Committed
Essential Habits of an Abundant Life
Commit to Finish Well
April 2, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 24—25
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Over the last 11 weeks we have been looking at some of just the super essential, practical, non-negotiable commitments that all of us as followers of Jesus need to make in order to grow in our faith, in order to persevere in our faith, in order to experience the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give us. And if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter 24. The title of today's sermon as we finish this series is, Commit to Finish Well. And on the surface that might sound a little bit redundant because that that's really what commitment is. The whole purpose of commitment is to see something through to completion. And the whole reason you need to make commitments, it only is necessary when you're attempting to do something that's going to be difficult, that you're going to be tempted to give up on or possibly quit. And Jesus promised to give us abundant life. We looked at that when we began this series, but that doesn't mean that the Christian life is going to be an easy life. That the abundant life that Jesus talks about, yeah, it comes with peace that passes understanding. It comes with joy and contentment and hope, but it comes with its fair share of difficulties as well. The Christian life is we live in this tension of both tribulation and hope that John 16:33, Jesus told his disciples, "I have said these things to you, that in me, you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, for I have overcome the world." This is the tension that we live in as followers of Christ, that in this world we will be faced with tribulations, with temptation, persecution, with many trials. And there will be times when we are tempted to give up. There will be times where all we can do is hold on to the hope that we have in Jesus Christ and do what he calls us to do, which is to endure, to overcome these tribulations by standing firm, by persevering, by holding fast until he returns so that we may finish well. It's a race that we must run with endurance, but as we're going to see in our text today, it's also a race that could come to an end at any moment. And at the heart of our text today, we're going to be looking at a really large passage of scripture and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that and introduce it here in a little bit. But at the heart of this passage, Matthew chapter 24 is verse 36 through 44 where Jesus says this, he says, "But concerning that day and hour, no one knows." And he's talking about his return, "not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away." And he says, "So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the middle, one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known and what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect." And the big idea is that Jesus is coming back. No one knows exactly when, but when he comes, he says it's going to be like some people are asleep. That they're just completely caught off guard unaware by his return. It's going to be like in the days of Noah, people are just going on with their lives, ignoring the warnings coming from the Prophet Noah until that day when the flood comes and just swept them all the way. And he says, "It's going to be like that. When I return some people are going to be caught off guard as if they were asleep. But others," Jesus said, "well, they're going to be wide awake. They're going to be ready, waiting for Jesus' return." And Jesus doesn't tell us exactly when he's going to return, but he does teach us how to be ready for his return. And that's what we're going to be focusing on today. Today as we've said, is Palm Sunday. In the passage that I just read, it comes from a larger passage of scripture that's often referred to as the Olivet Discourse. It's in Matthew chapter 24 through 25. And in Matthew's gospel, this is the sermon that Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives to his disciples sometime after his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, but before his crucifixion on Good Friday. And there's way too much here for us to get through all of it verse by verse today. But we are going to get through most of it section by section. And as we do, we're going to be looking at five lessons, five steps that Jesus gives us that will enable us to be ready for his return, five areas that we need to endure in, in order to run this race and to finish well. And so the outline of today's sermon, Five steps to Finishing Well. The first step is to endure in hope. This is the beginning of Matthew chapter 24. Point two, endure in obedience. That's the end of chapter 24. Third, endure in faith. That's the beginning of chapter 25. Endure in mission. And then finally at the end of his sermon is the call to endure in love. Before we jump into the first point of today's sermon, would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? Father, we thank you that you are a good and a just God. That you will not tolerate sin and evil forever, that a day is coming when you will judge the world in righteousness, where all sin will be accounted for, either in hell for all of eternity as it deserves, or on the cross by Jesus Christ in our place. Jesus, we thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for taking the punishment, the wrath that our sins deserve so that we can look to your coming, not with the fear of punishment, but with the hope of salvation, of deliverance. That you have saved us, you've justified us, you've saved us from the penalty of our sin, that you right now by the power of your Holy Spirit are saving us, delivering us from the power of sin in our lives. And that you will come again to once and for all time deliver us from the very presence of sin for all of eternity. We long for, we look to that day. And Lord, we pray as we do that you would give us the strength to endure. That by the power of your Holy Spirit we would persevere for the glory of your name. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, point number one today is to endure in hope. And this comes from the beginning, Matthew chapter 24. Beginning in verse one, Matthew sets the context for us. He says that, "Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, 'You see these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.'" And then later, "As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, 'Tell us when these things will be? What will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?' And Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All of these are but the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." And so Matthew begins, he sets the context for us. Jesus and his disciples, they're in Jerusalem and he begins to notice that his disciples are, they're starstruck by the impressive buildings, the stones of the temple. And he answers them. In verse three he says, "You see these things?" He says, "Listen to me. Truly, I say to you, there's not going to be one of these stones left on top of another. They're all going to be thrown down." And then his disciples come to in verse three and says, "Well, tell us Jesus, what are you talking about? When are these things going to happen? What are going to be the signs of your coming at the end of the age?" And then Jesus begins to answer their question. And as you read the next two chapters, it becomes clear that Jesus' answer is not so crystal clear. That he doesn't give him a straightforward, "Well, here's the time and here's the date." And actually what you see is that as he answers, he seems to be actually describing multiple different events all at the same time. Events that are distinct, but that are in some ways similar, some ways connected. On the one hand he's predicting the literal fall of Jerusalem. He's predicting the literal destruction of the temple, a prediction that actually came true within the lifetime of his own disciples. That happened, we know this from history. Now, on the other hand, when you look at the larger context of Matthew and especially the Gospel of John, we see that Jesus often compared the destruction of the temple to the destruction of his physical body, that he was foreshadowing his crucifixion and his resurrection. And this is why a few chapters later in Matthew 26, when Jesus is standing trial, well, some of his accusers come and say in Matthew 26:61 that, "This man said he was able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days." Well, we know Jesus actually did say something like that, but he wasn't referring to the literal temple at that time. He was talking about himself. That he was going to be crucified, buried, and that three days later he was going to rise from the death. Now, on the other hand, Jesus is clearly not just talking about himself. He's clearly not just talking about the temple, he's talking about the end of the world. And so he's preparing his disciples for God's judgment. He's preparing his disciples for the judgment of God that was going to be poured out on him later that week on the cross in their place for their sins. And he's also teaching them about the judgment of God that was going to fall on the whole temple system, that this was going to be a sign. That that old temple with its old, it wasn't needed anymore, because Jesus had come to fulfill all of that. Jesus was the true temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. And his disciples were as well as the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them and that they didn't need the priests and the sacrifices. Jesus was the high priest. Jesus was the sacrifice. But then thirdly, he's foreshadowing the judgment of God that was going to someday day come on all of creation. There was going to come a day when Jesus is going to return to judge the world in righteousness and to make all things new. And the apostle Peter later on in his life, he wrote in second Peter chapter three, remembering the words of Jesus. He quotes him in II Peter 3:10, "That the day of the Lord will come like a thief." And then he says, "The heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and all the works that are done on it will be exposed." Nothing's going to be hidden from the judgment of God. And so verse 11 he says, "Since these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness in godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But what is our hope? Verse 13, "But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." And this should cause the enemies of God to tremble in fear, to humble themselves and repent. But the reason that Jesus is telling his disciples this is because he wants them. He needs them to fix their eyes on this hope, because this hope is going to be the only thing that is going to allow them, enable them to persevere the tribulation that is about to come. And we need the hope of Jesus' return, because as we wait for his return, the truth is, things are going to get pretty bad. That before Jesus returns to rescue his church and lead us to glory, Satan is going to do everything he can to ravage the church and lead us astray. Jesus continues in verse four and he says, and so therefore he says, "See that no one leads you astray. For many are going to come into my name, saying, 'I am the Christ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. And all of these are but the beginning of the birth pains. And then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.'" Jesus warns about three tactics that Satan, that the enemy is going to use, three categories of tribulation that he's going to wield against the church in order to lead us astray. In the first category we see. The first category of tribulation we see is that of trials. And what I mean by trials here, as Jesus talks about, there's going to be times of great difficulty. Wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilence, disease, that he says, "There's going to be an increase in lawlessness. That it will just become common for people to lie, to cheat, to murder, to steal. And that these trials, they're going to be experienced, they're going to be common to everyone, but that Satan is going to use them in order to lead people astray. To lead people away from God, to lead them to extinguish their love, to grow cold in their love for God and their love for one another." And Jesus refers to these tribulations as birth pains. That they'll come and they'll go. They'll ebb and they'll flow throughout human history. And every time they do it's going to feel like the end of the world. It's going to feel like things couldn't possibly get any worse. And that these cycles of tribulation, they're going to come, they're going to continue until eventually a time of great tribulation, which the church will have to endure. But this will take place immediately before the return of Christ. It'll be painful, they'll be scary, but the hope is that these pains are leading to something glorious. And Jesus doesn't try to sugarcoat it. He says, "It's going to be bad." But he says in verse 13, "But listen, the one who endures to the end will be saved." And so in the trials of life, dear Christian, endure. The second category we see, the second category of tribulation is that of persecution. Verse nine, it says, "They will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another." Again, like the pangs of trials, persecutions, they come and go throughout church history and as they do, Jesus says, "They're going to cause some Christians to fall away, to turn against one another, to even hate one another." And I think a lot of people think that Christian persecution, oh, that's just something of the past. That's maybe something the early church experienced under the Roman Empire, but that doesn't happen today. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. It is estimated that since the dawn of the church, 70 million Christians have been martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ, 70 million. And over half of those took place within the last 100 years. And estimated around a 100,000 Christians are martyred every year, because they bear the name of Christ. And those of us who grew up here in America, we don't think about this often, because the world doesn't want to look at it. The world turns away from it, pretends like it's not happening. And much of it is happening far away on the other side of the world. I think a lot of Christians got a wake-up this week, these demonic evil attack that took place at the Covenant Christian School in Tennessee. It was a young woman who hated God, who hated Christians and targeted her rage at a Christian school. Satanically murdered three adults, three children, and I don't use that word satanic lightly. What is persecution? Persecution is what happens, when Satan tempts a person to love their sin and their perversion so much that they are willing to kill for it, rather than look to the one who loved them so much that he was willing to die for it, to die for them. It's demonic, it's evil, it's satanic and it's heart-wrenching when it hits so close to home. But this is a reality that many Christians throughout history and around the world today face every single day. This is the reality that got Jesus nailed to a cross. This is the reality that led every one of his apostles to a brutal martyr's death. That when the general calamity of the trials of life are not enough to pull us away, well then Satan is not above using specifically targeted evil at the people of God through the form of persecution. And sometimes it's social coercion, sometimes it's economic exclusion, sometimes it's threats and acts of violence. And Jesus warns us, verse nine, "They'll deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another." Again, he doesn't sugar coat it for us, but he does leave us with this hope in verse 13, "That the one who endures to the end will be saved." So endure in trials, endure in persecution. The third category of tribulation we see in this passage is that of temptation. That Satan, look at verse 11, "Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." And then later in verse 24, he says, "For false christs and false prophets will arise and even perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." Obviously, that's not possible, but he's trying to communicate how severe the temptation will be. That Satan doesn't always need to use persecution when sometimes all it takes is a little temptation. Sometimes all he needs to do is raise up a false prophet to tell us what we want to hear. Raise up a false pastor who instead of boldly preaching the truth that we need to hear will cower before the crowds and just tell them what they want to hear. This is, I mean these signs, they're everywhere. We see them all around us in this world today, the pains of labor. And when we feel them and when it feels like they've become too much, there's really two ways we can respond. We can look at this rising hatred of God, of persecution against Christians around the world. We can look at the cult of rampant perversion and sexual immorality that is domineering our culture. We can look at the wars, the rumors of wars, the famines, the disaster of the disease. We can look at the alarming apostacy in churches around us that scoff at the Word of God. We can look at these signs and lose heart. We can get discouraged, we can get angry. We can get bitter. We can allow our love to grow cold. We can believe the lie that these pains are just leading to a meaningless death. Or we can believe the truth, that these pains of labor will someday eventually give birth to eternal life, to new creation. And so dear Christian, endure the pains of this tribulation. Pick up your cross and fix your eyes on Jesus, the founder, the perfector of our faith who promises us Matthew 7:13, "That the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." And then 24:13, "But the one who endures to the end will be saved." And finally, Matthew 24:32. Jesus gives us this beautiful illustration of hope, because after hearing all that, we need some hope. And this is what he says. He says, "From the fig tree learns its lesson, as soon as its branches become tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all of these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates." I don't know about you, but I am ready for summer in more ways than one. Outside the front window of our apartment we have these two magnolia trees, and right now they look like death. They're barren. There's no leaves. They've got these ugly, fuzzy, grayish, greenish, brownish buds on the end of their branches. But when we see that ugliness, we get a little bit excited because we know what's about to come. We know it's only a matter of time before these buds start to bloom, before this barren tree begins to explode with color, with new life. And I really think this is just the providence of God. I looked out our window this morning and I can see just a few here there, 10, 11, maybe 12 of these buds beginning to open. The signs of life and color peeking through. Jesus may return in our lifetime, or he may not. We don't know the day or the hour. If he doesn't return soon, we have the promise of scripture that he is going to be with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. He will give us the power and the strength to persevere. And if he does return soon, he will do so in power and great glory to save and glorify his church and to put an end to Satan, sin, and death once and for all. In these last few verses of this first passage in verse 29, Jesus tells us, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the heavens, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and all of the tribes of earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." And so first and foremost, in order to finish, well, we need to endure in this hope. And we see this here in this first section that we've looked at. But now as we look at the rest of Jesus' sermon throughout Matthew through chapter 24 and 25, what we see is that Jesus teaches a series of parables and each one of these shows us another step, another area that we will need to endure in order to finish well. And that we can endure in because of this hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And this really shows us practically what this is going to look like in day-to-day life. Point number one was, endure in hope. Point number two is verses 45 through 51 to endure in obedience. Jesus says in verse 44, "You must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." And then he begins to teach this parable. He says, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, at an hour that he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place that will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Parables are a lot like jokes. And I don't say that to say that this parable is funny. It's not. This is a very serious and grave warning that Jesus gives us. But they are in the sense that they're the closest, modern equivalent in the sense that a lot of the details in a parable are really meant to get you to the punchline of the parable. They're usually not meant to be read allegorically. They're meant to communicate one big idea, one big aha moment. As we read these parables, we got to ask, "What is the punchline of this parable?" And the punchline of this one Jesus is teaching us is, don't be like this wasted servant living a wasted life. In other words, you need to live every day as if it were your last because it very well could be so. That there is an urgency to our obedience to Christ. And the reason that there is an urgency to obedience is because we all have this tendency to want to put it off, to get to it later. How many of us have been in that place in life where we tell ourselves, "I want to follow Jesus, but I'll get serious and really give him my full obedience someday, later. I just got some stuff I want to do first." I've been there. I was that stereotypical church kid that went off to college and drifted away. And you know this about me, my first semester I joined a band and on the weekends, I wasn't going to church on the weekends, we were driving all over the Midwest, touring, playing shows. And I remember one spring morning we were on some college campus, we'd been up late playing a show the night before. And I don't know, we got up at the crack of like 10:30 or 11:00 and decided to go out and try to find something to eat. As we were driving through town, I see this woman, she's got a nice dress on, she's got a big fancy hat. She's walking down the street by herself waving a palm branch. I was like, "What on earth is she doing?" And then suddenly it dawned on me it was Sunday, today was Palm Sunday. I'd considered myself a Christian, and yet it had been so long since I thought about God or I thought about church, I didn't even realize the season, that Easter was just a week away. I was oblivious. I was like the hypocrite in this parable. And if you're waiting until later to give your full obedience to Christ, that's a really dangerous game to play. Later may never come. And if it does, you might not have the heart to respond when it does. Hebrews three warns us. Hebrews 3:12. It says, "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 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." And so endure in obedience so that you may not be hardened by deceitfulness of sin. That's point two. Point three is to endure in faith. And this is the beginning of the next chapter, chapter 25:1-13. Jesus tells us another parable. He says, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bride groom. Five of them were foolish and five of them were wise. And when the foolish ones took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wises took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, 'Here's the bridegroom. Come out to meet him.' Then all those virgins rose, trimmed their lamps. And the foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise answered saying, 'Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.' And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. And afterward the other virgins also came saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' But he answered, 'Truly, I say to you, 'I do not know you.' Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.'" So again, we got, this is not an allegory, it's a parable, so the punchline here is, does Jesus know you? He answers the foolish and he says, "Truly I say to you, I do not know you." And this is echoing a statement that he made in the Sermon of the Mount earlier in Matthew chapter seven. He says, "Listen, not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And on that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" When Jesus returns, he's not going to be impressed with our self-righteous list of accomplishments as we stand before his throne in judgment. The question is, does he know you? Do you have faith? Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Oftentimes we're tempted to put off our obedience to Christ. Well, oftentimes we're often tempted to put off our relationship with Jesus Christ to say, "I'll get serious about my faith later. I'll spend time in fasting and prayer. I'll start to read my Bible later. Someday when I'm less busy, someday when I have more time." Well, later may never come. And the question is, Jesus wants us to feel an urgency that if he came back today, would it be like you're meeting a stranger, or would it be like you're meeting a friend, somebody that you know, someone you have a relationship with? You need to endure in faith. Point number four is to endure in mission. This is verse 14 through 30, Matthew chapter 25. This is the parable of the talents. And we looked at this last week, so I'm not going to read through the whole thing again for us this week, just to give you the CliffsNotes version, the parable of the talents that there's a wealthy master, a wealthy king. He's entrusted three of his servants with a certain amount of money, with a certain number of talents to invest as he departs and goes on a long journey. And then he comes back to settle accounts with them after a long time. And what we're told is that the wicked servant, he took his master's money, he hid it, he buried it in the ground, and when the master comes back he punishes him. But the good servants, they took their master's talents, they invested them faithfully. And when the master comes back, he says to them in verse 23, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little, I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." And last week when we looked at this parable, we looked at it through the lens of giving and generosity. And that's, I think a good way to look at it. It's one of the ways that you can look at it. But ultimately, Jesus was talking about a lot more than just managing money when he was teaching this parable. He wants us, we need to look at this through the lens of God's mission that Jesus is teaching about the Kingdom of God. Now, Jesus is the master, right? He's gone on a long journey. He's ascended into heaven. We don't know the day that he's going to return, but we know that when he does return that he will be back. And while he is gone, he has left us with a mission to accomplish. If you remember back in Matthew 24:14, Jesus tells us this, "That this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." We all love this idea of doing evangelism, of making disciples, of answering God's calling for our life, investing our talents for his kingdom. But so often we are not doing those things now, because again, we keep saying, "Oh, well, I'll do those things someday later." And what we're doing in those moments is we're really acting like the foolish, like the wicked servant. Were burying God's talents in the ground. And Matthew 9:57 we're told that as Jesus and his disciples were going along the road, someone came and he said to him, "Hey Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go.' And Jesus said to him, "Well, foxes have holes in birds of the airs have nests. But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." And to another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Well, Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." And yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to those at my home." And Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." And obviously Jesus is using a bit of hyperbole here, but the point is clear, that the mission doesn't start tomorrow, the mission starts today. That we cannot put this off. We need to go, proclaim the kingdom of God, keep both hands to the plow and not look back. We need to endure in this mission. And then finally, we're called, at the end of his sermon Jesus calls us to endure in love. That is point number five, Matthew 25:31-46. But first, if you remember back to the beginning of chapter 24, Jesus warned us about this. He said, "That many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." That we need as the church to endure and love. We need to endure in our love for God, we need to endure and our love for our neighbors, for people in general. But at the end of his sermon here, Jesus gives us a parable in which he is calling us specifically to endure in our love for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the meaning of the final parable. This is the parable of the sheep and the goats. Matthew 25:31. Jesus says, "When the son of man comes in his glory and all of the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. And before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left and then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as stranger and welcome, or you are naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?" And the king will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me." And then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, I was naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they will also answer saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and not minister to you?" Then he'll answer them saying, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." And I think most of us, at least for myself, whenever I've heard this read or preached, it's usually preached in the sense of, this is a call for Christians to do good works. This is a call for Christians to be charitable and compassionate and to care for those are who are in need. And those are certainly all good things that Christians should do. But that's not the point of what Jesus is talking about here. Because again, so the parable, it's not an allegory. And so what it is the punchline of the parable, it's verse 40, "That the king will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of," the least of who? "One of the these, my brothers, you did it for me." And when you read the gospels, when Jesus uses that language of the least of these, when he uses the language of my brothers and sisters, he's referring to his disciples. That as Christians we should love our neighbors as ourselves, that we should be charitable and compassionate to people in general. But the big idea that Jesus is talking about here is that this needs to be especially true for how we love and care for our brothers and sisters in Christ. That as Christians, when we love other Christians, when we care for the body of Christ, it says, "If we are caring for Christ himself." And when we don't, we see the warning there as well. Now, we need to think about this in the context of the sermon that Jesus is preaching. Jesus is preaching to a people who are about to face tribulation. And in just a few days he's going to lead the way by going to the cross himself. And I think part of what's going on here is that Jesus is, he's foreshadowing the reality that a time of difficulty was about to come for himself, that he would be crucified, and that when he was his followers, his disciples, his brothers and sisters would be tempted to desert him, to betray, to deny, to be ashamed to associate with him. And that's exactly what happened. But he's also saying, "That a time of difficulty is coming for you, my church as well. And when it does, you're going to be tempted to do the same, to turn against and to abandon one another." And he's reminding us that in those moments when it becomes the most costly, the most inconvenient to love one another, that is precisely when we need to love one another the most. And we have a very direct example of this in the New Testament. In II Timothy chapter one. The apostle Paul writes in second Timothy 1:15, he says to Timothy, "Listen, you are aware of all of those in Asia who turned away from me, among whom were Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day." And so he says, you remember Phygelus and Hermogenes, right? Phygelus, goat, Hermogenes, goat. They're hypocrites. They claim to be followers of Jesus, but they were fakes, they were frauds. When it came time to prove their faith, they were ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They turned and they abandoned the apostle Paul. Onesiphorus, now there's a sheep, right? He cared for Paul while he was in prison. He wasn't ashamed to go to him and give him help in his time of need. He's the real goat in the modern sense, not to get too confusing. But you see what's going on here. He cared for Paul. And in caring for Paul, it's as if he cared for Christ. And look at what Paul prays for him in verse 18. He says, "May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day." On what day? On the day when Jesus comes to separate the sheep from the goats. That as the church we must endure for love and love for one another always, especially when it's hard, especially when it's costly, especially when the world around us hates us. By doing so, we honor Christ and we prove, we test testify to the world that we truly are his disciples. And Jesus, in John 13:34, he tell his disciples, "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." And he says, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have loved one another." And so the five steps to finish well, endure in hope, endure in obedience, endure in faith, endure in mission, endure in love. And Jesus gave this last commandment that we just read. If you remember this, he gave this in the context of the Last Supper, right after having washed his disciples' feet. It says John 13:12. It says, "When he had washed their feet and he put on his outer garment and resumed his place, and he said to them, 'Do you understand what I've done for you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you're right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I've given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed you if you do them, I'm not speaking of all of you, I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate bread has lifted his heel against me.'" He's talking about Judas who would betray him. "But I'm telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." Today is a special day, today is Palm Sunday. It's the beginning of Holy Week and it's fitting that we look to the return of Christ on the day that he first entered, his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Today is also Communion Sunday, we remember the crowd that cried, hosanna, that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as their savior. We also remember that crowd quickly turned into the mob that later that week rejected him as their Lord. And their response, it stands as a warning, as a reminder throughout the ages that our greatest need is not for a savior who is going to come and save us from our circumstances. Our greatest need is for a savior who's going to come and save us from ourselves, save us from our sin, our guilt, our shame from the wrath of God that those things deserve. And communion is a time for us to remember and to give thanks and to celebrate that Jesus Christ came to do just that. Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from the penalty that our sin deserved. That Jesus rose from the grave to deliver us from the power of sin over our lives. And that Jesus is going to come again to judge the living and the dead, and to deliver us from the very presence of sin, a once and for all and for all eternity. God, we thank you for your amazing grace. We thank you that the signs are all around us, that the winter is almost over, that spring and summer are almost here. And that when we see these signs, we know for certain that you are with us. You have promised to be with us always to the very end of the age. And whether that day be soon, or whether that day be long beyond our time here on earth. Lord, I pray that you'd give us the grace and the power to walk faithfully and endure to the end for the sake of your name and glory. That every one of our lives would be used as a witness, as a testimony to your goodness, to your grace, to your power, to your glory. And we thank you for the blood of your son, Jesus Christ that was poured out for us, so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be redeemed from our slavery to sin and adopted into your household as sons and daughters. And we come now as your children and just continue to give you thanks and give you our praise. In Jesus' name, amen.
Committed to Generosity
March 26, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • 1 Thessalonians 4:13—5:11
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com We are continuing today in our sermon series Committed Talking about Essential Habits of abundant Life. If you have your Bibles open up to 2 Corinthians 9, that's we're going to be spending most of our time today. And if you haven't been with us, what we've been doing throughout this series, we are about 10 weeks in. We got two weeks to go. Next week's going to be the conclusion of this series. We've been talking about the essential, non-negotiable, super practical commitments that we all need to make as followers of Jesus in order to grow and persevere in our faith and in order to experience the abundant life that he calls every one of us to. And we've covered a lot of ground in this series, talked about a lot of topics. And the topic that we're going to be talking about today is we're going to be talking about money. We're going to be talking about generosity. We're going to be talking about giving every pastor's favorite thing to talk about. Actually, a lot of pastors are uncomfortable talking about this. And really I think a lot of the reason is because we've seen it done so poorly. Especially you think about Christian television, these guy, they're practically like charlatans, pedaling the gospel for financial gain. And that's not what this is about. And so just right up front in case you're worried, I do not live in a mansion. I have a nice apartment in Brooklyn. I do not fly in a private jet, but I do have a pretty nice Mazda. I'm proud of that. But I'm not after your money. I don't need your money. God doesn't need your money, right? That's not what this is about. Psalm 50, God tells us, he says, "Listen, every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills, they're mine. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, would I not tell you? For the world and its fullness are mine." He says. And God's not lacking in anything. He doesn't need anything. He made it all. He owns it all. But the reason that we're talking about money today is because as much as God doesn't need our money, he does desire our maturity and how we relate to money is going to be one of the single most, the greatest contributing factors to that, to our spiritual health, our growth, and our maturity. Because we live in a world that worships money, that is obsessed with money. And every single one of us, we are either going to worship money as well or we are going to learn how to worship with our money, but we can't do both. And Jesus, he made this clear in Matthew 6:19. He said, "Remember, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves breaking and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither rust nor moth destroy where these do not breaking and steal for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also." And then he goes on though in verse 24, he says, "Listen, no one can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other, but you cannot serve both God and money." And so we need to see money as what it is. Money's a tool and it's a powerful tool. But if we fail to learn how to use it properly, it will slowly begin to use us. It will take us captive and enslave us. And there's danger here. The apostle Paul writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 he warned him about this. He said, first of all, verse six, he says, "Godliness with contentment, that's great gain for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with these we'll be content." But he says, "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. And through this craving, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." There's a warning there. But we also need to look carefully at this because this verse 10 it's up there in the list of probably the top most misquoted verses in all of scripture. Because usually when you hear this verse, you hear it said that "Money is the root of all evil." But that's not what it says. It says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The money itself is not the problem. The problem is how we use it and how we use it can be either to produce great good or to cause great evil. And this is why when you look at the gospels, Jesus talks about money all the time. Actually, he talks about money more than just about anything else. Over half of his parables had to do with how we manage money. He talked about it all the time. And so we need to talk about it as well. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. And so we're in 2 Corinthians 9 and I believe this gives us one of the most straightforward, clear, practical teachings and scripture about giving about Christian and generosity. And so we're going to just work through this verse by verse. And as we do, we're going to be looking at seven principles of godly giving the apostle Paul teaches us this passage is packed with application. And so we're going to be looking at these seven principles. We're going to move through them pretty quickly. And the big hope, the idea is we want to learn how to wield our wealth as generous stewards and use these things for God's glory. And so 2 Corinthians 9, beginning in verse six, the apostle Paul writes this. He says, "This is the point. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work as it is written, he is distributed freely. "He's given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way, to be generous, in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many Thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift." This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermons day? And God, we do give you thanks for this inexpressible gift that you have given us life. You have given us your word. And Lord importantly, you have given us your son Jesus Christ to pay our debt and to supply our every need to be completely sufficient in every way. And Lord, help us to know, to trust and to see you for who you really are, that you are our gracious and generous father and we ask that you would teach us as your children to live in that grace and to live lives of grace and generosity as well. And I pray this for your glory and we pray this in the name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, so we're looking at seven lessons, seven principles of godly giving today. And the very first one we see in verse six. And Paul starts out just plain and simple. He says, "The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." And the first principle that we see is that as Christians we need to get beyond this view that giving is this drudgery, this obligation that we're all bound to and actually start to see it for what it really is, which is it is an incredible opportunity to invest what God has entrusted with us, with the expectation that there will be a reward, there will be a return. The first principle is that giving is an investment opportunity. That God is not the IRS, he is not taxing you on what is rightfully yours. God is your father and he is entrusting you with what is actually rightfully his. Everything you have it's a gift from the father's hand. And he doesn't give us these things just to hoard them for ourselves. He wants us to experience the freedom and the joy of using them, of investing them to bless others, to bless God, to seek his kingdom and invest in his kingdom pulses. "So therefore, if you sow bountifully, don't worry, you will also reap bountifully." In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus teaches one of his most famous parables on this very subject. And it's a little bit long, but I'm going to read the whole thing cause this is extremely important. This is the parable of the talents. Matthew 25:14. Jesus teaching his disciples about the kingdom of God and he says "It's going to be like a man who's going on a journey." "He calls his servants and he entrusted to them his property to one, he gave five talents to another two and to another one each according to his ability. And then he went away. "He had received the five talents, went at once and traded with them and he made five talents more. So also he had the two talents, made two talents more, but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and he hid his master's money. Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them and he had received the five talents, came forward bringing five talents, more saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents here I've made you five talents more." And his master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much, enter into the joy of your master." And he also who had the two talents came forward saying, "Master, I delivered to you. You delivered to me two talents. Here I've made two talents more." "And his master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over a little. I will set you over much enter into the joy of your master." He also had received the one talent came forward saying, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seeds. So I was afraid and I went and I hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours." His master answered him "You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I've not sewn and gather where I scattered no seed, then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers I might coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has 10 talents for to everyone who has more be given and he will have an abundance, but from the one who is not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."" And one of the things that we're meant to do as we read this parable is notice the dichotomies that are going on that in this parable what we see are two very different types of servants, two different categories of servant. We have two very different destinations, but we also see two very different perceptions of the master. And that what separates the good and the faithful from the wicked and the lazy servant in this parable is not just that the good servants go and they invest the talents that the master gave them. What really separates them is this perception of who the master was, that the good servants were willing to invest their talents to go immediately, to go quickly because they understood that the master was a very joyful and generous guy. Now the wicked servant, he didn't see that. He didn't know the master clearly. The wicked servant believed that the master was cruel and corrupt. And so he hides his talent out of fear and he wasn't willing to take any risks to make any investments with what he had because he was afraid. He's afraid that the master was cruel and that if he made a mistake, if he didn't get a good return, that the master would punish him for that. But that that's not the kind of guy that the master was. The good servants they understood this, that the master wasn't cruel, the master wasn't unjust, he was kind, he was joyful, he was generous. And then all he was really asking them to do was to take what he had entrusted them with and go out, take a risk and invest it. And we see that when the master returns, notice that he doesn't praise them for their success. Primarily what he praises them for is their faithfulness. He says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over what" he says, "a talent" and the master says "is a little." And then from the master's perspective, apparently a talent was just a small amount, but to the average person, a talent represented like 20 years of wages. For the average person, five talents was more money than they would see in their lifetime. And yet to the master, he says, "I was just trusting you with a little and you were faithful with that." And the big idea is that how you give is ultimately a reflection of how you view God. And if you view God as stingy, as cruel, as withholding, as unjust, if you believe that God's provision is scarce, then yeah, you're going to live in fear. You're going to be afraid to take risks. You're going to be afraid to invest what he has given you. You're going to be afraid that God won't take care of you. If on the other hand you understand that God is a good father, that his resources are limitless, that as we read that creation and all the fullness thereof, that's all his. He has everything he needs, he's never going to run out. Well then you, you're set free as the good servants were to just go at once without hesitation and invest what he is giving you to invest because ultimately at the end of the day, the father's not looking for our ROI. What he's looking for is our faithfulness. He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The question is, "Do you trust me and are you willing to do what I say even in when that involves risk and sacrifice," and how you answer that question, it's dependent on how you view God. And so guys, the master in the parable says, "You were faithful over a little and I put you over much. You were faithful over a little. Enter and experience the joy of your master." Luke 6:38. Jesus says, "Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together. Running over will be put in your lap for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." And so the first principle is we need to stop viewing giving as this taxing obligation and begin to see it as the opportunity that it is, an opportunity to take what God has given us and invest it for his kingdom, for his glory. The second principle we see is that giving is a matter of the heart. Paul says that whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. And then in verse 7, he says, "And each one must give as he is decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver." And so he says, "You got to give as you've decided in your heart." But then he also gives us the filter of how you reach that decision. How do you decide in your heart what to give? Well, he tells us. And if you were here a couple weeks ago we talked about the Venn diagram of discernment, of how you discern God's calling God's will for you. Well, this verse here, it's kind of like the Venn diagram of giving. How do you decide in your heart how much to give? And we see these three circles in the text and you're looking for the sweet spot again in the middle. And the first circle that we see is the first verse that we read that God calls us to give bountifully, to give generously, even to give sacrificially. And the illustration that he uses is that of a farmer planting seed. Like the farmer has a decision. The farmer can hoard everything, keep it for himself and use it, eat all of the grain, all of the seed that he sort. Or he can deny himself a portion of that in order to plant with the idea that the more you plant, the more you sew, the more you will eventually reap. And so practically, when it comes to deciding how much you should give, particularly we're talking about giving to church, tithes, offerings, things like that. But also generally how do we give when God provides us opportunities to live generously with The principle is that you should be giving enough that it actually feels like a sacrifice. That in order to give bountifully, well that means you got to be able to deny yourself right now, like deny yourself certain comforts, certain luxuries that you need to decisively live below your means in order that you may be have that margin in your budget to give to God and to be generous with others. And in the Old Testament, the principle, it began with it, the idea of the tithe, remember this, that God's people were called to give 10% of all that they had back to God as a worship offering. And in the New Testament, Jesus actually he affirms and he assumes the tithe is a good thing, something that his followers will do as well. We see this in Luke chapter 11. We see this in Matthew 23:23. Jesus is addressing the problems with the Pharisees. And he says to them, he says, "Whoa to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For, you tithe mint and dill and cumin." He's talking about you. You tie even the most minute things in your life, making sure that you give precisely 10% of everything. But he says, "But you neglect the way your matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done." Yeah, you ought to have tithed, "But without neglecting the others, you blind guides, you're straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." So the Pharisees, they thought they were like hot stuff. They thought they were really flexing by how precisely they ties on everything that they had. But Jesus says, "I'm not impressed." You might be trying to impress others, but you're doing this and you're doing it for the wrong reason. And Jesus says he's not impressed. Yeah, you should have been tithing, but more importantly, you should be faithful. You should be, be merciful. In other words, you should be living beyond the letter of the law in order to fulfill the spirit of the law, in order to be people who's who are living radically sacrificial lives of generosity, both in their tithes and offerings to God, but also with how they, they're generous with their entirety of their lives. Are you generous with your time? Are you generous with your talents, your skills, your ability? Are you generous with your talents, your treasures, your material possessions? And so as we try to decide in our hearts what to give, the first question is, am I truly sacrificing? Am I sowing bountifully? Or if I'm honest with myself, am I just kind of serving up my leftovers to God? Like the things that I wouldn't miss if they were gone anyway? Well, scripture calls us to give sacrificially. C.S. Lewis in mere Christianity. He said, "I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare." In other words, if our expenditures on comforts, luxuries, amusements, et cetera, if that is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, well we're probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small, there ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures exclude them. And so that, that's the first circle. But then Paul goes on, he tells us the other two, which are also important as well. In verse seven he says, "You also, you must give as you've decided, your heart give not reluctantly or under compulsion and cheerfully for God loves a cheerful giver." So give it cheerfully, joyfully, not under compulsion and not begrudgingly and sacrificially as well. And the only way that you can find that sweet spot in the middle and be able to do all that is when you understand that your giving is a response to just the incredible, abundant, overwhelming generosity that God has already shown us in his son Jesus Christ. And so personally, just practically, this is what I do, this is what I think I would recommend all Christians do in our household, Kelly and I, every year or any time that our household income changes, we sit down and we update our budget. And the way that we budget our household budget is we figure out our income and then before anything else first, foremost, before rents, before taxes, before Uncle Sam gets his hands on a single penny of that income, we block out, we are giving our tithe that at least 10% of that is going straight to our local church to Mosaic. That is our offering to God. It's an act of worship. But then beyond that, you build the whole rest of your budget with that idea in mind of like, we need to leave space, we need to leave margin, we need to cut things out, luxuries, comforts that maybe we would like to have but don't need to have. So that we have that space there to be generous when God presents us opportunities to be generous and to do so knowing that Jesus taught us it is more blessed to give than to receive. And so this is not easy to do, especially if you've never done this before. This can be hard. It can be scary to really trust God and to commit to do this. And I think that's why the next principle that we see in our text is that giving is not only a matter of heart giving is also an act of faith. Giving is an act of demonstrating what we truly believe, that at the end of the day that God is the one