A Call to Steadiness and Readiness
April 28, 2024 • Andy Hoot • Mark 13:24–37
And so today, given the passage, I cannot jump into every detail of the passage, but what I do want to do is take a broad sweep of the passage and bring out the primary thrust of what Jesus wants us to take away as we discuss the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the end of times, his second coming. And just want to say this comes in between ... We have community groups that meet every week. They discuss the sermons. And we do know when the end of times get brought up as people gather over the word, there's often confusion, disagreement. And so I'm trying to bring us to a simple, clear understanding of this chapter after maybe some people are coming out of last week with a little bit of confusion. I say Pasture Jan's presentation on those verses, I was chewing on it all week, was masterful from my studied perspective as someone who somehow had the blessing to go to seminary and read books for three years. But yeah, we're trying to bring clarity on this topic and bring out the main thrust. Let me read God's word. Mark 13 verses 24 to 27 to start us off. Mark 13 verses 24 through 37. "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near at the very gates. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. "But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge each with his work and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore, stay awake. For you do not know when the master of the house will come. In the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning. Lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all. Stay awake. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of the Lord remains forever." Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you today living in a world full of wars and rumors of wars. Full of much conflict and confusion. Today we come to you with thanksgiving, that you have given us your word, the rock, the one, the only true place that a person can firmly stand. We pray that as we open your word, that it would bring courage to our hearts and strength to our feeble bodies. That we would go from this place renewed and invigorated to serve you and to face whatever may come in our lives with hope that you are behind it and that you will be with us through it. Grant us your peace and steadfastness for the journey to come. We come to you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. It's been a really special year with my middle child. My daughter, Clara. She's been three years old. She'll be four in a couple of months. And what's been really fun to experience with Clara in the season of life at three and a half is her engagement with holidays. Moving from age two to three throughout the past year now and closer to four, she started to remember her celebration of holidays in the past and to start look forward to celebrating them again in the future. And so with Christmas last year, six months out, five, four, three, two, one months out from Christmas, she was talking about Christmas all the time. She was asking, "Is Christmas today?" Just waking up and asking that several months out, multiple days a week. Asking how soon it will come. And she was planning to receive presents of course. And thankfully she was planning to give presents, not just receive. And because we couldn't celebrate it at the time, she was wrapping presents and giving them to her stuffies well in advance of the day. And Clara's excitement for the day was contagious. But more than that, her excitement and expectations around that day gave her a superpower. It gave her a willingness to endure anything that came her way until Christmas Day came. What was most amazing prior to Christmas occurred on Christmas Eve. And if you remember that Christmas Eve, it was a Sunday this year and so we had one service here at Mosaic and after service we packed up my Honda Odyssey. And I don't call it a minivan. It's just that great. It's an Odyssey. A very special vehicle. Minivan, Odyssey life is not as bad as its rep gets sometimes. But we packed up our Odyssey. And the miracle of the day that Clara's expectation around Christmas brought her through was that she endured a seven and a half hour ride from Boston to my parents' place outside of Philadelphia without a stop. And she was perfectly peaceful, perfectly content because she knew what was about to come. She knew that Christmas was tomorrow. She knew that she was going to celebrate Jesus' birthday. She knew that she was going to receive presents as part of that celebration. She knew that she was going to give presents. She was going to spend the day with her loved ones. We don't get to see my parents, my siblings that much. She knew that there was going to be a feast. And so Clara was ready to endure anything. So seven and a half hours. Even if it was just the five-hour trip, which is the fastest time you can get between here and Philadelphia, if she stayed peaceful for that amount of time, that would've been the Christmas miracle and the expression of her superpower. And Clara's fascination with the end and the reward that came with it helped her through her present situations. It gave her resilience to face anything as her hopes and expectations where she knew what was about to come as we formed them, as she reflected on her experiences that we gave her at Christmas in the past. And so I've thought about this. What's refreshed my mind had me thinking about this in recent weeks really the past couple months is her birthday's in a couple of months. And so since Christmas there's been a lot of waking up, "Daddy, is my birthday today?" And just a repeat. So she's been blowing out fake cakes and giving presents to her stuffies in preparation as she waits that day. I discussed Clara's typical childish fascination with Christmas and her birthday as an illustration. I bring it up for a couple of reasons. First, I mentioned this fascination to point out her childlike faith. We are going to speak in a specific topic on Christ's return and the end of times. But before we do that, I want to remind us of a broader principle of the kingdom of God that Jesus mentioned earlier on in Mark. What Clara exhibits around the day of Christmas, the expectations and hopes around it that we formed and set for her, she exhibits childlike faith. It's a sure fact that it's going to be as good as she thinks it is. And we need to have such faith as we walk through life and the kingdom. Mark 10: 14 and 15 says, "Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them. For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." So Clara expects us to deliver on Christmas and her birthday, and that gives her superpowers to endure what is to come. And we as Christians, the Lord tells us of a specific day like the end of times and Christ's return as the same day. And we need to let him form our expectations around that topic. And there are going to be details that are not going to be perfectly clear. There are going to be questions around that day. And we can get lost in the pursuit of those answers. We can rest upon what the Lord has made clear in setting the expectations for us around that day. We can have childlike faith that our heavenly father has told us what we need to know as the day of the Lord comes. So we need to have childlike faith as we open up this topic a little bit more. But further, I want to just say Clara's fascination with Christmas ... We're in a topic today that there's a lot of fascination as we discuss the end of times. And while Clara's experienced her fascination with Christmas and her hopes and expectations around it, it's something that gives her joy, it gives her stamina, it gives her hope to face the present as she waits that day. Unfortunately, this topic on the day of Christ's return, it's something that really breeds the opposite response in us. A lot of times we naturally as Christians, we're interested in this day. For surely we await the benefits that come with the moment of Christ's return. We can't wait to be free. See this creation, see our flesh free from the power and influence of Satan. Free from the power of influence of sin. We can't wait to see an end natural disasters and wars. But we tend to take up this topic as a church and it really breeds a lot of anxiety and paranoia. It's because we're trying to go beyond what the Lord has told us and as he set our expectations in scripture. And so without a doubt, there's a fascination within the church about the end of time and when it will come and the manner in which it will come. It rarely leads to any good. And if anyone has been in the church for a while, I just want to elaborate on this. A lot of people, if you're in a church for a month or a year, you know the tendency for Christians. At a Christian gathering, people might be talking about faith, repentance, belief, obedience to Jesus Christ, how to apply just God's word to day-to-day life. But the end of times gets brought up and one little detail, one little hint of it, and it can derail the whole discussion. Everybody knows if you've been in a church with small groups ... We have community group here at Mosaic where we discuss the sermons together, God's word together. Everyone knows that experience of like, oh no, someone ... Conversation's been going, been fruitful, vibrant. Someone just brought it up. They did it. Maybe at that point, a couple of people in that conversation who have very passionate views on the end of times and the timing of it, they dominate conversation and it really becomes this a draining discussion and that everybody leaves more confused and really just too drained to go honor Jesus for the rest of the evening or the next day. And all people in the church know this tendency. And we Christians, we know that debates and conversations, they lead to real division normally. The talk on these topics can lead brothers and sisters to separate from brothers and sisters instead of continuing to gather as the people of God. And most Christians, they do know someone