Sign of the Promise
Transcript
G'day everyone. My name's Raz. It's good to be with you here this morning. A show of hands real quick. Who here in the room has ever heard of the awkward turtle? The awkward turtle.
Okay, all of the millennials have heard of the awkward turtle. Excellent. The awkward turtle, I believe, was invented 10-ish years ago. It was kind of like just transitioned in right when I came out of high school. And I think this is what the internet tells me. I don't know if it's true or not.
The internet tells me that the awkward turtle was invented because people who were awkward in situations and conversations had this problem with their neck. Where they were speaking, something awkward would happen, and they would just kind of recede a little bit. So that their head tries to escape the situation and get inside their body. And that's kind of where the idea of a turtle comes along. But that was causing neck issues.
So, they invented this kind of hand gesture, which looks like this. Which is supposed to represent the turtle's body. Some people do it like that, but they're weird. It goes like this. And these are the little, what are they, they don't call them wings. They're like the flappers, whatever, of the turtle.
And whenever something really awkward happens in a conversation, you can kind of do the awkward turtle and just... Back yourself out of that conversation. And that's apparently... Look, when it came into existence, that was the thing that people did. Not saying it was good, not saying it was polite, but that's just kind of how it happened. For example, I'm not going to name names, protagonists in this story.
This is a true story. I won't tell you the person's name, but I'll give you a hint. He has a beard, and he was standing there about three minutes ago. This happened in this very room, and it was kind of just over there. And I was introducing my friend to my wife, Christina's mom. And in the...
Look, he's not very good with small talk. And we all know this. If you're friends with him, small talk is not one of his spiritual gifts. And so you kind of have to be prepared for situations like this. So I introduce him.
I say, this is Christina's mom. And this is what comes out of his mouth. He goes, oh, cool. Hi. So, how long have you been Christina's mom? And you can see in his eyes and in his brain, he's just processed the fact that he just said, how long have you been the mother of your daughter?
And his neck starts going like this. And then my neck started going like that. And Christina's mom's neck was like this. And everyone was like this. And that would have been the perfect time, permissible, to be awkward turtle. You can just back away from the creepy bearded guy.
That's how it's supposed to work. Now, I mention this. I mention this because this morning and for the next couple of minutes, we're going to have a good old-fashioned awkward fest. Between you guys and me, we're just going to get awkward real quick. Not because I like torturing people with awkward situations, although that's true. That's not the reason that this is happening.
We're going to have an old-fashioned awkward fest because we're in a section of God's story that sometimes churches in this world tend to breeze by. Not defining terminology, leaving people hanging in the dark a little bit. And so we're going to step through it. We're going to spend some time. And we're going to actually define terminology, make sure that everyone's on the same page, and get through it even though it's awkward. Okay.
Today we're going to spend pretty much our entire morning talking about circumcision. And I'm not talking about just like say the word and move on. I'm like, we're going to talk real quick about circumcision. And so for the people in the room who know, you know that the awkward total is about to come out. So I've prepared you well.
But for the people who don't know, and I don't want to call people out. I don't want to make you feel silly or whatever. But I just want to make sure that everyone knows exactly, clinically, what we're about to talk about so that, Lord forbid, nobody Googles anything this morning. That would be a travesty, and I've not done due diligence. So, without further ado, here is a very concise medical definition of the word circumcision. Circumcision.
I'm just going to put my hands here. Circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin covering the tip of the male genitalia. Now you know, right? Yes, I said that. Yes, I said that into a microphone on stage in a church gathering. It's going on the internet.
Internet. You're welcome, internet. You've been blessed this morning, internet. Now you're probably thinking, look, I would be thinking, if I'm where you were, what exactly does this have to do with covenant? Because we're talking about covenants, we're doing this whole series on covenants, and today we're just talking about foreskins and circumcision, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But in the passage we're about to read, God calls circumcision the sign of the covenant.
And for us to spend however many weeks talking about covenant and skip the sign of the covenant, just because it's awkward to talk about and no one wants to talk about circumcision, we would kind of be missing the point. So we're going to plow through today. We're going to try and understand what exactly was going on in Genesis when they talked about circumcision. And then we're going to say, we're going to try and work out what it means for us, and then work out where Jesus fits into the whole picture. Let me pray for us, and then we're going to open up God's word. God, I pray this morning that as we look into your scripture and talk about weird and awkward conversations, that you'll be opening our hearts and our minds to understand what it is you have for us today.
I pray that that will be true for us this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. If you've got a Bible, open up to Genesis 17. Genesis 17. Genesis 17, it'll be on page 8 if you've got one of these blue pew Bibles. Genesis 17.
What happens in Genesis 17 is about 15 years after what happens in Genesis 15, which is what we talked about last week. So last week we're in Genesis 15. About 15 years later than that, we find ourselves in Genesis 17. I'm just going to read the first chunk for us. Page 8, 17, verse 1. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty.
Walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. Real quick pause. God changes people's names pretty frequently, especially throughout the Old Testament, but it happens a little bit in the New Testament as well. It really just signifies a change in direction in that person's life.
It's almost like a graduation or a promotion. And typically the name that he gives them has some important meaning. So for Abraham, the name Abraham actually means father of a great multitude. Let's keep reading. From verse 5. No longer shall you be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.
For I have made you a father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God. Now, this is more or less a restatement of stuff we already know. If you've been with us for a few weeks, we've been talking about the covenant to Abraham for a while now.
And this is basically just a rehashing of the stuff we've already talked about. But you'll notice he's 99 years old. The guy's super old. And sometimes with old people, you just have to repeat yourself. Especially if it's been 15 years, right? So God repeats himself and says, this is the covenant that I'm making with you and your offspring.
And his covenant with them is that they will become a great nation, that they will inherit land and that God will bless them. Basically, that his people will be in his place and they will have his presence. That's kind of the theme that we've been drawing through all of the covenant series so far. So it starts off in Eden when God puts his people in his place and has his presence with them and in amongst them. And then the fall happens and everything goes wrong. And ever since then, we've been asking this question, how is God going to point us back to a new Eden, a new creation that will once again be God's people in God's place with his presence?
Now God kind of moves on and talks about some of Abraham's responsibilities. This is verse 9. God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people for he has broken my covenant. Whoa. Things just got real.
Now in order to understand this we're just going to quickly revisit some stuff that happened last week. Last week we're in Genesis 15 and in Genesis 15 if you're here you already know this but for the people who weren't here in Genesis 15 God and Abraham established their covenant and it takes the form of what we call a suzerain vassal treaty and in a suzerain vassal treaty this is not Bible words this is ancient history words this is just the way things happened in the old days. The suzerain was the powerful nation ruler or whatever. The vassal was a weaker nation that had been conquered by a superior nation and they make a treaty in which the weaker nation says I want you to look after me and in doing that I will serve you I will do what you tell me to do I'll pay the taxes and I'll come to your aid whenever you're leading wars.
And what they would do is they would have this little ceremony that would play out. And this happens in Genesis 15 between God and Abraham God being the superior power and Abraham being the weaker one. What happens is they get a bunch of animals birds and goats and that kind of thing and they split them in half and they create a lane like a pathway through the middle where there's animal carcasses on each side of the pathway and all of the blood flows into the middle to form like a walkway of blood. It's pretty gross. It's pretty grim. It's pretty gruesome.
And what would happen in the suzerain vassal treaty is the weaker party would walk through that pathway of blood. And what they're saying by doing that is that stronger nation if I break my promises to you you get to do this to me. If I break my promise to you you get to destroy me. And in Genesis 15 Abraham and God set up this kind of a ritual but the major difference that happens is that right when Abraham's about to walk through bam God puts him to sleep. Then instead of Abraham walking through God walks through and then walks back through.
God goes through twice. And what he's saying by doing that is that if Abraham if the weaker party let me start let me backtrack if God the stronger party breaks his end of the deal if the stronger party breaks his end of the deal the weaker party gets to split him in two. That's not normal. That's not typical. That's not how it usually happens in these ceremonies. But what he also said by walking through twice is that if Abraham breaks his side of the deal God will also be the one who's punished.
God will have the right to punish Abraham but instead will punish himself. Now we're here in Genesis 17 this is 15 years later and circumcision is now part of this picture and this picture is pretty gross. It's bloodthirsty. It's disgusting. It's got retribution. It's got punishment written all over it.
The whole picture is not particularly pretty. And I don't think it's meant to be very pretty. In verse 11 God says it it meaning circumcision it shall be a sign of the covenant of the bloodbath ceremony. It shall be a sign of that ceremony between me and you. In verse 13 he says so shall my covenant so shall this covenant be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant. He's saying very explicitly I want you to remember this bloodbath ceremony.
I want the weight of what happened in that ceremony in that agreement in that covenant I want the weight of that to bear down on you at all times. I want you to remember it. I want you to remember it so much that I'm going to make it a part of you. I'm going to cut it into your flesh so that you will remember it. Do not forget the covenant. That's what's going on here.
So the covenant was made when a bunch of animals were slaughtered as a symbol of what would happen if one of the parties broke their promise. And in that situation it is no wonder that when God decided this will be the sign of my covenant he made it something rather gruesome something a little bloodthirsty. The whole point is to remind them of the consequences of what would happen should someone break this covenant. And apparently at least it makes sense to me what better way to make people remember that than to threaten a man where men do not like being threatened. Now you may be wondering at this point in time how do women fit into this?
Is there a sign for the girls? Is only the male in the whole generation covered with the sign that kind of thing? My first response and this is look this is just my fallen brain being sarcastic and wanting to say this you did just hear what the sign for the guys was right? Are the ladies really wishing for their own sign at a time like this? Probably not. But a far more accurate you know biblically historically correct you know actual real reason for this that I probably should explain is that back then they had what they call a patriarchal society.
Right? Are the ladies really wishing for their own sign at a time like this? Probably not. But a far more accurate you know biblically historically correct you know actual real reason for this that I probably should explain is that back then they had what they call a patriarchal society. It's no better no worse than the way that we do things
In our culture it's just different it's thousands of years old and it's the way things worked back then and back then in a patriarchy there was a male who was the head of a household and he kind of held responsibility for that household and so for women living in that society they would be born into their father's household and their father would have responsibility for their household and when they get married they would move into their husband's household and then their husband
Would be the head of that household and he would hold responsibility for that household so when God makes a sign of the covenant with the males throughout the entire generation and for the rest of history when all of the males are circumcised they're covering their households with that sign of the covenant and so for women the sign of the covenant being made with men doesn't actually neglect women based on the way their society functioned entire households were being covered with the sign of this covenant
So look I guess you just get a free pass on this one and you get to be covered by the men's sign of the covenant let's continue pick up the story in verse 15 and God said to Abraham as for Sarah your wife you shall not call her name Sarah but Sarah shall be her name I will bless her and moreover I will give you a son by her I will bless her and she shall become nations kings of people
Shall come from her then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old shall Sarah who is ninety years old bear a child and Abraham said to God oh that Ishmael might live before you God said no but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him
As for Ishmael I have heard you behold I have blessed him and I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly he shall father twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation but I will establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year we're going to take we're going to pause for just a moment this is not a main point for this morning but it's important to cover because there's some names we just read that we need to explain
Not a main point this morning but in Genesis 16 which is the chapter of the Bible that we just skipped between last week Genesis 15 and this week Genesis 17 in Genesis 16 Abraham has a son he has a son and his name is Ishmael but that son is not born from his wife Sarah but from his wife's handmaiden Hagar now this is not entirely uncommon and it's not the wrong way for them to do things back then
Because they lived in that patriarchy and for a man who had responsibility over his household he would need to have an heir so that that heir could then in turn have responsibility for the household and so when Sarah is not able to have kids Abraham she actually convinced him to have a kid so they would at least have a son who could take over for the family and that son became Ishmael through Sarah's
Handmaiden Hagar that's kind of where Ishmael fits into it so when God so when Abraham says please let Ishmael stand before you God says no I'm going to establish my covenant through Isaac who is your son who you will have through your wife for the history buffs out there Ishmael this other son of Abraham's is where the Islamic religion draws their heritage from
We're not going to park here we're not going to make a big point of this but just because it's true the Islamic nation the Islamic people draw their heritage from Ishmael and that's why we get a lot of questions like don't Muslims and Christians and Jews all worship the same God it's because at some point in time they all point back towards Abraham
If you want to keep having that discussion we can talk about it later it's not a main point of this sermon because as it says God says no my covenant is not going to follow Ishmael it's going to follow Isaac and we're going to keep reading verse 22 actually let's go from verse 21 but I will establish my covenant
With Isaac whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year when he had finished talking to him God went up from Abraham then Abraham took Ishmael his son sorry then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born to his house or bought with his money every male among the men
Of Abraham's house and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day as God had said to him Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin and Ishmael his son was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin
That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised and all of the men of his house those born in his house and those bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him Abraham and his entire posse all of them were circumcised in one day now this is not a day that any of them were looking forward to
I'm sure if you're 99 years old and this happens this is a day that you're never going to forget but so it was God wanted his covenant people to be physically reminded for their entire lives to be constantly reminded that they were different people because the blood covenant applied to them now if you've been paying attention all series
You would know that this is actually the second covenant that comes paired along with a sign the first covenant that comes paired along with a sign is the covenant made to Noah what happens in Noah's story is he gets all the animals on his big boat big flood comes and at the end of that the animals
Come off and God makes a covenant with Noah and says I'm never going to destroy the earth again and as a sign to you I'm going to give you what a rainbow and that's beautiful right magic the colors and that when you see a rainbow I saw a rainbow yesterday it was perfect I said Christina look at the rainbow and she took a photo of the
Rainbow and so if I if I were in Abraham's shoes this is not what happened but if I were in Abraham's shoes I can imagine God saying I'm going to make a covenant with you I'm going to give you a sign and I'm thinking sweet I'm going to get the next rainbow I wonder what it's going to be right maybe it's a maybe it's a pretty butterfly a new butterfly one's not on my boat yet he's going to invent a butterfly and every
Time someone sees that they're going to remember the covenant that's what it's going to be it's going to be maybe because Abraham's smart at one point in time God said I'm going to number your family like the stars so maybe he's going to get the rainbow of the night sky right like the northern lights and every time you see the northern lights or whatever it's going to be you'll think ah the covenant this is how my brain works I'll be like yes this amazing
Sign is going to happen and God says here's what you're going to do surgically remove the foreskin and I'm like whoa whoa you what what happened to the rainbows man give me a rainbow but I'm not Abraham we don't know what Abraham thought we know what he did and what Abraham did was he and his entire family his whole household was circumcised that day now for the last couple weeks as we know from the last couple weeks God promised God's promises to Abraham are fulfilled in Jesus and gifted to the church by
The reconciling blood of what Jesus did on the cross the promise to to Abraham that God would bless all nations comes true in Jesus and then is given to the church to go out and tell the whole world so that when Jesus says go and make disciples of all nations that's the continuation of God's blessing to all nations through Abraham and we've been made a part of that family by the reconciling blood of Christ so what exactly does that mean for us when it comes to this sign of the covenant how does circumcision fit into all of this should we be
Throwing circumcision parties alongside of our baptism parties whenever we have them that was sarcasm people before we take a peek into the New Testament we're about to look into it it's important to note that the the not the definition of but the interpretation of circumcision kind of evolved over time a couple thousand years is years past between when Abraham this covenant with Abraham happens and Jesus comes into the world and the New Testament is written and in that time the Jews have continued to be circumcised eight days old but the meaning of that circumcision in their heads has kind of changed they they've
Forgotten the covenant side of it and it's become this way for them to symbolize in their flesh that they're a descendant of Abraham and they think in their minds that because they're a descendant of Abraham they're set aside they're God's people and they're just good what was meant to be a sign to remember that the covenant has become for them a sign of I'm a descendant of Abraham and therefore God loves me in a moment we're going to look at Romans in Romans Paul is writing to the Roman church and in the Roman church there's Jewish believers in Jesus and there's also non-Jewish believers in Jesus and they've kind of in some some debate about whether or not the
Non-Jewish believers have to become circumcised in order to become real God's real family so we're going to put this on the screen this is Romans 2 says for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly nor is circumcision outward and physical but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit not by the letter his praise is not for man but from God see Paul reminds us that the point of circumcision is a matter of the heart it's a matter of faith it's a matter of commitment to God's promise that happened in Genesis 15 with the whole blood ceremony he's saying that if you think you're good if you think you're completely saved because you have a scar that was given to
You at eight days old that makes that identifies you as a descendant of Abraham you've missed the point a Paul says here that circumcision is a matter of the heart and it's your heart that shows your attitude and your disposition towards God the Jews misunderstood the sign of their covenant what God intended in Genesis 17 was that they would keep covenantal relationship with him but what they ended up believing was that they were the in crowd I'm a descendant of Abraham so I'm good right but they were wrong the sign was never about that the sign of the covenant was don't forget the blood ceremony which they'd forgotten Colossians 2 is going to come up it says in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by
Putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ Christ's circumcision is made without hands it is not a physical circumcision the sign is not physical not an external sign it's internal it's a spiritual thing that's happening verse 12 says having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead we consistently explained baptism as an outward sign of an internal change that's exactly what's going on here Christ paid the penalty Christ has already paid the penalty he fulfilled the promise made to Abraham and when when Christ died on the cross when Christ died on the cross and his blood was spilled he fulfilled everything that happened everything that was bound to happen as a result of that ceremony in Genesis 15 when God said if
You screw up I'm going to punish me and he walked through that blood that happened when Jesus died on the cross that happened when Jesus paid the penalty for our sin we no longer need a physical sign of circumcision because Jesus has fulfilled the covenant that it points to so since Jesus the sign is taken on a new form it's no longer physical and external it's internal it's surgery of the heart and it's performed not by human hands but by the Holy Spirit the sign of the covenant then shows itself through your actions and the way that you respond as a result of who you've become in Christ now this next point is important this is a comparison of how it worked then and how it works now so it's going to come up on the screen for the avid note takers who are going to want me to repeat this 50 times God's covenant with Abraham God's covenant with Abraham was marked with physical blood from sacrificial animals and the physical surgery of his people God's covenant with us is marked with the
Physical blood the sacrificial Christ and it's marked with the spiritual surgery of our hearts I'm going to repeat that once more because it's crucial God's covenant with Abraham God's covenant with Abraham was made with physical blood of sacrificial animals and physical surgery of his people God's covenant with us is marked with the physical blood of the sacrificial Christ and the internal spiritual surgery of our hearts what was a physical external sign for Israel is now an internal spiritual sign for us it is embedded and convict and we are convicted in our heart and soul and it will be evident in how we choose to behave in this world for Israel the day-to-day reminder was embedded in their flesh for us it's embedded in our soul in our hearts and in our minds in such a way that Galatians 5 says for in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith only faith working through love it does not matter if you're circumcised or uncircumcised externally as long as you have faith and it works itself out in love
So what then does it mean for us today to have this circumcised heart internal heart change leads to external actions if you've been convicted in your heart and soul it will be evident in the way that you choose to behave now let me be clear when I say the word behave let me be clear what you choose to do the physical actions you take does not affect your salvation status what you do does not affect your salvation but what you do does reflect what you believe and what you believe does affect your salvation here's the problem that I think Christians often face here's a here's a problem that I think we often face if we've been around the church for a really long time if we've been in community groups if we've been reading the word we all know the different things that we ought to do we know the kind of things that we ought to do but we also have this separate category of things that we actually want to do and we distance them we know that we ought to think when we are gonna open our way big** we know the way we're supposed to think that we are supposed to think that we are supposed to be a light in this world we know that we're supposed to hate evil and love what is good we know that we're supposed to bear Each reordas burdens we know that we're supposed to preach the gospel to all nations we know a bunch of stuff that we ought to do do, but it's not always what we actually want to do. Tim Keller, he's a well-known pastor in New York. He says it like this. He says, a circumcised heart looks like this.
When what you ought to do and what you want to do are the same thing. That's what a circumcised heart looks like. When what you most ought to do and what you most want to do have become the same thing. Now that's all well and good, but it's kind of intangible. What exactly does that mean? Well, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, where do you see change in your life? In what ways has your heart taken a new direction so that you now want to do things that you ought to do rather than what you've always wanted to do? What thing, what thing did you think you would never give up? This whole Jesus thing, this whole church thing was never going to affect my desire to do this. And if that's changed, then that is an indication of a circumcised heart. So for example, you may, you may be, I don't know, just super lazy. And your idea of an ideal Saturday is a Totino's pizza, stick it in the fridge, not in the fridge, in the oven.
Putting it in the fridge isn't going to do anything. Put it in the oven, sit in front of Netflix all day and binge watch. Who even cares? Saturday, you do what you want, right? And someone calls you and says, hey, I really need help moving this table. Will you come and help me? And you lie. You say, sorry, I'm busy. I guess that's not a lie. You've got a plan. It's just a really bad plan. And so you're lying to your friend and you say, no, I'm not going to do it. And then you go about doing what you want to do rather than what you know you probably ought to do. And then over time, you start hanging out with a community group, start reading your Bible, you start coming along to Sunday gatherings and you start learning some stuff. You start getting to know the people and you start to love the people. And for some reason, something unexplainable is happening inside of you and you actually want to help these people. And so when someone calls you and says, hey, I'm moving house this Saturday, will you come help? That actually sounds more desirable to you now. The thing that you ought to do has kind of become the thing that you want to do.
Maybe you're completely different. Maybe that's not you. Maybe you've never understood the whole Jesus-y no sex before marriage thing. Maybe that's never really, you know what people say, but it just doesn't affect you. And so you've gone from girlfriend or boyfriend to girlfriend or boyfriend. You've lived with people. You've maybe even had kids with people. And so you're living in this situation. You've got a kid, that kind of thing. And you're basically, you've got to pretend marriage. You're basically married. You never actually got married. There's no paperwork. There was no ceremony. But look, it's more or less the same thing. You just don't like labels. You don't like commitment. And the whole Jesus thing isn't really going to affect that. And then you start hanging out with church family. You see what marriage looks like in other people. You see what Jesus-honoring marriage looks like in other people in the church. And you start to think, maybe they do have it right.
Maybe that's a pretty good option. And suddenly you desire that for yourself. And so you decide, maybe we should get married. Maybe commitment isn't that bad of a thing. Maybe I should just do it. And in the meantime, maybe we should live separately until we actually get married. And what you know you ought to do, and what you actually want to do, are slowly becoming the same thing. Maybe for you, money is a big deal. Money kind of is a two-sided coin, ironically. And there's the people who are savers. And there's the people who are spenders. And so for the savers, when it comes to money, there's a number in their bank account, where if their bank account is on or above that number, they're good. They're fine. They're safe. And they know that if anything happens, they don't need to rely on anyone. They don't need to take out loans. They just know they're good because I've saved up that many dollars. And I can protect myself. I'll be okay. I'll make it through.
I'll be good. And then they've got accounts set up for the Disney trip in 15 years, and the kid's first car, and the braces, and all that kind of stuff. They don't even have a girlfriend yet, but they've planned for all of that. Money is a big comfort thing for these people. Then there's the other side, which is the spenders. And the spenders think, new Xbox. Bam, got it. New sound system. Bam, got it. Curved TVs. Bam, I bought three. These people rack up debt. Maybe they won't rack up debt. Maybe they have tons of money, but they use that money so that they get the stuff that they want. Boats, cars, flashy lights. Ooh, everything. Anything that'll make them feel good in that moment. Because that's all the stuff that they want to do. For the other people, they want to save. They want to feel comfortable because money is a buffer zone. For these people, money is what they want to spend it on things because things gain them approval or power or whatever it is that they want comfort in their own lives. And so these people, whoever it is with this money issue going on, they start hanging out with church family. They start reading the Bible. They slowly get convicted of how money should actually be spent in this world. That I'm just a manager of the money that God has given me in this moment, in this time for me to have control over temporarily now. But they see that there's actually better uses for that money. And so when someone in their community group needs help financially, they help them out. They want to help them out. When they see that the church is trying to change West Columbia, they want to impact West Columbia with the gospel message. They give financially to the work that the church is doing what they ought to do and what they want to do are slowly becoming the same thing. That's what it looks like when a heart has been circumcised.
The problem that the Jews had in Jesus day is that they remembered their circumcision, but they distorted its meaning. They pointed to their outward signs and said, look, I'm worthy because I'm a descendant of Abraham. And because I'm a descendant of Abraham, I'm good. But it's never been about the outward sign. It's never been about that. The outward sign only ever existed to point people to covenantal faithfulness in what God had done in that covenant, covenant to the promises that God had made to humanity and to Abraham in that covenant fulfilled in Jesus. That was the point of circumcision and they'd missed it. As Matt makes his way back up here, I want to ask you all, are you changing? Can you look back? Can you look back and see change? And if so, is the change that you see a changed heart? Is it just, is it just outward signs or is it a changed heart? And if so, if it is a changed heart, praise God, praise God, because what you want and what you know you ought to do have slowly become the same thing.
And you get to live in God's grace, understanding it better and better every single day, because what you know you ought to do and what you want to do are both happening at the same time. If you're only concerned with yourself or your outward appearance, then your heart isn't changing. And what you actually need is internal spiritual surgery. The answer to your problem is not a simple external change. It's an internal spiritual surgery of your heart. You know, we started this morning awkwardly talking about circumcision. And when God instituted circumcision, it was intended to remind people consistently of the blood covenant. It was supposed to seal in their flesh an identity as a people made in God's image to serve him and to love him and to have faith in the promises that he had made to humanity. The sign is not the same for us anymore.
It may no longer be a physical surgery, but we are still marked as God's people. God's surgery is of our hearts. His circumcision of our hearts is what aligns us so that what we know we ought to do and what we want to do get to become the same thing. The circumcision of our heart is what helps us to love and desire what God loves and desires. Let's pray for that in our lives today. God, I pray, I pray that you will continue to show us what we ought to be doing and help us, help us to want to do that. I pray for those in the room who look to outward signs as a means of showing that they've earned salvation. And I pray that you will perform surgery on their hearts. God, I pray that, I pray that you will continually align our desires with your desires so that what we ought to do
And what we want to do become the same thing. Amen. We have communion set up in the back. And in communion, we remember Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross. The bread represents his body which was broken for us on our behalf. And the grape juice, it represents Christ's blood that was spilled to pay for our sins. This is a thing that Christians do. So if you're not a Christian, you might want to just stay where you are. But if you're a Christian in the room, as you take communion, thank God. Thank Him for the sacrifice that He made in Christ to pay the penalty of that blood covenant. And pray for yourself that what you know you ought to do and what you want to do
Can become the same thing.
When what you ought to do and what you want to do are the same thing. That's what a circumcised heart looks like. When what you most ought to do and what you most want to do have become the same thing. Now that's all well and good, but it's kind of intangible. What exactly does that mean? Well, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, where do you see change in your life?
In what ways has your heart taken a new direction so that you now want to do things that you ought to do rather than what you've always wanted to do? What thing, what thing did you think you would never give up? This whole Jesus thing, this whole church thing was never going to affect my desire to do this. And if that's changed, then that is an indication of a circumcised heart. So for example, you may, you may be, I don't know, just super lazy.
And your idea of an ideal Saturday is a Totino's pizza, stick it in the fridge, not in the fridge, in the oven. Putting it in the fridge isn't going to do anything. Put it in the oven, sit in front of Netflix all day and binge watch. Who even cares? Saturday, you do what you want, right? And someone calls you and says, hey, I really need help moving this table.
Will you come and help me? And you lie. You say, sorry, I'm busy. I guess that's not a lie. You've got a plan. It's just a really bad plan.
And so you're lying to your friend and you say, no, I'm not going to do it. And then you go about doing what you want to do rather than what you know you probably ought to do. And then over time, you start hanging out with a community group, start reading your Bible, you start coming along to Sunday gatherings and you start learning some stuff. You start getting to know the people and you start to love the people. And for some reason, something unexplainable is happening inside of you and you actually want to help these people. And so when someone calls you and says, hey, I'm moving house this Saturday, will you come help?
That actually sounds more desirable to you now. The thing that you ought to do has kind of become the thing that you want to do. Maybe you're completely different. Maybe that's not you. Maybe you've never understood the whole Jesus-y no sex before marriage thing. Maybe that's never really, you know what people say, but it just doesn't affect you.
And so you've gone from girlfriend or boyfriend to girlfriend or boyfriend. You've lived with people. You've maybe even had kids with people. And so you're living in this situation. You've got a kid, that kind of thing. And you're basically, you've got to pretend marriage.
You're basically married. You never actually got married. There's no paperwork. There was no ceremony. But look, it's more or less the same thing.
You just don't like labels. You don't like commitment. And the whole Jesus thing isn't really going to affect that. And then you start hanging out with church family. You see what marriage looks like in other people. You see what Jesus-honoring marriage looks like in other people in the church.
And you start to think, maybe they do have it right. Maybe that's a pretty good option. And suddenly you desire that for yourself. And so you decide, maybe we should get married. Maybe commitment isn't that bad of a thing. Maybe I should just do it.
And in the meantime, maybe we should live separately until we actually get married. And what you know you ought to do, and what you actually want to do, are slowly becoming the same thing. Maybe for you, money is a big deal. Money kind of is a two-sided coin, ironically. And there's the people who are savers. And there's the people who are spenders.
And so for the savers, when it comes to money, there's a number in their bank account, where if their bank account is on or above that number, they're good. They're fine. They're safe. And they know that if anything happens, they don't need to rely on anyone. They don't need to take out loans. They just know they're good because I've saved up that many dollars.
And I can protect myself. I'll be okay. I'll make it through. I'll be good. And then they've got accounts set up for the Disney trip in 15 years, and the kid's first car, and the braces, and all that kind of stuff. They don't even have a girlfriend yet, but they've planned for all of that.
Money is a big comfort thing for these people. Then there's the other side, which is the spenders. And the spenders think, new Xbox. Bam, got it. New sound system. Bam, got it.
Curved TVs. Bam, I bought three. These people rack up debt. Maybe they won't rack up debt. Maybe they have tons of money, but they use that money so that they get the stuff that they want. Boats, cars, flashy lights.
Ooh, everything. Anything that'll make them feel good in that moment. Because that's all the stuff that they want to do. For the other people, they want to save. They want to feel comfortable because money is a buffer zone. For these people, money is what they want to spend it on things because things gain them approval or power or whatever it is that they want comfort in their own lives.
And so these people, whoever it is with this money issue going on, they start hanging out with church family. They start reading the Bible. They slowly get convicted of how money should actually be spent in this world. That I'm just a manager of the money that God has given me in this moment, in this time for me to have control over temporarily now. But they see that there's actually better uses for that money.
And so when someone in their community group needs help financially, they help them out. They want to help them out. When they see that the church is trying to change West Columbia, they want to impact West Columbia with the gospel message. They give financially to the work that the church is doing what they ought to do and what they want to do are slowly becoming the same thing. That's what it looks like when a heart has been circumcised. The problem that the Jews had in Jesus day is that they remembered their circumcision, but they distorted its meaning.
They pointed to their outward signs and said, look, I'm worthy because I'm a descendant of Abraham. And because I'm a descendant of Abraham, I'm good. But it's never been about the outward sign. It's never been about that. The outward sign only ever existed to point people to covenantal faithfulness in what God had done in that covenant, covenant to the promises that God had made to humanity and to Abraham in that covenant fulfilled in Jesus. That was the point of circumcision and they'd missed it.
As Matt makes his way back up here, I want to ask you all, are you changing? Can you look back? Can you look back and see change? And if so, is the change that you see a changed heart? Is it just, is it just outward signs or is it a changed heart? And if so, if it is a changed heart, praise God, praise God, because what you want and what you know you ought to do have slowly become the same thing.
And you get to live in God's grace, understanding it better and better every single day, because what you know you ought to do and what you want to do are both happening at the same time. If you're only concerned with yourself or your outward appearance, then your heart isn't changing. And what you actually need is internal spiritual surgery. The answer to your problem is not a simple external change. It's an internal spiritual surgery of your heart. You know, we started this morning awkwardly talking about circumcision.
And when God instituted circumcision, it was intended to remind people consistently of the blood covenant. It was supposed to seal in their flesh an identity as a people made in God's image to serve him and to love him and to have faith in the promises that he had made to humanity. The sign is not the same for us anymore. It may no longer be a physical surgery, but we are still marked as God's people. God's surgery is of our hearts. His circumcision of our hearts is what aligns us so that what we know we ought to do and what we want to do get to become the same thing.
The circumcision of our heart is what helps us to love and desire what God loves and desires. Let's pray for that in our lives today. God, I pray, I pray that you will continue to show us what we ought to be doing and help us, help us to want to do that. I pray for those in the room who look to outward signs as a means of showing that they've earned salvation. And I pray that you will perform surgery on their hearts. God, I pray that, I pray that you will continually align our desires with your desires so that what we ought to do and what we want to do become the same thing.
Amen. We have communion set up in the back. And in communion, we remember Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross. The bread represents his body which was broken for us on our behalf. And the grape juice, it represents Christ's blood that was spilled to pay for our sins. This is a thing that Christians do.
So if you're not a Christian, you might want to just stay where you are. But if you're a Christian in the room, as you take communion, thank God. Thank Him for the sacrifice that He made in Christ to pay the penalty of that blood covenant. And pray for yourself that what you know you ought to do and what you want to do can become the same thing.
Blood Covenant
Transcript
Good morning. So we will spend, I believe, some more time talking about this and praying about this in the upcoming weeks. I know in the middle of this kind of stuff, I always feel the tension of I want to I want to learn how to pray about this past week, learn how to react less like a white guy from South Carolina who grew up here and more like I belong to Jesus. And so even in my own thoughts, in my own heart responses to things, I'm just trying to grow there. And I think we'll spend some time talking about that in the next couple of weeks at some point and praying about it, certainly. But today we're going to continue our covenant series.
So we're in week five of our covenant series. We're walking through the Old Testament covenants and seeing how they point us to Christ and how they're ultimately fulfilled in Christ and how we can, as we read through the Old Testament and see how God interacted with people, begin to learn and see where that puts us and kind of how history has moved forward through the covenants. And so we're going to learn some words this morning. Because we're going to be talking about a certain type of covenant that was very common then, but is not common to us now. And so we're going to talk about suzerain vassal covenants or a suzerain vassal treaty.
And that's how you spell it, because I know all of y'all wanted to know how to spell it and be able to use it later. Basically, here's how a suzerain vassal treaty worked. And this was very common throughout history and throughout how nations organized themselves. A suzerain was a more powerful nation. And a vassal was a less powerful nation. And they would set up a suzerain vassal covenant.
And the way this worked was the suzerain, they weren't the suzerain yet, so like a more powerful nation would roll up. Usually they'd be like, you know, murdering people and burning and pillaging and knocking out smaller towns on their way to like a capital. And they'd show up and they'd be like, hey, do you want us to kill all y'all or do you want to be friends? And a lot of time the smaller nation would be like, be friends? And they'd be like, yeah, that's great. All right, here's what we're going to do.
It's going to be a suzerain vassal treaty. And the way it worked was the larger nation became the suzerain and the smaller nation became the vassal. They became a vassal state of that nation. And they would work out this covenant where the vassal basically said, we will belong to you. So they differing levels of autonomy, but they basically said, we belong to you.
If y'all go to war, we'll go to war with you. If you tell us to do something, we'll do it. If you tell us not to do something, we won't do it. We'll send you some money and you'll be our only suzerain. We won't have any other suzerains. We won't have a side suzerain.
Like you're going to be bae. Like that's what they'd say. Like you, you are straight up our suzerain. That's it. No other suzerains. And the suzerain would say, I'll protect you.
If some other nation rolls along, like I'll defend you. I will allot you a certain amount of land. I will treat you as if you belong to me. And a lot of times they were called, the suzerain would be called Lord and the vassal would be called servant or the suzerain would be called father and the vassal would be called son. But this happened all the time.
The closest thing I think we have to it now that we could easily understand would maybe be the mafia. You know how like, not really in life, I don't know if any of y'all have ever interacted with the mafia for real, but like in movies, they walk in and they're like, hey, you're going to pay us some money and we'll protect you. And the person who runs the store is like, I don't need protection. We're good. And they're like, we're going to hurt everyone and burn this place down. And it's like, oh, then I'll give you money.
Yeah. And then we'll be friends. It's like, okay, I see how this works now. Like that's kind of the system was that the suzerain was the one that had power and they would exert their authority over vassals and vassals would become a smaller servant to the larger nation. So this happens all the time.
Let's go to Genesis chapter 15. We're in pay on page seven. If your Bible looks like this, if you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. You may have it. Genesis chapter 15. So we've been looking at Abraham and God's covenant promises to Abraham.
And so we're not really getting a new covenant today. We're actually seeing God basically ratify, confirm his covenant with Abraham. So we'll pick up in verse one. Um, it starts off with the phrase after these things it's referring to chapter 14. Uh, Abraham was the patriarch of, uh, his family, which meant he was the, the head guy in charge. He was the chief of this pack of nomads that were farmers and shepherds, not farmers, shepherds.
Uh, and they would travel around with their, their cattle, their livestock. And, uh, in the previous chapter, a couple of Kings from little cities around captured his nephew. And so Abraham took 318 men that he had trained. So apparently this is a large group that he's overseeing. And they had trained men who were going to fight. They went and beat up all the Kings and got a lot back and then gave some money to a guy named Achilles.
And that's what it says after these things. So after all that happened, where Abraham was protecting his family, like a good patriarch, this is where we pick up in chapter 15. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. That's Abraham. He gets his name changed later. Um, so there you go.
Uh, Abram in a vision. Fear not Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, Oh Lord God, what will you give me?
For I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliazar of Damascus. Okay. So this was a big issue. Abram's the patriarch. His heir becomes the patriarch. So he would want that to be his son so that his name continued so that his son was overseeing the family.
What he's saying is, I don't have an heir. You've been telling me you're going to bless me and give me a nation and give me an heir. And you just said, Hey, I'm going to bless you again. And I just got a quick question. How you figure? Because right now I've got to hand over everything to this guy named Eliazar or Eliezer or whatever his name is.
The guy from Damascus. I've got to hand it over to him. And so that's Abraham's kind of response there. And so God is going to respond back to him. So Abraham's saying, Look, when I die, everything goes to him.
Like I've got to set up an heir. He's going to take over the family. So you said you were going to make me into a big nation. You were going to make me into a big family. Not if this guy gets the stuff. And Abraham said, Behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heirs. That's God reaffirming the promise. It was good news to Abraham. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars.
So God walks. He's apparently seeing this vision in the night in his tent. God walks him outside and says, Look at the sky. Look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.
So God walks him outside and says, Look up. And he's outside. This isn't Columbia night sky. This is middle of nowhere night sky. This is all the stars. Maybe you're out somewhere in the woods.
I don't know what you're doing there, but you're there. It's night. Maybe you're at the beach, but not near one of the crowded beaches. Not Myrtle Beach. But like one of the beaches that doesn't have people at it.
You know, like one of those maybe. Or maybe you just are somewhere. You grew up in the country or something. But you've looked at the sky. And there's way more stars. Because there's no city getting in the way.
There are no other lights getting in the way. There are pictures of this out in the desert in the United States. And he's staring up in the Middle East where there's no city. There's nothing. And it's just stars. Just an endless, uncountable amount of pinpricks of light.
And he's staring at it. God says, Look at the stars and number them if you can. And he's staring at it. He's overwhelmed by the number of stars. And then God says, That's how your offspring will be. And there's something in that moment that changes in the heart of Abraham.
Something in that moment when he's staring at the stars. And God's affirming this promise to him. And it says this. Verse 6. And he believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness.
So Abram believed the Lord. And the Lord counted it to Abram as righteousness. There's this moment of faith for Abram. Galatians tells us that this is actually when he was saved. This is when he was justified. This was when he was made right before God.
It was this moment of just believing God. He's staring at the stars and he believes him. He's thinking, This is how many children I'm going to have. Take that, Eliezer. Like he's staring at this in this moment. And he trusts him.
He believes. And God justifies him. Not based off what Abram does. Not based off of his own morality. Not based off of his own goodness. Just that he trusted God.
And God made him righteous. 7. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans. To give you this land to possess. But he said, O Lord, how am I to know that I shall possess it?
And he said to him, Bring me a heifer three years old. A female goat three years old. A ram three years old. A turtle dove. And a young pigeon. And he brought him all of these.
Cut them in half. And laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down to the carcasses. Abram drove them away. Okay.
That got weird. Abraham says, How am I going to know that you're going to fulfill this promise? And God says, Bring me some animals. And Abraham brings them. And then just chops them up. Seemingly out of nowhere.
Like you wouldn't want Abraham to pick up your dog from the vet. I'm going to get off work late. Go by and swing up and pick up mittens. You come home. Mittens? Like you wouldn't want this to happen.
Like Abraham, It seems this was like a terrible, He told you to bring you animals. It's a good thing Noah didn't have this plan. Go get all the animals, Noah. I know what you want. And Noah just starts making kebabs. And God's like, This was terrible.
No. He apparently, Apparently, Abraham knows something we don't know. Apparently, Something's going on here. That while you and I may be terrified. And like that was, He just said, Get animals. Why did you, What on earth were you doing?
I can't carry the way getting the animals. Like no, He knows something we don't. All contracts, All covenants, All agreements are socially based. Like the way we go about affirming an agreement. Have social, Cultural, Bounds to them. So, Imagine, Like one of the things we do is a handshake.
Let's say you didn't know anything about handshakes. So you're watching two guys negotiating. And it's getting intense. And they're going back and forth on price. And then finally, One of them juts his hand out at the other one's torso. While staring into his eyes.
His hand lingers there for a moment. While the other one stares back. And then his hand reaches back out. They clasp hands together. And then shake vigorously. And then stop talking.
That might be weird if you didn't know about handshakes. We're like, Yeah, It's a handshake. The reason Abram started cutting up these animals. Was that he knew something was going on that we don't know about. This was the normal way. That they would ratify.
That they would solidify a covenant. Similar maybe to a marriage ceremony for us. Where it's a normal way to do this. So when God says, Go get these animals. Immediately, Abram says, Ah, We're going to have a blood covenant. Ah, We're going to do a suzerain vassal treaty.
That's the covenant we're about to have. So when Abraham starts cutting these animals up. He knows why he's doing it. And here's why he was doing that. When you ratified. When you had a solidified an agreement.
When you had your ceremony. The reason they would cut up animals. Was because it signified the curse of the covenant. This is what would happen to you. If you broke the covenant. We actually have a decent amount of these still written down.
That we have copies of. From around this time period. One of the things says. That the vassal is to not turn his eyes to anyone else. So he's going to be a vassal.
And this other nation is going to be the suzerain. And the vassal is not to look to anyone else. But his eyes are going to be solely focused on him. And then when they begin talking about the ratification. We have a copy of some of the ceremony. And it says this.
It says a guy named Matti Elu. Is going to be the vassal. So if you're looking for baby names. Jot that one down. Matti Elu. He's going to be the vassal.
And here's what it says in there. They're a written down copy of this. It says. This head is not the head of a spring lamb. It is the head of Matti Elu. It is the head of his sons.
His magnates. And the people of his land. If Matti Elu should sin against this treaty. So may. Just as the head of this spring lamb. Be cut off.
The head of Matti Elu. Be cut off. And his sons. And his magnates. And it keeps going and naming other body parts. This shoulder is not the shoulder of a lamb.
This. It goes through. So when Abraham's chopping these parts up. He knows. That the reason he's cutting them up. Is because this is me.
This is me as the vassal. If I break this covenant. He's promising to obey God. He's promising. Saying. Whatever you tell me to do.
I'll do. Whatever. Tribute you tell me to bring. I'll bring. Whatever you tell me not to do. I won't do.
And he's promising. I'll be wholly devoted to you. And when he's cutting up these animals. He knows. He's thinking through. This is me.
Five animals had to die. He had to cut a goat. A heifer. And a ram. In half. He didn't have to cut the pigeons in half.
And the turtle dove. But five animals die. And the whole time. Abraham's thinking. This is me. If I break this covenant.
If I disobey God. Or if I look to someone else. As my God. As my suzerain. As my Lord. This is me.
It's a very intense moment. For Abraham. This is how they did this all the time. So what they would do. Is they would lay the parts. On one side or the other.
They'd let the blood mingle in the middle. And then they would walk through together. And as they were walking through. The suzerain was proclaiming. I will be your suzerain. I will protect you.
I will hold up my end of the bargain. And if I don't. You can make me like these animals. And the vassal was saying. I'll obey you. And I'll be devoted.
Only to you. And if I don't. You can make me like these animals. This blood is my blood. That body is my body. This life that was.
Shed. Is mine. This life. That died. Was mine. This life is my life.
That's what they were. That's the deal they were going to make. So when God says. Go get some animals. Abraham knows exactly what's happening. And I'll just say.
I think they broke covenants less often. Because of. How they did this. I just. I think that was the case. It was a little bit more intense.
When they made a deal with somebody. Than maybe a handshake. So if you go to Verizon Wireless. They're going to put you in on a two year contract. You know what I'm talking about? Like you go in.
And they're going to. Like this whole wall. Is just iPhones. And Samsung Galaxy. Things. And Motorola's.
And Nokia's. And all that stuff. This wall. And then you pick one out. And you go up there. And you're like.
I want to do a two year contract. And I want to get the rebate. And I want these many minutes. And I want the family plan. Or whatever. And then they go in the back.
And they start doing stuff on the computer. And they come out with a chicken. And they lay the chicken on the table. And they get a. It's kicking around and stuff. And they hold a big knife.
And they go. Are you sure? You want to do this deal? Two years. And you say. I'm sure.
And they go. This is you. If you break the covenant. Blood goes everywhere. And you're like. Deal.
And that way. When Sprint comes on. And they're like. We'll buy out your contract. You're like. No the heck you won't.
You better send somebody with me to Verizon. I saw what happened to that chicken. Wearing a Sprint t-shirt. Hey. He said he'd make good on this. I'm out.
That's what they were doing. So. He cuts up these animals. And Abraham is saying. Okay. God.
I'll make this deal with you. God says. Go get these animals. Abraham goes. And he cuts up all these animals. He sets them aside.
And he's standing over them. Having to protect them. From birds coming down to get them. Because he's making this covenant with God. That in his blood. In his life.
He's laying it on the line. And saying. I'll follow you. If you'll be my suzer. And I'll be your vassal. I'll obey you.
And I'll be devoted completely to you. Alright. Pick back up. Verse 12. As the sun was going down. I didn't notice this till this morning.
It's a different day. From when he made him go outside. And look at the stars. So. It took a while. To cut these animals up.
Maybe it's the next day. Maybe this is just later in time. But the sun's going down at this point. So he's. Been guarding these animals. A deep sleep.
Fell on Abram. And behold. A dreadful and great darkness. Fell upon him. So. This is the presence of the Lord.
Descending to where Abram is. So he's cut up these animals. He's standing there. The sun starts to set. And the presence of the Lord comes around him. And the reason I think he falls asleep.
And this is just a made up theory. But I'm going to share it with y'all. Because might as well put it in your brains. Because. Little infants. If you like.
Play rock music to them. It just shuts them down. It's like too much. Or you just lay them next to a vacuum cleaner. It's just. It's too loud.
It's too much. And they'll just fall asleep. I used to do this with our son. I think that's why he's terrified of the vacuum cleaner now. Because I used to. When he was little.
Just lay him next to it and turn it on. Watch three hours of TV. No. I think that's what happened to Abraham. I think the presence of God was just too much. God comes down.
And his presence just overwhelms Abraham. And that's why he says. A deep sleep fell on him. It's the presence of God comes among him. And it. It just wears him out.
Again. That's just a theory. All we know is he fell asleep. And the presence of God comes. 13. Then the Lord said to Abram.
Know for certain. That your offspring will be sojourners. In a land that is not theirs. And will be servants there. And they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment.
On the nation that they serve. And afterward they shall come out. With great possessions. As for you. You shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age.
And they shall come back here in the fourth generation. For the iniquities of the Amorites. Is not yet complete. When the sun had gone down. And it was dark. Behold.
A smoking fire pot. And a flaming torch. Passed between these pieces. On that day. The Lord made a covenant with Abram. Saying.
To your offspring. I give this land. From the river of Egypt. To the great river. The river Euphrates. The land of the Kenites.
The Kenizzites. The Kadmonites. The Hittites. The Perizzites. The Rephaim. The Amorites.
The Canaanites. The Girgashites. And the Jebusites. Jebusites. Okay. Go back before we read all those names.
And your brain was completely erased. Verse 17. When the sun had gone down. And it was dark. Behold. A smoking fire pot.
And a flaming torch. Passed. Between. These pieces. On that day. The Lord made a covenant.
With Abram. Okay. Maybe. Maybe y'all picked up on this. You would have. If you came from Abram's time.
Something really weird. Just happened. They did. The ceremony. Wrong. They did it wrong.
Abram didn't walk down the middle. They did the ceremony wrong. See. Abraham was cutting up all these pieces. He was laying it down. He and the suzerain were supposed to walk through.
If only one person walked through. It was supposed to just be the vassal. The suzerain could sit back. And the vassal would have to walk through. And just say. This is me.
If I fail. This is me. If I disobey. This is me. If I. If I look to someone else.
This is me. If I don't give you complete devotion. But. Abraham doesn't walk through the middle. And this immediately should stand out to us. It doesn't.
Because we're culturally distant from them. We're like. That sounded great. They did it. So again.
I said. One of our. One of our ceremonies that we do. That maybe we're more familiar with. Is a wedding. I get to perform weddings every once in a while.
I enjoy performing weddings. It's a little bit nerve wracking. I write down exactly what I'm going to say. Word for word. Some of y'all have been around long enough. To know what happens when I just start.
Winging it on jokes and stuff. Like it can get really weird. And people tend to remember their wedding. And not forgive you for stuff. I've found. So.
I write down. Word for word. What I'm going to say. I practice it a few times. Then what happens at the beginning of the wedding.
Is. Me and the groom. Go stand. Up front. We've done a couple here. We just stand.
Right there. Everybody's already here. Groom and I are standing. This is. I think. For a couple of reasons.
One. The bride. At this moment. Has her chance to leave. The groom does not get to leave. He is stuck.
He would have to run out. In front of everybody. And this helps keep him here. But the bride. She's got like. I mean.
I'm pretty sure. As soon as we come out here. Someone's like. All right. Where you want to go. Which way.
We can go this way. To the parking lot. We can go this way. Into the. Like there. There.
You know. Somebody's back there. Consulting her. Usually she does decide to come in. But we stand here.
He is wearing a suit. That matches all these other guys suits. He could pass out. We would just slide him out of the way. They would bump down. No one would even notice.
Like that. We're just standing here waiting. I usually at this point. Feel pretty good. Like I'm ready to go. This guy.
Sweating bullets. Looks like he's going to throw up. It's really enjoyable. I'm like smiling at people. He's trying to keep it together. Then.
Music starts. Whatever. And then like. The bridesmaids start coming in. And they're. They are wearing some oddly colored dresses.
They're not wearing normal colors. They're wearing. Turquoise. And periwinkle. And coral. And sea foam.
And ocean spray. And Sierra mist. Like they've got. All these different. Colors. That you've never heard of.
And they come walking down. And they line up over here. And then everything stops. Music stops for just a second. The doors close. They close them.
Just to reopen them. They're just like. Okay. And they open them back up. And then the music starts up. It's different music.
Music. And I won't try to do it. Because I always get that one. The death march. And the star wars thing confused. And I can never start the one I want.
But it's the one that's about the bride. Or whatever. And then she comes in. And everybody has to stand. And everybody has to look at her. And she walks down the aisle.
And somebody's holding her arm. And they just float down here. And everybody has to stare at them the whole time. And they turn. And then you're supposed to stare at her. For the rest of the time.
And that's how this is done. And then different things happen. They say different things. Sometimes they're communion. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they tie a knot in a rope.
Sometimes they pour sand all over the place. And they set something on fire. But like. That part happens. Pretty much everywhere that part happens. If you were at a wedding.
And when you walked in. The bride was standing up here in her dress. Your first thought would be. I'm really late. But then you would notice the groom wasn't there.
And the people were still sitting around talking. And you would think. Okay groom's not here. That cat must have left. She didn't seem stressed out. People were talking.
I'm just going to sit down. I'm going to ride this out. And see what happens. And then music starts playing. And groomsmen start walking in. And they're wearing.
Seafoam or whatever. And like they walk in. And then doors close. Music changes. Opens. And the groom just comes walking out.
He's just. You know. He's pointing at people. He's smiling. And he walks down the middle. You would think.
They did this wrong. This was super weird. And I wonder why they did it this way. Like they're making a statement. Yeah. A statement was made.
And you'd be like what? And you'd be like. I don't know. I don't know. Something though. It was weird.
That's what just happened. Abram doesn't walk down the middle. And immediately. Everybody went. Well that was weird. That is not how that should have happened.
They did this wrong. They're making a statement. God doesn't know how to do covenants apparently. Like that's what it looks like. So. Yes.
For most of us. I think. We approach God. The way Abram was about to. We approach him with this. There's certain promises you give.
You're going to bless me. You're going to protect. You're going to give me wisdom. You're going to help me through life. You're going to provide for me. Eventually you're going to let me go to heaven.
That's his side of the deal. And our side of the deal. Is what Abraham was cutting up those animals saying. I'll obey. I'll read this. I'll figure out the stuff you like.
And I'll try to do that. I'll figure out the stuff you don't like. And I'll try not to do that. Like I'll obey. I'll be good. And.
I'll worship only you. That's the deal. I'll be good. I'll worship you. You'll hold up your end. That's the deal.
And for a lot of us. That's how we approach it. We're like Abraham. We're like. Yeah. That's the deal.
That's what Abraham was cutting up the animals. He knew what he was getting into. But see like Abraham. I think we're. While we're doing that. Abraham wasn't thinking about God.
While he was cutting up the animals. I don't think. I think he already. He said he already believed in God. He already knew that God could hold up his end. I think if I was Abraham.
And I was having to cut up. And kill. Five animals. Before a covenant ceremony. I would be thinking about me. And every time.
I had to kill an animal. I would think. Can I hold up. My end. Of the deal. Can I hold up my end of the deal.
Can I obey. Can I actually do. What God tells me to do. Can I. Can I. Whatever that is.
Like now. We're Christians. So we're reading the Bible. We're saying. That's. That's love people.
That's sacrifice. That's be generous. Can I actually do that. Can I not do the other stuff. He says. Can I.
Be moral. And good. And then. Can I completely. Be devoted to him. I think that's what Abraham was thinking through.
And for a lot of us. That's what we think. The deal is. So. Some of you. Have avoided.
Becoming a Christian. Because you're looking at it going. I can't do that. I can't be good enough. I was in. Until I heard the thing about sex.
I'm not allowed to have sex with anybody. Unless I'm married. I was in. Until I heard the thing about money. I was in. Until like.
I can't do that. I can't. Be good enough. I can't. Live up to these rules. So I'm done.
I'm out. I'm not making that deal with God. Some of you. That's. That's where you stand. And others of you.
Are like. What I think Abraham was thinking. Which is. I can do this. And you think that's your relationship with God. You've walked down the middle with him.
And you've said. I'll obey. And I'll be devoted to you. And that's our deal. And you're trying really hard. To do that.
Obedience. Let's look at this for a second. Obedience is. I'll not do the stuff you tell me not to do. Was that clear. If you say not to do something.
I won't do it. So you're looking through the Bible. Trying to figure out what all the things it says don't do. And you're trying not to do them. And that's good. You're trying to obey.
I'm not going to talk like that. I'm not going to go to those places. I'm going to avoid this type of situation. I'm going to stay away from this. I'm going to try to control this. I'm not going to eat too much.
Or drink too much. I'm not going to. I'm not going to party. I'm going to avoid all these. Like I'm going to be moral. And then you try to read the stuff you're supposed to do.
I'm going to love my enemy. I'm going to love my neighbor like I love myself. I'm going to think of others more highly than myself. I'm going to put other people first. I'm going to be radically generous. I'm going to give up my time.
I'm going to give up my money. Like this is getting harder. And then I think we think the third one is the easiest. I'll be devoted just to God. And it's actually the hardest one. Because we think what it means is don't also worship other gods.
Like don't also worship Islamic gods. Don't also worship Hindu gods. But really what it means is don't look to anyone else or anything else for your protection. Your comfort. Don't look to anything else as what is going to make life good for you. And as soon as it turns into that we'll make a suzerain out of anything.
Money becomes that so quickly. It'll protect me. It'll make life good. A relationship becomes that so quickly. This will help me know I'm loved. This will help me know I'm okay.
If I can just have my kids turn out this way. If I can just have a spouse like this. And suddenly we realize we've run around everywhere trying to find something else to provide for us. To protect us and to make us okay. And so Abraham was cutting up these animals thinking. I'm going to walk down the middle and I'm going to make this deal with God.
But that's not what happened. The ceremony was different. Let me tell you what happened. See they would walk down the middle and here's what would happen. The suzerain would be saying. I'll do what I said.
I'll keep my promise. I'll provide for you. I'll protect you. I'll be your suzerain. And if I don't you can kill me. And the vassal would say.
I'm going to obey you. And I'm going to be devoted only to you. And if I don't you can kill me. But Abraham didn't get to walk down. A smoking fire pot and a torch did. It was just God that went down the middle.
And here's how the promise worked. God said. I'll provide for you. I'll fulfill my covenant. I'll fulfill my promises. And if I don't.
You can make me like these animals. This will be my blood. This will be my body. This will be my life. And you'll obey me. And you'll be devoted only to me.
And if you don't. You can make me like these animals. This will be my blood. This will be my body. This will be my life. God looked at Abraham.
And said. You're going to obey me. You're going to be devoted only to me. And if you don't. I'll kill me. This will be my blood.
This will be my body. This will be my life. And in Jesus. God made good on that promise. Because Abraham. Didn't keep it together.
And we. Didn't keep it together. We didn't obey. We weren't completely devoted. And in Jesus. God kept the covenant.
Isaiah says it this way. Talking about Jesus. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed. For our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement.
That brought us peace. And with his wounds. We are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone. To his own way.
All of us. Broke that covenant. All of us. Ran from God. All of us. Fell short.
And the Lord has laid on him. The iniquity. Of us all. God. Signed both ends of the covenant. And in Christ.
Kept the deal. So for us. As Christians. The invitation. The invitation. The invitation is not.
The gospel is not. Going to God and saying. I will obey. And I will be devoted to you. And if I can keep that together. You will save me.
I will obey. And I will be devoted to you. And if I can keep that together. You will love me. I will obey. And I will be devoted to you.
And if I can keep that together. You will not destroy me. But I will have a home. And I will have a family. You will be a father to me. I will be a son.
You will be a Lord. I will be a servant. It's not that. The gospel is this. I couldn't obey. I couldn't be wholly devoted to you.
But I, like Abraham, who had faith, trust, that that blood wasn't my blood, it's Jesus' blood. And that body wasn't my body, it's Jesus' body. And that life wasn't my life, it was Jesus' life. As a Christian, we get to walk down the middle of the aisle and say, Jesus' blood is covering me. Jesus' body laid slain for me. Jesus' life was given up for me.
Jesus took the curse of the covenant so that we can have the blessing of it. Jesus took the curse of us falling short so that we could have the freedom and the hope and the life that is offered through him. Jesus was slain on a cross. Jesus was laid in a tomb. It wasn't the head of Abraham. It wasn't the body of Abraham.
It wasn't the blood of Abraham. It was the body and blood of Jesus. That's why Abraham didn't get to walk down the middle. It was a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, as if the father and son walked down the middle. And Jesus said, I'll keep good on this promise. This will be my blood and this will be my body and this will be my life and I'll keep good on this promise.
They'll obey you and they'll be devoted to you. And if they don't, you can kill me. And that's the gospel. That's the hope we have. Not that we can be good enough, but that Jesus already was. Not that we can pay the debt, but that Jesus already has.
And let me tell you what happens when we forget that. When we misunderstand that. Some of you, it's already happening. You, you aren't, you're, you're staying away from Christianity because you think the opportunity to you, the call to you is come be good. Come be moral. Come be a Republican.
I don't know. You think it's some sort of a come, come do these things and God will love you. Come work really hard and God will love you. Come just focus on Jesus and God will love you. Come just focus on Jesus and God will love you. Come just focus on Jesus.
That's not it at all. So you've avoided Christianity. You maybe rightly saw, I can't do all that stuff, but the response isn't to run from Jesus, but to run to him. Other of us who say we're Christians, let me show you how this shows up when we fail to believe this, when we forget that this is how this works. When we sin, when we know we've disobeyed, when we know we've worshipped something else, when we realize that we've loved money more than God, when we realize that because we see that, that we can't be generous because we need money to protect us and to save us. And we realize, Oh, that's because I don't trust God.
When we look at our relationships and realize I was willing to run away from the church to be in this relationship. I was willing to, to sin, to have this amount of comfort. I was willing to sin, to chase out. We begin to realize I had another Susan. I had something else that I was looking to for hope and health and life and joy. Here's what happens.
We feel guilt and shame. And we run away from God. We feel terrible. You sin again, doing the same thing again. You don't want to pick arguments with your spouse, but you do. It's like you can't stop.
You don't want to look at porn again, but you do. You said last time you were going to study for the test and you weren't going to cheat because they let you take the test at home, but you do. You said you weren't going to swipe things from your roommate anymore. And this, this one's the last time. So you weren't going to lie again.
Next time I get caught, I'll just be honest. But you do. Here's what happens. We sit around and we think, am I even a Christian? How do I, how do I keep doing this? How do I keep struggling with the same thing?
We beat ourselves up for two, three days, feel terrible because we've forgotten that it wasn't our body and it wasn't our blood and it wasn't our life. We don't get to atone for our sin. We sit around and we bottom out because we've forgotten that we were never on the hook for it anyway. Jesus was willing to take it. When we placed our faith in Jesus, he atoned for our sin. He took the punishment.
If you are a Christian and you are sinning, you repent and you praise Jesus that your sin is not what makes you okay or not okay with God. Your behavior, your devotion was never part of the deal. The covenant made was that Jesus was going to hold up your end of the bargain. When you sin, when the enemy comes along and says, look at how terrible you are. How on earth do you think you can go hang out with your community group and try to pretend to be a Christian and you want to hide and you want to run from God and you want to not confess this to anybody? Your response gets to be, look at how good Jesus is.
Look at how much grace he has that my sin is covered in Christ fully. And then you actually, when you see other people's sin, you get to have grace for them. You get to forgive them because you realize what made you good wasn't you, it was Jesus. What made you okay with God wasn't you, it was Jesus. You're free. But when we oscillate between feeling great and bottoming out, we oscillate between pride and how good we're behaving and fear and torment and how much we're failing, we've forgotten that we never got to walk down the middle.
That it was Jesus' blood, Jesus' body, Jesus' life for ours. And we're free. The band's gonna come back up. We're gonna take communion together as a church today. That's where we remember that it was Jesus' blood and it was Jesus' broken body. It's where we reenact that Jesus signed our side of the covenant and kept good on the promise for us.
It's where we go back and we remember that we're free and that our sin doesn't own us. But Jesus' grace has made a way for us. If you're not a Christian, don't take communion. It's not offered to you. Communion is for those who have placed faith in Jesus. Now I would tell you, if you're not a Christian, you can place faith in Jesus and you can walk right back there and you can know that this is Jesus' blood on my behalf and this is Jesus' body on my behalf and it's not about my behavior.
And my ability to be good and my ability to keep it together, it's about Jesus. That's offered to you. And Christians, you get to repent of sin and you get to believe the gospel. That it's not about your behavior, but it's about Jesus on your behalf. That he went to a cross and that he died for your sin and that you have freedom and hope and life in him forever and that God kept this covenant. God, we pray that you would help us to remember this so that when we sin, we would look to you only.
We would turn our eyes to you only. God, we pray that we would remember this so that when we're tempted to think that something else will provide us happiness or joy or fulfillment or life, we would turn from it and look to you only. And God, we pray that we remember this so that every time we fail, it would be to the praise of your glorious grace that you save sinners. That the reason you signed both sides of this covenant was because we weren't ever going to keep it together. But you wanted to save us, you wanted to redeem us, you wanted to make us yours.
God, we praise you and we thank you that in Jesus we do have life and hope and freedom. That in Christ we are forgiven. We thank you, Lord, that you don't ask us to keep it together ourselves, but that you provided fully for us through the cross. In Jesus' name, Amen.
July 10
Blessed to Bless
Transcript
What's up, fam? How y'all doing this morning? It's good to see you guys. If it's your first time hanging out with us, my name's Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm glad we clapped at the end of a song.
That was good. Yes! Yeah! All right! Praise God! I like when I get to preach because I get to listen to really good music and just sing along.
And that was really good stuff. We are in week four of our Covenant series. And here's what we're doing. We're basically walking through the big promises that God makes in the Old Testament to kind of see how do they fit in the grand, big scheme of things of God's ultimate big story. And there's a couple of things. There's a couple of things that we're trying to achieve through this series.
We're looking at it going, okay, how do all of these little stories fit into the big story? Like, what's the point? How does it all kind of work together? Also, for us as Christians, I think most of us are very comfortable reading in the New Testament and spending time studying and growing there. But sometimes when it comes to the Old Testament, we have questions about how should I actually be reading this?
What am I supposed to kind of glean from this? And so we're trying to do that in this series as well. And ultimately, we want to see how all of these promises are going to find their fulfillment in Jesus. How do these smaller stories, how these smaller promises or covenants actually fit into God's big story? So Chet started off our series a couple of weeks ago with a whiteboard on the stage.
And what Chet was trying to do was just illustrate what actually is the big storyline of the Bible. Okay, so we've actually got an image of it. But thankfully, this isn't the version that Chet drew, so you can actually read it. But this is the big storyline of the Bible, which was there is a creator God. There is a creator God who created humanity to live in perfect relationship with him. That was his intent from the very beginning, to have his people in his place, in his presence, existing forever.
That was God's design. And so he takes Adam and Eve and he puts them in a garden. And he says to them, I want you to be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth with a family that will love and will worship me. He says he wants this family to grow, this people to grow. But the problem is that Adam and Eve rebelled.
They didn't trust God. They didn't believe that God's promises to them were good. Were good enough for them. They sinned against God. And when sin entered the world, that's the fault. And it fractured that relationship forever.
The story had been changed forever. And with sin came death and sickness and shame. But God makes a promise there in the garden. He didn't make the promise to Adam and Eve. He actually makes it to the serpent. He goes, I'm going to fix this problem.
I'm going to work to restore humanity back to the place where they're my people, in my presence, in my place. And so that's the promise that God makes right there. And then you kind of trace on from Adam and Eve. You go a couple of thousand years after them. And then you end up at Noah. So you just continue down the line.
And now we're at Noah. And we looked at Noah last week. What we saw was in those thousand years, humanity just got worse and worse and worse. And to the point where God looked at humanity. And every intention of their heart was evil and wicked. But God comes and he says, Noah, I want you to build a boat.
I'm going to save you and your family. It wasn't based off of Noah being good or the most moral person. God came and promised this to Noah. And the Bible tells us that Noah was declared righteous by his faith. That God actually does have wrath for sin and for sinners. And so God wipes out humanity.
But he saves Noah. Noah and his family says, go be fruitful and multiply. When they leave the ark, it's the same thing. Go be my people in my place, in my presence. Fill the earth with a family of worshipers who will worship me. And so you continue on from Noah's line through his son Shem.
And you go a couple thousand years. And it doesn't fix the problem. And you end up at the guy that we're actually going to be looking at this morning. We're going to be talking about Abraham this morning. And not just this morning. We're actually going to spend three weeks talking about the promises that God makes to Abraham.
And here's what we're looking to do. How does the promise that God makes to Abraham today continue to move humanity forward? How does this promise get us back to the garden? How does it get us to a place where we're his people, in his place, in his presence? And we're going to look at how is this promise ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. We're going to be looking at the covenant that God makes with Abraham today.
So let me pray for us and we'll hop into the text. God, we're thankful this morning that you've given us your word. You've given us the Bible through which you reveal yourself. You tell us who we are and how we ought to live in relationship with you. And so, God, this morning, I just pray that you would make your word clear. As we look at the promise that you've given to Abraham, that it would be open to us in a fresh and a new way.
That we could ultimately see what you're doing to bring about the restoration of humanity. So, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would speak through me. I pray that you would open up your word so that we could understand it. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, grab a Bible.
You can grab one of the Bibles that are in the seats, the blue and white ones. We're just going to be on page 6. So grab it. Turn a couple of pages. We're going to be at the end of Genesis chapter 11 and the beginning of Genesis chapter 12. And right off the bat, we're kind of getting just introduced to this guy named Abraham.
So there's going to be a lot of details up front. We're not going to get bogged down in those. We just want to kind of pull out the things that are important so that we can keep moving. Okay, so Genesis chapter 11 will actually start in verse 26. Okay. Verse 26.
When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Okay. So at the beginning, we looked at the thing on the screen. That said Abraham. And then this says Abram. Okay.
It's the same guy. Later on in Genesis, God's actually going to take him and change his name and turn him into Abraham. And so I'm going to use both interchangeably today because I don't have the ability not to. So just give me some grace. I'm going to call him Abram. I'm going to call him Abraham.
Hopefully I won't call him anything else. But those two things. So this is our guy. Our guys entered the story. Verse 27. Now these are the generations of Terah.
Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran fathered Lot. Okay. So just showing some generations there. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans. Sweet name.
And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarah. And the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarah was barren. She had no child. Terah took Abram his son.
Excuse me. Terah took Abram his son and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson. And Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. And they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
The days of Terah were 205 years. And Terah died in Haran. Okay. Tons of details. Tons of names. Let me just kind of break it down for us.
Before we do that, the last verse, verse 32, the days of Terah were 205 years. You immediately read that and you're like, wait, wait, what? Was like Terah the first superhuman? How in the world did he live that long? So we kind of have a little bit of pushback on his age.
But what we have early on in Genesis is that people lived for longer than they do now. Their lifespan was hundreds and hundreds of years. And Bible scholars give us just a couple of things to kind of help rectify this for us. The first is this. Adam and Eve had the perfect DNA. And so when they sinned, that's when sickness and disease entered into the world.
And so as they were fruitful and they were multiplying and generation after generation after generation, eventually that sickness and disease began to spread, possibly being one of the reasons why ages would start coming down. Also, the Bible is not the only ancient historical document that talks about humans living for longer periods of time. And you have in Genesis 6 this little small section where God alludes to the fact that he's actually going to begin limiting the lifespan of humans' lives. So don't get tripped up on that. These are real people in a real place. And the truth is, if you can get on board with a creator God who has existed for all of eternity, it's not unreasonable to think that he allowed humans at one time to live for longer periods of time.
But these are real people. This is a real story. This isn't fiction. We've been kind of showing a map on the screen just to kind of help us see where we're at. Okay, so it says that this family started out in Ur of the Chaldeans. It's the craziest name to me.
But that's this area of Babylonia over here. Okay, then it says that Terah, he wanted to move his family towards Canaan. So he basically would have kind of followed that track to get there. But it says they stopped in an area called Haran, which is basically just kind of up in that Syria area. So this is a real family in a real place.
And we don't really know why Terah decided that it was time to move his family, but he did. He left that area and moved kind of towards the area of Syria. And there's only two things that I want to pull out of this first little bit, this little introduction. The first one is this. Abraham existed. This family existed inside of a patriarchal society.
Okay, which means that everything was based around the family unit with the oldest living male kind of being the head. So he's the one that made decisions. So when it came time for them to move to Haran, they were going towards Canaan. It wasn't like, what about Billy? What about my friend Billy? What about my job?
It's like, no, Terah made the decisions for the family. Like if they were going to purchase land, Terah made that decision. If they were going to move to another area, Terah made that decision. And here's the thing. Abram is the next in line to be the patriarch. And they understood themselves inside of this kind of family identity.
So we have this family that is uprooted from one area and moved to another one under the leadership of Terah. And Abram is the next in line to be the patriarch, which makes the second detail all the more important. Look at verse 30 again. Look at it. Chapter 11, verse 30 says this. Now Sarah was barren.
She had no child. So Abram is the next in line to be the patriarch, to be the leader of this family. And he doesn't have the ability with his wife to continue the family line. Family was hugely important in this time. It's how the older people were taken care of. They were taken care of by their children.
It's how family was passed down from generation to generation. Like this was a big deal. There would have actually been some shame wrapped up in this for Abraham and Sarah not being able to have children because they couldn't continue the line. And so even in the beginning of this story, there's this tension created where Abram's the next in line to be the patriarch. And he doesn't have the ability to continue the line of the family moving forward. And that kind of gets us to chapter 12.
So let's go there. We've kind of gotten to know Abram a little bit. His story, his family. Chapter 12, verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram.
Okay. Ears perk up. Stories just changed a little bit. Now the Lord said to Abram. Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation.
And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is a huge promise. And here's the thing.
So back to verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram. We don't know up until this point if Abram has ever had any interaction with God before. This may be the first time that the Lord has ever actually spoken to him. It doesn't tell us how he did it either. Like was it an audible voice or did he kind of give him a vision?
We don't know any of that. But God shows up and he lays out this beautiful promise to Abram. He says, I'm going to take you and your family. You're going to leave here and you're going to go to a place. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless those who bless you.
I'm going to curse those who curse you. And I'm going to make you into a great nation. So much so that all the families of the earth will be blessed through you. I mean, it's this massive promise that Abram's hearing for the first time. And here's what might have made it difficult for Abram. See, we kind of gloss over this.
But Abram existed in a part of the world that most of the cultures had kind of like a polytheistic religious view. Which just meant that there were all types of gods. So there was the rain God and the sun God and the food God. That's probably not right. But some type of crop, farmer.
Anyways, you get the point. So like a polytheistic society, so for God to show up and say, I want you to follow me and I'm going to make you into this. That was different. That would have landed on Abram's ears a little bit different. It would be similar to if I showed up this morning and just said, hey guys, last week at Glen Forest, the gods spoke to me. They did.
They told me I'm going to uproot everything and we're all going to this new land. What do you mean the gods spoke to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rainbow God and the unicorn God and the butterfly God, they came to me and said, we're moving. We're out of here. We're going to a new place.
Where are we going, Matt? I don't know. They didn't tell me. We're just going. What are we going to do when we get there? I don't know.
I just know all the families of the earth are going to be blessed through us. And we're all going with you? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, well, no, me and Katie and Emmy and you, but not you, not you, Carl. Definitely not you. Or the rest of the fam.
Just me. God's going to take my family and he's going to move us here. And at some point, y'all are looking at me going, Matt, have you had enough water today? Are you a little dehydrated? Are you feeling okay? But that's how it would have been heard.
So God comes to Abram and he says, no, no, no, you. I'm taking you and your family. This is my promise to you. I'm taking your family. I'm going to move you to this place and I'm going to bless those who bless you. And I'm going to curse those who curse you.
And out of your family, I'm going to bless all the families of the earth. And we kind of laugh about that part. But there are some serious implications at play for Abram. I mean, think about it. He says, go from your country and your kindred and your father's household. He says, leave it all.
Leave everything that you use to identify yourself. Leave everything for you that is your source of security. Leave everything that is your support system. Leave it all. And he says, go to the land that I'll show you. Not that I have shown you.
That I will show you. And Abram's got to be thinking about how hard it was just to follow his father, Terah, from Ur to Haran. And now God takes it a step further. And he says, no, no, no, no, no. Not you and your father's household. You.
I'm going to take you. And through your family, I'm going to bless all the families of the earth. See, God is again promising the same thing that he's been promising. He's trying to get us back to the place where he has his people in his place, in his presence, living in relationship with him. And this would have been so terribly difficult. But God's request to Abram wasn't based off of Abram's ability to follow or trust well.
It was based off of his own trustworthiness. And God lays out this promise before Abram. And something about God drew him to trust him and weigh the cost of the crazy risks that he was being called. And so, I mean, think about the responsibility that Abram would be leaving. He's next in line. But God says, no, no, no.
I've got big plans for you. I've got something else for you. I'm going to take your family and make you into a new family through which all the families of the earth would be blessed. So what happens? Verse 4. So Abram went.
Good. Good call, Abram. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people they had acquired in Haran. And they set out to go to the land of Canaan.
Okay. So at some point, God reveals to him that the same place his father was trying to get to is actually where he's wanting to take Abram and do all this. End of verse 5. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak at Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring, I will give this land.
So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. So Abraham goes. He trusts God and he uproots his family and his livestock and his possessions. And he heads to the land that God's going to show him. And he reveals to him that it's Canaan. And then it says God appears to him.
