is to come. I love that it says, That they knew they had a better country. That we actually are going somewhere, That is not non-material.
It's better. It's this world, But nothing is broken. Nothing rust. Nothing stolen. Nothing is destroyed. That's why you actually have real possession, Because it lasts forever.
In the Chronicles of Narnia, Written by C.S. Lewis, It's a children's fictional story, But they're great. At the end of the last book, They all go to Aslan's country, Which is God's country, Which is heaven. The new earth. And there's a talking horse, Who says this. He says, I have come home at last.
This is my real country. I belong here. This is the land, I have been looking for all my life, Though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia, Is that it sometimes, Looked a little like this. And for every believer, Every person who's placed their faith in Jesus, To pay for their sin and their debt, When we enter into the new heaven, When we enter into God's presence, This is what's going to explode in our hearts. I'm home.
This is my real country. This is what I was looking for, Although I never knew it. This is what I was consistently searching for, Every time I chased after something, Although it never clicked. And the reason we liked the old stuff, Was that sometimes, It's a little bit like this. See, God made everything perfect, It was destroyed by sin, And through the cross, And through our resurrection with Jesus, As he rose from the dead, We get to rise from the dead, And we get to enter into, His perfect peace, His perfect creation once again. But there's glimpses of it.
Every time you've been captivated by a night sky, Every time you've seen a sunset, And you just couldn't stare away, You almost wrecked your car, Because it was over to the left. Every, Every time you've had a really good popsicle, On a really hot day, That you had to eat super fast, Because it was about to melt everywhere. Your first taste of coffee, In the morning on a cold day, When it's crisp. When you were wearing your Uggs, And drinking your pumpkin spice latte. That moment, In the morning, When you don't want to get out of bed, Because it's so warm, And you're just like, I could just be here forever.
Like you're laying really thinking, I might just quit my job, And stay here. Every time you've been captivated, By like an infant laughing, I watched a video the other day, Of an infant, Every time the parent took a bite of a potato chip, Just died laughing. And you just watch that over and over again, Just a little kid laughing. Like every time you've been caught off guard, By how beautiful scenery is, Or seen a deer standing in a field, And you just couldn't not stare at it. All of these moments, When you've bit into a really well cooked steak, All of these moments are just hints, Of what's to come.
That God in his good grace, Still lets us enjoy what is here, But it doesn't compare. There's a better country, And a better home, On the other side of a resurrection, For those who follow Jesus. With real, The way the Bible talks about heaven, Is it's a city, It's a banquet, It's a wedding party, It's a celebration, It's real. And until it becomes more real to us than this, We'll forever take the moped. Until we can trust Jesus, And see him so clearly on the cross, We'll take the moped every time. And for most of us, We're chasing after mopeds.
And Jesus is saying, Trust me. I have bought for you a better resurrection. I have given you and granted you a greater home. You will live for eternity. And realize that your money, How you use it here, Will matter then. And when you die, Everything you have, Will no longer be useful.
But what you've pushed towards eternity, Will be yours. Because in my presence, There is no sin, There is no brokenness, There is no rust, And no moths. Markets don't crash. And we get to stare at Jesus, And begin to see, That our eternity is made secure through him, And that that really is our home, Where we'll finally find our real country, Our real home. And the reason why we enjoyed all the stuff here, And what we were forever chasing after here. The band's going to come back up, We're going to sing, And make much of Jesus, And here's what I want us to do, We didn't talk about, What to do with money this week, We talked about how we ought to see money, And really we won't see money that way, Won't be able to view it that way, Won't be able to hold it that way, Until eternity becomes so real to us, Until we realize, That that is actually, Where we will go as Christians, If those who have been bought by Jesus, Rescued and redeemed by Jesus, Through the cross, Where he paid our debt, It says consider him, So that you don't grow weary, Or lose heart, And I would just encourage all of us, As believers this week, If you've trusted Jesus, If you've followed Jesus, If you're a Christian, To sit down at some point, And consider Jesus, To sit down at some point, And know that for joy, That was set before him, He endured the cross, And that he's invited us, Into that joy, And that an eternity is to come, And sit for a while, Carve out some time, And sit, And only try to hold in your head, The sacrifice of Jesus, And the eternity that follows, I find that when I've thought about, Sat and meditated on the cross, And on eternity, It helps change, And put everything into perspective, And that's what we're told to do, Is to consider him, To fix our eyes on him, And so as we go into the next three weeks, We're going to talk about really practical things, Take some time this week, To consider Jesus, To sit and weigh it out, And to think about eternity, Y'all stand, Let's sing, And so as we go into the beginning, мои juices, And so as we go inside, And so as we go into the bow, And so as we go into the down, And so as we go into the spectrum, And so we move into the distance, And gentle thought of actually, And so as we move into the middle of it, And so as we go into the next three days, And so as we go into the direction of theת loc Intelli, And then we show the topic of beautiful, And so as we go into the image, And so as we watch it, And so as we go into the next three days to a sûrinté clip on it,
Jesus and Broken Sinners
Transcript
What's up, fam? As Chet said, my name is Ant. He also mentioned just how generous your church has been in just supporting Midtown 2 Notch, and specifically myself. I believe it was about November of last year, I transitioned from being bivocational as church planner at Midtown 2 Notch to be able to do that full-time and not have to be able to have another Job to support my family. And just truth be told, I'm excited to be here to share with you guys today because I would not have been able to do that without generosity from Mill City. Actually, when I was working as a personal trainer part-time and vocationally as a pastor part-time, and I was telling one of my clients, you know, I was going to be transitioning out, and she was like, well, what happened?
What changed? And I was like, well, our church, where we are at, is not ready to support me financially. And so there's actually another church in our city that loves Jesus, loves our city, and wanted to support me. So they're actually paying a pretty good part of my salary so I'm able to do it. And she was like, well, you know, sometimes you got to go where the money is. And I was like, wait, what?
You didn't understand. She literally, she thought that I was saying, another church offered me a salary, so now I'm going to pastor at the other church? Because she had no concept for a church being generous enough to say, hey, we want to be generous to you. We believe in what God is doing in and through your church, and we want you to stay right there where you're at and continue to serve. And we want to be generous in that way. So I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of Midtown Two Notch, on behalf of myself and my family.
You guys have been instrumental. I don't even know how many of you knew you were doing that, but our church would not be able to serve and love on just inner city communities around Two Notch Road without you guys and without your help. So I just wanted to just express my appreciation for Mill City. Also, I kind of keep in touch on Facebook and talking to Chad and Matt a little bit. Super encouraged by what God is doing through the gospel here. Super encouraged to be able to get into the word today with you also.
So when Chet first hit me up about this series, he said, we're doing a series called Jesus and People. We're just looking at how Jesus responds to different types of people in the Bible. Very, very interesting for me. I loved it the first time I heard about it. That's actually one of my favorite things to look into in the Bible. It's just how does Jesus respond?
Because he never responds the way people in his time expect him to. So he lived in a time where people commonly believe, like, hey, if I can just muster up enough willpower to obey the commandments of God, then God will really love me. Like, if I can just get on my game enough, if I can try hard enough, if I can just kind of muster up the strength to do it, to live the way God has called me to do it, if I can just get over this one thing, this one habit that I have, then maybe God will love me. And Jesus comes in, and the way he interacts with Pharisees and the way he interacts with sinners, the way he interacts with everybody, it just completely knocks everybody out of the box.
And they can't understand what he's doing. And we get to look into that a little bit today as we'll look into a Jesus interaction with a woman who the Bible calls a sinner and with a Pharisee also. So if you want to turn with me to Luke chapter 7, we'll get us started at verse 36. If you're using one of the Bibles on the share, it should be on page 560. But we get to look into this very, very interesting story.
And so at the time when Jesus was there in Israel, I think Chad already told you, maybe it was last week or maybe a couple weeks ago, that the Pharisees, which there's one in this story, the Pharisees were the guys who kind of felt like, I obey God, thus God owes me something. Or God has to love me because I obey. I obey, therefore God favors me. They were kind of the religious elite of that town, of that time, I should say. And Jesus is about to educate this Pharisee on some things. Let's start at verse 36.
Verse 36 reads, One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. So the way they ate at this time, and the next verse is going to say that they were reclining at the table. Basically what that means is that they didn't set up at the table the way we do now. They kind of had a table that was like kind of on the floor, maybe a little bit raised up from the floor. And for them reclining at the table was they're kind of laying kind of on their stomachs, maybe on their elbows, and they're eating kind of around probably a rectangular table.
So you kind of think the table's in the middle. Everybody's kind of laying down with their feet pointing out. So that's what it would have looked like at that time. So Jesus is at Simon's house. They're having a meal. A lot of times during that time, they would kind of have the doors to their house open during the meal time.
And so, you know, if people are walking by, they want to step, they want to come by and drop in, they can do that. And that's exactly what happens in verse 37. It reads, And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table at the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. Right? So this verse is telling us a little bit about this woman.
Let's look into it. It said a woman of the city. That basically means she is someone who her business is she exchanges sexual favors for money. She's a prostitute. And so this prostitute, this lady who was kind of living in open rebellion against God's command. So Israel is considered God's people.
She most likely would have grown up knowing God's commands. Maybe she grew up in a, quote, unquote, religious family where she was taught this is the way you're supposed to live. You're supposed to follow God. Or maybe not. Maybe she kind of moved in there and just kind of learned about the culture. Whatever the situation is, she probably knows what it's like to feel judged in some way.
Right? She probably knows what it's like to be looked down upon by the religious elite of that time. She was a, raise your hand, just so I can know kind of who we have here. Raise your hand if you've ever used the word ratchet in a sentence. Not the tool, but just like, oh, great, great. Well, that's pretty much everybody.
That's great. So if you did not raise your hand, at Two Notches, we use it all the time. We always talk about God comes for the ratchet. Right? So what that means, the way we use it, what it means is you're like, you're sinful and in rebellion and you're just wiling out in some way.
And you're just doing it out in the open where you don't even care who sees you. It's like, not only are you doing wrong, but you're just out there with it. And everybody knows that you're doing wrong. And that's just kind of your stigma, your ratchet like that. So that's how this woman was.
She was known for being a prostitute and being openly rebellious. And that's what I want us to focus on today. We're going to see how Jesus responds specifically to people who kind of have a tendency to live in open rebellion. You know, kind of people who just natural rule breakers. Right? The line's right here.
Like, you just got to just step over. Like, you just got to be on the other side of the line. You don't like rules. If somebody gives you a rule, you feel like it's restricting you. You don't feel like it's helping you. So I want some of us to identify with a little bit of that aspect of the way this woman, this prostitute would have seen things.
And we're going to see specifically how Jesus responds to you when you come to him. Now, for some of you, that's not kind of the way you very naturally are bent. For some of you, you like rules. You like to follow rules. You like to kind of, you know, come in here on a Sunday with your, how are you doing? I'm good.
You kind of got your nice Sunday face going on. You kind of carry that out throughout the week. And so if that's you, and so if you're not naturally rebellious and naturally outwardly rebellious like this woman, I want you to be able to be really kind of zoned in also. I believe this is going to provide some training for those of us who kind of fit more of the role of kind of the type of the Pharisee. Right? Because if you're going to be on mission, whether you're openly rebellious or not, you're going to come across people like this woman.
Right? Like, if we're going out and intentionally trying to make disciples and point people to Christ, you're going to come across people like this woman. We need to be able to look into how does Jesus respond to her to help equip us and train us on how we to respond when we come across or come in contact with someone who's in the same kind of maybe lifestyle or just similar to this lady. All right. Let's move forward.
Verse, actually, before we move forward, let me explain. The end of verse 37 says she brought an alabaster flask of ointment. Right? So for a prostitute, this would have been very, very important. This is like a, it's kind of like a perfume. And she most likely would have used it for one of two or maybe both of the, both of these reasons.
The first one is, so at that time, they didn't have like showers like we do. And people didn't bathe as often as we do. So people would just kind of naturally smell bad. And so for her, having this ointment, this perfume, if you would, was kind of, may have been a way of masking for her the smell of all these men that she's often with. Right? It's kind of a, it could have served a purpose of just helping her, helping make her job more bearable, if you would.
But also, it's believed that prostitutes often at this time will wear this perfume. And it kind of, when you, when you smell that, you kind of knew what she was about. Right? It kind of let her potential clients know what she was interested in, what she wanted to do, what her hustle was, and that kind of thing. So just keep that in mind.
Jump to verse 38. Verse 38 reads, and standing behind him at his feet. So this is the woman of the city, the prostitute, standing at Jesus' feet. So standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. So this lady walks in the room.
She sees Jesus. Apparently, she'd been looking for Jesus. She sees him. She finds him. She's like, okay, this is my chance to meet Jesus. And she comes in, she doesn't come and take a seat at the table or she doesn't come and recline at the table.
She goes right to Jesus' feet and she just starts crying. Right? And this is not that, this is not that pretty cry where you're kind of mad, but you're kind of upset and you're kind of sad and you've got like one tear coming down. Like this is not, this is not pretty cute crying. Right? This is bawling.
She is weeping at Jesus' feet to the point where it says her tears are wetting Jesus' feet. This woman is, is, is heartbroken. What we find out a little bit later in the passage is that she, she, this woman is, is aware of her sin. She's, she's so aware of her life of rebellion and her life has not gone the way she, she anticipated it going. I would assume to the point where she didn't fit. She didn't know that her, her life of a rebellion would bring her to this point.
But right now she is standing over Jesus' feet and she is so heartbroken over her sin that tears are flowing to the point where it can wet, wet Jesus' feet. This woman throughout this story, she's going to give us a beautiful picture of what true repentance actually looks like. So what I want to do is I want to point out three things. They don't go in any chronological order or anything like that. I want us to learn three things from, from this woman about what true repentance is actually like. Uh, the first component of repentance that I want to point us to is that in true repentance, you grieve over your sin.
You truly grieve over your sin. You don't have to turn there. I just want to read the scripture to you. Psalms 51, 16 and 17. David writes this after he, um, he sleeps with the woman who is married. And then, um, so that the husband, so they won't find out that, that she gets pregnant.
So they won't find out that it's his child. Um, and they, and he had sex with her before they were married. He has her husband killed so that he can go and marry her. So it's like, yo, the baby is, the baby was mine. We got pregnant after we were married. And so a prophet comes to David, um, just kind of points out, Hey God, I know what you did.
God knows what you did. David repents. And this is how he, this is what he writes kind of in that time of, of repentance. He says, for you will not delight in sacrifice. He's talking to God for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
And he says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken contrite heart. Contrite means feeling or expressing remorse, uh, over wrongdoing. He says, geez, what, what God really wants is not a, a, a sacrifice, not for us to, for at, at their time to kill an animal and offer it up to God. What God wants is for us to be broken over our sin, that our hearts would hurt. And mourn and grieve over the fact that we've done wrong. And I believe, man, I believe sin is at its most dangerous point in our lives when it convinces us that it's not a big deal.
When it convinces us that it's not, it's not really that, that big of a problem. Like when we get into believing the lie that, oh, well, God has mercy for me. So that means, you know, I can, I don't have to fight viciously against the sin, uh, in my life. I don't, I don't need to truly be broken over it. Like, you know, when God sees me, he sees, you know, Christ's righteousness over me. So I don't really need to be doing battle, uh, against my sin and waging war against my sin.
Um, one of the things I love about, uh, Mill City Church is I know, uh, I know Matt to some degree. I know, I know Chet better as Chet was saying, I know that the pastors of your church are, are appropriately, properly emphasizing God's grace. Like appropriately pointing you to the fact that, Hey, your relationship with God, you're standing with God. The fact that you have favor with God has nothing to do with how good you perform, has nothing to do with how good you are at, at kind of making yourself up, make yourself look like you're, you're a good person, whatever. But it has everything to do with how Jesus performed and he gives us credit for, for his righteousness and every righteous thing that he's done, uh, on the earth.
I know that, that, that is emphasized here. And I praise God for that. Cause that's the way that it should be. What I also know is that there's often a tendency in, in churches like this for us to sinfully use grace as a license to continue on in our sin. There's also an, a tendency for us to sinfully just feel like, well, you know, I, I shouldn't really feel bad about my sin, right? Cause I'm forgiven.
Like I shouldn't really be heartbroken over it. Right. Since I'm, since I'm forgiven. Um, so, uh, in my marriage, when I, when I sin against my wife, um, my wife is great about offering forgiveness. She forgives faster than I do. I don't know how she does it.
It's just like God's spirit at work in her. And even though I am forgiven, if I do something that offends her, I still feel that like she's not condemning me. So I'm not trying to say we should feel condemned over our sin, but I am saying there should be a level of remorse. So she'll be a level of, of, uh, a contrite heart, even though we know that God forgives us a level of, of remorse that causes us to fight our sin. Uh, another scripture I wanted to, uh, to read for second Corinthians chapter seven, actually Paul writes, uh, godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.
Paul says that, that a godly grief, when we grieve properly over our sin, it actually leads us to repentance. It actually leads us to salvation. That's what this, this, this prostitute is, is modeling for us beautifully. Just, uh, uh, uh, being broken to the point of tears over, over her sin. Let's read on a little bit farther.
Still in verse 38. It says that she wiped them with, wiped his feet with the hair of her head and kissed his feet. So it's likely at this time, she's no longer standing. If she is wiping Jesus' feet with her hair, she's likely kneeling down now. So she's still bawling.
She's still crying and she has let down her hair. She's using her hair to wipe and wash Jesus' feet at this time. There's a couple of things going on here. Um, first one is, uh, women at this time always wore their hair up. It was a cultural thing. Um, and, and it was, uh, kind of the tradition was a woman only let her hair down for her husband.
Right? It was such a, a, a communication of, of, of intimacy, uh, that many people believe that it was grounds for divorce. If a woman let her hair down in front of another man, this is what she would have done for her clients. Right? So as she's, as she is attracting a potential client, she's let her hair down.
She's wearing a perfume. They know what she is into. She's displaying most likely to the, to the greatest degree that she can, a level of, of, of intimacy and maybe even desire for Jesus in this moment in the most scandalous way possible, I would say. And it says, she begins kissing his feet. Now, um, some of you in here, I know, I see we've got a few, a few married couples in here. Some of y'all married couples are like, I wish my spouse would ask me for a foot rug.
Right? I wish, I wish you, I am waiting on you to do that just so I can let you know about yourself. Uh, but this, so some of y'all just like feet are just nasty and dirty. Like I don't mess with you. I don't mess with people's feet. Right?
Uh, Jesus's feet would have been more messed up than your spouse's feet, uh, would have been. I feel weird saying God has smelly feet, but it's, it's, it's a thing. So they, they generally walked either barefoot or in sandals. Uh, and so they, and they also walked on dirt roads and they shared roads with animals. Right? So these roads are, are nasty.
Again, they don't shower a whole lot, kind of musty around there. Uh, they, their feet would have been extremely dirty. Her lips are on Jesus's feet right now. She is kissing his feet. That's important because they're having a meal, right? They're having dinner.
They're reclining at a table. She doesn't come in and just roll up on the table and be like, oh, Jesus, I need to talk to you about something. No, no. She goes straight to his feet, recognizing and acknowledging. We'll talk about more a little in a little bit, acknowledging that Jesus is greater than she is. Acknowledging that she does not deserve a seat at Jesus's table.
She's not deserved to eat with him. So she goes straight to his feet. Component of repentance is number two that I'm going to point us to that this, uh, this lady, this woman models for us is you realize you aren't worthy of Jesus. You realize you aren't worthy of Jesus. You realize that we, that we, none of us truly deserve because of our sinfulness and because of how perfect and holy and sinless God is that none of us deserve to be at his table. None of us deserve to truly be able to fellowship with him.
None of us deserve to, to, to, to truly know him and be known by him because of our sin. This, this, this woman who has grieved over her sin, who to some degree is grasping the weight and the gravity of her sin. She's come to realize, I don't, I don't deserve to be at Jesus's table. I don't deserve to know him, uh, in that way. And here's the, I think probably for a lot of us in here, if you've been here for a while, uh, you've probably heard that before that we all need grace. And the only way we get to God and have a relationship with him is because of what Jesus did on the cross in our place.
But I think sometimes we can believe that we, uh, that we understand that and we can believe that kind of intellectually understand that we are not worthy of him, but sometimes it functionally hasn't hit our hearts. Uh, so, so for example, I, a lot of times I've met people who, who would say, yes, I'm only saved by grace. I'm, I'm, I'm based on my works. I'm not worthy of, of truly knowing God, but there's still zero level of gratitude and zero level of rejoicing because we are able to fellowship with, with God because of what Christ has done. Does that make sense? It's like, I want us to be, uh, paying very careful attention to our hearts a little bit.
It's like, Hey, if you, if you are not in some way grateful, if that doesn't do something for, for your soul and grant you some level of joy that you can fellowship with God because of what Christ has done, you think you're worthy of Jesus. You think you're worthy to sit at his table and eat with him. And it probably goes back to the first point of, you don't, you don't understand the gravity of your sin. You don't understand the, the depths of how, of how sinful each of us are. Let's move on and read the last part of the verse.
It says, and anointed them with the ointment. So she takes this alabaster flask that she has, this ointment that she has and says she anoints Jesus' feet. Well, the, uh, the way that they kind of made those flasks back then is you, they made it so you can only get a little bit out at a time. It's probably really expensive. You don't want to waste any so you can only get a little bit out. So for, for her to anoint Jesus' feet, the way that she is, she would have had to break her flask.
Like you can't just, cause all you, all you got out was a little dab. Like you, you're not going to get a full drop out at one time. And so she would have had to break her flask. Now remember the importance of the flash to her, for her occupation, for her hustle, right? She, she needs this for her job, for her occupation, for this, this flash is a sense of security for her, right? This is how she makes money.
This is how she survives. This is how she lives. She comes in, she sees Jesus. She recognizes the depths of her sin and she breaks it and she pours it out on Jesus' feet. This is her saying very loud and clear. I'm completely turning away from my lifestyle of sin.
I'm completely turning away this lifestyle of, of prostitution that I've been in. I've grieved my sin. I know that I'm not worthy of him. The third point of the third component of repentance. I want us to, I want to point us to, excuse me today is you realize that Jesus is better than your sin. You realize that Jesus is better than whatever fill in the blank is for you that for those of us in the room who are kind of naturally rebellious, kind of naturally like to turn away from God.
Whatever, whatever that is that you run to, that, that, that you turn to third point of repentance is you realize Jesus is just better. He's just better. What he has for us is just, it's better. Ultimately, it brings more lasting joy. I can only imagine. She, she thought living this life previously, she thought it was the best way for her to live.
She thought this is what she, what she should do. This is how I'm going to make it in this life. She means Jesus and she's like, no, I was, I was completely wrong. So in Genesis chapter three, if I can, if I can paraphrase it, uh, kind of put into my own words, what, what saint Satan does is he's talking to Eve, uh, to, to get her to, to sin against God by eating the fruit that God called her not to eat. He basically comes to her and says, uh, Hey, God's actually withholding something good from you. God's actually preventing you from having something of good, something of value.
God's withholding the good stuff and he's keeping it all to himself and he's restricting you from having what is actually good. If you actually eat from this, this tree, you'll be a little bit happier. You'll have, you'll have more joy. There'll be more benefits in your life. If you try to live independently of the way God has called you to live, it's literally the oldest trick in the Bible. It's the oldest lie in the Bible.
It's the oldest trick in the book. And for those of us in here who are naturally rebellious, like this woman, Satan feeds that to you all the time. I think it's his most effective life. You will find more joy, more peace, more happiness, more life, more vitality outside of the way God calls for you to live. Again, if you, if you have a natural bend towards rebellion in here, Satan is, he's giving you that over and over and over. This woman ultimately gets to the end of a rope and finds out that that's a lie.
Realizing that Jesus is better than your sin. All right. So in verse 39, Simon takes note of everything that's going on. And Jesus is about to teach him a little something, something. Verse 39. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who was touching him, for she is a sinner.
So Simon looks, Simon looks at this woman and is like, hey, she's not, this woman should not be fellowshipping with us. Like she should not be touching Jesus. If Jesus is actually a holy man. No. Did she, he, uh, one thing that, that this chapter also does. And, um, I said a little bit earlier, I want to spend some time talking to specifically to people who maybe are not as naturally rebellious, but as you're, as we're going our own mission, making disciples, we want to come across people who are, and we need to know how to interact with them, how to, how to show them the love of Christ.
Well, Simon is, it just gave us the perfect example of what not to do. Simon basically says, Hey, if you want to, if, um, you're not able to roll with us cause you're, you're, you're too, too sinful for us. You're not welcome to sit at my table cause you're, you're, you're too sinful. You need, you need to be separated. You need, you need to be somewhere. This is exactly the opposite of what we are to do.
Basically he's communicating, Hey, people who are as simple as you are not, are not welcome around here, right? People who, who to some degree smell of the sins that they commit, not welcome here. Don't sit beside me. Don't get anywhere near my kids. Do not. You're an I'm, I'm rejecting fellowship with you because of your sin.
Exactly the opposite of what Jesus does and exactly how we should not live. Um, as believers, verse 40. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say a teacher. So Jesus is about to give him a, give him a parable to teach him a little something.
Verse 41. A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. So, uh, basically what he's saying is there's a guy who gives out loans to people. Uh, one of them, oh, one of them, uh, he, he lended out 50 denarii. A denarii, uh, for an average worker was about a day's wages.
So we're talking a little bit over a month, a little bit under two months, a month and a half ish, uh, wages. And he said the other owed 500 denarii. So we're talking about over a year, maybe a year and a third, something like that. So this is a lot, a lot of money, a year, over a year's worth of wages. One of them owed verse 42. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.
Now, which of them will love him more? Verse 43. Simon answered the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. Simon says the one, I suppose, whom he can, he's like, well, technically, I guess, depends on how you look at it, maybe sort of the one who owed the larger debt will end up loving more. And Jesus says, you have judged rightly. Jesus says, bingo, Simon, you got it.
Uh, so Jesus is basically making the point that those who, who, who understand, um, that Jesus has, has forgiven them of a lot, will love him more, will, will, will desire him more, will have more affection for him than those who feel like they've only been forgiven for a little bit. Right? So those of us who, who are naturally rebellious, kind of open with our sin, not really trying to hide it. I believe to some degree you, you have, uh, I guess, I guess I would say even an advantage in, um, in understanding God's grace. Cause your sin is, your sin is out there. I think a lot of times for, for people who are naturally rebellious, there can be a tendency, um, to, to, to see it, but not, but not feel the gravity of it.
Um, but Jesus says those who, who understand they're forgiven more will, will definitely love more. Verse 44. Jesus talking to Simon. Do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Jesus is giving them a comparison.
Uh, he's comparing how Simon has treated him since he came to the house and how the prostitute has treated him since she came into the house. He says, I'll read that again. Uh, enter your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
All right. There are some cultural norms that are going on in this passage, uh, that I want to clue us in on. So, uh, the first one, the first thing Jesus says, the first comparison that he makes, I should say is, um, he says, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. So the custom at that time was when you come to someone's house for a meal, if they're, if they are wealthy, if they have a servant, they'll have their servant come out with a basin of water and the servant will wash your feet. Again, people's feet were dirty at this time.
You've been walking, probably walking a long distance, dirt roads around animals, all that kind of stuff. So that's the custom. Jesus saying, Simon, you didn't even bring, not only did you not have your servant come out, you didn't even bring me water so I can wash my own feet. And she is washing my feet with her tears and her hair. Next point Jesus makes, you gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. So at that time, when someone comes to your house, if you are, if you consider yourself an equal with them, you'll probably kiss them on the cheek when they come in, just a kind of a greeting.
Uh, if you feel like they are greater than you, you probably kissed them on the hand, right? You take their hand, you kiss their hand, acknowledging they're a little bit greater than you are. This woman comes in and she is kissing Jesus' feet. Acknowledging Jesus is, is, is far greater going above and beyond what is, what is the normal, I guess, uh, expected thing of her. Last thing Jesus says, you did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. One of the things they did to mask the smell around dinner times, they would put oil a little bit on their, maybe on their head, maybe on their shoulders and neck to kind of mask the smell a little bit.
Uh, Jesus says, you didn't even give me any oil. And she has completely poured out all this ointment and her perfume, um, on me. This true heart of repentance. I will say once we, when we really come to understand that Jesus is better than our sin, we don't try to find the minimum of what it takes to do to still be counted a Christian. This woman is going far beyond the custom, far beyond what is expected to be. True, true repentance does not lead us to a point of saying, okay, I still, I, what, Jesus, what's the minimum, like what's, what's the minimum that I have to do in order for, for, for, for me to be, be, be, be okay.
Right. So when I was, uh, uh, in like elementary school, uh, took swimming lessons at a, at a pool back where I grew up in Chester, uh, South Carolina. And, um, we, we did our lessons at first, like in the three feet. And they, they kind of told you at the beginning on the last day, we're going to the 12 foot. Right. And so I was always just like super, super excited about that last day when I'd be able to jump in, jump, jump in the, in the deep water, if you would.
So that's, that's a little bit about what, what, what Christianity is to be like. It's like this, this one, this woman is saying, I'm not trying to stay in the kiddie pool. I want to, as much as I can give to worship God, as much as I can grow in worshiping God with my whole life. That's what I want to do. Once she realizes that, that her, her life of sin does not compare to the life Christ offers, she is full in going all out, not trying to find the minimum that she can do. This is what true repentance looks like.
Let's jump to verse 47. Jesus gets to his main point. Therefore, I tell you her sins, which are many are forgiven for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. So there's two sinful people in the room. One of them acknowledges her sin and one of them does not. And he's saying this woman loves much because she really understands how much she's been, how much she's been forgiven for.
And this kind of takes us back to, to verse one. But when we, when we actually, when we minimize our sin, act like it's not a big deal. Act like, you know, we, we, we, we deserve fellowship, fellowship with God. We're actually robbing ourselves of true joy and true love for the Lord. So here's what I mean.
So we got the, the level that we understand God's grace and God's grace is basically, it's what fills the gap between how, how sinful we are and how, how righteous God is. Right. And how much he has, he has forgiven us for. So if we, if we feel like we only have this much sin, then that means God's grace is only about that big. But if we, if we are, if we are broken, heartbroken, if we are amazed at, at how much we have sinned against God and the fact that he's still forgiven us, then God's grace all of a sudden becomes amazing.
Like if we see our sin as something that's just outstanding, something that is, that is incredibly wrong and offensive against God, then we'll look at God's grace and be completely amazed and actually be able to enjoy his grace as it truly is, instead of living under and believing the lie that our sin really isn't a big deal. Jesus says, being able to see the depths of our sin is actually a part of the path to really understanding his grace, really loving him and really being able to appreciate his mercy. If we see our sin as enormous, then we will see his grace and his forgiveness as enormous also. So how do, how do we get there?
Right? How do we get to the point where maybe some of us have walked in here today where it's like, yeah, I, I, I relate. I minimize my, I minimize my sin and I don't really know what to do about that. How, what, what, what is our step? What kind of helps grow our understanding for the depths of our sin, for the fact that we are worthy of God and, and what, what grows our understanding of the fact that Christ is really better? It's the cross.
It's the cross of Jesus where God, the father looks down at his, his beloved son, whom he has loved for all eternity. When he looks down at him and condemns him for every sin that I've ever committed. When, when he, and all of his, and all of his righteous judgment on the cross punishes his son whom he loves, who was never sinned, who has never done anything wrong. We see, Hey, God thinks sin is a big deal. God thinks sin is a big deal. If the way for us to be reconciled with God and have, and have a relationship with him and be able to fellowship with him and be able to sit at his table.
If, if, if the way that that happens is that God has to kill his own son on the cross, God doesn't minimize sin. God takes sin way more seriously than I do because it costs the blood of his, of his son. Also for, for, for on, on that cross where God, where Jesus takes upon himself, our sins, all of our wrongdoing, God condemns him. We receive credit for all of his, all of his righteousness, all of his goodness, all of, all of his purity that, that, that shows me, Hey, I, I'm not worthy of, of him. I'm not worthy of God. If my sin is so bad that it leads to that.
And he is spotless and clean and righteous. I'm not worthy to sit at his table. I'm not worthy to fellowship with him. I'm not worthy to truly be in relationship with him. My favorite thing is that the cross also shows us, man, Jesus is better than my sin. This kind of love, righteousness, this kind of mercy, this, this, this, this kind of grace, this, this kind of sovereignty, this kind of, of power that he has, that he would do this to, to, to, to redeem this world after what sin has done in my life, in your life, in our hearts, this, this incredible grace that he's showing.
Man, man, that's better than anything I've ever chased after before. That is better than anything. The cross is the solution to our, our lack of desire to repent. These, these, these points of repentance, they're, they're specifically in this context is kind of showing what, what it looks like for someone who is rebellious. But let's, let's, let's be honest.
It's for everybody. Whether you're naturally rebellious or whether you're not, these, these points of repentance, these, these things about repentance that we see in God's word applies, applies to us all. And some of my times in my, in my walk with the Lord, where I, where I felt just most dry in, in, in, in my relationship with God, in my walk with the Lord, when I felt the least amount of joy, when I look back over them, I, I believe those are times where I minimized my sin the most. I believe those are times where I just wasn't broken over my sin. That's, I wasn't amazed by his grace. I wasn't amazed by his righteousness.
And, and so I, I just want to encourage some of us today. If you, if you ever feel like in your walk with the Lord, you're just kind of going through the motions. You're just kind of, there's no real life and, and vitality and there's no real rejoicing in there, but I'm just kind of, you know, I'm doing my, my, my, my Christian thing. I come on a Sunday. I, I try to pray. I try to read the Bible sometimes.
You know, I come to a community groups at times. If you ever feel like you're just kind of going through the motions, I want to ask you, man. Have you, when's the last time you grieved over your sin? When's the last time your sin broke your heart? And from there you went and looked into the cross of Jesus. You ran to Jesus's feet like this woman and, and found a level of acceptance and mercy and grace that just blows you away.
When's the last time you've, you've been there? Let's jump to verse 48. We want to read 48 through 50. And that'll, that'll conclude our time for us. So Jesus sees everything this woman has done in her repentance and her turning to him.
Verse 48. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who, who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. He's saying to this woman, you, you, you've grieved over your sin.
You've been heartbroken over your sin. You, you, you've shown that you don't, that you don't feel worthy. You've realized that, that, that I am better than your sin. You can go in the peace of knowing that the, the burden, the weight, the guilt, the shame of your sin has now been lifted off of your shoulders. You've been forgiven. There's a level of peace that just, that just comes after a biblical mourning of our sin.
There's a level of, of peace that we can rest in knowing that the, the biggest burden that mankind has ever borne, which is the weight of our sins. Christ on the cross, lift it off of your shoulders. There's a, there's a, there's an ability to breathe a little bit easier. Now there's a level of, of peace in our souls of knowing we are the forgiven people of God. Jesus tells this woman to go in peace. Going, go in peace, knowing that Jesus responds to you with unlimited mercy and grace and forgiveness.
Knowing that Jesus responds to you is welcome. Welcome. Yes, you, you, you can't eat with me. Knowing that Jesus, that Jesus, Jesus is, excuse me, eternal response to you is if, if any of you are familiar with the book of Revelation, there's a, there's a table. There's a feast in the book of Revelation where God's people are finally, ultimately fully united with him on the last day in heaven. And we are sitting around the table at the marriage feast of the lamb.
Where everybody who is unworthy to sit at Jesus's table is at his table as we celebrate our union with him. Jesus responds to you. If you are rebellious and broken over your sin is complete acceptance. And because you came to my feet, you can sit at my table. You can eat with me. You can fellowship with me.
There's a level of peace in that, that is beyond anything that this world can offer. So what I want to do, I'm going to actually invite the band to come on up. And we're going to have a little bit of time of communion. And even as I've talked about Christ's crucifixion and what he's done for us on the cross is, is how we, is what leads us to true repentance. It's what leads us to understanding the seriousness of our sin, understanding that Christ is better than anything that we've ever run to or any sin that we've ever had. Understanding that we're not worthy of Jesus.
Christ says when we take communion, do it in remembrance of him. So when he breaks the bread and gives it to his disciples, he says, this is my body, which was broken for you. And when he passes around the cup, he says, this is my blood that was shed. Do this in remembrance of me. So what I want to ask us to do today is take a little bit of time, remember what Christ has done for us on the cross as we partake.
I want to pray for us, and the band's going to kind of sing over us as we take communion today. Lord, thank you for your goodness, Lord. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you, Lord, that you forgive sinners and you give grace to those who have felt the weight of our sin. Lord, I pray today will be a time of just peace and just joy in knowing that you have lifted the weight of our sins off of our shoulders when you bore them on the cross. I pray you will grant us all true repentance and faith.
It's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.
Jesus and the Wounded
Transcript
All right, well, it's good to see you guys this morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Matt Freeman. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And I am very, very excited about the scripture that we're going to be looking at this morning. Um, because it's one of my favorite interactions that Jesus has with any person in the Gospels. In fact, it's one of the earliest stories that I can remember from my childhood.
And since then, it's just been one of my favorite stories. And I think part of that is because there's so much in this story that I think that all of us are actually going to be able to relate to. So I'm just really excited about it. Um, we're in the second week of our Jesus and People series. And what we're aiming to do in this series is take a look at the Gospels and try to answer the question, How does God want to relate to me in normal, everyday life? Okay, and I'm going to say that again.
How does God want to relate to me in normal, everyday life? And for most of us, it's kind of hard for us to imagine because God seems so far off sometimes in the day in and day out of our lives. And the New Testament kind of picks up on this idea. And here's what it says in Colossians 1.15. It says that He, when it says He, it means Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. So that when we look at the life of Jesus, when we look at the things that He said, the things that He did, the conversations and the interactions that He had with people, we're actually getting a perfect reflection of God's character and nature. So that's what we're doing in this series. We're going to the Gospels and we're looking where Jesus has interaction with people. And we're saying, okay, what do we learn about Jesus and how He relates to a person? And how is Jesus wanting us to relate to Him?
And then we're bringing it to our side and trying to apply it and say, okay, what does it look like for Jesus to relate to us in normal, everyday life? How is He calling on me to relate to Him? And last week, Chet kicked off our series by talking about Jesus and how He relates to the desperate. And we looked at the story. There were two different characters in the story. You had Jairus who was a synagogue ruler and his young daughter was sick and at the point of death.
And he comes running to Jesus in his desperation. And Jesus meets him in his time of need. There's a woman that had had a bleeding disorder for 12 years. And she runs up just to grab the hem of Jesus' garment. And she's healed. Jesus meets her in her time of need.
And what we're looking at this morning is a little bit different. And in fact, it's going to be a little bit harder for us to see because it's something that can be so easily hidden. And in a room this size, I would guess that we have people in this room that are struggling with the very thing that I'm talking about. That there's something in your past. Maybe it's something that you've done. Maybe it was something that was done against you.
Hurt, pain, and shame that you just don't want people to know about. Much less God. What would God think of me if he knew the things that I did? Would he love me? Would he accept me? What about other people?
Would they love me and would they accept me? And as we walk through this story this morning, if you begin to relate to the character that Jesus is talking to, my prayer for you is that you see very clearly how Jesus wants to relate to you this morning. And if we walk through it and you're not necessarily relating to the person in this story, what I want you to see is how Jesus relates to her so that we as Christians, so that we as a church can help people who are walking through this situation. Okay? So we kind of understand what we're listening for.
So if it impacts us, we want to see how Jesus wants to relate to us. And if it doesn't necessarily land, we're looking at how do we as Christians engage with people in normal everyday life who might be struggling with this. Okay? So I'm going to pray before we hop in. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to open up our minds, open up our hearts so that we can understand God's word. You guys pray.
Let's pray. God, I thank you for this morning. I thank you for the truth that is revealed in this story. I thank you for what we're going to get to see. God, I'm asking by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would open us up. God, that we would let our guard down, that we would very clearly hear from you this morning, that we would see how Jesus wants to relate to us, God, and how we in turn are to respond to him.
I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So if you've got a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We're going to be in the book of John, chapter 4. And the story that we're going to be looking at is commonly referred to as Jesus and the woman at the well.
And so if you don't have a Bible, just grab one of those blue and white Bibles that we have sitting on the seats. It's actually going to be on page 578. If you brought your own Bible, I don't know what page it's going to be on. Good luck. And if you're here this morning and you don't have a Bible, please just take one of those with you. That's what they're there for.
We want everyone to have a Bible. And before we hop in, I just want to set the stage for what we're about to do. What we're going to look at is a rather long conversation that Jesus has with this woman. And so we're going to walk all the way through the conversation. We're going to point out important details. We're going to look at the things that Jesus says, the things that she says.
And then at the very end, we're going to land on our main point and settle there for a little bit so that we can see how Jesus wants to relate to us and how we ought to relate to him. Okay? Make sense? All right. So here we go.
John, chapter 4. And we'll actually skip the first two verses. We'll start in verse 3. All right. He, and again, that's he meaning Jesus, left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. All right.
So here's the scoop. Jesus and his disciples have been down in Judea, which is the region where Jerusalem was. He had been teaching. He had been doing miracles. He had been making disciples. And now they're going to just another region that they had spent a good amount of their time in.
And scripture tells us that he had to go through Samaria. Okay? So if you were looking at a map, and I'm going to draw you an imaginary map right here. So use your imagination. If Judea is here, then Samaria was north, and smack dab in the middle of them was Samaria. Okay?
So they had to go Judea through Samaria all the way to Galilee. And the scripture tells us that they ended up in a town called Sychar, which is where Jacob's well was. And I love that John just kind of adds in that little detail. And the well plays a prominent part in the story. But this isn't the first mention of Jacob's well that we actually see in scripture.
We see Jacob's well all the way back in the book of Genesis. God comes to Abraham. He says, I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to increase your descendants, and I'm going to bless you, the whole earth, through your family. And we see the line go from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. And this is Jacob's well. And we even see it again later in the book of Joshua when the Israelites are coming out of Egypt and they're entering into the promised land.
There's Jacob's well. And here we are thousands of years later again. And Jacob's well is still a part of God's story. This is a small little theme that you see God's promise kind of continuing on through the scripture here. It's really cool. So verse 6, Jacob's well was there.
So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. And then John tells us, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. And honestly, verse 6 is actually one of my favorite parts of this story because I forget sometimes that Jesus was human.
Like I know that Jesus was the son of God, but he stepped out of heaven and he was completely human. And he and his disciples had been traveling for a long time. And he's worn out. It says it was about the sixth hour. And he's sitting beside the well. And he's smelly, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, like most of us are here in Columbia during the summer.
Okay, so very similar to that. And it says it was about the sixth hour. And that's a detail that most of us would just kind of blitz right by because that's not how we tell time. But the sixth hour was noon. It was midday. It was the hottest part of the day.
And Jesus is sitting by this well and all he wants is something to drink. And lo and behold, this Samaritan woman is coming up to the well. And Jesus is like, sweet. I'm finally going to get some water. But this is actually kind of weird.
Not that the woman is coming to the well to get water. That was normal. It was the fact that she was coming to the well in the middle of the day and that she was by herself. See, the way that most cultures in this town worked was early in the morning, all the women of the village would get up together and they would travel to the well. They would all go to the well together. It was kind of like a social event.
Sometimes even children would go too. And they would travel to the well to get water for the day, water to cook with, water to clean with, even to water like small plants and crops. And part of the reason they did that was because it wasn't the hottest part of the day. And they were going to have to lug this water back into the village. And so they'd go early in the morning and then they would come back. And if they needed water for the night, right before sunset, they would all travel back to the well together and then back down into the village.
And there are still some cultures in the world that are like this. A couple of years back, I got to spend a little bit of time in Burkina Faso, which is in West Africa. It's just below the Sahara Desert. So it's very much the same kind of climate, same kind of village life that you would have expected here. And that's just what the women did. They would get up early in the morning and you'd see just one person would come out and you'd hear chatter.
You'd hear laughter. And people would just go down to the well, women and children, and then they would come back together. So we just got a clue into the story because that's not normal. Now, we don't know exactly what it means, but the fact that she's coming to the well in the middle of the day and she's coming by herself is just kind of weird. Okay? So Jesus is sitting there.
He's tired. He's thirsty. He's like, jackpot, score. I'm finally going to get something to drink. And he asked her for a drink. In verse 9, The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
And then John adds in the note, For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Okay. Well, this conversation just went to a whole other level. Read that again. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
So Jesus just asked this lady for a drink. Not a whole lot to ask for, right? He's just tired. He's thirsty. And her response is kind of cold, kind of distance, putting him at arm's length. And what we're actually seeing unfold here is a nearly thousand-year-old feud between these two groups of people, between the Jews and the Samaritans.
And if you were with us back in the fall during our Bible story series, we actually touched on this briefly, that after the reign of Solomon, the nation of Israel split in two between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And what we see through the entire Old Testament is that God's promise, His covenant promise remains with the southern kingdom, with Judah. And the northern kingdom does okay for a little while, But over time they start to marry in with different people groups in the area. They start worshiping other gods. Assyria comes in and swallows them up whole and then spits them back out into the region.
And they resettle there. And by the time they're resettled in this area, they're not even referred to as Israelites anymore. They're being referred to as Samaritans. So the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other because the Jews looked down on them because they were half-breeds. They had gone back on their heritage. And the Samaritans hated the Jews because they excluded them.
They just pushed them out. In fact, if a Jew called another Jew a Samaritan, them's fighting words. I mean, that's like a four-letter word to them. Devout Jews at this time. Again, we've got to go back to our imaginary map. I'm sure you haven't forgotten it.
Devout Jews would have to go. Devout Jews so that they could go from Judea to Samaria. Here's what they would do. They would start here in Judea. They would cross the Jordan River. That's my river.
They would cross the river. They would go up the Jordan River until they were parallel with Galilee. And they would cross back over just so that they didn't have to go through the land of the half-breed Samaritans. I mean, that's hatred. That's pure hatred. That would be like me saying to get from Clemson to Charleston, two of the greatest cities in the world.
Amen. All right. To get from Clemson to Charleston, I'm going to cross over into Georgia. I'm going to go from Augusta all the way down to Savannah. And then I'm going to come up the coast to Charleston just so that I don't have to go through the heart of Gamecock country. And trust me, I thought about it.
And then I moved here, so there's that. In fact, people ask me all the time from back home, like, you moved to Columbia to plant a church? I was like, yeah. I mean, somebody's got to share the good news with the Gamecocks. Why does Matt secretly wear orange all the time? Oh, don't.
That's okay. It's okay, guys. You'll come around. And so Jesus is sitting by this well, and the Samaritan woman comes up, and he casually asks her for a drink of water. And she's just like, who are you, a Jew, talking to me, a Samaritan woman? You can just feel that tension.
But not just that. She plays the gender card, too. She says, you're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman. Because that's another thing. In that culture, men and women didn't talk to each other when they were alone like that, especially if they were strangers. So this conversation just keeps getting weirder.
She's coming to the well at a weird time. There's this weird kind of tension in this relationship. She's kind of being cold and calloused. And here's what Jesus said to her. Let's pick it back up in the story.
Verse 10. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Okay, you can picture this, right? There's a smelly Jewish guy.
I'm sweaty. I should say sweaty, not just smelly. He's smelly and sweaty. Jewish guy sitting by the well, and he asks her for a drink of water. And when she rejects him, his response is, oh, yeah? Well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.
And her reaction is like, say what? Bruh, you don't even have a bucket, and the well is deep. I think you've been out in the sun too long. Maybe you're just a little bit dehydrated. And before we go too far with that, it's not, it's probably not like that, where she thought he was crazy for this idea of living water, though we kind of get tripped up on that phrase. It was actually his ability to pull it off.
Because when he's using that phrase living water, living is exactly the same way that we would use the phrase running. We would be saying running water. Now, not like running water out of a faucet, more like you're standing beside a river, and this is running water. This is a constant source of movement. It's this continual welling up of water heading down a stream. So it's not like Jesus walked up and said, hey, you want some of my magic beans?
It's more like well water. I've got a constant source of water you don't even know anything about. And she, again, she's just kind of cold and calloused. And it's like, you don't have a bucket, and this well is deep. And she continues on in verse number 12. She says, who do you think you are?
Who you are in the gift of God. Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well. He drank from it himself. And Jesus responds in 13. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Okay, obviously at this point we're starting to realize that Jesus and this woman are having two different conversations. What she's saying is, give me some of this water so that I don't have to be thirsty again, so I won't have to keep coming up here to the well to draw water. That sounds great.
But Jesus isn't talking about spiritual water. He's not talking about physical water. He's talking about spiritual water. He's talking about something completely different, and she's missing it. Think about what Jesus has said. He said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is talking to you, you'd have asked me and I would have given you living water that would become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
And this metaphor is found all throughout the Old Testament. We're going to see in just a little bit. She's not unaware of these Old Testament passages. She's not unaware of these prophecies. And what Jesus is saying is that this promised Messiah, this promised Redeemer, this river of life that can well up, that can save and bring about eternal life, I'm right here. If you knew who I am and the gift of God, and she is completely missing it.
Verse 16, Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. And the conversation just changed. You ever been in one of those conversations where two people are kind of going back and forth and back and forth, and finally somebody says something and it feels like the air gets sucked out of the room?
That's this moment. You can almost imagine. You can almost imagine her. She's kind of perturbed. She's annoyed with this whole conversation. She's finally got her water bucket.
She's just going to head back down into the village. And Jesus says, Go call your husband. She leans back over her shoulder. I don't have one of those. And Jesus says, Yeah, I know. In fact, I know that you've had five husbands, and the man that you're with now is not your husband.
What you have said is true. Stops her. Dead in her tracks. And now for the first time, all of the details, all the little things that we've begun to see in this conversation begin to add up. The fact that she's going to the well in the middle of the day. The fact that she's alone.
The fact that she seems a little bitter. A little calloused. Playing the Samaritan card. Playing the woman card. What this woman, the way I would describe her, is she's someone that is wounded. This woman, whether it's things that she's done, or things that have been done against her, over her life, she's just built up this brick wall around herself, so that people can't get in.
She's been hurt too much. She's gone through too much. And she just wants to keep people out. And I feel like so many of us in this room kind of do the same thing. We don't want to let people in. And it now begins to make sense why this woman was going to the well in the middle of the day by herself.
And here's what I want us to do. We're going to take a time out. Because so often when we read through scripture, we'll go right by that. And we won't think about the implications of what Jesus just said. What he just brought to light. But I want us to just imagine for a second what life actually would have been like for this woman.
Okay? So Jesus just said that she's had five husbands. Here's the options. Okay? Either all five of her husbands have died, all five of them divorced her, or some combination of that. Okay?
So all five died, all five divorced her, or it was some kind of combination thereof. And most scholars believe that the way the text reads and what it's implying here is the divorce. And here's how divorce worked at that time. Only men could initiate divorce. You ever been in love? Some of you are married.
I hope you're in love now. And it just didn't work out. And you had your heart break. Imagine being this woman, and she's married, and she's been told not once, not twice, but five times, you have no value to me. And this was a public thing. It was done in public.
He would write her a letter, and he would kick her out of the house in public shame. And this has happened five times. And this is the worst possible scenario for her, because she's a woman in a culture that did not value women. And this is a side note, and this one's just for free. This is one of the reasons that I love Jesus, and I love our faith so much, is because for centuries, Christians have been on the forefront of fighting for women's rights, that they would be treated with value, and dignity, and honor, and respect. But that's not what this woman had.
This woman actually had no rights outside of either her father or her husband. No economic standing, no status, no ability to go get a job, no ability to go buy land, nothing. And so when she is kicked from her house, she is left with absolutely nothing. And all a man had to do was to find one little fault, and he could write her a letter, and kick her to the curb. Could you imagine the shame and the pain that she felt? And not only that, what do you think life's like for her right now in this village?
Do you think she has any female friends? No. She's the woman that everyone whispers about. She's the one that they all want to gossip about. And when she walks by in the marketplace, wives whisper to their husband, look at that tramp. I better not ever see you talking to her.
Men probably made jokes at her expense as they heard stories from her divorced husbands. It's probably why she stopped going to the well with the other women. She could feel the judgmental glances. She could hear them whispering. She could hear the giggles. And she just couldn't stand it anymore.
And now the only place that this woman feels accepted is with a man who doesn't even have the decency to marry her. Just use and abuse her. Can you feel that? She's just eking out an existence at this point. She doesn't care about respect anymore. She just wants to survive.
And you've got to imagine at some point she's had to ask the question, what is fundamentally wrong with me? I'm broken. I'm damaged. I'm incapable of being loved. And the truth is, there's some of us in this room this morning that are feeling the exact same way. You've got stuff stored up from your past, things that you've done, things that have been done against you, pain and shame and hurt and regret, things that are in your past, those skeletons in your closet that you don't want anybody to know about because you don't know if you'll be loved.
You don't know if you'll be accepted. Maybe it's a loved one that you feel was stolen from you too soon. You've got bitterness locked up inside. Maybe it's the shame that you feel from being molested by some evil jerk when you were a child. Maybe it's the drug addiction that you hide from your family and friends, unable to cope and figure out what to do next. Maybe it's how a church treated you when you found out you were pregnant before you were married.
In fact, that may be more people in this room that would care to admit that a church or a Christian may have treated them poorly and there's so much pain and there's so much hurt. What if it's the secret that you're hiding that you're actually secretly attracted to the same gender? Maybe it's your living situation. Having to lie, having to fake it with your family and friends that you're living with someone you're not married to. You feel alone and isolated and you've just kind of decided that this is how life is going to be. You've gotten really good at faking it.
When the subject's brought up in a conversation, you've gotten really good at just kind of steering it the opposite direction. Pretending on the outside that you're fine while on the inside, you are an absolute mess. Asking the question, how could God ever love me? I'm so dirty. I've got so much shame. I've got so much regret.
And what has happened is that you've allowed the past to define who you are. As the past has begun to define who you are. And this woman is in the exact same situation. She is at the end of her rope. She's hurt. She's got so much pain and she doesn't know what to do with it.
She's got this brick wall that she's built up around her. And Jesus, brick by brick, is tearing this wall down and she finally goes on the final assault. She finally throws it all out there. Verse 19. Pick it back up. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming, He who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Jesus and this woman keep going back and forth and back and forth and finally she throws out her card.
I know that when the Messiah comes, I know that when the Christ comes, He'll be able to tell us all these things. He'll be able to answer all the hard questions. He'll be able to help me cope with what's happened to me. He'll love me. He'll accept me. And Jesus lovingly in the midst of this conversation through her pain and shame and regret says, I who speak to you am He.
I'm right here. I didn't walk away. I didn't go anywhere. The pain and the shame and the regret. I know you've had all that. I know you've had five husbands.
I know that the man you're with now is not your husband. And I'm right here. And if you're sitting in this room this morning and your heart is breaking and all the words that I'm saying, realize very clearly that Jesus' response is exactly the same to you. And it's the main point of everything that we're talking about this morning. And it's this. Your past does not have to define who you are.
Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. Don't just hear it. Let it sink in. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. In this conversation Jesus just walks up and lovingly starts pulling down the bricks in this wall.
Samaritan, I don't care. Woman, I got that. Okay? Five husbands, I don't care. Jesus lovingly pulls down the bricks in her wall. And that's exactly what He wants to do with you.
He wants to lovingly bust through that wall. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and a new identity with Him. Let me ask you this question. Why do you think you're sitting in this room this morning because Jesus is saying I'm right here and it gets even better. It keeps going guys.
Verse 27. Pick it back up. Just then His disciples came back. They marveled that He was talking with a woman but no one said what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water czar and went away into town and said to the people come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to Him. Your past does not have to define who you are. Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. This woman met Jesus and it changed everything. The scars that she thought would never go away were healed.
The pain that she thought would never subside went away. The shame that she carried was finally set aside because she was filled up by Jesus. She didn't even care about the water bucket anymore because she had found the gift of God. She had found Jesus and by that Jesus had filled all the empty places in her. All the void in her He had filled it. Her past no longer defined who she was.
She had been given new life and identity in Him. And in fact she's so overwhelmed by who Jesus is and what He's done that she just straight up leaves the water bucket and goes running back into town yelling at the top of her lungs come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? To the same women who had whispered about her to the same men that had shunned her likely to the same family and possibly some of her ex-husbands that had kicked her out because her past no longer defined who she was and the people could see it. It says the people actually came out of the town and followed her and what we're seeing in this story is a beautiful accurate picture of exactly what Jesus ultimately does for all of us.
Jesus came to this earth to take care of all of our past. All of our sin. All of our shame. All of our regret, hurt and pain. Our inability to get things right or to do good things and He died the death that we should die. Jesus paid for our past and He swapped His life for ours.
So He gives us a new life and identity in Him. He rescues us. He redeems us. He calls us fully loved, fully accepted. We are made sons and daughters. You see, this woman's past was not too much for Jesus to handle.
That's why Isaiah 53 says this, He was pierced for our transgressions, sins. He was crushed for our iniquities, another word for sins. Upon Him was the chastisement or the punishment that brought us peace and by His wounds we are healed. The reason this woman was able to run back into the town and yell at the top of her lungs is that she had left her old identity behind and had found her new identity in Him. She didn't care what people thought anymore. She wasn't living in the past.
She was looking to Jesus for her identity and for her life. Do you see the invitation that's being extended to you this morning too? Because Jesus has the same response to all of us. Maybe you're sitting in the room this morning and you're not a Christian. You're just kind of checking this Jesus thing out. His response is the same to you. your past does not have to define who you are.
Jesus gives you a new life and identity in Him. And you're saying, Matt, you don't know what I've done. You don't know what's been done to me. And what I would like to share with you is the gospel is that salvation is not based off of your work, but Jesus' work on your behalf. So whether it's the things that you do well or the things that you do that are bad or the bad things that have been done against you, Jesus says, I can take care of it.
You don't have to live in the past anymore. I'll give you new life and identity in me. And maybe you're in the room this morning, you're a Christian, but you would say you're in that category. That there's not a day goes by that you don't think about that thing, that that feeling doesn't creep into your mind, that you're not reminded of shame and pain and hurt. Jesus' response is the same to you. Your past does not define who you are.
You've already been given a new life and a new identity with him and Jesus is just saying walk in it. Don't let the past define who you are. You've been given new life and a new identity with me and you've been given a group of people that you get to walk through life with that at some point have all raised their hands and said, Jesus, take care of my past. Give me a new life and identity in you. You don't have to keep that brick wall up. You get to share it and let it out.
You don't have to carry those burdens and that baggage anymore. And maybe you're a Christian in the room and this story doesn't necessarily resonate with you. You wouldn't say that you're wounded or that you're kind of haunted by your past. Jesus shows us very clearly what it looks like for us to relate to someone who's wounded. Their past does not define who they are. Jesus gives them new life and a new identity in him. which means that we sit and listen not in judgment or condemnation but in love and compassion.
It means we open up our homes and create environments where people can be open and share the mess of their lives. There are going to be times where you have to sacrifice money, time, resources. You're going to have to pour yourself out so that others can be filled up. That's exactly what Jesus did for this woman. And you get to do so by pointing them towards Jesus. Raz and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to stand and sing a song in a second.