who got obsessed with figuring out the details about Christ's return. Who started losing their grip with reality. Who lost focus on working out their salvation with fear and trembling one day at a time. And in the end, maybe they just stumbled for an extended season or in the end they lost their faith altogether as they got lost in these details. Furthermore, we know there are whole in the Christian world ... And maybe some of you don't know this stuff. But as pastors we do engage a lot of these instances in our ministry. We know that there are whole churches and conferences and gatherings of supposed believers who meet not to praise God, not to preach his gospel, but to promote specific teachings, primarily promote specific teachings on the end of times. That's what they're gathering around. I've heard of several people giving large chunks of money to ... Or essentially their whole retirement savings saved for decades to supposed prophets who claim to elucidate the details of the timing and manner of Christ's return. In our day anybody can start teaching and give their take on YouTube, on social media. There's a tendency in the church today, there's people who will listen to these teachers at the cost of heeding the words of their pastors, their brothers and sisters in Christ and who they're gathering with in day-to-day real life. I've spoken to a few Christians who you dig into the details of their lives and they profess faith in Christ, but they have not read the gospels or most of the New Testament aside from the book of Revelation because they're reading the apocalyptic literature and verses of the Old Testament prophets and Revelation primarily. And this stuff happens. In a city like Boston who could get lost in that stuff? No. These are common tendencies. And so at Mosaic, if you've only been with us for two weeks, we've talked about ... We'll now take up this topic two weeks in a row. And you might think we have an unhealthy fixation on this topic, but I assure you we're taking it up as it naturally has come up in our scripture as we are going verse by verse through Mark. But before I go through it, I want to say at our church a little commentary, we generally are not guilty of unhealthy fixation on the end of times across our membership. We're not marked by neglect of coverage on the topic. We're facing it today. It's easier to skip over these chapters. As a pastor, we're here to face it as it's been brought up in our history in the text. We're not marked necessarily by widespread anxiety and paranoia that comes with fixation. If anything, at Mosaic, we're guilty of a tendency to think that the end is near because something bad happened in our personal lives or in society as a whole. And it leads to a distractedness that tends to decrease our level of day-to-day faithfulness a little bit. So 2020 Ukraine-Russia, Israel-Palestine death and health scares, cultural and political tensions. These tend to lead us to say nonchalantly and perhaps ignorantly that things are getting worse. It's clear. The end is near. And may we say that just a little naively or truly ignorantly. We continue to just carry forth our day-to-day responsibilities with some faithfulness. But I think even beneath that a tendency in our body is more of a hopeless spirit of resignation. When we face calamity, hardship in our lives, trials personally or internationally and nationally, we can assume a hopeless spirit of resignation that, oh, there's so much brokenness around us. Who am I as an individual to bring Jesus' light and redemption through my day-to-day faithfulness? And we still do the thing, do what we think God is calling to us but not with belief that he can use us to redeem brokenness in the world around us, in the relationships, in society through our small efforts. And so today you'll see that Christ has a word for engaging such circumstances for us as the natural disasters, the trials of society. And so yeah, we're going to see what that word is. And there's no question that this fascination with the end of times, it doesn't stop at the church. The world has wrestled with it. Again, everything I've mentioned from 2020 to 2024 I think it's safe to say we all have seen a lot more headlines talking about is this the end of society as a whole? Are things getting worse? Is America facing its doomsday? Is the current banking system a potential collapse? What's that going to lead to? There's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of worry. There's always an ancient calendar. In 2012, the Mayan calendar ended. I remember articles around that. You think of year 2000 going into the new millennium, there's a lot of, is the world going to end? It just gets brought up whether there is seeming reason to appeal to or not. So there is a widespread fascination with the end. And really it normally leads to anxiety, fear, and paranoia and faithlessness. Especially when we start mining the details of what the Bible has a say about it. So Jesus today as we open up chapter 13 again, he speaks to the disciples about the end. And I want to say very clearly he has one easy message in this chapter that we want to focus on primarily as we study it. Stay awake and be ready. The theme sentence of this chapter, Christian lives shall be marked by steadiness and readiness as they await Christ's return. Christian lives shall be marked by steadiness and readiness as they await Christ's return. This message, you can find it just by appealing to the specifics of a few verses. Verse 33 Jesus says, "Be on guard, keep awake." Or perhaps I can claim that this is the theme of the chapter as the chapter ends in verse 37 by saying, "And what I say to you, I say to all. Stay awake." All of this chapter, it's pointing to the call for Christians to exhibit a steadiness, a coolness, a calmness as they face challenges, trials, conflicts, natural disasters in this life and readiness as they ponder the end of times. And so he declares, "Don't waste your time reading into all the things that could deceive you or prevent you from faithfulness to him in the things of God in day-to-day life." So stay awake and be ready. Verse 31 says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." The world is going to fall down around us. We shouldn't be shocked when it happens. It's been happening throughout history. The Roman Empire, it did fall. Imagine how people fell when that truly fell. It's going to happen around us. It's happened throughout history. It'll keep happening. Everything will pass away but what will remain are Jesus' words and his assurances. And I want to pause right here. Think about the things. If they passed away, what are those things whose passing would shake you? In me It's honestly like news of what's happening in my small suburban town outside of Philadelphia. When I see the culture shaking, the schools shifting in my heart, it really stirs me to the point of almost hopelessness or God, what's happening here? When we think about America, are there major societal shifts? Are we heading in a bad direction? When we face political tensions. We've gotten upcoming election this year. When we face potential shifts in our country, does it stir us? Do we begin to question God's faithfulness to us in such moments? Jesus says we need to trust him. I was at the Inter Miami verse New England Revolution soccer game last night to see Lionel Messi and a couple of his former Barcelona players. It was my first time at Gillette Stadium. And part of it is to show my son, wow, look at this man who has used what God has given him and mastered it. But part of it is to say to my son, "Look, this man, he is going to die one day. I hope he doesn't have a great spiritual moral failure before all of us. I hope he professes his imperfections and faith in Jesus at some point and I do pray for him." But Messi's going to pass away and Gillette Stadium is going to pass away or they're going to blow it up. And I want them to so that they get rid of the turf field and put in a grass field because professional sports should be played on grass. But these figures of society, these people, these institutions, they're all going to fall. And how will that move you? What will your response be? Jesus says the only thing we place our faith in is his word. Everything will pass, but we are to trust his assurances. And so verse 13 in our chapter, the one who endures to the end will be saved. We place our hope in Jesus and his works and his promises. That's where our hope lies. So Jesus is saying broadly in this chapter, be ready for the end to come right now. Be ready for the end every moment of every day. Don't misuse your time getting lost in the meaningless things of the world. Don't misuse your time obsessing over predictions, dates, the left behind stuff, the book series, the movie series. Jesus comes when you don't know. So be ready. At every moment of your life be steady and be ready. And so I'm going to draw this point out as I try to speed through the chapter today. Chapter 13. I'll revisit some of the verses from one through 23 and glean over them. But it's all to remind you this point. Christian lives shall be marked by steadiness and readiness as they await Christ's return. I'm not going to necessarily pull out specifics of where I get that theme. You're going to have to come with me as I just keep emphasizing it. And I think it's important. This is a topic that's been convoluted, confused throughout church history, even within our own body. And we have to just get what is primary. And this is where we build our foundation and thinking on the end of times going forward. So chapter 13, we have Jesus falling of the temple, Jerusalem, the sign of the fig tree, a call to be ready. Let's try to explain it. What's Jesus talking about here? How do I come to this emphasis on steadiness and readiness? So let's step into this situation with the disciples. The day is still Tuesday. On that Friday, Jesus is going to be crucified. Jesus and his disciples have been in the temple most of the day. It's probably late afternoon. Jesus decides