And again, it doesn't tell us how that happens. It just says that it does. God appears to him and he says, To your offspring, I will give this land. Now, you could infer from what he said earlier that he's going to make his family into a great nation, that he was talking about his kids. But it wasn't explicit.
And so God comes to him right here and he says, No, no, no, Abram. Through your kids. Through your family. Abram. You and Sarah are going to have children. Could you imagine how terrifying and fantastic, all at the same time, this promise actually was.
That Abram and Sarah are actually going to get to have children. And God is going to, through his family, bless all the families of the earth. It is absolutely this beautiful promise. Verse 8. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent. With Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
So God brings this promise to Abram. And with all the risk and all that's involved, he follows. He goes. He follows what God wants him to do. And he goes to Canaan. And God says, It's going to be through your family.
And in response to that, it says that Abram worshiped God. He built an altar and he worshiped God. And so you leave these verses just kind of expectant. You're just kind of excited for Abram and his family. That they're actually going to have kids. And that all this is going to just work out well for them.
So you just kind of want to see when are they going to have children? When is this family going to start being this great blessing to kind of all the other families? And so for us in this series, we're also looking at this covenant going, okay, what is God doing here to move us forward in restoring his relationship to humanity? How is God getting us through this promise to Abraham? How is he getting us back to the garden? How is he returning us to being his people in his place, in his presence?
Because it's a beautiful promise. But how does it turn out? And here's the problem. We're going to spend two more weeks looking at the life of Abraham. Looking at some of the other promises that God makes to him. But if you kind of follow Abram's life, it's not all roses.
They're this small family in the land of Canaan where there are other people and other tribes that are way bigger, way stronger than them that could destroy them, could capture them. It's a long time before Abram and Sarah actually even have kids. And once they have a child, there's drama that ensues around that, whether that child even survives. And so you get to the end of Abram's life, and it's still just kind of this small band, this small family of believers in the Middle East. And you're looking at it going, was the promise just smaller than I thought it was? Was it maybe metaphorical?
Like what was God promising? Okay, well, you continue that on. So you look, okay, maybe it's through the rest of Abram's line. So you follow the rest of Abram's lineage, but Abraham's ancestors end up as slaves in Egypt, and then Moses leads the slaves out of Egypt back into the land of Canaan. And they kind of start becoming this thing. They start becoming kind of this nation thing, but they keep chasing after other gods, and they don't follow God well.
And so they basically get ping-ponged back and forth between empires for hundreds of years. And then you get to the end of the Old Testament, and you're like, where does it happen? When does God make this wonderful, this beautiful family? We're here. If we're looking at the timeline, this is where we're at. The promise has been made to Abraham, and we're looking down the line going, where?
How does it come true? It didn't come true right in Abraham's life. Where does it come true? And the New Testament's answer to that, surprise, surprise, is that it comes true in Jesus. The promise is made to Abraham, but it's fulfilled in Jesus. And so we're going to look at Galatians chapter 3 to kind of get a picture of this.
You can turn there. We're actually going to put it up on the screen. We'll read through it in just a second. But this is Paul. He's talking to the church at Galatia about, like, what is the nature of salvation? What does that even look like?
And here's part of how he explains this. I know it's kind of small. You can flip there if you want to. Here's what it says. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Okay, so verse 8 says that when God came to Abraham and he made this promise, he was actually preaching the gospel. So that changes our understanding. This isn't just a promise to Abraham. This is the promise. This is the promise of the gospel. This is what Chet said at the beginning.
This is everything that we celebrate. Well, how is that possible? It was supposed to come through Abraham. It does. Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, comes through the line of Abraham. So that when Jesus comes, fully God and fully man, Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life in relationship to the Father that Adam and Eve were created to live.
He does it perfectly on our behalf. And then he goes to the cross and he dies there on the cross. And at the cross, he takes the wrath that was poured out on humanity at the time of Noah. The wrath that we deserve so that salvation could come not just to Abraham's line, not just to the Jews, but it could come to everyone. It says that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. That's everybody else.
That the way God fulfills this promise is that he makes it to Abraham and it's fulfilled in Jesus. When Jesus dies on the cross, salvation is now open to all people. It can be received by faith. And it continues. Look at the way he ends the chapter. This is Galatians 3, verse 29.
It's going to be up on the screen. It says this. And if you are Christ's, okay, if you belong to Christ, if you have placed faith in Jesus, if you are a Christian, if you have repented of your sin and he is your Savior and your Lord and your King, okay, if you are in Christ's, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring. So that family that God promised to Abraham actually comes true in the people that would place faith in Jesus. It's a family of faith, not a physical family. Then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
And so for all those that have placed faith in Jesus, we're the offspring. And if we're the offspring, that means we're the heirs. Heirs of what? The promise. The promise that God made to Abraham all the way back. Flip back.
Look at it again. Genesis chapter 12. This is what he says. We're going to read it again. Chapter 12, verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you. I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. God's next step for humanity through this covenant was to bring us back to the place where he had a people that could be in his presence.
The promise is made to Abraham and it's fulfilled in Jesus. And so when we're looking at this, and actually, if you look at the map again, that kind of timeline, we're going to pull it back up. The promise is made to Abraham. It's fulfilled in Jesus and then it's gifted to the church. All those that have placed faith in Jesus are now heirs of the blessing. They're heirs of the promise.
And what's the promise? It's the same promise that God gave to Abraham. It's the promise of the gospel. It's that Jesus actually gets to die for your sin in your place. That he gets to take the wrath that we deserve. That we could actually be saved through faith.
Not through family line. Not through lineage or anything like that. And that's the gospel. So if you're sitting here this morning and you're wondering, what does it mean? What is this gospel that you're talking about? What does it mean to actually follow Jesus?
What does it mean to be a Christian? It's this. It's this. That you can't be good enough to earn it. You can't live a good enough life. You can't be moral enough to earn your way into this family.
To earn your way into being an heir of this promise. And you can't be so bad that the promise doesn't land on you. That's the good news of the gospel. Is that you can repent of. That's what the Bible says. You can repent of your sin.
And place faith in Jesus. And become an heir of that promise. And so it's actually this. It's gifted to the church. But it's also carried out through the church.
God comes to Abraham and he says, Through you, I'm going to bless others. I'm going to bless you. So that you will become a blessing to others. And that's the church. We're the carriers of the good news. Like the good news of the gospel that's been given to us.
It's the same thing. God wants us to carry it out to all people. And that's what we want. We want for everyone to believe the gospel. To hear the gospel. To be changed by the gospel.
And so as we were kind of clicking into this story today. If you're familiar at all. With the story of Abraham. And you knew kind of about the blessing. You probably weren't surprised. When you saw it fulfilled in Jesus.
And it's not really a surprise. That for those that have the promise fulfilled in Jesus. That it's actually our gift. That we're the recipients of it. And if that's true. That we're the ones who are supposed to continue.
Carrying that promise. To the ends of the earth. But here's the deal. I want us to sit here for a second. I think you can know this promise conceptually. Without it ever affecting your heart and your life.
I think you can hear this promise. The fact that salvation comes through Jesus. It's been given to the church. And it's supposed to be extended to other people. Through the church. I think you can hear that.
And believe it conceptually. It's like yeah. Yeah. I know the promise. But never have it actually affect your life.
That you can hear us talk about the fact. That this is the promise of all promises. And it can just kind of become a promise. As Chet said in the beginning. It's the story. And it just becomes another story.
It goes from being the good news. To just some good news. And the truth is. That the gospel has been given to the church. To carry out. The church is actually the means.
That God is going to use. So that all the families of the earth will be blessed. It's the good news that the church cares. But here's what can happen. Here's what happens. If you don't actually believe that this is true.
Maybe you know it. But it hasn't affected your heart. It's not affecting your life. You'll let other smaller stories. Other smaller promises. Be the thing that controls your life.
Your life will be wrapped up in those things. In those stories. In that news. Because the truth is. We all love to talk about stuff. We love to be excited.
And to be passionate about things. And the truth is. If this isn't the promise. Other smaller promises. Will actually begin to get in the way. Of the good news.
That we get to exist in. And we get to share with others. And here's how that shows up. We love to talk to people about how. If they'll just put 5% of their money back into savings. That they'll be able to retire at 70.
We love to talk about our favorite college football team. We'll take the time to sit with someone. And say hey here's what I learned. At the last parenting seminar that I went to. Because apparently parents go to those. The last parenting seminar I went to.
And here's how you can get your kids to eat greens. And we can get wrapped up. And talking about the two candidates that we have. Our favorite places to eat. We'll tell people about all sorts of stuff. Without ever actually taking the time.
To tell them about the good news. To tell them about the promise. And we'll sell it for smaller stories. And the truth is. When we do that. When our lives aren't centered around the gospel.
And we're not actively sharing it with people. It's because we're not actually believing. That this is the good news that changes their lives. And the truth is. Maybe talking about college football. Or where you like to eat.
May make life more enjoyable. And better for just kind of a short little while. But it all ends up at the same place. And it's without Jesus. This promise has been gifted to the church. And it's supposed to be extended to others.
Through the church. Here's what happens if you don't believe that. Here's what happens if you don't believe that. This is the promise. The good news that can change people's lives. You'll see your job at work.
As only an 8 to 4. Or a 9 to 5. Or a 9 to 6. Only a means to pay the bills. You'll show up. Do your time.
And leave. And you won't think about the people. That God has specifically placed you around. You'll take your lunch. And you'll go sit in your car. Or you'll sit in your cubicle.
Or you'll go out to eat the lunch. Rather than going. And sitting in the break room. And intentionally taking the time. To build relationships with people. Because you're forgetting.
That it's the gospel. That it's extended through you. You'll talk to people about their vacation. And like how restful. And how good it was. Without ever talking to them.
About how true rest. And true comfort are found in Jesus. You'll go home. And we'll forget about them. Without actually hitting our knees for them. That's what happens when we forget.
When we're not actually believing the promise. When we're not believing the promise. That it is the good news. It's going to affect our relationship with our neighbors. Our neighbors are just kind of the semi-annoying people. Who live near us.
That we wish were a little bit further away. We won't wave to our neighbors. As we're rolling our trash can to the road. Because we don't want to have to get in a conversation with them. We'll talk about how high their grass is. Rather than just grabbing our lawn mower.
And walking across the street. And cutting it for them. To show them the love of Jesus. And serving them. And if you're not believing that promise. They'll never see the inside of your home.
That's what happens. That's what happens to our money too. We believe that our. If we're not understanding. That this is the promise. The good news.
That's supposed to be extended. Through us to others. It affects the way we think about our money. We'll fret. And be anxious. And worried.
With every bill that comes. Rather than realizing. That God's the one who provides. And we get to step out in faith. And be generous. It's the same thing with our time.
You'll start thinking about your time. As. As. As just for you. It's for your comfort. Your enjoyment.
Not to be leveraged for others. Give up my weekend. I. I don't think so. That's what happens when we're not believing this promise. We're not believing that this is the good news.
Your community group is. Is just a group of people that you hang out with. They're just a bunch of people that you love. And you love spending time with. And they kind of exist for your good. And your growth.
And that when you're spending time with them. It's good. Because it's good for you. Without ever thinking about it as a vehicle for mission. To see more people come to know Jesus. So you'll have somebody new show up to hang out with your community group.
And we won't go out of our way to make them feel welcome. Or get into a conversation with them. We won't stay after and help clean up. So that we can continue to have that conversation. Our group will just exist for us. If this isn't the promise that is supposed to be extended through us to others.
We'll look for reasons to miss out on the gathering. To miss out on our group meeting time. We'll hear of opportunities to serve and to be on mission. And we'll just expect that somebody else is going to go do that. That we don't actually have to go do that. You may be sitting there right now thinking of all the reasons that you may have.
For why you're not sharing the gospel. Why you're not being on mission. You can think of all the reasons of why you haven't shared the gospel with your co-workers. Or why you haven't met your neighbors. And the problem is that it is indicative of the fact that the gospel. That story is being trumped over by some other smaller story.
Some other smaller story is actually more beautiful. More compelling. It's actually better news. It's something that we're more passionate about. We care more about than the gospel. We'll talk to people about all kinds of stuff.
But the promise that's made to Abram. Fulfilled in Christ and gifted to the church. Is supposed to be extended to others through the church. And if any of that is hitting you in the chest this morning. The Bible says just repent. Repent and believe the truth of the gospel.
Which is salvation is given to you in Jesus. And is supposed to be extended through you to others. So my question for you this morning is. What story. What smaller story is actually getting in the way of the biggest story? What's the thing that you're more passionate about.
That you care more about. Than the ability to actually give people the only good news. That changes everything for them. Where do you need to personally repent this morning? Who are the people that God's like intentionally placed you around. Called you to reach out to.
And to share the gospel with this morning. Because here's what happens if you do believe that. If you do believe that the gospel is extended through you to others. It just means that your entire life. All that you are. All that you have.
All that you do. Belongs to Jesus. And gets to be a means. That he can use to reach into the lives of others. He just wants us to be open to that. So the question is.
Is that what you want? Do you want to be open to that? Because all of us are going to fall short. All of us are going to leave work. And just miss out on an opportunity. We're all going to see our neighbor.
And just do the head duck. And keep running. The cause to repent guys. That's why the gospel is good news in the first place. Because we're not going to be able to live up. We're not going to be able to meet this expectation.
We can shoot for it. And follow after Jesus. But I want you to believe the good news of the gospel this morning. Is that this promise actually can be extended through you. To others. Isaac and Raz are going to come back up.
And here's how I want us to respond this morning. If you're sitting in the room this morning. The way that this promise is true for you. The way that you can receive Jesus. The way that you can receive the good news of the gospel. Is through faith.
The Bible says that if you repent of your sin. And place your faith in Jesus. You will be saved. That's the way in. It's not through your good morals. It's not.
It's not through. Like you can't be bad enough. For it not to be extended to you. The Bible just says repent. And to turn from it. So if that's you this morning.
If that's you this morning. We want to open that up to you. We want you to place your faith. Like that's our desire for you. We want you to know the love of Jesus. And for the rest of us.
If you're a Christian in the room. What story. What story has overshadowed the gospel. Where are you not seeing the promise. That you can extend to others. What's actually getting in the way of that.
So like. Where do you need to personally repent this morning. Where do you need to. When you get together with your community group. What's the thing that you need to talk about. Who are the people.
That God has specifically called you. To reach. To share the gospel with. I want you guys just close your eyes. I want you to think. I want you to ask.
Ask. Like where. Where am I off here. Where am I not believing the good news of the gospel. Where do I have those opportunities. God.
I pray that all across the room. That right now. Through your Holy Spirit. That you're opening our eyes. To see. Where we have opportunities.
To share the gospel. God. I pray that. More than college football. More than education. More than anything.
That can grab our heart. And become more important. I pray God. That you would. Give us a heart. And a desire.
To share the gospel. To share the good news. God. That you'll show us. Where we actually have the ability. To do that at work.
And. And with our neighbors. And with our family. And our friends. God. Help us to see.
The gospel. As beautiful. And as captivating. So that. We can't help. But go out.
And share it. God. I pray that you would. Continue to work. In our hearts. As we respond to you.
In Jesus name. Amen. You guys stand. Let's sing together.
Jun 26
The Flood or the Rainbow
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our third week of our covenant series. Grab your Bibles will be in Genesis chapter six. What we're looking at is how God kind of moves history along by making promises to his people.
If you're in one of the blue and white Bibles, you'll be on page three is where Genesis chapter six is. So here here's what's what we've been looking at is basically that God he promises people that he's going to accomplish things. He makes promises and then he keeps his promises. And much of the Old Testament is framed around these promises that God makes. And so we're trying to understand more of the Old Testament and more of how God works and more of how salvation works through studying these these covenants. And so just this chapter six, I'm going to pray and then we're going to jump in and start reading.
God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that we get to gather today and celebrate you, celebrate what you've accomplished for us through your son. And so, God, we pray that you would give us wisdom, insight and clarity as we study your word today. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. We'll be in verse five.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. OK, that's that's a problem. The Lord saw this is verse five again, that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. OK, so God's looking out at humanity and he sees just wickedness, just brokenness, that every intention of the thoughts of the heart was evil continually. Now, part of I think part of us sometimes is like, I want God to just base his judgment on me, his evaluation of me off of my actions.
Some of us, that's you. Some of you are like, no, no, no, let's pick something different. Actions is a terrible one. Let's go with something like something different, something different than actions. But others of us are going to actions are good.
Like I can kind of be a moral person. I, I, for the most part, am able to keep myself behaving. I'm for the most part able to follow some rules. But here's what it says. It based it off the intentions of their heart. So what it's saying is that it wasn't even just actions.
He was looking and seeing that when they did good actions, it was still for personal gain. It was still for personal glory. They were maybe being generous, but it was just to get somebody to like them. Maybe they were being generous, but it was just to have some control over the situation. Maybe they were going out of their way to serve somebody, but it was just for personal gain that the intentions of their heart were only evil continually. And so here's the first problem that we have.
We drew this up the first week that we started this series. And we said that we started off in Eden, that God had designed it for there to be his people in his place, in his presence. That was his plan for humanity, that he started this off there and that Adam and Eve fell. They sinned, they rebelled, and death entered the world. But God made a promise to the serpent that sin would not win.
That at some point there would come someone who would reverse this, who would fix this problem. And so we get just a few chapters in. That happened in Genesis 3. We get just a few chapters in, and it says the entire earth was covered in wickedness continually. And we have a problem, which is how is God going to keep his promise? See, he said he was going to get us back.
He said he was going to accomplish this, and now it looks like sin's going to win. And so we've got to see how is God, the question that shows up immediately is how is God going to respond to this? Like what's he going to do? Well, let's keep reading and find out. 6. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
This is very interesting, because God promised he was going to accomplish this. God has already spoken the end from the beginning. He knows where history is going, but he's in the moment with humanity on earth, and his heart is broken. He's grieved to his heart. I think part of us wants God to be perfectly stoic, perfectly removed from the situation, that he could look down on earth and go, Hmm. The humans.
I find that they are misbehaving. But like not care. There's something about us that wants God to be unflappable, unscathable, like we can't hurt his feelings. But God hurts. It's not like when I look at an anthill and think, What are they doing? Don't care.
They shouldn't be in my yard. Orthomax. Walk away. Like, it's not that. God looks at humans and cares. It says it grieved him in his heart.
So God's first response to sin is personal pain and personal injury. Like that's his first response to sin. Let's read what his second is. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. His second response to sin is wrath. God looks and sees that humanity is evil, and he responds with, I'm going to blot them out.
They have just made a shipwreck of this, and I'm going to destroy them. And there's some fairness in it, because he created them. He created men out of dirt, and then they rebelled against him, and they've harmed each other, and they've broken his heart, they've grieved him, and so his response to sin is wrath. And here's the other thing, when God responds with wrath, it means that sin is actually a big deal. He can't just sit up there and act like it's okay. So he responds with, I'll blot them out.
I will destroy them. Sin is actually a problem. Evil is actually a problem. And we want God to think evil is a problem. Correct? Like we would want a God who would say, no, evil is an issue.
I'm not okay with this. That's his second response. And there's part of us that knows this. Whenever someone sins against you, steals from you, harms your name, lies about you, breaks into your home, hurts someone in your family, what's your immediate response? We need justice. They need to be captured.
They need to be arrested. They need to make restitution. They need to pay for this. There's something when we're sinned against that immediately wells up and says, no, no, no, this isn't okay. And God's the same way. We got that from him.
This heart response and anger towards injustice, and there's some things we should be very angry about. And God is very angry, and he looks at humanity, and his heart is broken over it, but he says, I'm going to blot them out. And that makes sense. I'm tracking so far. Except for maybe killing the birds and the animals and stuff, but what are you going to do? Maybe they were mean too.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Okay, now this is interesting. God sees the earth. Everybody's evil. Hurts his feelings. Makes sense?
Okay. God says, I'm going to kill everybody. Also makes sense to me. They're all evil. You made them out of dirt. Go for it.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some of y'all have a harder time with that. We'll talk more about it. Then it says, Noah found favor with God. Now, if we're auditioning for parts in this story, we have all lined up to audition. We're all reading for the part of Noah.
I want to be the person who you like. We're not reading for random evil person number 327. I don't know if y'all know about the story of Noah. Maybe you've seen a little boat, and there were some animals and stuff. The reason there was a boat was because there was a great flood. Nobody's like, I'm here to read for the part of Drownee, number 1002.
No, we want to read for the part of Noah. We want to understand, why did Noah find favor with God? And that's a big question for us. But before we get into that, let's just talk a little bit about Noah. So Noah comes in.
God's continuing this promise. We're going to show a map here. Noah was somewhere in, this is the Fertile Crescent. That's Egypt over there. Noah's somewhere probably in Mesopotamia. We know that at the end of the flood, his ship lands on Mount Ararat.
And trust me, I pronounced that perfectly. It's up there next to the Caspian Sea, so it's a little bit off the map. Mount Ararat. If the same Mount Ararat we have is the Mount Ararat that they had. But somewhere in here, we have a lot of cultures have flood stories.
Some even base their whole timeline, their whole history around pre-flood, post-flood. We've got China has flood stories. Sumer has flood stories. Babylonia has flood stories. The Gilgamesh epic has a flood story in it. And so I've actually heard people say, when they say, oh yeah, the Bible's, it's, you know, it's myth.
They'll say, and one of the ways we know that is everybody has a flood story. I'm just going to float this back. Maybe there was a flood. Maybe it was big. Maybe everybody came out of Noah's line and later was like, hey guys, there was a flood. Because that's how we base things.
Like you don't go to, you don't go to court and they say, we have 15 people that said you stabbed them. Obviously you made it up. Obviously it's all a big trick. You didn't stab anybody because so many people say it. No, you go into jail because you stabbed a guy. Like that's how it works.
You got that many people saying it. So there's all these cultures that talk about there was a big flood. And here's, I'm just going to float this out there. I'm not a historian. Maybe there's a big flood. So we have Noah in this area.
There's going to be a big flood. But here's our question. And we're done looking at the map. But here's our big question. Why did Noah find favor with God? That's what we want to find out.
Like that's, that's a good thing to know. And here are really our two options. Let's read the next verse. Verse nine. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Jephtheth. Okay. So it seems like our options really are Noah was good. So God liked him.
He found favor with God because he was righteous, because he walked with God. But the text says Noah found favor. And then it says he was righteous and blameless and walked with God. So really our two options are God looked out. Noah was a good guy. So God says, I'm going to save this one good guy.
Or God somehow gave favor to Noah. And because God gave favor to him, Noah then is counted as righteous and blameless. Like the favor comes first. Those are the two, really our two options. Either righteousness came first and then God says, I'm going to put my favor on him. Or God put his favor on him and then righteousness comes.
So we've got to try to figure that out. And the best way to do it is looking at other places in Scripture. So we're going to look at a few places in Scripture to help us understand, was Noah perfect? Was he the righteous guy? Was everybody else terrible, but Noah was great? Because it just said everybody was terrible.
But then is Noah okay? Is he good? So Romans 3 says this. 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. So Paul is quoting this when he writes this.
He's quoting it from the Old Testament. And he's saying, they said it then. I'm saying it now. This applies to humanity. Psalm 53 says it this way. God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
They have all fallen away. Together they have become corrupt. There is none who does good. Not even one. So Genesis starts off by saying, humanity is evil, but Noah finds favor with God.
And we're told throughout Scripture, not even one. There's not one person who perfectly follows God. Not one person who's considered righteous. Not one person who is blameless. Not one person who does this correctly. So the question becomes like, how is Noah?
There's a verse in Isaiah 53 that says, Isaiah might be 56. It's in there. It's in Isaiah somewhere in the 50s. You're welcome. Hold on a second. I wrote it down.
I'm not even close. It's 64-6. When we put this online, we'll edit it and make it sound like I'm smart. Isaiah 64-6. This says that all of our righteous deeds are like filthy wrecks. They're like a polluted garment.
So my wife and I recently had a son. He is like 15 months old. It's almost a year and a half for people who don't want to do math. He's precious. We got a picture of him here. This is when he was like, I don't know, three or four months old.
Yes, look at him. When he was first born, you notice he's wearing a bib and he's just like laying on the ground. Here's why. He spit up all the time. To the point that we thought it was normal. This is our first kid.
We're like, sure, he spits up. People with like multiple times in Kid City, people would give them back to us and say, he might be lactose intolerant or something. Because it was like, all he did was like drink and then just go, and it was just everywhere. Like he just, he did this all the time. I have a picture of one of my shirts while I was just holding him. This is my shirt.
He's a little tiny baby. I don't even know how he had that much in him. You're welcome. I hope that image is seared in your brain. I had it on me, so don't act like, you know. That's it.
I was holding him and he's like, and there's just everywhere. And it was like, how did you even, like you should be deflated. Like I don't know how you're the same size. He did this all the time. He would just make that noise and then it was like, you had to like spin him around real fast, get a rag, whatever. Like we had, this was all, it became such a problem.
And also sleep deprivation was a problem. I was at Bilo by myself, but I had been so trained by him. I'm walking, I'm putting up my cart and very sleep, very tired, very sleep deprived. And there was like a, you know, like a throat gurgle kind of noise happened. Like, like you, you may, would be going to burp later or something. Y'all know what I'm talking about.
You're humans. You have some of these things. So it's just a weird noise in my throat. And my first thought was, I'm about to spit up. Like I panicked for half a second. Like, this is going to be so embarrassing.
Like I had like four thoughts stacked on top of each other. Uh, and it was like, and then I was like, oh no, I don't, I don't do that. That's just my son that makes that noise and then spits up everywhere. That would be amazing if I did, but I don't. Um, when, when God says that our righteousness is like filthy rags, we had, we had, I understand this so well. We had so many little towels around him.
Eventually you would go to pick one up to like clean up more spit up and it would make your hand gross. Like you would touch it and go, ah, it's too much on that one. You had to find a new one. At some point, it becomes no longer good for helping. Like it's just covered so that it's making other things dirty. And Isaiah 64, six says that all of our righteous deeds are like that.
They look good. They are useless. And that's what, what it says that every intention of their heart was evil continually. It means even when they were doing something that seemed nice, it was evil. It was, it was useless. And so God looks at humanity.
We're told repeatedly that no one is special. And then he says, Noah, you're special. Hebrews 11 helps us out here. Hebrews 11 tells us this about Noah. By faith, Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. So God tells him there's going to be a flood.
In reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. God, because there are no humans who are perfect, moral, good, God counts righteousness by trusting in him. He became an heir of the righteousness, meaning he received righteousness, a right standing by faith. God placed favor on Noah, calls Noah and says, I'm going to do this. Noah trusts God and God says, you're righteous and holy and blameless.
Which, at first, I want Noah to be a good guy. When I first read this, I think, ah, I hope Noah was a good guy because I want to hold on to this hope that there are good guys. That maybe we could try hard enough and be good enough, but this becomes way more beautiful, way more captivating, that God just says, I'll make you a good guy if you'll just trust me. You don't actually have to be perfect. You don't actually have to be blameless. Just trust me.
Just hope in me. And that's way better because I realize I'm not a good guy. So that's Noah. The story is set. God's going to kill everybody, but Noah found favor. Let's find out what's going to happen.
We'll start back up in 9. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. But what we're understanding there is that God counts righteousness not from Noah being a good guy, but from Noah trusting God.
Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Jephthah. How awesome is the name Ham? It's great. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh have corrupted their way on the earth.
And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh. For the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms, that's just type of wood. Make rooms in the ark, cover it inside and out with pitch.
This is how you are to make it. Length of the ark is 300 cubits. A cubit's about 18 inches, because they measured from the tip of their finger to their elbow. So if you're going to go home and try to make one of these, that's how long that is. 300 cubits, it's breadth 50 cubits. It's height 30 cubits.
Make a roof for the ark. Finish it to a cubit above, and set the door in the ark from its side. Make it with a lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark.
You, your sons, your wife, your sons, wives with you. So who found favor? Noah. Who gets to go on the ark? His wife, his sons, their wives. Just bonus people, because God showed favor to Noah.
They're blessed through him. A 19. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you. They should be male and female, of birds according to their kinds, and of animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing on the ground, according to its kind. Two of every sort shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, store it up, it shall serve as food for you, and for them.
Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. So that's Noah trusting God. So God looks at Noah, says the earth is filled with violence, and I'm going to destroy, I'm going to make an end of all flesh. And I think we're growing, because of technology, and our ability to see the earth, kind of the way God sees it. We're getting closer, because a couple hundred years ago, you knew about the bad stuff that happened around you, and that was it.
Maybe you heard, this is going on through some letters, or through some secondhand stories. You can go right now, get on CNN's website, Fox News website, the BBC, you can follow them on Twitter, and you're bombarded, with murders, shootings, tragedy, war, famine, rape, injustice. I mean, I think we're getting to start seeing a little bit the way God sees the earth, which is, he sees all of it. And there's this, something that rises up in us, and says, why doesn't God stop this? Why doesn't God just fix this? Why is all this evil going on, if God's not going to do anything about it?
Why, why is this still happening? And there's, we all kind of get together, and start saying, we've got to try to do something. I saw a tweet recently, that said, every time someone tells me, that God has more important things to take care of, I just always calmly remind them, yeah, he's not doing that stuff either. Point being, the world's messed up, and it doesn't seem like he's doing anything. Why, why is all this still happening? Why is God okay with wickedness and death?
Like, we have these discussions where people are saying, okay, here's what we've got to do. We're just going to go over to the Middle East, we're going to send in troops, we're just going to take over. The best thing we can do is just carpet bomb and take over. And other people are saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, we need to, we need to help them build infrastructure, we need to give them money, we need to come in and support them, we need to help them have democracy, because that'll fix it. And other people are going, that's not going to fix anything, we're just giving money so that they can buy bombs, we need to go take them out.
There are people who look and say, well, if we cut Israel in half, that'll make people give peace. And they say, no, no, no, we need to not cut Israel in half, we need to defend Israel, we need to help Israel take over the whole Middle East, they can have the whole thing. We have people say stuff like, we need to open our borders, and then we can be welcoming, we can be generous, and they would grow to love us. And other people are saying, no, no, no, no, we need to close our borders, and we need to build a fence, and there should be turrets and lasers, and like, sharks, like, I don't care, whatever we gotta do, they can't come in.
And we got people saying, we need more guns. That way, every time a crazy person pulls out a gun, everybody else pulls out two guns, and then there's like, 75 guns to one gun, and other people are going, we don't need any guns. Like, at some point, cops shouldn't even have guns, because they keep shooting people that they shouldn't be shooting. At some point, we should get like the UK, where nobody has a gun, and then when someone says something mean, cops run in and beat them with sticks. And the goal of all of that, is not, is there a problem? Nobody's standing up in Congress and going, I just wanted to say, that I think we should have a resolution to vote, that everything is great.
Just want to say, it's all working well. I vote we do nothing, take a year off, we're crushing it. Nobody's saying that. The argument is, how do we fix the problem? Because wickedness is rampant. I read recently, that the, that the, the crime scene investigators, because when there's a, when there's a murder, when there's anything that happens, they have to go in, they have to take evidence.
When there's something that happens, like it happened at the Pulse nightclub, this past week, they don't come in, and just clean everything up. They don't come in, and just take care of the people. They come in, and they have to investigate. There's 50, human, bodies laying around them, and they have to take in evidence. They have to try to, to get as much as they possibly can, from every single one of them. And I saw recently, that one of the hardest parts, from this last shooting, was the crime scene investigators, having to do their job, while every single cell phone, rang unendingly, as mothers, and fathers, and friends, and brothers, and sisters, and loved ones, frantically, called, and called, and called, and called, to try to see, are you okay?
And they knew, the answer was no. You're getting no information, and when you do, it's not going to be good. Nobody's answering that phone. And they had to work, while every single phone, in that place, rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, until its battery died. And the God of the universe, has always been, on both ends of that phone call. He's always been close, to the heart of those, who are getting redial, as fast as they can, who cannot sleep, and cannot find their loved ones.
He's always been there, and he's always been on the other end, where there is someone, who will never take another breath, because of the evil in the world. And our God, looked at the earth, and said, there's wickedness, and I'm going to do something about it. You see, the question we have often, is why doesn't God, stop this evil? And then we also turn around, and we look at the Old Testament, and we say, why is God so mean? Why does God kill people? And it's because God, does stop evil.
He hates it. But this story, gets more confusing. And I want us to keep reading, and I want us to see, why this is confusing. Because we have a bigger problem, we're about to run into, than why does God drown people? Go to chapter 7, verse 17. So God told Noah, to make a boat, Noah made a boat.
There was some time, where he did this, he goes and rounds up animals, God tells him to take more, of the clean animals. That has to do with, some sacrificial stuff. Not like, clean them up, and bring the nice ones. It's like, there are certain clean animals, and unclean animals. That's kind of where we are. Verse 17.
The flood continues. So Noah and his family get in, God closes the ark, rain starts. It says the ground opens up, and water starts coming out. The flood continued, 40 days on the earth. The waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed, and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated, on the face of the waters.
The waters prevailed, so mightily on the earth, that all the high mountains, under the whole heavens, were covered. The waters prevailed, above the mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep. Cubits about 18 inches, is over 20 something feet. You ever been in deep water, and you could touch your foot, and when your foot, touches the ground, you immediately think, I'll be okay. It goes, 20 something feet, above the tops of mountains. We had the flood here, in October.
Remember, some of you sat in your house, while water started coming in the door. You started grabbing as much, as you possibly could. Water rose six inches. Some of you, multiple feet. Some of you, your car was covered. Others of us sat and watched, and watched it on the news, as water kept rising.
It rained for two, three days. It rained for 40, and the water never stopped rising. Eventually, people had gathered, on the highest place they could find. The rain didn't stop. The water didn't stop. Eventually, people would have been, on top of their houses, but the rain didn't stop, and the water didn't stop.
This happened now, we'd be in, whoever could have gotten there, would be in the, the highest building in Columbia. They wouldn't have much of a view, but they'd have to keep moving levels up, as the water kept coming. And eventually, the water would go all the way up, and nobody, survived. But that's not the problem. 20. The waters prevailed, above the mountains, covering them 15 cubits deep, and all flesh died, that moved on the earth.
Birds, and livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures, that swam on the earth, and all mankind, everything on the dry land, and whose nostrils, was the breath of life, died. He blotted out, every living thing, that was on the face of the ground, man, and animals, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out, from the earth. Only Noah, was left, and those, who were with him, in the ark. The waters prevailed, on the earth, for 150 days, that's about five months. Here's the problem.
The problem, isn't that God, flooded the earth, and killed everybody. The problem, is that he didn't kill Noah. That's the issue. That's actually, what bothers me, about this text. And that's what, kind of bothers, Old Testament writers, as they go through. Not that God kills people, but that God lets some go.
That's the, that's the problem. Let's keep reading. It gets worse. We're going to go, to verse 820. So it just talks about, how Noah, begins to find out, that the water's running down, he gets stuck on the Mount Ararat.
They finally see, that the water has gone away, and they come out of the boat. Which had to be a good day. You've been in a boat, for five, six months, it's been raining, for a long time. Your boat quits rocking, that day was great. Eventually, you realize, the land is dry, and you get to leave the boat, which they were sat, on a mountain, for like a month. Just waiting, for God to say, you can come out of the boat now, to come out.
Then Noah built, an altar to the Lord, took some of every clean animal, and some of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings, on the altar. Which immediately, you're like, no don't do it, there's only two of each, you can't kill them. But he had more of them, we said that earlier, so Noah didn't mess up. Actually, there were some really cool animals, we'll never know about them, Noah killed them. Unicorns, dragons, I'm just kidding. Alright.
And when the Lord smelled, the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again, curse the ground, because of man. For the intentions of man's heart, is evil, from his youth, neither will I ever, strike down, every living creature, as I have done, while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. Chapter 9, and God blessed Noah, and his sons, and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives, shall be food for you, as I give the green plants, I give you everything.
And God blessed Noah, and his sons, and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives, shall be food for you, as I give the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh, with its life, that is its blood, and for your life blood, I will require a reckoning, from every beast, I will require it, and from every man,
From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning, for the life of man, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man, shall his blood be shed, for God has made man, in his own image. Okay, God originally made his covenant, with Adam and Eve, told them be fruitful, multiply, have dominion over the earth, he gave them all the plants, Adam and Eve were vegetarians, after the flood, God says, I'm making all the animals, afraid of you, so that it will be harder, to kill them, but now you can eat them, and then he says,
Be fruitful and multiply, he's making his covenant, with Noah again, he's making this, you're going to go do this now, you're taking over, but there's something, really weird and different, he adds in this whole section, about murder, here are the rules, on killing each other, why? Because every intention, of man's heart, is evil, the problem isn't fixed, Noah isn't perfect, Shem, him, and Jephtheth, and their sweet little wives, need to be told, don't murder each other,
Some of you are married, you're like, good advice, the problem isn't fixed, it gets worse, I mean actually, it's good news, but it's really hard to take, here we go, then God said to Noah, and his sons with him, behold I establish, my covenant with you, and your offspring, after you, and with every living creature, that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth, with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth, I establish my covenant with you,
That never again, shall all flesh, be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again, shall there be a flood, to destroy the earth, and God said, this is the sign of the covenant, that I make between me and you, and every living creature, that is with you, for all future generations, I have set my bow in the cloud, that's the rainbow, and it should be a sign, of the covenant between me, and the earth, when I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant, that is between me and you, every living creature of all flesh, and the water shall never again, become a flood,
To destroy all flesh, when the bow is in the clouds, I will see it, and remember the everlasting covenant, between God, and every living creature, of all flesh on the earth, God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant, that I have established, between me, and all flesh, that is on the earth, okay, first of all, side note, the rainbow, is not for us, to remember the covenant, because we have no control, over whether or not, it stops raining, the rainbow, is so that God,
Will remember the covenant, is what he said, I'll see the rainbow, and I'll remember, it's like a big post-it note, I'm not trying to be real sacrilegious, but it does say, he'll remember, I'll see the rainbow, I'll remember my covenant, so he's, it's raining, he sees the rainbow, he's like, oh yeah, I'm not going to drown, everybody anymore, here's the problem though, Noah, deserves the flood, and God, gives him a rainbow, no one is righteous, God has to tell them,
Don't murder each other, I have a very distinct problem, with that, is anybody else, am I the only one mad at Noah, like y'all are just okay, with this guy, like I, here's the thing, if God just came in, and said, everyone's evil, I'm going to drown everyone, I can get on board, with that, I actually would have, a little bit of a peace, about that, I'd be like, yeah, this seems fair, we haven't done a great job guys, there's some nice stuff going on, I mean we also get to see,
The nice things happening, I mean every time, anything cute happens, Ellen has them on their show, on her show or whatever, look at this kid, can play the violin, look at all these puppies, I mean half the internet, is just videos of cats, I get that, but it doesn't matter, because if God, was to come to earth right now, and say I'm going to get rid, of all the people, who would make earth not perfect, let's say he did that, let's say he just shows up, and says okay, everyone in prison, you're gone, I know some of you, maybe got incarcerated,
Incorrectly, wrongly, arrested, doesn't matter, you've broken the law, you're gone, all of you wiped out, maybe he says, okay now everybody, who's intentionally caused, physical harm to another person, you're gone, because you can't be trusted, so all those people are gone, then he says, everyone who's caused, intentional emotional harm, to another person, you're gone, if he kept going, he's not going to find, not even one, what Romans says, what Psalm says,
Not one, and you got to have two, to keep the population going, there's not even going to be, one really sad, nice lady, not one, yesterday, my 15 month old son, was playing with a water bottle, he wanted to take the top off, my wife would not let him, so he took the water bottle, and went, and smacked her in the face with it, he can't be trusted, he does not get to stay, that's true, 15 months old, not one, there's not one, that can be trusted, not one of us, would keep it together,
Not one of us, would be worthy, not one of us, can stand in front of God, and say I'm okay, I'm righteous, leave it to me, it'll be alright, I can handle it, I'll do well, not one, and then there's Noah, you see if God said, everyone's going to get flooded, sounds fair, if God stepped in, and said everybody gets a rainbow, if he turned Oprah, and was like you get a rainbow, and you get a rainbow, and you get a rainbow, like if he stepped in, and did that, I'd still have a problem with that,
Because I wouldn't believe, he was good, I would not be able, to believe he was good, because everybody, shouldn't get a rainbow, there's stuff that happens, people don't deserve rainbows, they don't, I wouldn't believe, you could not convince me, if everybody got a free pass, you could not convince me, God was loving, the reason, I would be willing, to harm someone the most, is to defend, what I love the most, and if God was able, to look out on earth, and see what's going on right now, and just go, everything's okay,
I don't know, what kind of God you are, but you don't love, you don't care, you're not on both sides, of that phone call, but here's the problem, God sends a flood, but no one makes it out, that's the issue, not why does God kill people, why does God save anybody, there are times, in the Old Testament, David, one of the greatest kings, everybody's like, King David's the greatest, David has one of his, goes and gets one of his, commander's wives pregnant, and then kills him, and then takes his wife, as his own,
And God killed David, this is terrible, and David feels sorry about it, and God's like, you're forgiven, you're a man after my own heart, and it's like, this is nonsense, there are times, where God basically looks, at people who are evil, and says, oh look at how sad they are, I forgive them, it's nonsense, why does Noah get out, let's go to Romans, chapter 3, we read a little bit of it earlier, it's going to page 611, so we're leaving Noah, he's off the boat, he made it out, God made his promises to him,
His covenant, I'm setting it up with you, I'm not going to do this again, and here's the question, it's like, okay, why do we get a rainbow, why is God not going to flood the earth again, how does this work, how does this fare, verse 21, it's on page 611, in blue and white Bible, I don't want to lose anybody, are we there, alright, but now the righteousness of God, that means his correctness, his rightness, his justice, has been manifested, shown up, apart from the law, okay,
The law is the rules, your ability to behave, Noah's ability to be good, in front of God, the righteousness has shown up, apart from that, although the law and the prophets, bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ, for all who believe, you see, Noah was made right by faith, and that same rightness, that same righteousness, is open to us, by faith in Jesus Christ, but the question is, how, and how is that fair, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned, and fall short,
Of the glory of God, if he came through, and got rid of all the evil people, he would get rid of everybody, the flood, should drown everybody, for all have sinned, and fall short, of the glory of God, and are justified, by his grace, as a gift, through the redemption, that is in Christ Jesus, so Jesus graciously, gives justification, which means, you're made right with God, through redemption, offered through him, how are we redeemed, through Jesus, whom God put forward, as a propitiation,
By his blood, to be received, by faith, propitiation, means that he absorbed, wrath, the only way, anybody gets a rainbow, is that Jesus, takes the flood, Jesus absorbed, wrath, we have wrath, coming towards us, and Jesus absorbs it, for us, and we can place, faith in him, propitiation by his blood, when he went to the cross, Jesus was taking, the wrath of God, on our behalf, for our sin,
To be received by faith, this was to show, God's righteousness, because if you're reading, the Old Testament, he's not righteous, because sinners go free, this was to show, his righteousness, because in his divine, forbearance, he had passed over, former sins, it was to show, his righteousness, at the present time, so that he might be just, meaning sin, is paid for, evil is evil, and justifier, of the one, who has faith, in Jesus,
Sin is paid for, wrath is poured out, the flood goes to everybody, except for, God in his divine, righteousness, passed over some sins, Noah's, David's, he passed over some sins, and he poured them out, on Jesus, all sin is paid for, but God, made a promise, that sin wouldn't win, okay, go back with me, elementary school, lunchroom, we show up, you got a Spiderman, lunchbox, some of you rocking,
A brown bag, some of you got, a Ziploc bag, some of you got, like a big cooler, some people like, yeah, you got a, my little pony, lunchbox, that's cool man, you're a brony, whatever, y'all can look that up, if you don't know what that is, or don't, it's not really worth your time, but there you go, alright, so we're sitting there, we all open our lunchbox, and every single one of us, has an apple, juice,
Juice box, ham and cheese, mayonnaise sandwich, with no crust, because we know what's up, bag of Fritos, oatmeal cream pie, and some of y'all are like, I want a ho-ho, we in South Carolina, we don't, get that host of stuff out of here, there's the little Debbie's, what are you talking about, you don't get a ho-ho, you got an oatmeal cream pie, sometimes you get a moon pie, but not today, you got an oatmeal cream pie, all of us, popping up in our lunchboxes, everybody has the exact same thing, who you trading with, who you trading with,
Some of y'all thought, I guess I can't trade with anybody, others of y'all thought, I could trade my Fritos, for another oatmeal cream pie, and you're correct, maybe you're like, I don't know, maybe my mom uses miracle whip, and that other kid doesn't know it, and his mom uses dukes, and I'll get his sandwich, here's the thing though, we can shuffle it around, we've all got the same stuff, it doesn't matter, if I've got more oatmeal cream pies, and you think sandwiches are better, and I tell you, oatmeal cream pies are better, we've all got the same stuff, the only way we actually get to trade, is if someone opens their lunchbox, and they got something different,
No one is righteous, not one of us, we all popped open our lunchboxes, and we all have the same stuff, the only way, we get out, the only way, we get to trade, is if someone showed up, and did what we couldn't do, Jesus, to follow our analogy, opened his lunchbox, and had something completely different, Jesus was perfect, on our behalf, so that he could actually swap places with us, because he didn't deserve wrath, he had something different, so that he could actually, exchange what he had for us, he could take our sin, he could take the wrath of God, that was deserved for our sin,
He could give us his righteousness, and then God could be just, because all sin is paid for, evil is evil, God does not sit back, and wink at it, the flood is coming, but, God is gracious, and offers a rainbow, offers grace, and love, to those who trust in Jesus, and the reason why, is because he promised in the garden, to the serpent, that sin wouldn't win, and when sin had taken over the earth, he said, I'm going to make a way, and his way, wasn't just Noah and a boat, but it was a cross, where former sin,
Could get passed over, and Jesus could pay our debt, the only way, you don't get a flood, the only way, you are not drowned, by God's wrath, for the evil intentions, of your heart, because not even one, stands before him, and is justified, is through faith in Jesus, just as Noah climbed in an ark, and said, I trust that this will take care, of the flood, we get to climb into Jesus, we get to place our faith in Jesus, and say, I trust that this will take care, of your wrath, Matt's going to come back up here, because we believe this,
Because we know, that faith, comes through the promises of God, that Jesus, makes a way for us, to have righteousness, we can respond to sin, the same way God does, it can hurt us, we can go sit next to the, our friends in the LGBT community, right now, and put our arm around them, and say, I'm sorry, I know you're scared, I know you're confused, I'm sorry, this is sick, this shouldn't have happened, I love you, we get to hurt, with those who hurt, and we get to fight injustice,
We get to hate sin, and we get to do all of that, from a place that knows, I'm no better, I'm not righteous before God, I'm not good, I'm not holy, I'm not the standard, I trust Jesus, to make me right, we get to actually, give good news, which is, all of us deserve a flood, but Jesus is willing, to take it on your behalf, we said last week, that all of us, had lined up behind Adam, all of us had chosen sin, truth is, all of us deserve, a flood, but God promised,
That sin wouldn't win, Jesus paid for it, so that we might have, faith and life, and hope, and if you're here, and you haven't placed, your faith in Jesus, I just want you to know, that's all it takes, you don't have to be good, you don't have to be right, you get to trust, God to make you right, through Jesus, to take away your sin, take away your wrath, through Christ, that's the hope we have today, God, we thank you, thank you for your grace, God we thank you, that when it seemed,
Like you were being unfair, when it seemed, like you were being unjust, to let sinners go, that you had a plan, and you had a promise, that you were going to, make sin be paid for, but that you were going to make a way, that we could go free, and God we thank you, for the cross, we thank you, that Jesus loved us enough, to take your wrath, on our behalf, as a propitiation, to take the flood, so that we could receive, grace, and favor, and righteousness, God that we could be, counted right,
As Noah is counted right, that we could stand before you, and be called blameless, because Jesus was blameless, on our behalf, and our blame has been shifted to him, and our debt has been paid by him, and we can go free, God I pray, there wouldn't be a person, in this room, that would ever have to face, the flood of your wrath, I pray God, that no one in this room, ever stands before you, on their own merit, on their own work, on their own two feet, I pray that every single one of us, hides behind the cross, I pray God, that your wrath, for our sin,
And our wickedness, and the evil intentions, of our heart, was poured out fully, and justly, on Jesus, and that every single one of us, can stand before you, welcomed, and loved, and spoken highly of, not because we're good, but because Jesus, swapped places with us, and God I pray, that more and more people, in this city, will come to know, the grace that is offered, through you and you alone, in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Jun 19
The Serpent and the Savior
Transcript
The Old Testament is kind of framed up over these five major covenants, these major promises that God makes to different people and to kind of the nation of Israel and then just these promises He really kind of makes to humanity in some ways. And so we're going to be walking through looking at how those promises ultimately find their fulfillment in Christ how we can better understand the Old Testament and how we can ultimately better understand Jesus through studying these covenants. And so what we're going to be doing a good bit is reading stories from the Old Testament. And I think, and maybe this was just me, but it seems like you would kind of think the Bible was mostly rules.
Like it would be mostly God saying, here's how life should work. I mean, there's like a section on marriage and then there'd be a section on work and there'd be a section on, like it would just be kind of a framework, a guidebook for how things should run. But when you start reading the Bible, it's long stories. It's a lot of history. It's a lot of telling these interactions of people. And I think one of the reasons is because that's really how life works.
When you get to know people, so like maybe your grandmother, your great-grandmother was very frugal. She, when she used bar soap, when it got really small, she didn't throw it away. She put it in a jar and she'd put it with other bar soap. And then eventually she'd fill that up with water and use that as hand soap. Maybe you've met people who do things like this. And like maybe at this point in her life, you're like, you have, like I'm pretty sure you don't have money under your mattress.
Your mattress is made of money. Just throw it away. And her response isn't, I learned an adage when I was eight years old that you should never be wasteful. No, her response was, I've seen the Great Depression. I could see one again. I won't be wasting money.
Because it's her story. One of the things we do in our groups is we actually tell each other our story. Like tell us how you became you, how you got here. And the reason we do that, the reason we tell stories to each other is because that's kind of what makes us us. That's how we, that's how life works. Most of you are who you are based off of long periods of time.
Years where things played out in relationships with your parents. Or years where things played out in finances or in work or in, when you were overseas. Or when you were, like there's, it's your story. You don't have, oh, I learned this rule and this rule and this rule. And now I follow my life based off of these three rules. Like that's not usually how that goes.
Usually it plays out in this context of life was like this for me. And so that's why I treat alcohol this way. Life was like this for me. That's why I treat money that way. And then maybe we pick up some, some understandings of how things work and some rules along the way. But life plays out in the context of story.
And so we're going to spend a good bit of time reading some stories because that's how humanity works. That's how life works. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 2. It's on page 1. If your Bible looks like this, you just got to move just a few things out of your way. And then you're there.
So page 1 is like five pages deep. They didn't make page 1 the first page because they wanted you to have to, you know, pay attention and be focused and have your A game. But page 1 just says Genesis at the top. So we'll start there. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 2. Starting in verse 5.
And then we're going to read all the way through Genesis 3. And we're just going to kind of look at this story today of Adam and Eve and how this plays out with what theologians call the fall. So we sang that song earlier. It said, I was an orphan. Lost it. The fall.
Running away when I hear you called. That's this. That's this fall from what God had intended. God's original plan that he had worked out with humanity. And ultimately, his ultimate sovereign plan will be carried out. But we get this picture of, as he walks through history with humanity, us falling from a relationship with him.
So we're going to be in verse 5. And we're just going to read through and talk. And then we'll kind of see how we can, what we can learn from this today. So I'm going to pray. And then we'll start reading. God, we thank you that you do make promises, that you keep your promises.
We thank you, Lord, that you intersect with our stories, that you're interested in normal human life, and that much of your word is devoted to you intersecting with normal human life. So, God, we pray that as we look at the lives of the first humans, we would come to understand more about you, more about your promises, and more about your grace. In Jesus' name, amen. When no bush of the field was yet in the land. So what we got in Genesis 1 was this big overview of God creating, and now we've got kind of a zoomed-in version on it.
So when no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and watering the whole face of the ground. Okay, so, have you ever been in a field that's freshly turned up, that's just soil, maybe it's had some seed on it, maybe it's got some rows of things planted, but there's nothing there. It's just dirt. The earth looked like that. It was just dirt. Now, there may have been, over on our side of town, some clay, maybe there was some sandy spots, maybe there was some nice, rich, dark topsoil, but it's just dirt.
Everywhere. No bush, no small plant, dirt. It's lovely. Okay, seven. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Now, there are some places on earth with really nice, white, sandy beaches. There's not a lot of them, so I don't think the first man looked like me skin tone wise. I think he was darker, soil colored. Like, that's what he, God forms out of the ground a man and breathes life into him. And so this clump of dirt, we'll read that again. And then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. This is a beautiful garden. Every single tree that is pretty and that you can eat from was there. People pay money to go pick apples. Maybe you have done this.
If you go to the grocery store, you can pay less money for apples that someone else already picked. But maybe you paid money to walk around in a garden, in an apple orchard. Orchard? Maybe you went to an orchard and you got ripped off. I don't know. But you paid money to pick.
So God has planted all of the fruit trees, all of everything that he made, all the trees that are beautiful. Maybe you've never done this. There are times where I have just stared at a tree and thought, that is a pretty tree. Like, that's just a cool, that's a good-looking tree. All of the good-looking trees were there, and all the trees you could eat from were there. This is a good garden.
Lord God planted a garden in the east. We're at verse 8. In the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed, and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There's not much explained to us about these two trees other than they are different and have some sort of spiritual something to them. It seems like there's something to them.
So the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first river is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and Onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon.
It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush, and the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. Okay. We still know where the Tigris and Euphrates are. I'm going to show you a map. This is called the Fertile Crescent. A lot of human history has played out here.
Over here by the Nile River, you've got Egypt, and that's the top part of Africa. Right there, where the word says fertile, that's Palestine, Israel. Then it comes around, and so you'd have this Mesopotamia right here, and you see Euphrates and Tigris River. Somewhere on that spot of earth, God planted Eden. Somewhere around the Euphrates and the Tigris River, maybe up top there, where they're kind of splitting down, maybe over here near the Persian Gulf. We don't know.
Somewhere in there. But a lot of the oldest amounts of history we have, and writings and stuff we have, come from this area on the earth. And this is where history started, humanity started, somewhere in this zone. And we'll keep looking at that map over the next couple weeks, as we see where people migrate, and how the story plays out. But this happened on a real earth, in a real place.
God planted the garden, and put the real first man to tend it. Fifteen. The Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden, to work it, and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. Okay.
Every tree in the garden is open to Adam, and eventually Eve, but she's not here yet. Every tree in the garden is open to Adam, except for one. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is open to him. No rules on that one. But the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he's not allowed to eat from.
And God says, In the day you eat of it, you'll surely die. Now, immediately, there's some questions that pop up. A little bit. I had someone ask me this past week, If God didn't want to mess him with that tree, why did he put it in the middle of the garden? And it's like, That sounds like a good question. I kind of, I don't know.
When I don't want Archer messing with stuff, I don't just set it with all his other things, and say, Don't touch it. I put it away from him. So, it's like, what's the, but I think kind of what surrounds this idea is, really, Adam is created, and we're told that he has one rule. Don't eat of this tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. And I think in that one rule, it sums up all of the nature of God's relationship to Adam. Which is, I control good and evil.
I'm in charge of what is right and wrong. You are not. And you will obey me and follow me because of who I am and because of who you are. God does not feel the need to explain himself to Adam. God does not have to explain himself to Adam. He just made him out of dirt.
He owes Adam nothing. Plants him in the garden and then says, here's the one rule, don't mess with this tree. And in that one rule, sums up the nature of humanity's relationship to God. God will be God. Humans will be humans. God will decide what is right and wrong.
Humans will not. God will be followed because he is God. There will be times in my relationship with my son Archer where I give him a rule and he will want an explanation and I don't have to give him an explanation. I'm his dad. I'll try to explain things to him, but there's going to be times where it's just like, you're going to follow me because I'm your dad. You're going to do what I said because I'm your dad.
And that's it. Like, I don't need an eight-year-old to agree with me. That's not how this works. I need you to follow me. I don't have to explain myself to an eight-year-old. Probably couldn't.
So God, same thing. This is how it's going to work. So not oppressive, though. The garden wasn't like, oh my gosh, this place is a prison. There's one rule. Leave that tree alone.
All the rest of them, they're great. Okay. Now, turns out Adam and Eve were kind of like us. You can have everything but that one. And we go, ooh, that one. So a little bit of foreshadowing there.
18. Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Now, out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. That section is really interesting to me. So God says, it's not good that he's alone. We'll find a helper for him. And then God brings all of the animals to him. Adam names them.
And at the end of that section, it says, but no helper was found. It seems to imply that at least on Adam's level, he thought he was looking for a teammate in all of the animals. Animals, I'm willing to bet that got really depressing. Because animals are cool. They're great. But you shouldn't go speed dating at the zoo.
If your friend tries to pitch that idea to you, just like, if they're like, oh, you know a great place to meet women? The zoo. And you're like, okay, sure. You go to the zoo. You walk over to one of the little railings and he goes, what do you think? Your friend needs help.
And probably you need new friends. Join a community group. Those people will be forced to be your friend. Like, I go to the zoo. We have a zoo membership. And I have stood and stared at a lion.
And I've stood and stared at a tiger. And I've thought, man, these are massively beautiful animals. But I have never thought, how you doing? Like, it's just never. So at some point in all of this, Adam's seeing all these animals.
And no helper was found. No one was fit. There wasn't anything that showed up that he thought, yes, this is it. Like, this is the one. Nothing. He's like, these are great.
Really cool things you made here. Some really neat stuff. Wasn't a helper found for him. Okay. 21. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And he'd seen every animal on the face of the earth. God brings a woman to him.
And Adam goes, at last. Like, he resonated with him. He'd already seen everything. He said, this was correct. You did a good job. This is what was supposed to have been.
Like, this is it. God gives, brings Eve to Adam. And he says, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Basically saying, she's like me. Those other things weren't like me. She's like me.
She should be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Okay. That verse is there.
Not to say God had made them well. Like, they were well built. That's not the point. Or to say that they were prideful or anything. What it's saying is there's something fundamentally different about humanity at this point. Because that fact is going to show up later in the story.
That humans could be naked and not ashamed. And so, he says this was the case here. And then, let's go to chapter 3. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Okay. So, Adam has seen the serpent.
Has named the serpent. We are told later. It may not have been this serpent. I don't know how that worked. I don't know if God just made a couple of each one. Or if he went ahead and populated everything and then just brought them in front of Adam.
We're not told that. But, um... We are told later in the Bible, though, that this is Satan. And so, we don't know if Satan was originally made as some sort of a serpent type thing. Or if Satan took on the form of a serpent. We're not really told that.
We're just told later. This is Satan. So, a serpent shows up. That's what we're told in the story. So, he said to the woman. So, the serpent is talking.
And immediately, people are like, I think I'd have been weirded out by a serpent talking. Yeah, but if no one's ever tricked you or lied to you and nothing bad has ever happened. And you're in a garden made by God and everything has been perfect. You're not suspicious. Just for the record. We're suspicious because bad things have happened a lot.
So, if a snake talks to you, probably don't talk back. But, maybe see what it wants. I don't know. Okay. He said to the woman. Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
So, the serpent comes in and just takes kind of what God said and twists it. Did he actually say? He goes over and goes, really? Like, he's in the garden with her and he says, really? God said you can't have any of this? That's what God told you?
You can't have any of this? This is all really nice. He told you you can't have any of it? He's already pressing into her heart this idea that God's holding out on them. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
Neither shall you touch it lest you die. Now, we just read that. God didn't say you shouldn't touch it. Maybe Adam told her that. Just don't even get near the tree and we'll be okay. Like, I don't know.
I don't know where that came from. Maybe she made it up. We do like to add rules to God's rules. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.
For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So the serpent lies. You won't die. And then he lies again saying, God knows this. And he's this lie that God can't be trusted. That maybe God's holding out on us.
Creeps into Eve's heart. Maybe God, you know, I never really questioned him. Maybe he should be questioned. I've just always kind of did what he said. I just always kind of trusted him. But maybe, like, why have I never thought about that?
Why would I just trust him? Maybe he is holding out on me. Maybe you've got a good point. And so she begins to believe some of what the serpent is saying. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
So it seems as if they are not near that tree when this conversation starts. But then it says, when she saw that it was good. So at some point she travels over to the tree. Because she says the tree in the midst of the garden. So it seems as if she heads that way to look at it.
And it says, when she saw that the tree was pleasant to the sight and that it was good for food. So she's staring at this tree and thinking, you know, this is a really nice tree. I've never paid that much attention to it. She's looking at the fruit and thinking, that does look like good fruit. That does look like you could eat that. That is like all the other trees in the garden.
But then this one was desired to be, to make one wise. And she begins to think, she begins to tell herself, she begins to believe the lie of the serpent that this one, if I could just have this one, then I'd be special. If I could just have this one, then I'd be complete. This one's different. If I could just have this one, then I'd be made into something. If I could just have this one, then I'd be built up.
I'd be different than I am now. Now this one would provide for me something that the rest of them won't. This one will make me wise. She believes that by somehow taking this fruit, she's going to be promoted. It's going to make her into something that she isn't already. And she has a desire, I believe, to be like God.
This one offers me something that the rest of the trees don't. Verse 6. So when the woman saw the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. So Adam hadn't shown up until this point, but it turns out he was there.
He was just there the whole time going through the same process. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Okay, so at the end of chapter 2, they were naked and unashamed. They tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. They go and they basically break the one rule they've been given, fundamentally altering the relationship that they're going to have with God. They're saying, no, we don't believe that satisfaction will be found in you.
No, we don't believe that you are to be trusted. No, we don't believe that you're the one who's going to say what's right and wrong. We're going to have some control over that. We're going to decide what's good and evil. And let me tell you something. When they found out they were naked, that was not a fun experience.
I don't know if that's ever happened to you where you just suddenly realized you were naked. Maybe some of you sleepwalk. Maybe you've had that dream where you were doing a presentation at work, or you were standing up in front of class on show and tell day, and it turns out you were showing more than telling. Like you suddenly realize in your dream, like, I am naked. And never in your dream have you had that moment and you thought, I don't have any clothes on. And immediately went, all right, cool.
Like, no, it's overwhelming shame and guilt and fear and this immediate desire to hide. Let me tell you something. The moment they realized they were naked, the opposite of joy flooded the hearts of humanity. Guilt and shame and fear and this desire to protect yourself and to hide from others overwhelmed them. Biting into that fruit did not provide for them what they thought it would. That moment that they tasted that fruit, they were almost overwhelmed by a crushing sense of inadequacy where there used to be freedom.
Of shame where they had never felt that before. Guilt when they had never known wrong, it crushed them. Like, like a child who has done something wrong and does not have the ability to stand before their parents and handle the guilt. So they hide. So that they can't even speak.
So that when their parent begins to talk to them, they just flooded with tears because they can't handle the separation. That flooded into humanity and overwhelmed them. The eyes of both were opened. They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
So God's presence used to be among them. He used to come walk among them. He used to come enjoy their company. He used to allow them to find enjoyment in his. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. They couldn't face him.
But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done?
The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. She understands at this point, I was lied to. This did not provide for me what I thought it was going to provide for me. That serpent lied to me. This wasn't freedom. This wasn't a promotion.
This wasn't a level up. This wasn't, this didn't bring satisfaction. I was lied to. The Lord God said to the serpent, I love the fact that God, when we later find out this is Satan, that God addresses Satan first. That he, he addresses the main problem here, which is sin and Satan and death and destruction that's coming to the world. He addresses him first.
And he says, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock. He's talking to the serpent and above all beasts of the field. On your belly, on your belly, you shall go and dust. You shall eat all the days of your lives, of your, of your life. So apparently snakes didn't slither around on their stomach prior to this.
Go home and think about that one. Um, and, uh, I guess this is where he added in the, you're going to use your tongue to smell. So I'm pretty sure snakes have nostrils. If you look at them, they use their tongue to, to smell stuff. So he made it to where they have to like lick to figure out what's going on around them.
So that would be terrible. What color is this? Like that would be a, that would be a bad way to go through life. Okay. Um, uh, don't overthink that. Okay.
Um, and then he says this in verse 15, I will put enmity. I'll make you an enemy of, uh, enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. On the surface, this means humans won't really like snakes. And for the most part, that's true. Um, maybe you have a friend who really likes snakes.
And again, I would encourage you, you know, get in a community group, get new friends. Uh, sorry, personal preference, not a fan. Um, and it's biblical. So I'm just, I'm just saying I'm on, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. But theologians also believe that this is a promise made to the serpent.
This is the first gospel that is ever preached because here's what God says. He looks at the serpent, which we're told is Satan. And he says this, I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman, between her offspring and your offspring. Now, on the surface, that means all the people that are born. But, throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, genealogies are, are done through men. This guy was the father of this guy, who's the father of this guy, who's the father of this guy.
Every once in a while, they'll bring a woman in if she was like, you know her story or she was important or something. But, all the other ones are man to man to man to man to man to man to man. There was one human, born on earth, who did not have an earthly father. And his name was Jesus. He was conceived of a virgin by the Holy Spirit. And there's this picture here, where God's looking at the serpent and saying, there's going to come a day, where someone in the line of Adam, the line of Eve, is going to be born, and he's going to crush your head.
At harm to himself, you're going to bruise his heel, but he's going to bruise your head. You're going to harm him, but he's going to destroy you. And that promise is made to the serpent. And that's one of the first promises, that we can clutch onto, that the serpent won't have the final say. As we talk about the covenants that God makes, this one's a little bit different than the other ones, where he looks at a person and says, I'm going to make my covenant with you. But it's massively important for us to understand, that God had designed earth, where he was in a relationship, a covenant relationship with Adam and Eve, and Adam and Eve rejected his rule, and then he looks at the serpent and says, you don't have the final say.
This isn't how the story ends. There is one coming, who is going to set this right. Who's going to do what this Adam should have done, which was crush your head as soon as you began to tell lies. There's going to be a second Adam that shows up, and accomplishes what needs to be accomplished. Let's keep going.
We're going to come back. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Okay, so from what I understand, childbearing is painful. People have told me that. The other thing that happens here that plays out is, childbearing, like giving birth, was going to be a way that life was brought about.
And now there's, with humanity, with females, there's this anxiety and pain over having children, or not having children, or ability to have children. Throughout history, childbearing is one of the most dangerous things for females. In most third world countries, and throughout time, before we got modern medicine, it was one of the number one killers of females. Death during childbearing. So what was supposed to bring in life, was now bringing in death and pain.
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Okay, we don't have a whole lot of time for that. The only other time that sentence structure is used, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you, is the next chapter over where he's talking to Cain, and he said, sin's desire is for you, but you shall rule over it. So this desire isn't like, oh, your desire will be for your husband, oh, like it's not that. But it is the way sin desires to rule and control.
And so what he's saying is that, wife, your desire will be to control your husband. And so I just, and then he says he will rule over you. I just want to ask wives, how's controlling your husband going? Pretty good? They're pretty obedient? They pretty well do what you ask them to?
Really smart? Have you found that your husband's just really smart, and just knocks it out of the park all the time, and every time you give him simple instructions, he just crushes it? Like, is that what we're finding? Because biblically, what he says is, you're going to really want to do this, and it's not going to be that easy or good. He's going to rule over you. The other thing I think happens with this, your desire will be for your husband.
One of the ways that I see this as a pastor, is I sit down with females who are not married, who are in terrible relationships, and should have already gotten out of this relationship, but for some reason believe that they can turn this guy into something, that they can somehow be his savior, that they can somehow, they have this desire for him when there should be no desire for him whatsoever. Maybe you've had friends who've stayed in really bad relationships for far too long. I think that's a result of the fall. I know the sin is. And Adam, he said, because you listen to the voice of your wife, I quote this to Anna all the time.
She'll tell me something, and I'll be like, don't you Genesis 3 me. I'm not listening to you. It works out really well. It goes back to the curse that she's under. I'm going to be hard to rule. Because you listen to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, basically saying you should have led your wife, you should have protected your wife, she was deceived.
We're told in scripture over and over again, she was deceived. She believed the serpent's lies. We're not told that Adam was deceived. Adam made a willful choice from what we understand. Adam rejected fully the rule of God. And he's saying, because you did not lead, because you did not protect, do not defend, and you have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat.
Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So, originally, the world just responded the way it was supposed to.
The plants were easy to tend. Crops grew all the time. The world bent to the dominion of humanity, that Adam and Eve were designed to co-rule the world. We're told in Genesis 1, when it gives us a summation, it says he made Adam and Eve, and he says, be fruitful and multiply, and have dominion over the world. Like, he told both of them, y'all are a team, do this. The teamwork is broken down, and the response of the world has broken down.
Work is now going to be very difficult. That phrase in there that says, by the sweat of your face, some scholars believe that's an idiom. It doesn't just mean it's going to be hard, and you're going to be outside, and you're going to sweat. But it also brings to mind anxiety. So an idiom is like a turn of phrase, or something like we might say, when pigs fly.
We don't actually, we don't mean it literally. We're using it as an example, like a snowball's chance, or whatever, like we say those kind of phrases. It means anxious. It means that you're going to always feel like, there's not enough time. You're going to always feel like, I'm not, am I actually going to be able to provide? You're going to always feel like, you're coming up short.
You're going to eat bread, but it will be an anxious toil, rather than a joyful work. Because Adam was supposed to work. He was supposed to tend the garden, but now it's going to fight him. The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam, and for his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them. That's another small picture of the gospel for us.
That something had to die to get skins. And God sacrifices that to cover their guilt and their shame. They're going to have to wear clothes now, because that freedom is gone. And so God makes a way for them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.
Now lest he reach out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever. So that would have been a surprise. The tree of life was in the garden, and I don't know if death wasn't ever going to happen, or if they were going to get old, and God was going to let them eat in the tree. Like, I don't know how that worked, but it was there, and it was magical and amazing, and he didn't say anything about it. He just planted it there. And one day they were going to eat it, and he was like, You found the tree of life.
How delicious was that? I don't know how he would have done that, but I just, it was there, and now they can't be there around it. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man at the east of the garden of Eden. He placed the cherubim, that's a big scary angel, and a flaming sword, that is also scary, that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So there was a rejection of God's rule, and God's response is gracious because he doesn't just immediately kill them.
Death does enter the world. He says, Okay, our relationship is not the same anymore, and you came from dust, and eventually you're going to turn to dust. You're going to deteriorate. Your death has begun. But he doesn't immediately destroy them for their rebellion.
And he sends them out and says, Okay, go for it. You know good and evil now? It's on you. See, Adam and Eve got what they wanted. They're in charge. They have autonomy that they did not used to have.
This is what's happened to humanity. We can trace all sin back to this moment where we fundamentally made a choice as humanity. See, Adam stood in our place and said a few things. One is, I don't believe God can be trusted. I think satisfaction will be found somewhere else. And ultimately, I want to be in charge of what's good and what's evil.
I want to be in charge of what's right and wrong. I want to be like God. I want to be in charge. All of us, unfortunately, Adam made that decision on our behalf. Like if, when you were young, your dad walks into the house or your mom walks into the house and says, Hey, pack your stuff. We're moving.
Just took a job halfway across the country. And you're like, I, what? We didn't, we didn't vote. We don't, I'm, I know I'm 12, but I feel like I should have a say. I got some friends. And your parents are like, you make new friends or you won't.
We're moving. Like, this is what Adam did. Hey guys, started this off. Just want to give you all a heads up. Death, sin, we're all kind of in charge. We're not good at it.
It was a good talk. That's it. It was Adam's choice. And here's the thing. We all lined up single file behind him and made the exact same choice. I want to be in charge of what's right and wrong.
I think joy will ultimately be found somewhere else other than God. And I'm pretty sure he can't be trusted. I don't think he really knows my situation. I don't think he really knows what I'm going through. I don't think he really knows what I'm like. I think he can't really be trusted.
And that ultimately I know what's best for me. And all of us single file have lined up behind Adam and said, yes, this is the system we want. Death enters the world. Death is as natural as anything else we have. It is as natural as sneezing. It is natural as sunrise.
Every person in this room will die. And there is something that every time there is a death, something inside of us screams that this is not how it ought to be. Every time you stood over a casket, every time you've walked through that little line, shaking hands of people who no longer have a family member that they had a few days ago, there's something inside of you that's rolled over and said, this is not how it was supposed to be. Because it's not how it was supposed to be. But Adam and Eve got what they want, what they wanted.
And every time we say, why doesn't God just stop this? Why doesn't God just step in and fix this? If there's such a great God, why hasn't he taken care of this by now? But here's the problem. All of us have stood in line behind Adam and all of us have said, I don't want God's rule. I want control.
I want my desires to be met. I want to choose for me what's best. And all of us deserve death. And so when we say things like, why wouldn't God just stop all this murder? Why wouldn't God just stop all this? The only way he can do it is by resetting it.
The only way he can do it is by crushing everyone. What you're really saying when we say that is, why doesn't God just end all of us now? Why don't we just meet the justice we deserve now? And the reason is, God is very gracious. And very merciful. And he wants a different end for us than the one that we find in Adam.
See, the reason why this is so messed up shouldn't be surprising to us. The reason why earth is so painful shouldn't be surprising to us. It's what we asked for, which is us in control. I was listening to the radio. They were doing an interview with some people from Europe who have set up a camp outside of Fallujah in Iraq. There's 50,000.
Fallujah is currently controlled by ISIS, unless something recently changed. And there's about 50,000 people who were in Fallujah that are now controlled by ISIS because ISIS has taken over. So there's 50,000 women, children, families that are in there that are under ISIS's control. And when they break free and escape, they've set up a camp kind of close that's like, here, come here, we'll give you some food. And this is, I got online and got the transcript. She's talking about the people in the camp.
She says around me, her last name's Koch, Elizabeth Koch, K-O-E-K, so that may not be how you pronounce that actually. But around me, I see mostly people who are relieved. I was in the camp and I had a six-year-old boy who was given our basic kit of food and he just burst into tears at the sight of bread. He hasn't seen bread in five or six months. People have been surviving on rotting rice or dates or a little bit of yogurt. The people have had access to any, have not had any access to any kind of safe or clean drinking water in months.
People were telling me about drinking water from agricultural wells where dead carcasses were floating about. Here's the situation. If you're drinking water out of an agricultural well that has dead, rotting carcasses in it, you're not surprised if some people get sick. You're surprised when some people don't. Racism, genocide, murder, countries just looking at other countries and saying, we want this piece of land is not surprising because we have humans ruling the earth deciding what's good and what's evil. it's surprising that there's some joy. It's surprising that there's still some life.
It's surprising that God does step in and answer prayers and set people free from ailments. It's surprising that we've accomplished so much in the midst of we're all drinking out of a poisoned well. What's surprising is the vast amount of grace that's still present for us. The vast amount of work God's still doing to redeem that. See, everyone is a victim of Adam's choice. So in order for God to step in and stop the corruption, he has to reset the whole system.
He'd have to crush everything. He'd have to unmake everything and remake everything. And so God, rather than doing that, has a different plan. He looks at the serpent and he says, I'm going to reverse this. Someday, you will be crushed. There's going to come someone who does what needs to be done.
See, when it comes to this big redemptive story, the real question is, what did Adam lose? When Adam rejected God, what did he lose? And what did this second Adam, the second person that's going to come, what did he buy back? Sandra Richter, in her book, Epic of Eden, puts it this way. I'm going to read a quote here. It says, In some, redemptive history is all about fixing what went wrong in the garden.
What went wrong in Eden is what must go right in redemption. What was done in the garden must be undone in Christ. In the garden, humanity made a choice for autonomy. The choice cast the cosmos in disarray. Moreover, that choice birthed in our race the power of sin which has passed down to every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve. Thus, you and I stand guilty on two fronts.
We are guilty because our forefather represented us in a sinful choice. And two, we're also guilty because we followed our forefather in that choice with our individual choices. Thus, we need to be delivered on two fronts as well. First, we need a representative who will stand in for us making a different choice and second, we ourselves need to make a different choice. We need somebody to go stand in for us and then we need to follow after them not after Adam. And God looked at the serpent and said there's going to come someone who reverses this.
Your victory will be short. There is going to be a day when someone is born who will crush your head. There is going to be a day when someone is born who will reverse this. There's going to be a second Adam who fixes this. First Corinthians says this when talking about Jesus. Let's talk about Adam first.