And I want you to respond however you feel like Jesus is leading you to. If you're not a Christian and you have this feeling, you have this sense, Matt, I want that to be true for me. I don't want the past to define who I am. I want this new life. I want this identity. The Bible says that you're to repent of your sin, which means that you're just willing to admit it and turn away from and you place your faith in Jesus for this to be true, that he can give you new life and new identity.
If you're a Christian in the room and you're wounded, as we stand and sing, if you just need to let it out, go grab somebody in our church family, go off to the side and talk to them about it. Let it out. Let them pray over you. Let them point you back towards the gospel. Some of you may need to make a phone call and talk to somebody during this time. And for all of us, we're going to stand and praise Jesus because our past does not have to define who we are.
We're given new life and a new identity in him. Let's pray. God, please let that be true in this room. I pray that that truth would sink into our hearts, that it wouldn't just be in our heads, that it would actually be in our hearts, that we would understand that that's true. And Holy Spirit, we pray that you would move in this time, that you would draw us close to you, help us to realize that our past doesn't have to define us. We're given new life and a new identity in you.
Amen.
Jesus and the Religious
Transcript
Well, good morning. We are in our third week of our Jesus and People series. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. And what we've been doing in this series is we've been taking some time to just look at... The Bible says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
It says that in Colossians 1. It says in Hebrews 1 that he's the exact imprint of his nature. So that when we look at Jesus, we actually get to see the character and nature of God. And so we kind of have this understanding of how does God feel about me? Or we have questions about how does God feel about me? How would he interact with me?
And so what we've been doing in Jesus and People is just taking a look at how Jesus interacted with different groups of people, different types of people to see how does God actually respond or feel about me if I kind of fit in that category. So the first two weeks, if you fit into the category, you pretty much knew. So last week, Mac talked about that you had your identity wrapped up in past events, that you were kind of wounded. You had some past stuff that you thought defined who you were. And the week before that, we talked about people who were just completely at the end of the rope and just absolutely desperate.
And so there wasn't really a whole lot of like, when we were talking the first week about being desperate, you probably weren't sitting there going, now am I desperate? Am I in a really bad spot currently? Like do I have options or not? Like you kind of know. You're either that's me, that's where I am, or you don't. Today is going to be a little bit different because what we're going to talk about is sneaky and hides.
And so if it is you, if you kind of fit in this category, you most likely don't know. You most likely don't walk around thinking, that's me, that's you talking to me right now. Like you just don't know. And so I'm going to pray. Let's pray together that the Lord would speak to us, reveal to us where this shows up in our own hearts and our lives, so that we might best follow him.
God, we ask for your grace. We ask for your Holy Spirit to expose us today, that we might see clearly how we ought to approach you, how we ought to understand how the gospel applies to our hearts, so that we might follow you, that we might love you, and that we might feel and know your love. And we praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Some of you came in today and maybe you've been hanging out in Christianity a little while, or you've been checking this Jesus thing out, but most everybody knows two things about Jesus.
And so maybe you came in today and these are the only two things you know about Jesus. And you maybe have never taken the time to think about how these two things aren't really coherent together. Like they don't make a whole lot of sense. So thing one that everybody knows about Jesus, Jesus was the nicest person who ever lived. Like he's just the best. Like he would hug you if you were ugly.
That's who Jesus is. Like Jesus is just the best. He was humble. He was kind. He was loving. He was nice.
That's the first thing everybody knows about Jesus. Like if you ask somebody, hey, do you think you and Jesus would be friends? He'd be like, yeah, I think Jesus is great. Like I don't have a problem with Jesus. Thing two that we know about Jesus. Sorry, this is a two.
This is a one. Thing two that we know about Jesus, he was brutally murdered by people that hated him. Okay. Thing one, nicest person ever. Thing two, brutally murdered by people that hated him. Now that's not usually how that goes.
Like there aren't a whole lot of people that are like, that Mother Teresa, she makes me sick. Like that doesn't really happen. Like it doesn't make a lot of sense that Jesus was the nicest person ever and brutally murdered by people that hated him. Like those aren't really coherent together. And what we find as we look in the gospels and we see Jesus interacting with people is that Jesus does not get along well with religious people. Jesus does not get along well with religious people.
Now that seems weird too. Because you're like, wait, didn't he start a religion? Like aren't his followers like religious people? Like isn't that, hey bro, isn't that what we're doing right now? I can't know what this is. Like Jesus would be mad at us?
Like what's, what's going on? Like that's, that's kind of what, and the answer is no. Jesus didn't start a religion. He wasn't religious. And what we mean by religion, when we're talking about religion today, and when we're talking about religion mostly is this, this idea that what I do, my, my work, my effort, my behavior is what earns something with God. So most religions are basically do this, don't do that, and God will love you.
Do this and don't do that. You'll reach nirvana. Be this type of person. Be this nationality. It's, it's all about you. And so basically religion is this.
I obey and therefore God loves me. I obey. I behave. I'm moral. I follow the rules. I obey.
And therefore God loves me. And it actually can equate to, I obey. And therefore God owes me. Like I've, I've punched the clock. I've done my moral thing. I've earned it.
He owes me. That's religion. The gospel, which is what Jesus came to present, to do, to accomplish is God loves me. Specifically, God loves me in Christ in that he would die for me, pay for my sins, pay my debt, and give me his life when he rose again. So God loves me in Jesus.
Therefore, I obey. Because I'm loved. From a position of freedom, from a position of being loved, therefore I obey. Two very different things. And on the outside can look very similar. So, they both obey.
So, in this room, a person who's absolutely been radically changed by the gospel, and believes, I'm loved by God through Jesus, therefore I obey. And someone who believes I obey, therefore God loves me, would look very similar. Show up on Sundays. Give of your time, of your money. Be a part of a community group. Serve.
You'd be doing all the same steps in a lot of ways. Look very similar, and your heart and your motivation would be in two completely different places. One is from a position of rest and love, a family, of being adopted as a child of God through Jesus. And the other one is, as a position of earning and work and effort, trying to get God's favor. Look the same. Two very different positions.
The way I think about it sometimes is romantic comedies. And this is the plot to like 17 different romantic comedies. But it's the same plot. I'm going to do the teenage version of it. And as soon as I start talking about it, you'll go, oh, I know that movie. Yeah, you do.
You know five of this movie. But let's just go with the basic one. This is the plot. Really cool guy. Most likely athletic. Kind of a jerk.
Bets his friends that he can take any girl in the school and make her prom queen. So they pick the most awkward, terrible girl they can think of, who is the same girl at the end, but just with her hair up and glasses. And then she takes the glasses off, puts her hair down. Everybody's like, what the heck? Kind of like the Superman thing. But so he picks this girl and then he begins to pursue her.
So he puts in all this effort, these actions. He begins to talk to her, say nice things to her, take her out. He goes after her. And his behavior looks very similar. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, though, he falls in love with her. He realizes that she can, she has a heart.
She's not just good at math. He falls for her. Usually after she takes her hair out of the ponytail. That happens somewhere in the middle. And so then he, no offense to people with ponytails today, it's just how the movie works. I didn't write it.
I'm just telling you what it was like. People in the back pulling their ponytail around. But, uh, so he falls in love with her and then the actions look the same. He actually goes further. He pursues more. He cares more.
At the beginning, it was about himself. At the beginning, it was about earning something, achieving something. It was about his own notoriety, his own status. At the beginning, he did all of these actions, but they terminated on him. And at the end of the movie, he does all the same actions and actually even more. Like he shows up and sings a song or whatever and super embarrassing or whatever.
But he does even more, but it's about her. It's about pursuing, like genuinely their relationship, that he cares about her, that he knows that she cares about him even though he's messed this all up because she found out or whatever. Does that make sense? So you've got the first half of the movie, which is basically what religion is. Going through the same motions, but it terminates on us. And then you've got the back half of the movie, which is what the gospel is.
It's all about Jesus. And it's about where we, the position, the relationship that we already have and not trying to maintain it, but for the joy of the relationship pursuing it. So in our basic understanding, if we thought about it, we would think this. This is how most of us understand stuff. God likes good people. There are good people and bad people.
There are moral people and immoral people. There are those who behave and those who misbehave. And God likes the good people. Like if God was going to show up on earth, he'd like the good people. And so when you read through the gospels and you look at the Pharisees, the Pharisees are like the best example of good people. Now, if you've read the Bible much, when you read Pharisee, you think bad guy, but you wouldn't.
That's actually not helpful. You wouldn't have thought that if you were a first century Jewish person. The Pharisees were religious leaders. You would have thought good guy. They were very moral. They behaved really well.
They taught scripture. They memorized scripture. They knew it backwards and forwards. You would ask them your Bible questions. They were the good guys. May have been a little bit stuck up about it and kind of jerks, but you still wanted them on your class project in Hebrew school.
Like they were the good guys. And so what we would see, since God likes the good guys, when he became a person, when Jesus showed up, he would be hanging out with the Pharisees. They'd be fist pumping all the time. Like one of them would quote Leviticus and he'd be like, dude, up top. And they would high five. They'd be best friends, right?
Because God loves the good guys. You would look at them and think, if God loves anybody, it's these people. If God cares about anybody, these people. If he's proud of anybody, it's these people. If he has favor on anybody, it's these guys. And what we see is that Jesus shows up and he and the religious people, those who behave really, really well, those who are very, very moral, very, very good, it's those people that they can't stand each other, that he says really mean things, really un-Jesus-y things, the way we think of Jesus.
Because you know Jesus, he like wears a white robe and he kind of floats. Like we know he has feet, but he's a little floaty because you can't see his feet because of how long his robes are. And he holds a lamb. Sometimes a single tear just rolls down his eye and you just know he thought something super profound and was really touched by something. He says stuff to the Pharisees that you just assume he had to have put the lamb down. Like it just got serious.
And he was like, like either covers the lamb's ears or he's like, you know what? No, no, I'm putting my lamb down. This is about to get real. Like he says stuff to Pharisees that you're like, this isn't, this is not nice. And so what we're going to see is that Jesus, when it comes up against religion, when he comes up against the idea that I obey, therefore God loves me, there's animosity, there's anger because they completely miss the point. Turn to Luke chapter 11.
We're going to look at a story of Jesus at a, at a, I love this story because Jesus is in a, at a house party. He's at a dinner party and at a Pharisee's house. So we're in Luke chapter 11. That'll be on page 556, 550, no, sorry, 565. It's probably written up behind me. I'm winging it here, guys.
565, If your Bible looks like this. Luke chapter 11, we're going to start in verse 37. While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So Jesus is teaching out in open air area. A Pharisee comes over and says, will you come dine with me? So he went in and reclined at table.
Off to a good start. Want to come eat at my house? Sure. Walks in, sits at the table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Now, this isn't like a germs thing.
They didn't know about germs the way we know about germs. So this wasn't like my grandmother who wants to squirt hand sanitizer all over everything all the time. It's not that. It was a ceremonial, added to the law thing. So the Old Testament law, the Pharisees had gone through, looked at the law, and added in their own little rules of how you applied it better and how you could be more pious and how you could be more holy.
And so they took Scripture and added to it. So Jesus didn't do the added to stuff. But they would have been lined up. The Pharisees, we know that there are lawyers there, which just meant that they studied the Hebrew, the Jewish law. They would have known the Torah backward and forward and taught on, here's how to apply the law. They would have been probably in line waiting to get to this ceremonial jug to wash ceremonially to show their piety and how much they cared and how much they followed well.
And Jesus walks in and plops down at the table and is like, let's eat. Y'all got mashed potatoes? Like he just sits at the table and it says that the Pharisee was astonished. He's scandalized by this. It doesn't say he says anything, so I just assume he did his best like puckered up religious face, which was just like, like looking back and forth at Jesus, like you see this guy? Like he's washing his hands, he's looking at the other like Pharisees and lawyers, like are you kidding me right now?
He's not going to wash. And so this is what Jesus says, assuming just to his face. He says it to his face, says it because of his face is what I meant there. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Verse 39, And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Well that escalated quickly.
Just a little rule on manners. When you get invited to someone's home, break a house rule, and then tell your hosts that they're idiots. Probably didn't know that. It's in the chapter after which fork to use for your salad. But this seems like a very non, like Jesus just gets intense very quickly in his main point.
And what we're going to see the rest of this is he's going to unpack what he just said, which is you only care about the external. You wash the outside of the cup and the dish. And they're like, okay, what does this have to do? And then he immediately says, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You only care about external. You only care about what this looks like.
You only care about behavior. You're only a, I obey, therefore God loves me. It has nothing to do with a loving relationship, nothing to do with following, nothing to do with resting in God. It's I obey. It's my behavior. So he says it's all external.
39. And the Lord said to him, now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside all but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplace.
Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. 45. And one of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. So the lawyer's like, whoa. You know, when you put the Pharisees on blast like you just did, that was a little bit offensive to me. The lawyer assuming, can't really be talking to me, just wanted to clarify, maybe you should, you know, whatever to the Pharisees, but apologize to me maybe.
This is what Jesus says. 46. And he said, woe to you lawyers also. Oh, guy should have kept his mouth shut. Sorry. Jesus was like, oh, are you confused as to whether or not you are included?
Let me say the word lawyer so that we're clear. Woe to you lawyers also, for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed, so you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.
Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. As he went away from there, so it seems as if he did not stay and eat, he didn't stop and say, pass the biscuits. Furious leaves. As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say.
Make a little more sense as to why the religious people hated him and wanted to kill him. Jesus' response to everybody, he shows up and says, you're a sinner and you need to repent. And people who were in flagrant, immoral rebellion had been told consistently, you're a sinner and you need to come be good. You need to come behave. You need to earn your way back. And at some point, it was, you've sinned too much.
You can't come back. You're out. We're in. Jesus says, you're a sinner and you need to come back. You need to come back. You're welcomed in.
My burden is easy. My yoke is light. There's nothing to earn. Come in. And so when he says to sinners, you're a sinner, they say, yeah. Can you help with that?
He says, absolutely. And then he looks at religious people and he says, you're a sinner and you need to repent. And they say, you're evil. You're wrong. And they kill him. Because the response of religion to grace is to try to destroy it.
The idea that you don't have to earn it, but you can just be freely welcomed in. Religion doesn't like that because religion loves earning something, loves obeying to achieve status, to achieve favor. So here's what we're going to do today. Jesus basically says this. You only care about the external. And then he gives a bunch of cultural examples about how that shows up.
So for us, most of us don't tithe mint, rue, and herb. Like you hadn't bought a spice rack from Bed Bath & Beyond and went home and weighed out 10% of it and brought spices here and was like, next time we have some chicken, pour some of that thyme on it. Like that hadn't happened. Most of us, I don't think any of us have built a tomb for a prophet. Like he's going through and saying, this is how it shows up. None of us like the best seat in a synagogue.
So, what we're going to do as best we can is we're going to walk through and try to give cultural examples of where religion, where self-righteousness, shows up. Now, here's why this is important. There are some people in this room, three people in this room, you're not a Christian, checking things out, and basically you maybe have understood that Christianity is a set of behaviors. It's a come follow the rules so that God will love you. It is not. Hopefully this is clarifying.
There may be some people in here who genuinely are Christians. You have trusted Jesus. You've believed the gospel. But religion is like weeds that grow in the garden of the gospel. It's briars that wrap itself around so that it begins to grow and it's hard to fight. We tend to lean towards religious ideas, religious efforts, and self-righteousness even if we understand the gospel.
So as best we can, we're going to try to diagnose that today. Some of you in here have grown up in the church, have heard a lot of things about Jesus, have memorized a lot of Bible verses, read your Bible, study, pray, give money, show up, serve, and you are not a Christian. You have trusted in yourself. You have trusted in your behavior. You have trusted in your own self-righteousness, your own religious activities. You are very much in the I obey and therefore God loves me camp and you are not a Christian.
And Jesus cares enough to say, repent and trust me. Repent of all of your very, very good works. repent of all of your really good morals that you think you can stack up in front of me and I somehow owe you. Repent of all the reasons why you've done all these good things because ultimately they terminated on yourself. Now, there was two responses to what Jesus said. One was anger. If you just got angry, good, pay attention.
Religious people don't like grace. This is a good opportunity to repent. The other was you cannot be talking to me. That was what the lawyers said. And if you're in that camp, pay attention. Let's try to weed out some religion.
Let's try to weed out some areas where it's grown up in our hearts and led us astray. So he says this, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish but inside you're full of greed and wickedness, you fools. Did not he who made the outside make the inside also but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you. If you're religious, it's all about external, not the heart. It's all about the external, not the heart. So for a religious person, even a person who says I'm a Christian, your way of knowing how you're relating to God is based solely on your behavior.
Am I doing the right stuff? Am I not doing the wrong stuff? Only behavior. Has nothing to do with Jesus, has nothing to do with his sacrifice. You realize maybe that was the door that got you in but the way that you relate, the way that you understand your Christian walk is am I doing the stuff? Are my externals good?
And then it doesn't matter how you change those because it's not a heart issue just as long as you're not doing the external wrong stuff and you are doing the external good stuff, it doesn't matter how you go about changing them. So you may have like an accountability partner, y'all get together and your main goal is how did you fail this week? How have you sinned? How have you fallen short? Because the only goal is behave well because that's how we know that God cares about us. And the way that we spur ourselves on, pride, fear, guilt and shame.
So pride is, I'm a Christian, I'm better than this. I'm not that type of person. I'm strong enough to say no to this sin. That's what you look at your person that you're walking through stuff with. When you get in your community group, that's what you appeal to. You don't point people to the gospel, you appeal to pride.
You're better than that, come on. You're a man. You've grown up in the church. Fear? What if your wife found out? What would happen if you got caught?
No love for Jesus, just fear. Guilt? How would you feel if you did that? I can't believe that you'd be that type of person. And we spur ourselves on with this, we spur other people on with this, and we spur our children on with it too. You don't want to be like that person.
You don't want to be that type of person. You want to be a, your last name's Phillips. Have some pride. It's not the gospel. And there's no rest there. But it's all about external behavior.
So as long as you're behaving morally, you don't really question your heart, as long as the actions are good, you feel like you're fine, you've related to God fine. You look to other people's external sin to value, to understand their value. The next thing he says is, as he begins to explain how this plays out, he said, Woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint, rue, and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. He says, you do these rule-following, minutia things. They tithe out of their spice rack.
He says, you should do that, but you've missed the point. You've missed the whole heart behind it. You don't love God. It's just about following rules. Religious people love rules. They especially love rules that aren't in the Bible that they've added to the other rules so that they can know whether or not they're good.
Here's what happens in religion. You oscillate between pride and despair. Either you're doing the stuff and so you feel great. God loves me. We're rocking along. He's proud of me.
I have value. I have worth. Or you're falling short and you feel terrible. God's mad at me. He's disappointed in me. He can't love me.
Look at me. And the gospel negates both of those because our righteousness, our good works are found in Jesus and our debt's been paid in Jesus. So when we fail, the gospel's true. And when we succeed, the gospel's true. We don't oscillate between pride and despair. The other thing we love about rules is that it gives us a level of control.
If my relationship with God is based off of my behavior, then I have some rights. I have some say. There's a limit to what he can ask of me. My relationship with God is based off of behavior. Then there's only so much he can ask and he owes me.
So if we're religious, when things go poorly, there's either self-loathing, I failed, God's punishing me. You try to figure out, something bad happens in your life and you try to figure out what you did wrong. Why would God not let me have that? Why would God have this relationship break up? You try to point out, this must be what I'm being punished for. Or, you've been really good, so you're mad at God.
You owe me a spouse. You owe me. I true love waited. You owe me. I kissed dating goodbye and you owe me. I've worked really hard.
How could this happen? I've been praying, I've been going, I've been serving, I've been doing all the stuff you want. How could I lose my job? Because your understanding of your relationship with God is based solely on your behavior. And there's no rest there. And there's no peace there.
And there's no life there. And it just makes joyless obedience. Joyless manipulated obedience rather than genuine love and following. And you've missed the point. Because the point is that we would love God, that we would understand His love for us, that we would understand justice and love, which is the cross, that God paid for sin and that He loves us so much that He would pour grace out on us. And He says, these you ought to have done, you ought to follow, you ought to do these things, but it's not about that.
You ought to serve, you ought to give. It's not about that though. You've missed the point if you think you're earning something. Here's the thing, when it comes down to rules, Jesus doesn't have to exist. Jesus doesn't have to exist if my relationship is based off of rule following. If I'm good based off of my own merit, then it just gets to be about me and I get to be in control of the situation.
Jesus doesn't have to exist. But since Jesus does exist and God's a God of grace, He's not controlled by our actions, good or bad, but freely just pours everything out. So when we get religious, there's no rest, there's no joy, there's no peace, and the only way we understand our relationship to God is are we checking the things off the list? Are we doing the right behaviors? When you're religious, you'll repent. You'll understand that you're going to fail and you'll repent, but even your repentance has to measure up.
Was I guilty enough? Did I feel bad enough? Did I pray hard enough? Did I beat myself up enough? See the gospel, you don't get to beat yourself up. Jesus was already beat up for you.
Your repentance doesn't have to measure up, but when we become religious, even our failures have to measure up. Then He says this, Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace. Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves. People walk over you without knowing it. When we become religious, it all becomes about title and position and prominence and being looked up to, being the one who has the answers. I'm the girl in our group that everybody comes and talks to.
I'm the one everyone can confide in. I'm the one that helps manage everybody's sin issues. I'm the most helpful. Religion begins to show up in, I'm the one who understands the gospel the most. When our group gets together and talks and everybody's giving advice, I give the gospel. I help people know that the gospel, that's why I'm better than everybody.
Isn't that cute? I love being self-righteous towards self-righteous people. Look at these religious people. Idiots. I'm better than they are. See how sneaky it is?
Confess sin and somebody just gives you advice and you think, no, you should have pointed me to Jesus. You failed. You don't give them the gospel, but you want them to give it to you. That's why you can't confess sin. Or you can only confess safe sin. Yeah, I've only prayed an hour a day this past week and I've only memorized half of Leviticus when I was planning on memorizing the whole thing by now.
I really feel for you, bro. Like you can only confess safe sin. You can't be real about where your heart is. You can't be real about what's going on. When you do sin, you only care if people know about it because it's all about the external and it's all about how you're perceived. You see, if it's based off of our work, then I need to be beating the people around me.
So you'll point out where you're strong and where other people are weak. That's how religion shows up a lot in marriages. Here's where I'm good and here's where he fails. Here's where I'm doing all of this and here's where she's an idiot. Because you need to be perceived as better. When you sin, you image manage, you try to hide it, try to spin the story.
You won't confess. So if somebody catches you in sin, you're going to wait as long as you possibly can until they completely say, this is what I know you did. And then you'll say, yeah, I did kind of do those things. Because you think it's about prominence. You think it's about your position. You think it's about how you're viewed because that's the only way you understand your relationship to God.
There is no freedom. There is no grace. There is no ability to fail because you have to be seen as good. You take criticism very poorly. Religion, religious people take criticism very, very poorly. Criticism isn't fun for anybody.
Sometimes you're just receiving some, some loving correction. But you know why some of you, criticism eats away at you for days or weeks? Is because the only way you understand how you're doing is based off of how other people view you. So you immediately become defensive. You immediately fight back. You immediately respond with things like, well, pretty big words for someone who's been divorced.
Couldn't even keep your marriage together. Because the goal is not to grow. It's not to love Jesus more. It's to look good. And to be better than those around you. It also makes you very critical.
If half of everything you say is a complaint, it's because you want to make sure everybody knows that you've noticed, that you're elevated, and everybody else falls short. That's religion. And that's why they loved prominence, and they loved being greeted, and they loved best seats in marketplaces because that's how they understood their worth. And he says this, you're an unmarked grave. You're dead, and the only goal is to not let people know. You're dead, but as long as no one knows, that's okay.
There's no life, there's no joy, there's no hope, there's no freedom. You're dead, but as long as it's hidden, that's okay. So the goal is not love for Jesus. The goal is not grow in grace. The goal is not be real in the context of community. The goal is look good, pretend to be good, pretend to have it all together, make sure that people think highly of you so that you can know that you're okay.
See, eventually it just becomes, let me look good. Reality has left the room. You have a lot of secret sin, a lot of inward greed and wickedness, a lot of brokenness, but you can't bring that out into the light because the only way you know how to relate to God is to be thought well of, to look good, and to have your external behavior looking okay. And he says, you're the fool. Eventually, when we're dead, and the only goal is to not let people know, that we're a grave, and the only goal is to not have a tombstone, you're the fool. You have fooled no one, you're the fool.
And at the end of it, when you stand before God to be judged, you're the fool. You only care about your sin if someone else knows about it. You only care about external behavior. The only way you know how to relate to God is am I measuring up by following the rules? Do I behave well enough? And here's why I think Jesus is as furious as he is when he relates to religious people.
I think this is why he's as furious as he is. And I think we see it in two places in what he says, and we're gonna end here, try to understand a little bit of Jesus' anger. He says, you tithe mint, rue, and herb. You do all the little works. And you miss justice and the love of God. You miss the main point.
You miss the gospel. You've based it off of behavior. Here's the biggest problem with religion. It's all about you. That's the problem with religion. It's all about you.
It's all about self-righteousness. It's all about your work, your behavior, your moral conformity, your good effort. So you may give to the poor. You may feed the hungry. You may serve. You may work really hard, but you're in the first half of the movie.
All of your selflessness is actually selfishness because it just terminates on you. You're feeding yourself, clothing yourself, serving yourself. Because at the end of the day, you think it's added to the bottom of your ledger that you get to present to God. And the problem is, with religion, it's all about you. That's how you can gather in a room. Churches gather all over the place and they just talk about, here's how to do better.
Here's how to try harder. Jesus never shows up because he doesn't need to be here. He's not the hero you are. That's how we get in our groups and all we give people is, here's how I used to be like that and then I changed. Here's how I got better. Here's how you could be better.
Here's how you can do better and try harder because Jesus isn't the hero you are. And the problem with religion is that we are claiming, please God, judge me. Let me stand before you on my own merit. Let me stand before you on my own righteousness. When we come to the judgment day and I stand before you, please weigh me out, measure me, you'll see that I'm good enough. And Jesus hates it and he hates religion because it's all about you and you will fall short.
Just behaving just makes you an unmarked grave, which means that you can be in a church, you can be in a group, you can lead a group, you can hang out forever and be dead, never raised to life by Jesus, never given life by Jesus and stand before God and be weighed out and measured on your own merit because that's what you've always wanted. And he hates it. The second thing is what he says to the lawyers. Woe to you lawyers also. Before we get into that, let me tell you something that happens when we become religious, when we begin to only follow rules. You might share the gospel, but only because you know there's no joy in it.
Your offer to people is come behave, come be good like me. So there's no joy in sharing the gospel. There's no joy in inviting people to come slave away with you. But you might do it because you know it's one of the things you're supposed to check off the list. There's no desire to be on mission. There's no desire to help people meet Jesus just to behave.
But you know that one of the things you're supposed to do is check that off the list. So you'll do that because you know it's one of the things you're supposed to do. But there's no desire. There's no brokenness over the fact that there are people in our city who don't know Jesus. There's no brokenness over it. There's no joy in pursuing people that don't know Jesus.
You do it some because you know you're supposed to check it off the list. Here's the thing he says to the lawyers. Woe to you lawyers also for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. Religion lies about the gospel. Religion lies about the gospel and we believe religion.
We lie about the gospel. We take the key. We don't go in and we keep others from coming in. So someone comes to you and says how do I follow Jesus? How do I become a Christian? You say well here's the list of rules.
Here's the list of behaviors. Here's how to come be good. Here's some guilt. Here's some fear. Here's some shame. God's going to judge you.
You should feel bad. Be proud of who you are as a Christian and we've lied about the gospel. We've stood in the way of the door. Jesus comes to say there is no burden. There is no weight. I've paid for all of it.
I offer you grace and what we stand and say is come be good like me. Please come work with me. Please come slave away with me. We can all be good together and then one day we'll all get to stand before God and be judged on our own merit. Please join me in seeking after your own righteousness and being condemned on your own work and your own effort. And it's a lie.
Jesus loves us enough to say you don't want it to be about you. And the gospel is a much more beautiful truth than come earn it. He died to pay for everything. He declares that it is finished. There is no effort. There is no behavior.
There is no work that you're going to bring before God. We get to show up empty handed. We get to show up completely broken. Nothing's added to our account. All of it was paid by Jesus. The call to the gospel is not come be good.
There are not good people and bad people. There are people and Jesus. And the call of the gospel is to come trust Jesus. Which means that for those of us in flagrant rebellious immoral sin repent of your sin. And for those of us who are religious moral upright and have done all the right actions repent of the reason why you did all that good stuff. Because ultimately it was just about you.
Jesus offers grace to everyone. Hope to everyone. And we can have freedom and life and joy in Jesus. Some of us in the room you need to erect a tombstone. And you need to be raised to life. that's what's offered to us in Jesus. Admit you're dead.
There's no shame in that. There's no shame or guilt at the cross. Just freedom and life and hope. And for those of us who are Christians but are allowing religion to creep in becoming more critical trying to posture ourselves so that we look good the call's the same. Repent and come and know Jesus and come and trust the gospel. I'm going to pray.
Father we thank you for your grace and your love. We thank you for your joy and the hope that we have in you. God help us to see where we're trusting ourselves. Help us to see where we've ceased to follow you. Cease to rest in you. And God please help us when we want it to be about us when we lie about the gospel.
And for that person or those persons in this room today that know a lot about you but don't know you and are currently asking you to measure them on their own self-righteousness. God in your grace help them see it. Help them to erect a tombstone today so they can be given life by you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Jesus and the Desperate
Transcript
You are listening to a message from the Gathering of Mill City Church in West Columbia, South Carolina. I'm very excited we're getting to start a new series today. So what we try to do as a church family is kind of stay on the same topic for a couple weeks at a time so that we can all kind of gather around that, think through the same stuff together. And so what we're doing for the next several weeks is we're going to be doing a series called Jesus and People. And then after that we're going to be walking verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter throughout the summer. And so we're excited about both of these.
This series, what we're shooting for, what we're trying to do is understand how God would respond to us as individuals in our normal everyday life. So what happens is I think sometimes we have this vague understanding of God. Or depending on kind of how you grew up and your background and what you've learned about God or been taught by God, sometimes taught about God. Sometimes we feel like maybe God's angry. Like if we sat down with Him, He'd be mad at us or frustrated with us or that He's got a lot of anger towards us that we don't measure up. Sometimes I think we have this vague sense that God's loving and He's just good and He probably loves everybody.
And even if we think about that, though, I've met some people who feel like God is just loving and He's good. And then as you keep asking questions, it's like, well, yeah, but if I talked with Him, He loves everybody. But if He sat down with me, I just feel like He'd be a little bit disappointed, a little bit frustrated, a little bit wished that I would do better. We have this understanding that – and so what we're shooting for is to just look at Jesus and how He interacts with people in the Gospels. And the reason is the Bible tells us that Jesus is God. Colossians 1.15 is going to say that He is the image of the invisible God.
So the Creator God that exists that you don't just see when you're on your way to work, but you kind of see His work. What we see is that Jesus is Him as a human, that Jesus is God when He became a person, that God relates to humans so much that He actually became one, that He actually took on flesh. And then He interacts with real people, broken people, confused people, hurting people, self-righteous people, that Jesus interacts with them. And so what we're trying to do is just take a look at who are the people He interacts with and how can we learn from that how God would respond to us. And so we're kind of looking twofold at this.
One is if you fit in the category of what we're studying that week, if we're looking at a specific person and that's kind of you, what we want to understand is this is how God would respond to us because this is how Jesus responds. This is how Jesus interacts. This is what He calls that individual to. And the other one is if it's not you, if you don't fit in that category, for us to as a church family learn how we ought to respond. For us as a church family to see how Jesus responds because Jesus is our hero and our Savior and He is God, but He is also an example. He's not just an example, but He is an example, and we get to learn how we ought to respond to people.
And so I think sometimes the church – I don't think sometimes. This is correct. The church ought to respond to people, treat people the way that Jesus does. But I think sometimes the church doesn't get that correct. So if you're just hanging out and you're checking out this whole Jesus thing and you're like, yeah, I've seen how the church treats this group of people or I've seen how the church treats me or I just have looked at the church and they're hypocrites and they're off.
I want to say two things to that. One is a lot of times I think we look at the church and we say, man, look at how messed up those people are. Look at how their lives are off. Look at how hypocritical they are. And honestly, yeah, that's kind of how it works. The church is the group of people who were the first to raise their hands and say, I need a Savior.
I'm not awesome. I'm not great. I'm not figuring this out well on my own. I am messed up. I do have problems. And I need Jesus to save me.
That's what Jesus does. He steps in and He saves everyone who's broken, everyone who's needy. So at times when people levy complaints against the church and they're like, look at how hypocritical they are. Look at how messed up they are. I'm just kind of like, yeah, it's a little bit like looking at like a summer camp for overweight children and being like, that camp's terrible. All the kids there are fat.
It's like, that's why they went. Like you're confused. That's what the church is. So the church is filled with broken, messed up, sinful people. Yeah, because they're the people who realize they need Jesus. Does that make sense?
So it's like people will be like, man, I just don't know about that guy. He's kind of like a four on a scale of like following and obedience. And I'm like, really? That's beautiful because six months ago, he was probably like a two. Like, that's great. Like, that's wonderful.
Yeah, she's kind of a jerk. Kind of a jerk. Man, you'd have to reach in your bag of profanity to describe her a year ago. Kind of a jerk is amazing. Like, we need to go high five her. That's amazing growth.
Like, that's what the church is. It's a group of people who realize they need Jesus. That's what brought us together. And on the other end of that, so there's two things. There's that. And then there is people who are confused about what the church is, who are part of the church, claim the name of Christian, but believe it's about their morality and something that they've earned.
And that's how you get Dana Carvey being the church lady on SNL. Or you get Angela from The Office. And that general attitude of, I'm a Christian, so I'm better than you. And that's where, yeah, Christianity at times is off there, where people have thought they've earned it. When that's the opposite of what the Bible says. And so us as a church family, we want to grow and learn how we ought to respond to people in specific situations.
And just very practically answer some of those questions. And then for the weeks that it actually really applies to you, get to see how God would interact with you, how he would respond to you. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in this morning. God, we thank you that you are relational, that you do care about humans enough to become one, to identify with us in our hurt and our pain and our confusion. To take on sin in a very real way. So that you could redeem and so that you could save.
God, we trust you. We pray that you would speak to us this morning as we study your word. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll be in Mark chapter 5. So this whole series is going to be in the Gospels.
Just looking at stories of Jesus interacting with people. So we won't deal much with things that he taught. Way more with how he spoke to people, how he interacted with people. And we're going to be in Mark chapter 5 starting in verse 21. And the Gospels are just accounts of what Jesus did while he was walking around on earth. Mostly focused on the two years, three years right before he was crucified.
And then most of their time is spent on the crucifixion. But we're going to spend some time just looking at some different stories in the Gospels. And so what we're going to look at today is we're going to look at two individuals that are just out of options. At the end of their rope. Have no good plan for where to go next. They're just desperate.
And so we're going to look and see how God, how Jesus as God interacts with people who have no more options and who come to him. Have no good idea of how the future is going to work out. No plan for it. And come to him. So we're going to start in Mark verse 21, chapter 5, verse 21.
And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side. So he's coming across the Sea of Galilee. A great crowd gathered about him. And he was beside the sea. So tons of people show up.
He's just getting out of a boat. He's famous at this point. Kind of reluctantly famous. But he's famous at this point for healing, for teaching. This great crowd shows up. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue.
The synagogue was a place where Jewish people would gather every Sabbath and study scripture. So he oversees a synagogue. Jairus by name. And seeing him, he fell at his feet. And he implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.
So Jairus shows up. And he says, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live. What we find out later, What we find out in Luke's gospel is that she's an only child. What we find out later in this, Mark's account, is that she's 12 years old. So they didn't have birth control.
And you wanted to have a lot of children. The desire in their culture, in Jewish culture, was to have a lot of children. Children were a blessing. They would take care of you in your old age. And so just to know that they have a 12-year-old girl, and that's their only child, that story already has a lot of pain in it, already has a lot of frustration in it, already has a lot of doubt and questions and fears in it. We do know that the mother is alive, so we don't know if there's been miscarriages.
We don't know if there have been other children that have died from illnesses while they were young. All we know is that they've at least been together as a couple for 12 years, and they have one child, and that's already got a lot of pain in it. And now this 12-year-old girl is at the point of death. We don't know how long this sickness lasts. We don't know if it's been a long sickness, if she's just recently gotten sick. But what we do know is that Jairus knows she's not going to make it.
And he had to have made a decision. He had to have been home and heard, Jesus is here. With his daughter who's gasping for air, maybe drifting in and out of consciousness, and he decided the only thing I can do is try to make it to Jesus. I've heard that he heals. I've heard that he's capable of doing things. By the grace of God, he just showed up in our town.
And the only thing I can do, and as a father, as a husband, designed to lead and protect the sense of helplessness that this man must have felt in a situation where he has no control over the outcome, and then he hears Jesus is here. And he's got to be thinking, what if all this stuff about Jesus is true? What if the things I've heard about Jesus, what if it's real? What if he actually can save? What if he actually can heal? What if he actually can just show up and this work out?
And so he leaves. He makes a decision to, I'm not going to be with her while she takes her last breath, possibly. I'm going to go do the one thing I know I can do. And he earnestly implores Jesus, come with me. Please, just come with me. I know there's a huge crowd.
I know you've got a lot going on. I know there's, just come with me. And so what we see very early on is that this guy runs into the middle of what Jesus is doing, falls on his face and says, I need your help. And the next line is beautiful. Verse 24, And he went with him. I love that.
Jesus' immediate response is, let's go. Like, don't you feel sometimes that like if you came to Jesus, his response would be like, well, let's talk. Have you been a good little girl? Have you been a good little boy? Have you been behaving? Have you been following?
Like, let's, I've got some questions for you. Do you deserve this? No, Jesus' response, he just went with him. He comes to him and says, I have no other options. It's just you. And Jesus just, let's go.
And that's beautiful to me. So Jesus is going with this man to his daughter who's on her deathbed. You feel his pain? Have a 12-year-old who's going to die? Do you feel that? Where he would be at this point?
Mentally? Emotionally? A great crowd followed him and thronged about him. Thronged just means they were all over him, touching him. Probably had his disciples running some crowd control. And I mean, he's in a hurry.
So they're on their way to go try to save a child who's about to die. And there's a huge crowd of people just mobbing him, which has to be slowing down the progress. Jairus has to probably be trying to push people out of the way. You know, this is important. You can talk to him later. We got something to do.
Doing everything he can to get Jesus there. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse. Okay, so in the crowd, in this crowd that throngs about him, there's a woman who's had a discharge of blood for 12 years. Now, that can mean that she had an external sore or external sores that were bleeding off and on or continuously for 12 years. Most likely, she was having uterine bleeding, which would have been basically a constant menstruation for 12 years. This is a real medical condition.
I was talking to David Hewiler, who works with an insurance company. He says they get claims for it a lot. A lot of times it has to do with a tumor. And it causes fatigue, pain, and eventually can lead to death. And so for 12 years, she's had this condition. And added on top of that, in Jewish culture, when you had this kind of issue, either external or if it was an internal issue, she would have been unclean.
Because they had ceremonial clean and unclean laws. Where God in the Old Testament through Moses was teaching his people that they're not like him. That he's holy. He's separate from them. And so he gave them laws to show them this. And even in those laws, if you did everything to be clean, you did everything to be as clean as possible, when you showed up at the temple, you still needed a sacrifice on your behalf.
So he's also just teaching them that not only are you not like me, but even if you're the best version of you, you still need a sacrifice. You still need your sin covered. And he was pointing to the cross and all of that. But because of the clean and unclean laws, while she was unclean, would not be allowed to touch people. Or else they would become unclean. If it was, she would not be able to have normal relations with her husband, physical relations with her husband, if she was unclean.
So if she had a husband, we don't know. But if she had a husband, that would affect their relationship significantly. She would not be able to gather for worship with the temple. She would not be able to take part in feasts and festivals that would happen multiple times a year. She basically would have to remove herself from normal society because of this issue. Not only is it painful, not only does it cause fatigue, not only does it just drain her of energy and life, but it affects her ability to have a normal life.
And it says that she's suffered much and hasn't gotten any better, but to grown worse. And it's been 12 years. The same time that Jairus was welcoming, his family was welcoming a newborn daughter into the world, she began to have this issue and it hasn't ceased for 12 years. And she's in the crowd. And she has no other options. Quite possibly because it's been a 12-year-long process and she's growing worse, she may be close to death.
She has no energy. She's in pain constantly. Spent all that she had. Spent all that she had. Has completely gone out of money to only suffer and grow worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus.
That's verse 27. She had heard the reports about Jesus. And came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well. Okay, so she's heard about Jesus. And she has to have this, Really?
Can he really heal? Can he really save? Can he really, Is he able to do what I've heard that he's able to do? And she has no other options. And she comes up with a plan. I'll sneak through a crowd, Making everyone around me unclean.
I'll sneak up to Jesus and touch him. Something I'm not allowed to do because I'm unclean. And because he's a teacher. Because he's a man. So all the regulations of how this will work.
But I'll just sneak up and touch him. And if I can just do that, I'll be healed. If I can just get close enough to touch him, I'll be healed. Can you imagine that? Like he shows up with all the amount of energy that she has. She fights through this crowd.
She has to have, Her heart is pounding. And she just gets close enough, Just reaches out his hands, Able to touch his garments. Able to just swipe his clothes. With just the hope, The belief and the faith, That if I can do this, I'll be healed. I'll be made right. So we've got Jairus, Who's leading Jesus through a big crowd, Trying to get as fast as he can, To his house.
Not knowing at what moment, His daughter's going to die. And we've got this lady, Who's fighting through this crowd, Just to touch Jesus, In the faith that that'll heal her, From 12 years of suffering. We've got two people that are a lot like us. Broken, In need, With a lot of pain, And not a lot of hope. Who, Honestly, Don't have good options at this point. Jesus hadn't showed up, Hadn't gotten off this boat, Jairus' option was, Hold his daughter's hand while she, Dies.
Jesus hadn't shown up in this area, Then this lady's hope was to, She had no more money, Suffer more, Die eventually. And both of them have a sliver of hope, Because Jesus is here. And for us, We can be money, I just don't have, When it comes to finances, I just have no more good options, I have no plan, I have no clear idea, Of where this is going to go, I'm honestly, I'm in a place where, Just desperate. Relationships, I don't see how this is going to work out, I don't see how I'm ever, Going to get here, I don't see how this, I'm ever going to be married, I don't see how this marriage, Is ever going to last, I don't see how we're ever going to have children, I don't see how, Our children are ever going to turn out, The way, I just have no more good options, I don't have options, When it comes to work, I don't have, Like, You feel that, You feel where they are, And they're further along than us, The part where it says, 26, It was a woman who had suffered much, And it ends with, Was no better, But rather grew worse, Is that some of us, That's the story of your life, You've suffered much, And it's not getting any better, There's no light at the end of this tunnel, When you look at your options, When you look at the foreseeable future, The best thing you can come up with is, Pain, Hurt, Suffering, If the past is an indicator, Of where this is headed, I'm going to continue to suffer, It's going to continue to get worse, And thankfully, At some point I'll die, And at least that'll stop it, So these are the two people, Who are saying to themselves, Can it be true?
Can what I've heard about Jesus be real? Can he actually heal? Can he actually save? Can life actually be different, Because of him, Because I've heard that it can, Is that real? And they're both trusting, That it is, So she sneaks through, She catches this plan, If I can just touch his garments, I'll be made well, And she really just wants to, To kind of steal, Some healing from Jesus, Most people when Jesus heals them, They have to show up, They have to say, Here's my problem, She had no desire to do that, You see, If she had an internal issue, She really had two options, For life, Follow the regulations, And have, Be ostracized, Have no normal life, Or, Hide this, Lie, And have a normal life, And I feel like, In a room this size, We've got some people, Who feel like, That's your options, I can be real about this, And have zero friends, I can be real about this, And have no actual relationships, Or I can hide this, I can keep this a secret, And have a normal life, And she decides, At least on this day, I'm going to keep this a secret, I'm just going to sneak up to Jesus, And I'm just going to, Get some healing from him, I'm not going to walk up to him, In front of everybody, And say, Here's my problem, Will you heal me, I'm just going to, Work my way through this crowd, Make a bunch of people unclean, Not tell them about it, Make him unclean, And leave, That's her plan, 28, For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well, And immediately, The flow of blood dried up, And she felt in her body, That she was healed, Of her disease, She touches Jesus, And immediately, She's healed, She feels it in her body, I don't know what that would have felt like, I'm assuming, Amazing, 12 years of pain, 12 years of hurt, 12 years of struggle, 12 years of suffering, She touches him, And immediately feels, I don't know, Warm, Tingly, Super excited, Like if you saw her, Walking into the crowd, She was, She was in pain, She was hurting, She was fighting through, If you saw her walking out, She was like, Like, Just smile on her face, Like that lady's glowing, That was weird, She feels healing, Just by getting her hands on Jesus, And she was ecstatic, In awe, Blown away, For about, Five seconds, Maybe three, Feels that she's healed, Her mind is blown, She feels warmth, And life, Energy running through her, Verse 37, And Jesus, Perceiving in himself, That power had gone out from him, Immediately turned about in the crowd, And said, Who touched my garments?
Okay, That's super weird, A couple of things, One is Jesus feels power leave from him, Which means that in some way, When Jesus heals, There's this exchange, Of his life, For ours, That he has to give up, Some of his power, That he has to become weaker, So that she can become stronger, That he has to give up some life, So that she can have health, That Jesus has to exchange with us, And so he's walking along, There's a huge crowd, A bunch of people touching him, They're fighting him, The disciples are around him, Pushing on him, Hand on his back, Trying to get him through the crowd, Like he's Justin Bieber, And there's a bunch of 13 year old girls around, Like they're fighting through, And suddenly he stops, And this giant crowd, Stops, Spins around and says, Who touched my clothes? And everybody goes, Like there was a guy at the back, Like just, I ain't even got hands, Like they were in my pockets, Like immediately he stops, And spins around and says, Who touched my clothes? And you had to imagine, Everybody was like, Like a lot of people, I think, And this lady, Who was super excited, Jesus stops, Says who touched my garments, And she goes, Like I mean just, Still excited? That she's healed, But she's entered into a new arena, Not as excited as before, I love his disciples response, This is the best, Jesus had real people around him, Just so you know, Jesus perceiving himself, The power had gone out from himself, Verse 30, Immediately turned about in the crowd, And said who touched my garments, And his disciples said to him, You see the crowd, Pressing around you, And yet you say, Who touched me?
So his disciples are like, I got this, What? That guy, That guy, I was touching you, Pretty sure Philip had a hand in there, Like, Like, This is the weirdest question, You've probably ever asked, Is this one of your parabolas? Like you, You're going to teach us something? Like what are you doing here? So Jesus being Jesus, Doesn't respond to them, Verse 32, And he looked around, To see who had done it, So he's scanning the crowd, To look for the one, Absolutely terrified person, Who knows exactly what just happened, That's what he's doing, So he's like, Okay, Wasn't that disciple, Because he doesn't understand, What just happened, So he's just looking around, Where are you at?
Verse 31, His disciples said to him, You see the crowd, Pressing around you, And yet you say, Who touched me? 32, And he looked around, To see who had done it, But the woman, Knowing what had happened to her, Came in fear, And trembling, And fell down before him, And told him, The whole truth, You don't get Jesus, Without the personal relationship, You don't just get benefits of Jesus, Without Jesus, So immediately he says, No, There's a human here, I need to talk to, Where are you at? She knows what happened, She lays down, Trembling before him, Knowing that what she had done, In all of understanding, Of everything that would happen, Would be wrong, What she had done was wrong, And she's about to have to, Articulate this in front of everybody, She's about to have to explain, Explain her whole story, And she gives the whole truth, Which is our option, When we come to Jesus, Whole truth, Not half truth, Not a little bit of a spin on truth, Whole truth, Lay it all out there, We also come to Jesus, On his terms, Not ours, Jesus is in control, Of the whole situation, You come to him on his terms, Not yours, You don't get to come up with, This is how my interaction, My relationship, This is how Jesus and I, Are going to work together, No, Jesus is in control, Of all of that, And he controls how, Your relationship is going to work, So she lays it all out there, Tells him, Why he should be mad at her, Why he as a teacher, As a good devout Jew, Should be disgusted, By what she just did, And he said to her, Verse 34, Daughter, Your faith has made you well, Go in peace, And be healed of your disease, Do you know how beautiful that is? How many other ways he could respond, And he starts with daughter, I just assumed there was a smile, Came across his face, As he was impressed by her faith, I don't think Jews use this word, Jewish people at this time, But her moxie, Just appreciates her, And just, Daughter, Go in peace, Your faith has made you well, That's the response, We get from Jesus, When we run to him, When we're desperate, I have no other options, I have no other plan, And I have no other idea, Of how this is going to work out, I'm done trusting in myself, I'm done trusting in other things, I just need you, I just trust you, To let this work out, The way you want it to work out, I have a preference, She had a preference, As to how this would work out, It did not work out that way, Jesus had some of, No this is how a relationship, Is going to work, But just with love, And just with acceptance, And just with this open arm, Yes you can come to me, You're welcome to come to me, When you have no other options, Okay, A couple of things to see here, She tells the whole truth, This is a 12 year long story, And a lady, If I ask my mom, A yes or no question, She responds like this, Well last Tuesday, Nope, This is a yes or no question, Like, The response is yes or no, She wants to tell a story, That's my mom, She's super sweet, Some ladies aren't like that, A lot of ladies are, One of the things we talk about, In premarital counseling, Is we're coaching people up, Is we say, Men, Come up with things, That happen during the day, That you can tell your wife about, Because when you get home, And she says, How was work, How was your day, And you respond, Good, Or fine, Which is a very acceptable answer, She's not going to think, It's acceptable, You need to have some form of, Carl was there, And he hurt his shin, And I was all, Dang Carl, She'll love it, Oh wow, I didn't know that about Carl, You know like, There's just something about that, And then we tell, We tell the ladies, Please just give highlights, Just give highlights, Just, Just bullet points, Of your day, Because my wife will say stuff like, I was at work, And Christy was there, And she was wearing a blue shirt, And we were in the break room, And I think she had a pimento cheese sandwich, And she'll go through this whole story, And at the end, I'll go, What, What about the blue shirt?
She'll go, What about the blue shirt? What? You said she was wearing a blue shirt, She was wearing a blue shirt, She didn't spill pimento cheese, On her blue shirt or something, Like those details, Had nothing to do with the story, They were part of the story, Okay, Like you just have to, She gives too much information, I'm trying to hold it all together, Get to the end, And it was just that she was mad about something, It's like, Okay, I didn't need any of that, She tells this whole story, Maybe she summed it up, I'm assuming that it was pretty long, She tells this whole story, She tells the whole truth, She lays it all out there, Jesus doesn't cut her off, He doesn't tell her to wrap it up, He doesn't say, Hey, We're kind of busy, Like you're derailing something, I'm in the middle of, Like you feel the weight of, On the way to save a child's life, That's why ambulances, Don't stop at red lights, They got a kid in the back, They got a dad back there, They're doing everything they can, To keep him alive, And then they're like, You know what, I didn't know Taco Bell had a dollar menu, That's not how it works, Like you, He's in the middle, It's the same as an ambulance, Taking a child to go be saved, It's the same process, And he just stops everything, And he just listens, And he welcomes her, Some of us feel like, If we came to God, He'd be bothered by us, That he's got too much going on, He has no desire to hear everything, He just needs the bullet points, He's a little bit frustrated, With our neediness, And he is not, God is eternal, And outside of time, And even when he became, Finite, And was limited by time, Still had time, For everybody, Do you see that? He's not like your dad, Who was easily frustrated, Not like your husband, Or your wife, Or your boss, Or him, He stops, He listens, He cares, And wants to know all of it, Isn't that beautiful?
Now if you're Jairus, That was terrible, Wrap it up, Wrap it up, Wrap it up, Okay, Okay, She just said seven years ago, No, We need three minutes ago, Come, Can you feel, The anxiousness, The weight of, That's over with, Like it's happened, Y'all can talk about this later, We got, Jesus has all the time in the world, God responds to us, With great patience, And, He doesn't follow our schedule, See that perfectly in this story, Being crossroads here, He's not on your timeline, He's in control, He's good, Not on your timeline, Even though our timelines, Are.
So brilliant, That's what I have to talk to him, About all the time, God I've come up with a great plan, I really feel like, You're going off script here, And, You are confused about, Why, What we're doing here, So that's what Jairus is feeling, Jesus you're blowing this, Jesus you're messing this up, Jesus this isn't going to work, If you keep talking, Jesus you got to, She's got to stop, 34, And he said to her daughter, Your faith has made you.
Well, Go in peace, And be healed of your disease, While he was still speaking, There came from the ruler's house, Some who said, Your daughter is dead, Why trouble the teacher, Any further, Jairus is waiting, Hoping that this will wrap up, They're close to his house, Jesus is talking, He's being very gracious, And very loving, Jairus looks up, And he sees some people, From his house, They don't have to talk, He sees it on their face, Blood's gone, You can already tell, They've been crying, He knows they're not coming, To give good news, Your daughter's dead, Don't bother the teacher, Any further, He can go do other stuff.
Now, No sense in him coming with you, And his, His heart, That was holding on, To that last little bit of hope, That last little bit, Of a Hail Mary shot, Maybe we can pull this off, I left her, And went as fast as I could, Did everything I possibly could, For our one, Final shot, His heart drops into his stomach, Because everything he feared, Was going to happen, Happened, And it's over, You don't come back from that, It's not, She's getting worse, Hurry up, Your daughter is dead, Don't bother the teacher anymore, His last little bit of an option, Is gone, It's done, There's no returning from this, 36.
But overhearing, What they said, Jesus said, To the ruler of the synagogue, Do not fear, Only, Believe, So Jesus hears it, Jairus hears it, Right as he's responding, Jesus turns to him, And says, Don't fear, Only believe, Do not fear, Only believe, I don't know how that was received, We're not told, We know they go the rest of the walk, To the house, When it was absolutely final, When everything was done, When there's no way to come back from this, Jesus' response to Jairus is, Don't fear, Believe, Trust, Lean in, Don't believe them, Believe in me, Don't trust the finality of this situation, Believe me, Do you know how hard that would be?
It's done, They foreclosed, It's done, The court case, The ruling has been sentenced, The sentence has been laid down, It's done, The prognosis is what it is, It's done, It's final, We've packed everything, Repo's final, Foreclosure's final, Finances are final, Health is final, It's done, And Jesus looks at him and says, Don't fear, Just believe, Only belief, Just trust, Just lean in, Just look at me, Look at me, Let's go, And he allowed no one to follow him, Except Peter and James and John, The brother of James, Could have done that from the beginning, Turns around and tells everybody.
Okay, Crowd, We're done, Peter, James, John, Let's go, 38, They came to the house, Of the ruler of the synagogue, And Jesus saw a commotion, People weeping, And wailing loudly, Do you know how Jairus saw that, When he came around the corner, Everyone that he knows, And cares about is broken, And when he had entered, He said to them, Why are you making a commotion, Why are you making a commotion, And weeping, The child is not dead, But sleeping, Okay, Jesus, Gets to say ridiculous things, He walks into, Where a child has just died, And says, What's all this about, She's fine, That's crazy.
But Jesus gets to be crazy, He gets to say ridiculous things, He gets to step in, When everything looks like it's done, And say, Oh, Don't worry about that, Oh, This is going to work out okay, You're going to be alright, He's the only one, Who gets to do that, And it actually means something, 40, And they laughed at him, Okay, That's how ridiculous, His statement was, They went from weeping, And wailing, There was a commotion, And they all stop and laugh.
Because that's how ridiculous, His statement was, We, In our culture, Are pretty distant from death, Some people, Have certain jobs, Where they see death, Right then, Most of us, When we see, A dead person, They've been placed in a casket, They've been cleaned up, You can always tell, There's just something different about them, The life is gone, But we're not as familiar with death, As they were, They knew death, They knew she had had life, They knew it had left, She's dead.
So much so that they laughed, They derided him, But he put them all outside, And took the child's father and mother, And those who were with him, And went in where the child was, Okay, I don't know the process, Of putting all of them outside, I'm assuming, Because Jesus is God, He was able to suck the air out of a room, With his face, That his facial expression changed, And he said, Y'all need to leave, And everyone assumed, That's my best option, I don't know, I don't know how long it took, I'm just assuming, That's me imposing something, On the text there, I just know it says, He put them all outside, They went from.
Weeping, Wailing, To laughing at him, And then everyone decided to leave, 41, Taking her by the hand, He said to her, Talitha Kumi, Which means, Little girl, I say to you, Arise, And immediately, The girl got up, And began walking, For she was 12 years of age, Mark adds that in now, So that her walking isn't weird, If you were assuming it was an infant, She was 12, And they were immediately, Overcome, With amazement, And he strictly charged them, That no one should know this, And he told them, Give her something to eat, Little no fact about dying, It makes you really hungry.
Jesus walks in, Sends everybody out, Grabs a dead girl by the hands, And says, Little girl, It's time to wake up, The way a mother, Or a father, Would wake up a child, In the morning, He grabs her by the hand, And he says, It's time to get up, Gosh, She's just sleeping, Little girl, I say to you, Arise, It's time to wake up, She sits up, Begins walking, Life fills her again, I'm assuming, That there had to be an exchange, Power left him to heal, The lady, I'm assuming, More of his power, More of his energy, More of his strength, More of his life, Had to leave, We don't know.
Jesus is able to step into a situation, When it's completely final, And change it, Reverse it, Bring life back where there's death, Bring hope back where there's despair, We have two people in this story, Who are absolutely wrecked, And desperate, And have no hope, And no options, Except for Jesus, And their only hope is, Maybe what's been said about him is true, Maybe it's real, That he can bring life, That he can bring hope, That he can bring joy, Maybe it's real, That he can heal, Some of us may be in that same spot, I don't have good plans, I don't have good options.
But maybe all this stuff, That I hear about Jesus is true, Maybe what my friends have been saying is true, Maybe what we've been talking about, In community group is true, Maybe what we, People celebrate on Easter is true, That Jesus was dead, Now he's alive, And in him we can have life, And hope, That my brokenness can be taken away, Maybe it's true, Christians, We're going to set aside, The story for just a second, We're going to set aside, Those of us who are in, In the position that Jairus and the woman were, We're going to come back in just a.
Second, But for Christians in the room, For the church, Maybe you're not in this position, We're going to take just a quick second, And we're going to go through five things, If you take notes, We're going to run through these pretty quickly, Five things, Five ways that we as, As the church, Get to respond to people in this position, Get to respond to people who are desperate, One, Be there, Just be there, Jesus' response to Jairus, Was let's go, Didn't talk, Didn't say anything, He just went with him, He was just there, Sometimes that's all we can do, That's the best option we have, Is just be there, Just be around, Just love them, Just.