it's time to go. It's very likely this is Jesus' last time in the temple. And while they're walking away from the temple, one of his disciples is overcome with awe. They were admiring the size, the glory, the structure of the temple. And it really was a sight to behold. It was gargantuan and grandiose, huge and intimidating in its size and in its extravagance and ancient wonder of the world. And King Herod put a ton of money into it for several decades. We're talking in the billions of our current dollars. And so this temple, it's huge. It's ornate. The temple grounds and courts, they covered about one-sixth of the city of Jerusalem at the time. The individual stones that were used to build the temple were gigantic. Josephus, one of the historians of the day wrote down the size of the stones that they were about 45 feet by 15 feet by 18 inches thick. One stone. You could go and look at a stone that size and just be in awe. So these stones are massive. Ornately decorated. The text begins with a disciple saying, "Teacher, look at the size of these stones. Look at the majesty of the temple of Jerusalem. The whole city. Isn't this amazing?" Jesus says, "You see this giant beautiful building. You see this city. You see these massive stones. Not one stone will be left standing upon one another. This whole city is going to be destroyed." And this would've been a shocking statement. Definitely awkward silence afterwards. And it's shocking, especially when you consider the sides of these stones, saying not one will be left standing on another. And then they walk. Jesus says this, and they walk through the city of Jerusalem, they walk to the Mount of Olives to an elevated area where they sat down and they have another great view of the city. And as they thought about Jesus' pronouncement of the destruction of the temple, its complete devastation, the devastation of the city, they begin to naturally ask some questions. One asked in verse four, "Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?" And so there's a lot more behind this question than first appears. The disciples regard this temple as a fixed structure. They look at it, they think this thing could last forever. They couldn't imagine its destruction. And so immediately they're tying the destruction of this temple with the end of the world. For surely that's the only way and time that it could be destroyed. And so with the question in verse four, they're not just asking when is the temple going to be destroyed, but how do we know that the end is near? This is affirmed in Matthew chapter 24 verse three where they ask in a parallel passage, "Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" So they're asking, when will the temple be destroyed? When will Jerusalem be destroyed? That's one question. When will we know it's time for your return? When will the end come? That's what the disciples are asking in Mark as greater clarified in Matthew. They're seeking answers. And Jesus in response, he gives them a long, seemingly complicated answer. And the first part of his answer is a warning to not be led astray. Verse five, Jesus says, "See that no one leads you astray." In the NIV translation, "Watch out that no one deceives you." The disciples are assuming all of this is going to happen very soon based on Jesus's words. So they're eager. They're eager for the end to come. And as a result they're going to be tempted into reading into every little sign. So Jesus is anticipating that and he's given them some instructions to not be led astray. So in verse six he says, "Many will come in my name saying I am he and they will lead many astray." So he's saying, "There is definitely going to be a time where a lot of people say that they're sent by me or come in my name or bring greater revelation, greater word of God beyond what I've said." He says, "Don't be surprised. Don't follow them. Don't put your trust in them." And in the first century, history is captured. There's a lot of ... And scripture captures some of it. There are a number of false messiahs who appeared and they had followings, but in time they proved to be false prophets and the false prophets that they were. And it still happens today. It's happened all throughout history and it still happens today. Joseph Smith, a relatively recent false teacher, he started Mormonism. He said that Jesus appeared to him in 1820 in his backyard and he told him that all existing churches had turned from the gospel. And after that an angel of God appeared to him and essentially gave him a new source of revelation, a new word for man, true followers of Christ, the Lord to follow. And Jesus, which conflicts with our Bible, the 66 books of the Bible, Jesus is telling us, don't follow this kind of guy. More recently, I grew up in 90s public school hearing about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians who in the 80s and 90s said that he was one who was going to establish the Davidic kingdom. And so these figures keep appearing throughout history and we can't be so eager for the end to come that we follow anyone who is essentially pronouncing Jesus' return or new age in Christ. Jesus warns us about these men. Don't follow them. And then he goes on to warn them about something else. Next, he talks about disasters and wars. He says in verse seven, "And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place but the end is not yet." So he's saying, don't be deceived by natural disasters and wars. Don't be so eager for the end to come that you read into all these things. When you hear of hurricanes, tsunamis, wars, rumors of wars, don't claim this is the end. Don't just bluntly ignorantly claim things are getting worse. Verse eight says, "For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains." So we shouldn't be shocked by such events. We shouldn't be distracted by these events and drop faithfulness in day-to-day life. So many people read into these events and conclude that the end is near but these things have been happening since the beginning. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. We think we're so unique as a generation, but like a lot of these things ... Not like. A lot of these things have been happening throughout history. Nothing new under the sun is happening in 2024. Even with Russia and Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, as I've mentioned earlier, nothing new is happening in 2020. Is what we've experienced recently more dramatic and traumatic than what has been dishonoring to God throughout history, through previous societal collapses, wars and earthly disasters. Just pausing about World War I, World War II is what we're facing right now really worse than that? The societal and cultural drama, severe natural phenomena, they've always been occurring. And it is. We should be heartbroken when we see it, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions that this means that the end is near and imminent. We lament the occurrence of these events. We long for Jesus to come back to put an end to them. But we don't get obsessed with finding specific meaning in them as they relate to the end of times. Third thing that Jesus warns us about is in verses nine through 13. I don't think I put them up on the slides, I'm going to skim through them. He says, "Don't be deceived by the persecution that you faced. The people of God are going to suffer. Just because you're persecuted doesn't mean that the end is near." Jesus tells them plainly that they're going to be flogged and judged by governors and authorities. They'll be hated as the gospel goes forth. The gospel divides. It has two effects. It draws people in as you stand on it, preach it and stand on it and it draws people away. It's a stench that they reject. They don't want to hear it. They harden their hearts against God. It divides even families. In verses 12 to 13, he elaborates that man will kill his own brother over Christianity, a father a child. Children will kill their parents. Christians will be killed by their own family members, but they are not specific signs that the end is near. These things have been happening, they'll continue to happen. So this fascination with the end should not cause us to look upon these three categories of just travesty as false teachers, natural events, wars and killing within families. They should not cause us to say immediately the world is coming to end. And Jesus is telling when these things happen, when people believe them, when people start taking others and saying, this is the end, a lot of people are led astray. We should not be led astray. And so we engage it. We engage it with a steadiness. We're not shocked by their occurrence. Verse 10, he's saying, "We live in the period of last days." But before the Lord returns, what we focus on is one thing. Verse 10. And the gospel must be first proclaimed to all nations. So this is going to take some time. It's taken 2000 or so years so far and we're not done yet. If you really want the world to come to an end, don't focus on reading into all of the events. Instead, focus yourself on applying the gospel to your own heart in a deeper way each day. Then when you do that, think about and pray about how the Lord could use you to transform your neighbor's heart. Then think about how he can use you to transform every country, every culture, every community, tribe, person, and do this work with much patience, humility, sobriety and self-control as things of the world are rising and falling around you. Jesus is saying, be steady, be ready. Be ready for a long race. Don't follow the likes of Joseph Smith, Joe Schmo who says he comes in the name of the Lord in desperation. Don't read into all the current events. Don't expend all your energy on that. There's an opportunity cost to spending time on this stuff at the cost of faithfulness to Jesus and loving God and loving your neighbor day-to-day. Focus on right now. That's what Christians are called to do. How can I be salt and light where the Lord has placed me right now with every relationship I have with every office he's called me