First Corinthians 15, 21 and 22. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. Jesus came and took our death. He stood in our place to take the death that we deserve for the rejection of God. He took the penalty we deserve for our sin.
He took the curse onto Himself and then He rose from the grave. And as people on earth, you are either lined up behind Adam or lined up behind Jesus. You're either in Adam or in Christ. in Christ there will be a resurrection. In Christ death won't have the final say. In Adam death rules and reigns. Jesus is the second Adam who came to fulfill the promise God made to the serpent so many years ago in a garden.
First Corinthians when he's wrapping this chapter up in verse 45 says this, Thus it is written the first man Adam became a living being. We read that when God breathed life into him. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. We need Jesus to come in and redeem us. We need through the Holy Spirit for Him to give us life. You see, the promise was made that the serpent would not rule forever, that the victory would be over at some point, that someone would come at some point and reverse this.
And that Jesus did. You needed somebody to stand in your place and make a better choice. Jesus did. Now, we all need to make a better choice ourselves. And the opportunity given to us is that we can repent of sin and follow after Jesus. That we can turn from our desire for autonomy, that we can turn from our desire to be in charge, that we can stop believing the lie that something else will give us satisfaction.
We have all walked to some tree, looked at it, and said, this is the one. This is the one that will fill me up. This is the thing that will make me happy. You can hang anything you want to from that tree. It can be a relationship. It can be money.
It can be a job. It can be sex. It can be anything you want to put up there. It can be approval or just having a nice, easygoing, comfortable life. But we've all looked at something and said, if I can just get that fruit down, I'll be complete.
I'll be full. This one is to be desired to level me up. Every single one of us has chosen our own autonomy. Every single one of us has chosen that we'll know what's best for us and we have the option to go to Christ and say, I need you to pay for my sin. I need you to set me free. I need to find my satisfaction in you.
You see, on the cross, God proved that he can be trusted. That lie that's crept into all of our hearts that maybe God's holding out on us was destroyed the moment he gave everything on the cross. He is holding nothing back. Paul says, if he would give us his own son, how much more would he not give us all things? Everything has been laid down for us that we might have freedom, that we might have joy, that the curse might not rule and reign over us forever, but that at some point we can have an eternity where we're in God's presence, in God's place, being God's people as he originally designed and as he has proven he was going to work out throughout the courses of time as he promised beforehand that he would save us in Christ.
If you're in this room, you're either in Adam or you're in Christ. You're either lined up saying, I want to be in charge and I'll take the death that comes or you're saying, I need Jesus to take my death and I need to surrender. Those are your two choices. In Adam, all die. In Christ, all will be made alive. Death does not have the final say over Christians because Jesus destroyed death on the cross on our behalf.
So we can turn from our sin and be set free. You see, God made a promise years and years ago that someone was going to fix it and Jesus did on the cross and we can have freedom and we can find satisfaction in him and we know that he can be trusted and all of the lies that have crept in our heart can be reversed as we faithfully follow after Jesus. The response for everyone in this room needs to be the same. Follow Christ. Repent of sin. If you say, yeah, I've already believed in Christ, continue to repent of sin.
Continue to turn away from all the parts of you that still want to follow Adam and follow after Jesus and if you've never done that, let me tell you something. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ and you will either face death or Jesus will face it for you and you have the opportunity to say, I trust Jesus to pay for my debt and to make me his and to find ultimate satisfaction in him. Let's pray. God, I pray that you'd help us see how we've followed after Adam. I pray, God, that you would help us see our sins so that we can repent and follow after you, that we can turn away from all the things that you say are evil, that we can believe what you say is good and what you say is evil is correct and quit choosing for ourselves.
God, I pray that you'd help us to run and follow after Christ. God, I pray that you would work in us now through your Holy Spirit to draw us to yourself. And God, we thank you for this promise that you made, this covenant that you kept, that Satan wouldn't win, that death wouldn't have the final say. We love you and we praise you, Jesus. Amen.
Intro to Covenant
Transcript
The old testament can be intimidating ground for Christians it's a bit of a haze of stories and histories and it isn't always chronological you've probably heard of David slain Goliath joseph being sold by his brothers because of his awesome cool jacket daniel getting thrown into the lion's den noah building an ark and jonah getting swallowed by a giant fish but do you know in which order they happened if our old testament history is rusty we have a problem because in order to truly understand everything that.
Jesus does we have to understand what his people have been through and the history of the culture that he stepped into it's also essential for our understanding of the context of many old testament stories in this video we're going to walk through a zoomed out overview of the entire old testament so that when we pick up the Bible and turn to isaiah or Exodus or nehemiah you'll at least have a big picture understanding of where the story fits into the grand scheme of things we're going to tag all the major players along the road.
But we're going to be moving pretty fast it all begins with creation in the garden of eden with adam God creates adam and eve and places them into authority over all creation deceived by Satan adam and eve sin and they're kicked out of the garden they have a few sons most famously cain and abel over the next few generations great corruption fills the earth and we meet noah noah and his family build an ark and they along with the animals on board survive the great flood which destroys pretty much everything else somewhere during this time is.
When scholars believe that the story of job takes place now we aren't exactly sure about the timing but we do know that the lessons are universal and so the timing isn't really that important ten generations after noah Abraham turns up Abraham and his wife sarah promise they will have a great nation as descendants uh that they will receive land and that they will receive God's blessing Abraham and sarah have Isaac even though they're ridiculously old and then Isaac marries rebecca and they have Jacob and esau Jacob.
Well he has a crush on rachel but he gets tricked into marrying her sister leah he ends up marrying both of them anyway and then having a whole bunch of kids and somewhere in the midst of all this God renames him Israel and then in a simplified way his kids become what we know of as the 12 tribes of Israel joseph is the favorite of these children the other kids they weren't so fond of this favoritism and they sell joseph to slave traders in egypt.
Well eventually the whole family migrates to egypt to survive the great famine that's happening in palestine the Israelites begin to grow in number in egypt and becoming a threat to the Pharaoh he enslaves all of them that's when Moses turns up the ten plagues happen and the Israelites escape across the red sea now they head to mount sinai which is where they receive the law including the ten commandments but they sin against God and they end up wandering the desert for 40 years during this time comes the books of leviticus numbers and deuteronomy Moses dies and joshua picks up the reins and he leads the Israelites back into the promised land the land is divided.
Up according to the 12 tribes next comes the period known as the judges God appoints a series of leaders to help guide his people and lead them against the enemies that oppose them the most well-known judges are deborah gideon and samson but there were actually many others ruth also appears during this time but she wasn't a judge or even jewish the people of Israel see that all the other nations have a king and they plead with God to give them a king.
So that they can be like everyone else well God allows it and Saul becomes the first king of Israel Israel is pleased and seoul leads them reasonably well at least until they come up against the philistines and of course Goliath in comes David who slays Goliath and wins the war on Israel's behalf David ends up becoming the next king and he wrote many of the psalms David was followed by his son Solomon who wrote proverbs ecclesiastes and probably also the song of Solomon.
When Solomon dies things get complicated the kingdom splits in two and for the next few centuries there's two kingdoms that play a part of the story there's the northern kingdom known as Israel comprised of 10 of the original tribes which is led by jeroboam who was one of Solomon's commanders in the army then there's the southern kingdom known as judah comprised of two of the original tribes which is led by rehoboam who was Solomon's son i told you it was complicated this is the period of time.
When the books that we know of as the prophets begin during the divided kingdom era we have isaiah micah habakkuk zephaniah and nahim who prophesy to the southern kingdom of judah and then we have jonah hosea and amos who prophesied of the northern kingdom Israel the prophets are sent to guide God's people and deliver his messages to the people they give a whole lot of warnings promising imminent destruction unless the people repent and follow God well the people don't repent in 722 bc assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel all the way around the surrounding areas down to egypt leaving only judah they exiled all of the people of Israel and scattered them throughout the.
Entire kingdom replacing them with exiles from other areas of their expanding kingdom the ten northern tribes while they were completely wiped from history the southern kingdom of judah will they put up a good fight and they survived the assyrians but they failed to serve God fully the babylonians under king nebuchadnezzar rose up and wiped out the assyrian empire and over the course of about 20 years conquered and deported all of the jews from the southern kingdom of judah back to babylon the prophets daniel ezekiel jeremiah who also wrote the book of lamentations and probably also over daya they all prophesied around this time.
For about 50 years the jews stayed in babylon under babylonian exile then in came persia the persians conquered the babylonians and all of their land and in 538 bc king cyrus made a decree that all of the jews could go back home in three waves led by zerubbabel ezra and nehemiah respectively the jews went back into Israel and rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple haggai zechariah and probably joel prophesied during this time now we know that some of the jews didn't return home.
Because the story of esther takes place in persia after the three waves of returning exiles the last we hear about Israel in the old testament is from Malachi probably 450 years bc Malachi calls God's people to return to covenantal faithfulness and await for his present coming during the 450-ish years between the old and new testament power changes hands a number of times persia remains in power up until 3 30 bc when alexander the great also known as the greek empire takes over the whole known world in seven years.
Well he dies young and the empire crumbles in certain areas and while the greek influence remains strong the area of palestine is ruled intermittently by syria and egypt under the maccabees the jews established a wobbly independence in the land for about a century and in 63 bc Jerusalem fell to the roman empire which pretty much conquered everything Jesus was born during the rule of the roman empire and in comes the new testament so there you have it an overview of the entire old testament.
Now hopefully when you read through the old testament you'll have at least a decent handle on where you find yourself in the grand scheme of God's narrative.
This week we referred to a video and a white board on stage. See below attachments for reference.
Around the Throne
Transcript
How are we doing this morning? My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're finishing up. Today is the last week of our Home Sweet Home series where we've been looking at the church and how the church ought to organize, how the church ought to act in some ways, what makes for a healthy church. And so we're going to be in the book of Revelation today.
And in the book of Revelation, we're getting a picture. It's where we're going to be reading. And in a lot of the book of Revelation, we're getting a picture of future events. We're getting a picture of some things that haven't happened yet that are going to happen. And I got to thinking about it as we were going to study this passage today. I got to thinking about that this is real.
Like this is our actual future for the church. This is a real picture of what's going to happen in the future. And I just got to thinking about how that ought to affect us. And so you ever watch a movie where it shows a clip of the ending at the beginning of the movie? So it's like the heroes walking out of a building.
It's blowing up behind them. They're smoking a cigarette. And it's like they're scuffed up, but they're still like good looking. Like I don't know how they did it, but it's like something dramatic has happened, but they're okay. And then it'll be like, it'll just change. And they'll be at an office at their desk at their computer wearing glasses.
They weren't wearing glasses a second ago. Somehow over the past couple of weeks, whatever, their eyesight got better or the future weeks, whatever. And it says like two weeks earlier. And it's like, so, you know, what I just saw was a picture of the end. And now what I'm looking at is pre-adventure version of this, this person. And so I got to thinking about like, what if in life you had a moment?
I don't know how it worked. I don't know how you got to see this, but you got to see three weeks from now. This is you. You're smoking the cigarette. You're walking out of the exploding building. Like, what have you got to see that?
And you knew this is how this ends up. And then when this adventure starts, like when this thing happens, when you get called by the CIA, they pick you up in a limo. And they're like, we need you to quit working at your desk and to come on a secret mission. Like you would think, okay, I saw the end of this. Like I know, like, and I got to think about how that would make you act, like how that would make me act. So my first thought was that would make me excessively, aggressively lazy.
Because I would think, I don't, I don't really have to do anything. The building blows up. I still have my cigarette. We're going to be okay. Like I know how this ends. Like I would think it doesn't really matter how all this plays out because I know how the end, like that was my first thought.
And then I got to thinking about it. And I really got to thinking about it. And I think actually, knowing that that's how the story ended, it would have the exact opposite effect on me. I would do the craziest stuff I could come up with. Because I knew two weeks from now, I'm still standing. I got, I got a two week window where all of the action hero stuff works.
That's what I would think. So when the CIA said, we need you on a mission, I would have said, because I'd just be so absolutely confident. Usually I'd be freaking out, but I'm so absolutely confident because I know the end, I'd be like, you came to the right guy. Like I would try to do, I would go buy sunglasses and cigarettes. I don't smoke, but I'd have to smoke for the next two weeks because I've got to have a cigarette at the end of the explosion. Like the biggest, baddest dude would come walking out.
Like he, he would look like the Russian that Rocky had to fight in Rocky four. And I'd be like, I got this. And the reason was I saw my face. It wasn't smashed in. I was still walking. I don't know how this is going to go down, but I know I'm going to walk away from it.
I'd be like, don't, don't even worry about it. And I'd just walk out and I'd be like, I don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to be great. I might would start the fight just by kicking his shin. Cause I can. I might say something derogatory about his family members on my way over there because I can. Like I know how this is going to work out.
There would be times where I probably would have just been, everyone would be hiding and I'll be like, I'll handle this. And they'd be like, do you need a gun? And I'll be like, no, just to freak them out. Cause I don't need a gun. Cause I know how it ends up. Like I get to walk out of the exploding building.
Like this is what I got to thinking about. And I spent way too much time thinking about it. As you can tell, I got really excited. That's the picture we're getting today of the church. We're getting this picture of where we end up. We're getting this picture of the church walking out of the exploding building, uh, still intact.
We're getting this picture in the book of Revelation of where we're headed. And it is a real reality in the future for us. And I think we're going to go through the same process, which is at first we're going to think, oh, this will make me excessively aggressively lazy. But I think it's meant to have the opposite effect that God gave us this picture to have the exact opposite effect on our hearts and our souls. It's to help us see this is where it's going to end up. So you can have the bravery, the courage, the energy to, to accept the call that Jesus has placed on his church.
So let's go to Revelation five. Now, uh, there, if you've been around the church for a while and you hear we're going to be in the book of Revelation, maybe you've read the Bible. So maybe, you know, very little about the Bible, but there's a little bit of like, oh, Revelation, like this is about to get interesting. There's going to be a lot of crazy things. And in some ways there are, there are some things in the book of Revelation that are hard to understand. The book of Revelation is the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
So you've had people walk through the book of Revelation and they want to talk about all the crazy imagery and the pictures we were met with in the book. Uh, but it's, it's the, the point of the book is to reveal Christ to point to Jesus. And so, uh, what we have in the book of Revelation is John, the apostle. So who followed Jesus around, he's been exiled to the isle of Patmos. He's worshiping God and Jesus shows up and basically is like, I'm going to show you some things. And then John writes them down through the leadership of the Holy spirit.
John pins the book of Revelation. And I think, uh, it's very helpful for us that this was funneled through John, that John has shown these images. And he writes them down as best he can, because John's going to explain them to us in a way we can kind of understand. There are places in the book of Revelation where John says things like, uh, he said this and his voice sounded like a waterfall. And it's because John was doing his best to describe. It's like if a waterfall could talk, that's what it sounded like.
There's times where he's like explaining these pictures and he's just writing down as best he can. This is what it was like. And, and instead of having all the right words for it, I think he has all the words that God designed to be right for us to be able to understand. So there are some parts in this passage that we're going to read where it's like, what does that mean? I don't know. But we're going to apply a pastor named John Piper.
He has a rule that he calls the law of least meaning, which means when you come to a text in the scriptures, there are times where you're not going to understand completely what it's saying. But if you can understand something that it's saying, then that was worth understanding. Like that was good. And so what we're going to do is there's some stuff that's really crystal clear in this passage. And there's some stuff that's really confusing. We're going to kind of just go past the confusing parts because we want to see the part that's crystal clear.
And that's the part we're going to, we're going to take out of this. And so as we get to look at this picture of future us, I just, I'm going to pray that God would reveal himself to us in it and that he would use it to embolden us as a church and as his people. So let's pray real quick. God, we thank you for the images that we have in the book of Revelation. We thank you for you giving us this glimpse into your presence, into eternity, into the future of your people. We pray, God, that you would use it to equip us and embolden us today to accept the mission you've called us on.
We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Revelation chapter 5 is on page 665 if your Bible looks like this. If you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. Take it home with you. Then I saw, so this is John, he's writing down this vision that he's seeing.
Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne, a scroll written within and on the back and sealed with seven seals. Okay. He's in heaven. He sees someone sitting on a throne. Kings sit on thrones. That's God.
So he sees God and in God's right hand, he's holding a scroll. It's rolled up parchment written all over it. So it's not just parchment that would be written in the middle part. It's written all over it and it's sealed with seven seals, meaning that this is a very important parchment. This is a very important scroll. We find out as we continue to read that this scroll contains the end of human history.
It contains how the earth plays out. It contains some of God's wrath and God's judgment on the earth as they begin to undo these seals. So what we see, we're met with this picture of God sitting on a throne, holding human history in his hand. That's what John is seeing and writes it down. Verse 2. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?
So this angel asks, who can ascend to the throne of God and take something from his hand? Who can come up here? Who has the audacity? Who has the worthiness? Who has the glory to walk up to the throne of God and remove something from his hand? Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?
And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it. And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. This angel stands beside the throne of God where God holds human history in his hand. And he says, who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? And there is dead silence. No one in heaven.
No one on earth. No one under the earth. No one. No one. No one. No one.
No one. No one. Worthy. And the silence is broken by the loud weeping of John, whose heart and soul have just been crushed. As he stands before the throne of God and realizes no one's worthy. No one can ascend to God.
No one. No one can open the scroll. No one has the glory or the weight or the value. No one. You just made a cameo in the story. I'm going to read it to you again.
No one. No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it. I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it. You're going to be in one of those three places when this call rings out in eternity. You're going to be in heaven, on earth, or under it. You didn't pipe up.
No one's worthy. That's all of human history. No one's worthy. That's every king, every astronaut, every scientist. That's every loving, gracious, wonderful person you've ever met. No one gets to say, I can walk up to the throne.
No one gets to say, I can walk up to the throne. No one gets to say, I can walk up to the throne. And in this moment, John's heart breaks. Because we have nothing to offer. Humanity has no ability to approach God. And it's crushing.
And John, I love that John says it this way. And I began to weep loudly. John didn't write. And tears began to roll down my face. John said, I was a blubbery, snotty mess by the throne of God. Because I had no worthiness.
And no one else did. I couldn't catch my breath. I was doing the... Like, I made a scene in heaven. An angel, a mighty angel spoke. There's dead silence.
And then I went... Like crying, embarrassing, sobbing in front of the throne of God. Because nobody can approach Him. And one of the elders said to me... These are some men, elders that are around the throne. Weep no more.
Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals. That's reference to Old Testament prophecy. The lion of the tribe of Judah and the root of David are talking about the same person. And that's Jesus who came in the line of David the king. Who came out of the tribe of Judah. Who was the lion of the tribe of Judah.
And He has conquered. He is worthy to open the scroll. So an elder looks at John and says, you don't have to weep. You don't have to be heartbroken. You don't have to be crushed by this. I want you to hear that as declared to all of us who were found unworthy.
He says, you don't have to be crushed. There is someone who is worthy. There's someone who can go in our place to the throne. There's someone who can walk to God on our behalf. He doesn't just say, yeah, you should keep crying, but this guy is worthy. No, He says that His worthiness lets your weeping stop.
His worthiness unbreaks our heart. And between the throne and the four living creatures. Those are some big scary angels around God's throne. And among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain. John's told to look at the lion of the tribe of Judah. And he says, I looked for a lion and I saw a lamb.
I looked for the one who's conquered. And I saw someone who looked like they had been conquered. I looked for the one that has the glory and the worthiness. And I see a lamb who's been crushed. I see a lamb who's been slain. Jesus Christ went to the cross so that our unworthiness, so that our weeping can stop.
Jesus was slain. And in His death on the cross became ultimately worthy to ascend to the throne of God. In His sacrifice for His people, He bought our worthiness and represents us to the King. That's our hope that we have this morning. I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And He went and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne.
I want you to see that. God of the universe holds the human history in His hand. And Jesus Christ walks up as a lamb who was slain, as the root of David, as the lion of the tribe of Judah. And on humans' behalf, on all of heaven and all of earth and everything under the earth, He walks up and He takes history from God's hand. Because He's worthy. Because He was slain.
And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals. For you were 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 the earth. They said, By your blood you have ransomed. We don't use that word ransomed as much as they did in their culture.
We still use it. It still means the same thing. Recently ISIS captured a journalist, and they asked for $132 million in ransom. Ransom is a price paid to retrieve a hostage, or to retrieve a slave. And they say, Jesus is worthy because by his blood he's ransomed a people for God. The church was held hostage to sin.
The church was in slavery to our enemy, was in slavery to our sin, and Jesus, by his blood, bought us. By his blood he ransomed a people for God. And it says he ransomed them 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 the earth. When Jesus walked to the throne, and he grabbed history out of the hand of God, because he was worthy, he was worthy through his sacrifice on the cross, and he was worthy on behalf of all the people he's ransomed. He was worthy on behalf of the church.
That's why John can stop weeping. That's why you don't have to be crushed by your sin and your unworthiness. Because we have one who ascends the throne on our behalf. Flip over a page. I want us to see the picture of what he's accomplished for us. I want us to get to see this clearly.
So I just, we're going to spend some time here, and I want us to clearly see. We're in chapter 7 on page 666. We're going to look at verses 9 and 10. So some more things begin to unfold in this moment in heaven. The seals begin to be opened. There begins to be wrath and judgment poured out on the earth.
It begins to be the unfolding, the unraveling of human history. And then John says this. Verse 9. That's a celebration of purity. None of those people wear those outside of Jesus' sacrifice. They get to enter heaven dressed in white because Jesus entered heaven dressed in blood.
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. Salvation doesn't belong to good work. Salvation doesn't belong to our effort. Salvation belongs to God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. So we're wrapping up our series on what the church is, on who the church is.
We started the series by saying the church is the people made the people of God by Jesus. That's the church. The people throughout all time and history, all space, all geography, all nations, all borders. It's the people made the people of God by Jesus. And then we walked through and said, okay, what happens to a person when Jesus makes you one of his people? What happens to you when he becomes king?
We said, what does a church look like? How do we organize? What are some practices we ought to have? Like we walked through this and now we're finishing up. Last week we said that Jesus told the church, go make disciples of all nations. Go make disciples of all ethnicities.
It's ethne in the Greek. Go make disciples that aren't Jewish is what he was saying to them. That's one of the ways they would have heard it because he had been working and discipling Jewish men who had the Old Testament and understood these prophecies and these promises. And then he says, go make disciples that aren't Jewish. How many Jewish brothers and sisters do we have in this room right now? Thank you, Jesus.
That it wasn't to a certain type of people, that it wasn't to a certain type of language, that it was, that he fulfilled this promise that they listened to him and did what he said, which was to take the gospel to people who weren't Jewish. So I was, with this picture in mind of us getting to see what heaven looks like, I just want to point out a few things to us. I was hanging out with my cousin, Bumi. My grandparents were missionaries to Nigeria, West Africa. They adopted my uncle, Abel. He married my aunt, Abike.
I have three first-generation Nigerian-American cousins. My uncle's been in the family as long as my mom has. He is blood to me, even though not really. And I was hanging out with my cousin, Bumi. This is last year around 4th of July because he comes down a lot and helps us sell fireworks. That doesn't have anything to do other than that's why he was here.
I help run a firework store. So if y'all like to buy some fireworks, Aiken, South Carolina. I'm just kidding. So he was down helping us do that and he and I went. He loves local, good restaurants. I took him to Rivera's Food, which is a very good Mexican food place over here in West Columbia.
And I took him over there and we were eating. I was introducing him to some different things there that I really like there. While I was there, I ordered horchata, which is delicious. It is cinnamon rice milk. And I ordered one and I'm used to, like when you order like a milkshake, you get that one. So I'm sitting there, we're talking, hanging out.
The guy walks by with a pitcher and goes, more horchata? And like I just stared at him because fuses had blown in my brain because I did not realize I could just have them give me more. I drank like three giant glasses of horchata. Now, I'm going to advise you on something. Rice milk is different from milk milk. I found this out later in the day when I had like a sloshy bowling ball in my stomach.
I was like, I feel terrible. It was worth it. I can't move. I'm going to die. After we ate there, we went by, I was showing him another place I like, which is a Mexican bakery. And I won't try to say the word that's listed on the front, even though I really want to because I would butcher it and I might just say a different Spanish word.
But it's a Mexican bakery. They don't speak English. You have to, you just got to, you know, fumble through at the end. I walked in. I was looking stuff up on how to say things in Spanish and I was like, point at ones because, you know, they might have cream inside and I had to figure out how to say, con crema. And she'd say, you know, no, whatever.
And I'd say, okay, okay, like I want this one or whatever. So we order. I'm eating a churro. Then we walk over to the little, like Tienda place, like store there and got aloe drink. Did y'all know you can drink aloe? Like I only had ever rubbed it on my pasty skin after sun had assaulted me.
It's the only thing I'd ever used aloe for. I saw this thing and it was like aloe. It looked about the same. It was just a little more liquidy. And I thought, I'm not sure you can drink that. But you can.
It's apparently an edible thing. Maybe y'all knew that. I didn't know this. And so I was hanging out with my cousin and we were talking about stuff. And then it just dawned on me as I was eating this churro and drinking aloe drink, which again, should not have been chasing a gallon of horchata. But I went for it.
And I looked at him and I said, dude, my version of heaven has been really racist. And I didn't know it. Whenever I had pictured heaven, I had known that it would be this fulfillment of God's glory on earth. So I was just transferring a bunch of white things there. Like I know biscuits are in heaven. I know barbecue is in heaven.
Like I know they're there. I knew that. I was eating a churro. I had just drank horchata. I'm hanging out with my first generation Nigerian African-American cousin and I'm thinking, this stuff's there too. Horchata is there.
My aunt and uncle's achara is there. Like it's going to be there because look at this picture. John's looking in heaven and what does he see? 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. we don't become some sort of generic human form in heaven. He sees tribes, ethnicities, languages and peoples before the throne. He sees everybody makes it.
That declaration that the angel's saying in Revelation 5 which is he's ransomed by his blood people from every tribe and language and nation. John turns around and in two chapters says, I saw them and they still came from that tribe and they still had that language and they still had that nation and they all gathered before the throne of God to praise his name because God is the God of all humanity and he made all the peoples and in every culture there's stuff that lines up with what God designed it to be in every culture there's stuff that is absolutely sinful and broken and there is no right culture before God because all of the cultures belong to him. And I had inadvertently made America some form of heaven. There will be some stuff from the U.S. there.
I mentioned a few biscuits is one of them. but it's going to be so much more miraculously beautiful than that. There's going to be so much more depth and richness than that and I know in my limited human version God had to meet me on my love language which was food particularly that day things made out of cinnamon to tell me that he had much more in store not only for then but for now. I want us to see something here and I want us to talk about this. I got on Joshua Project the International Mission Board has some different statistics but both of them kind of reveal the same thing. Joshua Project studies people groups so does the IMB International Mission Board.
To tell me that he had much more in store not only for then but for now. I want us to see something here and I want us to talk about this. I got on Joshua Project the International Mission Board has some different statistics but both of them kind of reveal the same thing. Joshua Project studies people groups so does the IMB International Mission Board. Joshua Project though we're going to just look at their statistics Joshua Project
Says that there are 16,510 people groups so this is languages this is locations 16,510 different types of people groups unreached people groups meaning people from them there's no significant amount of Jesus followers among them sometimes it means nobody as far as we know has even made it to them no Bible has been translated no gospel has been preached in their language they may have never
Even heard the name of Jesus 6,672 people groups no gospel no followers of Jesus that means about 40% of the people groups on earth no gospel no Bible no proclamation of the hope that we have they don't have an elder looking at them and saying weep no more just sin just brokenness no hope
Let me do it by population because you might would say as I would say hearing that statistic yeah but I'm sure a lot of those people groups are really small there's about 7.29 billion people on earth according to the Joshua Project population of unreached people is 3.07 billion that puts about 42%
Of the humans on the globe no gospel no Bible no Jesus no hope no weep no more now I want us to with crystal clear vision see that the angels said Jesus had ransomed from every tribe from every
People from every language from every nation people for his own possession Jesus has bought them and I want us to see with crystal clear vision that John says they make it John
Says I saw before the throne people from every tribe and every language and every nation praising Jesus we know the cross happened we know that Jesus has purchased by his blood worthiness on behalf of his
People and we know that there's this moment in time where an angel stands up and says who is worthy and Jesus with audacity walks to the throne of God and we get to weep no longer and there's a time when we stand before
The throne of God among our brothers and sisters proclaiming that Jesus owns salvation and that it belongs to the God who sits on the throne and we're placed in the middle with a call that says proclaim the gospel how does
God count people groups how does God count languages and tribes and nations is it the same way that Joshua Project does I doubt it Joshua Project and IMB don't even do it the same Jesus
Hasn't come back yet the job is not finished so we don't have to get caught up in that I don't care if they're off by a miraculously high number and it's only two billion people the job isn't
Finished we're still sent I want to push us here for a second and this may feel like I just want us to see something in heaven your family includes people that don't look like you in the eternity
As a Christian that you will spend before the throne of God your brothers and sisters aren't going to have the same skin tone same language same background same social economic standing right now
And if statistically in the US I think it's 90 ish percent nine out of ten of your friendships for everybody are same race generally same look the same as you same background
Same race I just want to push us here a little bit if that is the case for you that all of your relationships friendships look exactly like you do I'm not saying you're wrong it may have to do with the job
You work the neighborhood you're in I'm saying you might be wrong because it may have to do with the fact that that's easier because you think about things the same your backgrounds the same you talk about
Things the same it's an easier connection I know that within 10 10 minute drive of this building there's 70,000 people you got in your car anywhere you could drive in 10 minutes some of
You are like I drove 20 to get here yes there's a lot more people in that circle 10 minutes 56% of them are white 31% of them are black 8% of them are Hispanic 4% of them are Asian and Pacific
Islander but for some people that means you live in an apartment complex I know one family in our church family lives in an apartment complex that about one third of them are from India just in their apartment complex
I know of an apartment complex that we try to do stuff on a regular basis that's 50% Hispanic even though they make up only 8% of that 70,000 and God's told the church go to everybody
I'm not I'm not fussing at us I don't mean that at all I think in a lot of ways our church is very open to everybody I am saying that going to everybody will take more intentionality than going to the
People it's easiest to talk to and I am saying that this is what the church has been tasked with and I am saying that one
Day it's realized and we get to participate in that now we get to make our church look and feel as much like heaven as Jesus will allow us right now that's one of the reasons
We repent of sin it's one of the reasons we do all the things we do it's why we gather and sing to Jesus we've only read two bits of chapters they sang a lot already we get to gather
Around his throne and make much of Jesus and we get to as intentionally as we can be as a church family go out of our way to build relationships with everybody in your neighborhood at your office at your Job where you work
In your school in your classes we know the crosses happen we know this moment in history happened and rather than looking at that and going oh they all make it I don't have to do anything I think the more
We see this moment the more it has the opposite effect on us which is they all make it we get to go for it there are unreached people groups part of the reason they're unreached is because they're very hard to get to and when
You get to them they don't like you that's one of the reasons they're unreached if you can't if you just hop on a plane walk over there and they were like oh Americans we love you those people
Are reached the reason a lot of these Numbers are so high is that when you show up they kill you but here's the promise that's been given to the church we can keep going and they can keep killing us somebody's coming out we can keep going
They can keep killing us and at some point somebody from that tribe from that language from that people group will stand next to you by the throne and proclaim as loud and as violently as they can
Salvation belongs to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb we can keep going because we're going to make it you can right now go home pick a people group off of the Joshua
Project look at heaven and tell Jesus I'll go to them if you want me to and I'll die if you want me to because I know for a rock solid certainty that one day somebody
From that unreached people group will be there and they'll be my brother or my sister because you've bought them and I don't know if it'll have anything to do with me but I know you've called us and I
Know they'll be there and if I get to get that started I'll go some of you that's what you're supposed to do you're supposed to have us bring you up on stage and say we're going to
Lay hands on this sister we're going to lay hands on this brother and we're not telling you where they're going because you can't know where they're going because the people they're going to can't know they're coming and we're
Going to pray for them we're going to ask God to use them and if they get to come back praise Jesus and if we don't ever see them again praise Jesus because at no point was that not worth
It and at some point we'll stand before a throne and as loud and as violently as we can declare we'll say salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb
Some of you you're supposed to go plant a church in a place that still speaks English you're supposed to go with a team we're going to take you to our
Pastor training process you're going to go to Atlanta you're going to New York where Chris Romalia says there's unreached people groups in New York
We're going to bring you up on stage we're going to pray for you we're going to stand and say a lot of you need
To leave and go with them they're moving to Atlanta you need to move to Atlanta and go with them they're moving to San
Diego you need to go with them some of you need to stay because staying is your version of going because God has already
Sent you you live in an apartment complex with an unreached people group some of you are going to stay in apartment complex in
South Carolina even though you want to get a house because 96% of the people in apartment complexes in South Carolina are not a
Part of a church 96% of people in an apartment complex in South Carolina are not a part of a church and God has
Already sent you you live there because God said I want my church here because I want that person around my throne some of
You are in the class you're in because Jesus has blood bought people in that class and he has infiltrated that class with you
Some of you picked the major you picked you prayed about it and you were like I guess just this one I don't know
Randomly some of you that was the worst interview I ever had they at the end they said we'll call you if we've decided
We're going to consider you for the Job and I responded I'll call you for the consideration of the and then I just trailed off
Because that sentence didn't make any sense and I walked out and I'm crying in my car and you got the Job because God
Has blood bought people at that Job and he sent you I don't know where you're supposed to go I don't know to whom
You're supposed to go I know you're supposed to go and I know I know that wherever God sends you your destination is with
Every tribe and language and people and nation around a glorious throne staring at a glorious king and as loud as we can proclaim
It salvation belongs to our God and to the lamb there's cards in front of you and there are cards on the seat beside you if
You're in the front row I want you to grab one and I think there are enough pins to go around if not I
Want you to share it's very heavenly and I just want you to for a second I want you to if you're a Christian
I want you to prayerfully ask where and who I want you to sit and listen who has God put you around already who
Has God let you not quit thinking about who has he just brought to your mind right now you've never even heard of I
Want you to ask where and I want you to ask who and I want you to sit for a second I want you
To sit and listen I want you to write down what you think and if you think something and you think no that's crazy
I want you to write it down I'm going to pray for us as we do this God we know that your son has purchased a people
You've ransomed them from sin some of them are still held hostage we know God that you've bought people from every tribe and language
And nation God I pray that right now through your Holy Spirit you would lead Christians to write down names to write down places
To write down businesses to write down schools to write down friends to write down neighbors and neighborhoods to write down nations and peoples
That you might begin something today with one of your followers that there might be more followers of you I ask for you to
Speak I want you to take very seriously whatever the Lord led you to write down band's going to come back up here we're going to spend
Some time singing as we will one day do as brothers and sisters around the throne of our king and I pray for us
That God will forever keep us situated fully between the cross and the throne so that we'll never forget what matters I pray that he will sear in our
Minds this image of us as his people with his people before his throne so that we will forever have the courage and the boldness to have awkward conversations to fight
Through friendships that shouldn't have been friendships but we wouldn't go away to to go to places that no one in their right mind should go to carry a message that no one in their right mind can believe
Outside of the gracious power and presence of the king through his holy spirit redeeming and calling people to himself I pray that among our
Church there will be more church plants there will be more missionaries there will be those who are found worthy to bleed and sweat
And cry and die for the king I pray that there would be so many people who live their life as if a cross
To a throne to gather as many people as they possibly can to one day stand beside and with everything we have to declare
Salvation belongs to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb let's pray God I pray that you would give us courage
And boldness to accept your call that as we see what the end looks like we would be able to say yes to the
Mission now that you would use this church to take very seriously sin and the gospel that this would be a group of people
Who believe and know for a certainty that we have no worthiness outside of the lamb that you've ransomed us by your blood and
That you're going to bring all your people there we love you and we praise you in Jesus name amen
The Great Commission
Transcript
How are we doing this morning? This side's doing pretty good. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We've got two more weeks. This is the second to last week of our Home Sweet Home series.
We've been walking through and just asking, what is the church? How has God designed the church? What makes for a healthy church? How are we supposed to organize ourselves? What are we supposed to look like? Today is very important for us as we kind of talk through this.
If we kind of miss today, we miss a lot. Maybe even like the essence of what the church is supposed to be and to do. And so it's a big day for us as we kind of are wrapping up this series and trying to look at, okay, this is how we're supposed to organize. This is how we're supposed to be designed. These are things that go into us being a healthy church. And now we're kind of asking, like, what do we do?
Why does the church exist? And so we're kind of answering that question. But I want us to, we're going to kind of start big picture as we get into this this morning. And so God created the world. He designed it beautiful and made it glorious so that we even now can look and just be taken aback by how majestic there are, things are in the world. Like I've been watching this TV series called Africa on Netflix.
And it's just crazy. Like every, I'm just, there's this, they do such a good job of like sucking me in on, I watch two giraffes fight each other. And like by the end of it, I'm like, who's going to win? And like they just, like one giraffe knocked the other one over and it's this English guy. And he's like, will this be the end for the king of the giraffes? And it's like, I don't know what's going to happen to the king of giraffes.
And it's like, and there'll be times where they're just like panning over a flower that's in the middle of a jungle. And I'm just like, that's crazy looking or zooming in on ants or like it's, there's just God made this world beautiful and amazing. And he put humanity on it. And then because God put so much good into us and because he made us with intelligence and personhood, like we as humans could choose to respond to God appropriately, to worship him and to relate to him the way we were designed to, or we could choose to hold ourselves as supreme. I don't want to spoil it for you, but we chose the second one.
We chose all of us to believe that we are the most important, that our happiness and our joy and our life matters more than others. Like we chose to promote ourselves over worshiping God. And here's the thing, worshiping God is the only right way to relate to God. A buddy of mine recently was getting, he was getting mad at a friend of his because his friend was being disrespectful to his mom. To his own mom. And so my buddy said he got in his face and was like, don't talk to her like that.
That's your mama. Like that's your mama. You don't act like that towards your mama. Like his, his only argument was she's your mom. You can't talk to her like that. And I agreed with his argument.
His point was just because of who she is, just by the nature of y'all's relationship, she's to be treated a certain way. Period. The end. And that's our relationship to God. Just because God is God, just because God's the creator, we're actually designed to worship him. It's the only correct response for creatures to, to respond to their creator in worship, to hold him up as holy and honorable and to praise him.
And what we said was, no, we want to be supreme. So this is where selfishness and racism and all of our pride and envy and murder and war come from believing ourselves to be supreme. So God's got a massive problem. He created the world to be good. He put some creatures on it that were designed to relate appropriately to him. And he poured a lot of himself into them.
And they immediately turned around and said, no, we're going to be supreme. They started making much of themselves. And so now God really kind of has a choice. He can just be done with it. He can just start over or he can try to fix it. He can try to fix the problem.
This is what we're presented with right at the beginning of the Bible. Now you may be wanting to go, okay, time out real quick, real quick. Two questions. One, if God made people and they turned bad real quick, isn't that his fault? Like, shouldn't that be on him? Like, didn't he make them poorly?
My response to that is, first of all, I don't really know. It doesn't seem like it would be. But secondly, and this, I think, is a better response than my first one. I want to talk to you about goldfish. You ever had a pet goldfish? Let's say you own a pet goldfish.
Let's say your friend did. You go to his house and he says, I want to show you the most loving and righteous and good and glorious of all goldfish. Still be just kind of a goldfish, right? Like, if you have a goldfish that is pure evil and a goldfish that is pure goodness, can you tell the difference? Like, there's not going to make much of a difference. Now, let's move to hamsters.
You got a hamster that's like a great hamster and like a mean hamster. There's some difference there. Like, one of them is going to bite you. The other one might, I don't know, like watch TV with you. I don't know what hamsters do. A cat?
Hypothetically, let's say there was a good cat. I know. I know it's hard. It's hard to get your brains there. Work with me here. Hypothetically, there's a good cat.
Like, there's some difference between like an evil cat and a good cat. Like, there's some difference. A dog? More of a difference. An eight-year-old child. You ever met like a really cool, great eight-year-old?
Yeah. Okay. You met a terrible one? Uh-huh. Seen him at Walmart? Like, there's some difference there.
Like, a really bad child or a really good child, there's a bigger gap there. What about like a full-grown adult? Yeah, bigger gap. What if that adult's more intelligent or has more power, stronger, or has more money? Here's the thing. God poured so much good into us.
He put so much intelligence, so much ability for emotion, so much of himself into us that we actually have the ability to be very good. But when we turn that, it actually makes us far worse. See, it's God putting so much good into us that makes humanity capable of so much bad. So it's actually that God poured himself into us that we could turn that one way or the other. And so I don't think it's his fault. I think that he poured good things into us.
Now, you could say, well, couldn't he made it where we could never do anything bad? And it's like, yeah, but not with us still having some choice. And is goodness really goodness if you have no choice? I think it's because God put so much into us that there's so much potential for bad. The second thing you may say, okay, well, all right, all right, well, why can't he just forgive us? If these first humans rebelled against him, why couldn't he just say, well, no big deal?
I had a friend ask me that recently. He is a very tall, kind of aggressive guy I've been hanging out with. And so I asked him, I said, okay, if we're hanging out with you and your friends, and let's say I walk over to you and I slap you. When I asked him that, he went, like, leaned forward at me like, are you serious right now? Like, you slap me, are you serious? And it was like, I said, I didn't actually slap you, just hypothetically, calm down.
But what if I slap you? I was like, what are our options? Who's going to pay for you being slapped? He said, you are. I was like, okay, that's an option. I was like, you aggressively assault me for slapping you.
I could pay penance for me slapping you. What if you don't go with that option? What are your other options? Who pays? He's like, well, I do. He's like, yeah, you pay for being slapped.
You take the pain. You have no outlet for your aggression. Your friends think you're a punk or they make fun of you or there's some kind of shame going along with having me slap you. Like, immediately it made sense to him. Now, some of you maybe don't think about life in terms of being assaulted. Let's say I was at your house and I just accidentally knocked your TV over.
Let's say I maliciously knocked your TV over and broke it. You can make me pay for your TV. You can pay for your TV. Or you can have no TV. But once it's broken, there's no option of just forgiveness without somebody paying.
So once we slapped God in the face, once we broke his good creation, he can't just go, well, magic forgiveness, because there's actually an exchange that's happened. Someone has to pay. And so what I want to tell you the story of this morning as we get started is the story of how God said he was willing to pay. How he was willing to pay for our sin, our brokenness, our rebellion, how God was willing to step in and pay for it. The same as if you decided to take this lap and be okay with it or you decided to replace your television and not make me pay for it. God stepped in and said, okay, it's broken, but I'll fix it.
Here's what he did. He tells the first people who rebel, I'm going to make this right. Then he picks a guy named Abraham out of the middle of nowhere and says, I'm going to turn you into a family. And through your bloodline, you're going to show the world what it's like to run away from sin, what it's like to know me. You're going to show them who I am. So he picks Abraham and Abraham begins to have this family.
But here's what we see throughout the Old Testament. There was not going to be a bloodline that kept sin out. So Abraham's family, it's like your family, really messed up. Some of you have your families here with you. Just don't make eye contact. Keep straight ahead.
But Abraham's family had sin and problems and distress and brokenness. And so God then tells his family, he says, okay, I'm going to take and make you into, I'm going to give you my rules, my laws, my morals. And I'm going to make you into a kingdom of priests. I'm going to turn you into a whole group of people who worship me correctly. And you're going to show the world what it's like to worship me. And through you, they're going to come to know me.
But the problem was even in the priesthood, even in the morals, even in the law of the Old Testament, they couldn't do it. There wasn't going to be a moral set of standards that people could live up to that could keep sin out. So then he looks and says, all right, I'm going to give you a border. I'm going to give you a land. I'm going to make you into a kingdom. And through this kingdom, you're going to show the world what I'm like.
And through you, they're going to come to know me. But it turns out no amount of border patrol could keep sin out. And that kingdom doesn't last very long. And sin is consistently a terrible, rampant problem. And so God says, okay. And he comes in the form of Jesus, which was his plan all along.
He'd been taking people and making them into a group of people to proclaim to the world what he was like. And then he comes as Christ. Jesus steps out of eternity. The Son of God comes, lives perfectly on our behalf, and goes to the cross to pay for our sin. But Jesus does what we couldn't do, fulfills the law, lives the way he ought to have, doesn't rebel against God, puts God first, worships him, and then swaps places with us to pay for our sin.
You see, sin was the issue. Even in the family, even in the priesthood, even in the kingdom, sin was the problem. It kept coming in. And so Jesus pays for sin. And then he does what he's always done. He grabs a group of people, and he says, you're going to represent me to the world.
And through you, the world's going to come to know me. And that's the church. You see, that was God's plan all along. He kept grabbing people and saying, through you, I'm going to show the world what I'm like. Through you, the world's going to come to know me. But see, Jesus had to pay for sin, and then he takes the church and says, okay, sin has been dealt with, and now through you, I'm going to show the world what I'm like.
And that's the church. That's our mission. That's our goal, to be a group of people called by Jesus to show the world what he's like. So we're going to go to Matthew chapter 28. So all the stuff we've been talking about in this whole series, how we ought to look, how we ought to act, what we're supposed to do is for the purposes of this mission that we've been given, of God's plan to redeem and save the world, that God has decided and chosen to use people to represent him to the world.
That's his plan A, is to pay for sin through the cross and then take a group of people and say, you're going to represent me to the world. Let's pray, and then we'll start reading in Matthew chapter 28. God, we thank you for your grace. Thank you for your goodness. We pray, Lord, that you would equip us to be on your mission, that we would see it clearly in your word and that we would follow actively for your glory. We love you and praise you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Okay, so we're going to pick up in verse 16. So Jesus has died on the cross. He was buried and he rose again and he told his disciples, meet me at this specific place and he's going to tell them what he wants them to do. Now the 11 disciples, so that's all of the disciples except for Judas who betrayed Jesus.
So these are the guys who've been following Jesus around for the past three years, seeing him perform miracles, being taught by him, doing ministry with him. The 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Just so you all know, those are really the two options. Jesus walked around telling people he was God. They watched him brutally murdered and then he came back alive and started talking to him.
And those are really your two options. There's not really much of a middle ground. Either you realize this is Jesus and he's alive and so you worship him as God, the guy who's conquered death, or you just kind of doubt the whole thing. We're here. This is us. Like we're either kind of doubting or we're worshipping.
Those are really our options. And I love that this is the 11 disciples. So they're worshipping, but some of them who've fallen around are going, I don't know because of how dead he was really, really recently. And I'm having a hard time with this. If they were just trying to make up a story to convince us, I don't think they would have included that. But they were like, no, we need to be real about the fact that some of us were really having a hard time with this.
So they worshiped in some doubt. Jesus came and said to them, 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 that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. So Jesus calls his disciples together.
He calls this group together that's been with him. And he says, go, it's your mission to represent me to the world. He's doing what he's been doing this whole time. Grabbing a group of people and saying, you're going to be my representatives. Through you, the world's going to come to know me. Peter, one of Jesus's disciples who's here in this moment.
Later, he's writing a letter to some churches and he explains it this way. We're going to have it on the screen. But he understood exactly what Jesus was saying. So how y'all been? Things going good? Boom.
Stay focused, guys. But you are a chosen race. So who's that? That's Abraham. That's the family. You're a royal priesthood.
Who's that? That's the people that God called together and gave him the law. You're a holy nation, a people for his own possession. So what Peter's saying is, we're the fulfillment of this now. God's plan all along was to grab a people, to make a priesthood, to make a nation, and he's saying, this is what he's done with us, with the church. We're the same thing.
We're the group of people who are going to represent God to the world. A people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. That's the church. The people of God who've been forgiven.
Who he's not held our sin against us because Jesus paid for it on the cross. And now he's called us together to be on mission to represent him to the world. That's our task. That's what we're doing. That's why what you're a part of the church is to worship and glorify Jesus and see more people worship and glorify Jesus, to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. So we're just going to walk through and talk through this, what Jesus commands us to do, what he tells his disciples to do and how that applies to us and what that gets to look like and try to just understand what's going on here and what this looks like for us now.
That's our goal today. Some of you have been around the church for a while and you've heard this passage taught over and over and over and over again. Good. It's important. I heard Francis Chan put it this way one time and I thought it was very helpful. He's a pastor.
He said if he told his daughter, I need you to go upstairs and I need you to clean your room. She said, okay. And then later he went up to her room and it wasn't clean and he was like, what are you doing? And she's like, well, I've been thinking about what you said. I even memorized what you said. I can quote it back to you.
Go clean your room. He's like, yeah. She goes, I've written in my journal about what you said. I've even invited some of my friends over today and we're going to talk about what it would look like for me to clean my room. And he said she would have completely missed the whole point. She's supposed to just clean her room.
When I was in college, I had a guy I met with on a regular basis and at one point we had met, I don't know, for some weeks and he looked at me and said, hey man, I don't know if I want to keep doing this because every time we meet you tell me the same thing. I said, yeah, because you hadn't done it yet. I'm cool with us not meeting until you start doing this stuff. We're not moving to step two until step one's done. The reason we keep talking about this and I keep saying the same things is because you've never shown up. So our job, we're going to talk about this today, but our job is to do it.
To actually follow through with what he's commanded us to. All right, so let's see what he says. Some of you are new, you're new believers, you haven't been around the church too long. This may be new to you and that's great. This is why you're a Christian, because Jesus has used his church to do this. Jesus said to them, this is verse 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Okay, so this election cycle has been pretty crazy. Donald Trump doesn't have anything on that. He hadn't come close to saying anything like that. Could you imagine him starting one of his rallies like that? He plays a little music, he comes out. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
I'm huge. Like, could you imagine? Like, if this isn't true, this is like the most cocky statement you could possibly say. Jesus said he's in charge of everything. And he just rose from the grave, so I'm inclined to believe him. He says everything belongs to me.
All authority on heaven and earth, like all of it is mine. Go therefore. Bible study tip. If you see the word therefore, it's referring to something that's already come before it. So here it's pretty simple.
Why do we go? Because of all the authority given to him. Because all authority belongs to him. So go therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Okay. First thing we're supposed to do is go.
I think mostly that just means be intentional. Get up. Get after it. Make a plan. Go for it. It does mean go to the ends of the world.
Go to the people who don't know him. Go to the people who don't have a Bible translated in their language yet. Go to the people where you have to learn the language just to tell them about Jesus. But it also means go to work and go to class realizing that your job is to make disciples. Go to your neighborhood picnic. Throw a neighborhood picnic realizing that your job is to make disciples.
Have some intentionality behind what you're doing. Because we're all, as the church, called to this. Go therefore and make disciples. Okay. Now. You're a disciple.
Now. You're a disciple. Now. You're a disciple. Go make disciples. Immediately.
You're having like flashbacks. Because you know what he's talking about. So if you were in a math class. And the teacher got to the end and said. Would you come up? Called your name.
Told you to come stand in front of everybody. And said. Okay. Next semester. You're teaching this class. And then like handed you their stuff and walked out.
You would know how to teach math. Only because of what they had taught you. You would just reproduce what they did. So when he says go make disciples. He's talking to his disciples. So immediately they're going.
Okay. What did he just do? Like if you just. Somebody taught you how to run a forklift or a cash register. And then they said from now on you're going to train the new people. You're going to teach them what they just taught you.
So he says go make disciples. Well how did Jesus make disciples? Well. He called people out of normal life. Expected that he would be the most important thing to them from then on. Expected a lot out of them.
And built relationships with them. He was around them all the time. They walked around. If you read through the gospels. A lot of it is going to or from eating. Or to or from a party.
They hung out. They were around each other. In normal life. He had specific times where he taught them. He had specific times where he sent them off to do ministry. And then they kind of debrief it.
But he was around them. So when he says go make disciples. Yeah that means once a week at a coffee shop. It also means way more than that. Building relationships. Getting to know people in normal life.
Average everyday stuff. Intentional ministry. Like it. They immediately knew what he was talking about. Go and make disciples. Of all nations.
So the church is supposed to see people become followers of Jesus. And we're supposed to do this of all nations. Friends. When the gospel was first preached at Pentecost. Everybody heard it in their native language. Because God created everybody.
He speaks all languages fluently. In heaven. We're going to talk about this next week. John says he sees everyone from every language and tribe and people and nation. Do you know that when we get to heaven. You don't suddenly become less your ethnicity.
Because God designed them all. And they all belong to him. Muslims will be quick to tell you that God speaks Arabic. And if you want to hear the words of God. You've got to know and read Arabic. God speaks Arabic.
He also speaks Hebrew. And Spanish. And Yoruba. And English. All very very fluently. Because they all belong to him.
And there isn't one correct nationality or race that belongs to God. It's everybody from day one. Recently the United Methodists were getting together. And they're voting on some stuff. And there's been some increased kind of liberal tendencies in the church in the United States. And one of the things that we read.
That I read recently was that. One of the reasons that the United Methodists have stayed as conservative as they have. Is because 40% of the people that are a part of the United Methodists live in Africa. And Africa has been untouched by some of our cultural things going on in the United States. And I was so proud of our African brothers and sisters this past week showing up. And one of the things I read was they said.
I don't know why we're not reading the scriptures. And holding fast to them. And why we're allowing culture to affect us the way it is. And I was like thank you Jesus for being at work in the church in Africa. Even where you may need to be leading us to repent here in the United States. Like it's beautiful that the church does not just exist in one place.
But that it belongs to all of God's people all across all languages. All borders from the very beginning. And we're supposed to proclaim it to all nations. That's why a white church, a black church. They don't really exist. You can have a church that's primarily made up of white people.
A church that's primarily made up of black people. But the church is Jesus' church. And it's all nations all the time. Go make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey.
Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Okay. People should become Christians through the church. That's what baptizing them means. So teaching them to observe means training people how to follow Jesus.
Baptizing them means proclaiming the gospel and seeing them place faith in Jesus. The people who are baptized in scripture are the people who've placed faith in Jesus. So as a church, we should see people come to know Jesus. We should have baptisms all the time. Because that's a celebration of someone's place their faith in Jesus. So we should see people baptized.
And we should teach them. And I've noticed that some people kind of lean one way or the other. So it's either like I just proclaimed the gospel. And if they believe in Jesus, good. See you later. Best of luck to you.
And some people are like my job is just to teach people. And it's like no. The whole church is to do all of it. Christians don't really believe in this vague progressivism. People talk about like this person's a progressive or we're working towards progress. And it's just kind of this like vague all of the world just slowly moves towards betterness into the future.
Have you noticed this? Like in general, like our culture is like anything that happened in the past was probably pretty bad. Because we're all just riding the wave of progress. Okay. First of all, that doesn't motivate me to do anything. Because if I'm just going to progress naturally, leave me alone.
I'll get there when I get there. I'm on the wave of progress. Just because I'm a few waves back. Don't be judging me. Progress will get me there. Take it easy.
See Christians don't really believe that. We don't believe progress is a tide. That even though it looks like it's going backward and forward, it's slowly coming in or slowly going out. Christians believe in active, open rebellion and reformation. We believe that we are called to rebel against hell and sin openly and actively now. Led by Jesus who openly and actively rebelled against sin in the way of the world.
When he made sure that he was going to openly and actively rebel against that. To the point that he was hated so much that he went to the cross to pay for our sin and our debt. And we openly, actively rebel against sin by walking into our places of work. And walking into our neighborhoods. And walking into our schools. And proclaiming that people are sinners that need to repent.
And they need to know that Jesus died for their sin. That the gospel is real and is actually good news. That's what we're called to do. To actually tell people about Jesus. To actively, openly tell people about Jesus. We live currently in a society that says that all viewpoints are equally valid and true.
If you are a Christian, you do not believe that. Because it's nonsense. It's dumb. All positions aren't actively valid or true. You can have your position. I'm not mad at you.
But if I believe that... Let me... My wife and I. I have a jacket that is obviously gray. My wife for years has told me that it is green. We have never said, you know what?
You see green. And I see gray. And the jacket is gray to me and green to you. And that's both true. We've never done that. Do you know why?
Because that jacket actually exists and is an actual color. Gray. And I pray for my wife that her eyes will get better. But we have continually... And she tells me that I don't know how to see. But it's like we continually point back and say, no, it's one or the other.
I was reading a book recently. And the guy's preface to the book, he wrote it to a friend of his. And he said, to my dear friend, who I believe most everything you believe is ridiculous and bad. And he said, and this has been the basis of a very good friendship. And he said, there's something to a good manly disagreement that has been the basis of our friendship. And I hope it never goes away.
And honestly, we've lost some of that. We've lost the ability to say, this is true. This is where I stand. I'm not mad at you, but I do disagree. And we've been told, keep your opinions to yourself. Don't share your religion with anybody.
Don't... Look, nonsense. If you're a Christian, you believe that this epic story we just told a second ago, it's true that people are destined for hell, but have a Savior who's paid for their sin and their debt. And we're called to tell them. We're supposed to see people baptized. We're supposed to see people come to know Jesus.
And we're supposed to do that now. We're supposed to actively, openly rebel against hell now. One of the goals and missions of our community groups is to be people that represent God to the world and actively, openly rebel against sin, rebel against the evil that is in the world, and fight for good and fight for holiness and point people to Jesus. One of the things that I pray on a regular basis, for people that I know aren't Christians but I'm not around a lot, when I get around them, I'll pray, you know, God, use me, help me to have good conversations with them, whatever. One of the things I pray for them, especially if they live in another place, is I'll pray, God, use your church.
Make Christians move in as their neighbors. God, give that Christian the courage and the boldness to harass this person every time they see them. God, use your church. God, send them Christian co-workers who love them and won't quit talking to them and won't quit chasing after them and won't quit sharing the gospel. God, use your church. And you know what I hope?
I hope that there's a mama who's like 85. And I hope and pray that every day she gets on her face before Jesus, four states away, and she prays for my neighbors and she prays for me. I hope every day she lays on her face and says, Jesus, chase my son down. Jesus, chase my daughter down and use your church. And I hope God has placed me there specifically to use me for his glory and to answer that lady's prayers. I hope in your classroom there's someone sitting two seats in front of you whose mom and grandparents every day lay on their face before the throne of God and say, send your church.
Use your people to proclaim the gospel that my son and my daughter and my granddaughter might believe. You see, let me ask you a question. Your neighbor's been sharing the gospel with you? Your co-workers been sharing the gospel with you? Have your friends at school been sharing the gospel with you? Do you know why God put you there?
Because he's using his church to infiltrate this world because it's his plan to redeem the world. It's to grab a people and say, you're going to represent me to the world and I'm going to use you to proclaim this gospel. The gospel's already happened. Sin's already defeated. But people got to know, we as a church should see people baptized because we should be opening our mouths and telling people about Jesus, that they need to repent of sin, that they need to place their faith in Jesus, and that he's the only way to God.
That, as John says, that those who would believe in his name, he gave the right to be called children of God. We're not all children of God. Those who believe in Jesus are children of God. Everybody's created by God, but we're not all his children. And honestly, I hope this is offensive. And our culture says, well, that's offensive.
You shouldn't say that your viewpoint is better. It's like, I don't care. I believe it. And I hope it's offensive enough to lead people to repent. I hope it's shocking enough so that my neighbors will turn away from sin. 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 that I have commanded you.
Okay. I love that it says observe, and I love that he says that I commanded you. Do you know what you need to do to make disciples? Be a disciple. Teach them to observe all that I commanded you, which means bring them in with you. He said this to 11 guys.
They heard this individually, but they knew the mission wasn't individualistic because Jesus had them together all the time. They weren't supposed to each go out and conquer the world on their own. They were given a team. And he says, proclaim the gospel and then teach them to observe. Show them what it's like. Follow actively after me.
And he says, all that I've commanded you. What did he command them? Love God with all their heart. Love their neighbor as themselves. Love their enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.
Oh, love the... I just want to point this out to y'all. Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself. Okay. To love your enemies. And to especially love the church.
Who's excluded? He tricked us. Love your neighbor and your enemy. Everybody else falls in the middle. And then he says, and also love the church more special. More double special love.
He's like, okay. Like we're called to show people what he's like through the way we love them, through the way we serve them. He also says, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. That everything belongs to Jesus. I love how unequivocal his call is throughout the gospels.
People are like, hey, I'll follow you, but let me go do this. And he's like, no. And it's like, whoa. Take it easy. Apparently you think you're something really special. Yes.
I think I'm God. Very special. Like that's, that's really like throughout the Bible. He just shows up to people's workplace. He's like, hey. Two second notice.
Give it to your boss. Let's go. That's, we're supposed to follow him with everything. That our wallets, that our time, that our efforts, that our energy, that our jobs, that our relationships belong to Jesus. Period. That's what a disciple looks like.
Period. These guys had jobs. They had things. But Jesus says, no, follow me. Now, for some of us, going means go to your job. Jesus put you there on purpose.
Some of it, it means quit your job and go to another country. Learn another language. Live your life pursuing the glory and the fame of Jesus because currently you're just pursuing the glory and the fame of you. You see that the undercurrent of our rebellion against God was that we were supreme. That's why Jesus comes in and says, deny yourself. Because he's reversing that.
We're not supreme. He is. So, that we would be disciples who make disciples. That's the call. Jesus says, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. This is it.
It's all about Jesus. This is the call to the church. And guess what? It's worked. Plan A has worked. These 11 guys see the most rapid growth in any kind of organized belief system ever.
And it's traveled through Europe. And it's traveled through Asia. And it's taking names in China right now. And it's traveled through Africa and South America and the United States. And Jesus' church has continued to expand and to grow. And here's the thing.
We've gotten really comfortable. But this is our call. This is why we're Christians. This is what he's called us to do. He saved us to proclaim his excellencies and to make us into a group of people that would follow after him, making sure everybody else comes to know Jesus. If you're a Christian, you believe this story.
That our major problem is that we've removed God from his position, mostly placed ourself there, and that all of us are destined for an eternity, either set free from sin or absolutely completely engulfed in it, engulfed in the wrath and the havoc that sin wreaks on our souls. And God has saved you to proclaim his excellencies to your friends, to your family, to your coworkers, to your neighbors. And honestly, if they don't like it, if they don't like you, love them enough to not care. This is our call. This is what we're supposed to do. Two questions.
Are you a disciple? You following after Jesus? Does he own your time? Does he own your wallet? Does he own your life goals? Have you signed a blank sheet of paper and slid it across the table?
Said you fill it out? I'm yours? Question two. You making disciples? That's what we're called to do. When was the last time you told somebody about Jesus?
One of the things I think we think a lot of times is like, well, I'm not good enough. I don't know enough. I'm not far along enough. If you were going to help me go up a mountain and you were at the top of the mountain and just yelled instructions at me, I would get eaten by a bear and it would be your fault. Part of the best way to lead me up a mountain is to be two steps ahead of me so that you can see the bear first. And take off running.
Like that's one of the ways we make disciples is I just know a little bit more. Like I just, I'm just fumbling through this with you, but I'm trying to follow Jesus in normal life too. You know what I love about this call that Jesus gives? He starts it off with, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. Jesus gives this call after the cross.
Every time I read this, I feel terrible. Every time I read the Great Commission, I'm like, I'm such a horrible person. I don't love people enough. I don't believe this enough. I don't trust God enough. I don't have enough faith.
Jesus gives us this after the cross where he's already paid for all of our weakness and all of our doubt and all of our rebellion and all of our lack of faith. And he calls us in his authority and in his presence to just be a part of his mission. You don't need to feel guilty. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. You don't need to feel terrible or scared. Like all of his authority and all of his presence, you just get to go.
Well, that's the hope we have in Jesus. But that's the point of the church. It's one of the reasons we focus on groups so much because we think it's the best way to make disciples. If we come up with another one, we'll talk about groups. We'll talk about something else. If we realize our church isn't making disciples, if we go through stages where we're not baptizing believers, if we're not helping train up leaders, if we're not multiplying groups, I'll actively work to shut this down.
If we quit proclaiming the gospel, this is what we're called to do. This is our job. This is our goal. This is our hope. We believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, died in our place for our sins so that we don't have to be good. Do you know how good that news is?
Do you know how terrible we are? How little we deserve? And how much we take the little bit of piddly mess that we have and prance around with it in front of God and act like He owes us something? And Jesus took everything and paid for our sin to welcome us to Him, and we're free. And then He says, go share this. Go share this hope and this life and this joy and this, my glory and my holiness with everybody else because they're all running around trying to fix themselves.
They're all running around with no hope whatsoever trying to win a losing game. Do you know how good the gospel is to your soul? How freeing it is when you think about it, when you remember it, when you meditate on it? Why on earth would we not want to share that with our friends and our neighbors and our coworkers? If you believe the gospel is burdensome, you don't believe the gospel. Someone has told you something wrong.
I would love to talk to you afterwards and explain to you very clearly how ineffective you will be at saving yourself. I can say it now. Very unaffected. Ineffective. Unaffected isn't a word. Somebody help me out, y'all.
Band's going to come back up. We're going to sing. When we leave from Sundays, I think sometimes we say stuff like, you're dismissed. That's not really true. You're sent. You see, we exist as the church on mission.
That's our call. And I pray that we believe the gospel so much as a church family that we don't care if our culture thinks we're offensive because we believe that it's true. And I pray that we believe the gospel so much that Jesus so grabs our souls that we can't help but in his authority and with his presence help other people come to know Jesus. I want you to take a minute and think about the places God has placed you because you've been sent. You've been equipped by his Holy Spirit. You've been given the gospel information, the knowledge that you need and the faith and the hope of Jesus and you've been sent.
And I want you to think about the people around you who don't know Jesus. And if you're here today and you don't know Jesus, maybe you haven't picked this up yet. That's all we want for you. I want Jesus for you. I've had friends before at work and they're like, oh, you want me to become a Christian? It's like, yeah, that'd be great.
That's exactly what I want. That's kind of one of the reasons that I will harass you forever. That's what I want. I want you to become a Christian. I think it's great. We're unashamed of the fact that Jesus saves and that he redeems and that he makes us holy.
I stand before God, holy and blameless and above reproach, Colossians says. I didn't do that. I actively every day do things to undo that. But Jesus did it and it's done forever. And that's my hope and that's our hope and that we've been called, we've been commissioned. God's taken a group of people and he said, you're going to represent me to the world.
So let's do that. God, we pray that you would empower us for your mission, that you would use our groups for your glory, that people would come to know you. There would never be a significant amount of time before we have to rebuild that portable baptistry and baptize people in your name. And I pray that we would be active in calling people to observe everything that you've commanded, that we would be disciples and make disciples. That you would empower that in us, that we would accept the call that you gave to your original disciples as we continue in that line of people who've believed in your name, who've been called out of darkness and into your glorious light.
We would proclaim your excellencies as the people called to represent you on earth. God, I pray that you would help us to submit everything to you. Most of all, our own names, our own glory, our own fame, our own happiness, all the things that we seek to fill ourselves up, that we would know that hope and joy and fulfillment only come through you. God, I pray that you'd send us exactly where you want us to use your church to see more people come to know you. I pray that there's a large section of people in Columbia in heaven because this church exists. People in West Columbia that get to gather together and celebrate that you equipped and sent Mill City Church to be a part of this city, to see people come to know you.
We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
May 22
Discipline
Transcript
How are we doing this morning? My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. My community group, the community group I'm part of, we, a couple weeks ago, were having a cookout. And so we were all hanging out, having a cookout. And we were grilling, and we had a fire pit, and we were just kind of celebrating that...
Oh, actually, we were celebrating a couple of people in our group got baptized. That's what we were celebrating. I was going to say we were celebrating that the weather was getting nicer, but that wasn't true at all. We were just enjoying the weather was getting nicer. We were celebrating that a couple of people in our group had gotten baptized, and so we were just cooking out and hanging out. And my wife came over to me.
I was standing at a table talking and just kind of eating and drinking. And she came over to me, and she goes, You're going to have to help me watch that boy. That boy is our son. He has a name, but I know who she was talking about. Because a lot of times when we go out places, I just walk off because I'm not great at this yet. And she tends to him, but he's about as big as she is now.
And he's a little over a year. But so she said that, and at that moment I was like, Okay, so I'm like, I've got to find him. And so she goes, You're going to have to help watch him. And I kind of look. And at this moment, I look behind her, and about 10 yards off, I think she just sat him down somewhere where he was safe, but then she walked away. And so he scanned the area and thought, What is the closest thing that could do me some serious physical harm?
Because that's how he goes through life. And he saw a fire pit and took off running as fast as he could towards it. And so I saw him. The fire pit was kind of down a hill, so he was going to get going as fast as he could go, and there was going to be no possible way he could stop. I saw him running towards the fire pit. It had a pretty good fire going in it.
And I took about two steps and realized there was absolutely no way I was going to make it there. And he was running about as quick as his little legs could take him towards a fire pit, and I was not going to make it. And Anna did not realize this was going on. So I took about two steps. It really felt like the ultimate dad challenge that she had just put me in. She was like, You watch him.
Best of luck. It's about to get serious. And so I see him running as fast as he can towards a fire pit. I can't get there in time. Maybe some other parents maybe know kind of that feeling. If you're maybe you don't have children or maybe you're a parent that kind of does that thing where you watch your children all the time, you know, one of those kind of parents.
Maybe you don't understand that feeling. Imagine someone swings a baseball bat at your face, and it takes four seconds to get there. But you just kind of have to watch it. Kind of like that's kind of this moment of just being like, This is going to be terrible, and I'm going to have to watch it. And we had a good run. I mean, he's a little over a year, so we did well so far.
But this is it. And it took about two steps, and I think some other people in our group noticed because they all help us watch Archer, which, thank you, Lord. And a lady named Edie, who also has a son who was born on the exact same day. Our group has three boys that were born. Two of them were born on the same day. One of them was born the day after.
And she has a son who was born on the exact same day. And she jumped up from where she was, and right as Archer was getting close to the fire pit, just scooped him up. And so he's looking back at the fire and crying and wondering why this lady is psychotic. And she hands him to me, and I was just like, Thank you very much. Like, it was just a moment of absolute relief. And I was so thankful for her and for her seeing that and jumping up and grabbing him before he ran headlong into absolute disaster.
Today, we are going to talk about church discipline. As we talk about what it looks like for us as Christians to be a healthy church, what it looks like for us together to follow Jesus together. We're talking about church discipline. And really what we're talking about, what church discipline is, is the process through which Christians address sin in each other. To pursue holiness and to avoid destruction. It's the process through which Christians address sin in each other.
To pursue holiness and avoid destruction. It is us as Christians, when one of us is running as fast as we possibly can, towards destruction. Towards pain and disaster. It's us as Christians being willing to do what Edie did, which was jump in and snatch each other up. Here's the reason why this is helpful for us to talk about. You're going to sin.
I'll let that sink in. No, that was heavy. You weren't ready for that. The question we have as a church is, how are we going to handle sin? How are we going to address sin? We're not going to not sin.
You are in a room full of messed up people and sinners. And the question for us is, how are we going to address it? How are we going to handle it? It feels a little bit like when I get to do premarital counseling with couples in our church. We talk about, basically, we're going to get together and talk about all the things y'all are going to fight about. And we're going to talk about how to fight.
So, honestly, in premarital counseling, I try to pick fights. I really do. Try to get a little bit annoyed with each other. Because here's the thing. You're going to fight. You get married your first year, you're going to think, why are we the only couple that yells at each other at 3 o'clock in the morning?
You're not. You are not the only couple that does that. You need to learn how to fight. And so, as Christians, for us, the question isn't, how are we going to be the perfect church? We're not going to be. How are we going to handle it when we aren't?
That's the question. What are we going to do when there's sin? What are we going to do when there's rebellion? What are we going to do when there's hurt feelings? What are we going to do when someone in your group has almost maliciously, aggressively begun to attack the group? What are you going to do when someone in your group just completely disappears?
What are you going to do when someone lies about you? What are you going to do when something turns up missing? Like, what are we going to do? How are we going to handle sin? That's massively important for us. It's vital for the health of a church.
And what we're going to talk about today I don't think is very popular. So I don't know. There may be a moment today where you think, this is so good. I don't think there's going to be one. I think mostly you're going to think, this all sounds terrible. I hope I never have to be involved in it.
And that is the hope. But surprise, you're going to be. So let's figure out how to do it well. Let's figure out how to love one another well, serve one another well, and be able to walk through this process well. Because we're a bunch of sinners who need grace and who need each other and who need Jesus at work on our behalf. So I'm going to pray.
And then we're going to hop in and try to figure out what it looks like for us to healthily, as we follow scripture, practice church discipline, which is how do we address sin in each other? God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you save sinners. And we thank you that you then don't expect them to be perfect, but that we continue to have grace and we continue to have hope. We thank you that you give us to each other, that we belong to one another so that we might defend and protect one another. And we thank you, Lord, that in your word you give us wisdom and clarity on how we ought to approach one another in sin.
We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's go to Luke. We're going to move around a bit today. We've been doing this throughout this series. We've kind of bounced around as we try to ask questions of scripture.
A lot of times scripture doesn't just answer stuff in one place. And so we've got to kind of move around so we can get the full picture. I'm looking forward to when we get to walk verse by verse through some books again because of my attention abilities. I like being able to just stay in one place. But we don't get to do that today.
We're going to have to move around a little bit. So Luke chapter 7, if you have a blue and white Bible like this on the row, you'll be on page 569. Am I saying this wrong? Luke chapter 17. My bad, guys. You're on page 569.
We'll be in Luke chapter 17. Believe the screen. Sometimes I say things incorrectly. So Luke 17, 569. If you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. Take it with you.
Okay. And he said to his disciples. This is Jesus talking. Jesus is the he here. Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. So you're going to be tempted.
There's going to be temptations for sin, but you don't want to be the person tempting people. Temptations of sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck. That's a giant heavy rock. That's a giant heavy rock. That's a giant heavy rock.
Were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea. That he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Little ones there being Christians. Followers of Jesus. And then he says this. Pay attention to yourselves.
So that is pay attention to your own life. Pay attention to your attitude, your current discipleship, you following Jesus. Pay attention to yourselves. And then he says if your brother sins. So that's also, that's not just you personally, but that's pay attention to the family.
Pay attention to your community group. Pay attention to the Christians around you. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. One of the first questions I think we need to ask is what is the heart behind church discipline?
Like why would we do it? Why would I address sin in you? Why would you address sin in me? Why would we have those uncomfortable conversations? Like why? What's our motivation when we go into that?
Are we supposed to be the sin police? Am I supposed to sit around and be like, let me see. Is everybody minding their manners? Out of line. Like should I get excited when I see a sinner? Does that make me feel better?
Jesus, look at how terrible that person is. Obviously you love me more now. Like is that our attitude? No. Not at all. What he says here, and I love this because it translates so well for me.
Verse 3. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. I love that he says brother. We talk about this all the time that when Jesus saved us, John 1 says that those who believed in him, he gave the right to be children of God. So we've been adopted into the family.
God is our father. We're brothers and sisters together. And they're your brother. They're your sister. And so you would address sin in them. And that worked so well for me because this is how I've worked my entire life.
I have two brothers. If I saw someone, let's say I saw you doing something. Maybe we went to school together. Maybe I just knew you. And you were doing something dumb. Here's what I did.
This was my approach to you being sinful, to you being dumb. I would think, that's dumb. And then I would say, not to you, but to the person next to me, look at how dumb they are. That was the extent of how I addressed that. If you continually did stupid things around me that I didn't like. And by stupid, I mean by my own categories of what I gauge as dumb.
I did a lot of dumb things, but they seemed smart to me. If you were stupid of a certain brand that I did not appreciate, I just would quit being your friend. Easy enough. I don't have to hang out with idiots. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying this is what I did.
So, you don't need to be taking notes on this part. Nobody's like, alright, no idiots. Like, don't do that. You know, you're sitting next to one, so you're hiding it. Sorry. The people who laugh the hardest.
Sorry. Okay. Anyway. It's your brother. Brother. So, this is the way I work with my brothers.
When they did something stupid, I went to them and I said, Hey, sit down. What you're doing is dumb. I disagree with you. You are wrong. You should not do this. I'm going to stay your brother, but you're wrong.
This should not be your approach to things. You should not have this attitude. You should not be chasing after this. This is a bad decision. And here's why. I felt some ownership over them.
I felt like if I had noticed them doing something that was bad for them, that was wrong, that I didn't think headed them in the correct direction, and then five years later, I hadn't said anything, but they had completely derailed. They had completely shipwrecked. I was going to own that because they belonged to me. I was going to own the fact that I saw this coming and did not tell them. And so when Jesus says, If you're brother, what he's saying is Christians belong to each other. You're going to own this.