who cares for us. He is the one who PR has provided for us and that he will be faithful. Paul says verse seven, each one us give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And then consider these next few verses carefully, verse 8. "And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency and all things at all times you may abound in every good work as it is written, he has distributed freely his given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever and he who supplies seed to the sower and bred for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. And the question here is at the end of the day, do we really believe this? Do we really trust that God will take care of us or are we putting our trust in our own ability to take care of ourselves, our own ability to produce wealth? Jesus, he also taught a parable about this in Luke 12, which told in verse 13 that someone in the crowd came up to him and said, "Hey teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." And he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable saying "The land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, "What shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops?" And he said, "I'll do this, I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods and I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry." But God said to him, "Fool. This night your soul is required of you and the things that you've prepared, whose will they be?" So is the one who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God."" And when we are rich toward God, ultimately what we're doing is we're demonstrating that we trust that God is our provision. And that also means that we're not trusting ourselves to be that provision ultimately. And I don't think it's a coincidence that therefore the very next thing that Jesus begins to talk about with the people listening is their anxiety, their anxieties about the things of life every day, things that average people worry about when it comes to money. But we go on and you read in verse 22, he addressing these anxieties and he does so by offering just some of the most comforting words that we have in all of scripture. And so it says that, "He says then to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you in light of everything we just said in light of this call that I've given you to live richly toward God," He says, "I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you eat nor about your body, what you will put on life is more than food in the body is more than clothing." "He says, "Consider the ravens. They neither sew nor reef. They have neither storehouse nor barn and yet God feeds them of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour or to a span of life if then you are not able to do as smaller thing as that? Are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow. They neither toil nor spin yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow's thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, oh you of little faith." "You're not seek what you are to eat what you're to drink nor be worried for all the nations of the world seek after these things and your father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom. And these things will be added to you. Fear not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with treasures in heaven that do not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also." So how is your anxiety level right now, particularly when you think about money, when you think about these cares that we all have? Well, scripture consistently draws a connection between our level of anxiety and our level of faith that Romans 8:15 it says, "You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. You received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father." That God doesn't call us to live an anxiety and fear as if we were orphans, as if we were slaves. He calls us to live as sons and daughters of the king in that safety, in that security. And what this means is that that for the Christian anxiety, it's based on delusion, illusion, it's based on deception. It's a lie of the enemy telling us that God is not good, that he is not our father, that he is not going to keep his promises, he's not going to take care of us. And the only way we overcome that is through the eyes of faith. It's through the eyes of trusting and seeing God for who he really is and that ultimately our lives are safe in the father's hands, Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 6. He's again teaching Timothy and he says, "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. Thus storing up treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life." That when you see reality for what it really is, when you see God for who he really, that's how you take hold of that which is truly life to not live basing your life in the uncertainty and the anxiety of earthly riches, but resting in the security of your father who as Paul says, richly provides us with everything to enjoy. So giving is an act of faith. Fourth, we see giving. Giving is also a catalyst for spiritual growth. It's a means of growing our faith. Paul continues, verse 10. He says, "He who supplies seed to the sewer and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You'll be enriched in every way to be generous, in every way, which through us will produce thanks giving to God." And what we see is that not only is giving an act of faith, it is also a means of growing in our faith that as we sow the seed the father entrust to us, Paul says we will be enriched in every way that we will reap a harvest of righteousness. Most of us know this, that scripture tells us to not put the Lord our God to the test. But there is actually one place in scripture where God commands us to test him, where he invites us to test him in something. And it has to do with this topic of giving ex. This comes from Malachi chapter 3:7. God is talking to his people Israel and he tells them, "From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them." And he invites them, "Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, "How shall we return?"" And then God asks them this question. He says, "Well man, Rob God, yet you are robbing me. You say, "How have we robbed you?" Well in your tithes and contributions, your curse with a curse for you robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test," says the Lord of hosts. "If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need, I will rebuke the devour for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil and the vine and your field shall not fail to bears as the Lord of hosts." And then verse 12 says, "And then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of delights," says the Lord of hosts." I remember the first time that I read this, the first time I heard this scripture, Kelly and I, we were newlyweds, we were baby Christians and we saw this and we're like, "We don't want to miss out on this. So we're going to do this. We're going to make the decision to start tithing as a family as a couple." Now at the time I was pulling in about $25,000 a year as a entry level graphic designer. Kelly on the other hand, she was pulling in negative dollars a year as a college student. And so things were pretty tight for us. We were getting by on chicken nuggets and fish sticks from Walmart. But we were like, we read this and we're like, "We trust God. We're going to do this. We're going to put God to the test." And so we did. And what we found is that he proved himself overwhelmingly, abundantly, faithful, not just then, but every day since then. And as we saw God's faithfulness, God's provision over and over and over, well as we saw all these examples of God being faithful to us, our faith itself grew in tandem. We were given so many opportunities to grow in our faith because of witnessing his faithfulness to us. And so giving can be a catalyst for spiritual growth. And fifth is that giving is a blessing to the church. Paul says in verse 12, "The ministry of the service," he's talking about their the church's giving. He says, "The ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanks givings to God." And I love this because even just thinking back over the last year, we can see clearly that Mosaic, the ministry of your service, of your giving, it has supplied the needs of the saints. And it has resulted in an overflown in many Thanksgivings to God. If you don't know this Mosaic, we as a church, we tithe. And so what that means is that 90% of everything that we take in is used for the work of the ministry here in Boston to be a blessing to the saints here so that we can be a blessing to the city. It covers the cost of doing ministry and a really crazy expensive place like this. But the other 10%, at least 10% as an organization, we send that out to be a blessing to saints all over the world. And so last year we were actually able to go above and beyond that. Last year we were able to give around $220,000. And just to break it down about 80,000 of that we were able to raise through the Ukraine fund, which directly every dollar. Well that went to support a ministry in the Ukraine that was caring for orphans, refugees. In addition to that, another $40,000 was sent to basically fund a brand new church plant in Ukraine through that same organization. And then the remaining $100,000 was used to support church planting efforts here in Boston, new England, north America, all over the world. And so I say that just to say praise God for Mosaic's generosity like this is so encouraging. It's a blessing to us to be able to see how God uses this. And it's a blessing to saints all over the world that results in thankfulness of God. And I want to thank you, I want to encourage you in that. And then I also want to stir you up and challenge you because I think as a church that we can do more that we've been faithful over little, God wants to put us over more. The last statistic I saw reported that the average Christian in America only gives about 2% of their income away. By God's grace we can estimate the average a tender at Mosaic gives around 3%. So we're above average, but there's room to grow. Imagine, just imagine what we could do if even just the members of Mosaic started to bring in the full ti as Malachi said. Malachi says, verse 10, "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test as the Lord if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need." And then he says, "And when you do this that all the nations will call you blessed and you will be a land of delights." And somewhere around 2 billion Christians in the world today, imagine if they all tithed. Imagine if it started with us. Imagine like the work that we could do, the blessing that we could be, the reward that we could expect if we stepped up as a church to go against the odds, to go against the norm and prove to be faithful over however little, however much God entrusts with us. Imagine the thanksgiving and the glory that could be given to God as we grow together in this area. And that really leads us to point number six, that not only is giving a blessing to the saints, a blessing to the church that giving is also a blessing to God. And we see this throughout the text. Verse 11 says, "You will be enriched in every way to be generous, in every way, which through us produces thanks giving to God for the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanks givings to God. And by their approval of this service, they will glorify God." I'm not going to say a whole bunch about this because it's pretty self-explanatory, but this is really the greatest benefit of giving that people get to see through us, that as Christians, as we live generously, people get to see a reflection of God through us. They get a picture of what God is really like, that God is generous, he is gracious, and he is trustworthy. And this results, thanks giving results in him receiving the glory that He deserves. And then finally point number seven is that giving is the natural response to God's grace. 2 Corinthians 9:13, Paul says, "By their approval of the service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all the others while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift." And this is ultimately what motivates it all. This is what's at the heart of it all, that we give God our first and our best and we do so joyfully because God gave us His first. He gave us His best, that God's greatest gift, this inexpressible gift, it's not money, it's not possessions, it's not treasures here on earth that God went so far beyond that, that God gave the very treasure of heaven itself, his son, Jesus Christ, to come and to secure our salvation, to secure our eternity. John 3:16 says "That for God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." And once you've received this gift, you clinging to it for dear life. And as you clinging to this gift, this is what sets you free and enables you to hold everything else in life loosely, to hold the treasures of this world loosely and to give the treasures of this world freely knowing that you are merely giving freely of what you cannot keep. And knowing that you have found the one treasure that you can never lose, the treasure that itself has taken hold of you in Christ Jesus. I'm going to close this morning by reading from Philippians 4 because this is just a great example of getting to see this played out in real life and the relationship between the apostle Paul and the Philippian church that throughout Paul's life, the Philippian Church was a church that brought him a great deal of joy. And it was a church that faithfully throughout the years supported him financially in the work of his ministry. And he writes to them towards the end of his life to thank them and to remind them of this partnership. And he says in verse 10, he says, "I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity to show it. And it's not that I'm speaking of being in need for, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble." "And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except only you. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me hope for my needs once and again. And it's not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit, I have received full payment and more, I am well supplied having received from Epaphroditus, the gift you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice, acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus, to our God and Father, be glory forever and ever. Amen." This is just a great picture of godly giving, of faithful stewardship. And my hope today is that as we all walk and grow in faithfulness in this area, that we would learn the secret of contentment that Paul talks about, that we would learn that the joy of the master, that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. That we would learn to do all things through Christ who strengthens us, that we would press on faithfully toward that day where we will hear those words. "Well done, good and faithful servants, you have been faithful over a little. I will put you over much calm and enter into the joy of your master." And if you haven't been faithful in this area, well my challenge to you today is that you would start today. You take that first step of faith and really put God to the test and see if he will not answer with faithfulness and help you to experience all these blessings that we have talked about today. And I say that not to seek the gift, as Paul said, it's not just about the money. He says in verse nine, "It's not that I seek the gift, it's that I seek the fruit that increases to your credit." Now with that being said, would you please join me in prayer and we'll continue and worship this morning. Lord, as we close today, I remember Acts 20:35, which tells us to remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. How He himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And we thank you that this is true and we know it is true because you have proven it is true that you are the most blessed and you are the one who has given more than any of us could ask or even imagine in your son Jesus Christ. God, we thank you for your abundant provision in our lives. Every breath we take, every moment is a gift from your hands. And we pray that you would help us by the power of your Holy Spirit to not waste it, to steward it well, to use every ounce of time, talent, treasure that you have entrusted to us, to invest that for the sake of your kingdom and glory, willingly, joyfully knowing that you are our good Father who provides for all our needs. Help us to steward well. Everything we have to bring you, honor and glory to you, our joyful master, our generous father, help us to be faithful over little so that we can be given even more. And Lord, we do all of this as we long to hear those words. Well done, good and faithful servants. Lord, I pray that those words would be heard by every soul that is gathered here today. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Commit to Good Works
March 19, 2023 • Andy Hoot • James 1:1–5
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Heavenly Father, we praise you that you have made this day. We thank you for the light, the bright, almost spring sky that just reminds us of the light of Christ coming into our lives, penetrating the darkness of our souls and the situations that we have lived in. And we praise you that in every season and every situation, we can trust you. We pray right now, Lord, that you would show us how to trust you in the small moments of life, how to trust you in the training that you are providing for us through day-to-day life. Give us just great joy to honor you and serve you in all situations. And we pray that we would all leave here encourage and embolden to be your disciples and to face a world that does not know you or love you. Please, Holy Spirit fill us that we might be fruitful servants this week. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And as I mentioned, we are talking about our commitment to good works. And as I prepared for this sermon, it really made me respect Pastor Shane's service throughout this series. I realize that every topic he's taken up has been a huge topic. We've talked about commitment to following Christ, commitment to the local church, evangelism, discipleship, scripture, prayer, fasting, worship and calling. And I think he's done an incredible job to consolidate these giant topics with a lot of scripture in forming them into just digestible just amounts of wisdom for us. And today, the task about talking about our commitment to good works as Christians could be endless. And really the reason is because everybody, not even just Christians, they know that Christians should commit themselves to good works. As Christians, we know verses like Ephesians 2, eight through 10. 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. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And so we know these key verses, these popular verses when good works, but people who aren't even Christian know that we are called to good works. I walk around the Brookline parks often with my children. And when a non-Christian man or woman, when their dog invades my personal space or my children's personal space, I reward their evil with kindness and bring up the church and Jesus Christ. And those conversations typically result in them really just without any preparation, having a list of good works that Christians should be doing, good works that the church should be doing. And so there's no shortage of thought and conversation in our world around what good Christians should be doing in day-to-day life. And there's no shortage of scriptures around this topic. And so we can talk about Christian good works in many ways, but what the Lord has been giving me the past few weeks as I've pondered this topic, commitment to good works. It's been filled with a strong dose of realism. You see, the last four weeks I've had big plans to do a lot of good works. I planned and scheduled many counseling sessions, many meetings with leaders of the church, tried to set aside time to proactively pour myself in the study and prayer and planning for future endeavors to take up in the church. But the Lord has caused me to postpone a lot of that work or begrudgingly do it in the early hours of the morning or late hours of the night after my children have gone to bed. And in this period, why have I had this situation? We've had four weeks. We had two weeks of sickness, colds and stomach bugs pass from one person to another from school and daycare. We had two snow days. Childcare fell through for one day of the week for one of my children for several days. We had to deal with daylight savings. This Tuesday, after I dropped off my children and one gets straight to work. I came back to my condo building and the public laundry machine right next to my unit was banging really loudly. It was like a sledgehammer pounding on the wall and I stepped out, it was overheating, it was smoking, it was melting, it's some of its machinery and I was the only person there to address it. So I ended up having to just address the situation, ended up having to take my neighbor's laundry and actually do her laundry for her, wasted a few hours of that morning. And so it's been quite a month as I've had looked at this date where I have to preach about commitment to good works and my availability to do good works and capacity and energy has been severely limited. And I don't tell you this to ask you for pity or to just get some sort of catharsis, emotional purging. I tell you this to really introduce the lesson of the day regarding good works. And really I hope through my sermon teach you the main lesson of the sermon. Through all that I've faced in the past month, I've been reciting just a verse that I've memorized years ago, James chapter one, verse two through five. And what I've learned with time as this month has passed is that our ability to do good works for God is highly dependent upon our ability to receive God's training for good works in day-to-day life. Our ability to do good works for God is highly dependent upon our ability to receive God's training for good works in day-to-day life. And so what do I mean by training? A personal example of the training that God has called me to as a pastor is how I stand over what's happening in my house. One of the requirements, one of the character qualities of a pastor is found in 1 Timothy three, four to five. It says, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church. Right? So I'm called to, part of the central era of training for me to serve as a pastor is as the head of my household. And what did the Lord require me to do over and over again in the past few weeks with a lot of these unforeseen challenges, he forced me to give the priority of my time and attention to my household. Love my wife, love my children, make sure that everything was going well. Try to continue to train them in the word despite all of the hiccups, make sure everyone's healthy and strong. And now when I had to pause from my good works that I planned for the church and outside of the home, how do you think I felt in the moment? I did not receive a lot of these moments and these things that I thought as inconveniences as my training, but really it is, it was. Fortunately, I did have my wife there to remind me that these situations were, these scenarios that I faced were essential to my training for doing good works in the church, but I struggled to view it as training. Another area where God has called me to do training is just as a neighbor, right? Christ says, the primary commandments are to love God, the Lord your God to all your heart, soul, strength in mind and love your neighbor as yourself. And furthermore too elders of the church. He says, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace. And so my training took place this week in that situation, when that washing machine was banging against the wall and seemingly melting itself. I literally had a crossroads moment of I can act like I'm not hearing that sledgehammer sound and get on with my day or I can responsibly address it. And I did follow in the ways. I followed the smell, I had turned off the machine, unplugged it. And you know what? If I didn't, I would've missed an opportunity. With that laundry, my neighbor's laundry was completely soaked still and is covered in detergent. And so it's this woman, recently widowed whose husband did everything for her in life. And so a thing like laundry is a lot for her. And she was just absolutely distraught that the machines were off, her whole schedule was thrown off for the day. So I said, I can work from home. I'll put your laundry in my machine. So when I did her laundry, it just amazed her that a person would pause and do an act, a simple act of kindness like that. She was so touched that she went out, and I'm not trying to brag about myself, I'm saying I could have missed this. She went out, she bought flowers. Not for me, for my wife. She knew the best way to bless me was to bless my wife. And this little illustration of we can miss these moments of training if we get lost in thinking that all of our works, good works as Christians are out there. They're these big grand gestures, often ones that you can take pictures of and post on social media. But what the Lord wants us to do is view trials, view tests, view conflicts that you need to address as your training and actually as the good works that he's calling you to do. And do you want... As you listen to this, if you know Christ, you know that if you have experienced the love of God, he has offered his son for you on the cross, despite your sin. You cannot but want to live a life for his glory and do good. That's really what's behind Christian works. If you don't want to offer yourself entirely for God, you have to really pause and question your faith and ask, Lord, do I know you? Do I really love you? Pour out your love upon me. Let me just be amazed by your grace. But Christians, it's an assumption that you want to do good works. And so how do you do good works? How can you continue to do works for the length of your life? And so I instruct you today, ask yourself, how are you training me, God? What are some trial, storms, broken situations that he's put in your life? How are you addressing them? Are you looking at them as inconveniences? Are you dismissing them as insignificant compared to the greater things out there, outside of your household that you want to do? Are you handling them unfaithfully with a poor attitude? Really ask yourself, Lord, how are you training me? Again, I said James one, one through five as the passage that I've just recited in my mind. The Lord use the simple set of verses to help me through this season and it's what I want to meditate on today to drive home this point. And I just want to hammer home, the main single point of the sermon is the degree to which Christians can stay committed to good works for God is dependent upon the degree to which they can rejoice in their training from God. The degree to which Christians can stay committed to good works for God is dependent upon the degree to which they can rejoice in their training from God. And so this is, I pull this from James one chapters one through five, and I just want to just belabor this point because I think it's so essential. Especially for a young, really hopeful believers. We have a very young church and we have a tendency to just look, see people post on social media, read books of great endeavors that Christians have taken up through history at the cost of really having sight for how the Lord is teaching us, training us, using us in day-to-day life. So I'm going to read James one, one through five and continue on this point and we'll walk through the text to elaborate on it. So I have my Bible down there. Can't fit my notes in my Bible here. So I'll read from my notes. James one, this is the word of our Lord. James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes of the dispersion, greetings. Count it all joy my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness habits full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him. So who is James? The little background kind of emphasizes the thrust of the points going forward. Who's James? James is the brother of Jesus, the half-brother of Jesus. The son of Mary and Joseph, one of the sons. And the Apostle Paul mentions that James actually got a special visitation post resurrection from Jesus, first Corinthians 15, 6 to 7 says, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to the apostles. Perhaps this is the moment that James committed his life to Christ, received him as his savior and Lord. 4 John 75 says, for not even his brothers, Jesus believed him. And I just dab into this background because it makes the first word of the book of the James amazing. James one, one. James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. A servant, doulas in the Greek. It means servant, slave, bond servant. A bond servant is someone who willingly dedicated their entire life to service to another. So James says he's a bond servant of Jesus Christ, this brother that grew up in his household. Further, James goes on to say that he's a bond servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. In doing this, he's equating Jesus Christ with God. And that's pretty amazing given that Jesus again was his earthly brother. And I just want to elaborate on this point because this is one of the reasons why we believed scripture. A guy who grew up with Jesus, lived his life and in submission and believe saw him as a savior. And James writes here about suffering. He probably suffered for the sake of his brother's kingdom, not just advised the church as he does in these verses. So at the end of verse one, James tells us that the letter is addressed to the 12 tribes of the dispersion. This doesn't mean that it's not relevant for gentiles in his day or us. What this reference to 12 tribes is an appeal to persecution, a persecution that happened amongst his readers. James was one of the leaders. He was Jewish, he was one of the pastors of the church, placed his faith in Christ, became a pastor, committed his life to Christ. And at one point during the history of his tenure, there was a great persecution of the Jews. He's appealing to a time when believers, probably primarily Jewish believers were persecuted and scattered. And scripture talks about in Acts 7 when Saul, before he became the Apostle Paul, persecuted Steven, went house to house persecuting Christians. Act 8, one says, and there are rose on that day, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem and they're all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samara except the apostles. And so James is appealing to this group of believers who have been persecuted and it's not just they face persecution from Jews who were mad that they became Christian. It's probably you have to think about the internal family strife that they faced. They left. Think of any Jewish friends you have today and what it would mean for them socially, familiarly to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. These people experienced it to the stream. They're probably kicked out of households, lost their inheritance, lives worth, physically threatened for Jesus. And all of this really just drives home, just makes James next words just that much more powerful when he says, count it all joy my brothers and sisters ] when you meet trials of various kinds. And so James is talking to these people, this population who's been scattered, persecuted, probably kicked out of their homes and he is telling them to count it all joy. Everything that they're facing and it's just, we have to pause here because it is ludicrous. We're allowed to look at the text and say, this sounds crazy. Trials, conflicts, persecutions, storms. They're not things we typically consider to be joyful. Rather, we tend to think of them and label them with other derogatory terms. But James is trying to get his audience and us to zoom out of our worldly logic. He's trying to get Christians to consider what he is saying with supernatural logic. He's appealing to the cross of Jesus Christ here. Apart from the central story of Christianity, this call to count at all joy when you meet trials of various kinds makes no sense. And so how does someone look at trials, conflict and experience joy? It's only if you believe that the most excruciating experience of pain in the history of the world, the most ugly act of violence against the sinless son of God. If you only believe that this moment of Jesus Christ, the sinless son of God being put on the cross, was redeemed into the most beautiful act of history in the world, the resurrection that procured the salvation of God's children. Then you can count sufferings, trials, storms, tests, training as joy. And so, no, this isn't like sadistic like advice from James. He doesn't want these people to suffer because he is evil. He's not alone in providing such wisdom and scripture. God is not a sadist. Again, he's calling them to rejoice. He's not saying rejoice because this trial is in your life. The fact of it, he's saying rejoice in it. Seek joy in it. There's a big difference there. And he's saying, look, Christian, you are struggling right now, but you're not facing anything that compares to the struggle that Jesus Christ experienced when his own father turned his back on him for your salvation. He's saying, if you believe that Jesus Christ, his just terrible death was the means for God to procure your salvation, your redemption. You can trust the Lord in this moment, trust that he's sovereign over it, trust that he can use it for your good in his glory. And so James is appealing to the central part of Christianity. When he says, count it all joy. The Lord does work in this mysterious way where he can use brokenness for his glory and that's the source of hope for Christians when we are facing trials. And notice that the text doesn't say count it all joy if you meet trials. It says count it all joy when you meet trials. The assumption is that every single Christian worships a God who redeemed us, not in despite of Christ's suffering, but through Christ's suffering. And so Christ himself said, a servant could not be above his master. Every Christian is going to face suffering. This Christian life is not just a rosy walk where you are going through life and everything goes well for you and people when you share the gospel always receive you kindly. It's going to be a challenging one. And so how are you going to respond? Do you believe that Christian, do you believe you can actually have joy in it? And we need to be thinking along these lines. If we're not expecting the trials, not expecting the pain of some of these situations as Christian, we're just going to live in shock. And how do many Christians respond to trials? There's a few typical ways. A lot of Christians face challenges and they just get paralyzed. They say, I am too frightened about facing this head on. I don't want to engage the tension. I can't see the way forward in my own strength and they just become just useless for the kingdom. A lot of Christians, they face trials and what do they do? They over busy themselves to escape the fact that there's a tension lingering in their life. There's a situation that they have to trust God but they don't want to. They'll do everything they can to distract themselves. A lot of people just don't acknowledge it and they sweep it under the rug and then it comes back to really biting them. And so we can't be shocked by these tests and we know that facing them in faith is good. And that's what James says, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. For you know it's an appeal to something that we know, but something that we tend to selectively forget as Christians. When we're lashing out, when we're groaning, when we're complaining about the difficulty or simply avoiding it all together. We know that the Lord, especially when we look upon the cross, can use the most trying of circumstances for his glory. And so we know this, we know that the pain of a good workout results in a good pump and greater strength, greater flexibility, greater energy levels. We know this, like we know that studying for a test does often, more often than not result in greater results on the exam. We know that preparing, putting the time to prepare for a recital pays off in better performance. But in our faith, when we're challenged by trials, we don't lose this all together. We don't pause and think, how could God be using me for his glory? How could he be strengthening me and sanctifying me for greater works in the future? We easily forget this and I do too. I'm guilty. I had many times where in the past few weeks I just got overtaken by anger before just the Lord convicted me or my wife God on me. But James says that we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. Steadfastness, a better translation here instead of steadfastness might be endurance. The testing of our faith produces endurance. In the Greek, the word carries the meaning of the perseverance that it takes to finish a marathon. That's significant. For the Bible talks about the Christian life, it speaks of it in terms of a long race like a marathon. 2 Timothy 4, 6 to 7 says, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departures come. This is the Apostle Paul toward the end of his ministry. I've fought the good fight. I've finished the race, I've kept the faith. I was thinking in between services, it's like a life as a Christian is a long boxing match. And I'm from Philadelphia, so for some reason I thought was triggered to a lot of life is Rocky just taking on opponents that are so much better than him. But in the end he somehow finds the way. He wins or he loses righteously and earns the respect of his opponent and wins their heart over. But there's stick to the marathon. A lot of this life is like it's a marathon. Christian life is a marathon. A long race that requires a lot of preparation, a lot of endurance, a lot of pain tolerance to go forward. And we need to be realistic about that. I believe we're at this point because I know a lot of you are sprinters, a lot of you are good for going 50 meters to a hundred meters really fast. I've worked for churches for almost a decade now and you see so many people sign up, sign up for five ministry teams, just really pour themselves out, show up to everything for a couple of months, flame out. And then you see people in the church who are there at least for a year is a little bit better than the people who flame out and disappear in a couple months. You see a lot of people in the church for years just stuck in this cycle of going hard, burning out, going hard in engagement with the church and their faith, burning out. You need to maybe retain those sprinter tendencies with your work that might benefit you. But in your spiritual life, how do you change your approach to become a marathoner? And notice I'm not talking about 75% of the people who run the Boston Marathon. I've lived on Beacon Street, I still live a block away. I lived on the street of the Pittsburgh Marathon and watching marathons is very painful. You get that first wave and then you... I've always lived on my mile 15 and it's just people who shouldn't be running marathons just crawling their way forward and you just don't know how they'll get there. I find it to be very painful and I pray for them and I say, well, they're doing something that I'm not and I really fight my heart to respect them. But we are not called to be marathoners who are just limping through at mile 15. There's 26.2 miles in a marathon. And so as Christians we want to... Like how does that affect, how can that be a good witness for our great God? And there's this balance as Christians in day-to-day life, we don't need to lead with our strength. We lead with the fact by telling people I need God's grace daily, but at the same time we can pursue excellence for God's glory. And so we don't want to be marathon runners who, sprinters who flame out a hundred meters in. We don't want to be marathon runners who are just crawling forward at a snail's pace. You have to learn to walk far then you have to learn how to do a speed walk. You can do the Olympic silly style of walking. You can then learn how to jog and then try to get to a pace where you're running at a solid pace. And the Lord is using you to attract people to his kingdom as you just try to offer yourself as a living sacrifice to build your witness up daily. And so Christianity, it's a marathon. What James is doing to these primarily Jewish believers, he's not saying, I feel bad for you. You've been persecuted. Like there's not really much sympathy in his message. It's greetings, kind of cold hard wisdom. This is what you need and he's training them well. He just gets to the heart of you need to see that, pursue joy in these moments. You need to trust that the Lord and your challenges is growing you and there's a fruit of steadfastness, of perseverance that will help you finish the race. And we need to apply this in our own lives. We need to learn how to pace ourselves. And so when our faith is tested by storms, like we really have to pause and say, Lord, what are you teaching us? Verse four, he carries on. Let steadfastness slash endurance have its full effect so that you may be perfect. By perfect, he's not talking about being sinless necessarily or not messing up anymore. By perfect, he means having reached the finish line, finish the race, getting to the point of full flourishing and wholeness that God wants you to attain on this side of heaven. He's saying like go as far as you can in the pursuit of Christ-likeness and holiness. That's what the Lord is calling you to do. And in this life that use of let. Let steadfastness endurance have its full effect. He's saying you need to let hardship have its way with you so that you can finish the race, so that you can be made perfect, complete, lacking in nothing. There's this element to where we are responsible for the way that we respond to these trials and the way that we respond to them affects how much we get out of them. So God wants to give and his talking about God is being generous here. He wants to give you a lot of blessings, not just an eternity but in this life. And so how can you trust the Lord in them? He wants to give you blessings so that you can be a blessing and be able to better tell more people about the love and mercy of God. Do you really want that? If so, trust him in the tension, the challenges, complete, lacking in nothing. James is saying that God wants us to have the whole portion that this race, this life offers. And whatever that is, whatever it is for each of us, I think you can pause and ask, what is it that you think he wants you to have? What are you lacking in Christian character? What are you lacking in your gifting, in your arsenal of things you can use for the advancement of God's kingdom? What are you lacking in Christ-Likeness, holiness? That's probably what God is trying to grow in you in these moments, in these situations and hardships. And you have to pause and heed the lessons. For us to understand what James is talking about, we need to understand just a few key verses that are helpful here that continue in this main. Romans 8:28 says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. We need to really know and believe that God has purpose, that the trials in our lives will bear fruit for his kingdom and for our good. And it's really a matter of faith here. And this is not prosperity gospel. I'm already telling you, you're going to face trials, but trust that the Lord can use them for the advancement of his kingdom and your good. It really comes down to in the moment, do you trust that he is using these situations for good? And that's right now, some of you are in hard phases and trials and it feels like torture. But can you stay present in the moment and trust that he might do good in your life through it, he might refine your character, he might give you perspective to be a better disciple. He might use you to save someone by staying faithful and not lashing out in the moment. Furthermore, Hebrews 12, 7:11 says, it is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So God has purposed that through endurance in trials and storms, there will be a harvest of righteousness, a peaceful work of God that will come from this. So as you are going through life planning a lot of good works, but then being slowed down by these trials and conflicts and storms, are you open to God training you like this? Do you see these situations as inconveniences that stifle your interests on all those great works out there? Or do you see that God might be training you and he might be saying, this is the good work I want you to do right now. Stay faithful in it so that maybe I can bring you to that grand thing later. Will you have the faith to just trust God at his word with these verses? Do you want endurance and steadfastness? A lot of people, these are just foreign categories. The sprinter is out there. You just don't even know this. If people engage you this week and say you're a sprinter, you don't know steadfast. I love your witness for Christ when you're like on for about two weeks, but you don't know steadfastness, really seek it. Seek faithfulness in these moments, read, study this topic. The passage says, let steadfastness have its full effect. This is again, let. We need to let God the Holy Spirit speak to us, give us what we need to learn from our trials. We need to have a devotional life that on day-to-day basis to allow God as we engage his words, speak to us, to help us identify that lesson. He's trying to teach us God's promise says that he has good purposes for our trials. He's disciplining us like a father, but there's this element of responsibility to let. And so a lot of this letting is a check of our pride. A lot of Christians think I've suffered too much for the kingdom. I don't deserve this situation, this scenario. We have to be humble in difficult times even as we go further. And really the lesson is as you look at scripture, is those great leaders that God has given great responsibility to, he has humbled them through just brutal experiences. And that he couldn't use them for good things, until he just broke all elements of pride within their being. And we need to have humility and difficult times to say, Lord, I probably need to learn something from this. And there's an element of you can, James goes into this, count it all joy. There's an element to as the Lord is shaping you and training you, it can be joyful. For you can say, Lord, you have saved me. You have used the cross to save me. You have the power to use such a moment. You can use any challenge to refine me, shape me, grow your kingdom. Lord, have your way with me. Let your will be done. And that can be a very joyful process. You can have joy in the midst of sorrow and trial and you can have joy that just the existence of the sorrow is just an affirmation that God's loving fatherly hand of discipline is upon you. It can be joyful or you can resist it and ignore it and it can be dreadful. And a lot of Christians, you really need to learn to embrace this moment, all moments you're facing. Are you in it? Is it the will of God? If you're there, it is. And seek the presence of mind and the humility to receive what God has for you and even have the hope that you can't just survive it, but that you can have joy in it. And so Christian, what hinders you from hearing these lessons? A lot of people face challenges and trials and storms and they respond with just bitterness. Some of you might just be bitter. God has forced by his severe mercy hard situation on your life that really could be a great means of learning, of growth and steadfastness, of great growth and wisdom for you. But you are so mad at him that you have never paused to try to figure out why he did that, what his purposes could be, what perspective, how he could use that for his glory going forward. Are you just a Christian that doesn't want to hear any of this because you're bitter? Christian is it bad theology? Someone told you that Christian life would be easy? Has someone told you that God only has good things and good plans for you? The tendency of the struggle with these kinds of things like yeah, God works all things for the good who walk according to his purpose. But the issue in these situation is that people don't want to submit what is good to the ways that God has submitted it. And so what is good? It is all that which honors God, all that which grows Christ-likeness in me and in others and spreads forth God's kingdom. And so according to his word as the most blatant clear revelation of those things. And so have you surrendered what is good to God? If not, that's going to get in your way of having joy and learning and growing in these situations. Many of us are just really impatient. We live in an on-demand culture and we have been for decades. We don't really have to wait for anything. We don't see crops being grown outside. We don't see just how food is prepared. We put it in the microwave. We just get everything instantly. And we're not aware that just like the moment of time of history that we've been born into has bred just impatience in us. And so we need to pause and see just Lord sit back. One of the ways that a lot of Christians just are disobedient is that they don't take a Sabbath. They don't pursue, they don't commit a whole day to the Lord for they have greater good things to do. And there's no way the Lord will contradict himself. He wants you to pause once a week to take in, to let your body, let your heart, let your mind refresh, to better take in how he is working in your life and how you can from that day forward better serve him in your life. A lot of Christians, what they wrongly do is they get lost in a bit of a prosperity gospel. Just believing that God is only working and they're flourishing their success and they rebuke moments of trials and discomfort and convenience as something that just must be denied altogether or declared as satanic. They don't have eyes to see, ears to hear, they completely missed the moments of trials. And these people just get stunted in there development. Everything is over spiritualized. There's no reflection in the moment of, Lord, I'm in this situation. This is hard. Search me and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there'll be any grievous way with me and lead me in the way of everlasting. There's no heart check. It's always something on the outside that is causing, Satan particularly, that's causing this inconvenience. And so people blame the devil, they blame other things. A lot of Christians just look at hardship and say, I'm doing something wrong. And that is right there, the gospel is that we're not saved by our works. We're saved by God's grace. His grace is always there to save us, to help us in the way forward. And we're just stuck in an achievement type mentality. And know sometimes God has ordained hardship for us. And ultimately what this text is teaching, it's for our joy, for our good, for our ability to persevere. One Peter 4:19 encapsulates a lot, basically all that I've said. Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. And so it's a faithful and trust your soul to a faithful creator while suffering, while doing good. And it really is a matter of faith in these moments. Can you trust God when you're facing the trial, when he's put hardship in your life to train you? Says, will you trust him? And that's a yes or no. And if you're going to be split minded about it, that joy, that ability to see the situation through in a way that glorifies him will not be there. And after all of this, we ask, why does God test us? Why does he train us like this as his disciples? And God doesn't put us in the fire, the crucible just because it gives him pleasure. He puts us in the fire because he cares more about holiness instead of momentary happiness. Because he knows that holiness breeds true joy and joy that's rooted in him and that's what he wants. If he really wants what is best for us, he's going to just expose us just to that which is going to bring about true holiness, true joy. And he is good in it. Even if in the moment it's hard for us to understand that and agree. God, ultimately, he's trying to breed greater dependence on him than us. Verse five says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him. So God doesn't want us to go forward doing our work for his kingdom, thinking that it all depends on us. He wants us to grow in our dependence on him. He knows that we are going to stop short in the race if we do it on our own strength. He wants us to become more and more dependent on him and trust that his Holy Spirit is there with us and working in us and through us. Furthermore, he wants us to develop a loving and abiding relationship with him. When we are stretched in this cycle of going out, being stretched, being faithful in the tense moments to the point that our bodies, our souls are on the brink of being crushed to our mindset, but then we're drawn in and we go to Him. He wants us to get to truly see that he, his presence, his wisdom is actually what satisfies our souls and gives us joy. It's not achieving anything in the world, it's not showing our own strength, it's just living in his presence. These challenges force us to go to him in communion and say, God, help me. It challenges us to learn more about him, to understand how he works. And when you understand that, you grow in your appreciation and love for him, you grow in your appreciation of how he is sovereignly directing your life, shaping and cultivating you to become more like Christ and you love him all the more. Your faith goes from just an appreciation of deliverance from sin and the power of sin and the chance of be in heaven to God, I just love you because I love you. As I see your heart, as I see your ability to redeem the hardest, the most challenging of moments for your glory, for my good, for the salvation and sanctification of others in my life. I love you more. And do you really want that? That's a deepening of faith that a lot of people, because they just don't even stay present in trials, they don't even know this experience of Christianity. Of just, I love this life because I know God, you are with me. That's all I need. That's all I want. Use me as you will. And if that means struggle and conflict and trial, so be it. And so when Christians understand this, it changes them. It gives you wholeness as you are forced to just lean on the Lord more and more because you turn to him, you receive his guidance, you receive as counsel, it becomes a greater part of you. And so you have to master this. If you want to do good works for God, we can't really start off with a sermon on listing them out, on identifying the most important ones, on how we and our contexts can do the most for His glory here. If you don't understand how he trains you, if you don't understand the cycle of going to him in the midst of the trial to be satisfied, to find the way forward. And so Christian, do you want to do good works? Do you want to commit yourself to them for the rest of your life? Do you want to persevere to the end being used tremendously by God? I ask, think about how is God training you right now and rejoice in the training. Let me pray to close. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your wisdom. We praise you that what is foolishness to men is a means of your glory and our glory and our growth. Lord, you have the ability to just use the darkest of moments, the most challenging of moments, the graves of sin for your eternal purposes of redemption and making us new and bringing about, just working toward the return of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray, give us faith to trust you. To trust that in the hardship you are working in us and through us, and training us so that we might love you more and we might have greater capacity to serve you if we trust you through it. Give us faith to trust that we can actually have joy in the midst of sorrow and trial and hardship. Give us great hope that all of this sacrifice is worth it. That when we lay ourselves down daily, you are glorified and that you are actually using these moments for your eternal purposes. And let us trust that your wisdom is so much higher than ours. And when we do this, let us just have peace. Peace that transcends understanding. And as we exhibit that peace, use it to draw others home to your kingdom. Pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Commit to your Calling
March 12, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Colossians 3:12—4:1