to as a single, as a married, as a parent, as a worker, as a neighbor. How do I run faithfully and steady? Stay awake. This is what Christians are called to. And so I emphasize that. We're called to be steady. Called to be ready. The second part of Jesus' answer goes to verses 14 to 23. This section is the direct answer to the disciples question about the destruction of the temple. So Jesus before prophesying about anything that will happen in the future in this section, he's making a statement about the destruction of the temple. Remember the disciples asked him, when will the destruction of Jerusalem occur? And so he's given an answer. Jesus begins verse 14 with a cryptic statement. It's using terminology from the book of Daniel. He says, "But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be ..." Another translation says when you see the desolating, sacrilege, when something holy or sacred is profaned. When you see that you know the end is near. And so he's talking about the end of Jerusalem here first and foremost. Pastor Jan on in his second half of his sermon, he talked about there is a two-fold nature to prophecy that we see in scripture where first and foremost, a prophetic statement typically has that prophetic statement in the day. And that's what I'm saying. These verses 14 to 23 are talking specifically about the near the fall of Jerusalem in the near term, short term. Pastor Jan did open up the topic a little further to say there's abomination of desolation statement. Is this a statement for the future? And he talked primarily about what continues as a spirit. We are not saying history captures. There's a couple of points in time where we saw Gentiles in 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes, a Roman general captured Jerusalem. He went to the temple and he profaned it by offering sacrifices to Roman false gods in the temple. And so a lot of people that is an abomination of desolation. Furthermore, history talks about after the Romans in this siege of 70 A.D. that I'm going to talk about in detail in a little bit. After they conquered Jerusalem and the temple, they did offer sacrifices to their gods in what remained of the temple space. But one of the things that Pastor Jan on really tried to focus us on is that the greatest travesty, the greatest abomination of desolation that ever occurred in history was done by those who were supposed to be the chosen people of God. The Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin, the high priest rejected Jesus Christ, the anointed one, the son of God who showed who he was through his miracles, through his word, through his faithfulness and sacrifice and obedience. They rejected him. And for 40 years, what did they do? They rejected him so much to the point, the very presence of God, the word incarnate, they rejected him to the point that they conspired with their enemies, the Romans to send him to the cross. And so this destruction of Jerusalem that happened in 70 A.D. four decades after Christ, for four decades, they stood with hardness of heart against their standing on Jesus Christ. They desolated the perfect spotless land of God and the rejection of him. And what perhaps the continuation of that is anyone who claims that he was wrong. He was not who he said he was. In the local church, in authorities, religious authorities, those who reject Christ are in a way profaning what is holy in rejecting Jesus. And so this abomination of desolation ... Pasture Jan on goes in more detail. But specifically these verses, let me take us back, they're talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. When the holy temple is desecrated Luke chapter 20 verses 20 to 21 also adds to this phrase, when you see the city surrounded by armies flee. So when you see the temple being desecrated and you see the city of Jerusalem surrounded by armies, run as fast as you can run. This is verses 14 23. Don't pack up your belongings. There isn't any time. When you see these things run. Hopefully you're not pregnant. Hopefully it's not winter because that'll make the flee harder. Jesus is speaking very directly here about the destruction of the temple and he's warning his disciples about ... He's given warnings about how it'll happen. Mark verse 19 talks about it's a calamity tribulation that the world has never seen before. So 40 years after this discussion between Jesus and the disciples on the Mount of Olives again in year 70, the Romans completely demolished Jerusalem. The temple and Jerusalem. Josephus, the Jewish historian, recorded details of this event. He tells us that in response to a Jewish uprising in year 66, the Roman army laid siege to the city of Jerusalem. Romans built a high wall around the city. Almost every tree within miles of the city was cut down to build the wall, transforming the landscape of Jerusalem into a desert. And the Romans dug a deep trench all around the city. No one could get in, no one could get out, no food or water could be brought in. Any Jews who tried to flee Jerusalem were captured and crucified and placed on top of the wall for everyone to see. After four years of this, tens of thousands of Jews, sometimes 500 plus a day, who tried to escape were crucified on the wall. Just absolutely horrific. And the people who were left inside that were dying of starvation. Eventually the Roman army did breach the walls of Jerusalem and they slaughtered the surviving Jews and burned the entire city, including the temple. Josephus estimated that during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, over 1.1 million people were killed, mainly Jews, and that another 97,000 were captured and enslaved. And the temple, there's a lot of theories about why was every stone broken down. There's a theory that there was just such animosity through this long conflict that the Romans just with vehemence just wanted to sack the Jews. Sack the city. So in their anger, they destroyed every last stone. There's also theories that the gold all over the temple and perhaps in the homes there's gold in the walls, that they were seeking the treasure. There's a theory that they did burn the temple as part of the process and some of the gold melted into the cracks between the rocks. So perhaps that drove them to destroy each stone. But we do find history shows us that Christ's prophecy in verse one, verse two, "Do you see these great stone buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." That happened. So think about the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Greece. The Romans didn't destroy it. We can still see it today. But the Romans actually, they initially wanted to preserve the temple, but they found they're just losing too many soldiers. So that's when they set fire to it. But not one stone was left upon another just as Jesus said. Even the foundation was taken up. So this verse 13, chapter 13, the first section is about warning to not be deceived, be steady as you face deception. This section, it talks about the destruction of the temple before anything else. The third section of Jesus' answer starts in verse 24, and this is our primary text for the day, and I'm going to try my best to speed through. He's transitioning from what is going to happen in the temple to discussion on the end of time and the coming of the son of man. So Jesus is answering the disciples questions about the timing of Jesus' return. When are you going to return? When's the last day coming? This is where Jesus answers that. "But in those days," verse 24 to 27, "after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and then the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken and they'll see the sun of men coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." So all of this ... This is crucial to understand the passage. All of these verses here in the third section of the chapter state that God's power will be seen in an unmistakable way at the end of times. It will be very distinct from what we see upon war and travesty in our current times. An earthquake, a tsunami, a hurricane. Don't think those are things that will usher in the end. Those are small compared to what's going to happen in the end. He says you're going to see stars fall from the sky, the sun go dark. Jesus, the son of man will come in the clouds with power and glory. Angels probably visibly will be gathering the Lord's people. When you see God's power coming like it never did before in an unmistakable manner, that is the sign that the end is here. The end is imminent. That's what we watch for the end. And in the middle of this display of power, he's going to, as the skies break down, natural disasters that we've never seen before, the sun of man, in a split second, he'll appear. He'll come in the clouds and everyone is going to see him and they're going to know it's him. There's not going to be a question, who is this guy? Is this him? Should I follow him? Maybe I can keep eating right now. No. It's like we're going to know it's him. Christ is going to return and the fullness of his glory and he will complete the work that he began. He'll send his angels to gather all of his people, all the elect. Those who have received him by grace through faith. We as Christians can look forward ... As we understand this, as he returns and he is going to gather in his elect, we can look forward to this day if it happens in our lifetime. Like my daughter Clara looks forward to Christmas and her birthday, we can look forward to it. It'll be a good day for us. If we're dead, when that day happens, our sleeping bodies will rise and be united with our resurrected souls for ever. This is the great hope of the people of God, the elect. For those who are in Jesus Christ. This is the end of the present time, the current order of creation before Jesus makes all things new unblemished by sin and the enemy. So in the first section, don't be deceived. In the second section, temple will be destroyed very soon. The third section, Christ will return in glory in the midst of an unmistakable display of God's power. And now the last