You don't get to say, Oh, well, that was just that other person. I didn't want to get in their business. That's not an option for you because we've been made brothers and sisters in the same family. And that helps me tremendously because I really feel this. And it's culturally induced, but I feel this. Ah, that's not in my business.
I don't really want to. But when it was my brother, it was always my business. Because you're my brother. And so that's the beginning of our heart behind our approach to sin, is that we're family. So of course we would address sin.
Jump to Matthew chapter 18. So Jesus is saying something very similar in Matthew 18, but he's going to give it a much more full treatment. And so what we'll read will sound very similar to what we just read. He says, Pay attention to yourself. If your brother sins, rebuke him, which means address it. Talk to him.
Point it out. Matthew 18 should be on page 534. It's to the left of Luke. A little bit earlier. We're going to start in verse 7. And again, it's going to sound similar to what Jesus was just saying.
Woe to the world for temptations to sin. For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes. And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands and two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
Okay, so Jesus just said some things I think we've got to talk about. Feels like it. Jesus just said there's two directions. There's two tendencies. And this lines up with what the rest of Scripture says. So have you ever thought, man, this world we live in is just so beautiful.
Like you listen to Louis Armstrong sing, What a Wonderful World. Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah. That song, you know what I'm talking about? Your little eyes tear up because these little kids are going to learn things that I'll never know. And you're like, that's true. My grandma didn't know about the internet.
Like whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like you have those moments where you just see a picture of something or you went and visited the Grand Canyon and you're just like, oh my goodness. You hold a baby and you just think, what on earth kind of place do we live in that this exists here? You have those moments. You listen to a song or something.
Like you're riding down the road, you just see something. Like for different people, it's different things. But there's these moments where you're like, this place is magical. It's the best way to describe it. Have those? Okay.
You ever have those moments where you think this is the absolute most shipwrecked, terrible place ever? Like earth is just wrong. This is just like, I don't know how it got this crooked. I don't know how it got this bent. I don't know how it got this bad. And there's a lot of philosophies and belief systems out there that are going to say, no, the world's good.
And there's going to be a bunch that say, no, the world's bad. Christianity says, yes. And yes. It's better than you could imagine. It's better than you could think. It was created by a holy God who designed it to be enjoyable and amazing and glorious and to point back to him.
And humanity completely shipwrecked this. And sin has completely wrought havoc on earth. And there are so many heinous, terrible things that happen that you are going to, that just going to obliterate your soul when you see them and when you partake in them and when they happen to you. Christianity says, yes and yes, more than you could imagine, more than you could imagine. Because we have a world created by a good and holy God that he put humanity on that has free will and humanity has rebelled and each one of us is off. Our hearts are wrong.
We're twisted and broken and this world is shipwrecked. And God is working to bring it back to what it was meant to be. And what Jesus says is, there's a place that you'll enter called life. Those who enter into life. What he originally meant this to be. And there's also a trajectory which is a hell of fire.
You see what it is, is it's the world as God meant it, completely maxed out, carried out into infinity, carried out into eternity. Or the world as we've turned it, the twisted broken sinfulness, carried out to maximum, carried out into eternity, into infinity. Those are the two trajectories. Those are the two destinations. And the Bible is very clear. Everyone on earth is on one of those trajectories.
And everyone on earth will extend into eternity, pursuing and being filled with life and joy and hope, what God originally designed, or extending into eternity where there's destruction and pain and death and suffering and hell because it's the ultimate expression of our brokenness. So what Jesus says, because he sees eternity. You see, there was a moment where Archer, it's my son, all he could see was the beauty of a glowing fire. He doesn't know what it is, he's just running towards it. Seems nice. The reason I panicked and he didn't was because I saw and knew where he was headed.
I knew how that ended up. I knew how that worked out. So Jesus steps out of eternity onto earth and he says, let me explain something to you. There's life and there is an eternal hell. And you would rather cut your feet off and make it into life. You would rather pluck your eyes out and make it into life than to be fully functional, active, healthy, so that you can sprint headlong into a flame.
That's Jesus' point here. Now, I've heard this read before and people say, well, it's hyperbole. He doesn't really want you to pluck your eyes out. He doesn't really want you to cut your feet off. He's just trying to show us the seriousness. I'm not sure that's true.
I'm going to give a caveat here in a second. Let's keep moving. We're not pulling out hacksaws yet. We're saving that to the end when the music's playing. Just kidding. Keep going.
Here's what he says. For if your eye causes you to sin, this is verse 9, tear it out, throw it away. It's better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. 10, see that you do not despise one of these little ones. Again, he's talking about Christians. He was given an example, so he brought a child there.
We read that at the beginning of chapter 18. But he's talking about Christians, followers of Jesus, the small ones that belong to him. And then he says something, we're about to read something that's confusing but does not have anything really to do with the point we're making today, so we don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But people don't really know what he meant here. There's a couple of different ones but we're not getting into it. So 10, see that you do not despise one of these little ones for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
If you're confused, that was confusing. 12, what do you think if a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, I truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. What Jesus just said is heart-poundingly glorious. Jesus said, there's a shepherd who has some sheep.
He's got 99 of them that are hanging around and acting like they got some sense. He's got one of them that gets lost. Doesn't he just leave the 99 and go get the one? Doesn't he just leave them there and go find the one? And the answer is yes, that's what shepherds do. They leave the 99 and they go get the one.
And he says, and once he gets the one, doesn't he celebrate? Isn't he more excited about the one he found than the one that just stayed? Yes. You see, Jesus says, there's a trajectory entering into life or entering into destruction. And Jesus says, if you're entering into destruction and your hand is causing you to sin or your foot is causing you to sin, cut it off. And we say, well, that's hyperbole.
Jesus went to a cross because of sin. Jesus was nailed to a cross because of sin. The Son of God left eternity to pay for our sin. Jesus does not believe that is hyperbole because when it came time for him to give up everything, he did. But the only reason why you don't have to cut your feet off is because Jesus' were nailed to a cross.
The only reason why I don't have to pluck my eyes out when they cause me to sin is that Jesus' eyes closed in death. The only reason you don't have to cut your hand off is because Jesus was pinned up and his heart exploded in his chest and he died of asphyxiation and he was laid in the tomb. The only reason why we don't have to crush sin in our bodies is because Jesus was crushed for our sin in his body because he believes this. If you're not sure whether or not Jesus believed in an eternal hell, look at him on the cross. He was chasing down the sheep that went astray when he went to the cross.
Here's the good news for you today. Everybody's on a trajectory either towards life or towards eternal destruction. But if you're headed towards eternal destruction, I want you to know that the shepherd has left the 99 and he's doing absolutely everything he can to chase you down. I want you to know that that shepherd left the 99 and swapped his life for the sheep. We need to know that so that we understand the heart, behind addressing sin in each other. You see, we've got to believe that we're family and we have to have a rock-solid belief in the gospel which says that we're all sinners bound, running headlong towards a real hell outside of the grace of Jesus on the cross that makes us into a family that loves one another, cares for one another, protects one another.
The heart behind church discipline is a rock-solid belief in the gospel that we're all sinners headed for a real hell outside of the grace of Jesus on the cross who makes us family that loves one another, cares for one another, and protects one another. That's the heart behind it. That's the reason why you address sin in someone else because you actually believe that what Jesus said is true, that there are two trajectories. that's why we risk conversations. That's why if someone in your group, let's say you've got a young lady in your group and she's following Jesus until she gets a boyfriend.
The reason why we're going to talk through this is because this happens. We have a lot of relationship idolatry in our culture where love conquers all and they're not talking about the verse from Corinthians but they're talking about if I love somebody everything works out and you can all shut up and if you stand in my way you're wrong and I get to do whatever I want. If you watch a romantic comedy or any kind of romantic movie the bad guy is the person who stands in the middle of this really jacked up relationship not the two people who are chasing after a really dumb relationship. Okay, I'll give you something to think about next time you watch one of those.
She gets a boyfriend, she's following Jesus, she gets a boyfriend and now she's following her boyfriend and her boyfriend is headed away from Jesus. Why would you have that conversation with her? Because you believe, you have a rock solid foundation that says she's your sister so you have some, she belongs to you, you have some ownership and she's on a trajectory either towards life or towards destruction and that's going to extend for eternity so you have an awkward conversation. Why when somebody offends you or hurts you or sins against you do you go talk to them rather than just writing them off because you believe that their soul matters more that they're on a trajectory?
Okay. If that's the heart behind it, if that's our motivation, what's the process? Like how do we actually do this? Does he lay that out for us? I'm glad you asked. Yes, he does.
Next verse, 15. If your brother sins against you, okay, so again, putting this inside the family relationship, this is Christian to Christian, this is those who belong to each other. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. That means the gathered belonging group of Christians following Jesus. We would say, tell them to your community group and then we'll take it to the whole everybody, all the groups got to know. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector, which man, really drives that home because we use those terms and know what that's talking about. Let's explain that in a second.
Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. That's taken out of context a lot. We're going to talk about that in a second too. Okay, so here's the outline.
Someone sins against you. You go talk to them by yourselves. They repent. They say, you're right. I did sin. I'm wrong.
I shouldn't have done that. You know what you say? Up top, we're good. I forgive you. We're good. Like that was the goal.
You wanted, like the repentance was, that's what you were aiming for, was them to acknowledge their sin. They don't repent. So let's take this scenario with the girlfriend thing. You, she's part of your community group. She's following Jesus. She gets a boyfriend.
She just starts kind of disappearing. So you call her up and say, hey, can we get coffee? Can we talk? She says, yeah. So you go sit down with her and you say, hey, this doesn't look good.
Like this isn't, this isn't a good trajectory for you. Like you were following Jesus and now you got a boyfriend and like, I'm, I'm pretty sure he's like leading you off. Like he's, he's taking you away from following Jesus. Doesn't seem like you're reading your Bible anymore. I think y'all are having sex. Like I think there's a lot of things going on here that aren't good for you as you try to follow Jesus.
Let's say she responds with, yeah, you're right. I didn't need to come back around. I'm sorry. I'm wrong. That's great. That was it.
That's all you had to do. That's, that's, if she, she repents, you want her back. But if she says, who are you to get in my business? We're not hurting anybody. You're just jealous. Okay.
Now you go talk to more people. This is why we say all the time. If you come tell me about a situation where this person did this against me, my immediate response should be, what did they say when you told them? Because I've got to assume we're on step two. I just got to assume, oh, you already told them and it went poorly. It's, it shouldn't be.
And maybe I'm wrong for this. It's my favorite when I say that to someone and they go, what was it? Oh, no, I hadn't, I didn't talk to them. It's like, oh, good. I especially like it if that person's there, I'll just go, hey. Hey.
Yo, Mike. Dave's mad at you. You got it, Dave. Take it from here. It's like, what the heck? I think this is the best.
Um, I tried to pick two random names so that there wouldn't be an actual Mike and an actual Dave that he walks up afterwards like, what the heck, Dave? So anyway, um, do you go tell somebody else? They come talk. If they won't listen to the two or three people, you go tell more people. It says, take it to the church. You go tell your whole group.
Hey, this is what's going on. We talked to them a couple of times. They're not listening. They're not repenting. They're not acknowledging this. Eventually you would bring it before the whole church and here's how this ends.
At some point they repent. That's option one. That's the one we're going for. Or at some point it says you treat them like a Gentile and a tax collector. Okay. First of all, that does not mean be mean to them.
Matthew, see that name at the top left corner of the Bible there? That guy was a tax collector. Okay. He wrote this down for us. What he means is you graciously pursue them as someone who doesn't know Jesus. You're going to assume that they are not a Christian.
You have to. And here's why. Christians repent. If you say you're a Christian and there's no pattern of repentance in your life, no you're not. Christians repent. Christians acknowledge sin.
That's how we got in. This is a group of people who said, I'm jacked up. You messed up? Yes. Ooh, this is me. Shh, shh.
He's talking to me. Yes. Jesus is not. That's how we get in. That's what, Jesus was not messed up so that we can be made righteous through him. But all of us are messed up.
So if you come tell me I've sinned, it's like, yes, probably. How? When? What did that do? We get to talk about it. Christians repent.
So if there's a pathway of non-repentance, at some point you have to go to your group and you say, I don't believe this person is a Christian and we have to start treating them like they're not a Christian. Which means, try to be around them. Try to love them. Try to point them to the gospel. Try to help them. But we're not holding them to the standards of Christians anymore because they're not a Christian.
They don't believe this. You would maybe need to tell them, hey, just wanted you to know I don't think you're a Christian. I love you. I'm going to keep loving you. But I don't want you thinking that you're following Jesus when you're not.
Because there's an actual trajectory towards life or towards destruction. And the worst thing we can do is in our community groups and in our church coddle and be really kind to a bunch of people headed to destruction and let them pretend that they're Christians and never have had a moment where we sat with them and said, hey, I don't think you get this. Okay. Okay. This ends in one of three ways. Oh, sorry.
Let me keep... He puts it on the church, not the leadership, on the gathered people of God. He says there's power in gathering. There's... Where two or more of y'all are gathered, I'm among you. So some of you think what the Holy Spirit tells me is more important than what He tells anybody else.
Jesus would say, nuh-uh. He speaks through the gathered church, through His people together. So if you're in your group and you're the only person who thinks what you think and your whole group that you've been with for a while and know loves Jesus and know they get together and study the Bible and have seen that they've had wisdom before and they're all looking at you and saying, hey, what you're doing is dumb and you think they just don't understand me? No. No, no. You should think, maybe I'm wrong.
I've had conversations with people before and they go, I don't want to talk to them. I know what they're going to say. It's like, good, don't talk to them. Go ahead and start doing it. I don't want to get with my group. I know what they're going to tell me.
Is it going to be something from the Bible? I love your group. I hope they show up at your house. Sorry. Anyway, that also does not mean we're two more gathered. There I am in the midst of them.
That doesn't mean when people say, so me and my buddy, we're a Christian. We can go get on a boat. That's our church. Okay, that has nothing to do with what he's talking about here. And I hope a few of your other buddies who are Christians come and talk to you alone. And if you listen, that'd be great.
But if they don't, I hope they bring more people. Okay. Let's go to 1 Corinthians because there's three ways this ends. Most of it ends with the first step, which was you go talk to them, they repent. You go talk to them, you point out their sin, they repent. Most of it does that.
Sometimes it ends with they will not repent and they are not a Christian and we just need to acknowledge that and keep loving them and keep wanting them around and keep chasing after them and keep inviting them to things and they're welcome to hang out with our group and they're welcome to be here on Sundays and they're welcome to do everything we do as a church. We just got to know they're not a Christian. That's option two. Option three is worse. It's the one we don't like as much. It's got the same goal and the same heart.
Okay. We in 1 Corinthians 5? We made it? This is Paul writing to a church. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans. For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant.
Ought you not rather to mourn? So what he says is, you've got people hanging out in your church that are actively pursuing this sin. Flagrantly, openly, actively pursuing this sin. And y'all's response was, look at how gracious we are. Look at how much we believe the gospel. Isn't this beautiful?
They're arrogant. And he says, no, you should be broken over this because Christians repent of sin. You should mourn if someone's actively, openly, flagrantly pursuing sin. You should mourn for them. You should hurt over this. Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
If that sounds harsh, it's because it is. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
He's writing to Jewish believers and here's what he's saying. When they celebrated the Passover, they celebrated with unleavened bread because leaven for them when they were doing this feast represented sin. So if you had leavened bread, you were representing that it was sin. And so they would have unleavened bread to represent it was sinlessness, that the Passover lamb was sinless. It's talking about Jesus. And he says, you've been made unleavened, meaning you've been covered by Jesus.
So when we celebrate the Passover, we're covered by Jesus. We're celebrating what he's accomplished for us. We don't have any sin. That's what he's saying. But don't you know, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
So here's why he says, put them out from among you. There's a sin of a certain type that is only going to cause harm to everybody else around. There's a sin of a certain nature. The Bible doesn't give us a list of these. We have to base it off of wisdom and what's going on in the particular case and the people and what's happening. That the best response for Christians is to say, you can't hang out with our group anymore.
You can't hang out with our church anymore until you repent. Thankfully, we haven't had to do that here. I've been a part of churches where that has had to happen or where they told somebody he was actively, aggressively, kind of predatorily approaching females. And so they told him, look, you can come to this gathering and that's it. Like, you can be here and you can be in this group. If we see you anywhere else, that's not okay.
When you show up, you have to tell a pastor you're here. When you leave, you have to tell a pastor you're leaving. If we see you outside of that window, that's not okay. Because they were protecting everybody else. They were going to be aggressive with this guy. And they said, if you show up to another gathering, not the one we told you you could be at, you're not going to be allowed to be around at all until there's repentance, until there's change.
Now, I don't want this to ever happen. This isn't the goal. The goal is repentance. But I'll tell you one thing. If you look and say, hold on a second. So the response was, this guy's a sinner.
Kick him out. That was the response. Put him out. Don't let him be around. When Archer was running towards that fire pit, if Edie had drop kicked him, I would have high-fived her. Like, if that was as close as she could get, it was just to do that.
I'd have been like, that was the most beautiful kick. You've got to teach me your form. Thank you. Thank you. What Paul's saying is, get rough with them if you have to. Don't let them pretend.
If someone is actively, openly, aggressively pursuing sin and will not repent, then do what you have to so that they can't go home and go, oh, no, people accept me. This is okay. This must be all right. If I get to be around. If everybody in the church looked at you and said, you cannot be here because you are actively, aggressively pursuing sin and this is not okay and you're going to harm people and we don't believe you're a Christian, until you decide to repent and change from this, you're not allowed to be around. And if we find out you've headed over to another church because there's a bunch of close ones, we're going to call them.
Hopefully, by God's grace, you would go home and go, I may need to think about this. But if we all just go, hey, buddy, there's a good chance you'll think it must be okay. Verse 6, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. Meaning Jesus has already taken away your sin.
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven and the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. He gives clarification. Not at all. Meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters since you would need to go out of the world.
So what he says is, when I said don't associate with sexually immoral, I didn't mean non-Christians. That's what he means by of this world. Because what he says is, you'd have to move. Off the planet. You would need to quit your job. Go to the top of Mount Everest and die.
That's how you could escape. But you'd be next to another little frozen sinner that got up there and died. Like that's, that's all, like that's his, so don't take this to mean, oh I can't have sinner friends. All your friends are sinners. Look to your left on the row. Look to your right on the row.
Next time you're hanging out with your community group, be like, hi sinner friends. That's who's there. But what he's saying is, people who are actively pursuing this and are a part of the church need to be addressed. It needs to be talked with, with them. It can't be okay for this to linger. But I am writing to you, not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother.
Christians, those who belong to Christ. If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or as an idolater or a reviler or a drunken or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. So what he's saying is you address it with him, you talk to him about it, they repent. He's not negating what Jesus said. He's saying that if someone's actively pursuing this and won't repent, then at some point you have to say, hey, you can't be around. We're not going to keep acting like you're a Christian.
For what do I have to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God Judges the outside, purges the evil person from among you. Okay, meaning the Christian church should quit acting like the rest of the world should be Christians. Step one, quit judging the world outside. Point them to Jesus.
They're sinners. They need grace. Step one, quit acting like the rest of the world should be Christians. Step two, start acting like the Christians should be Christians. It's real easy to stand up and talk about all those bad people out there. Why don't you start talking to the bad people in your group?
Because I know them and that's uncomfortable. Yeah, it sure is. We got to start addressing sin in each other and start acting like, hey, if you're a Christian, this is what it looks like. Start calling each other towards holiness and away from destruction. When someone says, you can't judge me, 1 Corinthians 5, yes, I can. I am supposed to.
Paul says, aren't we supposed to judge the people inside the church? And by judge, it doesn't mean condescending, I'm better than you. What it means is, I'm a Christian, I see what you're doing and it's not lining up with what Jesus says. We need to talk about it. I can rightly see what you're doing and address it with them. So, the heart behind this is a rock solid belief in the gospel, a belief that we're all sinners bound for a real hell outside of the saving grace of Jesus through the cross that makes us into a family that loves, cares for, and protects one another.
That's the goal, the process we just talked through. That's the heart behind it, the process we just talked through. What's the goal? What's the aim? What's the point? Why are we doing this?
2 Corinthians. Go to the right, one book. Chapter 2. Why are we doing this? Verse 5. We're going to wait a second.
I want people to see this. Now, if anyone has caused pain, He has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So, that's the majority of the church. The people who belong to the church, the majority is enough. So, you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
So, I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for the sake, for your sake, in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. Most scholars believe this is referring to the same person from 1 Corinthians. He came back.
He came back. And Paul says, forgive him. Reaffirm your love for him. That's why you did that in the first place. Paul says, to put him out from among you. And then he says, when he comes back, he says, bring him back.
One of the reasons he said to put him out, and I don't know if we missed this, I don't remember reading this, but it said, turn him over to Satan so that he might, for the destruction of the flesh, so that he might be brought into life. That's the point. The goal is repentance. The goal is that they would return. The goal is that we would all remain a part of Jesus' family. The goal is that we would always stay in.
And this guy comes back. I hope that we never have to stand up at a family meeting and say, this person who was a part of our church family is no longer allowed around us. With tears in our eyes to say, we've talked to them, we've talked to them, we've talked to them, they haven't repented, and they're not going to be welcomed right now. Let's all pray for their soul. I hope to God we never have to do that. But if we do, I pray for the day we get to stand up and say they came back.
It worked. Jesus chased them down. They're here. They're repentant. Let's reaffirm our love for them.
Let's lay our hands on them. Pray for them. Let's all hug them. If they're not a hugger, they can get over it. They're back. We're going to have on screen Hebrews 3 as we wrap up.
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. That means encourage a special gospel Bible encouragement. It means point each other to Jesus. Exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
Just leave that back half of that verse up there. He says, take care, be watchful, keep an eye on yourselves that there's not a deceitful, unbelieving heart that sin lies to you and leads you astray. I get excited and have been all week as we talk through this and here's why. I need this. I want this. One of the things we're excited about is we go to membership where we're going to do official kind of membership where we say this is what we believe as a church and our community groups are going to say this is what we're going for as a group is to give all of us the opportunity to say I'm in and what I mean by I'm in is if I ever try to get out I want you to chase me down because I need this because sin lies to me and I want right now while I'm in my right mind that I'm following Jesus I want to look at the rest of the people in my community group and say if I start running I want you to run faster than me and chase me down.
I want you to love me enough to grab me as I run headlong into destruction. I want you to believe the gospel enough to sit me down and say you're wrong here. You need to repent here. One of the ways that we know we're loved as Christians one of the ways we know we have brothers and sisters is when was the last time someone sat you down and told you you were wrong? That's one of the most loving things people can do. I know because that's what my wife does most of the time.
You're wrong here. You need to repent here. One of the ways that we know we're loved as Christians one of the ways we know we have brothers and sisters is when was the last time someone sat you down and told you you were wrong? That's one of the most loving things people can do. I know because that's what my wife does most of the time. That's how you know you're loved. Someone cares enough about you to risk your relationship
By telling you something you don't want to hear? So your group cares enough about you to call you up and say hey we haven't seen you in a while what's going on? They call you up and say we've got to get together let's talk hey you're not following you're not doing this right you're on a path you're on a trajectory and it's not towards Jesus it's not towards holiness it is not headed in the right way and let me explain something to you
If it's this relationship Jesus said cut your feet off I know he means break up if it's school if it's whatever that's leading you away from Jesus it's not worth it and I need somebody to sit me down and say that and you need somebody to sit you down and say that because you're not strong enough on your own you're not smart enough on your own and your heart lies to you
And the author of Hebrews says take care be watchful that this doesn't happen as long as it's today point each other towards Jesus as long as it's today chase one another down because the goal is that we'll be there at the end the goal is that all of us are there at the end Matt's going to come back up here we're going to sing here you see those commercials for traffic fatalities in South Carolina they're interviewing people and they're like
What's an acceptable number for traffic fatalities in the state of South Carolina people pick a number I don't know a hundred okay what's an acceptable number for traffic fatalities in your county four five what's an acceptable number for traffic fatalities in your family and immediately everybody goes zero and they go okay why don't we make that our goal for the state zero because it's always going to be somebody's family what's the acceptable
Number of Christians that we can lose along the way what's the acceptable number of the people in your group that can get their trajectory off and run headlong into destruction what's the acceptable number that we want to stand before Jesus and say yeah I didn't really want to get in their business it didn't feel like my place if that number's me if you're talking about me the acceptable number is zero I expect everyone
In my group to be like to the point of physical aggression with me dude this isn't okay you're confused you're lost your heart's lying to you you're chasing after stuff that's not going to fill you up you're believing lies because the goal is that we would all hold our confidence firm to the end that the gospel that we believe in now we would believe in on the day that everything melts away and we stand
Before our king because there is life to enter into and there is hell to enter into and they're eternal and that's the only thing that matters if you're not a Christian I want you to know that Jesus left the 99 he left heaven to chase after you that he loves you enough to die for you so that you don't have to pay the penalty of yourself and you can be saved and you can be taken up by Jesus and you can be made his and you can be brought
Into the family and if you're a Christian I want you to care about your brothers and sisters enough to talk to them I want us to have lives marked by repentance and I want us to love one another enough to address sin in each other Christians part of our church family we're about to celebrate communion that's where we take bread and we take grape juice and we remember that Jesus' body
Was broken for us so that yours didn't have to be that his blood was shed so that yours doesn't have to be that you can be set free if you have someone who sinned against you and you haven't talked to them you need to talk to them before you take communion I fully expect that people will get up and move around the room and we'll have some conversations where we pray
With one another where we address sin in each other where we say hey I've been noticing this I haven't brought it up to you you need to confess you need to repent we have lives marked by repentance you need to repent before you take communion if you're not a Christian you can repent of your sin and you can place your faith in Jesus that he paid your penalty so you don't have to be led to destruction
And you can take communion for the first time which is a celebration that Jesus went to the cross for you let's pray God I pray that we would be a church that has a rock solid belief in the gospel that you would not for one moment let us forget that there is an eternal life and that there is an eternal destruction and God that we would love one another
Enough to address sin I pray that we would be a church Lord that doesn't talk about people but that talks to people and God I pray that you would bless this church so that this process always works God I pray that through your Holy Spirit this would always work
That there would always somewhere down the line somewhere along the way there would be repentance there would be an acknowledgement of sin that people would turn back and that we would continue to love and forgive always that we would always forgive and reaffirm our love
For one another God we praise you we thank you in Jesus name mass going to continue to play when you feel ready go take communion if you need to talk to somebody get up go talk to them we're going to move around the room we're going
To repent of sin we're going to believe the gospel
Elders, Deacons, Members
Transcript
All right. How are we doing this morning? My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our Home Sweet Home series and we're talking about the church. And that's why that video is just a bunch of people, because the church is the people of God, the people rescued and saved and distinctly loved by Jesus.
And so we've just been spending some time walking through and saying, what should the church look like? How should the church act when it comes to leadership? What comes to mind? Like when you think of a leader, who do you think about? What do you think about what makes a leader a leader? Is it is it power?
Is that is that like the baseline thing that makes a leader a leader so they they can enforce whatever they say? So does that there was Stalin a leader because he could do what he wanted? Does that make Patton a leader just because he it has some power over military? Is the U.S. government, do they get to be leaders just because they can take you out and nobody would know? I mean, I don't want to be like a conspiracy theorist, you know, saying they can take you out. Nobody would know, but they can take you out.
Nobody would know. Like what what makes a leader a leader? Like, is it is it vision? Is it they can see a preferred future and they can articulate it? Well, is that JFK saying we're going to we're going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and bring him back safely? And I think I got that order, but he said something along those lines.
I wasn't there. But like, is that is it Martin Luther King Jr. And his I have a dream speech where he was able to articulate this is what this ought to look like. And he just has a vision for how this ought to be. And that's what makes him a leader. Is it is it authority?
Police officer, your bosses, are they just a leader because they have some authority over you? Is it influence that makes a leader a leader, that they have the ability to influence people, that they have the ability to to call more out of people? So maybe you had some coaches like this or a mentor, an uncle or even like a cousin that just kind of had influence over you and had the ability to to lead. Here's what I know about leadership. Culturally, we love and celebrate leadership. We try to define it a lot.
I think you can go to any bookstore and find racks of books about leadership and how to lead and the 10 things you need to do and the seven things you need to do and the 21 golden keys to it and the 15 magic nuggets of leadership. Like, I mean, you can go find any kind of book you want to find on leadership. We celebrate it. That's why there's been like seven Steve Jobs movies recently. There's another one coming out. Steve Jobs, The Untold Story.
Like there's just it's just we we know that we there's something special about leadership. We're also afraid of leaders and leadership. So we we have this celebration of it. And then we also have this kind of like reticence, this hesitancy. And I can prove that just by let's talk about Donald Trump for a minute. No, let's talk about Bernie Sanders.
We're going to talk about Bernie Sanders for a second. And the truth is, you can start talking about either one of those. You can start talking about Hillary and immediately you'll have some people who are just like, yes, if we could only have that person. Oh, my goodness, everything would be great. You have other people that as soon as you start talking about the other candidate, they get really terrified and they want to fight you. And they're like, they're going to ruin everything.
They're going to burn this down. It's going to be horrible. And it just depends on who you're having the conversation with, because the truth is we have some leadership is great. And at the exact same time, some. Oh, no, that would be terrible. And the reason why is this when leadership is good.
Like everything's actually like it's great. Good leadership is great. And when leadership is bad, it can be horrible. And so when it comes to us in our series, what we've been walking through, one of the things we're basically asking is what makes for a healthy church? What should a church look like? How should it be organized?
One of my goals, really, we have kind of a migratory church family in some ways. We've got college students that are here for a little while. And then they're going to be they always come tell me they're like, oh, I just got accepted to graduate school. And I'm like, in Columbia? And they're like, no, you know, like a like another city. And I'm like, have you thought about not going and just staying here?
Every every time this happens, Matt always comes to me. He's like, man, I don't know. I don't even know if they're supposed to. I think maybe they're supposed to stay here. And I have to ask Matt. I'm like, Matt, is there ever going to be one where you're like they're supposed to leave?
Like because it just seems like you like people and you always want them to stay. Kind of one of our goals in this series is that if you get your job transfers you or you move, that you would show up to a local church knowing what a local church ought to look like, that you would know how you ought to be the church in that city from the day your feet touches the feet. Your feet touch your touches the ground. I said it right. I just had to fix it. Feet touch the ground.
Boom. Boom. All right. That you would know what a church should look like and that we collectively would know what one looks like so that we could all be when we start drifting or start doing something stupid. Everyone here can go. I don't think that's what we're supposed to do.
And we could be like, good point. Thanks. And we could get back on track. Like that's one of our goals is for us to know what a church should look like. And so what we're going to look at today is that there should be leaders in the church. Leadership is good.
There's a lot of qualifications for it and kind of some guards around it because leadership can be bad. Dad. The Bible. And we're basically going to go through and just see what the Bible says. So one of the things that I appreciate church history and I appreciate I have some form of appreciation for denominations.
It's not a really great appreciation for denominations. I think they're good and they serve a purpose. But a lot of times when you get into discussions about how church is organized, you get into a lot of discussions about like, well, Methodists do this and Presbyterians do that and Baptists do this. And so here's our goal. Let's just see what the Bible says.
That's always been our goal in planning a church was to open this and say this we think falls in the bounds of what we're going for. Let's try to do that. What it basically says is that there are elders, deacons and members. And members is maybe not the way you're hearing that. And so we'll talk through that to maybe clarify that a little bit. But there are elders, deacons and members.
And we're going to walk through each of those and kind of quickly say what's the purpose and what are the characteristics and then how do we apply that here. So what's the purpose of this? What are the characteristics of that? And how do we apply that here? Hopefully it'll be helpful. So let's pray.
God, we pray that you would teach us from your word so that we might know what a healthy church looks like. We might understand what Christian leadership ought to look like. We have a good handle on what you have for us here and how we ought to organize as we try to be best suited for your mission in this city. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. In a minute we'll go to Ephesians 4.
But first I want to show us a verse in Acts chapter 20 to get started. In the Bible there are Greek words where we get our words for elder, bishop and pastor. And so maybe you've heard all of those. They're all Greek words. They basically are all always talking about the same role, same position in the church. Just kind of different what they're doing or what they're supposed to do.
And so we're going to refer to it as elders because that kind of is the office. We also call them pastors around here. I'm trying to get bishops started because that just sounds cool, but it's probably not going to work. But it's in the Bible. All right.
So here's one of the questions we have to ask is why. Why is there leadership in the church? What is it designed for? And this is Paul talking to the Ephesian elders and he calls them together and he's basically going to lay something out for him. But he says this so clearly here.
I think it's helpful for us as we start our time this morning. He says, pay careful attention to yourselves. So he's talking to the elders of the churches in Ephesus. That's who he's called together here in Acts chapter 20. Pay careful attention to yourselves. So that would be talking to the leaders of the church, the pastors of the churches.
He's saying, watch your heart, watch your own actions and watch each other. Pay careful attention to yourselves. And to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Overseer there, that's the word we get, I believe, bishop from. So what he says is when he talks about the flock, he's talking about the church, people of God.
So the Bible calls Jesus the great shepherd. It also calls him the good shepherd because he lays his life down for his sheep. His sheep are all the Christians who've been invited in based off of his work. And we talked about it when we were walking through 1 Peter, but it's actually really nice to be a sheep. Because when anything bad happens, you just get to look to the shepherd. Sheep aren't supposed to be good at stuff.
Sheep aren't really good at stuff. My grandparents are missionaries in Nigeria. They don't even get out of the way of cars. Like they need a shepherd. And so we get to be sheep. We get to be flock of God.
And what he says here when he's talking to these people who he's saying, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. He says, in which, meaning you elders are sheep. You pastors are sheep. You're in it. Not over which, in. So leaders in the church are sheep first.
Should be followers of Jesus first. In which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God. Some versions are going to say to shepherd. That's the word we get pastor from. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. The reason there is leadership in the church is because Jesus loves the church.
Period. Period. The reason there are leaders in the church is because Jesus loves the church enough to purchase her with his own blood. And so he is designed to call through the Holy Spirit certain people to help shepherd, to help defend, because he loves the church. And he specifically multiple times in scripture says he's going to hold leaders in the church accountable for how they lead. Because he's specifically designed leaders to shepherd and care for his church.
One of the ways I know that God loves my son Archer is that he gave Archer parents. Like he specifically designed human babies are useless for a really, really long time. My dad asked me yesterday, he's like, is he talking yet? And it's like, no. And he doesn't even seem close. Like he's not even, he's not even barely accidentally saying words sometimes.
Like he's never been like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, piano, blah, blah, blah. Like it's never happened. He's bringing nothing to the table. God loves him. He gave him parents. One of the indications that God cares about his church is that he specifically designed for there to be some leadership.
I know that we've had some pushback. There's been really poorly handled leadership in the church with money. I mean, I've heard some stories that are pretty terrible. I heard of one pastor. They locked the doors and they said they were going to keep taking up offerings until they could buy his wife a car. And he'd say stuff like, it's not going to be some cheap car either.
It's going to be a good one. So if you'll, if you'll lock the doors real quick, I'm just kidding. There've been abuses. I've seen YouTube videos that just make me hurt inside as pastors have used the pulpit to bully people. And to, but so I know there's been some responses. And when I was going to plant a church, people would say, but yeah, like we're just, we're going to have a church, but there aren't going to be any leadership.
We're all going to just kind of be on the same level. We're all going to be just getting a circle. And it's like, no, no leadership's good. God bought the church with his blood and specifically has designed for some people to be held accountable for the leadership and the defense of the church. Okay. So Jesus loves the church.
Holy spirit has made some leaders in the church specifically for that purpose. But why, what are they supposed to do? And so we're going to go to Ephesians four. It'll be on page six 34. If you have a blue and white Bible, this is the primary responsibility of leaders in the church. And it doesn't say pastors here.
It just kind of covers giftings and leadership roles that are given to the church. And we're going to see what the primary role is. We're going to start in verse 11. And he gave, that's Jesus. So, and Jesus gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. So he gave leadership, equipped these roles, these leaders to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
Okay. Just want to show you this real quick. Saints are all the people who've believed in Jesus. Every time you see the word saint in scripture, your little heart should go aflutter. Because you're a sinner. And you've been made a saint by Jesus.
That's worth celebrating. That's exciting. But what it's saying is that these leadership roles, these positions were given to equip saints, to equip the church, to equip all those who follow Jesus for the work of ministry. So you're a saint. You get to go marching in for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. That's all Christians.
That's seeing more people come to know Jesus. That's equipping and helping other Christians, building up the body of Christ. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ. Leadership exists in the church to equip the church to do the work of ministry. So sometimes pastors have been called ministers.
Like we need to get a minister. Christians are ministers. All of us as Christians are supposed to do the work of ministry. Pastors, elders are supposed to equip. Which means that I'm a pastor here, which means I get to be Alfred and you get to be Batman. I heard someone explain it that way recently and I thought that's so helpful.
That's what it is. I'm Alfred. You get to be Batman. All the Christians get to be Batman. A team of Batmans running around. Like that's what it is.
Like you know how they say be yourself unless you can be Batman then be Batman? You get to be Batman. Like that's how that works. Leadership in the church exists to equip. To see more leaders equipped. More leaders raised up.
More people able to go share their faith. To go build relationships with their neighbors. I've seen churches before where the pastor would retire and then the church would kind of sit still for like two years waiting on a new pastor to come in. And it's like no. Like if that happens here we've failed. Because our job was to equip.
You should be ready. If I got hit by a bus. It better be a big bus. That's what I got to say. No I'm just. If I got.
We should just keep on moving next week. Somebody get up and say Chet has been hit by a bus. Open your Bibles to Paige. Like that would just be. And y'all be like yep. Let's do this.
Like because we're designed to equip. That's one of the reasons why if we have elders or pastors that we're training. We wouldn't pay somebody. Have an elder. Have anybody be an elder paid or not paid. To just do a task.
Because elders are supposed to equip. So primarily the church has been given elders to equip and to defend. Because Jesus loves the church. And he wants the church to be on mission. He wants the church to be equipped for the mission. So.
A couple of things. That we just need to know about what the Bible says about eldership. First of all. They're always plural. Unless it's talking about a specific leader. So we believe that every church should have multiple elders.
We think that's the healthiest way to go about it. Not one senior person and people underneath them. We believe it should be a group of multiple leaders. Multiple leaders. Sometimes we've had people say. Because we're planning a church.
Like doesn't that slow things down? Like y'all got to agree on everything? The answer to that is yes. It does slow things down. And yes. We do have to agree on everything.
But we believe that the Holy Spirit's in us. And can give us unity. So that we can get on the same page. And we think it's biblical. So if one of us absolutely disagrees.
And says there's no way we can do this. We probably should fight that out. And we do. Look. We believe if we don't yell at each other every once in a while. We must not care.
We care a lot. So okay. Real quick. I'm going to run through this list. Of just where the scripture says. Things that elders.
That pastors should do. Pray and study scripture. That's Acts 6. 4. Rule and lead in the church. That's 1 Timothy 5.17.
And Hebrews 13.17. Manage in the church. That's 1 Timothy 3.4.5. Care for God's people. That's 1 Peter 5.2-5. Live their lives as an example.
That's Hebrews 13.7. Rightly use the authority given to them. That's Acts 20.28. That's what we just read. Devote themselves to teaching and preaching the Bible correctly. Ephesians 4.11.
1 Timothy 3.2. 1 Timothy 4.11-16. 2 Timothy 3.16. 4-5. Says that one a lot. Because of how much weight is given to the scriptures.
Pray for the sick. That's James 5.13-15. Teach sound doctrine and refute false teaching. That's Titus 1.9. Work hard. 1 Thessalonians 5.12.
Rightly use money and power. 1 Peter 5.1-3. Protect the church from false teachers. Acts 20.17-31. That's the whole section. Equip the church.
Ephesians 4.11-16. 2 Timothy 2.1-2. Develop and appoint new leaders and elders. Titus 1.5. Acts 14.23. 1 Timothy 4.14.
And 5.22. God's given elders to the church. Leaders to the church. To defend and equip the church. That's the point. Now.
That's kind of the purpose. Are there qualifications? Are there characteristics? Go to 1 Timothy. And we'll spend the rest of our time in 1 Timothy. That's actually not true.
But I have the other stuff. We'll show it on screen. Because it's just going to be a couple other verses we'll reference. Spend most of the rest of the time in 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 3. It's on page 643.
If you have a blue and white Bible. That we put on the row. If your Bible just happens to be blue and white. I can't guarantee what page this will be on. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer.
He desires a noble task. Some of you should want to be an elder. And that's good. If you want to be an elder. We have a pastor training process. I'd love to talk to you about that.
Some of you are being called to be elders. You should be. Therefore. An overseer. So what we're reading through.
Is he's going to give. What pastors should look like. What elders should look like. Characteristics. Qualifications. Therefore.
An overseer. Must be above reproach. The husband of one wife. That phrase in Greek means a one woman man. So you don't have to be married.
But you can't be chasing women. Multiple. All the time. Women. Pornography is an issue. Like.
That. That. If it was. Had to be married. That would exclude Paul. And Jesus.
Timothy. That would be a problem. So you don't have to be married. If you are married. One wife. Husband of one wife.
Or one woman man. Sober minded. Self controlled. Respectable. Hospitable. Able to teach.
We're going to come back to that one. Not a drunkard. Not violent. But gentle. Not quarrelsome. Not a lover of money.
He must manage his own household well. With all dignity. Keeping his children submissive. For someone does not know how to manage his own household. How will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert.
Or he may become puffed up with conceit. And fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover. He must be well thought of by outsiders. So that he may not fall into disgrace.
Into a snare of the devil. The only thing in that list. That was a skill. Was the ability to teach. Everything else was character. That's why our pastor and training process.
First of all. We believe that as a local church. We're supposed to equip the saints. So that we should be having more pastors. And church planters. And missionaries come out of our church.
We believe if that doesn't happen. We're not doing this correctly. Our pastor and training process. Is long. And we move slowly. One of the things we say.
Is that we want to move more slowly. Than we want to move. Like we want that to take longer. Than we'd like for it to take. Because it's character qualifications. That's why it bothers me.
With all the float your resume out. And go talk to some people. And give them a DVD of your preaching. And then you can go be their pastor. Creeps me out. That's scary.
Because I interview really well. Firm handshake. A lot of eye contact. Repeat people's names. I could be crazy. Some of you know.
I kind of am. Like there's. There's character. That's why we take very long time. When we first. One of the things we see in the church.
In the New Testament. Is that churches are started. And then later they have elders. When we first started. Matt and I were working together. To start this church plan.
But we were just leading. In community groups. We were not elders. We started in. March of 2013. Was our first group.
It was eight people. Together in my house. We did not officially say. Hey we. We want to put ourselves forward. As elders.
Until January. The following year. Raz Bradley. Many of y'all know him. He's been. Officially.
In pastor and training. Since January. Of 2015. And he's still not a pastor. Because we're taking it slow. Trying to get to know him.
It's just character qualifications. And here's the truth. If he was freaking out. About having to be a pastor. That would scare us. If he came to us.
And said. All right guys. Y'all need to give me. It's like. No. If he.
If he can't handle. Not being some kind of title. Or something. That's scary. So we just get to keep walking.
And every once in a while. We go and say. Hey man. Let's talk about this. He's like. Man.
I'm not in any hurry. At some point. You might just have to say. No. You're going to have to be a pastor now. Quit putting this off.
And being lazy. Like we may have to have that conversation. But we just take it slow. Because it's character qualifications. Which have to take time to see. You got to see people in different situations.
To learn that they're. A little bit crazy. Like you got to go to lunch with somebody. And see them. Have a terrible waitress. And see how they handle it.
Because we got to find out about character. You got to be around their family. You got to be around their kids. Okay. We believe that elders should be. There should be multiple elders.
That it's based way more off of character. Than ability. That's why we see so many pastors flame out. In the U.S. Is because we love ability. People's abilities outpace their character.
And that's a problem. We believe it's good. Healthy. Designed to defend. And equip the church. Okay.
Deacons. That word is another cognate. Kind of like the word baptism. It just means servant. So when we see it in scripture.
And it says deacon. Or if you see the word servant. That's the same word. So sometimes we don't know. If they're talking about. Like an official title.
Servant. Or just. A descriptive word. Servant. But in the church.
We have elders. Deacons. And members. Deacons. We don't know much about. But keep reading.
Because he's going to give some qualifications for them. Deacons likewise. Must be dignified. Not double tongued. Not addicted to much wine. Not greedy for dishonest gain.
They must hold the mystery of the faith. With a clear conscience. Let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons. If they prove themselves blameless. Okay.
Beginning in verse 11. I want to explain this. And how we think about it. Their wives likewise. Must be dignified. And he begins to give qualifications.
For as our text reads. Their wives. The word in Greek. For woman. And for wife. Is the exact same word.
So whenever it's translated wife. Or it's translated woman. It's based only off of context. This has been traditionally translated as wife. But could just as easily.
And it fits in the sentence. Just as easily to be translated as women also. It makes sense to me. And as we have prayed over this. And looked at it. That that is actually referring to female deacons.
Not the wives of male deacons. And the reason being. Elder is. Talked about much more in scripture. And is a higher office in the church. And it does not give any qualifications.
For the wives of elders. So it seems odd. To have qualifications. For the wives of deacons. Even though it mentions wives. And families of elders.
And not give qualifications. For their wives. So what we believe. Is that deacons. Are lead servant roles in the church. That can be male or female.
We believe that elders. Is a male only office. We also firmly believe. That doesn't have anything to do. With intelligence or ability. We believe it has something to do.
With creation. And God's specific call. And design for masculinity. And for femininity. And we do believe. That elders should be males.
But even personal experience. Would say that doesn't. Not at all. Because we think men are smarter or better. Some of them. Some of them not so much.
And there have been a lot of churches. That have been led by females. That I think have done. A really good Job. So if you say.
Well I know a woman pastor. Who's great. I don't doubt it. I do believe. That it was designed. For that to be a male only role.
Just like you may know. A single mother. Who's crushing it. But biblically. They're designed. For there to be a father.
There in the home. Doing what fathers are supposed to do. So we believe that. Men are supposed to lead. In the church. And the family.
And we don't believe. That negates all leadership roles. For females. Everywhere else. But we do believe.
That deacons can be male or female. Because it's a lead servant role. The word just means servant. Ministry leaders. I'll tell you how that kind of works. Here in a second.
So their wives likewise. Must be dignified. We would read that as women. Likewise must be dignified. Not slanderers. But sober minded.
Faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband. Of one wife. So again. Males be one woman men. Manage their children.
And their households well. For those who serve well as deacons. Gain a good standing. For themselves. And also great confidence. In the faith.
That is in Christ Jesus. There is not a whole lot of instruction given for deacons. And really. It's people who lead in the church by serving. And they can kind of do anything. God is smart enough to give a lot of wiggle room there.
So we believe we can have a deacon who runs all of our social media. That they lead by serving there. And if that was in here. That would be weird. Later. There is going to be a thing called the internet.
And it is going to be helpful for sharing the gospel. And deacons can do that. Like this just doesn't spell everything out. And that is fine. We believe that elders have a specific role that hasn't changed. Defend and equip.
And that deacons can kind of do anything. Our group leaders are deacons. Our kid city leaders are deacons. Some of our worship leaders are deacons. We just hold them to those standards. Talk about it.
But we don't use that term a lot. I know that if you have grown up in some churches. That may really mess with your head. We can discuss that later. If you have not grown up in church. This is what the Bible says.
So let's rock on. For us. And for the church. Currently we have two elders. We have one pastor in training. We want to have more elders here.
I'm an elder. Matt's an elder. We have deacons who are group leaders. We have leaders in training. Who are training to be deacons. That's being tested first.
And then if they prove blameless. To get to keep doing it. We have deacons that lead in other aspects of our church. The rest of all of us. Every single person in this room. Should be a member.
Should belong to this church. And so I'm going to talk a little bit about what we mean by the word member. And how we're going to apply that here. So you can stay here. Or you can go to 1 Corinthians. We're only going to read two kind of basic passages on this.
And I'll have that on the screen. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. To just explain a little bit about how the church ought to work. So the church is all the people who belong to Jesus. All of us should be Christians. Should be Batman at different times.
Equipped to serve and do ministry. There are things I do just because I'm a Christian. Not because I'm a pastor. Things we all do because we're Christians. And then we all should belong to one another. And so here's kind of what I want us to see.
One of the I think misconceptions that people have is that in the New Testament church. They really didn't have any kind of formal who was in and who was out. Didn't know who was a part of their church and who wasn't. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. First of all throughout the New Testament. It says they added to their number.
It talks about putting people on rolls. I think we just assume because it was way back in the day. They didn't write stuff down. Talks about putting things on rolls. It talks about having a majority at one point when they do some church discipline. It talks about removing people from your number or removing people from your local congregation.
So it seems as if they knew who was in, who was around, who was a part of their church. And in their culture there was no benefit of being a part of a church unless you were a Christian. In our culture it's a little bit different. You want to run for office? You need to probably have been a part of a church. Some of that's changing which is good.
But culturally we're all kind of Christians around here even though people don't know what that word means. So here 1 Corinthians 12 verse 12. I just want to show us this. For just as the body is one. So physical body is what he's talking about.
And has many members. He's talking about all your body parts. And all the members of the body, though many, are one body. So it is with Christ. And then he goes into this long section about how that plays out. And we'll talk that through in just a second.
That applies to the whole earth-wide church. That we are one body in Christ. It specifically and particularly applies to our local church. So in hanging out with us this morning today is a missionary from Guatemala. His name is Mr. Rolando.
He's part of the body of Christ. Just getting to hang out with us today. He's a body of Christ with us in Guatemala. And I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable. People might be looking for you now. So sorry about that.
He's part of the body of Christ. But in particular, Paul's writing this letter to a local church. And he's saying, you are one body together. And so here's what all of us ought to do. Every Christian everywhere ought to be a member. Just like you'd be a, your body is members of itself in a local church.
You should belong. It's the best way to put that. You should belong to a local church the same way that your hand belongs to your eye. Does that sound weird to say? That's what Paul says. He goes through this list and says, if a foot says, because I'm not a hand, I'm not a part of the body, that's not true.
If a hand says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not a part of the body, that's not true. And what he says is, no, everybody is a part of the body. Everybody belongs. And he ends it with this. Jump down to verse 27 and 26. 26 and 27 is how we'll read it because of how Numbers work.
If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. You are a body of Christ and individually members of it.
You should have a group of people, if you are a Christian, that you belong to and that belong to you. All Christians should be a part of a body so that if one member suffers, you suffer. And if one is honored, you rejoice. That's how that's supposed to work. Now, does that take commitment? Yes.
Does that mean you have to actually know real humans? Yes. Do Americans like this? I don't think so. One more question. Do I care?
Not really. I don't like this sometimes. I think it's biblical. So I think it's good. I think it's something we ought to do. And here's what I've seen in churches that I think is a major problem.
We belong to a church as long as there's honoring and rejoicing. As soon as the suffering comes along, because of a bunch of local churches around here, we just go to another one. As soon as the difficulty comes along, we pack up and move. I don't know your specific situation. I don't know how that's played out in the past. But I know that in this passage, it says that we should belong to a group of people so that when they suffer, we suffer.
And so they are honored, we rejoice. You should belong to a group of people that when they hurt, you hurt with them. And that takes energy and that takes effort and that takes sweat and pain. But it's what we're supposed to do. So every Christian should be equipped and doing the works of ministry.
Every Christian should belong to a group of people. I don't know if that has to be here, but it should be somewhere if you're a Christian. So when Christians say, it's just me and Jesus, it's like you haven't been talking to him lately because he disagrees with you. You should be a part of a local group where you belong to a body where you suffer alongside of them. That also means that if the church suffers globally, we should suffer with them. But it does mean locally as well.
All right, Hebrews 13, 17. One more thing that I think applies to all of us as we are Christians. And again, kind of addressing this. First of all, the New Testament is written to the church. So we covered a good bit of ground on what the Bible says about elders because it says a good bit about elders in different places.
The rest of the New Testament, though, is written to the church. It's written to Christians and how Christians ought to organize and act and be. And so I'm just covering a few things as it comes to the organization of belonging to a local church as we talk through this. But really, the whole New Testament is written to members, to saints, to Christians. Hebrews 13, verse 17. Verse 17.
Verse 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. A couple of quick observations from this. He starts off with obey your leaders. If you are a Christian, you should know who those are.
You should have leaders that belong to you. They're yours. That doesn't mean all Christian authors. It doesn't mean anybody you see on the TV that's holding a Bible. It means local leaders that you know. You should have local people that are your leaders, that you belong to and that belong to you.
That's healthy for a Christian. Okay, now he says some stuff though about them that I personally don't really like. I wish he had said it differently and I'll explain that in a second. Obey your leaders and submit to them. When I was not a pastor, I actually found that passage pretty nice. I thought it was pretty refreshing and I'll explain why.
When I was at Midtown Fellowship, I did a year-long residency in Midtown before we planted this church. Showed up. I thought I was going to pretty much disagree with most of what they did. Learned some things from them and then we would go plant. When I showed up, I thought everything they did was great for the most part. Like it was, they were trying to be the church and I loved it.
Love those guys. They're over in Columbia. If you get mad at us, go hop in with them. They're great. But you probably, never mind.
There's issues with what I just said, but whatever. If we get mad at you, we'll send you to them. After a while, I realized that there was nine pastors that they loved Jesus, that they loved his church, that they loved his word. And so what I decided was these are my leaders and I submit to them. And here's why. At some point, I was going to go to them and say, hey guys, I think I'm ready to plant.
Because they were doing training with me. I was going to say, hey, I think I'm ready to go. I think I'm ready. Matt and I are going to go. We're going to go start this church. And here's what I knew would happen if I hadn't predetermined in my brain that those were my leaders and I was submitting to them.
If they said, man, we think you're ready. We think you're ready. We co-sign on this. We think Jesus is at work here. We think you should go. My response would have been, man.
These guys love Jesus. And they're smart. And the gods at work in them. And they're great. And I trust them. And I submit to them.
And I follow them. And if they'd have looked at me and said, bro, you don't need to do this. You're not ready. This is a terrible idea. We're going to show up at y'all's first gatherings and tell people to go home. Don't do this.
My response would have been, what did these idiots know? They know nothing. I'm a genius. They are morons. I love Jesus. They do not.
I'm reading the Bibles correctly. They are not. Like, I would have had this immediate prideful response to them. But what I was able to do was beforehand just said, I trust these guys because I've seen Jesus at work in them. I've seen how they study the scriptures. I see how they care.
I see how there's a pattern of following Christ here. And I'm going to obey and submit to them. And what that set me free from my own sinful reaction. And it gave me the ability to win. If I stood before God and he said, hey, you were supposed to start this church here and you didn't, I would have said yes. But Hebrews 13, 17 says for me to obey my leaders.
And that's what I was doing. And then he would say, well done, Bible reader slash follower. And then he would go talk to them. That's how I think that would go down. Because I would just be saying, I was just trying to follow the Bible. I was trying to do what it said, which was I'm submitting to them.
Now I'm a pastor. And that verse is terrifying. Because he says, he gives a reason why you should follow your leadership. Obey your leaders, submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls. As those who will have to give an account. I don't know what that's going to look like.
I don't know if we're going to go group by group. I don't know if we're going to go year by year, name by name. I know that I will stand before the king of the universe and give an account for souls. And I wish now that that verse was framed a little differently. This is one of the reasons why we have multiple pastors here. Because on that day, I want to have a group of men standing beside me that say, we studied together.
We worked together. We tried together. We tried to figure out who was there. Who was under our leadership that you'd given us to shepherd and to care for. And we worked really hard. This is why I want a group of men who will stand toe to toe with me and shout me down.
Raz Bradley, who's in our pastor and training process, went to work. Left work. Came to an office. We argued for two and a half hours about membership for our church and what that should look like. And then he went to a kickball game because he's trying to build relationships with people who love Jesus, to help people love Jesus. And I texted him when I got home and I said, thank you so much for caring enough to come argue with me after work.
And he responded any day. Matt Freeman worked all day, went to Glen Forest to do golf practice, and then came over there because he knew we'd been arguing for two hours and wanted to come help us resolve that. He didn't help, but he showed up. Christians, you should have a place where you get to be equipped, where you belong to a group of people who belong to you so that when they're honored, you're honored. And you have something to celebrate. And when they suffer, you get right in and suffer with them.
And you should have leaders that you follow and that you challenge and that you love enough that when you think they're wrong, you don't leave. You tell them. You say, hey, I'm reading the scriptures. I've been talking to the other people in our group. You're going to be held accountable for this. And I think you're wrong.
That you care about enough that they're your leaders so that you come to them and talk to them. That doesn't have to be here. I know what goes on here. I believe this is a good place for it to be. But it's got to be somewhere.
All of us need to be doing the work of ministry as Batman. We need to belong to a group of people. And we need to belong to some leaders. We would be confused and have done this poorly if we didn't make it to Jesus. Matthew 20. He is the example of leadership for us.
He shows us what leadership in the church ought to look like. This is one of my favorite passages because I think it's just so clear. Matthew 20. If you want to go there in your Bibles, it's page 535. We'll have it on the screen. I love this because James and John have their mom come ask Jesus a question.
Happy Mother's Day. You knew it was going to show up. No, you didn't. But it's here. James and John go to their mom. And they're like, Mom, will you ask Jesus something for us?
So their mom comes and asks Jesus if they can be sitting at his right and left hand in his glory. They don't really know what they're asking for. I don't think she really knows what she's asking for. But they ask because they thought he was going to be a king. And they wanted to be right and left hand men. And I hope, the Bible doesn't say this, but I hope that the rest of the disciples never let them live that down.
So they'd be like, where'd Jesus go? And Peter would look at them and be like, I don't know why you have your mom asking. I just hope that happens every day. Like it was brought up just once a day. Not to be annoying, but once a day to remind them you had to have your mom come talk to Jesus for you. But they come ask Jesus, can we be in charge over everybody, basically.
And they have their mom do it because they figure he'll yell at us, but he won't yell at you. This is what Jesus says in response to them. He calls them all together because the other ten were mad, which makes sense. And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles, that's the rest of the people around them, not the Jews, but the Gentiles, the non-Jews.
Lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The King of the universe left his throne to go to a cross.
To be a servant and a slave for his people. And that is the model for Christian leadership. One of the rules we have here is you don't get to lead anything unless you can take the trash out. If you can't help move chairs, if you can't do any Job at all, if you can't just do whatever anybody asks of you, you don't get to lead anything because you don't realize what Christian leadership is. It seems like you've risen up. You've actually gone further down.
You went from servant to slave and from slavery to death. There should only be a handful of elders in a local church because there should only be a handful of people who are serving in a way to equip and defend the church. And everybody else should be on mission as missionaries to their city and to their neighbors and to their co-workers. God has designed his church to do the work of the ministry, to do the work of reconciliation, to be on mission. And there should only be a handful of people that are working to serve and equip them and defend them. There should be a handful of deacons who are helping lead ministries and serve in those capacities because the whole church is supposed to be at work.
But all of us, all Christian leadership is service, slavery, and death because Jesus, the son of the living God, came and died on our behalf that we might be free and that we might have life and we might have hope. And any Christian leader who thinks, I'm rising up the ladder, I'm going to make a name for myself, I'm going to get some glory, has completely forgotten and lost what the gospel is about, which is that the king of glory became our shame and our guilt and was crushed on our behalf so that we could just have hope and life and joy and peace and be a family. The band is going to come back up. We're going to sing and make much of Jesus.
I would encourage you to find a church where you can belong, to a group of people that when they get a promotion, you feel like you got promoted. When something good happens in their life, you're excited. When they hurt, you hurt. When they lose sleep, you lose sleep. I'd encourage you to find a church where you can have leaders that you trust and submit to and follow. That you know, love and follow Jesus.
And I pray for our church that we would be filled with great Christians. Because Jesus says to be great among us is to be a servant and a slave to all. And I pray that this room is filled with great Christians. Who know that their role is to serve and to slave away on the behalf of others. Let's pray.
God, I pray that you'd help us to be a healthy church. A healthy group of your people on earth. That we would love one another. That we would be committed to one another. That we would belong to one another. As your people.
Help us to lead well by serving well. By being slaves to you and to one another. May we die to ourselves for your name and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Bible
Transcript
Good morning. I feel like I have so much room up here. Just run back and forth. We are in the fifth week of our Home Sweet Home series where we're looking at the church and we're trying to understand who the church is, how the church ought to act, how the church ought to practice, how the church ought to, to what we ought to do, what we ought to look like. And so we spent some time talking about that we're the church because of what Jesus has accomplished for us, that the church are the people distinctly loved and saved by Jesus. And that when that happens, we begin to love and we begin to pursue certain things.
We begin to change. We're made different by His work in us. That the church then relates to one another as family, that we are made into a new people of God. And we've just kind of been walking through. And last week we spent some time saying that the church practices baptism and communion for specific purposes, that God's gifted the church with that. And today we're going to talk about something that's actually very important for us to understand, for us to study.
So today we will be, we'll spend most of our time, when we're in Scripture, in 2 Timothy 3. It's going to take us a minute to get there. So I just wanted you to know, if you're like me, and 10, 15 minutes into this thing, you're going, bro, if you don't open the Bible, I'm going to fight you. Like, we're going to get there. We're going to 2 Timothy 3. If you want to turn there, you can.
But it's going to be a minute before you get to read anything out of it, because we're going to be picking up there in a minute. But here's what we're talking about today. Every week, we get together and we say, grab your Bibles, go to such and such a place. I don't know, hypothetically, 2 Timothy 3. It's on page 646 in your Bible, if your Bible looks like this. We'll say something along the lines of, if your Bible doesn't look like this, best of luck to you.
But the assumption is, you're going to somewhere in your Bible. We're going to take some time, and we're going to read this, and we're going to talk about what it means and how it applies to us. For 45 minutes to an hour, we're going to open this up and talk about it. Honestly, the way we structure our sermons is we want them short enough to be bearable and long enough to matter. But we're taking the Bible, and we're going to study it.
When we sit down and do counseling as a church family, we're going to open this up. As Christians, we're going to open this, read it, and then make decisions based off of what it says. What we're going to do with our lives, what we're going to do with our relationships, how we're going to handle something that's currently facing us. We trust Scripture. We go to Scripture. And here's the question.
Can we? When you read Scripture, do you know that it can be trusted? Because in our culture, and currently there's a lot of arguments against that, against the trustworthiness of Scripture, against the truthfulness of Scripture. And so today, we're going to take a minute to just try to say and explain clearly that we believe that Scripture is trustworthy, sufficient, authoritative, and powerful. That we believe Scripture is trustworthy, sufficient, authoritative, and powerful. And that is the church believes that about this text.
I'm going to pray, and then we're going to begin talking about this this morning. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for Scripture that you've blessed the church with, that we can trust, that we can lean into, that we can make decisions based off of, that we can believe. God, I pray that you'd help us to see clearly some real reasons for that this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Some of y'all maybe have seen this meme. Maybe you haven't, but I'm just going to be on the screen. I'm going to read this quote. Maybe you've seen this on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, some of y'all on your MySpace page. Back when the Bible was written, then edited, then rewritten, then rewritten, then re-edited, then translated from dead languages, then re-translated, then edited, then re-written, then given to kings for them to take their favorite parts, then re-written, then re-re-written, then translated again, then given to the Pope for him to approve, then re-written, then edited again, then re-re-re-re-re-written.
Again, all based on stories that were told orally 30 to 90 years after they happened to people who didn't know how to write. So I guess what I'm saying is the Bible is literally the world's oldest game of telephone. That's a quote from David Cross in a stand-up routine that he did. Now I'm like you. I get a lot of my information from stand-up comments. Especially ones that's major role was playing a never-nude on Arrested Development.
And if you don't get that reference, probably not worth looking up. But it's not bad because he was never-nude. Alright, we're going to keep moving. If that's true, keep that up there for a second. If that's true, what we're doing right now is an utter waste of time. We should have all slept in.
It was raining. Some of you right now, even though you don't believe that, are like, I should have slept in. It's raining. It would have been wonderful. But if that's true, what are we doing?
Why would we study this? Why would we trust it? Why would we believe it? Why would we look at each other and say, no, you can't do that. Or you should make decisions based off of this. Or you should read this and pray about this and follow this.
Like, why would we do that if this is true? So here's what we're going to do for just a minute before we get into our passage that we're going to look at today in 2 Timothy because we've got to answer the question of when we're reading this, what are we reading? So before we get to 2 Timothy, we've got to do just a little bit of background information. And so we're going to do something that I don't think he messed with much. We're going to look at facts. All right, let's do that.
All right, so the first question is, how do we as humans, how do historians know history? How do we have the information that we have about things that we did not see happen? It's easier now. Well, my wife and I have been watching this documentary on the 60s and it's very interesting, but they're talking about that in the 60s is when people really started trusting and believing in their televisions. That there were, that was really the JFK assassination that people in America realized the best thing for me to do is to turn a television on. But it's easier now because people can show us pictures.
We're even starting to learn now that like even the pictures and the videos that you see aren't always exactly what they were portrayed to be. But how do we know things that nobody videoed? How do we know things that we can't see? How does history go about doing this? So here's what we want.
We want a document that was written down, that was well preserved. We want what they originally wrote. The best thing that we would want is actually, so if we're going to read what Plato said, we want the stuff that came off of his pen. We want the actual one that he wrote in his handwriting. That's known as an autograph. When it comes to the Bible, we don't have any autographs.
We don't have the stuff that came actually out of John's writing. We don't have the stuff that actually came out of Paul's handwriting. We don't have that. We don't have autographs on anything from this time period. So don't feel bad.
So if you don't have the original one, the original document, the thing that Matthew wrote down, what you want is one that was hand copied from that. That's called a manuscript. So you want someone who sat down with Matthew's document, hand copied it. Then we know that that gets passed out. Other people are going to hand copy from that one because they didn't have a printing press. So everything that was prior to the printing press is a manuscript.
If we can get them, then we want them to be dated, the copies that we have, the manuscripts that we have, as close to as possible as to when the first one was written. So, something about the Roman Empire. If we have a copy, a manuscript, of something that one of their historians wrote and we have it within 200 years, we have one copy within 200 years of when the first one was written, we got a pretty decent idea. This is probably fairly close to what was originally written, probably fairly well. I mean, nobody would take the time to write out a manuscript if they weren't trying to at least pass on what was originally written.
So we've got a pretty good idea. If we've got 12 of them, well now we can compare them to each other. We can say, all 12 say the same thing or six of them say this and six of them say that and then we can try to decide timeline on the documents that we have. If we have 100 of them, it makes it easier. When it comes to the New Testament, when it comes to the Old Testament, let's talk about the Old Testament in just a second. We'll spend more of our time on the New Testament.
Old Testament text was, let me go back one step further. When you were holding this, you're holding a book that is 66 books written by 40 authors over the time span of 1500 years in three continents and in three languages. Most of it written in Hebrew and Greek. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament was written in Greek, certain sections were written in Aramaic. But it's 66 books written by 40 authors over the course of 1500 years that tells one really big cohesive story.
And it is written as a redemptive history of God and humanity. That's the point. The Old Testament, the canon of the Old Testament just means the set amount of books that were going to be in it was closed, meaning they weren't adding anything to it by the time of Jesus. It had actually been closed for a couple hundred years. They said, the Jewish people, this is what's in the Old Testament and that's it. We've got some history books, we've got some books explaining the Old Testament, but these are the ones that we believe were written by God.
These are our scriptures. We have about 14,000 copies of the Hebrew Old Testament. 14,000 manuscripts, handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament. They were all relatively not close to when they were originally written because they were written hundreds of years B.C. In 1947, they found a place called Qumram, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they realized, oh, the Bible's written on this. I remember I had a professor in a seminary, really old guy, and this was pivotal for him and he said, I remember when they said they found the scrolls and I told myself, I don't care what they say, I'm still going to believe the Bible.
And it was just like, yeah, it's good, but what if they said completely like the opposite stuff, like we would have some problems here. So they said, oh, we realize that this has got the Old Testament on it and it's dated way earlier than the manuscripts we have. These are much older and so there was this excitement of like, we're going to figure out what the Bible actually says because we're going to realize that people went in and edited and rewritten and rewrote and translated and did all this stuff and you know what they came out and said? It says the same as the other ones. What y'all's Bible says is right in the Old Testament.
So let's just talk about the New Testament. We have 5,760 Greek copies of the New Testament. 5,760 Greek handwritten manuscripts that we can compare to one another. Some of them and they're not full copies, some of them parchments that just have a certain section date to within 30 to 50 years of the original document. Some of these manuscripts were copied down while the people who wrote the original were still alive. But we have 5,760 in Greek.
We have 10,000 Latin Vulgates which was the first translation from the Greek into Latin. We have 10,000 handwritten copies of the Latin Vulgate. We have 9,300 in other languages mostly Comptic and Syriac. So here's what we get to do. He said it's a game of telephone. You ever play the game of telephone?
You have professors say this. They say, we know that the Bible. Ever played telephone? One person is told a sentence and then he whispers it into the ear of this other person. This isn't my same professor. This is a different professor.
They talk similar for some reason. And he whispers it into the ear of this person and the ear of this person and the ear of this person. And by the time we get to the end the sentence is nowhere near what was originally whispered. And if it's like Mail-in-Many School it's because that kid made up a whole new sentence in the middle just for the heck of it. He wanted to make it seem like the teacher said something offensive about Billy. He gets to the end and says, I heard Billy's an idiot.
And it's like, oh, the teacher said you're an idiot. Sorry. But we're told this. The only way that makes sense is if when they translated the ESVs which is what we hold on Sundays some of you have different versions. It's the one in the row there. If they went back to the New King James and if the New King James had gone back to the King James and if the King James had gone to the Geneva Bible and the Geneva Bible had gone back to the Latin Vulgate and the Latin Vulgate had gone to the Greek.
But the problem is when they translated this they looked at 5,760 Greek copies. They went to the original. So if the telephone game was everyone has the teacher whisper the thing in their ear sure it's not a fun game. It's called let the teacher tell you a sentence game. That's what we've got. And we can compare the 5,760 Greek copies to the 10,000 Latin copies what we can do is we can compare them to each other and say does this Greek copy say the same thing as this Greek copy?
Does this Latin copy say the same thing as all these other Latin copies? Do these Compton copies say all the same things as the other Compton copies? Do the Syriac copies say all the same things as the Syriac copies? When you translate them into different languages do they say the same thing? We get to do that with the New Testament. Now just to help you see how this compares to other documents from this time period.
The second most well-attested document in antiquity is Homer's Iliad. Some of y'all read that in middle school high school Homer's Iliad. We have less than 1,800 copies. We have 5,760 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. We have less than 1,800 of Homer's Iliad. The closest one to when Homer first wrote that down is 2,000 years.
We're within 30 to 50 years. Julius Caesar's the Gallic Wars which is what we know about Caesar. We have 10 manuscripts. The earliest one is within 1,000 years. So when they stood up and told you stuff about Julius Caesar 10 manuscripts within 1,000 years.
And they didn't start by saying now we know that this was probably written and rewritten and re-edited and is probably pure nonsense at this point but you'll be tested on it. Julius Caesar. They didn't do that. They said this is what's true about Julius Caesar. Pliny the Younger. Y'all love that guy.
He wrote Natural History which is we learn stuff about Rome. We have about 200 manuscripts within 750 years. Thucydides history which we learn a lot about Greece from. We have eight manuscripts within about 1,300 years. Herodotus history we have about eight manuscripts. That's where we learn a lot about Persia, Egypt, and Greece.
Eight manuscripts within about 1,000 years. Everything we have from Plato seven manuscripts within 1,300 years. Everything we know about Socrates we got nothing that Socrates wrote. We've got the seven manuscripts that Plato wrote and he taught us some things about Socrates. Aristotle's Poetics we got less than 10 within 1,400 years. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales we got about 80 copies.
Greek New Testament we've got 5,760 just in Greek 10,000 in Latin 9,000 in Syriac and Compton. Okay. Oh, one more. I love this stat. Livy wrote 142 books on Roman history. We have about 35 of those that survived in the form of 20 manuscripts.
We're pretty sure one of those 20 only survived because the book of Hebrews was written on the back of it. So you're welcome, Livy. The Bible saved one of your books. And we believe the Bible saves. Okay, sorry. Jesus saves through the Bible.
Anyway. All in all, we have about 25,000 manuscripts. Handwritten copies. Now, obviously, these have to be just written with they just say all different things, right? Like the Syriac, the Comptic, the Latin, the Greek. They're all all over the place.
They are not. 94% is the exact same. If we all got a piece of paper and a pen and had to copy down, I don't know, the New Testament and we got within 94% in the same room at the same time, that's a win. Let's go get ice cream. You copied well. You took minimal bathroom breaks.
You stayed focused the whole time. 94% word for word exact same. At least 6%. Okay, now we got to talk. 3% of that 6% is just like obvious errors. Like it's nonsense.
It's a misspelled word. Sometimes like where it would be verse 12 and then it would be verse 13. It goes verse 12 and then it starts back up at verse 9 and goes back through. So we just know, okay, this guy got confused. He picked up a word. He was like, oh no, I started this verse.
He's like, I'm just going to finish it and just make it seem like this is twice as important. That leaves 3% that are some words in different orders. Sometimes it's a whole different section just put in a different place. We have some that your Bible will say this verse is in a different spot. What we're able to do with that 3% is we start comparing timeline and we say, oh, it looks like somebody added this verse to help explain this section about 600 years later but all the ones back here don't have it. So we know this is more close to what was originally written.
It comes down to about one half of 1% that we're really not sure. One half of 1%. 99.5% of the Bible we're pretty sure is exactly the words they wrote when we look at the Greek. And the other 0.5% has nothing to do with a major point of doctrine. It's not sections where it's like, oh, maybe Jesus didn't rise. No, it's in some sections where if they took it out we'd have the exact same thing we have. when you look at this New Testament, this Old Testament, what you are holding is an English translation from the Greek and Hebrew words that they wrote down.
That's important. When we talk about the Bible's trustworthy, we're really asking two questions. Are we reading what they wrote? Then we have to ask, is what they wrote true? So are we reading what they wrote?
Is what they wrote true? The second thing that comes in here though, the second pushback that you'll hear often is yeah, okay, so you may say that y'all have the most well-attested to document in antiquity, which you do. And nobody's really disputing that at this point, except for David Cross. A handful of other people. You can look it up yourself. Would love for you to.
Nobody's really disputing that this is the most well-attested to document in antiquity. But people do say, okay, yeah, yeah, but they got together a couple hundred years later and they all just picked the books they wanted. And there's a whole bunch of other books that say other things that they just left out because they didn't like them. They took the books that said Jesus was God, they kept those, they edited some of them, which we know they didn't because we've got the older manuscripts, but then they took ones that didn't say Jesus was God and they left those out because they were against them.
They didn't want people to have that. Heard this argument? There's books left out? Okay. Just like the Da Vinci Code, some of those different ones talk about this. The Jesus Seminar, which they called it the Jesus Seminar and then they got together and denied the divinity of Jesus so your seminar didn't go well.
Here's the thing. The answer to that question or that rebuttal to the they left a bunch of books out is nope. They didn't really leave out any actual contenders to anything. By the time they got together at the Council of Nicaea, which was a couple hundred years later, they basically were saying, hey, some random spurious books, some random made-up books are starting to show up. We need to go ahead and just say, clearly, these are the ones that the church has always had. If anything, there was some debate over some of the books that are in here.
The Bible would have been less, not more. There were a couple of books that were written a little bit later, like the book of Revelation was written in the 90s. The first, second, third John were written kind of late. So there was some discussion about whether or not third John should be in there. There was some discussion about whether or not Hebrews should be in there because they don't know who wrote it. But they basically said, which are the ones that say what we've always said, have apostolic authority, we can go back and know who wrote them, which are the ones the church has been using.
We've got, there was a guy who wrote the Acts of Paul and 3 Corinthians in the second century. They, they, basically, the third Corinthians showed up and the Acts of Paul showed up. It was like people were, were passing off bootleg copies of the Bible. Hey, third Corinthians has been hidden but I found it. This is the real deal right here. It's like, why are you darting back and forth?
Just hint, like what is this? Like they, they started just passing these out. It'd be kind of like, it's a hundred years later, it'd be kind of like, um, if I came out now and said, I've got the real declaration of independence. It was Herbie Hancock, John Hancock's brother wrote the whole thing. They don't want you to know about it because of the government. Y'all would say, oh, okay, good.