Be there, Number two, Be willing to be inconvenienced, Your timeline's going to get messed with, Your plans are going to get derailed, As you have real friends, And real family, And real loved ones, That are in this position, Jesus shows up, Immediately has to go with Jairus, In the middle of that, Has to stop and deal with this woman, Be willing to be inconvenienced, Go ahead and plan on it, Know that's how that works, Three, Don't be shocked by confession, She lays it all on the line, And his response is absolutely welcoming, His absolute love, Secret shame and guilt, And things in our closets, That's humans, Christians should be the least shocked, By sinfulness, The.
Bible's very clear, We're all busted, We're all broken, We all need Jesus, And so when someone says, This is how messed up I am, We should just be like, Yeah and Jesus is great, Yeah, Sin tricks us all, Yeah, Shame and guilt, Yes, We need Jesus, So she lays it on the line, And he had the opportunity, To respond, With condemnation, With don't you know, What you've done wrong, And he just says, Daughter you're healed, Four, You will have to sacrifice.
Jesus in order for these people, To receive healing, Had to give up power, Had to pour some of it, And he'll have to give himself out, And that's how it works, When we're around somebody, Who's drained of love, And energy, And hope, You've got to pour some of yours out, For them to feel loved, For them to regain a sense of hope, You've got to pour out, Some of your energy, For them to have some, We actually line up with Jesus, And we do this really.
Well, And we do that, And number five, Point towards faith in Jesus, Don't just give pithy statements, Don't just have some, Oh it's going to be okay, Help them see why it'll be okay, Because of the cross, Jesus ultimately was just, It was about faith in him, The whole time, And that's what he turns to Jairus, And says, Don't fear, Just believe, And we get to just say, Jesus is good, He's trustworthy, I don't know how this situation, Is going to turn out.
But I know that, And that's what we hold on to, Band's going to come back up, We're going to sing, To Jesus, If you're in the room, And you're Jairus, If you're in the room, And you're this woman, You're in a position, Where you have no clue, What the next step is, The only thing you can see, On the horizon, Is pain, Is brokenness, You honestly don't know, How life is going to continue, You don't know how you'll get back to normal, You don't know how you'll get back to happy, You honestly feel like, That's not going to happen, Your hope.
For joy, Your hope for fulfillment, Is gone, Let me say this very clearly, You can come to Jesus, And you can trust, Jesus, Not to work on your timeline, Not to fulfill all your dreams, Doesn't always work out, The way we want it to, But what we know, Is that Jesus is trustworthy, And his response to you is the same, Tell me all about it, Tell me what you need, Lay it all out, Don't fear, Just believe, Just trust, You see we can get a glimpse of it in this story.
Jesus has to give up power, He has to give up strength, For her to be made strong, For her to be made well, Eventually, Jesus isn't going to just be weakened a little bit, He's going to come completely weak, He's not going to give up just a little bit of life, He's going to give up his entire life, That Jesus is ultimately going to go to the cross, And lay it all out for us, All of his strength will be gone, All of his life will be gone, All of his power will be gone, That he joins us in our suffering, That he joins us in our pain.
Because of the cross, We know, Without a shadow of a doubt, That he loves us, And that he's trustworthy, He can be trusted, He went to the cross for us, We can bring him anything, We don't know how it will work out, But we know that he's good, And that he can be trusted, That we can bring anything to him, When we have no more options, No more hope, When everything seems final, And he can bring life, And he can bring healing, And he can bring hope, That's the.
Jesus that we rest in, That's the God that loved us so much, That he became a human, To take on our guilt, And our shame, And our pain, To take on our death, So that we can have his life, And his joy, And his hope, And ultimately we rest in him, So if you're in this position today, You don't have good options, You don't have a good plan, You've ceased trusting in yourself, And you've ceased trusting, And getting the situation to work out, Jesus' response to you is the same, Don't fear, Just believe, I'm the.
God that can step into these situations, And make them work out for good, When you see no way that's going to happen, And sometimes it's long, And sometimes it's painful, But he's absolutely trustworthy, God, We ask that your Holy Spirit would help us to lean into you, When we see no hope, When we see no light at the end of the tunnel, God, That you would, Through your Holy Spirit, Look at us, Look into our souls, And say, Don't fear, Just believe, Just lean into me, And that you would give us the ability to do that.
God, That you would grant us faith, That we can trust you, That we can place our hope, And our life in you, And we praise you, Lord, That you became completely weak, Completely powerless, That you didn't just give us life, But you gave yours up for us, And that we know we can trust you in all things, God, You're good, And help us to see that, And help us to trust you, And to have real faith, In you and you alone, In Jesus' name, Amen.
Grace and Superiority
Transcript
My name is Chet Phillips. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm excited to be back. My wife gave birth to a baby boy on March 17th. So his name is Archer O'Daniel Phillips.
It was going to be Archer Daniel Phillips, but he was born on St. Patrick's Day. So what are you going to do? And it's been interesting. This is our first kid, so I'm learning a lot. It's a weird responsibility having, like, now we have a son, and I've got to help him grow up and be a full-grown adult male.
And so there's a lot of weight there. I'm already trying to work with him on some stuff. So he, I was talking to him the other day. He's a baby, so he cries a lot. And he cries every time, like screams and cries every time he's gassy. And so I've been trying to tell him that's going to be weird if he doesn't outgrow that.
Because that's, like, an odd thing to walk through adult life with. So he's just, you know, I'm trying to coach him up and make sure that he gets ready for adulthood. But that's what's been going on in my life. It is Jonah. We're in Jonah chapter 4. And so we've been, for the past three weeks as a church family, been walking through one chapter a week in Jonah.
The book of Jonah, it's an Old Testament book, an Old Testament prophet. It's in middle-ish to a little bit to the right of the middle in your Bible. It's on page 503 if you have a Bible that looks like this. What we're going to do today is we're going to be in Jonah chapter 4, and we're finishing up this series before Easter next week. And so what we've said so far in Jonah, though, and what the story has been so far in Jonah is that it says that Jonah was a prophet, which means he spoke on behalf of God. And that God comes to Jonah and says, go to Nineveh, because their evil has come up before me, and proclaim against them, like preach against them.
And so, first of all, this is a little weird because Nineveh is a non-Israel, non-Juda city. It's not the people of God, and most of the time when there's a prophecy about a group of people that aren't Israelites, it's just about them. It's not to them. So it would have been more normal for God to say, hey, go tell Israel I'm going to destroy Nineveh. But it was weird for God to say, go tell Nineveh I'm going to destroy Nineveh, because most of the time God's prophecies through his prophets were to the nation of Israel.
And so Jonah gets the word of the Lord, hears what God says, and runs. It says he went to flee to Tarshish. So he tries to flee from the presence of the Lord, which we would think is dumb, because, you know, you would think that God would be able to catch you. Like, I don't know if he thought maybe at night God can't see as well. Maybe God will be paying attention to something else. I don't know how he thought this was a good idea, but he tries to flee from the presence of the Lord.
He gets on a boat, and God sends a storm, because God's in charge of everything, and that's very apparent in the book of Jonah. Jonah sends a storm and stops his boat. They figure out that Jonah is the reason there's a big storm, and they say, what should we do to you so that we don't all drown? And Jonah says, drown me. And so the people on the boat eventually, they don't want to at first, but eventually say, okay, God, don't be mad at us. You're the one who sent the storm, and they throw him in the water.
The storm stops, which is equally terrifying. So it's very obvious that God did want Jonah. And so all of the crew members switched teams, so they had other gods they were praying to, and they realized, oh, okay, this one's in charge of everything. So they begin to worship the real God. And then Jonah is drowning, and a fish swallows him. And so Jonah chapter 2 is Jonah praying from a fish.
And what we saw in chapter 1 is that God's willing to go further to chase us in our sin than we thought. That he's willing to chase after us more, that he's more in control than we thought, and he's willing to chase us more. And then in chapter 2, we look at this prayer of Jonah's, and it seems like Jonah kind of relies on himself more than on God. Like his prayer is kind of a religious prayer. And just so you know, if you're just hanging out with us, this isn't a religious place. Religion is basically the idea that do these things, don't do these things, and God will love you.
Like it's about the work that you put in. And that's not what Christianity is about. It's not about earning things from God. It's not about punching your ticket, and eventually you get enough hole punches, and then you make it to heaven. That's not how it works. The idea of what I do accomplishes something puts me, as Raz said the past couple weeks, in God's good books isn't true.
That's not how it works. And so Jonah, though, kind of seems like that's what he thinks it's about. It's about what he does. He even kind of promises. And he prays kind of like us, God, if you take this away, I just won't do this anymore. Or I'll do this in the future.
I'll be good from now on. If you'll just let this situation not work out. I won't date guys like this anymore. That kind of a prayer. Like he's praying about, I'm going to do this in the future. I'm going to be better.
And eventually, the fish spits him out. Jonah obeys. He goes to Nineveh. And he proclaims against Nineveh. He preaches against Nineveh. And his sermon is, you're all going to die.
That's a heck of a sermon. We're actually thinking about doing a series later this fall. This coming summer called the You're All Going to Die series. It's one week. The sermon is, you're all going to die. All right, now bow your heads and close your eyes.
That's his sermon. He goes and proclaims it to a city about the size of Boston. And he says, you're all going to die. And they repent. He doesn't even tell them that they should repent. He doesn't even give them like an option.
He just says, God's going to kill you. And they are all like, they genuinely repent. They genuinely are broken over their sinfulness. And they repent from king to cattle. Like they put sackcloth on cows. That's how genuine their repentance was.
The king declares, no one eats, not even the cows. And so if you're watching a cow, you put sackcloth on the cow. And if the cow tried to eat, you grabbed his face and you were like, no, you don't. You're an evil cow. You've been making evil milk for evil people. And you will not eat.
And the cow was like, you're right. And a little single tear ran down his face. I do have evil milk. And they all repented. There was genuine repentance, heartfelt repentance from king to cattle. Okay.
If Jonah, if the story of Jonah was the way I had always heard it, the way I had always seen it in cartoons. Some of you maybe grew up in church and you've heard the story of Jonah before. Some of you maybe didn't grow up in church and you just hear that the Bible has a story about a guy getting swallowed by a fish. And you're like, the Bible's nonsense. Okay. But some of you who grew up in church, you've heard the story of Jonah before.
You've seen the cartoon before. And here's how the story goes. God comes to Jonah and says, go to Nineveh. But Jonah's scared. He's scared. The Ninevites are evil.
They're twisted. They kill people. So Jonah runs. He's afraid of God's call on his life. So he runs.
As he runs, God chases him down. He gets swallowed by a fish. And he prays and he repents. And he says, God, I was wrong. I trust you. I see that you're in control of everything.
But if you can control a fish and you can control a storm, you can keep Ninevites from gouging my eyes out. I trust you. He repents. And then the fish spits him out. Because in the cartoons, the fish always spits him out. There's even like, if it's a drawing, it says like patui or whatever.
In the Bible, it vomits. But like, it doesn't write as well. So the fish spits him out. Jonah's genuinely repentant. And he goes to Nineveh. And he preaches to Nineveh.
Repent. And all of Nineveh repents. And then that's the end. And God's faithful. And we see how it all works out. And everybody's happy.
And that's the first three chapters of Jonah. If that's the way the story was, we wouldn't be doing chapter four today. There would be no chapter four. Chapter four would be, and Jonah and God jumped into the air, all slow-mo and high-fived. And everything turned technicolor. And it was like, yeah.
And then credits rolled. That would be, Jonah would be credits. Or maybe like catching up with Jonah in later life. Just letting us know how he worked out. Like, this is a terrible story if there's like the whole buildup and then the climax. And then it just contends for 25% more.
Like, that's just, that's terrible. Movies don't do that. Like, you don't resolve the conflict. And then, like at the end of Avengers, they sat and ate a meal. But that was like five seconds, just kind of seeing them eating a meal.
It doesn't make you last. Like, it's not 45 minutes of them eating. And just like hanging out and like Iron Man at his house working on his computer. Like, they don't do that because the conflict is resolved. So if the conflict was that Nineveh needed to repent, the story would be over.
But Jonah apparently is kind of like a Peter Jackson movie where you think it's going to end and then it doesn't. And we'll even find out that it's very much like a Peter Jackson movie because then it just ends when you think it shouldn't. Like, God says something and it's over. So Peter Jackson movie is like, oh, it's done. Oh, no, it's going to keep going. Oh, now we're done.
No, it's going to keep going. It's going to keep going. Oh, they walked over a hill. It's done. It should have kept going. What just happened?
The dragon just got out. How do you just end the movie now? Like, what are you doing? That's what Jonah does. And we're about to find out in chapter four that the story is a little bit different than we thought. So I'm going to pray and we're going to jump into chapter four and see what this is really all about.
God, we thank you. We thank you for your grace. We thank you that we have the opportunity to gather as a church family and study your word. And we ask that your Holy Spirit would teach us and lead us. Speak to us. And show us what you intended.
When you had your servant pen the book of Jonah. And it's been kept so that we can read it. And so we praise you and we love you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Jonah chapter four is on page 503 if your Bible looks like this.
We're going to read all of chapter four today and we're going to kind of wrap up the whole story. So, again, the conflict kind of seems resolved. We're going to pick up actually in, I know it says Jonah four, but we're going to pick up in the end of three. So that we can kind of see what happens here. The chapters were added later, so it would have just been written as a one big story. Chapters were added just for a quick reference to be helpful.
So verse 10, also added later. So this is chapter three, verse 10. When God saw what they did, and what they did was repent from king to cattle. Genuine, heartfelt, we were wrong. And we need grace, we need mercy from God. When he saw what they did, how they turned from their evil, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.
And he did not do it. We should be very excited, first of all, that that's God's attitude. Should be very excited that when evil people turn to God and say, I'm wrong, and genuinely mean it, God doesn't say, sorry, too late, crush. But he wants to relent from disaster. He wants to not destroy people. He's not vengeful.
Okay, so God relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Chapter four, verse one. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Okay. What? Like, if it was just that Jonah was scared, it should have been Jonah was stoked and skipped home.
Because everyone repented. Like, he's a terrible preacher, by the way. Like, this is a city about the size of Boston. If God came to a normal preacher and was like, hey, I want you to go preach against Boston. And the preacher showed up and said, like, one thing. And then from mare to dog park, they repent.
Like, mare to ferret. All of Boston per pence. Most preachers would have been like, man, that was a pretty good sermon. Like, the Lord showed up. This was great. Jonah's angry.
And what's a funny thing that happens in the Hebrew text here is that it says this. Verse 10. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil. So the word evil. God relented of the disaster. It's the same word.
Same root word. Almost exactly the same word. So evil and disaster, almost the same word. So they turned from their evil. God relented of his evil. His disaster that he was going to do.
That he said he would do to them. And he did not do it. And chapter 4 says, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly. That's the same word. So what it says is this was great evil to Jonah.
This was a disaster to Jonah. This could not have gone worse to Jonah. This was a train wreck. So we're learning something about Jonah. It couldn't have been fear because him not dying would have been like a win. What it says is they turn from their evil.
God turns from his evil, from his disaster. And this was evil to Jonah. It was a train wreck. And he's angry. Why? Why is Jonah angry that God's not going to destroy Nineveh?
Verse 2. And he prayed to the Lord. This is Jonah talking to God. Oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. All right.
So the author of this story did not tell us why Jonah ran earlier. We could only presume that he was scared, afraid of the call that God had placed on him, maybe afraid of the Ninevites. But the author intentionally held it till now. He in night shamalam'd us. Shamalam'd. He in nighted us.
Because there's a twist on the end here. The story's taking a turn on us. Jonah's been dead for 10 years. Like it's that kind of thing. Like the story's about to turn. He hadn't actually been dead.
But it's that kind of twist on the end here. So, okay. Is this not what I said? So we're about to find out why Jonah actually left. For I knew. So he says, okay, let's start over.
This whole prayer is crazy to me. And he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster. What? His prayer is, oh, Lord.
I knew it. I told you this before I left. I knew it. We talked about this. This is why I ran. This is exactly why I ran.
This is what I told you. I told you you were good. Like his complaint about God is that he's good, that he's gracious. I told you you were gracious. I told you you were merciful. I told you you were abounding in steadfast love.
And I knew you'd do this. I knew you'd relent from disaster. I knew you were just getting my hopes up. You told me, Jonah, go tell him I'm going to kill all of them. And I knew I'd get here and you'd kill zero of them. I knew it.
I knew that as soon as I got here, they'd be all, oh, we're wrong. And you'd be like, you're right, and not kill them. Zero. Goose egg. That's how many Ninevites are going to die. You know how embarrassing and terrible this is.
His complaint to God is that he's gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. Do you know what we just found out about Jonah? He's kind of a racist. He's overly nationalistic. Like, you should like your country and your people. But Jonah is so far ingrained in his nation and his people and his race that the Ninevites not dying is a disaster.
You see, Hosea and Amos at this time are proclaiming that Assyria is coming and Israel needs to repent. And the word of the Lord comes to Jonah and says, go to Assyria. That's where Nineveh is. One of their chief cities. And tell them to repent. Or I'm going to destroy them.
Tells them I'm going to destroy them. And Jonah doesn't want to go because he wants Assyrians to die. Jonah so cares about his nation, his people, and his race that he cannot, this cannot be good. Verse 3. Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah says it's over. This could not have gone worse. Just kill me. This is such a train wreck. This is so terrible. Just kill me.
And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? So God responds to Jonah and basically says, are you right? Here, is your response correct? And Jonah doesn't answer. So Jonah prays and says, God, I told you you were good.
I knew you would pull this. And then says, just kill me. Okay. That's kind of confusing. There's a little bit of me that says, okay, I want to understand a little bit more. This is part of the reason we've given Jonah such a hard time throughout.
Jonah 2 and 3, when it's like, well, he looks like he prayed and he repented. It's like, yeah, Jonah 4 kind of shows us where Jonah's heart is the whole time. So it's hard to be like, yeah, he genuinely repented. Oh, but also he's a racist. And he wanted God to kill them all. It seems more like what Rask talked about last week is that he religiously obeyed.
He did what he thought he had to do so that God would keep loving him. He could keep earning it. Okay, but this is a little bit confusing. Because you would think that Jonah said his message, that they repent, that Jonah should be excited. Or you're at least looking at this going, Jonah's just so off here. And let me try to help you see what he's doing.
And in order to do that, we're going to look at the one other place that Jonah shows up. But it's in 2 Kings, and we're going to show it on the screen so you don't need to flip there because it will be hard to flip there and then find it again and come back. But it's in 2 Kings. If I can find it in my notes, I'll read it from here. Yeah. Chapter 14, verse 25.
If you want to write that down so you can look it up later. It's talking about a king. So it starts with he. He refers to the king. He restored the border of Israel from Labo Hamath as far as the Sea of Ereba, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he, that's God, spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai. So it's the same Jonah, the prophet who was from Gath Heifer, which, by the way, Gath Heifer sounds like a lovely town.
Okay, so what we hear about Jonah here is that he's a servant and a prophet, and he speaks on behalf of God. This is a perfectly normal sentence structure, that this happened according to the word of the Lord, that he spoke by his servant and prophet Jonah. That's a normal thing. The Bible says that all the time. What did Jonah prophesy this time? That it seems like there's no conflict about.
What did he prophesy? Something good for Israel. I bet when this one came in, Jonah was ecstatic. God says, I'm going to restore this border. I'm just assuming that Jonah was like, yep, I can do that one. Sounds good.
Hey, everybody. We've got good news for you. And he gets to go tell the king. I'm assuming that if God had come to him and said, tell Israel, I'm going to destroy Nineveh, Jonah would have been very excited and run out to Israel and said, guess what God just told me? He's going to kill the Assyrians. It was when God came in and said, go to Nineveh and tell them that Jonah runs.
And here's why. And here's why we can see someone like Jonah who has it together in so many ways. Throughout the book of Jonah, he is spot on with his theology. His complaint about God is very, very true. It's a beautiful complaint. It's the best way to argue, by the way.
You get in an argument with your wife, be like, I knew it. I knew you were so pretty and nice. I knew that this would happen, that you would just be kind and thoughtful. Like, it's a great way to argue because then it's like, you're mad, but I, okay, like, good. I knew that you smelled good the whole time. So Jonah's complaint about God is spot on.
He's gracious and merciful. He's practically quoting what God shows up and says to Moses in Exodus when he describes who he is. And so Jonah says, I knew this about you. Jonah, when they confront him on the ship, he says, I worship the God, the creator of the land and the dry land and the sea. He knows things about him. When he prays, he has spot on theology.
Jonah knows stuff about God. He's willing to obey. We see that in chapter three. Here, he's a legit normal prophet. What's happened? See, Jonah's way more like us than we'd care to imagine.
Like, I actually, when I start seeing this in Jonah, I start seeing myself and I can kind of get on board with him. That's why he's such a confusing character because he's like you. He's like me. He's a person. All the characters in the Bible are pretty confusing except for Jesus. And he's terribly confusing because he's just good the whole time.
The rest of the characters kind of have it together, don't have it together because it's real stories about real people. There are certain things that you just crush. And there are other things you're terrible at and you run from God over. And that's what Jonah does. See, Jonah has this one area where if God messes with that, it's not okay for him to mess with. Because Jonah is doing what all of us do.
He's looking to something and saying, you make me have value. He has a system in his head that says these are good people. Those are bad people. This is how the world works. So there are certain parts of his interaction with God that perfectly line up with him.
There are certain things you should read in the Bible. There are times I'm reading the Bible and I'm just like, God, you are so smart. Like with your wisdom, you are crushing it right now with this stuff. This is brilliant. And there are other things I read in the Bible and I'm like, I kind of wish this wasn't in here. If I'm honest, if the Bible always agrees with you, by the way, you're probably reading it wrong.
For the record, you're making it fit you as opposed to it making you fit it. But here's what Jonah's doing. He has something in his head. He knows that he's a Hebrew. What do we know about Jonah? He's Hebrew.
He's from the northern kingdom of Israel and he's a prophet. And it seems like all of those are messed with by being sent to Nineveh. He has to leave his hometown. He has to go say good things possibly for people that aren't Israelites. And they're bad people. Israelites are good people.
Hebrews are good people. Everyone else is bad. They don't know the real God. They're bad. If being a Hebrew makes you good, being anybody else makes you bad. It has to.
It has to make them bad or Jonah can't be good. Does that make sense? That's why people who are racist, which by the way is one of the easiest ways to be superior to other people. What I mean by easiest is you don't have to do anything. Like if you think that white people are superior, like if my family thought white people were superior, that would be really nice for me because I was just born white. I didn't have to accomplish that.
That's why people like racism and nationalism. They didn't have to accomplish anything. They just had to be from their place and speak their language. Does that make sense? Like you don't have to do any work. That's what Jonah is doing.
He's Hebrew. And if Hebrews, what makes you good than being anything else has to make you bad or being a Hebrew doesn't make you good. That's why he has to put them down. He has to crush them. They have to be bad. They have to be wrong.
He has to leave and go talk to them. And something good has to happen for people that are bad. And it's messing with Jonah's brain. And what he declared was going to happen doesn't happen, which messes with his status as a prophet. Because the Old Testament says whatever a prophet says will come true. And if it doesn't come true, then he's not a prophet.
So everything that he's been basing his existence off of is taken from him. And now it makes a little bit of sense that he tells God, just kill me. You see, all of us have something that we're looking to and saying, you make me okay. You make me good. You're what makes me valuable in the world. One of the things I've consistently leaned into is hard work.
Because I'm good at that. I can do hard work. I started working when I was 13 for my dad's businesses. I've been working. And that's when I played football. I wasn't really fast or really strong.
When I went to college, our first football coach just wanted people who were mean and tried hard. So I fit in well. Then he left. And our next coach wanted guys who were good at football. And I was suddenly terrible. Because he wanted us to be like fast and accomplish things.
The other coach just wanted us to show up and try to hurt people. And I was like, I can do that. I may not hurt them. I can try. But I lean into hard work.
And so what that means is that people who are lazy, when I look at guys who don't want any responsibility, who don't want to work, who can't show up on time for things, who have no desire to take on any responsibility, I need them to be wrong. I need you to see that they're wrong so that you can see that I'm right. I need them to be bad so that you'll know that I'm good and so that I'll know that I'm good. And we do this with anything. You can do this with parenting. If what you use to give yourself worth and value is your children, then you have zero tolerance for bad parents.
Because you're looking at your kids and saying, if you work out, then I'm okay. If this works out, if you're good, if everything's happy, if I'm a good mom, then I know I have value. If I'm a good dad, if I've just been a good father, I know this will work out. And then when you see a parent that isn't living up to the standard, you need other people to see them fail. You need to see them fail. And they have to be wrong.
And they have to be bad so that you can be good. Grades. Athletic ability. Open-mindedness. Tolerance. That's my favorite one because it's sneaky.
So some of you are saying, I don't do that. I think everybody's welcomed in. I think everybody's okay. Yeah. Except for bigots and closed-minded people. Intolerant people have to be wrong for tolerance to be right.
So you have zero tolerance for intolerant people. And they don't deserve tolerance because they're intolerant. So they're not in the club. Does that make sense? Do you see how we do this with everything? And so Jonah's world is getting rocked because what he's using is his grading scale for what makes him good and valuable and worthwhile is taken from him.
God's messing with it. And that's where that shows up in us, too, because there are certain things that God is not allowed to mess with you about. There are certain things he just can't touch. You'll follow him fine. Jonah followed him fine when it was saying good things about Israel. When it was give Nineveh a chance, Jonah ran.
There's some things that you just crush. Maybe you just serve. Anytime there's anything that takes up your time, you're there. You'll sign up. You'll show up early. You'll leave late.
You serve. You're gifted there. You love that. And when God says, hey, I also want you to surrender your finances to me. No. No, no.
Can't do it. I have no obedience there. Some of us are the opposite. Man, you give. When you hear a need, your wallet magically appears in your hand. You ever met that kind of person?
Like, I thought I heard a need. Here's 20 bucks. Like, I just, I drop hints around those kind of people. Man, I sure could use 20 bucks. Like, those kind of people. But then when it comes time to give up time, ah, I'm just so busy.
I have no time for that. Some people crush both of those areas. And then it comes to relationships. You start looking at scripture where it says that your relationship doesn't honor God, isn't where it needs to be. And suddenly God can't mess with you there. We have something that gives us value.
And if it's our boyfriend, if it's our girlfriend, if it's knowing that we're loved, and God shows up and says, this doesn't honor me. You don't need to be sleeping together. You don't need to be living together. You need to stop this. And we say no. What we've realized is that something has taken the place of God and something is giving us our value that's not him.
And that can be finances. That can be work. That can be success. Some of you could care less about being a good dad. Some of you had dads who could care less about being a good dad. Because what they were using to give themselves worth and value was punching the clock and making a name for themselves and being successful.
And they looked down on dads who, you're going to take time off to spend with your kids? Do you not understand what makes us valuable in this world? And so God starts messing with what it is that Jonah has built around himself to know that he's a good person and it's a train wreck. And here's why. Jonah's religious. This is why Jesus butted heads with the Pharisees so much.
Because the Pharisees knew everything and obeyed really well. But that had to be what made them good. Knowing stuff and obeying. So whenever Jesus hung out with sinners, they couldn't have that. Because they can't be welcomed in because they're wrong and they're bad and if they're welcomed in, our position's gone. And so Jonah's looking at God and saying, you can't relent on Nineveh because if they're not wrong and they're not bad, my position's gone.
And so when that's taken from him, he says, just kill me. That's why people jump out of windows when the stock market crashes. Because what they've built their life on just disappeared. Their identity went with it. That's why some of you had a career-ending injury. And suddenly, if I'm not a soccer player, if I'm not a baseball player, if I'm not a football player, I don't know who I am anymore.
You had something that was good, but your identity left with it. Some of you had a relationship that fell apart and you didn't know who you were anymore. And not only were you sad, normal sad, you just didn't want to live. Because what you've been using to give yourself worth and value and fulfillment was taken from you. So Jonah says, just kill me.
Because we all have something that makes people good and something that makes people bad. That's all politics is. Democrats, conservatives have to be block-headed, close-minded, bigoted, backwards, gun-toting psychos. Have to be. They have to be wrong so that we can be okay, so that we can be right. So we can be what's right with the world.
Conservatives, liberals have to be fluffy-headed, open-minded, nonsense, family-hating, constitution destroyers. For us to be okay. They have to be. Obama has to be from another country. Has to be. For us to be okay.
Do you see how that works? One of the reasons we constantly, people are like, why can't we all get along? Self-righteousness. Why can't we all just tolerate each other? Self-righteousness. That's why intolerant people can't tolerate bigoted people.
Because we're all building something up to make ourselves good and okay and self-righteous and self-saved and self-sovereign. And that's Jonah's problem. So here's the thing. That's our problem. I fit with Jonah. I see this.
So how does God respond to Jonah? And what we're going to see is this really crazy, divine, God-ordained object lesson where God bends to teach Jonah something. So all of Nineveh repents. The story should have ended. But Jonah has a fit.
And then God bends. He says, do you do well to be angry? Verse 5. Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself. A booth is just like a three-sided tent that Israelites knew how to make ever since Moses' time. They actually had a feast of booths where they all made booths so Jonah knew it was up.
He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. So he prays and thinks, okay, maybe God will stop being gracious, which is evil to me. Maybe God will relent from this disaster, go back to his original disaster, and destroy everybody. And I want to see the fireworks, so I'm going to go sit on this side of the hill and just hope, fingers crossed, everyone dies. I'm looking at you, cattle. Take the sackcloth off.
So that's what Jonah's doing. He's waiting to see what will happen. Now the Lord God, this is verse 6, appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. All right, so he's got a little bit of, he's manic and depressed, like he's going back and forth here.
He's super pumped about this plant. And it's really cool because God shows that he's in charge of a storm. He shows that he's in charge of a fish, and now he's appointing a plant. So like God just appoints things, does what he wants. So I walk out in my backyard, and I'm like, I wonder which trees were appointed and which of them just grew.
But like he just does, he just tells everything to do what he wants. And so he appoints this plant. And it seems like Jonah knows that God did this on purpose because he builds a booth, and then overnight a plant just grows up. And so Jonah's very happy about the plant, probably feels like, okay, God's comforting me. God's showing me some honor. Maybe I'm okay.
Maybe I'm in a decent spot. Maybe he still does just love Israelites. That's what it seems like. But he seems like he's more excited about the plant than God. Seven, but when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm, again, in control of everything, that attacked the plant so that it withered. I love that part of the story because the worm wasn't sent to eat the plant.
He was sent to attack it. So God appoints the worm, and it's not, hey, go eat the plant. It's go destroy the plant. That plant must die. And so there's this worm sent on a mission from God, which is just really cool to me that God would do this with a worm, that he's bending this much, that he's kneeled and stooped this much that he would tell a worm to go attack it. And so the worm waits till dawn because that's the best time to attack a plant.
And so the worm's waiting, and he's like, hold, hold now. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's just the way I see it, and he attacks the plant. This plant must die. Worm crushed it, did his job.
Worm attacked the plant so that it withered. That worm nailed it. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah. Which, if God's in control of the weather like this, I sometimes wonder what he's doing with South Carolina. Just 80, 40, whatever. It's better for me.
Sorry, okay. Some beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. So this is the second time Jonah does this. So God sends a plant, and then he sends a worm to destroy the plant, which is just God teaching Jonah, bending over.
He's stooping to interact with Jonah personally. So we see that he cares about this whole city. We see that he's in charge of storms and weather, and then he just bends to deal with Jonah. And so he's giving him an object lesson. And so he has this plant grow up, and then he has a worm attack it, and then it dies. And then Jonah says, just kill me.
Because God's sending a scorching wind. It's dried out. He's cooking him. And now he feels like, okay, God's picking on me. He's messing with me. He's taking away my honor, my privilege.
He's teaching me that Jews aren't the best. It's kind of what Jonah, I think he's feeling here because we know that what he's based his life off of, what he thinks makes you okay, is to be an Israelite. He says, it's better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said, yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. Crushing it with logic, Jonah.
You ever do that, just shout something in an argument that you know no longer makes sense, but you're so entrenched in your point? That's what Jonah's doing here. Yes! I love the plant. You don't know anything about the plant. Just kill me.
And the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left? Okay, most scholars believe that means children. Don't know their left and right yet. So it could mean a bunch of people who don't know anything.
So 120,000, they know nothing. They're completely backwards. But most scholars believe that he's referring to there's 120,000 children there. Don't even know they're left from their right yet. Which means that it's about 600,000 to a million point two in the city is what people guess, which would be about the size of Boston. 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle.
The end. Best ending line in the book in the Bible. It's my favorite. He ends with and also much cattle. Question Mark. It's over.
Okay. Jonah runs from God. God prays a kind of piousy prayer in a fish. Gets vomited up. Obeys. And then throws a fit.
And tells God three times, just kill me. And God's response to Jonah is to just teach him and talk to him. And that is so encouraging. Because if I was God and I had a guy consistently yelling at me and telling me, just kill me. I think at some point, God, I would just be like, fine. Like, yeah, I can do that pretty easily.
Do you really want a piece of me? And God's response to Jonah is, you're confused. You're off here. Do you not see that you're wrong? And he just tries to teach him. And what he shows Jonah is the stuff you care about is so fragile.
The stuff you're basing your life on, the stuff that you're using to give yourself comfort and worth and value, is so fragile and easily taken that it can show up in the night and it can be taken in the night and a worm can destroy it. And I just want us all to hear that. The stuff that we're looking to, and some of you know this, you painfully know this, because you've had it snatched from you. And some of us in this room haven't had it snatched yet, but it can be gone in the night. What we're looking to, to give ourselves worth and value and to know that we're good and other people are bad can be easily taken from us.
And it's not worth building your life on. You see, Jonah, when he looks at God and says, I knew you were gracious. I knew you were good. I knew you relented from disaster. I knew you were abounding in steadfast love. What he's doing is he's the kid who raises his hand and says, you forgot to take up the homework.
The only kid who raises his hand and does that is a kid who's done his homework. It's the only time you raise your hand and do that. You're never in the back of the class being like, didn't do my homework, didn't do my homework, bell ring, didn't do my homework, didn't do my homework. You know what, I need to be honest. You didn't take up the homework. You don't do that.
It's the kid who's back there going, I spent 30 minutes on this. I have nice handwriting. I assume most kids who do homework have a nice handwriting. I checked the back of the book. I knew I was right. But I didn't check the back of the book until I had done all of them.
Looking at you, Carl. Like, that's the kid who raises his hand and says, take up the homework. That's the kid who does that. And so when Jonah looks at God and says, I knew you were gracious. I knew you were merciful. I knew you abounded in steadfast love.
What he is saying, even if he doesn't realize it, is I don't need those things. That's a character flaw in you. See, if Jonah knew he needed grace and mercy and steadfast love, he would not be mad about it. What Jonah is yelling at God is, I'm one of the good ones. Take up the homework. You'll see I did just fine.
Jonah wants God to take everybody to task because Jonah thinks he's arrived. And Jonah wants God to take everybody to task because he needs God to see that he's arrived and other people haven't. But when we realize that we need grace, then we want it for everybody. When we realize that we need mercy, then we want it for everybody. When I didn't do my homework, I want everybody to not have to turn their homework in. I want the teacher to say, you know what?
I'm not taking up homework today. Best teacher ever. I want the kid who did his homework. You don't have to turn it in. It's fine. You did it.
Whatever. Everybody got points. That's okay. I think she gave points to everybody. You got your points. But that kid doesn't want everybody to get points.
He wants himself to get points and you not to get points. Does that make sense? So when Jonah says, you're gracious, that's a problem, he's saying, I'm good, you should know. And he's missed the point. As we see this bigger story unfold of how God interacts with humanity, and it's such a baffling picture that the God of the universe would send a little plant and a little worm to teach a little man. Does that make sense?
Like this just seems so small. What we see is that he's actually willing to stoop further. That God would actually come to earth. That he wouldn't just send a begrudging prophet to say a message. That he would actually send his son to pay a debt. That Jesus came because God was willing to stoop way further and be way more gracious than we see in the book of Jonah.
That he actually died for our debt. The Bible is very clear. There are not good people and bad people. There are bad people and Jesus. It is not us and them. It is us and him.
That's it. And all of the things that we've put on our resume mean nothing. We all need grace and we all need mercy. Now here's the thing. We don't know how Jonah responds. It just ends.
The end of the book of Jonah is and much cattle. God's saying, Jonah, the cows repented, man. I just can't kill a cattle with sackcloth on. I'm just not going to do it. But the end of the book of Jonah is and much cattle.
And do you want to know why? We are all given the opportunity to respond the way we wish Jonah would. Every person in this room, you're given the opportunity because God has actually stooped further. In the book of Psalms, it's a prophecy about Jesus and it says, I'm a worm and not a man. And it's talking about him dying on the cross. It's a prophecy about the death on the cross.
And he says, I'm a worm and not a man. I have my life taken from me. And you see, God sends a worm to teach Jonah a lesson and he became a worm to rescue us. He took on sin and death and paid our penalty so that we can have life and joy and hope. That we can be set free and all of us have the opportunity to respond the way we wish Jonah would. Turn in your resume.
Tear up your homework. Put your hand down. And be thankful for grace. That Jesus was good on our behalf. And he took all of our bad stuff, put it on himself and died for it. So that we can be free.
We wish Jonah would see his sin and realize that he needed grace too. That's what he's missed. That his thing that he's looking to say, this makes me a good person. The stuff that you're looking at and saying, this makes me a good person. And God is asking you to throw that away. To realize that it doesn't.
To realize that you're all bad. All in need. All in need of grace. And run to him. And trust in Jesus to be a good person on your behalf. That's the invitation.
And that's the response we get to have. And when that happens, we want grace for everybody. When that happens, something changes in us. To where we want everybody to be invited in. And we realize that all the stuff we fall short. All the stuff that we mess up.
Just points to how good and gracious God is. So David, Matt, and Raz are going to come back up. We're going to sing and praise Jesus. Jesus, you get the opportunity. Let me be very clear. The story of Jonah ended very abruptly.
Don't let yours end like that. Don't let the story today end for you with God asking you a question. Are you going to hang this stuff up? Are you going to quit trusting in yourself and you not respond? Some of you will let it be that. And you'll just leave and there will be no response.
But we have the opportunity to respond the way we wish Jonah would have. To see our sin. To see all of the stuff we've piled up. To say, God, take up the homework. This is what makes me good. And to realize that all of us fall short.
All of us need grace. All of us miss the point. And all of us get invited in by Jesus. Who stooped way, way lower for us than God did for Jonah. And to be radically changed by that. To have that sink into our hearts so much that we can't.
Not love him. Can't not lean into grace. And can't not want it for everybody else. God, we pray. That your Holy Spirit would lead us. That you would help us clearly see what it is that we're leaning into.
To give ourselves worth. And to give ourselves value. What we're using to say, God, you can take up the homework. Because I'll be okay. God, you can weigh everybody out now. You can check everybody out now.
Because you'll see that I've accomplished something. God, I pray that you'd help us to see. What it is that we're using to give ourselves value. That can be so easily taken from us. That can in a night be gone. God, help us see the things that we wouldn't feel like we deserved life.
Or needed life. Or had life. Or an identity or self anymore. If it was taken from us. And God, help us to see so clearly the cross. That sets us free from all of that.
Jesus who came to die on our behalf. Lord, help us to repent as Jonah should have repented. Help us to see our sin as Jonah should have seen his sin. Should have seen how his religion. And his obedience. And his knowledge was getting in his way.
From knowing you. And being close to your heart. So that he could celebrate when you celebrate it. And God, help us to be so in love with grace. That we want it for everybody. We ask all this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
A Prayer from the Deep
Transcript
We're in week two of Jonah, and this week is going to be especially puzzling for us because we come up against an aspect of God's character that most of us have heard of before but never really get, most of us don't truly believe in our souls. We're going to come up against this aspect of God's character: his deliverance does not depend on our excellence or our behavior. Now when I use the word deliverance, I'm not talking about delivery as in delivering a baby, although pretty much everyone has that on their mind at the moment. I'm not talking about delivery as in two-day free shipping for Amazon Prime members, which is always on my mind. I'm talking about the kind of deliverance that's more like a rescue against all odds, something that no one expects to happen, something that seems to defy logic.
Like when your wife, trying to be sweet and nice, says to you, "Let's watch a movie together, a romantic movie," and you go, "No." Then she entices you, she makes it sweet, there's popcorn involved and hot chocolate involved, and you know that the night is going to be horrible anyway. You're looking forward to hot chocolate, but not a romantic movie. And then it comes on, and you know what? It's kind of cute. The movie wasn't so bad. It kind of, you know, that movie delivered against all odds.
But beyond that, we're talking about deliverance where the God of the universe, creator of the heavens, creator of the seas, the dry land, creator of land animals, sea animals, birds in the air, insects... I don't know why he did that... the creator of man says to one specific man, "I want you to do something for me." And that man says, "Nope." Then God sends a giant fish, of all things, a giant fish, and says, "I'm going to make you do what I told you to do." And the giant fish scoops him up, travels I don't know how far, and spits him out and says, "Get on your way." We're talking about that kind of against-all-odds deliverance, something that should never, ever have happened, that blows our minds, that doesn't seem to make sense in any way. And we're going to learn that when God does deliver, it's not based off of anything that we do, but purely on his grace.
Now, we typically oppose that notion. We don't really believe it. We think that on some level, in some capacity, I can do something that contributes to this transaction. Most of us on some level still think that if I just do something, if I just be good, that will contribute something to this scenario. And even people who don't believe in God say, "If God did exist, surely good people would be blessed and bad people would not." This whole human transactional understanding that we have of what's fair and what's not fair is that good people deserve good things and bad people deserve bad things. It's kind of just ingrained in us.
But today's passage is tough because Jonah is a guy who knows a lot of the Sunday school answers. Obviously his parents sent him to kids' church, and he learned it from a very young age. He knows how to say good things about God. But then when it comes down to doing them, when it comes to getting out there and doing what he's told, he bails and does the exact opposite. It's tough because Jonah's the guy, he's a prophet of God, he's supposed to be the one who knows what to do and does what God says, and then abandons that. So what happens? What happens when someone says one thing and does the opposite? What happens when someone knows what they're supposed to do and chooses not to do that? Does God still deliver people like this? Will he only rescue the people who actually deserve it, who do things to earn things from God? And what happens to someone who thinks they have it all right, thinks that they're doing the right things, thinks that they know things about God and that that will save them, but actually do the wrong thing? And could that be me? Could I be that person?
Go ahead and open your Bibles to Jonah chapter 2. If you have a Bible that looks like this, it's on page 502. If you have a different Bible, then it's right between Obadiah and Micah. You're welcome. Somewhere in the middle you'll find it. Jonah chapter 2. We're going to read the whole thing up front. We're going to make observations about it, so leave your finger in there. We're not going to do the thing where you read a passage, talk about it, read a passage, talk about it. We're just going to read the whole thing up front, so keep your finger in there. Basically, the whole time, it's Jonah praying, and that's why we would do this up-front thing. The whole time is Jonah's prayer. And what's interesting about reading other people's prayers is it gives you an insight into how they think. It gives you an insight into how they relate to God themselves, how they see themselves before God, and how they think God relates to them. And we're going to see that in Jonah chapter 2.
Father God, we praise you and we thank you for this morning. And we pray that you can reveal things to us from your word. And we pray that, most of all, we will grow in our love for you and not depend on ourselves to be saved. We know that we will come up short if that is the case, and we praise and thank you that that is not. Please be moving in our hearts this morning that we may learn from your word and put it into action in our weeks. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, we're going to read the whole chapter up front. But we're going to start in the last verse of chapter 1. So chapter 1:17.
> And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
> Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying,
> "I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
> and he answered me;
> out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
> and you heard my voice.
> For you cast me into the deep,
> into the heart of the seas,
> and the flood surrounded me;
> all your waves and your billows passed over me.
> Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight;
> yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'
> The waters closed in over me to take my life;
> the deep surrounded me;
> weeds were wrapped about my head
> at the roots of the mountains.
> I went down to the land
> whose bars closed upon me forever;
> yet you brought up my life from the pit,
> O LORD my God.
> When my life was fainting away,
> I remembered the LORD,
> and my prayer came to you,
> into your holy temple.
> Those who pay regard to vain idols
> forsake their hope of steadfast love.
> But I with the voice of thanksgiving
> will sacrifice to you;
> what I have vowed I will pay.
> Salvation belongs to the LORD!"
> And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. (Jonah 1:17-2:10 ESV)
So Jonah got thrown into the ocean by the sailors in chapter 1. He got swallowed by a giant fish, and while he was living inside that fish for three days, this was the prayer that he prayed.
Now let's keep one thing in mind: Jonah got here by disobeying God. This wasn't just like a random thing that he decided to do. Jonah got here by disobeying God. He was told to go to Nineveh, and instead he planned to go to Tarshish. He was told, head east, but he headed west. The dude is now trapped inside a giant fish.
Most times when we think about this, and in fact most times when it's illustrated, when it's in a cartoon, maybe in a Bible story sermon series, it gets cartoonified. It gets made nice. There's theme music, like, trouble. And so the life of Jonah is summarized in disobedience, swallowed by a fish, delivered out on land, on your merry way. Let's time out and go back to the living-inside-a-fish thing for just one moment, because it intrigues me.
I've smelled a fish before from the outside. It wasn't very nice. It was okay. And then you put a knife in it, and you slide it open, and the guts fall out, which is gross. I know that. I'm sorry. But that doesn't smell any better. Jonah was inside those guts for three days. I have been on a boat before. I've felt this thing that I thought was imaginary called seasickness. Boats rock. I guess submarines would be even worse. They would go underwater and move around a good bit. Jonah's inside a fish. Those things wiggle, and then they jump, and then they dive down, and then they go up. And he's inside the thing, like floating, presumably in fish guts and water and nastiness. I assume he probably got seasick. I would. He probably vomited, and then it splashed back up on his face when the fish went down. Jonah was from the Middle East. He probably had a giant beard. He got fish guts in that beard. They don't come out real quick. I have a little itty-bitty mustache, and I get smells stuck in that, and it's right under your nose. Jonah was inside a fish with little fish-gut smells inside his nose. It cannot have been nice.
And what's worse is, I assume there's no light in there. I don't know if you've ever been in pitch black before. I have. It's terrifying. If you go down this hallway that way, the guys' bathroom lights are on a motion sensor. Do you know how stupid crazy that is? When you go to the restroom in the morning and the lights time out and you're stuck in pitch black in a restroom in a foreign school, you will never be more thankful for your iPhone in a moment like this. Jonah does not have an iPhone. He's feeling sick. He's inside a fish. But thankfully, this is the time when he chooses to pray.
Now, I know that's what I can be like sometimes. I wait until the final moment. I wait until life gets really tough. Maybe not that tough. But I wait until life gets tough, and that's the moment that I choose to pray. It's almost like when things are going good, things are going well, life, you're feeling healthy, you've got enough money to get through this week, you're feeling okay, there's not really any need to pray. And then as soon as you get chopped off at the knees, suddenly you're sick and you've got no money because you spent it all on medicine. Suddenly, now it's time to pray. And we've got a little bit of this urgency in times of need like that.
Now, in this whole story, the first time we hear of Jonah calling out to God is once he's been thrown off the boat. This is a time when he needs something to rely on. I don't know if they have this saying in America. I kind of grew up with it, at least in the church. Someone coined the question way back in the day: is Jesus your steering wheel or your spare tire? Do you turn to Jesus when you've got a flat on the interstate? Does he only ever come out when life is tough in the moment, and then as soon as the problem's fixed he gets put back in his little spot in the back? Or, alternatively, is Jesus your steering wheel, the one who guides the path at all times, gets you from A to B, completely relied upon for direction?
Now, it might be old, I don't know, that might be the first time you've heard it, but it's a valid illustration of what's going on in this situation. And you could say that, given that he hasn't prayed up until this point, he's left it until the very last of minutes. The time came for prayer earlier, and he didn't until he was drowning in the ocean. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with calling out to God in times of need. In fact, definitely call out to God in times of need. I say that, I do that, the Bible says that. The question is in motivation and attitude in the whole situation. What's going on in the thought processes, and what drives you to pray in that situation?
We have a guy here who's done a serious wrong by God, that God's chosen to rescue anyway, at least physically in this moment, at this point in time, and regardless of his disobedience. You might expect this to be the time when Jonah starts to repent. That is, he acknowledges his own sin and apologizes for it, feels broken about it, and says, "God, forgive me." You might expect this to be a time when he realizes how disobedient he is.
And on the surface, when you read through this passage, there's a bunch of things that look really good that he says. A number of really good things. In verse 2 he says, "I called to the Lord." Good. You should do that. In verse 4, "I will look upon your holy temple." Good. In verse 6, "You brought my life up from the pit." True. In verse 7, "I remembered the Lord." You should do that. Remembering God is good. Verse 9, "I will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord." Good. Good. It sounds like Jonah's on the right track, at least that he's starting to get it.
But actually, what we see of Jonah's character up until this point, and spoiler alert, in the future as well, is that he has a very self-centered understanding of his faith. He has a very self-centered attitude toward how he relates to God. He thinks that things he can do are what govern his relationship with God. We actually find in this prayer the inner workings of a man who is so self-centered that he ignores his own sin the whole time. He believes that he deserves to be rescued. Now, whether he thinks he's entitled to it because of his position as a prophet, some people probably would feel that. Maybe he feels that he's entitled to it because of his heritage as a Jew. Most likely, he thinks he's entitled to it because of what he does. This prayer is all about Jonah because he thinks he's earned something.
Now, there's a difference between these two kinds of prayers. One kind of prayer focuses on self and the other focuses on God. A prayer that focuses on God, a legitimate, authentic, heart-changed prayer, would sound like this: God, please have mercy on me. I'm busted. I'm broken. I'm sinful. I can't do anything right. Please save me from me. Jonah's prayer, not so much like this.
Now, maybe I'm throwing you under the bus and lumping you in with my own sin here. We typically pray in a way that treats God like an exchange program. We typically pray in a way that says, "God, if you'll just give me this, then I'll give you that. God, if you'll just deal with this, then I'll stop doing that. God, if you get me out of debt, I'll stop using credit cards. God, if you help me get healthy right now, if I feel healthier by the end of the day, I swear I'm going to quit smoking. God, if you just get me a girlfriend, I promise I will stop playing video games until next week." And we treat the whole situation like it's a cosmic exchange program, like we have something to offer God. That's kind of how Jonah does it.
Let's read some of the things that Jonah says. He doesn't start with, "God, you rescued me, I'm a sinner." He starts with, "I called out to the Lord and he answered me. I cried out and you heard my prayer." I initiated this relationship. It's my turn to speak, and I've done something to earn your attention right now. Then in verse 3, when he should be recalling all the things that God has done for him, instead what he says is, "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me." You put me here. This is your fault.
What Jonah's already forgotten can't have been more than a day later. What Jonah's already forgotten is that he put himself here. He was thrown into the ocean by the sailors who came to him and said, "What do we do?" And Jonah said, "Throw me overboard." Jonah disobeyed God, ended up on a boat where the sailors thought they were all going to die, ended up throwing Jonah overboard, and now he's saying, "God, you put me here."
Then toward the end of his prayer, right down at the end, in verse 8, he says, "Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love." Here's one of those cases where that is a true statement. Those who have idol issues, have idolatry problems, they do forsake the hope of steadfast love. But what Jonah does is he puts these people over here and separates himself from them. Jonah doesn't see himself as one of those people. He's talking about the pagans, the sailors, the guys who were on the boat who threw him over. He says those who pay regard to idols do not have your steadfast love. What he doesn't realize is he's a part of that group, and actually the sailors are less a part of that group because they renounced their idols, they feared God, and they made sacrifices to him. It's a true statement, but he doesn't understand what he's saying.
And then he says, "I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will pay." Basically he's saying, I'm not like them. I have it right. And for the record, in the rest of the book of Jonah, there is no evidence that Jonah ever makes good on any of these vows. He never makes sacrifices, he never vows anything or comes through with any of this stuff. He might sometime in the future after the book ends. We don't know. But what we have here is a bunch of empty vows, empty promises. So while on the surface it looks like he's saying a bunch of good things, we actually have a guy who doesn't really believe the things that he says.
What Jonah doesn't see is that he's blinded to his own sin. What he doesn't see is that he doesn't think he's busted, broken, and disobedient. He thinks he deserves salvation. And even in his last-minute prayers to God, his emphasis is on himself, what he's done to earn that favor in the first place. And it's almost this half-hearted, last-minute, inside-the-belly-of-a-fish prayer to, yep, thanks for that.
Now, I know it sounds like a kind of a downer that we can be like that as well, that we think of this as a cosmic exchange program where we give him this and he gives us that, and it can sound bad to us that we can't do anything. It sounds really horrible that we have no power in this. But actually, if you see it in perspective, it's a massive relief. Because if God was a cosmic accountant and he had a list, a balance sheet of all your credit and all your debt, all your pros and your cons, all your good and your bad, your bad would be through the bottom. And you might be able to chalk up some good things, but you could never possibly tip that balance to the good-person status that we assume exists but doesn't. It's actually good news because we don't have a God that weighs us in the balance like this with a good and a bad list. We have a God who sets the list aside and loves us regardless. It means that we don't have to try to get more good than we do bad.
Now at the end of the prayer, the very last line of his prayer, he says, "Salvation belongs to the Lord," which is again a great statement of faith. You can't deny that he knows some good things. But what's interesting is this is a person reciting a textbook answer that doesn't understand what that means. It's like he studied for the exam but didn't understand the content.
Now, if you've passed high school, you're probably familiar with this concept of studying for exams but having no idea what's going on in that class. At least in Australia that was the case for most of us. For example, I took trigonometry. I can tell you the cosine rule. I'm pretty proud of it. A squared equals B squared plus C squared minus 2BC cos A. You impressed? Yeah. I even know the song. That's how I remember it. A squared equals B squared plus C squared minus 2BC cos A. And then you clap. A squared equals B squared plus C squared minus 2BC cos A. People in exams would clap in Australia. It was crazy. Thing is, I know it's to do with triangles. Something to do with sides. Cos means an angle. I know that. I have no idea how to use that. I may know the formula, but I still can't pass the exam. And it's the same thing that's going on with Jonah. He studied the formula but failed the exam. He knows things about God, but doesn't understand how that impacts life.
Now I reckon at this point in time God is pretty disappointed with Jonah. After the whole running-away thing, I can't imagine that he's in the good books, even though Jonah for some reason thinks he is. And I like to imagine the whole scenario. If Jonah's thoughts were right and God did like him, maybe it would be different.
We've established that being inside a fish is a gross way to do things. So if Jonah was in God's good books and God wanted to rescue him in a nice way, perhaps it would have looked differently. Perhaps it would have been he parts the sea and Jonah gets to walk back. That could have been nicer. Perhaps it could have been he's just back on land. But the funniest thing, and the best thing to me in this whole story, is that that's not how it happens. God kind of gives him a little slap on the back of the head, a bit of a bruise on his ego, and has a fish vomit him. That's the best.
God says, it says that God spoke to the fish, which I think is also funny because he... I don't know if it's a pet or if it's like, fishy, fishy, fishy. Fishy, fishy, go and vomit Jonah out on dry land. I just imagine the fish being like, woohoo, and then going off and doing that. It could have been even nicer with the fish. God can speak to fish, obviously. He could have said, fish, deliver Jonah to the dry land. Or fish, go and open your mouth on the beach and let him walk out. But instead God says, vomit him out. Make sure he gets the point that he's done something wrong. Make sure he gets a little bit of fish guts in his beard for the rest of the walk. I love it.
And that's how chapter 2 ends. Brilliant. Jonah walking on his way to Nineveh from the beach covered in fish guts and rancid smells that take weeks to go away. And that's the story of chapter 2. That's how Jonah got from in the ocean to a fish's belly, prayed to God, spit back out onto the sea.
Now let's pause for a second, set that entire story aside, and let's think for a moment on how it could have happened differently, what it could have looked like if Jonah actually got it, if Jonah understood from the start how it all could have happened. Option number one would be God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh, and Jonah goes to Nineveh. Yeah. Option number one.
Option number two: God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh. Jonah says, no, that sounds scary, I don't want to do that. Maybe I should. And then he goes back and goes to Nineveh. That's option number two. That's valid. That could have happened, would have worked. God would have been pleased with that. Option number three: Jonah, go to Nineveh. No, bump that, I'm getting on a boat, I'm getting out of here. Oh, this was a bad idea. Something's going to go wrong, I can just tell. Guys, turn the boat around, we're going to Nineveh. Turn around, go to Nineveh.
Option number four, this can go all day. Option number four: God says, Jonah, go to Nineveh. He says no, he gets on a boat, gets on the boat, goes to sleep, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. The storm comes, the sailors come to him and say, Jonah, pray to your God. And he goes, I should have done that earlier. He prays to God, the boat turns around, they go back and they go to Nineveh. At any point in time in the story, Jonah had an option of repentance. At any point in time in the story, Jonah could have done something. The only thing he could have done is repent. He could have said, God, I was disobedient. And he chooses not to.
The entire time, he is strictly disobedient. He sets himself up in his prayer as someone who deserves to be saved, when the exact opposite is true. But that's exactly the point. He doesn't deserve to be saved, but he is. Our actions do not govern God's deliverance, because he doesn't choose to save people based on their individual merit. He doesn't choose to save, to rescue people from sin, based on how good of a person they are.
And yes, we have this sense that there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. We have this sense in us that there are small things we can do to influence God in some way, small transactions we can make where he will bless us if we do good for him. And if we think that, then we're just like Jonah. And if you think you're off the hook and that you're not like that at all, then you've proven that you are on the hook, but you're blinded to the hook and you're a whole lot like Jonah.
What we see in the story of Jonah is the prayers of a self-righteous man, one who thinks what he does will give him credit against God. But he's blinded to the fact that he's a sinner and has something to atone for before God. Yeah, God chooses to rescue him physically, at least by means of the fish in this moment. But the fact that he was physically saved by a fish does not necessarily transfer over to spiritual salvation, spiritual deliverance. There's a difference in this case between physical deliverance and spiritual deliverance.
And honestly, we don't know about Jonah at this point. So far, he has yet to repent. He's yet to admit that he's a sinner and ask God for help. And so the jury's still out on Jonah. But here's something interesting. Seven hundred and fifty years later, when Jesus was walking around, he was on the way to Jerusalem and he was confronted by a crowd, and he spoke to an incredibly similar situation. He spoke to a situation where there was the group of guys who thought they knew everything, thought they had it all under control, thought that God liked them because of the things that they had done, and they held it over other people.
So I don't want you to turn there, but I'm going to read from Luke 18. This is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
> He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:
> "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
> The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men,
> extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
> I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.'