section, this section is a little different than the first three. The first three are primarily predictions. Jesus is telling the disciples when these things will occur in response to his questions. This is more prescriptive. Jesus is telling them what to do. The first part of this section, it's verses 28 to 31. It said ... This is very important to understand this passage. It said specifically with regard to the destruction of the temple, not the end of times. So he tells them, learn the lesson from the fig tree, verse 28. "From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves you know that summer is near. So also when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near at the very gates." When you see these things happening, army surrounding Jerusalem, the temple desecrated, you know that destruction of the temple and Jerusalem is right around the corner. It will happen. As sure as you know, summer will happen when the fig tree puts out its leaves. So in an agricultural society, they would've understood when the fig tree is putting out its leaves, summer is coming. When these things happen, be assured the temple Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. That's verse 28 to 31. Be ready. And Jesus assures them that this destruction of Jerusalem will happen before this generation passes away. In verse 31, he says, "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." So those who are alive right now, right then at the moment that Jesus is teaching, some of them will still be alive. That generation will be alive to witness the destruction of Jerusalem. He's given them the prescriptive order to be steady, be ready, flee when that time comes. They'll experience it or witness it. They need to be ready for it. And so this is crucial to the understanding of the text. And then in verse 32, he transitions to talk about the end of time again. His return. He says, "But concerning that day or that hour ..." Verse 32 literally begins, "But concerning that day or that hour ..." Another period of time, another moment in time. We're now speaking about the end of time Jesus second coming. He assures them, no one knows when that day or hour will come. Verse 32. "But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the father." No one knows when the end will come. Nobody knows when the day or hour will come. Nobody will be able to predict it or narrow it down to a time or a day. Nobody knows. Jesus even says that only the father knows when Christ will return. Not even the angels. Not even himself. And I don't know how that can be. This is a big question of the Trinity and just the recesses of how the Father, the son, the spirit relate. And we can't really answer that question right now. We take Jesus' word for it as the word of God, but we take now practical application. If Jesus doesn't know, then why are we in the church, in the world spending so much time trying to figure the timing and specific manner of this day out? If Jesus doesn't know, we're not going to figure it out. If we don't know the time, but Jesus gives orders ... We don't know the time, but Jesus, he gives us orders of prescription, a command for followers to await the last day, the day of his return by being steady and being ready. And that's what verses 33 to 37, that's how he closed the chapter. "Be on guard. Keep awake for you. Do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves his home and puts his servants in charge each with his work and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake For you do not know when the master of the house will come. In the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning. Lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake." So when you see that unmistakable display of God's power, you will know that the end is upon us. Jesus is saying, be ready for it. Don't be found sleeping. We need to expect and anticipate that moment without getting fixated upon the details of when it will be. The timing of it. When the end comes, when he does return, what does he want to see? He wants to see us awake and faithful. He needs to find us focused living by faith following him. Be ready for Christ's return by running the race steadily and faithfully. We don't chase the buzz about the end of time. We don't speculate about dates and predictions. We don't over-read into current events. Instead be ready. That's Christ's orders. That's his prescription. And what do we do day-to-day? We do what God is called us to do. We're about that task. He may return in a day or 10,000 years. Whenever he does, we need to be found ready. And so we live by faith, have our eyes fixed on Jesus, the only savior, our only king, the true prophet. We don't get drawn into the temptations of the world thinking, I can do this stuff and before I die or Christ comes, I can repent. We don't function like that. It could be today. We need to be ready. Furthermore, a lot of Christians are so obsessed with the end of times because they think that it'll wake people up to start living for Christ. That's why people have the signs out on the streets. They're trying to essentially scare people. Hey, the end is about to come. Repent. It's not all out of bad motives. They think if we know it's near, then it'll make us start living in the right way. But I asked if you knew that the end was in a year, would that change the way you live the next year? If you're a Christian in Christ today, it really shouldn't. You should be living this day, this moment, this year as if Christ is going to return in the very next moment. We're always being ready. We're always awake. We're not going to get focused on not getting caught sleeping, not scrolling around through TikTok shorts, YouTube media shorts, living just slovenly, slothful lives. We focus on the work that he's called us to. We say, "Lord, what would you have me do today?" And we seek faithfulness to and the power and blessing of his spirit as we try to do it for his glory. The return of Christ, it means both judgment and salvation. For those who are spiritually sleeping, those who are not following Christ, it will be a time of judgment and his wrath will crush you worse than the destruction of Jerusalem. And it's a destruction that you will not be able to flee. It will be worse than anything you could imagine. The good news is that what's amazing is that all you need to do to avoid such wrath is trust that Christ went to the cross to pay the penalty for your sin, your rebellion against him. The crucifixion scene of Mark in chapter 15 states that Christ faced darkness, an unnatural supernatural darkness in the middle of the day for three hours on the cross. Three hours of supernatural darkness as he drank the cup of God's wrath for all of the elect. After he drank that cup, drank the full wrath, the full punishment deserved, he shouted in victory and breathed his last. If you believe that he did that for you, you can be a saved and avoid the wrath of God at the last day. For those whose eyes and hearts are already fixed on Christ, who trust in him for the forgiveness of their sins, who follow him as Lord and Savior, this day will be a day of joyful salvation. It'll be like a great holiday, a holy day, the holiest of holy days that we look forward to where we will be gathered into the fullness of his glorified presence. Perhaps I dare say we should look forward to it like a small child looks forward to Christmas or a birthday for it will be, in a sense, a new birthday where we're gifted with our resurrected eternal bodies free from the influence of Satan and power of sin. If we pause like Clara to revel and meditate on the and gifts to come that's ahead on that day that are mentioned in Scripture, we would be willing to endure any hardship to get to that day. And so I ask, what kind of day is it going to be for you? Are you ready? Are you awake? Is your life marked by steadiness or steadfastness of faith that when Jesus does appear in an unmistakable fashion that you know have assurance that you'll be gathered by the angels or do you face death, darkness, wrath? Our world, even the church, it's guilty of speculating over the end of times, but Jesus says don't get caught up in it. Jesus says, "Watch, be steady, be ready. And in the meantime, may God, may he be glorified in all that you do." And I haven't talked too much about what that means practically speaking. What does it mean that God may be glorified as we're steady and ready one day at a time trusting him, awaiting his return with patience and self-control? I'm going to close by reading 12: 9 through 21 as this makes our daily tasks clear. This is what Christians do as we await Jesus's return. Romans 12: 9 through 21. "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful and zeal but fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own say. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink for by doing, you'll heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just come to you with humility to say that in our impatience, in our faithlessness, in our fear of man, fear of physical pain, fear of death, Lord, we confuse and conflate your promises about your presence with us through trials, through tribulations. We confuse and conflate just the joy, the reward that's ahead of us with Christ's return. Lord, we just pray forgive us and Jesus and help us to leave here steadfast in faith, knowing that you will be with us, whatever is to come in this life individually in our lives or as greater society rises and falls. Lord, give us faith that when we step out to honor you, that you can use us to bring redemption. Bring your grace, bring your mercy to the brokenness around us. Let us never grow weary of doing good for your glory. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Shocked and Searched by the King
February 25, 2024 • Andy Hoot • Mark 10:17–31