Let's say I was able to get on the news. You know what would happen? They'd do some research and then they'd say, no. So books started showing up, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Bartholomew, third Corinthians, Acts of Paul. They basically, they found out that a guy really liked Paul so he wrote the Acts of Paul in third Corinthians. He was a pastor and they de-pastored him.
There's a letter with Tertullian's writing to someone else and he's like, we figured out who wrote that. He doesn't get to be a pastor anymore. It's poor pastoring. So if I get up here and I'm like, hey, I got fourth Timothy. Let's do this.
Y'all should de-pastor me. Um, okay, how do we know this? Uh, one of the ways that we know which books of the Bible should be in the books of the Bible and one of the ways that we know that the Bible is what was originally written is we can read the letters of the early church leaders. They quote the Bible 36,000 times. By year 150 AD, the only book of the Bible that was not quoted as a book of the Bible, was not quoted as Scripture and given authority in one of those letters from early church leaders is 3 John. By 150 AD, every other book of the Bible has been quoted.
By 300 AD, there's 36,000 quotes from the Bible. We could almost recreate the New Testament without any of the manuscripts just by looking at the letters of the first Christians. They wrote commentaries on Scripture. When you hold this, you hold what was originally written and you hold what was always understood to be Scripture. Now, best kept document in antiquity. it's trustworthy that you're reading what they wrote, which is good. The other half is, is what they wrote true?
So what we know is that Matthew sat down and he wrote that Jesus walked on water, that Jesus fed 5,000 people, that Jesus had people, made blind people see that Jesus died and rose from the grave. We know he wrote that. The question is, did Jesus? Is what he wrote true? Now, we could, there's a few questions we have to ask when we're asking that question. One is, have we disproven this?
Can we obviously see that the Bible just has some really fake stuff in it? It's got 23,000, we've done about 23,000 archaeological digs, none of which have disproven the Bible. Somebody, there's a quote of an archaeologist, he said, one of the best ways to base an archaeological dig is to base it off of Scripture because Scripture has accurately told us where places are who was where, who was in charge when. We've done 23,000. The reason, if they had disproven the Bible, you would know. They found something, they come out every once in a while and like, we found Jesus' body.
You've seen this on the news? And then at the end of the show, it's like when they're looking for the giant squid or whatever. They're like, we're going to find the giant squid. You watch it for an hour and at the end, they're like, the giant squid has eluded us once again. And it's like, why did I watch this for an hour? You watch that show about we found Jesus' body.
They get to the end and they're like, probably not. Not really. It's not him. But thanks for watching our show. We can say it doesn't contradict itself. We can say that what it says, it continues to say the same thing.
It gives the same testimony throughout. Other than that, when it comes to the truthfulness of Scripture, we can't really prove it. we can say what Scripture believes about itself, what the authors thought, what Jesus thought. So let me tell you a little bit about what Jesus thinks just from passages in Scripture. Jesus says Scripture cannot be broken. He says that heaven and earth will pass away but not a dot will pass away from the law. He's talking about the Old Testament.
He attributed a Psalm of David to being written in the Holy Spirit. So Jesus says that that Psalm of David was written by the authority, the power of God. He referred to what Moses wrote as God said. So at one point when Jesus was quoting Moses, he said, well, God said because he believes that what was written in the Old Testament is the Word of God. Jesus trusts the Scriptures enough and the transmission of Scripture enough to in an argument with the Sadducees, he goes to verb tense. He says that God says he is the father of Abraham.
I am the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he says he is. He am. Therefore, they're alive. He didn't say I was. So what he's saying is that he trusts the Scripture enough to even look at verb tense and say, no, that's reliable.
Then Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, when he's gone, the Spirit of Truth will come and guide you into all truth. And the apostles believed him. They believed that they were being led by the Holy Scripture to write more Scripture, which is words of God. So Peter, Paul, and the apostles believed three things about the Scriptures. One, that they were eyewitnesses, which is how we get testimony now. They believed they were eyewitnesses.
They wrote as eyewitnesses. John says he's writing as an eyewitness. Luke says he's writing an orderly account from eyewitnesses. Paul writes during the time of eyewitnesses, mentions names of eyewitnesses, said there's 500 people, some of whom have died, but there's a lot left. Peter says these aren't cleverly devised myths. This is eyewitness testimony.
They also wrote as apostles, which means sent ones or emissaries or delegates. It's like when I was a little kid and my dad would tell me something and I had to go outside and tell my brother, my older brother Logan. I had no authority over him as proven by all the many fights we got into. I was capable of punching him. I was not capable of punching him enough to where I won. So I didn't have authority over him.
He had authority over me. But I would come outside and I'd say, hey, daddy said you gotta go inside. And Logan never looked at me and said, you tell daddy to come out here and tell me his self. You know what Logan said? Okay. And he went on inside.
I didn't have authority. I was just speaking on behalf of daddy and daddy had authority. When the apostles write as apostles and they say, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ, that's what they're doing. They're saying, God said, Jesus said, this is authoritative not through me but through Jesus. And they wrote as if they wrote authoritatively. They believed that.
Peter refers to Paul's writing as scripture meaning that he believes it has the weight and the authority of the Old Testament. Paul says, Paul at one point says, as it says in scripture and he gives two quotes. He quotes Deuteronomy and he quotes Luke. He gives a Greek verbatim quote of a part of Luke chapter 10. Paul says that you took my words as not from man but as they were the words of God. Paul believes he writes with the authority of God and he says at one point, he says, if anyone who says they're spiritual doesn't acknowledge what I write, then don't acknowledge them because they're not spiritual.
They're not following God because what I write comes from God. That's a pretty bold claim. They believed, they wrote as eyewitnesses, they believed, they wrote authoritatively scripture and they all believed what they wrote. I'm going to give you a quick rundown list of the authors of the New Testament and of all of the disciples of Jesus and how they were all brutally murdered for what they believed. James, the brother of John, was killed by the sword. That's what it says in Acts under Herod Agrippa.
Peter was crucified upside. A lot of this comes from church history, not from scripture, but what we're, has been passed down in letters and what we understand to be true about these guys after the time of scripture. Peter crucified upside down in Rome. Matthew is beheaded in Ethiopia. Mark dies in Egypt after horses drag him through the streets of Alexandria, which is a form of torture. Luke is hanged in Greece because of his preaching.
Andrew is crucified in Greece. Thomas is thrust through with spears, then tortured, then burned alive in India. Philip is tortured, then crucified in Phygeria. Nathanael, who's also called Bartholomew in scripture, is whipped, then crucified. James, Jesus' brother, who was the leader of the Jerusalem church, is thrown down from the top of the temple. He survives and then is beaten to death.
Simon the Zeal is crucified. Matthew, Matthias, the guy who replaced Judas, is stoned while hanging on a cross. Maybe he wouldn't shut up. I don't know. Paul is beheaded in Rome. John, the only disciple who was not martyred, is boiled alive in oil, does not die, and is exiled to Patmos, where he writes the book of Revelation.
The disciples believed they wrote as eyewitnesses, they believed they wrote authoritatively, and they believed what they wrote. Every single one of them believed that Jesus Christ was God, that they saw him after he had died, and that death no longer had a hold on them. And so when people came to him and said, you better shut up, and you better quit writing what you're writing, and you better quit preaching what you're preaching, and you better just deny what you're saying, they all said, kill me, it'll do nothing, because I believe in the God who rises from the dead. Now, all I have said is that we know we're reading what they wrote, and we know that the Bible says that it is from God.
But that is a circular argument. You can trust the Bible. Why? Because God wrote it. How do you know God wrote it? The Bible says.
Well, how can you believe the Bible? Because God wrote it. It just, it goes in a circle. The Bible's trustworthy because God wrote it, we know that God wrote it because the Bible says it, and we can trust the Bible because God wrote it and the Bible says it. You can have this discussion with people, it just would continue to be the same discussion. Be like, if I said, you can trust me because I don't lie.
And if I lied, you wouldn't be able to trust me, but I don't lie. I just told you that. And you can trust me when I say I don't lie because I don't lie. And you would say, you have said that way too many times and I'm never going to believe a word you say. Okay? Now, that logically, that God wrote the Bible and therefore it's trustworthy and we can trust that because it's written in the Bible, is a logical fallacy.
It's a circular argument. It makes logical sense though and here's why. If the Bible pointed to something else as authoritative, that thing would be more authoritative than the Bible. So if the Bible said you can trust that I'm written by God because that says I'm written by God, then we would say, okay, y'all are either equal or that thing has more authority than you. The reason why when you're talking to somebody, you say, I swear to God I didn't do it. Which you probably shouldn't say, but if you say that, the reason you say that, people say that, is because God has more authority than you do.
God in the Bible says I swear by myself because who else is he going to swear to? So when the Bible says I'm authoritative and you say, on what authority? And it says, mine. It's because it's not going to point to anything else as authoritative. The Bible is. Now, at this point, the third argument that I'm often faced with and that I have discussions with people about is that they say things like, yeah, okay, but we know the Bible isn't true though.
But we just know because of the stuff it says in it. I was watching a comedian the other day and he said, he's British, he said, do we have any Christians in the room? And some guy way in the back, there's this giant auditorium and there's a guy in the back, he's like, hey! And he's like, oh, you're a Christian, what's your name? And if I'm butchering this accent, I don't care, I'm going for it. And the guy says, his name was Paul or something, he goes, oh, Paul, welcome.
I've got a special offer just for you, Paul. Would you like to buy some magic beans? Because if there's one thing I know about you, Paul, it's your really gullible. And then he goes into this thing about the virgin birth and how if you were watching, what I can only, I don't understand, he's British, but I can only assume it's like their version of Jerry Springer. And the girl said that she was a virgin and that's why she was pregnant, that nobody would buy that. And so basically, the argument that we're faced with at some point when we get here is that someone just goes, yeah, but we know the Bible's not true because it says all these things in it that we know are not true.
That argument, though, is also a circular argument. If you came to me and said, my Uncle Ted said he saw a ghost in his attic. And I said to you, yeah, but you can't believe anything your Uncle Ted says. And you said, why? And I said, because your Uncle Ted said he saw a ghost in his attic. So you can't believe what he says because Uncle Ted says he sees ghosts.
That's all I'm doing is basing my argument off of my argument, which is the same thing people do when they come to Scripture. They say you can't believe it because it has miraculous things in it. And if I were to say, well, yeah, but there's a lot of testimony throughout human history of the miraculous happening. And they're responsible, yeah, but you can't believe that. Why? Because those people said that something miraculous happened.
And so all they're doing is it's a belief system that just says, I can't believe that miraculous things happened so I can never believe this book. And they'll say things like, but we all know. And what they mean by we all know is white Europeans for the past couple hundred years know. They don't mean human history and they don't mean the amount of people, like they're not including Asia and Africa and South America where there's a vast majority of humans on Earth that would say there's actually more to life than what we can see. There actually is something beyond just what we can touch and measure under a microscope.
I can't prove the Bible to you. I can show you that they believed what they wrote. As Christians, we know that what we're reading is what they wrote and we know that they believed it. At some point, you have to place faith in that what they actually wrote is true. And there is your personal experience, the testimony of others, and then at some point there's faith. But we do believe that if there is a God, it would be on Him to reveal Himself to us.
He'd have to show up. He'd have to give us something. We couldn't just find Him on our own. And we do believe that He has revealed Himself through Christ. Okay. I said we'd get there.
2 Timothy. So we believe the Bible is trustworthy in both senses, that what we're reading is what they wrote and that what they wrote is true. That's what Christians believe. I can show you verifiably that we're reading what they wrote. You're going to have to come to the conclusion on your own that what they wrote is true. But, assuming that, 2 Timothy, what they wrote is true.
That's what we believe. That's why we open this. That's why we study this. That's why we read this. We believe that the Bible is trustworthy. We believe the Bible is sufficient.
2 Timothy, chapter 3, starting in verse... 14. But as for you, he's writing to a pastor named Timothy. Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. When he talks about the sacred writings, he's talking about the Old Testament. And he says something that Christians don't always know, which is that the Old Testament is sufficient for faith in Christ.
We're going to spend our whole summer walking through the Old Testament and talking about how it points us to Jesus. That was just a shameless plug. It's going to be fun. But he says that they're sufficient. You know that they're... which are able to make you wise for salvation through Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
He says that the Bible tells us what we need to know about salvation and gives us enough to be equipped for everything. We believe that the Bible is sufficient. That it has in it what we need. That it's profitable for rebuke, which means showing you where you're wrong. That we can definitively look at someone and say, no, you are wrong here. The Bible says the opposite of what you were doing.
For reproof, which just means correction. Just kind of getting lined back up for teaching, which means you're ignorant and you get to study it and you get to learn. For training in righteousness, that we might know how to live, that we'd be equipped for everything and wise for salvation. The Bible was primarily written as a redemptive history of God pursuing people. So, when we say the Bible is sufficient, we mean that it has everything we need to know. Not everything that you can know and not everything that is true.
So what I don't mean is this. if you started showing some symptoms of some sickness, I would pray for you. I would encourage you to pray. I would encourage your community group to pray. I would not hand you a Bible and say, study this and you'll find out what's wrong with you. I wouldn't because the point of the Bible isn't to be a medical textbook. I would say, you probably should go see a doctor because they know things about like, maybe what's wrong with you and maybe they'll take a needle and stick it in your arm and then you get all better.
We're going to pray for you and we're going to pray that they know what's wrong with you. But we're not going to do this in a medical textbook. Matt left for Cleveland last night. He and Katie and Emmy to drive all night long with an infant. So that was a good decision.
I did not hand him a Bible and say, use this to find your way to Cleveland. That's not why it was written. This would not be helpful to find your way to Cleveland. It would be helpful to find your way to God to understand the redemptive history of humanity. It's sufficient for what we need to know about God. When it talks about things, it speaks truly about them.
So the Bible, when it refers to the earth, calls it a circle. It says that God hung it out there in nothing, which is some sort of an old school reference to gravity. But it doesn't tell us whether or not Pluto is actually a planet or a ball of ice that's been tricking us for years. Because we have what we need to know about God and redemption and who He is and what He's accomplished. We don't have everything we want to know. That's why whenever somebody comes out and says, I need to tell you about the secrets of the blood moons.
That's a pretty good Hagee impersonation. Y'all don't know who I'm talking about, but man, that was on point. And I need you to know about the blood moons and what the blood moons testify. And I need you to look at this chart and it has a dragon and it has timelines and it has all these other things that I drew up in my basement. Like, my response to that is, that's cute. Bible doesn't say it.
Bible doesn't make a big point of that so it can't be a big point. Somebody's like, you need to know about the secrets of the Shemitah, which is another book that came out and it's like, no I don't. Because the Bible is aggressively plain and aggressively clear that we are sinners in need of a Savior and that God loves us enough to die on a cross for us to rescue us and to make us His and that the secrets and the answers belong to Him and that we get to belong to Him through Christ. That's the point of Scripture. That we get to trust Jesus. So when someone comes out and says, I did the secret Bible math.
No, you didn't. Because there ain't any. And if you're including verses and chapters, which is real cute, but those were added later, so nonsense. Sorry. That annoys me. It's sufficient.
It has what we need. We're going to go to this when we talk about things. We're going to open this up. We're going to study this. Secondly, we believe it's authoritative. Starting in chapter 4.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by His appearing and by His kingdom preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, and do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. We believe that the Bible is authoritative.
When we get together, when we study, what we're studying is scripture, not our opinions. When we get together, when there's an issue, when there's a problem we're facing, we open this up, we pray, we read, we try to find out what God says, we try to lean into scripture, we try to, when we get together for counseling, we're going to open this up and we're going to say this is what it says. This is what we get to know about scripture. This is what we know about Christ. He's given us authority authority. And this word is authoritative over all of us.
It is the highest authority. It is not the only authority. Which means that if I'm at some point correcting Archer, and I say, dude, you got to, I don't know if I was about to call him bro and dude, but I don't think I'll do that with my son. I'll say boy. How about that? I ain't got to practice this much yet.
I'll say boy. It's 9.15, I told you to go to bed. And if he says something really smart to me like, the Bible doesn't say I have to go to bed. I'm going to say the Bible says to do what your daddy says. And it also says if I spare the rod, I'll spoil the child. So why don't you go get in that bed?
And he'll say, good point daddy. Feats don't fail me now. So the Bible is the highest authority. It gives us other authorities like our parents, like church leaders, like governmental authorities. But all of them have to submit to scripture.
Church leaders have to submit to scripture. That we as a church should be reading this and studying this and if any of our leaders get off or begin to do something weird, we correct with scripture because scripture is the authority. My dad watches the preaching channel. I don't know what it's called. There's always like people with like thrones and globes in the background and all that kind of stuff. And he said he was watching a guy that he was an alright preacher.
He was just watching some, you know, he's drinking coffee in the morning and stuff. And he said he got to watching him one day and he realized the preacher would always start off by saying, turn to page 552. And he said sometimes he'd say things like, turn to chapter 3. We'll be in chapter 3 today by page 221. And he said he got to watching him at one point he was walking around with the book and he realized that the book had the preacher's face on it. That he wasn't preaching from the Bible, he was preaching from a book he wrote.
And that was what he took up on stage and that was what was in the pews and everybody would get his book out and would read it and he was just walking around with his own book and teaching out of it like it was authority. I'm going to tell y'all, I'm going to invite y'all. If I walk up here someday and I have a book with my face on it, I'm going to need you to assault me. And I'm going to need you to punch me in the face that is not on the book but that is on the top of my head because that is nonsense. And I need you going to take the Bible and begin to teach authoritatively out of that because that's the authority and we as Christians submit to it.
We believe that the Bible is trustworthy, we believe that it is sufficient, we believe that it is authoritative, and finally we believe that the Bible is powerful. Jump back up to where we started in chapter 3 verse 14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings. These are sacred, they're holy, they belong to God. which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, all scripture is breathed out by God. We believe that God at the very beginning of time and history spoke the world into existence and that he uses his word to accomplish his will and that throughout the history of the church the proclaimed word and the studied word and the written word have been capable of making people wise for salvation, have been powerful to lead to repentance, to see so clearly Jesus Christ on a cross dying for us to save us and that we can be changed through the word.
We believe that it's powerful, that it's capable of making us wise for salvation, it's capable of changing us, it's capable of leading us, that it's sufficient, powerful, authoritative, that we can trust it. And so we're going to get together every Sunday and we're going to open this up and we're going to talk about it. And every church everywhere is going to get together and open this up and study it and read it and go back to it and point to it and bend their own will to it and submit to it and follow it because it's sufficient, authoritative, and powerful and it's trustworthy. When you read this, you're reading what they wrote and what they wrote was true.
That's why we believe the Bible, why we follow it and in the pages of scripture we meet the ultimate Revelation of God which is Jesus Christ who loves us enough to die for us and to make us his. And if you're a Christian and you're not reading the Bible on a regular, normal, active part of your life, you're just missing out on all of the goodness that God has offered to you through his sacred writings that are capable of making you wise, capable of working in your life for your good, capable of leading you to repentance, capable of making you follow Jesus even in the face of opposition and death because of the truth found in these pages. we're going to pray and then we're going to sing together. God, I thank you for your word. Thank you for your word that is capable of leading us to salvation, your word that is capable of giving us hope, changing us.
God, we thank you for preserving it accurately for us, for giving us the document that is most well attested to in history. God, we thank you for that and I pray, Lord, that this would be a church that would trust your word, submit to your word, follow your word, and follow Jesus through it as your Holy Spirit works in us. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Baptism and Communion
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're in our fourth week of our Home Sweet Home series where we're discussing the church. We're just taking some time to dive into what the Bible says about God's people, about his church that Jesus died for to make his. Much of scripture is about the church.
It's God's plan, his people that he's going to use to redeem as he saves through the cross, that he's going to use a people to spread that message, to see more people come to know him, that once you become a Christian, once you've placed faith in Jesus, your sins are covered by him, that you're a part of his church, and that he dearly loves the church, that he bought the church. And so as we've gotten into this and continued to study and try to decide exactly what we ought to grow in and begin to understand, we started realizing there's some things, some gifts given to the church, some guards, some defenses given to the church that we really needed to spend some time talking about together. And so if we don't understand the context, the reason why these gifts were given to the church, then there's a danger of us completely missing the point. And so for the next couple of weeks we're going to talk about, today we're going to spend some time talking about baptism and the Lord's Supper.
So baptism and communion, we're going to spend some time talking about the Bible. In the next couple of weeks we're going to talk about the Bible, we're going to talk about leadership, we're going to talk about church discipline. So baptism, communion, the Bible, church leadership, and church discipline that are all actually gifts given to the church for the good of the church, for the protection of the church, because Jesus loves the church. But if we don't understand the context, we kind of miss the whole point. So if I told you that my wife stood up and yelled, What are you, blind?
It'd be helpful to know context. If we're at a baseball game, that's fine. If she's talking to me about the outfit I've picked out for us to go on a date, suddenly context matters and my feelings are hurt. Not really, I'd just be like, what? But it matters.
So when you watch the beginning of a James Bond movie, I always loved how they would take him in, they would tell him, they would kind of brief him on who the enemy was, what was happening. There was this crazy bald guy with a cat, and he wants to take over the world this way. And it was like always really big things. It was never like, it was always massive global domination, global destruction plans. And they bring James Bond in, and then they would take him into this room, and they would show him all these like tools for this particular mission. This pin shoots a bullet.
Let me show you this Audi that I've put missiles in. It also cooks hot chocolate, and those buttons are next to each other. Do be careful out there, James. Like they would always bring him in and show him all these things, and then like, but that doesn't happen in romantic comedies. Like in romantic comedies where their friends are discussing like how to go on a date, and maybe they come up with this crazy plan of like, I'm going to talk in your ear, or this is what you need to know. So like in Sleepless in Seattle, when he's sitting with his friend, and he's talking to him about, I'm trying to get back in the game of dating, and I need you to coach me up.
It would be weird if he was like, well, I've got a pin that shoots a bullet. He'd be like, what? Why do I? And I've got a car that has missiles. It's like this, that's what, I don't understand dating anymore. Like I've been out of the game way too long.
If I need a pin that could shoot somebody, like what on earth? And there's a little bit of us that when we approach some of the gifts given to the church, if we don't understand the context, we're not going to treat them appropriately. We're honestly not going to appreciate them. So let me give us a little bit of context, the cosmic story that is found in scripture, so that we can understand that when Jesus gifts the church with something, the context in which he gives it. God designed the earth perfectly. It was designed for humanity to flourish, for there to be joy.
Like he gifted the earth with good things for man to discover and to create and for humanity to come together, male and female, and to create more life and to have dominion over the earth and enjoy it. And humanity rebelled against God through the leadership of Satan. That in the very beginning pages of scripture, Satan shows up and we find out that God has an enemy. And because God has an enemy and God loves humanity, humanity has an enemy. Sin enters the picture. God immediately promises that he's going to fix this.
He's going to redeem. And he's going to fix this brokenness. And what we're faced with throughout the rest of the Bible is that we are, humanity is, caught in a cosmic conflict. That there is an eternity. We were designed to live for eternity and that each of our souls will exist for eternity. Either united with God in heaven or separated from God in hell and that there is an eternal, an eternally urgent conflict for the souls of every human you've ever met.
And when God gifts the church, saves the church, comes as Christ to die for the church to make a people for himself and then he turns around and says, this is how you ought to act. This is how you ought to treat each other. This is important for you. This is important for you. He does that in the context of that conflict. If your grandparents or great-grandparents or your parents explained to you how life worked during World War II but did not explain to you that there was a world war going on, you might be a bit confused.
Because you'd need the context of the conflict to understand exactly why they lived the way they did, made the bombs and the planes that they did, rationed food the way they did, why so many males from the United States left and didn't return. If you didn't understand the conflict, you wouldn't understand. Christianity is not just a religion where we practice some ceremonies. It's a people redeemed by the blood of God to be made, to be saved, to be made into his people in the midst of this conflict. If a father hands his son a sword and says, wield this with courage and boldness and bring honor to our name, a tear rolls down his face and his son is eight and on his way to a picnic, that was highly inappropriate.
And a doctor should probably talk to that dad. If his son is 30 and on the way to a battle and his mom runs in or his dad runs in and says, I made you a bag of sandwiches, have fun. Equally not helpful. Maybe he'll eat a sandwich on the way there, but the sword would have been better. I fear that when it comes to things like, specifically today as we talk about baptism and the Lord's Supper, that we've begun to believe that the sword and the shield hanging over our mantle are there for decorative purposes. We've museumed them.
We've taken armor. We've taken weaponry. We've put it in a glass case and said, isn't it pretty? And when you read about it in Scripture, it was not designed to just be ceremonial. It was not designed to just be decorative. The way Paul talks about it as we're going to read today, the way Jesus commands it and gifts the church with it, it was designed for our good and for our defense against our cosmic enemy, which is sin and Satan.
The problem with us is that our culture, and because we're in our culture, us, don't understand the danger of sin. We don't understand the destructiveness of sin. We don't understand the eternal cosmic proportions of sin. So we think, ah, everybody's having sex. It's not that big a deal. We celebrate it.
Ah, a little bit of greed, a little bit of self-promotion, a little bit of, you know, like it's, you don't want to be too humble so people will run you over. You want to have some confidence and some self-respect, and we've dressed up sin and acted like it's a little bit okay. Or we'll act like, well, this sin's not that big a deal. When the Bible at no point ever Acts like sin is not a big deal, Jesus died for sin, and somehow we lose that. So today I want us to pull the sword and the shield from off the mantle and realize it wasn't built decoratively.
It was meant for something much more as we talk about baptism and the Lord's Supper. Let's pray, and then we'll jump in. God, we thank you that you actively went to war on behalf of your church against sin. That rather than destroying all of us who were your enemies, you were destroyed for us in a fight against sin. That you separated sin from sin. And God, we praise you.
We praise you that you made a way to destroy sin without destroying all sinners. And God, we praise you and thank you for the gifts that you've given to your church to defend her. The gifts that you've given to us to protect us from your enemy and our enemy. And God, I pray that as we study this today, we would grow in our appreciation and our valuation of specifically baptism and the Lord's Supper as we talk about it today. That we would quit treating it as a ceremony but actually interact with you in it. Proclaim the gospel through it and fight sin actively.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So what we've got to do in our time this morning is answer the question what is baptism? What is the Lord's Supper? And then physically, what actually is it? And then we'll talk about why.
How it helps us. Why it was gifted to us. Why God has blessed us with it. So baptism, we'll take baptism first and then we'll look at the Lord's Supper in a second. So we're going to be in Romans chapter 6.
We'll spend most of our time there as we answer the why question. But before we get there I just want to show us a few places in scripture, reference a few places in scripture and answer the what question of baptism. The first time where baptism is mentioned is John the Baptist comes baptizing in the wilderness. This is the beginning of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John all talk about the baptism of John the Baptist. And John the Baptist baptizes which just means that word's a cognate rather than a translation. So a translation we take the word from Greek and we turn it into an English word.
A cognate because it began to have more meaning attached to it we just take the whole word. So baptism is a cognate which just means that's basically the word they used in Greek which is baptizo not a Greek scholar baptizo and we take that word and we just say baptism or baptize. The word meant in Greek originally submerge to dip or to sink. So there's actually Greek writing where a boat was sunk in a battle and the writing says it was baptized. So it wasn't like a ceremonial thing to save the soul of the boat.
The boat was in trouble and it sank. That's what it meant. And so we just have taken the word though as it's been Christianized and meaning more ceremonially but that's why we baptize one of the reasons why we baptize completely by submerging people fully in water. So we have that discussion on a regular basis with people. They'll be like okay I'm going to get baptized but are you like I got to get completely like dunked underwater? Yes.
One of my favorite ones and I mentioned a lot is the guy he said hold on a second you would baptize me he said yes he said as an adult yes by completely dunking me in water yes you just described baptism as we believe it we baptize adults by completely dunking them in water. The reason we baptize adults as we see in scripture is that it is for people who believe in the gospel. So John the Baptist comes baptizing a baptism of repentance the Jewish people at this time had Jewish ceremonial cleansing and you would clean yourself so you would step into a pool when you wanted to become Jewish and you would do a special washing ritual and that meant I'm getting rid of my sin and I'm going to be good. John the Baptist comes and says no you need to repent and I'm going to baptize you.
To baptize you. He was symbolizing that you couldn't do this on your own you're not going to be good enough you need to come acknowledge that you're a sinner and then receive grace and he says I'm baptizing with water but there's someone who's going to come who's going to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus shows up and is baptized by John. John says you don't need
To get baptized I don't need to baptize you you need to baptize me John was acknowledging that Jesus didn't have any sin to repent of that he was in authority but Jesus says no we should do this to fulfill righteousness to point to the purposes of this so he's baptized and then Jesus his disciples baptized and then Jesus
Before he leaves after he's died dies on the cross is buried and rises again he tells his disciples this and this is Matthew 28 we'll have it on the screen Jesus came and said to them all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me go therefore and make disciples of all nations a disciple is someone who actively cognitively purposefully follows Jesus make disciples
He's talking to his disciples who've been following him so he says go do the same thing we've been doing we're going to talk more about this in a couple weeks baptizing them so he tells the church when someone is becoming a disciple baptize them that's why we as a church don't hold that any special person has to do baptizing we believe that Christians baptize when we have baptisms one of the things
We say to people is don't let this be the last time you step in this water prayerfully you're baptized today and then hopefully you get back in here with somebody else that you helped point to Jesus we believe that we're called to baptize baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit so that's what we say when we baptize we baptize you
In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you so that is people who are going to follow Jesus are baptized we believe that believers are baptized as a public declaration of their faith in Jesus we see that modeled in the book of Acts where it says
Things like Peter says repent and be baptized it'll say when they believed they were baptized all of them believed and were baptized it is a I have chosen to follow Jesus my faith is in Jesus I believe the gospel and I want to be baptized so baptism is a public profession of faith where a person who believes in Jesus and is deciding to be a disciple
Is baptized by a Christian which means dunked in water completely as best we can every once in a while the top of the head gets away and sometimes you start coming back up you realize it's dry you go back we got to get the whole thing that's what we go for this is how we practice it here publicly to declare I believe the gospel okay why what's the purposes behind it Romans 1 so Jesus tells us to
We can stop there we're told to but then it could turn into just a ceremony then it could just turn into oh it's a thing we do you know we're Christians so like we try to be nice to each other Jesus says to love each other and then every once in a while we all get together and we dunk people in water we're Christians it could turn into just a ceremony but Paul's going to help us see some of the purpose behind it some of the life behind it some of the goal behind it
When Jesus told us to baptize so he's writing to the church and he says what shall we say then are we to continue in sin that grace may abound he's responding to something he just said which was however much sin you have Jesus has more grace so where sin abounds grace abounds all the more so then he answers a question in response to himself
If that's true shouldn't we sin to make Jesus his grace more amazing shouldn't I become a Christian and then say watch all the terrible things I can do isn't Jesus good his response no that's why some of you laughed that's kind of dumb don't do that but here's what he says here's the reasoning he gives behind this are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means
How can we who 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 if you have not been baptized I want you to listen as we go through this to help you understand what baptism is why we celebrate it why we celebrate it the way we do if you have been baptized I want you to remember your baptism because Paul in the midst of this
Discussion on sin says don't you know about your baptism don't you know what it accomplished don't you know what it was why you did it so if you have been baptized I just want you to take a minute as we walk through to remember your baptism and see the gift that God has given you in your baptism do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death
That's what we're celebrating at baptism that's why we take somebody and we completely dunk them in water what we're doing is we're symbolizing publicly that they are completely covered by Christ what he just said where sin abounds grace abounds all the more there's not a square inch of your sin that has not been covered by Jesus if you've placed your faith in Jesus there's not one thing that escaped
When you remember your baptism you remember that you were completely covered overwhelmed flooded by the grace of Jesus and then he says don't you know you were baptized into his death we always have this conversation with people when we go to do baptisms they're like is this ever like gone poorly and I guess what they're thinking is do people sometimes
Drown in baptisms like could I slip could I hit my head is there like a dangerous and my response usually is look that hasn't happened to us in years at least a couple like it's not that big a deal and then I'll go no I'm just kidding nothing bad ever happens in baptisms don't google it but there's this there's this this moment of like and there's supposed to be there's this moment
In your baptism where if you're completely covered by water you should you should realize if nothing changes I die I'm buried completely covered and this is the death of me if nothing changes baptism is a celebration of death our death swallowed up by Jesus'
Death our sin swallowed up by his grace so that when you're baptized you're baptized you're baptized into Christ and into his death don't you know you're baptized into Christ Jesus we're baptized into his death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father we too
Might walk in the newness of life if we didn't believe in the resurrection we would just get people together and drown them we wouldn't but that's kind of what Paul's saying he's saying just like Christ was raised you were raised so in this conversation
About sin he looks at the Christians and says remember your baptism don't you remember it you were buried in death with Christ your sin was overwhelmed by grace and just as Christ was raised you were raised that you might walk in newness
Of life five for if we have been united with him in a death like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin
Might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been set free from sin baptism is a public rehearsal and proclamation of the gospel when you place your faith in
Jesus you're saying that when he died my sin died with him when he died I died with him and when he rose again I rose with him that my resurrection is certain through Jesus that's the faith that we place
In Jesus and that's what we celebrate at our baptism in baptism it's a proclamation of the gospel but Paul says to use it as a defense against sin that's what he's doing right here some of us
Feel like we can't help but sin sin controls us I would stop this it's just so hard I just wish I could quit
This I wish I could be free of this and Paul's response is verse seven for one who has died has been set free
From sin now if we have died with Christ we believe that we also live with him we know that Christ being raised from
The dead will never die again death no longer has dominion over him for the death he died he died to sin once for
All but the life he lives to lives to God so you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus
And in 5 and 6 we read those again he says for if we have been united with him in a death like his
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that
We would no longer be enslaved to sin you don't have to be a slave to sin anymore Paul says remember your baptism you're
Dead to sin it has no claim over you anymore Jesus died to set you free from sin which means that sin no longer
Claims you when God looks at you he sees Jesus his grace abounding for you in the midst of your sin you're already free
And you can actually be free from sin as Jesus works in you some of you feel absolutely condemned and if you're a Christian
Paul would say look at he stayed in the grave way longer than you did you were symbolically remember that you died and you
Rose with him the other thing Paul says that we get to use baptism for is a defense against sin and it's a defense
Against quitting complete failure it helps us endure it helps us stand firm verse five for if we have been united with him in a death
Like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his your baptism is a moment where you publicly physically declaratively state
I'm in Christ and it's done publicly physically and you make a big deal out of it so that you remember I'm in Christ
I died with him I'll rise with him there's a story in first Samuel of David who's out in the pasture he's watching sheep
Samuel who's a prophet comes to his family and says that God sent him there to anoint one of David's dads one of his
Kids one of his sons is king he's going to be king so they bring in the oldest biggest son Samuel was like obviously
It's gotta be him he asked God and God says no his sons get like shorter and and each one he's like well it's
Gotta be this guy and no no no no no no finally get to the end and obviously they're just standing around awkwardly because
Samuel goes do you have any more sons and his dad goes um yep but he's not here and basically with kind of a like
So can't you just pick one of these like he's he's like nope you need to looking the Bible says he was attractive so
That's nice he's got that going for him Samuel the God tells Samuel he's he's the king anoint him Samuel pours oil pours oil
On his head and says you're going to be king you've been anointed king of Israel it's an amazing moment and then you know what happens nothing
David has an oily head and he goes back to watch sheep he's like I'm going to be king and his dad's like all right
King go king it up around the sheep because you're still short albeit handsome now get out of here eventually he gets called up to play music for
The king the actual king that king tries to kill him a couple of times but it says his music was good so I
Don't know he escapes a few times he eventually becomes a leader of an army but throughout the story as you read for Samuel the story
Unfolds there are these moments where you're like oh David's going to die oh he's never going to be king oh he's run out
Of the castle oh the other king's chasing him the other king's cornered him like there's these moments where he's you're reading the story
Of David and the whole time you're going how is he going to be king how is this even going to happen in these
Moments where you doubt it but then you remember no no no no no no no no God anointed him and said this was
Going to happen I don't know how it's going to happen I don't know when it's going to happen it's going to happen and
Paul says Christian in the midst of the absolute terror and confusion of life in the midst of sin seeming like it is your
Slave owner I want you to remember that if you've been united with him in a death like his you will certainly be united
With him in a resurrection like his he says Christian look back to your baptism we know the end of there but we know
You're going to get there that's what our baptism gets to be for us that we get to stand firm in the moments when
We have nothing else to stand firm on when our faith doesn't even seem good we get to say no there was a moment
Where I absolutely believed this there was a moment when I stood in front of people and I said I trust when I rose
Again and I know the promises for me that I have been told by the God the king of the universe that when he
Died I died with him and that I can be made alive again and that at some point I will be made into the
Image of Christ this is what is going to happen for me I have no clue how it's going to happen but I know
For a certainty that if I died with him I will rise with him and my hope is forever in Christ that's what your
Baptism gets to be it was a defense against sin that so often attacks and leads us astray your baptism gets to be in
Those moments when you have nothing else to stand on you get to say no I walked into the water and I been covered
By Jesus the way the water covered me his blood has covered me he took my sin on himself and I'm free that's the
Gift of baptism to the church that it's an open public declaration of I believe this and in the moments when sin comes we
Get to say no I'm dead to sin and in the moments when fear and doubt come we get to say no I know
The end don't hang it above the mantle it's a weapon of defense given to the church to keep us from having sin destroy us
Because God knows the destructive tricky nature of sin communion go to first Corinthians we got to ask the same questions of the Lord's
Supper first Corinthians 11 it's on page 622 and 623 we'll be looking at first question we've got to ask what is it physically
And then we'll ask the question of what are we actually celebrating what why do we celebrate it why has God gifted it to
Us Paul's writing to the Corinthian church let me give you a little background you can read it at some point I'd encourage you to at the beginning of chapter 11 basically
He's talking to the church who when they would gather together they would say we're participating in the Lord's supper but people would bring their own food some of them would be full some of them would get drunk some of them would
Have nothing and Paul says y'all are doing this incorrectly this is not the Lord's supper let me explain to you what the Lord's supper is what it is what you're supposed to do
And that's where we're picking up but in the following instructions verse 17 I do not commend you because when you come together it is not for better but for the worse wait nope yeah okay I'm right for in the first place when you come together as a
Church I hear that there were divisions among you and I believe it in part I didn't want to read this but we've started that's why I'm confused this is what I was just telling y'all about so we'll just read it and then you won't have to later for I believe it
In part for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized when you come together it is not the Lord's supper that you eat for in eating that's
Where we get the term the Lord's supper it comes from the Bible when you come together it's not the Lord's supper that you eat for in eating each one goes ahead
This is where I thought we were starting for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when
He had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in
The same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as often
As you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord's
Death until he comes what is the Lord's supper physically it is eating bread and drinking what Paul calls the cup what in one
Of the gospels Jesus refers to as the fruit of the vine so we believe the Bible doesn't tell us what type of bread is broken
To symbolize the broken body of Jesus that Jesus did this instituted this with his disciples the night before he was crucified that he
Broke bread said this is my body broken for you that he took a cup which is fruit of the vine so we believe
That can either be grape juice it can be wine it's a matter of conscience conscience and your context we don't squabble over that and
He said this is my blood poured out for you and a new covenant in my blood as often as you do this in
Remembrance of me Paul says some of you get full don't you have houses to eat in we don't believe this has to be
A complete meal we believe that it can be it seems like that in the book of Acts in chapter 2 that they got
Together and shared meals and they were breaking bread and drinking together we believe it is a part of a meal or it is
Set aside separately to celebrate this idea that Jesus' body was broken that his blood was shed we eat some bread we drink grape
Juice or wine and we remember the gospel that's what happens physically here's the point and Jesus also he says do this as do
This in remembrance of me he doesn't say how often we ought to we have recently begun doing this more often because we believe
It ought to be a normal rehearsal celebration of the gospel for us we used to do this very sporadically and we have changed repented
And said no we need to do this more often as a church but we don't think there's any specific rule we just know that when we
Do it this is the attitude we ought to have first it is a remembrance of Jesus again we've said this is a gift
Given to the church baptism is a once and for all reminder of the gospel that Jesus once and for all covered your sin
Communion or the Lord's supper is a continual reminder of our need for the gospel a continual reminder of our ability to drift into sin
Our ability to drift away from Jesus the Lord's supper is a continual reminder of the dangers of sin the deceitfulness of sin and
The beauty of the gospel but he says do this in remembrance of me you're not supposed to clear your mind you're supposed to
Remember a definitive specific time in history when Jesus was nailed to a cross when his body was broken and his blood was shed on your
Behalf first and foremost we actively focus our minds on Jesus as we take communion secondly it's a proclamation of the gospel because he says for as often
As you do this for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup this is verse 26 you proclaim the Lord's
Death until he comes we proclaim the gospel in this that this is for Christians who have placed their faith in Jesus to actively
Remind one another of this is what our hope is in this is what our faith is in that Jesus died for us that
His blood was shed for us that we actively proclaim the gospel it's also a participation in the gospel so he says this verse
27 Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and
Blood of the Lord let a person examine himself then and so eat the bread and drink of the cup for anyone who eats
And drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself when we partake in the Lord's supper we are proclaiming that we
Believe the gospel which is I'm a sinner continually actively in need of a savior and Jesus his body was broken for me and
His blood was shed for me and this is the sacrifice for me that I might be made right with God when we do
This in a callous flippant manner we are proclaiming physically that we believe the gospel and acting on a heart level like we do not
When we have unrepentant sin that we are actively walking in actively running from God in but then we're going to gather with his
Church and say I believe that I'm a sinner in need of grace but actively not be repenting not being honest not being open
What he says is that you're actively stepping to the table and partaking in condemnation not grace because grace frees us up to be honest about
Our sin to repent to reconcile grace frees us up to be open with our failures and when we're hiding or when we're not we're
Not even paying attention to what we're doing but we're just partaking in communion partaking physically rehearsing that we believe the gospel while at the same
Time physically acting as if we do not spiritually and emotionally acting as if we do not so we participate in the gospel you're designed by
God's grace to actively practice a reminder of your need for the gospel and in that moment to reflect so that you don't drift most people do not
Violently leave Jesus most people do not violently leave the church most people make one exception after another believe one lie after another begin
To disregard one Christian friend after another and eventually find themselves far away from Jesus and far away from his people and it wasn't
An active run it was a slow walk and Jesus says actively partake of the gospel Paul says do this often and in that
Moment review reflect think through and say where am I believing lies where have I begun to run from Jesus where do I need the gospel
Actively now is the question we ask as we begin to take communion together now I want us to read this next section because it is confusing and
Every time I'm hanging out with a church and a pastor comes to a really confusing part of scripture I get excited because I
Think maybe he'll explain that and then I'll stop being confused and then they skip it because they are confused as well and I
Get really sad inside so let's all read this confusing section together that I do not have a clear explanation for but I do
Want to point something out to us is that fair doesn't matter we're reading it we'll start in verse 27 whoever therefore eats the
Bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord
Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the actually examined yourself prior to doing this and so he's talking about observed
Judged ourselves truly we would not be judged we would repent if you actually saw your sin and knew how dangerous it was you
Would just repent and God wouldn't pass a judgment on you we would not be judged but when we are judged by the Lord
We are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world I believe there what he is saying is that discipline
The judgment by the Lord and the discipline comes in verse 30 that is why many of you are weak and ill and some
Have died Paul is saying best understanding I have of this text that God's discipline towards his church is that in a flippant response to the
Gospel as they partook in the Lord's table without examining themselves with unrepentant sin with flagrant unrepentant sin that God in his grace disciplined
Them through being weak sick and dying now if my understanding of that text is correct I woefully underestimate the dangers of unrepentance and
Sin that's the only thing I can take away from that if God is good and in his grace disciplines because he says you'd be disciplined not
Condemned God does not condemn them his grace still covers them but because he loves them his grace is active in making them weak
Ill and dying it seems as if Paul just said that God in his grace and love for them some of them died I completely underestimate
Sin because that sounds way worse what he just said is God loves them enough to discipline them and this is how far God
Is willing to go in his discipline of his people to keep them from being condemned my brother and I when we were growing up
We lived in Tennessee and we had a little little bit of paved area in our driveway and the way our road it was
Kind of a neighborhood road but not really because people were pretty spread out so people drove quickly through this stretch of road and
You couldn't really see one way or the other too well so my older brother Logan was like five and I was like three and we
Would ride our bikes in our driveway out into the road loop around and come back sometimes we would just ride back and we
Were not allowed to play in the road so we didn't when he was around or if we knew he was watching and then
When we thought he wasn't watching we would play in the road and I mostly was just following the leadership of my older brother as
He played in the road so my dad would bring us in he would sit us down when he saw us in the road
My older brother Logan believed he could talk my dad out of this because my older brother at the age of five was vastly
More intelligent than my father and he understood this and wanted to articulate that to my dad my dad because of his density did
Not realize that this five year old was a genius and was unwilling to be swayed by his son's logical arguments which basically boiled
Down to no I'm looking we won't get hit by a car I'm paying attention my dad would respond you are five no you're
Not you're just not you can't pay attention all the time your mom and I don't play in the road because even though we're adults
We can't pay attention all the time he would have this discussion my brother would continue no no no hold a second now and
He would say the same thing my dad would get to the point where he would say nevertheless regardless of what you believe you have
Broken this rule you have played in the road when I told you not to and I'm going to spank you and if you
Say another word I'm going to add licks which my dad would lay us down pull our pants down and use a bell that's
How he did it and you got a certain number of licks depending on licks it's a southern word that means hit with a bell
Clarify we were going to get licks that's what we called them how many licks did you get three all right like we would do
That so he said I'm going to add licks and he go two three four and then finally Logan would go and I'd be
Sitting next to him looking at him as a three year old like you are a complete idiot we could have already gotten our
One lick and been back out on the road by now you made this take way longer and added to my dad eventually would just
Bring us inside like he would continue to spank us and eventually we weren't allowed to play outside anymore when I read this text what
I am struck with is that God sees sin so differently than I do he sees a lack of repentance in my heart so
Differently than I do my father knew what it looked like for a dog to get struck by a car my father knew what
Would happen to one of his children were he struck by a vehicle and my dad loved us too much to allow that to
Happen it would actually be my dad's wrath and punishment towards us to just say fine get hit by a car fine Logan live with the fact
That your younger brother who was three and was following you was struck by a car because you got out of way and he didn't
Fine live your entire life knowing that you killed your brother or that you severely handicapped him fine live your entire life in a
Wheelchair because you won't listen to me my dad loved us so he beat us because he loved us and when I read this
Text what I want to say is no God no you can't you can't some people died because they wouldn't they ate communion no
And we might would all come together and say that's crazy and I feel like I'm a three year old talking to a five year
Old and going our dad is abusive what is wrong with him and among the council of a three and a five year old
Certainly the road seems wonderful and certainly we've thought this through so when God steps in and it says when you partake in the
Gospel when you remind yourself actively guard against sin repent realize the heinousness and the danger of sin so much so that he would
Make people weak ill and die all I know is when I read that text I don't fully understand it but I know I
Don't think sin is as dangerous as God thinks sin is I know for a fact when I read that text that a good and holy
Father that loved me so much that Jesus would come to die for sin see sin in an eternal cataclysmic light that I don't see
It in because I'm much more okay with it floating around in my life than he is he's so unwilling for sin to be present
In my life that he died for it and if he's willing to take a Christian home prior to them completely drifting and being
Condemned praise God take him home because God sees eternally the Lord's Supper was given to us as a guard you see baptism and
The Lord's Supper stand at the door for us they stand at the door on the way in that Christians would place faith in
Jesus and be baptized that Christians would be Christians actually have belief in Jesus before taking the Lord's Supper and they stand at the
Guard on the way out as we begin to drift they protect us but you see God sees sin so much more dangerously than we
Do I was recently watching a documentary called dangerous animals or something and I didn't really like it because it was just a bunch
Of videos of animals eating each other and lions would come around this pack of water buffalo and their goal was to get a small confused
Weak or sick water buffalo alone so that the lions could eat it the only problem with their plan was the large full grown
Not weak or sick adult water buffalo and these lions would come around a little one and these giant water buffalo they got the
Flat like helmet heads with the hook horns like this would just I mean murk a lion which just means harm them with their
Head that's what murk means you can do it in football they throw a flag now and throw you out of the game but
Still fun to watch these big water buffalo I mean would just destroy some of these lions could kill a lion one on one
And you are going the lions are going to get him there they surrounded him and all sudden these water buffalo would come streaming
In and just I mean throwing lions in the air it was glorious and God set up baptism and the Lord's Supper as guards
For weak lost small Christians who've begun to believe the lies that sin tells and he said no let me give you some defenses let me give you some things to lean
Into in that moment the best thing that small water buffalo could do was just get behind a big one but once you got
Behind a big one that's all you had to do he says let me actively force you to remember the gospel because if you forget
It if you begin to disbelieve in it you're in trouble and God sees sin so and God loves this church and he gave
The church baptism and the Lord's supper he gave it the Bible he gave us each other through leadership and church discipline we're going to
Spend the rest of our couple weeks talking about that before we get into mission as we look at how much Jesus loves his
Church that he was willing to to defend he died for her and he protects her Matt the Christ a communion with the body
Of Christ because there's one bread we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread we are all
Participating in the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus as we partake in communion and today if you are a Christian I encourage
You to remember your baptism so that you can say no to sin so you can remember and know your outcome that you who
Were buried with him will also rise with him and as we take communion I want us to remember Jesus that his body was
Broken for us that his body was broken for you that you get to participate in the gospel as you place faith in Jesus
That when he died you died with him and that his body was broken that his blood was shed so this room is filled
With people who believe fully that the only thing that makes us okay is Jesus repent don't hide be real about your sin and
Your weakness where you've actively been running from Jesus grab somebody who's in your community group grab somebody you don't know and say I
Need to talk to you because I've been running I need to talk to you because I've been acting like how un-okay sin is
That God had to die I need to talk to you I need to be open about this Jesus I need to talk to
You you died for my sin that I could be free don't let me let it hang around don't let me think it's okay
Don't let me don't let me dishonor the cross by acting like sin is small because it's not small rebellion against a holy God
And it actively seeks to destroy us and remove us from his presence and to kill us for an eternity and as we get
To take in communion we get to celebrate that that doesn't have to be true for us that Jesus died for us but that
We get to repent to be honest about where we're broken because our hope is in Jesus not in our behavior so as we
Participate in the gospel I actively ask you to remember the cross and apply it to your heart and if you're not a Christian
Place your faith in Jesus that your sin would be covered publicly be baptized to proclaim that I believe this and I once and
For all physically want to remind myself that this is true for me and gather with our church and begin to take the Lord
Supper as you remind yourself that I need the gospel and that sin is destructive but our God is good because he was destroyed
So that I don't have to be God we pray that we would approach your table in a worthy manner that we would rightly
See the gravity of sin that we would understand that these gifts you gave us were given in the midst of a conflict that
We would hold on to them that we would cling to them we would use them God as you design them to fight sin
In our souls to draw us into you we wouldn't hang them on a mantel and ceremonialize them that we wouldn't just make them routine
Thing that we do but that God we would stand firm in them as we stand firm in you God I pray that through
Your Holy Spirit you would lead us to repent so that we can fully celebrate in what the gospel has purchased for us which
Is our hope and our joy and our redemption that none of us are good on our own but that you died so that we
Could be free free from sin and free from death and have hope and life in you in Jesus name we pray amen
Apr 24
We Love Each Other
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're in our third week of our Home Sweet Home series, which is where we're just taking some time to ask, what is the church? Who is the church? And how is the church supposed to organize?
What is the church supposed to look like? How did the church become the church? Those kind of questions that I know have just been really weighing you down and burning on your mind. But really, it's massively important for us as a church and as the church to understand how we ought to be shaped, how we ought to organize, how we ought to think about ourselves. So what we've said so far is that the church became the church through Jesus, through his actions on our behalf, that it's not about what you do or who you are or how you act or your morals or following some rules or something.
It's about what Jesus has already accomplished through the cross. And then once he accomplished our salvation through the cross, through his death, his life, death, burial, resurrection, and our faith in him, then actually we begin to change. We begin to love Jesus. We begin to hate sin. We begin to love the Bible and love his church and love his mission. And so today we're going to spend a little more time looking practically at what it looks like for us to love each other, for us to love one another.
I thoroughly enjoy that show Shark Tank. It's a show with a bunch of sharks in a tank and they throw, it's actually these investors who are called the sharks in the show. People come in front of them and pitch ideas for businesses, pitch ideas for inventions, and then they decide whether or not they're going to invest. So they basically say, here's my idea, here's how much money I want. They negotiate, they haggle, and I just thoroughly enjoy it. My dad was an entrepreneur growing up and he invented different things periodically, mostly just stuff we use around the house.
And he started several different businesses and I got to work in some of his business. I have a business, I have a business degree. And so I just, the whole time I'm just soaking it up because it's negotiating and it's like, and it's also like these inventions and some of them are just terrible. I've got a few of those to share with you this morning. One guy brought on Throx, T-H-R-O-X, and that is socks sold in packs of three. Huh?
That was really it. He was like, what if when you bought socks, you got one extra one who wants to invest? Throw your money at me. Like that was his plan. And basically the point was, you're going to lose one anyway. Why not have an extra one already?
And so I don't think anybody invested in that. There was the hoodie pillow, which is a pillow with a hoodie on it for people who want to smother themselves and die in the middle of the night. Squeaky knees was an outfit for toddlers or little infants that basically put little squeaky toys on their knees so that when they crawled, they made squeaky noises constantly. I have a one-year-old and that's one thing I've thought on a regular basis is I wish he made more noise. If only he could be more aggressively in my face all the time. Like that's, that's what I want.
Pet paint, which is basically spray paint for your dog, which sounds great for other people's pets. My personal favorite, and I watched this one, I was going to take a second to explain is elephant chat. Elephant chat is a little wooden pedestal and a little clear like plexiglass box. And inside of it is a stuffed little, uh, elephant stuffed animal thing. And it is for, you have this sitting in your house all the time, the little elephant and the plexiglass thing. And then when you are mad at someone in your family, you're upset by something, you take the plexiglass off and now you got to deal with the elephant in the room.
This is the point of this so that you would come home from work and the elephant would be out of its cage and you'd be like, son of a God, like I hate that stupid elephant. I don't know. And then when you argue, uh, discuss, you are supposed to take the elephant and only the person holding the elephant can talk. And you pass the elephant back and forth. And this was the idea they pitched. And this only costs $60.
You could do this with a rock and a napkin. Like you could just put a rock on the table and when the napkin, like, but like, I don't know. That was the point. I don't think anybody invested in that either. Cause they were like, seriously. Um, but here's the thing on shark tank.
Periodically people come in and they have leveraged everything for their business. And a lot of them have actual good ideas that they have quit their jobs for. They've pulled money out of savings for. They've taken out loans for. They put blood, sweat, tears into, and they come in and they are sold. They are completely all in on their business.
And when they pitch it and whether or not they get a good response or a bad response, like you can tell they have poured themselves into this. And that regardless of whether or not the sharks invest or don't invest, they're going to continue to pour themselves out for this. And honestly, as we read in the pages of scripture, that is to be our attitude towards the church, towards Jesus, towards his people, towards his mission. We're to be like those in inventors that have poured themselves out. They've as it seems as if every hour they put into it, they love their business more. Every time they had to pull money out for it, every time they had to quit their job for it, they become more and more and more and more invested in what they're doing.
They're more all in to what they're doing. Like they've put everything in on this one idea, this one business. And the church is supposed to be that, that we as Christians, when we become Christians, are supposed to go all in, put everything we have into God's people and his mission. That's what we're designed to do. So the Bible uses the illustration of a family.
And it's actually not even an illustration. The Bible says we become a new family. Romans 8 says that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers and that we're all adopted as sons. That basically when Jesus died for us and we placed faith in him, we're actually brought into the family. That we've given not only a new father, but brothers and sisters. And that we're to be absolutely devoted to and committed to the church.
So I'm going to pray and we're going to hop in and begin to look at somehow we see this in Galatians. And then we're going to, we're going to keep moving today and actually jump through a good bit of scripture. But I think it's going to be helpful as we get to see what the church is supposed to look like. So let's pray. God, we pray that as we study your words, you would begin to, to change us. God, that you would be at work in our hearts to make us into your people and to shape us more into the image of your son.
We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. So Galatians one, go to Galatians one. We'll be in, we're going to look at one through five. And here's basically what we're going to look at.
We're going to try to see how, if you don't have a Bible, there's some on the rows, it'll be on page 631. We're going to see how Paul understands his identity in light of being a part of God's new family, how he understands who he is and who he's talking to. And here's, here's one of the problems we run into when, when you read through and you hear that God's a new father and that we're a family now and that we're a true, real eternal family is that some of us have really busted up families. Some people hear that and they say, oh, it's beautiful because they can, they readily draw on good pictures of what a family is supposed to look like.
But others of us hear that and it's like, that sounds terrible. Like my, my father was terrible. I don't want to be told that God's a father. Does that mean he's distant? Does that mean he, he pieces out as soon as it gets difficult? Does that mean I never really get to know him?
Does that mean he's really harsh? Like, uh, when you say we're brothers and sisters, you're like, man, that's, that's terrible. But here's, here's the reason why it's so helpful. First of all, we get an actual good new eternal father and we get actual good eternal family. And part of the reason we've been so hurt by our families is that we knew what a father was actually supposed to look like. Even when we didn't have a good example of one, we knew deep down, this is what it should have been like.
That's why we say things like, oh, she's like a sister to me. Because we know that once it gets to a certain point, it's like, we're more than just friends. This is actually a family relationship. And even if we don't have good ones, we know they should have been good. We know what they should have been like. And the Bible says that actually Jesus redeems that for us, brings us into a new family.
And so we're just going to read as Paul writes in Galatians, this is the beginning of just one of his letters. And we're really just looking at how Paul understands his identity, who he is and who he's talking to through this lens. Paul, an apostle. Apostle means sent one. So basically chosen to be sent out like a delegate.
Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. So he's saying, I'm an apostle. I'm sent out by Jesus and God the Father and all the brothers who are with me. So he's writing Paul, an apostle, and he tells how he became a possible apostle. And then he says, and all the brothers who are with me are writing this as well. And the word brothers there in the Greek means brothers and sisters.
It basically means siblings. So if some of you took Spanish, and I think French is the same way, they have like the masculine form of the word that includes both masculine and feminine. So we have brothers and then we have sisters and then we have brothers and sisters. A lot of other languages just would include brothers and that would include both. And so that's kind of like our word for siblings. So basically what he's saying is the family here, Paul and the family here are writing to you in Galatia, which was a different city where he wasn't.
And the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia. So his understanding was there's a city in Galatia and there are multiple churches there. They all belong to the same big church. They all belong to Jesus, but there's a local church that you would belong to these people. You would be devoted to these people. You'd be a part of this church.
And there's another church that belongs to you in that you're all Christians, but you don't specifically know all of those people aren't connected to all those people. They belong to each other in a distinct way. So that's what he's writing to multiple churches in this city. Grace to you and peace from God, our father. So he's writing saying, Hey, the family here is saying grace to you.
We're writing this letter to you and peace to you from God, our father. We all now have the same father, which means we're all siblings. We're all brothers and sisters. We're all family now. So he writes, Hey fam, peace to you from God, our father.
And the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of God and father, to the will of our God and father, to whom be the glory forever. And amen. So that's how he starts his letter in chapter in verse three at verse 11. He's going to say, brothers, I want to remind you. And there's throughout all of Paul's letters. He's going to say, Hey, brothers, Hey, brothers and sisters.
Hey family. I want to remind you. I want to exhort you. I want to tell you this. I want to show you this, but he understands that his identity identity is marked by what Jesus has accomplished, made us into a family. And so throughout the new Testament, it's going to tell us over and over and over again, how we ought to relate to one another, what it looks like for us to be a part of this new family.
So it's the same thing where some of us had really messed up families, but we have an idea of what it's supposed to look like. Some of us have been a part of really messed up churches. And I'm about to say today, we're just going to look through and say, well, this is what it's supposed to look like. This is what by God's grace, it gets to look like through what Jesus has accomplished for us. And so here's what we're going to do in the new Testament. There are 59 verses that have the phrase one another, where it is specifically talking to the church.
This is how you relate to other people in the church. So Christians, this is how you treat other Christians. This is how you ought to relate to one another. So it'd be the same as if you said, okay, this is, this is what a family is like. And this is what a father is supposed to do. And this is what brothers and sisters are supposed to do.
The writers of the new Testament over and over again, it said, this is how you ought to relate to one another. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to walk through 59 one another's to see what it looks like for the church redeemed by Jesus to relate to one another's family. Y'all ready? 59. I'm going to just read them.
Don't try to get all these, like just, just kind of take it in. Sometimes when you're reading scripture, it's like a wine tasting. You take one verse, you swirl it around, you smell it. You're going to swish it around in your mouth and you're going to like, I don't know, I think you're supposed to spit it back out at that point. And then you drink it again. Like you're trying to get the, all of it out of that one little sip.
We're not doing that today. We're like pouring a bucket of water on our head just to kind of get the, Ooh, okay. I get the picture. Like that was aggressive. I see what we're doing here. So that's what we're doing today.
It's not a wine tasting. It is a ice bucket challenge. We're going to run through really quickly and just try to see what the Bible says, what the new Testament says about how we ought to relate to one another. And we can give you this list later if you're interested in it. Um, so 59, here we go. Be at peace with one another.
We will stop every once in a while and I'll give commentary kind of like I just did there. Uh, wash one another's feet. That's Jesus talking to the disciples after he washes their feet, love one another, love one another, love one another, love one another, love one another, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. And so basically as the church, we're to be committed to devoted to each other. We're to go all in for one another. We're to, we're to push all of our chips onto the table for the sake of one another, honor one another above yourselves, live in harmony with one another, love one another, stop passing judgment on one another.
Uh, that basically is stepping in and saying, uh, have a conversation. See, passing judgment is I see you doing something and I think, okay, well, if he's just going to be like that, then we're just not going to be friends anymore. Or you do something to me and I just say, okay, well, she's, she's just like that. I'm writing her off. And what he's saying is you've passed judgment. You've condemned somebody.
And what we're supposed to do is actually when something happens is go talk to him, assume the best, assume that they can change, assume that they didn't do it intentionally. So stop passing judgment on one another, accept one another. Then just as Christ accepted you, which means everybody's invited in. Jesus didn't raise the bar really high. He went and accomplished it for us and accepted everybody. So accept one another as Christ accepted you instruct one another, greet one another with a holy kiss.
When you come together to eat, wait for each other, have, that's a problem for some people who are conditioned, always late to their community group, but it says, wait for him, uh, have equal concern for each other. Greet one another with a holy kiss. Greet one another with a holy kiss. Be affectionate. I think is what that's getting after. Um, serve one another in love.
If you keep on biting and devouring each other, you will be destroyed by each other. So don't harm each other. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Uh, this one is, uh, says carry each other's burdens. Sometimes the church carrying each other's burdens looks like our church coming together to help another church across the state, across the globe. Um, when, when there was the, the flood here, uh, I know a guy who I went to high school with, who's a pastor of a church in, in Augusta.
He called me and said, Hey, I know you're going to have to be doing some flood work, some flood repairs and stuff. Uh, our church just took up and I think it was, uh, it's around $2,000, a couple thousand dollars that they just said here, we're sending to y'all for whatever y'all need to use it for, for flood stuff. Sometimes that's what it looks like. Um, a lot of times though, it looks like real relationships with real people who have real burdens that you step in and help carry. So it's going to look like helping somebody move.
It's going to look like your group accommodating someone else in your community group and meeting at a different time. It's going to look like, um, washing each other's children, washing each other's clothes, letting people stay with you. If there's a need, it's going to look like getting together and saying, okay, you lost your job. Uh, we can do $25 a month until you're able to find a new job. And, and another couple saying, yeah, we're actually going to cancel our direct TV and we'll be able to do 75 a month. And we're going to start praying really hard that you get a job before football season.
That's our prayer. Like we're going to come together and help bear one another's burdens. Like we're going to, we're going to step in and say, I'm going to, I'm going to help here. I'm going to leverage my time, my energy for you. Um, carry each other's burdens, uh, be patient, bearing with one another in love, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other. Those were all kind of right in the same area together.
Uh, Paul wrote those and he's basically assuming that if you're in real relationships with real people, you're going to need some patience. You're going to need some compassion and you're going to need to be willing to forgive actual real things, big, uh, sins that were committed against you. You're going to be able to step in and forgive as Jesus forgave you that we're going to be in real relationships so that there's real offense. Now we say this a good bit, but it's like there's couples that are like, Oh, we never fight. It's like, Oh, y'all don't hang out with each other very much. Like y'all just, one of you secretly mad.
Like what? Yeah. You know, cause like if you hang out with a person, John, people are the worst. Like if you hang out with people, they're going to sin, they're going to cause problems. Like there's going to be some conflict. And so Paul saying, yeah, be around each other enough so that there's actually room for now you need to forgive.
Now you need to have compassion. Now you need to work it out. Speak to one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Y'all know that when we sing, we're not just singing to God or for our own benefit. We're actually singing for the benefit of everybody around us. Like we're speaking to one another.
We're rehearsing truth to one another. So sometime when you're singing on a Sunday, just turn and make eye contact with someone. Just be like, and then just start singing. Like, don't do that. But, but you know, that's part of the reason we're singing is to, is to encourage one another is to, to point one another back to truth, to hear all of these voices of all these people who know and believe the same stuff. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ in humility, consider others better than yourself.
And we also read earlier, honor one another above yourselves, that we as Christians are just supposed to assume that others are more important. We're supposed to go out of our way to, to look out for the interests of others, not our own, that we're to believe as Christians that I'm the least important person in the room. Just as Jesus honored us when we didn't deserve honor, just as Jesus humbled himself when he deserved to be glorified. We as Christians are supposed to follow after him, humbling ourselves and honoring others and looking out for their needs, not ours. Do not lie to each other, bear with each other, forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another, teach one another, admonish one another.
Those are in the same verse. So basically we need to coach each other up, teach. We need to say, Hey, you're not looking at that correctly. You need to see this, or I just don't feel like you understand this. And we need to admonish one another, which means rebuke, step in and say, Hey, you're wrong here. We need to care enough about each other to actually step in and say, Hey, you're wrong.
Like you're not treating her properly. You're not acting correctly here. You need to change. You need to grow, make your love increase and overflow for each other, love each other, encourage each other, encourage each other, build each other up, encourage one another daily, spur one another on toward love and good deeds, encourage one another that we as Christians should be going out of our way to say, encouraging things to each other should be looking for ways to step in and say, Hey, I just want to point out where I see Jesus at work in you. You're hanging out with our group. It's the first time you've actually confessed sin.
Do you know how huge that is that you were honest with us tonight? Do you know how big that is? That means Jesus is at work in you that you actually believe the gospel going up to someone and saying, Hey, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you're always bringing food. When we come hang out with our group, like, like every week I eat your Doritos and I just want to say, thank you like for doing that. Some people, you need to say to them, Hey, every time you hang out with our group and you say, Hey, I just want to share something I've been reading in scripture and you share something like it.
I learn Like every single time you've said, Hey, I want to share something. I've been Jesus has been teaching me. I learned stuff. You probably should do that more often, but going out of our way to find ways to encourage one another. Do not slander one another. Don't grumble against each other.
Confess your sins to each other So that we would as Christians when we sin we'd own up to it When others sin we would talk to them not about them We would just go to the person instead of slandering them. We would just go confront them We would just go talk to them. We would just go work it out with them Pray for each other love one another deeply from the heart live in harmony with one another love each other deeply Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling open your homes open your refrigerator open your Wallet have some people around your table do that on a regular basis Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others You should just understand that when God blesses you it's for the benefit of your church family Clothe yourselves with humility towards one another greet one another with a kiss of love Love one another love one another love one another love one another love one another love one another all that was John and he said that a lot He really was trying to drive that home That the church is to love one another In John in his gospel. He he says that Jesus tells him this before he before he's gonna go to the cross He says a new commandment I give to you.
This is John 13 34 and 35. We're gonna have it on the screen A new commandment I give to you that you love one another Just as I have loved you You also are to love one another That Jesus says the way I loved you the way I served you the way I humbled myself for you the way I went out of my way for you That's how we ought to love each other and then he says this by this All people will know that you are my disciples If you have love for one another That that's to be the defining Mark Of the church that's what christians are supposed to look like so just imagine for a second those 59 things We just went through just imagine a group of people that actually Did all that Actually when they sinned just owned up to it didn't try to hide it When others sinned they didn't talk about them. They just went and talked to them They just went and said hey, I just want I need to talk to you about this because this offended me or this hurt me or I was confused by this or I need to clarify with you or Just loved one another just assumed when they entered the room. They were the least important person there So let's just let's say for a minute.
Yeah, like we're all on an expedition in africa We're going to uncharted areas. We're walking through the woods hacking stuff down We finally come to this little like crevice and a rock and we we all decide this seems like a good idea So we just like go into this weird cave and then it opens up to this area where there's like waterfalls and butterflies and like Pixie dust like it's just like this place shouldn't even exist. It's beautiful and we we meet a group of people That actually does all of these It may take a little while for us to see it if we realize this is what's happening They're not perfect, but when they mess up they just own it. They go talk to each other They bear one another's burdens as if someone gets sick, they all just rally around them I think we'd be there for just a little while and I'd start being like We're gonna mess this up Like I suddenly feel a little bit Uncomfortable like I'm gonna like this is this is gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna teach y'all how to do bad things Like because I'd go over to someone and be like could you believe what that guy just did and that would be the weirdest thing because they wouldn't do that He'd be like, I don't know.
Did you talk to him? I'm like, no I'm talking to you That guy's the idiot I'm trying to make myself look better but point it out. What is your problem? By God's grace, this is actually what the church gets to look like Because Jesus has already equipped us with everything we need to actually do this He's loved us more than we could ever Ever love him in return and so we get to just out of that love love each other He's humbled himself. He's served us. He's forgiven us and so with all that we're equipped to actually do this and without the cross We can't Without the cross you can't confess sin you need to be looking pretty good You need to make people think more highly of you than you really are.
You can't tell them you're depressed You can't tell them you're hurting. You can't tell them you're weak. You can't tell them you keep messing up Not without the cross But without the cross what we're saying is that all of us are broken all of us are busted All of us are bankrupt and that Jesus paid for it so that when I come tell my group Hey, I just want to tell y'all I'm kind of secretly a jerk I want to tell y'all how I've been treating y'all poorly I want to tell y'all what I've been up to I want to tell you what happened in my past They're not they're not surprised We all became christians by being sinners in the first place in need of grace The the gospel actually equips us for all this That's why we say we're a gospel-centered community on mission because we have a gospel-centered part. Well, this this all breaks down It all falls apart so That's what the church is supposed to be A group of people that treat one another like that because they've been so overwhelmed By how they were treated like that through Jesus on the cross And that's why some of us are so frustrated around the church Because we're approaching it incorrectly Like I know a really good way to be frustrated at my house Is to when I get home from work bust through the door and basically have this attitude I'm here Focus on me now I have entered The king has arrived Silence the child.
Where's my food? Like if I approach my house that way and sometimes my heart is there Just being real with y'all sometimes I rock up to the house and that's kind of where my heart is That's kind of where my attitude is Let me tell you something those nights are miserable Because that's not how my house works Like I'm I'm only setting myself up to be absolutely miserable And it's going to be the same with my son as he grows up if he thinks our house is going to revolve around him surprise It's not It's the same with my wife if she thinks that everything is going to like it just it breaks down when all of us just assume I'm the most important Some of us walk into a church that's supposed to be a group of people absolutely Humbled and shattered by the cross and overwhelmed by grace and love and forgiveness and we do the exact same thing Jesus says that that he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many and that If you want to be great in the church, you'll be a servant and you'll be a slave Just for a second if you if you're Think about our local southern church culture And if you're not familiar with american southern church culture Bless your heart And welcome glad you're here um perk up learn something um Think about our local church culture and here's basically What if what if everybody went from? Our current attitude to just believing I'm here to serve If you walk into a room and your attitude is I'm a servant I'm the least important person here How much joy is now open up to you? If I come home and I know I'm gonna walk through the door and immediately what I get to do is help my wife out by Pulling the son off of her who probably has a stick for some reason and I don't know how he got it and like just Trying to help take care of him so that she can rest a little bit and I'm gonna help with with food or I'm gonna help Watch him so that she like whatever like if I come in and I just know I'm gonna roll around on the ground and wrestle with my son And I'm gonna try to have a conversation with my wife and everything I have all my energy whatever is devoted to them like There's so much joy open to me now Because that actually gets to happen That actually is an opportunity for me Here's the problem with us as americans We're australians Westerners Here's the problem with us.
We've been taught We've been taught to be shoppers To be capitalists Consumers If I go to a restaurant And you ask me how was it? Oh, I can tell you everything I wasn't doing it actively, but I can tell you how comfortable it was how loud it was How much I enjoyed the ambiance the feel how the the waiter or waitress was how long we had to wait how much it cost How much I thought cost to food ratio was was it a lot of food but low quality? I'm, okay with that. Was it a high quality food, but about this big not coming back like you know I can tell you I can tell you all of that I can tell you oh that place is great because you don't have to tip like they just hand you your food You go sit down you bust your own table or I can say you got a factor in tip there Like you're gonna know that's gonna cost you three extra bucks.
So it's a trick. What's written on the thing like I can tell you And I didn't sit while I was eating and think about all of that. I've just been taught to be a shopper If I come hang out with a church and you ask me how was it I like this I didn't like this I didn't this this this this this because we've been taught to be shoppers And all I can tell you is how much better would every local church in our city be if all of us went from shoppers to servants If everybody actually just started looking like this My uncle was um He's a nigerian. He um I was from obomashaw. He's of the yoruba people group He's been in my family as long as my mom has he was adopted and when he came to the u.s.
Uh He you know grew up most of his life in nigeria has family there But he came to the u.s. To go to school and when he came to the u.s. And he went to college he walked out of his dorm He walked to the end of the end of the road and I guess he just decided to go one way or the other Decided to go right so he went right and then he Walked and saw a baptist church and that was where he had become a christian through baptist going to nigeria And he said okay, and he made note of when they met on sunday And he showed up on sunday and that was his church for the four years. He was in school Because it was the closest baptist church to his house He was just looking for a group of people that belonged to Jesus and that was his people And part of me thinks that's kind of crazy What if that church was terrible?
For real though And I think what my uncle would have said was then how much more would they have needed me? What if they what if they were really messed up Those people belong to Jesus and Jesus sent me here and put me right next to him How much more so would they need me? If we're really family And they're hurting How much more do they need me right now? I think that would have been his response And the the little american shopper inside of me dies a little bit Now I'm not saying it's wrong to have some preferences. I I don't know I'm I'm very americans I got to think through this a little bit But I can tell you what I am saying is how much better and how much more biblical Would all of our churches look if we suddenly went from shoppers to servants If you quit approaching it as what am I getting out of it?
And what am I putting into it? Who have I served recently? What do I have that I can use for the benefit of our church family? What do I have that I can use for the benefit of my group? What have I been gifted in what has God blessed me with what do I own? What is he do I have a good job do I make a lot of money do I can I cut grass like what can I do To serve our church family And just assumed you were a servant how much more beautiful would this be We'd actually get to begin to look like Jesus's people on earth and then that's where he says if you love one another like this People will know that people would come in and we'd be the weirdest group of people they ever hung out with Because we were just straight up about honest about our junk and then when someone else sinned against us We just went and talked to them You can't do that.
Can you? Y'all are all mad at each other. So you got in a room and hashed it out No, sweep it under the rug or just avoid each other, right? Like stop being friends like there's so many things it's like but we would actually get to just Commit up front we begin to look like the church. We say things in church culture like this What's going on with that church? Ah, it just wasn't for me Right That is correct We hear that and think oh, okay, you looking for another one?
No the church wasn't for you It's the church is for Jesus And you exist for the church like you exist for the rest of the people around there Or we say things like I just have to do what's best for me I I have had people say that to me and my response has been yeah That does not come from here Jesus did not do what was best for him And he has a group of people who follow after him doing what's best for others So here's here's how this is supposed to work in the church Um in poker you have chips You bet chips if you win the hand you have the higher hand you win all the chips on the table And there's a thing on poker called going all in And that's where you put all your chips on the table And let me tell you you've never played poker. I'm going to teach you something after you've gone all in You don't fold Because all your chips are on the table You see all the cards Now you may pray And try to do like statistical math as it gets closer to the end and you're like, okay I gotta have these two cards to win and then the next card comes you're like Okay, now I just need this card to win and like eventually maybe but you don't fold Nobody puts all their chips in pre-flop get and then folds before they see the next like they don't you You you stay in and that's the that's how we ought to be as the church Which is when you became a christian you pushed all your chips on the table Which means that we don't fold Someone in your community group can say hey, why won't you leave me alone? Why won't you just let me run away? Why won't you just let me alone so I can sin?