> But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'
> I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:9-14 ESV)
Seem pretty similar? The Pharisee emphasizes his own importance, his achievements, his credentials. He listed reasons why God ought to love him. And then he distances himself from other people. He distances himself from the tax collector. He distances himself from people who he thinks God doesn't love. He says, I'm not like them at all. And the tax collector, he beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
There's a massive difference between these two guys, and sadly Jonah's a whole lot more like the Pharisee. Only, at least the Pharisee actually did do some stuff. Jonah didn't do anything. So when it comes to spiritual deliverance, God chooses to deliver people not based on their merit, but by their faith and trust in him. God doesn't choose to deliver based on merit. He chooses because of his abundant mercy and amazing grace. That's what puts the tax collector, this guy who's lived a life of sin, miles ahead of a Pharisee who lives his entire life by the rules, trying to obey and do things to earn favor with God.
But Jonah did nothing to deserve being saved by God. He ran away from him and tried to escape him. So yeah, God did save him physically. We know that it's not because he deserved it. He definitely didn't. It's because God doesn't save on account of merit. He saves on account of his love and mercy. Now we don't know if Jonah even will be delivered spiritually. The jury's still out on that. But we know the truth that repentance and faith in Jesus are what grant deliverance.
I'm going to invite the band back up. We're all going to zoom out a little bit and try to land this plane. Let's distance ourselves from these figures, these characters, these stories. How do you picture yourself and your relationship with God? Do you picture God as the cosmic accountant, the one who keeps score of all the bad things you've done and weighs them up against all the good things? Or do you see God as a loving father who sets the score aside because he loves you?
When you pray, do you bargain with God as if you've got a stack of chips that he wants and that you can offer him things and that in return he'll give you things? Or do you praise him for what he has done in your life and beg him to forgive your sin? Do you see clearly your own sin and live rightly based on the merit of Jesus? Or do you point out the sin of other people and try to live by your own merit before Jesus? Is God the hero of your story, or are you the hero of your own story?
Do you trust yourself to make every good decision? Do you trust yourself with the steering wheel? And do you treat Jesus like the spare tire that only ever comes out when life gets tough? Or is Jesus your steering wheel, who guides every direction that you ever take? Do you know stuff about God like Jonah does? Or do you actually know God and understand God?
Jonah had one thing right. Jonah knew that salvation belongs to the Lord. But Jonah thought that his actions at least in some way affected what God does. We know that only faith in Jesus can save. Your only hope in salvation is trusting in God. It's the only way. The things that you do will not and cannot earn it for you. So trust in him, not in your own ability, not in your own talents, not in your own credentials. Trust in the God who laid his life down so that you wouldn't have to do that. Only he can truly save.
Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that you are the only way. We thank you that we can rest in your love, knowing that by the death of Jesus we can be saved. We thank you that you're not a cosmic accountant. We thank you that you do not give us a score based on the good and the bad that we do because we know that we can never match up. We thank you that you forgive us of our sins when we ask of it and that we can be saved through our faith in Jesus. And it's in his mighty name that we pray. Amen. Amen.
God's Response to Runners
Transcript
Well, good morning. We're going to be in the book of Jonah. You're going to go ahead and want to start flipping there. It's on page 502. If your Bible looks like this, it's really hard to find. If your Bible does not look like this, best of luck to you.
It's towards the end of the Old Testament with a bunch of names, Jonah, Obadiah, Amos. A bunch of just kind of names that sound like maybe they came out of Star Wars or something. But it will be 502 if you have one of these Bibles. What we're going to do is for the next four weeks, we're just going to walk through verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through the book of Jonah. And then it will be Easter. And on Easter, we celebrate.
We celebrate that Jesus is alive. And this Easter in particular, we're going to celebrate through baptism. So we're going to get together. We're going to celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead, that he is alive, and that he still calls people to himself, still makes people alive as they place faith in him. We'll celebrate with baptism in our Easter gathering. And then afterwards, we'll eat food, hang out, be church family, and just make a big deal out of the whole thing.
So we're going to walk through Jonah for four weeks. And then it will be Easter. And we'll have a lot of fun doing that. But so my wife is 38, 39, somewhere around in there, weeks pregnant, which means that at any point she could go into labor. So if she goes into labor this morning, I'm just going to tap out.
Someone else will come up and finish the rest of the chapter of Jonah, and I'm going to head on. It's actually not true. If she goes into labor this morning, she can just hold it. We're really close to the hospital. And first labor takes a long time anyway. And so she can just step out, wait in the hall, and we'll finish up.
We've got work to do in the book of Jonah. I'm going to pray, and then we're going to start in Jonah chapter 1. God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your word that we get to study together as a church family. And we pray, Lord, that as we look at this book that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, this story that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years and been relayed for hundreds and hundreds of years, Lord, that you would help us to see clearly who you are through it and to see clearly your grace, your massiveness, and your relentless pursuit of those that you love in light of your will and your purposes.
And so, God, I just pray that you'd help us to see this as we study your word this morning. And we love you, and we praise you, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. So we'll be in Jonah chapter 1. So as we look through Jonah, as we study through this book, there's going to be some things that just are striking.
I've really enjoyed getting to study and read Jonah multiple, multiple times. It's a really short story, and we just get to see some clear pictures of God. And so as we look today, we're going to see a few things about God that I think we see as a part of his nature and character throughout Scripture. But Jonah just shows it to us really clearly. So some of the things we're going to see about God today as we look is that he's bigger than we think.
He's more personal than we think. And he's willing to go further to chase us in our sin, to pursue us when we run than we think. And so that's kind of what we're going to see this morning as we study this book. And so chapter 1, verse 1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai.
Now that's not super weird. That's kind of a normal way that prophetic books would start. The word of the Lord comes to a prophet. And what we know is that Jonah is a prophet. He's mentioned in 2 Kings. So he was like a legit normal prophet who did normal prophet things.
So people would come, inquire of the Lord from him. He would proclaim things. He was a normal prophet. So this isn't odd, although it doesn't happen to a lot of different people in the Old Testament. But it was a normal thing for Israel.
And so as we look at this, I just want us to give us an idea of where we are in the history of Israel. So we've got this timeline that Raz made for us. So you've got creation at the top. It kind of comes down. You've got Egypt. You've got the promised land.
And then the kingdom is divided. So the kingdom of Israel was one kingdom for three kings. So Saul, David, and Solomon. After that, it busted apart. And so we're going to be looking over here in Israel. That's kind of where we are.
So there was Judah and Israel. We're going to zoom in on that. So Jeroboam was the first king. It's during Jeroboam 2 that Jonah prophesies. Hosea and Amos are prophesying as well to the nation of Israel at the same time. And we'll talk about what they were saying in a second.
And then Jonah was a prophet at this same time. And Assyria in some years is going to come take over the northern kingdom. And then it would just be the nation of Jerusalem and Judah. So it would be that nation after Assyria comes in. And so here's what happens. It says, The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it.
For their evil has come up before me. Okay, so the word of the Lord comes and it says, Go arise and go to Nineveh and cry out against it. For their evil has come before me. This is weird. Because Nineveh is a very large city in Assyria. Most of the time, prophets prophesied to Israel.
They prophesied to the nation they were a part of. So they would proclaim to Israel. Now sometimes they would prophesy about other nations and other cities. But they were always giving their prophecy to Israel. Now there were times that other prophets had been carried away to other nations and would prophesy while they were there.
But Jonah is specifically told to go to Nineveh. Which is just weird. And at this time, Amos and Hosea are both prophesying to the nation of Israel, Repent or Assyria is going to come take you over. Repent. Turn from your sins. Stop it.
Or Assyria is going to come get you. And then God says to Jonah, Go to Assyria and cry out against them. Tell them basically the same thing. Because the generic prophetic message is, Repent. Turn. Destruction is coming.
That's kind of the basic baseline message. Now God would give them different ones at different times and be more specific. But it's really weird that he sent to Nineveh. Now, what we know about Assyria is that they were terrible. They were evil in a lot of ways. We've got historic accounts of a king who wrote bragging about when they took over a city how he skinned grown men alive.
They would show up and they would rape young women. They would torture young boys. They would kill and skin men alive. They would enslave people. They would just absolutely destroy stuff. They would dig holes, like post holes, and bury men in them.
And then pull their tongue out and stake it into the ground. And then let them die from exposure and bleeding out and mental anguish. They were bad people. And Nineveh was one of the primary cities. At this point it had at least 120,000 people that were a part of it. They had a 100-foot wall around it that three chariots could race on.
It was a big city. It could race along the top of it. And God says, go to them and cry out against them. Go to this evil city because their evil has come up before me. And here's something that Jonah learns when God says this. Jonah begins to see that God's bigger than he thought.
Because God primarily spoke to the nation of Israel and he was the God of the nation of Israel. So it's a little bit weird that God would just care about Nineveh. It's not in relation to Israel at all. It's just Nineveh. And so Jonah immediately would be going, okay, what does that have to do with us? Like, Hosea and Amos are saying these things.
Like, why would I be good? Like, he's got to have this running through his head is that God is involved in things that he would have, before this, probably didn't think he was involved in. Probably didn't see that clearly. He begins to see that God cares about Nineveh, has some paying attention to Nineveh, this Assyrian city. And he sees that God's a little bit bigger than he thought to send him to them. And so Jonah gets the word of the Lord, hears this, and we see how he responds to it.
So we'll start reading it from the beginning again. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. One thing I want to say there real quick. We, in general, our culture pushes back some when we see God acting as a judge in the Old Testament. Like, we have a little bit of a pushback there. Now we're not super upset here because he says that they're evil.
But even if we thought a country was evil, even if we thought a nation was evil. So let's just take the problem with nations that are evil is we still think, okay, but there's like women and children there. There's people who aren't involved in this. And so you can't just carpet bomb the whole place. You can't just nuke the whole place every time a nation causes problems. And so when we look in the Old Testament and God stands as judge over nations, there's just a little bit of us that goes, Ah, you can't really just kill a whole city, though.
I mean, there may be some bad people there, but you can't just destroy everyone. And, like, you'll even talk to people and they'll say stuff like, My God is a God of love. And if there is a God, he's a loving and compassionate God. That's true. But for some of you who maybe have that pushback, if that's you, if you sit in this room today and you're kind of checking out this whole Jesus thing, you're checking out this whole God thing, and your general disposition is, Okay, I believe there probably is a God because of some things I see through science and the way the world exists.
Like, I think there's probably a God and how. But if there is a God, he's a loving God and he's a compassionate God. And he wouldn't judge and he wouldn't destroy. The only thing I would ask you to do is to investigate a little bit as to where you got that idea. Just look in a little bit as to where you got the idea that if there is a God, he's a loving God. And what you'll find is you got that idea from Scripture because no other religion teaches that about God.
Buddhism doesn't have a personal God. Islam doesn't teach that. That concept of a loving God came from Scripture. And so, honestly, the only way we can reckon that there is a loving God is to study Scripture and understand what kind of loving God is and what that means. And here's the truth. He can't be loving and not hate evil.
He can't be loving and not hate sin. He wouldn't be loving. That's how love works. So, if I love my wife and you slap her, I can't just be like, hey, bro, don't do that. Like, stop it. Or whatever.
Like, you'd be like, man, I don't think you care much about your wife. Like, I don't think... Like, if you have children and something comes against them, you hate whatever comes against them. Whatever we love and however much we love it makes us the most capable of hatred and wrath. Does that make sense? So, if God is a loving God, then he has to hate evil.
And if your God is only capable of just love, nice feelings, then honestly, he doesn't really love. And, just so you know, just to help you out, if you have a God in your brain that only ever agrees with you, he probably doesn't exist. Like, if I said, yeah, I'm married and my wife only ever thinks I'm right. And only ever wants to eat where I want to eat. And only ever thinks that all my ideas are good ideas. You'd be like, bro, your wife is a figment of your imagination.
Like, she's not real. I'm going to need to meet her. Because real entities disagree. So, if God is real, we would just assume, it would be logical to assume, that he and I wouldn't be on the same page on everything. Does that make sense? Okay, so God says, their evil has come up before me.
And I want you to go to him. And so, here's what we see. Verse 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So, he paid the fare, went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. That just sounds dumb. Like, if we're reading that, we're going, okay, Jonah, he's not the brightest crayon in the pack, right? Like, he just, God comes to him and says, I want you to go, he says, go east to Nineveh, and Jonah goes west to Tarshish. That's what happens.
And we think that's dumb. It says he's fleeing the presence of the Lord. So, the word of the Lord comes and says, go to Nineveh. And Jonah says, mm-hmm. Now, I'm going to go get on a boat, and I'm going the opposite direction. And we'll find out as we read the story later why he did that.
But here, doesn't it just seem ridiculous to flee the presence of the Lord? Like, we're looking at this going, shouldn't Jonah have known better than to run from God? Doesn't it seem like God could hawk you down? Like, don't you think, like, don't you think if somebody could catch you, God could? Like, I mean, if I was going to, in a foot race, I'm not racing God. I'd just be like, no, you got this one.
I remember when I was growing up, my dad's a big, intense man. And I was like, I don't know, I was eight, nine, something like that. And my dad was fussing at a German shepherd. And this was a big German shepherd. It was like as big as I was at the point. And my dad has a very love-hate relationship with dogs.
Like, he's going to have a dog. He's going to do what he wants it to do. Otherwise, he's not going to have a dog. Like, he'll just give it away or whatever. And so he was fussing at this German shepherd. And we were down kind of in the woods.
And we were in a field. And there were some woods. And the German shepherd was probably 10, 15 feet from him. And he was fussing at it. And it was laying down. And he used to do this thing when he was getting fussed at it.
It would just kind of slowly crawl towards him, you know? And so it's laid on the ground. And he's going, come here. Come here. And the dog's kind of crawling. And then the dog stops and looks over his shoulder at the woods.
And my dad goes, you better not. And I'm like, I don't know if the dog understands English that much, you know? He's like, come here. The dog looks at him and then goes, he goes, don't do it. And about that moment, that dog, boom, I mean, just took off. My dad did not flinch.
Took off right after it. So this dog takes off running. And my dad, just as fast as he can, is running after a dog. Just, I mean, dog runs into the woods. My dad runs into the woods. Me and my two brothers are just like, all you hear is, shh, shh, all through the woods.
Two minutes later, my dad comes walking out of the woods, holding the German shepherd by the back of the neck going, you going to run from me? You going to try to bite me? Because apparently they got in a fight in the woods. He's like, have you lost your mind? And me and my brothers, we learned something that day. We ain't running from our daddy.
If he can catch a German shepherd in the woods, I'm in trouble. So he used to do the same thing with us. He said, boy, and you just knew, stand still. And he said, come here. You came here. There was no, none of that was happening with us.
And you got to think that Jonah knows. You don't run from God. Like you would just think, Jonah's got to know he's a prophet of God. He's got to see this, right? He does not. So Jonah automatically is like, man, I don't know.
You ain't cooking with much. Like, I don't know what you're doing. Verse 4. Okay, so it says he fleed from the presence of the Lord. Verse 4. But the Lord, which I love that it says, but Jonah, and then there's a rebuttal.
But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. And there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners, that's just sailors, that's the guys who were running the boat, who Jonah paid to give him a ride, were afraid. And each cried out to his God. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. Okay, so things, when the mariners are afraid, that's a problem because they're the guys who run the boat.
Like when the people who are running the boat get scared, like, you know, okay, we ought to be scared. When they start throwing the cargo out, like, they're like, man, we ain't going to eat. We ain't going to drink. We just going to hope we float around and survive. Like, they don't need the weight moving around. It says the ship was threatening to break apart, which means you're on this boat and it's going, like, you can hear it cracking and snapping.
And it's a bad storm. And we're about to find out how bad. To lighten them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep. So Jonah wasn't even, like, guilty.
He just, he's like, well, I'm running from God. I'm going to have a nap. Like, that's where he was. He wasn't stressing about this. What you would think that he ought to have been. All right.
This is how intense this storm got. Check this out. He was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise. Call out to your God.
Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. Captain of the ship. Best plan he's got working is have everybody pray. That's all he's got. If you're on an airplane in some turbulence and it's bouncing around and it's jerking and all of a sudden the captain starts walking down the aisles going, wake everybody up. We just need to pray.
Who's in the cockpit? Man, ain't nothing happening up there. Handle snapped off. We just we floating. You need to pray. Pray to whoever you got.
Wait, wait that fool up. He better be praying. Like, that's the best plan the captain has is cry out to your God. Maybe we'll live like he ain't holding that thing anymore. He's just spinning. It's broke off.
Like, best thing we got is you pray. Everybody pray. You an atheist. I don't care. Pray to science. Pray to Oprah.
Whatever you got to do. Like you pray. Just start calling out. Like, I don't care who you got. Call out to him. We got to get everybody here.
That's all we got working. That's what the captain's doing. So he's waking people up. Ain't you supposed to be captain? And this is all I got. This is my plan.
This is plan A. Plan B is drown. That's what we got. All right. Verse 7. And they said to one another, so it gets worse.
Come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell to Jonah. Okay, so casting lots was like a way. It was kind of like flipping a coin, but it was more, you know, had more spiritual backing to it. And it was something that ancient Israel used to do, but other cultures did too. But it was basically like if we were going to cast lots, we split the room in half.
Y'all are heads. Y'all are tails. Oh, it's tails. Okay. Split the room in half. Y'all are heads.
Y'all are tails. And it's a real quick way to just divide it down until you got to one person. And then it comes to Jonah, which I wonder if in this process Jonah was thinking, I wonder if this is about somebody else. Like you think Jonah was like, you think he was sweating or you think he was like, if it's not me, it's probably that guy. Like came down to the end. Jonah every time was like, me again?
I'm in the group every time. Like, but it's gotten so bad that the only plan they have now is let's figure out who to be mad at. We're all going to drown. We might as well know who we ought to be mad at. Let's figure out whose fault it is.
We ain't doing nothing anymore but floating. Let's find out who we should be mad at. This storm is terrible. God's bigger than Jonah thought as he tears this sea apart. He's bigger than Jonah thought. Eight.
Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew.
And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this you have done? All right. You want to know why they're exceedingly afraid? God's at this point. Little G gods.
In their understanding, we're only over a certain piece of nature, a certain land, a certain area. God's at this point where they understood gods. They were local gods. That's why he's waking people up and saying, cry out to your God. Maybe he's close. Maybe he'll hear us.
Maybe he has something to do with water or with wind. Maybe he can help. So when Jonah says, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. So in most cultures, the God of heaven was a big God. So immediately they're like, oh, okay.
This guy worships one of the big ones. He didn't just say the God of my field or the God of, he says the God of heaven. And then he says, who made the sea and the dry land. And they're terrified because he's bigger than the gods they were used to. So like in Egypt, there was a God of the sun and there was a God of the Nile.
And there was a God of like all these little gods, even in ancient Greece. Like you had Zeus was like the God of storms and the God of the sky. Poseidon was the God of the ocean and horses, which I have no clue how that worked out. Like, did they have a draft? It was like Poseidon's first pick. I'll take the ocean.
It's a good pick. Poseidon rolls back around. I'll take fire. Bro, you can't have fire and the ocean. Like they're opposites. Plus those are both pretty big.
Like you got to pick something else. All right, I'll take horses. You can't take horses and the ocean. Like you pick the ocean. Well, then give me fire. Okay, you can have horses.
Like, I don't know how it worked out. I don't know how you got the ocean and horses, but I bet in ancient Greek culture, seahorses were super cocky. Because they were the only thing in the middle of that Venn diagram. But that's how they understood gods. They understood that they were only limited to certain things. Like, I'm riding a horse.
You ain't got nothing to do with this, Zeus. Like, that's how they understood it. And so when he says, I fear the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land, they're terrified. Because this God they're just being introduced to is bigger. And there's no other God to call out to for help or hope. Because he's in charge of everything.
And here's what we begin to see with Jonah. And I want us to see. I want us to see very clearly with Jonah. You see, earlier, when it said, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it. And then in verse 3 where it says, But Jonah rose to flee.
Every single one of us, our hearts should have skipped a beat. Every single one of us should have leaned forward in our chair. Because we suddenly became a part of the story. Every single one of us should have said, Oh, hold on a second. I want to find out what happens with Jonah now. Shush, shush, shush, shush.
We'll figure out what we're eating later. Shut your mouth. I've got to find out what's happening with Jonah. Every single one of us should have done that. Because when that happened, we all became a part of the story. When it said that Jonah knew the word of the Lord and then headed the opposite direction, all of us just became a part of the story.
And we should all be very interested to find out what happens to Jonah and how God responds to Jonah. Because for most of us, we have a pretty good handle on some of the things that God likes, some of the things that God wants from us, some of the things that He desires. Most of us, the word of the Lord is clear. In many, many instances, and we head the other direction. One of the things we do when we sit down with somebody and we're counseling through some sin stuff, one of the first questions I ask is, Okay, in this particular instance, do you understand that this behavior is sin? It's one of the first things I ask.
Eight out of ten times, the answer is yes. Okay. That's going to guide our conversation. The next part is, why don't you want to repent? If someone says no, then okay, let's study the word. Let's look.
You're ignorant as to what the scriptures say. But for most of us, and most of our sin, the word of the Lord is clear. And we've headed the other direction. We know what the Bible says about sexuality. And we head the other direction. We know what the Bible says about our finances, how we treat others, how we treat generosity, how we treat our money, and we've headed the other direction.
We know what the Bible says about being a husband or being a wife or being a father or how we're supposed to treat our parents. We know it. The word of the Lord is clear and we've headed the other direction. And so all of us should be going, what's going to happen to Jonah? How is God going to respond to Jonah? What is going to happen here?
Because I need to know, because it's personal now. Because most of us know about God, know who He is, and have headed the other direction. And here's what we see so clearly as we get to this section in Jonah. Jonah says, I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Jonah did not have, he wasn't ignorant to God. He didn't misunderstand who God was.
He had very good belief. He knew stuff, but it wasn't here. There was something bigger that he cared more about, something that was driving his behavior more. See, Jonah knew stuff about God. He could have passed the theology test. He could give really good Sunday school answers.
Jesus, you nailed it again, Jonah. But he was heading the other direction, because it wasn't real to him. It wasn't actually true. It hadn't sunk in yet. So he knew the word.
He headed the other way. He knew God very clearly. As we read the rest of Jonah, we're going to see that Jonah understood who God was, but he didn't act like it. He wasn't acting on it, because it wasn't a real belief. He may have known it, but he wasn't, he wasn't here yet. And that's us.
Most of us have a good handle on who God is, what he's like. Some of us, maybe not. Some of us, maybe we're just learning some of this stuff. I'd say most of us, have a pretty good handle on what the God of the Bible is like. How big he is, how holy he is, what he feels about sin, and our attitudes, and our actions. And most of us, quite often, head in the other direction.
We see that, we feel that, understand that. Then the men were exceedingly afraid, that's verse 10, said to him, what is this you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them, God is bigger than we think. See, Jonah thought he could flee from his presence, which we all know at this point is nonsense. And God begins to bend nature to his will. It wasn't just that he set it up, and it just happened to be what was happening.
God bends nature to his will, because God is bigger than Jonah thought, and God's bigger than we think. We so often feel like, God doesn't care about this section of my life. Yeah, I do my church thing, but God doesn't care about work, or how I handle this part of my life, or God's not really paying attention to this, or God's not over this, or God doesn't care about those people. God's bigger than we think. And it's very clear as we look at this text. Verse 11, then they said to him, what shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?
For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. The sea's just growing worse and worse. Verse 14, therefore they called out to the Lord. Nope, I messed up. Let's see.
Tempestuous 12, and he said to them, pick me up, and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Jonah says, the only way to pay for sin is death. Jonah says, the way that I get out of this is death. The way that you get out of this is death. Jonah's right.
He understands God. He understands the nature of God. He understands sin, and he understands that sin leads to death. The Bible says that clearly. And so Jonah says, the way out of this is death. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not.
So they didn't want to kill him. They had showed compassion on Jonah, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. So it's getting even worse. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood. For you, O Lord, have done it as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah, they hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. So picture this. Jonah says, the only way out is for me to die. The only way for you all to escape is for me to die. I know it's because of me. And they don't want to do that.
But they weren't quick to kill him. And so they try to row, and then they can't. So they basically say, God, you're in charge of this. You chose. And so they grab Jonah. They throw him into the ocean.
The ocean swallows him, and then the sea ceases its raging. How terrified were these men? Let me tell you something. A storm is scary. When you feed the ocean a person, and the storm stops, that's terrifying. Just so you know.
Like there was a guy on the boat who was like, I'm glad it's been raining because I just wet my pants. And I don't want to be made fun of. Like that's how terrifying it is for the ocean to be tossing you about, and when you throw a man in it, it just ceases. And so what they did was they said, okay, you actually are God. I'm swapping teams. I'm not praying to that guy I was praying to anymore.
I'm praying to you. They make vows. They make sacrifices, and they say, you're God. You're in charge. The sailors see clearly who God is, and they respond appropriately, which is more than we can say for Jonah. 17.
And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Okay. That's weird. But God can do what he wants, and he's more in control of things than we think. So if you've ever been fishing and think, is it wrong to pray for fish?
Well, God is in charge of fish, so he can send one your way if he wanted to. But what we see is that God in this story sends this giant storm and then appoints a fish. He goes from this massive picture to this, hey, I got a job for you. Fish says, yes, sir. God's bigger than we think. He's in control of all of this, and the fish is grace.
It's grace to Jonah because it actually saves him from drowning. What we know is that God uses the fish to rescue Jonah. So the truth is, sin leads to death unless God intervenes. Sin leads to death unless God in his grace intervenes on our behalf. And here's what we see as we see this story. We see clearly that God's bigger than we think, that he's more involved in his world than we think, and we see very clearly that he's way more personal than we think because he's chasing after Jonah.
He's chasing after one man. So you think often, God doesn't really pay attention to me. He doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't really care what's going on with me. He's not really here. But you look at the story of Jonah where for God's purposes and his own glory, he's chosen to use Jonah and he's not going to give up on it.
For God's purposes and his own glory for Nineveh and for Jonah, he's not going to let him outrun him. This is beautiful because the answer to the question from earlier of how does God respond to us when we run from him? How does God respond to people when they know the word and they run from him? Grace. Unrelenting, unwavering pursuit in his grace. You see, it would have been God's judgment on Jonah to let him just go and use someone else.
But God wasn't willing to do that so he stops his boat, gets Jonah thrown in the ocean and swallows him with a fish because God was chasing him down. Because God cared about Jonah. You hear that? Like, I think we've gotten used to that idea, but God cared about Jonah. One man who was in direct disobedience. He could have just squashed him.
As we read the rest of the story, you're going to think, God, you should have just squashed him. But God chooses, chose us, mm-hmm, God chooses to chase him down because that's God's response to us in our sin, in our rebellion. And here's what's crazy. We read this story and we go, okay, big storm, big fish, a fish swallowed a dude and he was in the fish for three days. That's nonsense. This is ridiculous.
But you see, God's willing to go further than we think to chase us in our sin. God's willing to go further than we think to pursue us when we run. And the truth is, this is just a small picture of how far he's actually willing to go. You read this story and you think this is absolutely crazy that he would do this, but the truth is, the Bible has a more epic, more mind-shattering story that God's willing to go to more elaborate lengths to chase after us because he actually becomes a man, lives perfectly on our behalf in the person of Jesus and dies so that we don't have to. You think a big fish is crazy?
God died. The God of the universe who created, the God of heaven who created the dry land and the sea became a person who changed. The unchangeable God changed. The ever-living God, the eternal God, died. Ceased to exist. Was laid in a grave for three days.
And then he came back to life because Jonah is just a small picture of how far God is willing to go to chase us when we run. So the answer to the question, how does God respond to us when we rebel? Unrelenting grace. And he's willing to go to elaborate, mind-shattering lengths to chase us down. Bianca, Matt, and Raz are going to come back up. The appropriate response to this type of grace is repentance.
The appropriate response to God bending history and bending the world on our behalf is to turn away from sin and to run back to God. It's the appropriate response. I pray for some of you who know the word of the Lord and are headed in the other direction, I pray that God in his grace sends a storm. I pray that he stops you where you are. That he cares enough about you to wreck you. You see, when we love someone, we don't let them destroy themselves and I pray that God in his grace wrecks you to stop you and to bring you back to himself.
Some of you, you're in that storm. The appropriate response to God when he wrecks you is repentance because he's already gone farther for you than he went for Jonah. He's already done more for you than he did for Jonah. You think that fish is ridiculous? The God of the universe died. So that we could have life.
So that our debt could be paid for. Sin does lead to death and Jesus died in our place for our sin. So that we could have life. Some of you just needed to hear today that God's bigger than you think. More capable than you think. More willing to bend history on behalf of his people than you'd think.
Some of you needed to know that he's more personal. He actually knows what's going on with you and he actually cares. God cared enough about Jonah to chase him down. He knows where you are. He cares. And some of us absolutely need to know that God was willing to go farther than we'd ever think to rescue us when we run.
And our opportunity the grace offered to us is to stop running. To accept his rescue offered to us through the cross and to be given life that only he can give us. Let's pray. God, I pray that through your Holy Spirit right now you would draw people to yourself. That you'd help us to all clearly see that you went further for us than you went for Jonah. That you did something more elaborate, more crazy, more mind shattering.
God, I pray that you'd make that real to us. God, for so many of us where we know your word and we're running the other direction, I pray that you'd help us to stop and to repent. I pray that those who won't, Lord, that you'll send a storm in your grace to stop them. That you'll pursue them and draw them back to yourself. God, I pray for those in the midst of a storm that they would recognize it. Recognize that sin leads to death and that you died for us so they don't have to die.
They don't have to be destroyed. They can have life and salvation and hope. God, I ask that your Holy Spirit would wreck us. That we'd see your grace clearly and that those who need to trust you, place their faith in you, turn from their sin back to you, that they would. God, we thank you that you love us more than we see you here loving Jonah. That you love us as much as you loved him to chase him down and that you show it to us more clearly as you died for us.
You saved us through your own death. We praise you. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Groups that Multiply
Transcript
We're wrapping up our anchor series, and so what we've been doing for the past six weeks is just kind of walking through and looking at who we are as a church family, what we feel called to do and to be in this area. And so really what we've been doing is taking – we're a gospel-centered community on mission. That's what we say about ourselves. That's what we strive to be. And so we've just been taking that and saying, okay, if we're a gospel-centered community on mission, what does that mean? What do we mean when we say that?
What does that look like? How do we do that? Where did we get that from? Did we just make that up? We didn't. We got it mostly out of the Bible, liked the phrasing of some other churches and how they talk about things.
And so we stole some things from other Christians who are smart. But we really just wanted to help define who we are. And so that's what we say. We're a gospel-centered community on mission. And so in the anchor series, we've just been looking and saying, okay, what are we talking about? What's that look like?
So today is our last day in the anchor series. And the next week, we're going to start walking verse by verse through the book of Jonah. So I'm really excited that we get to do that because we like books of the Bible and we like going through books of the Bible. But today is our last day in the anchor series. And so what we're going to do is we're going to try to sum it all up, try to wrap it all together, put a nice bow on it. And so we've got our work cut out for us.
So what I'm going to do before we hop in, before we get to talking about what we're going to look at today, is I just want to take a minute to recap where we've been, what we've been talking about for the past six weeks, what we've been trying to articulate. And so what we did was the first three weeks, we just talked about the gospel. We talked about what does it mean for us to be gospel centered. So if we're gospel centered, if that's primary for us, everything else comes out of that. What is the gospel? And so we walked through the first six chapters of Romans because we're ambitious.
And so we took one Sunday and walked through the first six chapters of Romans and just kind of skipped around, but tried to get a really clear picture of what the gospel is. And basically what we saw is that God created everything and designed everything to exist in relationship with him as creator and creation. Just like a husband and wife would exist in relationship with one another. So if you were married and you acted like you did not have a spouse, that would make you a bad spouse just because of the relationship. So if I was hanging out with you and I was like, man, don't you need to like head home, check on your wife, like whatever.
And you're like, nah, man, I don't even act like that holds me down. I'd be like, you're a terrible husband. Like you aren't doing this right. And so the biggest problem that we have as creation is that we haven't existed with God in that relationship. We have removed God from the position that he ought to hold as our creator. And we've worshipped other things.
We've pursued other things. We've loved other things. And this is sin. And this is what leads us into all sin. It's when we begin to value something more than God. We begin to look at anything and say, you're going to complete me.
You're going to make me whole. You're going to fix me. If I can just have this, then I'll be okay. When we were designed to be fulfilled and complete by God, when we remove him from the equation and put anything else there, that becomes a fundamental issue. And it's treason of the highest type. And so it puts us in a bad spot.
So as we went to Romans, we saw that we've sinned, we've fallen short, and there's no way we can fix this. We can't moral our way back into it. We can't behave our way back into fixing this problem. That even in a lot of our morality and behavior-based stuff, we're just using that to put God in our debt. And so he's still not in the place of creator. And so what we saw was that Jesus came and lived perfectly on our behalf, did exactly what we ought to have done, loved the way we ought to have loved, worshipped the way we ought to have worshipped, related with other people the way we ought to relate with other people.
And then he was perfect. And in his perfection, he was killed. He was nailed to a cross. And he died in our place for our sin as our substitute. So that he took our execution that we deserved.
And when he did that, he took our death that we deserved, and he gave us his life that we did not earn. And so that through Jesus, we can be saved. We can be made right with God. So we're saved by Jesus's work, not ours. That's the gospel. And that's really good news.
We don't gather together as a church to celebrate that we can all behave well. That would be a terrible group of people to have to try to be a part of. I would be the worst at it. So we gather together to celebrate the fact that Jesus behaved, Jesus loved, Jesus worshipped in our place, Jesus did everything, and he took our punishment to set us free. So that's what we're centered on.
That's our story. That's the way we view the world. And so what we did was we took the next two weeks and just talked about, if that's true for us, then that affects how we talk to people. It affects how we respond to each other in our sin. So if I'm walking with somebody, and they're walking with me through life, and I'm struggling with being a jerk, they don't just say, hey, here's your problem.
You're a jerk. Which that wouldn't be a good, like they didn't need it. I would be like, cite your sources. Tell me how I'm a jerk. And then 30 minutes later, I'd be like, I get the picture. That's enough.
Like, I didn't realize you had, like, footnotes and stuff and, like, dates. Like, you ever get in an argument with your wife, and they're like, well. Because they've got, like, way more memory than you do. And they're like, well, four months ago, you said this at 7.15 p.m. on a Thursday. And I'm like, maybe. Sounds like something I might would have said.
I don't remember. But they wouldn't just say, she wouldn't just say, my wife wouldn't just say, or the friend just wouldn't just say, or we wouldn't just say as Christians, hey, here's your behavioral problem. Fix your behavior. Here's the behavioral change that needs to take place. Because that actually Acts as if we don't know that the gospel is true. Which is, not that our behavior fixed the problem, but that Jesus did.
And that our major problem isn't a behavioral one, but a worship one. And so actually, the way we respond to each other is with the gospel. Which is, you have a behavioral issue, but what it means is, and what it betrays is, that's just a symptom, but you have cancer. And what we're seeing is that you're actually not worshiping and loving God the way you ought to. You don't actually believe the gospel the way you ought to. And here's what Jesus did on your behalf, and that in that, our hearts can actually change, and then our behavior can change.
But the behavior is the smaller problem. And so that we actually respond to each other and point each other to Jesus, and that's how we change, and that's how we grow, and that's how we get life. And that's the story anyway. Not that we behave, but that he did. Not that we're good, but he was. And so we don't just try to behavior modification one another.
And then we understand in that, that our main problem is idolatry. That's our major sin issue, is that we're worshiping something other than God as God. And so we address that, that there's always sin beneath our sin. So that if I'm not generous, the major problem isn't that I'm not generous. The major problem is that I believe something about money that is fundamentally not true. Which means I believe something about God that's fundamentally not true.
And so we address that. So we spent three weeks talking about that, talking about the gospel, what it means for us to be gospel-centered. And then we talked about community. All right, so we exist in the context of relationships. We exist as a family because God, when Jesus died for us, he actually reconciled us to God, and we've been adopted. So the Bible is repeatedly going to say that we've been adopted into God's family so that we are in relationships with one another as an eternal family.
So that if your spouse at one point, if you're both believers, someday you will no longer be spouse and husband and wife, but you will be brother and sister forever because of Jesus. And so that we treat our church family as family. So that when a phone call comes in at midnight, we answer. When somebody's moving, we help. If you could ask your dad to come help you with something, if you could ask your cousin to come help you with something, or your brother or your sister, then you can ask church family to help with the same thing. That's how we relate to one another.
And then we said that in that, in that relating to one another, it's very difficult and painful, and that's part of how we get to grow in relationships and how we get to grow in the gospel. So that I actually get to understand how costly Jesus' forgiveness was when I have to forgive someone. I actually get to understand how great his sacrifice was when I have to sacrifice my time, my energy for someone else. And so that we actually grow and are designed to serve in those relationships. And then last week, Raz talked about that we, because of that, so because of the gospel is true and because we exist in relationships with each other, then we just normally in everyday life move on mission, that we invite other people into that, that we tell the good news, and that in normal everyday life, we make disciples by building relationships with people.
That's people in our church family and people who don't know Jesus yet. And so Raz specifically talked about what does it look like to make disciples, what are we doing in life as we do that, and that we're called to make disciples of all nations, which is just all ethnic groups, that everybody is invited in. And that's normal for Christians. That in normal life, we build relationships, we see who we're around, we pray for people, and we seek to share good news. And so what we're going to do today is we're going to kind of tie all that together. We're going to look at how that plays out in the context of us as our church family specifically and as Christians in general and why it's important, why it actually matters that we're a gospel-centered community on mission, why it actually matters that we pay attention to this, that we think about this, that we would take the time at the beginning of the year to remind ourselves of this.
And so what I'd like for us to do is, I know everybody's had to get here this morning. You've had to go through maybe a decent amount to get ready, to time everything right, to drive in the rain, to decide whether or not it was going to be freezing rain and whether or not you should even risk it. So you are all risk-takers. You love to live dangerously. That's what I know about the people that are here this morning. And you also understand that it wasn't going to be freezing rain because it's out in Carolina.
So what I'd like for us to do is to take just a second. If you've been here for that entire time, all the stuff we just recapped, or if you've been here for a couple of those or maybe this is your first Sunday, what I'd like for us to do is just take a second. And for Christians in the room, I want us to just, we're going to be quiet for about 60 seconds. I want us to just invite the Holy Spirit to remind us of all of that, to help us feel it and know that it's true. And then to help us as we look today to really show us what this looks like for us personally and in the context of our groups. If you're not a Christian and you're hanging out with us this morning, you really have two options for what we're about to do.
Option one is sit quietly for 60 seconds. Maybe daydream, pick where you want to eat lunch, something like that. Option two would be to actually pray, to just inside your head, ask God to speak to you, to reveal himself today. If you're here hanging out and checking us all out and you weren't dragged here, maybe you're checking out the whole Jesus thing. So you can pray and say, God, if you are real, help me see that today.
We would invite you to do that. At worst, that's a waste of time. At best, you talk to the creator of the universe and he might respond. And so we would invite you to do that. So Christians, we're going to pray that the Holy Spirit would remind us of this, of what we've talked about, help us to see it, to have it actually be real to us.
So let's do that now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to spend a little bit of time in Acts chapter 1 and Acts chapter 2. I got to speak at my home church, the church I grew up in this past Sunday, last Sunday night.
And we looked at Acts chapter 1 and Acts chapter 2. And I told them, I was like, our church family looks at this passage all the time. Like if you grab a pew Bible or a row Bible, I guess we don't really have pews, but if you grab a row Bible at our church family and you go to Acts chapter 2, the words are all smudged because we've read them too much. And so, but this is one of the foundational things that helped us get started as a church family that we look at a good bit, that we remind ourselves of. And so we're going to be in Acts chapter 1 to start and then we're going to jump over to Acts chapter 2 and just get to see a really beautiful picture of what the church gets to look like as the gospel takes hold in the lives of believers.
All right, so Acts chapter 1 starting in verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him. Okay, so they being Jesus and his disciples, and they asked him, so they being the disciples, asked Jesus. Now, that seems like a very normal sentence and it's one of the weirdest ones you probably have ever read in your entire life. Because the they that got together includes a bunch of random kind of hodgepodge group of guys that were brought together by Jesus in and around Galilee and Jerusalem in the first century. It includes them, but more than that, it includes a guy who had been dead 40 days earlier.
Not like on the table, heart stopped, clear, and he came back and he's like, I was dead. No, three days in a tomb, dead. Had been wrapped up. They were going to put some smell good stuff on him when it turns out he wasn't dead anymore and had come back to life. So that's a really weird sentence.
It says they got together and they asked him. They're there with a guy who had been dead, who had said all along that he was God and that he was going to be killed and then rose from the grave. So you don't get to say that sentence. You're not like, yeah, my uncle passed away, but in two weeks we're going to be going to vacation together. Or, yeah, I was just hanging out with my grandmother who died last year. Do what now?
Like, you should probably get some help. That's weird. I hope that she wasn't actually there because if she was actually there, that's even worse. Like, you should have buried her. Like, this is bad. So Jesus was dead and is alive, bodily, physically resurrected, alive.
And so they're with Jesus. He said he was God and then when he came back from the dead, they were like, oh, oh, for real though? Okay. No, no, yeah, we get it now. That makes more sense. All the stuff you had said about dying and coming back.
We thought it was like metaphorical and then when you died, we were all bummed and then now you're not dead and that makes way more sense. Okay. Verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. Basically, you're asking the wrong question.
That's not what we're going to talk about. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. Okay. So that got weirder.
He had died. Said he was God. Said he was going to die. Said that he was going to atone for sins through that. He died. Three days later, he rose again.
He tells them, here's what you're going to do. And then he flies. He ascends back into heaven and a cloud took him out of the way. He didn't like vaporize. Like he just, his whole body just took off. And I used to, when I would imagine that, I used to imagine it was like slow.
Like if you had like little wires or something, he just started to float. Do you know how long that would have taken? Like if it was slow? Like after a while, he'd have just been like, I mean, you'd have been enthralled because the guy was flying. But after a while, he'd be like, man, it's going to take forever until he hits that cloud.
Like he'd be waving or whatever. I think he just took off. He just said what he had to say. He said, here's what's going to happen. The Holy Spirit's going to come. You're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth.
And then he was just like, boom, dust. They looked up and then they just, it says they stared up there for a while like, oh, goodness. And then angels show up or some men show up. It doesn't tell us they're angels, but men wearing right robes go say, hey, are y'all going to go do what he said? But here's what he said.
And here's what I want us to see. He says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, the ends of the earth, that the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you so that Jesus is going to leave and the Holy Spirit's going to come and empower his church to do this, to be witnesses. What are they witnesses of? What is he talking about? What is the church, us as believers? What are we witnesses of?
The gospel. We're witnesses to the fact that Jesus died and rose again. That's what they were going to go tell people. And here's the way witnessing works. Here's what a witness does. They just tell you what's happened.
That's all they do. They're just telling a story. They're telling about an event that happened. If a cop gets called up on the witness stand, he doesn't sit down and start explaining how to be a cop. His primary role as a witness is just to tell everybody what he's seen, what happened. If you're watching a news program and they have a cooking segment, the cooking segment and the eyewitness segment are completely different.
The cooking segment is here's what you do to receive these results. The eyewitness section is just someone holding a mic and telling us not a whole lot other than what they've seen. So, yeah, we're out on the scene and there's an ambulance. Uh-huh. Some tape. People were running.
It's like, okay, that's what we get to do as Christians. We just get to be witnesses to who Jesus is, to what he's done. Yes, there was a man who came from God. Turns out he was God. He lived perfectly and he died. And three days later he came back.
That was the story that they got to tell. And here's the thing. Jesus did that to save the world, to reconcile it back to himself. And then he hands that mission over to his disciples. That mission is handed over to the church. God's plan to save the world is the local church.
God's plan to save the world is the local church. We have been given this message to declare. We have been called to be witnesses. And it says where? Well, for them it was Jerusalem, where they were. Judea.
Samaria, which was a place they didn't like. A bunch of people they didn't get along with. They racially weren't happy with. And to the ends of the earth. That it goes to everyone. Everyone is invited in.
That's the church. Have been given the message to declare. To declare the gospel. That's why we're gospel centered. Because we're witnesses. We've been called to make much of Jesus.
In normal everyday life. We've been sent out by God to declare. So here's what happens. That's what they do. They begin to pray. The Holy Spirit comes.
Empowers them. And then they go declare this message. They go be witnesses. And so let's jump to Acts chapter 2. We're going to pick up in verse 36. And we're going to see what happens as they declare this message.
What happens as a group of people who believes this message begins to be witnesses to it. 36. So this is Peter. He stood up. The Holy Spirit comes. Peter stands up.
Begins to proclaim the gospel. Begins to tell this good news. And people are listening. And this is the very end of it. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. This Jesus whom you crucified.
So Peter ends with it's your fault. The reason Jesus was crucified is on you. That Jesus was fundamentally in the gospel is a little bit of we have to respond because it's our fault. He had to die for our sin personally. So he says you whom you crucified.
So let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. This Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this. If you're thinking. Okay but hold on a second. He's talking to the guys that actually crucified him.
Maybe. The Romans actually crucified him. The Jewish people were culpable. But this is the feast of Pentecost. So there was people from miles around.
So it's the same message to us. That we're culpable. We're guilty. When it comes to the death of Jesus. 37. Now when they heard this.
They were cut to the heart. And said to Peter and the rest of the apostles. Brothers what shall we do? And Peter said to them repent. Which means turn away from your sin. Turn away from your brokenness.
Turn away from your need. Repent and be baptized every one of you. In the name of Jesus Christ. For the forgiveness of your sins. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you.
And for your children. And for all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness. And continued to exhort them saying. Save yourselves from this crooked generation.
So those who received his word were baptized. And there were added that day about 3,000 souls. Baptism is just an outward showing of what's inwardly happened. So they trusted Jesus. Were saved. And then they were baptized.
Which means that they dumped them in water. The word baptized just means to dip. Or to submerge in water. And so that's what they were. They were baptized. Who responded?
Who trusted Jesus? Who became Christians? The first people to say. I'm broken. I'm needy. It was the people who saw that they were guilty.
And said I have nothing to offer. Nothing to bring to the table. What must we do? And he says trust Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. That Jesus is both Lord and Christ. Which means king and savior.
He's in charge. And he's the one who saves us. The only people who aren't invited in. Are those who don't think they have need. The only people who did not respond. And who walked away that day.
Were the people who did not believe this message. And didn't think they were broken. And that breaks down into people who don't think that Jesus is Lord. Don't think he's king. And to people who don't think he's savior. You see if I'm really moral.
I'm really good. I behave really well. I'm upright. I'm a good citizen. Listen. I'm a red state American.
Then it's very likely that I'll believe I don't need a savior. Because I'm good enough. That the way I'm saved is through my behavior. So in our culture they might be called closed minded. Might be called bigoted. But they'll walk away from Jesus.
Because they're believing that they can save themselves. That they can fix themselves. You know how else walks away from that? Everybody who's broken. Everybody who's needy. Everybody who realizes they have nothing to offer.
Gets invited in. It's only the people that exclude themselves. You know how else walks away from that? The people who think that they're on Lord. That Jesus isn't king. I'm open minded.
I'm free. Whose rules would I have to follow? Whose regulations? I can make my own decisions. All of that religious stuff. That's for closed minded people.
That's for ignorant people. I'm a true blue stated American. And I can rely on myself. You see both sides of that? Self reliance. Self salvation.
Self lordship. But everyone who realizes they have nothing to offer. Nothing to bring to the table. Nothing. They're invited in. That's why the church can't hold a position of moral superiority in culture.
Because we were the first people to say we're busted and we need a savior. That's why everyone's invited into the church. Oh you're prideful? Oh you think you have it all together and you're just realizing now that you don't? You're welcome. Come on in.
We got a lot of prideful jerks here. Who need Jesus? Jesus. Oh you're rebellious? Oh you've run after every type of flagrant sin you could possibly chase after? And you've just now realized you have nothing to offer and you need Jesus?
Welcome. We've got a lot of people who struggle with that here. We've got a lot of people who can't remember many nights because they were too drunk. We've got a lot of people who've realized their need for Jesus and have been invited in. The only people who aren't invited are the people who think they're already in through their behavior, through their moral superiority, through their intelligence. Everyone who realizes that they're far off, everyone who realizes that they're out gets invited in.
That's the church. So what happens in that group of people? What happens in us as we begin to believe the gospel and exist in relationships? What happens in this group of people who were the first to say, I need a savior. I need someone else to do this on my behalf. I'm not good enough.
I'm not smart enough. I'm not strong enough. What happens? 42. 42. And they, that's the 3,000 people.
That's all the believers. All the people who said, I realize I'm needy. I'm broken. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. What were the apostles' teaching? The gospel.
They were taking the Old Testament and they were saying, here's the gospel. And then as we get their teaching in the New Testament because it's the stuff that apostles actually penned. But that's what they were devoting themselves to was understanding the gospel, what it looked like to live in light of the gospel. If Jesus was actually God, how do we rightly relate to him? That's what they were doing. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship.
That just means, that's a fancy word for they were hanging out with each other. They were being church family. So, you know, like you hang out with friends and then you become a Christian. And so instead of saying like, oh, yeah, we had a really good time hanging out, you say, oh, we had a wonderful time of fellowship. That's where that comes from. That's why people say that.
Oh, bless this fellowship because it's just a fancy Christian word for us being together and being in a relationship. Okay? So if you want to like out-Christian somebody, throw fellowship around. It's real helpful. Anyway, sorry. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship.
They were church family. They existed in relationships with one another. And to the breaking of bread. That shows up in two ways. That's communion. That's celebrating that Jesus died for us.
Reminding ourselves of the gospel tangibly. It also seems like it just means they ate meals together. Breaking of bread. Breaking of bread. And the prayers. And all came upon every soul.
And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. They got together, realized the gospel is true, realized they were family. And suddenly they got to hold everything with an open hand. You need this.
You need to borrow that. You need to, like, we're family. And everything's already been given to me in Jesus. 46. And day by day, attending the temple together. So they got together in big groups.
And breaking bread in their homes. They got together in smaller groups and homes. They received their food with glad and generous hearts. Praising God and having favor with all the people. The city was glad that they were there. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Okay. That last line's a little weird. You can just read over and not pay attention. But the last line's a little weird. Because how? How did the Lord add to their number day by day those who were being saved?
Those who were believing the gospel? Because it doesn't tell us. It just tells us what they were doing. And most of the way we respond in the church is like, well, what did they do? Did they go knock on doors? Did they have a program where they got people together and they sent them out?
Did they have some kind of thing where they were inviting people? Like, we don't. We're like, how? How did people become Christians every day? Love to see that happen in our church. How'd they do that?
Well, they just told us. They were devoted to the gospel and to each other. They spent time in relationships with one another, celebrating the gospel by breaking bread. And they prayed. And people become Christians. It becomes normal for people to become Christians.
Because they actually believed the gospel, which is good news. If you're here and you're a Christian and the gospel doesn't feel like good news to you, if it doesn't feel like it sets you free and gives you hope, I don't think you've believed the right gospel. I don't think you understand what's true about it. Because it's actually good news that Jesus saves us through his own work, not ours. And here's the thing about good news. We want to share it.
When that becomes real, when I understand exactly what Jesus has done for me, in those moments, I want to tell people. You ever had really good news? Like, we've had a couple of couples in our church family recently become pregnant. They're going to have children. They go around and they share that good news. They want to share that joy.
They want to have different groups of people to get together to share that with. We've had people, when they get a promotion, they want to throw a party. They want to share that news. The biggest way I do this on a regular basis is with restaurants. That's my favorite thing to talk to somebody about. Like, if I eat somewhere good, I want everyone to know it.
And that's how good news gets spread. So, like, if you're giving me directions and you're like, do you know where Tillman Street is? I'll be like, do restaurants. You'll be like, do you know where the Taco Bell is in West Columbia? Yep. I know where that is.
That's how I get around. That's how I get to know a city is I eat places. And if I ever eat somewhere good, I'm going to tell you about it. Egg Roll Station, it's on where Sunset meets State Street. It looks like a barn. And you have to have cash only, and it is amazing.
But anyway, that's what we want to share good news with people. And they had good news that Jesus saves, that he rescues, that he redeems, and that everyone's invited in. Everyone. Everyone. And people on a normal, regular, everyday basis start believing the good news and being invited in because they see the church being the church because the gospel was true. Have you had that?
Do you have those moments when the gospel is so true? When Jesus's generosity towards you is so real and somebody needs something, you have that moment where money's just money? You just have the opportunity to bless? Like you didn't even hesitate to grab your wallet and help somebody? Have you had that moment? Have you had that moment when Jesus's sacrifice was so real to you that when someone called and asked for help, you didn't even think about it because you got to just hop in?
That's few and far between for us, and that's why we spent a whole week saying we get to grow as we work in that. But even as we've walked through this series, if you had those moments where the gospel seems so real, so tangible, that you understand why we exist in relationships with each other as family. That's what was going on for them. It was so real, so rich, they could taste it, what had been accomplished for them on the cross, that they just lived it out in normal everyday life. You see, the plan to save the world, God's plan to rescue the world is the church. And there is no plan B.
And the way he does that is through normal everyday life. Certainly, some of them ended up moving far off. Certainly, some of them ended up saying, I feel specifically led to go to this area. But most of it happened in normal everyday life. And you know what happens when the gospel is real? The weight's lifted up.
We don't have to earn it. We don't have to achieve it. We're not burdened by being good. We want to be good. We have a desire for it because of Jesus' work in us, because the gospel is true, but we're not burdened by it. And everything suddenly has meaning.
There is no wasted day anymore if the gospel is true. So that was what messed me up in college. I started reading the Bible in the morning. I'd always read the Bible growing up. I didn't know. I grew up in a Christian home.
I didn't know people didn't read the Bible. So I just always read the Bible, start to finish all the way through. So I mean, I was like in middle school reading the book of Numbers. I don't know if I understood any of it, but I read it. I got to college and I started reading the Bible in the morning and drinking coffee. That messed up my whole life.
That's why I'm standing here this morning. Because it totally altered things for me. Because I started reading the Bible. I read sections like this. I remember distinctly reading this section in college and thinking, if the gospel is actually true, if what we're here saying we believe this morning is actually true, well, that changes everything. And it would actually change how I live.
It actually changed how I treat people, how I view the world, what I do with my time, my money, my energy, if it's actually true. If what we just read about Jesus coming back to life and then in bodily form ascending into heaven is true, that he is Lord and Christ, that one day he will return and he will rule and reign forever. And that the two options for his creation are you pay for your sin or Jesus pays for your sin. You exclude yourself or you get invited in. If that's actually true, I couldn't keep living my life the way I was. And that's what we see here.
That's why you read this in Acts and you go, why did they suddenly change? Why did this group of people in this, why did they, because it was true. Because they believed it and it affects everything. That's what we get to see and that's what we get to be as a church family. We get to be Christians in normal everyday life. We get to have normal jobs, but we get to have them with intentionality.
We get to go to school. We get to study physical health. We get to study to be an athletic trainer. We get to study to go be a nurse practitioner. And we get to do that absolutely wrecked by the grace of the gospel and absolutely invited in to be a part of God's mission. And so here's how that plays out.
What we see is that God added to them day by day, those who were being saved. I want us to read that again. 46. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. So again, the city was happy they were there.
And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. That's why we organize the way we do as a church family. That's why we get together in groups. That's why on Sundays, I remember we were meeting at First Baptist and Hope Bridge. I would stand up. Not Hope Bridge.
First Baptist. I lied. Hope Bridge, we didn't say this. First Baptist, I would stand up on Sundays. We would get together Sunday nights. I would look at everyone, all 15 of you, and I knew everyone was in a group.
And I would say, hey, if you want to get in a group, I remember doing that and people going, who's this fool talking to? Bro, we in your group. I'm going to see you Thursday. The reason we did it was because that's who we are. That's how we exist in relationships in life. And I want everybody to remember that, not get confused by what we're doing on Sunday.
And I wanted everybody to know if you get somebody to come hang out with you, somebody wants to come hang out with us on Sunday, we're going to tell them about how we exist as a church family. We're going to talk about it because that's who we are. We walk through everyday life together because we're trying to do this. Because we believe this is how we grow and this is how we have life and this is how we remind ourselves constantly of the gospel. We believe that's what we're called to. And here's what we're going to do as a church.
We're going to try to grow and multiply at all levels. It says day by day they were added to their number, those who were being saved. What we want to see is that people who follow Jesus help other people follow Jesus. That disciples make disciples. So I'm a Jesus follower so automatically I'm going to help other people follow Jesus because it's actually good news.
It's actually real. It actually gives me hope. It actually gives me peace. He's actually rescued me. That for our group leaders, we have community groups and we have group leaders, that they would train other people to be group leaders, which is just someone who's intentionally going to give some extra time to help pastor our church family, to help gather people together, to help be organized, go out of their way to do that so that group leaders would train other group leaders, that groups would make other groups. My group has grown to the point now at some point we're going to have to multiply.
We have this debate all the time. They're like, but isn't it dividing? It feels like dividing. They'll use the word split. I'm like, we're not using split. Like that's not, that's a bad word.
We're multiplying because we're gaining. We're growing through it. We're seeing more people get to hop in. Here's what's beautiful. None of us, you didn't know anybody here two years ago. And now you can't imagine life without them.
And there are people who are not here today that that's true for. It'll be true for them in a year. There's two real people. You don't know them yet. We'll call them Eric and Sarah. They're real.
You don't know them because you haven't met them yet. But in a year, you won't be able to imagine what it was like, what life was like without Eric in it because of how much joy he brings because that time he just sat next to you on your couch after your relative died and was just there. You'll be able to look back a year from now and remember the time that you screamed your head off when he was baptized. And you won't be able to imagine what it was like to be in a community group to exist as church family without Eric around. Sarah, you'll look forward to hearing her laugh because she has an infectious laugh.
She laughs at dumb jokes that aren't funny and makes everyone else laugh with her because the way she laughs is great. currently, the place that she sits regularly when she gathers with your group throughout the week, just a throw pillow sitting there. But a year from now, you won't be able to imagine what it was like without Sarah around, without Sarah in your life to call. That's why we get to be who we get to be because there are real people in this city who don't have hope, who don't know Jesus, who haven't been set free, who are lonely and have no one to call and haven't been invited into family. The reason why we get to be, the reason why we're a gospel-centered community on mission is because of us.
Because we didn't have that at one point. Because there's people who exist in our city who were like us two, three, five years ago. without hope, without church family, without Jesus. If you take a circle and just draw it around West Columbia, just West Columbia, not Columbia, not Irma, not Lexington, just the West Columbia area. It's like a four-mile radius. 60,000 people in that circle aren't a part of a church family and most likely don't know Jesus. A lot of them probably think they do.
But they think it's about behavior. It's about work. And that's why we do what we do. And that's why we're going to continue to multiply groups and continue to train group leaders. And that's why it's worth it. Because we get to be God's church.
And His plan to save the world is the local church. It's groups of people that actually believe the gospel. It's communities centered around the gospel on mission. That's us. That's what we're shooting for. That's who we get to be.