Speaker 1: 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 Pastor Andy: Today, we are, if you have not been with us, we are continuing in our service in our series Kingdom Come, The Gospel of Mark and The Secrets of God's Kingdom. Today, I'm giving Pastor Jan a preaching break, and just want to just take up this text with you right now. We are in Mark 10:17-31, the gospel of Mark 10:17-31. Follow along in your bibles or on the screen as I read. This is the Word of our Lord. "And as He was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him and asked Him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' and Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother,' and he said to Him, 'Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth,' and Jesus looking at him, loved him and said to him, 'You lack one thing. Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor and you have treasure in heaven and come follow Me.' Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, 'How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God," and the disciples were amazed at His words, but Jesus said to them again, 'Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.' And they were exceedingly astonished and said to Him, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man, it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.' Peter began to say to Him, 'See, we have left everything and followed you.' Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for My sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life, but many who are first will be last and the last first.'" This is the word of our Lord. Let me pray before I start my sermon. Heavenly Father, we praise You for creating this day. God, You are the creator of all of the heavens and the earth. You pulled from abundance of authority and power and made all that we see. You have made us in Your image and Your creation is glorious, but, Lord, we as people, this creation is tainted by sin, Lord, for we can see Your majesty in all of creation, but we do not turn and worship You, Lord. Further, You show us Your goodness and offering the gospel to us. You sent your Son to communicate Your glory and Your love to us, yet we do not receive it. Lord, we choose just idols, things to worship, things that we think will satisfy us, broken cisterns that never satisfy at the cost of honoring You and putting You in the proper position as lead in our life. Holy Spirit, show us all now just what is gripping our heart, what is trying to pull us away from You, and Lord, just give us the strength and power to follow You, to choose the better portion in Jesus. I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. To start, I want to direct our attention to the famous verses in this text. I feel like most verses could be, you could say about that, but verses Mark 10:23-25, "And Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, 'How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God,' and the disciples were amazed at His words, but Jesus said to them again, 'Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.'" It's hard to not get distracted by the talk of a camel going through the eye of a needle, but these words here contain a talk of the biggest theme of the New Testament. Here in the Lord's famous comments on the case of the rich young ruler who had just turned his back against him and had gone away from him grieved and sorrowful, in these verses, we concentrate, actually, not on the camel going through the eye of the needle or on wealth and possessions primarily, but we are forced to draw our attention to the theme that's really at the heart of all of the New Testament in Mark, the theme of the kingdom of God, the theme of Christ's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven put in other parts of scripture. Our series is called Kingdom Come, The Gospel of Mark and the Secrets of God's Kingdom. All of the message we've been going through, whether we've blatantly discussed this theme and described the kingdom or just talked about specific teachings and aspects in it, they're all about this theme. For Jesus, He Himself told us entry into this kingdom is the most important thing we should seek in this life. Matthew 6:33 says, "Seek you first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." Jesus said these verses in the midst of a larger comment in Matthew 6:25-34. "Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you'll eat or what you'll drink nor about your body, what you'll put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about your clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so closed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious saying, 'What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?' for the Gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." You see, to Jesus, to us here at Mosaic, the world is in trouble. Men and women are in trouble. The impacts of sin, corruption, folly, and death reign at large despite of all mankind's wisest innovations. We have all that we need and more. In our passage, we talk about in ancient, rich, young ruler. Realistically, all of us probably live better than the ancient rich young ruler, yet we are still unhappy and we're looking for a relief. We're seeking solutions and we're troubled and we're worried and constantly anxious about will we be satisfied in this life. To sum our solution to this constant fight with dissatisfaction and worry, it's a matter of diet, it's a matter of clothing, it's a matter of having the right relationship, it's a matter of technology easing things for us, it's a matter of obtaining more knowledge, it's a matter of going to space to tap its resources, and so on, but what the Lord says, this shall not be. It's all wrong. He's the creator. We're not to live in a state of worry and anxiety or fear of what we'll have today or tomorrow. Jesus says, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added unto you." Jesus came specifically to tell us that nothing is more important than entering the kingdom, and that entry into the kingdom is possible. In Mark 1:15, perhaps the theme sentence of the whole book, Jesus says, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." It's the repentance of faith turning from rebellious sin, turning from idolatry and things that we think will satisfy us apart from God and believing that Jesus will. That's how we can be saved, but as we have seen through Jesus' message and His engagement throughout Mark, the men and women of His own times of His own age and generation, they struggled over this. You would've thought that with such a messenger, that with such miracles that He paired with His message to show His authority, to show that they could trust Him, that everybody would've listened and believed, and that they've gone just running, running into the kingdom of God saying, "Lord, how can I serve You?" but they didn't. They stumbled in Jesus. They questioned, they argued, and the same is today. We are blessed people who get to look back at history and say this happened. There's a reason why history is marked by this Man's coming, the God Man's coming, and we can trust Him. He is on the throne today, especially after He's gone to the cross risen and ascended into heaven. So the lesson behind of what I'm saying so far is that mankind, by nature, we struggle to trust God. As a result of sin, altogether our approach to life is entirely wrong in all its ideas and all of its thinking and the way that we pursue satisfaction, the way that we pursue peace, the way we engage the creation that God wanted us to enjoy and cultivate in communion with Him, and it's because this problem happened in Jesus' time, and today, we have to focus our attention on the matter. Jesus is talking about how can one enter the kingdom of God. That's the question He is answering in Mark. He's talking again about entry in one of the last passages while He's on His path to Jerusalem going to the cross. This is of utmost important to Jesus. What we've been talking about throughout Mark is the kingdom of God, a common element that comes out is that it's always surprising. Jesus, one of the things about the kingdom of God is that you can't really describe it in terms that, one, a fallen believer who because of his sin doesn't have ears to hear, can't really understand it. You have to be in the kingdom to really start understanding what Jesus is talking about. He has to describe, but no single word can describe the joy of salvation. No single word can describe the process and experience of sanctification in a believer's life, the growth and maturity and holiness in the faith. So Jesus has to keep coming up with parables and stories to get us to understand entry into the kingdom and life in the kingdom. Today, our text tells us a tragic story. This is a story about the greatest of natural non-believing men. We have a good man, the rich young ruler, the best of his time, the best of Boston just engaging with Jesus Christ. The result, the start is amazing, the ending of the narrative, ultra depressing. We see that this kingdom of God, it's upside down, it's inside out. It just destroys, bursts our expectations. So this first point, it's surprising, it's shocking. I'm going to break up this topic today talking about when you come to Jesus, when you seek entry into the kingdom of God, get ready to be shocked, searched, and blessed or grieved. When you come to Jesus, when you seek entry into the kingdom of God, get ready to be shocked, searched, and blessed or grieved. I intentionally have very simple language here in the outline because the people who really want very complex outlines and creative outlines and a lot of alliteration, the lofty thinkers, they're the ones who need to be humbled and be brought. You can't see because you're looking for those lofty things in everything the church does. So we're going to make it challenge your senses and humble you as we go through this. You need to be shocked by Jesus, searched and blessed, and you will be blessed or grieved after that happens. So let me go on. When you come to Jesus Christ, get ready to be shocked. By shocked I mean you're going to be surprised. Many of your expectations when you truly come to Jesus and have an