Why won't you just and stop and you look at him and say because I'm not folding All my chips are on the table. I can't quit We belong to each other Paul says it's like members of the same body that like we're body parts together You know when you stub your toe or you get a paper cut or like you hit your hand with a hammer you think up Too bad hand No This is your hand If it's your friend's hand you think too bad for your hand, but if it's your hand That's the way the church relates to one another when somebody's hurting when somebody's in pain when somebody celebrates like we're all tied together We're all all in together That's the way family works That's why the bible says we've been made into a new family We ought to treat each other that way when my younger brother was born He was born with two parents and two brothers and he had no say in the matter He had the last name he had he had the genetic makeup that he had he's gonna have a block head and be kind of short That's what happened. Sorry He had two brothers that tormented him One of his favorite stories is when I went to him and said hey, you want to play uh, like cops and robbers? And he was like, yeah, so I handcuffed him to a pole and then punched him a bunch Logan and I were older we my dad said he came home one time in the middle of the summer Comes into the house.
We're pouring in sweat and drinking like kool-aid and stuff and he's like where's vince? And we're like, oh because we were playing cowboys and indians and we had tied him to a tree And went in to get something to drink He was still tied to the tree when I said he went out there He's sweat pouring off his little face couldn't tell which was tears and which was sweat like but he couldn't sorry That's who you got Some people were born with really sweet nice sisters that cared for him. You didn't get that He's in He's committed It's the same thing with with uh, this past year when my wife and I she had a we had a son and we're at the hospital people told me When you mean the first time you hold your son It's gonna change you It's gonna be this moment and I guess I was too like geared up for it, but they handed him to me and I was like Yeah, I don't got I got nothing He's screaming he's covered in goo. It's like all right What do I do with this thing like what are you gonna?
I mean I don't emotion my way through the world. I just I was like, all right, let's do this You know, it's just ready to go, but I didn't have this like I don't know what I was expecting but like Time to slow down and speed up my heart to beat little tears come out like it just didn't happen Uh, and so like we're in the hospital and is in in the hospital bed and stuff She'd had a c-section so she couldn't really move around I'm holding him doing stuff and she goes Don't you just love him so much? And I was like He's all right She said she looked at me and said I'm serious and I went like anna we're guys we just met give me give me a minute You know, like I gotta get to know him And she She was in her little hospital bed tubes and stuff. She's like I'm going to punch you Uh But the truth was yeah Yeah, I did love him and it didn't have anything to do with what he'd accomplished or whatever like when when anna and I got married I pushed all my chips on the table I went all in And that was if she could have kids if she couldn't have kids if we ended up adopting if she ends up In it being sick if we have to go like I was all in and as soon as she said she was pregnant I was all in with archer.
I was all in with our son like that was it I don't know how he's gonna turn out He might grow up and be the most fun person I've ever met. He might be hilarious. He might be great. I don't know Maybe he'll be really serious and super smart. Maybe he'll work his whole life just to barely pass high school Maybe he won't work hard at all. Maybe he'll be a complete jerk.
Maybe he'll be rebellious his entire life Maybe he'll run away and I can't get to him. I don't know where he is half the time, but I'll tell you one thing I'm in I'm in for whatever all my chips are on the table. I'm not folding So whatever it takes whatever that means however that plays out over the course of his life. I'm in What the bible says is that when Jesus saved us And made us his and bought us through his blood we pushed all our chips on the table And that we were given brothers and sisters and we're all in We don't quit Jesus loves us bought us made us his we are an eternal family that one day when Jesus calls us home We'll gather around his table as his children forever And there won't be any more sin and there won't be any more pain and we'll have a glorious eternal family And then we get to start doing that right now That that's who the church is That if you're a christian you are committed to and devoted to Jesus Through his local church and that means you're all in with a group of real people Real sinners saved by Jesus in a real life in a real place and you're in Good bad.
Maybe he'll be really serious and super smart. Maybe he'll work his whole life just to barely pass high school Maybe he won't work hard at all. Maybe he'll be a complete jerk. Maybe he'll be rebellious his entire life Maybe he'll run away and I can't get to him. I don't know where he is half the time, but I'll tell you one thing I'm in I'm in for whatever all my chips are on the table. I'm not folding So whatever it takes whatever that means however that plays out over the course of his life. I'm in What the bible says is that when Jesus saved us And made us his and bought us through his blood we pushed all our chips on the table And that we were given brothers and sisters and we're all in We don't quit Jesus loves us bought us made us his we are an eternal family that one day when Jesus calls us home We'll gather around his table as his children forever And there won't be any more sin and there won't be any more pain and we'll have a glorious eternal family And then we get to start doing that right now That that's who the church is That if you're a christian you are committed to and devoted to Jesus Through his local church and that means you're all in with a group of real people Real sinners saved by Jesus in a real life in a real place and you're in Good bad. Otherwise you're in that's the church
So as long as we continue to approach the church on an incorrect basis We'll never get out of it what what it was supposed to be As long as you approach your family like they're optional you'll never have a family The way it's supposed to be and as long as we continue to approach the church Like it's a store like we're consumers The church makes a terrible shop It makes a great family Because that's what it was designed to be I got five quick ways specific ways that we get to begin to be all in I'm just trying to help us have some tangible steps First one is this join a church Commit to a local group of Jesus's people Quit shopping Some of you maybe you're actually uh, usually a part of another church and you're hanging out with us today Ah Go back to your other church and start serving Start assuming that you're a part of that church start assuming that your goal your role there is to serve I It doesn't have to be this church, but if you're a christian, it's a church that you are committed to That you're there and if they start getting off if they start not teaching the truth you're talking to them You're fighting for it If they start changing things wrongly, you're you're humbly submitting, but you're going and you're talking to them
So you're willing to submit to one another you're honoring them, but you're going to come you're going to talk to them You're going to confront them. You're going to work it out Join a church if you're a part of our church been hanging out for a while. Uh step two just join a group One of the ways that we commit to Jesus's people is with real people real faces real problems real Good qualities and bad qualities an actual group of people and the way that we do that here is by being in a group That you commit to a group Uh Some of you the way you're going to get to start going all in is by giving and serving You're going to begin to assume that whatever you've been blessed with whatever energy talents Finances whatever belongs to Jesus and his people that it's for their good And so you're going to begin to start giving and serving Begin to start putting some some of your own energy some of your own way And I don't know what that looks like It's going to be different per person for what they're given what they've been blessed with what their talents are what their skill set Some of you the way you actually begin to go all in is you need to quit hiding You've been holding on to some chips You've you've been not trusting Jesus's people to act like Jesus which is to To be able to be known in front of them and still be left
So you're holding on to some things that happened in your past you're holding on to some things that you've done You're holding on you you hadn't gone all in yet And you're designed to be able to say Jesus saved me from this He cleansed me from this and I'm all in with this group of people Some of you need to be reconciled Which just means that you've allowed some frustrations Some grievances To grow up between you and another christian You hadn't loved them enough to tell them or you know, you've been actively sinning against them and your attitude towards them or something You did to them and you've been hiding And in a minute when we stand up to sing you're going to need to go talk to them if they're in this room And if they're not in this room God in his grace has blessed you With a little machine in your pocket That can dial phone Numbers You're gonna need to call them Depending on how big it is you might can work it out over the phone if not you're gonna need to set up a time to get with them
But you're holding out And you're not treating them like family They need to work it out And for our church as a whole one of the ways that we're going to continue to move forward in this and being committed to one another is we're going to have some more formal Forms of membership through our community groups Where we're actually as a group and as a church looking and saying we all believe these things We're all going for this together and in our groups are going to begin to say this is what it looks like for us In lexington for us in red bank for us in downtown to actually be a gospel center community on mission committed to one another And this is how we're going to do that So what this is going to look like it's our groups are actually going to get together and start writing out some Here's what we're going for here's how this is going to look and we're going to commit to one another a little more formally Some of you need to become christians
Jesus has already accomplished everything if you be a part of his family You can repent of your sin and be made new be welcomed in And join an eternal family of a bunch of messed up people saved by Jesus bought by his blood and made blood together brothers and sisters for eternity Miriam and matt are going to come back up here and sing and here's what we're going to do We're going to take communion Which is us as christians Celebrating that Jesus has died for us has paid for our sin That when he died on the cross his body was broken for us his blood was shed for us and that we are saved by His sacrifice made into his people by what he accomplished for us If you need to be reconciled with somebody if you need to repent of some sin you need to go ahead and do that before you take communion Before you go celebrate that his blood has covered you that you've been saved through Jesus And then I want to us today as we take communion. I want us to celebrate That through Jesus's blood shed on our behalf We've been blood bought and made into a family That when you placed your faith in Jesus you were given not only a new father not only a new name not only a Salvation and hope and justification, but you were actually given a new family And I want us as a church to be devoted to one another in love to commit to each other and to go all in Matt and miss miriam are going to sing while we take communion and then we'll all sing together The words will be on the screen as they sing feel free to sing with them
But we will be taking communion as soon as as soon as we're done praying God we thank you for your grace God we thank you for each other That we have people that we get to be around in normal everyday life that are our family That we get to serve That we get to rally around when they're down and they get to do the same for us They get to admonish us teach us defend us God I pray that you would help every person in this room to be a part of your church To be a christian And to be committed to your people And God we we await the day When you take us home To live with you forever As your sons and daughters Purchased through your grace and through your cross We praise you in Jesus name Amen
Apr 17
We Love Jesus
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. We've entitled this sermon series, Home Sweet Home. We're spending five weeks just looking at the church, looking who the church is, what are the characteristics of the church, if you find God's people on earth, what do they look like, how ought they to organize themselves, and that's what we've been spending some time doing. So we're in our second week.
Last week, what we said was the church is the church through Jesus' work on its behalf. The church is people. It's God's people on earth. The church is all of the people throughout all of history who have ever believed in Jesus. So when you talk about the church, you're talking about all Christians everywhere, around the globe and throughout all history who have believed in Jesus, and then each local church is made up of those people, a group of those people.
And the church, we would be tempted to say that the church is a group of people who do this, have these certain characteristics, act this way, behave a certain way, follow a certain set of rules, follow the Bible, whatever. We would be tempted to say that. So it's people's actions first, and that's what makes them the church. But when you start reading the Bible, and we looked in Ephesians 1 and 2, what we saw was the churches made the church by Jesus, that it was his actions on behalf of the church, on behalf of his people, that actually makes them the church, that he died for their sins, that he welcomes them, that he adopts them, that he accomplishes everything for them.
So we said it's kind of like a family. So here's how this works. You have the genetic makeup that you have. You have the last name that you have based off of the actions of other people, not off of your actions. You're in the family you're in based off of other people's actions. So, I don't know, a hundred years ago, there was a young lady.
She worked at a bookstore. There was a young man. And he had what they would have said a hundred years ago, mad game. And he came to the bookstore, and he began to talk with her, to flirt with her. They met at a train station. They grew up in school together.
They met in college. They grew up, their families lived next door. It doesn't matter. Everybody's got these different stories. But there's these people that came together.
And about the same time, there were some other people that met and came together. And both of those people around the same time-ish, within 20 to 30 years of each other, had children. And then those people grew up and met each other at a bookstore or a train station or the internet, whatever. And eventually, you have what we have now, which is a certain genetic build, a certain genetic makeup, a certain last name. And it's based solely off of the effort, energy, work of somebody else. And that's the church, that we're the church, that Christians are Christians based off of what Jesus has already done, based off of what he accomplished for us on the cross.
You wouldn't have Christians without Christ. I know that seems complex, but it's pretty straightforward. Without Jesus, there is no church, because the church is his people on earth. And so, what we're going to talk about today is, though, what does the church begin to look like? If there are Christians made so by Jesus' effort, made so by Jesus' work, what do they look like? What are the characteristics?
What are the attributes that if you went across the globe, if you went back in time, if you looked at any given church, what are the things that automatically begin to show up because they belong to Jesus? So, one of the ways to think about this, if we're still kind of following the family idea, is on my dad's side, he's got a brother. My uncle and my aunt, they have four children. Three of them are boys. One of them is a girl. And in that family, because of the genetic makeup, because of the genes they have, because of the upbringing, if you're one of their children, you're tall, you're sarcastic, like aggressively so, you're just kind of aggressive in general, and you're fairly good at sports.
Like, that's just kind of their children fit that category. So, even my cousin Cindy, who's a girl, she's tall for a girl, she's sarcastic, and she's, you know, good at sports for a girl. I just said that to annoy some people. I was just for my own enjoyment. So, I'm sorry. But, she, that's just what it is.
That's how it works. And it has to do with their genes, and it has to do with their upbringing. It has to do with the parents they had, the situations where they lived. I'm like, it has all these things to do with that. And there are just certain qualities and characteristics that are just going to come through their DNA they had no real choice about. That's the church.
That when we become Christians, when Jesus works on your behalf, and you see what he's accomplished for you on the cross, and you place your faith in him, and what we read last week, the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells in you, it's like you have new DNA. You've been made new. The Bible says you've been born again. You've been welcomed into a new family. And so you have a new father and some new DNA, and the church begins to look like the church across the globe, regardless of language, regardless of culture. There are certain things that are just going to be there.
Now, this is very important for us to understand before we start reading this text today. If you are tall and sarcastic and athletic, that does not make you my cousin. They don't recruit. Like, they don't just meet people and be like, hey, you're tall. I saw you using your words to hurt that person's feelings. Want to be my brother?
Like, they don't do that. My uncle's not like, I think I met one of my sons today. No, like, he knows. So here's what I'm saying, and here's what the Bible says very clearly. We're going to look at what are the characteristics, what are the attributes of the church? If you're going, okay, I want to be a Christian, or I see that in my life I don't have any of those, the response is not, let me start doing those.
The response is, let me have Jesus make me part of his family. You go to Jesus first. He's got to adopt you. He's got to pay for your sins. He's got to make you one of his before those characteristics will start showing up. So you don't just white knuckle, okay, let me do all the actions.
Just the same with, like, growing up in my house. You know, I had to cut the grass. I slept in my house. I had to eat at a tape pool with my family at a certain time. If you just showed up, cut my grass, showed up to dinner, slept in my house, the next day you looked at my dad and you were like, hey, daddy. He'd have been like, boy, what are you doing?
Like, who are you? Get out of here. Like, just because you do the actions doesn't make you a son. It doesn't make you a daughter. And so what you've got to realize, and Jesus puts it this way, he says that you don't get figs from a thistle bush, which is basically like nobody's ever picked a peach from a pine tree. So if we go through this today and you start realizing you don't have the characteristics, you don't have the attributes, you're like, oh, I'm a peach tree.
I'm a peach tree. And it's like, why are you making pine cones? Like, those peaches are the worst, crunchiest, most terrible peaches. I'm a peach tree. I'm just really tall and I throw needles everywhere. And during a certain time of the year, I throw yellow dust everywhere onto all the cars, you know, like all the other peach trees.
Like, if you realize that, the response isn't start really trying hard to make peaches. The response is, go to Jesus. Say, hey, I need you to dig me up. I need you to plant a new tree here. Okay? So, now let's look at what are the characteristics of the church.
Go to Acts chapter 2. In your blue and white Bibles, that's going to be on page, we're going to be on page 592. Acts chapter 2. So what this is, is Jesus has already died. He's already taken disciples and trained them on what it looked like to follow him. And then he dies to pay for sin because it wasn't just about following him.
He actually needed a sacrifice on our behalf. We needed someone to die for us. So Jesus dies and then he rises again from the grave. And when he rises, he goes back to his disciples and he says, okay, what we were doing already, I need you to keep doing. And I need you to tell people that there has been a sacrifice, that they can be saved, that there is hope. I need you to go be my people, be my church.
And so what we're going to read is the beginning of the church in Acts chapter 2. And here's what we're seeing. It's kind of like flipping through an old photo album and realizing that your great, great, great granddad has your sister's, wait, no, granddad, that would be weird, has your brother's face. Or your brother has your great, great, great granddad's face. Maybe he's your sister. Maybe she's, you know, got some really strong features.
Or he has some soft ones. Like you don't know. Your granddad, you realize, whoa, y'all's faces are the same. Like we look the same. That's what we're doing. We're looking back at the church and saying, what are the characteristics that we see that are typical, that are the attributes of all of the church throughout time and history?
If you went to Botswana, you would see this. If you went back in time 300 years, you would see this. Like you would see this in the church. That's what we're looking at, in Christians. And so as a Christian today, if you're in here, you're just basically asking this question, how do I see this showing up in my life? Where is this in me?
Where is this in our church? And we are going to talk about what we see in this passage and then we'll reference other passages just to try to help make it clear. And so we'll be a little more all over the place than we usually are, but we'll stay in here in our Bibles and show stuff on the screen. And we'll pray and we're going to start reading. God, we thank you that we have your word. We thank you that your Holy Spirit leads us from the inside out, that you begin to change us and make us yours.
I pray, Lord, that you would shape us as a church, as your people, to live out what it means, what it looks like to be your people on earth. And I pray, Lord, that you would claim more people for yourself today, that more people would respond to your love, that more people would respond to what you've accomplished on the cross today, and that more people would be a part of your church today. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so Peter is one of Jesus' followers, and this is the Holy Spirit comes on Peter and on all of the other disciples and indwells them, and Peter begins to proclaim.
He opens the Bible, begins to teach, he begins to quote Scripture and preach to about thousands of people. There's just a giant crowd, and so we're going to pick up in verse 37 where he's finishing up what he's been saying. And what he's been saying is, in the Old Testament, it is clear that Jesus fulfills these prophecies and that Jesus is who he says he was. He is God who died for our sins, and we're going to pick up where he finishes. And what we're looking for is what are the characteristics that begin to immediately show up in the church that ought to show up in us. Verse 36, 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 finishes by saying, Jesus who was crucified, who died for your sins in your place, is Lord and Christ. He is the one who was promised who would save us. And he's Lord, he's in charge. Verse 37, Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? The first characteristic that is absolutely first and foremost in the church is that the church, that Christians love Jesus.
That's the first characteristic. That the church, that Christians are cut to the heart by Jesus and they love Jesus. That they see what he accomplished for them on the cross. And there's this love, this response to Jesus' love for us. That the Christians in the church respond by loving Jesus. And so here's what that means for us.
1 John 4 says that it's God that loves us and that we respond in love. Like that we didn't love him first, but he loved us first. Went to the cross for us. That he redeemed us to make us his and that we love in response. Matthew 22, Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. He says that's the primary thing, that we would love God.
Now, you can't always feel lovey. Like some of us hear that. You hear that you should love God. And there's like, maybe the room's like half and half. Half of the room is like, yes. Love God.
I do that. I do that right now. Like half of the room, like you talk to them and you're like, hey, how's it going? How are you and Jesus? And they're like, oh, wonderful. I've just been reading my Bible and it was like, I felt today like God gave me a hug.
People, it's like, that's beautiful. I'm probably not going to say that to you if you ask me how things are going. Like, it's like, I just don't, I don't feel my way through life. I'm not emotioning around everywhere. And so there's this thing when we see, like, you should love God and there's this immediate like, for half of us that are like, I don't know how to do that. I agree.
That sounds good. But how do you do that? Like, how do you, and so you just, it's almost like you try to force yourself to feel a feeling. Which is really hard. Like, all right, make yourself hungry right now. If you're not hungry, unhungry yourself.
Nope. Or if you are hungry, unhungry yourself. If you're not hungry, well done. You already unhungried yourself. I just got confusing. It wasn't helpful.
You can't make yourself feel a feeling. That's what I was going for. All right. Nailed it. But you can't.
Like, how do you produce that? And so here's where the Bible actually steps in and helps us out a lot. Just makes it much easier on us. John 14. This quote will be on the screen. John 14 says this.
If you love me, this is Jesus talking to his disciples. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Another place he says, if you love me, you'll obey me. Now, I used to read that and think, like, oh, I got to do what you say and then I'll be in the club. Like, that's, that's the, if you love me, do what I say. Like, and it used to bother me until I realized that I have a hard time feeling like I love Jesus.
Like, that happens sometimes. But what it made so clear to me was, what he's saying is, not if you commit, if you do my commandments, you'll love me. This is the other way around. If you love me, like, if you have that characteristic, you'll do this. And it'll be easy. And that makes sense.
It's like saying, if you trust me, you'll do what I say. So there are some people in your life that you just, when a situation comes up, you're like, I just need to call them. I need to talk to them. And you basically just show up to them and say, hey, what should I do here? And you're just going to do what they say. You already know you're going to do what they say because you trust them.
You believe that what they're going to say and they'll say, you should do this. And you go, all right, sounds good. And it depends on how much you trust them as to how willing you're able to do that. What he's saying is, if you love me, and so for people who don't feel lovey, we get to obey. And that's how we show Jesus that we love him. We get to do, we get to read what he says and do it.
And that's one of the ways that we get to say, no, I love you. Be the same way if I said, oh, I love my wife. I love her. I mean, I don't, I hadn't seen her in a while. I don't really hang out with her anymore. Or I hadn't done any of that husband stuff recently.
Like, talk to her or help her do anything. You'd be like, I don't know how much you like. Did she leave? Like, or why is there? No, she's there. She's probably crying.
I'm not there. I don't know what she's doing. Like you, like it shows up. Like you would say, I don't think you, do you know what the word love means? Like you're supposed to, like there's some things that go along with, whatever. That's what Jesus is saying.
If you love me, this will show up. If you love me, you'll obey me. Let me, I'm going to read a quote from C.S. Lewis because he's addressing this. And I think it's really helpful. They are told as Christians that they ought to love God.
They cannot find any such feelings in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, if I were sure I loved God, what would I do?
When you have found the answer, go and do it. On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for him. Nobody can always have devout feelings. And even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do his will, we are obeying the commandment, thou shalt love the Lord thy God.
He will give us feelings of love if he pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go, his love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins or our indifference. And therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to him. We just get to follow and remember forever that he loves us.
But one of the first traits, characteristics that you'll see in the church is a love for Jesus, shown in an appreciation of Jesus, shown in an obedience to Jesus. And when you find a church that is a church that is Christians, you'll find people singing to Jesus, you'll find people praying to Jesus, you'll find people preaching about Jesus, you'll find people gathering on a regular basis to remind themselves what he's done for them and to celebrate that it's already been accomplished because they love Jesus. And so the first thing that we see right out the gate is that they're cut to the heart by Jesus. And let's keep reading.
We'll move on to the next characteristic that you're going to see. So Christians love Jesus. The church loves Jesus. Verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Okay. Peter says repent. Repent means stop sinning. Acknowledge where you're wrong and turn away from that. Put it down.
Acknowledge that you need Jesus to save you, that you can't save yourself. Confess that and leave it. Turn away from your sin and come to Jesus. So he says repent. The second thing that we see that is true about the church is that the church hates sin. Christians hate sin. hatred comes from love.
Just so y'all know. Hatred comes out of love. The only reason you hate things is because you love something else. If you've ever met a person who truly hated, it first was born out of love. It came out of love. So let's say after the gathering today, we're hanging out.
I got a one-year-old son. His name's Archer. He comes running up and like hits your leg and you take offense because what the heck is he trying to do? So you just, I don't know, slap him in the face. He falls on the ground. My wife's there and she's like, comes at you, you know, like her eyes turn to fire and she assaults you and you push her down.
Then I'm going to come over there and you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to go, hey, you probably shouldn't hit children. And that was my wife. You should quit kicking her. You're hurting her. Like, no, that's not what's going to happen.
You and I are going to have an interaction because I love, because I love them. I'm going to hate anything that hurts them because I love them. I'm going to hate anything that comes against them. So Christians who love Jesus hate our sin because our sin killed Jesus. It was our sin that sent Jesus to the cross. It was our sin, our failure, our rebellion that he had to come pay for.
Christians hate sin. If there was a weapon that killed your brother, there was a gun that somebody shot your brother with, you wouldn't take it to your house and hang it over your mantle and people came over and said, what is that? You say, oh, it's the gun that killed my brother. I polished it up and hung it up here. You wouldn't do that. And if you meet Christians, people who are part of the church that don't care about their sin, they don't, they're missing something.
So Christians repent. Christians hate sin, fight sin. Now, we don't hate sin in a superior way that we look down on those evil sinners. No, we were the first people to repent. That was how we responded to Jesus. We acknowledged our sin.
We hate sin the same way we hate cancer. That it's in us and it's in other people and we want to get rid of it. We want to fight it in ourselves and we want to fight it in other people. We're not mad at the people. We want to help them. Christians hate sin.
They hate how sin tears families apart. They hate how sin causes death and murder and lies and strife. They hate how sin eats away at us so that we can't even think straight anymore. They hate how sin tears up all of our relationships. We hate sin and so we fight against it. Romans 8 is going to say that we put to death through the Holy Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body.
That Christians actively aggressively fight sin. Know it. Look for it. Realize that's what made Jesus have to save us. Repent. Acknowledge it.
Fight sin. Hate sin. That's in the church. If you're in here today and you say you are a Christian and your life is not marked by active repentance continually looking at your own sin and despising it and actively working to change if you say you're a Christian and nobody can ever come tell you that you're wrong nobody can ever address error in you that's scary because the first step of becoming a Christian was saying I see that Jesus had to die for my sin and I want to turn away from it. I don't want any more of it. Now we're going to keep sinning.
You're going to keep failing. You're going to keep falling short. It doesn't say Christians don't sin. We just don't like it. We don't like how evil our hearts are. We don't like that we're actively in sin.
I'm going to read a quote. This is from 1 John so it'll be on the screen. If we say we have fellowship with him which means we're connected with in relationship with Jesus while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. If you were like I don't know I'm doing pretty good.
I don't have any sin. The sin was you just lied to yourself. Repent of that and then try to figure out what else is going on because we've got something going on. We're continually lying to ourselves. If we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
So here's what he's saying. If we walk in darkness if we're actively sinning actively unrepentant actively pursuing sin we're in darkness we're not in the light. We haven't shown a light on haven't seen clearly how messed up we are. You want to hear something kind of gross about me? It's not real gross. I'll just tell it and then you can decide whether or not you want to hear it.
And his word is not in us. So here's what he's saying. If we walk in darkness if we're actively sinning actively unrepentant actively pursuing sin we're in darkness we're not in the light. We haven't shown a light on haven't seen clearly how messed up we are. You want to hear something kind of gross about me? It's not real gross. I'll just tell it and then you can decide whether or not you want to hear it. I'm kind of a sweaty person. I have really thick hair and whenever I'm doing something like activity wise I start sweating and I do this a lot with my hand
Just while I'm doing stuff like I'll just run my hand through my hair and what happens is there's some sort of a weird biological thing I have that is due to the consistency of my sweat maybe high fructose corn syrup I should try to drink less Mountain Dew and the thickness of my hair that it turns into the most amazing hair gel you've ever seen and after I have been sweating or working out or whatever I can make my hair do just whatever I want it to and it'll stay that way forever. Yesterday I was putting floors down in my house and apparently
For some reason kept doing this and so I had been doing this for a while people would come over to my house I talked to people I went outside for a while and talked to my neighbors for a little bit I walked by a mirror and every hair on my head was standing straight up and the only way you would assume that happened was I actively stood in front of a mirror and was like this looks good because there's no other reason why anyone's hair should ever do that I mean I look like
A character from like a cartoon or something like my hair just and I thought that's why my neighbors looked at me weird because I was just straight up talking to them like yeah what's going on and they were like yeah okay like don't know me well enough to go hey bro that's not a good look like you should you should go fix that I didn't know it because I hadn't looked at myself and what he's saying is if we if we walk in darkness
We're not walking in the light of Jesus but once we shine a light on it we see it and we fix it it was too late for me yesterday because my hair was done like I couldn't get it back down it's not too late for our sin like we get to see our sin and we get to confess it we get to bring it to Jesus it's the same way with your room looks really clean until you turn the light on your house is really nice until you move the refrigerator and you gotta see what's behind there
Like that's what he's saying so honestly if we hadn't noticed your sin in a while you probably haven't been very close to Jesus because that's where we notice our sin but here's the good news we just confess he's already forgiven us we just we hate our sin we repent of it but he's already accomplished everything it's not about your behavior your ability to be good it's about you acknowledging it and getting to move forward because he forgives us Christians hate sin
The church hates sin alright let's keep reading so he starts off with repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself just wanted to point this out noticing sin in ourselves does not create superiority or pride or self-righteousness
Towards other people it helps us love them more so when we see someone else sinning and doing things that we would never do because we sin in a different area we just get to go yeah they're far off too they're far off like I was far off and this is for everyone who's far off everyone who's not even remotely close to being like Jesus gets to be welcomed in 40 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 so 3,000 people just became the church just joined the church there was about 120 before this so now there are 3,000 Christians on the face of the planet and immediately the Holy Spirit goes to work to begin to change in them and give them the family traits that we're looking at today so 42 and they
Those 3,000 people devoted themselves to the apostles teaching okay this is something else that you will find every church everywhere they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching what that means is they took everything the apostles which were the 12 men who followed Jesus around whatever they said they took it they wanted to learn they wanted to grow they wanted to understand who Jesus was what he had done
What that meant the apostles we know were teaching from the Old Testament and then we have now what they wrote down in the New Testament and so what this means for us today is that the church loves the word the church loves the word which means we love the Bible we studied the Bible we grow in the Bible because it's what teaches us how we ought to act how we ought to live what Jesus has done for us you go around the world you're going to find people
That read this study this memorize this in places in places where it's illegal they've made there are people that had the Bible mounted to the underside of a stool so they could flip it over and be reading and if anybody authority or whatever came they could flip the stool back over and sit down on top of it because the Bible would be hidden underneath there are people who would pass around just sheets all you would get
Was a crumpled up torn out page from a Bible and you would work as hard as you could to memorize that section and then you would trade with someone else and they would give you another torn out sheet of page from the Bible and you would try to memorize that because the church loves the word when I was in junior in college I went to Romania and I was going to get to speak at some churches in Romania and I remember
Asking the pastor I was like hey how long do you usually preach and he was like till you're done and I was like what yeah but okay how long should it be before I'm done because I'm American we pretty much have time limits on this thing and he looked at me and said about half the people here will have walked six miles or further to be here
To hear what the Bible says you go until you're done and on a regular basis I would preach which for me he was still only like 30 minutes or something 15 20 30 minutes even with a translator it's not the case now but that was when I was a junior in college and then they would still get up they'd say thank you
And they'd pick another passage and they would preach right behind it so we're going to start doing that every Sunday we'll have sermon one we'll have an intermission we'll have sermon two no but the church regardless of where it is loves the word we're going to read this we're going to study this we're going to try to grow that's why
Every week we start off with open your Bibles to this place because we're going to read this we're not just going to talk about things that we think and feel we're going to read this and try to apply this and try to see what because we believe that this is how God speaks to us this is how
We're changed and how we grow we're devoted to it now personally you got to find a way to get in the word to consume the Bible to be devoted to teaching and we have now you have more avenues for this than anybody ever has you can listen to it while you
Ride around you can put it on your iPad you can listen to other sermons where people are taking this you can order any kind of book you want to from Amazon and read this and read a commentary and what I found is we have as much access to this as any place in the world ever and we don't
Touch it but Christians do we want to know what it says we want to study we want to learn from it I've noticed a couple of things one is if it gets if your relationship to Jesus is dry or feels off or not great
The response is to start reading the Bible so let me explain how this works my wife and I have been married for going on seven years we have a son now and there are times where it's like we just kind of live in the same house
We're both there making sure things you know get done or whatever but we're not like enjoying our relationship and even harder now that we have a kid and some of y'all have like seven children and Lord bless y'all but we have one child
And it's like it's hard for us to even have a conversation where we're not like in the middle of a sentence and then having to go put it down stop quit you're gonna hurt yourself I'm gonna hurt you or like you're in the middle of a conversation
And we're like is that jelly or blood do you want to taste it like I mean we're doing pretty good as parents just so y'all know like but uh it's hard so there are times where it's like we're just not relating well and so what we do is we put I
Don't go ah you know what we're not getting along hope that gets better I put forth energy because I'm a Christian I believe we're gonna be married forever so if we're not getting along I want to make sure we get along that's gonna make forever a long time like if I gotta stay married forever
And we don't like each other that's bad so I'm like no we're gonna figure out how to like each other like we're gonna get along we're gonna I'm gonna tell some jokes we're gonna laugh if something's gonna happen we're gonna ride a roller coaster so we can at least smile near each other like
We're gonna figure this out but I have to go I have to do work I have to get somebody to watch the kids so we can go on a date or whatever and that date if we hadn't been getting along or hadn't been on a date or hadn't had a conversation with each other for a while it's awkward but the
Point is I press into it so that we can get back to where we need to be so that I can grow so the relationship can begin to grow it's not gonna happen on its own and for some of us it's like I don't know I'm just not relating well to Jesus and it's like when was the last time you opened this up when was the last time you sat with him and said I just need to talk I need you to and
You're like well it's awkward yeah it's not gonna get better not doing that that's that's how we do it I've also found Christians will sometimes say yeah I'm just really praying about this and trying to see what God wants me to do my next question always is are you reading your Bible no that's like saying I'm waiting for a phone call where's your phone in the house you're not gonna get that call like it's
Harder the person could show up the person could show up at your house and when we say I'm trying to find what God's will is for me but I'm not gonna read the main thing that he's already told me all of his will in it's a lot harder the the other thing this is I'm just trying to help us see how the word shows up in us and how how it matters to us I mean I'm going to cover two more things but let's I want to read a passage for us first
To one is from first Timothy he says until I come he's talking to a pastor devote yourself to the public reading of scripture to exhortation and teaching what he's saying is get together read this he says to that same pastor again in another letter in second Timothy 316 this will be on the screen all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching for us to grow and learn for reproof for correction correction is hey you're a little bit out of line here
Reproof is dude pay attention the difference there reproof is a little more aggressive and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearance and by his kingdom by his appearing in his kingdom preach the word be ready in season and out of season reprove rebuke and exhort with complete patience and the teaching I love it
Is good for my soul that it says reprove rebuke exhort that the reason for preaching is that what it means is when I come to the Bible I've got to realize that Jesus is going to need to reprove me he's going to correct me he's going to need to rebuke me there's going to be times where I'm off and that's what the Bible does is it helps change me and then he's going to need to exhort me which is help me grow and actually want to put forth effort two other quick things when it
Comes to reading the Bible Christians sometimes say they're actively pursuing sin and then they'll say well I prayed about it and I just feel like I don't I don't feel like I mean I think I can just keep kind of going like I don't feel like God told me to stop what you have just said if the Bible clearly explicitly says you should not be doing the behavior doing should not be actively involved in when you're involved in and you say I prayed about it but don't feel like I should stop what you have
Articulated out loud just so you know the next time you say that sentence is I'm so far removed from Jesus right now that even though he's already clearly said it it's not actively at work in me there are some things you don't need to pray about he's already made really clear and we learn through the word the other thing sometimes Christians act like they want to be led by the Holy Spirit and all Christians should all Christians should want to be led by the Holy Spirit and so Christians will say well I just don't read a lot because I
Want to be led by the Spirit I just want the Spirit to guide me like I'd much rather just have the Spirit in me than then read the Bible that thought process is confusing you're just kind of off there the Holy Spirit breathed out the Bible first Peter says that it was people carried along by the Spirit that wrote the Bible so the Holy Spirit is going to teach you through the Bible the Holy Spirit is going to teach you using the Bible the Holy Spirit can teach you can lead you when you're not near a Bible but he's going to line up with what the Bible already says it's like this you ever been around a couple and they can have a conversation
Without using words they've just been together long enough like like you would you would be around them and something would happen and one of them would look at the other one and go and they look back and go and look back and go and it was like a pitcher and a catcher doing the like you know giving each other signals and you like one of them will be like what y'all's faces doing but they have a whole conversation without ever having the reason they got there is they've been around each other so much that they knew what each other were thinking they knew like Anna and I the closest I have gotten is that I'll think up something hilarious and Anna
Will look at me and go don't say that and I'll be like my face gave me away I got to look less excited that's about as close as we get right now otherwise we got to actually say words to each other but we can't do the face thing yet but when someone says I want to just be led by the Holy Spirit the way you do that is by learning the word and it makes it way easier for the Holy Spirit to converse with you for the Holy Spirit to teach you when you're not near the Bible so if I said I really want Anna and I to be able to just have face conversations the way we practice that is not it's through real conversations that's how we learn what the face meant first the face
Needs to say words to us and then we can just get the expression part and some of us like I really just want to be led by the Spirit get in here start reading this and the Spirit will lead you that's how that's how that works he's going to lead you here and then he'll start leading you when you're not near it okay Christians love the word for oh no not for I got to read it here first that'll make sense otherwise you know where'd you get that no I got the passage we didn't read um they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship what that means is they devoted themselves to each other they devoted themselves to they belonged to one another so the Bible in several places is going
To say we're actually members of one another we belong to one another the same way that your foot belongs to your hand like you connected they're devoted to one another the Bible has 59 one another's we're going to read all of them next week and the week after probably that was 59 one another's where it says do this with one another this is how you relate to one another you're members of one another love one another bear one another's burdens like it's going to over and over and over again because it's just assumed that we're going to be connected to one another we're going to be devoted to one another when when God became your father if you place faith in him you got a whole lot of brothers and sisters so if you're like well can't can't a
Christian be a Christian on an island yes you can be a Christian on an island none of us are like I haven't seen anybody walk in here wearing a loincloth holding a volleyball with paint on it or whatever and if if we did we would say we're so glad you're off the island you should get in a community group unless you plan on going back to the island you need to get in a group that's what we say because here's the thing we were designed to be to relate to one another to love one another that the church loves one another Christians are devoted to one another first John 4 10 through 11 says this oh nope sorry that's way back wait I'm gonna get it yeah it's first John 4 10 through 11 and this is love not that we have loved God but have loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for
Our sins which means he turned away wrath says beloved if God so loved us we also ought to love one another John 13 35 says this by all by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another one of the ways that we put God on display is our relationship to one another that's one of the things that I love about whenever we have baptisms those videos over and over and over again is somebody saying yeah I started hanging out with a group I started hanging out with a community group I got around this person and this person and this person this person harassed me and then this person loved me and then this person sir like and it's just this I got to see Jesus at work through his people the church loves one another I feel like sometimes on Sunday what we're doing is like a cooking show you watch a cooking show that I like them at the beginning when I
See a little bit of the cooking show I'm like oh it looks great but then by the end when they walk over and they're like okay they open the oven it's already cooked and then they pull it out and then it's the worst when they go mmm this is so good it's like all right this just got annoying because I want to eat that and I'm not putting any of that effort into it and you also moved way too quickly on some of the stuff like I understood what you were talking about like polonaise what I thought I was an island um that may not be a word it might be polonaise or something like that so it's spelled like bologna anyway um it feels like you sometimes that's what Sunday is to me we're going to proclaim Jesus we're going to open the Bible but we're going to say is this is the ingredients this is what it should look like and if you just do Sundays you don't ever get to taste it if you just
Do Sundays and so what we're saying when we say get in the group is that you actually get to it makes it tangible it makes it real when you see people actually loving each other actually forgiving each other actually bearing one another's burdens because you actually get to see the gospel on display that's why Jesus says they'll know you're my disciples by the way you love one another the church is committed to loving one another we're going to spend more time on that next week and the week after the last one is this we're gonna read the rest of this passage to the breaking of bread and the prayers which was them getting together praying together to them celebrating Jesus connected with one another 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 after day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes they received their food with glad and generous hearts what I love about that section is that all of those people's friends probably thought they were crazy they were like whoa you are hanging out with these people way too much you're giving them some of your money like y'all are eating together all the time like this is getting weird and it's like no this is what family looks like we've been all brought into the same family so they were devoted to one another 47 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 that's the people who weren't in the church and
The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved the church loves Jesus's mission the church loves the people who aren't in the church yet that's what it ended with was that everybody appreciated that the church existed and more and more people were invited in if you're a Christian you care that people aren't Christians not because you want them to come be good like you that's not Christianity Christianity is I know what sin is like I know what it does to people and I know that it's been taken care of on the cross I know that there's hope I know that there's freedom I know that the things you're chasing after will never fill you up will never fix you Christians love Jesus's mission which is to see more people brought into the family to see more people have their sin paid for Christians the church loves their neighbors the church loves their enemies because they realize that they need
Jesus if you're here today and you don't know Jesus we want you to know Jesus we want you to be saved by Jesus we want you to be taken by Jesus and made his we want your sins paid for by Jesus because somebody's gonna pay for your sins and it's gonna be you or it's gonna be Jesus and the church wants more and more people to know Jesus wants more and more people to be welcomed in this was Jesus's plan from the beginning when he calls the disciples he says follow me I'll make you fishers of men which means I'm gonna teach you what it's like to be rescued to be redeemed to know and be loved and then I want you to do that with other people I want you to get more people to know this it says he appointed 12 that he said he appointed them so they could be with him and that he could send them out to preach send them out to tell people about this when Jesus is about to leave in Matthew 28 it says that he tells him go make disciples which is just go do the same
Thing I was doing with you second Corinthians 5 17 this is Paul writing to the church and here's what he says therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away the behold the new has come all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses that sins against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation therefore we are ambassadors of Christ we're representatives of his God making his appeal through us we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God if you find God's people they vehemently actively continually want to see more people meet Jesus go out of their way pull money out of their wallets give up their time to see more people come to know Jesus because Christians know that that matters and Christians know where their hope comes
From and Christians know that life is is ultimately empty and fleeting and futile without Jesus if you're not a Christian today you're here and you're hanging out you're like I'm just hanging out with church people somebody invited me whatever I know I'm not a Christian here's what I would say most everything I just said does not apply to you at all it may be helpful for you to know what a church ought to look like what you need to know is that Jesus died to pay for your sins because he loves you he loved you so much he gave up his life so that you can have one what we read last week says that we were children of wrath but we've been adopted as sons we deserve to be crushed but we were brought into the family and the only way that happened was that the son became a child of wrath that the son of God took wrath on our behalf so that you who deserve wrath can be a son like that's that's what it's saying if you're here today and you're a Christian real quick if you're not a Christian and
You see that the response is the same thing that Peter said which is repent and be baptized acknowledge that you're a sinner so that you can be saved and then we'll talk about the baptism stuff later if you're a Christian the question really is are those five things showing up do you love Jesus are you obedient are you following him do you enjoy Jesus do you hate sin are you repenting you actively in sin and don't care do you love his word do you study do you read do you try to intake and grow and understand what the Bible says do you do you love the church do you love your fellow believers your brothers and sisters and do you care that people don't know Jesus if you're saying I'm a Christian those need to be showing up and you can ask Jesus to help you you continue to go back to Jesus and say I need help here I need to change here I need you to work in me here I need your DNA to be more active here I need the Holy Spirit to work in me here and if you're here today and you say I'm a
Christian but you don't have any of those none of those are showing up none of those are active in you I don't think you're a Christian if you have no evidence of those things at all I don't think you're a Christian we're not mad at you you just need to know you're not a Christian it's a dangerous spot to be in to not actually believe and follow Jesus and have him work in you and believe that that he is and the response isn't work harder the response is go back to Jesus and say I need to be made new we're gonna spend the next few weeks talking about what a local church gets to look like and how we're designed to interact with one another but those are some characteristics that define Jesus's people that are at work around the globe what's beautiful is as you open this and study it you're doing what another million people are doing in all their kind of different languages when you go out of your way to help point someone to Jesus you're doing what people have done
Through the centuries because Jesus saved people and it was his plan that his people would change the world make sure you get to join in here locally what the church looks like throughout history and throughout the globe as we love one another and serve one another as God's people let's pray God we thank you that we can be saved we thank you that that's based off of your work not ours and we ask God that you would be at work in us to help us love you more to help us follow you God to show us our sin and help us to hate it God that you would teach us through your word and that we would grow to love your word empower in us the ability to love one another even when that's hard the ability to love one another in all of life and God I pray that you would help us to have our hearts broken over the people who don't yet know you that we might go out of our way to help them come to know you
Jesus help us be your church Amen Amen Amen
Distinctly Loved
Transcript
Well, good morning. This is the first week of our Home Sweet Home series. I'm really excited to kind of get started and to look at what the church is. Maybe a better way to say that, more theologically correct way to say that, is who the church is. And honestly, it's going to be massively helpful for us because I find that a lot of times we don't ask that question. We don't ask what makes the church the church?
How did the church become the church? Who is the church? We just kind of assume it. So maybe you'd say, well, we're at church right now. This is it. And I would say, keep listening because nuh-uh.
The Bible is going to say that the church is people. The church is more like a bride than a building. The church is more like a family than anything else. And so we're actually going to take some time just to try to understand what makes the church the church. And this is actually very important for us, massively important for us. And we know this, like we know that it's helpful for us to understand some definitions of things before we get involved in them.
A very quick example. Somebody says to you, hey, can you do me a favor? Because you've had people ask you that before, your response is, what? The response is not, yeah, the response is, what? What you want? And then they tell you, because you want to define the terms first.
You want to understand what you're getting in on. Like if I said, hey, do you want to be a Marine? You would say, what's a Marine? Like I need to know before I'm signing up for something. I need to know what we're talking about. If somebody, if you go to get married, um, so the Bible says it's like, it's like a marriage.
The church is the bride. So if you went to get married, you'd want to understand what that meant, what that entailed, what went along with that. If you were, uh, it says it's like a family. Like we have definitions that impact how we think through things, how we approach life. Um, and the church seems to me to be very similar in some ways, uh, to, to marriage and to maybe having a family, maybe having children. And here's, here's why on the outside, you think you understand really well, how it works.
And then when you get on the inside, you realize, Oh no, no, I didn't give you an example. The people who are really the best at being married are not married. They can tell you everything you want to know about marriage. What you ought to do as a husband and what you ought to do as a wife. Like I was a pro on being married and then you get married and you're like, Whoa. And you think thoughts like, I mean, I don't know my wife thought thoughts like, am I the only person in the world who's married to such a moron?
Like how come you think things like, why does it work so easily for everybody else? And why do we stay up till three o'clock in the morning arguing with each other? It's like, you haven't been in my house at three o'clock in the morning. They're all up arguing with each other. Like, that's what you needed to know. I got a secret for you.
Like you get married and you're like, wow, this is way harder than I thought. It's the same thing with having kids, man. I've got a one-year-old. I was a pro at having children a year ago. Could have told you, like you see kids, you'd be like, my kid's not going to act like that. And then you have kids and it's like the other day he hit my wife with a stick.
So I took the stick from him and he rolls on the ground screaming and kicking. Like I have just assaulted him. And my first thought is, you know, like how to, how to parent this situation. I think I should hit him with the stick. Like this is the best move right now. We'll assert a chain of dominance, like how this works, but you just, you just, it's one of those things where you think it's one way, you think it's going to be a certain way and then you get in it.
And so the truth is we look at the church and you might would say, uh, maybe from the outside, you're like, oh yeah, this is what a church should be like. And this is how a church ought to relate to each other. And this is, and it's like this magic floaty fairy tale land. And then you get into it. You actually give it a shot. Like the people who act like churches are beautiful and perfect.
It's like, you've never been a part of one. Have you? You never really gave that a go. Once you get in it, you're like, oh, oh goodness. This is more difficult than I thought. And so there's a little bit of us.
And maybe if you've been around a church before and you've had your feelings hurt, or you've been sinned against, maybe you're like, hey, is the home sweet home thing? Like, are we saying that sarcastically? That's a joke, right? Like it's tongue in cheek, like homes, home sweet home. Like this place is terrible. Is that what we're going for?
Because maybe you've been hurt. And so what I would say is this, no, it's not a joke. It actually gets to be that we actually get to have a real genuine, deep, loving relationships. And yeah, you may have been hurt before. And, and I want to go ahead and give you the Mill City guarantee, which is if you keep hanging out, you'll get hurt here. You're welcome.
We believe that we're a group of sinners brought together by the grace of Jesus. If you keep being a part of things, I can guarantee someone's going to sin against you. Your feelings are going to get hurt, or you're going to sin against somebody. You're going to hurt somebody's feelings. You're going to harm somebody. And sometimes it's, it's as easy as a misunderstanding.
And sometimes it's blatant and bad. And here's the thing. If we don't have a working, healthy, correct definition of what the church is, I can almost guarantee something for you. You won't be able to stick with one. If you don't really understand what the church is and how the church became the church. And if you don't have a very foundational definition, you'll peace out.
You'll be done at some point. And at some point you'll move from one church to another. Like the only way you'll be able to approach church is sometime kind of a, what do I like the best? What, what most suits my needs? What, what do I enjoy the most? You kind of approach it consumeristically and preferentially.
And then at some point though, you're, you're going to, you're going to bounce around from church to church because you'll think, Oh, people know me here. Can I get a handheld mic? Is that, is this going to be super distracting if I keep making this noise? People know me here. Um, and I'll try to keep the handheld night near my face. Um, when I get it, but you'll think people know me here.
They know I'm messed up. I got to go somewhere else where they don't know my story. Or you'll think, man, everybody here's a jerk or this person's a jerk. And if I could just be a part of a different church, like this would work out. Uh, this is Logan Phillips. Everybody he's been here since seven 30 this morning.
Thank you. In a world. Okay. I just wanted to test it out in a way that I won't talk the rest of the time. Um, I'm going to try not to, I'll break it. I'm going to work on that.
So I won't do that the whole time. Um, okay. You'll, you'll, you'll bounce from church to church. You'll, you'll hang out with it, with a church for a while and then you'll get offended. You'll get hurt. You'll, you'll have something, uh, just, it'll turn out they're sinners or they'll find out you're a sinner.
And it's going to be a problem. If you don't know what the church is, and if you don't know how it's actually supposed to be designed and you don't know what the foundation is for it. So here's what we're doing today. As we start this series, the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk very practically. We're going to talk about characteristics that the church ought to have. We're going to talk about what a church ought to look like.
We're going to tell you if you're a part of a church and this is missing, this is a problem. If you are a Christian and this is missing, this is a problem. This is how we ought to relate to each other. We're going to talk very practically today. We're going to lay the foundation for that with a very zoomed out view of what foundationally makes the church, the church. So if you were to describe your family to somebody and ask, what's a family?
You'd say you wouldn't start off with, well, we all have curly hair. No, foundationally it's further back. Foundationally there's something deeper there. And so what we're doing is to understand what the church is. We're going to go foundational and then we'll be able to talk about all the curly hair and stuff next week. What did actually start looking like?
So I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop into Ephesians. So God, we thank you for this opportunity. We thank you for how good you are to us. Thank you for your love and your grace towards us. And we pray Lord that we would have a better, more true understanding of the church after today. In Jesus name.
Amen. Amen. I'm taking this one off so I'm not too mic'd up the whole time. I'm going to go put it over here. Think a deep thought while I'm doing this. Talk amongst yourselves.
Okay, stop and pay attention. Here we go. Ephesians chapter one. All right. So this is a letter written by the apostle Paul to a church in Ephesus.
And he's going to start off by helping them see what it, who they are, identity. So when we talk about like I'm a part of a family, we're talking DNA, we're talking bloodline, we're talking some sort of an adoption process that makes us that. And so he's going to start off with that, who the church is, identity. So we're going to start in Ephesians chapter one, verse three. That'll be on page 633. If your Bible is one of the blue and white Bibles from the road.
If you don't own a Bible, I'll take this one with you. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he starts off by saying, may God be blessed. May he be held in high esteem. May he be honored. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us.
And so every time we see us here, he's talking to the church about the church. So we're going to try to, as we read this, understand what makes the us and us. Does that make sense? Like when you're in a dating, dating relationship and like you had to have a DTR or maybe, maybe you were trying to figure out like how it was going. And then like you were paying attention to the sentences and they said stuff like, you know, like they used us in a way that meant maybe we were an us. And your little heart started beating or maybe it started beating because you were like, I don't think we in us.
Will you tone it down? Like, I don't know, but you know, like this is a little bit, we're going to read this and kind of have a DTR, try to understand what makes the us, what makes we and us. Okay. Um, who has blessed us in Christ. So that's Jesus with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.
I don't even know what that means, but it sounds amazing. It's like when someone says we're going to have a seven course meal and you think I've never had one of those. I don't know what all the seven courses will be, but it sounds amazing. So we get to know what some of these spiritual blessings are, but we don't get to know what every spiritual blessing is, but we know that the church, the us has every spiritual blessing in heavenly places because of Jesus. 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.
That's some other family language. The Bible uses adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. So the beloved there capital B that's Jesus. So what he's saying is that in Jesus, we've been blessed with all the blessings, all the spiritual blessings in heavenly places that he chose us in him. He predestined us to be made perfect and blameless before him that he chose to do this on our behalf, that he could bless us because of his grace. Verse seven in him, in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.
Okay. So in Jesus, when he says we have forgiveness through his blood, uh, redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, what he's saying is that when Jesus went to the cross, his blood was shed to pay for all of our sin. That's what trespass means. Like when you trespass, you cross the line that you weren't supposed to cross. So his blood pays for that, that we're redeemed, which means to be bought back through his blood according or because of 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.
Okay. So, uh, verse seven and eight, it says in him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. Grace means unearned, unmerited favor and love, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. So lavished. How many of y'all use that word this past week? You were getting a hot dog and you were like, Hey, lavish some cheese on that.
We don't use that word very often. So I want to take a second for help us understand that. Cause I don't think we, I think we all think, Oh yeah, I kind of have an understanding of what that means, but you don't really think about it that often. So God has lavished grace on us. It means it's too much. It's too much.
So when you, you, maybe you've seen somebody in a relationship where, uh, they just lavished all their money and all their time on somebody to the point that you were like, like, this is y'all, this is unhealthy. Like you, you, this is too much. Like, even if you were the one having all this stuff, you're like, this is great. This is great. This is great. All right.
This is getting weird. Like what? Don't you have a job? What do you, why are you here all the time? Like that's, he lavished it. If you, at Thanksgiving with your family, you go to your mama's house or your great aunt, whoever got the biggest house or cooks the best.
And you, you're in line behind one of your cousins and he fills up his plate and he gets, uh, turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and a biscuit. Cause you got to have carbs and starches. That's really all you need. Mac and cheese. You're going to need another plate for that. So he fills this up and then he gets to the gravy and he just starts pouring brown gravy.
I mean, at first it looks good. And then it's like, man, he keeps circling around. Like he just covers his whole plate with gravy. Like you can't even tell what's there anymore. And you're like, dude, just stop. That was too much.
It's too much, too much gravy. And I didn't know that was a thing, but you've put too much on your plate. That's what God's done with his grace for us. It's too much. He's lavished grace on us. Use that word sometime this next week.
11 In him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance. So we're in the family. The people who inherit things are in the family. This is the church having been predestined, chosen. That means chosen beforehand. That's what he says.
He chose us beforehand in a, in him, according to the purpose of him. So that's a guide or Jesus who works all things according to the counsel of his will. That phrase right there are the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. That means that God does whatever he wants. That's what that means. According to him God who works all things according to the counsel of will of his will.
That means he does whatever he wants. He's in charge. When I was growing up in my house, there was a chair that was my dad's chair, and you could sit in it as long as my dad wasn't there. But he would walk up, and he would just do this with his hand. It was slight, and that meant get out my chair. And you knew that this is the only motion you wanted him to make with his hand.
The next motion was a little more aggressive. So he'd do that, and he'd do this. And that meant hand me the remote. And I remember very distinctly one day when he did that and this, and I hesitated. He said, boy? And I was like, I don't even like TV.
I didn't even know. Because you know how you're in a show, it's hard to just get out of it, but you get out of it. You're just like, yeah, this show, I don't even care how that character, I'm just, whatever. That was before DVR. It meant something. I just, it's God.
He's, to not be crass, he's the daddy. He does whatever he wants. That's how that works in his universe. So he works all things according to the purpose of his will. That's verse 11, 12. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ, hope means believe, put all our chips on, like everything on Christ.
Hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Okay. That was dense and there was a lot there, but here's the point. What makes the church, the church didn't say anything really at all about what the people do. What it said was, here's what Jesus did.
That was it. Jesus makes we and us. Jesus does it. He accomplishes it on behalf of the church. Jesus does. If you look back at the verbs in that whole paragraph, it's Jesus who has blessed us in Christ, who chose us in him, who predestined us for adoption as sons, who has blessed us in the beloved, in him, in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood.
We have the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us in his wisdom and insight that he made known to us the mystery of his will, that people might be saved through God on a cross, that he set forth as a plan for the fullness of time, that he might unite all things in himself. In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined by him according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Like the, the point of that passage, what he's saying is that Jesus did this. Jesus accomplished this. God does what he wants and he rescued and made a people for himself.
That's the church. The church are the people throughout all time in history who have been distinctly loved and blessed by God. That's the first step is that God lavishes his grace and his love and his blessing onto us to make us his people. So distinctly loved and loved and blessed because everybody is loved and blessed by God. Let me explain how that works. Uh, blessed.
One is you don't suck in oxygen, wake up in the morning, walk around without being blessed by God. Uh, everybody has rainfall, has sunshine, gets to eat things, taste delicious food, unless you live in like England and everything tastes kind of the same, but it still nourishes you. Like everybody gets to, uh, gets to be blessed by God. Even the worst person who ever walked on the face of the earth, the most terrible, heinous person was blessed enough to have some people take care of them long enough for them to live past childhood, ate food, slept at night, got to take naps. Like, I mean, blessed everybody is.
And we're all loved by God. So the Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Like he loved everybody enough to die for us, but it only is effective for, it only applies to the church. So that's the John three 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him wouldn't perish and have everlasting life. So there's this, God loves everybody, but it's only going to apply to those who believe it's only going to be effective and effectual for those who believe it's like if I stood up and said, Hey, uh, we've got tickets, um, to the upcoming fireflies.
No lightning bugs. What are they called? Fireflies. They should be called the lightning bugs. That would just be way better. Cause you'd be like, go lightning bugs.
Like it just be, it would be better. But anyway, we've got tickets to the new fireflies games coming up in Lexington. All you got to do is show up to the will call and say Mill City and they'll give you a ticket. Like it's open to everybody. Who's going to enjoy the game? People who show up and ask for the ticket.
Jesus has died for everybody, but who actually gets loved and distinctly blessed by what he's accomplished? The church. And that's what makes the church, the church. So maybe you're saying, okay, hold on a second. Jesus does everything. What do I do?
And what am I supposed to do? If Jesus, well, he just does everything he chooses. He blessed. He predestines. He does all this mess. Like what, what do I do?
Well, let's answer that. Go to verse, go to chapter two. Uh, Paul's going to kind of keep talking to the Ephesians in a more specific way. Some of, some of the stuff's going on with them and talk to them about their church specifically. And then he gets more big picture in chapter two. So we're jumping down to chapter two.
So on the next page. All right. So, and you, okay, cool. We're going to get to see what we do. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. That did not start off well for us.
So we were dead in our trespasses and our sins in which we once walked. So he's talking to the church and he's using this past tense, but this is what we brought to the table. This is what we did. Sins, trespasses that we were walking in, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air. That's Satan following the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And we were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Verse four starts with, but God. So he's changed the subject back to what God did. So let's talk a little bit about what we brought to the table. You want to know what you did, what you've done, what you've accomplished, what you get to bring to the table. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. You're a dead man walking, following after everybody else.
And he says, following after carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, most of us do a little bit of both, but a lot of times we pick one and stick with it. Here's what I mean. Some of you mostly just carry out the desires of the body. It's sensual. It's what you physically enjoy. So you're just going to be chasing after all of your urges, all of your desires.
You're going to be chasing after food. You're going to be chasing after sex. You're going to be chasing after alcohol and illicit drugs. Like your, your goal is let me just get to the weekend and I'll enjoy myself. Like I work so that I can party on the weekend so I can celebrate on the weekend. And all that is, is just what are my urges?
What are my, my current, what's my body chemistry saying to go for? And that's what I'm going for. You're carrying out the desires of the body. And some of us are carrying out the desires of the mind and that one's a little bit trickier. Some of you that's, I just want to be liked. So I'm actually going to be a really nice person, but my desire is to be well-received and have people praise me and to have people like me.
And so all you're doing is chasing after your own glory, your own name, your own friendliness. Some of you that's, I just want to be successful in work. So you're just, I'm going to work really hard and I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do. But ultimately you're just chasing after your own desires. Whatever your brain has said, this will be the best. So some people chase after money for the sake of their body because it's easier to get women and alcohol if you got stacks on stacks.
So they're chasing after money for the desire of the flesh, the desire of the body. But some people are going to chase after money for the desires of the mind, which is just, I just want to see the number on a computer screen and know it's in my bank account because it makes me feel warm inside. So I'm actually going to look really frugal. I'm actually going to seem like I have it all together, but all I'm doing is chasing after desire of the mind. Now, a lot of times we'll look at people who chase after just the fleshly stuff, just the body stuff and say, man, you need to get it together. Truth is the person who's chasing after just the mind stuff still doesn't worship God as God still has something else there.
That's if God is really God is really who he says he is, then he ought to be ultimate. And if it's just about following rules, then honestly, rules would be ultimate. God would be subservient to the rules, but that's not how it works. God is ultimate. The rules are his. So when we're chasing after anything, even if we're being a really good person and following all the rules, we've still placed something above God.
And if that was the most confusing thing you've ever heard, you might be one of the desires of the body people or I didn't say it well and nobody got that joke, which makes it better. So that's it. That's what we bring to the table. That's us. That's what you've accomplished, that you deserve death, that you deserve destruction. Honestly, every time we've chased after our own physical desires, every time we've chased after our own mental desires, what we're doing is we're looking at the creator of the universe and saying, Hey, hey, look at me.
I do what I want. I'm in charge. I'm going to, I'm going to do what I think's best. I'm going to do what I enjoy the most. I made a joke the other day when I was eating with my family, it was, we went to eat and hang out with, um, uh, my mom for her birthday. And there was a handful of people around the table and we were talking about Archer.
He's my son and he was acting up. My mom was saying that if he's acting up with me, he'd be worse with everybody else. And that's true. Cause he already knows that I'm the one who's going to be the most aggressive with him. Uh, and I just said jokingly, I was like, yeah, when I was growing up, I used to tell my dad what was up. And the reason I said that joke, because I knew everybody at the table would get it.
And there was like instant overwhelming laughter because they've met my dad and they know that never, ever, ever happened. And so I knew, I knew my audience. So I made a joke about me telling my dad what was up and they thought it was hilarious. And here's the truth. If my dad had come to me and said, you know, those little hand motions and hand me the remote. And I looked at him and said, no, it's not happening.
You have a seat. I'm going to finish my show. I wouldn't be here today. And my dad might be in a penitentiary. Like, I don't know. I don't know how that would go.
I saw the look in his eyes a couple of times. I got a guess of what it would be like. And so I never really gave that a shot. Here's the truth though. Every time we've carried out the desires of our flesh and of our mind, and we've acted like whatever I want to do is best. We've looked at the creator of the universe and said, Hey, not right now.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, I'm talking. I'm gonna do what I want. I'm the daddy around here. So we've done if he really is God and really does exist and really does have claim over our lives because we belong to him.
That's what we've done. And I get uncomfortable thinking about doing that to my own dad, but we've looked at God and said, no, no, no, no, no. I'm in charge here. I put this in a really, really bad spot. So what happens for, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.
He's rich in mercy. Some of you may be rich in money or know what that's like, or have a friend who's rich in money. Let me explain how that works. When you're rich in money, which we just say rich, rich, you don't worry about stuff. You got it covered. You wreck your car.
Something gets stolen. You just pay for it. You get in trouble with the law and get a lawyer. And we all have this to varying extents. Like some of us, you know, your shoe bust up, you can go buy a new shoe. But there are times in life when we're not rich in money.
You wreck your car and you look at it and go, well, it still rides. This is what my car looks like now. I kind of like the no bumper look. It makes me stand out. It tells people get away from this car. This car will strike you.
Some of you, your shoe blew up. Like there's just, it like was doing the talking thing when you walk and it flaps. And you know what you thought? That's my shoe. And it's going to stay my shoe because I can't buy another shoe. So you got some duct tape because it's cheaper and you wrapped your foot.
And that part of your shoe is a little bit more slickery, but it's okay. Like you worked it out. Some of you duct taped your car before you got a rear view mirror on one side, the side view mirror just taped on. Some of y'all don't have a side view mirror. And that tells people don't get on this side of the car because you, you didn't have the ability to cover it. God is rich in mercy, which means that the bill we ran up, he can cover the bill.
We ran up when we aggressively, wickedly, sinfully, evilly looked at him and said, no, no, no, I'm in charge. He has the ability to pay that bill because he's rich in mercy. And mercy means we don't have to get what we deserve. Why is he rich in mercy? Because of the great love with which he's rich in mercy. He loved us.
He overwhelmingly loves us. So when we rebel against him, he doesn't just go, fine, I'll crush you. It breaks his heart. And he says, I'm going to pay for this. I'm going to fix this. I'm going to fix this relationship, even though you don't deserve it, because I love you.
Some of you are in terrible relationships with your family. They treat you terribly and you keep doing stuff for me. And when people ask, why'd you do that? You say stuff like, man, it's my brother. That's my mom. What you mean is I love them.
I got their family. I can't just write them off. I got, I got to keep, I got to keep taking a beating on their behalf. And God looked at us in our rebellion and had overwhelming love and compassion and mercy for us. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace, you have been saved. He raised us up with him, seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. All right. Here's what happened. Because God is rich in mercy, he paid for our redemption. All you had was sin and death.
That's what you brought to the table. So Jesus took your sin and your death and rammed them into the grave with himself. He wrapped himself with them, clothed himself with them. And he took your death and your sin into the tomb with him. And then he rose again, leaving them there. And we get to be made alive when he came back to life.
If Jesus had just stayed dead, we'd all be in trouble. But Jesus came back to life, meaning that his payment for our sin and his death on our behalf worked. And he came back to life so that we can be made alive with him. Raised us up with him, seated us with him in heavenly places. That was verse six, seven. So that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
The purpose of this was that he could show us how much more grace, how much more love, how much more mercy he has for us. Some of you think I'm just barely getting in. I'm just barely had my sin paid for. No, he's got so much that overwhelmingly covers us and welcomes us in. Immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast, meaning you didn't do it. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. What'd you bring to the table? Sin, death, and Jesus, because he's great, his great love, and he's rich in mercy paid for it that we could be welcomed in. That's the church.
The church is the group of people who have had God's grace and mercy lavished on them, who've had their sin and their death taken away. That's the church. That's who it is. That's the foundation for everything. And here's why you have to remember that. Sometimes you hear Christians say things like, I just feel so unworthy.
I just feel like I don't deserve it. And I've seen other Christians in a desire to be nice come alongside of them and say, no, you're great. No, no, no, no, no. God wouldn't have died for you if you weren't worth it. And that's kind of true, but mostly not. And so if you ever said to me, I just feel so undeserving and like I'm not worth it, I would come alongside you and I'd put my arm around you and go, yeah, that is so true.
I was thinking that about you yesterday. No, I wouldn't say that, but I would say, yeah, I would agree with you. Yes. Correct. You do not deserve it. Yes.
Correct. You are not worthy. If you deserved it and you were worthy, Jesus wouldn't have to die. Jesus died because you don't deserve it. You're not worthy. And he lavished grace on us, which means it was unearned, undeserved.
You weren't worth it, but he did it anyway, because he's glorious. So in chapter one, it says to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glorious grace. So when you feel the most bottomed out, I don't deserve this. I haven't earned it. I'm not good enough. Yes.
Praise his glory. Praise his grace on your behalf. When you say to me, I feel so undeserving. I want to be like me too. That's what got us in. Jesus did it.
He's deserving. He's worthy. He needs, he should be blessed. We just get it because he's great. You didn't deserve it. You didn't earn it.
I feel that way too. And here's what's so beautiful about that. This is why if we don't get this, you won't be able to stick around, but if you get this, you, you, you've made it, you've got it, you're, you're ready. You realize that everybody in this room didn't earn it. So when they hurt you, you're not surprised they weren't good in the first place.
And when you sin against them, you can own up to it because what brought you to Jesus was your sin in the first place. If we all realize that we don't deserve it and only Jesus does, we're equipped with everything we need to be family from now on. That's it. It's when we forget one of those two things that we have some serious problems. When you start feeling like pretty good, I think God loves, you know, he loves everybody and then he loves the church more specially, but he loves me more, more specially. And then when someone sins against you, you think unacceptable because I earned it.
You need to, too. When you come tell me I did something wrong. What? That sounds true. You hurt my feelings. Probably.
What was it? Sorry. Sometimes it was on purpose. Sometimes it wasn't. I'm like, yeah, I shouldn't have said that. Yeah, I shouldn't have done that.
I'm here because I love because Jesus was good on my behalf. Jesus rescued me. That's us. That's the church. That's it. So you say, okay, well, what do I do?
Like, how do I respond to that? Well, he said it in chapter one. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, that Jesus died to pay for your sin and believed in him, you were sealed by the promise. Holy spirit. Belief. Put your trust in Jesus.
That's it. How do you know you're chosen? How do you know he's poured his love and grace out on you? Do you want to believe? Do you want to respond to that? That's it.
He bought all the tickets, show up to will call. That's basically like you just get to say, I trust this. I believe that all I've brought to the table is my sin and my brokenness. And I believe that he paid for it. That's it. I trust.
And then the Holy spirit comes inside of you and begins to change you from the inside out. So often I think we think I got to be a good person or I got to get my act together. I got to come to Jesus and clean myself up. You're, you're making a mockery of the cross. He came to clean you up. He came to pay for your sin.
You could just come to him and say, I trust that all I'm able to bring to the table is my messed up garbage. And he says, yeah, that's why I saved you. And you believe and you're saved. That's it. His grace is lavished on you, poured out on you. And then you're adopted into the family.
And then we get to talk about characteristics of what a church looks like. And that's where we'll go next week. We get to talk about what you begin to look like as you're a part of the family, because when you're adopted into the family, you're brought in and you start learning from the people around you. And when you have the DNA, you start just automatically being like them. So the Holy spirit comes in and changes you from the inside out.
And then you begin to learn from Jesus and you begin to learn from his people. That's how it works. My granddad was, um, he grew up and he never knew his dad. Like the one time he saw his dad, he was getting his haircut and a man came and stood by the window and just kind of looked in for a little while and turned around and walked off. And the guy cutting his hair said, Hey boy, you know who that was? He said, no, sir.
He said, that was your daddy. So my granddad ran to the window, watched him walk off. And that was it. But he, uh, my, my great granddad, Papa Holloman, who was his daddy. So my granddad's name was Phillips, but his adopted Papa Holloman.
And so my granddad, because he was adopted and because he had this other guy's DNA, like he had certain things that were affected by the DNA that was just automatically inside, like how tall he was going to be. Whiteness, like all the different things that come along with DNA, hair color, eye color, those kinds of things. And then he picked up stuff from Papa Holloman and Papa Holloman was a trip and did all kinds of stuff just to like mess with people. And that's been passed down from generation to generation, like sense of humor and messing with people. Like my Papa Holloman one time was at a, uh, they were at like Tweetsie railroad or some random place like that.
And there was a guy selling, um, uh, little cups of, uh, apple cider. And he was like talking about how they made it and all this kind of stuff. And then you could buy, you know, a cup for five cents or something. And he was like, does anybody have any questions? And Papa Holloman raised his hand. He said, yes, sir.
He goes, how much you get paid an hour? And his wife hit him and he's like, I meant about the, the, the apple cider. And he's like, you said, if I had any questions. And then he walked to the front of the line and said, let me see it. And took his little jug. It was in a jug.
Papa Holloman stuck his nose in it and went, it's too sweet. And handed it back to him. And everybody got out of the line. And I was like, no, no, no, no, I'm not having that. And my granddad picked up all this kind of stuff and he just would mess with people and make jokes, but he also had DNA. And the truth is the church has both that the Holy spirit comes inside of us and begins to change us.
And we get to grow in what it looks like to be the church and to follow Jesus. And that's what we're going to talk about for the next four weeks, what the church actually looks like. But here's what you need to know. The church has made the church by Jesus and Jesus alone. Not about what we do, not about how we act. But then once Jesus does that, we begin to have the same traits.
We begin to see it show up the same way that you've been talking to someone before. And you're like, well, I was like, are y'all brothers? And they're like, yeah. And you're like, okay, that makes way more sense with the facial expressions and the weird stuff you just said. Like you acted just like this person over here that I'm already friends with. Like it begins to happen like that way in the church.
Here's how we apply this today. If you're not a Christian, if you've never believed this, believe, put your faith in Jesus that all you bring to the table is your sin and that Jesus died to lavish grace on you, to make you his. And that's how you get to be in the church. That's the church. It's those people throughout all of history. If you're a Christian, put this on repeat.
You're a sinner who's been given grace. That's what makes you you. That's what changed you and made we and us. Like that's Jesus has accomplished that for you. So when you think, oh, I'm sinning, I'm messing this up.
Yes. You need grace. You need Jesus. And if you're a Christian or you're not a Christian, I would encourage you to hop into a community group as at least while we walk through this series. So you can begin to see what we're talking about.
You can actually experience it. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll even have someone sin against you and you can try to forgive them. It'll be good for your soul as you learn that the church is a group of sinners brought together by Jesus. Bianca's going to come back up here and we're going to sing. And here's what we're about to do. She's going to sing.
And I want the church, if you're a Christian, if you say I've placed my faith in Jesus and I've had his grace poured out on me, we're going to take communion. And I want you to remember as you walk back there that I was, we were dead walking after our own sin. That we were dead man walking. And then I want you to remember that Jesus died for you, that his grace covers you and that you've had grace poured out on you. And I want you to take communion, which is the representation of the broken body of Jesus and his spilled blood on your behalf. And it's that that makes you okay.
And it's that that covers you. And it's that that makes you his forever, not your behavior, not your goodness, Jesus. And if you're not a Christian today, don't take communion because it's for Christians. But I would invite you to place your faith in Jesus, become a Christian and then take communion. As the very first time that you celebrate that I trust that when Jesus died, he died for me and that his blood and his body cover me. And I'm placing my hope in him, not in myself, not in my own goodness, but in him that I might receive the riches of his grace and his mercy.
Let's pray. God, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your love. Pray, Lord, that we would celebrate today your grace and your mercy that's been poured out for us. And I pray, Lord, that that would be the foundation for us as a church, that we would know that your people are the people who have been redeemed by you, that you chose, that you love, that you lavished your grace on us. And that would be the foundation for everything that we do.
As we spend the next few weeks talking about what the church looks like, that we would understand the reason we look that way, the reason we operate that way, is because we have already been made new. We've already been born again into your family. We've already been adopted as sons. We praise you. We thank you. We love you.
In Jesus' name.
Easter Baptism 2016
Transcript
Well, good morning. Happy Easter. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 27 this morning. We're going to spend a little bit of time there.
That's on page 540 if your Bible looks like this. Grab one of the blue and white Bibles on the row. If you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. Take it home with you. So I found, it seems to me that when it comes to people's viewpoints of Christianity, what Christianity is, what it's about, specifically people who maybe haven't, aren't Christians.
Like if you just went down the street and just kind of took a poll, I think you kind of get two major viewpoints about what the Bible is, what it's about, what Christianity is about. And usually it seems like people fall into two camps. So on one side you have, the Bible is a book of rules, mostly. Like mostly is a book of morals. It's, you read this, it's going to teach you how to live. It's God's roadmap to life.
It's how to make good decisions. It's God's plan for us, what he wants us to do, how we ought to behave. That Jesus was a great moral teacher. And that he came to show us how to follow the rules. How to behave. How to be very moral.
And that's kind of one side. And so people would say maybe that if you just follow the rules, all of life would be better. Which is pretty much true for all sets of rules, all belief systems. If you just kind of followed what they said, most of the time it's like that people would get along better. That's what people say. That's what Christianity is.
It's a set of rules that if we follow, we'll get along better. And if you follow them really well, maybe God will love you or maybe God will be pleased with you. Maybe God will bless you. Or maybe when you die you can stand before him and you get to go to heaven because you've been a good person. That's one of the major popular beliefs about Christianity. The other side is kind of a no.