And here's why it matters. Flip over to the book of Revelation. So in the book of Revelation if you're not really familiar with it you've probably heard weird stuff about it. We'll be on page 666. So go ahead and get that out of the way.
It's fitting that that page would be in the book of Revelation. But we're in the book of Revelation. Here's what happens in the book of Revelation. There was a disciple named John. He wrote the book of John. He wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John.
I think there's a 3rd John. It's real short. Yeah, he wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John because I know about the Bible, guys. And he wrote the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is really old. He was exiled to an island.
He had already been boiled alive in oil but he didn't die. But he probably looked weird after that. But he was exiled to an island. The Holy Spirit takes him and shows him some future stuff and shows him some weird things and he just kind of writes down what he sees. At this point though he's getting a glimpse into heaven. He's getting a glimpse into eternity.
And so I just want us to take a second to look at that and see why this matters. We're going to be verse 9, chapter 7. After this I looked, that's John, he looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb. So God, the Father, is on the throne. The Lamb is Jesus who died for our sins as our sacrifice. Do you see what he just said?
Jesus in Matthew, chapter 28, what Razvalad read last week was, go and make disciples of all people groups. Jesus, so what we see right before he ascends in Acts, chapter 1, says, you're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. God, God, everyone, everyone's invited in and everyone makes it. Not everyone on earth is going to make it, but God will not have a people group, a nation, a tribe not represented before his throne. And you know what's beautiful about that? When he looks out and sees them, he still sees people groups, nations, and tribes and languages.
Everyone's invited in and there is not one set culture for Christianity because God made everyone and every people group, every type of person shows and reflects some of his glory. Everybody gets invited in. That is going to be the best singing and worship that exists. I remember going up to visit Liberty University before I was going to go to seminary there and I walked in and there was two white dudes, skinny jeans and like flock of seagulls haircuts. Like, I mean, they just looked ridiculous. Um, like the, a super long version of like the Macklemore haircut or whatever.
Um, and I remember thinking, okay. And they both had, uh, acoustic guitars and they started just leading us in singing, uh, through worship. And I mean, I'm white and I was like, this is great. Like I totally got into it. Like we, I was able to worship because a white people can worship to two electric, uh, two acoustic guitars. Most white people can, can sing and praise Jesus.
That's some of our music. I remember last year we got together for Easter or one of the weeks before Easter. And we had like, uh, we had a violin and a, um, mandolin. And I mean, I was, we were, they were warming up and practicing. I was like, this is great. This is amazing music.
And it may be too white. Like if I'm liking it this much, it may be we've, we've overshot our goal of what we're doing. I remember gathering with a, um, a church in Lynchburg that was, uh, mostly African-American and a guy led worship from a drum set. And it was awesome. That was it. It was just a drum set and them singing.
It was great. And I had no clue what to do with that. Like, I'm like, do I cut? Okay. I don't like I, that's all I had. It was beautiful.
I just had to sit and listen, but I couldn't do anything with it. I remember in, in, uh, college being a part of a gospel choir. Um, and so it was Matt helped lead it, but it was, we were the only two white boys involved in this. And, uh, I remember I can, I can sing. Okay. If I'm standing next to somebody who can sing in the last day before our gospel choir, big showcase thing, we're, we're going over to the place to practice and aunt Frederick, uh, not aunt Frederick, uh, Antoine Thomas looks at us and says, all right, we walk in.
Here's what we're going to do. We're going to stomp, stomp, clap, stomp. And I was like, do what? You going to tell me this the last day? This is what I should have been practicing the whole time. They were like, what?
We go sing the same songs. I was like, what? We go sing the same songs. I got to stomp and clap while I sing. I'm not kidding you. And you can ask Anna for verification.
I could either sing the songs or I could clap and sway. I could not do both. And it was me and another friend of mine, he was on the end. And so I messed him up the entire time. We would run into each other because we were supposed to be swaying this way. And I was swaying this way and I'd be hitting him and he'd be looking at me like, dude, get together.
So eventually I just did this, kept up with the clapping and swaying. Didn't say a word because I didn't have it. I ain't got it. It just ain't going to happen. In eternity, we're all there. We're all welcomed in.
Everybody's invited and everything gets to be a part of it. And it doesn't get erased and it doesn't get washed over and it doesn't become, oh, only this culture, only this type of people, only this nationality, only this background, only this language, all of them, because God's God of all of them. And everyone's invited in. And we get to be his church in this city. Who gets to be a part of that? Who gets to be a part of looking like the kingdom of God already, going out of our way to invite everyone in because we want that throne room packed.
Let's read the rest of this because it gets good. We'll start back up at nine. After this, I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. So what we're screaming out is the gospel. We didn't earn this. We didn't accomplish this.
We didn't make this happen, but you did. Salvation belongs to you. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. And one of the elders addressed me saying, who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come?
And I said, sir, you know, and he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. There's going to be an eternity where we get to praise and worship Jesus that he cleaned us up through his own blood, that he made us right through his sacrifice, that we were all welcomed in because he was cast out, that we all get to have a real father, a true father, father because his for forsaken him, that we get to have a life because he died, that we're washed clean because he shed his blood for us. That's true. Eternity is real.
So are we going to go out of our way to multiply groups? Are we going to go out of our way to invite people in? Are we going to go out of our way to sacrifice? Absolutely. Because the gospel is real. Is that going to affect everyday life?
Absolutely. Why wouldn't it? Is that going to affect what we do with our money and our time? Absolutely. Why wouldn't it? Is that going to affect how we relate to our neighbors?
How we relate to our coworkers? Absolutely. Why wouldn't it? And we're Christians. We wouldn't have it any other way than to be family, to center our entire lives around the gospel and to see that throne room packed out with everybody. All those who knew they had need and ran to the king.
Everyday Mission
Transcript
G'day everyone, my name is Raz. This morning we're turning to our last chapter of Anchor Series. If you've been with us for the last little while, you'll know that we're talking about what it is that anchors us as a church. What it is that we turn to, what it is that makes us foundationally a church, and what we believe and how we believe the church functions as we're out in the world. And if you've ever seen anything that we've ever printed, t-shirts, cards, giant banners, you'll see that we use the phrase, a gospel-centered community on mission all the time. For the first five weeks of this series, we've talked about what it means to be gospel-centered.
The first three weeks, we've talked about gospel-centered. The next two weeks, we've talked about what it means to be community. And today we're kind of turning to what it means to be on mission. But immediately we've run into this problem when it comes to the word mission. And that's that lots of different people use a different definition of the word mission, particularly when it comes to the church. This is kind of common in English language in general, and particularly for me, miscommunication based on wording.
I'm from Australia, and I live in America, and so I say things different, and I get in trouble all the time. For example, if I learn something for the first time, or something makes sense for the first time, I might accidentally, this would be wrong, but I might accidentally say, ah, I just joined the dots in my head. Everyone knows you don't join dots in America. You connect dots in America. And for someone to suggest that joining is the same as connecting in this country is craziness. Similar confusions can also get you in trouble sometimes.
In America, you have a kind of footwear that is commonly referred to as the flip-flop. In Australia and other areas of the country, other areas of this country and other areas of the world, it's not called a flip-flop, it's called a thong. This can get you in trouble at times if you're not careful. Hypothetically speaking, and I'm not saying that this happened to me, but it might have, you might be away on a youth camp with a bunch of teenagers, explain a card game to them in which one of the rules is that when something happens, you remove your thong and slap the person next to you with it, and suggest that you are going to do that repeatedly to a 15-year-old.
It could happen to anyone. I'm not saying it happened to me. It was obviously a friend of mine. But the main problem that we have with this word mission is that different people use the same word to mean a bunch of different things. There's some people who think that mission means overseas. You've got to be out of here.
You can't be in America because that's not mission. You've got to go to China. You've got to go to Russia. You've got to go to Belarus, wherever that is. You can't do it here. You've got to be somewhere else.
And some people say that's trash. That's not the truth. What you've got to do is cross a cultural barrier. That would be talking to Chinese people who are here in America or talking to people who don't speak English. If you speak Spanish and you speak in Hispanic neighborhoods about the gospel, that would be mission. But other people say, no, that's trash as well.
Every time you leave your house and talk about Jesus, you're on mission. Some people say there's like this umbrella category of mission and evangelism is under that. But some people say, no, that's trash. There's an umbrella category of evangelism and mission is under that. And some people say missions and some people say mission and they get confused between the two of them because they're two separate things. And so you could be on a mission trip, but refer to it as a missions trip and people think you're weird.
And you're just like, I don't know if it's missions or mission. The problem is there's too many different people in the world who use the word to mean different things. There's too many definitions. So this morning, we're going to be looking pretty specifically at what Jesus said about it, what Jesus said about mission. And we're going to look at the great commission that he sent his church to accomplish. Ultimately, though, God himself has his own mission.
And that is to bless all of humanity, all of creation, to bless all nations and bring them back, reconcile them, bring them back to himself. And he does that through his son, Jesus Christ, who he sent to pay the penalty for our sins, to reconcile us to him. And then Jesus himself invites us into that work and sends us out into the world to continue it. And we're going to look at Jesus' words today on that topic and how that applies to us here in Columbia, South Carolina. Let's pray.
Father God, we praise you and we thank you for the work that you've done in Jesus Christ on our behalf. And we thank you that you've given us a mission. We thank you that you've trusted us with that mission. And we pray that we can do it to your glory for the rest of our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if you've got a Bible, go ahead and open to Matthew 28.
If you've got one of these blue ones, it is on page 542. It's right at the end of the book of Matthew. If you get to Mark, you've gone too far. This is the very last little paragraph in the Gospel of Matthew. At this point in time, Jesus has come to the earth. He's been born as a baby in Bethlehem.
He's lived the first 30 years of his life. Then he was sent out and he preached the word for three years. He gathered disciples to him, preached. Then he died and he resurrected three days later, proving that he was God. And then we're going to step into the story in that period of time between when he was risen from the dead and before he ascended back into heaven. This is right in that period of time.
This is from chapter 28, verse 16. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, this is the Great Commission, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Jesus, he comes out swinging. He makes his point hard and fast. He says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. I'm the boss man. And so when you're at work and the boss man comes out and says, I'm your boss. I have the authority here.
You know he's about to say something that you have to do. And he's allowed to do that because he's got authority and you don't. Jesus comes out swinging. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. It means that whatever comes next is pretty important and he expects us to do it. But it's also really encouraging because he says, I'm Jesus.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. You are my disciples. Go out and make disciples. Let's read. The Great Commission. It says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. It doesn't really leave a whole lot of room. His command is, make disciples. Make disciples of everyone. It says, make disciples of all nations. It's a translation from a Greek word, ethne, which really means ethnicities, all people groups.
It's not just saying all nations that we've given names to and have territories. It's not saying China, Russia, England, France. It's saying all people, all people groups. Everyone. Make disciples of everyone. And that's really it.
When it comes down to it, that's the basis for what we're talking about when we use the word mission. The mission is to make disciples. Make disciples of everyone. And the cool thing for the guys that Jesus is talking to is that they were his disciples. He's gathered his disciples together and said, go and make disciples. He's perfectly modeled to them for the last three years what it looks like to make disciples.
And then he sends them out and says, go and do for other people what I've been doing for you. Now, when we make disciples, what we're really doing is making followers of Jesus. That's what a disciple is. It's a follower of Jesus. It's taking someone who doesn't know Jesus and introducing them. But it's also taking people who do know Jesus and giving them next steps towards Jesus as well.
So they might already know him, but not be very good at knowing him. And we just need to teach them some more things about him and how that's involved in life as well. And we push people baby steps towards Jesus. And that's what it means to make disciples. Now, it might not seem super logical to us in the English translation. It is logical.
It's really logical once you understand the basis of how this works. In Greek, and if you want to geek out with me, I love this kind of junk later. So we can talk about this. In Greek, there is main verbs and supporting verbs. It doesn't work the same in English. We usually rely on sentence structure and word order.
But in Greek, there's main verbs and supporting verbs. And so in this sentence, the main verb is make disciples. And then all the supporting verbs tell you how to do that. So we're commanded, make disciples, and then told what it is you could do in order to make disciples. And we're told the other three verbs, the supporting verbs, are go, baptize, and teach. That's how you make disciples.
As you go, you baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And you teach to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Let's look at go. What does it mean to go? Here's what it looks like. As we make disciples, we go.
It's not saying pick up your bags and leave. Go. Get out of here. It's saying as you go, as you go about life, as you go about daily life, as you go about your rhythms, as you go to work, as you go to school, make disciples of everyone. It's inherently movement-oriented. It doesn't imply that you can stay and do nothing.
You are supposed to go. But some people have twisted this word go. It's what causes most of the confusion with the Great Commission and what it means to be in missions in general. Some people say when it says go and make disciples of all nations, that's why you've got to get out of here. That's why, because he says go all nations. It's like, it makes a lot of sense to leave and go to another country.
But actually he's saying as you go about your daily business, be making disciples wherever you are. This is when definitions become important. And this is where I want to help us out a little bit by clarifying all the different types of missions. And I think all it usually needs is a helping word. Because people say the word mission and think of a bunch of different things, when if they had have just clarified, it would have made a whole lot more sense from the beginning. So let's clarify.
Let's talk when it means to go and make disciples of all nations, and you're thinking of get out of this country, go to another country, be a missionary, which is a perfectly legitimate life, a perfectly legitimate way to be in obedience to Jesus, to get out of this country, to go to China and make disciples over there. That's perfectly legitimate. Let's call that overseas mission. Let's call that overseas mission. And it immediately cuts the confusion. Overseas mission is when you leave your country to go to another country and make disciples there.
It's perfectly legitimate. But the thing is, the Great Commission is bigger than overseas mission. The Great Commission is bigger than that. Then there's another group of people that say, when it says go and make disciples of all nations, that's quite easy in the U.S. because all the nations have come here. Australia has come here. Chinese students have come here.
Indians have come here. Lots of Hispanic-speaking, Spanish-speaking, Hispanic countries, people have come here. It's easy to make disciples of all nations right here. And what they're talking about is what we're going to clarify as cross-cultural ministry. Taking the word to people from another area so that you can empower them to reach people from their area and the gospel spreads cross-culturally. Let's call that cross-cultural mission.
But the Great Commission is bigger than that as well. It's perfectly legitimate. Take the gospel. Go, all nations. Perfectly legitimate. But it's not the end.
It's not the end. Let's call what the majority of us aim for. What is also perfectly legitimate within the Great Commission. Let's call what we do everyday mission. That's what we're aiming to do. Everyday mission.
And the thing is, not everyone is called to overseas mission. Not everyone is called to cross-cultural mission. But everyone, if you call yourself a believer, is called to everyday mission. It's without exclusion. If you're a Christian, if you're a disciple, if you call yourself a Christ follower, you're constantly hanging on the word of God for truth, for life, for sustenance, for direction in life. Your job now is to make disciples of all nations.
And you can do that just here. It's to make disciples of everyone in daily life, in the normal goings about of what you do in your daily life. Make disciples. So this includes everything. The only thing that it really excludes, and exclusions are annoying, but the only thing it really excludes is laziness and apathy. So that would be 14 hours of binge Netflix by yourself, home alone, secluded from the world.
Video games until 4 a.m. by yourself. Maybe talking to people on a headset, but that's not the same. Beating people is not fun like that. The only thing that's excluded in going to all people is not going to anybody. So what does this really mean?
What are we supposed to do? What's the structure? How do we do the next thing? Well, the next instruction is baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Interesting you should mention that. Shameless plug.
We are having a baptism party in a couple of weeks. A baptism is what happens, what we do when a person who doesn't believe in Jesus becomes a believer in Jesus and publicly declares to friends and family and anyone who's there, I am now a person who completely trusts in Jesus Christ as my Savior and my Lord. And then we grab them by the face and power dunk them in water and lift them up again and we cheer because Christians are fun. And grabbing people by the face and almost drowning them is fun. Don't almost drown them. You get to hold your breath.
It symbolizes the death to the old life, the cleansing by Jesus, and then the raising to new life. And we do that as a representation of the work that Jesus has done, but also a public declaration of faith so that everyone in our family and our friends and in our lives know that we believe in Jesus. And we're commanded to do that. That's the second step in what it means to make disciples. It's beautiful. The last instruction says, teach them to observe everything that I've commanded.
This one, this one's a process. This is not like on the checklist of how do I make a disciple. Tick, done, tick, done, baptized, good, taught everything about Jesus. Tick, done. It's not like that. It can't be done so simply.
This is pretty much what we've been talking about for the last five weeks. It is teaching each other all that Jesus commanded is gospel fluency. It's speaking Jesus into every life situation whenever it comes up. It's repenting from our idolatry. It's understanding that we need to live in the context of relationships with other people. It's beating the gospel into our head repeatedly.
It's grabbing other people's heads and beating the gospel into their heads repeatedly. It's repenting and growing in community and teaching each other all that Jesus has commanded us to obey. It's a lifelong process that we do in the context of a gospel-centered community. And that's exactly what we've been talking about for the last five weeks. And so that's it. That's the mission.
That's what we're called to do. Make disciples. Make followers of Jesus out of everybody. As you go, we make disciples of everyone. We baptize them. And we walk with them in the context of community to teach them everything that Jesus has commanded.
That's the Great Commission. That's our mission. That's what it means to be a gospel-centered community on mission. And it seems like a heavy burden. Like a giant task. Make disciples of all nations.
It seems out of reach. It seems so intangible. Like you can't just touch it and feel it and do it. It's out of our reach. But notice how Jesus bookends the Great Commission.
If you look down, he says, He begins with, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus has unlimited power to do as he pleases. Then he gives us the Great Commission. He says, Make disciples of all people. And then he says, And I am with you until the end of the age. We're not alone in this.
Especially if we do things in the context of community. We have teammates around us. You're sitting next to your teammates now. But also, Jesus is in us, in our teammates, in our communities, working his miracle magic to allow us to transform lives. You're not alone in this. And so, the burden is not so big.
What does this mean for us? What does it mean for us in Columbia, South Carolina? How do we make disciples? Well, you probably don't feel like a massive world changer. The normal structure of a day is wake up, make breakfast, shower, go to work, eight hours there, boring, go home, maybe stop at the grocery store to pick up some groceries, maybe work out if you're anyone but me. You might make dinner, eat dinner, watch some TV for a little bit, and go back to bed.
There's next day, same thing again. There's not a whole lot of time within that structure for world changing, for disciple making, for all the nations and all that jazz. So, what is it that we can do in the context of that? Well, it seems like making disciples is the job of someone else. Full-time pastors, full-time missionaries, people who get paid to do that kind of thing. Not necessarily true, or at least not as far as Jesus is concerned in the Great Commission.
Here's what's different about you, and here's what's different about your life. If you're a part of the church, if you're part of this church, if you're part of any church, then you're part of Jesus' plan. And if you're part of Jesus' plan, then he has empowered you with his mission to go and make disciples of all nations. And if you're sitting here today, you're surrounded by teammates on all sides. If you're sitting here today, you're surrounded by teammates. If you're in a community group, you're surrounded by teammates who all want the same things as you do, which is to make disciples of all nations.
And you have Jesus' promise that he will be with you till the end of the age. And he's there with you, and there with your community group, and that he has entrusted you with the message of the gospel, and there is nothing insignificant about that or your life. There's nothing insignificant about that. When you drive around Columbia, and I assume if you're here, most of you have driven around Columbia a good bit. If you drive around Columbia, do you see a city that is completely and utterly wrecked and transformed by the saving power of Jesus and his grace? I know when I drive around, that's not exactly what I think about.
When I moved here about two and a half years ago, I was coming here to go to CIU, a school just here in Columbia, and there was some vague statistics about the city on the website. They say that there's between 600,000 and 700,000 people, which I assume now that I'm here kind of includes the surrounding areas, and that there's 800 churches within that area. And my mind was blown. I'm from Sydney. There's like 800 churches in Sydney and 15 times that population. And so I was like, man, that's awesome.
This city is going to be amazing. It's going to be like the evangelical Vatican. There's going to be amazing angels singing on every corner. And then I got here, and I didn't have a car for a while, but when I got a car, I started driving around. And I was like, man, what are all these 800 churches doing? What's going on in this place?
And I stayed here for a bit, and not too long after I was here, the city tried to make homelessness illegal. What? This is a city with 800 churches, and they're trying to make poverty a crime? What? What? And then you learn a little bit more about the culture.
I didn't go out a whole lot, but you know that there's areas that you're not supposed to go at night. Everyone knows this. You don't go over there at night because, you know, guns. And I'm like, what? This is a city with 800 churches. That's like a church for every 900 people.
What's going on? And then I learned the most shocking statistic of all, and that's that there's seven Moes in this city and only three Chipotles. How on earth is anyone supposed to live in hope when Moes more than double a Chipotle in any given city? Crippling statistics. But seriously, what would it look like?
What would it look like in Colombia if every street, if every street had a gospel-centered community on it? It doesn't have to be a Mill City-sponsored community group. It can be any church. It can be any group of believers. What would it look like if this city had a gospel-centered community on every street or in every office building or a factory or school, if they had a gospel-centered community on every sports team? The city would be rocked and it would change everything.
What would it look like if people everywhere you turned, when you went to Walmart, when you went to get groceries, when you go to the downtown Soda City markets, what would it look like if everywhere you looked was people empowered by the Spirit to love, forgive, repent, and show mercy like Jesus did? We would be living in a very different-looking city. Here's our plan. If you're a note-taker, this is a good time to start taking notes. Here's our plan. Step number one.
Start by being you with all your interests, with all your desires, with all the things that you like. Start by being you, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. Start by being you, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. That's what we call being gospel-centered. Step number two is get in a community group. A community group is a group of people who are doing step number one.
A community group is a group of people who are being themselves, as a Christian, in love with Jesus. And they do it together. That's called being a gospel-centered community. Step number three. Go out into your life and invite people who don't know Jesus to do things with your community group. That's called being a gospel-centered community on mission.
Step number four, and this is the easiest one, it should go without saying, let Jesus do his thing. Jesus in the Great Commission says, and surely I will be with you until the end of the age. He's going to be there. He's going to be helping. Let Jesus fulfill his promise. You do what you've been called to do and let Jesus do what he said he's going to do.
And that's, he's going to change people. He's going to transform people. If you think it's your job to do that, you're wrong. Your job is to show them the gospel. As we go about our daily lives, we invite those we encounter to hang out with our community group and take next steps towards Jesus. That's what it means to make disciples of everyone.
But what does that look like for the church in general? What does it look like for churches out in the world? There's two main kind of categories, two main strategies that exist for churches and how they operate. The first one is what we're going to call a come and see mentality. Come and see the church. This is any church that typically has like, their main mode of operation is the Sunday service, the Sunday gathering.
Come and see what we have to show you. You've got to come to our event, our thing, our building. Come to us and we'll show you how to live, whatever that looks like. American culture has taken this to the extreme. They've kind of exploded it. You can watch it on TV.
You can watch it on the internet. You could go to an actual church building and still watch it on TV. You could hang out with laser beams and fog machines and like professional musicians and it's this big thing of come and see. Come and see what we've got to show you. That's one mode of operation. The second mode of operation is what we're going to call go and be the church.
So it's no longer come and see the church, it's go and be the church. Now if you haven't guessed, our primary mode is not come and see the church. And if you're here today and that's what you were thinking, then this is it. It's not the best thing in the world. It's okay. But we believe that we're primarily called to go and be the church.
And if you haven't experienced that before, it's actually, for us at least, a lot better than this. If you're here today and you're just coming to see the church, then you're actually missing out. And we're called to go and be the church. And to go and be the church, it means leaving here today and not thinking the church is over. Because church isn't just Sunday morning, church is Monday night. It's Tuesday at lunchtime.
It's Thursday when you hang out with your group. It's Friday when you walk the dog with friends from your community group. It's Saturday when you go and play with your Frisbee disc golf club or whatever you do on Saturday morning, Saturday night. Family doesn't cease to be family when they leave your house after dinner. And for some reason, we think that church does when we leave here. That's not true.
Church family exists all the time. We're called to go and be the church. Well, what do we do with this then? Who is the target audience, for lack of a better word? Who's this mission for? Who do I take it to?
Well, my question is, who are you already around? Who are you already around? Let's think specifically and practically about this. I think, I think there's two main categories, two main categories of people in our lives that this would include. There's friends without hope and there's strangers without hope. Let's talk first about friends without hope.
This is people you already know. This is not necessarily friends, but colleagues, workmates, family members, people who you're on a first name basis with have had conversations with before. This is friends without hope. It's not strangers without hope. What do we do with our friends that we already know who don't have hope? Well, it's actually pretty simple.
After all, you're a pretty normal person. Your friends are pretty normal. Hanging out with you wouldn't be torture, I don't think. It could be. You don't have to be weird and creepy about your faith. You don't have to slam Bible verses down people's throats all the time.
You get to be you in love with Jesus. Granted, you're in love with Jesus. You get to be you and do normal things anyway. And in the context of friendship, you can show other people what it means to be a Christian. Here's an example. You might work Monday to Friday.
You've got a nine-to-five Job. You work Monday to Friday. You don't know everyone there, but you know most of the people there. Actually, there's this one lady there who annoys you quite a bit. She's pretty annoying. And the annoying thing about annoying people is how annoying they are, which can be frustrating.
And frustration springs from annoyingness. And I'm a master of being annoying, but I hate being annoyed. And she's an annoying person, which is annoying. Annoying. Annoying. Annoying.
Am I being annoying? That's the goal. Never mind. There's this annoying person at work. You don't know a lot about her. You don't want to know a whole lot about her.
You kind of just wish she would leave you alone, but you're stuck with her for eight hours a day. You do know one thing about her. She loves her dog. She doesn't have photos of kids and family up and around her desk. She's got photos of her dog. You know this lady is crazy about that dog.
And so you think, huh, how am I going to reach this lady? You go to your community group. You hate dogs, obviously, because you're an intelligent person. But you know there's some unintelligent people in your community group who like dogs as well. So you go to your community group and you say, community group, does anyone like dogs?
Does anyone want to start like a Saturday morning dog walking thing? And they say, yeah, sure, why not? And boom, perfect. You've got this avenue to invite this annoying lady from work to hang out with Christians. And the best thing about it is that once she gets involved, assuming she does, once she probably does, she likes her dog, once she gets involved, you get to put her in a group with your friends who get to do all the heavy lifting for you. You no longer have to deal with her.
Your friends do because they can bond over the dog thing. She'll probably rock up with her dog in like one of those tote bags for the walk. It might be weird, but you can get over that. People are weird. The heavy lifting is done by others. All you've really done is orchestrated a situation where someone that you know, a friend without hope, is hanging around with Christians doing things that they like doing.
Here's another example. You have a friend, he's a guy, he's been not around Jesus for a while. He's grown up in church, thinks he knows some stuff, but at some point in time, you don't really know what happened. He got burned by the church, doesn't really trust Christians, doesn't really trust the church anymore, doesn't hang around with anyone. You've invited him a few times, you've said, hey, come hang out with us on Sundays, and he's just not biting on that. He doesn't like that idea.
The thought of being around Christians, being judged, he's got some things that he's ashamed of, he doesn't really want to buy into anything like that, and you think, dang, hitting a wall. And then, one of the guys in your community group says, hey, let's all get together and shoot guns at a range, and you think, bing, perfect, he's a guy, guys like shooting guns, at least around here they do. And you think, this is perfect. I'm going to invite him to come and shoot guns. And he bites. You say, hey, do you want to come and hang out with some of my friends and shoot guns all morning?
And he says, yes, obviously. And all you've done is orchestrated a situation where a friend without hope gets to hang out with friends who know Jesus, and he gets to see that they're not that weird after all. He gets to see that they're just normal people who love Jesus and go about their lives in light of the fact that they love Jesus. It's not, you don't have to be a weird guy who dresses up in a suit and puts his bow tie on and carries a clipboard and a huge Bible and knocks on people's doors and says, would you like to know Jesus today? I mean, you could. There's no way to make friends.
Instead, orchestrate situations with your current friends your community group mainly where you can invite other friends easily to that and they're going to say yes because who doesn't want to shoot guns and walk dogs? One of the biggest hurdles for people becoming Christians is that they don't know what Christians look like. They think that you're weird Bible-thumping, praying, sitting in a circle, holding hands, singing Kumbaya. You could do that. That's weird. You're just you being in love with Jesus, doing it in the context of your community group.
And you get to do that and do fun things and invite people in. That's called being a gospel-centered community on mission. Dog walking, fishing, crafts, coffee, breakfast, football, soccer, which is actually football, frisbee, Pinterest parties, painting each other's nails, jams. Yeah. I know you ladies know what jams are and if you're a married man you probably know what jams are as well. I know you ladies love that stuff.
Invite your friends to that. It's fun. Jams, everyone. When you and your community group have this great commission outlook, every day is full of disciple-making moments. When you and your community group have this great commission outlook, every day is full of disciple-making moments. We meet people where they're at and we allow them to see Jesus through us and our community groups.
Now let's turn to that second group, the group called Strangers Without Hope. This is the category of people that you don't know. This is someone who when you saw them on the street you would not know their name or anything about them. Strangers Without Hope. I think, and I think I'm right in this because I think it, I think that the most underutilized, most overlooked, most underthought, most duh kind of people group that would fit this category in our lives is our neighbors. And it's interesting to me because I remember this guy called Jesus who said, the greatest command is to love God and love your neighbors.
But I know you guys, I know you're Bible scholars and academics and when he says that, he's not saying you're actual neighbors, he's saying love everyone, which is great because for some reason that means we get to ignore our actual neighbors. Despite the fact that he said the words love your neighbors. It cannot not mean neighbors when he says love your neighbors, even if he means love everyone. I've been reading this book recently, it's called The Art of Neighboring. My wife and I are planning to move into apartment community soon and we're just reading a bunch of things that's involved in that and how to make friends with your neighbors.
I've been reading this book called The Art of Neighboring and they have this diagnosis test in the book. It looks like this, it's a three by three grid, the middle square represents your house and so you put your name in your house. There's eight other squares around that and they represent the houses of the eight geographically closest houses to your house. So it's not Bob who lives down the street and three houses down around the corner, it's the eight closest people to your current house. The diagnosis test is this, step one, write the names of your eight closest neighbors. Write all their names in the boxes, each one represents another house.
Step number two, in the middle of the box, write some basic thing about those people. It can't be an observation that you could see from the street, it can't be that he drives a red car or that he gets up at seven in the morning to go to work, it has to be he's a carpenter, he likes fishing, something that you would only really know from a conversation, a basic level conversation, hey how are you going, picking up your mail, what do you like, that kind of thing. The third diagnosis, which you would write at the bottom, is some deeper level issue that's happening with that person at the time. Can't find a job, family member in hospital, that kind of thing, some deeper level something that's not just a basic conversation starter.
Now according to the book, and I think that these statistics are inflated, 10% of people can fill out the names of their closest eight neighbors. So in a room this size, it's probably seven or eight of us. And I think that's inflated. Maybe, I don't know. The second step, only 3% of people can fill out a basic something about those eight people. So in a room this size, that's maybe one or two.
Less than 1% can fill out an important something underlying life issue of all eight of their closest neighbors. Less than 1%. So in this room, it's probably zero. It might be, might not be, but it's probably zero. Now I'm not saying this to make you feel like a bad neighbor because I'm a bad neighbor as well.
I filled out three boxes and then guessed the name of the fourth box because I wasn't really sure. My point in this isn't that I'm good and that I know how to do this and you don't. My point is that none of us are really good at this anymore. And when it comes to this category of strangers without hope, our neighbors are an incredibly obvious one that we just don't put a whole lot of effort into. But what would it look like if Christians made a habit of getting to know their neighbors and caring for them, looking after their kids, helping them in times of need or even knowing when times of need exist.
Here's a crazy thought. Get your community group together. Throw a block party. They don't really exist anymore, but you can do it. Throw a block party. Invite ten of your closest neighbors.
How hard could it be? Set up a grill. Get some hamburgers grilling. Smoke up the area so that everyone can smell it down the street. Set up cornhole, can jam, frisbee, whatever you've got. Set it all out on the street.
Invite ten of your closest neighbors to come and hang out. And even if only three of them turn up, get to know them. Have the people in your community group. Get to know them and invite them to some stuff. Have a plan for what you're going to do the week after. Hey, we're all going fishing next week.
You want to come? Great. You know that field at the end of your street? Why not start a weekly soccer game there? Or t-ball game there? Or kickball game there?
Get all the kids from your neighborhood. If you don't have kids, don't do this. But if you've got kids, start up a regular game and you get to hang out with all these people from your neighborhood and it gets to be this regular rhythm that everyone gets to enjoy in the neighborhood. Why not start at work and get coffee with one person from work every Monday? Get to know them a little bit. Find out what they like doing.
Do something like that with them. Help the old lady next door taking her groceries. Take a buddy from work out to get wings. Get your group together and go to the markets. Either the nice ones downtown or the sketchy ones out on Augusta Road. Everyday mission is not as scary as it seems.
Making disciples of all nations doesn't have to be this heavy burden that we feel all of the time. It's not only for paid missionaries. It's not only for paid pastors. It's for us in the context of our community groups, our gospel centered communities who are out on mission. We can fulfill the great commission when we're intentional with the time that we already spend. It's not about freeing up time to make time to do this in excess.
We're already spending time anyway. Let's be intentional with the time that we already spend. We do it in the context of our gospel centered community. community, we have teammates who are there, surrounded by Jesus, who are able to help us out. So here's what we're going to do. Let me just explain everything and we're going to do it after I'm done explaining. Everyone should have a Mill City blue card.
If you don't have a blank one near you, you can get a blank one because there's some empty chairs. There's also some more at the back. Take out a blank card and take out a pen. We're going to write down the names of anyone who's come to mind throughout this entire time. Anyone who we know exists, who's a friend without hope. Write down anyone you work with who you want to reach with the gospel, who you want to invite to something.
Write down your neighbors. If you've got that annoying person at work, write that annoying person down. If there's a person that you don't like being around at work, write their name down. Then you're going to write down something that you know about that person next to it. It doesn't have to be important. It can be they like dogs.
It doesn't have to be super important. Write down whatever you can think of when it comes to that person. If the only thing you can think of is that they really annoy me, write that. Then we're going to spend some time praying for those people. We're going to play some house music and spend some time praying for those people. You can move around.
You can get people from your community group together. You don't have to stay where you are. And we're going to pray for those people. See if we can think up some kind of way to present to our community group that we can reach those people. Then on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, whenever you meet with your group, bring this list along.
This list is gold to your group. And in your group times, you get to talk about those people that you want to reach. You get to talk about things that you can do together, that you can make rhythms, fields that you can play soccer at, places you can walk your dog. Rangers where you can go shoot guns. You get to bring that list to your community group and brainstorm different ways that you as a group together can be a gospel-centered community on mission. So I'm going to pray.
We're going to play some music. Take some time to write some names down. Feel free to move around. And then after a few minutes have gone by, a chat's going to come up. This is it for us. We're going to spend time praying.
There's no more songs. Ted's going to come up later and close up with announcements and stuff, but this is what we're doing today. We're thinking about people that can be reached, people that we already know, things that they like doing, and we're going to pray for them. So I'm going to pray for us and then that's what we're going to do. Father God, we praise you and we thank you. We know that you can do immeasurably more than we expect, and we pray that you do that as a result of today.
And we know that you have the power to transform this city, and we pray that you use us to help do that. God, be showing us people in our lives that we can reach. Be showing us people in our lives who need hope. Teach us how to reach them and empower us with your mission. Pray that we can reach Columbia, that we can reach our friends, that we can reach our neighbors, and pray that you be with us until the end of the age as we do it. It's in your name we pray.
Amen.
Repentance and Growth
Transcript
My name is Chet. I'm excited to be here with you all this morning and for us to continue our Anchor Series. What we've been doing in our Anchor Series is looking at what is foundational for us as a church family, what we kind of anchor ourselves in so that what guides us and what leads us. And so that's going to be scripture, but it's going to be specifically how we understand that and how that plays out. And so what we've done so far is we've talked about kind of the gospel-centered portion of who we are. So we're all about Jesus.
We understand that it's about him changing us. It's not about our behavior. And so when we have sin struggles, we know that those are a symptom but not necessarily the root of the problem. And so we consistently apply the gospel to each other, point each other towards Jesus as it's him who changes us through his Holy Spirit. And then what we've moved into over the past two weeks is kind of the community section. So what we mean when we say we're a gospel-centered community on mission, what we mean by community.
And so last week Matt talked to us about church being a family, that we relate to one another that way. And so he went Galatians 4 where it talks about that we've been adopted. So Galatians is going to say that. Ephesians is going to say that. Romans is going to say that. Romans says that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers.
And so we've actually been brought into God's family. John chapter 1 is going to say that we've been, through Jesus, given the opportunity to be children of God. And so then Matt was just talking about what that looks like and how that plays out and how we exist in relationship with each other. We looked at Acts chapter 2, which just talked about the early church and how they existed in relationship with one another. And so that's us. That's what we're shooting for.
That's why we do community groups, because we believe that the Christian faith has to happen in the context of relationships, that growth has to happen in the context of relationships. And so one of the things we say is that the content is always the gospel and the context is always community. So even when you're reading through the New Testament, most of the use in there are actually would be y'alls to us or use guys for like a handful of people that are part of our church family. But but it's y'all. It's written to a group of people. And so what we do as Americans is we immediately turn everything into rugged individualism.
And so we'll read even in the New Testament and we take it as this personal. This is what I have to do. And we do that to the exclusion. So we ought to respond personally, but we do that to the exclusion of relationships. We do that to the exclusion of this have having to happen in the context of real relationships with people. So we even see Jesus came to earth and spent most of his time with 12 guys.
Most of his time was spent with the 12 disciples and even more than that, a handful of three guys that he that he spent significant time pouring into and walking in life with. And so we often think that the spirituality and growth in spirituality is like a solo operation. Like it's like me on top of a mountain. Looking at a flower and weeping like we kind of feel like there's this we got to get away from everybody. And that's where that's where we'll grow the closest to God. So like when you're reading in Scripture, Jesus did that.
He went off by himself to pray. He went away by himself at times. But most of the time he was in relationship so that even when he goes and the transfiguration happens, which is where it's like this absolute mountaintop experience where Elijah and Moses show up and talk to God, which just just so you know, I don't know how legit your your quiet times are by yourself. But Moses and Elijah have never shown up and they don't show up and then talk to you. You may have read about them, but they don't show up. So Jesus does this has this absolute mountaintop experience.
And when he does, he's got three other guys with him. Because things happen and growth happens and life happens and discipleship happens in the context of community. So the next time you're talking to someone and they're like, man, I just need to spend some time, just me and Jesus, just some alone time. Just invite yourself. Be like, that sounds great. I'll come.
I'm just going to go to my cabin in the woods and just spend some time praying. Sweet. I love cabins. That'll be great. When are we going? Just invite yourself.
It's OK. It is OK to have some alone time, to spend some time absolutely fasting, praying, spending time alone. But I think too often we treat Christianity like it is a slow, solo operation and the Bible does not. And so what we're going to be reading here in Ephesians chapter three, as we get into this today, is Paul's going to be talking and he's just going to assume that the church is a family. He's just going to assume that we exist in relationships with each other. So every time it says you, it is it is the plural form of you.
It's it's written to y'all. He's writing to a church and he just assumes they have real relationships. And we'll see that as we go through. I'm going to pray and then we'll be in Ephesians chapter three. God, we just thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for who you are and what you've accomplished on our behalf.
And we ask, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would continually guide us to be church family. Help us walk through all the difficulties that come along with that. And that through that we would grow in a very real understanding of the gospel. In Jesus name. Amen. Before we get into this, I just want to highlight a few of the things I'd like for us to see as we spend time walking through Ephesians chapter four.
I want us to see that that it is understood that we would exist in relationships. I may have said Ephesians chapter three a couple of times, but I mean, I meant Ephesians chapter four. So. There you go. Ephesians three is good, but we're not going to be looking at it today. Ephesians chapter four.
As we walk through, I want us to see that for us as Christians, growth and discipleship happens in the context of community. That it has to we have to be around people and that in that we actually get to understand the gospel to a greater, greater depth. And so that's kind of what I want us to be able to see as we walk through this, as Paul walks through this entire section where he's writing to him. And so we'll see a few different things that he explains and points out to him. And we're going to be kind of moving kind of fast because we're looking at a whole chapter because we're ambitious this morning.
All right. Chapter four, verse one. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord. So this is Paul writing and he's in jail. So he's like an actual prisoner.
He's not speaking metaphorically. He's in jail. I, prisoner. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. And so what he's talking about there when he says walk, he just means your life. I urge you to have your life be worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
The calling that they've been called and the calling we've been called is to be Christians. It's a calling into Christ, into salvation. And so he's saying live as if the gospel is true. Walk in a way that makes sense in light of the gospel. Verse two. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
Do you see what he automatically assumed as he told us to walk in life as Christians? He automatically assumes that we're in relationships with other people. And he automatically assumes we're in the type of relationships with other Christians that we're familiar with. Which is that we're a big, hot mess of sinners who love Jesus. Because what does he say we need? Humility.
Gentleness. Patience. You only need patience if you're around people for an extended period of time. And if they're annoying qualities, don't stop. Do you all understand that, right? That's what patience is.
So when you pray for more patience, what you are praying for is God, help this problem not stop. I don't pray for patience. I don't want it. I want the problem to stop. But that's what patience is.
It means that the problem continues. The frustration part continues. Here's what he says. With all humility, gentleness, and with patience. And Paul adds this in the list a good bit when he's writing these, and it's my favorite. Bear with one another.
He says put up with each other. That is so beautiful and freeing. Because what Paul doesn't write is, Dear church, as you become Christians, everything will be laughy and happy and rainbows and sunshine. And I don't know why he'd be like a weird English lady, but that's just how I assume if that's what he was saying. But that's not what he says.
What he says is be church family, and here's what you're going to need. Patience. And put up with each other, because it's going to be frustrating. And I can get on board with that. I'm like, oh man, he's been a part of my group. He's hung out with people like me.
I see Paul knows what he's talking about here. That's beautiful. He says humility, which is just if we all pull ourselves down a notch, if we all just assume other people are more important than us, that'll work out well. Gentleness just means graciousness to one another. And then patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Which means that we understand that we've all been called into the same church family, and we fight for unity.
So we don't put up with drama. We don't put up with awkwardness. We don't let situations just be like, ah, yeah, we kind of had a falling out. No, we don't accept that because we're eager to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Verse 4. There is one body, and as he talks about this, body means church family.
There's one body. We've been made a body in Christ. And so Corinthians is going to say that. Romans is going to say that. Ephesians is going to say that. That means that we exist with one another, the same relationship that your hand has with your foot.
You're on the same team. Something bad happens to your foot. That affects your hand. Something bad happens to your hand. You now have to pick things up with your foot. And it's a problem.
Like we exist in a body with one another. There's one body, church family, one spirit. That's the Holy Spirit that's come into our hearts as we've trusted in Jesus and been saved. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, that one hope is an inheritance that we have in Christ. It's an inheritance we have that we know that we've been saved by Jesus to spend eternity with him. That's our hope.
Our hope is an inheritance, in a calling to heaven through Jesus and through Jesus' work, not our own. Just as you were called to the one hope which belongs to your call, one Lord, that's Jesus, one faith, that's faith in Jesus, one baptism. That's baptism. That's pretty straightforward. One God and Father of all. So he's God and he's Father.
We are a church family who is over all and through all and in all. So we exist unified in the faith. Verse 7. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. Okay, so he quotes an Old Testament passage and then he explains it and his explanation is kind of confusing. But all he's saying is this passage is talking about Jesus. Because it assumes that he ascended. It's talking about him who came to earth for us. And so what it says is that when Jesus left, he led a host of captives.
And as we read in other places in Scripture, those captives are twofold. It's the people he set free and the enemies he's taken captive. And that's the way kings would work. When they went and conquered, when they would return, they would lead a triumphal procession of those that they had freed and those that they had enslaved. And so it's both his enemies and those who've been freed. And he gave gifts to men.
So he gifts his church, says by grace that he gifts his church to serve. And we're going to understand why here in a second. 11. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Okay, so we're not going to spend much time, any time, in apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher talking about what that is and how that plays out. That's going to be another sermon for another time.
But what we want to see as we look at this is two things. One is Paul says he's gifted us, which means that the church has been gifted. If you are a Christian, you have been gifted by God through the Holy Spirit to serve and that leadership and our giftings. So leadership in the church and our giftings have one purpose. 12. To equip the saints for the work of ministry.
And saints just means believers, those who are made right by God through Jesus. To equip the saints for work of ministry for building up the body of Christ. Leadership in the church and giftings in the church exist for one purpose. That the saints that the church might serve might do the works of ministry and in that the church would be built up. So that's affected how we exist as a church family.
So if you're a part of a church, if there's a church and only the leaders, only the pastors, only the people, the deacons or whoever they set it up, they're the only ones who can make decisions. They're the only ones who can come up with good ideas. They're the only ones who can lead any kind of ministry or service. They're the only ones. They've missed it. Because the role of leadership in the church is to equip saints to do ministry.
So when people talk about the person's a minister and they mean that they're the one who does all the ministry, I actually kind of missed the point. Because the role of leadership in the church is to equip church family to do ministry. And the role of giftings in the church is to serve church family so that everybody grows up. So just so you all know, if here is a part of our church family, if anytime somebody gets sick or has a problem or needs some counseling, and Matt has to be the one that comes and talks, has to be the one that comes and visits, which let's just be honest. If you're sick and having problems, you probably don't want me.
We want Matt. Like we want Matt to come hug us. We want Matt to come be nice to us. Like if I'm sick, I want Matt. I want Matt to come hug me and tell me it's going to be okay. But if that happens, we've actually missed the point.
Now, leadership in the church should do ministry because they are Christians. But the role of leadership in the church is actually to equip others and equip church family to do ministry. To all the things that the church is supposed to do. Serve and give and love and impact the city and pursue people with the gospel and help everybody grow. And actually when that happens, then the body grows. So one of the ways that we respond to this and one of the ways that we seek to apply this is in our community groups.
That that's where primary relationships happen. That's where pastoral care takes place. That's where people grow together and use their gifts to serve one another. It's in our community groups. That's why if somebody says, hey, I want to do this thing or the Lord's really been pressing on my heart that we need to go do a backpack ministry for BC Grammar. Awesome.
How can we help you? Like a lot of times we've we've outsourced ministry to the church and we try to run everything through church leadership so that someone feels called to do something. And they're going to go to church leadership and say, how can we do this? When the church leadership needs to respond with how can we help you do that? So just so you know, if you if you love the children at BC Grammar and you want to do a backpack ministry and you come tell me the Lord's been waking you up at night and calling saying we need to do that.
My response is going to be sweet. How can we help you do that? You say, well, our whole church needs to do that. No, our whole church is going to do a few things, which is community groups. We're going to gather on Sundays. And then our whole church has the freedom to do everything else as we serve and work together.
And if the Lord's been pressing something on your heart, it's because he specifically gifted you and calling you into that. And that's what gets to be beautiful as we all get to serve and work together. Does that make sense? You see how that's good? We'll get to see how that continues to play out. So to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
So as as the saints are equipped, the church grows, the bodies built up until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God. As we all serve, as we all use our gifts, as we've all been specifically gifted to serve in the church, as that happens, we all grow. We all grow in unity and we all grow in our knowledge of the son of God. It's through serving that we better understand who Jesus is and what he's done. And it's through serving one another. You have been gifted by God to serve others.
See, I even think a lot of times in our talk of gifting in the in the American church, we think about it as a personal thing. So like, what are you gifted in? Where do you find your role? And it becomes about you. You're gifted by God for the for the benefit of everyone else. To build up the church.
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ. Mature manhood in the Greek just means full grown man, which I love that because every once in a while you meet somebody and you're like, that's a full grown man. Like there are men and they're like adult men and then there are full grown men. And so as Christians, we all want to serve and we all want to work so that we can be Christians with like big man hand, like man paws and beards and back hair. You know, spiritually. Like we want to grow to be full grown men in the church is what it what he says to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ that as we all serve, as we all work, as we all toil together, we all grow to be more like Jesus.
And that's beautiful. See, what happens is the more people serve, the more people use their gifts, the less it is about people and the more it gets to be about Jesus. The more it gets to be about all the ways that he blesses and works and gives his grace and his giftings to his church family so that the church builds itself up. And the more that that happens, the more it gets to be about Jesus. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
You know, it's beautiful about all of the church pulling together and striving together. It's not easily led astray. One person who can say things in a very articulate way can't stand up and lead a large group of the church off into nonsense because the whole church has been serving and working and growing together. It doesn't happen. So it's beautiful about our groups.
I get to show up to my group and say, I was reading this and I was thinking I was thinking it was saying this. And my group gets to say, there's no way it was saying that because Roman says this. And I get to say, you're right. What I thought was stupid. It's very helpful. Thank you.
We don't get easily led astray as we all grow together. 15. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. We use that speaking the truth in love. A lot of times I think people use it as like, I'm going to say something mean to you. I'm going to speak the truth in love to you, brother.
You ought not sing in front of people. It's like, well, OK, we should say true things to one another and we should say it in a gracious, loving way. But really, the truth is the gospel. And so we speak in love. We speak the gospel to each other. We point each other back to Jesus.
And as that happens, as we all serve and we all work and we all use our gifting, as that happens, we grow up into Jesus. And it gets to be about him, not about us. Verse 16. from whom, from Jesus, from Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow. That's Jesus makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. When all of us pull together, when all of us use our giftings, the whole church grows. We grow into Jesus and Jesus helps us grow and we build each other up.
That's why community groups are important for us because we look at scripture and we don't see how we're going to do some of the things that it calls us to do unless we're in real relationships with each other. And in our community groups, we're designed to serve one another. So you've got somebody in your group that just relationally has way more friends than anybody should ever have. Like there's probably someone in your group that just, they can keep up with everybody. They know everybody. They're constantly introducing you to people they genuinely have friendships with.
Like it annoys you how many friends they have. Like you don't think they should have that many friends. Like no one person should have that many friends, but they're gifted that way. And so we get to grow together. Some of you hadn't made a friend since middle school. Not very gifted there.
God hasn't gifted you in the ability to just make a friend. Like you start a conversation, it gets awkward and you bail. Like you consistently are like, hey, this is a nice conversation. You run it into the ground and then you go, all right, this is good, good talking. You're not designed to do it, but in your group, you have something you're gifted to do. Maybe you are amazing in a kitchen.
Maybe you are amazing when it comes to service. You love not having to talk and having to be at the front of things, but you're going to make sure everything's clean. You're going to make sure everybody has what they need because God's gifted you to serve and to help. And the person who relationally connects to everybody maybe can't have a real deep conversation with anyone. It goes beyond ha ha ha ha and they're over their head. And there's just one person in your group that immediately can turn conversations and handle spiritual things and go towards the gospel.
Some of you, when someone's hurting, the best you've got is like, there, there, there, there, there, there, there, there. Like that's what you got. But you can, you can show up and help them work. You can show up and help serve. You're going to take care of logistic things for them while they're dealing with problems. You're going to make sure that people bring food to their house, but someone else is going to be the person sitting on the couch crying with them.
You've been gifted by the Holy Spirit for your church family. And if we are not consistently figuring out how we've been designed to, to, to serve each other, we actually hurt the body because we're designed to use our gifts so that the body builds itself up. So we actually get to begin to pray about and ask God, how am I supposed to serve my community group? How am I supposed to serve my church family? What have you gifted me to do? And we're going to get to see how this helps us grow.
We already see how it helps the rest of our church family grow, but we'll get to see as we look through the rest of this, how it helps us grow. So, um, Paul in this next section, we're going to kind of read through it pretty quickly. What he's going to say basically is this, you used to not be a Christian. Now you are, you have a new identity in Christ, not you did these things and it made you a Christian. He's going to say, no, Jesus made you a Christian through what he's done. Now live like it.
So we, we can't get that backwards. You can't get it as you do stuff and get to become a Christian. And then you get to live that way to keep it together. No, it's Jesus did stuff. He saved us through his work, not ours. That's the gospel.
We became Christians and then we get to live like it as we have a new identity. Okay. And then he's going to explain kind of how that looks as we read through the rest of this chapter. So now this, I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles. And in this particular situation, it just means those who don't know Jesus in the futility of their minds. And they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But this is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And so Jesus makes us new. He creates us in righteousness and holiness. And then we get to walk in that.
And so here's how he explains how we get to do that. And again, we'll see that it's all relational. It has to do with being in real relationships. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
Let the thief work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come from out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Okay.
So here's what Paul says. Walk in the new life you've been given. And then he tells us what that looks like. And it's all relational. Don't lie to each other. Don't be fake.
That's an invitation. That's not a command. It is kind of a command, but it's an invitation. Just so you know, if you're in a community group, you have a couple of options. You can be a fake version of yourself, a pretend version of yourself, and people can like the pretend version of you, but that is tiring and very difficult to keep up. And it's not real.
What he says is be honest, be open, be real. And then you actually get to find that you get to be a messed up sinner that a bunch of people love anyway. You get to be the real, uh, non-fake, non-cleaned up version of yourself and get to see how freeing that is as a group of people rally around. I always, I always think it's funny when something happens in our groups and somebody like something comes out and it turns out that they're worse than everybody thought. Um, and they're usually like, I just don't want people to think, um, you know, and it's like, what a sinner? Braswell brought us together.
We knew you were a sinner. You've been having it together for too long. We all assumed you were faking. We're glad this came out. Now we get to actually begin to grow.
We get to actually walk this out like it's good and healthy. Our goodness didn't bring us together. Our sin did. So when we find out that we're broken, all it does is point to how good Jesus is. So he says, be honest, be real with each other.
Then he says this, be angry, but don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. You know what he assumes as you exist in relationships with each other? You're going to get mad. Isn't that nice? And he says, be angry, just work it out.
Like don't, don't linger on that. Don't let that hang out. Don't, don't go, don't let the sun go down on that. So he says, work out problems, relational problems quickly. Don't hold onto them. He says, uh, change the former man of your life.
So if you used to steal, don't steal anymore. Like he goes through this whole list and then he ends it with this, forgive each other. So he says, do this, do this, do this, do this, live like this. And then he gets to the end and he goes, okay, guys. All right, team, you're going to mess that up.
So forgive each other. Let me tell you something that is true about our church family. If you hang out long enough, one of two things will happen. And if you keep hanging out, both will. If you hang out long enough, one of two things will happen. If you keep hanging out, both will either someone in our church family will hurt you, will offend you, will fail you, will sin against you, or you will hurt somebody, offend them, fail them, or sin against them.
Either you will be sinned against or you will sin against someone if you hang out long enough in real relationships. And here's what's beautiful. We get to forgive each other. Through the cross, we've been forgiven. So we actually get to forgive as we live in real relationships.
And here's the thing. If you don't live in real relationships, you won't have to have patience. You won't have to bear with anyone. You won't have to forgive anyone. And you'll actually have a shallow understanding of God's grace towards you. Because it's only when I have to forgive someone that I realize how costly forgiveness is.
And I appreciate all the more the cross. And it's only the people that we exist in real relationships with that we have to have patience for. My wife, Anna, has to have the most patience for me than anyone else in the world. Because she's around me all the time. She has to bear with me than more than anyone else in the world. And the truth is, is we walk in real relationships in our community groups.
We get to have patience with each other. We get to bear with one another. And we get to repent. And we get to forgive. Hang out long enough and you'll be on both ends of that. You'll have to go to someone and say, I failed.
I sinned against you. I've been angry with you. And I hadn't talked to you about it. I allowed this awkward situation to get in between us. And we never worked it out. And I was wrong.
And I'm sinful. And I need you to forgive me. And then they actually get to apply the gospel, which is that Jesus forgave them. So they get to forgive you. And it's a process. And if you hang out long enough, you'll be on both ends of it.
And the truth is, in both sides of that, we get to remember the gospel and we get to grow in it. I want us to see one thing as we look in, as how he moves into this next section. Of course, the chapters and verses were added later. So I feel like this is the same kind of thought process. But therefore, this is chapter five.
Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. So remember, we're a family. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. So here's what he says. Be imitators of God as children of God. Love one another.
Walk in love and realize that that Jesus gave himself up as an offering and a sacrifice for us as he loved us that much. Tim Keller, who's really smart. He's a pastor in New York, and he writes really smart things. He's kind of like C.S. Lewis, but he's alive. He says this when it talks about loving people.
And I just thought this was helpful. It's this whole section on how loving people is difficult, but he starts it off this way. He says, think about it. If you love a person whose life is all put together and has no major needs, it costs you nothing. It's delightful. There are probably four or five people like that where you live.
You ought to love. You ought to find them and become their friend. That's nice. He says, think about it. If you love someone who's got their life all put together, it costs you nothing. And it's nice.
It's delightful. Find those people and be their friend. And then he says, but the rest of love doesn't look like that. And he goes to this whole section and explains that all of love is sacrifice. And that's what we see in this chapter, this verse where it says, walk in love, just as Jesus loved us and was a sacrifice for us. Here's how this works.
My wife and I are about to have a baby in a couple of weeks. It's supposed to be like 30 days from now, but Anna's hoping that he comes early because she's getting really tired of him kicking her. I'm hoping he doesn't come super early because I'm enjoying like being able to sleep at night and stuff because he doesn't kick me. He doesn't keep me up. But here's what I understand.
We don't have any kids, but here's what I understand about children. Uh, cause I've been doing some research online and talking to people. Um, here's what I understand about children. Uh, they don't really pull their own weight for like some years. Like they're pretty useless when it comes to like chores and accomplishing things and like making money. I think it's like upwards of like seven years before you can like get them in the workforce and they start really, really pulling their weight around the house.
Uh, here's what we understand when it comes to love. It takes sacrifice to love somebody. It just does. Real love is going to involve sacrifice. It's going to involve sacrificing time. It's going to involve.
So as we raise our son, we're going to have to sacrifice. He's going to take up our time. He's going to, he's going to monopolize our time in a lot of ways. He's going to, I'm going to be involved in less than interesting conversations. Like he's going to be, I'm going to be like, bro, you're babbling nonsense. I don't even understand half of what you're saying.
And that show is dumb. I don't want to talk about it. Like, wait till you get something interesting to say, we'll talk. No, I can't do that. I have to be like, really? Wow.
You did what? Even if I can't understand what he's saying, like, I've got to do that. So he'll grow. I have to sacrifice so that he'll grow. I have to sacrifice time and energy and money and effort. And that's what love looks like.
And if I didn't do that, I wouldn't love him. Like if you saw parents that weren't willing to sacrifice for their children, you'd be like, there's something wrong in this situation because all love involves sacrifice. And we know that. Let's say you're in high school and there's a girl that's considered a geeky. And some people don't really hang out with her, but you notice this. And so you, you want to be your friend.
Like you want to go out of your way to be nice to her because life seems rough. So you do, you start hanging out with her, you start talking to her and I don't know, maybe a week into this, your friends come over and say, why are you talking to her? Why are you hanging out with her? What's happened? Her geekiness has rubbed off on you. You, you can't love her without taking on some of her qualities, without taking on some of what makes her unlovable by other people.