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Today, we are continuing our sermon series committed talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. I think we are eight weeks into this series and we got about three weeks left to go and then that's going to bring us up to Easter Sunday already. And so looking forward to that. And this week we are tackling what is probably the most ambitious topic in this entire sermon series. I sat down to prepare the sermon this week and I realized this really could have been like three separate sermons and so tons of editing to get it down into one. And I promise I'll talk fast. If you listen fast, we'll try to get through all of it. But this is not going to be an exhaustive sermon on this topic. But hopefully it's at least a good introduction into our topic today because our topic today is the topic of calling. And the question before us is what is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? What is more specifically your purpose in life? Why are you here? I think one of the most frightening and dreadful feelings that a person can have is the sober consideration of a meaningless existence. It's contemplating the possibility that your life might have no purpose. Or even worse that it does, but you are failing to find that or to fulfill that purpose. We live in a world where we have so many options of what we could spend our lives doing, that we are oftentimes paralyzed by all of the possibilities before us. And rather than helping us come to a decision, all of the options actually seem to make the problem even more complex of finding out what is our purpose. Because now in addition to figuring that out, we have the pressure of making sure that of all of these options before us that we choose the right thing. And what if we get that wrong? I think about the opportunity cost of getting something like that wrong. We only have one life to live. How are we supposed to live it? And that can be terrifying. Like what if we are to reach the end of our lives only to look back and see that we never truly lived, that we never truly figured out why we were here, what we were supposed to be doing. And that's a very real fear that most of us have experienced at one time or another. And the only real solution to this is something that Christians have often referred to as calling. And John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote this. He said that, "The Lord bids each one of us in all of life's actions to look to his calling. For, he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is born hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once, therefore less through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties to every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named those various kind of livings, callings. Therefore, each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of century post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life." As Christians, we believe that God has a plan, he has a purpose for every one of his children. And that this purpose is something that we can know, that we have a calling that we need to discern and to answer. And my hope today is that we will look to God's word together and as we do learn to discern what God is calling us to do throughout the various seasons of our life. And so if you have your Bible open, up the Colossians chapter three. We're going to go through this entire chapter actually all the way through chapter four verse one. And I'm not going to read the entire text up here up front because it's a little bit longer. We're going to take it just section by section and work through it together. And as we do, I want us to focus on helping you to discern and to commit to four things. Number one, to commit to your general calling. That's going to be the first 17 verses. Second, commit to your seasonal calling. That's the next few. And then commit to your particular calling. And then at the end we'll look at this idea of commit to receiving an inheritance in heaven and leaving a legacy here on earth. And so I'm going to start just by reading the first 17 verses. This is Colossians chapter three, beginning in verse one. And the Apostle Paul writes this. He says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality and purity, passion, evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry and account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you two once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jews circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians and slave free. But Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord is forgiving you, so also you must forgive. And above all of these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. In whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? Lord, we thank you that you are a God who knows each of us individually, that you care for each of us individually and you have gifted and equipped each of us individually according to your purposes and plan. Lord, help us today to know how each of our lives can bring you the most glory, can do the most good according to the unique gifts, opportunities, and personality that you have given us both together as a church and individually as your people. Lord, help our words, our deeds, whatever we do to be done for your glory and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of thankfulness in our hearts to you our God and Father. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, point number one today is to commit to your general calling. Before we get into the topic of discerning and committing to or your specific or your particular calling, we need to understand that God has given a general calling to all Christians, to everyone who is a follower of Christ that we need to answer. And we know that first of all, we are called to Christ, that through the call of the gospel we are called to become followers of Jesus. But then Paul shows us that in Christ we are also called to a few different things. We are called as we see in this text to live with a new identity, to live as part of a new family, the household of God, and to live in a new way, a new manner of living as well. And so first of all, we say that we're called to live with a new identity. Verse two, Paul says, "Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God." And in verse nine he says, "Don't lie to one another saying that you've put off the old self with its practices and if you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." And he says here, "There's not Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free. But Christ is in all." And the big idea here is that he wants us to see is that when you are called to Christ, that you're not just given a better life, that you are given a new life, that the old you dies and that you become a new creation in Christ. And Christ then becomes the centering principle of your life. That this is your identity. And so your past, your reputation, your ethnicity, your job, your bank account, your education, your pedigree, none of that matters. That Christ is all and is in all, that you become a Christian period with no adjective to qualify that statement. We stand before the cross of Christ, all of us from our various backgrounds, we all come, we stand before level ground and we are all then unified, made one body in Jesus Christ. And this is our new identity that we are called to live in, to walk in. And this new identity, it leads directly to the second thing that we're called to do, which is to live and to love a new family. That we're saved out of the world and into the body of Christ, into the church. And Paul gives us instructions of how we are to behave as children in this family, as members of this body. And in verse 12 he says, "And so therefore put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord is forgiven, you also must forgive. And above all these things put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body and be thankful with the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and an admonishing one another with all wisdom and singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts." To God, this is how you are to behave and relate to one another in the church. The Jesus saved you out of the world and into this family, the God the Father, he finds us as orphans lost in our sin and he adopts us into his family by the blood of his son Jesus Christ. And this is important because one of the reasons that I think a lot of Christians struggle with discerning God's will or sensing what he is calling them to do and perhaps therefore feel like they're lost, like they're wandering throughout life. Well, it starts because they have failed to answer this first calling, to join themselves to a local body of believers, to surround themselves by the body of Christ because scripture tells us plainly that when Christians fail to do this, that a Christian without the church, it's like a leaf being blown about in the wind or it's like a child that is stunted in its growth, that is suspended in a state of adolescence, not growing, not maturing. And Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter four. He's describing the church and the purpose of the church and God's vision for the church. And he says that God gave to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers in order to equip the saints, all of us, the church, the members of the body to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth and love or to grow up into every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joint and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And so before we can begin to discern our particular callings in life, we need to understand before anything else that this is God's will for you, for me, for us. His will is for us to understand, to live in this new identity that we have in Christ and in this new family to become members of a local church, to commit ourselves to a group of believers who are going to know us and can encourage us and hold us accountable and support us throughout this life of following Jesus. Because the third thing that we're going to see as we follow Jesus, as we're called to Christ, is that we're also called to learn a whole new way of life, a whole new manner of living. And we're going to need people around to help us do this. This is not going to be easy. Verse five, he says, "And so therefore put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passions, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." He says, "The wrath of God is coming and these you two once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth and do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator." Says, "Jesus calls us to a whole new way of life, a whole new manner of living, a new morality with new purpose, new identity, new family." And we need a proper understanding of this general calling that we all have because this is going to be like the prerequisite foundation to everything else that we're going to talk about this morning, that we can't begin building the rest of our lives and answering the rest of our callings until we have this solid foundation. If you want to know what God is calling you to do specifically, you always need to begin with what he has already called you to do clearly and generally in his word. That God is never going to call you to do something that contradicts his will, that contradicts his word revealed to us in scripture. And so commit to your general calling. And then number two, commit to your seasonal calling. Verse 17, Paul says, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." And then he shifts. He just got done saying, this is how you're going to need to live and behave. This is how you're called to be in the household of God and now this is how you're going to be called to be in your household. And so he begins giving instructions for the household. He begins with wives. Verse 18, "Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. And fathers do not provoke your children less they become discouraged." So he shows us how to relate to one another. In God's household, here He shows us how to relate to one another in our households. And obviously this is not an exhaustive teaching, like scripture has a lot more to say about these familial relationships than what we see here. But for our purposes today, I just want us to begin by seeing this, that God is going to call you, he's going to assign to you certain responsibilities throughout different seasons of your life and those things are going to change and evolve over time. And your responsibilities as a child are going to look a lot different than the responsibilities that the Lord assigns to you as an adult. You're going to have certain things that God calls you to do when you're single that are going to be different than the things he calls you to do if and when you get married or if and when you have children. And we don't think about this here in Boston very often because we're a very young city, but someday you're going to have the responsibilities as a child again. And if you haven't experienced this yet, the day is coming where you're going to be not under your parents' care. Your parents in some ways are going to come under your care. If they get sick or as they're aging, as they're approaching the end of life. And eventually they're going to need you to be there in that season. Eventually you're going to be in that season yourself needing the help of others as you approach that season of life. And so like our general calling, these seasonal callings, they are prerequisite considerations as we try to discern our particular callings. And we're going to get to the particular calling here in a little bit. But first I want us to take a closer look at some of these seasonal callings that Paul talks about in the text. He begins with instructions for the wives. Verse 18, it says, "Wives submit to your husband's as is fitting in the Lord." Pretty short verse, but probably one of the most famous and detailed teachings, descriptions of God's vision for a godly wife in scripture comes from Proverbs 31. You're probably familiar with Proverbs 31, the Proverbs 31:10 says, "An excellent wife who can find. She's far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She's like the ships of the merchant bringing her food from afar. She rises while it's yet night and provides food for her household in portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hand to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of snow for her household, for all of her household are clothed in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself and clothing. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing. She laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates." Long passage. And obviously this is a very idealized vision of what a wife, what mother can be in God's eyes, but that's what God does. He calls us to pursue these ideals of perfection and then he gives us grace for what's real as we work our way towards those ideals. But the point here is if you're in the season of being a wife, of being a mother, and you're trying to figure out what is God calling me to do right now, this is a great place to start. Proverbs 31, it shows us a wife who supports her husband and she cultivates peace and order and beauty in her home. It shows us a mother who loves her children. She's strong, she's hardworking, she's selfless. She's nurturing and wise. It shows us a business woman who is savvy and charitable and resourceful. Most of all, what Proverbs 31 shows us is it shows us a godly woman, a woman who is known at the city gates, not for her beauty, not for her charm. She's known for her kindness, her humility, her generosity, her wisdom. She is known for fearing the Lord. And I pray that God would raise up more strong women like this, but I also just praise God because I know that we have so many strong women like this here at Mosaic. And the big idea here as it relates to our calling is that what scripture shows us is the primary calling of the wife, of the mother, is to create order, to create beauty, to create shalom in her home. And then as she commits herself to this good calling, we see that if God gives her the margin and the opportunity to do so, she may also be called to expand that shalom outside of the home, into the community, into the marketplace. And so the home comes first, it takes priority, but as we see the Proverbs 31 woman, she's selling in the marketplace. She's purchasing real estate, she's planting a vineyard, she's caring for the poor. She's not doing these things to build up herself or her ego or her career. She's not doing these things to escape her home, but she's doing these things to bless her home and to make her home a blessing to others. And this is not easy. This takes hard work, humility, wisdom. And this is going to look different in every household in some ways, right? Husbands and wives need to work together, pursue the Lord together, to discern and to determine where they need to draw those boundaries, where they draw those lines and keep those priorities straight. It takes a lot of wisdom. But verse 26 says that she opens her mouth with wisdom and that the teaching of kindness is on her tongue, that she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. And as a result, her children call her blessed, her husband praises her. And in the creation story, God's first observation of something less than good, less than perfect is the absence of Eve. That it was not good for Adam to be alone, that he needed help, he needed a support. He needed a help made to come along and to help him fulfill his calling and purpose. And that God said creation was not good without her. He creates Eve and then he gives them the commandment for the two to become one flesh, for them to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth and subdue it. And God establishes this family unit as the means of fulfilling his cultural mandate. And I say all this to say that motherhood is one of the highest, most vital and most noble callings that a person can have. And it's also one of the hardest. And that's why we as Christians, we need to support the mothers in our lives. Our culture has been degrading marriage, has been degrading motherhood for generations and it is tearing our world apart. And Proverbs 31 tells us that a godly wife, a godly mother, is far more precious than jewels. It's a high calling to be a wife and a mother. And as Christians, we must value and honor the mothers among us even and especially when the culture around us refuses to do so. And so Paul addresses the wives and the mothers. And then he addresses the husbands as well. It says verse 19, he says, "Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them." Again, he doesn't give us a lot here. Just one little sentence. If Proverbs 31 is the most famous and detailed description of a godly wife, then I would I'd say that Ephesians chapter five is the most famous and detailed description of a godly husband. And this is the parallel passage that Paul gives us in Ephesians chapter five, verse 25. He starts out the same way. He says, husbands love your wives, but then he continues. He says, "Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. And then he quotes Genesis, "Therefore, man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I'm saying it refers to Christ in the church, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. If Proverbs 31 asks us an excellent woman who can find, I think what Ephesians five is telling us is this, that bro, if you find her, she's out of your league. You're not going to find the perfect, excellent Proverbs 31 woman. And if you do, she's probably not going to be interested in you. Your job is not to find the perfect wife. Your job is to build the perfect life, to build the perfect marriage, to find a woman who fears the Lord and commit to her. To commit your life, to laying yourself down, to loving her, to cherishing her, to nourishing her with the word of God so that then the two of you can grow old and excellent together, where you're both through this relationship being sanctified into the people that God is calling you to be. Scripture calls moms to cultivate and care for the home. He calls husbands to cultivate the marriage. Husband, God is going to hold us responsible for the health of our marriages and the health of our marriages are going to dictate the health of our families. It's a high calling. Just like Proverbs 31 seems almost unattainable, Ephesians 5, I mean, you're literally being called to love your wife the way Christ loved the church. It's an impossible calling, but God gives us grace where we fail and then he gives us more grace to get up and to keep pursuing that goal, that standard as husbands. And so your wife's calling is to cultivate shalom in the home. And she can only do this as you commit to your primary calling. And husbands your primary calling, your responsibility is that God has called you to provide, to protect, and most importantly, to pastor your wives and children well so that they are loved, so that they are led, so that they are cherished and treasured so that as you do so that they can flourish to do all that God has called them to do. So practically husbands, as you seek to discern your more particular calling, if this is the season of life that you're in, understand that God is going to call you to sacrifice a lot of things for the sake of your marriage and for the sake of your children. He's not going to call you to sacrifice your marriage and your children for anything else that this world has to offer. Not your job, not your ambitions, not your hobbies, not your friends that you as a husband, if this is the season of life that you're in, this is your highest and most important calling. Second only to your calling to be a disciple of Jesus and to be a child of God yourself. And so he gives instructions for husbands and wives and then he begins to talk to children and parents. Verse 20, he says, "Children obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. And fathers do not provoke your children less they become discouraged." So we're all children and we will always be children. And this command, this calling as children, it's going to look different throughout our lives. But the one thing that continues is the calling that we will always be called to honor our fathers and our mothers. And as a young child, you do this through your obedience to your mother and father. As you're an adult, you grow older, you honor your father and mother through the honorable life that you build and live. And then as your parents' age, you may find yourself in a season again where you now need to honor them by sacrificially caring for them the way they sacrificially cared for you. First Timothy 5:3 says, "Honor the widows who are truly widows, but if a widow has children or grandchildren," he says, "Let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and it makes some return to their parents. For this is pleasing in the sight of God." And then in verse eight he says, "But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for the members of his own household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." We live in a culture that has devalued motherhood and marriage and children. That's also a culture that devalues the aging and the elderly. And as Christians, this should not be the case. And we should honor our father and mother. And whatever season of life you're in, Paul says that it pleases the Lord when we do this and it doesn't end the day that we turn 18 and go off to college. Actually, some of you college students, you probably need to work a little harder on making sure that your Honor and mom and dad now that you're out on your own and getting that taste of freedom, but it's a commandment that stays with us. And then parents, likewise your relationship to your children, it's going to change throughout the seasons of your life. But the greatest season of influence and responsibility that you have is obviously going to be when your children are young, when they're growing up, when they're under your roof. And so throughout scripture we see Proverbs 22:6 is parents need to train up a child in the way that they should go so that when they're old, they will not depart from it. Deuteronomy 6:4 through seven says here, "Oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all of your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children." Talk with them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Just throughout the course of everyday life, you're constantly teaching, discipling your children. Colossians 3, the parallel passage to this is Ephesians 6. And again, Paul expands on it a little bit more there. And he says, "Honor your father and mother for this is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." And then he says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord." I think one of the things that we wrestle with a lot of times as parents is how do we do this? How do we strike this balance between discipline and instruction on the one hand and not provoking our children to anger? On the other hand, this is something that I've personally been trying to get better at as a father, as a dad. And what I've been learning is one of the most important things you need to do is you need to know what kind of situation you're in and what you're dealing with at every given moment. Because getting the situation wrong is often what leads you to provoking your children to anger rather than giving them the discipline and instruction that they need. And so for example, is the situation that you're dealing with sin. Because if it's sin, then you need discipleship, right? Sin is the child has sinned against the commandment of God, and yeah, they might need discipline and correction, but with that you need to talk about the gospel. We need to talk about how God is holy and God is just and he has instructed us how we ought to live, and that when we sin against him, we need to repent and we need to confess our sins. And that when we do this and come to him, he forgives our sins, he cleanses us of unrighteousness. He takes away our guilt and shame. And he does this because Jesus Christ died on the cross and our place and we need to talk about this with them and pray about that with them. And then when we as parents, I mean I've never done this, but maybe some of you have, when we sin, we have to go to our kids too. If we sin against our kids, say, ask for your forgiveness. I need to pray. I need to repent and model that for our kids. Sin needs discipleship, and disobedience needs discipline. And what's the difference there? Well, sin is you've sinned against God. Disobedience is you've sinned against mom and dad. So the Bible never says, thou shall not run out into the street or play in the parking lot or jump on the furniture or anything like that. But mom and dad say that. We need rules in our household to keep things orderly and peaceful, but we shouldn't confuse those rules with God's rules. And so if there's disobedience, a dishonoring of father and mother, there needs to be correction and discipline, but it's a little bit different situation than if they've sinned against God. Is the situation ignorance? Sometimes kids are just... They're foolish. They're ignorant. They don't know what they don't know. And as parents, it's tempting in those situations to get frustrated and want to correct with discipline where actually what the child in that time needs is instruction. They need guidance. They need help seeing what they can't see. Fourthly, it could be weakness. It's not that they're ignorant, they know the right thing to do, they just aren't quite mature enough to do it or they're having... They're struggling. And again, in those situations, they need encouragement from their parents. It could be mistakes. Somebody's always going to spill the milk. Someone's always going to knock over the lamp. And as parents, it's easy for us to get frustrated and want to lash out in discipline where actually everyone makes some mistakes. And in those times as parents, we got to show sympathy. We got to show compassion. Mistakes need compassion. Six, are they just being annoying? Because if you have kids, you understand this, sometimes they're just like, oh, you're driving me nuts. And it's not that you're doing anything naughty or wrong, it's just that you're a kid. And sometimes kids drive us nuts. They're annoying, they're loud, they're crazy, they're rambunctious. And in those times as parents, sometimes we just need to show patience. We just got to let the kids be kids. And then finally is the situation success? Because let's not forget that too often we get really focused on correcting what's wrong, we forget to celebrate what's right. And success needs celebration. When your kid does something well, they should know that you're pleased that you celebrate that with him. So Paul covers all of these seasons in life, husbands, wives, parents, children. But there is one season that he doesn't cover, and ironically, it's the season that he himself is in. And it's a season that many here in this room today are in as well. So I feel like I should say something about this. The season of singleness in adulthood. We live in a very young city with a lot of young single adults. And so the question is how do we live? What does God call us to in that season? I think Jesus kind of anticipated this because in Matthew 19, he was teaching his disciples about God's high standard for marriage. That marriage is a covenant that is foreign between one man, one woman for a lifetime, that you are committing to one another through thick and thin, till death do you part. And he says to them in verse nine, Matthew 19:9, "Whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." And his disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it's better to not marry." They thought this seems like an impossible standard. And he said to them, "Not everyone can receive the same, but only those to whom it is given. For, there are eunuchs who have been made so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it." Now, obviously Jesus isn't talking literally here, but I think what he's getting at is that there's going to be some people who for a variety of reasons, either can't get married or won't get married, not due to no fault of their own, perhaps they even have the desire to be married, but it just doesn't happen. But then he also says there's going to be some people who choose for themselves to forego marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Well, Paul was one such person. In First Corinthians 7, he talks about this. First Corinthians 7:6, he says, "Now, as a concession, not a command, as a concession, I say this, that I wish that all were as I myself am speaking of his singleness, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind, one of another." So Paul says, "I'm giving this as a concession." This is not necessarily the ideal situation, but in a fallen world, what he's saying is that while it might be ideal, it might not be ideal for a person to remain single. In a fallen world, singleness is redeemable by God's grace. And in God's grace, this concession, as Paul describes, it can also be described as a gift. And it might not be a gift that you wanted, might not be a gift that you asked for, but he goes on in verse 32 to explain why it should be viewed in that manner. Verse 32, he says, "Because I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife." And then verse 35, just to make it clear, he says, "I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." And so if that is the season that you're in, you're an adult and you're in the season of singleness, just a couple of things I want you to know. First, it's a unique calling and Paul says, it can be viewed as a gift and it's one that you share with the apostle Paul himself. Secondly, if you are single and you find in yourself a strong desire for a godly marriage, don't feel guilty about that. That is a very good desire. And if you have that desire and it hasn't been fulfilled, you should persistently pray and prepare and pursue yourself for marriage unless God has made it abundantly clear to you that he is calling you to remain unmarried. And along the way, if you have that desire and there are factors outside of your control keeping you from being married as you desire to be, don't lose heart. Ultimately, no, marriage is not going to give you the ultimate satisfaction in life that you're looking for. It's not going to scratch that itch, that ultimately you can only find that in Jesus Christ and in your relationship with him. And then thirdly, in your singleness, know that you are not being sidelined. That on the one hand, God has a very good purpose in marriage and we should not undermine that. Obviously our culture is, and even some spheres of Christianity, it feels like that's being undermined and that should not be the case. God has a very good purpose in marriage that it is a picture of the gospel and it is the means by which he ordained the cultural mandate to be fulfilled. But as we see here, God has a good redeeming purpose in singleness too. And so Paul says, what is that? He says, you're free from the anxieties of marriage and parenthood. And there there's a lot of anxieties, a lot of responsibilities that come with marriage and with parenthood. He says, you're free from those anxieties in order to be anxious about the things of the Lord, that in your singleness you have a greater bandwidth and capacity for ministry, for serving others, for building friendships in the church, for blessing and building up the household of God. And so to summarize, like unless God has clearly called you to remain single, you should pray and you should pursue marriage. And while you're single, make sure that you steward that gift well. And then through all of it, you need to rest and find your ultimate satisfaction in Jesus Christ. So these are the seasonal callings, and these callings are going to affect the way that we approached the final calling that we're talking about today, which is point number three, committing to our particular calling because in verse 22, Paul shifts. Again, he's talked about God's household, he's talked about our household, and now he begins to talk about what we might call like the workplace career, vocation, things like that. In verse 22, he says, "Bond servants obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye surface as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrong doer will be paid back for the wrong he's done. And there is no partiality. Masters treat your bond servants justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven." And so the general principle is in the workplace, whether you are an employee, an employer, you're the boss, the manager, whatever you are, that you need to first of all be treating the people that you work with, with dignity, with honor, with respect, and you need to be working hard. You need to be working as if Jesus Christ were your boss. And Paul says actually that is the truth that you are serving the Lord when you are at work. And with this, one of the reasons that I think many Christians struggle when it comes to sensing God's calling for discerning God's will for them in this area, they get anxious about what is God's will for my life in this area. Well, I think one of the reasons is that too often we as Christians, we start in the wrong place. We tend to want to start with this, with what is my particular specific calling in life? And then we kind of try to build our faith, our family, our church, things like that around that. And scripture tells us, you got to do the opposite. You need to seek first the kingdom of heaven and then all of these other things will be added unto you as well. And the point is not that God is unconcerned with our careers or our vocations, the point is that God is just... He is far less concerned with your career that he is with your character and with your holiness. And so before we kind of complete this discernment of our particular callings, scripture makes it very clear what God's will is for us. First Thessalonians 4 tells us this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. Not in the passions of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrongs his brother in this manner because the Lord is an adventure of all these things. As we told you beforehand and solemnly warns you, for God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. And he goes on in verse nine, he says, "Now, concerning brotherly love, we have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God, how to love one another for that indeed is what you're doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you brothers to do this more and more and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. It's a very simple view of God's will for us to just live quiet, godly lives. And we need to understand that more than anything, this is God's desire for us, is our holiness, is our sanctification. And so I picture this process, it's kind of like looking through the lenses of a telescope. And so the first lens, you begin looking through the lens of the general calling that we talked about that before anything that I know that I have been called to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, strength, that I've been called to commit myself to the body of Christ, to the local church, to live a holy life, to grow in sanctification. Anything that God calls me to do in life, it needs to pass through that lens first. And then the second lens is that seasonal calling that we talked about, that I need to ask myself, what are my commitments? What responsibilities has God assigned to me in this seasonal life? Because again, anything else that he's calling me to do, it needs to pass through that lens as well. And when you bring those two together, that's when you begin to kind of be a frame and focus God's particular calling on your life right now. And so how do you take that last step of framing, of focusing God's particular calling? What is he calling you to do right now? Well, I don't think there there's any one right thus sayeth the Lord way to do this. There's no chapter in the Bible that clearly says this is how you discern God's will. But I do think that there's many principles throughout scripture that you can bring together that are helpful. And so I'm going to share just something that I know many people have used, that I myself have used for many years at many times to help me discern God's will, to help me discern what God has been calling me to do in particular seasons of life. Because never in my life have I heard the audible voice of God come down and say, "This is what I want you to do." But I have used this filter on several occasions to help me discern what God's been calling me to do. And it has in the past it's never let me down. I call this the diagram of discernment. So my wife made this cool graphic for us. We all love our Venn diagrams here in Boston. You get the idea. You got the five circles, and what you're looking for is that sweet spot in the middle where they all overlap and come together in agreement. And so you see the first one there is you got to consider your convictions. You got to consider your gifting, your opportunities, your character wise counsel. And when all of those come together, well, that's what you're looking for. So first of all, consider your convictions. What has God put on your heart? Is there something that you're passionate about, something that you're burdened for, something that you feel like you ought to do, that you need to do to be faithful to the Lord? This is a good place to start. It's a good indication of God's calling. It's a good place to start. It's not a great place to finish though because scripture tells us that our hearts are deceitful and wicked, and our feelings often lead us astray. And so we can't just say, well, this is what I feel, and so this is what God's calling me to do, but our convictions, they're a good place to start. We need to go beyond that though. So we also need to consider our gifting. If you're passionate about something, if you feel God's put something on your heart, are you skilled and equipped to do something about it? If God is calling you to sing on the praise team and you're tone deaf and you have no rhythm, well, I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the voice of the Lord. You might be called to serve in a variety of other ways. It just might not be that. And that's okay. You got to consider though, am I gifted? Is this what God's wired and gifted and equipped me to do? Maybe I can't do this. Maybe there's another way that I can find to support this thing, but consider your gifting. Third, consider your opportunities. Something you're passionate about, you feel skilled, equipped to do something about it. The next thing you need to ask is there a legitimate need for this? Are there opportunities for me to use my gifts in a way that's going to be helpful, that's going to glorify God, that's going to help others consider your opportunities. Fourth, consider your character. Understand that God is never going to call you. He's never going to call for your ambitions or your influence to outgrow your integrity, to outgrow your character. That you might have big, big plans to do great, great things, but if your life is all tangled up in sin and you're living this double secret life of hypocrisy, well, God's going to call you to work on your heart before he calls you to go and work on anything else. And then fifth is to consider wise counsel. You're passionate about something, you're skilled and you're equipped to do something about it. You've got opportunities. You feel like your character, your heart are in the right place. The final, and probably I'd say this is the most important step, is to bring that sense of calling. Present it to other spirit-filled godly brothers and sisters in Christ. Say, hey, what do you think about this? God's put this on my heart. This is something I've been sensing. Do you agree? Right? Does it seem good to you and to the Holy Spirit that this is what God... And if all of these things line up, well, that's a pretty good indication that this is what God is calling you to do in your life right now. If they don't, there's red flags that come up along the way. Well, maybe you need to take some more time, spend some more time considering, discerning to figure out what's next. But just that's a helpful resource that I've used. I think it'll be helpful for you as well as you commit to your particular calling. And once you figure it out, commit to it, work hardily at it with all of your might in a way that glorifies God. Finally, point number four today is commit to receive inheritance in heaven and leave a legacy on earth. Just one more quick reminder before we wrap out. Whatever season of life you're in right now, whatever particular calling that God has placed on your life, whatever that is, whatever you do, verse 23 says, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. First Corinthians 7:17 says, "Only that each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all of the churches." And so my hope and my prayer is that whatever it is that God has assigned you to do, whatever he is calling you to do, that he would make that clear. That as that becomes clear, that you would commit to do that with all of your mights, so that as you approach that day, when you're coming to the end of your life, you can do so with just a fearless confidence and hope that your life has not been wasted, that it has not been meaningless, that you have fulfilled your purpose in life, that you have done what God created and called you to do. And so that as you reach that goal, you do so, and you're able to just look back on the legacy that you are about to leave and look forward to the inheritance that you are about to receive. And this is not just my prayer for you, it's my hope for you, but this is God's will for you as well. So I'm going to close by reading the benediction, the closing verses from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13 verses 20 through 21 say this. This is now. "May the God of peace who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do his will. Working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." Let's pray. Father, the we thank you that you have not left us to wander aimlessly through this life like sheep without a shepherd, but you have sent your son Jesus Christ, our good shepherd, to bring us into your fold, to love us, to lead us into good pastures of abundant life. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see your good purposes and plans for us, and to give our lives to those things with all of our might. Lord, if any of us lacks discernment, if any of us are uncertain of what you're calling us to do, I pray that you would fill them with wisdom, with your Holy Spirit, surround them by wise council and help them come to know your good, your pleasing, your perfect will. And Lord, if there's anyone here today that still feels lost and wandering outside of your fold, Jesus, I pray our good shepherd, that you would lead them home, that you would seek them, that you would save them today and bring them back into the fold of God. And for all of us, Lord, we pray that you would help us to live lives that bring your name the most glory, that do others the most good, and that leave a legacy of faithfulness and godliness that will impact generations to come for the sake of your kingdom and glory. Lord, we love you, we worship you, and we just want to sing your praises together right now. In Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
Committed to Worship
March 5, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • John 4:16–26
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaic http://boston.com Today, we are continuing in our sermon series Essential. We've been talking about the essential habits, or sorry, sermon series committed talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. We've been focusing on just the super practical commitments that every Christian that needs to make in order to grow in their faith, persevere in their faith, and experience the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give. Last week we talked about the topic of prayer. This week, we're talking about the topic of worship. If you're here last week as we were talking about prayer, I asked everyone at the beginning, before we start, everyone just take a moment and do an evaluation of your prayer life and rate yourself like on a scale of 1 to 10. Not going to do that here this morning. If we were to rate ourselves on our ability to worship, I already know we would all be a perfect 10. We are very skilled at worshiping. It just comes natural to us and we're going to be talking a little bit more about that. Remember, there's the old Chris Tomlin song, you and I were made for worship, love that song. It's true, he's right, we were designed for worship and we are naturally very good at it. Just look at any like sporting event, look at any rock concert, think about this, think about there's crowds of people, the lights, the loud music, the energy, the excitement, the lasers, the fog, it sounds just like something out of the book of Revelation. If you look at and think, read the descriptions of God's throne in the Book of Revelation, and there's crowds of people, great multitudes of people surrounding his throne, cheering, singing his praise, and there's smoke and there's thunder, and there's lightning. It's this multisensory experience. I do not think that this is a coincidence. We humans are going to find a way to worship one way or another, one thing or another. The problem is not that we don't worship. The problem that we see is that we all too often, we worship the wrong things or we worship in the wrong way. We try to replicate or fabricate the transcendent. Our concern today is not so much with committing to worship generally. Our concern today is with committing to worship properly, to worship the one true God in the way that he commands us to worship. How does that make you feel that God commands you to worship him? For a lot of us that it doesn't, we don't really like to hear that. We don't like to think about a God who commands people to worship him. It makes us uncomfortable to think that God is committed to his own glory, that he is devoted to his worship, but he is. Remember the 10 Commandments, Exodus 20, the first 4 out of the 10 are all about worship. Now, this is what it says, Exodus 20:1. "God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God, am a jealous God." "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." God is jealous for us. He commands us to worship him alone. If this feels odd to us, if this irks us, if we bristle at this, well it's because if God were anything like us, such a commandment would seem pretty arrogant and it would be evil. What if God were as scripture tells us not like us? What if he was completely other? What if he was holy? What if God were truly perfect in holiness, justice, mercy, love and power? What if he truly had no rival, no equal for his glory? Well, if this were true and it is true, well then it would not be evil for God to command people to worship him. Actually, it would be evil for God to do anything less than to seek his own glory because he truly is the only one worthy of praise. A truly loving God would insist on this because a truly loving God would be devastated to see the objects of his love and creation settle for worshiping anything less. Jonathan Edwards famous New England theologian pastor, he wrote this, he said, "God, in seeking His glory seeks the good of His creatures because the emanation of his glory, which He seeks and delights in as He delights in Himself and His own eternal glory, implies the communicated excellency and happiness of His creatures." "In communicating His fullness for them, He does it for Himself because of their good, which He seeks their good, which he seeks is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good, their excellence and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God's glory. God in seeking their glory and happiness seeks Himself and in seeking himself as diffused and expressed, which he delights in as he delights in His own beauty and fullness, He seeks their glory and happiness." You know what I think of when I read something like that? I think I'm so thankful that people don't write like that anymore. What on earth is Jonathan Edwards talking about? Well, I sat down, I chewed on this, I thought about it for a week for a little bit, had a migraine for like three days, but I got through it. This is what I think he's saying. Think of it like this, imagine that there's two men desiring the same woman's hand in marriage pursuing her. Now, the first man is strong, he's handsome, he's intelligent, he's successful, wealthy, compassionate, brave. He is everything that a woman could ever desire in a man. More than that, he loves her with all of his heart. He cherishes her, he treasures her. He would do anything for her, even lay down his own life if she were ever in danger. That's bachelor number one. Bachelor number two is a criminal. He's a predator looking for someone to use an abuse. He's a violent, unscrupulous, selfish, deadbeat, ugly loser living in his mom's basement, trolling people on the internet all day. He's got food stuck in his beard. He's got Cheetos dust on his fingers just 24/7. Would it be wrong for the honorable man to defend his honor in this situation? Would it be wrong for him to insist that this woman that he loves value his virtues and even despise the vice of this other man to, in a sense, seek his own glory even to the point of demanding that she stay away from this dangerous predator. That would not be wrong. In seeking his own glory, the honorable man is actually seeking his beloveds good. Now, this is not a perfect illustration because we cannot imagine a perfect man. There are no perfect men except of course for Jesus Christ, and that's the point. We take the premise of this illustration, times it by an infinitely glorious and perfect God. Then, you begin to understand what Edwards means. God is love, and the most loving thing God can therefore do is pursue his glory because the glory of the creator is the good of the creation. In commanding us to worship God, he is commanding our joy. He is commanding our greatest good that to command us to worship him is like commanding a bird to fly free in the sky. To command us not to worshiping anything else is like commanding a fish to stay away from the desert. He he's doing what is best for us in seeking his own glory. If you have your Bibles open up to John 4, we're going to be looking at a story today that is really a case study in what we've just talked about that shows us how and why this is so true. How important it is that we worship and that we worship the right God in the right way. John 4 is the story of the woman at the well. In this story, Jesus gives us what is arguably the most important teaching on worship that we have in all of holy scripture. If you have your Bibles, you can follow along. The words are also going to be up here on the screen. This is John 4, beginning in verse one. "Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although he himself did not baptize but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus wearied as he was from his journey was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour, a woman from Samaria came to draw water and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food." The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me a woman of Samaria for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans." Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink." You would've asked him and he would've given you living water." The women said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with. The well is deep, where are you going to get the living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drink from it himself as it sons in his livestock. Jesus said to her again, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, he'll never be thirsty again." "The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling of to eternal life. The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirst or have to come here to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go call your husband and come here." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands. The one you now have is not your husband. What you have said it's true." The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our father's worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." Jesus said to her, woman, "Believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father, you worship what you do not know." "We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father and spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship and spirit and truth." The women said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming. He is called the Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? Father, help us to become to be the worshipers that you are seeking. Teach us to worship in spirit and in truth, God, give us a glimpse of your glory that stirs our hearts and affections with all and wonders so that we cannot help but to declare your praise. That we cannot help but to offer our lives as a living sacrifice and worship to you, to give you glory in all that we say and do. Lord, speak to us now we pray through your holy word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, it's been a while since we've done a traditional three-point sermon and we're going to do one of those this morning. The three points of our sermon today are this, that point number one that the father is seeking worshipers, 0.2, who will worship in spirit in the truth, and 0.3 is both in Word and in deed. Jesus tells us that the father is seeking worshipers, John 4:23, he says, "The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such people to worship him." We already talked about how this is not wrong or selfish for God to do, to seek worshipers to pursue his own glory. This story is really a case study and why that's true, to help us to see all of the ramifications that come along with this. Jesus tells the woman, he says, "You worship what you do not know." As you read the context, it becomes clear that Jesus, he is not just talking about this theological feud that was going on between the Jews and Samaritans. That was certainly part of what Jesus was talking about, but he's pressing into something far deeper, far more personal for this woman at the well. The first thing he says is, "Hey, go call your husband." Well, he knows full well that she has no husband. As she says, "I've had five, the person I'm now with is not my husband." This is where Jesus goes because he knows that this is the temple that they're arguing about. This is the temple where she had been worshiping. This is the idol that has a hold of her heart that for so many years this woman has been searching for a Messiah among mortals. Bouncing from man to man to man, hoping to find satisfaction for her soul, through intimacy, through sex, and it's destroying her life. This is the irony of idolatry that our idols, they promise to satisfy the deepest longings of our heart. Then, the more we draw from those wells, the more we drink of that water, the thirstier we become. Instead of satisfaction, she finds a life of sin and shame. She finds a life of heartache, humiliation, a life of regret. Jesus, he preemptively addressed this in verse 13, this is what he is talking about when he says, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again." He's not talking about water, he's talking about her. He's talking about her life. He's talking about the futility of her idolatry, trying to find her hope or peace or satisfaction in something lesser than God. One of the reasons that we may be cringed at the idea of God's seeking worshipers, of being devoted to his glory is because we simply, we fail to understand how good God is on the one hand, but then we also fail to really fully understand how futile and how deadly idolatry and sin are on the other. This woman's idols, they were destroying her life. The prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 2:12, it says, "Be appalled, O heavens at this. Be shocked and utterly desolate declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me. The fountain of living waters and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." There's so much more going on in this story than just conversation about a well and it's water. Jesus is talking about the idols in her heart. This is why when we look at scripture and we look at the topic of idolatry, we also see accompanied with that the topic of God's wrath, that God has wrath. His wrath burns against our idolatry. He hates it with a passion because he loves us with a passion because he sees what it does to us, that our idols come and they offer us the world, but then they kill, they steal, they destroy. They take away everything. Our dignity, the glory that we were created for as image bearers of God. One of the most just brutally clear teachings of this in all of scripture comes from Romans chapter one, Romans 1:18, Paul writes this. He says, "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." For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and His divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so they're 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. "Therefore, God gave them up and the lusts of their hearts to impurity and to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served creature, the creature rather than the creator who was blessed forever. You see what Paul's getting at? You see what's going on here. It's this idea that in giving our glory to anything other than God, we're not robbing God of His glory. God is infinitely perfect in His glory. We cannot add to or subtract from God's glory, from His splendor, but when we give our glory to anything lesser than God, we are robbing ourselves. We are in a sense giving away our dignity, giving away our humanity. We exchange wells of living water for broken, empty cisterns. We exchange living in the truth for living a life of lies. We exchange wisdom for folly, honor for shame, dignity for a debased life. We exchange the glory of the creator for created things. The big idea is that in this exchange, we ourselves are being changed. That we are becoming like whatever it is that we behold in worship. Now, as image bearers of God, we were created to behold God in worship and to grow in more glory of his likeness. The 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul talks about this says that, "The Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That this is what happens when we worship the right God in the right way, we're growing increasing degrees of glory. When we fail to do that, the opposite is true as well. We become less like him and more like creation. We begin to behave like animals, like the creeping things that we worship. We begin to become controlled by our fleshly impulses. We become increasingly inhumane. We become increasingly consumed by dishonorable passions. This is exactly what Paul says as he continues in verse 26. He says, "For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. The men likewise, gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another." "Men committing shameless acts with men in receiving in themselves to do penalty for their error. Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with alt manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, their gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless." "Though they know that God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them." It's chilling how much it feels like this is just becoming more and more the state of our world every day. We shouldn't be surprised because this is the natural end of idolatry. This is the horrifying end of misdirected worship. By rejecting the God of heaven, we are inviting hell on earth. This is the reason that a good and loving God is jealous for us, and even angry when we do not give him the glory that He deserves because he knows idolatry always leads to death, it always invites hell. Right now, this hell on earth is temporary and it is escapable by the power of the gospel, by the blood of Jesus Christ there can be redemption and forgiveness of sins. What we see is that a day is coming when those who refuse to repent and refuse to worship God as they are, will find themselves not just experiencing a hell on earth but existing in a hell for all of eternity. This should break our hearts, the scripture describes hell as a place of unbearable conscience, eternal selfishness, and suffering. Where people are forever cut off from the presence of God's glory. This is 1 Thessalonians 2:9, it says, "They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, to be marveled, that among all who have believed Jesus is coming." This is true, and we may bristle at this. We may not want to talk about it, but it's true. We know that it's true because we see the warning signs of it all around us in our world right now. This is why Jesus runs into this woman at the well. He doesn't talk about the weather. He's not there to shoot the breeze just to carry on a casual conversation. He goes straight to the most off limit, sensitive, dark part of her life and says, "I want to talk about that." Why would he do that? He did that because he loved her because this was the idol that was destroying her life. The only way for her to live was for it to die. He goes there and that this couldn't have been fun, it couldn't have been easy to do, but he could see the eternal destruction of her idolatry was already having effect in her present life and he wanted to pull her from those flames before it was too late. He goes there, love compels him to talk about this. He couldn't stand to see her any longer returning day after day to the well of her sin, of her shame, of her sin, of her idolatry, hopelessly drawing water that was never going to quench. The application for us right now, this story it's not just about her, it's about us. What is that well that broken cistern in your life, are you holding on to any idols? Maybe you go to them occasionally, maybe you go to them habitually. Are you looking to created things to find your comfort, your hope, your peace, your joy and happiness and life? Jesus tells us in verse 13 says, listen, "Everyone who drinks of this water, they're going to be thirsty again. It's never going to satisfy you, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Verse 10, he says, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that saying to you, "Give me a drink, you'd have asked him and he would've given you this living water." The woman responds on verse 15, he says, "Sir, give it to me. Give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. It's a beautiful glorious thing to know that the father is seeking worshipers. He's seeking people who will draw water from the well of Christ and extinguish the flames of their idols and find their satisfaction, everything that their hearts have longed for are satisfied in him. Jesus first tells us that the father is seeking worshipers. He also tells us that the kind of worshipers that the father is seeking, and verse 23 says that the hour is coming and it is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. This is point number two today that we worship in spirit and truth. Romans 1, John 4, Exodus 20, they all tell us how important it is that we worship the right God. They also tell us how important it's that we worship him in the right way. The right way, and that Jesus tells us is to worship him in spirit and truth. What does that mean to worship God in spirit and truth? I think the truth part comes a little bit easier. That part's not too difficult to understand that to worship in truth means that we must worship God for who He truly is. We do not worship God as we imagine Him to be. We do not worship Him for who we hope or we desire Him to be. We worship Him for who He has revealed himself to be, that He has revealed himself through His word. He's told us what He's like and how He ought to be worshiped through the living word that's Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and through the written word, holy scripture, that's how we know God. Today, Hebrews 1 says, "Long ago and many times, and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. In these last days, he has spoken to us by His son whom He appointed the heir of all things through whom He also created the world. He, Jesus, the Son, is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. John began his gospel, John chapter 1, he says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that has been made and Him was life and that life was the light of men. Then in verse 14, and he says, "This word became flesh and he dwells among us. We have seen His glory, the glory as the only son from the Father who is full of grace and truth." This is what it means to worship in truth that our understanding of God and how we worship him, it's not something we find by looking inwardly into ourselves. It is something that we can only find and discover by looking to the truth that God has revealed to us through his word, through the living word, Jesus Christ and through his written word of holy scripture. We must worship in truth, but we also must worship in spirit. What does it mean to worship in spirit? Well, if you're familiar with John's gospel, when John talks about the spirit, he's almost always talking about the Holy Spirit and the gift or the indwelling Holy Spirit that is going to come upon Jesus of followers, that to worship in spirit, it does not require us to go to a holy temple, it requires us to have the Holy Spirit. Jesus talked about this in chapter three with Nicodemus, how you need to be born again by the Spirit. This is why Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, "Listen, the time is coming in. It's here right now. It's not going to matter whether you worship God here or there at this mountain or that temple, what's going to matter is that you have the Holy Spirit of God within you." Last week, when we talked about prayer, we talked about how prayer is this Trinitarian experience of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The same is true of worship, that we worship in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the truth of Jesus Christ and spirit and in truth. That is part of it that we must worship with the Spirit in the Spirit as those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit. Now, in addition to this, I think Jesus just to make it practical, when we talk about worshiping in his spirit and truth, the idea here is that it goes beyond just our understanding and our mind, and it produces a proper posture in our hearts. It produces a right attitude and a right affection for God in our hearts when we have the right understanding and when we have the right spirit within us, that these two things together then result in a proper response to God in praise. Throughout scripture, the way people respond to God, we express this. It's through love, it's through our obedience, it's through sacrifice, and it is through praise. It's through the words that we say, and we're going to talk a little bit here in a little bit about how therefore worship really in includes every aspect of our life. One of the most natural ways for us to express this to God all at once is through singing to him with Psalm, with music. Psalm 108:1 says, "I will sing and make melody to God with my lips? No, he says, "With all of my being. Awake, O, harp and lyre. I will wake the dawn, I will give thanks to you, oh Lord, among the peoples, and I'll sing your praises to you among the nations for your stud fast love is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds that when we sing, we sing with our whole being. Have you ever stopped to think about why we sing in church? It is just normal, but when you think about it's strange. People usually don't just sing. I said in the newsletter, people pretty much they sing when they're drunk or they sing when they're in love. That's the reason we sing. Hopefully, you're not drunk, but we sing because we love. We sing because we can't contain the feeling, the affection that we have for God our Father as we think about who he is and as we think about what he has done for us. There is a unique and at times transcendent wholeness that is produced when words and music come together. When we sing, we have a message of truth that we are engaging with our minds. The words that we sing matter, but then how we sing them matters as well. This message in our minds that stirs up evokes emotions in our heart. Then, we engage our whole body, we sing out loud, we move, we clap our hands, we raise our arms. Whatever we do that we sing in sync, we sing in rhythm, we sing with dynamics and harmony. The music moves because it is meant to move us. It is meant to be this whole body multisensory experience. The point that I'm trying to make is that our praise should not be rote. It should not be half-hearted, apathetic, indifferent. It should not seem boring or stale. Our praise should be the passionate response of hearts that have been set on fire by the glory of God. It's the response of hearts that have properly understood just how beautiful and glorious and worthy of praise God really is. Psalm 33 says, "Shout for joy in the Lord. O, you righteous. Praise benefits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Make melody to him with the harp of 10 strings. Sing to him a new song, play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. For the word of the Lord is upright, and all of his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord." Psalm 47:1 says, "Clap your hands, all people. Shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. Psalm 150 says, "Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his mighty deeds. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the trumpet sound, praise him with the lute and harp. Praise him with tambourine and dance and praise him with strings and pipe. Praise him with sounding cymbals. Praise him with the loud crashing cymbals." That's Caleb's new life verse as he's learning to play the drums. Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Then, Ephesians 5:14 says, "Therefore awake, wake up, O, sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most best use of the time because the days are evil."Not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father, and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." If a father is seeking worshipers, who will worship him in spirit and in truth, not sluggishly, not with apathy, not half asleep, but fully wide awake to his glory, responding just with passionate, affectionate, transcendent expressions of thanksgiving and praise. We are to worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Then, point number three today is that we must also worship him both in word and deed. Worship is not anything less than what we give God as we sing his praise together, but it is obviously a whole lot more than that. Worship is a lifestyle of obedience and love to God. The Father is seeking worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth, and therefore worship him both in word and deed. We have a great example of this in our story today. We have a great example in both in Jesus Christ and in the woman at the well as she responds to him. I didn't read this part earlier, but we're going to read a little bit more of the story right now because after Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah, the next thing we're told is we're told what's happened next. In verse 27. It says, "Then, his disciples came back and they marveled that he was talking with a woman and no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her? The woman left your water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" Now, I want to just stop and back up there for a moment because this didn't even hit me until I was looking over my notes and reading meditating of the text this morning. It tells us that the disciples show up and the woman takes off and she leaves and she leaves her what? She leaves her water jar. She leaves that thing that symbolizes the idol that had a hole on her life for so long. The thing that they were talking about that, but they weren't really talking about. She leaves it there and she runs into that town because she has to tell everyone, "Come and see the man who told me everything I ever did. Can this be to Christ?" They went out of the town and they were coming to him. Now, meanwhile, the disciples were urging him saying, "Rabbi, eat." He said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." The disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say there are yet four months, and then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, one sows another reaps I sent you to reap for that for which you did not labor others have labored and you have entered into their labor. He's referring to all the people of the town that are now coming out to see him, to hear and to receive the gospel. It says that as they did verse 39, many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. She told them, "He told me all that I ever did." When the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them. He stayed there for two days and many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It's no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves." We know that this indeed is the savior of the world. That true worship, as we see here, it cannot be confined to a time, a place, a song, a service. True worship is a lifestyle of obedience, of praise, of testifying to the grace of Jesus Christ in our life. This is what Jesus did, this is what the woman does. Romans 12:1 says, "I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." That true worship. It is the entirety of our lives given as a living sacrifice to the glory of God. Verse 34, Jesus says, this is why he says, "My food, I don't need the bread that you went into town to give me because my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work." That Jesus' purpose in life was to glorify the Father, not just in the songs that he sang as they traveled around or they attended a synagogue or temple together, that was certainly a part of it. Jesus' purpose was to glorify the Father in all that He said, all that He did, because for him, this was more satisfying to Jesus than even bread for an empty stomach. That's true of Jesus, and it also proved true of the woman at the well. She now, as Jesus says, "I have bread that you don't even know about. She has water that they don't even know about. She's goes to go tell everyone about it because her drink is now to do the will of the one who has sent her. She runs into the town and she begins to tell everybody that she had come to the well that day, thirsty, and she had left satisfied. She had come there in shame and she had left in honor. She had come there with all of her regrets about the past, and she left with a vision and a purpose for her future. She arrived in disgrace and she left in God's grace. She arrived at her broken cistern, but she leaves her water jar there. She runs into the village to tell everyone that she had found the living water that her soul had been looking for, that this woman who had lived a life of shame about everything that she ever did, was now willing to go and face those people and say, "Come and see the man who told me everything I ever did. That her reputation, her story had not become her testimony." You have to think about this, the reason that she was out there at, well, in the middle of the day, in the heat of the day, the reason she bumped into Jesus in the first place, well, it's because she wasn't there when she was supposed to be there. She wasn't there when all the other women of the village would've been there drawing their water in the cool of the day. The reason she wasn't there, because she was intentionally didn't want to be there, she was avoiding them. She was ashamed to show her face among the other women of the village because she had a reputation. She didn't want to go and see the sideways glances and hear the whispering gossip or the snide passive-aggressive remarks. She had a shameful reputation. But Jesus had redeemed this, he turned it into her testimony, and now she boldly, she excitedly goes, and she runs into the village. She finds every man, woman, child who will listen to her and she begins to tell them about Jesus, about the living water that she had found, and they all go out to meet him together. This had to have been hard, to go and to face the people that had really probably mistreated and rejected her, treated her as a bit of an outside. She had to forgive them, she had to love them, and she had to go, and she was willing to go. It was the only proper response to the mercy that she had just found in Jesus Christ to go and to face her fears, to face those people and to just boldly tell them the good news about what she had discovered. For the first time in her life, she felt secure. She felt peace, she felt joy. She felt loved that for the first time in her life there in the presence of Jesus, everything began to make sense. She was safe with her savior. She was no longer the woman of five husbands who was now living with her deadbeat boyfriend. That was not her identity anymore. She had been saved by the Christ, the Messiah, she was now a daughter of the king. She was now a child of God, beloved, cherished, redeemed, and her restless heart had finally found its home there in the presence of Jesus Christ, and she was never the same. Saint Augustine wrote in his confessions, "Great art, Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised, great is thy power and of Thy wisdom, there is no end. Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee. For Thou has formed us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. Oh, how shall I find rest in Thee. Who will send Thee into my heart to inebriate it so that I may forget my woes and embrace Thee as my only good? What art Thou to me have compassion on me that I may speak? What am I to Thee that thou demandest my love, and unless I give it Thee art angry and even threatenest me with great sorrows. Is it then a light sorrow not to love Thee? Alas! Alas! Tell me of Thy compassion, O Lord, my God, what are Thou art to me? Say unto my soul, "I am thy salvation." Speak that I may hear. Behold Lord, the ears of my heart are before the open them Thou them and say, under my soul, "I am thy salvation." When I hear, may I run and lay hold of Thee hide not Thy face for me. Let me die, lest I die if only I may see Thy face." This is a picture of what it looks like to be a living sacrifice. Let me die lest I die. Let me die to myself, let me die to my pride. Let me die to living life for my own glory so that I can find myself fully satisfied in living my life for the glory of God. It's the only thing that's going to satisfy my soul. It's a sacrifice, it's a living sacrifice because we have to give up. We have to give ourselves away, but it's a living sacrifice because we know that as we do in Christ, the well that we are drawing from is a well of living water that will never run dry. We're going to have an opportunity to respond and praise and worship here in a moment. Today, we're doing something special as a church, we are celebrating communion together. Today, we're coming to the Lord's table and communion this is a sacred symbol really, of everything that we have been talking about today, that the true food is the body of Christ. The true drink is the living water that he offers us. In John 6, a few chapters later in verse 53, Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life." Now, obviously, he's not talking about literal flesh and blood here. We know what he's talking about. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks, my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my body is true drink." "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father. Whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread of the father's ate and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." The way that we celebrate communion, hopefully, you got one of these as you came in. If not, just raise your hand right now. The ushers would happy to bring you one wherever you're seated. There's a bread in here in the cup here. The bread represents the body of Christ that was broken for us. The cup represents his blood that was poured out to make a new covenant in His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. We will all take this together here in a moment. I'll pray for us and then we will take communion together. If you are here today and you're a Christian, we would welcome you to celebrate communion with us. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, we would ask you to refrain. There's nothing magical about this, it's not going to do anything for you apart from repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. If you're here today and you're a Christian, but you've been living in unrepentant sin while scripture also warns us to not partake of communion in an unworthy manner, that you either refrain or you spend this time right now to confess and to repent of your sin before the Lord and to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made to make that possible. If you do that or if you've committed your life to Christ for the first time today, you've repented and you put your faith in Him, we'd welcome you to join us as we celebrate communion together. Let's pray and then we will take communion together. Father, we come and we confess our sin. We confess our idolatry. We confess that our hearts are not as on fire for you as they should be, but too often that fire is quenched by desires, passions, competing idols for our hearts, so we repent. Help us to see your beauty, your goodness, your glory, and that by the power of the living water of Jesus Christ, that you would just extinguish the flames of these idols that are constantly vying for our attention to live our lives purely devoted to being living sacrifices given for you, knowing that Jesus Christ came to be a dying sacrifice for us, that he truly did go to the death, that his body was given up, his blood was poured out. The full wrath of God for arson fell upon him so that we could be forgiven, we could be reconciled, we could be loved, adopted into your family, and to be called the children of God. We thank you, Jesus for this tremendous sacrifice that you have made. If it's not real to us, Lord, make it real to us right now, that you truly did come in a body of flesh, that you truly did suffer and die. More than that, you experienced the moment as the Father forsook you pouring his wrath out upon you to pay the eternal debt that we could have never paid on our own. Jesus, we thank you, we praise you for that. Not only for that, but for the good news that you did not stay there, but that you rose in victory and triumph over Satan's sin and death, and that you've given us this time now to take this bread in. Take this cup as a way of proclaiming your death until you come again and we look forward to that day when you do. To judge the world in righteousness and to make all things new, to wipe away every tear so we can be there in your presence and your joy forever. Jesus, we thank you. We praise you, we love you. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, he took bread after giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples. He said, "This is my body given for you. Take, eat, and do this and remembrance of me. He then took the cup said, "This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. Take drink, do this in remembrance of me." Jesus, we just thank you again for your sacrifice. Father, we thank you for sending your son, the Holy Spirit. We thank you for entering our lives to be that wellspring of living water, cleansing us, sanctifying us, and convicting us, and helping us to grow an ever-increasing glory from one degree to another, more and more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. God, I pray that the reality of who you are and all that you have done, the gravity of that would fall on us now in our minds, but that understanding of the truth would stir our hearts and affections to truly praise you and sing of your glory as we ought, as you deserve to be praised. We love you. We praise you together right now in Jesus' name. Amen.
Commit to Prayer and Fasting
February 26, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 6:5–18
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com We are continuing our sermon series today called Committed. We've been talking about the essential habits of an abundant life and what we've been saying over and over throughout this series is that we are taking a look at some of the essential, nonnegotiable and just super practical commitments that every Christian needs to make in order to grow in their faith and persevere through life and to experience and to enjoy the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give. And if you were here last week, our teens director, Tyler, did an awesome job talking about our commitment to Scripture and I hope that that sermon just left you with a greater appreciation, a greater trust, a greater hunger and appetite for God's word. It's amazing that we worship a god who speaks, a god who has chosen to reveal Himself to us as His creation and we should never take that for granted, right? If God has something to say, we want to hear it. We want to listen. And it is awesome to think that we have access to the word of God recorded for us in Scripture. We worship a god who speaks. We also worship a god who listens. And this is what we are going to be talking about today as we look at the topics, the commitments of fasting and prayer. Like so many of the things that we've talked about in this series, this is not something we do, it is something we commit to, that fasting and prayer, they're not going to happen by accident, they're not going to happen on their own, that these are things that like the early church we need to devote ourselves to doing. And for some of us, maybe that feels like hard work. I don't know about you, but sometimes prayer could begin to feel like a grind. It could feel like something that you have to do or something that you're supposed to do when really we should view prayer as something that we get to do. And as we learn to do these things properly, even if at times they might feel like a grind, they might feel like a drudgery, they should become our delight, that as we practice them persistently, we find in them a great reward. And I use that word because that's the word that we're going to see Jesus used over and over in our text today when He talks about fasting in prayer. He keeps using this word reward. And so is that a word that you use? Is that a word that you think about when you think about fasting, when you think about prayer? Before we begin this morning, I want you to do something for me right now. I just want you to mentally do a quick evaluation of your prayer life. Rate yourself, scale of one to 10, 10 is everything's great, you've got an abundant, flourishing, vibrant, rewarding prayer life. One is it's dry, it's a grind, barely existence. Your prayer life is on a life support. Does prayer feel like a requirement, like a drudgery, like something that you have to do or does it feel like a reward? Does it feel like a delight, something that you get to do? Wherever you just rated yourself, none of us are a 10, we've all have room to grow and so my hope today is that we can all go up in our rating together. And so if you just said, "Well, I feel like I'm a two or a three," well, what would it take to get from a three to like a seven or to get from a five to a nine? What would it take for us to all grow to have a prayer life that's more like that of Christ Jesus? And lucky for us, this is something that Jesus' disciples wondered as well and they at times would ask Jesus, "Hey, Jesus, can you teach us how to pray?" And He did. On multiple occasions, Jesus taught His disciples how to pray and one of those is the text that we're going to be looking at this morning. It's Matthew chapter six, verse five through 21. This is a part of the sermon on the Mount. And Jesus spends a considerable amount of time teaching His disciples about this topic of fasting and prayer. So we're going to walk through this text together. It's a bit of a long text and we're going to just go through it section by section. And as we do, I want us to look at five commitments that are going to help us to avoid some of the pitfalls of prayer and fasting that we could potentially fall into, but also to just have an increasingly vibrant, abundant, powerful and rewarding prayer life that God wants us to have. So if you have your Bibles, we are in Matthew chapter six, beginning in verse five. The words are also going to be up here on the screen. This is what Jesus said, "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray and stand in the synagogues and on the street corners that they may be seen by others. And truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who's in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this, 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They just figure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where mouth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." This is the reading of God's holy word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? God, we pray that we would learn to treasure You as we ought. And God, we pray that You would forgive us for not praying as we ought. Lord, You warned Your disciples in the garden to watch and to pray that they might not enter into temptation for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is so weak. And God, we confess our weakness to You and we praise You that Your strength, Your power is made perfect in our weakness, that Your grace is greater than our failures. And so Lord, we ask today that You would to teach us to pray as we ought, teach us to live continually in Your presence, experiencing the blessing of knowing that You are always with us and You always hear us, that we can come and we can talk to You at any time. Teach us what it means to be anxious about nothing but to pray about everything because we know that You are with us, You see us, You hear us, You love us and You are able to provide for our every need. Lord, You are the God who hears and I pray that we would marvel at that reality today and we give You thanks and glory for it now, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, before teaching His disciples how to pray, Jesus first we see, He teaches them how not to pray and He gives them two examples. He says, "On the one hand, don't go and don't pray like the hypocrites. Don't pray like the Pharisees, the religious people." And on the other hand, He says, "Don't pray like the Gentiles, like the lawless pagans either." And so let's start with the religious people that with the Pharisees in verse five, Jesus says, "When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray and stand in the synagogues and not at the street corners that they may be seen by others. And truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Now, first of all, we need to understand Jesus isn't condemning public prayer. He's not saying that there's never an appropriate time for Christians to pray in public with one another. Corporately, we see it in the New Testament that that is something that the early church was devoted to doing, that it is a good thing for God's people to come and to pray together publicly. But what Jesus is telling us and what we all need to be cautious of is this, that if we find in ourselves that we can go to church and pray with other Christians or we can go to community group and we've got a lot of things to say to God and we can pray with lofty words and eloquence and everything sounds very polished, but then we go home. And when we're alone with God in secret, we've got nothing to talk about, well, He says that's a problem. That's a symptom of a pretty serious illness in the diagnosis that he gives is hypocrisy. I think of it like this. I don't know if you've ever been over at a friend's house like hanging out and then somebody you don't know, one of their friends comes in and joins you. Maybe it's a coworker or neighbor or something like that. And at first, everything's great. You're having a good time, hanging out. The conversation is going well and everybody seems friendly and then your friend gets up and leaves the room and now you're trapped in this awkward deafening silence. And a moment ago, we thought, "I thought we were all friends, but now that they're gone, I realize that was an illusion. You are not my friend. I don't even know you. You're a stranger and we've got nothing to say to each other." Well, don't be like that with God. If you are like that with God, that is a cause for concern. If you find it easy to talk to God when other people, other Christians are around, but you can't talk to Him in private, oh, maybe you've fallen into the same pit as the Pharisees and maybe you've figured out how to look really religious and sound really spiritual when other people are around, but there's no real relationship there with God. He says, "Don't fall into that pit. If the pathway to prayer is this narrow road, you've got this dangerous ditch on the one side that the Pharisees fell into," but he says, "But there's also this other ditch on the other side that the Gentiles fall into. So he says, "Don't be like the pagans either," and this is what He talks about in verse seven. He says, when you pray, "Don't just heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." He says, "Don't be like them as your Father knows what you need even before you ask." See, unlike the Jews who were monotheistic, they believed in one God rightly, the Gentiles believed in a pantheon of gods and their relationship to these gods was not particularly healthy. The gods were seemingly mostly motivated by their own selfish self-interest. And so the people envisioned their gods as these kind of powerful but moody beings and they needed to be appeased. They needed to be persuaded, even maybe bribed in order to care about the plights of mortal people. And their hope was that if they used the right words, if they prayed to the right god with the right words, in the right place, at the right temple with the right idols and the right sacrifices, well, maybe they could get somebody's attention out there. And so they would babble and they would heap up all of these words, as Jesus said, because they were just trying to cover all of their bases like, "If I just do this enough, maybe something will happen. Just throw a plethora of prayers out into the cosmos and hope that maybe somebody out there is listening." And Jesus says, "Don't be like that. Don't be like the Gentiles. The Gentiles weren't just a little-stitious, they're more than a little-stitious. They were superstitious. He says, "Don't be superstitious about prayer. It's not some magic incantation that you need to figure out. Prayer is not a way to tap into some higher power or manipulate some spiritual system. Prayer is just simply a conversation with God. And God is not a system. He is not a power. He is a person." And so I said we'd look at five commitments of a rewarding prayer life. And the first one is that, before anything else, we need to commit to this. We need to pray to God with God as a person. And I use the word with. We often talk about praying to God. Not necessarily anything wrong with that, but I'm using the word with here intentionally for two different reasons. First of all is because the Gentiles prayed to their gods, but they can never really be sure if the gods were listening to them. They could never be sure if anybody out there was hearing that they send their prayers off like an email and who knows? Maybe it just wound up in someone's spam folder. Maybe it just got deleted right away. They could never be sure. But we don't pray like that, that when we pray to God, we pray to a god that we know we have confidence, we have assurance that He is with us, that God is all knowing, all seeing. He is omniscient, omnipresent and all powerful. He always hears all the prayers of His people. And eight times in this passage, Jesus refers to God in a very specific way that shows the intimate relationship that we are to have with Him. He refers to Him as our Father. I mentioned earlier that this passage, it comes from the Sermon of the Mount, and later on in the same sermon, Jesus comes back to this topic of prayer in Matthew chapter seven and He's talking about the relationship of us praying to God as a father. And in verse seven, he says this. He says, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks finds and to Him who knocks the door will be opened." And he says, "Or which one of you, if his son asks for bread, we give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, would give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, well, then how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?" I don't know about your dad's situation. Some of you had very good dads, maybe some of you didn't. The point that Jesus is making here though is that even the very best of earthly fathers seems evil when compared to the goodness, the kindness, the grace of our God, our Heavenly Father." And God wants us to know Him as a good Father, as a father who is so good, so loving, so attentive that He not only sees us, He knows what we need even before we ask Him," Jesus says. And Jesus calls God our Father. We need to relate to God as our Father. He also calls Him our Heavenly Father, that we can approach God with the affection and the intimacy of a father, but we must also approach Him with the reverence and the honor and the respect due to a Heavenly Father that our God as a father is perfect in His goodness. He's also perfect in His holiness. He teaches us to pray, "Our Father who arts in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." And so what does it mean to say that God is holy? It means that He is morally perfect in every way. He is completely pure without compromise, without contradiction. He is utterly distinct and set apart with no rival, with no equal for His glory, for His righteousness. And actually when you look at Scripture, what you see is that God is so holy, he is so righteous that anything unrighteous is unable to even stand before His presence, that even the angels of heaven, and when Isaiah has his vision, that they cover their faces before the holiness of God, that God is so righteous that anything containing even an ounce of sin, even the smallest imperfection, it would be destroyed before His holy presence as quickly as a shadow under the direct exposure of the sun. Hebrews 12:28 says, "Therefore, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence in awe, for our God is a consuming fire." Well, this is true. How can we, as sinful people, hope to stand before a Holy God in prayer? Well, I mentioned earlier, there's two reasons that we need to not just pray to God but with God. And the first is simply that God is with us as a father, but the second is that we cannot pray to God without God helping us to pray to God, that we cannot come before the Father without the power of the Holy Spirit, without the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is what I mean, when we pray to the Father, we do so in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ and we're able to, therefore, come boldly before the throne of God and stand before His righteousness, not because we're righteous. If we did that, we would die, but we are able to stand before His presence because, and only because, we have been covered by the righteous blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, that by grace through faith, the righteousness of Christ has been accredited to us. It covers us and we are able to stand before the Holy Father now and not just live, but to actually be loved, actually be welcomed into ... He looks at us and He sees us in the perfection of Jesus and welcomes us into His presence. And this is what it means to pray to God. It's really profound when you think about it. It is a Trinitarian experience, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit allowing us to come and experience just the awesome transcendent reality that our prayers can be heard by a Holy God. And that as they are and as we do, we realize that this Holy God is also our loving Father. And so commit to that, commit to having that mindset as you approach God, that you are speaking with God for the person that He is, both loving and holy, perfect in His holiness. Secondly, commit to pray with a plan. Jesus says in verse nine, He says, "Pray them like this." He's like, "I'm going to teach you. This is how you should pray. 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not unto temptation, but deliver us from evil.'" I think one of the reasons that Christians maybe don't pray as often as they should is because they lack that vision of God and who He is and the person of God that they are communicating with. I think if we had that mindset and we realize what an awesome privilege that is, we would pray more. But I think another reason that a lot of Christians maybe struggle with prayer is that they don't have a practical plan. And so really quick, I just want to look at four super practical things that if you're not doing them already, I would say start doing them and you'll find I think that these are going to help you with your prayer life because Jesus doesn't just say, "If you pray." There is a sense in which we are continually living in the presence of God, praying without ceasing. As we go about our day, we should have this mindset that God is with us. We are talking to Him throughout our day, that we have access to Him at any time, but then we should also plan specific times where we are going to sit down and focus and spend time with God in prayer. And that's not going to happen on its own. You need to have a plan. So first of all, you need to determine a time and a place. If you're a busy person, I don't know if there's busy people that live here in Boston, but if there are, you might need to put this on your calendar. You might need to schedule it. You need to plan ahead and say, "At this time of day, I'm going to stop what I'm doing and I am going to pray and I'm going to have a time, I'm also going to have a place." Where are you going to do it? When are you going? For me, personally, I literally go into my bedroom, I go into to our closet and I close the door. And especially if you got kids, sometimes that's the only way you're going to get any kind of privacy. And I close the door and I pray. And I pray out loud. I don't know why. I started doing this at some point and it helps me to stay focused. It helps my mind not to wander and I'm having a conversation with God, so why wouldn't I pray out loud? Hebrews 5:7 says, "In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears and to Him who was able to save Him from death and He was heard because of His reverence." I don't think that there's anything wrong with praying silently to God, but if you haven't tried praying out loud, I would say it's helpful for me, maybe it will be helpful for you, but the main point is determine a time and a place. Be intentional about it and make it happen. Secondly, use a template. It's not cheating to go into your prayer time with a plan of the kind of things that you're going to pray about. And I know there's a lot of different templates out there and maybe you've used a variety of them throughout your life. One that's really popular that I've heard about is the ACTS model, like the Book of Acts, and they turned it into an acronym, adoration Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. And so that's great. That's a good model. You begin adoration. You just spend some time praising God for His attributes like offering Him worship for who He is. A confession, you lead into a time of repentance where you're asking God for forgiveness and confessing your sins to Him. And Thanksgiving, you thank God for His mercy, for His grace, for all of His provision in your life. And then supplication, you bring your requests to God. You lay your heart before Him and you bring Him all your worries, all your concerns, all of your anxieties. Philippians 4:5-7 says, "Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand, so therefore, do not be anxious about anything but in everything. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." So that's one model that people like to use and that's great. Me personally, I like to use the Lord's Prayer that we just read. The Lord's Prayer is a beautiful prayer on its own. You should memorize it. As Tyler said last week, you should internalize it. And I don't think that Jesus gave us this prayer to just memorize and then just like mindlessly recite over and over. I think He gave us this prayer as a good template, as a good model of the kind of things that the Father loves and wants to hear from us about. And so that's what I do. I pray through the Lord's Prayer and then I go back through it line by line, theme by theme and get more specific in my prayer time with God. Just personally, I find that really helpful. And then along with that, number three, is keeping a list. And so you've got your template. You keep a list. For me, I just do this in the little notepad app on my phone. Got it with me wherever I go. I got a list of general things that I'm praying about all the time. I pray for my wife, for my marriage, for my kids. I pray for Mosaic. I pray for the pastors, the staff, the community groups, the members of the church. And then as specific things come up in my life and the church's life and the life of people in our community group or whatever, I just add those to that list. Got it with me wherever I go. You do these things, pretty soon you find out you've got plenty of things to pray about that you need to be praying about with God. And fourthly, and this is really important, as you do this, as you make it a priority, you've got your plan, your template, you've got your list of things you're praying about, I record and remember. Sometimes you got to write things down that you're praying about, so that your future self is going to be able to look back and see and remember God's faithfulness throughout that time in your life. And I could give countless examples of this from my life, from members of our community group, but I think this is a good thing to do. Psalm 77 says, "Then I said I will appeal to this. I'll appeal to the year of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember Your wonders of old. I will ponder all of Your work and meditate on Your mighty deeds. Your way, O, God is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders. You have made known Your might among the peoples." As Christians, we believe this, we know this to be true, that our God is a god who always hears and who always answers all of the prayers of all His people. Nothing gets by Him, nothing gets unnoticed, nothing slips past Him. He always answers our prayers. Now, that doesn't mean that He's always going to say yes to our prayers. He doesn't always answer yes, but He is always going to answer best. He's always going to give us what is most and needed most glorifying to Him. And so when He does, don't just forget it and move on. How many times have you maybe prayed for something and then it happens and you're like, "Oh, probably a coincidence. No." No, don't just move on. Write that down, record it, remember it so that the next time you're praying about something, you can rely on it, so that you can look back because there's going to be some points in your future whereas the psalmist said you're going to need to remember the deeds of the Lord so that you can face the fears in your future with the blessed reminders of God's faithfulness in your past, so that you can then stand firm there in the present. Not because you're strong, but because you know that God is faithful, that He is with you, that He has upheld you and that His hand is upon you. First Peter 5:68 says, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that the proper time, He may exalt you, casting all of your anxieties on Him because He cares for you." So commit to pray with a plan. Number three, we see in this passage is we need to commit to pray with purity. Jesus says in His prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we've also forgiven our debtors and not and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," and then he stops and he gives some commentary on this. And in verse 14, he says, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours." And now we got to be clear, Jesus is not teaching a model of works-based righteousness here. He's not talking about forgiveness in the context of our justification. We cannot save ourselves by forgiving others. We cannot lose our salvation by failing to forgive others. Jesus, that's not what He's talking about here, but what Jesus is talking about here is He's talking about forgiveness in the context of prayer and in the context of our relationship with God, and therefore, also our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And the warning here is that things are not going to be right and good between you and God the Father if things are not right and good between you and your brothers and sisters in Christ. If you are holding a grudge, if you're holding onto anger, resentment, bitterness, you're refusing to forgive somebody. So don't be surprised then if your prayers are hindered. I guess as a father, I picture it like this. Remember Jesus, He shared that parable, "Hey, if your kid comes and asks for something to eat, you're not going to give them a stone." No, of course not. Why would a good parent withhold something good that their child needed? But let's back up and add some context to that. If your kid came to you and said, "Hey, dad, can I have some dinner?" but on the way to the dinner table, they pushed their sister and suplexed their little brother off of the couch and then they're standing there before you. It's like, "Well, hold on a minute. We got to talk. Yeah, we can talk about food. We can talk about dinner. We got bigger things to talk about like why you just smashed your little brother's face into the coffee table." You get the point. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mountain, just the chapter before this, in chapter five, verse 23, "If you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you," he says, "leave your gift there and go. First be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift." This is how important, even if you're in the middle of worship, you're preparing to offer your gift at the altar, you're in the middle of praise and you're in middle of praise is stopped, first go be reconciled, then come and offer your gift. In Psalm 66, the psalmist said, "I cried to Him with my mouth and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened and He has attended to the voice of my prayers." The Apostle Peter talks about this in his first letter, both in chapter three, verse seven and in chapter four, verse seven, Peter says this. First, he speaks to the husbands. He says, "Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that," what? "So that your prayers may not be hindered." He says, "Husbands, if you want your prayers to not be hindered, well, then you would better be treating God's daughter with the honor, with the tenderness, with the consideration that she deserves." And then in the next chapter, he speaks more generally to all Christians and he says in chapter four, verse seven, "To the end of all things is at hand, therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded again for the sake of your prayers." Now, earlier when I asked you to rate yourself, your prayer life, if you were finding, if you were saying, "Ah, that's not so good. I'm like a two. I'm maybe a three," you need to maybe stop and ask yourself, "Could this be the reason why? Have I been cherishing iniquity in my heart? Have I been harboring sin, resentment? Have I been holding a grudge? Is there someone that I have been refusing to forgive or is there someone that I need to go to and ask for forgiveness?" Because when you got stuff like this in your life, the last thing that you're going to want to do is go and talk to God in prayer because you know that God knows, and you know that God's not going to let it go. He's going to press you on it. He's going to tell you, "You need to go and you need to deal with this right away." And so you begin to avoid God or you begin to put up a front to mask things, but you know that he sees straight through all of that. So if you're struggling with prayer, be honest. Ask yourself. Are you just going through the motions? Are you avoiding God and could the reason be that there is sin in your life that you know need to deal with, that you've been avoiding? The only way that you're going to dig yourself out of that ditch is to just stop hiding, stop running from God, stop putting up a front, wearing a mask. You just got to go to the Father in faith. You got to go to the Father. You got to just trust. You got to trust that God is going to be more satisfying than whatever sin, whatever iniquity you may have been cherishing in your heart. You got to trust that His way is going to be better than your way, that when you go to Him and you turn and you humble yourself and repent, He's not going to push you away, that He is going to welcome you back with open arms. But we need to commit to pray with purity, without hypocrisy, so that our prayers may not be hindered. Number four, Jesus begins talking about fasting. So committed to pray with fasting. Verse 16 says, "And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. And truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Prayer and fasting, oftentimes, we talk about hand in hand. Unlike prayer, fasting is not something we do continually, unceasingly for practical reasons. You will eventually die of starvation if you try to do that. Fasting is a more occasional practice, but just like prayer, Jesus doesn't say, "Hey, if you fast." He says, "When you fast," he expects, he assumes that His disciples are going to fast and the question is not then, "Should we fast." The question is "When we fast, how should we fast? What should be the posture? What should be the motivation of our fasting?" The Pharisees were experts at fasting and many of them fasted multiple times a week. And they made a big show about it as they did and Jesus called them hypocrites for it because they fasted for attention. They fasted for clout, that the fasting of the Pharisees, it was really just another way for them to spiritually manipulate the people around them. They wanted to appear so strong and so self-disciplined and so holy and righteous and committed and spiritual that nobody would begin to question them or their authority. And so on the outside, everybody looked up to them. They looked so godly, they looked so devout, but Jesus saw right through them. He saw that they were really twisted and sick. And that's not like something I think many people encounter in our culture today. There's not like these religious, spiritual elites going around bragging about their fasting, but it's interesting that fasting has made a resurgence in our culture recently. Not so much for spiritual reasons, but for health and wellness reasons because there are. There's a lot of health benefits to fasting if you do it properly. And I'm not going to say anything too much about that in general. As long as you are honest about your motivations and as long as you're not trying to impress, show off, as you can stay humble, there's nothing wrong with a person fasting for health or wellness reasons. Now, there are a lot of benefits to it. There is, however, something deeply wrong for doing that, for fasting for those reasons by trying to make everybody else think that you're doing it because you're so super spiritual. And this is what ... God's not dumb. He knows you. He knows the motivations of your heart. He knows if you're fasting for Him or if you're fastening to get abs, right? If you're fasting for God or if you're fasting for like a god-bod, you're not going to pull one over on Him. And what does it profit a man if he gets washboard abs and loses his soul? We're all going to have shredded abs in heaven and that's great. There's nothing wrong with trying to pursue that right now, but be honest with yourself. If you're fasting for those reasons and fasting becomes a part of that process, just be honest about those motivations. Don't be a hypocrite, right? Don't do one thing and say something else. Don't try to create this image of yourself before others. Don't fast for attention. Don't fast to flex your spiritual maturity on the one hand and don't fast to flex your physical self-discipline on the other, trying to make people think that you're great, that you're strong because fasting is not about strength. Fasting, it's not about influence, it's not about clout. That's what the Pharisees got wrong. True fasting is about weakness. It's about brokenness. It's about repentance. It's about reliance on God. It's about awakening yourself physically to the reality of just how weak and dependent on God you really are. So when you fast, and Jesus assumes that you will fast, when you fast, the purpose is to humble yourself spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. And as you do that, the goal is you're just pulling the curtain back on reality enough to see things as they really are, to see how really utterly weak and dependent on God you are. And when you're doing that properly, you're really not going to care if anyone else even notices because your true motivation is you're wanting that intimacy, that closeness, that reliance on God. Matthew 4:1-4, "Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry and the tempter came to Him and said, 'If you're the Son of God, well, then command these stones to become loaves of bread.' But he answered Him, 'It is written. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" And if you haven't fasted before or if you haven't fasted recently, I would encourage you to make it a commitment to do so soon, but as you do this, this should be your prayer. You should be praying, "God used this time to humble me, to bring me to a place, to help me feel and experience the reality that I am more dependent on You, on Your Spirit, on Your word than I am on the food that my physical body is hungering for right now." Because in reality, that is what is true. And so commit to pray with fasting. Let that become part of your spiritual life. And Jesus says, "In doing so, your Heavenly Father will reward you." Number five, looking at today, is to commit to pray with perspective. Jesus concludes, he goes on, he says, "So therefore, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also." Now, I included this last passage here because I think a lot of times we don't think about this in the context of prayer and fasting, but that's the context in which Jesus delivered it. This is a transitional part of Jesus' sermon. And so on the one hand, He's talking about literal treasures. He's talking about possessions and material things, but it's clear that He's talking about more than that. He's talking about immaterial things as well. He's talking about the Pharisees, the religious people who were in their practices storing up for themselves treasures on earth and really missing the point of what they were pursuing. Now, the Pharisees were very devoted. They were devoted to memorizing Scripture. They were devoted to giving to the poor. They were devoted to fasting and prayer, but as we saw, their devotion was motivated by the wrong things. Their devotion was motivated by love for attention, love for authority. They were treasuring their image in their influence. They were storing up these treasures on earth, and in the process, they were selling their souls for things they couldn't keep. Now, the painful irony is that these treasures that they were holding onto, they were really becoming to them like millstones tied around their necks, sinking into the sea, pulling them further and further away from God the Father. And meanwhile, the greatest treasure of all, the treasure that they actually needed, the treasurer that the Father had given was standing right there in front of them, Jesus, the Son of God, the treasure of heaven, our mediator, the one, the only one who could bring them back into the presence of the Father, was standing right in front of them. They couldn't even see it. They were blinded by their self-righteousness. And Jesus told His disciples in John 14:6-7, He said to them, He says, "I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me." And then He said, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. And from now on, you do know Him and you have seen Him." This is what the Pharisees couldn't see, that when you know Jesus, you know the Father, that when you know the Father, you're going to treasure the Father because as you seek this Father, you find the Father that treasures you. You find the Father that gave His greatest treasure to seek you, to find you and to bring you back home. He gave up His own beloved Son, Jesus Christ, so that you could be saved. This is why Paul in Romans 8:31, he says, "Well, then what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" Do you have that perspective when you pray to the Father? You are praying to the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, holy and sovereign and He loves you like a father that would give His greatest treasure to have you be reconciled to Him. I decided not to write a conclusion to the sermon today. It felt almost silly to stand up here and talk to you anymore about prayer when we could just spend these last few moments together talking to God together in prayer. And so we are going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to be throwing you a curveball right now, so brace yourselves for it. For the next several minutes, we are going to just be spending time together in prayer. If this like weirds you out, if you've never done anything like this before, don't be nervous. I will give you a pass if you are really uncomfortable praying with other people. You can stay by yourself in your seat and pray silently, but I would encourage you to just step out of that comfort zone this morning. And I want us to just kind of circle up in groups of five, six, seven, eight people and spend a few minutes praying together. And if you've never done this before, don't freak out. You don't need to sound polished, you don't need to sound eloquent. God doesn't care about that. Just relax. It's having a conversation together with our Heavenly Father. And so nobody's going to judge you, don't freak out and we're just going to get together. And as we do, this is what I want you to do. First of all, if you have something in your life that you need prayer for, share that with the people that you're praying with, but then really just spend some time praying for one another, pray for our church and pray for the things that Jesus taught us to pray. The words of the Lord's Prayer are going to be up here on the screen and just meditate on them and pray for these things. And when you look at this, Jesus, He's telling us, He's like, "I want you to pray to Me about the most seemingly insignificant and mundane things, your daily bread. There's nothing too small. Just bring it to Me." And on the other hand, He's telling us, "I want you to also pray for the biggest, most transcendent things that you can even think about. Pray for that God's kingdom would come and that His will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Pray about these things together." And so I'm going to close us in prayer. We're going to just split up with some people around you, get into some groups. We're going to spend some time praying together. After a while, the band will come up back up here and lead us and worship. But if you're with us, let's pray and then we'll continue in prayer together. Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. But as I said earlier, I pray that You would teach us to treasure You as we ought and to understand the price that You paid so that we could have a relationship with You, that we could stand before You and know that our prayers are being heard. God, I know that there are people here in this room that have things going on in their lives right now and I know that there are things going on in our world right now that are so big and so complex that they seem hopeless apart from a mighty movement of You, of You working miracles, working wonders among us. And God, we praise You that You are the God who can do just that, that you are the sovereign God of all the universe and You hear us right now. And so, Lord, I pray that You would help us to become a people of prayer. Help us to be a church that knows You and loves You and deeply relies on You as we come together right now. Lord, we do so in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our advocate, our mediator, our good shepherd, our great high priest. We come to You in the name of the One who has overcome Satan, sin and death, is now seated at Your right hand, ruling and reigning from His throne in heaven. Jesus, we pray that You would pour Your Spirit out upon Your church, that You would bring us now into the presence of our Heavenly Father and do so knowing that You are able to do abundantly more than we could ask or even think according to the power that has worked within us. And so Lord, to You be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Commit to Scripture
February 19, 2023 • Tyler Burns • 2 Timothy 3:14–17
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com To get our minds set and our hearts set on what it means for Christians to be committed to scripture, I'm going to read a quote for us from John Wesley and I'll read it and then I'll make a couple comments on it. But John Wesley says this about scripture, "I want to know one thing, the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book. At any price, give me the book of God. I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a man of one book." I love this quote. I'm going to add one thing to it. Amen and yes to all of this, but it's not just about how it'll land safe on that happy shore. It's also about how we are called to live while we wait for that day to come. Praise God that He has given us a book to instruct us about the way to heaven and eternity with him. Praise God that that same book tells us what to do while we wait. So with that, I just want us to be thinking and meditating upon what does it mean to be characterized as men or women of one book? That when we call ourselves Christians, we are truly committed to this book, the scriptures, the Bible, God's word, and that is a part of who we are. So with that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much that you have given us this book. You are word, your scriptures, the Bible. We thank you that you speak to us directly, plainly, clearly. We thank you that we have the privilege to be able to read this book whenever we desire. Lord, change our hearts. Encourage our hearts to love you more and specifically by loving your word more, by listening to your word, by submitting to your word, by committing to your word in our lives and trusting what you teach us in it more than ourselves. Lord, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty. Today we will be spending the majority of our time in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses four 14 through 17. We will be referencing a lot of scripture as we go into here. Really when I was preparing for this, all I wanted to do was open up the Bible on my computer, hit control A, copy paste, there's my sermon notes. We'd be here for a long time and that's culturally unacceptable. So I decided to narrow it down a little bit. But I bring this up to say that if any of the topics that we address today are interesting to you and you think, "Man, I want to know more, I want to learn more about it," there are a ton of scriptures that deal with the topics will address today. So I encourage you to study scripture, to go to scripture and study and see what it has to say about whatever the things are that we're talking about that you would like to know more about. So I also bring it up to say we're going to go through a lot. So hope you had your coffee, hope you're ready to go and let's dig into God's word. So starting in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 through 17, it says this, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you've 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 Jesus Christ. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." This is the reading of God's holy, unerring, authoritative and fallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in three points today. First point is that scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. Secondly, that scripture is breathed out by God. And thirdly, that scripture is able to equip you for every good work. So point number one, scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. I just read it, I'm going to read it again. This is verses 14 and 15 where it says, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you've 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." So if you'll bear with me for a quick aside, something that really stood out to me in this text that I would like to address is that it says, "Timothy, you have been acquainted with the scriptures from a young age. And it has, you have been made known of Him." So okay, what's going on here? The first chapter of this book tells us that Timothy was taught the scriptures from his grandmother and his mother. If you're like me, the question is, "Well, what about his father?" Scripture tells us in the Book of Acts that his father was not a Christian and we don't have the whole story, but from what we know from beginning to end it, we believe that his father was never saved. By God's grace He may have and we pray that He was, but we have no idea. I bring this up to say a few things. First, to give a charge to parents and second to give a charge to kids. Parents, don't be afraid to make your kids acquainted with scripture. We live in a day and age where we like to say, "I'll let my kids figure it out for themselves. I'll let them decide. I don't want to bias them in anything." What we're going to talk about in the sermon, how scripture is life and it is life giving. So if you have something that gives life, why would you withhold that from your children? Think about it this way. If you said, "I bought food. I'm going to eat my food and I'll let my kids figure out how they're going to eat. They can ask me what I personally like to eat. They can ask me what I bought to eat and I'll tell them all about what I like to eat and why I eat it, and I'll tell them all that, but I'll let them figure it out for themselves." Child services would be called on you. That's not loving. It's not helpful to them. If we truly believe that scripture is life giving, we should want to raise our kids in it to know it. And now, kids and teenagers, let your parents teach you the scriptures, trust them. Trust that it is life and they are seeking your wellbeing and your good in it. So allow them to teach you and desire it for yourself. Seek after desire to know scripture yourself. The last thing I want to address in this little tangent of mine... Sermon's not over yet, sorry. But the last thing I want to address in this tangent is I want to address single mothers and women who are married and they are a Christian and their husband is not. I want to tell you, take encouragement from scripture. God is with you. God loves you and He cares for you and He has given you the ability to equip your child to follow the Lord, that when scripture tells us that fathers are called to lead their family spiritually about when they fail, whether from death, from disease, from abandonment, from not being around to begin with, mothers, you are still loved and cared for and equipped to raise your child and even more so the need for scripture is needed. So I just want to encourage you, mothers, rely on scripture. When life gets hard and it's hard to raise a kid, depend on scripture and depend on the church. But scripture is able to equip you in that as well. So there's my brief aside. Sorry about that. Point number one, scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. That's the text that we just read. It ends with saying it's able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. So point, first thing we got to figure out in here is the word able. It says that scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. It's not a guarantee, but it is powerful to do it. It doesn't mean that just because you read this book you're going to instantly know what it means to be saved, but it has the power to do it if you submit to it and trust it. The second thing that I want to point out is that it says it's able to make you wise for salvation. It's not going to save you in and of itself. You can't read this book and say, "Oh, I read this book, I'm good to go. I'm saved now." No, that's not how it works. But it is able to make us wise, to show us to open our eyes to the message of the gospel through faith in Christ Jesus, right? Christ Jesus is the one who saves. I could quote the entirety of scripture and show you how it points to this concept. I'm just going to read one in Acts chapter 4, verse 12, speaking of Jesus, it says this, "And there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." What's scripture is all about, what it's all pointing to is Christ, and that He alone gives us salvation. Through His life, His death and resurrection on the cross, He has paid the penalty for our sins. And through our faith in him, we can be saved. No other name, no other religion, no other concept or ideology or thoughts or way of life can save us. Nothing but Christ alone. And so scripture is able to make us wise to that because it's what it talks about. That's what this whole book is about. And Jesus knew this. What I find so interesting about this idea is that Jesus used scripture in this way to make people wise for salvation. Well, what do I mean by that? So the gospel, very clearly, that Jesus Christ is fully God. He came to earth and died on the cross because of our sins that when we rebelled, we transgress, we reject God. We sinned against him and the penalty for that sin is death, eternity apart from God. And Jesus came to die and take that penalty for us so that through faith in him saying, "Jesus, you saved me from my sins. You lived a perfect life, died to pay that penalty and raised to prove that you are God. I trust in you because I need you to save me. I can't do it on my own." Jesus did that. He was raised from the dead. Fact. And then He comes across two of His disciples walking on a road to a maze and the disciples are sad and they're talking to one another. They're sad because Jesus just died. And Jesus sees them and talks to them and they don't recognize him. And Jesus goes to them, "What are you talking about? Why are you guys sad?" And they're like, "Don't you know anything that's going on in the world today. Aren't you up to date? This guy Jesus that we've all been following? He just died. What are we supposed to do with our lives? We've been following him. He's dead. What do we do?" Well, as Jesus is talking to them, what does He do? Does He go and say, "Hey guys, it's me. I'm live. You don't have to be sad anymore"? No, He doesn't. We see in Luke chapter 24 what Jesus says to them, in chapter 24, verse 25, "And He said to them, 'Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." What Jesus chooses to do is to say, "Let's read the scriptures together. We all agree that this is God's words. Let's read it and I'll show you how all of it points to Jesus Christ." So if you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe you're here just seeking questions, have thoughts, we're glad you're here. Maybe you're here because you just have this feeling that you're supposed to be here, you want to be here, a friend invited you, we're glad that you're here. Thank you for coming. I want to challenge you. If you are seeking after God, read this book. Read this book. Ask God to reveal himself to you from this book. It's not going to save you. Reading this book isn't going to save you, but it is able to open our eyes. It is powerful enough to open our eyes to the reality of Christ as our savior and our need for him. So if you're not a Christian, that's my challenge. Read this book, start reading it and see what it says about Christ and salvation. Point number two, scripture is breathed out by God. This is from verse 16 in our text, the first part of it where it says, "All scripture is breathed out by God." So a couple things we need to clarify here. What is meant by all of scripture? This is one of the times where I love to point out Greek words and like, "This is what they mean." The Greek word for all means all. It's very plain is what it means. It's all of it. It's this whole book, the whole cannon of scripture. Now, I can stand up here and go through historical arguments, scientific arguments, scholarly arguments and things like that to show you why this is the scripture. This is the whole of it. But I'm not going to do that because I believe God's word is powerful enough on its own. And if you read this book, it'll prove it's scriptureness, it's divinity, it's holiness to you. So I'm not going to defend it in that way, but I will give you just like a little bit of information that that might be helpful. So first, when we say all scripture, we're talking about the Old and New Testament, so this book, the Bible. And if you have questions about the canonicity, the completeness of the Old Testament, I just want to encourage you that scholars and historians have never really questioned this. This is not really something that's ever been debated. It's been solidified for a very long time. If you want to know more about that, I encourage you to study it, to look it up. You can talk to me afterwards. But Josephus was a Jewish historian. He was not a Christian, but a Jewish historian at the time of Christ. This is what he says about the Old Testament canon of scriptures. He says, "For although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured neither to add or to remove or to alter a syllable." What he was saying is for as long as we can study history, as long back as he was able to find, no one has dared change or add anything to the cannon of the Old Testament because everyone knew that this was the scriptures. It's the same scriptures that we have as our Old Testament today where most people have questions comes to the New Testament. I just want to tell you that the books of the New Testament were largely decided by three things. First, the divine qualities, the idea that they were written by God and speak of God truthfully. The reception by the churches, did people at the time when they were written actually believe that they were scripture? And third connection to an apostle, connection to someone who saw the life of Christ. So I'm just going to point out two places where the New Testament affirms its canonicity. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 18, Paul writing a first letter to Timothy says this, "For the scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages'." This is an idea that is from the Old Testament, but it's not a quote from the Old Testament. The idea is consolidated to this quote by Jesus in the books of Matthew and of Luke. So Paul writing this letter is affirming the gospels as scripture. He's saying we in the church at that time believe that the gospels are divine quality, are of equal value of scripture as the whole of the Old Testament. So the church in the early days accepted the gospels as scripture. Second one I want to point out is 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 15 and 16, where Peter says, "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures." I'm pointing this one out because for some reason Paul is the one we have the most difficulty with in modern times, and it's not for some reason. It's the reason that it says here, he says hard things which we don't like, and so we twist them. But Peter makes a couple of points here. First, he points out that... Excuse me. Paul is writing from wisdom given to him. It's not his own wisdom, it's not his own thoughts. It's the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that has been given to him that Paul is writing these letters. Then he says, "Just like every other scripture, people are going to twist it." This is a statement confirming the canonicity, the authority, the scripture or nature of Paul's letters saying that, "Yeah, Paul's letters are scriptures. And just like all of the other scriptures, people naturally are going to try and twist them to fit their own desires." And so people like to say, "I believe in the canon of scripture minus Paul. Just get rid of Paul and I accept the rest of it." Well, if you accept the rest of it, you have to accept that Peter calls those letters of Paul scripture. And so you have to submit to them as scripture as well. I could go on and on forever about this. I'm not going to. If you have more thoughts or questions about the canonicity of scripture, I encourage you to study it and feel free to talk to us and people in your community groups about it. But, that's what we mean by all scripture. We're talking about this book. Every single part of it is breathed out by God. Well, what do we mean by breathed out by God? It means kind of three things, but first is that it's inspired by God. It originates from God himself. We see this idea in 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 20. Peter says this, "Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So Peter is telling us, "What is scripture? What are the things written in there?" Yes, men physically wrote them down, penned them, but they were speaking from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was guiding them, was directing their thoughts, their minds, their heart and saying, "This is what God wants you to tell people" and they just wrote it down. So when we talk about scripture as a breathed out by, we say it's holy, unerring, authoritative, divinely inspired is what we're getting at. We're saying that this is from God. It's not a message that men have to tell other people. It's a message that God has to tell us. The second thing that it means for scripture to be breathed out by God is that it is alive. In scripture when we see God breathing, it's not just because He's like out of breath huffing and puffing or anything like that. It's He's doing something with it. He's giving life. We see this most clearly in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7 when God creates man, creates Adam. It says, "Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground." Dust is not alive, dust is dead. "And breathe into His nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." This word is alive. Do we know that scripture is alive? Well, what do we mean? I'm not saying it's going to jump out of my hand and start attacking or talking or doing. That's not what we're talking about. Well, Hebrews clarifies for us what does it mean for the word of God to be living. It says, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Scripture is alive. It is living, meaning it's always relevant. It's never going to not apply. Why? Because it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It can pierce through culture. It could pierce through personality. It could pierce through ideologies and thoughts and mentalities and upbringings and get to the heart of all of the issues. It will always be relevant because it speaks upon what actually matters in life. This is something that people like to debate or throw out there. Not even debate. All the time it's like, "It's an old book. It's not really relevant anymore." My favorite thought on this is from Voltaire. I don't know how many of you are familiar with him, but he's a French theologian and a really smart, brilliant guy, loved the concept of a God existing so long as that God didn't tell him how to do anything or have any impact on his life. This is what Voltaire says about scripture. In 1776, he says, "100 years from my day," so 1876, "there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker." By 1876, Voltaire promise that a Bible's not going to exist except by the people who like weird old stuff. They'll have a Bible just for curiosity's sake. Well Voltaire, you're wrong. You're very wrong. I didn't mention this in first service, but he died a few years after this and his house was bought by the French Bible printing company and they used it to print even more Bible. So anyway, that's just God's humor in all of this. But why? Scripture. It seems so outdated. It doesn't speak to the things that culture likes. Cultures move past this. We've progressed. Why would it still exist? Because it's true and it speaks to our hearts. It speaks to us on a level that only God can pierce through everything going on in our lives and speak directly to us. This is what it means for scripture to be alive. The third thing that it means for scripture to be breathed out is that it gives life. It gives life. In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus says, "But He answered them, 'It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God'." We can do everything we're supposed to physically. We can eat right, we can exercise, drink water, stay hydrated, do everything that we can to prolong our life here on earth, and without God's word, we've never really lived. We can do everything to extend our life on earth, but apart from the salvation that comes from Christ that we are made wise to from the scriptures, the eternal life is one of death. Only through the power and the saving work of Christ can our eternal life breathe life. I was convicted in the middle of first service. So if you guys know, God's convicted my heart of sinfulness and reminded me how much I love bread. It says, "More man shall not live by bread alone." God reminded me in college before I cared about my health at all because I wasn't married yet, so I didn't affect anybody else. I would just buy a loaf of bread for dinner and just eat it with olive oil, garlic, Parmesan. Anyways, I'm hungry. Bread is so good. There is nothing better to eat than warm, fresh out of the oven, good bread. This is incredible stuff, guys. Praise God for bread. Amen. We need to love God's word more than that. Amen. I clarified in first service, as much as I loved bread, we need to love scripture more than that because maybe you don't feel the same. But the idea is that God's word will actually give life. It enables us to live a life of abundance here on earth, but also it leads us to a life of faithfully following the Lord an eternal blessing and reward for following him. And so if we actually believe God's word, the scriptures is breathed out by God, it is alive, it is from God, and it is able to give us life, we should really like this word, like to read it, like to study it, want to know it. This is what the early church exampled or lived like to show us. In the Book of Acts in chapter 2, a couple weeks ago we had a sermon on committed to a local church. We talked through the end of Acts after the Pentecost what did the local church look like. This text is 100% absolutely about needing to be committed to a local church, but I want to read it to us and I want you to focus on where does it talk about scripture in how the early church lived immediately after the Pentecost. In Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42 it says, "And they, Christians, devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." So yes, this text is about commitment to a local church and what the early church looked like, but it's bracketed by scripture. It starts off that the early church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves to the words and teachings of the apostles, what we have written down and recorded as of the New Testament. And then it ends in day by day attending temple together. Well, what happened at temple? Yes, there was community events and things like that, but primarily what happened is that people were reading aloud the words of the scriptures and we're teaching upon the scriptures. And day by day they went to hear it. This is how much the early church was committed to scripture that even though manuscripts and copies weren't widely known and available to people, they were willing to travel and go to hear it every day. Now, the city of Jerusalem, where they would go was broken into different sections for sort of the higher ups and the lower ups, most of the people in the church were just common men and women. The common men and women lived in the lower part of the city that was a half mile walk upstairs, up a mountain. They had stairs though. So upstairs to get to the temple to be able to hear the word of God preached. Now if you're here and you're like, "I live in Boston. I walk more than a half mile every day, that's no problem," good. Then why is it so hard for us to take two steps to find the Bible in our room, in our home, in our apartments, wherever it may be? Oh, just take the phone out of our pockets and be like, "Oh, there's the Bible app." Why is it so hard for us to read God's word? If we truly believe it is breath of God, it is life and God's words, we should want to hear it all the time as much as we can. We should not let the Bible app on our phone be the least used app on our phone and we shouldn't let the Bible be the book collecting dust on our shelves. We should want it, we should desire it, we should love it and seek after it. Point number three is that scripture is able to equip you for every good work. This is verses 16 and 17 in our text. This is where the big thrust of this text comes in and it says, "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." First thing I want to address here is the phrase man of God. What is meant when Paul writes that the man of God may be complete? Well, the context of this book is that Paul is writing this letter to Timothy who is a pastor and a preacher in the church. And so he is writing to him specifically about how to lead and run a church. That's why we call these books a pastoral epistle, is what we call them. And so the idea is that pastors, preachers, people in ministry, missionaries, whoever is charged by God for the work of God, you need to be rooted in scripture. You need to let scripture work on you first before you are able to preach it to others. But it's more than that. It's more than that. The phrase man of God is actually an Old Testament phrase for any person that God sent with a message to deliver. If someone, a prophet was given a message, words by God and said, "Go tell this to someone," they were referred to as the man of God. So if you're sitting here and like, "Good. Wooh! This is for pastors and preachers and missionaries. Great," you're not excused either. None of us are. Because if you remember, a few weeks ago we talked about the Great Commission. Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 and 20, it says, "And 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'm with you always to the end of the age'." We've talked about how this is a charge for every Christian. So if you're a Christian here today, you have a message from God, the gospel, that you are called and sent to go and proclaim. And so if you want to be equipped, if you want to be complete to do that work, your life needs to be rooted in scripture, needs to have scripture as its foundation because it is what equips us to do what God has told us and sent us to do. How does it do it? Paul gets into this sort of four phase step of how scripture equips us and it's by teaching, by reproof, correction, and training. So what does it meant by teaching? Well, teaching is essentially information-based. You can think of it that way, that it's scripture tells us, teaches us what God is like, who He is, what is righteous, what is good, what is sinful, what is bad. It gives us that information and we should know it. We should desire to know it. And then because we are sinful people, that information will reproof us. I don't know the last time you heard the word reproof in day-to-day conversation. I don't think I've ever heard it outside of a church. But the word is essentially convicting. We are convicted by it. It's literally the process of trying someone as guilty. It's like, "You're guilty. We're going to put you to the test to show that you're guilty." I think of the Salem witch trials if they were actually all guilty, and it's just like, "You're guilty. We're going to prove that you're guilty to everybody. Okay, you're guilty." Essentially, it is what it is. Scripture convicts us in that way. We are sinful. When we read God's word, it shows us, "Oh, God wants me to be like that? I'm not like that. I'm sinful. I've fallen short." And it should convict us. It should change our thoughts and ideas about how we live so that we want to live more like Christ. And so if reading scripture doesn't convict us, there could be a few things going on in our lives. First thing is maybe you haven't understood the weight of the gospel, right? The weight of the gospel is that our sin, the things that we have done wrong, transgressed God with, is what put Christ on the cross in the first place. It is the reason why Christ God needed to die. That should convict us when we think about the weight of our sins. But we are sinful people, so we aren't always convicted of our sin because we're not perfect. And so maybe we're not convicted of sin when we read scripture because we have what a psychiatrist and therapists call main character syndrome. Main character syndrome is the idea that when you watch a movie or read a book, you just naturally insert yourself in the place of the main character. That's why these things are written most of the time. We can't do that with scripture. You can't. We're not the main character of scripture. Jesus is. Jesus is the main character. Again, we already talked about how scripture is all about Jesus and His salvation to us. So it does apply to us. It is relevant to us, but it's not primarily about us. And so if we read scripture as a main character, we're like, "Wow, this Jesus guy is pretty good. It makes me feel good about myself. I must be pretty good too. All right, I guess I'm good." We can't do that with scripture. We have to let scripture convict us. The third reason why we might not be convicted when we read scripture of our sin is we have itching ears. "Itching ears. What does that mean? What's going on there?" This is what Paul tells Timothy to be warned, be careful of, in the next chapter of his letter. In this chapter, he is focusing on Timothy's need for scripture for his edification in and of himself. In the next chapter, he says, "You must then preach it. You need to preach scripture. It is the best thing for preaching.' And then in chapter 4, verse 2, he says this, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but will have 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." Christians, we can't have itching ears. We can't say, "Ooh, scripture says that. I don't like that so I'm going to find someone who says something different and I'll listen to them." Or, "Ooh, this part of scripture says what I like and that part doesn't so I'm just going to not think about that part and I'll just focus on this part that I like." We can't have ears that we want to scratch with whatever we feel is right and we want to hear. We need to have ears that humbly come to scripture and say, "Ooh, I don't like that. Why? What's that convicting me of? What's it challenging me of? Why am I so disturbed by this text? It is the word of God, so what do I need to change?" Scripture is able to inform us about God and about righteousness and about life, but it is going to convict us then when we see our sinfulness and our fallenness. But we don't stay there. We don't stay there. So the next point is correction. Correction, I think, we all think of as a negative word. Like you're correctional facilities, that's bad. It sounds bad. Literally, it's to improve. It's to change. It's a good thing. It has a positive connotation. We can correct. We can change. When we see sin in our lives, we don't have to stay that way. I love this verse. 1 John chapter 1, verse 9 it says, "If we confess our sins, He, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So when we're studying scripture and we learn that we are sinful and we are convicted of sin in our hearts, what do we do? We go to Christ and we confess it to him knowing that he is faithful and just to forgive us. He will forgive us. We don't have to stay in it and don't have to stay in our guilt and shame. Then he also cleanses us. I love that. He cleanses us. So he removes it from us. We aren't that anymore. It's not who we are. We can change. We can grow. We can mature in our lives and in our faith. This process then will mature us. And that's the last thing that Paul talks about is training in righteousness. The word training is the idea of disciplined, but it's also of parenting. It's the same word that is used for parenting, for raising up in maturity. Scripture is profitable for raising us up in spiritual maturity. Well, how does it do this? Psalm one 19 verse 11, it says, "I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." Joshua 1:8, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it." So as we are training, as we are preparing to grow in maturity of our faith, to grow in faithful obedience as we've been talking about in the Roman sermon series before this, we need to have God's word stored up in our hearts and not let it depart from our mouths. Why? It does both sides of the coin, that we might not sin against God. It helps us fight sin, and that we may be careful to do according to all that is written. That we can actively do what is right. Scripture has the power to discipline, to change us, to train us up in maturity and it has the ability to help us fight temptation and sin, right? The thing that prevents us from growing in maturity is when we fall back into sin, when we sin and we sin and we don't recognize, we don't repent, or we just keep falling back into sin. Scripture is there to help us in those moments, to fight off sin in the first place and to encourage us when we have failed. And Jesus knew this. Jesus' primary weapon against temptation was scripture. In the New Testament, Jesus is tempted by Satan. He is tempted. And the first time Jesus says, "No, for it is written." And then Satan's like, "Okay, I'll tempt to you a different way." And Jesus says, "No, for it is written." And a third time Satan tempts him and Jesus says, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written." This is where I get to talk about memorization of scripture. I don't really like that word. I'm sorry. If you are great at memorizing scripture, great. Praise God. That's awesome. I prefer the word internalize. We need to internalize scripture. It's good to memorize. Do. I encourage you. Do memorize scripture. Know it. That's great. But if someone's like, "Ph, what does this verse say?" and you're able to repeat it to them, that's awesome. And then if they ask you, "But what does it mean?" and you're like, "Oh, I don't know," that's not very helpful. And if they're like, "Well, how does that apply to your life?", you're like, "Ah, beats me," that's not helpful. That's not what scripture is talking about. We store it up in our hearts. We internalize it. We make it a part of who we are. We let it transform us so that way when temptations come, we can say "No, for is written." I think when I've heard that section of Jesus' temptation preached on most, it's often just memorize scripture. It's good. Good. Good to know the scripture. But do you have specific scriptures prepared to fight against specific temptations? We are all sinful people. Let's not pretend we're not. We are. We all have different struggles and different temptations. So whatever it is, whatever sin you are struggling with, you are dealing with, study scripture and what does scripture say about that. So that way the next time temptation comes, you're ready. I think when temptation comes, our primary response is to just ignore it and try and delay it. That never works. To muster up emotional strength within us like, "I'm going to fight against this. I'm just going to be tough and stand here and not moved." Or it's to just, "Oh, well, whatever. That's the worst." But do we do what Jesus did? Actively say scripture. Don't be afraid to say it out loud. You might sound weird for a little bit, but that's okay. But there's power in words. So when temptation comes say, "No, Satan! Be gone, Satan! For it is written." And have scripture ready. Know scripture. Be prepared with scripture to be able to fight against temptation. This scripture, as we study and as we meditate on it and internalize it, it will encourage us in this process because even still, we'll fall short. We'll fall to temptations, we will sin, but scripture will then still encourage us. And this is Romans chapter 15, verse 4, it says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through the endurance taught in scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope." One of the ways Satan likes to have power over us in that temptation is that when we fall, when we sin, he wants to lead us to despair, to lead us to guilt, to say, "Ah, I just stuck in it. I've messed up a lot," or, "I'm just here. I can't get out." It's when we need scripture. We need scripture to preach truth to us that there is endurance. We are able to endure. And there is encouragement within God's word to help us to have hope. Even when we fail, even when we fall short, no matter what is going on in our lives or what temptation we face, we can always have hope. When we're lacking that hope, we should go to scripture and study it and seek it and ask God, "Give us hope in these situations." Really this four stages of teaching, reproof, correction, and training, it perfectly exemplifies what I was taught as the cycle of growth. This cycle of growth was something that I was taught at a teen's conference of how do we do ministry to teenagers. And I was like, "This is silly. Everybody needs to hear this. This should just be everywhere, not just for teenagers." But it's called the cycle of growth because it's how we are called to grow. The first step of it is unconscious incompetence. You don't know how sinful you are. You don't know how incompetent you are, but scripture teaches us. It teaches us and it reproofs us. It convicts us and says, "You're going to move on to the stage of conscious incompetence. Oh Lord, I'm aware. I'm a sinner. Lord, I am incompetent at following you. I have failed at following you." I should say do think about "What sins am I struggling with and what stage of this process am I in? Where am I at?" and try and help yourself progress through this cycle of growth by dependence on the scripture and reliance on the community and the church and the Holy Spirit and prayer. Absolutely. But scripture is able to help us in this as well. And so in first service, I used an example that I think is just prevalent in our society, but also we never want to talk about it Lust. Lust is a sin. It is sinful to look at a man or a woman with lustful intentions in your heart. Maybe you don't recognize that that's a sin you are dealing with until you read the scriptures that say it is a sin. Or until maybe someone, a brother or sister in Christ points it out and it's like, "Hey man, hey sister, you have an inappropriate way of looking. You lust after these people." And it's like, "All right. I didn't realize it, but now I am consciously aware of my incompetence in this area." Well, now the next step is to get to conscious competence where it's you are aware that you are not doing it anymore. It's like, "All right, lust is the issue. I'm not going to look at that guy that way. I'm not going to look at that girl that way. I'm not going to look at anybody in any way other than that they are a child of God." And so when a beautiful human being walks by, you're just like, "Nope, nope, nope. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it." And the more you train yourself, the more that you are consciously competent and faithful in your resisting of the temptation, you move to unconscious competence. It's just natural. A beautiful person walks by, it's like, "Hello, brother or sister in Christ." There's no thoughts of impurity. There's no lust within your heart. It's just natural to do the right thing. This is the process for all sin and all temptation and that we need to grow to, is that we are faithful. We are faithful in following the Lord to the point that it just becomes second nature. This is what scripture talks about in the big fancy word of sanctification. That's what it is. That we are sanctified. We are becoming more like Christ to the point that we don't have to think about it anymore. It's just part of who we are. It's internalized. It's our nature. We are like Christ. So I just want to encourage us today, church, that this word, this book, the Bible, the scriptures is powerful. It is able to reveal the truth of the gospel for salvation to anyone who reads it. It is God's word to us to give us life. It will never be relevant, and it can change us. It could work in us to grow us, to sanctify us, make us more like Christ so we can be equipped to do the work that God has called us to do. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you. We praise you for this book. We thank you that you have chosen to speak so clearly to us, to guide us and provide life in it to us. Lord, soften our hearts to your words. Convict us of sin as we read it. Give us a heart and a mind that's willing to be dedicated to love your word more than anything else, to be able to seek after it daily and to let it change us, to sit in the uncomfortable tensions where we feel convicted and say, "Lord, change me. Change us." Lord, help us to love your word and proclaim it boldly and not be ashamed of it. We thank you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Commit to Discipleship
February 12, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 28:16–20