The Bible is primarily about love. It's about how we treat one another. How we love one another. It's not about God's rules. It's about love. That God loves us.
He loves us so much that God forgives us. And Jesus came to show us how to love. And if you just follow the rules, then you'll end up being really hypocritical or you'll be really proud. Or you'll be one of those religious old ladies that's just mean to everybody. But you just need to learn how to love.
And that's what Jesus was all about. The problem with both of those, though, is that the one thing that most people know about Christianity is that Jesus... You say, okay, he was a great moral teacher or, you know, he taught us how to love. So he loved and he followed the rules. And because of that, because he was so loving and so rule-following, they brutally murdered him. Right?
Because that's how it works at school. Like the girl that always follows the rules and is nice to everyone, everybody hates her and she gets expelled. Like that's... Right? No. That's not how that works.
So what we know, the primary thing about Christianity is that Jesus went to a cross. And the problem with both of these viewpoints, if the Bible is primarily about us following rules or if the Bible is primarily about us being loving, neither one of those accurately, intelligently explains the cross. If you're just supposed to follow rules, why did Jesus die? If it's about your behavior, why did Jesus die? And if you're just supposed to be loving and if God is just loving, like he's just out there floating in a field of warm fuzzies. And when he thinks about you, he giggles in his heart.
If that's the case, if that's God, if he's just some love force out there in the universe, then what is the cross? How does that make any sense whatsoever? The problem with both of these viewpoints is that they're really incomplete. They don't make sense of what the Bible actually holds up as primary. What the Bible says, no, no, this is the main thing you need to focus on is a cross, is that Jesus died. And so let's go to Matthew chapter 27 and try to figure out why that would be primary and how that helps us understand what the Bible really is about and what the point actually is.
So we're going to read through Matthew chapter 27, we're just going to talk a little bit about what we see here, what we're told here, what these eyewitnesses relate to us here. And then we're going to jump to 1 Corinthians to try to help explain it. So what we're doing right now is we're just going to look at it and then we're going to jump over and say, okay, if that's the main thing, then what does it mean? Why is it the main thing? Why does it matter? 27, we're going to start in verse 57.
When it was evening, there came a rich man. This is the evening that Jesus was crucified. Jesus is still on the cross. There came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. That meant he followed him. He went to Pilate, that's the Roman governor, and asked for the body of Jesus.
Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So it, Jesus is dead. He's a thing at this point. He's a corpse. Pilate ordered it to be given to him, Jesus' body. And Joseph took the body, the dead body of Jesus, wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock.
And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, that's Jesus' mother, were there sitting opposite the tomb. So they saw where the dead Jesus was placed. The next day, that is the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate. So those are the people who killed him.
And they say, Sir, we remember how this imposter said while he was still alive that after three days I will rise. Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people he has risen from the dead, and the last fraud will be worse than the first. So Pilate said to them, You have a guard of soldiers. Go make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
Okay, so they kill Jesus, and then they go to Pilate and they say, Hey, thanks for killing Jesus. But Jesus, when he walked around, used to tell people that he wasn't going to stay dead. And so we need to put some guards around his body. So they won't steal him, hide him, bury him somewhere else and go, He's alive! That's actually really smart. That was a good plan.
Like, let's seal the tomb. So they put a seal on the tomb, and they put guards to guard the tomb so nobody could come steal the body. They're not afraid Jesus is going to try to get out. They just are afraid somebody's going to try to come take him. Chapter 28. Now, after the Sabbath, so the Sabbath is the Saturday, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, that's Sunday.
That's why we celebrate Easter on Sunday. That's today. Good morning. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. So these are the two people who saw where Jesus was buried.
And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. This guy was hard to look at. Aggressively shiny, maybe is a way to put that. His clothing was as white as snow.
And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. Okay, I don't think it means they died. I think it means they probably just like passed out. Because there was an earthquake and then a lightning guy pushes the stone away and then just sits on it and like looks at you. And your job is to not let that happen. At this point though, I think they look at him and they're like, there's this moment of, should we fight this guy?
And then immediately there's this moment of, no, that ain't happening. And then I think they look at each other and they're like, tin like you sleep. Just, just late. We just, we just going to lay down. Fight over. I probably just passed out.
Like, boom, earthquake, stone, guy, eye contact, lightning, close, and boom, out. So, they at least deserve a demotion. They have done their job poorly. But the angel said to the women. So, women didn't get terrified. I mean, they're scared in some, some form or fashion, but not, they didn't pass out.
Do not be afraid. Thank you. That's the first thing. If you see an angel, that's the first thing you want them to say. You meet an angel and he doesn't start with, do not be afraid. You should be afraid.
Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has risen. As he said, yeah. Woo. Look, if we're going to, like, you either got to woo or just don't do it. Like, we missed our chance.
We can't go back. We can't go back. I know most of us are white, but you got to, we got to up it up a little bit. I know we don't usually, woo. I know we don't usually, we'll, we'll work later. We'll get to baptize people.
We'll get to holler some more. Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who has crucified. He is not here for he has risen. As he said, come, see the place where he lay. So, he says, you can come in the tomb. You can see that it's empty.
Jesus told you he was going to rise and he did. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So, they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them and said greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. So, if you, Jesus told people he was God and he told people that he was going to be murdered. And then he told people that he was going to rise again.
And then he was murdered and then he rose again. And that's why they grab his feet and worshipped him. Because he said he was God and that this was going to happen. And once he actually, it happened and he came back to life, then it was like, oh, you must actually be God. Like, what you said must actually be true. So, they fall down and worshipped him.
And Christianity says it's not just about God's love and Jesus being loving. It's not just about rules and Jesus being a good moral teacher. The point of Christianity is that Jesus went to a cross, that he died and that he rose again. That's the point. That the tomb is empty. That's what we celebrate.
This is the major holiday for Christians. Easter. The tomb is empty. Now, the question is, why is that the point? I mean, it sounds nice. It proves he was God, I guess, that Jesus died.
He rose again. He's not in the tomb anymore. But why do we celebrate that? Why is that the point? So, let's jump to 1 Corinthians. It's going to be to the right.
And it should be on the screen. It'll be page 624. If your Bible looks like this. If your Bible doesn't look like this, it's to the right. It's going to say 1 Corinthians at the top. 624, chapter 15.
This is Paul helping us understand why the cross, why the empty tomb is primary. Why we would actually want to celebrate that. 17, verse 17. And if Christ, that's Jesus. If Christ has not been raised, did not come back from the dead, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then all those who have fallen asleep, he means those who have died in Christ, believing in Christ, is what he's saying there, have perished.
They're just dead. And if in Christ we have hope only in this life or in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So what Paul says is if Christ didn't rise from the dead, if what we celebrate on Easter isn't true, then people should feel sorry for us. And we're everything we believe is a lie, is a waste, is dumb and useless. That's what Paul's saying. He's saying that the cross, the empty tomb, are so vital to Christianity that if you take them out, just what, he taught us to love, just he taught us to follow rules, it's a waste of time.
We should be pitied. People should feel sorry for us because without the empty tomb we have nothing. So here's what he says. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So he's the first one who would die and rise from the grave and be brought back to God.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. So this will take just a second to explain what he's saying there. What he's saying is that through Adam, so way back in history, Adam and Eve, famous duo, worse than Bonnie and Clyde, caused more problems for everybody. Adam and Eve. So he says back in the day, Adam and Eve were created in a relationship with God.
They were designed to exist in a loving, harmonious relationship. And Adam sins. And when Adam sins, when Adam rebels, he brings death into the world. That death didn't exist, but death now reigns from Adam to us. Like death has taken over because we're all sinful. And we're born sinful.
We all innately rebel against God. This becomes like obvious to us in different ways. Like some of you, maybe you work law enforcement. Maybe you work social services. Like some of us get to see sinfulness and depravity and brokenness in the world on a daily basis. Others of us are a little bit more separated from it.
But there's sometimes in life it just becomes clear. So when we started planning this church, we started this church up and we were starting to do some kid city stuff. We were going to work with children. One of the things we had to put in our children's handbook for your sweet little baby angels was what to do when one child bites another child. Did y'all know that? We come from a race of biters.
Look around the room. Some of these people sitting next to you all dressed up looking nice today had to be taught forcefully and repeatedly not to bite other humans. Had to be taught. Had to be trained. Like this isn't an appropriate way. Like if you're in a business meeting and it goes poorly, you can't jump up from your desk and be like, ah!
Like you can't do it. And people have seen too much zombie shows at this point. It would freak everybody out. You can't bite people. Like you have to teach children to share. And even as we grow older and we know I should share, I should be kind, I should be gracious.
We still don't want to. It's still really hard. Like I mostly just want other people to share. The time I see this most is when my sweet little wife reaches her grubby hand across the table and takes something off of my plate. And in that moment, something deep and flaming wells up inside of me. And I really have to think, dude, that's your wife.
She can have everything on your plate she wants. But there's part of me that's like... Especially when I'm like, do you want some of this? And she's like, no, I'm not hungry. And then I make it. And then she's like, can I have half of that?
And I'm like, I don't want to fight you. But there's in me like I have to actually go back to like preschool and go, share? You should share. Sharing is good. And be like, mm-hmm. Smile at her.
You want some more? Say no. Say no. Please say no. Say no. No, I'm good.
Okay, but you can have as much as you want. That's good though if you ain't going to eat it. Like... I know sharing is good. It has never actually felt good to me. I just know that it's good because I've been taught that.
Like there's... We know we're supposed to be generous. We know we're supposed to be kind. We know we're supposed to be gracious. And then we know we're supposed to forgive. And then we actually have something to forgive somebody of?
Mm-mm. Mm-mm. I could forgive a lot of things but not this thing. We know we're supposed to be generous. But then somebody says, hey, can I borrow some money?
Mm-mm. I'm pretty strapped right now. Like we just... We... Since Adam, all of us are busted. And here's the point.
Here's the reason why. God made the world good. We live in a world created by a gracious, loving God. So we understand that we ought to be gracious and loving and generous and kind. But we walk around in bodies that have been busted up by Adam.
And our sin overwhelms us. And the truth is, the more we try to be not sinful, the harder it gets. So that's what Paul's going to say as we keep moving through here. We're going to jump down to... Jump over a page if you're in this Bible. We're going to look at 57 as kind of Paul wraps this up.
Verse 54, sorry. As Paul wraps this up. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and mortal puts on immortality, then we shall come to pass the saying that is written. So he's quoting this old saying, saying this is what happens through the resurrection. This is what happens through what Jesus accomplished for us. Death is swallowed up in victory.
Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is the law. So here's what he's saying.
Sin, death is a problem for us because sin leads us to death. And then when we're sinful and we die and we stand before God, we have nothing to offer him. Except for our rebellion and our guilt and our shame, we have nothing to bring to him. That our sin goes before God and he looks at our life and he doesn't say, you're welcome. He says, you've rebelled against me. You've broken the law.
We're in trouble. That's why death is so terrible because sin goes with us. And the law only makes sin stronger. It only shows how much more we fail. My dad and my mom, when I was growing up, they both worked. And I've got two brothers and we were all kind of, you know, little at the same time and just a couple of years apart each.
And when my dad would go to work and my mom would be at home watching us, and sometimes we had people watch us while they both worked. But when my dad would go to work and my mom would be home watching us, my dad would always come home and he'd say, you know, just some of the laundry wasn't done. Maybe dinner wasn't cooked. Maybe one of us looked like a hot mess, was just wearing underwear and had ketchup spattered all over us for some reason. Like he just, every time he would come home and the house wasn't clean and he just got the feeling like, you know, he would look at my mom and be like, you can do this.
Like you can get everything done. It's possible. Like he just assumed she was just not really trying that hard. And so he said a couple of times that when she would go to work and he was watching us by ourselves, he just decided, I'm going to get it done. I'm going to do everything. I'm going to cook.
I'm going to do all the laundry. Kids are going to look right when she gets home. House is going to be nice. And he said every time it was like a race against the clock and she would walk in the door. One of us wouldn't have pants on. Something would be on fire.
Laundry wouldn't be done. Like he just, he was like, y'all wouldn't stop like puking and bleeding and getting stuff messed up. There was just no way. There was no way to get it done. Like he just couldn't. And the truth was he was a really good mom until he tried.
And then he was pretty terrible at it. And for most of us, we think, the reason the power of sin is in the law is that most of us think, no, I'm a pretty nice person. I'm pretty kind. I'm pretty good. God's got to kind of love me. Like I've got good intentions.
And the truth is once we actually start seeing what the law is, what it takes to be perfect before God, and we actually try to do it, it becomes massively difficult. Us trying to behave and be good only shows how far away from it we are. Every single person in this room has nothing to offer God that makes you redeemable. We have all sinned. We have all fallen short. We all deserve death and hell and punishment.
That's the place we stand before a holy God. Each of us is headed towards death, hell, and destruction, except Jesus went to the cross. Except for Jesus went to the cross and died for our sin. He took our sin. You see, Jesus hadn't sinned. He didn't deserve death.
He hadn't rebelled. He didn't deserve to be punished or crushed. But he was. And that's why when Christians say he died for our sins, what they mean is he didn't die for his own. He died for ours. And because he didn't deserve to die, he actually broke death and rose again from the grave.
Because he hadn't earned death. He just took ours for us. So God dies to pay for our sin and then rises again so that all of us who place faith in him can have life. And that's the point of this. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory?
Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you know why we sing to Jesus? Why we holler? Why in a minute when people are getting baptized, we're going to clap and yell and be excited?
It's because Jesus has won the victory for us. When I went to college and I played college football, my freshman year I was redshirted, so I just went to practice. I didn't do anything. And we almost won a championship my freshman year. We really should have. It was a game that kind of went south, but we were there.
We were one game away. We would have won the championship. If we had, I would have been given a ring. And I would have worn it on Sundays and tapped it on the... No, I'm just kidding. But I would have been given a championship ring.
And I would have been a champion. And what would I have done? Not a dang thing. Except for go to practice. Like I wouldn't have done anything, but I would have been victorious. I would have been a champion through other people on my behalf.
You know how when you go to watch a game that you just are a fan of, and they win? You know what you say when it's over? We won. And sometimes when they lose, you go, yeah, they lost. Because you're smart. But when they win, you say, we won.
Why? Because they won on behalf of their city. They won on behalf of their fans. That's why when it's... The chips are down, and they're losing at halftime, and they come back out, and they rally, and they finally score. You jump up, lose your mind, kick something over, like break your television, because you're so excited that they won.
The reason Christians sing, the reason we gather together in the morning and celebrate, the reason we're going to lose our mind in a minute when people get baptized is because Jesus has won the victory for us. The empty tomb stands as the forever scoreboard that sin does not claim us, sin does not hold us, death has no hold over us any longer. We can have life through Jesus. That's the empty tomb. That's the cross. People say, why would you pick something so bloody and terrible to celebrate?
Why would Christians wear crosses? That's when we were down 40 to nothing at halftime. It's fun to see that now. It's fun to see the moment in history when it looked so bleak, so wrong, so broken, that humanity had gathered together to murder God. And we can celebrate now because it was in that moment that Jesus died for our sin and there's, it's not, he wasn't always on the cross. He was buried in the tomb and he didn't stay in the tomb and he's risen to a throne and we get to celebrate forever that the cross and the empty tomb prove to us that death has no claim over us once we've placed our faith in Jesus.
That our sin and our brokenness no longer holds us. That we have life forever in the one who's given us victory. Who's conquered death on our behalf. So in a minute, five people are gonna be on a screen and they're gonna tell you why they believe in Jesus and then they're gonna get baptized and we're gonna scream and yell and clap because we're celebrating that victory has been given to us through Jesus. That he was good, that he paid our penalty and that we have life forever in him. Through the victory that's been won on our behalf.
Let's pray. God, we thank you that we have victory. We thank you that the tomb is empty and that seals forever our hope in you. That when we place our faith in you, that when we repent of our sin, that we come to you and say, I have nothing to offer but you died for me. I have nothing to bring to the table but you loved me so much that you died for me. That you lived righteously on my behalf.
That you paid for our sin and that you set us free and we praise you for the tomb and we praise you for the people that are getting baptized today to proclaim that. In Jesus' name, amen. Here's what's about to happen. Christians celebrate baptism because it's a symbol that when Jesus was buried, our sin, our shame, our guilt, our brokenness was buried with him. That when he died, death died with him. That all the things that had a hold and a claim over us are gone.
And so we baptize somebody and we say basically they're buried with Jesus. And that when Jesus rose from the grave, he gave life to them because they placed their faith in him. That's what baptism is. It's a celebration that Jesus has won the victory on our behalf.
Mar 27
Self-Exaltation
Transcript
Well, how are we doing this morning? My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our third week of our Scandal series. Grab a Bible and let's go to Matthew chapter 27. Here's what we're going to look at today.
Basically what we've been doing is we've been approaching Easter, which is next week where the church celebrates the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus. That on Easter Sunday, Jesus did not stay dead, but that he rose to life again. And we're going to get together and celebrate that next week. But as we've been approaching that, what we've been doing is taking some time to kind of look at really what the gospel writers focus on. So Jesus was about 30 years old when he started his ministry.
Only two of the four gospels even mention anything prior to this moment. Two of them just jump straight in at when he's 30. All of them give more weight to the last week of his life than any other thing in his life. Because Jesus came specifically, purposefully to die on our behalf. His goal was to go to the cross. And so we have been taking some time to look at those passages leading up to Jesus going to the cross and study and look at the people around him and how they treated him and then how we can kind of see ourselves in them.
So we spent some time looking at Judas. We looked at the trial of Jesus last week. And today we're going to look at Matthew chapter 27. I'm going to pray and then we'll get kind of going this morning. God, I pray that you would give us wisdom as we study your word, that your Holy Spirit would work in us to teach us, to train us, and to help us see how much we prefer ourselves, how much we promote ourselves, and how absolutely devastating that is so that we might be set free by you today. We love you.
We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. I played college football, kind of. I was on the team. I had cleats and a helmet and they let me use a locker. I was required to show up to practice.
I didn't do a whole lot else, you know, quote unquote playing. But our coach for the first year, he was a really good, let me say this first, he was a really good coach. He also was borderline psychotic. But that helped him be a good coach, I think. But one of the things he used to say a lot was, if you were doing something like you didn't show up to practice, or you just kind of took a play off, or anything, he would go.
His hands, like his pinkies kind of pointed this way. I don't know why I never asked him, because you didn't ask him questions like that. And he always had one eye kind of more closed than the other. But if you did something that was obvious, like you weren't trying, or you didn't show up to practice, or you skipped a workout, he'd go, exposed, exposed, you don't want to play. Like he would just say that this moment exposed who you were, what you were going for. Like it showed how much you actually cared about the team.
And so what we're going to look at as we read this passage today, is Matthew's going to highlight for us how all these people around Jesus respond to the crucifixion. And it actually exposes their heart. It exposes what they really care about. It exposes how they really feel, how they really think, kind of who they are. Kind of like, you know how every once in a while you're like, you may have been hanging out with a friend. And there's just this moment when they've been your friend a while, you've been around them, but you're in a new situation.
And you're suddenly like, oh, my friend's kind of a racist. And I did not know. Or you're in a new situation. Maybe you're at, have you ever been with friends and you, they're nice people. Nice people. Friendly people.
That's why they're your friend. Because of their friendliness. And you're at a restaurant and it takes them 45 minutes to get your food. They got it wrong once. They bring it out cold. And your friends just start melting down.
Have you ever been in this situation? Maybe you're this person. Stop it. You're the person I'm talking about. Where they're just like, can you even believe? Excuse me.
Excuse me. Do the thing. I've done this before. You just grab any waiter that comes by or any waitress. It's like a busboy. And you're just like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, sweet tea.
Right? Like you just get over and you're like, wow, my friend. Like go with someone to the DMV one day. Like you'll just get to learn things. You'll get to expose. And that's what we're seeing in this passage is that as Matthew kind of walks us out for us and shows all these people around Jesus, what we see is that their hearts are exposed in the way they respond.
And honestly, our hearts are exposed to. And so let's let's let's hop in. Let's look at this. We're going to start in verse 24. So we left off last week where the Jewish Sanhedrin, the rulers, scribes, elders, condemned Jesus to death.
And then we're going to pick up kind of where they they've taken him now to pilot the governor. And he's kind of questioned Jesus and said he doesn't really deserve to die. And we're going to pick up there. So so when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but that rather a riot was beginning. So he has said this on page 541.
If your Bible looks like this, he said, basically, we should let Jesus go. But he was gaining nothing. And a riot was beginning. He took water. He washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I'm innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves.
And all the people answered his blood be on us and our children. Then he released for them Barabbas and having scourged Jesus, which just means beaten brutally with whips, cat of nine tails, rods like it was. It was a devastating thing. He delivered him to be crucified. And crucifixion was the most devastating form of capital punishment that the Romans had invented and had perfected. And other people had invented it, but they had perfected it.
And it was their preferred method because it was gruesome, public, agonizing, time consuming, shameful. And it was their preferred method of capital punishment. Led him away to be crucified. And as they went out, oh, sorry, delivered him to be crucified, verse 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters.
So these are the people who are going to crucify Jesus. They take him into the governor's headquarters. They gather the whole battalion before him. They strip him and put a scarlet robe on him. So this is a red or purple robe that they put on him because that's what kings wore.
And that was the charge against him, that he said he was the king of the Jews. And so the Romans who are occupying this territory and rule over the Jews are now gathering him to make fun of him, to mock him. They stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns. So they're saying, okay, if you're a king, you need a crown. So they get thorns.
They twist it together. They put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand the way a king would have a staff and kneel before him. And kneeling before him, they mocked him saying, hail, king of the Jews. And they spit on him. They took the reed and struck him on the head.
And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of his robe, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him. So they've already scourged him. They've already beaten him. And then they gather everybody together just to make fun of him. We're going to murder him. But before we do that, let's mock him.
Let's ridicule him. Because look, it's the king of the Jews. As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
And when they had crucified him, so now they've nailed him to the cross and they've sunk the post into the ground. He's held up above everybody out of the ground. They divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, this is Jesus, king of the Jews. This was in a public place.
And they're saying, this is what happens to would-be kings. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you're the son of God, come down from the cross. So people who just passed by this in a public place begin to mock Jesus.
So also, verse 41, the chief priests with the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, he saved others. He cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we'll believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him.
For he said, I am the son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. So it's very interesting the way Matthew recounts the story, the way he tells it to us. He kind of glosses over being scourged and being crucified. He mentions it, but it's one verse. And then he says he was crucified.
Part of that, I believe, was that his audience knew what scourging and crucifixion were. He didn't have to go into great detail. They knew exactly what that was. But he focuses so heavily on, look at Jesus, the true king of Israel, the true king of all eternity, of all creation, the actual son of God being mocked by everybody, except for Simon of Cyrene, who has a bit part in this. We just know he carried the cross. But he highlights that the Romans mock him.
People who just pass by mock him. The other criminals on the cross mock him. And the religious leaders mock him. Like just over and over again. When they had derided him, they were reviling him. They were wagging their heads at him.
They were mocking him. When they had mocked him, like he just highlights this over and over and over again. And he's showing us, he's exposing the heart of the people around Jesus. This is interesting to me. That what we actually can learn and see from this. So here's the thing.
In order to mock somebody, and not mock, like we use the word mock now, like you're going to have mock trial, or it's going to be like SNL mock somebody, and what we mean is just they kind of made fun of, or they jokingly satire. That's not what this is. This is contempt. This is derision, reviling, hatred, bubbling out of them as they mock him. The way we mock people, the only way you can mock somebody is if you believe, in some form or fashion, that you're better than them, that they're beneath you. We don't mock people we respect.
Or maybe even in that moment, we don't respect what they're doing or how they've acted, so we mock them. But basically, they had to believe. They had to be working to put Jesus down and exalt themselves. That's what mocking is. It's this derision, this contempt, this belief that I am superior so I can look down on you. And here's what we see in this moment across the board with all these individuals.
Their desire, their heart that's being exposed is to elevate themselves, is to build themselves up, make themselves look better by putting Jesus down, by holding him in contempt, by pointing out his failures. That's what they're going for. That's where mocking comes from. That's where contempt, derision, reviling come from. And this desire to promote ourselves, to be about ourselves, to highlight our good qualities and to point out the failures of others, it's a basic human issue. It's in all of us.
Started with Adam and Eve. So let's go back. Let's have a history lesson, Adam and Eve. So you heard about them, your first parents, the first people on earth. Maybe you've seen a picture of them naked, like Adam and Eve. You know what I'm talking about?
Okay, Adam and Eve, what we know is that in the garden, when God first created humanity, he made them in perfection, designed to relate to him. And they fail. But how? How did they fail? What did they do wrong? Well, God told them there's one tree you can't eat of, and then a serpent comes along, which later we find out is Satan, basically says, if you eat of this tree, you'll be like God.
God, the very first sin in humanity was to bring God low and elevate ourselves. The very first sin committed was this desire to promote ourselves. Oh, I can be better. I can be higher. I can be exalted. And God can be brought low.
So, before that moment, Adam and Eve didn't think about themselves a whole lot. I mean, I think they would have thought about themselves enough to not, like, catch themselves on fire. But mostly, they didn't think about themselves. They weren't focused on themselves. They were free. Because focusing on yourself is not freedom.
And here's how, here's our first hint at this. They walked around naked. They weren't thinking about themselves a whole lot. As soon as they sin, shame comes in, guilt comes in, separation from one another comes in, separation from God comes in, and a massive amount of self-awareness comes in, and they realize they're naked. Many of you have heard of or have had a dream, some of you are a recurring dream, you probably should see somebody, that you show up to school or work and you're naked. You're suddenly in class, you're giving a presentation, you're crushing it.
Your PowerPoint is on point, powerfully. And then you realize, oh no, I'm naked. And it's terrible, it's terrifying. You know why you've never actually done that in real life? Because you're way too self-aware to show up in class naked. The reason that happens in a dream is you just appeared there with no self-awareness whatsoever.
And then your brain was like, hey, what would be terrible? Let's make him naked. This is hilarious. Like, I don't know. And if any of you have actually ever shown up somewhere naked, talk to me afterwards because I really want to hear that story. And I'm willing to bet there were substances involved.
You should repent. You're welcome here. We all get to grow together in following Jesus. But here's the thing. The reason that's never actually happened is because we're too self-aware. Adam and Eve didn't realize they were naked until this happened.
And then this massive amount of self-focused desire to exalt themselves, desire to bring other people down, enters in. And it's a massive human problem. Nobody taught you how to be selfish. If you have children, nobody taught your children how to be selfish. They picked that one up on their own. This is why children have to be taught to be conscientious, to consider others.
That's what Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street, they're trying to teach children to not just take things from each other. That's why many of your children, the first word they learned and used often was mine. This is in us to look out for ourselves, to build ourselves up, to exalt ourselves. It's inborn in us. I see this so clearly in myself a couple of different places.
One is if I'm somewhere and a group of people that I know start laughing, or even if I don't know, there's this moment in my brain where I'm like, you're laughing at me. Because of course, they're all thinking about me as much as I think about me. I notice this when I look at a picture that has a group of people in it, and I'm in it, I look at my face first. I don't know about y'all, but I found that every picture that contains me is a more special picture than other pictures. You get your yearbook? Ha ha!
Page 37. See me in the background? Look at this, that's my face. I'm eating a sandwich. Like, this is what we do. The way you know this is when you take a group picture and you look at the pictures, you'll say, oh, this is a good picture.
And then the other person who's in the picture will say, I'm blinking. And you'll think, I didn't look at your face. I looked at mine. I should hide my narcissism by looking at everyone's face before I say this is a good picture. But all you did was look to see if you were in it and how you looked.
That's the qualifications for a good picture. And 2012, the word of the year was selfie. Now this came out of the fact that we don't have film anymore, because nobody was doing this when you had film on a regular basis. But since we don't have film, and we like ourselves being in pictures more than all other pictures, we do this over and over again. And you'll see people go on vacation. And it'll be Grand Canyon, Eiffel Tower, Diddy World.
And it's like you went around the country taking a picture of your own face. What? I have a friend, and every once in a while he'll post on Instagram or something, and it'll say, having a great time hanging out with my friends. And you click on it, assuming wrongly that it'd be a picture of his friends. It's his face having the great time, I guess. And to show that this isn't just other people's problems, and not just my selfish problem, we actually went on Instagram and Facebook accounts and Twitter accounts, and we have some selfies to show that this is a church-wide problem.
And we're just going to look through about 15, 20 selfies right now. Okay, no, but that would have been great. And many of you thought, is one of mine going to be up there? Because it's really hard to not think about yourself. It's massively difficult. Because we have this desire to elevate ourselves and to exalt ourselves.
The other place that this shows up in me is anytime I do something selflessly, anytime I actively work to do something selfless, to serve somebody, in the moment or the moment I'm done, I think something along the lines of, man, I'm selfless. How much of a servant am I? Sometimes I'll think, I wonder if anybody saw me being selfless. Because immediately I want to make it about myself. If I'm really good, I'll go through this process. Oh, wow, that was really prideful.
I should repent. I should not be doing selfless Acts to be about myself. And then I'll think, I wonder if anybody notices their pride like I notice my pride. And it's terrible, because there's a version of me that follows me around going, and wanting me to promote me all the time. And it's in all of us. We want to parade our good qualities in front of people.
And we want to point out how we're successful and how we're good. And we want to look out for ourselves, for our own comfort, our own security, our own joy, our own life. Our plans are, here's how I'm going to enjoy life the most. Some of that makes sense. You're with you more than anybody else. You've got to think about yourself some, but some of that is desperately sick and wicked and consumes us and drives our decision making and drives how we walk through life and drives how we treat people.
And it's a massive problem. And we see it in all of these people in the story, except for Simon, who was busy carrying a cross. And we can assume maybe he had no desire to mock Jesus. But, criminals, who were in the same fate as Jesus. People we would probably look at and say, no, they're pretty scum of the earth people. Like, just in general, if we were mapping people out on a scale, prisoners, who are dying, capital punishment people, they're mocking and deriding Jesus.
People who should probably have understood what he was going through. Move up a little bit on the scale, you've got random people walking by. Who knew about Jesus because he was famous. And their desire was, see, see what fame gets you, see what trying to promote yourself gets you, see how glorious he is now. They don't, they're not connected to the situation. They're just walking by.
Let's just assume they're all fairly average people. Then you've got Roman soldiers. They're probably somewhere in the middle as well. Blue collar guys just doing their job. But they take time out of their job to specifically mock Jesus.
To specifically lower him so they can elevate themselves. So they can elevate Rome. So they can elevate their jobs. So they can feel better about who they are. And then you've got the Jewish religious leaders. Caught up in the exact same heart level problem.
Self-promotion. Self-glorification. Self-exaltation. So when you think about, okay, I thought Christianity, I thought people following God was to humble yourself before God. Why do I meet so many Christians? Why do I meet so many religious people who are massively prideful and arrogant and judgmental?
Because it's really easy to make religion, Bible memorization, knowing all the rules and the morals, about yourself. Look at how much God loves me more than those people because of how much I know about him and his word. And I know his rules and I don't fail. And it's so easy to take religion and make it way more about yourself than about God. We see this so clearly, this way to promote ourselves and to tear others down in political ads. I'm so thankful the primaries over in South Carolina because the day before the Republican primary, I was watching television and there was a commercial break and I watched nine, started counting after the fourth one, nine political ads in a row.
And it made me not want to vote for anybody. But I watched nine in a row and all of those are either one of two things. The ways we can promote ourselves are either elevate ourselves or tear somebody else down. The way to make myself seem good is either to tell you how great I am, tear other people down. So every ad was one of the two.
It was either, look at this man. And it was like, I mean, anthem, epic music in the background. Like, like he was going to like pull out a sword and just attack America's enemies. Probably some ad has someone doing that. Look at this man. He does all the things you love.
He doesn't do the things you hate. He loves puppies and kittens and hates terrorists and murderers. And it's like, oh yeah, great. I hate those presidents that love murderers. This guy's going to be legit. Or, it was the other type which was, look at this man.
And then it had like, turn, turn, turn. It was like way too zoomed in on people's faces. Just like an eyeball for a long time. Just like creeping you out. And it was like, he hates kittens. And he's going to raise or lower taxes or do that thing with the economy that you hate.
We hate it too. He's terrible. And then at the end the other guy would be like, I approve this message. And, that was it. Nine in a row. And honestly, I've done studies.
The ones where you tear somebody else down and work better. Some of you have found that in life. You got through middle school and high school that way. Because if I can point out how dumb you are. See, if I just tell you I'm smart, that says nothing about the rest of the people in the room. And pride has nothing to do with how smart I am or how much money I have.
It has to do with how smart I am compared to other people. I need to be smarter. I need to be wealthier. Good looking-ier. Otherwise, if we all have the same amount of money, how am I going to get excited about that? So there's something about being able to hold somebody in contempt or mock them or put them down that absolutely accomplishes both at the same time.
Look at how dumb they are. And if I notice how dumb they are, that makes me smart. Look at how terrible they are at this. Look at how awful they are at that. And so as Christians, maybe you're a Christian and you're saying, okay, how do we point out sin? Because the Bible tells us to point out sin without using that to build ourselves up.
Without religiously trying to make ourselves great. the way we do that is the way that we point out sin in our own lives. The way I know I can actually do this, point out sin and still care about somebody and not do it in a way that makes me feel great is when you sin the same way I do. If you're given to overaggression, you've struggled your life with sexual sin, if you are prideful, I'm like, hey, there's grace for that. Because I struggle with all of that too. And isn't Jesus good when we're overly aggressive that he forgives us? If you sin in a way different from me, scum, you're garbage, this is terrible.
How could you ever do that? How could anyone ever be a person like that? You see, immediately, we know that we can love people the way we love ourselves because Jesus tells us to and approach their sin by saying it's wrong but still caring about them. And we can also immediately step in and try to put somebody else down to elevate ourselves. And this is a heart level problem where what we want is our joy, our comfort, our glory, our praise, our honor. We want us all over the place.
And that may show up differently. Some of you maybe want to be praised by everyone in this room. Some of you maybe just have a select few. You're kind of shy but you want all the people around you to know you're great. I don't know, but all of us have a desire to elevate ourselves, to make much of ourselves and to glorify ourselves. So, why is this such a problem?
Three quick reasons. One is it makes God our opponent. It makes God our enemy. Several places in the Bible it says that God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. So that when we elevate ourselves we actually are trying to take God's position which is his glory, his name, his fame.
He's the only one who deserves exaltation and we exalt ourselves. We're actually becoming opponents of God. James says it, Peter says it, and they're quoting Proverbs that actually says the scornful will be met with scorn. So God opposes the proud, the mockers, but he gives grace to those who are humble. I don't know if y'all know this, I'm going to help you out real quick. If you line up on the field of battle, God's on the other side, swap teams.
Simple life, that's a life hack for you, that's a tip. If God is your opponent, swap teams, you're going to lose, this isn't going to go well and whenever we elevate ourselves that's what happens, we make God our enemy. The second one is this, it robs you of joy. The God being your enemy part is going to show up later when you meet him. It's going to be more fulfilled when you stand before him and see that he is the ruling reigning king and your exaltation is bankrupt and terrible. It robs you of joy to only think about yourself, to only try to exalt yourself because life doesn't work like that.
If you show me a person who only cares about themselves, I can show you a very miserable person. This can happen here on Sundays. People show up and they're like, you know what people say things like? They didn't talk to me. Nobody talked to me. I stood there for 10 minutes and no one said a word to me.
Time out. Who did you talk to, bro? What you did was you walked in the room and said, me! And then everybody failed. Of course. Because they all thought it was about them.
People hang out with groups and they're like, this group just isn't filling me up anymore. I'm just not getting out of it. And it just makes you miserable. Every time I go to my house and hang out with my wife and my son and my mode of operation is, this should be about me. It robs me of joy. It makes me miserable.
Self-glorification, self-exaltation robs you of joy. Thirdly, and this is really for Christians. So if you're not a Christian, the first two are your problem. The third one is problem for Christians. It disables your ability to follow Jesus. Undercuts it, absolutely.
Because there's so many things Jesus calls us to that we just can't do if we're trying to glorify ourselves. Love your neighbor like you love yourself. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. Live your life on his mission for his glory, for his name.
None of those things can happen if it's all about you. Serve. Serve the church. Pour yourself out for others. Can't do it. Okay.
This self-centered, self-exaltation makes God our opponent, robs us of joy, and if we're Christians, totally disables our ability to actually follow, actually submit, actually... So what do we do? How do we respond? Well, we're going to read this passage again starting in verse 32. I want to help us see the answer to this. So the Romans have already mocked him.
They stripped him. They led him out to be crucified. We'll start at 31. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. And as they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, that compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall.
But when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. When they sat down, they kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.
And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, He saved others. He cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel.
Let him come down from the cross and will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now. If he desires him, for he said, I am the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. There is one person throughout this entire story that does not seem at all to be pursuing his own glory.
That is, the King of the Jews, the Son of God, the ruling reigning King of eternity, submits and humiliates himself on our behalf to the point of going to a cross. In order for us to kill this selfishness, this self-centeredness, this desire for self-exaltation, the first thing we have to see is the result of our self-exaltation, which is the Son of God nailed to a cross. If, if Jesus could have shown up, if there was one person on earth throughout the history of earth who could say, God, look at my morality. God, look at how nice I am. God, look at how generous I've been. God, look at how open-minded and gracious I've been.
God, look at how I followed your rules. God, look at how I memorized your word. God, look at how loving I've been and how sacrificial I've been. If there was one person who could stand before God and say, see, see, don't I deserve to be exalted? And God would say, yes, yes, you deserve to be exalted. If that person existed, Jesus doesn't go to the cross.
If that person existed throughout human history, Jesus doesn't go to the cross. Jesus shows up and teaches us how to be like that person. Jesus shows up and says, it's possible for you, just follow these rules. Jesus just teaches. But all of the gospel writers give more focus to the cross than to any of Jesus' teaching because we needed to be taught to help us see our sin.
But we needed Jesus to die to set us free from it. The end result of your self-exaltation is the brutal, heinous murder of the Son of God. That is what it accomplished. The end result of your self-exaltation, your self-glory, your self-love is bankruptcy. You have nothing to present to God that makes Him say, good point, well done, nothing. The end result of our self-exaltation is the brutal, heinous murder of the Son of God.
We need to see that clearly. Secondly, we need to see the result of God's humiliation. In the garden, Adam and Eve chose to exalt themselves and humiliate God and on the cross, Jesus chooses to humiliate Himself. He almost, in a way, completes what Adam and Eve were trying to accomplish. Adam and Eve chose themselves and on the cross, Jesus chose us, chose to rescue and redeem a people for Himself when He could have just sat back on His glorious, almighty throne and crushed us. No, He chooses to come and humble Himself, to humiliate Himself, to not fight back when He's mocked and ridiculed, not fight back when He's nailed to a cross when He could have.
He wasn't caught up in events beyond His control. He was absolutely in control the entire time and laid His life down on our behalf. The humiliation of Jesus is actually what allows us to be free from the exaltation of ourselves. It's actually in the midst, God's ordained desire to humiliate Jesus, for Jesus to humble Himself is where Jesus actually gets a name above every name, where He's most glorified, most exalted because we see that we, who have nothing to exalt in, seek to exalt ourselves all the time. Nothing to glory in, seek to glory in ourselves all the time and Jesus, who owns worship, owns glory, owns majesty, it belongs to Him, lays it all down on our behalf.
We've got to see the end result of our exaltation. We've got to see the end result of God's humiliation, which is salvation for us, which is freedom for us, which is joy for us, which is life for us. Jesus died so that we don't have to pay for our own exaltation. That we, who are terribly small, can stop standing before the everlasting King of the universe and saying, I'm the most important. We who are worms and have piled up a little pile of dirt that makes us more glorious than the other worms can stop looking at the glorious reigning King of the universe and saying, aren't I special? Jesus became a worm, not a man.
So, what Psalm says, He's a worm and not a man to set us free, to humiliate Himself so that we can be given life. Thirdly, we have to fix our eyes on Jesus. We have to keep our focus there because we'll so easily forget. Our hearts are so, we'll so easily drift. We need to remind ourselves continuously what Jesus has accomplished for us or we'll drift back into thinking we're great and special and glorious and deserving of honor and praise. For some reason, it seems to me that Christians believe that they'll magically remember this all the time, that they'll magically just continually grow in their love for Jesus when you don't magically love anything like that.
Now, the Holy Spirit helps us. He gives us the ability to love, so I'll give you that. When Anna and I, that's my wife, when we kind of go through stages where maybe we don't like each other as much as we used to as we're married and she found out I'm kind of a jerk because she lives with me and I sometimes act like our house should revolve around me and she thinks it should revolve around her and we kind of butt heads over that. So, in those moments, I don't think, ah, you know what, we haven't really been connecting, we really haven't been having conversations, we really haven't been enjoying each other.
Hmm, I'll wait and see how it turns out. No. If you're dating somebody, if you're married to somebody, it takes work. You have to plan things. You have to, if you're dating somebody, you have to like make money and keep it in your wallet so that you can pull it out later to buy a sandwich. Like, you've got to do things to go on dates, to be around each other.
You have to schedule things. If you have children, you have to call a person on the phone and ask questions like, if you watch my children, will you harm them? And they'll say things like, no, and you'll be like, because you're smart, are you sure? And they'll be like, yes, I'm sure. And then you'll be like, sounds good to me. You can come watch my children and then you'll pay them so that you can leave the house and stare at each other's faces and hold hands and remember why you love each other in the first place.
If you work out and you enjoy it, you still got to lace up your shoes. You still got to pay for a gym membership. You still got to wake up in the morning and get over there. You still got to go after work. All of these things, even though we have hobbies that we enjoy, you still got to buy some equipment. You still got to set some time aside.
And then Christians step into this world that exists like this and all other areas and go, I'm going to magically love Jesus. You read your Bible? Nope. You hang out with the church? Don't need to. Why not?
Magic. We got to fix our eyes on Jesus. It takes work. You got to open your Bible because that's where we meet Jesus. That's where He shows up. That's where we read passages like this and you remember that you want to glorify yourself.
But Jesus humiliated Himself and in His humiliation, He deserves all the glory. You hang out with His church? You have to actually believe this stuff because it says to bear with one another, to forgive one another. Let me tell you something. The time I have to believe the gospel the most is when I have to forgive an actual person of a real wrong. If it's excusable, that's easy.
I have to believe the gospel when you did something inexcusable because Jesus in the gospel forgave the inexcusable in me. When I have to open my wallet and hand you some of my money so that you can pay some bills and I have to open my wallet and hand you some of my money so that you can... When I have to receive money from you to pay my bills, I have to believe the gospel. We have to be around His church. We have to be around His people and we have to be on His mission. You need to be reading the Bible and praying.
You need to be around the church. You need to be on His mission to help you fix your eyes on Jesus. When I quit hanging out with people that don't know Jesus, I forget how much everybody needs Jesus. I just forget. And you're like, hey bro, don't you preach like every week? Almost every week.
And I forget. I forget. Because I haven't fixed my eyes on Jesus in a while. We have to work to see the cross. To set us free. Hebrews says, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and founder of our faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God so that we don't grow weary or lose heart.
We have to fix our eyes on Jesus to remember how much our exaltation will get us to remember what His humiliation actually got us. And then we're free. Free from thinking everything's about us. Free to actually have joy in life and serve people and not continually try to work to promote ourselves. Free from our pump. Matt's going to come back up here.
We're going to sing and here's what we're going to do. If you're a Christian in the room, we're going to take communion. And communion is where Christians celebrate the cross. It's where we take the bread that represents the body of Christ that was broken for us. It's where we take the wine or the juice that represents the blood of Christ that was poured out for us and we partake in it once again. Just as we did when we placed faith in Jesus, we partake in His death.
We celebrate His death on our behalf that it's about Him and that through Him and only through Him can we actually have life and joy. If you're in this room, this is a problem تم deal with Him with the work that if you do anything after in size, we apply it to Him to allow Him to arbeiten. That's why hating the bread that the grime bladeruption is to change in such instances before Him Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
The Supreme Court of Self
Transcript
Well, good morning. Grab your Bibles, go to Matthew chapter 26. That's where we'll be this morning. We're in our second week of our scandal series where we're looking at some of the things that happened to Jesus leading up to him going to the cross. So we're coming up on Easter and on Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, that he was crucified, dead and buried and that he rose again to life.
And so we're celebrating that as we come up. And what we're doing is we're just spending some time looking at the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus and how people treated Jesus. And then we're kind of as we look at that, seeing how we can see ourselves a little bit in that, even though maybe we don't want to. And what we're going to see today is actually one of the more appalling pictures, when we actually realize what's taking place, one of the more appalling pictures that we ever will see in Scripture. One of the most horrific events that ever took place in the history of humankind.
And so we're just going to spend some time looking at that today. I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in. God, I pray that you would open up our hearts to hear your word, to submit to you, to understand more fully what you have accomplished for us and how much you absolutely love us through Jesus. And so we love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. So Matthew chapter 26, we're going to be, it'll be on page 540 if your Bible is one of the blue and white ones on the row.
If you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. Take it with you. If you want a nicer Bible, wait until someone's not looking. Maybe grab their leather one. Do what you got to do. We're going to be starting in page 57.
Page 57, sorry. Verse 57. Page 540. It says, here's what we're picking up before we jump in. Sorry. Here's what we're picking up.
Last week we looked at where Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. And so what we're going to be looking at today is they have come to get Jesus in the garden. It was nighttime. Judas leads a group of armed, basically says a cohort, which was like a large group of the soldiers who were part of the temple. So the Jewish temple had their own temple guard, so he leads them to arrest Jesus out in the woods.
He has to kind of help them see which one is Jesus. They would not have had like wanted posters of Jesus up. They would not have seen Jesus very often. He came around Jerusalem a couple of times. Some people may have seen him more often, but it wouldn't have been you necessarily just immediately recognized who he was when he was walking around. So it's dark.
Judas has to be the one to say, this is the one you want. This is actually Jesus. Help him identify him in the dark. He walks up, kisses him. Jesus says, you're going to betray me with a kiss. They arrest Jesus.
Jesus says, you came out here in the woods to get me at night. I've been walking around with you daily in the temple. And he's just kind of pointing out how secretive they're being about this, how much of an underhanded thing they're doing. And then they take him to a trial where the Jewish leaders have already gathered prepared to indict and convict Jesus. So that's what we're going to pick up.
Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. All right. So let me give you a picture of who this is. Caiaphas, the high priest and the scribes and the elders. In Judaism, they had the temple. And everything in their relationship to God kind of revolved around temple worship.
And in the temple, they had areas where Gentiles could be, non-Jewish born people could be. Then they had areas where you had to be Jewish. Then you had to be a priest. And then you had to eventually went all the way up to the Holy of Holies, which is where the presence of God was around the Ark of the Covenant. And only one person was allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies and only once a year. And only after he was wearing the appropriate clothes and had had the appropriate sacrifices done on his behalf.
And that was Caiaphas, the high priest. He is the person in Judaism who is supposed to be the absolute closest to God to the point that he actually enters into his presence once a year into the Holy of Holies. And the Holy of Holies was such a big deal that they had to tie a rope around themselves before they went in. Because if they hadn't done the sacrifices right, if they weren't wearing the right stuff, or even if they just their heart wasn't right. They had like a bad attitude when they went in. There was a chance God would just kill them.
So that's an intense moment if you're the high priest. You're like, okay, one time of year is a great honor, but let's go ahead and tie that rope around me. The reason they tied a rope was, if he goes in and God kills him, I ain't going in after him. They're like, in a way, I think he's dead, go get him. You lost your mind, you want paper, rock, scissors for this thing. This ain't happening.
And so they tied a rope to him so that after a while it's like, look, you've been in there too long. We're going to give it a tug. If you don't tug back, we're going to drag you on out. And then we're going to have, I guess, draw straws to see who has to be the next high priest. Like, we've got to figure this out because it didn't go well for you. So this is him, though.
Caiaphas the high priest is a big deal. And then it says the elders and the scribes are the people. So this is, in Judaism, in this time of history, in Israel at this time, we don't really have an equivalent for who this group of people is. It is kind of like if the Pope and the Supreme Court and the people you look to for just general practical life wisdom. So Dave Ramsey and Dr.
Phil, Dr. Martin Luther King in there. Like, that's who this group is. This is Stephen Hawking. Like, it's the people you look to for tell me how the world works in Judaism. This is the group, Caiaphas and the elders.
And they're going to have a trial in the middle of the night, early morning, of Jesus. But these were the people that you respected and you revered and you listened to and you cited in your term paper. Like, this was the little, Caiaphas says this. And it was like, oh, good point then. Like, that's how, this is a big deal. They have many leather-bound books.
Sorry. Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas and the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following him in a distance. Peter's one of his disciples. As far as the courtyard of the high priest. And going inside, he sat with the guards to see the end.
Now, the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. But they found none. One, though many false witnesses came forward, at last two came forward and said, this man said, I'm able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. Okay. Picture this for just a minute. They've captured Jesus in the middle of the night.
They brought him to the high priest's palace. It's a palace. It's nice. It's going to be kind of dark, though. It's, you know, they've got torches lit. They know, we know there's a fire outside.
One of the other gospels tells us is Peter's sitting around a fire. So they've got a fire lit. They've got some of the council. I don't know if it's the entire Sanhedrin was called for this. But some of them, at least enough to hold a trial, prepared, gathered, prepared, seeking for a way to kill Jesus.
Now, with the Sanhedrin, we know that some of them, some of the elders actually liked Jesus, were sympathetic to him, had built some form of a relationship with him. We learned that through some of the other stories. But they were a very small minority. There's another group that actually genuinely would be seeking what God wanted them to do. In a wholehearted but incorrect way, would be seeking what was God's will. And then there were some of those that were really just defending their position, just defending their corner of, their little corner of glory that they've kind of mapped out for themselves, the amount of people that loved them and revered them, because so many people had started to love Jesus and revere him and listen to him.
And Jesus, on a consistent basis, called the scribes and the Pharisees and the elders of the people. He just called them out on their made-up junk, really. And so they're actually just seeking the killing. But they've got to make the trial look legit. And so they have people giving testimony. And they've got to have two witnesses give the same testimony.
And that testimony has to be enough for them to kill Jesus. So they've got people that they've coming in to give false testimony, but they still can't even, under some cross-examination, make that make any sense or be enough to kill Jesus. And finally, these two guys say, Jesus said he'll destroy the temple. Now, I don't know enough to know whether or not that was a capital offense, like whether or not just saying you were going to destroy the temple meant they were going to kill you. I'm sure it made people not like you that much. But we get to this moment where these two people say, this man said, this is verse 61, I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.
62, And the high priest stood up. So Caiaphas stands and says, Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? So it seems to me, now maybe Caiaphas said this in a really calm way. Maybe he stood up and said, Have you no answer to make? It seems to me, though, this trial's dragged on for a while.
Jesus has responded to none of the accusations. He's just stood there, which is baffling. He's making no defense whatsoever. People would accuse him of false accusations. Jesus would listen to him, and then he probably would just turn and look at the council. And they're expecting him to defend himself, but he's not.
So finally, I think out of frustration, Caiaphas stands up and says, Aren't you going to say anything? Aren't you going to try to defend yourself? And then Caiaphas kind of takes over at this point and says this. But Jesus remained silent, and the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. Adjure means like compel. This is kind of like a swear on the Bible kind of moment.
I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. So the Christ was the Messiah, the promised one who was going to come. So these elders and the high priest had spent their life studying the Torah and studying the prophets and studying the writings. And they were looking for the Messiah to come. And so then they've got Jesus here who's posing as or pretending to be the Messiah because he definitely doesn't fall into the category of what they were looking for.
And they say, Tell us if you're the Messiah. I adjure you by the living God. Now don't miss this. Do you see the lunacy of what just happened? He looks at the living God and says, I adjure you by the living God. By your Father, by you, who in eternity past have existed trinitarily with one another in the Holy Spirit.
I adjure you by your Father, by you by the Holy Spirit. I adjure you by you who thousands of years ago bent down and out of the mud and the dirt molded a man and blew life into him. Spoke life into existence. Spoke the cosmos and the universe into existence. I adjure you by you who led the Israelites out of Egypt. Who gave the law to Moses.
Who through your Holy Spirit led them to write all the writings I've studied. Who promised over and over again that you would come. I adjure you by you. Now, if we're Peter and we're looking at this situation, it's frightening. We see Jesus who we love. A carpenter, a builder, construction worker for most of his life who's been doing miraculous things and has had some power and has had some teaching for the past couple of years.
We see him standing before the Supreme Court. The people that everyone holds as the leaders. We see him standing before them, powerless. Remaining silent in this situation. Wondering why he doesn't defend himself and knowing that we have no way to hell. We see him before Caiaphas.
One of the most powerful people in this moment, in this area. It's frightening. But if we could just for a second see what the angels could see, what we would see is actually terrifying. Because we'd see pompous, frail, short lifespan, weak, little, arrogant, dirt people who God formed from dirt and when they die will return to dirt and that God says their life before him is but wisps of smoke. They're like the flower on grass that's here and withers before him. And then we would see the ruling, reigning king of the universe in splendor and glory.
And it would be terrifying to be able to actually see what was taking place here where men, men propose to judge God. To condemn him. To question him. They believe they have some level of superiority over him. If we could see what the angels saw, it would, it's so idiotic as to almost be comical if it wasn't so absolutely terrifying that men would think that they could judge God if we could see what was really happening here. And so here's what, here's what Jesus says in this moment where Caiaphas stands up and says, the guy who's supposed to be closest to God stands up and says, I adjure you by God.
Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Are you the one who was promised throughout all these texts? Are you the one who was to come? Are you the son of God? Are you the most important human who's ever going to walk on the face of the planet?
Is that you? 64. Jesus said to him, you have said so. This is the same response he gave to Judas which basically means you called it, you guessed it, you said it. You would have understood to be in the affirmative even if it's a little bit cryptic. But then he follows it up.
You have said so, but I tell you from now on you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy. What further witness do you need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? And they answered, that's the whole counsel, he deserves death.
Then they spit in his face and struck him and some slapped him. Okay, so here's what just happened. Caiaphas finally, after there's no testimony, that comes up that automatically proves that Jesus needs to be destroyed, they haven't found enough people to say terrible things about Jesus, it's not going well, Caiaphas stands up and says, I adjure you by the living God, are you the Christ, are you the son of God? And Jesus responds, you have said so, but I tell you, from now on you'll see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Jesus answers him honestly and actually gives him some very helpful information, which we're going to talk about in just a second.
But he answers him honestly and Caiaphas grabs his clothes and just tears his robes and says, you've heard him! You've heard him utter blasphemy! What is your answer? And the entire Sanhedrin says, he deserves death. There's no other option here. This man just claimed to be God.
He just claimed to be the Messiah and obviously he's not. He deserves to be destroyed. It's over in an instant. They grab Jesus, they spit on him and they start hitting him and slapping him. Other gospels tell us they cover his head with a bag so that he can't tell where the blows are coming from. So they hit him and then they say, prophesy, tell us who struck you.
And here's what Jesus said to Caiaphas that caused that. Jesus answered him honestly. He said, Caiaphas, I'm in your courtroom right now. It's not always going to be the case. Caiaphas, there's going to be a moment, Caiaphas, when you see me seated at the right hand of power. There's going to be a moment, Caiaphas, when you meet me in glory.
There's going to be a moment when you know that I'm the ruling, reigning king of the universe, Caiaphas. And there's going to be a moment where I ride in after cracking the sky open on the clouds of heaven to crush my enemies before me and to bring my people home. home. Let me tell you something, Caiaphas. I won't be silent and humble forever. I only go to a cross once. That's what Jesus says to Caiaphas in that moment.
And Caiaphas has an answer he'll accept from Jesus, but it's not that one. And so they condemn him. Now we're going to pause this story for a second. And we're going to back up a little bit. You see, this is the first courtroom we're going to look at today. But we're about to move to another one.
It's lunacy when you see this, that men proposed to judge God and believed that they could. We're going to zoom out and actually look at us today and look at our culture and see where we do this. Where culturally we join in in this idiotic idea that we can bring God in front of us, that we can sit in the judge's seat and that we can question him and release him, question him and condemn him. I want to talk to us a little bit about how we do this culturally. We, every time you hear sentences like, I can't believe in a God who would send people to hell. I just can't believe in a God who would judge and condemn people based on what they, like I just can't believe in a God that would do that.
So I, I just can't. If there is a God, if there is a God, he's a God of love. If there is a God, he's a God of forgiveness and grace. If he exists, this is what he's like. But I can't believe in a God that would say this about gender.
I can't believe in a God that would say, I mean, half the stuff we just talked about in theology of sex. I can't believe there's a God who would say that. That would step in and say, you can't be with this person if you love him. I just can't believe in that. And if there is a God, here's what he's okay with. If there is a God, here's what he's like.
Every time we do that, we've climbed into the judge's bench, we've brought God in front of us and said, let me ask you some questions and let me tell you what you get to be like. Let me tell you what the answers can be and if these aren't satisfactory, you're dismissed. Let me help us out there a little bit. I used to work at Sears and there was a lady who worked there before I got there and she had a list and I think it was about 50 items deep on what her future husband was going to be like. Like these were the qualities and characteristics that he was going to have and it was detailed. I know they told me some of them.
The one that stands out in my mind that I remember most was that he was going to have a hairy chest. Like you would think, put something like honesty on there. No, she was straight up like he's going to be above six feet tall, he's going to have a hairy chest, this is what kind of skin he's going to have. Like it was just, and I hate to break it to y'all, she hadn't met him at the time of when I learned this. Maybe she's found this guy. But she made a list and said this is what my future husband will be like and I don't think it went well for her in dating.
But here's the problem with lists like that. Men actually exist and they have their own character and attributes. She doesn't just get to make it up. Now she can go look for them but they're either there or they're not. There's either a guy who actually exists in this central part of Virginia that's like that. Maybe she was using the internet to help and she said, hey I'm looking, you know, I like Long Walks on the Beach and this is my favorite movie and I'm looking for a guy who, and maybe there's a guy who's like, wow you just described me and I'm not creeped out.
But he either has to exist or not exist. If she goes on a date with a guy and let's say she finds out he doesn't meet one of the qualifications, like he doesn't have a hairy chest. Okay, I don't know how she found that out. Let's pick a different one. She finds out that he doesn't like the movie Back to the Future. Alright, let's go with that one.
She finds out that he doesn't like the movie Back to the Future and so she's like, okay I can't date this guy. She has the option of saying, okay we're not going to date. If you saw her after a weekend where she had a date and you said, have the date go and she said, he didn't meet the qualifications, therefore he does not exist. You might need to call the cops. I think she murdered him. He doesn't seek to exist because he doesn't fit your qualifications.
You cannot date him. When we say, this is what God is like and if he's not like this he doesn't exist, you realize that's nonsense. If God exists, he has actual character qualifications, attributes, like he's a real entity. You can say, if God is like this, I will not worship him and you have that prerogative. I'm going to urge you to reconsider but you can say that. You can't say, if there is a God, he's a God of love.
You can't, like, not in a way that actually lets you do the choosing. That's not how entities work. Like, if he exists, he has attributes and characteristics so you can't just decide he's like this or he doesn't exist. So, let me just help us out here for just a second. If you say, I can't believe in a God who Judges and condemns people, it can't be the judging and condemning that you have a problem with because you just did that to God. You're okay with judging and condemning.
You just did that to God. It has to be the standard that he uses. Has to be. Because you're okay with judgment and condemnation. So, it has to be the standard that he uses. So, I want to ask you a question.
You've now stated that my standard is superior to God's. I want to ask you where you got your standard. So, when we say things like, when I say, as a Christian, things like, women should not be treated as property, I believe that God created the world and that he has a standard that rules over the world whether you like it or not. And so, when I say women shouldn't be treated as property, I'm basing that off of a higher authority. When our culture who doesn't believe in God and says that everything came about by random chance stands up and says you shouldn't treat women like cattle, based off of what?
It's not the majority of thought process throughout history. You can say it's the majority of Western culture and I agree with it. I'm glad Western culture believes that. I think it's good. But I believe it because the Bible says it and because I believe there's an authority over the world.
If we were to go to another country where they had a majority that believed the exact opposite which is women or property, the best we could do is try to prove to them that they aren't based off of maybe some statistics of how it's good if they don't just gather water and make babies, how life is better if you don't beat them all the time. But we can't step in and actually with any amount of real authority say you're wrong other than to say our society is better than yours. When we say that you shouldn't as a nation just roll in and murder other weaker nations but we also believe that the world was bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, eats, murders, kills, takes over, smaller, slower, dumber, all the time and that's how we progress that it was good when the Egyptians took over and then it was good when the Assyrians took over and then it was good and fine when the Persians took over because they're advancing society. It was good when Greece came because they brought all this other good stuff and it was good when Rome came and then it was good when, like, if we argue that that's how we had progress into history, then at some point it breaks down when we say but you shouldn't do it now.
If there's a tribe that's completely backwards and you have more money and more guns you can't just roll up and take their land. I agree with you but all based off of I think there's a higher authority not just what we believe. So if you're willing to admit that your standards come from your time in history and your western culture, fine. I don't see how historically infused standards would trump God's standards if there actually is a God who exists outside of time who's big enough for you to be mad at but not big enough to actually be smarter than you. The only other thing I want to point out to you is when we say things like if there is a God he's a God of love if there is a God he's a God of forgiveness the only place that idea came from is here.
That idea comes straight out of the pages of scripture. The tools you are using to judge and condemn God came from him you will not find them in any other world religion. You won't find that in pagan religions you won't find that in Islam. God's a personal God he doesn't want to know you personally he exists as a person and he's not very loving he's pretty condemning and judging and you've got to earn it. Buddhism doesn't have a personal God they believe in peace and love but not a God that loves you when we say things like if there is a God he loves me personally and he cares about me and he wants good for me that idea came from here. doesn't come from dualism doesn't come from Hinduism the only place you've gotten that idea is when the God of love revealed himself to humanity.
That idea is when the God of love revealed himself to humanity. I'd love to talk with you more about this if you have questions concerns push back want to argue with me I'd love to do that I don't want to argue but you can argue I'll listen here's the last thing there if God exists and he only exists the way you have mapped him out
I would be inclined to believe that he doesn't exist I told you I had a wife he said what does she like and I said she only likes the things I like she loves eating Taco Bell at midnight we never argue because she always absolutely agrees with me you would be inclined to think that she was as real as Manti Teo's girlfriend like I'm
Pretty sure you made her up bro because she that doesn't that's not how things work so if you have a God and he only agrees with you and your political philosophy and your cultural perspective I'd be inclined to think he was imaginary and I just want you to consider some of those things
Now most of us in the room I would say the majority of us in the room are here because we are Christians and believe in Jesus and you're like thanks for that long stuff about nothing but I don't agree with any of that don't think any of that I'm here maybe don't
Like everything he says but I believe he's real and says things I don't like that's me I don't like everything he says but I believe he's real and that he's going to say things I don't like because he's not an American he's God so he's going to disagree with me
That's fine I know I need to submit to him but here's where we as Christians most often climb into the judge's seat we treat God's word like it was handed down from an inferior court so the way the law works in our culture is there's
A court they make a ruling you can appeal that it goes to a higher court a superior court it goes up and up and up until it makes it to the supreme court and most Christians are going to exist when they do this
When they take judgment over God when they bring Christ in and set him in the judgment seat for us to be able to question him we're going to do it from the position of a superior
Court here's what we're going to say we're going to say things like yeah okay but that only says that in the Old Testament we're going to say things
Like yeah but that was written a long time ago and we don't really know exactly what they meant with that one oh well that was written
In a different culture yeah Bible says that I'm supposed to lead my family as a man but my wife is way better at it than I am so
We're going to do that or opposite yes I realize absolutely Bible says as a wife I'm supposed to submit to the leadership of my husband but the
Problem is my husband is a moron and so that one doesn't really apply to us I've tried that and it just doesn't work
I give this person of this I know the Bible says we shouldn't live together before we got married I know the Bible says
This about sex I know the Bible says this about this type of relationship I know the Bible says this about but it doesn't
Really prove it to me it just says it we're in love the Bible doesn't really say in the New Testament how much we're
Supposed to give just that we ought to be generous now I'm not talking about genuinely questioning and seeking and coming to God as
He is on the judge's bench and asking for clarification and help and growing and getting things wrong through ignorance I'm talking about the
Times that we bring the Bible in we bring God in we set him before us we look at what he says and we
Say yeah court dismissed we have as Christians the audacity to think that this submits to us that Jesus can stand before me I
Can question him and I can say well I just don't like that one so I'm not going to do it not I don't
Like that one so I'm going to struggle and I need your grace Jesus and I need your help and I going to I
Have a hard time not that that's perfectly Christian but I don't like that one you didn't really explain it well enough I'm not
Going to do it Jesus wants us to know the same thing he wanted Caiaphas to know you see Jesus was being honest with
Caiaphas he actually answered his question Caiaphas just wasn't willing to hear it there's going to be a final courtroom there's going to be a moment
Where all of us throughout all of time and history are going to be brought before the king are going to walk into the throne room before
The judge are going to see Jesus seated at the right hand of power there's going to be a moment when you lock eyes with your maker
The Bible is very clear about that there's going to be a moment for all of us when all of this melts away and we
Face reality for the first time true eternal spiritual reality and here's what we need to see today before you enter into that courtroom
Take a look at this one take a look at the courtroom we see in Matthew 26 before you see Jesus as the true
Reigning high priest of all millennia see him in front of this small one who's defending his own little corner of glory and see Jesus humbled
And condemned before you enter into the throne room where we will be humbled and condemned or we will be humbled and saved you
See for every person in history the moment that we see Jesus for the first time is either going to be the most glorious
Joyous overwhelming exalting moment in our lives that we cannot stand it or stand under it or it is going to be the most terrifying
Soul crushing moment that has ever happened Paul says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
At some point it's no longer an option it's compulsory and you'll either come in that moment and you'll see your sin melt away
As Jesus took it for you on the cross and you'll know that condemnation does not fall on you because it already fell on
Jesus he already went to this courtroom this low pitiful man-made courtroom to die on our behalf and all your sin and all your shame and all your guilt
Will melt away and you'll stand before the king and you will bow your knee and you will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
Or you will come in under a sentence of condemnation your knees will bow and you will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord either
As a captive released or as a new prisoner of war Jesus Christ will be seated at the right hand of power he will crack the sky
Open and ride in on the clouds of heaven and before that moment happens we have the chance to see Jesus humbled and on
A cross dying to take our sin dying to make us his dying to set us free being condemned so that we Matt's going to
Come back up we're going to sing there is a final courtroom there will be a final judgment there will be a final sentence
Passed and if you have already seen Christ in this courtroom and already seen him to the cross and already placed your faith in
Him then that final courtroom will be a reunion with your king with the glorious eternal creator God of all history where you will
Be brought into his family and his home based not on your merit but his based not what you've accomplished but what he's accomplished
On your behalf or it'll be the moment when our pitiful man made arrogance and glory burns like chaff before the great glorious king
Of eternity it'll either be the moment when you are so engulfed by overwhelming love that your heart would not be able to stand
It were it not for his grace on you where you will be entering into an eternity before the God and king who humbled
Himself on your behalf to rescue and redeem you and make you his that you struggled your entire life to follow after in the
Midst of difficulty and it'll go away because Jesus was already condemned for you Jesus already took the penalty for you he already stands
Before God for you on your behalf as a high priest not a weak small one defending his own glory but a glorious one
Who laid his glory down so that we might actually have some later with him or you'll stand before the real true judge of
Your soul with nothing to base your defense on except for your own effort and work and it will fall short there's a final courtroom please
Please see this one first please see what we just read in Matthew 26 where Jesus stood and had a sentence of condemnation passed over him who did not
Deserve it did not earn it could have stopped it but had men manhandle him and slap him and spit on him so that you don't have to be destroyed please see that one
First we're all going to see the second one please see this one first so that we might be brought up together with the great king of the universe and set finally forever free God God God we ask for your help we thank you that
Through your holy spirit and through your cross you give it that you were condemned that you were put on trial that you were judged that you were crushed so that we don't have to be so that when we stand before you in faith the sentence of condemnation
Is already passed over us onto you not through our work but through yours God I pray for the souls of the city for every person that we meet that will stand before you as the great high king and high judge throughout all eternity I pray for the souls in this
Room who aren't ready for that day God for those of us who've trusted in you help us to continually submit to you as our king and our judge give us the grace to follow even though it's terribly difficult because we know that all the real difficulty has already been accomplished by you
God I pray that for those who sit in caiaphas's chair right now that they would hear what you told caiaphas that he was unwilling to hear this is the last time you judge me but there's a day when I'll judge you but I'm willing to take the penalty for you God we ask for your grace
Amen
30 Pieces of Silver
Transcript
All right, well, it's good to see you all this morning. My name's Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. And if it's your first time hanging out with us, let me be the first to welcome you. We are absolutely glad that you're here. Last Sunday, we finished up a seven-week series where we kind of engaged with what our culture has to say about gender, about marriage, about sexuality, about masculinity, femininity.
And then we went to the Bible so that we as Christians can learn how to follow Jesus well in terms of having a theology of sex. And I will say this for me personally. I think it's one of the most helpful series we've ever done. And I heard tons of feedback coming back out of our groups, just discussions, really submitting our lives to Jesus. And it was great. And now, today we're starting a three-week series because we've got three weeks leading up to Easter and celebrating our baptism party.
And for us, as we're approaching Easter, we're going to spend the majority of our time talking about Jesus. Surprise! But you didn't see that coming. We looked at Jesus' interactions. We're going to look at things that he said and things that he did. But we're going to go about it a little bit differently this year.
And here's why. The reason the cross is so beautiful, so compelling, is that on it, Jesus died for terrible sinners just like us. That the reason the cross is beautiful is because on it, Jesus died for sinners. That his death pays for our sin and he rose from the grave so that we might have life in him. That's why the cross is beautiful. And so what we're going to do is take three weeks to look at Jesus' specific interactions with some sinners that would kind of fall into this category.
Here's what we're going to try to do. That as we see their sin, as we see their denial, their rejection of Jesus, what we're going to see is that it actually is going to hit a little bit closer to home than we might care to admit. That if we're actually honest with ourselves, more often than not, we're like the people who mistreat Jesus than we are like Jesus himself. So that by looking at these interactions, by looking at these people that Jesus has conversations with, that their actions absolutely impact his own life. What we're going to see is that we're going to align with them. That we're going to see some of our own sinfulness, our own brokenness in them.
And as we see that, as we look at that sin and kind of come face to face with it, the hope would be by the time we get to Easter, we've actually got something to celebrate. We're more excited because we understand the cross of Christ so much more because on it, Jesus died to save sinners. That by the time we get to Easter, we can't help but shout and stand and sing the good news as people are going to be baptized and we're going to lose our minds and we're going to eat a whole bunch of fried chicken. Amen? Amen? I mean, that's worth, it's good news.
It's good news worth celebrating. And so we're going to take these three weeks specifically and try to look at our own sinfulness in light of some of Jesus' interactions with people on his way to the cross. And so to kick off the series today, we're going to be looking at a guy by the name of Judas Iscariot, who is one of the most negatively portrayed people in the Bible. And maybe you've never hung out with a church before. You may not know really anything about Jesus, but you have probably, in some form or fashion, heard about Judas and what Judas does to him. Judas betrays his friend Jesus.
He sells his friend Jesus out so that if you're, you could watch a movie or you're reading a book. Anytime someone commits treason or sells somebody out or is a snitch, you may hear them turn the phrase, man, such a Judas. What a Judas. And the reason being is because that seems so unthinkable that Judas would betray the Son of God after all that he had seen. But we're not so unlike Judas ourselves.
And though we may sometimes treat Jesus the same way that Judas did, we don't have to share his same fate. That though we may treat Jesus the same way that Judas did, we've actually been given another option. And so as we actually look at his story, his interaction with Jesus, my hope is that we would see our sin more clearly and that the cross would actually become more compelling. And so I'm going to pray for us and we'll kind of jump into the text and see what God has to say to us this morning. Let's pray together.
God, we don't have the ability to comprehend your word and I don't have the ability to clearly articulate your word outside of the move and work of your Holy Spirit. And so God, I ask that this morning as we, as we open your word, God, that you would be faithful. God, that you would help us see our own sinfulness, our own brokenness, and you would help us see Jesus for who he truly is. The savior of the world, the one who dies for our sins so that we might have life in him. I pray that would be abundantly clear this morning as you speak to us. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, so grab a Bible. You can grab one of the Bibles on the chairs and go to Matthew chapter 26. That's going to be on page 539 in the blue and white Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, please just take that one with you. When we're done today, we want everyone to have a Bible, to be reading it, to be growing. And in fact, if you're looking for something to read, I would encourage you that in the coming weeks, in the three weeks or so leading up to Easter, to actually jump into Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and read from about where I'm going to begin summarizing because you'll get a picture of the last week of Jesus' life as recorded by four people.
I think that would be a great way for us all to just kind of prepare for Easter. But here's the background. Here's what we're getting into. Jesus has just come to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. And the Passover is just one of the big Jewish festivals, one of the big celebrations that they had every year. And Jesus and his disciples had come to Jerusalem for the Passover before, but this time is markedly different.
Jesus' fame and renown had spread. He had been doing ministry for years now, for three years, and people had heard about his miracles and they had heard about his teachings. They knew who he was. And as soon as he starts coming into the city, the word begins to spread. People come out to where Jesus and his disciples are coming in, and they take their coats and they lay him on the ground, and they take palm branches and they wave him in the air, and they're shouting things like, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the Son of David. Blessed is the Lord. And what all of these people are celebrating is that they believe that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah that the Old Testament is talking about. They're celebrating him. He's the long-awaited rescuer, the redeemer, the one who's going to come and save them. And they can't help but celebrate it.
But what we're going to see is that not everyone shares the same sentiment when it comes to Jesus. And so where we're jumping in, we're jumping in to chapter 26. This is a couple of days later. Things have settled down just a little bit, and we're going to find Jesus talking with his disciples. So we'll pick it up there.
Chapter 26, verse 1. When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, you know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. Okay, so it says that Jesus had just finished talking. He just finished saying these things. Jesus was talking with his disciples about what will the signs of the end of time be? What will be the signs of the end of the age?
And he kind of leaves that idea, and he comes back to the present, and he says, the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. And Son of Man is just a phrase that he used for himself on a regular basis. He says the Son of Man is going to be delivered up to be crucified. And this isn't the first time that he's told this to his disciples. The Gospel accounts tell us that he's been telling them this all along the way. But you've got to imagine.
Just imagine with me. Every time Jesus says that, that we're going to Jerusalem, and I'm going to be killed and crucified, you've got to imagine the disciples are kind of like, sure you will, Jesus. Yeah, right. Not really, though, right? This is one of those parable things, right, where we just don't understand, but you're telling us that this is actually. And the reason that was so difficult is that they had just watched the city erupt in celebration as Jesus and his disciples came in.
And now in a couple of days, he's going to be nailed to a cross. The most painful and torturous of Roman deaths reserved for the worst of criminals. And they just couldn't see it. But there's actually more at play. There's more at work here than meets the eye. And our passage kind of continues to show us that.
Pick it back up, verse 3. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. Okay, so time out. At the same time that Jesus is meeting with his disciples, talking to them, the religious leaders of the people have kind of convened a meeting together to figure out, what are we going to do about this whole Jesus situation? The Jesus thing has gotten out of control.
There are people standing in the streets within earshot of the temple complex saying that this guy is the Messiah. And these religious leaders have come together and said, the only thing that we can do is arrest him and he's got to be killed. And immediately we start asking questions because we're going, hey, time out, time out. All right, so there are people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And these people are the religious leaders of the people. Why in the world are they trying to kill Jesus?
That's a question that immediately comes up. And the truth is that this animosity between the religious leaders and Jesus didn't happen overnight. This has been going on for near three years now. The religious leaders have been in significant conflict with Jesus, warring with him over what faithfulness to God actually looked like. That Jesus showed up on the scene and he stepped into their territory and he began to challenge them on what they believed, what they were teaching the people, how they were leading, what their hearts were centered on. And as Jesus shared, he had the miracles to back up everything that he was saying because the religious leaders were tasked with teaching the people how to follow God.
And these guys had got focused on their own things. They were absolutely focused on outward appearance, the outward signs. They would go to the Old Testament law and they would take the law and then they would create rules that would keep them from breaking the law. But so that they didn't break those rules, they would make more rules on top of those rules so that they didn't even get close to breaking the law. And needless to say, Jesus showed up and didn't play by their rules. Jesus showed up and wanted to show people what does it actually mean to follow God?