You have to pour out some of your coolness and take on some of her geekiness. But that's how love works. If you're in a community group and there's someone in your group that's just needy, they're hurting, life hasn't been good for them right now, they're just emotionally down, they're depressed. If you spend time with them, the only way for them to be undepressed, for them to be, come out of being down is for you to pour out your joy, for you to actually let them drain you. It's the only way to love them. It's through sacrifice.
It's through taking your time and your energy and your joy and pouring it out on their behalf to be a substitutionary sacrifice for them, which is what Jesus was for us. All love is sacrifice. We can't bear each other's burdens unless we carry some of the weight. The problem with the Christian church in America so often is that I'm going to bear your burden unless some of the burden gets on me, which doesn't make any sense. Like that's my favorite way to move things. Like in my community group, we have to move people all the time because they never stop moving for some reason.
The best is when they're moving far away because then you don't have to do it once. You just pack them up and you're like, peace. Just kidding, guys. These crosstown moves are killing me though. So I was talking to Logan the other day.
He's moving and he was explaining who was helping him. He goes, yeah, and we've got your truck. And I was like, bro, I haven't even told you how to help you yet. Like, I don't know why you're just assuming my truck. I'm like, are you going to drive it? I didn't say that.
I thought it. That's why he was laughing hard back there because I didn't. This is just things I think, guys. Here's the thing. If somebody's moving something and I'm going to help, I actually have to shoulder some of the weight. I can't just stick my hands under.
That's my favorite. It's like, just follow somebody and be like, I'm spotting you. You pull your back. I'll catch you. Like, no, you actually have to carry some of the weight. And as we walk in life together, we actually have to give up some of our energy, some of our joy, some of our, we have to bear some of our burdens.
We have to actually, to be generous, have to open our wallets to help someone else out. That's how that works. And if we don't do that, we miss out on the opportunity to grow because we miss out on an opportunity to align ourselves with Jesus and understand the depth of his generosity, the depth of his love and the depth of his sacrifice and how difficult it is to forgive. If we never walk in relationships, we miss all of that. Not only does our church family not get served as we pour ourselves out for them, but we actually miss out on understanding the reality and the weight of the gospel. See, too often we approach our groups and we approach churches by, what am I getting out of this?
And we miss the point. If you show up to your group and think, oh, you know, people talk to you and say, yeah, I just wasn't getting fed there. I just wasn't getting anything out of that. Or it just wasn't, it wasn't meeting my needs. They've missed the point because they were gifted specifically to pour themselves out. And real love is going to involve sacrifice.
And so when everybody in your community group starts showing up and saying, how can I serve? I exist for these other people. My gifts are here for these other people. I'm going to pour out for these other people. That actually gets to be a beautiful group. Everybody gets to grow and it gets to be about Jesus.
And it's beautiful. When we were about to plant a church, I was up in Lynchburg. I was going to school and I was talking to a pastor who's solid guy, has done a lot of stuff, was a pastor of a big church and his dad's like a brain genius. And, um, he was talking to me and he said, his dad had been a professor forever, actually like started a school. And he said to me, he said, um, he said, okay, you're going to do groups and that's cool to help people grow as disciples and stuff. Cause I was, you know, I had my plan for what we were going to do.
And, uh, he said, uh, but my dad's 80. He's been in the church forever. He knows the Bible backward and forward. He doesn't need to be in one of your groups. What does he need to do? Like, what would you have for him?
And so I, that was a legitimate, like I was thinking about it. I was like, okay. Um, and I was like, I don't know. So I spent more time praying about it. And then I realized that the whole understanding, the approach to that was just off. First of all, he's gifted for the benefit of others.
So actually he might think he doesn't need a group, but the group needs him to share wisdom, to point them out to where they're off in the gospel, where they're not understanding the Bible clearly. It needs him to teach and to lead and shepherd. And here's the other thing. He doesn't get to grow. If he's not in relationships, he won't get to forgive unless I get to take him off. He won't get to bear with someone unless he consistently is around me so that I can annoy him.
Like that's how that works. He actually gets to grow, even though we would look at him in our, in our culture and say, Oh, he knows everything. Yeah. But he doesn't get to apply it unless he's having to forgive, unless he's having to bear with people, unless he's having to have patience, unless he consistently has me sit down across from him and completely misunderstand what he taught me the week before. Then he needs patience.
Then he needs to bear with somebody. You see, we all get to grow as we have real relationships. And when Paul's walking through this and saying, we're gifted to serve one another, he's saying that you were designed to be in relationships with each other. This is just how it works. So don't miss that.
If you're not in a community group and you say, I'm a Christian, get in a group because it's how we grow. It's how we get to be around each other in normal life so that we can see how we ought to apply the gospel to one another, how we ought to walk through life together. If you're in a group, pour yourself out. Realize that all love is sacrifice and that we're empowered by the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross to actually love one another, to actually forgive. And that as we have to do that, we'll grow. We'll all grow as we pour ourselves out, as we go beyond how far we thought we could bear, as we deal with people that are frustrating, as we have to repent and as we have to forgive.
We'll come to love the gospel in a way that we never thought we could. And we'll become a part of a real family. And there's a lot of joy there. So we'll be messy. Yes, we'll be difficult. We'll be hard.
We'll be frustrating. Will you be absolutely worn out at times? Yes. But will it be beautiful and good? And will it make much of Jesus? Yes.
And as we do it, we'll all get to grow. So don't miss out. Josh and Bianca and Raz are going to come back up and we're going to sing as a church family together. And that's all I would say is to realize that you've been gifted by God to serve others, that you exist for the benefit of your group, not the other way around, that we're designed to pull together, to serve together, to grow together in all the ways that God's gifted us to do that. And if you're not, you're missing out. You're missing out on the beauty that comes from being in real relationships with real sinners who have a real savior.
So don't miss out. Let's pray. God, we thank you that through your sacrifice and through your forgiveness and through your love that we can have real relationships, that you have made us into a family and that it's our brokenness and our messiness that brings us together because it's your righteousness and holiness that saves us. So God, I pray that we wouldn't settle for surface level, that we wouldn't settle for fake, but that we'd be real because none of us through our good behavior saved ourselves. And as we're real, God, and as we're open and as we're broken and as we're frustrating to one another, I pray that you would empower us through the gospel to forgive and to sacrifice and to love in a real way.
We ask God that your Holy Spirit would move, begin to show us how we ought to serve, where you have gifted us, for those of us who don't know. That you'd help us to point out in each other where there's growth and where there's gifting. God, we just ask that as we all serve and as we all pull together and as we all do ministry, that you would build your church and that it would get to be all about you and that you would get all the glory from it as your entire family serves and works and uses the gifts that you gave them. We ask you to work in and among us and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Y'all stand, let's sing.
Church as Family
Transcript
It's good to see you guys this morning. My name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. And it is an honor and a privilege to continue on with you guys in our Anchor Series. So we're in about the middle of it.
And the question that we've been seeking to answer is, what does the Bible say about the church? And then from that, how do we live that out as Mill City Church, as a local church body, as a gospel-centered community on mission? And so we've kind of taken it in those chunks. For three weeks, we looked at what is this idea, what does it mean to be centered around the gospel, the good news that Jesus saves? So we took one Sunday and just looked at the gospel message as we see it from the book of Romans.
We looked at Romans 1 through 6. And we see that we were created to worship God, but we choose to worship other things instead. We saw that we all fall short, and there's no amount of work that can fix this. But Jesus died to pay our debt and to make us right with God, so we're saved by His work and not ours. That's the gospel message that we're saved by Jesus' work and not ours. And coming out of that, it's the message, but it's also more than that.
It's how does that impact our lives on a day-in and day-out basis. So two weeks ago, we looked at the idea of gospel fluency. Since the gospel is the story that changes everything for us, it impacts everything. It impacts the way we think. It impacts the way we speak. It impacts the way we view the world and live in a relationship with other people.
And then last week, we just took that a step forward. Since the gospel applies to all of life, it actually applies to my individual life. And we talked about what it looks like to apply the gospel to our hearts, because our hearts are prone to wander and to drift. And when we speak that gospel truth back into it, it brings us back into right understanding of living in relationship with God. So today, we're switching gears just a little bit.
We're moving from this idea of gospel-centered to talking about what it means to be a community. And what we're going to see throughout the entire New Testament is that the way that believers grew in their understanding of the gospel, grew in their understanding of how to follow Jesus, was in the context of community, of living in real relationship with other people. And I think part of the reason that is, is that the society in that day, the culture in that day, was very communal. Like people had to live in a relationship with each other, which is actually very different than the culture that we live in.
We live in a very individualistic society, where most people are just kind of looking out for number one. So the money that they make from their job, or how they spend their time, or with their hobbies, is we live in an individual society where most people will say, you take care of you, you take care of your family, and then whatever else you have left, whether that be time, or money, or resources, whatever, you can use that to, to be in relationship with other people, or to bless other people. And so we see that. That's one way to think about it. I heard someone say that it seems like in America, the goal is for you to work a good nine to five Job, to get a good paycheck, to be able to go home, and not have to talk to anybody, watch TV for four hours, and then go to bed.
Like that's the individualistic American dream. And I don't think, I don't think it's because we don't want to be in relationship with other people. I really don't think that's it. I think we just don't feel like we need to be in relationship with other people. That people aren't a necessity. That relationships aren't important.
Don't enhance life. Don't make it better. And the culture of Jesus' day didn't see it that way. They needed each other. And as we look at places in scripture today, what we're going to see is that this idea of community, or relationships, it's expressly taught, some, but it's way more just implied in the relationships that people shared as believers, as they lived out this community together. That's what the culture was like at the time.
And Jesus shows up on the scene, and begins to preach a gospel to everyone, that salvation is for everyone. He's preaching to the Jews. So the Jews were God's chosen people that lived in relationship with him, that he said that he was going to love, and to bless, and to multiply. And Jesus comes preaching a salvation for everybody. And through his death and resurrection, he opens up access to God for everyone. And the entire New Testament is this beautiful story of all these different kinds of people coming together and figuring out what it looks like to follow Jesus in relationship with each other.
And the Bible is going to describe those relationships as a family. That's the word that's going to be used. So today, that's absolutely what we're talking about, is the idea of church as a family. And I just want to say this, before we dive into the scripture, I realize that family is not the easiest thing for everyone to talk about. So we all come into this room from different backgrounds, different experiences.
And in fact, when I said the word family, some of you went ahead and checked out, because you don't want to talk about it. The pain, the emotions, the feelings that you have, whether it be from a divorce, or some type of abuse, or just a bad home life that you grew up in, or are a part of now, you don't want to talk about family. And so what I want to ask you this morning is regardless of your background, regardless of how you walked into this room, I just want you to open up your mind and open up your heart to this idea of family that the Bible is going to talk about. Because I believe if you do, it will change everything.
Just like it did for Josh and Nadine, it will change everything for you. And I'm going to pray that God would help us to do that. So you guys pray with me. God, we ask that you would help us grasp this idea that you have made us into a family. God, it wouldn't just be something that we know or something that we recognize, but it would change us. God, it would change the way we live, the way we speak, it would change the way we lived in relationship with other people.
God, I pray for everyone in the room, regardless of the family background that we've walked into this room with, I pray that you would redeem that idea and you would give us a beautiful picture of what your word says you have invited us into. I pray that you would do that through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so if you got a Bible, go ahead and grab that. And if you didn't bring one with you, look to your right or to your left, because this scripture isn't going to be on the screen. So just grab one of those Bibles that we have sitting on the seats.
We're going to be in Galatians chapter four. Galatians is in the New Testament. If you got the blue and white Bible, it's going to be page 623. And if you don't have a Bible, we want you to take that one with you when you leave. We have lots of these and we want everyone to have a Bible. So please take one of these with you when you go.
Okay, the book of Galatians is a letter that Paul is writing to a church that's in the Southern province in the Roman Empire. Okay, and what we know from the book of Acts about Paul is that Paul becomes a Christian. He becomes a believer and he starts going on these different missionary journeys. Yes. Well, and you know what? I'm a little dyslexic, guys.
I told them it was. So if you go to 623, I don't know where you're going to be, but if you'd like to join us in 632, sorry about that. But anyway, so this is a letter that Paul's writing to the church in Galatia. So when Paul became a Christian, he began to go out on these missionary journeys and one of the areas he ends up is in Galatia. Paul shares the gospel. People become Christians.
They begin to follow Jesus. He begins to teach them what it means to be a disciple and they start a church there. And then Paul moves on from that place. And we know that by this time, there are many churches in this area. And what Paul, the purpose of Paul writing this letter is to continue instructing them in how to follow Jesus in normal, everyday life as a church family. And that's important for us.
That's important for us to remember that Paul is speaking to a church family because I want us to listen to this as a church family. I want to hear this as a collective. So chapter 4, verse 4 on page 632, if your Bible looks like this, let's read it together. Verse 4, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Okay, let's stop there. All right, this is what we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks.
This is the gospel message. What it said here is that God sent Jesus, born of a woman, conceived of by the Holy Spirit, which meant that Jesus was fully God and fully man. So Jesus was God in human form. And it says that he sent Jesus to be under the law. The law, God gave the law to his people to tell them how to live in relationship with him and with each other. So it says that he sent him to be under the law.
But here's the catch. Nobody could live up to the law. That's what we talked about in our first week, is that no amount of work could fix this. Nobody could live up to it. And so it says that he sent him to be under the law to redeem those who were under the law, which is this beautiful picture that Jesus comes and he lives a perfect, sinless life. He perfectly obeys God's law, perfectly lives in relationship with God, and then he dies to pay for the fact that we never could have lived perfectly in relationship with God.
And in doing so, he paid for our sin. That's the gospel message, and that's important because Paul, before he goes into how this plays out, he just sets the stage again. He said, here's the gospel that Jesus came to redeem us, and then it begins to give us the practical outworking of what that means. It continues on. We'll read verse 5 again and keep going. to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. To redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And that's beautiful. That the reason that Jesus came wasn't just to save us, but it was to adopt us as sons. That Jesus, in doing this, was creating a new family that was made possible for those who placed faith in him. And I want you to think about this idea of adoption for a second. I want you to think about adopted parents versus biological parents. And this idea of adoption.
How many of you know someone who's gone through the adoption process? Okay, so kind of all across the room. It's insane what you have to go through to adopt a child. So you have to fill out a ton of paperwork. You have to have all these different background checks. You have to go through interviews.
They come to your house and look through how your house is set up. They not only interview you, but they interview your family. They interview your friends. And then when you add into that the cost, oh man, it costs a ton of money. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. And especially if you're adopting somebody from overseas, you have to pay for the adoption and pay for the plane ticket to go over there.
And a lot of times ending up in another country, you're just paying to fly out there for another interview. And then you've got to fly back and then they let you know and then you get to fly back over and you get to pay for another ticket as you bring your adopted child home. Adoption is very costly. And it's absolutely the same thing for God. It costs Jesus his life to adopt us into his family. And in an adopted family, and think about an earthly family for a second.
Biological children and adopted children have the same rights and same status within a family. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? The parents could have could have left them, not provided for them, not protected them, not cared them, just left them out on their own. But how much more grateful is the adopted child because they were chosen? And it costs a lot. And that's absolutely what's true for us.
That God was willing to allow his son to be murdered to bring us in to adopt us into his family. It gets better. It gets better. Keep reading with me. Go back to verse 6. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. I'm going to read that one more time. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir. So for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them, it says that God sends his spirit into them to cry, Abba, Father. Just this beautiful picture of family. And we can kind of gloss over that and not catch it because Abba is actually the Aramaic word that means Father. but it's way more relational than Father is for us. It's much more akin to the word Daddy. How awesome is that?
I want you to think about that. The creator of the universe is allowing us to be brought into a family where the relational tie is where he's our Daddy. That's absolutely beautiful that we've been, as verse 7 says, that we're no longer slaves. We're not slaves to sin. We've been made sons. And God is our Daddy and not only sons but an heir.
The inheritance that we have as sons is salvation, is God himself. It's his presence. And the reason that it says sons and not sons and daughters, it's not trying to be exclusive. So it isn't just saying only the males. No, no, no. What God is showing us is actually the nature and the value of the adoption that Jesus' redemption brings us.
You see, in this culture, the way that inheritance was passed down was from male descendant to male descendant. It was passed from father to sons. And the way that females were blessed in this culture or taken care of was through the finances that were provided by the males. And what Paul is saying here is that men, women, and children alike are given the new standing as sons in this new family. Which means that all of us are heirs. And here's another thing.
Don't miss this. Not only are we given Jesus' right standing with God, we're also given his relational standing. not only does Jesus take care of our sin, but we're seen as sons. We're given his relational standing as well and it changes everything. What we're looking at is the theology behind this idea that we've been made into a family, that we've been changed forever, that our identity is no longer in ourselves, but it's in Jesus and in this family that he's invited us into. That's what we mean when we say that Mill City Church is a gospel-centered community on mission. That's what we mean.
It's a family and we're not just talking about it in means of the relationships that we're aiming to grow. No, no, no. This is a declaration of what God has made us into. We've been made into a new family for those that have placed faith in Jesus to redeem them. That's why the New Testament letters are written to brothers. It's a shout-out to this family of people that come from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds.
I want you to look around the room for a second. Not for real. Y'all still looking at me. Look around the room for a second. Okay. For those that have placed faith in Jesus, you have been made into a new family.
Just as much family as your flesh and blood family. real family. That's what Jesus has made us into. All right. So we're tracking. We're getting this idea. We're understanding.
Like we can see it very clearly from Scripture. This isn't just something that we talk about. It's absolutely true. It's what Jesus has done. He's made us into a family. So the question then becomes, okay, I'm on your team.
That's true. How does that play out in life? What does that actually mean? How does that affect me on a day in and day out basis? And what we're going to do is we're going to take a zoomed overview. We're going to zoom kind of through the New Testament here.
We're going to look at a little bit of Jesus' interactions with people. We're going to look at how the early church lived in relationship with each other as we see it in Acts. And we're going to kind of talk about the New Testament so that we can begin to see this idea of church as family. What does it look like? Because here's the deal. This wasn't so much commanded as it was assumed because of their culture.
You're not going to see Jesus sit down. You're not going to see two chapters in the gospel where it says Jesus sat down and told them how to be family. It doesn't say that. It just shows how they followed him in relationship with each other. It's way more fish than water. Y'all get that illustration, right?
No. That's why I'm going to explain it. Okay. If I was going to, so if I was going fishing and I was telling you about the bass that I was trying to catch, all right, you tracking with me? I'm going to tell you about that bass. At no point do I have to tell you that that bass is in water.
No point do I have to do that unless I'm talking to the part where I hooked him, battered him, fried him, and then we ate him together, which is the intended purpose of the fish's life. But if I'm telling you about the fish, if I'm telling you about what the fish ate, how it moves, how it breathes, at no point do I have to remind you that the fish is in water. And that's very much the way the Bible treats this idea of living in family. It's not, it's expressly taught some, but it's way more understood in the relationships that we're going to see. So again, if you're a note taker, you may just want to jot down some of the references rather than try to flip back and forth in your Bible because we're going to kind of go all over the place.
The first place I want to go is Matthew 12, 46 through 50. Matthew 12, 46 through 50. We're going to have it up here on the screen. It says this, while he, and this is talking about Jesus, while he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Okay. So Jesus is hanging out with people and it says that his mom and his brother show up and someone says, hey, your mom and your brother are outside. And he said, who are my mom and brothers? It's not like Jesus forgot. He didn't just have a moment there because he then points to his disciples and he says, here are my mom and brothers.
Whoever obeys my father's will is my mother or, I'm sorry, I said father or mother, mother or brothers. Okay. Here's another one. This is another interaction of Jesus with people and this is going to come from John 19. Okay. This is at the end of Jesus' life.
He's giving his life. He's on the cross. It says this, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.
And from that hour the disciple took her to his own house. Okay. So Jesus is on the cross and it says the disciple whom he loved, which is John, which is my favorite. Like John calls himself that. This is John writing the gospel. You know, it's a little cocky, John.
Take it easy. But it's true. He did. He did love John. And as he's dying, he gives the care of his mother to his disciple. And it's not that Jesus didn't have other brothers.
We just saw that in the passage before and we know that from other passages in scripture. But there's some amount of, but they didn't believe in him yet. We know that from, we know later that they become Christians and they follow him. But he hands care over of his mother to his disciple. So Jesus begins, is beginning to change this dynamic.
He's beginning to shift our understanding of earthly family and this new faith family that he's creating. And then Jesus rises from the dead and then he ascends into heaven. And so these believers, these disciples and others that he had spent time with, they just go into action. They begin living like the words, the things that Jesus had taught them, the things that Jesus had showed them. And we get a very clear picture of that in Acts chapter 2. We get to see this, this new family playing out.
Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42. You might be familiar with this. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple, I'm sorry, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. It says that they shared all of their possessions, that they spent time together, that they prayed together. What you see there is a picture of a new family, that their understanding of family had been radically changed.
They realized that the only way that they could follow Jesus was in the context of these family relationships with other believers. And that makes perfect sense when you tie together with what we've already seen that Paul says to the church in Galatian, the Galatian church, they've been made into a new family and so they're absolutely going to live that way in their relationships with other people. But here's the problem with that. That messes with our Western minds, right? When I say that you should be living in relationship with other people and sharing your faith with them and that's actually how you grow, don't, don't, some of us just kind of go, really, I think I can handle it on my own.
In fact, the thought of Jesus ignoring his mom and his brothers when they came to visit makes most of us cringe. Right? Just a little bit. What about honoring our mothers and fathers? Isn't that one of the commandments is Jesus saying that I shouldn't obey that commandment? No, he's not saying that.
I mean, we see very much that Jesus has a deep love and compassion for his mother. He entrusts her to one of his dearest friends and his disciples. But what all of these passages are emphasizing is this idea that the new family is going to play as significant a role in our lives just as much as our earthly family. So is Jesus saying that we shouldn't spend time with our spouses or with our kids? No. But is Jesus saying that this new faith family is to be viewed the same way?
Same amount of love? Same amount of care? Same amount of compassion? Energy? Absolutely. Now, before mothers start to take off their shoes and hurl them at the stage at the thought of not being able to spend time with their children, it's not to the exclusion of our families.
It's an extension of it. Think about the entire New Testament for a second. Again, this is the zoomed out version. Jesus spent the three years of his ministry with twelve dudes. Some of them were fishermen. Some of them were tax collectors.
One of them was a zealot. And here's why that's funny. A tax collector basically worked for the Roman Empire getting money for them. A zealot was someone who absolutely wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire. So next time you're in a conversation in your community group, realize that the tax collector and the zealot probably wouldn't have had a whole lot in common too.
But, they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. It was in relationships that Jesus poured into them and they learned to follow Jesus in relationship with each other. And then Jesus ascends and we see the early church doing the same thing. And now the barrier has been broken down. Salvation isn't just for the Jews, it's now for the Jews and the Gentiles which means it's for everyone. And this early church is learning how to live in relationship with each other because they've been separated for so long the door has been thrown wide open.
As you read the letter to the church at Rome, at Colossae, at Philippi, at Thessalonica, you're going to read through it. And what those letters are going to be is it's going to put the gospel on display and then it's going to talk about how do you live that in relationship with other people. In fact, more often than not when you're reading those letters, when you see the pronoun you, it's usually not singular. More often than not it's going to be plural. The idea that the letter is being written to y'all. It's not written in there like that but it is to y'all and it's to be understood and lived out in the context of community.
In fact, if you just read through the New Testament you're going to see a whole bunch of these things called one another's. Okay? Fill in the blank, one another. The greatest example of that is love one another. It doesn't say love yourself. It implies the fact that to grow in our understanding of love means that it needs to be between two people or a group of people.
Love one another. That's how we grow in our understanding of how Jesus loved us is with other people. And that's just one of them. And I just tried to brainstorm all the ones that I could think about and just kind of create a list. Listen to this. Love one another.
Pray for one another. Serve one another. Bear with one another. Encourage one another. Teach. Be at peace.
Be devoted to. Give preference to. Same mind toward. Edify. Admonish. Accept.
Greet one another. Have patience with. Speak the truth in love to one another. Be kind. Be subject to. And on and on and on.
This idea of relationship. And they got that. That the way they grew in their understanding of the gospel and how to follow Jesus was in the context of relationships. You see what the New Testament is pointing us to? Family. Real family.
And it's not to the exclusion of your earthly or your biological family. Instead of thinking of them as distinct and different, the goal is to begin viewing them as the same. Same amount of love. Same amount of compassion. Not that your children aren't going to get your time, but you're actually throwing open the doors of your family so that your children receive more love, more care. Now let me be clear.
I understand that not everybody grew up as a part of this idealistic, earthly family that I've been describing. Maybe you grew up in a home where your parents split up, in a home where there was abuse. I get that. And in fact, you're kind of cynical towards this whole idea of church family like I'm talking about right now. But all of us know what a good family should look like.
Every single one of us. Whether you have that, have that or not, we all know what it should look like. And all of us have this intrinsic desire within us to belong, to be accepted, to be a part of that. All of us want a father that instead of raising his fists, open his arms in love. All of us want a father that will speak words of love and care and not tear us down with abuse. And what I'm telling you is, what the New Testament is screaming to us is that you've been invited into that family.
Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of whatever baggage we come in with, the New Testament is going to say is that Jesus redeems people into this family, which is really good news. You know why? It means that no person in that family is going to be perfect. That the entrance exam to that family is not, you've got your mess together. No, no, no. The entrance exam is, I don't.
That the reason we get to come and be a part of that family is because Jesus redeems us and brings us into relationship. And so, yeah, it's a messed up, jacked up family, just maybe like the one that you grew up in, maybe the one that you know, but here's the difference. The gospel changes us. Jesus works and he changes us and he brings us into real relationship with each other. And as we open up our homes and open up time with each other, it over time, as the Holy Spirit works in that, helps us grow closer to him. And there's a lot of love and there's a lot of joy.
And so that's what we mean. When we say that we're a gospel-centered community on mission, that we're a people redeemed by Jesus to look like and to live like family, and so we just act like it. That's how we express ourselves. That's how we grow in our faith is with other people. And so the question then becomes, okay, I'm with you, Matt. I'm tracking.
I understand that this is what the Bible says is what Jesus has done. That I see that this is how that plays out. How does that impact my life now? How do I begin living like that is true with the people that are in this room, the people that are in my community group? And so we're going to talk. I'm going to give you just a few practical, tangible handles for how this plays out.
But our community groups are going to talk about that this week too. And so I want you to be thinking about what would it look like for us to live in a relationship with each other. And the first way is this. The first way to begin thinking about how do I exist in family with other people is to ask the question, how do I exist as family with my earthly family? Seems pretty simple, right? Try to answer that question.
Okay, how do I relate to my family, my earthly family already? And so for me, the way that I'm going to answer that question is I'm going to think about Katie. I'm going to think about the way I relate to Katie. So Katie and I spend time together. We share meals together. We go to the grocery store together.
We read the Bible together. On Friday nights, we go to the grocery store and we buy cookies and we go home and we bake them and then we shamelessly eat all 24 within 24 hours. We go on walks together and it's the same way that you relate with your family. You fight and you forgive and you reconcile. You defend each other. You help each other.
You laugh together. You do Pinterest projects together. Yeah, I said Pinterest projects. You do it. You know, it's true. You pay for things for each other.
You give gifts to each other. You see how beautiful that is? It's not to the exclusion of the family you already have. You're just opening that up for other people. You begin to ask that question. It sets the stage for how we live in relationship with each other.
And I'm going to be really honest with you guys. This is absolutely from my heart. Katie and I moved to Columbia two years ago to be a part of helping start Mill City Church. And the only people we knew in the city were Chet and Anna and they had moved here three months before. We spent time praying and planning and asking God, what do you want this church to look like? What is this going to look like?
And then we started with our first community group meeting in a home and right off the bat I knew that something was different. It was real. There were real relationships. We spent time together. We shared meals together. We played spike ball together.
I began to love and care for the people that I was in a group with and they shared that same love and care for me. And then it went from one group to two groups, two groups to five groups and as we continue to grow as a church, that's our understanding. That's how we view ourselves in living in relationship together is in this idea of family. And Katie and I have this conversation every now and then. It's like, how did we ever exist without this? I never want to go back.
I never want to miss out. Life is so much better, has much more, I don't know, it's just better. I just love being in relationship with other people and it has changed my life. It has changed my walk with Jesus. It's improved. Like Katie and I have grown closer in our marriage.
It's changed everything. And so when you start to ask that question, how do I view my earthly family? It begins to answer the question, how do we relate to each other as church family? Let me give you a couple of scenarios. Think through this. Okay, if we really are family together, think through these scenarios with me.
You get a call in the middle of the night from somebody in your community group. It's not look at the phone and move it to the side. No, they're family, right? So it means I'm going to answer the phone and I'm going to run to help, whether it's something that's happened or their car's broken down or if they just need to talk, they're family. I'm going to answer the phone. Short on bills?
Can't pay their mortgage? Don't have enough money to buy groceries? Absolutely. I'm reaching for my wallet. Because they're family. I'm going to help.
There's relational drama in your group because of a fight. You're family. You're not running away from each other. You're going to stay and you're going to talk about it. You're going to be open. You're going to be honest.
You're going to forgive. You're going to reconcile. We've got college students who live with us, who live in this city with us but have family that live other places. What if you had a college student that didn't have money to travel home to see their family? What then? You're going to put them in the minivan and you're going to grandma's house and they're going to have to choke down the same terrible stuffing that you do.
Just part of it. When you start answering those questions, it begins to show us how we should relate to each other as church family. And I've got some examples of this. Tati and I have been putting hardwood laminate in our house. We're expecting our first child in May and wanting to do some house improvements. And so I told someone in my community group that I was going to be doing that and they said, I want to help.
Okay, we were going to be working on it on Friday. Well, that Thursday that person got sick. That Thursday night their child had to go to the hospital and it had to get stitches. And the next day he couldn't even go to work because he was so sick. But you know who showed up at my house that afternoon?
Drove an hour to my house to help me even though he didn't feel good. Stayed till nine o'clock on a Friday night and whose wife and children completely understood because we were family. We get that. He was willing to sacrifice. That's a beautiful picture of family. I have heard countless stories of people having trouble with their car.
I've heard stories of people riding with each other to go check out a new car that was an hour away. Of people stopping work in the middle of the day and going and taking care of somebody's vehicle. Of coming together to help people get a vehicle. Not only vehicles but like AC units. Like if there was something going on like an HVACalypse. People running to your rescue.
Absolutely. I almost died that week guys. I'm for real. But because I'm in church family came to my rescue. Helped me in my need. I've heard of stories of people trying to organize birthday parties and kids going I want church family there.
The people they're rattling off aren't their classmates. They're rattling off church family. Adults that they want to be there. People sharing in life experience together. Stories of people who have had to go to the hospital or had a family member that had to go to the hospital dropping everything in the middle of the day and just taking off. Because it's family.
It's real church family. Just as much family as our earthly family. See how beautiful that is? And that is absolutely the picture of the gospel. That Jesus opened up the door so that all of us could be welcomed in through his redemption. That we were offered forgiveness and grace and we've been made sons and heirs.
And so that's the way we live that out is as a church family. And I want to point out just a couple of groups of people where this is especially beautiful. The church has family for new Christians. For some of you when you placed faith in Jesus your old friends your family wanted nothing more to do with you. You might have had to leave old habits and old patterns behind. And what's beautiful about this is that the church steps in and helps and loves and serves.
That it's real family. It's real relationships. And so what you left pales in comparison to what you now have. The church is family for people who are single. Our culture says that the goal is to get married and have 2.5 kids and have a house with a white picket fence. Yeah, is the Bible going to say that marriage is a blessing?
Absolutely. Is the Bible going to say that singleness is a blessing too? Yes. But unless the church opens her arms unless we're opening our homes unless we're opening our tables to people what we're asking single people is to be alone. That's not the case when you have real church family that you're throwing open the doors and inviting and welcoming people in. And it's especially beautiful for people who come from broken homes.
If you come from a home where you didn't have a dad who was there or you had a parent who was abusive or you didn't have real loving relationships with people the church's family redeems that for you. Jesus invites you into a family where the entrance exam is Him. It's Him. He welcomes you in. He's the one who redeems you in. And the most beautiful and captivating part of this idea of church's family is this.
Is this last scripture that we're going to look at from Revelation. And I want us to read it together. And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you are slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on earth. The striving that we put forth now together as a family is just practice for what we've been invited into. That one day all those that have placed faith in Jesus from every tribe nation language and tongue are going to sit at the table with Jesus our Savior and Lord and we're going to share a meal together and we're going to be together as a family for eternity.
You see, Katie won't always be my wife but she'll always be my sister so that when Katie and I open up our homes to people when we go out of our way to make time for people in our church family we're just getting a little bit of practice in for what eternity is going to look like as we share in relationship with Jesus forever because we know that our citizenship is in heaven just like Philippians says and so that when we open up our homes open up our time it helps us grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and it's just practice for the eternity that's waiting for us. Bianca's going to come back up and we're going to continue to sing this is going to be hard this is it's going to be messy we're going to have to fight everything inside of us our natural tendencies and the things that we think we're going to have to we're going to have to learn how to grow and how to sacrifice time and as we do so Jesus works in that and he brings us closer to him and he brings us closer to each other and he gives us real family and I say this all the time and it's absolutely true here it's messy it's beautiful and it's worth it and so we're going to stand and sing in a second and there are three ways that you can respond to this the first one is this you can become a Christian and you can be a part of this family so if you've been you've been listening the whole time like I want that I want that to be true for me but I know it's not it says that to be a part of this family is for those who place faith in Jesus that Jesus redeems them and saves us and brings us into this family so right where you are as we sing this next song just cry out to him place your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sin ask him to change you from the inside out and then tell somebody don't leave here without telling somebody that news the second thing is this join a group if you've been hanging out with us on a Sunday and you've been hearing us talk about this idea of community groups join a group that is absolutely where we grow and what this looks like on a day in and day out basis you can't become family with people in an hour and a half on a Sunday you just can't do it it's not possible and you don't want to miss out on that and the third thing is this if you're already a part of a group don't settle for anything less than the beauty of what we've talked about this morning let me pray for us God I pray that you would teach us what it looks like and what it means to be family that you've opened up the way for us to live in a relationship with you and in doing so you have invited us into a family God I pray that you would teach us what that looks like that we would grow in our understanding of you as you work through the relationships in our church in Jesus name Amen
Jesus > Idols
Transcript
How y'all doing? I'm doing well, Vicki. Y'all, let's turn to Romans chapter 1. That's where we'll be this morning. It's on page 610 if you have a Bible that looks like this. If you don't have a Bible that looks like this, it's going to be in the New Testament, kind of near the back, after the book of Acts, before all the other letters like 1 Corinthians and stuff.
So best of luck. At the front of your Bible, there's a thing that has all the names of the books, and you can look, and it'll tell you what page number it's on. I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll kind of hop in this morning. God, we just ask you to teach us and to lead us this morning, that your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts to help us see your beauty and your glory, and to help us to love Jesus more. We thank you and we praise you for all of the love and grace that you've poured out on us. In Jesus' name, amen.
So what we've been doing in the Anchor Series, and kind of the reason we called it that, is when I was in seminary and was learning, trying to grow in church planning, what that would look like, felt called to it. One of the things that we talk about is your church needed some sort of a mission, vision statement, and we in class had to write them out. And so you'll see churches a lot that'll have things like, I know one that was like, love God, love people, love life, which gets more epic at the end. It's just like, everything is great. So you love God, you love people, and then just, life is wonderful, and you're just hugging everybody.
But you would have these different things, and so there's like, seek, serve, send, and it's like, your church is saying, this is what we're going for. And there's like, no, grow, so, go, whoa, hey, ho. Like, it's just these things that people, mantras or whatever for churches. And so as we got into it, we were just like, ah, it's helpful for us to have something that's taken from Scripture. That's not just made up, but that's an idea of what we're shooting for as a church family, what we're going for. But we didn't want anything that was super out there or convoluted or complex.
And so all we said was that we're a gospel-centered community on mission. So we're just trying to define who we are, not what we do, but who we are. And so we're a gospel-centered community on mission. And so in our Anchor Series, all we're saying is that's kind of what we're tied off to. That's what holds us. And so there are some things that, man, wouldn't this be a good idea or wouldn't this be fun?
But they're outside of kind of where our anchor will let us go. It's like, yeah, that actually would work or would be a good idea, but Scripture says this, so we can't really, we can't go there. We can't do that. Or it kind of goes against how we understand we're supposed to look and be as a church family. So that's all we're doing in our Anchor Series.
So we've been kind of in the gospel-centered portion for the first three weeks. And so we're staying there today. And what we're talking about today lines up with the first two weeks and really lines up with last week where we talked about gospel fluency, which is just that since the gospel is our story, it's how we understand life. It's how we understand the world. And it's how we see the world and speak to each other. So we're not just giving each other good advice to adjust our behavior, but that we know that our fundamental issue is that we don't worship God, that we put other things in place of him and that we need the gospel to change us and to point us in the right direction.
And so that's kind of what we're adding on to that today to help us understand what we're going for and what it looks like for us to just operate as Christians. And so we're in Romans 1. We'll start reading verse 21 and kind of recap a little bit and then talk about kind of where we're going today. So verse 21 says, And so the big issue for us as humans is not that we that God has rules and that we've broken his rules, but it's that God is our creator and that we don't exist in a relationship with him appropriately. We don't treat him as the creator. And so we actually begin to look to other things to fulfill us, to bring us life, to bring us joy and hope.
And so we we move God from his rightful place and we put created things there. Now, created things is and the Bible is going to call that idolatry. But that's idolatry whenever we're we're putting something else in the place of God. And when it talks about created, they worship the creature rather than the creator. That includes everything. There's only one creator and everything else is created.
Everything else comes out of him. And so when we think of idolatry, I think most of the time we think of like a carving or we think of like a statue or we think of like a totem pole. And we'll even we'll get kind of smug about it. We'll be like, yeah, how ridiculous is that? People would cut down a tree, carve an image on it and worship it. We would not do that unless you flattened that tree out, made it green and the image was an old dead president.
Then maybe we think about it. We'd give it some thought. But it's it's anything. It's anything. And it can just be an idea. It could be love.
It could be acceptance. It could be relationships. But anything that we begin to look at and say, you'll fill me up. You'll make me happy. Life will be good if. Everything will work out if.
Anything that we begin to put in that spot is when we begin to have idolatry and we begin to worship created things instead of the creator. And so this this is a problem. And we all have something that we're looking to and saying, if that would just work out. If I could just reach this spot, if I could just have this, then life would be OK. I wouldn't be worried anymore. I wouldn't be bothered anymore.
I wouldn't be stressed out anymore. If I could just have this and we're all pointing to something and saying, this will save me. This will fill me up. This will make me complete. And that's that's that's how the Bible understands idolatry, that it's not primarily about and sin is not primarily about us breaking rules. But it's actually that we've swapped God out for something else.
So that's what happens in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, our first parents. That's what that's what they did. It wasn't that he just had a rule. It was that in that moment they wanted to be like God. They believe that God was withholding something from them and that they could, through their own effort, through their own actions, through some other type of savior, reach God level, that they could be happier, that they could have fulfillment and strength. And that's what that's what happened.
That's what the Ten Commandments, when Moses goes to Pharaoh and sings that song about letting his people go. And then and then they do. And the Ten Commandments, we think of that as those are God's rules. That's the rules God began to give the law that we follow. But it starts off with you will have no other God but me.
And the second one is you won't build any idols. You won't make any idols. You won't take anything. And when he says it, he says anything in the heavens, anything on the earth, anything under the earth, which could be anything other than God. You won't turn into something supreme. And so even the Ten Commandments begin with not here are my rules, follow my rules, but with object of worship, with I'm God and nothing else is.
And so the primary issue for us when we sin is not that we've done something bad or broken a rule or that our behavior is off. But first and foremost, we've broken the first two commandments, which is something else has become more important to us. Something else has become primary, that we've taken God out of his rightful place. And that's why we're willing to steal. That's why we'll commit adultery. That's why we'll lie.
Because something else has become more important to us than God. And so at its core, sin and rebellion and the fall is based off of not having God in his rightful place and not worshiping him as the creator. It's based off of us putting something else there, which leads us astray all the rest of the time. And that's what the Romans 1 is going to say is that's the issue, that they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. So we even see this as we move into the New Testament.
So when they're talking to Jesus and asking, what's the what's the primary commandment? He says to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. That's the commandment. It has nothing to do with behavior, has everything to do with our hearts and our love for God. And so as we talked about gospel fluency last week, what we were talking about is pointing each other not to here's some advice to change your behavior, but pointing each other to here's what Jesus has done and here's how that works in our hearts to bring about change. Because we're not trying to change our behavior.
We're trying to change our hearts. That's even what Jesus says. It's about our love for God. And then he says to love others. And somewhere I'm sure it says love life. Okay, so what we see first, though, as we begin to look at something and say, you'll fix me, you'll fill me up, you'll make me complete.
We're going to talk about surface idolatry. Bible doesn't use that phrase. It does use idolatry, but we're just using that to help explain this. So we're going to talk about the two major areas that idolatry shows up in us and in our hearts. So surface idolatry is when we begin to look at anything and say, you'll fix me, you'll fill me up, if I could just have this, if this would just work out.
It's what we daydream about. It's what we plot on. It's our biggest fear that we would lose this because we believe that it's going to fix us, that it's going to fill us up, that it's going to give us life. It's going to make us whole. And for most of us, that is something good. We've picked something good.
Most of us don't have really dumb idols. We've picked something good. We've picked something kind of intelligent. Just like you might put a lot of energy and effort into fixing your car up, get a new paint Job, maybe some sweet flames running down the side. But you're not going to do that to your trash can.
You're not going to put spinners on your garbage can that you roll out to the road once a week, get a sweet paint Job on it, some fire going up. Like you're not going to do that because it's a trash can. And so most of us, when we pick an idol, we pick something pretty smart, something that actually has value, that actually has worth, that actually has some beauty. And then because it has value, worth, and beauty, because it brings joy, we begin to believe that it actually can replace God. We're not usually tricked by something small and trivial. We're tricked by something good.
So even take an alcoholic. There's something in alcohol that brings some level of joy, some level of forgetfulness, some level of pleasure. At first, at least, and then it leads into worse things. But that's what begins to make someone believe this is actually what will fill me up, what will make me whole. Someone with sexual addiction, there's actually something beautiful there created by God for enjoyment, for pleasure, for life. And that's what begins to make us believe the lie that it will fix us, fill us up, make us whole.
Athletic achievement. It's good. It's designed by God for joy, for us to compete, for there to be some. And that's what begins to make someone believe, if I just get this, then I'll be fine. If I can just reach this moment. Parents, your children.
They're designed by God, given to you by God as a blessing. And that's actually because of the joy and the life that they bring. That's what actually can make you begin to say, if they just turn out okay. If they're just safe. If they just get the best of everything. If life just works well for them.
If they just end up the way the Bible says someone should end up. Then I'll know. Then I'll know I have value. Then I'll know I have worth. Then I'll know I'm okay.
And it's when we do that. When we begin to look to anything to accomplish that for us. We've swapped the creator out. And we've put the creature there. We've taken something creative. And placed it there.
And we've begun to put more pressure on it than it'll ever be able to hold. And we've begun to believe something about it that it's never going to be able to fulfill. Because it won't fill us up. And it won't make us whole. And it won't complete us. And it won't get rid of that nagging emptiness in us.
And so as far as surface level idolatry goes. We'll take anything. You name it. We can put it there. Money. Love.
Relationships. A particular person. This is what keeps us in bad relationships for longer. This is what makes us make a lot of the mistakes that we make. Is because we've begun to believe that something is fundamentally going to fix us. Fill us up.
Make us whole. And it won't. But I have bad news for us this morning. We're trickier than this. So some surface level idols you can see pretty clearly.
Like you've sat down with your friend and said. He is a terrible boyfriend. Like he is the worst. Get rid of him. And then they say something like. You just don't know him like I do.
No. You're right. He's never laid his hands on me. I don't know him like you do. But he's terrible.
And we can see that. Or you can see somebody chasing after money. And you can go. That's. That's. You.
I can obviously see this. But here's the problem. We're trickier than this. So Jeremiah 17 9 says this. One of my favorite verses in the Bible. Because it's just very true.
It's going to be up here. It says the heart is deceitful above all things. And desperately sick. Who can understand it? The heart is deceitful above all things. Desperately sick.
Who can understand it? Your heart lies to you. You have actually lied to you more than anyone else ever. And some of us just thought. No I haven't. But that's exactly what you would say.
Don't trust yourself. Your heart is desperately sick. It lies to you. If you're ever watching a Disney movie. And I always give this. This warning.
If you're watching a Disney movie. And. And a little bird comes out. And sings about following your heart. Or a. A grasshopper shows up.
Or a little cricket with an eye patch. Or no. Monocle. He didn't have an eye patch. That would have been creepy. A monocle.
Dragging a peg leg. I'm Jiminy Cricket. No. With a monocle. And begins to sing a song about following your heart. Don't do it.
It's a trap. It's a trick. Your heart is going to lie to you. It's going to lead you into bad places. And it's going to trick you. And so what happens is.
We can actually have deeper level idolatry. And so. Again. This is just a way to think about it. And to understand it. Deeper level idolatry.
Which actually begins to be the. The operator. Of our other idolatry. And so. I'm going to give us four. They're made up.
Just to be helpful. So if you think there should be more. If you think there should be less. Or you wanted them all to start with the same letter. Or something. Sorry.
There's four that we're going to talk about. And it's just to be helpful. So don't. Don't argue with the categories too much. Get the concept. Comfort.
Control. Approval. And power. These are just big categories. And it's to help us see. That we can have something else we're chasing.
Which changes. How we operate. Which changes how we manipulate our surroundings. Comfort. Control. Approval.
Power. Comfort is. I'll arrive. If I can just rest. If I can just. Have all the stuff I need.
If I can just be able to go on vacations. If I can just have what they have. If I can just have it to where I'm bored in the evenings. Control is. I don't have to worry about my surroundings. I don't have to worry about.
I'm in control of what happens. I'm in control of my destiny. I'm able to exercise authority over what's around me. I don't have to worry. I have security. Approval is just.
I know I'm okay if I'm loved. If people think highly of me. If people want me around. That if I can just be approved of. Then I'll be good.
I'll be okay. And then power is just the ability to exert. Authority over those around you. Over your situation. To just be the boss. To be in charge.
To have your decisions win out. So here. Here's. Here's why it's helpful for us to see this. Money. Some people say.
Oh that person just loves money. Or you might even be thinking. I think my. My surface level idolatry. I think what I chase after. What.
What I say will fill me up is money. Because here's the thing. Nobody just loves money. You don't. You love what money can give you. You love what money provides you.
But you don't just love money. Because. The reason I know that is. None of us. Have a bank account. That has monopoly money in it.
And none of us have a purse or a wallet. With monopoly money in it right now. Because it doesn't give us anything. Now when we're playing monopoly. We care a lot about those little yellow dollars. So much so.
We'll yell at our grandmother. And for the three or seven hours. That we play that game. Until our grandmother beats us. With a really smug attitude. We care about monopoly money.
But then we don't anymore. And the reason we care about money. Is because of what it gives us. And so I'm just going to walk through. Those four. Comfort, control, approval, and power.
And show you how money begins to be manipulated. By those. But you're not really seeking money. You're just seeking what money gives you. Comfort. Money is a great way to get comfort.
You can go on vacations. You can buy a jet ski. You can pay people to do work. So you can take a nap. Like. Money serves comfort very well.
Some of you. That's what your money goes to. Eating out. It's one of my favorites. Being able to rest. Being able to.
Like it just. Why would I own. Why would I have money. If my couch is uncomfortable. That makes zero sense. Why would I have money.
If my TV is not big. This is dumb. That's what money is for. Control. Oh. Money is a great way to have control.
You don't have to worry about the future. If you've got a lot of money. Something bad happens. We'll pay for it. Tire gives out. We'll pay for it.
You can just. People open their bank account. And just look at all this money. In their bank account. And just know. I'm okay.
It's like a big green security blanket. Approval. Oh. Money is a great way to get approval. Like if you want me to be your friend. Buy me lunch.
I will approve of you. I will be like. We are friends. This pizza is delicious. Like that's. I mean.
But money is a great way to give approval. You think. Oh my grandmother is so generous. Maybe. Maybe she just really wants to get the approval of her grandchildren. Because that helps fill her up.
And make her feel like she's okay. Power. Oh. Power is great. You can exert your authority over people. If you have enough money.
You can. You can. Sway the outcome of an election. But I know that. I know our crowd. We live in West Columbia.
In Columbia area. None of us can sway the outcome of an election. But. You can sway the outcome of where you're going to eat lunch. Hey man. If you go.
If we go here. I'll pay for it. That generous. Maybe. Maybe it's just that you wanted to be in control of where you ate. You just wanted to exert your power over it.
And money was a good way to do it. Here's why this is important. Our behavior can change. But at a core heart level. We're still chasing after the same thing. And the problem is.
That we've swapped out the creature. In place of the creator. We've taken created things. And we've put them in place of the creator. And when we do that. It leads us into sin.
It leads us into bad behavior. But the big issue is that our hearts are off. And God's after our hearts. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. With all your mind. With all your strength.
He's after our hearts. Our worship. Way more than our behavior. So. Our behavior can change. All of those idols.
Can actually have really good behavior. So if you're. If comfort is. You have a comfort idolatry. That. Yeah.
That can be laziness. Which the Bible clearly says is bad. You can be really lazy. You know what else? You can be a really good friend. You can be the most agreeable person.
Because you just don't want your friendships to be. The boat to be rocked. Makes you uncomfortable. So you agree really quickly. You're really nice. You let your friends have whatever they want.
Seems really nice. But your heart's off the whole time. Approval. We said it. Approval can show up in really. Drastic neediness and relationships.
But it can also show up in a whole lot of generosity. Which is nice. Which is good. The Bible says to do that. But the whole time we're chasing after something other than God.
And we're not doing it because we love God. And we love people. But we're doing it because we. We have to have this in order to feel complete and whole. Do you see that? So you can have a couple arguing over money.
The husband believes that why would we own money if we don't go on vacations? Like what's the point of me working hard if I can't have a bass boat? Like that's what money exists for. And the wife's saying no we need to save. And we need to plan ahead. And we got kids that are going to go to college.
And he's like our kids aren't going to college. And so like. And they have these struggles and they butt heads over money. But the truth is they're both just working to serve. What they ultimately believe will fill them up. So she seems more reasonable.
But she really is just seeking security. That's what makes her feel comfortable at night. It's what lets her sleep at night. Do you see that? So even though her behavior could be good or wise.
And the Bible would actually commend the behavior. The Bible worries way more about our hearts. So yeah we should have good behavior. And yeah those things are commendable. But the heart is the issue.
And so as long as we're chasing after other things. Other than God. Other than resting in God. We can get ourselves in trouble. So let's take a guy.
Power is his thing. So he just. First way he can feed that. Is through sports. So he gets real strong.
Works really hard. Seems really determined. And just is very powerful. Exerts his power on the field. On the court. But then as he gets a little older.
He begins to realize that chasing women. Is a good way to feel powerful. And that he proves his power. And his dominance. With every conquest. But as he begins to grow.
And he gets older. He begins to realize that one of the best ways to have power. Is through civil service. To be a politician. To serve the community. Because you get to actually affect change.
At a much larger level. So he completely quits chasing women. Comes very chaste. Very pure. But what he loves.
And what he's pursuing. Hasn't changed. And then he finds out. You know what? The ultimate power is found in. Jesus.
And the best way to have power. Is to be a Christian. Because Christians are the only ones that have truth. So he devours scripture. He's in your community group. And he just crushes people with Bible verses.
He has more knowledge than anybody. Because it's a way to have power. And at no point has his heart changed. Although his behavior has changed all along the way. It's a big deal for us to begin to look at. What is it that our heart believes.
Will fill us up. Will make us whole. Will complete us. So here's how this works. Our deep idolatry. A lot of times is going to be answered.
It's going to be how we answer the question. What does heaven look like? What would heaven be? What is it you daydream about? Oh if I could just have this. I'd be good.
I'd be set. Wouldn't be worried anymore. Wouldn't have problems anymore. What is it that you're looking at and saying. This will fill me up. This will make me complete.
This is when I'll be at rest. And then our surface level idolatry. Is whatever we think will get us there best at the time. It's our functional savior. It's what will take us from where we are. To where heaven is.
It's what will step in and bridge that gap. What will allow us to get from where we are. To where heaven is. That's a problem. Because we can change our constantly. Change our motivation.
Change what we're chasing after. What we think was going to get us to heaven. But our deep idolatry stays the same. What we're chasing after fundamentally stays the same. So take lying for example.
We all know we're not supposed to lie. It's one of the ten commandments. It's bad. Hurts relationships. So when you lie.
What do you do? You say. Ah. Don't lie. Shouldn't lie. Bad Christian.
Bad mother. Shouldn't lie to your children. Bad. Fix that. But here's the thing.
Why do we lie? That's the question. What is it you're trying to protect? What is it you're trying to defend? Through lying. So some of you would lie about how popular you were in high school.
You'd be in a conversation. And you'd kind of ham up how good you were at sports in high school. How popular you were. Because this person's never going to find out. Unless you're still in high school. Which is going to be a hard sell.
But go for it. No. I'm super popular here. Or you go back to your high school reunion. Or you bump into someone. And you're going to make it sound like your job's better.
Your life's better. Things are going better. And all you're seeking is you need them to approve of you. Even in this conversation with someone you're not going to see. Some of you. You would never lie about that.
You think that's a ridiculous thing to lie about. You straight up tell somebody. No. My life's pretty crummy right now. But you look like you're doing good.
Like you just wouldn't care. But you lie about something else. You'll tell somebody something starts earlier. So they'll show up on time. Oh. Did I say 845?
My bad. It's good to see you though. At 855. Got you here at 9. Tricked you. But you're lying about it.
Me. You call me on the phone. If I am asleep. I'm going to want to tell you I was awake. Doesn't matter. I think that's true for most people.
Like if I answer the phone and people go. Oh I'm sorry did I wake you up. I am going to want to say. No. I was awake. Doesn't matter what time you call me.
It could be 3 o'clock in the morning. No. I was up. I was up. Why were you up at 3? I was working out reading the Bible.
I had to do that one time in the middle of a conversation. We've been talking for about 10 minutes. I said hey man I need to tell you something. He said what? I said I was asleep when you called me. I lied to you when I answered the phone.
He's like it sounded like you were asleep. I thought you were lying. I was like yeah I was. We can continue with the conversation now. I just had to get that out there. Had to confess.
But the question is why are we lying? What are we seeking to gain from that? You see because we've all answered the question. This is what heaven will be for me. And this is what will get me there. Here's the problem.
The Bible says that where God is is where heaven is. That it's in his presence. That we're engulfed in his glory. Which glory just means that it has. It brings to mind the idea that you would look at something. And it would bring you joy.
Just by seeing it. Just by being in his presence. It's like when you're watching a sunset. And you just you get that moment where you're just like. I'm so glad I got to see this. I'm so glad I was driving on this road at this time.
Because it's bringing me joy. Just by seeing it. That's what heaven is. It's the presence of God. That heaven isn't all the nice things that you like and chase after. No heaven is God's presence.
Where we're completely satisfied. Completely fulfilled. Completely made right. Completely known and loved. And Jesus is the savior that gets us there. That it's his work not ours.
That rescues us. And redeems us. And takes us from where we are to where God is. So when we answer the question. This is what heaven is. And this is what will get me there.
We have replaced God. And we've replaced Jesus with something else. Something smaller. Something weaker. And something that will never provide. Never fill us up.
Never make us okay. So our idols and our hearts lie to us. And I want to show that to you. We look at 24. These are the two major issues when it comes to idolatry. What they do to us.
What our idols do. Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity. Let me just tell you this real quick. Some of us are chasing after things. Just so you know. Part of God's wrath is to give you exactly what you want.
What it just said was that God gave them up to their lust. To what they were loving. What they were chasing after. He actually handed them over to what they wanted. That's actually one of the worst things that can happen. Because then we've got our idol.
And we realize it never fills us up. It won't make us complete. It's actually a form of God's wrath. God is actually being very kind to some of us. But not letting us have the thing that we think will make us whole.
To the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Verse 25. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. The two things that happen when we chase idols is they lie to us.
And they enslave us. It says they worshipped and served. That they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And they worshipped and served the creature rather than creator. Your idol is telling you. I will bring you joy.
If you could just have me. Life would be okay. You wouldn't have doubt. You wouldn't have fear. You wouldn't have restlessness. And it is a lie.
And they ultimately. Our idols enslave us. They cause us to worship and serve them. I had a friend of mine who was part of our church family for a while. He's moved. And he was an older guy.
Had been married at one point. Wasn't married now. And was doing some online dating. And just believed in his soul. That what would fix him. Was a perfect marriage relationship.
That that's what would fix him. To the point that even when I was having conversations with him. He like idolized mine and Anna's relationship. And I'd say something about. You know. How we were working on stuff.
Or we were having problems. Or I'd be like. Yeah man. It's not. And he would laugh. Like.
Like. There's no way that was possible. Because I was married. I had to be perfectly happy. Perfectly complete. And it's like.
No. We got. Anna married a sinner. And I married a sinner. And we got stuff. We got to work on.
And grow in. Like. That's normal. That's how. But he didn't see it.
It was. Sometimes it was like talking to. Like. Like he was a middle school girl. Or something. Like he.
He idolized it so much. And so. In his mind. Any girl he met. Any female he met. Any lady he met.
And began to talk to. That was his savior. That was who was going to take him to heaven. Perfect. Married land. So he would meet a female online.
Through talking conversations. And I talked to him. He'd be. I mean. Soaring. I met somebody.
She's special. That's good man. I'm excited. I just. I think. I think we got something here.
And he would begin to. Pursue way too quickly. Up the ante. Way too quickly. Because she wasn't just a female he'd met. And got to have conversations with.
But she was actually who was going to save him. And so. Inevitably. A couple weeks later. That relationship wasn't going well. They weren't talking anymore.
And he would just be. Crushed. I mean shattered. Because what he had lost. Was not. Reality.
Wasn't just a conversation. And a possible relationship with a female. What he had lost. Was what was going to save him. And what was going to take him to heaven. What was going to fix him.
And it was way worse. Some of us. Should he want relationships? Yeah. That's fine. Is getting married a good thing?
Yeah. Does everybody have to get married? No. Is that good? Yeah. But he had put so much else on it.
That it couldn't fail him. Some of us have those. We have something in our life. That this can't fail. Because if it does. I don't just lose this.
I don't just lose this relationship. I don't just lose this job. I don't just lose this amount of money. I don't just lose this position. I actually lose what is going to save me. What is promising me fulfillment.