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com This morning we are beginning... We are in week four of our sermon series Committed. We've been talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. And what I've been saying over these last four weeks is that we are looking at the essential, the non-negotiable and super practical commitments that every Christian needs to make in order to grow in their faith, in order to persevere through the trials of life, in order to fulfill God's calling for their life and to experience and enjoy the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give. And I'm probably going to repeat that every week. I've been told repetition is the mother of wisdom, but also every week we have new people here that are joining us for the first time and want to get them caught off the speed. And so as we begin, just a couple of reminders. First of all, as we talk about abundant life, said this in the first week of the series, we're not talking about a life full of the earthly comforts and pleasures that the world often seeks. We're talking about something deeper than that. We were talking about a life filled with purpose, meaning, with mission, with the hope, love, joy, peace, presence of God's Holy Spirit, of a life lived in the presence of Jesus Christ and so that's one reminder. Secondly, if you weren't here last week, we began looking specifically at something in scripture called the Great Commission. And you can find this in Matthew chapter 28 beginning in verse 18 said, and Jesus came and says to his disciples... This is right before he ascends into heaven. So he's been resurrected, he's risen, conquered the grave, he's about to return to his Father's right hand on his throne in heaven. He tells his disciples this, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And so go therefore and make disciples of all of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." This is the great commission. This is the mission of the church. This is the mission that every Christian is called to live out. And last week when we started this, we talked about how there's really two aspects of this mission. The first one we looked at last week was evangelism. It's the call to go and to make disciples of all the nations. And that for some of us, that means God's going to call us across the world. For most of us it means God's going to call us just across the street, across the cubicle, across the way to the people that he has put into our lives. But to go and to do so and to share this good news with them. And so we talked about evangelism last week. This week we are focusing on the second part. We're focusing on discipleship. We're focusing on Jesus' command to go and teach them to observe, all that I have commanded you to do. Discipleship to simply put is the lifelong process of following Jesus, of trusting his word, of obeying his commands, of becoming like him more and more in faith and knowledge and holiness and obedience to the Father. It's a total body soul transformation. Our minds are transformed by the truth of his word. He transforms the desires of our hearts, the actions of our hands. And last week when we started talking about this mission, we talked about how really when you look at it, the mission is very clear and the mission is very simple. The mission is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy. Evangelism's hard. And as we talk about discipleship today, what we're going to find is that discipleship is costly. That our salvation cost us nothing. It costs Jesus everything, our justification. But justification costs us nothing. We are saved by grace through faith. It is the free gift of God. Salvation is free. But our sanctification, this life of discipleship that we are called to, that may cost us everything. We sing the song often. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. And so we're going to be talking about this today and we're going to see that discipleship is costly, but it doesn't need to be complicated. And so I'm going to be trying to demystify discipleship for us today so that together we can be the disciples that Jesus calls us to be. And so if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter four, we're going to be looking at verse 18 through 22. A pretty short passage, just a couple of verses. And really we're going to be focusing most of our time just on one verse within this passage, just one sentence, 10 words. But in these 10 words Jesus gives us, he lays out the entire framework for what it means to be one of his disciples. So if you have your Bibles, you can follow along. If not the words will be up here on the screen. This is Matthew chapter four, beginning in verse 17. Sorry, I said 18 earlier. Matthew 4:17. Matthew tells us, "From that time Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And while walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and they were casting the net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and they followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets and he called to them and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him." This is the reading of God's holy word with us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer over our message today? Jesus, I pray today that you would make evident both the price and the privilege of being your disciple. Help us to count the cost so that we can find Christ worthy. Lord, challenge us today where we need to be challenged. Holy Spirit, convict us where we need to be convicted. Encourage us in whatever area that we may lack the faith or the courage to move forward, to commit, to take up our cross and to follow Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time and your word right now. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right, well I said that we're going to be looking primarily at just one verse out of this passage and the verse we're going to be looking at it's right there in the middle. It's Matthew chapter four verse 19. And it just simply says this, "And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men." And in that one short sentence, Jesus gives us the entire framework of what it means to be his disciple. Follow him and he will make you a fisher of men. And so we're going to break this down thought for thought. And the first thing Jesus says is follow me. And the first thing that we need to understand is that being a disciple of Jesus requires a change of both direction and of identity. And when Jesus tells us to follow him, this is what he's calling us to do. It's a change of direction and identity. Right before calling Peter and Andrew, Matthew tells us that from that time Jesus began to preach, and this was his message. His message was, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And we talked about this in the first week, that discipleship, following Jesus begins with repentance and faith. That you cannot follow Jesus and yet continue to live life your own way. That there needs to be a change in the trajectory of your life where you turn away from sin in repentance and you turn toward Jesus Christ in faith. You got to lay down your pride. You got to lay down your sin. You got to lay down the false idols and the ideologies of this world and submit fully to the lordship of Jesus Christ as your king. It's a change in direction, but it is also a change in identity. Discipleship, it's not just something that you do. It is something that you become. It is something that you are. That you were once a prisoner in the domain of darkness, you have now been transferred as a citizen into the kingdom of heaven. You were a slave to sin, but you have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You've been set free. You've been adopted into the household of God. You are now a child of God. You are now a new creation in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. A radical transformation of identity takes place when you become a disciple of Jesus Christ. I'm going to read one of Jesus' most famous teachings that he gave his disciples about what it means to follow him. And if you never heard this, if you've never read this before, this is shocking. Matthew 16 verse 24. Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, if anyone wants to follow me and be my disciple, then let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." We talk so much about the cross. Sometimes you forget what that really is. This is the most gruesome form of execution and punishment and existence in that world. Jesus saying, this is what it looks like to follow me. You're going to have to die to yourself. You're going to have to pick up your cross. You're never going to find true life. You're never going to find your true self, your true identity until you lose it, till you lay down your old life. That to be born again as a child of God, you need to die to yourself. That to be accepted as a disciple of Jesus, you need to deny yourself, deny your selfish, proud, rebellious heart and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. And what we see is that Jesus offers us this glorious new identity, but with it comes a radical change in direction, one that is going to require total surrender. And so Jesus calls these first disciples and immediately they leave everything. They leave their nets, they leave their boats, their livelihoods, their family. They leave it all to follow Jesus. And before we go any further today, this is what we need to ask ourself. This is what I want you to ask yourself. What have you given up for the gospel? What have you needed to leave behind to follow Jesus? Or what do you know that you're being called to leave behind, to let go of right now? Are there things that you know should be giving up, that you need to be letting go of, leaving behind, surrendering in order to fully follow Jesus as you know that you ought? Peter and Andrew, James and John, they left everything. Now this doesn't mean that every Christian needs to leave their job and leave their family and go be a missionary somewhere across the world, but not all of us are going to be called to that, but we are going to all be called to something. So what is the Holy Spirit putting on your heart right now? Is there something there that you're holding on to? Is something there that's holding you back from following Jesus as you ought? The only way to come to Christ is with the empty hands of faith, right? It's hard to embrace God when you got your arms already wrapped around the world, when your hands are full, when you're clinging to things that you know need to let go of. Hebrews 12:1 says, "Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin in which clings so closely." Just whatever is holding you, whatever you're tangled up and cast it aside, let it go. And then in your freedom in Christ, "Run with endurance the race that is set before us." How? "By looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him." He went that distance for us. "Seeing the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God." In Luke 14, Jesus is going about, he's preaching and large crowds of people begin to follow him. And in verse 27, he turns to these crowds and he says, "Listen, whoever doesn't bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?" "Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 men to come against him with 20,000?" "And if not, while the other is he had a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace." So therefore, and this is his point, "So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple." What is it going to cost to follow a man who carried a cross? Jesus wasn't interested in drawing crowds, fair-weather fans, right? He wasn't coming so that he could clean up our lives a little bit or do some renovations here and there. He wants to come into your life. He wants to tear the whole house down. He wants to lay a new foundation, one that's going to last, one that he can build your life on for eternity. He wasn't looking for fair-weather fans, he's looking for people ready to deny themselves, ready to take up their cross, ready to follow him and lay their lives at his feet and say, Lord, not my will but yours be done. This is what it means to follow Jesus. We can't talk about discipleship without counting the cost. What is it going to cost? Are you willing to pay that price? I'm going to leave us here in this tension for a while. We'll come back at the end. I'll give you some resolution to this, but we're going to move on for now. And just understand that when Jesus says, follow me, he means take up your cross and follow me. But second, he says, follow me and I will make you. That if you follow Jesus, he's going to change your life. He's going to transform you. And the second point today we're going to be looking at is that being a disciple, it also requires a change of heart and behavior. To really grasp this, what Jesus is saying here and what's going on, you got to understand a little bit about first century Judaism because this idea of discipleship, it's maybe a word that we're familiar with, but it's not a word that's like commonly used or understood in our culture. It was very common in their culture back then. Everyone knew what a disciple was. They'd received disciples out and about following their rabbis around town. A disciple was a student who would come under the teaching and the instruction and the discipline of a rabbi, but they weren't just a student. See, first century Jewish kids, from an early age, they would begin the work of memorizing the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. And as these children grew up, there would come a time where the very best, the very brightest students might perhaps be offered the rare and distinguished honor of being called by a rabbi to be his disciple. And accepting this invitation it meant you had to leave everything. You had to leave your old life, you had to leave your family, the family business. They would leave everything not to follow their rabbi, not just to learn from the rabbi, but to live with the rabbi, to spend every moment with the rabbi trying to learn all that they could to become like their rabbi in every way being a disciple. What it meant was living life in the presence of your rabbi, close proximity, close relationship. And the goal was so that you could really in every way become just like them. And this is exactly what we see Jesus did with his 12 disciples. They follow him around. Everywhere he went, they watched how he lived, they heard him talk, they served with him, they went on missions together with him, and they were learning to be like him in every way. And so we have to ask, what are the implications of this for us today? And really to be a disciple today, it doesn't mean anything different than what it meant for the disciples back then. The difference is Jesus isn't here with us physically. We don't follow him around, the man Jesus Christ in a physical body, but he pours his spirit out upon his church so that yeah, spiritually we live our life in the presence of our rabbi Jesus Christ with him, going where he goes, doing what he says. And I say that because Christians today, we often want to reduce discipleship to like a program or a class or a one-on-one mentorship with a more mature believer. And none of those things are bad. They're just not what we're talking about. There are just such a long ways off from what the New Testament is talking about when it uses this word disciple. And so being a disciple of Jesus, it means living like the 12. It means living in fellowship with other disciples. But you're not following them, you're following Jesus, you're following him together. And so we can't reduce this to meeting with a mentor. We can't reduce it to going and attending a seminar or a Sunday school class or anything like that. When we're talking about the discipleship we're talking about living in community and fellowship with other disciples who are together following Jesus, living life in his presence by the power of his Holy Spirit. Following Jesus, abiding in Jesus, abiding in his spirit, abiding in his word together. And so what this means is two things. First of all, it means that disciples need to follow Jesus personally. And secondly, it means that disciples cannot follow Jesus privately. Personally, if you're a member of Mosaic or if you've taken our membership class, you know that one of the things we talk about in that class is that we have seven expectations of members here at Mosaic. And the first expectation that we have for our members is that each and every one of us strive spiritually. That we each take a personal responsibility for living life in the presence of Christ, of striving to build that relationship with Christ ourselves, of working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. This comes from Philippians chapter two verse 12. Paul says, "Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." You work out your own salvation personally because God is working in you personally. But bigger than that, the idea that Paul's really getting at here is that he wants this church to know and to understand and to never forget that he is not their pope, he's not their priest, he's not their rabbi. Jesus is. And this is important, the Philippians were not called to be disciples of Paul. They weren't called to follow Paul, they weren't called to live their lives in the presence of Paul. They were called to follow Jesus. And thankfully they were a church that really didn't struggle with this very much. They were a relatively healthy and mature and solid church. There was another church that Paul cared about that did struggle with this quite a bit. It was the church in Corinth. We did a whole sermon series on first and second Corinthians called Prodigal Church. And the reason we called it that is because this was a church that had some issues. They struggled with a lot of things and this was one of them. And so in first Corinthians chapter one, one of the very first things that Paul addresses with them is this. He says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree and that there be no division among you, but that you all be united in the same mind and the same judgment for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there's quarreling among you brothers." And this is what I mean. "What I mean is that each one of you says, well, I follow Paul or I follow Apollos or I follow Cephas, that's Peter, or I follow Christ." He says, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?" Corinthian Church was pretty immature and dysfunctional at times and you read the letter that Paul wrote to them. He gives them a lot of correction. The Philippian church, however, was relatively strong and healthy. He addresses this same thing with them, but does so from way of encouragement and reminder. And so when you read the book of Philippians, one of the things you got to keep in mind, and you see this throughout the book, if you're reading it closely, one of the things you see is that Paul is writing to them from a place in his life where he doesn't know that he is much longer to live, right? This could be his last correspondence with them. He may never see them again. There's a very real chance that he may be facing death, even execution sometime in the near future. And he's not sure, but he wants to write to them to remind them that they're going to be fine without him. Because from the very beginning, they were not his church. God used him in a very special way as an apostle to help this church get started. But what they really needed to understand was that they were not Paul's church. They were Jesus' church. Paul wasn't their pope. Paul wasn't their priest, their mediator or their rabbi. The word that Paul uses to describe his relationship with them. He says, "I was your partner." We were partners in the gospel. We were disciples following Jesus together. And this is why he opens his letter in Philippians chapter one. He says, "I thank my God and all of my remembrance for you, always in all my prayers of mine for you, all making my prayers with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus." Well, who is the he that Paul is referring to here, right? Because Paul is the one who kind of planted this church, but Paul's not referring to himself. The he who began the good work that Paul is talking about is Jesus Christ. That Jesus will complete this good work even if Paul's no longer around. And this is how he starts his letter and then he encourages them with the same thing again at the end. Like, okay Paul, if you go, if you leave us, if you die, who's going to take care of us as a church? And he tells them in Philippians 4:19. He says, "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in Christ Jesus." Regardless of whether Paul lived or died, what mattered was that Christ would be with them till the end of the age. And that Paul had full confidence that he would make sure even in Paul's absence, that Jesus would finish the good work that he had started in this church. And I say all this because this is what making disciples is all about. It's about teaching people to become independently dependent on Jesus. To become independent in the sense that they're not dependent on us or any other human being for their spiritual wellbeing and to become dependent on Jesus Christ who really is the head of the church, the chief shepherd of every church. And so this might be a paradigm shift for a lot of Christians. It was for the early church as well because this is not how the religious leaders of their day behave. The religious leaders of their day, they very much gathered people around themselves who were dependent on them, who looked to them as spiritual authorities, as mediators between them and God. But Jesus warned his disciples not to be like them, that as his followers that they were going to need to be different, that they could not go on and fall into the same footsteps of the other religious leaders of their day. And Jesus actually had very harsh words for some of these religious leaders. In Matthew chapter 23, he's warning his disciples about this and in verse five he says, "First of all, they do all of their deeds to be seen by others. They love to make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long." They like to show off their spiritual maturity. "And they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces, and they love being called rabbi by others, but you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth for you of one Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructor for you have one instructor, the Christ." He says, "The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Now, I don't think Jesus is trying to argue about semantics and titles and calling people teacher or whatever that may be, but he's trying to make a point and the point is this, there's only one Father and by the blood of Jesus Christ, God can be your Father, but God can't be your grandfather. You can't be dependent on some other earthly father to be the mediator between you and God the Father. Only Jesus Christ can do that. There is one teacher, one rabbi, and Jesus can be your rabbi, but he can't be your rabbi's rabbi. He can't be your pastor's pastor. You need that relationship with him yourself. Jesus can call you friend, but he can't be a friend of a friend. The big idea is every single Christian needs to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ for themselves. As Paul said in first Timothy 2:5 that, "There is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all." This mission to go and to make disciples is not a mission to go and make disciples of ourselves. It's a mission to go and make disciples of Jesus. It's not a mission to go out and to become the mediator between God and men. The mission is to point people to the only mediator that there is, the man Jesus Christ. If I had to sum it all up, I would put it like this, that the call of discipleship... Well, first of all, it's a call to be a disciple, to be yourself connected to Christ, abiding in Christ, living in the presence of Christ, following your rabbi. But the call to make disciples is a call for those who are doing that, for those who are more mature in the faith, to help those who are less mature in the faith, become more mature in the faith, by becoming less dependent on them and more dependent on Jesus. That was a lot. So I'm going to say it again. That the call to make disciples is a call for those who are more mature in the faith to help those who are less mature in the faith, become more mature in the faith by becoming less dependent on them and more dependent on Jesus Christ, where you're teaching them to cling to Christ, to abide in Christ, to pursue Christ, to follow Jesus, and to live their lives in his presence. Yesterday our daughter Nora had a birthday party. She's turning eight tomorrow and with our kids we don't do the big huge birthday party every year. But we told them both, when you turn eight years old, you can do the big party where you invite the whole class and everything. So we did the whole trampoline park thing and celebrated her birthday and it was a ton of fun. Now every parent in the room knows when these birthdays come along its bittersweet because it's like how do they grow up so fast? I remember just as clear as it was yesterday, the day that she was born and now she's eight years old and it's hard to see them grow up. You just kind of want them to stay little forever. My wife saw one of these sappy parenting memes the other day, said something like, one day you're going to pick your child up and not realize it will be the last time you put them back down. First of all, how dare you? Like the internet is supposed to be a nice happy place, I thought. You say that and all the moms... It was more pronounced in the first service because we had all the MiniMo parents here. All the moms are like crying. All the dads coincidentally have something stuck in their eye and it's like, what? You just want them to stay little and cute forever, just hold on. They're so sweet and innocent. And we as parents, we think that way. God doesn't think that way. God doesn't want his kids to stay little for... He wants them to grow up fast, to grow up healthy and strong and mature. He wants them to grow up to be independent in the sense that they're not dependent on people or things, but dependent on himself. Because unlike us, unlike our kids, when God's kids grow up, they don't grow up by becoming less dependent on him as they mature. As God's children's mature, they mature in doing so, they begin to see how really totally and utterly dependent on God they really are. They become less dependent on people, on things, and they become more dependent on God himself. That's what it means to grow up, to mature in the faith, to live every moment with this awareness and dependency on your heavenly Father. And so what this means is like, yeah, a newborn baby Christian, they might need to be held, they might need to be fed for a while as they start to grow, they might need someone there to hold their hand as they learn how to walk. For a little while that's okay, but that's not the goal. The goal is not to coddle them, not to become the spiritual equivalent of helicopter parents. The goal is to help them grow up, push them out of the nest, teach them to feed themselves, teach them to walk on their own so that they can begin helping others to do the same. And John 15:5, Jesus said, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." That the only way for a disciple to be healthy, to grow and to bear fruit is not to be a branch of a branch of a branch. It's to be a branch directly connected and abiding in the vine of Jesus Christ. And so disciples need to follow Jesus personally, but disciples can't follow Jesus privately. That you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but this doesn't mean that you should have a private relationship with Jesus Christ. I said this last week, I'm going to say it again. You almost never see Jesus in the gospels. You never any of the apostles. You almost never see them in a private one-on-one setting with anyone, like everything that Jesus did, he did in a communal setting. And Jesus knew each one of his disciples personally. He called each one of his disciples personally. He loved and he cared for each one of his disciples personally. But he spent almost all of his time with each one of his disciples in community, with the three, with the 12, with the 72. There's always a group of people around him, and I say this because sometimes we want to kind of narrowly define discipleship as like a one-on-one mentorship and that can be useful for a time, for a task, for a purpose. But when you read the New Testament, everything that you see happening is happening in the context of community. It's the body of Christ united working together. That's where people grow. And I said this earlier, I want to demystify discipleship. Discipleship is costly, but it shouldn't be complicated. And when you look at the example of Jesus, when you look at the example of the early church, what you find is there's really only four things that you need as a disciple of Jesus to grow in your faith. It's four things. You need the truth of God's word. You need the power, the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. You need the fellowship of the church. And you need the experiences of life. You need God's word to cut to your heart, to reveal truth, to correct your understanding, to give you knowledge. You need God's Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, to bring assurance of your salvation. The Holy Spirit is needed. The Holy Spirit equips the members of the body so that they can minister with their gifts to one another. You need the word, you need the spirit. You need the fellowship of the church. You need the rest of the body holding you up and holding you accountable. And then you need the experience of life. And this is everyone, regardless of whether you're a disciple of Jesus or not, you're going to get the experiences of life. We're all going to go through the storms of life. How you go through those are dependent on those first three things. You go through the storms of life alone, they're going to crush you. Go through the storms of life with the power of God's Spirit and the fellowship with the church and the truth of his word. God's going to use those very experiences to grow your faith, your character, your perseverance to strengthen you. And so if you're living in the presence of Jesus, if you are in fellowship with other spirit-filled believers and together submitting your lives to the truth and to the authority of God's word, you are going to grow in your faith. It's not complicated. It takes commitment, it takes time. It takes patience and perseverance, but you will grow. And this is why if you know us as a church, we don't focus a lot of time in just offering a thousand different classes or seminars or programs. We focus so much time and care and attention into our community groups because this is where growth happens. Every week spirit-filled people coming together as the body of Christ around the truth of God's word. We're there together in community and that is where the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, to strengthen us, to guide us, to help us, to abide each firmly connected to the vine of Jesus Christ so that we can bear fruit as we go through the experiences of life together, the ups, the downs, the joys, the pains, all of it. God has ordained for our growth. There's a really beautiful picture of this in Ephesians chapter four that kind of shows how this all is intended to work. Ephesians 4:1. "I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There's one body and one Spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism when God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts." So first of all, Paul begins to show this picture of the unity of the body and of the power of the Father's Holy Spirit present in each member of the body. But then he says, within the unity of the body there is distinction among the members. That God equips the body, different people, members of the body in different ways and that they all need to work together to grow up together into maturity. And so he continues in verse 11, he says, "This is why he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." When Jesus says, I will make you, when Jesus tells us he's going to change our lives, this is how he does it as one body with many members, each equipped by the Holy Spirit to come and to work together under the headship of Jesus Christ, growing in unity, growing as one. And the idea here is if you abide in this, you will grow. That Jesus will make you new. He will bear his fruit in your life. He will give you and transform your heart, your behavior, your character. You will be conformed to the fullness, the image of Christ. So that's point number two. Point number three, being a disciple requires a change of heart and behavior. It also requires a change of purpose and perspective. And so I said I was going to leave you in that tension. We counting the cost of discipleship, going to kind of come back to that. Now, from our perspective in this life, when you look at the cost of following Jesus, right? Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow him. That's a high price. That seems like that cost might be too much. It is high, and Jesus calls us to consider that cost before following him. He calls us to consider that cost. Then he challenges us to consider it again and to consider it from an eternal perspective. Because if you keep going in Matthew 16, the verse we read earlier, Jesus told the disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." He tells them that, but then he gives them like... Well, let's look at this from a different angle. Let's look at this from an eternal perspective. Four verse 25. "Whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What should a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels and the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done." What Jesus wants to see is on the one hand the discipleship is costly and on the other hand, it's not nearly as costly as the alternative. What is it profit a man if he gains the whole world, all the money, all the fame, all the friends and praise and power and comforts of this world and yet loses his soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whatever following Jesus may cost you right now and the grand scope of eternity, it is a small price to pay. That Jesus says, "I'm coming, and when I do, I'm coming in the glory of my Father and I'm going to repay each person according to what they've done." And every single one of us, we need to have this perspective. We need to see things from this angle, when we do, what we see is that the true cost of discipleship, it's not a price to be paid, it is an investment to be made. You invest your life savings, you give everything that you have, you give it all to Christ and you live life through the bear market of this life, but you do so knowing that in the end that the bulls are going to win, that the investment is going to pay off. That Jesus is coming soon and that your sacrifice, everything that you give up right now, it is earning you spiritual dividends right now and it's earning you heavenly rewards when Christ returns. Mark 10. Peter comes up to Jesus and he's like, look, "Jesus, we left everything to follow you." And Jesus says in verse 29, he says, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time. Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and land with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life." In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus shares a few parables and to show us what this is like. He says in verse 44, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that's hidden in a field which a man found and he covered up. And then in his joy, he goes and he sells all that he has and buys that field." And the idea is from one perspective, this guy seems like a fool, right? He just gave his life savings to buy a worthless piece of dirt, an empty field. And yet from another perspective, you see that he didn't give up anything at all. That whatever he laid down to purchase that field could not compare to the infinite glory of riches that were buried beneath the surface that no one else could see. Jesus says again in verse 45, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value." He goes out and he sells all that he has to buy it. And Jesus gives us this new perspective to think about discipleship and with this perspective, he gives us new purpose as well. That he says, "Follow me and I'm going to make you." And what is he going to make us? Ultimately he says, he's going to make you fishers of men. That's the purpose. Think about that purpose in the context of this new perspective that we have. Jesus asks, "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his soul?" Well flip that around. What does it profit a man if he gives up everything he has right now for the sake of the gospel, in order to gain the souls of others for eternity? Jesus wants to make us fishers of men. You think about that. Jesus wants to give you the opportunity right now as his disciple to play a part in altering the eternal destiny of souls, to play a part in changing the eternal destination of people. You talk about heavenly rewards, like imagine seeing someone in heaven and knowing that Jesus used your witness, your faithfulness, your sacrifice to get them there. Imagine the joy of walking in and seeing that person and knowing that they will be spending eternity in paradise, in the presence of Christ, and that you got to play a part in that. Before telling the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus told two other parables to the same effect in Luke chapter 15. In the context we're told that, "Tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to him and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling about it, saying, "This man receives sinners and he eats with them." And so he told them this parable. He says, "What man of you having a hundred sheep if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he is found it, he lays it on his shoulder rejoicing and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance." "Or what woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one does not light a lamp and sweep the house and see diligently until she finds it. And when she's found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found the coin that I lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Who are we that we should be given the privilege, the joy of taking part in something like this? There is great joy we're told in heaven right now when one sinner repents, imagine the joy then. Imagine the joy when all the saints go marching into the joy of their master together and you see those souls that led you to Christ, and you see those people that Jesus used you in their life to lead them to Christ, to help them to grow in Christ. Imagine that joy of being there together. We do not deserve such an honor, and yet we serve a God of amazing grace. When you have this perspective and this purpose, it changes everything. And when you have this perspective and this purpose, all of a sudden everything seems, as Paul said in second Corinthians, it's like "Light and momentary affliction which is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." For why? Because, "We are not looking to things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." Well, I could spend a whole lot more time talking about this theoretically, rather, what I would like you to do is I would like you to go into your community groups this week and talk about how you've experienced this for yourself personally. Share testimonies of God's grace. Jesus calls us fishermen and fishermen love to tell stories. And so tell some of those stories. I think we're going to be spending a lot of time in heaven telling fishermen stories of how Jesus used us to bring other people to faith or used other people to save us or lead us to himself. Share some of those stories this week. If you've played a part in leading someone else to Christ or share the stories of those who played a part in leading you to Christ, not to boast in yourself but to boast as Paul says in Jesus Christ, and to be an encouragement to one another. Share some of those stories this week. And if you're not connected to a community group, this is a really good week to get connected to a community group. If you don't take anything else away from the sermon, this is what I would hope you would take, that you need to be connected to a community, to have fellowship with other people in a meaningful way. And so we would love to help you do that. You can check those out on our website, or better yet, just stop by the welcome center out there and there's people there that would love to help you find a group that works for you. And then if you're here today and you are not yet connected to Christ, if you are ready to make that commitment, to become a follower of Christ, to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, we would love to talk to you about that as well. You can talk to people at the welcome center or Pastor Andy and I will be up here after the service. We'd love to talk to you about that. We could talk to you about baptism or just if you have any questions about Christianity in general, we'd be happy to talk to you, pray with you about that as well. Well, right now, let's pray and we'll spend more time worshiping together. Jesus, we thank you. We praise you so much for the price that you paid to save us. And I pray that you would give us now the grace and the strength and the courage to gladly pay, to gladly suffer and sacrifice whatever is needed to be your witnesses, your followers, your disciples here on earth right now. God help us to take up our crosses daily to follow you, knowing that as our good shepherd that you have promised to lead us into pastures of abundant life. Give us faith to believe that whatever we may have to give up right now in terms of worldly comforts and pleasure, they cannot compare to the spiritual blessings, the eternal rewards that await those who follow you. So Lord, help us to keep our eyes fixed, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on you, Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that was set before you endured the cross for us, and you're now seated in glory and power at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Father, we love you, we praise you, and now we just want to worship you together in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Commit To Evangelism
February 5, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 28:16–20
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open up to Matthew 28. We are in week three of our sermon series Committed. We've been talking about the essential habits of an abundant life in Christ, and what I've been saying over these last couple of weeks is we're taking this time to focus on some of the essential, non-negotiable, super practical commitments that every Christian must make in order to grow in their faith, in order to persevere through trials, in order to fulfill God's purpose and calling for their life, and in order to experience and to enjoy this abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give us. Two weeks ago, we started off by talking about the commitment to follow Jesus as our Lord, as our savior, as our good shepherd. Last week we talked about committing to a local church and the importance of having a church, having fellowship with other believers to support us, encourage us, and hold us accountable as we follow Jesus. This week we're going to talk about evangelism. Our sermon is called Commit to Evangelism. At the end of last week's passage in Acts 2, verse 47 tells us that the early church, these early Christians were praising God and having favor with all of the people, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. If you're here last week, you remember we talked about how these early Christians were committed. They were devoted to sharing their lives with one another sacrificially. They were deeply committed to one another and the church. But this doesn't mean that they were just a holy huddle of the frozen chosen as we joke about some churches being today. They were a church on a mission. We talked a little bit about how the church can be thought of in the metaphor of a ship. That we as a church, we're not trying to be a cruise ship, we're trying to be a battleship. On a cruise ship, everyone shows up and everyone shows up to be served and to be entertained. You float around in circles. You wind up right back where you started. On a battleship, everyone shows up to serve. Everyone shows up because we're all working together with same purpose, same mission, and we're going to be spending these next two weeks talking about what that mission is, focusing on what has come to be called the Great Commission and two aspects of that Great Commission. If you're not familiar with the Great Commission, this is basically Jesus' final marching orders to the church, his final instructions that he leaves before ascending to the right hand of the Father in heaven. We can find it in Matthew 28. This is where we're going to be begin our time today, Matthew 28 beginning in verse 28. This is what it says. It says that Jesus came to them, came to his disciples, and he said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the 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've commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." You see the two aspects of this mission, right? First of all, there's this outward mission. Jesus says, "You need to go into all the world and make disciples." That's evangelism. That's what we're going to be talking about today. The second aspect of the mission is more inward where Jesus says, "And then you need to teach them to observe all that I have commanded you to do." That's discipleship. We'll be talking more about that next week. Discipleship is focused on the mission of sanctification. Evangelism is focused on the mission of conversion. Already, hopefully, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's feeling a little bit uncomfortable. I'm surprised. After last week telling you we were going to talk about evangelism today, I'm like, good to see that some of you came back, because this is not something that we get particularly comfortable with thinking about converting people, proselytizing, things like that. They're not popular concepts in our culture. I don't know if I would use the word proselytizing, but we are going to talk about we do want to convert people to Christianity. We want to persuade people to believe and to follow Jesus Christ. I remember the first time that I ever visited Boston. We were downtown doing kind of the touristy thing. My wife and I were there. Our son Owen, he was about nine months old at the time. We're walking around in the Boston Commons and we're making our way toward Park Street Station. There's these two younger girls behind us having a very loud, very passionate discussion. One of them was pleading passionately with her friend trying to warn her to never read anything by this author that she discovered named C.S. Lewis and to never read the book The Chronicles of Narnia because she had found out that this guy was actually a Christian and he was secretly trying to convert people with his books. If you know anything about C.S. Lewis, there wasn't anything secret about it. He's pretty on the nose about everything that he wrote. He was overtly a Christian. Chronicles of Narnia, it's a straight-up allegory of Christianity. He wasn't trying to hide any of that. But what stuck out to me about that conversation was as I'm listening to these girls have their discussion, really what she was doing was she was trying to convert her friend. She was trying to convert her friend to this position of non-conversion. Providentially, the next morning we got up and we visited Mosaic for the first time and Pastor Jan was preaching on that exact topic, on this idea of the world trying to convert people to this position of non-conversion. This girl was hypocritically doing the very thing that she was condemning someone else, C.S. Lewis in this case, of doing. The question then is, why are we then so afraid to do that ourselves as Christians? Non-Christians do it all the time. People in general do it all the time. If you believe that something is true and if you believe that that truth matters, well, then it's only natural that you're going to try to persuade other people to accept it and to believe it as well, even if the truth is inconvenient, even if the truth is uncomfortable. Love would compel you to plead with others to accept it and believe it. A good doctor wouldn't hide the truth from their patient. A good doctor will share their diagnosis and prescription even if that truth is not necessarily what the patient wants to hear, because withholding that would be unloving. It would be unprofessional. It could be deadly. I think part of the reason that many Christians are afraid to share their faith is that we have this fear of rejection. I've shared the gospel with several people in Boston, and more often than not, that's been met with rejection. Every single time it's uncomfortable. But what my experiences taught me is that even though in sharing the gospel, yeah, I have faced a lot of rejection, it usually doesn't come as the form that I'm afraid of. It usually doesn't come in the form of anger or hostility. It's usually just kind of more of a Stoic response of like, "Oh, that's interesting or that's nice. I'm glad that that worked for you, but not really something I'm interested in myself." It's not the response that I hoped for, but it's also really not a response that should cause us to be afraid to share the gospel in the first place. I say that just to say don't be anxious, don't catastrophize what might possibly happen when you share the gospel because you really don't know. You don't know how they're going to respond. You can't control how they're going to respond. You might be surprised to discover that a lot of people are more open and more comfortable to talking about these things than you might assume. Sometimes we are reluctant to share the gospel out of fear of rejection. I think most Christians, however, are reluctant to share the gospel out of a fear of failure. I think a lot of Christians, maybe they want to share the gospel, they have a desire, they know that it's something they ought to do, but they're worried about failure because they don't feel equipped. What if they ask me a question I don't know how to answer? What if I say something wrong? We can't control how people are going to respond to the message, but there are things that we can do to prepare ourselves and to be equipped to share that message more effectively when we have opportunities to do so. That's really what I want to spend our time focusing more on today. Toward the end of our time this morning, I'm going to share just some rapid fire practical tips for evangelism. But to begin with, I want us to just start by looking at three biblical truths, three realities, three things that Jesus equips us with in order to help us overcome this fear of sharing the gospel. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be launching out of Matthew 28, but we're going to be doing a survey of many scriptures that will help us understand these things. Before we begin, let's pray and then we'll jump into the message together. Jesus, you told your disciples that they should pray to the Lord of the harvest, that the harvest is great, but the workers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest to raise up more workers for this mission. Lord, we pray that you would do that. Even right now, Lord, I pray that you would be doing that. Lord, we know that immediately after instructing his disciples to pray, he then sends them out to do the very thing, to be the answer to their very own prayers and to go and to preach the gospel. Lord, I pray that you would help us today to see that you have saved us in order to send us. That you have called us, you have commissioned us, and you have equipped us. That you do not send us out alone, you do not send us out, but you send us out fully equipped to do what you have called to do. That you have given us the authority of your word. You've given us the presence and the power of your Holy Spirit. You've given us the fellowship of the church. We have everything we need to accomplish this mission together. Lord, I pray that you would give us grace to do so. God, we pray right now that you just bless our time and your holy word this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, the first truth, the first reality that I want us to look at, that we need to understand and believe that's going to help us overcome our fear of sharing the gospel is this, that Jesus equips us and he sends us with both the clarity and the authority of his word. That Jesus doesn't send us out with a long list of complicated religious rights and rituals and rules. We sang this earlier, that it's finished, it is accomplished. There's no work that we can do to further this mission that the message of the mission is very simple. It's so simple that it can be summed up here in just a couple of sentences. It's so deep, it's so sophisticated that you can spend the rest of your life devoting yourself to it and never master it. There's always room to grow. You can spend the rest of your life studying scripture, growing and maturing in the Holy Spirit. What is the mission? There's a story in the Gospel of Matthew where a religious leader, a teacher of the religious law comes up to Jesus and he wants to know, he wants to ask him, "Jesus, what is the greatest of all of the commandments?" In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said to him, he said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. This is the great and the first commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depends all the law and the prophets." All the Old Testament, the law, the prophets, they're all summed up on these two things, to love God with everything and to love your neighbor as yourself. The mission of the church is simply this, the Great Commission is to simply live that out and then to teach others to do the same. Repent of your sin. Put your faith in Jesus Christ. Commit to follow him, to obey him, to observe all that he has commanded. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself and then to teach others to do the same. The mission is simple, the mission is clear, but that doesn't mean that it's easy. Following Jesus is going to be hard. Taking this message to the ends of the earth is going to be hard. Just taking this message across the hallway, across the street, across the cubicle is going to be hard. We need to understand that Jesus doesn't merely send us out with a clear mission, he also sends us out with clear authority. I think one of the best explanations of these two realities coming together can be seen in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. The apostle Paul says this, he says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed, and behold, the new has come. All of 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 against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you and on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." It's very clear the message, that Jesus Christ became sin for us. He took our sin upon himself on the cross. He paid the penalty that we deserve so that we could become the righteousness of God, so that we could be forgiven, reconciled to God through this ministry of reconciliation. That's the message. The mission is then to go with this message and to reconcile people to God. The authority then is that we are not going out alone. We're not going out in our own authority. We are going out sent by the king, sent as ambassadors of Christ for proclaiming this good news about his kingdom. All that to say is don't make the mission overly complicated. Evangelism simply means to announce the good news that Jesus is king. Human beings are sinners. Jesus is the savior. He is Lord, he is king, and he has now sent us as his ambassadors of his kingdom, sent us to warn the world that he is going to come again to judge the world in righteousness, but also sent to proclaim this good news that the king is coming right now. He's offering amnesty that right now this king has made a way to reconcile the world to himself. He is offering terms of peace for all who would repent, believe, for all who would lay down their arms and surrender, commit their allegiance to him as the good and the rightful king that he is. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, he put it like this. He said, "Enemy occupied territory, that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, and you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part of a great campaign of sabotage." We're going out as ambassadors on this rescue mission, recruiting people to the kingdom of God. Sharing the gospel is intimidating because it's intimidating to go and to walk into enemy occupied territory. But we do this with a clear mission, with a clear message, and with a clear authority of knowing that we have been sent by the true, the good, the rightful king. When you're feeling fearful about sharing your faith, remember this, that every time that you speak the words of scripture and share God's word, every time that you proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is not just with you, but as this text just said, he's actually making his appeal through you, calling people to himself to be reconciled, to make peace through his bloodshed on the cross. 