What is the heart of God actually about? And so they would have conflict and debates about the things that Jesus did. They would get mad at Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath because they considered that somehow work and they were missing God's active work in the midst of them to bring about healing for people. They were missing it. They always wondered why Jesus would hang out with sinners and with tax collectors and the people that were ostracized from society because they believed that those people made you unclean. But what they didn't realize is that God was in their midst coming.
Jesus was coming to make people clean. The people who were supposed to be closest to the heart of God were convened in a room together trying to figure out how to kill God. Don't miss that. Don't brush past that. These guys knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards and some of them had even memorized it. But they were so concerned with their own power, with their own authority, their own way of doing things that they absolutely missed what was right in front of them.
And now they're huddled in a room ready to kill God. And so the story kind of continues on going into verse 6 where Jesus and his disciples go out to a certain area to share a meal with some friends. But we're actually going to kind of skip over that part of the story because I want us to follow the progression of events that has just kind of started with this meeting. We're going to follow that thread of people who don't see Jesus for who he actually was. And so we're going to kind of skip down over those verses and we'll pick it back up in verse 14. Verse 14 says this, Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?
And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. And from that moment on, he sought an opportunity to betray him. Okay, so we're used to this. For the majority of us in the room, you may be familiar with this story. But don't let your familiarity with the story take away from how shocking and how terrible this actually is.
Judas was one of the twelve, meaning Jesus' closest followers. And he just went to the people who were trying to figure out how to kill him about how he might turn them in. How he might betray Jesus to them. And I want you to just think for a second about Judas and all that Judas had seen, all that he experienced. We know that from early on in the Gospels, Jesus went up on a mountain to pray and when he came back down from praying, he handpicked twelve guys that he wanted to follow him throughout his entire ministry to serve alongside of him, to love alongside of him, to do ministry beside him and learn from him.
There was James and John and there was Andrew and there was Peter and then there was Judas. Jesus looked into the eyes of Judas and said, You. I choose you. Follow me. And he did. He followed Jesus.
He ended up with Jesus on a mountain where they were surrounded by thousands of people. Thousands of people who were hungry and the only thing that they had were two fish and five loaves of bread. Not near enough even to really feed one or two people. But Jesus took those elements and he blessed it and he handed it to the disciples and he said, Go pass this out. Go pass this out. And so Judas walked her out.
Judas walked around handing out food and handing out food and handing out food and handing out food until every one of those people were fed. Jesus had done the miraculous. He had fed thousands of people and then he said, Okay, go back with a basket and collect all the leftovers. And so Judas had to do that too. We know that Judas was in a room with Jesus and a whole bunch of other people and the house that they were in, the tiles, they started pulling the tiles out of the ceiling and these friends who were desperate lowered down their friend who was crippled into the room just hoping, desperate for Jesus to do something.
And at a word, the man was healed and he picked up his mat and he walked out. This was the real deal. This wasn't a gimmick. There were religious legal storm came down on them from the mountains on the Sea of Galilee threatening to capsize the ship. And Jesus walks up on the bow and rebukes the wind and the waves and everything ceases and the sea goes back to being calm. Even nature bent to his words.
He had watched as Jesus walked up to the front of a tomb in it, a man who had been dead. It was Jesus' friend Lazarus. He'd been dead for four days and Jesus said, Roll the stone away. Lazarus come out and a man who had been dead for four days had been brought back to life. It was amazing. Just think about all that Judas had seen.
And now here we find him walking into the palace of the chief priest ready to sell him out for 30 pieces of silver. And we know that at the time 30 pieces of silver was equal to about five weeks wages. Judas basically sold out the son of God for an all expenses paid trip to Disney World. 30 pieces of silver. And you start wondering, did Judas just miss it? After bearing witness to all that Jesus had said and done to betray him like this?
Did he really not understand who Jesus was? Story continues. Verse 17. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover? He said, Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, The teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.
And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and they prepared the Passover. Okay, so the Passover was a week-long celebration, but there was also an aspect of it that was a meal. And so Jesus is going to be sharing this meal with his disciples. Verse 20. When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.
And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, Is it I, Lord? He answered, He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, Is it I, Rabbi? He said to him, You have said so.
What happened here? This seemingly comes out of nowhere. There's no big story of conflict. It should be shocking to us when you get to this part of the story, you're going, this just doesn't add up. And so we find Jesus with his disciples in a room sharing this meal and I want you to take just a second. Jesus was fully God and fully man.
And so sometimes we forget that Jesus felt emotions. So I just want you to remember and think about what Jesus was feeling. Jesus knew of his impending death that was coming. He knew that somebody was about to betray him. and now he's here with his friends, the guys that have really been with him through thick and thin for the last three years. And he looks at him and he says, One of you is going to betray me. You see, the disciples knew that the religious leaders didn't like Jesus.
They knew that they were in danger any time they came to Jerusalem. and they know that Jesus has the ability to predict the future and so they just go ahead and begin to suspect themselves. They begin looking at Jesus and saying, I'm not the one who does that, am I? Is it I? Is it I? And then you get to Judas. Judas looks into the same eyes that three years earlier had called him to follow him and he says, Is it I, teacher?
And Jesus says, You have said so. Jesus basically looks at him and says, You guessed it. And you get to the end of that passage and you're still just left with this question, Why would Judas so easily betray Jesus? Did he just completely miss it? Did he just really not realize who Jesus was? Did he just really, did he really not believe?
Maybe Judas was like a lot of people at this time and they thought that the Messiah, when the Messiah came, he was going to be this conquering warrior king who was going to come in and lead a charge, lead a rebellion and kick the Romans out of their territory and reset up Israel's kingdom. There were a lot of people at the time that thought that's what the Messiah was going to do but this guy's talking about he's going to die? Well certainly he can't be that kind of king. Maybe it was that Jesus was profitable for Judas. We know that in their ministry people would give them money to support them.
They were away from their homes for long periods of time and we know that Judas was the person who was actually in charge of the money bag and so over time maybe Judas just slipped himself a few over time. Maybe Jesus was just profitable for him. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the prominence. Maybe it was just the sense of importance he got by being one of the twelve. Maybe it was the sense of adventure of getting to just go along with Jesus on this.
And while we don't know exactly why scripture doesn't tell us exactly why there's a couple of things at play that we can see in Judas' motivations a couple of realities that we can see in his actions and they're really similar but I want to parse them out for us. The first one is this number one Judas never ceased to be the king of his life. Judas never ceased to be the king of his life. That though Jesus had looked at Judas three years ago and said come follow me come be a part of what I'm doing lay down your own life your own wants your own desires and come follow me. Judas walked behind him physically and had completely missed out on the spiritual reality.
That instead of walking alongside with Jesus and helping others Judas was really just helping himself instead of serving people with Jesus Judas was just serving himself. Judas had never ceased to be the most important person in his life. Jesus was never king because Judas never stepped off the throne and it goes hand in hand with the second reality which is this Jesus was just a means to an end. That since Judas never ceased to be the king of his life Jesus was only a means to an end. Which means that Jesus was good only as long as he was directly benefiting Judas. And as soon as Judas had other opportunities he swapped out Jesus.
The reason he was willing to trade Jesus for 30 pieces of silver was because Jesus wasn't priceless to him. He had limits on Jesus' worth. I mean you got to remember he was the one who handled the money and he's calculating the whole time and if it had seemed that staying with Jesus would have been more beneficial would have been more lucrative he would have done it. And as soon as Jesus no longer benefited him he was off to bigger and better things that he could just swap Jesus out for something else. And this should be terrifying to all of us. That Judas could walk side by side with Jesus God in the flesh and completely miss out on what was right in front of him.
That he could be so consumed by his own passions, his own desires, his own ways that he would sell out the son of God for chump change. That somehow something became more valuable, more important to him than Jesus did. So the truth is for those of us in the room who would say we're Christians, Jesus has come to us and he said follow me and we responded to that call and we said okay I'll follow you. I'll follow you Jesus. But following Jesus isn't always easy.
There are tough times, there are times where we're going to face suffering and the truth is as we begin to look at the life of Jesus and then look at the life of Judas what we're beginning to see is we're actually a whole lot more like Judas than we care to admit. When we really let it begin to hit home we like Judas are willing to swap Jesus out for other things to use Jesus just as a means to an end. Even though we've said Jesus you're my king not all areas of our lives have actually been submitted to his rule and his reign. Let me show you how this shows up a little bit. So for those of us in the room who've said we're Christians we're trying to figure out what that means as a church and so we gather together on Sunday and we exist together as family in our community groups.
That you as a Christian you're trying to read your Bible and you're trying to pray. You're trying to look for opportunities to build with the people that God has placed you around. And then when life gets tough and things get hard and something seemingly better comes along we'll stand right beside Judas and we'll swap Jesus out for something else. Maybe it's something better that comes along. Maybe it's that we really were using Jesus as a means to an end. And we start looking at our life and we start going he's not doing it the way I want him to.
Jesus sure you're my king but you're not doing what I want you to do. We'll say things like this. Jesus how could you let me lose my job? You're supposed to take care of me. Jesus how could you let my girlfriend cheat on me? She's supposed to be a Christian.
Why weren't you protecting me? We say things like God I trusted God and he didn't come through. Which is basically saying I only trust in God as long as he does what I think is good and valuable and important. You see that? That he's not actually king. He's not actually king when we say that.
That I'm in only as long as my relationships are getting better. I'm in only as long as I'm still getting a promotion. I'm in only as long as my children are learning how to behave. I'm in only as long as it's about me. That's what Judas was saying. And the problem with that is that Christianity is not about us.
It's about Jesus. And what we've just revealed is that in these areas, in these moments, we actually weren't following Jesus because of our devotion to him. Our words and our thoughts portray that Jesus really was just a means to an end. That we liked Jesus and would follow Jesus only so far as he would do what we wanted him to do. That instead of serving Jesus as God, we want Jesus to serve us as God because we're the most important person in the equation. That we can say all we want to Jesus, you're my king.
But until he has rule and reign of every aspect of our lives, that's the thing that we're willing to swap him out for. That's the thing where we're using Jesus only as a means to an end because we've got limits on where Jesus gets to have rule and have reign. And it's obvious in Judas' life. And here's what the Bible is going to say about that kind of as a whole. From Genesis to the Ten Commandments in Exodus to Jeremiah to the words of Jesus himself all the way to Paul in Romans, the Bible is going to say that humanity's biggest problem is that we were created to worship God. God.
But instead of worshiping God, we've swapped him out and decided to worship something else instead. We've decided to worship and pursue lesser gods. That we moved God out of his rightful place and something else in our lives has become more important, holds more sway, holds more motivation for how we do things. And the Bible is going to call this idolatry. The Bible is going to take the stance that all sin is idolatry that we've swapped God out for something else. And Chet put this scripture on the screen and talked about it last week and I'm just going to summarize it for us.
Here's what Paul says in Romans chapter 1. He says, although they knew God, although they knew God, although Judas knew Jesus, although we know God, it says they did not honor or worship him as God. It says although they knew God, they didn't honor or worship him as God, but instead worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. The Bible is going to take the stance that anytime anything begins to hold ultimate sway and weight in our lives, we have stepped into the realm of idolatry. The Bible says our biggest problem is that something else has become primary. Something else has become the most important thing.
And here's why that's so scary. Here's why it's so tricky and deceptive. It's not just the bad stuff that the Bible calls sin that can get there. We can actually take good things and put them in the place of God and we've got a problem. That something that's good, that is inherently good by itself, something that's a good thing can become a God thing and we're in trouble. And we've fallen away from God's original design, which means we have followed in to the sin that is every sin since the beginning, which we've swapped God out for other things.
And it's not just the bad stuff, it's the good stuff too. For those of you who have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, for those of you who are married, maybe it's your husband and spouse, let me show you how this shows up. Because it's hard to see. When a person, when your spouse or significant other has the ability to, when things are going good with them, your mood's up here. You're excited, you're happy, you feel like you're loved and blessed and that when things aren't going well with them, you kind of trickle down to the bottom and you're depressed and you're not feeling good. And your emotions, your whole well-being rises and falls with a person.
You have based your life on that person. They've become ultimate. It's in a relationship with Jesus. When Jesus is primary, that you're not swayed by your emotions because your identity comes from him, not from another person. You can begin to look at how do you spend your time? What's the thing that has the biggest grip on my time?
What influences my decisions? If the answer is not Jesus, watch out. It may be that that is something that we've set up as an idol. And again, it can be good things. And this shows up all over the place. Spouses do it with each other.
Parents, we do this with our children. We'll do this with our children who we're called to love and to protect and care for. But when all of life begins to revolve around them and around their schedule, they've become ultimate. They've become primary. And we've ceased worshiping and trusting Jesus. And we've put our trust in something else.
Athletes do this with their sports. Students, students, you do this with your majors and your job path. With your career path, you go, nothing, nothing else matters. I mean, I'm in school right now. I don't have time. I don't have time to hang out with a community group.
I don't have time to read my Bible. I've got to study. I've got to see it. Something that is not bad, that is actually inherently good when turned into a God thing becomes sin and ultimately will destroy us. With our bosses, with our work, with our dreams, with our desires, anytime they actually become ultimate, what we've done is we've walked into the priest's palace with Judas and said, what can I have for him? We're just negotiating for something different.
Judas wanted 30 pieces of silver. Maybe we just want our marriage to be good. Maybe we just want to get the job that we want to get so that we can make the money. And the Bible says that that's idolatry. So the truth is we're actually a whole lot more like Judas than we care to admit.
And Judas, we know that this night Judas leaves and the disciples leave eventually too and they go to a garden of Gethsemane but Judas leads the temple guards to the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is arrested. And then through that night and into the next day, Jesus is mocked. He's beaten. He's spit upon. He's given a sham trial. He's whipped.
And then eventually he's nailed to a cross where he would bleed out and die. And we've got this tendency to look at the situation and go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm not like Judas. I didn't betray the Son of God. I didn't have the Son of God murdered.
Oh, yeah. Why did Jesus have to go to the cross? Sin. Who did Jesus die for? Sinners. Sinners just like me and you.
Even for those of us who have submitted our life to Jesus and say, I want to follow him. There are these pockets. There are these areas in our lives that we just haven't quite submitted to Jesus yet. Where we haven't allowed him to be king. Where we have a propensity to take good things and turn them into God things. That when it's not going our way, we'll just move Jesus to the side and pursue something else.
But here's the good news for us this morning. Here's the good news of the gospel. That though we may sometimes treat Jesus the way that Judas did, our fate does not have to be the same. That though we may reject him and deny him and swap him out for other stuff, Jesus has actually offered us another option. So I want us to jump back into the text, jump back into it.
Verse 26, because Jesus continues talking with his disciples after Judas leaves. And what he's actually giving us is a picture of what he's going to do. So let's pick it back up. Verse 26. Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat. This is my body.
And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. Okay, what we said earlier was that they were gathering to share the Passover meal together, but we really didn't talk at all about what Passover was and what they were actually celebrating. What they're celebrating is a tie back into Israelite history all the way back to the time in the book that's recorded in the book of Exodus where the Israelites were in slavery to the nation of Egypt.
But Exodus tells us that God heard the cries of his people and he goes to Moses and he said, Moses, I want you, I've heard the cries of my people. I want you to go and lead my people out. I'm going to rescue them. I'm going to pull them out of slavery. So Moses goes to Pharaoh and he asked for him to let the people go and he doesn't do it.
His heart is hardened. And so God sends terrible plagues, terrible plagues to show his glory and to ultimately motivate Pharaoh to let the people go. And he doesn't. He doesn't relent until the tenth plague, which would be the worst. The tenth plague was that God was going to send the angel of death, which is just an angel that causes death to go through all the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn sons. That was the tenth plague.
But God says to Moses, Moses, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a lamb, a spotless lamb without blemish or defect. And I want you to sacrifice it. And I want you to take the blood of that lamb and I want you to put it on the sides of the doors and over the top of the door. And when the angel of death comes through, I will see the blood of the lamb and I will pass over and your firstborn sons will be spared. Be inside your home with your sandals on, your bags packed, eating unleavened bread, because tomorrow you're coming out of Egypt.
I'm going to rescue my people. And so that night the angel of death comes through and any door that had blood on it, the angel of death passed over and there were many, all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians died and there was weeping and wailing. And the next day Pharaoh looked at Moses and Israelites and he said, get out. God had come and he had rescued his people and we know that he led them through the Red Sea and they spent time in the wilderness, but eventually they would make it to the promised land. Passover was a celebration that God instituted for his people to remind them of the deliverance that he had provided.
In the Passover, a lamb had to be sacrificed so that the firstborn sons could go free. Are you seeing it now? That the entire Old Testament was talking about this and the celebration of the Passover was ultimately finding its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the lamb and the son who would be sacrificed so that we could all go free. The Passover finds its fulfillment in Jesus. And that's the good news.
That's the good news. That's why our fate doesn't have to be the same as as Judas is because we can trust in the lamb that would be slain. That Jesus would come and his body would be broken and his blood would be shed so that our sins could be forgiven. The cross is beautiful because on it Jesus died for terrible sinners and he just calls us to repent. And so he sits here with his disciples and he said, here's the bread that provides nourishment and sustenance and life. It represents my body.
My body that is broken for you. My body has to be broken for you. And then he takes the cup. He said this cup, this wine that was to represent the blood of the lamb that was placed over the doorpost. No, no, no. This now represents my blood that would be shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
That the forgiveness of your sins would be accomplished through his death. I'm going to be the Passover lamb. I'm going to be the one that swaps places for you. Swaps places for you even though you have a tendency to swap me out for other things. And that's the good news of the gospel. And that's why this morning as we think about this, as we see our own sin in relation to Judas, there's good news for us that our fate doesn't actually have to be the same.
That Jesus' body was broken and his blood was shed for all the times we swap him out for lesser things. Where we take a boyfriend and they become ultimate. We take a job and it becomes ultimate. And it takes the place of God. Jesus died for that. So that as we celebrate communion, which is what this is, this is the Lord's Supper.
And we know that in Scripture the church is commanded to take communion as a reminder of the sacrifice of Jesus. So that every time we as a church take communion, we're remembering our sin. That Jesus' body was broken for it. That his blood was shed for it. That he swapped places out for us. This is something that we do on a regular basis as a church.
And we're going to start doing it more. Because it's wonderful. It's wonderful to sit and to actually be reminded of our sinfulness and that Jesus' body and his blood, it was broken and shed for us, for our sin. The Bible just calls to us to repent. That's the invitation to the table. Was that Jesus was broken for you.
You just need to repent and place your faith in him. In fact, every time we take communion, it's our chance to confess in two ways. We confess our sin and we confess our Savior. We confess that I'm a broken sinner, but he was broken for me. We confess that I'm covered in shame, but now I'm covered by his blood. We confess that I've swapped him out for so many things, but Jesus swapped himself out for us.
And so we celebrate the good news of the gospel as we take communion. And we're actually going to do that this morning. We're going to celebrate communion together. And communion is for Christians. So in the room, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, you've already been invited to the table and you've accepted the invitation.
The Bible does call us as Christians that as we approach taking the bread and the juice, that we would remember, that we would examine ourselves, that we would look inward, that all of us have areas where we have a tendency to swap Jesus out or to not let him be king. And the Bible's called us to repent, to repent and then take of the bread and the juice. Maybe you've been hanging out with our church for a while and you've been thinking about who Jesus is. You've been hanging out with a community group and you've been wrestling with, is this true? That you've begun to actually look inside yourself and you realize, I am sinful.
I am broken. I am in need of a savior. Today would be a beautiful day for you to place your faith in Jesus and accept the invitation to the table. And if that's you, if you're going, I know this is me. I know I need a savior. We're going to take some time to pray here in just a minute.
Repent. Repent. Repent. Confess your sin to God. Confess your brokenness, your neediness, that you need a savior. And then ask him to be your savior.
Place your faith and your trust in him. And then go to the back of the room and take communion for the first time. And then tell somebody and then probably go to the baptism class, which would be fantastic. But there may be some of us in the room who are still just, we're skeptical. We don't quite understand who Jesus is. We're still wrestling with this.
And here's what I would challenge you to do kind of during this time as other people are praying. I want you to ask yourself the question, are the things that I'm chasing in my life, are the things that I'm basing my life on actually filling me up? Actually, actually giving me joy, actually giving my life, actually giving me life. And just consider, just consider what, what giving your life to Jesus might actually look like. So Bianca is going to come back up and, and here's what's going to happen.
Bianca is going to sing a song over us. She's going to sing a song called the power of the cross. And the words are actually going to be on the screen because I want you to see the beauty of what she's singing about. Here's what I want all of us to do. I want all of us to just take some time and pray. I want us to confess and to repent of all the things that we allow to get in the way of our total devotion and allegiance to Jesus.
I want us to spend some time repenting and confessing. And when you've had a chance to do that, then I want you to go to the back of the room and I want you to take the bread and I want you to dip it in the juice and remember, remember what Jesus did for you so that your sins could be forgiven. So we're going to take some time and we're going to pray. And when you're ready, when you're ready to go to the back of the room, you can do that. You can take the bread and the juice and remember what Jesus has done for you. And then I invite you to come back to your seat after you've done that.
We're going to, we're going to sing. We're going to praise the lamb that was slain for us because the good news of the gospel is true that Jesus died for sinners. God, I ask that you would help us to, to clearly see our sin. God, that we would see our brokenness and our neediness in it. And it wouldn't drive us to put up a wall, but it would drive us to repent. To repent of all the things that we've, we've swapped you out for, that we've put in your place.
Cheap substitutes for a mighty God, for a loving God. God, would you convict? Holy Spirit, would you move throughout this room? Would you lead us to a place where we would repent and accept the invitation to the table? Our invitation that was purchased by Jesus shed blood in his broken body. So as Bianca sings, I just want us all to sit and to pray, to ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we need to repent.
And then when you've had an opportunity to do that, I invite you to the back of the room to take communion. And you can return to your seat and sing praises to the lamb. Amen. Amen.
Hate-Filled Bigots and Hospitality
The Church has gained a reputation over the years as being intolerant, closed-minded, and bigoted. And to be honest, some of it is probably deserved. But what if there was a way to believe faithfully while still loving extravagantly? What if Christians were better known for the openness of their homes than the slogans of their picket signs?
This week's sermon comes with an added Q&A session with one of our Community Group Leaders, Jordan Surratt.
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our sixth week, sixth and final week of our Theology of Sex series. I know many of you are thinking, man, I'm about sick and tired of talking about sex. So this is the last week.
We'll be spending any significant amount of time on that. But what we're going to say today really is a culmination of all the things we've said throughout this whole series. So this is more, maybe more than any other series. This series has kind of built off of what we said the previous week. Even the series where we walk just straight through books. This series has been basically we've got to get this concept so we can.
I'm going the wrong way. We've got to get this concept so we can discuss this concept. So we can discuss this concept. And we've kind of just built off of everything we've been saying. And so we're going to tag back to a lot of those ideas today as we talk through this issue. We're going to be discussing homosexuality and how we ought to respond and interact with that from a biblical understanding.
And so before we hop in, we're going to pray and then we're going to get started this morning. God, I pray that you would give us grace as we study your word. That you would help us to be gracious and loving to one another. And that you'd help us to really approach this difficult topic that is highly polarized in our culture. In a manner honoring to you and loving to others. And so God, I just pray that you'd bless us this morning as we as we seek to understand your will for us and your will for for your creation.
So God, we praise you and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen. So just just go with me for a second. Imagine remember back to middle school. For some of you that that's going to take a little more work for others of you. That was a couple of years ago, so it should be pretty easy.
Remember back to middle school and kind of just imagine for a minute that just kind of as as puberty began to hit you, which it hit people in different stages. And some people it was like it attacked them overnight and other people it like dragged it out for years. But just kind of begin to imagine with me for a second where you begin to just your body starts going through changes. So if you're a guy, maybe like your voice starts cracking. So like you're trying to talk and it just does that for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Which makes it really hard to like talk to humans without being made fun of and maybe maybe for girls like there's just maybe your parents began to let you I don't know like shave your legs or wear makeup. I don't know what happens with girls going through through all that. It was hard enough for me on my own. I wasn't trying to learn what was happening with y'all. But like you just you just begin to like the world just starts kind of changing around you.
And so for guys, maybe you spent way too much time looking at your armpits in the mirror to try to see if you were growing any hair like I don't I don't know. But just this stuff begins to change in you and you start realizing it's like in the movie Bambi where everybody gets Twitter painted in the spring. It was like suddenly in middle school all the guys started like you just started noticing the opposite gender. Like there was just this moment where it was just like there are girls here. And like I never really thought about how much that's going to impact the rest of my world. Like there was just kind of these moments.
But just imagine for a minute that when when that began to happen, when you began to have desires, sexual thoughts, when you began to have attraction to people in a whole new way, that it that it was the same gender. But just as that began to happen, you just began to find that I'm not attracted to what it seems like everybody else. Like I'm not I'm not experiencing the world the same way that everyone else is. So when I'm in the locker room changing and they're talking about the opposite gender, like I just I don't connect with that. And and I'm beginning to realize that my whole experience is just a little bit different.
And the amount of questions and confusion that would come along with that to begin to ask him, am I gay? What does that mean? Will I always be like this? Is there a way to to change this? Do I tell people what will they say if I tell them? How will they respond?
What happens to me if I tell people this? What happens to me if this is true? If this continues this way and just the amount of inner turmoil and pain? And confusion that just applies to all of life as you begin to try to just understand your place in the world, because because middle school and high school begin to be that anyway. Like you're trying to figure out who am I? Who am I going to be?
And you're basing that so much off of how people respond to you. So it's really interesting if you're around middle schoolers or high schoolers. They're a different person every time you meet them, because sometimes they're trying to be like, I'm going to be quiet and brooding. See how this works. Or I'm going to try to be a clown. I'm going to try to make everybody laugh and see if that works.
Like there's just this constant, I'll try to be really smart. I'm going to act like I don't understand anything. And you're waiting on your body to try to tell you, like, am I going to get really tall? Am I going to be athletic? Is this, like, what's going to happen here? And then add on top of that, I don't even understand my own sexuality.
And I'm beginning to realize that this puts me in a very small minority among everybody else around me. And then looking into our culture and realizing that it's so absolutely polarized. That on the progressive side, people who would refer to themselves as progressive, they're going to say, you need to just embrace your desire. You just, that's who you are. You found out your identity. You need to pursue that.
That's going to define you. And then on the other side of that, it's like this, maybe people made fun of you. Maybe people talked about you behind your back just based off of your mannerisms or the way you act in certain situations. And you begin to realize that there's not really a middle ground for you when it comes to culture. There's no way to just approach this in a non-polarized way. No way to process it in a non-polarized way.
And so when we begin today to discuss homosexuality, which has become absolutely polarized in our culture, we're talking about real people made in the image of God and loved by God. So absolutely loved by God that he would go to the cross and absolutely in a situation where struggling through. What does it mean to be safe? What does it mean to be me? What does it mean to be loved? What does it mean to exist with this?
And so as we talk about it today, I just want us to realize that we are going to discuss the logical end of it. We are going to discuss what the Bible says about it. But we also have to realize that we're talking about real humans, valuable based off of the fact that they were created in the image of God and that they're loved by him. And so we just want to be able to enter into it, understanding that. Now, the church has existed for over 2,000 years. Some would argue it was when Jesus kind of in Matthew 16 begins to say, I'm going to build my church on this, this proclamation of the gospel and those that proclaim it.
Some would say it specifically happened at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled 3,000 people and made them into the church. But it's existed for over 2,000 years and there has been agreement across the board with what the Bible says about homosexuality. Even as the church went Catholic and Protestant and there was Eastern Orthodox and like the church split at different times there, up until the last 30 years, 50 and maybe some really progressive circles, has there ever been any question of what the Bible has said about homosexuality? Now, there have been people who have outright rejected what the Bible has said throughout history and that's one thing.
But we've only recently begun to approach the text and say it doesn't actually say what we've always said it says. And so as we get into this this morning, I want us to realize that what we're going to do, I just want to walk us through what our plan is for today. We're going to lay some groundwork to try to even be able to enter into the conversation. We're going to spend a little bit of time talking about what the New Testament actually says about this and how we ought to understand that and some of the common kind of pushbacks on what the Bible says. And then we're going to spend a good bit of our time just talking to the church and how we ought to respond, how we ought to think and treat people.
But this issue has become massively polarized to the point that there's no way for me to say things in a way that everybody leaves happy. So welcome. It's not going to happen today. Do try to be a couple of caveats. I'm not trying to make any political statements. So if you hear some, that's just because it's become a very political conversation.
But I'm not making any political statements. I won't be endorsing any candidates or anything like that. Lord, help us with all of them. I'm not making any political statements. Anything I say will sound like I've said 12 other things. So just try to base it off of what I'm actually saying, not what it sounds like I could be saying.
And I've had to work really hard to just say what I've got here and not just things that pop into my head so that I can be as helpful as possible. Here's the other thing that we all have to realize. In our culture, on especially very polarized issues, what we're taught is if we disagree, you're against me. If we disagree, you hate me. Especially on this issue, this is dividing us. We're going to join teams.
And if we're not on the same team, then we're against one another. And can I just tell you, that's not helpful and it's not true. So we are absolutely able to disagree and still be friends. Absolutely able to disagree and still love one another. Still spend time with one another. Still hang out with one another.
And can absolutely disagree on very important issues. And still be gracious and loving to one another. And we even see in our culture where it's gotten to where if we disagree, I've got to call you a name. That we've just broken down what adult conversations should look like and how we ought to interact with one another. So, real quick, as we get started this morning, the Bible does teach that homosexuality is a sin. Now, we're going to go through and explain what the Bible teaches sin means so that we can better understand that.
But the Bible does teach that homosexuality is a sin. That homosexual Acts are a sin, more specifically. But before we hop in and start looking at some of this, I want us to see Romans 3. Because this is what we believe as a church. This is absolutely primary to us. So we're going to have it on the screen.
But you can jump to Romans 3, verse 23. It will be on page 611 if your Bible looks like this. Romans 3, verse 23. For all have sinned. Welcome. You're included.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No one measures up. And are justified, made to measure up, made to be okay. By his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom, that's Jesus, God put forward as a propitiation. Which means a blood sacrifice to turn away God's wrath by his blood.
To be received by faith. That is what we believe. That is the primary message of the church. Which is that all of us fall short. All of us sin. None of us bring anything to the table.
And all of us are only made okay and only made right by Jesus. Period. That's what we believe. That's what we're here confessing. That's why we started the church a couple years ago. That's why I'm here.
If this weren't true. If it weren't true that sinners could be saved by Jesus. I would be doing something else. Probably more lucrative. Just guessing. I went to business school and tried to make some money.
That's what I'd be going for. Just letting you know. I might not make money, but I'd try. That wasn't helpful. Anyway. That's what we believe.
That Jesus saves sinners and that's all of us. That what we bring to the table is essentially nothing. Just our sin that made us qualified for Jesus to save us and die for us. That's all of us. There's not one thing that the Bible doesn't say. These are good people and these are bad people.
Or these are the people that God likes more. And these are the people that God likes less. What the Bible says is all have sinned. All have fallen short. And all are made okay only through Jesus. And his work on the cross.
That's the primary belief that we have. And in order for us to even have a conversation about this. We have to understand that that's what we believe. That's ultimate for us. Okay. The Bible in that way is very progressive and inclusive.
Everyone is welcome. Because everyone has fallen short. And everyone is a sinner. And it's only Jesus that makes us okay. I now have seven quick points I'm going to try to make. And I mean quick.
Because I've got way more other points coming later. Our culture has a track record of being unloving. To those who struggle with same gender attraction. To the gay community. We have a track record of being unloving. Hateful.
Our culture just in general has not treated them well. And that is not okay. Especially for the church. Those who claim to know and follow Jesus. Those who claim to believe what we just read. Which is that all of us are only made okay by Jesus.
All of us have. The only thing that we've brought to the table. Is what should exclude us. There's nothing that brings us. Makes us included other than Jesus. The church should be the absolute safest place on earth.
Because there are no disqualifiers. Absolute safest place on earth. To struggle with anything. And so where the church has responded poorly here. We ought to repent. We ought to look different.
Because it's Jesus that makes us okay. Two. Our culture sees sexuality as identity. Just to be helpful. This is a bunch of stuff we need to say. It's not in any kind of particular order.
And it won't necessarily be like. How does one connect to two? It probably doesn't. Our culture sees sexuality as identity. Meaning that whatever kind of sexual desires you have. That's who you are.
So when someone says I'm gay. They mean that as a. This is who I am. This is my identity. The Bible doesn't treat your identity that way. Your identity actually transcends sexuality.
It's much bigger than your sexual desires. Three. The Bible does not really speak to sexual orientation. Does not really speak to having a desire for someone else. We'll see where it kind of. It talks about it.
But it's not addressing that as sinful. To have a desire for someone else. To have a desire for the same gender. The Bible is going to specifically say. That homosexual activity. Is sinful.
So the Bible is going to say that. Having a thought or a desire for the same gender. It doesn't ever really get into that. It does say that lust is sinful. Which is where we have a thought or a desire. Heterosexual or homosexual.
And then we actually take active work in our minds. With that. So Martin Luther put it this way. When he's talking about sexual temptation. That you can't stop birds from flying over your head. But you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.
And that's the difference between having a sexual thought or a sexual desire. And lusting. Where lusting is where we actually take kind of an active part in choosing to let those thoughts grow. And take action in them. But the Bible isn't going to address desire as much as it's going to address action.
So the Bible isn't specifically after someone who has same gender attraction. As much as someone who Acts on it. Four. Sin is not just the bad things that we do. So we are tempted to think that sin is just my bad actions.
Sin is actually searching for satisfaction in anything other than Jesus. That's why we read Romans when we first started. Where we said that ultimately our biggest problem is that we've put something above Jesus. And that's what leads us into sin. Most of the time it's something good. Something applaudable.
Something that we would see value and worth in. And then we've begun to pursue that over and against Jesus. Here's the other thing. Sin is actually born in biblically. Like we're born sinful. I have an 11 month old.
I'm not going to have to teach him how to sin. I didn't explain to him how to throw a fit when I take my iPhone from it. I didn't explain to him to love my iPhone like a psycho. Like he just sees it anywhere and he's like, he'll drop whatever he's doing. He picks it up. And if I take it from him, he's like, why do you hate me?
And he falls in a little pile on the floor. And I just step over him and walk away. Nobody had to teach him that. We're all born with certain sinful proclivities. We're all born that way. So when someone says, I was born this way, I've always only ever had sexual desire for the other gender.
Christians shouldn't respond with, no, that's actually perfectly a biblical idea where it's like, yeah, it just doesn't mean what our culture means by that, which is if this is my identity, if I'm born this way, then ultimately it's okay. So I'll give you another example. My family filled with loud, aggressive people. Willing to be violent. Anna's family filled with quiet, nice people. That won't, like Anna, if you call her the wrong name, if you're like, hey, Susan, come here.
She'll, she'll, she just comes. Like she doesn't, she's not going to go, my name's not Susan. Like I've been around her before where someone called the wrong name and I've had to be like, her name's Anna. And they're like, well, I've been calling her this for a long time. It's like, well, that's really on her, but I'm sorry. You're going to have to change.
So I've had to do a lot of work to make Anna want to like assault me. Like I've gotten her there. It just takes a lot of work. I've had to be really active in my pursuit of making her that angry. But other people don't have to do that with me.
Like just my natural proclivity, like you can get me to where I don't want to talk and I just want to punch you pretty quickly. And that's in, that's born into me. But what I don't say is, sorry, this is how I am. Like, I don't, I don't get to do that as much as I would like to. They're all, all of us have some natural proclivities, natural desires that are born into us that are not God's good design. And all of us have to fight against that.
So when someone says I was born this way, honestly, we ought to say, yeah, okay. That makes sense. But that doesn't change what the Bible says. Sin is a big deal because it is always harmful. And when God addresses sin in us, it is not because he does not love us. It is because he does love us.
The primary place where we see Jesus, we see God actively addressing sin is on the cross. That's the primary place where God proclaims actively sin is horrendous. Sin is destructive. And I love you enough to work on it. So we don't believe as Christians when we say something is sinful, that we're against someone or attacking someone.
We're being helpful. When my wife points out sin in me, as much as I sinfully want to argue with her, she's actually doing that because she loves me. She doesn't point out sin in people she doesn't care about. She points out sin in me because she cares about me. And that's the way the Bible treats sin. So when the Bible says something sinful, it's not mad at you.
It's helping. Secondly, Jesus' primary place that he addresses sin is on the cross, which is where he dies to save us. So we can't act like him addressing sin is somehow hateful. It's actually the most loving thing he does. There are people in our church family who have varying levels of same-gender attraction. They have helped lead groups, served on teams, led teams, been a part of groups, and have been actively following Jesus and repenting of sin.
Absolutely believe that you can struggle with same-gender attraction. And be a spirit-filled Jesus follower on his mission for his glory, 100%. I have no doubt in my mind. Culturally, you're going to kind of be forced to decide where you land on this issue. There's not really a middle ground. So if your response is, well, I just don't care, culturally, they're going to say, sweet, you've joined this team.
There's not really a place where you can just say, doesn't matter to me. Culturally, you're going to kind of be forced to be on a team. And so it's helpful for us as Christians to study the Bible and decide where we land and be, to be as helpful as possible. Okay. Now I want to kind of move to the current discussion we've got going on when it comes to this.
We're going to look at three specific passages in the New Testament. So people bring up Old Testament. When it comes to homosexuality, a lot of people use what they call clobber passages, which is they just kind of go to this one passage and they act like, see, there it is. And they call it a clobber passage because they use it to like assault someone. That's not helpful. It is helpful to know where passages are that point to things, but not to use them aggressively to like Bible bullets to shoot someone.
Old Testament does address homosexuality. It does address, it'll say not to lie with a man as you would lie with a woman. Give specific instructions. And so people a lot of times will say, well, yeah, but there's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament we don't believe anymore. A lot of stuff in the Old Testament we don't follow anymore. We cut the, we cut our hair, we can get tattoos, we can eat lobster.
So obviously the Old Testament is just kind of discredited. There's a very long, helpful answer to that, that we're not going to get into because the New Testament talks about it. So where the New Testament does release us of some things like the dietary laws, it specifically continues to address other things like homosexuality. So we're going to spend the majority of our time focusing on the New Testament passages. If you'd like to have a discussion about the Old Testament passages, I'm sure Raz would love to talk to you about it, but I'll also talk to you about it if you want to. One of the other arguments, before we even get into, this is the kind of a prohibiting argument before we even get into looking at the Bible.
People say things like, it's 2016, aren't we over this by now? Or haven't we just progressed? Like there's this idea that progression of time just makes us better. And that idea came from Christianity and then got kind of co-opted and changed. So one of the things that you'll hear is just like, come on, like that's last century.
We're moving on. And the reason that that idea came around, historically people thought that that history went in a cycle. Christianity showed up and was like, no, there's a God who created everything. He has a beginning point. He has an end point. And he's working it towards something.
There's a redemptive history playing out. And so it's a Christian idea. Then the Enlightenment took it and basically just moved God out of it and said, as long as we move forward in time, everything gets better. Which once World War II happened, we should have gotten over, but we kind of haven't. We should have, be able to look at World War II and just go, no, time doesn't just fix things. All we've successfully done is figure out how to kill each other more efficiently.
But people still make that argument, which is really just a disconnect from what a Christian idea that God is actually working to redeem history. Also, people say things like, well, of course, Paul would say, that's who wrote some of these New Testament letters. Of course, Paul would say homosexuality is a sin because he wrote that such a long time ago. Meaning that the further you move back in time, the more prudish people get. Like, it's like you just go back and at some point you just, everyone turns into like a Puritan or a nun. Now, anybody who studied history doesn't really make that argument because the Romans and the Greeks, the Greco-Roman world was way sexualized.
Like massively. The reason Paul addresses it is because it was actively a normal part of life for them. And so he's going to address it. He's not addressing it because of course everybody agreed this was sinful because they were all old. He's addressing it because it was an act of practice going on. Okay.
The Bible clearly, directly, and repeatedly states that homosexual activity is a sin. None of these address same gender attraction as sinful. But there's been throughout history no real question about these verses. Go to Romans 1. We're going to spend a little bit of time there and then we're going to look at the other two where the Bible specifically addresses this. And I just want us to study them for a second and try to learn a little bit.
So Romans 1. We read this when we started this series. We read this a lot because this actually encapsulates sin for all of us pretty clearly. So we'll be in Romans 1. It's on page 610. If your Bible looks like this.
We're going to start in verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them from 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, 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. So we're going to pause there for just a second to catch us all up. God made the world. We notice that there's a creator. He has designed the world to reflect him, to point back to him from the Grand Canyon to massive waves. It's to bring glory and honor to him.
And we reject him and worship other things. That's our primary issue for humanity is that we put other things above God. We'd rather have money. We'd rather have power. We'd rather have a relationship. We just raise up all these other things, pursue those as primary, pursue those as that is what fulfill me.
And that's the major issue. 24. Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them two dishonorable passions. So it's now talking about passions, desire for one another.
Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless Acts with men, receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. One of the results of this, and we talked about this in week one, is that we become overly sexualized, overly led by our lusts when we've begun to place something else above God, because it's easiest for us to believe that another human will fill this void. Money's great, but relationships hold more promise because we were made in the image of God.
So that's one of the things we talked about in week one. Specifically out of that, Paul's going to address that they exchanged natural relations with one another with the opposite gender for relations with the same gender. One of the arguments made against this passage currently is, first of all, it was saying that they weren't being true to themselves, that they were, it was heterosexual people who denied their natural desires for one another and pursued against their own natural desires, relationships with one another. Meaning that the biggest problem is not being true to yourself. The problem with that argument is that Paul says they were inflamed with passion for one another.
They burned with passion for one another. So it wasn't just their activity changed, but their desires changed. The second thing that is argued here is that Paul doesn't understand the concept of soulmates. Not the concept of soulmates, concept of orientation. That really the biggest problem is he didn't understand that people could actually be oriented in such a way to only be a desire of the same gender. The problem with that is in Plato's symposium, he talks about the idea of soulmates.
And when he discusses the idea of soulmates, we talked about this the other day for those of you who are looking for your soulmate, that originally the gods made people with two heads and four arms and four legs and then cut them in half and then you spend the rest of your time looking for your soulmate. So the problem with you looking for your soulmate is that this is a myth and it doesn't exist and you'll never find them. You're as likely to find a unicorn or Nessie. But in that myth, some of the people were male-male, some of them were female-female, and some of them were male-female. They had the idea and understood that some men were going to spend their life looking for a man and some ladies were going to spend their life looking for a lady.
They already had the idea and understood the concept of some people are just going to be oriented this way, directed this way, whether or not they use the language. So it was a familiar concept to them, but Paul's still going to say that this was a problem. Here's the biggest issue with us because we elevate your desires. One of our only hero stories left is the, everybody told you you couldn't be what you wanted to be and then you went and beat it anyway. Like that's one of our hero stories. Have you all seen previews for Eddie the Eagle?
Anybody seen previews for that movie coming out? If you haven't, this is going to be really hard for me to explain. Anybody seen it? Okay. It's about a really goofy, uncoordinated kid in England who wants to be an athlete, wants to go to the Olympics. The problem with Eddie going to the Olympics is that he's a really goofy, uncoordinated kid.
So there's no like real way he's going to do that because most Olympians are good at what they do and Eddie apparently is not good at anything. See how that works? Like, well, I'm not like going to go do the high hurdles or whatever. It's just not going to happen. So that's his problem too.
He's just, he can't. Then he finds out about the downhill super long ski jump. That's what it's called. Look it up. And decides he's going to do that because all he really has to do is like, bend, I don't know. It's probably way more complex than this, but bend and then not be afraid of dying.
I think that's basically the two qualifications. And the whole movie is that nobody wants him to do it because he's goofy and uncoordinated, but he does and does it anyway. And you can watch basically the preview and know what the movie is. And I still want to see it because that's our hero story. People told him he couldn't and they told him he couldn't and they told him he couldn't and they told him he was ugly and that was why he couldn't and he was uncoordinated. But then he can go do it anyway.
He's going to, he's going to thumb his nose at all of them and go accomplish it. And that's why when it comes to things like this, when it comes to your own personal desires, our culture just rallies around you and says, follow your heart, whatever you want to do. And if anybody tells you to stop and anybody tells you that you're wrong, you found your enemy and you found the person you've got to overcome so that we can make a really amazing movie about you. That's our cultural story. That's what we celebrate. And so when it comes to personal desires, we just come along and say, if you desire it, then it's real.
Pursue it. And if anybody tries to stop you, they're wrong, they're evil, they're against you. And you now know who your enemy is. The problem with that is that the Bible says that our passions and our desires and our heart are part of the problem. That our heart is actually deceitful above all else, that you've lied to you more than anyone else ever has. You've tricked yourself more than anyone else ever has.
And the other problem is it's just a small view of what passions are, how we associate our desires. Like we're really just saying, find something that you like, but we don't realize that's culturally connected. So let's take two men. One of them is an Anglo-Saxon way back in the day when they were super aggressive and right around just killing people. And the other person lives in Manhattan today. So another man lives in Manhattan today.
Both of them have the same desires. One of the desires is when anybody mouths off to them or stands in their way, they just want to harm them physically. Overly aggressive, want to harm people. The other one is they have same gender attraction. Now, in Manhattan today, the man who has both of those desires is going to say, my desires to harm people and crush my enemies is not me. And I need to suppress that and maybe get counseling because that's going to stand in the way of who I'm designed to be.
But they're going to look at their same gender attraction and say, this is who I am. This is what needs to be welcomed. And this is what needs to flourish because of our culture. But the Anglo-Saxon man is going to do the exact opposite. He's going to look at his desire to crush his enemies and go, that's who I am. Because his culture celebrates that.
And he's going to look at his desires for same gender attraction and say, I need to suppress this. This isn't going to help me. And so when we say, whatever desire you have, that's ultimate, we actually are taking a really small view of what desires, how they actually work as if we don't have competing desires. We're not understanding that our culture affects that. And the Bible says at the end of the day, your desires are messed up anyway. So you don't have to think about the logical stuff.
Just know your desires aren't helpful. You need to trust Jesus. Was that helpful? Okay. 1 Corinthians. It's going to be 10 pages over if you're in one of these Bibles.
This is another place that Paul addresses this. This is actually, we're in 1 Corinthians 6. We picked up right after this last week where Paul's addressing sexuality. Verse 9. Okay. We'll keep going, but we're going to have to come back to this.
A lot of times these passages get read wrongly as if the only thing that was written there was men who practice homosexuality. That's a long list. And that's just kind of stuck in the middle. What Paul's saying is all of those pursuing active sin are disqualifying themselves from the kingdom of God. They're not trusting in Jesus. They're pursuing their own desires.
They're idolaters and adulterers and sexually immoral, which sexual morality, we talked about it last week, is everything outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage as the way the Bible is going to hold up as the standard. The problem with us is that we want to point out one thing and say, see, see how that's a big issue? But we're not repenting of our own sexual sin. I'm acting as if my own heterosexual sin is okay or somehow blessed by God or somehow more acceptable than someone else who struggles with something else, and that's nonsense. But the Bible is going to list it as a sin with other sins that people struggle with and that Jesus redeems us from.
That's how he ends. Such were some of you, but you've been washed and sanctified by Jesus. It doesn't disqualify you from his love. It actually is what qualifies you. For Jesus to redeem you is your sin. And it lines up in these categories.
Now, people will try to argue in this one and in, even though there's some different words used, and in 1 Timothy, where we're going to go in a second, that we don't really understand what that word means, that it actually is referring to maybe pedophilia, or it's referring to unwanted sexual contact, or it's referring to promiscuous homosexual activity. The problem is there's not really, you're having to do work to make the text say that when the writing's pretty clear. And there's other issues with that that we'll see in just a second. So go to 1 Timothy. It'll be on screen, but if you want to flip over there, it's to your right, and it'll be on page 642.
Starting in verse 8. Now, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down, for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane. For those who, okay, so basically Paul's going to say the law is good because we're messed up. That's what he's, that's the point he's making. The law is good for all of us who are rebellious, because it helps us change. It helps us see our sins that will be pushed to Jesus.
For those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. It accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. Again here, it does specifically in 1 Timothy and 1 Corinthians, although Romans addresses it, it does say men. Romans does address female homosexuality. And the men who practice homosexuality was a much bigger cultural issue for them. That's why Paul's going to keep bringing it up.
Because women didn't get to do what they wanted to, but men could do whatever they want. So that's why Paul's going to keep bringing it up. But sexual immorality basically covers everything outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, which is the goal. And here's the thing. I have a friend of mine. His name is Thor.
And he is a PhD in linguistics. Thor. Which means that, first of all, he's one of these guys who's like so smart. He's kind of, kind of can be awkward at times. Because he's so smart and he approaches everything like from a really like mental place, he can say things that other people can't say. Because it's like, there's no way I could say that without like laughing or thinking about the inappropriateness of what was just said.
But Thor can. Like he can just talk about whatever because he's just so academic. He was a PhD in linguistics and he knows language. And they were doing a discussion at Midtown Fellowship, which is where I was training there. He was a pastor in training there. And one of the things he said is he can go into all these verses and he can dazzle you, his words, not mine, with the Greek.
And make it say basically whatever he wanted to say. He struggles with same gender attraction. He struggles with this on a very personal level and says he's studied all the arguments against why the Bible doesn't say this. But none of them hold up. As much as he would like for them to be true, none of them hold up. All of them are weak understandings of the text.
And he said it seems as if people look at these passages and say these are the pillars holding up this argument. And if we can just knock down those pillars, then we would have the ability to basically pursue long-term, loving, homosexual relationships. And the Bible could be on our team. So they basically attack these verses. And so here's what he had to say. And this is a transcript.
So it's a terrible run-on sentence. Don't get caught up in the grammar. It's a transcript. If it helps you to read it, read it. But if you're a grammar person, maybe just listen because this was said out loud.
And so I'm going to read what he says, though. Even if you were to somehow take out those verses by reinterpreting them. He's talking about these verses. Or even if the Bible had never contained any verses that mentioned it. The biblical position on this issue is not resting on those verses. It's not resting on a few specific prohibitions.
It's resting on this gigantic tree trunk of the whole beautiful picture of why God put gender in the universe. And what gender and complementarity do. And how that runs through everything and all of creation. And his desires for intimacy. And his desires for life. It's this much, much bigger picture of what the Bible upholds.
And what the Bible says is the center. And what we should be running to is so unambiguous and so clear. So what he's saying is even if you took these verses out. The Bible's picture of what sexuality was meant to be. What we talked about last week is so clear. One of the things he says is because people think this is the pillars that I've got to knock down.
He said it's actually way more. It's held up by this massive tree trunk of God's good design for complementarity. God's good design for gender. God's good design for marriage. And for life together. And for creation.
And for the multiplication of the human race. And so he says it's this tree trunk of what God's woven into creation. He said it's actually more like you're climbing out on a few limbs and trying to saw those off. But in order to actually have the Bible agree with homosexuality as a perfectly fine way to live. You'd actually pretty much have to cut down the whole tree. And then you'd be left with no gospel and no Jesus.
And no real understandable picture of what it was designed to be in the first place. So the Bible is clear. And it holds up for us a good design that we ought to pursue and understand. Here's one of the major problems. We immediately say okay but what about love? What about long term relationships?
What if it's a committed long term relationship? What if they're good to one another? What if they love each other more than... Like there's so much messed up heterosexual relationships. And there's so many beautiful, loving, gracious, caring gay relationships. That why can't this be good?
Why can't we just look at this and say this is okay? Here's one of the reasons we make that argument. And here's one of the reasons that's so hard for us to respond to. Our culture says we've all bought into the idea that happiness is primary. That the purpose of life is personal happiness. That's the goal.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We've enshrined it. And then we've all agreed that the best way towards happiness is a romantic relationship. So if we've agreed to that, that happiness is primary and the best way to get there is a romantic relationship. The most cruel, harmful, evil things we can commit in our culture is to stand in the way of that. To tell anybody what we just said.
You can't pursue this type of relationship. That's not okay. The problem with that is that the Bible doesn't agree with either of those first two statements. Doesn't agree that your happiness is the point. You're going to have a really hard time forcing that on the text. I know people do.
I know someone who's stood up before. I had a friend who was a part of a church where they used to stand up and chant, money come to me now. Because God wanted them to be rich. And that was one of the prayers they would say. Read the New Testament. The call to Christianity is take up your cross, deny yourself, come die.
You're going to lose your friends. You're going to lose your family. This is going to go terribly for you. And then at some point after you've been tortured enough, you'll probably die. And guess what? It'll all be absolutely worth it.
Come take everything that has ever been a part of who you are and how you define yourself and lay that down for the God who died for you so that you might have a better eternity. You might have a real hope in something that absolutely matters. Everything matters. Jesus is going to tell stories about a guy who finds a treasure in a field and sells everything just to get that treasure because of how much more immensely valuable it is than anything else. That's what the Bible is going to say, that your happiness here is not primary. God loves you.
He's for your joy and your ultimate happiness, but that doesn't happen here through finances or relationships or anything else. And the Bible is also not going to agree with us that romance is primary, that it's the primary way to get to happiness. The Bible is pro-relationships. It's for love. It's not against it. I don't think it's primary.
It never holds that up as this is the way to pursue life. So when Christianity says, no, you actually should deny yourself, you should not pursue these relationships, we're not disagreeing with anything else the Bible says because we don't believe that happiness and romance are primary. Okay. Church. Four things for us and then we're going to do some Q&A. Four things for us that we have to realize in order for us to love people well and to act in such a way that someone who's a part of our church family who struggles with this can actually be loved, actually be welcomed, and actually live long-term pursuing Jesus.
Here's some things that have to be true. Number one, we can't keep pretending that happiness and romance are primary. As a church, the church in general can't keep buying into that idea. We agree to that, that happiness and romance aren't primary when it comes to someone who's struggling with same-gender attraction, but then we act like that's primary in all the other things we say. So every time you come up to a single person and go, have you found anyone yet?
Just keep trying. They're out there. Maybe you should lower your standards. Oh, I saw you talking to that person. Every time we do that, what we're doing is coming alongside someone and going, just remember where happiness is found. Just remember what life is about.
And it's nonsense. The Bible doesn't back you up on that. Perfectly fine for someone to pursue a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite gender, but it's not held up as supreme. Every time we say stuff like, well, I just know God wants me to be happy. How do you know that? Where did you find that?
You mean here? I doubt it. You mean long-term? Sure, yeah. And we see that on Jesus dying on the cross and calling us into a mission that matters so much more than everything else. That's his pursuit of our joy.
But I just enjoy my relationship so I know that God wouldn't want me to break up because I'm like, every time we say this stuff, we're not helping anything. And honestly, one of the major issues that those who struggle with same-gender attraction in the church face is not the sexual desire. It's that they're staring loneliness in the face. It's the emotional side of, I just want to be connected to someone. I want to be known and loved and cared about. And the church says your options are be celibate or pursue a heterosexual relationship, which to a lot of people who struggle with same-gender attraction, that's not really an option.
And celibacy just sounds terrible, not because of the sexual nature of it, maybe for some, but for a lot of them it's just that I want to be lonely forever. And here's what we're saying. Look, we know that happiness is primary and that romance is the only way to get there. I'm sorry. God's got rules. And then we're like, well, people are just going to keep pursuing this stuff and they won't repent.
And it's like, well, we pointed them to something that wasn't true. We kept holding up something that wasn't real and then acted like we were exempt from this. This false belief, this romance idolatry. All of us need to repent of romance idolatry. Some of you have stayed in really bad relationships for a long time or relationships that are really good but are outside of God's good design. And you're not repenting.
You're not changing. And we're all called to. And we honestly need to regain the biblical understanding of friendship. So one of the things that the, if you go to GayChristianNetwork.com, I think it's GayChristian.net. So the first website I said wasn't true at all.
It's the Gay Christian Network. One of the things they point to is they say, see, in the Old Testament the friendship between Jonathan and David was actually a homosexual relationship. The reason they're saying that is because we fall really short of the biblical idea of what friendship is supposed to look like. We're also approaching that in a very Western way, which is non-emotional. So like when David and Jonathan like cry and kiss each other, we automatically make that really sexual.
Whereas for Middle Easterners, that's not weird. Not sexual. Like it can happen in a perfectly non-sexual context. Did y'all ever see the pictures of George Bush walking down the street holding that guy's hand in Iran or whatever? Because that's how they indicate friendship. So he was with another leader and he held his hand.
And I was like, I remember seeing that when I was in high school. I'm going, that's super weird. I think we just have to go to war. I'm not walking around holding your hand, buddy. Like this is weird because I'm approaching that from a very Western mentality. But the truth is that the scope of emotion found in the Bible and the ability to love someone in a completely non-sexual way we've lost.
And so what we say is, yeah, the only real way to have actual friends is to get married. Like that's the only way you can really know somebody and really have intimacy and really over the term of life. And it's like that's foreign from the Bible and we have to redeem our understanding of friendship. Number two, we are all called to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus. So when you're living with your girlfriend but you're having a fit about someone who's struggling with homosexuality, it's nonsense.
When you won't repent of your sin but the gay's better, nonsense. It makes sense. The way that we get to grow together as Christians is all of us are called to take everything that we hold dear, everything that we hold in our heart that makes us us, all of our uniqueness and say, Jesus, you're king. All of us. And so then when we look at those, our same gender attracted brothers and sisters and we say, yeah, it makes sense because they see it. They see that all of us are repenting of sin.
All of us are fighting our own proclivities. All of us are fighting against our own sinful natures and all of us are seeking to pursue Jesus and submit everything to him. But when we act like, no, no, no, no, I'm okay. My porn struggle is not an issue. I am kind of fighting or whatever. But the fact that I'm really greedy, the fact that I'm really selfish, this doesn't really matter.
But you, big deal. I'm going to skip all the other things in that list. Big deal for you. Big deal for you. We have to all surrender and all deny ourselves. I have to all submit our sexual desires to Jesus.
The third thing is that the church has to actually be family. We have to actually care about one another and spend time with one another, relate to one another. Because honestly, it's the emotional side. It's the loneliness. It's the lack of friendship that makes it so untenable. When we say, you just got to be alone forever.
But if the church is actually what the New Testament holds up, where it's going to hold up consistently the church as family over and above nuclear family, then we begin to open our homes and invite people in to those who struggle with same-gender attraction or just our single brothers and sisters to come celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Come celebrate, quote-unquote, family time. Because ultimately, biblically, we're all going to die and we're going to be a part of a family. And I'm not going to be married to Anna anymore, but she will be my sister for eternity. And we get to celebrate that now, that we've been made into a new true family where God, through Jesus, has adopted us to be brothers and sisters.
And so one of the ways that we get to help those who struggle with this is by opening our homes and treating them like brothers and sisters, inviting them out to coffee, getting a conversation going, talking to them, being their friend, playing laser tag. We have an actual eternal family. Here's honestly, the LGBTQ community has been beating the pants off of the church when it comes to community, to friendship. In a lot of ways, it's really beautiful. It's what God designed it to look like, for them to care about one another, to love one another, to accept one another, not accept their sin as the church.
We would accept them and help them fight their sin the same way we accept everybody else in spite of their sin because it's our sin that actually qualifies us for Jesus to save us. But here's the other thing going on in the LGBTQ community. In the U.S., the most likely thing to kill someone who's a youth, get grades 7 through 12, anybody, is suicide. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide than their heterosexual peers. This is according to the CDC. They did a study on 55 transgender youth and found that about 25% of them reported suicide attempts.
25%! The Trevorproject.com says that LGB youth are four times as likely as their peers and three times likely if they're questioning to attempt suicide. And we're the church saved by Jesus in spite of our sin. And they're not welcome here? Not loved here? We bring nothing to the table.
You aren't special. And then we're going to look and say, but my sin's different than yours. No. This has to be the safest place. The most welcoming group of people you have ever met. That's so wildly welcoming that it makes people uncomfortable.
That they don't know how to handle it. I know you disagree with me, but you've loved me more than anybody I've ever met. I know we're not on the same page here, but you won't stop calling me. You won't stop inviting me over for dinner. Stop being my friend. No.
That's what we're designed to be. The most absolutely overwhelmingly welcoming people because we know that nothing makes us special outside of the blood and savior. The blood of Jesus who saved us from our sin. So number four is we have to actually believe the gospel. You have to actually believe that it is Jesus who has saved you and has made you okay in spite of your sin. Not because of your specialness.
Not because of your good behavior. That your sinful desires aren't somehow different or better than someone else's. You have to actually believe that it's Jesus that saves us. And if we do that, if we actually believe the gospel, then we're free to love one another, to care for one another, to accept one another in spite of our sin. And then continue to confront one another in our sin because we care for one another. Free.
Okay. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to do some Q&A now. And I'm going to invite my friend Jordan Surratt. He's one of our community group leaders. He's going to come up here.
Help do some Q&A. Jordan struggles with same-gender attraction. He's going to help us as we talk about this today. So if you don't mind giving Jordan a hand. So this is my good friend Jordan.
He helps lead one of our community groups, the Pine Ridge group. Yeah. Jordan, real quick before we get into doing some of the other Q&A, I want to ask you a few questions just to help. People out here and talk about this a little bit as a church family. Can you tell people who you are, catch them up a little bit on your story, maybe just like the two-minute version of from when you were born to the moment you just sat down on that stool? That'd be great.
All right. Got to move quickly. All right. So I grew up in southwestern Virginia. It's kind of very super traditional, heart of the Bible Belt kind of area. And so I noticed that I started having same-sex attractions around seventh grade, so puberty time.
And I found myself just like, this is going to sound weird, but like looking at my teacher. And it wasn't like in a sense of, ah, I'm super attracted to him. It was more of like an interest. I didn't quite understand what was going on inside of me. And I noticed that like my peers, they would all be like starting to date girls. And I'm just like, I don't get that.
That doesn't make sense. But you kind of do. And so it would just be a little weird or whatever just growing up. But all through my middle school years, high school years, and even partly into college, it was just because of fear and shame and things like that, I wouldn't talk about it. And so the very first person I ever told, I think I was 18 and a half. And so I went basically the majority of my life.
I guess it is the majority of my life. Still keeping up with the half years at that point? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the first person I ever told was my cousin. That was after I started going to church. So I was already involved in a local church for about five to six months or so.
And I was just broken. And I could just feel God being like, you have to tell someone. You have to tell someone. I'm like, okay, the next person who comes up. And lo and behold, my cousin pops down in front of me. She's like, I got to tell you something.
I'm like, I do too. And so she was the very first person I told. Went off to college in Lynchburg studying religion, pastoral leadership. And I started opening up a little bit more as the years would go by. And then I moved down here. And I've been open with my community group, open with my friends, with Chet, with Matt, with Raz, and everybody else here that I love.
So you may have said this. Became a Christian in college? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my second semester of community college, I started following Jesus. Okay. And that's, yeah, about that time.
And during all that, like, I never really pursued a relationship with someone. I struggled secretly, and so, like, I couldn't have imagined, like, someone else finding out by me flirting with them. But, you know, like, I just struggled with things like pornography and masturbation and whatnot. Okay. Well, help us out this morning. Or help.
If there's someone in the room struggles with same-gender attraction or identifies as homosexual, maybe is a part of our church family, what would you want to say to them? How would you want to address them? Cool. Cool. Well, part of this is going to depend on where you are at in your own walk and how open you have been already. I found one of the most encouraging and helpful things to me, even though it was super hard, was just beginning to talk about it.
And so it would take years for me to really build up that courage. And I've been lucky enough to have never really had any kind of, like, anybody lash out at me or whatever. I've had a lot of people just like, well, I don't understand, and I'm really confused, and I have a thousand questions. But through them asking those questions and through them talking about it, it actually even helped me. And so my encouragement to you would be, if you are struggling with that, to find someone here. I think there's a ton of people in this room who love you and care about you and genuinely welcome you as family, as brothers and sisters.
And I think you're safe and loved and cherished. Cool. Another thing on that that I just want to help everybody here, when it comes to hiding sin or hiding any kind of personal struggle, if we don't talk to people, any people whatsoever, we kind of disconnect our ability to actually receive love. Because we'll always, when someone tries to say they care about us or say good things about us, we'll always just kind of discount it as, yeah, well, if you only knew. If you only knew the real me. And so there is something, too, when we're in sin or when we have particular struggles or whatever, being able to be honest actually opens us up to have people really genuinely care about us and us to actually be able to receive that.
All right. Okay. So I'm in a community group or someone out here is in a community group and someone in my group talks about this now, confesses it, says this is going on or I struggle with this or whatever. Help me, heterosexual white guy, respond well. Like how do we love people well in church family if that happens, if they talk about it? Yeah.
Okay. I want to break that up into two parts. Okay. One is short term and one is long term. Okay. You have to do whatever you want to with the question asked.
Yep. We'll do. We'll do. So short term, don't skip over it because you're uncomfortable. Engage them. Ask them questions.
Talk with them. Be like, what was that like? Like engage emotion. That's one of the hardest things for me has been just the emotion behind it. And check kind of talked about that a little bit in his sermon was just like the thing that hurts me the most is not me not having some sexual outlet. It is me more than likely being alone.
It is me more than likely not having someone who genuinely knows me and cares for me and understands me for who I am, which sexual sin and homosexuality or whatever isn't my identity. I am much more than that. But there are still some amounts of me being unknown, even now at this moment, because I'm constantly changing. I'm a different person all the time. But so ask questions like genuinely engage them.
Talk with them. And if you do, this is kind of going back to the second question. If you if you do open up, be willing to give some grace to the people that you're telling. So whenever I told my dad, he was just quiet the entire time and it took him a day to process through that. And he called me back. He's like, OK, you know, I got a ton of questions and we had like an hour long conversation, you know, but we be willing to give them grace because they're having to process through this stuff as well.
So that's kind of the short term. Love them. Well, love them. Well, hug them. Don't be afraid of them because they're terrified. I'm terrified.
OK, so ask questions. Yeah. Bring it up later. Yeah, I think that would be very helpful. OK, which is kind of the long term. You know, it's just like how if someone is like, hey, I'm struggling with a drug addiction.
You're like, OK, you don't mention it. Don't mention it ever again. You know, see how that's going to go for you. You know, that doesn't make much sense. So long term.
Yeah. Don't make everything about that. You know, I'm much more than my same sex attraction, but I struggle with same sex. Sex attraction. OK. And so long term, that would be talking with them, talking with me, talking with us, I guess I should say.
Loving us well. Inviting them into a family. You know, that's that's we already you know, we are a family so long as our faith is in Jesus. And so you are my brothers and sisters. I think for the longest time, like I wrestle a lot with this just imagery, this this picture of I'm a sheep who's outside of the flock and I'm really struggling, feeling like I'm part of the flock. And so that just that just makes it so much more easier for wolves to come in and snack snatch me, you know.
But I think that is just very common in people who struggle with same sex attraction. I've seen it so many times in a lot of my friends who I've spoken with who struggle with the same thing. They're just like, I can't tell anyone. You know, they don't I don't know what to do. I'm afraid. You know, it's just a consistent, constant fear across the board.
Even people who are proud, you know, they call it pride for a reason because they're ashamed and they feel guilty. One of the things you talk about being family, one of the things Thor has talked about before is that Kent Bateman is one of the pastors. He actually spoke here recently about going to planting in Knoxville, went to Thor and basically was like, look, I know you're kind of kind of pursuing celibacy, but I know you also have some desires to to be a husband, to be a father. Like that's part of what goes along with this. It's not just the sexual nature of stuff. And he was like, man, if you ever just get lonely, just come live with us.
Like he was about to get married to his wife, Anna, at that point. He said, just come. You can come live with us. You can help me father my children. You can help be a part of this this family. And and so there is room for that as you begin to build genuine, real relationships to just invite people in, divide them to be around, to be a part of your family.
The other thing, I think one of the reasons we don't respond when someone confesses sin is we don't know what to say, which actually means that we probably when we do know what to say are saying unhelpful things. And here's what I mean. When someone confesses sin and I'm like, oh, I got this because I've experienced that before. Mostly what I'm blasting them with is good advice. And so when confesses something I don't understand and I'm quiet, it's because I don't have any good advice. Our goal as a church family is to point people towards Jesus, which means that you get to respond to any sin because Jesus is the answer to all sin.
So let me just help you out there. If you're like, I don't have anything. Jesus, just Sunday school it. It's Jesus. Jesus is the answer. Like, just write that on your hand.
And someone confesses something. Go, let me tell you about Jesus. Like that's realize that ultimately it's Jesus that saves us and Jesus makes us OK. And you get to do that. You get to point towards Jesus in all of it, even if you don't know how to to be the most helpful there. And then, yeah, you can always ask questions.
I think that's a very helpful thing to say. OK. Yeah, I think that's what we'll take some Q&A kind of here together. And then appreciate you. Thank you for sharing all that with us. And we'll look at what kind of what's been sent in.
When it comes to the theology of sex, are there topics that are simply off limits for Christians? No. Let me caveat that, though. The short answer is no. The long answer is what's the point of talking about it? If your goal is, so Paul at one point talks about people having itching ears.
And I just think that's a helpful. If your goal is it just feels good to talk about sex stuff, you probably should stop. Like you should confess that to your group. And we should work on that together. If your goal is like I genuinely have questions. I want to talk about this.
There are words that are used in dirty ways, but they're also used to describe things. So like Miss Libby came up to me last week and was like, it's just so refreshing to hear a pastor say orgasm. And I was like, that's so weird that we can talk about this. But we're just having a straight up normal conversation about an actual thing that exists. And we have to use words to describe it. And so there are things you can talk about.
What's the point of saying it? Are you going for a flashbang or this will be exciting or something like that? So it's really more of a what's the point? So they're okay topics. What's the point? What's the context?
Why are you talking about it? Is it okay to discuss your marriage bed with someone other than your spouse? Okay. Okay. Yes-ish. Again, big question.
What's the point? What are you talking about? Like, are you just wanting to tell stories? Are you wanting to gossip? Are they sharing? And so you feel like it's your turn?
Like, no. How does your spouse feel about that? Have you talked to them? Are you talking to your spouse about your marriage bed? You probably should be having some of those conversations. But it can be very helpful to have some conversations that are, I need to discuss this with you.
I need to, I wonder if my heart's right here. I need to have some of these conversations that aren't detail specific, aren't any kind of, let me tell you, like, it's just, I need to talk about this for my own sake, for my own sin, for me to grow. And I'm trying to get some clarity on this, and I think that's okay. Some of it is you need to talk to your spouse. You need to talk about what they're comfortable with. And you need to not, the goal can't be, let me share stories or let me do this because it's, I think it's entertaining or interesting or anything like that.
It's got to be way more of a, I'm wanting to grow and I'm wanting this to be healthy, and so this is worth us having a conversation. Kind of how I say that, so. Can someone be in a long-term, committed, same-gender relationship and still be a Christian? I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume you've maybe thought about this more. So do you want to give an answer to that, and then I'll kind of fill in if there's any.
The hard thing is, is I want that to be so true because of what we were talking about earlier. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to not have someone, you know, that I can talk to, that I can trust, that I can lean into. You know, it's just like, God, there's just this deep desire to just be with someone. And obviously with my heart, like, I have no desire to be with a woman, which means that my desire is to be with a man. But I can't just for biblical reasons, you know.
But in regards to this question specifically, yeah, there's the emotional side of it, and there's the, well, they love each other, and they're committed to each other. But in regards to any sin, you know, homosexual, heterosexual, it doesn't really matter. If you are a heterosexual couple who is living in a relationship outside of marriage, you're in sin. And so I think the real question behind this is, can, let me read it, can someone be in a long-term committed, unrepentant sin and still be a Christian? And I think the biblical answer is no. So I'll read things like when Jesus says, why do you say you love me, but don't do the things that I've commanded?
Or John in 1 John when he says, you know, if you're continuously living in sin, then you actually never knew Jesus. You never knew God. The love of the Father is not inside of you. It's not what we want to hear. It's not what I want to hear. But it's true and actually better.
Yeah, thank you. It's a massively difficult question. I agree with that. I think it's where we try to gauge it, where we try to look into a situation and say, well, is this person a Christian? How long have they been sinning? Do they know about the sin?
Because there's, like, ignorance. And I've had friends who became Christians and continued doing very sinful things until they got to that place in the Bible. And then they were like, oh, this is no bueno. And I didn't know. Like, and that's one thing. It's a, is it an active, unrepentant?
I know what the Bible says. I just don't care. I had another friend who said, well, I'll become a Christian. But if I become one, I'm not going to do that no sex thing. He wasn't married. And it was like, you don't understand what becoming a Christian is because you get a king.
That's not how you show up with a, all right, king, here are my terms. That's not how it works. And so I think, yeah, long, long enough term, unrepentant, unwilling to repent, non-wrestling with it, just I'm just going to do what I want to do here. The Bible is going to say, well, you probably never were. But can you be a Christian in sin?
Yeah. Can you be a Christian in struggle? Yeah. Can you be a Christian in fall on your face all the time? Yeah, that's why we're Christians. We're the first people who raised our hand and said, I'm really messed up and I need someone to help me.
So, yeah, that's helpful. One more thing. I think it's very telling because if someone has an idol in their heart, which is what they worship to be God, and then God confronts them on that sin, and they're saying, no, capital God, I'm not surrendering this idol. I'm not surrendering this lowercase g God. Then that's idolatry.
And it shows that they're not even surrendered to God to begin with. At least that's the way that I process through that. I think the Bible processes through it the same way. Yeah. Can someone who struggles with same-gender attraction be in Christian leadership? You're a group leader.
You want to answer that? Well, I'm a group leader. So I'm a group leader. Yes, the more the merrier. Can someone who struggles with any sin be a group leader? I hope so.
Yeah. Yeah, for real. For real. We are really – That would be a real short list of groups. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the question there.
So I think the key in that question would be the struggles with – so someone who's unrepentant, that becomes an issue. But someone who struggles with sin, that's every Christian in the room. Like that's everybody, every Christian should be fighting sin. And there would be no Christian leadership if you couldn't struggle with sin and lead. And so, yeah, I think the answer to that is are you fighting it, loving Jesus, hating sin, versus, no, just this is me. I've accepted it.
This is who I'm going to be, and I don't care what the Bible says. That becomes a problem. So, yeah. How should our beliefs on sexuality affect our politics? Okay, so just in general, whole theology of sex series and how should that affect politics? I said I wasn't going to say political statements.
I still don't intend to. I think you need to realize that your belief should affect your politics, should affect how you vote, should affect how you approach candidates, how you think about things. I think you need to also realize there is no political group that perfectly is backed up by Jesus. So when you read the Bible, you're going to see some things that are going to line up with our different political parties in different ways. And I think in America, especially during this time, we need to realize Jesus has an endless kingdom where he reigns supreme throughout all of eternity. And no political candidate is going to save us or fix us or make us whole or complete everything.
There was a Messiah. His name is Jesus. He will return and set up a kingdom that will last forever and you won't see a Messiah on any of the tickets. So, think about it. Have your beliefs affect your politics. If you're just like, no, I just don't even think about what I believe.
It's like that's a culturally given thing. That's foreign to the Bible. You should absolutely have what you believe affect how you vote. Christians are told, don't bring your Christianity into this room. And it's like, that's nonsense. Take it with you everywhere.
But realize that it's not ultimate regardless. But Christians should vote. And all the people you're going to vote for are going to have some things that are just completely messed up. Do you want to take this one? All right.
We're good. I'm going to pray. And Matt and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to sing a little bit together. And so, I'll send it to you. Yeah, you can come on. No, we're good.
We'll move this and then I'll pray and we'll sing. Y'all thank Jordan again for hopping up here. Thank you. Father, we thank you that you're good. Lord, we thank you, Lord, that our sin qualifies us for you to be a very good and loving Savior. Pray, God, that you would help us to grow to be family.
To all of us repent of sin. For all of us to quit believing the lies about happiness and romance so that we actually, in our marriages, can just love our spouse well but without believing they're supposed to fill us up. That in our pursuit of relationships, we can love you more. And that in the midst of all of our life, we'll quit just believing the lie that you want us to be happy here in this moment right now. Rather than you want us to pursue you, which is an ultimate good. God, help us to believe the gospel.
And help us to love our city and our gay neighbors well. And all those in our church family who struggle with same-gender attraction. That they feel wildly loved and cared about and welcomed. Because you are our king. And we hold no other allegiances. In Jesus' name, amen.