encounter with Him, with His word, your expectations of who God is, who Christ is, how you enter the kingdom, how you grow in the kingdom and how you're rewarded for life in the kingdom are going to burst, and you're going to be shocked in the sense that oftentimes what you learn about entry and life in the kingdom, it's going to go against your natural sensitivities and preferences. It's going to insult you and get you angry at times. I emphasize this point because this text, there's a whole lot of shock within it. In specific verses, we have very clearly the Lord just broadly, He's using shocking language just through that intro verse, "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to go enter the kingdom of God." That's a sign. He's trying to get us ready to really be surprised, but specific verses beyond that, verse 23, "And Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, 'How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God,' and the disciples were amazed at His words." These guys who have been walking on missions trips with Him, sitting at His feet, living with Him at the end of His ministry before He gets to Jerusalem, they're shocked by His words and teachings here. Furthermore in verse 26, Jesus repeats Himself, "How difficult it will be for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and they were exceedingly astonished and said to Him, "Then who can be saved?" They were exceedingly astonished. They're floored. Further, they asked the question, "Then who can be saved?" This isn't a question. This is an exclamation of Jesus, "This guy is better than me. If He can't get in, how can we get in?" This is offensive. This is absurd. So specifically, these verses mention it, the last verse though, and this verse 31 could be a whole sermon on its own, "But many who are first will be last and the last first." This is Jesus trying to just stir our sensitivity, stir our senses to say, "Things are going to be different. I've established this kingdom through My life, through My faithfulness, through My death, through My resurrection. That's where I'm going and be prepared. It's a call that those who are lowly and humble and deny themselves in this life in My way will be exalted by Me in eternity." This is just to think like this. Those who are last will be first and first last. It's completely contradictory how man thinks, how traditional religion thinks. Only the strong survive. God helps those who help themselves. In the Jewish system, Jewish thought was if you climb a ladder, your goal as a Jew of that day was if you were blessed to get more formal education and training, you became a synagogue ruler, you became a scribe or Pharisee, you made it. So Jesus prepares us with specific shock in these verses, but just broadly, the whole story of the rich young ruler, it's really to shock us, to startle us and get us concerned about our candidacy for entry in the kingdom of God. The tragedy, what the Lord is trying to teach us is a shocking lesson that goodness is not enough to enter the kingdom of God. Goodness, riches, wealth, these things that the world says are indicators of righteousness are at that time they're not good enough. So what do we do? How do you get in? Yes, for us it's easy for believers and non-believers to say bad people shouldn't get in. Those who blatantly rebel, they commit murder, they do heinous, perverted crimes, very clearly, if God's real, if He's good, very clearly they're not getting in. Christian, non-Christian, it's easy to get unity on that. This text, it brings out that not badness, not that badness is wrong, but even goodness is not enough. We can exclude ourselves from badness, but when we hear that goodness is not enough, it's offensive because we're good people. We generally do more good than bad. We try to give more than we receive. When we mess up, we try to correct ourselves, we recycle, we buy local, we try to help our neighbor, we go to church, we give to nonprofits, but the tragedy of the rich young ruler confronts this thinking, for we're to read this passage and see that this guy at the start of the passage, he's presented to be better than us, but he's not good enough to enter. So look at him, look at how well he starts. Verse 17, "And as he was setting out on his journey, a man came up and knelt before Him and asked Him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'" This is just an astounding engagement. First of all, the text says a man. There's two parallel passages that tell the same story, Luke 18, Matthew 19, and he's just called a man here. Later on in the text it says he had great wealth, but we find out he's young in one of the other parallel passages. He's labeled as a ruler in one of the others. So he's wealthy, he's young. In that day, youth as in our day, youth, who doesn't want a nice charismatic young man saying, "Lord, what must I do to serve you?" How happy are we when we see young people taking an initiative in the community, taking initiative in the church slash synagogue, which is our exact situation now? How often are we excited to see young people, let alone wealthy? This guy would've been the perfect man to run a $5 million campaign to get a church building. This guy was perfect just with these broad descriptions, but looking at the text, look at how he comes to the Lord. All of Mark, we've been dealing with situations where even Jesus, His own disciples are not recognizing Him as Lord. They are essentially questioning His authority or not willing to trust in Him over and over again. It's really only the Gentiles, the people outside of the promises of God who are approaching Jesus with humility and trust and a heart to receive His kingdom and follow Him, but look at His approach. The man, he comes running up to Jesus as Jesus is leaving after a speaking and service engagement. If this man really was a ruler in his day, he was breaking custom here. First of all, it's really hot there, but no, rich man, wealthy man, man of honor did not run. When the visiting teacher came in that society, the leaders of the synagogue weren't going down just running straight to Him. That would've brought some shame and maybe people would've questioned their authority and integrity. Furthermore, it says he ran up and knelt before Him. He gets on his knees. That's just incredible. That is over the top and, again, not something that a man of honor does. Then what's even more notable is that this is a man who sees his need. He's willing to face potential public shame from his esteemed position because he says, "It's Jesus, this teacher, I've been hearing about this." The guy just thought, "He's talking about something that I don't have, eternal life." How many people do you share the gospel with, bring to church and they're like, "Yeah, I don't think I have that," but then they just never come back? They're content to just sit not knowing how to address that need, at least this guy's doing something. Furthermore, he's showing Jesus respect through the running, through the bowing. He's saying, "I see you're a good teacher. I see you've got something." He eagerly wants to hear what Jesus has to say. Then his question, it's not perfect, and I'll get to that later, but he asks a question. He's interested in eternal life. So this guy, he's a very good, exceptional, young man who cares about spiritual matters, and he is approaching Jesus with great eagerness, great zeal to find out the truth. I just want to say, as Christians, we pray for opportunities to share the gospel. We know God's love. We want everyone in our lives to have it if you really know it, and you're praying, "Lord, give me opportunities to share the gospel." How many of you, how thrilled would you be if someone at the lunch table at work said to you, "Andy, I know you're Christian. What must I do to inherit eternal life?" That'd be amazing. We dream for these opportunities. Most of the time we feel like a nag in the sharing and proclamation in public or in relationship. I was flying a couple weeks ago. I like to sit with my Bible open on the airplanes like, "Maybe this person will ask me a question. Lord, Lord, just prepare me and just humble this person. Let them see that I might have an answer for them." I was literally thinking like that reading my Bible on the plane, but it didn't happen, unfortunately, but we pray for these situations. So this guy's approach, it's good. There's something honorable and respectable about him, and you could not imagine anything more from a natural man, a non-believer. This is your friend who works at the biotech company in Boston saying, "There's something in your life that I don't have. What do I do to get it?" So Jesus, He's exposed this need. The man tries to find out how to address this thing that he's lacking and to get it. This is as good as a start as anybody could have. To the disciples of his day, they would've thought that this guy would've walked right into the kingdom of God. That's why they're so amazed that the story ends differently. So can you imagine a better start, but that is not the story. This is not the way the engagement goes. He doesn't walk right into the kingdom. Verse 22 says, "Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions." We're just forced to ask the question, "Why? What's the matter with this young man? What's the matter with his approach? Why did he go away? Why did he not enter the kingdom? Why is he left grieving and despondent, grieving in heart? What's the trouble?" The one phrase answer is this man went away because of his profound misunderstanding of the kingdom of God. That's why the Lord makes the comment in verse 23, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God." He says it again, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." It's impossible for a righteous man seemingly perfect on the outside by his own works, by his own volition to enter the kingdom of God, but with God all things are possible. So this grace, we can only be saved by grace. So that's part of goodness does not matter, it's God's grace, but to focus on the