2 Timothy 3:14-17 tells us that, "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching and for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." Every good work that we'll ever be called to do. Scripture equips us for all of that. The first step to overcoming our fear is to know God's word, to know that his word is authoritative and true. It is living and active. It equips us for every good work, and so that we shouldn't be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because we know it is the power of God unto salvation. Point number two, Jesus sends us out with the clarity and the authority of his word. He also sends us out with the courageous readiness of knowing and of resting in his sovereignty. Ephesians 6:14, Paul tells us to, "Stand firm, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace." That God's sovereignty and salvation should replace our fear with this incredible courage and a readiness to share the gospel. Because when you think about this, what does this mean, God's sovereignty? It means that he has the power to save anyone, anytime, anywhere, even the people that we least expect. Nobody knew this better than the apostle Paul himself, right? I mean, this was the guy who was a violent persecutor of the church. No one ever expected this guy to get saved. He hated Christians. He had made it his mission to snuff out the Christian movement wherever he could find it, and yet Jesus finds him. Jesus saves him. Jesus gave him a new mission and turns him into the greatest missionary that the church has ever seen. Paul knew that if Jesus could save him, well, Jesus could save anyone. Why should he be afraid? Why should he be fearful of sharing this good news with anyone wherever he goes, no matter what opposition, no matter what persecution he often faced. Consider the life of Paul with me for a moment. Just going to take a look at an episode of his life from the Book of Acts. In Acts 14, Paul is preaching the gospel in Lystra. As he's there, as he's preaching a gospel, this angry mob shows up, drags him out of town, stones him, leaves him for dead. Do you remember what it says what Paul does after he eventually wakes up not dead? It seems like you can go down a whole rabbit trail on this. Reading the Book of Galatians, Paul kind of eludes like maybe he actually died. He has this out of body experience, and then he comes back. We don't know. But he's stoned and left for dead. He wakes up eventually. He regains consciousness. And what does he do? He gets back up and he goes back into the town where the people just mobbed him, dragged him out, and stoned him and left him for dead. Incredible courage and boldness. He then leaves. He makes his way onto Philippi. In Philippi, he gets arrested again. He's beaten with rods. After that, it goes to Thessaloniki. Again, angry mob in Thessaloniki. Escapes by night to Berea where he's faced with yet another angry mob of people. He goes through Athens, makes his way to Corinth. And once again, we're told that he was met with those people who opposed and reviled him. I don't know about you, by this point, I'd be feeling a little bit discouraged. Mob me once, shame on you. Mob me 17, 18, 19 times, I must be doing something wrong. I should go take a class on evangelism or something. I don't know. What keeps Paul going? What kept him going was his belief in the sovereignty of God. That despite all the opposition that he faced, all the persecution that he experienced, that in each of these cities, people were getting saved, churches were being planted, lives were being transformed, legacies were being built. In the midst of all of this, in Acts 17, when Paul is in Corinth, God came to him in a vision during the night. In Acts 17:9-11, it says this that the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision. He said, "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people." He stayed there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. Paul understood that there would be many in this city who would oppose and revile him, and yet he would go on preaching the gospel because he also knew that there were many of God's elect, many of God's people here as well. His job was to preach the word. No gimmicks. No tricks. Preach the word, trust the word to do its work, trust God to draw his people to himself. That's what happened. Trust that Jesus' sheep would hear his voice and follow him. Right before getting to Corinth, Paul was in Athens. In Athens, he met with the philosophers at the Areopagus on Mars Hill. As he meets with them, he's walking through their temples. He's observing all of their idols that they've made to their many gods, and he gets to have this conversation with them. This is what he tells them in verse 26. He tells them that God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth and determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. That God determined where, when every person would live. So that what? Verse 27, so that they should seek God, perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he's actually not far from each of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said, "For indeed we are his offspring." Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of men. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man, Jesus Christ, whom he appointed, and of this he's given full assurance to all by raising him from the dead. See, I don't think that Paul believed in coincidence. I think Paul believed in providence, and this is what gave him this courageous readiness to share the gospel no matter where he was, no matter what kind of opposition that he was facing, because he knew that God was sovereign. I think one of my favorite examples of this is when he writes to the church in Philippi. At the end of Paul's letter to the Philippians, he's sending his greetings and he tells them in Philippians 4:22, he says, "All the saints send their greetings," then he adds this little comment, "especially those of Caesar's household." At the time, Paul was in chains. He was in prison, maybe under house arrest, and he's chained to these guards from Caesar's household all day. What does he do? He doesn't get discouraged. He doesn't quit. He doesn't say, "Well, I'm here/ I'm locked up. There's nothing I can do." He says, "Well, if I'm here and I'm locked up and I'm chained to these guards, it must be because I need to share the gospel with them. You think that Lord Caesar has me chained to you? Well, I think that Lord Jesus has you chained to me, and so now you're going to hear the gospel." He begins sharing the gospel with these guards and they end up getting saved. He's just kind of showing how God is flexing here. He's like, "Oh, and by the way, the people in Caesar's household, they send you their greetings that they are now believers, that they are now following Jesus as well." If God puts people in your life, if God gives you opportunities to share the gospel, perhaps that's not a coincidence. As Paul told the philosophers, God's providence determines the allotted periods and boundaries. Perhaps he's placed you in these people's lives for a reason. We all know this. When you go to school or when you go to work or when you go home and you're amongst your neighbors, that chances are if you are a Christian living in Boston, Massachusetts, you are quite probably the only Christian that any of these people know in the city. Maybe there's a reason that God has put you in their lives. You can't save anyone. That's not your job, right? That's Jesus' department is salvation. Your job is to be a faithful witness wherever he's placed you, to scatter the seed to pray and to trust God, to bring the growth, to bring the harvest. Trust God with the results. And with this, if you don't see those results right away, don't let that discourage you either. It doesn't mean that you did something wrong. It also doesn't mean that nothing is happening. We can't always see what God is doing beneath the surface when we share the gospel with people. Just an example from my own life, I've shared this before. In a former life as a young college student in the early 2000s, I was in a pop punk band. That was a thing at the time. We were in the Midwest. You had the West Coast punk. You had the East Coast punk. We were trying to pioneer the Midwest Coast punk. What that meant was we would go to class during the week. And then on the weekends, we would load up our big white conversion van and we would hit the road. We'd drive all over the Midwest playing shows in different towns and cities, and we got to spend a lot of time just driving around on the road, having conversations with one another as members of the band. At the time, none of the other members of the band were Christians. I shared last week that I had grown up in the church, but I wasn't walking with the Lord at this time. I don't really think that I was even yet a Christian at this time. But one night, it's late at night, we're on the road and we get into this conversation about faith and Jesus and Christianity. For whatever reason, I find myself defending the faith to our bass player and our drummer, trying to convince them that Christianity is true, that Jesus really is God, that he really did fulfill all of these prophecies, and he rose from the dead. We're having this, we're going back and forth. Eventually at one point, the bass player just shut the conversation down. Not in a mean way, but just kind of like a joking like, "I don't want to talk about this. I'm getting uncomfortable kind of way." We changed the subject, moved on, and honestly didn't think about that conversation again for a really long time. Fast-forward several years, we'd split up. We'd all grown up and went out and got real jobs and still in touch, but weren't living near each other, hadn't really talked to each other for a long time. I get a phone call one day from one of the guys in the band. It wasn't the bass player or the drummer. Actually for a brief time, there was a fourth guy in our band. He was only in the band for a few months after I joined, and then he quit. I really hadn't heard or seen from him again. He called me up because he wanted to tell me that he had become a Christian. He remembered that I had grown up going to church and I was a Christian. He wanted to let me know, "I'm a Christian now. I'm leading worship in my church." He was all excited. He was all on fire. He's like, "And I want you to know that this all started for me way back because of that conversation in the van." I was like, "You weren't even part of that conversation in the van." Actually, he was sitting in the back. I thought he was asleep the whole time, and apparently he'd been paying attention and somehow some seeds had gotten planted in him that eventually led to him becoming a Christian. He's still a Christian today. He's working in ministry today, and God's doing awesome things through his life. But I share all that just to say, you never know what God does with the gospel after you've shared it with somebody. Even if you don't see those results right away, it doesn't mean that God's not doing something. Don't get discouraged. Don't lose heart. Just be faithful and continue and persevere. Jesus equips us. He sends us with clarity and authority of his word, with the courageous readiness of his sovereignty, and number three, with the comforting power of his presence. I'm going to read several passages for us, because this is really important. First one is John 14:16-18. Jesus tells his disciples, he says, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him or knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.: In Luke 24:26, he said to them, "Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon. You, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." Acts 1:8, Jesus again tells his disciples, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." In our passage today, he says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." Something happened on the day of Pentecost that we read about in Acts 2 a couple weeks ago. Something happened that day that had never happened before in the history of mankind. Before Christ in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon people for a time and for a task. But now what we see is that from now on, all of those who are in Christ, that the Holy Spirit is poured out, that the Holy Spirit dwells in us each personally and permanently. Jesus, he promised in the Great Commission, he said, "I will be with you always to the very end of the age." Obviously he's not here with us physically right now, but that's not what he was talking about. He's alluding to the gift of the Holy Spirit that he was going to pour out on his church after ascending into heaven. Jesus, he talked about this in John 16. In John 16, Jesus was talking with his disciples and he tells him this in verse five. He says, "Now I am going to him who sent me and none of you asks me, where are you going?" He said, "I'm preparing to go back to ascend to the right hand of my father. But because of I've said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts," which is understandable, right? You just got to spend three years in the presence of Jesus Christ physically. That would be sad to think about him leaving and ascending back to heaven. But verse seven, Jesus tells them, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." I don't know if we can really grasp what a big deal that is. Jesus is literally saying what we have right now as believers, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is in some ways to our advantage that it's actually in some ways we are better off right now than if he had remained physically here with us in the flesh. That when Jesus Christ took on flesh, that he in some sense allowed his presence to be confined by time and space in a human body. But when he ascended into heaven, he poured out the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Holy Spirit of the living God upon every member of his church. That the Holy Spirit is indwelling in all Christians, in all places at all times for all times. If you are in Christ, what this means is that Christ is not just with you, he is in you. You have been clothed with power from high, scripture says. You have been filled with the Holy Spirit of God, that God is with you and for you. He will not leave you or forsake you. He's working all things together for you, working for you and in you and through you, so you can have courage. You don't need to fear. That wherever you go, you go with the comforting power of the presence of Jesus Christ with you. Paul in Ephesians 3, he just writes this amazing passage. He says, "For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named. That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Holy Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." He says, "And now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen." It's too much to wrap your mind around. God is with us, that he is for us, that he is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or even imagine or hope to think. Set your minds on these things. If you're feeling fearful, if you're feeling discouraged, before you go and preach to others, preach to yourself. Remind your heart, your soul, your mind that God is sovereign, that God is faithful, that Christ is with you. He is in. He wants his spirit and his power to work through you. All right, well, I said at the beginning that I'd give you some practical tips here at the end, some just practical steps for evangelism. We don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to go through these pretty fast. Someone told me last week that my sermon had a lot of bullet points. I've only given you three this far, so I'm going to give you seven more. We're going to go really quick. This is another machine gun sermon. We're going like rapid fire through these last seven here at the end, but super practical, just seven tips for sharing your faith. First and foremost, you need to pray before you preach. We read in Ephesians, Paul said, "Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. And as for shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace." We talked about that readiness of sharing the gospel. But if we keep reading, Paul connects that readiness to prayer. He goes on in verse 16. He says, "In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one, take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. And to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints." And then he says, "Pray also for me, that words may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." Paul's pleading with the early church to pray for him so that he can be faithful in this proclamation of the gospel. Paul believed in God's providence and his sovereignty in salvation, but that didn't stop him from acting, from working hard, from preaching, and from praying. Actually it compelled him to pray even more, to pray that God would open eyes, that God would open ears, that God would open doors that give him opportunities to share the gospel. Pray. Pray for people. Pray for people by name. Make a list. Pray for them privately. Pray for them with your community group. But we all have those people in our lives, we know who they are, and so pray for them. Pray before you preach. Number two, study hard and do your homework if you want to feel equipped, if you want to feel ready and prepared. We read this earlier. I'm going to read it again, 2 Timothy 3:14. Paul tells Timothy, "As for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work." If you want to feel more equipped to share the gospel, study scripture. If you want to be more ready to answer the questions and the objections that people might have about Christianity, you need to read the Bible, study the Bible. If you haven't done it, get yourself a nice ESV study Bible and just dig in. Learn the scriptures. If you need to, pick up some books on evangelism or apologetics. You can just go to our website. If you click on I think it's the connect and grow tab at the top, there's a little menu and there's a section there called Explore Christianity. It's a sermon series that Pastor Jan preached several years ago, but it's an awesome and it's a timeless series. He just goes through some of the most common objections and questions that people have about Christianity, to show that Christianity really is true and ways that we can defend our faith. If that's something you think that would be helpful, do it. Do your homework, study hard, prepare yourself, and most importantly, study God's word. Number three, don't go alone. Evangelism is a team sport. When you look at the life of Jesus Christ, almost everything he did, he did in community. You almost never see Jesus in a one-on-one situation. He's almost always surrounded by other people. Sometimes it's three, sometimes it's 12, sometimes it's more than that, but he's got a community of people around him. When he sends his disciples out, he doesn't send them out alone. He sends them out minimum two by two. When we read about Paul in his letters, he's traveling with an entourage, right? Everywhere he goes, he's got Timothy, he's got Silas, he's got all of these companions who are with him. Don't think that evangelism can only happen in one-on-one conversations. A lot of times it doesn't. A lot of times it's beneficial to do evangelism in more of a communal setting. Just purely practically, if you're going to hang out with a Christian friend, invite one of your non-Christian friends along. Or if you're going to hang out with a coworker, invite one of your Christian friends along. If your community group is getting together and have some kind of party or hang out, that might be a good time to invite a friend, a neighbor, a classmate, a coworker, someone who you might just want to spend that time with other Christians. You can love that person, witness to them together as a community. Don't go it alone. Number four, connect before you correct. When Paul was in Athens, he reasoned with the philosophers. He quoted their own poetry. He displayed knowledge of their culture. He connected with them. He met them where they were, and then he did his best to lead them to Christ. In homiletics, we call this contextualization, which is a big fancy word for just like don't be a weirdo. Be a relatable, normal person. Don't be the person who shows up in a three-piece suit with a briefcase full of charts and graphs and pulling everything out. Don't be the guy with the megaphone and the sandwich board telling people to turn or burn, get sanctified or chicken fried. Be a real person. I'm not saying don't talk about sin. I'm not saying don't talk about hell, don't talk about God's judgment. We need to talk about those things, and those things are real. What I'm saying is those things are real, we need to be real, right? We're just sinners saved by grace. We don't go into these conversations with pride, with self-righteousness. We don't approach people condescendingly. We speak the truth and we speak it boldly, but scripture says speak the truth in love. Be relatable. Show some emotional intelligence. Be humble. Be respectful. Be gentle. Show that you genuinely care about these people. That they're not just projects, that they're people, they're souls that we love, that we are concerned for. One just super easy practical way of doing this, if you find it hard or awkward to begin conversations about your faith or Jesus or Christianity, is before you dive into telling people what you think, just simply ask them what they think. Like, hey, do you have any kind of religious background? What do you think about the meaning of life? What do you think about Jesus Christ? People love to be asked questions. People love to talk about themselves. When they're done talking about themselves, more often than not, they're going to turn around and they're going to ask you the same questions. They've just given you the opportunity then to share the gospel and to tell them, "Well, this is what I think. This is what I believe. This is how Jesus saved me and changed my life." It's cliche, but it's true. People don't care what you know until they know that you care. Now, Paul put it like this in 1 Corinthians 9:19. He says, "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win more Jews. To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not myself being under the law, that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law, I became as one outside of the law, not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside of the law. To the weak, I became weak that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that what? So that I may share with them in its blessings." That's what it's all about. We have experienced the blessing of salvation, of a relationship with God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we want to share that blessing with others. Peter put it like this. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and with respect." Connect before you correct. Number five, point people to Jesus. Peter said always be prepared right there. There's preparation involved. Be prepared to share the reason for your hope. I would encourage you at some point to write down your testimony and keep it up to date from time to time. But as you do, keep this in mind. If you read your testimony and your testimony is all about you, if you read your testimony and you come out looking like the hero, you probably did something wrong. That's probably not a testimony, that's more just a self-help book. You didn't save yourself. I didn't save myself. Your testimony should be focused on the one who did save you. Your testimony should be focused on what Jesus has done for you, not so much on what you have done for him. So that when you get the opportunity to share the reason for your hope, it becomes clear to everyone that the reason is Jesus. He's your living hope, that he is the hero of your story. That's really what we're doing in evangelism, right? Our job, help people see that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. That Jesus is the hero of history. That Jesus is the hero of our story and help them to see that Jesus could be the hero of their story as well. Make sure that you're pointing people to Jesus. Number six, call for commitment. At some point, you have to make a call to action and make that clear for people. Faith comes by hearing the good news, but true and saving faith moves people to action. You have to talk about that. Talk about repentance and faith. Talk about baptism and the importance of getting plugged into a local church. Help them to see those next steps when they are ready to commit to following Jesus. If they're not ready, then number seven, the final tip, is just trust God with the growth. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:6, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God's the one who gives the growth." At the end of the day, your job is not to save anyone. You can't do that. Your job is just to be faithfully there witnessing, planting, watering, praying, trusting God to bring the growth, trusting God to bring the harvest. All right, well, today is a special day. We are going to be celebrating communion together today. Communion is one more way that we as a community proclaim the gospel together. This is what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:23. He says, "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 he said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way 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, he says, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." The way that we celebrate communion here at Mosaic is hopefully as you came in, you're able grab one of these little cups. If not, feel free to just raise your hand right now. The ushers will be happy to bring one to you wherever you're sitting. Inside here, the bread represents, as we just read, the body of Christ. The cup represents his blood that was poured out so that we could be forgiven. This is a time for us to remember, to reflect, to celebrate the gospel of Jesus Christ. That we did not save ourselves, that we are sinners. And that because of our great sin, the only hope we could have of salvation is for Jesus Christ, the perfect spotless lamb of God, the Son of God, to come, to take on flesh and to give himself through his death on the cross, taking our place, taking the punishment that we deserved, paying that penalty, paying that debt that we could never afford to pay our own. That he did that for us, and that we can receive that by repenting and putting our faith in him as our Lord and Savior. That when we do that, we are forgiven. We are cleansed by his blood. We read this earlier, that he became sins so that we might become the righteousness of God. That our sin is accounted to Jesus. He pays for that on the cross and his righteousness is accredited to us. We are now able to stand before the Father cleansed, holy, righteous because of what Christ has done for us. That is what we remember, that's what we celebrate, and that's what we give thanks to God for right now. If you're here today and you are a Christian, we would welcome you to celebrate communion with us right now as we partake of the elements together. If you're not a Christian, or if you are a Christian who is living an unrepentant sin, we would ask you to refrain from this part of the service. It's not going to do anything for you. There's nothing magical about this, apart from faith in Jesus Christ and walking in repentance for Jesus Christ. Scripture actually warns us and Paul continues in the very next verse, verse 27 of 1 Corinthians 11. He says, "Whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Therefore, let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself." If that is you, as we would say, refrain from this. Better would be to spend this time right now to repent, confess to God, and he will be faithful and just to forgive you. If you've done that today, if you have given your life to Christ and made that commitment today, or if you are a Christian walking in repentance and faith, we would invite you to join us now as we celebrate communion together. Let's pray and then we will move. God, we thank you for this great hope that we have, this living hope that we have through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior. We thank you for the many blessings that we have, for the abundant life that we have in Christ as we follow Him, our good shepherd. Lord, I pray that you would give us a joy and a burden and an urgency and excitement to share this good news with others, to share in this blessing with those that you've placed into our lives. I pray that you would open people's hearts, that you would open doors of opportunity for us in those moments, that you would give us grace, that your Holy Spirit would speak through us to be faithful witnesses to you and to all that you have done wherever we have opportunity to do so, Lord. I pray that in doing so, that you would continue to draw many to yourself and add to our number day by day those who are being saved. All of this is possible only because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you for the cross. We thank you for your sacrifice, for the amazing love and grace that you have poured out on us. We didn't deserve it, but we worship you and we thank you for extending it to us. I pray that you would bless our time of communion right now. In Jesus' name, amen.
Commit to a Local Church
January 29, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Acts 2:41–47
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com If you have your Bibles open up to Acts 2, we're continuing our sermon series that we started last week. The series is called Committed Essential Habits of An Abundant Life. Over the course of this series, we're going to be taking a look at 11 essential, non-negotiable, super practical commitments that every Christian must make in order to grow in their faith, in order to persevere through the trials of life, in order to fulfill God's calling and purpose for you as a Christian and in order to truly enjoy and experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give. We looked at the passage in John 10 of Jesus last week, of Jesus the good shepherd who came to give us life and to give us abundant life. We looked last week at Acts 2, the birth of the church. The Apostle Peter gets up, he preached this sermon and we're told that 3000 people that day got saved, they got baptized and they committed their life to doing what the most important commitment that we all need to make, they committed themselves to following Jesus as their Lord and Savior. So that's first. Today we're going to be looking at what is arguably the second most important commitment that every Christian needs to make, that you've received the gospel, you've repented of your sin, you've put your faith in Christ, you have committed to follow Him. Now what? Well, we're going to see the answer to that as we finish up the rest of Acts 2 that after these 3000 people committed themselves to following Jesus, the very next thing that they did was committed themselves to one another. They committed themselves to be the church to a local church. That's the title of today's sermon. Commit to a Local Church. We're going to be taking a look at what the early church devoted itself to, and we're going to talk a little bit about what is the church and why it's important that every Christian should be a member of a local church and then we're going to talk a little bit about how we live that out here at Mosaic. We're in Acts 2 and we're picking up right where we left off from last week in verse 41 and it says this, "Now, those who received His word were baptized and they were added that day about 3000 souls, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers and awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved." Could you please join me in prayer for our sermon this morning? God, what a amazing, beautiful picture of what your church should be, of what your church can be by the power of your Holy Spirit. Jesus, we thank you that you have not only saved us to yourself, but you have made us a family. I pray that today that you would show us what a blessing it is when we as individual members find our place in that family, find our proper place in the household of God. I pray that you bless our time in your word this morning, in the name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen. One of the unique privileges of being a pastor here or even being a member here at Mosaic is you get to meet a lot of people from all over the world with different backgrounds, and getting to know many of you, I know that some of you grew up in Christian households, some of you did not. Some of you grew up with parents who maybe were atheists or you practiced a different religion in the family that you grew up in. I know personally some of you even had family members who were opposed to you becoming a follower of Christ. Well, personally I was blessed to grow up in a happy Christian home. My mom and dad were both Christians. They loved Jesus. They were very active in our church. So I had the benefit of growing up with a lot of healthy habits and routines. We attended church multiple times during the week. I got to see my parents read their bibles and pray and serve at church, and I got to hear the word preached faithfully week after week. I got to have Sunday school teachers in my life that taught me the Bible, taught me about Jesus and I grew up benefiting from many of the blessings that come not just from being a member of a Christian family but from being a part of a local church. It's kind of ironic that as I grew up and became a teenager and went off to college that one of the first things I did was I stopped attending church. I kind of had this mindset going on, "Things between me and God are pretty okay and so I don't really see why I have to go to church." Maybe if I was back visiting my family, I'd go to church with them, but when I was off on my own, I didn't. I'm not going to get into all of the problems that that caused, but what was behind this was ... well, on the one hand I was just young and I was naive and I was proud and I was really what our brother Eli was just praying a minute ago, I wanted to do things my way. I wanted to go out and I wanted to live my own life and I didn't want anything holding me down. I didn't really want to be part of a church where there was going to be people that are going to challenge me and hold me accountable. That was part of it and part of my problem was I was basing, I was building my understanding of church and of Christianity upon a really serious misinterpretation of Matthew 18. I think this is probably up there among the most misquoted verses in all of scripture. You're probably familiar with it. Matthew 18:20, Jesus said to his disciples, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them." It's really encouraging, it's meant to be encouraging, but I read that and I took that to mean and okay, well therefore church is not some organized community that I need to be committed to. Church can just be whatever I make of it. I can have church in my dorm room or I can have church driving in my car or out in the woods or whatever. I mean, I never actually did that, but theoretically I could have. That's what I would tell myself. I had some Christian friends on campus that I would hang out with once in a while. At the time, I don't really think I was a Christian. I'd grown up in the church, but I wasn't actually a Christian yet and so I really had a lot more fun hanging out with my non-Christian friends. I would occasionally turn on Christian radio in my car and I'd pray once in a while and I thought, "Okay, well I'm doing these good things and so I think that means I'm a good person, so I think things are good between me and God. I don't really see why I would need to go to church." Now, the problems that that caused were many, but my thinking and my basis for it was all wrong because Matthew 18:20, that's not what Jesus is talking about. This verse isn't something that you can read in a vacuum. You have to understand it in the context of the rest of what Jesus is saying. When you look at the verse in its context, you see that Jesus is actually ... He's giving instruction to the church of how to organize at a church. Really what He's talking about, He's talking about matters of church discipline and how as a church you need to draw distinctions between who is in the church body and who is not in the church body. So read it in context, Matthew 18, beginning in verse 15 to see what Jesus was getting at. He says, "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. But if he doesn't 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. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. 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." Then Peter came up and he said to Him, "Well, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times." When you read this verse in its context and you read this passage, you should discover three things. First, you should see that committing to a local church matters because it mattered to Jesus. He just assumed that every follower of His, every Christian was going to be part of a local church where they were known and accounted for. Secondly, that means that committing to a local church matters because as we see here, Jesus calls the church to make clear distinctions about who is part of that church body. Then thirdly, though, committing to a local church matters because as we see in this text, the church is a family. If your brother sins against you, go to your brother. Win back your brother, forgive your brother that we as Christians ... yeah, Jesus saves us to Himself, but he doesn't save us to Himself alone. He saves us into a family. He adopts us. We're adopted by the blood of Christ into the household of God and within this family we have brothers and sisters and we got to learn how to get along with these siblings of ours. We got to learn how to bear with one another. He talks about the need to ... you're going to have to learn how to ask for forgiveness because you're going to sin against each other. You're going to learn how to extend forgiveness to one and over, over and over again. But you see this picture that the church, the vision that Jesus has, the church is like a family. I say this so that if you're kind of in that place where I was of thinking, "I think things are good between me and God, so I really don't see the need for church." Maybe you haven't been attending church or you kind of attend church sporadically here and there, maybe you're just not committed to the church. We're going to talk about how the early church functioned, but I want to give you four things to think about and consider before we do to see why this really matters. The first thing is this. Consider that scripture describes the church as a flock of sheep placed under shepherds. This 1 Peter 5:1-5. It says, "I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder pastor and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that's going to be revealed to shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. "When the chief shepherd," that's Jesus Christ, "Appears when he returns, you, the under shepherds, the pastors, the elders, will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger," so the members of the church, "Be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." We also see this in Acts 20:28. He tells the pastors, "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which He obtained with His own blood." In Hebrews 13:17, "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." The picture here is that Jesus, if you are a Christian, He is your good shepherd. He is the one that we talked about last week who leads you in and out and helps you, brings you into good pastures, gives you this abundant life. He's the good shepherd. He's also the chief shepherd. He's the chief shepherd that there then calls you to subject yourself to the care of under shepherds, of pastors, elders of local churches. The picture that we have is that a Christian without a local church, it's like a lost sheep. It's like a sheep without its shepherd, a sheep without its flock. It's both out of place but it's also in danger. You're doing a disservice to yourself but also to the church as well and even to the shepherds, the pastors of the church. Because as pastors, Hebrews tells us in this risk that we just read, we're going to give an account to the chief pastor, the chief shepherd, Jesus, for the flock that He has entrusted us with, well then we need to know who is that. We're not going to give an account for every person that walks through the doors or attends services here at Mosaic, but we are going to give an account before God. This is a very sobering reality for every committed member of this church and this is one of the reasons it's so urgent and important for us to know who those members are. So first, I want you to consider that the church is ... it's described as a flock placed under shepherds. Secondly, consider that the church is a body made up of many members. It's another metaphor that scripture often uses. We saw this in Romans when we went through our Roman series in chapter 12:4 says, "For as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another." Same thing in 1 Corinthians 12:12, "Just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greek, slave free, we're all made to drink of one Spirit." Then you have this really beautiful description of the church in Colossians 3:12 where Paul tells the church, he says, "Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord is forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all of these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which you are indeed called in one body, and be thankful," he says. The image here is that a Christian without a church, it's not just like a sheep without its flock. Actually, it's like a hand or a foot that's been cut off from a body, that the hand is useless for lack of the body, but the body also suffers for lack of the hand, that you need the body and that the body needs you. So consider that the church is described like a flock, it's described like a body. Third, consider that the church is described as a temple built of living stones. This is 1 Peter 2:4-5, "As you come to Him," as you come to Christ, "A living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." We actually have two kind of pictures going on, is that of the spiritual house, but he also says you're a holy priesthood. When my wife and I got baptized, the day that we got baptized, the pastor of that church told us, "When you step out of the baptistry, you step into the ministry," that every member of the church is a minister of the church and that the idea here is that pastors are not people that churches hire to do the work of the ministry on behalf of the church. That's not a pastor's job. Pastors oversee, they guide the flock, they feed the sheep. But as scripture says, the job of the pastors is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, to equip the members of the church for the work of the ministry because every member of the church is a minister of the church, has a ministry to perform, has a part to play. That's part of what we see here in this passage. But the second thing is he says you're like these living stones that are being built together into this spiritual house. It's like we together are built as a temple for the Holy Spirit. The church is not a building. Sometimes we call church buildings, that's the church and we understand what we mean. The church is not the building, but the church is a spiritual house. We are a temple for the Holy Spirit. If we're going to stand, therefore we need to stand together. Of course, with Jesus Christ being the one chosen and precious by God as the cornerstone for that building. Fourth, consider finally then that the church is described as the family in the household of God. Ephesians 2:19, "So you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you're a fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." 1 Timothy 3:14, Paul says to Timothy, "I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth." Then Jesus in Matthew 12, we're told that, "While He was still speaking to the people, behold His mother and His brothers stood outside asking to speak to him, but He replied to the man who told them, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" Then stretching His hand out toward His disciples He said, "Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." That a Christian without a church, it's not just like a sheep without a shepherd, it's not just a hand without a body, It's like a child without a family. Over and over we see how vital it is that we belong to a local church, that we belong to a group of people who are committed to caring for one another, to supporting one another and encouraging one another to walk and to follow Jesus together. I wanted to start here just because over the years whenever we talk about membership, there's always people that want to kind of push back against that and say, "yeah, but the Bible never actually teaches church membership." In a sense, it's true that the Bible, there's not a chapter in the Bible that outlines this is church membership and how you do it specifically. But when you read the New Testament, you see church membership everywhere. You see that it's constantly being assumed, it's being implied and you really can't make sense of the New Testament church without it. This is why here at Mosaic we do practice church membership and we value church membership. We take it seriously because we believe on the one hand that it's biblical, but we also believe it's beneficial and when it's done properly, it is incredibly beautiful. The question then is what is church membership? We've been talking about this. If I had to summarize church membership at Mosaic into one concise statement, I would simply say this. Membership at Mosaic, it's just simply a mutual commitment of care and accountability that we formally make with one another as members of the church. That by becoming a member you are committing before God and you're making a commitment to the other members of the church in general and then to a specific group of people, primarily your community group in particular, you're committing yourself to them. To encourage them to love them, to care for them, to hold them accountable, to be your brother's keeper, to be your sister's keeper. You're committing to do that for them. Then at the same time you're inviting them to do that for you as well. Because we all know, you know, I know we know that we need this. We can't live the Christian life alone. We need the support of other Christians if we are going to run with endurance the race that was set before us. We read that in Hebrews last week. You probably heard the saying, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We need to understand the Christian race, it's not a hundred-meter dash, it's a marathon. It takes endurance and we need the help and the support of one another to run this race well. If it helps, think of it like this. My wife and I got married, believe it or not, on our wedding day. A big surprise there. Before the wedding we lived apart. I had my own apartment, she lived in a house on campus with some roommates. After the wedding, we moved in together and we did life together. Now, theoretically we could have left the wedding and gone back to our own separate places and continued to live and do life apart and we could have still remained married in some legal technical sense perhaps. But realistically, well, first of all, I can't imagine a more miserable marriage than that. But if you knew us, at some point you would have to look at our marriage and the arrangement that we had and you'd really have to begin questioning the sincerity of the vows that we made at our wedding. If you truly are in Christ, you are a member of the universal church. That's just a fact. But this reality should give you an inner desire to have true, meaningful fellowship with other followers of Jesus and to experience the blessing of being committed to a local church. It's the right thing to do, but it's also what's best for you, it's what's best for the church. With that all out of the way, if you're not a member, can't wait to see you at our next membership class. We got another one of those ... we had a great one last week. Our next one's not coming up for a while, but we'd love to get you signed up for it and in the meantime, if you have any questions about that, we'd love to talk to you about membership. Now, let's get back to our text because I really ... what I want to do is I want to look at what this commitment looks like in day-to-day life because what we're told in Acts 2:42 is the first thing we're told is that they devoted themselves, they committed themselves, and then the rest of the passage, it shows us some of the things that the early church committed itself to. I'm going to read the passage again. Acts 2:42 says this, "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching." This is the teaching that we have recorded for us in scripture and in the New Testament. "They devoted themselves to the truth of God's word, to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe 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." It says, "They were even selling their possessions and belongings to distributing the proceeds to all as any had need, and day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they receive their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are being saved." I want to quickly take a look at four commitments, four habits that we see the early church devoted themselves to and that we need to devote ourselves to as well as we follow Christ. The first is this. The early church was devoted to gathering in the temple for worship. We rent space in a Jewish temple. We like to joke sometime we take this verse very literally here at Mosaic, but the temple is not the point here. Before Jesus, it was. Before Jesus, God's people had to gather in the temple in Jerusalem to worship Him because that is where His present dwelled within the holy of holies, and before Jesus, the only hope that they could have of approaching this holy God in worship was to go through this system, this temple system of priests and of sacrifices that would allow them to approach a holy God. Now, after Jesus, this all changed. Hebrews tells us that Jesus is now our great high priest, that his death has put an end to the entire temple system with its priest, with its sacrifices once and for all. We're told that the moment that Jesus died on the cross, that the earth was shaken, that the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom and that the barrier separating God's holiness from sinful man, it was no longer needed. Not because we were no longer sinful or because God was no longer holy, but because Jesus Christ had fully paid the penalty of our sin. He'd made atonement for us on the cross so that as God's people we can now draw near to the presence of God with confidence and with boldness, because we have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ, we have been cleansed by His blood on the cross and there is no further sacrifice that will ever need to be made. His was sufficient. The Holy Spirit no longer dwells in a temple. The Holy Spirit now dwells in a people. The Holy Spirit dwells in the church that we individually and together are a temple for the Holy Spirit. Why did the early church then continue to gather in the temple? Well, the answer that we see throughout the New Testament is that the early church chose to gather for worship, not just in the temple in Jerusalem, but really in whatever location was convenient and available and accommodating to a large group of people gathering together. It just so happened to be in Jerusalem the best place to do that was in the temple, but in other places you see them gathering in synagogues or in public places or even out in nature sometime. The emphasis is not on the building, the temple, the location. The emphasis is on the reality that something special happens when God's people come together, gather together as a large group to worship him. This is why to this day, all over the world, Christians gather on Sunday mornings. They gather together to read the scripture, to preach the word, to praise and to worship God together. This is not something that we should neglect and this is not something we should take for granted. Hebrews 10 talks about this very thing and it says in verse 19, "Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus," using the temple [inaudible 00:28:10] to kind of describe what Jesus has done, since we can enter the holy of holies, the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, not by the old way, but "By the new and living way that He opened up for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us then draw near with true hearts and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. hen verse 24 says this, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as we see the day drawing near." Really quick, I just want to give us seven compelling reasons for why we should make this a priority and why we should not neglect gathering together and worshiping here together on Sunday mornings as a church. First of all, we commit to do this above everything else. Our top priority, the main motivation for why we gather here every week is because God is worthy of our praise. This is important because it's easy to come in like, "I hope I get something out of the service today. I hope I leave feeling fed or encouraged or I hope the band sings some good songs." Yeah, that's all going to happen by God's grace and praise God for the many benefits that we have of coming and gathering together, but that shouldn't be our primary motivation. Our primary motivation is that no matter what's going on or what's happened over the last week, that God is still the same and He's still worthy of our praise, and so we are going to gather and give Him the praise that He is worthy of not. We're not coming here primarily to get something, but to give something, to give God the glory for His faithfulness and his character and his attributes for being the holy, perfect, beautiful God that He is. We commit because God's worthy. With that, we commit because it's what we are made to do, that we were made to worship and that if we neglect to worship God, if we fail to give that glory to God, our hearts are going to find something else to give it to. We cannot help but worship. It's what we were created to do, but God alone is the one worthy of our worship and so we commit to come and to gather and to do that. A third, we commit to gather for worship because we know that God blesses the preaching of His word. We see this throughout a scripture, but God uses this time in a special way and it's not the messenger. We're imperfect people, but by God's grace He uses the preaching of His word to correct and to edify and to encourage and to unify His church. A fourth, we see in the passage from Hebrews that we should commit to doing this because we need to stir one another up to love and to good work. We talk about this, this is halftime in the locker room at the Super Bowl, right? We gather and we look back over the first half over last week and we thank God and we praise Him for His faithfulness for getting us this far. We celebrate the victories and we learn from any mistakes that we have made and we get ourselves pumped up to go out in the second half and live on mission in the week to come. It's a time for us to come and to stir one another up to love and to good works. Then fifth, with that, Hebrew says we also do this because we need to encourage one another, that we should be showing up here ready to give courage to one another, not coming as consumers. I'm going to talk about this a little bit more here in a few minutes, but we talk about this at our membership class every time we have one, that our goal at Mosaic is not to be a cruise ship. Our goal is to be more like a battleship where we have a mission to accomplish and that mission is going to take courage. This idea of encouragement, literally think about that, is we're filling, we're giving other people courage to do what they need to do because it's not going to be easy. There's a battle to be fought, fighting the good fight of faith, and we need to gather to encourage one another. So we show up here every week saying, "Who can I help? Who can I serve? Who can I be an encouragement to today?" Six, we do this because we know as Hebrews says, that the day is drawing near. All the more reason to commit to gathering together, because we know every day is one day closer to when Christ is going to return and praise God for that. But we understand that therefore we don't want to be caught off guard. We want to be ready, waiting, excited, anticipating His return, awake and alert and walking faithfully together. Which really leads us to the final thing is that as this day draws near, we commit to gather for worship because we understand that this is a foretaste of heaven. This is an experience where we get just a small glimpse of what it's going to be like to be together worshiping God in eternity. If we want to experience this abundant life that we've been talking about, this is perhaps no greater commitment that we could make to experience this than to commit ourselves to a local church and to begin to do that by making this Sunday morning really the top priority of our week. This is the first day of the week. We want to give God our first and our best. This should be the priority of our week. I gave you seven reasons why. I'm going to give you five practical tips for how you can do that, how we can make this time a priority so that everyone gets the most out of it that we can. Number one, commit to pray for this gathering throughout the week. Pray for your pastors who are going to be preaching the word. Pray for the worship team that's going to be leading us in praise. Pray for the teachers and the volunteers in Mini Mosaic and in Mosaic Teens as they prepare to guide and to shepherd the hearts of our children. Pray for the children, pray for the teenagers. Pray that they not just be learning about God but they'd be coming here and truly experience His love for them. Pray for the hospitality, the operations teams that work so hard behind the scenes to make all of this possible week after week. Pray that the saints would be edified and encouraged. Pray that unbelievers would come and hear the gospel, that the Lord would add to our number daily those who are being saved. Then most of all, pray that God would be glorified. Pray the name of Jesus Christ would be highly exalted here at Mosaic and that the spirit would be working in and through us as a church. Commit to pray for this gathering throughout the week. The second thing you can do is commit to ready yourself for worship before you come. Super practical stuff. Saturday night, go to bed on time, get a good night's sleep. Get up Sunday morning, wake up early if you need to kind of prepare your heart for worship. It's like going into a workout. You don't want to go in completely cold. You got to do a little bit of a warmup first. So turn on some worship music, spend some time in prayer. If you know the scripture we're going to be talking about today, read it. Meditate on it ahead of time. If you know the songs we're going to be singing, listen to them. Think about the words that we're going to be singing together, but warm your hearts, get yourself ready for worship. Then along with that, and I know this is difficult, but