What is going to fill me up. And take me to heaven. I lose God and Savior. And it's. There's way more tied to it. Some of us are.
Some of you in here. Are chasing after success. You've put in your mind. That if I can just reach this stage. If I can just be successful. If everything I put my hand to.
Can just work out. If I can just have accomplishment. If I can just. And you're. You're believing that. And you're chasing that.
But here's the thing. You become enslaved to it. Because you can't not be successful. It crushes you. When you fail. It eats away at your insides.
Because your God. Demands sacrifice. So you begin to spend more time at work. More time putting your energy and effort into this. When something's not going well. It's the only thing you can think about.
Because your God demands sacrifice. And will not forgive you if you fail. Some of you. You just have this in your moment. There's going to be this day when I arrive. When I no longer have to.
I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. All my debts paid off. I'm just. I'm there. I can rest. I can have peace.
I can just. Bring in an X amount of dollars. Then I'll be okay. But until then. You're a slave. And if you'll look back over your life.
You've bumped up. How far you have to go. Before you'll arrive. How much money you need to bring in. And you're a slave. And your God doesn't forgive you when you fail.
And it demands that you sacrifice. Advice. Some people in here. It's approval. You have to. Have people like you.
So that Facebook and Instagram. Become your temple of worship. It's not just a place to keep up with friends. It's where you. You go to seek approval. It's where you go to post things.
That people will like. It's where you go to get those. Little thumbs up. And little comments. About how your dress looked. Or how good that meal looked.
That you cooked. Or that you were about to eat. It becomes this. This is what I need. This is what's going to satisfy me. This is what's going to fill me up.
Now. Facebook. Until. Until you begin to realize. That you're forever going to be enslaved to that. That's why when a relationship is going poorly.
And you're at odds with a friend. It tears you up inside. You can't have someone not like you. Not because you want those relationships to work out. But because you have to have approval to be okay.
As long as we're worshiping something created. We're never free. We're enslaved. We have to make sacrifices to please our God. And our gods are not forgiving when we fail. What's the solution to this?
How do we get past this? How do we fix this? I want to read a quote from Thomas Chalmers. He was a. He lived in 1780 in Scotland. And he was a missionary pastor.
He says this. The heart's desire for an ultimate object. May be conquered. But it's 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.
So I'm going to read that again. The heart's desire for an ultimate object. May be conquered. Which means that you can swap it out for something else. Like you can. You can chase after power for a while.
Or you can chase after money for a while. And then you can begin to chase after a political position. But it's desire to have some object is unconquerable. We're always going to have to have something in that place. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection. Is through the expulsive power of a new one.
And this is why it becomes huge for us. That we always point ourselves and each other back to the gospel. Because as we kept reading in Romans two weeks ago. We saw that it's Jesus that steps in and saves us. My friend is not going to be free. From the need to have a successful relationship.
Until he realizes that Jesus has already provided all the approval. All the love that he'll ever need. Until he realizes that Jesus has stepped in and in his place. Given him the relationship. The perfect relationship with the father. Which is where heaven is.
That Jesus is his savior. Then he'll be free. And then relationships can just be relationships. You're chasing after success. Until you realize that Jesus steps in. And provided success for you.
Made you holy. Made you righteous. Made you blameless. Made you successful. In him because of his work. And that ultimate success is in him.
Found only in him. And that he forgives when we fail. And that he sacrificed himself for us. See our other gods don't love us. Demand sacrifice. And don't forgive us.
And Jesus loves us so much. That he sacrificed himself. And that he always forgives us when we fail. But until we see that. Until we're engulfed in that. We'll be a slave to success.
We'll be a slave to achievement. Until we realize that a rival doesn't come. Through financial security. But that ultimate security has been provided to us. And Jesus will forever be a slave. Until you know that approval has been given to you forever.
Through God who knew you perfectly. And loved you anyway. And through the cross. Gave you worth and value. Facebook will not be a way to connect with friends. It will always be a way to posture yourself.
Make yourself look good. And feel good inside. Your relationships will always be on the needy side. Of having to have someone else fill you up. And make you whole. Until you realize that Jesus has already done that.
Until Jesus becomes the ruling affection of our hearts. We will forever be enslaved. But Jesus didn't come to be served. But to serve. And to give his life as a ransom for many. Ransom means the cost it takes to buy back a slave.
Jesus doesn't enslave us. He makes us free. He is the truth that replaces all the lies. And in Jesus we have freedom. We have a God who sacrificed himself for us. Doesn't demand that we sacrifice to him.
To earn his love. To behave our way into his good graces. But came and lived perfectly on our behalf. And died in our place. To sacrifice himself for us. So that he could forgive us of everything.
Even forgive us of worshiping and loving other things. And thinking they'll fill us up. That's what we have in Jesus. That's why it's crucial for us as a church family. To always point back to Jesus. Because our hearts lie to us.
They deceive us. They run in all kinds of directions. And we need to remember forever. That it's Jesus who saves. It's Jesus who fills us up. It's Jesus who's holy.
It's Jesus who is our king and God. And the ruling affection of our hearts. And only then will we begin to change and be free. Band's going to come back up here. And we're going to make much of Jesus. It's like a man who got sicker.
And sicker. And sicker. Symptom after symptom kept cropping up. And he went to the doctor. And he found out he had cancer. And at that moment.
Symptoms no longer matter. The only thing that has to be gotten rid of. Is the cancer. Even if it causes more symptoms in the process. Our hearts. Are wicked.
Deceitful. And desperately sick. And changing our behavior. Only takes care of symptoms. But when we see that we've begun to love.
And worship something else. Other than our creator. That's when we begin to allow Jesus to work on the cancer. To begin to wreck our hearts. And to make them his. Through his grace.
And through his work. Not ours. We get to trust him. It's not in our ability to work hard. Or to make this happen. We get to trust Jesus.
And his ability to do this for us. To change us. And to begin to take over our hearts. That we're saved through faith. And God's grace. So as we see our idols.
The response isn't. Let me work really hard to get rid of that. No. It's let me begin to love Jesus. See Jesus more. And trust him.
And ask him to become the ruling affection of my heart. To begin to take over. To help me get rid of the lies. And begin to be free. From my slavery. And be free to follow him.
Father. We thank you. For your grace. We thank you for your love. And we pray that you would help us to see. Where it is that we're chasing after things.
That we've begun to believe the lie. That they'll fill us up. That they'll make us whole. That they'll complete us. Where it is that we've begun to. In relationships.
And in our jobs. And in our life. Put more weight on something. That was never meant to carry that. God. Where are we leaning into a good gift.
That you gave us for your glory. And asking it to be God. We ask that your Holy Spirit. Would begin to show that to us. And more than that. God.
We ask that as we see that. That you would show us yourself. That we would see the cross. Where you came not to be served. But to serve.
And to give your life as a ransom. To buy back slaves. And God. As we see our sin. That we would see the cross. Which so greatly outweighs our sin.
That we would so be engulfed. By Jesus. That your beauty. And your glory. Would so fill us up. That we wouldn't look to lesser things.
To make us whole. God. We ask that your Holy Spirit. Would press in. That you would expel idols. And that you would become the ruling.
And reigning affection of our hearts. And we ask God. That you would lead us as a church family. To continuously. Be anchored in the gospel. And pointing one another.
To Jesus' work. At all times. So that we might rest. In the grace that's been provided. That though we fall short. You save.
You always save. You always forgive. That you were our sacrifice. And God. We just ask that your Holy Spirit. Would lead us now.
The spirit of Jesus. In our souls. Would begin to work. You'd begin to cut out cancer. And help us to quit chasing symptoms. We ask this in your powerful name.
In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
Gospel Fluency
Transcript
How we doing? We are in our second week of our Anchor Series, and so what we're doing, we are a church plant, and I think you kind of stay a church plant for like the first five years. I think that's kind of the rule. At least some organizations will say that, and after that you've kind of existed long enough to think you probably won't die. And so that's kind of how that works. And so we're a church plant, and what that means is as we continue to grow and as we continue to see more people hop in and be church family with us, we have to consistently re-remind ourselves, re-launch into who we are, what we're shooting for, what it means for us to be church family, and so that's kind of what this is.
That's what the Anchor Series is. And so what we're going to do is for the next six weeks, we're going to just be walking through what we mean when we say we're a gospel-centered community on mission, what we're talking about. So we put it on banners. We put it on t-shirts. And we're just going to kind of take some time to say this is what we mean. This is what we're talking about.
This is what we're shooting for as we follow Jesus. And so what we did last week was we just talked about the gospel. And so we just said, here's what the gospel is. We went from Romans 1, 2, 3, skipped 4, and went to 5 and 6. And so we just skipped 4 in case you had OCD just to make it where you can no longer pay attention. And we just kind of went through the first six chapters of Romans and said, here's what the gospel is.
Here's what the gospel story is. And so what we said was we were created to exist in a relationship with God, designed by Him to exist as creation in a relationship with Him as our Creator, and that we fell. And that fundamentally sin is not us breaking rules, but it is us swapping out what it is that is primary for us, that we swap our Creator for something else. And we begin to say, this is the goal. This is the hope. This is the dream.
This is what will fill me up. This is what will satisfy me. And that in doing that, we dishonor God. We run from Him. And so we were created. We fell.
But that Jesus redeems us. That He steps in and becomes for us our salvation. That He lived perfectly for us, died in our place for our sin. So that in Him, we do have that. He remakes that relationship back right with God. And then after that, we get to live in light of that, that we're restored.
We have a restored relationship with God. And then ultimately when we die, we'll spend eternity with God back in the perfect relationship we should have had had we not fallen. And that's the storyline we find ourselves on. Whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, that is the storyline of the Bible. And that is the storyline of the world. And so what we've said as Christians is that that is our story.
That is fundamentally where we are in the world, how we exist. And so since that is the gospel, since it's the gospel is that Jesus died on our behalf and we're saved by His work, not ours, and then everything else comes out of that. Everything else plays out of that. And so what we're going to do today is just talk a little bit about what do we mean when we say we're gospel-centered? Like that sounds cute or nice or it's some good Bible word goal thing that you put on that banner. That's nice.
What are we talking about? What does that look like? How do I do that on a daily basis? And so we're just going to try to be real practical for the rest of this series and just say if that's the gospel, then this is what we mean by gospel-centered. This is what we mean by community. This is what we're talking about when we say mission and try to help us all grow in, oh, okay, some tangible.
That's how we'll do that. And that's what that'll look like. So let's pray and then we're going to talk about some stuff this morning. God, I thank you that we are saved by Jesus's work, not ours. That we've been made right with you, not through our efforts, not through our work, but through Jesus's work on our behalf. Praise you that the Bible is not fundamentally about our behavior and it's not about our ability to fix the situation.
I pray that you would, through your Holy Spirit, lead us today, speak to us and teach us today and help us all to grow in what we mean of being gospel-centered. We love you. Praise you in Jesus's name. Amen. So we fundamentally all fall short and we all need Jesus to step in and save us.
And it's about his work, not ours, not our behavior, but his. And so Paul, the whole New Testament is about the gospel. And Paul even says that the, we read last week in Romans that the law and the prophets testify to this. And so what he said is the Old Testament, which is kind of the law and the prophets, that means that all of the Old Testament is pointing to Jesus and what he was going to do, that that is the story. And so Paul in 2 Corinthians, I'm just going to read this to you. He says, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
He said, that's it. That is all we talked about is Jesus Christ and him crucified. I decided to know nothing among you. And every time I read that verse, it reminds me of a scene in the office where one of the guys is getting fussed at and his boss looks at him and goes, do you understand me? And he stares him back in the face and goes, I understand nothing. Like real defiantly, but makes himself seem like a complete.
And that's us. That's us as church family. Do we understand anything other than gospel? We understand nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's us. That's, that is what the New Testament is about.
That is center for us. And so everything comes out of that. And so one of the ways that we talk about this, one of the ways that we describe this is the term gospel fluency. And so gospel is the story. It is that Jesus died for us, that he saved us. And fluency just means that we speak that language naturally, normally.
So I took Spanish in high school and in college and am nowhere near fluent. I passed and that's about it. That's all I got. And so like if I'm speaking Spanish with someone, I've got to translate the whole time. So if I'm talking to, I actually was over, we were in the North Brown area of West Columbia about a week ago.
And I was talking to, I heard somebody, we were talking with a guy who spoke Spanish. He was speaking English with us, but then he answered the phone. And so he was talking to his son in Spanish. And I'm just like, listen, and I'm trying to hear things. And I'm like, I think that means mama. I don't know what that is.
I think he said dog. This is a weird conversation. And like, I'm just trying to pick up on what he was talking about because I have to take the word he says to put it in my brain and I have to translate it. I have to say, okay, what's the English equivalent of that? So if I was in Mexico, I could walk over to someone and I'd say, all right, I need to know how to find the library.
Because this is one of the only sentences I know how to say in Spanish. So bear with me. Donde esta means like where is. So, okay, donde esta es la biblioteca. Yeah, because if I ever visit a Spanish speaking country, I really want to know how their libraries are. So I've memorized this phrase.
I will be able to get permission to go to the bathroom. I will not know where it is, but I will know that I'm allowed to go there if I ever find one, stumble upon it. But what I've got to do is I'm not fluent. So what I have to do is I've got to take the English word and I've got to pair it up with the Spanish word and I've got to figure out. So you say something to me in Spanish.
I've got to figure out what that means in English. I've got to take my English words, what I want to say, pair it up with Spanish words and speak back. But once you become fluent, so a native Mexican Spanish speaker is going to hear Spanish words, think Spanish words, speak Spanish words. That's fluency. So if you moved to Spain after a while, you wouldn't have to translate.
You would just know what was being said. You'd respond. You'd dream in Spanish, think in Spanish. You'd become fluent. And that's what we do with the gospel. It actually becomes our language because it is our story.
So I'm a Southern American. So I speak American, which is a form of English. I speak Southern American. And so I know what a crawdad is. I know what the term all y'all means. It is the most inclusive form of y'all, often followed by something derogatory, like all y'all can kiss my foot.
Like I just wanted to make sure everyone knew they were included. But that's my heart language. And that's what happens with the gospel is that it becomes our language and it actually begins to affect how we think, how we see the world. So our language shapes our worldview. I heard this and I don't know if it's true, but it was told to me like it was true that somebody was an English speaker was in a country in Africa and was going to be teaching them this group about self-sufficiency. And he was talking with his translator, but he wanted to talk about self-sufficiency or self-reliance.
And he was trying to get the translator. He was like, what's the, he explained the concept of the translator. And the translator said, okay, the closest word that we have for that concept is a mental disorder. That means that you don't believe you need your tribe, that you, you believe you exist outside of community because our language shapes around what we believe and our language shapes what we believe. And so for us as Christians, we become fluent in the gospel because that is our story, which what that means is when we sit with somebody and they begin to tell us, we begin to plot their story out, their life out.
When we're talking to them about creation, fall, redemption, restoration, we begin to look for where they're saying they fit in that story. We begin to hear through the lens of the gospel. And when we, when we talk back to them, we point them to the gospel. We speak as if the gospel is true. So I no longer hear as a happiness seeking American.
I listen in here as a gospel filled Christian, a gospel changed Christian. And when I talk back to someone, I speak back to them. I'm not just going to give them. Here's the advice. Here's what the world says. Here's what I've been taught as an American.
No, we're going to speak back in light of what the gospel is. And so that's what we're shooting for today is we're just going to talk about that concept and we're going to try to grow because the gospel is our story. And because it is the story, we're going to try to grow and what it means to be gospel centered. So if you'll flip to Colossians one, um, this is, this is a passage that kind of points this out to us, that shows this to us. And then we're going to just talk through some, uh, uh, how we see this in the Bible, because the new Testament is gospel centered. It is about Jesus and what he has done.
And so it's not going to be so much when you look through it, you're not going to see, oh, this is where they explained this concept. It's like, no, this is where they do this. This is where this shows up. So we're in Colossians one, uh, go to verse 27. So Paul's been talking about Jesus in the beginning of Colossians, how big he is, how massive he is, what he's done for us, that he, through his sacrifice has made us right with God and made us holy, blameless and above reproach.
And he's explaining all this. And we get into this text, he's going to say the mystery. Uh, and what he means by the mystery is this, this massive God, what he said in Colossians one is this massive God became a human. Lived perfectly on our behalf and swapped places with us that, that he gives us his goodness, his righteousness, his holiness, and he takes our sin on himself. And so that's the mystery he's talking about, that that is absolutely baffling. If you've been in the church for a while, you've been around Christianity for a while, you've heard that a lot.
And sometimes we can forget how absolutely mysterious and baffling that is. And the mystery of it is also that how is God going to handle sin? How is he going to make people pay for their rebellion against him? And, and the mystery that is revealed is that he's actually going to pay for it for them. And so that's what we're looking at. And that's what he's talking about when he says the mystery, he's really just talking about the gospel to 27 to them.
God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles, Gentiles are people who are non-Jewish are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And so it's the gospel and the fact that Jesus melds his life with ours, mixes his life with ours so that he's in us. And he is our hope of glory because of his work, not ours. And then 28, him, we proclaim 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. Okay.
So what he says is it's Jesus that we proclaim. It's Jesus that we're talking about. It's Jesus that we're pointing to. It's Jesus that we're going to push towards, that we're going to point people towards, that we're going to focus on. And his reason is so that we can present everyone mature in Christ. If you are a Christian, maturity is not really an option for you.
It is your trajectory. It's where you're headed. Romans says that we're predestined, which means that he sealed it beforehand to be conformed to the image of Christ, to the image of his son, which means that all of us over time are going to slowly look more and more and more like Jesus who've placed our faith in Jesus. So if you feel like, oh, I'm not really growing, I'm not really, it's happening. It's going to continue to happen. It's slow and messy and painful, but growth is going to continue.
And maturity is the goal for us as Christians, that we want to grow in maturity. We want to repent of sin faster. We want to sin less. We want to see our sin more. That's one of the marks of maturity is not so much that you sin less, that happens, but it's actually that you just begin to see your sin more. Things you didn't know were sin start showing up and you're like, I've been doing that forever.
I didn't even realize I was off there. My whole thought process was broken here, but we grow in maturity. And the way to do that most of the time has been answered by the church as learn the rules. It's been, we want to grow in maturity, read the Bible and learn what it looks like to be a Christian. And it comes across as learn the rules. So you get told Jesus died for your sin and his work replaces yours and you're saved by his work, not yours, that he took your sin.
He died for it and he gives you his righteousness. And that's the gospel. And then somebody said, do you want to be a Christian? Raise your hand. And you said, that sounds like a sweet deal. You raised your hand.
Y'all talked or you had a conversation with somebody. You said, I've placed my faith in Jesus. And then they said, cool, now here are the rules. And you were like, what? I thought this wasn't about my behavior. I thought this wasn't.
And it feels a little bit like, I feel like we've changed the story here because we feel like most of us feel like the way to grow as a Christian is to figure out how to behave better, figure out what the rules are and follow them. But Paul says it's Jesus we proclaim. That we're going to consistently point back towards the gospel. So it's not that we grow out of the gospel. We grow into the gospel. Does our behavior change?
Yes. Is that what it's about? No. Is Jesus going to consistently make us more mature and grow us? Absolutely. Are we consistently going to see our sin, repent of it, change, grow?
Yes. But it's the way to grow, learning all the rules and trying to white knuckle them and trying to follow them. No, we grow in Jesus. It's him that is proclaimed. Growth comes through Jesus. And so just to help you with this, and I'm going to give you the references.
So if you disagree with me right now, I feel like this isn't true. I want you to just write these down. If you just like taking notes and writing things down, you want to look this up later. I'm going to give you the references. And I'm just going to explain quickly what Paul says. So we're going to see where Paul does this, where Paul sees the world through the gospel.
So 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. Paul's talking about behavior and living correctly, what it looks like to behave, what it looks like to have a right life. And he goes through and lists this sin, this sin, this sin, this sin, this sin, this sin. Step away from it. Don't have it in your life.
And then he lands with, because Jesus has saved you, because you've been called out of this, because you used to be a part of this, but you've been rescued by the cross, because you've been rescued by Jesus. And so the reason that we behave is because Jesus has already saved us, already rescued us. In 1 Corinthians 6, 18 through 20. So later in that chapter, he specifically talks about sexual sin. He says that sexual sin is a big deal, that you should flee from sexual sin, because it's not, it's one of the only sins that's not outside of the body, but it actually is a part of your body. And the reason he gives is that you've been bought with a price, that Jesus shed his blood for you.
Your body doesn't belong to you anymore. It belongs to Jesus. He owns it. He paid for it. You've already been made right. So act like it.
Live that way. But the reason is the gospel. The motivation is the gospel. Not you're falling short. Not God's mad at you. Not live up to the rules.
Not you're a bad person. No, it's that Jesus already made you right. Live that way. When he's talking about giving and generosity to Corinthians again, but it's 2 Corinthians 8, 9, 8, 8, and 9. What he says is that they should be generous because Jesus, who was rich, became poor on their behalf. And so the reason for generosity, the reason we open our wallets, the reason we give to the church, the reason we help people pay light bills is not because it's good, not because it makes us right with God.
It's because Jesus has already given up everything and given us everything. We already have all the wealth that we could ever want. When he's talking to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5, 22 through 25, he says, here's how to be a wife. Here's what that looks like. Here are the rules for being a good wife. Here's how to be a husband.
Here's what that looks like. And the whole time, the reasoning behind it is because marriage is a picture of Christ's love for the church. And what Jesus has already done on behalf impacts how we live as a married couple. But it's always the gospel is the reasoning. The gospel is the motivation. And it's the gospel that empowers us to actually live that way.
That's what we're talking about when we say we're gospel centered. It's not, hey, come, let's all work to behave together. It's no, our behavior is going to change as we focus on Jesus, as we grow in Jesus. So this is how we talk to ourselves. This is how we think. Husbands, wives.
We'll pick on husbands. I'm a husband. We'll pick on them. Wives, this applies to you, but I'm going to fuss at your husband. So you're welcome.
Why do you serve your spouse? Why are you gracious to your spouse? Why do you go out of your way for your spouse? Now, if we're honest, a lot of husbands will say things like, well, if you just had this conversation with somebody, because it's good. Okay. Because you're supposed to.
Right. Because life's better when you do. Yeah. She fusses less. Mm-hmm. Bible says we should.
That's okay. That's a good reason. But we could rattle this stuff off. But eventually, there's a reason. That all runs out. The motivation for that runs out.
It makes me a good husband. Okay. But there's some days I could care less about being a good husband, if I'm honest with you. I just, I just, yeah, what would a good husband do? Probably get up and help. What do I want to do?
Sit on the couch. I'll just take a loss today. Perhaps a track record's probably good enough to be at least above 500. Like, I'm above 50% right now, probably. I'll justify. I did something last week that really probably counted double.
Covers this day. That your wife is happier. People will say, like, happy wife, happy life. If mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Okay. Eventually, that runs out, too, though.
The only reason I'm doing good stuff is because it makes my wife not fuss at me. At some point, I just don't care anymore. This ain't worth the effort. Because I get fussed at all the time. Like, eventually, husbands, you're just like, ah, ah, ah, ah. Truth is, though, the reason that you serve your spouse is that Jesus served us.
That Jesus gave himself up for us. That we have been so absolutely served. So absolutely taken care of. So absolutely had someone sacrifice on our behalf. That it fundamentally changes how we behave. And then the reason I behave is no longer about me.
Because all of those were about me. All of those were about you. Makes me feel good. Makes me look good. Makes me happier. Makes life better.
She fusses less. All of that eventually turns in on itself and is just about you. That's why it breaks down. Because at some point, you've decided something else is more important. But all of those get to be about Jesus.
And they get to be about Jesus and not about your spouse. Not about making her happy. Not about she responding appropriately. It's only always about Jesus. And that never runs out. That motivation doesn't quit.
Yes, I've been served. Yes, I've sacrificed. She doesn't notice. So Jesus does that for me. And I take it for granted. And I don't notice.
And I don't appreciate it. And I get to grow. When I serve and do something I don't want to do. When you're doing something you fundamentally hate, you get to remind yourself, I bet the cross was terrible. Thank you, Jesus, that you sacrificed on my behalf. And that doesn't run out.
And it continues to change us. And it actually brings joy in that situation. Why do you work hard at your job? You can rattle off the list. Makes me feel good. People see me doing it.
Boss will notice. I'll get a promotion. Eventually, all that just runs out. But if it's that I worked fundamentally for God, that he sees me, that Jesus has already come and worked hard on our behalf, that he's already come and sacrificed on my behalf, that doesn't run out. Motivating yourself with the gospel and remembering that this is my story, this is who I am, that doesn't run dry. Why are you generous?
Jesus was generous. Why do you avoid temptation and sin? Because Jesus died for it. Because I've been made new. Because I'm holy and blameless and above reproach because of him. And then what happens is we get to turn this out towards other people.
There's not even just behavior. It's circumstances. You get fired from your job. Is that bad? Yeah. Do you wish that hadn't happened?
Probably. Although my dad had a friend one time who got fired during hunting season and they were going to be, he got to be on like unemployment for a little while and he was so happy. And his twin brother didn't from the same place. And so he went hunting every day while his brother was getting ready to go to work. And that was like the best thing. He's like putting on his camo and laughing or whatever.
But most of the time though, getting fired is bad. And you have to remind yourself that, yeah, this is bad. But God's trustworthy. He's proven that in the cross. And my worth doesn't come from my ability to work, my ability to provide, my ability to earn. That all of my worth and approval has already been sealed in Jesus.
Jesus. So it changes how we see the world. It changes how we react. And it changes how we talk to people. So this becomes our primary story.
It becomes our language that we're fluent in. And it becomes how we respond for the most part. Christians. If you're in here and you're not a Christian, you're off the hook on this one because you probably don't do this. Although you probably do give advice. But Christians.
A lot of times we memorize Bible verses. And then we use them like bullets to shoot people. All we do is we remove the verse, wipe the gospel off of it, which was the context in which it came. And then we just give the verse to someone and we think we're being helpful and we are not. Is that verse true? Yes.
Is the context the gospel? Yes. And a lot of times the way we apply it is not the gospel. So you're having a conversation with someone and they're like, I just feel like a bad wife. I feel like a bad mother. And you're like, well, Proverbs 31.
Boom! Feel good? Feel like a better mom now? Better wife? Let's read those verses together.
I just wanted to help you see how woefully you fall short. Happy Mother's Day. The gospel doesn't show up. It's out of context. You're not telling the whole story. I've really been struggling with lust.
I've really been struggling with, well, Job 31.1, Ephesians 5.3. Boom! You're welcome. I'm enjoying our confession time. Like, we just lay weight on people and we haven't told them the whole story. And so we actually get to respond out of the gospel.
Instead of just saying, yeah, you are a terrible husband. Yeah, you are. Yeah, you do fall short. We only give that half of it. The Bible's very clear. Yeah, you are a selfish roommate.
You are a jerk. Good point. I've been meaning to tell you you were a jerk. Here's how the Bible says you're a jerk. Like, we just end up shooting people repeatedly with Bible verses that don't help people love Jesus, don't help people grow, and don't help people see the gospel. And so what we do as a church family is we give good news before we give good advice.
And I'm going to explain what that means. Good news is the gospel, that Jesus died for us, that he rescued us. And it's an event that happened on our behalf. So, king goes to battle. I heard this story before. It helps me see this picture so clearly.
A king goes to battle, leaves his castle behind. He gets his archers together. He gets his chariots together. He gets all of his horsemen, all his foot soldiers. And they go to battle and they leave. And everybody, he leaves a couple of people in the castle.
And all the civilians in the castle. And they're waiting to find out what's going to happen. One of two things happens. The king goes to battle. And he wins. And what he sends back is good newsers.
All they're doing is riding back on a horse, laughing to themselves, feeling real happy and light inside, to go tell everybody, we won. King won. Victory's been won on your behalf. Throw open the gates. Get the band out. Bring out your finest meats and cheeses.
The celebration will begin. The battle has been won. And all you can do with that, because it is news, is live in light of it. So you feel better. You celebrate. You dance.
There's like freedom in that. Or he loses. And he grabs somebody on the horse and he says, ride back as fast as you can and tell them they're coming. They've broken our ranks. His army is scattered. He says, tell them to put the archers on the walls.
Tell them to seal up the gate. Tell them to bring in as much as they can. Close everything up. Seal everything up. Put all the women and children in the inner chamber. And here's the game plan.
Best way to probably defend yourself and good luck. That's advice. He sends good advisors who just show back up and say, here's what we have to do to hopefully survive. And that is not the gospel. The gospel is, here's what Jesus has done to give us life and to give us victory. And we live in light of that.
It changes our behavior. But it's not about our behavior. Our behavior isn't to fix the problem. It isn't to beat off the enemy. It isn't to win. It isn't to defeat those who are charging against us.
It isn't to have the victory. The victory has already been won. The king has already won. The good news is already proclaimed. And so as a church family, we give good news before we give good advice. And we like good advice.
Good advice is good. But we give good news first. We're going to talk about Jesus before we talk about you. Before we talk about your situation. We're going to talk about Jesus first because we have good news. So we give good news before we give good advice.
And we talk about Jesus before we talk about you. And it changes how we interact with each other. It changes how we speak to each other. And here's why it matters. If you sit down with someone for coffee and they say, I feel like I'm a terrible mother. I feel like I'm a terrible wife.
I just feel like I'm falling short. And all you say is, yeah. Here are the things I did to be less of a terrible mother. Super encouraging. Let me tell you my three tricks to being awesome. Here's what I did to be a better wife.
Here's what I read that Beth Moore says about being a good wife. Here's what all you're fundamentally saying. You're giving good advice. But all you're fundamentally saying is, This is about your behavior. And that is the opposite of the gospel. When I just give you good advice, When you sit down with coffee for someone, And you say things that you're hoping to be encouraging, Hoping to be helpful, And you leave Jesus out of it.
What you're saying is, This is about your behavior. The problem is your behavior. And the way to fix it is your behavior. That's what we're telling people. And here's why that matters. Parents.
You got kids. You got kids in, You grew up. So younger people, Maybe you came up through a youth group. Parents, Maybe you've got kids in a youth group. Well, not if you're here. We don't have one of those.
But maybe you've had one. Your kids were in a youth group. And here's the thing. With your children, You want them to behave. You want them to grow. You want them to have morals.
You want them to have standards. But here's the thing. If your child, Doesn't say any swear words. Doesn't drink. Doesn't smoke. Doesn't chew.
Doesn't date people that do. Only listens to family friendly radio. Like they're tearing up WMHK, Which is now K-Love. Like they're rocking on the way to school, To a Sandy Patty thing. If y'all know who that is. They iron their blue jean shorts, And tuck their shirt in.
They only wear, Or they only watch VeggieTales movies. If they do that successfully, Do they not need Jesus? If you successfully beat, These behaviors into them. Do they not need Jesus? No. They do.
They're just a goofy lost person. They're just an awkward sinner. That's all it is. Should their behavior change? Yes. Should you teach morality as a parent?
Yes. Should you pay attention to the messages, That your children are learning through music and movies? Yes. Should we all? Yes. Everything is preaching to us.
Everything is declaring a false gospel. Does that save us? No. In your community group, If you could just get everybody to behave. If confession time was, I only prayed for seven hours this week. I really wanted to hit 14.
And then y'all just hugged each other. Would you not need Jesus? No, you'd need Jesus. You'd need him to save you, To redeem you, To change you. You need his work, Not yours. And so when we look at someone, And you just say, Here's how to change your behavior.
What I have just declared to you is, It's about your behavior. And if you fix that, You'd be okay. And that is the farthest thing from the truth. So it makes a difference. It's a big deal. So we're going to, Give good news before we give good advice.
And we're going to talk about Jesus, Before we talk about you. That's how we as a church family respond. That's what it looks like, To be gospel centered for us. So when we talk to somebody, We're going to talk about good news, Before we give good advice. And we're going to talk about Jesus, Before we talk about you. Martin Luther says this, And this was, He said it in German, Way back in the day.
He's one of the guys that like, Had a fit and started the reformation. He's a pretty angry person. It's kind of cool. He also helped clarify some things, About the gospel and some of the stuff in scripture. But he said this in German, So it was translated into like, Old English.
So some of the words will be weird, And I'll try to skip. Where it says teacheth, I'll just say teaches. Martin Luther said this, Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, Which teaches me, Not what I ought to do, For that is the proper office of the law, But what Jesus Christ, The son of God, Has done for me. To wit that he suffered and died, To deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, And to believe it.
And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, Wherein the knowledge of all godliness consists. Most necessary is it, therefore, That we should know this article well, Teach it to others, And beat it into their heads continually. And that's what we're shooting for as a church family. To beat the gospel into each other's heads continually. And a lot of times we think, I know the gospel.
I don't need to know the gospel right now. I need to know how to change my behavior. The problem is, Your behavior won't change, Unless the gospel becomes more real to you, More clear to you, More, You feel it more. That's what changes our behavior. And the truth is, You don't know the gospel. We function outside of the gospel all the time.
There are times Matt and I, We're getting this up, I'll need to repent, Or I'll be upset about something, And Matt will go, Let me tell you, Your approval doesn't come from that, That you completely whiffed on, And it was terrible. Your approval comes from Jesus, And his work for you. And the whole time he's doing that, I'm like, I know that Matt. Thanks. And when he gets done, I'm like, I feel better, That was really helpful. Because we need to be reminded, Of the gospel.
Flip over to Hebrews 3, So if you're in one of these bibles, It's going to be like, 11 pages to the right, On 649. And the author of Hebrews, Is kind of laying this out for us, What this looks like. And so I just, We're going to walk through this, And then we're going to talk a little bit about, Just practically, How do we share the gospel with each other, On a regular basis. Hebrews 3 verse 12, Take care brothers, So brothers and sisters, Church family, Take care brothers, Lest there be in any of you, An evil, Unbelieving heart, Leading you to fall away, From the living God, But exhort, And I'll explain what that means in a second, Exhort one another every day, Every day, As long as it is called, Today, See what he did there?
That none of you may be hardened, By the deceitfulness of sin, Sin lies to us, For we have come to share in Christ, If indeed we hold our original confidence, Firm to the end, Okay, Exhort one another today, As long as it's called today, Every day, As long as it's called today, Exhort just means special Bible encouragement, It really just means special gospel encouragement, That's what it is, That's what exhortation is, It's reminding each other of the gospel, Because that's our original hope, What was your original hope? That you were awesome? If that was your original hope, I have news for you, You are not a Christian, And you are not awesome, Your original hope is that Jesus, Was awesome for you, That he was good for you, That his work saves you, That's the original hope, And that's what we exhort one another in, That's what we remind each other of, Jesus is great, You aren't, You are going to fall short, That's the gospel, That's why a feel good, Ism, Feels so empty, You ever mess something up terribly, And someone trying to be nice is like, Oh it's okay, You'll be okay, It'll be alright, It'll all work out, That'll, Oh you'll be fine, It's great, You're great, You didn't mean that, You're a good person, Some of you, Maybe, You believe that, If you say that to me, I'm like, I'm not a good person, Like that's not, This isn't helping me at all, I don't think it'll all work out, I don't think, Like, It just feels so empty, Some of you who aren't Christians, You've been told that repeatedly, And you've really, Really tried to believe it, But you just can't, Something in you just won't let you, Fall in love with the idea, That it'll all be okay, And everything will work out, You know what warms my soul, Is when someone stares me in the face, And says, Yeah you messed that up, And that was terrible, And you failed, And Jesus steps in, And rescues, And redeems, And works, And it's because of your failure, And because of your sin, And because you fall short, That he gets to be your savior, It's your sin, That made his salvation possible, Then it's like, Yes, Thank you, So we can't do, Just you fall short, And we can't do, Just you'll be okay, We've got to connect them, With the understanding of the gospel, Which is, Yeah you fall short, But you'll be okay, Because of Jesus, Because he works on your behalf, Because he's saved you, Okay, Here's what we're going to do, Take just a second, To talk about, How we actually do this, What this actually looks like, As church family, When we talk to each other, So we've already said, We're going to give good news, Before we give good advice, And we're going to talk about Jesus, Before we talk about you, So, You're sitting down with somebody, And they confess, That they've been, Really struggling with lust, Really struggling with, They've been looking at pornography, It's just tearing them up, They don't want to, It's a Christian friend, I don't want to, I just, And every time, I feel so terrible, I just feel worthless, And I know that God's mad at me, And at some point, I just can't keep repenting, Of the same thing, At some point, He just doesn't listen anymore, I'm sure, At some point, It just doesn't mean anything anymore, When I confess this again, Normal response, Would usually follow, And fall in the advice category, Yeah man, That's a big deal, And it hurts you, And you think it doesn't hurt anybody else, But it does, It hurts all the people, That are involved in that industry, It's very similar to sex slavery, It can hurt your future relationships, It can damage those, The Bible says it's sin, Job 31.1, Ephesians 5.3, Maybe you should memorize those, And quote them out loud, When you feel tempted, Let's get a blocker thing, On your computer, Let's set it up, To where it will email people, If you fall, Let's meet once a week, And I'll ask you how this is going, Boom, Is that good advice? Yeah, Memorizing verses, Putting a blocker thing on your computer, Will it help change the behavior?
Maybe, Does it make him love Jesus more? Probably not, Because it's trusting himself, So let's rewind, Let's give good news, Before we give good advice, Let's talk about Jesus, Before we talk about him, Hey man, Yeah, That's sin, And Jesus died, For sin, And when he died for you, You were his enemy, You were weak, And he saved you, And he saved all your sin, Past, Present, And future, And if you fall again, It's already been paid for, You are covered forever, By grace, Let me tell you something, When you feel miserable for a few days, And you feel guilt, And you feel shame, And you're beating yourself up, You're not allowed to, Because once you've become a Christian, You don't get to atone for your sin, Jesus does, You don't get to beat yourself up, Your beating has already been poured out on Jesus, You don't get to be punished, Your punishment has already been met in Jesus, You don't get to feel bad, Your guilt and shame have already been taken by Jesus, You're free, And you get to praise him for his grace, That saves you when you're off, And when you're wrong, And when you're terrible, The gospel is more beautiful to you, Not on your days that you're good and you behave, But on the days that you fall so woefully short, And feel so much like you don't deserve it, That's actually what grace is, Undeserved favor, So when you feel like I don't deserve this, You've tapped into it, That's the gospel, You don't, And he gave it to you anyway, So maybe you should memorize some verses, And you and I can meet, And I'll ask about this, And we can talk about this, I know a guy who put a blocker thing on his computer, Which just helped him, Know that it was going to send out emails, And that can be helpful, But Jesus saves you, And you get to praise him for his forgiveness, And his grace, Now is that better? Does that feel better? Does that feel more real?
So maybe you should memorize some verses, And you and I can meet, And I'll ask about this, And we can talk about this, I know a guy who put a blocker thing on his computer, Which just helped him, Know that it was going to send out emails, And that can be helpful, But Jesus saves you, And you get to praise him for his forgiveness, And his grace, Now is that better? Does that feel better? Does that feel more real? More right? As a Christian, You start going, Yes, That's true, You're hanging out with one of your Christian friends, And they do this, They do the, I just, I just haven't been praying,
I haven't been reading the Bible, And I know I should be sharing the gospel with people, But, I just haven't been, I haven't been telling anybody, I haven't been intentional, I'm playing, You know, I'm spending more time, You know, Just doing other things, As opposed to sharing the gospel, As opposed to reading, What do we say? Ah, Man, Or lady, Friend, Sorry, Every once in a while, I call Anna man, And it turns into manna, I'm like, Hey man,
And Anna, So this could be a lady, I just may have called her man, Um, Hey, Set your alarm earlier, Get up 15 minutes earlier, And read the Bible then, Just do it first thing in the morning, That works for me, Um, Have someone else read through a book with you, So that you'll have someone ask, Hey, How's it going? Or, Did you read your chapter, And you'd say, No, I didn't know, Whatever, And yeah, We should share the gospel, Like,
We've been given the ministry of reconciliation, So we should do, If you don't tell them, Who will, So yeah, Normal responses, Heard that before, Said that before, I've said that before, It's one of my favorites, Set your alarm earlier, That's one of my go-tos, Just wake up earlier, Because I'm a morning person, So it just seems easy, Um, Now here's how we get to respond, Because we're going to give good news, Before we give good advice, We're going to point to Jesus, Before we point to you, Talk about Jesus, Before we talk about you, Hey yeah,
Let me tell you something, Your relationship with God, Is not based off of how much you pray, And read the Bible, Because you don't get to take that aspect, Of the gospel back from Jesus, Your relationship with God, Is that you've been adopted, Into the family, Because Jesus has given you, His position at the table, Because he reconciled us, And his relationship with God, The father has been given to us, Through the cross, So just read, You get to read, You get to study, Because it helps you grow, And helps you love God more, And helps you see the gospel more clearly, But it doesn't change, How God feels towards you, And we actually do have good news,
To share with people, Because it's not about, Our work or our effort, And guess what, Ultimately at the end of the day, You will save no one, So the pressure is off, Just tell people about Jesus, And if you mess it up, Talk to Jesus about it, Ask him to fix it, Go repent, Go tell him you're sorry, You said that wrong, Say I told you this the other day, And then I was reading in John, And man was I wrong, Here's what John says, And he said it better, So you get to share the gospel, But it's not, The pressure is not on you, To save or to rescue, Or to do any of this,
You're talking to a non-Christian friend, Works with you, Coworker, Friend of yours, Friend like you actually hang out with, Type friend, Who doesn't know Jesus, She comes in and says, Yeah I just found out my dad has cancer, We see the world through the gospel, That's terrible, I'm sorry to hear that, Pray with her, You hug her, She says, What am I going to do, How's this going to happen, And you get to say, I don't know what you're going to do, And I don't know how this is going to play out, But I'm a Christian, And I know this, I know that God is in control, I know that he's sovereign over everything,
And in these circumstances, One of the things that Christians know, Without a shadow of a doubt, Is that Jesus became a human, Suffered and died with us, And so when we face these kind of situations, We don't know how they're going to work out, But what Christians do know, Is that it's not that God doesn't love us, And it's not that he's not good, He's forever answered that half of things in the cross, He's good, He's for our good, And he loves us so much, That he would suffer and die alongside of us, How is this going to play out, I don't know, But we know he's good, And we know that he loves, And we know that he loves you more, Than you could ever understand, I'm going to pray with you, And I'm going to help any way I can, So we get to just respond,
Out of the gospel, And it's so much more life-giving, And it's so much more filling, And it's so much more true, That's why when we hear this, When we begin to talk like this as Christians, You begin to go, That's it, That's what we get to do, And then we give good advice, Here's how I quit being a jerk, It's helpful, But not until I know that me being a jerk, Isn't going to snatch me out of the hand of God, Because Jesus has already been not a jerk on my behalf, Which is beautiful, And here's what's cool about this church family, We're going to be terrible at this, And we're going to work to grow in it, So just so you know, You're sitting there going, That seems really hard to do, Yeah, And especially for those of us,
Who've been Christians for a while, That have been gotten used to, Just saying other things, Here's what's cool about this, And one of our group leaders pointed this out, He said it's like when you have a little kid, And it got me thinking about it, And it is like that, My brother has a little daughter, And she's like one now, And so I'm going to kind of make some jokes now, Because we're about to have a kid, And when we have a kid, My kid's going to be really special and smart, But, You ever been around parents, They're obnoxious about their children, They just are, Because their kid is the best, And he's the sweetest, And everything he does is the cutest, And so I'm hanging out with my brother, And they just, They love her,
And it's fun to hang out with little kids, And I like little kids, But every once in a while they'll do something, And the parents will get so excited, And it doesn't really make any sense, So they'll look at their little kid, And be like, She walked, Did you see her walk? She's walking, And it's like, She fell forward, Because her head is too big for her body, I don't know if that's walking, Or you ever see a parent, Like hold their kid's hand, And walk with them, And like, Look at them walking, It's like you're cheating bro, You're holding their hands the whole time, Or kids are learning how to talk, And they babble nonsense, All the time,
And then they say something, That sounds remotely close to airplane, And their parents lose their minds, She said airplane, Did she though? Is that real? Like, Get her to say it again, Get her to point one out in the picture, Like, That's what parents do, That's what we get to do as church family, That's what we get to do in our community groups, We're going to say stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense, We're going to mess up, We're going to just fall forward sometimes, And we're going to get to celebrate, Hey, That was kind of the gospel, Did you hear that? We talked about Jesus first, That wasn't just advice, Time out, Time out everyone,
I know you have a problem, But he just said the gospel, So we're high-fiving, And then we'll get back to your problem, Because we talked about Jesus first, Like that's what we get to do as church family, We get to celebrate the fact, That we're going to work, To beat this into each other's heads continually, Because we all need the gospel, We need Jesus, Over and over and over and over again, We need Jesus to fill us up, To remind us, To call us forward, To change us, So what we're going to do, Is Raz and we're all going to come back up, And we're going to sing, And we're going to praise Jesus, And as a church family, We are going to work and commit to, Giving good news before we give good advice, And talking about Jesus,
Before we talk about anything, Before we talk about your behavior, Before we point to, How you should change your situation, We're going to talk about, How Jesus has already stepped in, And fundamentally rescued us, Because that's the story we're a part of, Bow your heads, Let's pray, God I thank you, That we have the good news, And I pray, Through your holy spirit, That you would not let us, Let that get lost, And all the other stuff, That you would not allow us, To let that get, Just covered up, By all the other things, When we try to fix our behavior, And we want so badly, To change and to grow,
I pray that you would help us to remember, That we're going to change and grow, And we get to change and grow, But that that's, That we grow in the gospel, Not away from it, Not beyond it, Not above it, We grow deeper into it, Understanding grace, And understanding salvation, And being rescued by you, Help us to be gospel centered, Help us to be, Pointing each other to the gospel, In all things, Change our hearts to love you more, In Jesus, In Jesus, Daniel surgery Valentine's Day St. Seth
She's walking, And it's like, She fell forward, Because her head is too big for her body, I don't know if that's walking, Or you ever see a parent, Like hold their kid's hand, And walk with them, And like, Look at them walking, It's like you're cheating bro, You're holding their hands the whole time, Or kids are learning how to talk, And they babble nonsense, All the time, And then they say something, That sounds remotely close to airplane, And their parents lose their minds, She said airplane, Did she though? Is that real? Like, Get her to say it again, Get her to point one out in the picture, Like, That's what parents do, That's what we get to do as church family, That's what we get to do in our community groups, We're going to say stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense, We're going to mess up, We're going to just fall forward sometimes, And we're going to get to celebrate, Hey, That was kind of the gospel, Did you hear that? We talked about Jesus first, That wasn't just advice, Time out, Time out everyone, I know you have a problem, But he just said the gospel, So we're high-fiving, And then we'll get back to your problem, Because we talked about Jesus first, Like that's what we get to do as church family, We get to celebrate the fact, That we're going to work, To beat this into each other's heads continually, Because we all need the gospel, We need Jesus, Over and over and over and over again, We need Jesus to fill us up, To remind us, To call us forward, To change us, So what we're going to do, Is Raz and we're all going to come back up, And we're going to sing, And we're going to praise Jesus, And as a church family, We are going to work and commit to, Giving good news before we give good advice, And talking about Jesus, Before we talk about anything, Before we talk about your behavior, Before we point to, How you should change your situation, We're going to talk about, How Jesus has already stepped in, And fundamentally rescued us, Because that's the story we're a part of, Bow your heads, Let's pray, God I thank you, That we have the good news, And I pray, Through your holy spirit, That you would not let us, Let that get lost, And all the other stuff, That you would not allow us, To let that get, Just covered up, By all the other things, When we try to fix our behavior, And we want so badly, To change and to grow, I pray that you would help us to remember, That we're going to change and grow, And we get to change and grow, But that that's, That we grow in the gospel, Not away from it, Not beyond it, Not above it, We grow deeper into it, Understanding grace, And understanding salvation, And being rescued by you, Help us to be gospel centered, Help us to be, Pointing each other to the gospel, In all things, Change our hearts to love you more, In Jesus, In Jesus, Daniel surgery Valentine's Day St.
Seth
The Gospel
Transcript
What we're doing today specifically is we're just looking at the gospel. So as we get into the next several weeks, we'll be unpacking very practically what it means for that to affect us, for the gospel to change us and to affect how we live our lives. But today we're just looking at the gospel. And to do that, we're going to look in Romans chapter 1 through 6. Chapters 1 through 6. So everybody, put your big boy britches on.
We've got a lot of work to do. The reason we're doing that and the reason we're going to try to cover so much text is this. The gospel is the primary story of the Bible. It is the story of the Bible. And what happens sometimes when we talk about the gospel is we'll say, hey, everybody flip to 2 Corinthians. Everybody now jump over to 1 Timothy.
Everybody go to this passage in Luke. And it seems as if sometimes, if we haven't spent much time reading scripture, that the gospel is somehow hidden obscurely all around like it's like a little treasure hunt to find it. And it is not. And so what we're trying to do today is actually just go through Romans 1 is going to say this. Romans 2 is going to say this. Romans 3 is going to say this.
And move so that we all have a good handle on a linear walkthrough of a big understanding of the gospel. Now, when we say the word gospel, it sometimes gets confusing. We use the word gospel a lot, sometimes wrongly. Sometimes we're talking about the Holy Spirit. And we'll say, you know, the gospel changes you. And really it's the Holy Spirit changing you through the gospel.
So sometimes we'll use the gospel too much and use it in the wrong sentence. A lot of times we just say it's become buzzwordy for us, especially us as a church, where we'll say things like we'll press into the gospel, point each other to the gospel, walk in the gospel. Your community needs to be about the gospel. And after a while it's like I don't even know what you're talking about anymore. You just keep using that word. And it's not helpful.
And for some of us that maybe don't have a church background, when you hear gospel, you might even just think of a type of music. And depending on where you grew up, that may be southern gospel, which is like four overweight white guys telling a story in harmony with one another. And it may be the other type of gospel, which is going to be any number of 1 to 30 African Americans not telling a story, but saying the same thing over and over and over again. And we can argue all day as to which one's better. There is one that's better, and it's not the four white guys. But I'm just throwing that out there.
So we may even just be confused about what that word means. And so what we're going to do first is we're just going to really clearly try to explain where the word gospel comes from and what the Bible means when it says it, because it is a very loaded word. It means way more. It's a huge concept, and it is the story of the Bible. So the word gospel comes from the Greek word euangelion, or sometimes they'll English eyes at some and call it evangelion.
That's where we get the word evangelist from. And what it means is angelia just meant message. And so you would have news. That's what it means. So the gospel basically, ooh means good, and angelia means news.
And so the gospel very fundamentally just means good news. But it's not good news the way we use the term good news. So like I might see you and be like, I've got good news. Little Caesar's having a buy one, get one free sale. Wow. And you're like, that's great news.
But the way they would have used it is everything was news and only life-shattering, epic, this will change you news was good news. Was euangelion. And so everything was news. So you would have heralds and people that would proclaim news. And then there are certain things that were called gospel, good news. Like this is actual life-changing news.
And so there were certain things like there's the gospel of Caesar, which is saying this is the guy who got like our nation started, set it up the way it is. This is life-changing news for everybody who exists in the Roman Empire. It's the gospel of Caesar, much the way we have like the gospel of Jesus. Mark will start off with this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was the gospel of like Marathon. So there are certain battles that your army won.
So when the Greeks held off the Persians and defeated them at Marathon and people ran to the cities to proclaim that, what they were proclaiming was the gospel of the battle of Marathon, which is this is epic, life-changing news. We're not going to be slaves. This isn't advice. This isn't, hey, get ready. This isn't everybody run for your life. This is gospel.
It's epic, life-changing news. Everybody throw a party, pop the keg, start celebrating. We won the battle. That's what it was. That's what gospel was. And so when the Bible says gospel, what it means is the epic, life-changing news.
And that's why the Bible is going to call it the gospel. So they took that word that meant good news and epic news, and they just put this is the life-shattering, world-changing news. And what that news is this. And I'm going to try to just walk through this very simply, and then we're going to walk through it in a more complex way as Paul unpacks it, who's a guy writing the book of Romans. As Paul unpacks it in Romans. So God created the world.
So there is a creator God, and he made everything, and he designed it to exist in a relationship with himself. Much the way that a father wants to have a relationship with his children and fights for that and wants that because the father loves his children and because it's good for the children. Like if we see a four-year-old just living on the street, we're like, no, this kid needs a family. And that's the way God created creation to exist in that relationship with himself because he loves creation, and it's good for creation. Humans, your first parents, Adam and Eve, you may know of them. You've probably seen a picture of them somewhat naked, which I hope isn't true for all your ancestors but is true for Adam and Eve.
They existed in relationship with God in a garden, and they rebelled against him. So because they existed, they chose to love themselves more, to honor themselves more, to go after their own way and not to exist in that relationship with God. And when they did that, it was a train wreck of cosmic proportions. It absolutely shattered the very fabric of our world because now creation no longer exists in the relationship with the creator as it's supposed to. Then what happens is God begins to pursue humans again and begins to try to teach them what it looks like to live in a relationship with him.
He didn't have to teach them at first. They just did. Now he's having to try to rebuild this. So he chases after the nation of Israel. He gives them the law, which is just here's how you honor me. Here's how you live in a relationship with me, and continues on, and it goes from bad to worse, and it becomes to where no human is ever going to live up to and fix the relationship with God.
So God becomes a man, and that's the person Jesus Christ. And he lives a perfect life, does not rebel, exists in the relationship with the creator as he's supposed to. The Bible tells us that when we rebel, when we fall short, when we sin and dishonor God, we deserve death. So Jesus lives perfectly and does not deserve death. If he had sinned, if he had fallen short, if he had rebelled, if he had chosen to dishonor God, he would have deserved death, but he didn't. So then he trades places with us.
And Jesus, on a cross, dies the death that we all deserve. And then he rises from the grave three days later. Not spiritually, not an apparition, rises back to life, still has scars, eats food, touches people, scares people, rises from the dead. And when he did that, he gave us his life. And so that for anyone who places faith in Jesus, his life applies to your account. So that your terrible life, your failure of a life, that where you fall short, where you mess up, where you have sin, where you have problems, he applies his life to your account.
And where you have fallen short and messed up and had problems and disobeyed God and run from him, he takes that onto himself and dies for it. So he dies for our sin and rises to give us life. And that is the gospel. And that's what the Bible means when it says the gospel. It's that Jesus saves us through his work and effort, not ours. And that's what Paul is going to mean.
And that's what we're going to walk through today. And that's what everything is about. For us as a church, that's all we talk about. If you've been hanging around for a while, you're like, man, they only talk about Jesus. Yes. That's all we have to say.
We're a band with one song. We're like Brian Adams. We start with summer of 69. We close with summer of 69. We got nothing else in the middle. That's it.
That's all we do is we're going to talk about Jesus. We're going to talk about the gospel. And so we're going to walk through Romans 1 through 6 so that we can all have a very clear picture. And that's what we're walking through, this epic, life-changing good news as Paul unpacks it. So I'm going to pray.
And we're going to walk through Romans 1 through 6 at a hefty clip because we don't want to be here until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I'm assuming. I'm cool with it if y'all are. All right, let's pray. God, we thank you that the gospel is not obscure, but that you've made it evident and clear. And we ask that you would reveal it to us as we study your word today. Give us wisdom and clarity as we walk through.
May your Holy Spirit speak to us in a very real way. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So I just want to give a disclaimer. If this is your first time hanging out with us, maybe you're not a Christian. Maybe you got invited by your Christian friend to come hang out with their church.
They've been bugging you. You ran out of excuses. First of all, well done, Christian friend. Second of all, if you're here hanging out, I just want to tell you this is it. This is what we're about. This is what the church is about.
This is what Christianity is about. This is what the Bible is about. So they can't tell you, oh, he didn't really talk about it. You're going to have to come back. No, this is it. You came on the right Sunday to hang out with us.
This is what we're talking about. And as clearly as we can, we're going to walk through it. So we're in Romans 1. Now, Romans 1 starts off, it's a letter. So he starts off with like, hey, I'm Paul.
How y'all doing? How's your mom and them? And then immediately in 16, he jumps right into what he's talking about. He jumps right into the main point. So Romans 1, 16.
This is kind of Paul's lead. So if you write for a newspaper, the lead is the main part of the story. So it's going to be at the first sentence you have. Actually, the headline is going to be just the news piece. And then the first sentence will be the main point. And then everything else from that is just explaining the main point if someone writes a news story well.
So you should be able to stop reading a newspaper article at any point and all you would have done. You're not waiting for like, like news headlines aren't like, someone won the Super Bowl. Read page 4b to find out. Like it doesn't tell you the story and then you find out at the end. The headline will be Colts Win. I'm not making a prediction.
I'm just saying that's how headlines work. So like if you're angry about that, we'll see. It may just be Packers, whatever. Seahawks. Not making a prediction. But that's how it works.
And so that's what Paul's doing here in 116 is he's saying this is what the rest of this entire letter is about. The rest of it will be explaining it, but this is the point. 116. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, the epic life-changing news of Jesus, that he lived in our place, died in our place, and that we can be saved through him. That's the gospel. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
Salvation from sin, salvation from death, salvation from the wrath of God that we deserve as we've rebelled. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. The reason he breaks that out, and we'll see more later, is the Jews were the people that God gave the law to, gave his rules to, gave his this is how you honor me to. And so he's going to talk about them in two separate groups. So those who don't know how to relate to God and those who did or do.
For in it, the righteousness, which means goodness, rightness, right standing, of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. So what Paul starts off with is, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, which is that Jesus saves us, he rescues us, and it's the power. The gospel is the power of salvation. That's where rescue comes from, for everyone who believes. Everyone who believes. Now he's going to walk us through this story that we just talked about.
He's going to walk us through the gospel. And so he jumps right in. 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Look, if God is good and holy, he has wrath. He has anger towards unrighteousness and brokenness.
My wife loves this show called Forensic Files, which is where they do like real crime stories, and then they say how they caught people based off of forensic evidence. And a lot of times it's like, 12 years later, we figured out how to use DNA. Because it used to just be like, this person bled everywhere. Gross. Clean it up. Now they keep it, and they can use DNA testing.
And so they'll find out way later. And I watch that show with her sometimes, and it creeps me out. So I have to like load a gun and sleep with one eye open after I watch a good bit of those shows. But I get so angry watching that show sometimes. So angry at the way humans treat each other and at the sick things that happen.
The terrible way that people interact with one another. The evil in the world. And I'm not that good. And I'm not that nice. And I'm not that holy. And to act like we have a good, holy, loving God who sits in heaven and doesn't care.
Doesn't have wrath for people. We very much misunderstand how much he loves. If we don't think he has wrath. And so it says that, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Verse 19. For what can be known about God is plain to them.
Because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
But claiming to be wise, they became fools. And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Okay, here's the first bit of our problem. We were created to worship God and we replace him with other things. Now as we walk through this, we're going to have some sentences come up on the screen.
If you take notes, I try to just make clear statements about the sections we're walking through. If that's helpful, cool, write them down. If it's not helpful, pay no attention to the screen behind me. I'm not a note taker person. It takes me a lot of effort to come up with sentences that are helpful. So there you go.