make it a priority to not let other things take place of this on your calendar. I understand, especially as parents, this can be hard. I have had to say no to so many sports and so many birthday parties for my kids, but I can encourage you that one, if you hold a consistent front on that, they just stop asking after a while. They don't even think about it. Of course, we're not going to do that because it's Sunday, we're going to church. But also when you do this, you're showing them that you're saying no to certain things because you're saying yes to something better. You're saying yes to what is really truly best, not just for yourself, but for them to come and to be a part of this. You're showing that you actually believe this and that this is a priority to you and that's going to help it become so much easier for it to be a priority for them as well. So commit to ready yourself for worship and to protect this time. I understand things come up and you're not going to be a hundred percent perfect in this, but you do your best. Third, commit to be here early. Notice I didn't say commit to be here on time and there's a reason for that. Showing up on time is a rookie mistake in Boston. If you leave on time in the city of Boston, you're already late. You know got to leave at least 15 minutes earlier than you think that you need to be, and then maybe perhaps sometimes you'll actually get there on time. But this is really important and I'm going to spend some time on that. I know we've mentioned this a few times over the last couple of weeks, but in the first service I said there's nothing more discouraging than beginning a worship service with an empty room and then seeing it filled up by the time the sermon starts. On a more positive note, there's nothing more encouraging than being here and when the service starts, the room is full and people are ready and everyone's excited to worship together. One of the most encouraging things that we can experience, but it's something we need to do for one another as a church. It's not going to happen by accident. You got to make it a priority. You got to think about it and plan and be intentional. When we say that worship starts at 09:15, just tell yourself, "No it doesn't, it starts at nine o'clock," or 11 o'clock if you come to this service. If you got kids that you need to check into Mini Mo, you got to figure that out and factor that in too. Mini Mosaic opens at nine o'clock and so you can start getting them checked in right at nine o'clock. But it's going to be a blessing to you, to your kids so you're not rushing in, frazzled. They got time to get adjusted and ready for Mini Mosaic. You got time to come upstairs, take a deep breath, get a cup of coffee, say hello to some people. It'll be a game changer. With this, commit to be here early and commit to serve. I don't primarily mean commit to joining a service team, although I think that would be great. We've got tons of opportunities to serve and we're always looking for more people to do that and we're thankful for the people that do. What I mean, though, is come with a servant heart. Show up early with a servant heart, not a consumer mentality. Because when you show up early with a servant's heart, you have the opportunity to do the work of the ministry, to be the church to one another. It's not complicated. Just saying hello and greeting your friends, your presence is such an encouragement to them. On top of that, every week we've got people here at Mosaic that are visiting us for the first time. It's just a reality. People when they visit a church for the first time, it's not a hundred percent of the time, but most of the time they show up early. If you get here early, most of the people in the room, it's like their first time here. You could be the person that goes up, shakes their hands, welcomes them, helps them, maybe invite them to your community group or help them get connected. Somehow you can make a huge difference in someone's life just with some simple changes like that. It's not only you get to be a blessing to others, but you also be an encouragement to the whole church. Just a couple of tips, because I understand it's kind of a big church, there's a lot of people here and so sometimes you're like, "I don't want to go up and say hello to someone because I don't know if they're new or if they've been attending here for five years," because we've all had that awkward conversation of like, "Oh, are you new here?" "No, I've been here longer than you have." So here's a tip. Don't ask somebody if they're new to Mosaic. Go up, shake their hands, say, "Hey, how long have you been coming to Mosaic?" Then if they say, "Hey, this is my first time," great, then you know that and you can help them get connected. If they say, "Hey, I've been going here for five years," well that's great too, glad that we finally met, but it's less awkward. Also, if you see someone walk in, this is just a reality. You see somebody before, after, during the worship service that won't stop staring up at this terrifying thing looming over our heads, that's usually a pretty good sign that they're new to Mosaic too. Because after a few weeks, you get used to it, you forget that it's there. But if you're new, you're walking in, you're like, "Oh my goodness, are we going to die? Is that going to fall on us?" It's been up there for a hundred years, so I think we're good, but a good indication that somebody's new and then especially if they take out their phones, they're taking pictures, go talk to them. Probably their first time here. We call this fishing in the aquarium, right? You're showing up as a missionary and you've got the lowest hanging fruit that you could ask for because God's already done the work of drawing these people here. They're here for a reason. Some of them are looking for a church, maybe they're new to the city, some of them are looking for God. It might be the first time that they've ever been to church. Think about that and have that mindset that you're coming in ready to just be here with a servant's heart and to connect and to encourage one another. Then finally commit to give God your full attention and participation while you're here. If you're doing the other things I mentioned, this part's going to come naturally, you'll be coming in less stressed, less distracted. But the idea is expect that there's a reason that you're here right now, that God in His sovereignty has ordained that you would be here right now. So stay focused and be attentive. If you need to turn your phone off, the world's still going to be here an hour and 15 minutes from now. If the sermon's a little bit long, maybe Jesus will come back before the end of the service. But be it attentive. If we're singing, sing loud, think about the words. If someone's praying, pray along with them in your heart. If someone's preaching, really apply your mind to try to focus, no matter how long and boring the sermon might be, trusting that God is going to use it and that He has something for you that He wants you to understand from His scriptures. If everyone in the room committed to doing these five things, just imagine the energy and the excitement that we would have as we come in, as we worship together even more than we do already right now. Living in this city, just doing life, I understand it can suck the life out of you if you let it. I understand it's easy to kind of stumble in here sometimes half zombified, but I also understand that that's not ideal, that's not healthy and it's not going to change if you don't do something to change it. It's going to take commitment and discipline and planning and forethought, intentionality. But I promise it'll be worth it. It'll be worth it for you, it'll be worth it for the people that you connect with here on Sunday. So fight the busyness, fight the distractions, fight the cynicism of the city and fight to make this a priority, to show up here every week, ready, rested and excited, to serve one another, to be an encouragement to one another into worship together. Point number two. Don't worry, the rest of the points are going to go really fast. The early church was devoted to gathering in the temple for worship. They were also devoted to gathering in homes for fellowship. Says that they day by day attended the temple together and they broke bread in their homes, receiving their food with glad and generous hearts. We're going to talk a little bit more about this in the coming weeks, but just for right now, just what we see here is that as important and as vital as this Sunday gathering is, there are certain shortcomings that come with it, that in a larger gathering like this, it's easy to be anonymous, it's a little harder to make meaningful connections, to have really deep, meaningful life-changing conversations. What we see is that the early church, they met in the temple, but then they also met in smaller groups in their homes. We do this at Mosaic through our community groups. If you've been to another church, maybe you call them small group, fellowship group, life group, whatever. All kind of the same idea where you're getting together outside of Sunday, usually in a home, and it's just a smaller, more intimate environment where you can talk about Sunday and what we learned from the sermon, but it's also a time where you can build those meaningful relationships, where you can pray for one another's specific needs, where you can encourage one another and hold one another accountable as a family. Personally, I've been involved in community group consistently for almost 20 years. My wife and I joined our first group about 19 years ago. We were engaged at the time and I can just say for myself that community groups have been one of the single greatest contributing factors to our health, to our growth, to our sanctification and maturity in the faith. If you're not in a community group, I would challenge you, make that a priority as soon as possible. We've got over 20 groups meet all over the city throughout the week. It should be easy for you to find one that works with your schedule or with your location. We would be happy to help you find that. You can stop by the welcome center. People there could show you a map and help you figure out what might work best for you. You can also find that information all on our website. But the early church was devoted to gathering in their homes for fellowship. Third, with this, they were devoted and we see this, they were sharing their lives sacrificially. We're told that verse 44, "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," just freely sharing their lives with one another, meeting one another's needs. It kind of builds off the last point. What you see is that the early church clearly had something going on that was deeper than what we think about as friendship. What they had was fellowship, right? The beginning of Acts, it said that they devoted themselves to the fellowship and fellowship, it's not something that is built around just shared hobbies or interest. It's deeper than that. Fellowship is something that is built around a shared commitment to a vision, a mission, a goal, a purpose, and this is what drove the early church to therefore with that freely share their lives with one another so sacrificially. I mentioned this earlier, that we like to try to think about Mosaic as being more like a battleship and less like a cruise ship. Cruises are great. I've been on a cruise, they're fun. You might make some acquaintances on a cruise and you have a good time, but fellowship is built on battleships. Fellowship is something that is forged in the heat of battle through these deep, meaningful bonds. That's where they're formed, where people are accountable to one another and where they're constantly counting on one another and they're working together towards something bigger than themselves. Think of it like this. If you're thinking about church like a cruise, you show up to a cruise and you expect to be served and entertained by the crew. If you're not, you're disappointed. When you get on a battleship, you are the crew. We're all the crew. When you get on a cruise, you go around, you have a good time and you end up right back where you started. When you get on a battleship, you go out with a mission to accomplish and to accomplish together. This is what creates that fellowship where you're like, "We're ready to sacrifice for one another," because we know if one part of the body is hurting, we're all hurting. If one member of the body is wounded, we all feel the pain. When one member of the body wins, we all celebrate that victory together, that we're all in this together. In the early church, they were devoted to sharing their lives sacrificially and then finally we see in this passage they were devoted to sharing the gospel expectantly. Says verse 47, "Having favor with all the people and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." This doesn't mean that they weren't met with any hardships. When you look at the New Testament, you see that the early church clearly expected two things that were seemingly contradictory things to happen as they went out on mission and shared the gospel. On the one hand, they expected sinners to reject Jesus, and on the other hand, they expected Jesus to save sinners. This shouldn't be a surprise to us because this is what Jesus told us to expect. He taught us this in the Sermon of the Mountain. Matthew 5, it says in verse 10, "Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed you and others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." It says, "Rejoice and be glad for greatest your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." But He says, "But you are the salt of the earth. If the salt is lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet." It says, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on its stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who's in heaven." If you follow me and if you preach this gospel, Jesus tells us that you should expect that some people are going to hate you. They're going to slander you and they're going to persecute you. He says, "But don't let that discourage you. Don't let that cause you to lose your saltiness." Instead, He says, "Rejoice and be glad. Keep on shining that light." This is the same light that's going to blind those who love the darkness, it's going to shine like a beacon of hope to those that God is drawing to Himself, that they're going to see it and they're going to give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Charles Spurgeon said ... I'm not a hundred percent sure that he said this, but this is commonly attributed to him, that's what a big deal he was as a preacher. There's a quote that is attributed to him where he says this, that "The same sun which melts the wax hardens the clay. And the same gospel which melts some persons to repentance, hardens others in their sin." It's not our duty to do the hardening or to do the softening. That is up to the sovereignty of God. Our duty is to shine the light of the gospel together in faith and trust that as we do that, even if we face opposition, that Jesus will save. The early church believed this. They were committed to sharing the gospel, expecting that despite the opposition that Jesus was going to save. If you come back over the next couple of weeks, we're going to dive into this in more detail. Two weeks from now, we're going to talk about being committed to discipleship. Next week we're going to talk about being committed to evangelism. I'm excited to get into those topics with you and just look at some of the practical implications of those. But my challenge to you for today is just this. If you've committed to follow Jesus, then commit to a local church. If not Mosaic, then another Bible-believing, like-minded, Jesus-loving following, gospel proclaiming church. Commit to a local church. If you are committed to a local church, if you're already a member at Mosaic, well this would be a good time to just kind of take an evaluation of that commitment. This is something we as Christians should do routinely, just evaluate our lives. Consider the practical things that we talked about today and if you need to just go home this week and grade your level of commitment. "Have I been making worship the priority that it should be? Have I been making my participation in worship the priority that it should be? Have I been making my community group the priority that it should be? Am I showing up there ready to love and serve and encourage those people and ready to receive them as they do the same for me?" If you find yourself right now bored with church, I would challenge you to consider that it's not church that you're bored with, but perhaps what you're bored with is consumeristic cruise ship Christianity type church. It's a lot more exciting to be on board the battleship that Jesus calls us to, that He is calling for all hands on deck. If you hear that call that I pray today that you would answer that call and I would invite you to come and to get on board and to join us and be part of this mission as we work together here at Mosaic. With that being said, let's pray and we will spend some time worshiping God together. God, we thank you for making us a family, brothers and sisters saved by the blood of our big brother, your son, Jesus Christ. God, we also thank you for calling us into your family business, for calling us as a church to your mission and for bringing us on board this battleship. I pray, Lord, that as your word reminds us, our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our battle is against the spiritual forces of darkness, against Satan, against sin, against the lies and temptations of the enemy. Your word tells us that our weapons are spiritual and divine, in nature. Even now, Lord, our worship is a weapon that we can wheel to push back the forces of darkness as we together sing and proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. Lord, I pray right now that we would sing these words from our hearts knowing that they are true, because we know that you are our heavenly Father, that you love us, because we know that your Holy Spirit is working in and through us, and because we know that your son, Jesus Christ, is with us, that He is building His church and that he has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Lord, you alone are God. You alone have the power to save. You alone are worthy of our praise and so we give you our praise right now together, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.
Commit to Follow Jesus
January 22, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Acts 2:22–41
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Lord Jesus, as we just sang, when we walk with you, Lord, in the light of your word, what glory you shed on our way. While we do your good will, you abide with us still, and with all who will trust and obey, and in fellowship suite, we will sit at your feet, or we will walk by your side in the way. What you say we will do, and where you send, we will go. Never fear, only trust and obey. Jesus, I pray that you would help our minds to understand, and our hearts, to believe that true happiness is found in you. The good life, that we are all long for, that we're all after, a life of purpose and meaning of peace and joy and fulfillment, it is offered to all who commit to follow Jesus Christ, to walk with you and the obedience of faith that we've just studied over the last year in the book of Romans, Lord. Lord, I pray that every soul here would come to experience the fullness of what it means to be happy in Jesus. It's in His name that we pray. Amen. Well, it's kind of a bittersweet morning after a really good long year in the book of Romans, we are turning to a new sermon series today in this new series that we're starting, we've called Committed: Essential Habits of an Abundant Life. This is going to take us from now all the way until Easter. I'm really praying that this is a blessing to God, a blessing to our church, a blessing to each one of you. The big idea of the series is simply this, that Jesus Christ said that I have come to give them life and to give them life to the full. Other translations say to give them abundant life. Jesus gives this as a gift. It's not something we have to earn. It's something that is given to us on account of what he has done for us. But it is a gift that we are never going to fully experience and enjoy unless we commit our lives to follow him in obedience and faith. It's like hopefully you got some good gifts. You're coming out of the holiday season. Hopefully you got a good gift or two over a Christmas. It's one thing to get a gift, but it's a whole lot more fun if you actually take it out of the box and play with it. You don't just set it on the shelf and look at it from time to time. You've got to do something with it. Christianity is a whole lot more fun when you don't just set Jesus on the shelf, don't just invite him into your life once in a while or on Sunday mornings, but you've got to take him out. You've got to do something with him. You got to walk with him in obedience and faith. I asked Caleb kind of last minute if we could sing that old hymn, Trust and Obey, because it really sums up the big idea of where we're going with this series, that to be happy in Jesus is to trust and obey. We all want the good life. We all want a happy life. I'm not talking about a life that's full of pleasures and comforts, right? We know that you don't have to look very hard to find people who are surrounded by comforts and pleasures and yet their lives are miserable. They feel meaningless and depressed. No, deep down, we're longing for something deeper than just comfort or pleasure. We long for purpose. We long for meaningful relationships. I would argue that whether you fully understand this or not, you long for that meaningful relationship, not just with the people around you, but you long for it with your creator. You long to feel the love and the approval of a heavenly Father and to live in his presence, to go where he goes and to do what he does. As a father and myself, I have two kids and I can tell you that one of the most satisfying experiences in my kids' life is when they get to go to work with their dad. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be something as simple as washing the dishes, taking out the trash, shoveling the snow, but just to be with me and to feel that they're doing something important, accomplishing something meaningful. They love that. They long for it. We long for that with God as well. How do we get there? How do we live this good, this satisfying life? We get there by committing to a life of obedience and faith in Jesus Christ. I say committing, because we all know that good intentions aren't good enough. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's easy to have a vision for who you want to be, for where you want to go, or for what you want to do, but that vision isn't going to get you anywhere unless it's accompanied by a couple of other things. First of all, having a good vision isn't going to get you to where you want to go unless you also have a strong motivation. Why do I urgently need to be that person, get to that place, accomplish that whatever. Your vision and your motivation, really most importantly, what you need along with those is a strong commitment to make sure that you get there. That vision and motivation without commitment, it's like going on a journey without a map. You might be excited to get to where you want to go, but if you don't have a fixed course of action to know how you're going to get there, you just end up driving in circles. And so we need that vision, we need that motivation, and then we need to make that commitment: to stay the course, to follow the right path, to not get distracted along the way, to not get discouraged along the way, and to keep pressing on that goal, no matter how hard it gets, no matter what stands in our way. There's going to be difficulties. Anything worth doing is going to be hard. But this is the example that Jesus set. This is the example that he calls us to follow. This is Hebrews 12:1. Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay us aside every weight and sin which clings us so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him, who endured such hardship from sinners such hostility against himself, that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. For some of you, what I hope, what I'm praying, is that this series would compel you to count the cost of following Jesus for the first time. Not so that you see the cost and that you're scared away, but so that you count it and you see how worthy it is so that you commit to follow him, to run this race with endurance, knowing that it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it. For others, maybe you've been running the race and you're tired. You feel your endurance being tested. Your pace has slowed, and if you're honest with yourself, you're not following Jesus as closely as you once did. I hope this series helps you to refix your eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. Then some of you, by God's grace, you're running well, your hearts are on fire and you just need to know how do I keep this pace? How do I keep running? How do I keep my endurance? How do I maybe even stoke or fan this into an even greater passion and even greater flame? My hope is that this series would serve as kind of a training program for your soul. That these are the commitments that we need to make, the habits that we need to instill in our lives so that we can continue pressing on, progressing in our spiritual maturity and health. Over the next 11 weeks, we're going to be taking a look at some of the essential non-negotiable, super practical commitments that every single Christian needs to make in order to grow in their faith, in order to persevere through the trials and the difficulties of life, in order to fulfill God's purpose and calling on your life, and in order to truly experience and to enjoy this abundant life that Jesus came to give. We're starting our series today with the first and most important commitment, that every single one of us we need to make at a certain point in time, but then we also need to continually make every day thereafter. The title of today's sermon is just simply this, Commit to Follow Jesus. Commit to follow Jesus Christ. In John 10, Jesus said, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and he'll go in and out and he'll find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. This is the life that he promises, and how do we experience that? He tells us a little bit later on in verse 27, he says, this is how my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hands. If you have your Bibles, open up to Acts 2. We're going to be looking at verses 22 through 41. This is the birth of the church. The context is the Holy Spirit has just been poured out on the disciples. They're hiding behind the locked doors. The spirit is poured out. All of a sudden they burst out into the street, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, they begin preaching the gospel. Out in the streets what you find is people from all over the Roman Empire had gathered in the city of Jerusalem in order to celebrate the Pentecost. And so, the disciples go out into the streets, they begin preaching the gospel, and the crowds are amazed because they miraculously hear the disciples preaching, all of them in their own native tongues and from a variety of languages as people from all over the empire had gathered here. And in the midst of this, the apostle Peter, he stands up and he preaches the sermon that we're going to look at today. As a result, what we're told is that 3000 souls get saved, that 3000 people repent of their sin, turn and commit their lives to following Jesus Christ, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's the context. We're going to be looking at kind of the second half of Peter's sermon from Acts 2, beginning in verse 22. Peter says this, men of Israel hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs, that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up. Loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it, David says concerning him, and he quotes from the Psalms. I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoice and my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades. Whether your holy ones see corruption, you have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died, and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. But being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of its descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. That he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They said to Peter and to the rest of the apostle's, 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. For the promises for you and for your children, all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. Those who received his word were baptized and they were added that day, about 3000 souls. This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. This is my hope and my prayer for you, that as these 3000 did, that you would commit your life to follow Jesus Christ, some of you perhaps for this first time, but all of us with a deeper commitment, with a deeper passion and devotion. Peter gives us three compelling reasons in this sermon for why we should follow Jesus Christ. The first and the most obvious reason is that we should follow Christ because he is the risen Lord. A lot of people say like, oh, I would believe in God if he would just come down and show himself, reveal himself. Let me tell you a little about Jesus Christ. That's exactly what he did. He came down in the flesh. Jesus Christ is the son of God, the Messiah, fully God, fully man, second person of the triune God. He is the Lord. He is Yahweh come taking on human form. In other words, we follow Jesus because Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be. And who did Jesus claim to be? On John 10, we have this story. In verse 24, we're told that some of the Jews gathered around him. They said, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and you didn't believe me. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you're not among my sheep. This is where he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. The Father who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. And then he says, I and the father are one. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered, for I've shown you many good works from the Father, of which of these are you going to stone me? And the Jews answered, it is not for good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you being a man make yourself God. Jesus claimed to be God. He was not merely some confused carpenter as some people would say. He wasn't just some nice moral teacher who kind of taught us to get along and to love one another. If that's all that Jesus was, if that's all that he was, then why would he have been crucified? And historically we know that Jesus Christ was, he's a real historical figure, and historically we know that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Even non-Christian scholars now readily admit that the evidence is there, that Jesus Christ is not just myth or legend. He was a historical figure, a real person, in that he really was crucified in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. We're not going to have time to get into all of that today, but if you're curious to learn more about the historical evidence of Jesus' life and death and resurrection, I preached a sermon on this a few years ago called Jesus Among our Doubts. You can go to our website. You can go to YouTube. That whole sermon kind of in 50 minutes unpacks and looks at some of the historical evidence for why it is not just reasonable but probable that Jesus Christ really did live. He really did die. He really did rise from the dead. The question is not was Jesus crucified. We know historically this is true. The question is why. Why would this nice man, this good moral teacher, need to be put to death executed in such a gruesome manner? We see why. The reason we just saw is because this guy claimed to be God. Peter here in this sermon gives us three pieces of evidence as to why those claims were actually true. Now, the first piece of evidence Peter points to is that of the miracles of Jesus Christ. Jesus was known as a worker of miracles. In verse 22, he says, men of Israel hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. Everybody knew. Word had spread all over the region about this Jesus and the miracles that he did. The religious leaders, they may have hated it, but they couldn't deny it. And so, what are they to do with this man who's healing the sick and giving sight to the blind, who is walking on water, who was calming the storm in the raging sea? This guy who even raised a man from the dead. We're told in the following chapter in John 11, that after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, we were told that many of the Jews therefore who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. The chief priest in the Pharisees gathered the council and said, what are we to do, for this man performs many signs, and if we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. And then the Romans will come and take away both our place, our position of authority and power, and they'll take away our nation. And then a little bit further on in verse 53, it says so therefore from that day on, they made plans to put Jesus to death. Jesus was a worker of miracles, and everybody knew this. He did things that no human being could do and that really no human being could explain. The second evidence that Peter gives us comes from Jesus' fulfillment of prophecy. He gives us just one example here in this text. Verse 23 says Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men, but God raised him up loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it, for David says concerning him. This was not a surprise to God, that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was part of God's will God, the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, which God had revealed to King David more than a thousand years earlier and that David in Psalm 16 prophesied about when he talked about verse 27, my soul not being abandoned to Hades, you're not going to let your holy one see corruption. Well, as Peter says in verse 29, brothers, I can tell you with confidence about David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. Clearly he wasn't talking about himself, but verse 30, being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. That David was looking forward prophetically writing about the resurrection of the Christ, of Jesus Christ. Now, this is just one example, but if you study the Hebrew scriptures, there are hundreds of prophecies, illusions, references to the Messiah of what he would do, of who he would be, and Jesus Christ fulfilled them all. You can go down like crazy rabbit holes of statistics on this, but out of the hundreds of prophecies that we have in the Old Testament, there are 60 or 70 or so that are considered to be major prophecies. The chances of one individual fulfilling even a small handful of these major prophecies is so astronomically, statistically ... it's unfathomable that anyone could do and fulfill even 5, 6, 7, 8 of these prophecies. And yet Jesus Christ fulfilled every single one. Peter gives us just this one example, that again, points to the Lordship of Christ. But this example itself is also another piece of evidence. It's not just that Jesus performed miracles. It's not just that he fulfilled prophecy. He also rose from the dead, Jesus' death and resurrection, something that was foretold not just by King David, but by Jesus himself. He said, I will rise again in three days. Next, chapter two, verse 32 says this Jesus God raised up, and Peter says, and of that, we are all witnesses. This wasn't something that just kind of happened in secret in a corner somewhere. Peter's making it clear, we're not talking about Jesus figuratively rising from the dead, spiritually in some sense. We're not just saying that his memory or his legacy or his teachings live on in us. No, he's saying Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead in a resurrected body and and we are witnesses to it. In fact, there were hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some will say, well, yeah, but people can say whatever they want. It doesn't mean that it's true. But what makes the testimony of these early disciples so compelling is not just what they claimed, but that these people were willing to suffer to the point of persecution, the punishment, even death, rather than recant their claims that they saw Jesus Christ rise from the dead. Right? We know that the Apostle John was punished, was exiled to the island of Patmos for his testimony. We know that every single one of the other apostles died a brutal martyr's death because they refused to deny that they really had seen Jesus Christ raise from the dead. The early church endured severe persecution at times because they refused to deny that Jesus really truly rose physically in a body and we saw it. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 15. He says I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas. That's Peter. Then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. You can go talk to them right now, he says. You can ask them what they saw. He says though some of them have died, some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles, and last of all, as the one untimely born, Paul says, he appeared also to me. Jesus performed miracles. He fulfilled prophecy. He rose from the dead. Then the final piece of evidence we see that Peter gives us here is that after this, he ascended to the right hand of God and he poured the Holy Spirit out on his church. This is verse 32 and 33, that this Jesus God raised up and of that we are all witnesses, and being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father of the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. Peter says, "You want proof? Just look around. Look at what is happening before your eyes right in this very moment, on the day of Pentecost." We stand here, Peter, an uneducated fisherman, boldly preaching this gospel message, as people from all over the empire hear him miraculously speaking to them in their own language. He's like, "You're seeing a miracle of the Holy Spirit. You're experiencing it right now." For those of you who are maybe on the fence about Christianity, along with these other pieces of evidence, I would challenge you to do what he's saying, calling on the crowd to do right now. Look around. Look around this room. Get to know some of the people in this room. Ask them about their stories. Ask them what has the Holy Spirit done in your life. What evidence is there of his work in your life? Because I can tell you that there are people in this room whose lives have been miraculously transformed: addictions that have been broken, marriages that have been restored, miraculous healings that the doctors couldn't explain, but we can explain them, because we serve the living God, the creator of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ is Lord and he's here, and his Holy Spirit is working in his church. Get to know some of these people. Ask them to tell them you their testimonies. We commit to follow Jesus because he is the risen Lord, and these things have proven that to be true. But secondly, we also follow Jesus because he's our merciful savior. He is both Lord and Savior. That's important. It's not enough to just merely know Jesus' identity or to agree to the facts, to the reality that he is God, that he is Lord. Because as James tells us in James 2:19, it's like you believe that God is one you do well, that good for you. But don't you know even the demons believe and they shutter? Peter continues in 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. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They said to Peter and to 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. As Peter preaches, the crowd hears that Jesus is Lord. They believe it to be true. But more than that, they are cut to the heart. That it's not just an intellectual acceptance of the facts that Jesus rose from the dead and proved to be God. It's more than that. They are convicted. They feel a heartfelt remorse. Now why? Because suddenly they realize that yeah, Jesus is Lord, and we crucified him. Verse 36, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. A few verses earlier, verse 23, Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified by the hands of lawless men. The lawless men that Peter's talking about, it's the Pontius Pilate. Right? The Jews, the religious leaders didn't have the authority to have Jesus executed, and so they get Rome involved to do their dirty work. And so, is Peter just placing the blame for Jesus' death here on the Jews? No, that's not what's going on. If you remember the context, the Jewish people that are here in the crowd that Peter is preaching to, they've just gathered in the city to celebrate Pentecost, people that have come from all over the Roman Empire. Most of them weren't even in town when Jesus was crucified. How could they have crucified Jesus? If they hadn't been directly involved in the crucifixion of Jesus, then why are they cut to the heart? That's what you need to ask. The reason is because they understood. It wasn't the Romans that killed Jesus. It wasn't the Jews that crucified Jesus. It was them. It was us. It was you and it was me. That Jesus wasn't being punished for his own crimes before Rome. He was innocent. Even Pontius Pilate admitted that, washes his hands, I say find no fault and guilt in this man. Jesus wasn't being punished for his own crimes before Rome, he was being punished for our crimes, our sin before God. That he went to the cross and account of their sin, of your sin, of my sin, and they're cut to the heart because they understood this. This is what we all need to understand personally, that Jesus died for your sins and for mine. Have you ever watched the Passion of the Christ. The movie came out when I was in college. I remember Kelly and I, we were dating at the time, and we actually went and we watched it in the movie theater. I have never experienced anything like that. The experience of walking out of that movie theater when the movie was over was just silence. Nobody knew what to say. The gravity of what Jesus did just left every single person in the room speechless. The price that he paid so that we could be forgiven, it was chilling. It was sobering. One of the things that always stands out to me when I think about that movie was Mel Gibson who directed it, he shared in an interview that he wanted to make a cameo in the film. The only scene where you can be seen, you can't see his face, you can't see his body, but it was the moment, Jesus' body is bloody and broken and bruised. They lay him on that rugged cross. Mel Gibson says, "In that scene, you can see that it is my hands that are holding the nails as they're pounded into the hands and feet of Jesus Christ." That he wanted to communicate and he wanted to commemorate this reality, that he knew on a personal level that Jesus died because of him. That it wasn't the Romans or the Jews that killed him, that Jesus died for me, not just because of me, but for me. That it was my sin that held him there. That this was the price he paid so that I could be forgiving. Jesus didn't merely come as Lord. He came as Lord and as Savior, as the Christ, the Messiah. He did not die according to the schemes of man alone, but Peter says he died according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Think about that, that before the foundation of the earth was laid, an eternity passed, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they knew that this day would come. They planned it together. That this is what it was going to cost us to love our creation. This is the price that would need to be paid to save people from their sins. That Jesus would have to come, not just as a shepherd, but as the good shepherd. The shepherd who lays down his life to save the sheep, as the sacrificial lamb of God, who by his own blood shed on the cross, would take away the sins of the world to redeem God's elect. Jesus seeing every one of us, long before you were born, he knew you, everything about you. He could see every sin you've ever committed and every sin that you will ever commit. He knew it all and yet he still chose to love you and to give himself up for you. To go to that cross, to pay the penalty that our sin deserves. The crowd sees and they feel this reality for the first time. In verse 37 it says when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They say, brothers, what shall we do? I'm praying that right now, some of you are asking that. We've rebelled against the holy loving, perfect, innocent creator of the universe, that God came and showed himself to us, and we crucified him. What shall we do? What could we possibly hope to do to write this wrong? Thankfully Peter tells us right away, he just says repent and be baptized. Every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He says this promise is for you, and for your children, all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. This promise is for you, that Jesus died for your sins. Now, how do we respond to this? Well, Peter says first of all, Jesus died for your sins, therefore repent. Repentance, if you're not familiar with the word, it's not really a word we use very often in our culture today. It just simply means that you turn around. You're walking this direction, living life your way, you turn around and you begin following Jesus, living life God's way. You reverse course to follow Jesus Christ. That when the Holy Spirit regenerates your heart, when Jesus Christ gives you the gift of faith, when those lights are turned on, when you're cut to the heart, you should feel remorse as they did. But that remorse should lead you to repentance. Not to run away from God, but to turn to God in faith and to run and to embrace him. You embrace Christ as your Lord and savior. Repentance, it's not just something that we do once, it's something we do continually, day after day. We take up our cross. We follow Jesus. We continue to repent and submit our lives to Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, he's faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In Romans 13:14, we read the Apostle Paul says put on the Lord Jesus Christ to make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. I like that imagery of putting on Christ, that the act of repentance, of faith, of committing your life to Jesus Christ, I've heard it described its kind of like putting on Christ is like putting on a parachute. Right? It's one thing to say that you understand how the parachute works and that it exists. It's another thing to claim that you trust it. The question is, when it's time to jump as the plane's going down, are you actually going to put the thing on, strap in, and hold on for dear life? That if you know who God is and if you trust that Jesus Christ can save, then you put on Christ and you jump. You live this life of repentance and faith, that yes, Jesus, I am going to follow you wherever you go. Jesus died for your sins, therefore repent. Then next, Peter says and be baptized. What is baptism? Literally the word just means to be immersed. It's like to be plunged underwater. All right? It is something that Jesus commanded us to do as his disciples, and as we say around mosaic, what is baptism? Baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality. It doesn't save us, but it shows that we were saved. It's an outward sign of an inward reality in which we publicly reenact what Jesus has done for us. Romans 6:1 says what then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can have died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. This is what baptism symbolizes. Baptism symbolizes that just as Jesus died and was buried, that when we repent and put our faith in him, when we commit our lives to Jesus Christ, that we are dying to our old life, our old life of sin, of living in the flesh. We are buried under the waters of baptism. Then we are raised up out of the waters of baptism to symbolize that just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, we too had been raised to walk in this newness of life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not only that, but we also live life now with this expected anticipation that Christ is going to return to make all things new, and when he does, we will be given physically resurrected, glorified bodies then as well for all of eternity. That's what baptism symbolizes. Now, the second question is if that's what baptism is, who should be baptized? The answer is just simply only those for who this symbol is true. If this symbol is true for you, that Christ has saved you, he's raised you to this new life, then you should be baptized. Everyone who has made a commitment to repent and put their faith in Christ to follow him as Lord and Savior should get baptized. Jesus commanded this. All right? It is a blessing to you as a believer. It is an encouragement to the church. And it is a testimony to the world, that you didn't save yourself, that Jesus Christ saved you and gave you new life. And so if you haven't been baptized, you should get baptized. And you should do it soon. Ideally, this is the first act of obedience to a follower of Christ when a person comes into faith. And so if you haven't been baptized yet, we would love to talk to you. Get connected to us somehow. Pastor Andy and I will be up here after the service. We'd love to talk to you about baptism. Pastor Andy routinely leads a baptism class where you can learn more about baptism and how we do that, but definitely encourage you to do that. You can mark that on your connection card if that's easier. Talk to somebody at the welcome center. Whatever you need to do, encourage you to do that. Jesus died for your sins, therefore repent and be baptized. Then 3 Peter says, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Repentance is something we do. Baptism is something that is done to us. We don't baptize ourselves. We're baptized by someone else as a symbol of what Jesus has done for us. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift that we receive. This is something that every Christian receives at the moment of salvation. The moment that you put your faith in Christ, repent of your sins, and commit to follow him, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You look in the Book of Acts and you realize if you've read through Acts. Yeah, there's some weird exceptions to this where some of the believers in the beginning days of the church didn't receive the Holy Spirit until a little bit later. But as the teaching of the apostles to the church was established, it becomes clear that those cases were unique. But that what is normal and what we should expect is that every believer has the Holy Spirit and received the Holy Spirit the moment that they were saved. The Holy Spirit is a gift. It's a gift that can't be taken away from you. It's a gift that can't be lost. It's a gift you can't return. That Jesus says, no one will snatch you out of my hands. But it is important to understand that our experience of the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, while the Holy Spirit can't be taken away, that our experience of his power and presence is something that can be quenched. The scripture talks about this, that when we grieve, the Holy Spirit through pride, through stubbornness, through unrepentant sin, you can quench the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if you are in Christ, you have received the Holy Spirit. Therefore, now walk in the Spirit. Live in the power and in the presence of the Holy Spirit. We commit to follow Jesus because he is the risen Lord. We've looked at the evidence for that. We commit to follow Jesus because he is the merciful savior, and we've seen how we should respond to that. Then finally, before we close, we commit to follow Jesus because he is our beautiful inheritance. We kind of skimmed over this earlier. But before I close, I want to kind of quickly go back to the Psalm that Peter was quoting in his sermon. As in Acts chapter 2:25 through 28, peter quotes a Psalm of David in order to show that David was prophetically writing about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it's clear, however, when you read that psalm that David was not only talking about what was true for Christ, he is also prophetically writing about what is true and about what will be true for all of us who are in Christ. And so as I close, I want to read that psalm for us as an encouragement to us this morning. This is Psalm 16, beginning in verse one. King David writes this. It says, Preserve me, oh God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord and I have no good apart from you. As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply their drink offerings of blood. I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel, in the night also my heart and instructs me. Upset the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand. I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption. And make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. This is a glimpse of the good life that the good shepherd came to give, of the abundant life that Jesus promised. It's a life that we live in the presence and in the pleasure of our God and Father. It's a life that we can experience and enjoy in part right now as we turn and trust and follow Jesus and walk in the Holy Spirit. But it is also a life that we will fully inherit, that we will most perfectly enjoy in the future and for all of eternity when Christ, our good shepherd, returns. As surely as Christ was raised from the dead, we live with the expectation, the anticipation, and the hope that when he returns, he's going to raise us up as well with him to share in his beautiful inheritance. That for all of eternity, we will be with our Lord and Savior and see him face to face. That as the psalmist wrote there in his presence, there will be fullness of joy, and at his right hand will be pleasures forevermore. Listen, if you want to commit to follow Jesus Christ and to begin this new life today, I want you to pray right now as I close. I want you to cry out to God in repentance and faith. God promises that all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be saved, and so ask him to save you. Also, if you have chosen to make that commitment, would you please let us know? Please talk to us. Every week we have people that mark out on the little connection card that I've committed my life to Christ today or have recommitted my life to Christ this week, but not very many of those people follow up with us. We want to get to know you. We want to talk with you. We want to pray with you. We want to answer any questions that you might have. We want to talk about why baptism is important, why it's important, and why it's going to be a tremendous blessing for you to get plugged into a community group to begin building some meaningful relationships here at church. Because you're going to need people around you to support you, to love you, to care for you, to hold you accountable. We're going to talk a whole lot more about that next week, but for now, if you've made this decision, please come talk to us. Members of our prayer team will be up here after service. Pastor Andy and myself will be over here. You can mark that on your card and we'll try to follow up with you. You can talk to people at the welcome center. Whatever you need to do, we just want to talk to you and we want to pray for you. Jesus told us that when every time one single sinner repents, that there is rejoicing among God and among the angels in heaven, that this is a big deal. We want to know about it. We want to celebrate it with you and want to do whatever we can to help you as you commit to this life of following Christ. All right. That being said, let's spend some time in prayer and then we're going to spend some time just praising God together for his amazing grace toward us. Let's pray. God, we just thank you and we praise you for the mystery and the majesty of your gospel, of your plan of salvation. It's hard for us to grasp the greatness of your love for us, that you would send your son, your beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us, to save us from sin and death and to offer us this abundant life, a life that we know is not going to be easy, but we also see is going to be worth it. That Jesus, you are truly worthy of all of our praise and devotion and allegiance and obedience, and it is so good to follow you together, our good shepherd, and to worship you together right now. Lord, I pray that as we continue and worship and as we sing these songs, that the sound of our praise would be pleasing to your ears and that would bring joy to your heart. Lord, we love you. We praise You. In the name of your Son and the power of your Holy Spirit, we worship you together now. Amen.