We were created to worship God. We replace him with other things. What it just said was that we know God exists through creation. And that's true. You make all the arguments you want to, but that's true. Because creation is way too complex for it to just have come out of nothing.
I'm sorry, it just is. It's like the human eye, the leaf. You know, all the work all our scientists are doing to come up with solar panels. They're trying to recreate the leaf. Because that thing is like this big and very, very efficient at turning sunlight into energy. That's why that car is called the leaf.
They're trying to make the leaf. And they can't because that is crazy efficient. And we're trying to figure out how to do it. But the way God designed the world is complex. Very complex. And it's got order in the midst of what seems like chaos.
And what it's saying is that we stumble upon creation and we should automatically know something intelligent was here and had something to do with this. Your brain is a chunk of meat that knows that it exists. Your brain named itself. It's the only organ to name itself. It named itself brain. And I've made this joke before, but I like it.
So I'm going to make it again. The brain really should have done better. It named itself like superpower lightning thought muscle or something like that. Like once you think about it, you're like, if I'm going to name myself, it needs to be something really sweet because the brain can do whatever it wants. That's complex. Like if you're walking through the woods, I don't know why you're in the woods, but you're walking through the woods and you come up on a little cottage.
And it's got a little thatched roof and it's made out of wood, you know, logs. And there's a little fireplace, like smoke coming out of it. You don't think, huh, I bet wind did this. I bet there's a whole lot of nature going on, made this little house. No, you immediately are like, oh, there's a human here and he's home because there's a fireplace. And I don't know why he lives in the woods, but he's probably weird.
Like that's immediately what happens. Like you're walking through the woods and you find a bird's nest. Immediately something intelligent had something to do with this. And this isn't even really complex. It's like sticks in a circle with a little hole in the middle. But you see it and you know this didn't just happen.
And so what Paul just said was with creation, God has made himself evident. He's made himself clear. You can't look at creation and be like, I bet wind did this. Like it's not how it works. Like a tornado never rips through a part of the country and builds a better city. This is not how chaos works.
So what he's saying is that it's clear that God exists and that we replace him. So it says that they replaced him with creatures, with creeping things. What we did was we took God as creator and we moved him out of that spot and we put other things there. We worship and care about and love other things. Something is going to be primary for us. Something is going to be what you spend your time on.
Something is going to be what you spend your energy, your sweat, your money towards. Something is going to be where you put your effort. Whatever that is, it's supposed to be God. It's supposed to be what you orient your life around. But you'll shift it.
It'll become something created. So it'll be money. It'll be sex. It'll be enjoyment. It'll be pleasure. It'll be your family.
Most of the time it's something good. It'll be your children. That's what you're going to spend your time on. That's what you're going to put your effort towards. But we've taken something creeping, something small, and we've replaced God with other things.
Now here's how this works. When the Bible talks about law, what it's really saying is that God exists so he actually has things that he likes and doesn't like. Things that honor him and don't honor him. So when he's primary, we'll orient our life around the things that he likes and doesn't like. Let me give you a very small example. It's kind of, sorry.
I made my, anyway, sorry. My wife, Anna. The reason I thought it was funny is because she's very small. So it's a very small example. My wife, Anna. She used to be smaller.
She's been putting on weight lately because she's really pregnant. She's going to have a baby here soon. But, man, I apologize, guys. My wife, Anna. So I care about her.
I love her. And so my life gets bent around her some. Like I begin to know what she likes and doesn't like. And I honor her through that. So like one of the ways that I would honor her well is like she comes home.
And I got home a little early. I started preparing. You know, I'm going to kind of, I'm going to show her some love. You know, so I wrote her a little note. And it's like, ooh, girl. Because that's a good way to start a note.
And it's like, I made you a cheeseburger with some blue cheese and a whole lot of ketchup for you. Because I've just been sitting at the house thinking about your curly brown hair, your olive skin, and your bright blue eyes. And I went to Redbox. And I rented you a DVD, the scariest one I could find, the best horror picture I could find that stars Vin Diesel. Now here's the problem.
That sounds nice. She doesn't have olive skin. She doesn't have blue eyes. She doesn't have curly brown hair. So I'm in trouble.
She doesn't like ketchup. And she's allergic to blue cheese. She doesn't like horror movies. And especially not anything with Vin Diesel in it. So when we talk about following and honoring and loving God, when the Bible talks about his law, what it's basically saying is a concept that we all understand very simply.
Is that because he actually exists, he has things that he likes and doesn't like. He has things that honor him and don't honor him. Because he's real. So when you're having a conversation with someone and they say, Well, my God would never. Time out. You don't get to choose.
Like I don't get to say, well, my wife would never be allergic to blue cheese. It's like she is, dude. Like she's real. So when somebody starts defining God in a way that he doesn't define himself, because he's real, he actually has things that honor him. So we have to ask questions like, how does he feel about children?
What's it mean to be a good father in relationship to my creator? Can I beat them? Can I get rid of them if they get on my nerves? Am I supposed to take care of them? What's he feel about the elderly? How does he feel about the way men treat women?
Are they property as they are in other parts of the world? Or are they have value in life and worth and are designed, made to be, designed, made to be cultivated and flourish and have giftings that they're supposed to use? Like how does he feel? Because he's real, he actually has ways that we follow him. So when the Bible talks about honoring God and loving him and following his law, that's what it's referring to in a very simple way.
Is that if he's primary, we'll exist as if he's primary. Now here's the problem. God is creator. We've replaced him with other things. If I have a wife, if you have a spouse, husband or wife, and you don't treat them as your spouse, that makes you a bad spouse. Very simply.
You don't treat your spouse like they're your spouse. You don't acknowledge them. Don't care for them. Act like you don't have a spouse. You're a bad spouse. You're a dad.
You've got kids and you don't treat your kids like they're your kids. You just, you ignore them like you don't have kids. That makes you a bad dad. If we are creation and we don't treat creator like he's the creator, that makes us bad creation. It's just a very simple concept. And so that's what Paul's saying.
Is that the wrath of God is shown against us because we've all replaced God with something else. All of us. Okay, jump to chapter 2, verse 11. We're going to read two things here, two verses, just to kind of clarify some of this. For God shows no partiality. That sounds nice.
12. For all who have sinned without the law. Okay, time out. We're about to find something out. If you did not know what honored God. So Paul just said that God made himself evident through creation.
But let's say you've never grown up in the church. You never spent any time reading the Bible. You never knew what honored God. You never got to know him to know what it was like. What he liked and didn't like. What would make him happy.
What would please him. It's about to tell us what happens to you. So if that's you. I never really read the Bible. I never really spent any time in church. I don't really know what God likes or doesn't like.
We're about to find out what it says. He doesn't show partiality. For all who have sinned. So that means disobeyed God. Run from God. Dishonored God.
Without the law. Will also perish without the law. Okay, that didn't go well for y'all. What it says is if you didn't know how to honor God. And you dishonored God. No excuse.
You'll perish without the law. You had no rules. You had no way to relate to him. You perish without it. And all who have sinned under the law. Okay.
Other half of people. Grew up in church. Read the scriptures. Understand a little bit about what it means to honor God. You know a little bit about the ten commandments. Like you can remember six out of the ten of them.
Know a little bit about what we're supposed to do to honor God. Let's find out what happens to us. I'm in that camp. I grew up in church. For all who have sinned under the law. Will be judged by the law.
Well that's not good. What it says is. Oh you knew it? You generous? You gracious? You loving?
Do you lie? You steal? Do you put other things over above me? It's just gonna. They just line up against us. And you're judged by it.
So. He shows no partiality. God's very fair. If you don't know the law. You perish without it. And if you do know the law.
You'll be judged by it. And God's wrath is coming forth for everyone. And all the unrighteousness in the world. Okay. Jump over to 3 verse 9. So what we've seen so far is that we have a problem.
We were created to worship God. And we replace him with other things. Chapter 3 verse 9. What then? Are we Jews any better off? And when he says Jews.
He means those who know how to honor God. Are we Jews any better off? No. Not at all. Sorry church people. People who knew the rules.
He says you're not any better off. He's specifically talking about the Jewish people. Who were given the law. But. Understanding how to honor God. Not any better off.
For we have already charged. That all. Both Jews and Greeks. Are under sin. As it is written. None is righteous.
No not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good.
Not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.
In their paths are ruin and misery. How many of you that sounds like your path? In their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. So that just means that they haven't placed God.
In his rightful position as creator. They haven't honored him. Loved him. Served him. There is no fear of God before their eyes. 19.
Now we have known that whatever the law says. It speaks to those who are under the law. So that every mouth may be stopped. And the whole world may be held accountable. To God. He will judge everybody.
Is what that's saying. For by works of the law. No human being. Will be justified. That means made right. It's actually a word that.
It's a. It's a. Judiciary term. It means that you won't stand before God in his courtroom. And be declared innocent. So justified means.
For by the works of the law. No human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. All right. Real quick. What that means.
Is that through the law comes knowledge of sin. Just means that if you didn't know what God liked. You could. You could dishonor him without knowing about it. But once you know about it.
It doesn't fix your ability to. To follow. It just means you dishonor him. And know about it. No one. Will be made right with God.
No human being. Raise your hand if that applies to you. Okay. Hands down. No human being. Will be made right.
With God. By works of the law. What that means is. If we all came in here. And studied what made God happy. What he liked and didn't like.
And we worked to live under that. None of us. Would do it. None of us could live up to it. None of us could be good enough. None of us would be able to stand before God.
And be declared innocent. If you thought. That the Bible. Was about a bunch of do's and don'ts. Do this. Don't do that.
And God will love you. Do this. Don't do that. And you'll be a good person. It is not. What it just said was.
No one. Will be justified. By the law. So if you're talking to a friend. You don't know much about the Bible. And they're like.
Oh the Bible is just about a bunch of rules. You don't know much about the Bible. But you can now say. No it ain't. What's it about. I don't really know yet.
But it's not about being a good person. Because the Bible very clearly says. No one's going to do it. No one's going to be good enough. We all fall short. No amount of work will fix this.
In chapter 2. Paul says that we will all be judged by our works. And then he goes into. And all of us will fall short. So our problem is that we were meant to worship God.
But we were replacing with other things. And the second half of that problem. Is that we all fall short. And no amount of work will fix it. Been pretty uplifting so far. Paul really starts this letter off.
With a nice little hug. Chapter 1. Get in here. Verse 21. But now the righteousness.
Okay look. That sentence starts with but. Which sounds really nice. Because the first two chapters have been. Like a beating. And so it starts with but.
Which means something different is about to happen. But now the righteousness. It means the rightness. The goodness. The holiness of God. God.
Has been manifested. Just means it showed up. Apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. That's just saying the Old Testament. It's called the law and the prophets.
It's saying it points to this. The righteousness 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. And are justified. Made right. Declared innocent.
By his grace. As a gift. Through the redemption. That is in Christ Jesus. Whom God put forward. As a propitiation.
That is a big word. And you need to fall in love with it. The word propitiation. Means that he diverted wrath. That wrath that we read about in chapter one. Where God's wrath is coming forth from heaven.
It was poured out on Jesus on the cross. In his excruciating. Painful. Bloody. Humiliating death. God's wrath was poured out on him.
And it diverted its course. From us. To him. That's what propitiation means. God put forward as a propitiation. By his blood.
To be received. By faith. By trust. This was to show God's righteousness. His goodness. His holiness.
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. It means he's still a good judge. Because the guilty aren't acquitted. But he paid the penalty for us.
That's good news. That's the gospel. That's the epic. Life shattering. Time changing news. That changes everything for us.
We were created to live in an existence. With God. We removed him. And worship other things. No amount of work can fix this. And Jesus stepped in on our behalf.
And fixed it for us. That's good news. There's some movies I watch sometimes. I get pretty into movies. So I'll get amped up.
So like. It depends on what kind of movie I'll watch. But if I watch some movies. Like they make me want to work out. Some movies will make me like. Want to go fight someone.
Or whatever. Just depending on how good the movie is. But there's some movies that just get me really pumped. Really excited about stuff. Rudy's one of those. Like every time I watch Rudy.
I just want to go achieve something. Like I just want to spend four years. Chasing after one thing. And then just accomplish it at the end. And then like. Everybody picks me up.
And like I just. It makes me want to go try harder. That movie Unbroken. I hadn't even seen it. The previews get me amped. That guy's in that prisoner of war camp.
And he's like holding that stick. And that Japanese guy looks at him. And says don't look at me. And then punches him in the face. And then he looks down. And he looks right back at him.
I'm like. I best not see a Japanese person. I'll straight up look right at him. I don't even care. Like. There are certain movies.
And certain stories. And certain things. That just get you excited. They motivate you. All other religions. Are fundamentally doing that.
They're working to motivate. They're going to give you a good example. They're going to show you a way to live. They're going to say. This is what it looks like. To be a good this.
This is what it looks like. To reach nirvana. This is what it looks like. To be in a right relationship with God. And anytime you watch that. Anytime I watch Rudy.
Anytime I get motivated by something. It is certainly motivating. But it does not take weight off of me. It actually puts weight on me. Anytime someone gives you a rousing example. Of what it looks like to be a good.
Wife. Good mother. Anytime you read that. That mommy blog. It motivates. But it doesn't take weight off.
Anytime you. You find out. You look. And look at one of those. Before and after pictures. Of somebody who lost a bunch of weight.
It might motivate. But it doesn't take the pressure off. It doesn't lift that off of you. This. Good news of Jesus. Doesn't motivate.
It takes the pressure off. He came and took the weight for us. The pressure we feel. To be good. To be holy. To live rightly.
To prove ourselves. To earn it. None of us will. No. And Jesus showed up. To take the weight off.
To carry it for us. To die in our place. For our sins. And to give us. Righteousness. And holiness.
And to make us right with God. Jesus died. To pay our debt. And to make us right with God. We are saved by his work. Not ours.
Fundamentally. That's. That's. What we believe. When we say we believe the gospel. Is that we're saved by Jesus's work.
Not ours. That the church is not a group of people. Who got together. And try to be good together. It's a group of people. Who got together.
Because they knew they weren't. And they needed Jesus. To be good on our behalf. Romans 5. Paul's going to kind of unpack this. A little bit more for us.
Clarify a little bit more for us. As we dig further away. From. From kind of his lead. Romans 5 verse 6. 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 for. Perhaps for a good person.
One would dare to die. So what Paul's saying is. None of us want to take a bullet. For somebody on. On death row. None of us are going over there.
And saying. Hey you know what. That guy. Who. Who's in that triple homicide. Killed those little kids.
Let me take his lethal injection. Nobody wants to do that. But. For a good person. You might take a bullet. There's certain people.
That in your life. That you might would care enough for. To take a bullet for. That you might would. Lay your life down for. But God shows his love.
This is verse 8. But God shows his love. For us. In that while we were still. Sinners. Christ died for us.
Since therefore. We have now been justified. By his blood. Much more. Shall we be saved. By him.
From the wrath of God. 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. More than that. We also rejoice in God. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom we have now.
Received reconciliation. Which means he fixed that relationship. What it just said was. We were all on death row. We were weak. We were sinful.
We were enemies. And Jesus showed up. And died for us. Do you know what's beautiful. About that. You can't out sin God.
Because he never saved you. Because you were good. And after you've been rescued. And saved. How much more. Will he continue to save you.
How much more. Will his life be your life. How much more joy. Will he give. How much more. Will he fulfill.
His promises. How much more. Will he fill us up. He's not mad at you. You were weak. And sinful.
And his enemy. When he died for you. Some of you Christians. In the room. Need to hear that. He's not disappointed in you.
Does he want good things for you. Yes. And we're going to get into that. In chapter 6. That's where Paul goes next. Does he want us to change.
Yes. Is he mad at you. No. Is he disappointed in you. No. Is he ashamed of you.
No. Does your standing with him change. No. Does he change from. Declaring you innocent. Because of Jesus.
To guilty. No. That's some of the most. Encouraging passage of scripture. For me. Because I know that I was weak.
And sinful. And an enemy. When I was saved. That means I don't mess it up. I can't take it back from him. Chapter 6.
Verse 1. Write down the page. If you're on. If you're in one of these. What shall we say then? Okay.
So if that's true. What shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin. That grace may abound. If we can't out sin God. So that anytime I sin.
It just means more grace. Has been applied to my account. Should I just keep sinning. To get more grace? Like as a Christian. When you sin.
He's already paid for that sin. So should we just keep sinning. And get more grace? Paul says. By no means. How can we.
Who have died to sin. Still live in it? Do you not know. That all of us. Who have been baptized. Into Christ Jesus.
Were baptized into his death. We were buried. Therefore with him. By baptism into death. In order that. Just as Christ.
Was raised from the dead. By the glory of the father. We too might walk. In newness. Of life. Because of Jesus.
We're given a new life. Which means we change. Which means we grow. Absolutely all of our sin. Is covered by grace. He saves like a God.
And you sin like a human. All of our sins. Covered by grace. But we do grow. We do change. We do get a new life.
To walk in. So the sentences. Kind of. That will help. Clarify. Maybe some of that.
Is we can't be too bad. For God. But we will begin to change. Can't be too bad. But you will begin to change.
Okay. If that's. True. If that's the gospel. If the story. The epic.
Life changing story. Is that we were created. To worship God. But we replaced him. With other things. That we all fall short.
And no amount of work. Will fix it. If it's that. Jesus died. To pay for our debt. And to make us right.
With God. And that we're saved. By his work. Not ours. And if we can't be too bad. For God.
But we will begin to change. If that's the gospel. If that's the epic. Story of the Bible. Then it has very clear.
Impact on the church. It has a very clear. Impact on who we are. As a people. If that's the foundation. For us.
Because we can only build. Off of the foundation. That's been laid. So let me just clearly. Show a few places. For the church.
That that shows up. And we'll spend the rest. Of the. Of the series. Kind of unpacking. Some of these.
And drawing some of the lines. So we'll basically be saying. If this is the gospel. Then this is where it goes. And if this is true. This is where it goes.
So a few things. That are true. We worry more about our hearts. Than our behavior. Because the problem is. That we don't have God.
In his right place. And that's a heart level issue. We love. And worship. Something else. And that.
Affects our behavior. What that means. Is if you change your heart. Your behavior. Behavior will change. Just like.
We've all had a friend. That maybe started dating somebody. And as they. Started loving that person more. You saw them less and less. Their heart changed.
Their behavior changed. This is how it works. So we worry more about our hearts. Than our behavior. Because we can change our behavior. But no amount of work.
Will fix our problem. It won't change our hearts. It means that as the church. We aren't surprised. By sin. If everybody.
Falls short. If that's the entrance exam. For the church. Then the church. Isn't surprised by sin. Let me tell you something.
This is the best place. To be broken. The safest place. To fall short. The most wonderful. And dearest place.
To have baggage. And problems. And pain. And brokenness. And hurt. And to be messy.
The church is. Absolutely. The church is. And if we don't live like that. We don't believe our own message. Let me tell you something.
That is true. About every other group. Every other group. Every other people. In the world. Every other place.
That you will hang out. And be a part of. Every other social circle. You'll run with. They have a limited amount. Of things.
That can be wrong with you. There's a limited amount. Of deficiencies. That you can have. They'll put up with these. But not these.
You can be really immoral. But you better not be intolerant. You better not be self-righteous. Other groups. It'll be. No.
You can be really. Really intolerant. And self-righteous. But you better not be immoral. You better not say anything. About the.
The nuclear family. You better not. Begin to. To. Be. Socially.
Progressive. They'll have. A limited amount. Of things. That you can be. Absolutely deficient here.
You can be a terrible dad here. Absolutely. But you better not be a coward. You can be a terrible husband. But you better not be soft.
All other groups in the world. Are going to have a limited amount of things. That you can be best. Messed up with. And broken by. Except for the church.
We accept every type of messed up person here. Because we all need Jesus. You can be deficient in anything. All that does is qualify us for Jesus. Which means that we can't be judgmental. And self-righteous as Christians.
You can't look down on somebody. Because their deficiency is different than yours. That makes us the best place. To be broken. And to be open. And to be honest.
And to own your sin. And to confess. And to be real. Because that's what makes Jesus. Jesus. That's how he saves us.
That's how he rescues us. That's how we get his grace. Is by being messed up. And we know that we all are. If you're in a community group. And y'all consistently confess.
And someone never has anything to confess. Let me tell you something that's very true. It's not that they don't have anything to confess. It's just that they're not confessing. Because we're all messed up. We all have problems.
We all need Jesus. We all need to grow. We all need to change. That means fundamentally for the church. We're not surprised by sin. It also means on the other hand.
We're not okay with sin. And we have to hold those together. Which means that we do grow. We do change. We don't like sin. We're not okay with it.
It killed Jesus. It's what he died for. That's like loving the knife. That killed our brother. That's weird. So we all hate sin.
And aren't surprised by it. Aren't judgmental about it. Realize that everybody's going to have it. But work to change and grow. Which means that it's absolutely. The safest place to have baggage.
And brokenness. And pain. And hurt. And messiness. It's just not safe for your baggage. Your brokenness.
Your pain. Your hurt. And your messiness. Absolutely safe for you. But we're going to go to town.
And your baggage. Your hurt. Your pain. Your brokenness. And your messiness. Because we work to grow and change.
It means that we want. It means that everything is a gospel problem. If that's the foundation for us. Then it means laziness. It means that anger. It means that weakness.
It means that sin. It means that immorality. All of it's a gospel problem. We're going to point to the gospel and everything. It means that we have been made into a new family. We've been all saved and brought together.
And Romans 8 is going to say that we've been adopted. So we're a new family together. And it means that we want everybody to know this. Because it's actually good news. It's the only thing that is freeing. It is the only thing that is life-giving.
And it's the only thing that fixes our problem. So we will absolutely do everything we can to go out of our way to help everybody know this. For every person in here today, you're somewhere on that spectrum. You fit somewhere neatly in that line. You were created by God. You're not worshiping him as creator.
Some of us are there. And that was news to you today. Some of you have moved to step two, which is you realize that and you're working to fix it, but you'll never fix it. You figured out, oh, I messed up. And you're working really hard to somehow make up for that, somehow make your life count, somehow make everything mean something, and you're not going to fix it. Some of us, though, and for everybody in the room, we want you to move to step three, which is Jesus' work saves you, not your all.
That it is the power of salvation for all who believe. All who place trust in Jesus. It's not about earning it. It's not about working it. It's not even about the strength of your faith. It's just about Jesus.
That we trust him and know that he can take care of it. That he's good. If you're in here and that's you, just talk to Jesus about it. Tell him you want to have faith. Tell him you want to quit trying to fix the problem. Tell him you understand that you've removed him and that you know that he died for that.
Talk to him about it. And then don't leave this room without talking to somebody else about it. Grab the person you came with. Grab a stranger that seems nice. Say, I just met Jesus. I just want to talk to somebody about it.
I just placed faith and trust in him to rescue me from this pain and hurt and brokenness. And we'll say, good. So have we. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing and make much of Jesus. We're going to praise Jesus because the gospel is true.
That we have life and hope and joy and peace based off of Jesus, not us. That the weight has actually been lifted. That our debt has actually been paid. That God actually loves us and adopts us and makes us right with him through Jesus' work, not our own. That's the gospel. That's it for all of us.
That's the story. And we're going to spend the next six weeks talking about how that looks for the rest of our church family and the rest of church life for us. And what that looks like as we walk that out as in a relationship with Jesus. And we'll pray. God, we thank you that the gospel is true. We thank you that every person in this room, whether they believe it or not, trust it or not, has had the chance to hear the good news.
And God, we pray that every person in this room would believe it and trust it and follow you. Quit carrying the weight themselves and let you take it off their shoulders. We ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.
Serve God or Money
Transcript
Good morning. How are we doing? We'll be in Luke chapter 16. It'll be page 568 if your Bible looks like this. If your Bible doesn't look like this, it'll be Luke chapter 16. So what we're doing is we're in our third week of our gift series.
And so what we've been doing throughout this series is celebrating Christmas, celebrating the fact that that Jesus came to earth to pay for our sin, to rescue us, to make us his. Celebrating that that's what we celebrate in Christmas, that that that that God became a human. And so that's what that's what we've been doing. But we've been trying to celebrate it in a distinctly Christian way to actually look at that and not get caught up in all of the consumeristic tendencies that we have as a culture. And I get caught up in just the the Christmassy stuff and miss out on what Christmas is about. And so we love Christmas, love singing Christmas songs, love celebrating Christmas, love traditions and the things that we get to enjoy with family.
Like we're big on that. I think it's all good. We like my family. Just we celebrated our Christmas yesterday. My extended family, so my parents very much are just like, let's figure out a time when all of us can get together and we'll celebrate Christmas, whether that's early or late. My family also, we do fireworks, we're in fireworks stores.
So New Year's is not a good time. We usually go before Christmas sometime because we're getting amped up to run fireworks stores and try to figure out when all the family can get together. And so we did our Christmas stuff yesterday as a family. And there's just a couple of things that I know go along with that, the way we celebrate Christmas. So I know there's certain foods we'll have, you know, that's just some traditions that we enjoy.
So we're going to eat sausage balls. We're going to have some coffee cake. I always usually take a weapon with ammunition whenever I go celebrate Christmas with my family because I know at some point we'll go shoot things. That's just part of how we celebrate Christmas together as rednecks. And so I'm assuming that you have different Christmas traditions that you get excited about, that you know are going to happen, that you're going to enjoy with your family. And but what can happen is we can get too caught up in that.
We can get too caught up in this being the perfect Christmas, making the best memories, getting the best gift, giving the best gift. And we can forget that the reason we celebrate Christmas is that Jesus came to earth as an infant. And that is the best gift of the world ever received, that that ultimate humility is shown when God becomes a human and ultimate generosity is shown when God becomes a human. The manger and the cross are the two pictures of the most complete humility and generosity and charity. That have ever existed. And so what we're doing in this series is we're taking some stuff that Jesus said because he is the standard for humility and generosity and charity.
And we're seeing what he has to say about our finances and about our possessions. So for three weeks right around Christmas, we're talking about money and not how to get more of it, but how to give more of it away. So we've all been having a blast. Like favorite series for everybody. I love talking about money. Everybody loves money.
Like if you can just talk about somebody's finances, that's a good way to make a friend. Just just when you're meeting someone, say, hey, my name is, you know, fill in the blank and say, can I see a copy of your budget? Maybe your last paycheck is pay stub like that's it's awkward, but we're we're taking what Jesus says seriously. And we're as as people who follow him seeking to apply the fact that he is the only eternal human who's ever come back from that side of eternity. So when we die, we all enter into eternity.
Jesus is the only one who's ever come out of eternity and into time. And so we're seeing what he has to say about money and our hearts and our finances. And so we'll be in Luke chapter 16. I'm going to pray and then we're going to let Jesus teach us today. God, we thank you that we get to gather as church family. We thank you for the opportunities that we have.
God, we thank you for how you've already begun to train us in what it looks like to handle our finances well. I would thank you for for the gifts that are on the front of the steps here that that will get to be shared with families in our city. And we pray that that today that through your Holy Spirit, you would continue to teach us the words that we have from Jesus that have been faithfully kept and written down for our sake as you have overseen it. And so we praise you and we thank you. And in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. So this this passage has always been kind of confusing to me. So I'm excited that we all get to read through it together today and look at it and talk about it. And so we'll be Luke 16 verse one. And Jesus is going to tell a story. And so we'll just kind of talk about what the story is and then we'll talk about what it means.
And he follows it up with kind of explaining some different stuff. So 16 verse one. He also said to his disciples, there was a rich man who had a manager. So basically very rich man because he's paying another guy to keep up with his stuff. So he's got like a money manager, property manager.
This guy oversees everything. So rich enough that he no longer has to. He just pays someone to do it. Who had a manager and charges were brought to him. That's the rich man that this man. That's the money manager was wasting his possessions.
And he called him and said to him, what is this I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management for you can no longer be manager. And the manager said to himself, what shall I do since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. So there's two options.
I can go do real work. No, I can go ask people for stuff. No. No. And so he says, I'm ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.
So summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said to him, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50. And then he said to another, and how much do you owe? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill and write 80.
And the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. All right. So we're going to stop there and we're going to pick back up. But I just want to look at the story because Jesus starts kind of explaining stuff in a second. So that's kind of an odd story.
Basically, the guy's super rich, has someone managing his accounts, his funds, his property, and realizes that the guy isn't doing a good job. We don't really know, but he's a dishonest manager. And so he's probably skimming some off the top, probably using some of it for himself, probably slowly padding his own account, probably just doing some poor decision making with it. And so he basically brings him in and says, show me your accounts that you've been managing and you no longer get to be manager. And so the guy freaks out because he's about to lose his job. And so he makes friends with the people who owe his boss money by cutting their debt down.
And so he knows now they owe him. He's got some leverage over them. And so he's been very intentional with the short amount of time he had left as a manager to set himself up for what was to come. So he knows he's got just a little bit of time to be manager left. He's about to get fired. So he takes it, says he sat down and wrote quickly, did whatever he could at that point, leverage everything he had at that point to set himself up for what was to come.
And so his boss just commends his shrewdness. So the rich man is very rich because he's probably very shrewd with his money and makes wise decisions. I don't think he liked it. I think he was just like, it's a smart decision given the situation you were in for your own benefit. You're still fired. Leave.
Like I think that was kind of the commendation for his shrewdness was like, see what you did there? Now get out. So it's not like Jesus is saying, so kind of steal and pilfer a little bit because that's smart. That's not what he's saying. He's just saying the manager said, he said to the manager, the rich guy said to the manager, well played, sir. You may leave now.
And so Jesus is then going to begin to unpack this for us. He's going to begin to just explain a little bit what he's saying. I do want us to see this. Whenever Jesus tells a story, he's going to be in the position of the rich man. He's going to be in the position of the master. He's going to be in position of the father.
Like he, whenever he tells a story, he's the chief head character who is in charge of everything. That's one of the reasons that the religious people didn't like him because Jesus would tell stories. And it was obvious that he was the main character who was in charge of everything. And so that's not always received well. So when you read a story like this, just realize if we're going to be in the parable for to understand the parable, we're going to be landing on the manager side, not the rich guy who's in charge of things.
Just in case you wanted to play that character, that's Jesus. He's in charge of stuff, not you. So just so you are aware. And so that puts us in a position with finances, with possessions, with money, where we are managing Jesus's stuff. That's the general tone of the story is that the things that you have. So just take a second, quickly take stock of the home you're renting, either from an individual or from the bank.
Maybe the home you own, your vehicles, the amount of money you have in the bank, the worth that you have from the job that you have, the possessions that you have. In this story, as Jesus is showing this to us, you're just managing his assets. So a little bit, when it comes to how we operate with God, we're kind of like the FedEx guy. We got a truck. We got nice stuff in it. It doesn't belong to us.
So like if you're the FedEx guy, you can't show up at someone's house and be like, hey, you got a Christmas gift from your grandma. I know because I opened it. It's this shirt. It doesn't fit me super well, but I'll make do. And there were some cookies in it that I thought were chocolate chip, turned out to be oatmeal raisin. So I threw them away because they made me so angry because I had mistaken them first for chocolate chip.
Because let's just be honest. This is a side note. Oatmeal raisin cookies are good. Only if you know they're oatmeal raisin cookies. But if you ever see them and think, this is a chocolate chip cookie, and then you eat it, it's like, what on earth?
Why would someone disguise oatmeal raisin as chocolate chip? It's pure evil. But you'd be a terrible FedEx driver. And you're like, please, could you just sign here? You're like, no, I'm not. I'm reporting you.
Like, you're terrible. And that's a little bit of the position that we have that some of the things that we've been given are not even for us. They're designed to be given to other people. And at all points, we're just a manager. God's super rich. And he's entrusted us care of a certain amount of what belongs to him.
And we are either going to handle that well or handle that poorly. That's kind of the situation we find ourselves as Jesus begins to explain this a little more. And so he says this. And this is where it gets a little confusing. So we're going to have to park here for a second.
The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Okay. Stop for just a second. The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. Okay.
Big picture Bible. There are two types of people. And that's what Jesus is talking about here when he says sons of this world and sons of light. Sons of this world is not only, it's not just sons. It's not just males. Humanity, men, people, boys and girls, children, whatever you want to call it.
It's humans of this world and humans of the light. People of the light. People of this world. But he uses the word sons. And so that's how I kind of will continue to refer to it. But if you're a female, that includes you.
Just, there you go. For the record. So, sons of this world. The Bible is going to be pretty clear on how this breaks out. There are two types of people. There are those who have placed their faith in Jesus and there are those who have not.
That's the only two types of people that exist in the world. Those who have placed their faith in Jesus and those who have not. And here's how that works. Sons of this world. What it's talking about there is that's all the people who in this world, this is as much life as they will have. So when it says their generation, what it is referring to is this life.
Their generation, which is a generation. 50, 60, 80 years. Sons of this world. Sons of light. Their generation is eternity. Eternal life.
So I was at a funeral this past Thursday. I believe it was Thursday. And it was Thursday. And it was a co-worker of mine when I worked at Sears. And I was just standing at the funeral. And there was this moment where I'm just looking at the casket.
And I can see around it all the grave plots and tombstones and little cups with flowers in them. And I'm looking at the people grieving. And I'm thinking, that's where we all end up. That's every single one of us is going to be put in a box and lowered into the ground. Every single one of us is going to have a little spot of earth with a little plaque or a tombstone that says a little bit about us. Every person there grieving at some point will be in one of those boxes and have other people standing around grieving, myself included.
And what Jesus is saying when he says they're sons of the world and they're sons of light is that life, vibrancy, joy, enjoyment, fullness for sons of the world, this is it. The happiest, the happiest they ever are, the most peace they ever have is going to have to come in that 50, 60, 80 years. And that sons of light, when they die on this earth and are placed in a box, life has just begun. Because their generation is an eternal one. And here's why. Jesus Christ came to earth to be a man to save men.
To be a human to save humans. That's why he came. That's what we're celebrating at Christmas. Jesus Christ is that he showed up not to show us how to live, but to live for us. That he's not a God that sat at the top of the mountain and yelled down to us, figure it out, learn how to be good, learn how to behave, learn how to be moral, learn how to follow religious rules, find your way up the mountain. But no, he came down and went up the mountain on our behalf for us.
That when we look to the cross, what we see is that Jesus definitively declares for every person in this room that we have sinned, that we have fallen short, and that we need him on our behalf. That the cross tells us Chet Phillips is busted, broken, and needs a savior. The cross tells us that every person in this room, every person on earth has fallen short and needs a savior. If there was one human from Adam and Eve in the garden, Adam and Eve in the garden, all the way to the last baby that was just born, that just got smacked on the bottom by a doctor and just sucked in its first bit of air and screamed for the first time.
If there was one human from that span of time, if there was one human from that span of time that was moral enough, good enough, loving enough, generous enough, that walked perfectly with God, Jesus would not have come. Because all God would have come. Because all God would have to do is say, it's possible. All of y'all should have been like this person. This person is good enough. None of you are.
But since no one fits that description, Jesus showed up to be that person on our behalf. And so Sons of Light is the group of people that have placed their faith in Jesus, that have said, his death covers me. His cross is my cross. That when God looks at me, he doesn't see me anymore. He doesn't see my sin anymore. He sees Jesus.
He sees Jesus. You see, every single person in this room will be put into a box and will be lowered into the ground. And every person in this room will stand before God, just like this manager did. Stand before God, just like this manager stands before the rich man and he'll say, open the books. Let's look at the account.
Let's see how you handled it. And every person in this room will either, as a son of this world, defend themselves and say, this is why I should be okay. This is why I should be good. See, Sons of the World is going to include all the religious people who think through their good behavior and their morals, their hard work and their white knuckling, being just a good person. They can put God in their debt. It's going to include all of them.
It's going to include all rebellious people who have just said, God doesn't exist. I don't submit to God. He doesn't have any claim over my life. All of them will be standing before God and they will defend themselves. They will be their own counsel. But Sons of Light will stand before God and say, Jesus is my account.
His life was for me. His death paid my penalty. My faith is in him. My hope is in him. My life is in him. The Bible is very clear on that.
And so when Jesus says there are sons of this world, there are sons of this age, and there are sons of light, what he is saying is there are those who have had their account replaced by mine. There are those who have placed faith in me. I lived for them. I died for them. And their faith has covered them because I have covered them. And there are those who said, no, I'll handle them all.
So let me explain something to you very clearly. We are in this room because this is true. So we celebrated on Friday. We got our groups together. We had our family meeting. And Raz's group won on a technicality, really, if you think about it.
And by a really messed up arbitrary point system. There was voting and lobbying. It's a lot like the BCS. And so we gathered in this room and celebrated what God's been doing and who we are as a church family because, and we talked about a lot of the effort and the money that's gone into church planting and to getting this church started and all the stuff we've gone through and all the man hours that we've put in and all the service that's happened and all the group hours and all the stuff that we've done. And the reason we have done that is not because a group of people want to get together and say that we are good and holy and can behave and are moral.
The church is not a group of people who get together and say that we're going to behave together and we're going to be good together and we're going to be really nice church people. It's a group of people who raise their hand and said, I have fallen short and I need a savior. And we get together and do all of the things that we do because sons of light exist and sons of the world exist. Because my neighbors will be put into a pine box and will be lowered into the ground and will stand before a righteous judge. And if they haven't had Jesus pay for their sins, they will spend eternity in hell, which is a real place.
And this life will be the only life they have had and they will have eternal death that follows it. And that's why we do what we do. And that's why we care about what we care about. Because sons of this world exist and sons of light exist. And those who know what Jesus has done on our behalf are not okay with the fact that there are still people who are trying to make it on their own, trying to be good enough, trying to earn it, trying to run from God because we will all face a righteous judge and a righteous judge does not acquit the guilty. And so when Jesus says that sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are sons of light, what he is saying is this.
People whose life is only going to take up 50, 60, 80 years. And when they die and are lowered into the ground, eternal death begins for them. That the most life they'll ever have is here. They handle their money really well. That's what he's saying. People who don't know Jesus handle their money in a very smart way because the most they'll ever have something, the most they'll ever enjoy something, the most fun they'll ever have, the best adrenaline rush they'll ever have, the most laughter and peace and joy and comfort they'll ever have is going to take place inside of 40, 50, 80 years.
And so he says they're very shrewd with their money. They make wise decisions. The sons of this world, the sons of this age are very intentional with their money because they're planning for retirement. They're going out of their way to figure out to have 401k. They're making sure they've got some medical insurance so that if something happens, they've got liability insurance. They intentionally go out of their way to enjoy things here.
So they plan ahead. They plan vacations. They do a lot of smart things with their money because the most enjoyment and the most life and the most fulfillment they'll ever have is here. And then he says the sons of light don't handle their money in a very smart way because for someone who has placed faith in Jesus, this life is a small, sad picture of what real life gets to be like, of what eternal life with a great savior and king gets to look like. And when we're lowered into a pine box, those of us who have placed our faith in Jesus, life just began. Real life, true life, eternal life just got started.
And so when he says that they don't handle their money well, what he's saying is most Christians live as if they're going to live for 40, 60, 80 years. And you would not know that they believed they were going to live for eternity. And if they were setting up their accounts, they're really being dumb with their money because their money has eternal consequences that the other money doesn't. That's what he's saying. So when we talked about last week when he says, sell your possessions, give to the needy, provide for yourself money bags and treasures in heaven that do not grow old, that moths don't eat, that rust won't destroy.
That's what he's talking about. That's why he says sons of light aren't shrewd with their money. They don't make good decisions with their money because we actually get to have eternal things, those of us who place faith in Jesus. That boat is going to be a hole you pour money into, first of all. It's going to need upkeep. It's eventually going to get old.
It's going to rust. That new car is going to lose value when you drive it off the lot. That job that you're pumping hours into, that promotion you're working so hard for, that house is going to be put up on the market. There's going to be an estate sale. It's going to go to one of your children, or all of your children are going to fight over it. 40, 60, 80 years, it's over.
And every possession you have does not go with you, is not enjoyed by you. And if you are a son of this world, if you are someone who has placed no faith in Jesus, you are carrying your own weight of sin, you are standing before God to be your own moral, righteous person, or you're just saying that God doesn't exist, get a boat. Have a nice house. Set up for retirement. This is as good as it gets. Be shrewd with your money.
You got 40, 60, 80 years, if you're lucky. And the last ones aren't going to be so nice. So put some money in retirement. But if you're a son of light, none of that stuff is going with you. And eternal possessions begin the moment people toss dirt on that box your body is in. That's what he's saying.
And we're going to continue to go through and see some of the practical stuff that he lays out for us. So he says this. We'll go verse 8. The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation, so that's the 40, 60, 80 years, than are the sons of light. They don't handle their stuff well to deal with eternity. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
Okay, that's confusing. Because I think mostly we want to find out who are the friends we get to make, and what are the dwellings, and how do they invite us in. And I don't think that's what he's doing. I think he's just using the same language from the story he just told, as he continues his illustration. So it would be similar to if you sat down with a child, and you told them a story about a good little puppy, and a mean little puppy.
And you read through the story, and you told them all about it, and then at the end of the book you said, and you get to decide what type of puppy you will be. And you close the book, and the children say, German Shepherd. No, no, no, no, no, Dalmatian. It's like, no, no, no, no. The choices were good and mean, and it's not really a puppy. You don't get to be a puppy.
It's about behavior. I'm going to read the book again. And so, pay less attention to the pictures. That's what I feel like a little bit when I go, okay, well, who are the friends, and what kind of dwellings are we talking about? I think he's just using the language to say that the manager knew he was about to lose his position, so he did everything he could to set himself up for his next stage, for the place he was headed. And so when he says, make friends with unrighteous wealth, so they'll welcome you into eternal dwellings, he's just using the language that he said he made friends with himself, so they would invite him into their homes.
And so what he's saying for us is, take the time you have, be as intentional as you can be, to set yourself up for what is to come. So when he's talking about sons of light being shrewd, what that means is, what he says in Luke 12, give, be generous, be gracious, because all of that rolls over to eternity. Anything you keep here will be yours here for a short amount of time, and honestly it belongs to God, and you may be mismanaging it. But if you give it away, if you hand it over generously, if you help, if you pour out, all of that rolls on to eternity. That's the wise investment that the sons of light get to make.
That's what he's saying. Okay. So now it's just some practical stuff. One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. Okay. Very practical, and we don't believe that.
Just across the board, our culture doesn't, we don't click with that. We believe it on some things. So like, if I'm a terrible little league coach, and I tried to convince you I would be good in the pros, you would not believe that. Like, the terrible employee who works with you, who always says they'd be a great boss, you're like, bro, you don't even show up on time. You'd be a terrible boss. Like, you should get no promotion.
But, there are some things that we believe that. So it says, one who's faithful in little will also be faithful in much. That applies very well to relationships and to finances. So just, this doesn't have anything to do with money. It's just relationships. Just trying to be helpful.
People say things like, yeah, I'm not a real good boyfriend. If we get married, I'll be an awesome husband. No, you won't. And girls, ladies, friends, let me help you. If he is a jerk, and if he is lazy, and if he doesn't treat you well, and if he cares more about video games than you, and if he's always talking to and looking at other girls, do not say, well, I'll marry him and that will fix it. No.
He'll be married to a lazy jerk who likes other girls. It doesn't change that. So don't think, well, yeah, he doesn't treat me real good, but if we get married, then I'll have locked it in. Locked in what? Like, that's a terrible decision. Guys, if she's kind of crazy now, you ain't seen crazy.
I'm just trying to be helpful. Who's faithful in small things will be faithful in big things. And what that means, the way we apply that to money is all the time we say, I'm not real generous now. I don't handle my money well now, but I would if I had more. We said this last week. God says it's a heart issue.
Getting a raise doesn't change your heart. Statistically, in America, the wealthier people give away a smaller percentage than the less wealthy people. The higher education you have, the more money you make, higher income level, the less likely you are to be generous. Statistically. But we believe that if I had more, I'd give more, but that's not how that works.
We are just going to be generous because of our hearts at whatever level we are. That's how that works. So you're going to be generous at your level. And as your level grows, generosity will go with it. As your level grows, if there is no generosity, it doesn't just show up. I heard somebody say that, that if somebody says, yeah, I just, I just am in a spot where I can't be generous.
He said, he'll look at him and say, okay, so if you took a 5% pay cut next year, 10% pay cut next year, you would die? No, I wouldn't die. Okay. So you're just saying you don't want to be generous. Let's just be real.
Let's be honest with it. Because you can be generous at the level you are. Generosity doesn't have anything to do. There's a really good example. If you look it up on YouTube, it messes my head every time I've seen this. A guy walks around in a McDonald's, McDonald's, walks around in a McDonald's, walks up to people and says, hey man, can I have some of that?
Hey man, would you, would you help me get a cheeseburger? Hey, he just walks around and everybody's like, get, no, stop. They do what I would do. Stop. Go away. It takes a dollar to buy something like, get a job.
And then they walk outside, they hand a cheeseburger to a guy who's in a homeless situation. He opens it up, he starts eating it. That same guy who'd been walking around the McDonald's, walks over to him and says, hey man, can I get some of that guy? And the guy breaks it in half and hands it to him. And they sit next to each other and eat. Generosity has everything to do with our heart, and very, very little to do with the level that we are.
If you are not faithful with the money, the possessions, the finances that you have now, they are all on loan. One day, the master sits you down and says, let's look at the accounts. It is his grace towards us that he does not give us more to mismanage. It is his grace towards us that we get to be dishonest in a little bit, as opposed to being dishonest in much. It's grace towards us. Because if we're faithful in small things, we'll be faithful in big things.
You talk to somebody and you say, what's your budget look like? I don't need a budget. I don't have any money. That's not how that works. You need a budget now. You'll need a budget later.
Same thing with generosity. I can't be generous. I don't have any money. No, no, you can. You can be generous at the level you are. You can share what you have.
You can share what people give you. Generosity has everything to do with your heart. Very little to do with the position you're in. Your tax bracket. One who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. And one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much.
If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? This clicked in my head this morning. If you've not been faithful in unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? That only makes sense in light of eternity. Only makes sense in light of eternity.
Everything you own will be somebody else's. Or it'll be in a landfill. Everything you own is lent to you. It's being borrowed unless you're given something in eternity. Because there are no estate sales in eternity. Things don't wear out in eternity.
Moths don't eat things. Stuff doesn't go out of style in eternity. He says, who's going to give you something? If you haven't been faithful with what isn't yours, who's going to give you something that actually gets to be yours? Why would you show up to heaven if you are a believer in Jesus and you haven't been faithful with the small stuff he's let us borrow here? Why would we show up to heaven and him have given us anything that we get to keep for eternity?
That's what he's saying. And that's why he says, sons of light don't handle their money well. Aren't shrewd with their generation. Because our generation is an eternal generation. Which means that it's very small minded and very silly for us to be so focused on the next 40, 60, 80 years when we actually get to have real things for eternity. True wealth.
Something that actually belongs to us. That won't just wear out. That isn't going to go back to the dump or the yard sale or to people who are going to show up at our house and read our will and hand it off. And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's who will give you that which is your own. No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Okay, that makes sense too. We said last week that you don't really love money. You just love what money gives you. So like Scrooge McDuck. You know him? He jumps in and swims around in a bunch of gold coins.
Okay, he doesn't actually just like the gold coins. He likes what the gold coins say about him. He likes that the gold coins provide him security and power. He likes that the gold coins make him feel good about himself. He's not just rolling around in gold coins because gold coins are fun. So like if the U.S. government came out, the U.S.
Mint Treasury came out and said we're getting rid of all of the $5 bills that we currently have and we're changing over to this different type of $5 bill and you can trade in or we're getting rid of all the money that we have and we're changing over to this type of money. You can trade in all the money you have for the same size note. So if you give us a 5, we'll give you a 5. If you give us a 10, we'll give you a 10 and we'll hand it off. Okay, so after the dead date on that, when our old paper money is no longer good and we had to change over to like the plastic money that they use in Australia that has clear holes in it and stuff and it's weird.
After that happens, you no longer like your old money. You put on a pair of pants that has a $20 bill in it, you are now mad at that $20 bill. You do that now and you're like, jackpot, this is my favorite pair of pants. I'm going to wear them next week so if they have another one. You pull out an old $20 bill, it means nothing anymore. You no longer like that because it no longer has the value, carries the weight that it used to.
And so we're either going to serve money for the reasons that, the things that it gives us or we're going to serve God or our money is going to serve God is another way to put that because he says you'll love one and hate the other, you'll love one and despise the other one. Let me show you how that plays out. If you serve money, the past three weeks has been very frustrating and all of us serve money a little bit. So it hasn't been super fun to sit and think about to last week here that Jesus says where our treasury is there, our heart will be so we can look at our bank statement and see what we love.
For any of us who sat down and tried to do that, not a fun thing. Anytime we hear, we'll say things about the church like all they want is your money. Anytime we hear these kind of things because anytime God speaks on money, he's chasing after what we love and we will despise that. We'll hate that. We'll be frustrated by that. We'll be annoyed by that.
We'll think that's aggravating. We'll make excuses for why we get to do what we do or we'll say, well, I serve a lot or I do all this or I would do that if this was different or if I could just have that promotion. We will fight against what he says about it. But if you're serving God, then you'll do stuff with money that only makes sense in light of eternity. And everyone standing around you will say, that was so dumb. But money will be despised by you.
And it doesn't mean you'll hate money. It's not like you're going to go home and grab your wallet and that's not what it is. Despising means over and against the other one, you're going to dishonor, disrespect, shun. So what that will look like is this. Let me give you some tangible examples of how our money gets to serve God. You will adopt some children for Christmas.
Your children will get less gifts. Your family will get less gifts because you despised wealth possessions in order to serve God. You will pass up on promotions because you'll go, no, everything's not about money and that's going to make me work this extra hours or have this, and I really need to be building with the people I'm building with and I need the time to be able to lead a community group. You'll have someone offer you a position and you're like, I can't move. I've got church family here and I've got too many neighbors that I've just gotten to where will talk to me, that I've just gotten to where I can hang out with and build with and I know that there are sons of this world who will face God and be condemned because they did not have Jesus pay for their sin and I know that I deserve to be condemned but have placed my faith in Jesus and he has set me free and I'm not okay with moving because of the relationships that I've built and you will despise a promotion and you will despise getting a raise because you understand eternity and everyone who is your friend and even people in the church at times will say, what?
You'll be like, no, I can't. I can't move. I can't do that. I can't have a house like that. I can't drive a car like that. My money's got to go other places.
The car just needs to get me somewhere. It's a tool. It's helpful. I'm not going to have it forever. And you'll despise money and possessions because your money and possessions will be serving God. Does that make sense?
And so when it says you can't serve God and money, either you're going to have a problem with every time God talks about money, you're going to have an issue with every time he says things about generosity because he needs to be serving your money. There are churches that gather together and say if you follow God, he'll make you rich because God serves your wallet and he wants to give you a bunch of treasure here. No. Maybe. It's not wrong to be rich. It means God has entrusted you to steward more.
He's lent you more to be generous with, to be intentional with. Nothing wrong with having nice things. Nothing wrong with having a new car. Don't hear that. We do need to know it won't be new forever. We can enjoy nice things.
God invented steak on purpose, made it delicious. Eat a steak. But sometimes, pass up meat and remember that the mission's bigger and that your wallet doesn't just serve you. Yeah, both. Let's do both.
Go on a nice date. Go to a movie. Skydive if you want to. Realize the adrenaline rushes in heaven will be better. Don't. Don't act as if all you get is 40, 60, 80 years because that is not true.
Your money is going to serve God or you're going to try to figure out a way to have God serve it. The consistent amount of our prayers our God help me have, help me have, that may be an indication to us of what we're shooting for. He's not black and white. There's no, there's no, he is black and white. There's no gray area there. You cannot serve God and money.
So it's really going to be one or the other, which is really kind of annoying when Jesus does that. I'm just going to be honest. You read that and you're like, dang it. What about, what about this? And he's like, no. And that's what he gets into next.
The Pharisees, 14, the Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these things and they ridiculed him. It's exactly what he just said. You love money, you'll despise God. That's a case in point. The Pharisees loved money, heard all these things and they ridiculed him. They mocked him.
They said it was dumb. Same thing that'll happen if we're living intentionally with our money as if we have an eternity. And he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Okay. Two things there.
The arguments that we throw back up stop. The justifications that we give, we just get to stop. Jesus cuts right through it and says, God knows your heart and justifying yourself in front of your community group and explaining to your spouse and making yourself feel good by your clear articulation of why you live the way you live. Just stop. God knows your heart, which makes things easier and nicer just so y'all know. And it makes things way harder.
So we'll cover easier and nicer first because that sounds better to me. Makes things easier and nicer this way. Because it's a heart level issue, it doesn't have anything to do with our behavior. Which means that what he is not saying is go earn it. Go give a certain amount. Go be, no, it's a heart level issue.
So when that guy broke that cheeseburger in half, if he is a believer, eternal treasures exploded. Real things were just added to his account. Because it's a heart issue. It wasn't like, well, I guess he gets an eternal half of a cheeseburger that they forgot to put pickles on. That's not how it works. It's not level of.
It's heart. Which means that for someone who says, I don't have that much to give, doesn't matter. It's not earn it. It's heart. And it's not get out there, try really hard, white knuckle it, fight. No, it's a heart level issue.
Makes it way easier. Not check it off a list. And it makes it so much harder. Because wouldn't it be nice if it was just checking off a list? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, we don't have to go earn it, but there's something in us that feels like, but kind of we do.
And I really wish it was just like some do's and don'ts and some, you know, certain percentage or maybe some, if we could just kind of reach, like there would be this moment we reach and God would just say, good, you did it. Up top. You don't have to be generous anymore or you've already banked up enough. Just enjoy this stuff. Like, it's a heart level thing, which means that if we religiously follow into it, which is I'm going to go do this so that God will owe me, our hearts are off. We've gotten confused along the way.
So our justifications, save them. He sees your heart. And it is a heart level issue. 18. The law and the prophets, that's the Old Testament, were until John, that's John the Baptist. So he's the pre-runner before Jesus.
The law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and everyone forces his way into it, into the kingdom of God. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void. Okay, so he's talking to religious leaders and what he says is, the law and the prophets were until John and since then, the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom is preached and everyone tries to force their way and everyone's fighting to get into the kingdom. But I'm going to tell you, not a drop from the law will become void.
And what he's saying is this, your goal to earn heaven, to work really hard to live up to the law, to force your way in, which means that you would show up and you'd stand before God and you'd say, I've been good enough and his hand would be forced. Yeah, you have. You're in. Good Job. Good Job. What he says is this, not a bit of the law will be void, which means that every single one of us will be guilty because God is a good judge and none of us will be generous enough, none of us will be moral enough, none of us has the moral resume, the moral report card to show before the God of the universe and have him be impressed.
Not a drop from the law disappears. We all stand with the weight of the law of a holy God on our shoulders. And we cannot force our way in because we all fall short. The law is not void and God is a good judge and a good judge does not let injustice happen, does not acquit the guilty but holds everyone accountable for failure and upholds the law. That's what a good judge does. But the good news of the kingdom is preached.
And the good news of the kingdom is that the manger and the cross exist and Jesus' generosity gets to be applied to our account. That we will never be generous enough. We will never be good enough. The weight of the law will always fall squarely on our shoulders and must be upheld unless Jesus upheld it for us. That's the good news of the kingdom. That sons of this world do not move themselves over into the category of sons of light that Jesus does.
That we don't earn it, we don't merit it, we don't moral it, we don't get together as church family to learn how to be good so that God will love us. We get together as church family because God has loved us and was good on our behalf. We get to gather together, we get to get in our community groups and talk, we get to be the first people, Christians get to be the first people to say, here's my sin, here's how broken I am, here's where I've fallen short, and all other Christians go, yeah. The world thinks it's the opposite. Some of us in this room may think it's the opposite, that the purpose of the church is for us to get together and learn how to be good and show how awesome we are.
That is not the case. The purpose of the church is to get together as a group of people who realize that Jesus was awesome on our behalf, good on our behalf. That's the good news of the kingdom, that we have eternal life because Jesus gives it to us. So we're going to continue to sing, and here's what we're going to do. Here's what I want us to realize. If you are a Christian in this room, you get to be generous, and every bit of it is worth it.
Everything you give away is actually the only stuff, think about the stuff you've given away, that's the only stuff you'll ever keep. That's the only thing that ever gets to be truly yours, is the stuff we give away. And that Jesus' ultimate generosity has been applied to our account, that he paid for our sin, that he canceled our debt, and that he gives us life and freedom. And that generosity changes our hearts so that we can be generous. That his spirit changes our hearts so that we can view money in the right way, so that we can understand eternity. So if we're Christians, that's where you sit today. with an ultimately generous God, who has paid your debt, who has given you true riches, and invited you into eternity.
And if you're in here today, and I don't care if you've been around the church, I don't care if you grew up in a church, I don't care if you could beat everyone in this room in a Bible drill. If you think that you make yourself a son of light, if you think that you force your way into the kingdom through behavior, through good morals, through being a really good churchy person, you do not. everyone in this room is a son of light because Jesus has saved us and set us free, or is a son of the world because he has not yet done that. And we have not yet placed faith in him, and have not yet trusted him to pay our debt, and have not yet said that I know that I'm broken and I fall short, but that Jesus was righteous in my place. So if you're a believer, allow the gospel to impact your heart so that you can be changed by God's ultimate generosity, by the fact that an infant was laid in a horse trough, in a barn, and then hung on a cross, to be generous and charitable and gracious to us.
And if you're in here and you haven't placed your faith in Jesus, let's at least be very clear about this. This is not a place that is about behavior, not any of our behaviors, Jesus's. If it's about behavior, if it's about upholding the law, it's about Jesus doing that on our behalf. It's not about us being good, being moral, and realize that you are freely and forever invited to place your faith in Jesus and have him set you free. Does life get better? I don't know.
Maybe not. Eternity's going to be great. That's where real life starts for the believers. And we will guarantee you that you get a whole messed up church family to walk through this messed up life with. And at least you'll every once in a while get to look good by comparison. But if you haven't placed your faith in Jesus, we invite you to do that.
To trust him with your sin because he can handle it and you cannot. And if we're Christians in the room, don't let the generosity of Christmas be lost on you and be drowned out. But let the gospel change your hearts. I'm going to pray. Pray with me. God, we ask that through your Holy Spirit for those of us, for the individuals in this room who have not yet trusted you, not yet said that I know I can't hold my sin, but Jesus can, we ask that you would right now show them and call them and break them with your generosity and your grace.
God, that people would leave this room today as sons of light and their destiny for eternity would be changed through your grace and generosity. God, we ask that those of us who have already trusted you with our sin would continue to grow in trusting you with every area of our life, including our finances, including our generosity, that the gospel would so impact our hearts that being generous just made sense to us, that we would so clearly see the eternity that is given to us that everything here would pale in comparison and seem as small as it really is. we ask all this in your holy name. You talk to God, if you need to talk to God, do business with him, let him speak to you, and we're going to sing... Due to the Talent...