shock, Jesus, He shocks with specific verses in this and Jesus shocks broadly with this tragedy. When people draw nears to Jesus, He shocks them. If you really have an encounter with Jesus, if you dig into scripture, if you hear a truly biblical, faithful sermon, if you come to Jesus with a heart and say, "Show me. I want to know who You are. I want to know what Your call on my life is," it's going to be a drastic engagement. There's only one of two directions. If you feel like you've never really been shocked by Jesus, you probably have not gotten close to Him. You're not really understanding the heart of His message. You're not really understanding the impossibility of entering His kingdom and the call to follow Him. So Jesus, He shocks those who draw near to him and He contends that their views of Him need to change, as well as their views of the kingdom need to be shaken up. So a lot of people, they talk about Jesus only as if He was a good man of history. Just like the man in our story, He's a good man. He was a great teacher, a great voice for the poor, great among the philosophers, a great social revolutionary. This is how I used to talk about Jesus when I was insecure to identify as a Christian at my liberal arts college. Perhaps they say He was a prophet among the great prophets, Buddha, Confucius. They say He was one of the greatest the world has ever seen. They think when you talk about Jesus in these ways but don't call Him the Lord, the Savior of man who came to die on the cross to bear the wrath for their sin and rise that they might have resurrection life and joyful, abundant life in eternity. When they say these comparisons, it's really an insult. They're really showing that they don't know who He really is. Jesus is not just any good teacher. He's the Son of God and Son of Man, the living God, the omnipotent God taken on flesh. He can't be categorized in the same genre as fallen man. We need to view Him this way because that's how He viewed Himself. So He's shown us that here a little bit in this text, but He wants us to confront our views of the kingdom of God. A lot of people come to Christianity think that it's just an add-on to what they're already doing in life. This is exactly what the rich young ruler was guilty of. He says, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do?" This is a man who wants to be doing something. He wants to keep doing what he's already doing, but maybe add a little bit more by his own effort to attain eternal life. We can see right away his approach. He seems flawless, but in his words, there's this pride saying, "I want to be a part of my own salvation. I want to be a part of my entry." He isn't coming as a child. He's not helpless and needy and humble. He is presenting himself as someone who's capable. He's successful in business. He's got good financial capital, not just cash, he's got capital. That's what possessions means later on in the text. He's socially respected in the community. He's got religious success. He wants Jesus to give him what is lacking and maintain the status quo of his life, and that's just not how the kingdom of God works. Jesus says to him, "You lack one thing. Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor and you have treasure in heaven. Come follow me." He's saying, "I'm here to uphold, just overturn your whole life. I'm here to cause upheaval," and it's not really on the outside first, it's on the inside first. Now, I'll elaborate more on that later, but Christianity, it's not an add-on. Jesus said, Mark 2:21-22, "No one sows a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old and a worst tear is made, and no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins, but new wine is fresh for wineskins." Jesus is the fresh wine. If you put Him into an old wineskin, it's going to burst. When you enter the kingdom of God, it's not just like any other habit or study that you take up casually or leisurely or see, "What more could it bring to my life?" He wants to make you entirely new. He is not content to play second fiddle to anything in your life. This is really important because a lot of people, I know people in my life who have engaged Christianity for decades and they're just approaching it as if it's just any old study of history. It's just like any other philosophy, "Let me see what more it can add to my repertoire." No. Jesus says, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me." When you enter into the kingdom by this great gift of faith, you should expect your life to some change, some transformation. The rich young ruler knew that what Jesus called him to was so much more than he wanted to do. He thought, "It's just a little bit of sprinkle, a little bit of Jesus into my life and I'll just keep going with everything else." So Jesus, this is all under the point of when you come to Jesus, expect to be shocked. This is when you come to Jesus, expect to be shocked and, really, as you continue in life, expect to be shocked. He's going to keep pushing you toward greater levels of holiness, greater levels of maturity. A lot of people, they don't understand how far, how serious He is about holiness. When you're saved, praise God, you've probably left something, probably a sin that gripped the surface of your life and heart, but He just keeps digging and digging deeper and deeper. A lot of people are shocked how the Lord through marriage puts two people with complimentary parts together, and as iron sharpens iron, they see the endless, endless way that the Lord is just calling them to greater holiness by one day at a time not lashing out at their spouse. When you're a member of a church and you're called to in sickness and in health, stay faithful, continue to gather with one another, continue to love one another as Jesus has loved you and you find out these people are sinners, these leaders are flawed, the Lord is not just calling them to repent and trying to train everybody, He's calling you to greater levels of holiness in the way that you engage the tensions. It's shocking at how far the Lord digs into our identity to get us to grow in the faith, but when you're coming to the faith, when the Lord is shocking you when you're in the faith, how do you respond to that? This text, I think the response is you let Jesus search you. When you come to Jesus, get ready to be searched. By search I mean that Jesus probes your entire being and He looks for defilement, He looks for impurities on the surface of your life and at the heart, and He has perfect vision and He's going to reveal what He sees. If you look at the text, three times in the text it said that Jesus looked at someone. Verse 21, "Jesus looked at him and loved him." Verse 23, "Jesus looked around at His disciples and said ..." Again in verse 27, "Jesus looked at them and said ..." Three times there's this idea of Jesus looking, and I don't think that this is there as an accident. This is one of the unique elements of this presentation, of this story that is not in the other two gospel presentations of it. What we have here in this text is that Jesus, when He's looking at the young man, when He's looking at his disciples, it's a sense of He's giving a holy gaze. It's the Almighty God looking right at us and right through us. In Revelation 1, Jesus is depicted in radiant glory. We just think of a refining fire and having eyes of blazing fire. The apostle John said, the one who had the vision, the Holy Spirit gave the vision to for the Book of Revelation, he says, "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead." You're just exposed when Jesus looks at your life and you realize you can't stand before Him in His holiness. In the next two chapters of Revelation after chapter one, Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus, He looks at seven churches and it seems as if He looks right through them. He understands what's happening. He calls them out for their sin, for their grievances for Him, and it seems like He's speaking into the minds and hearts of the individuals of the body. We think of Jesus telling Nathaniel when He's gathering His disciples, "Nathaniel, I saw you under the tree," and Nathaniel's shaken. The Lord has a special vision. In today's account, we see Jesus as looking, searching the rich young ruler, perceiving what his genuine spiritual sickness was, probing the core of his corruption, and it's amazing. I think his vision, it's just incisive. Within a few lines in an instant, Jesus just shatters this man's identity, reveals his greatest heart issues. So He sees this first and the man approaches Him. He finds one little mistake in his presentation when he says, "What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do?" Jesus takes that clue, which suggests that this man thinks he deserves entry into the kingdom based on his own righteousness that he's billed out by his works, by his observance of God's law, and He immediately questions the man's understanding for why he thinks he's a good candidate about the law. He says, "You know the commandments, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother," and he said to Him, "Teacher, all these I've kept for my youth." The man's answer affirms Jesus' suspicion that he thinks he can enter the kingdom upon his own merit, but you see, Jesus' wisdom, His genius in these verses were in the list of commandments that He mentioned, he's only acknowledging the second table of the law that is summarized by love your neighbor as yourself. He's not bringing up any of the first four commandments that talk about love of God. So this man thinks that he's one who should garner entry based on his good status in the community, based on his upholding of the commandments. Jesus, He sees that and He looks at him. He loves him, "There's almost something like something really likable about you. It's cute how you're presenting yourself to me, but you are so unobservant of yourself," and He looks at him and He asks him about one of the heart commandments, "What's the first commandment? You shall have no other god before Me." Jesus, He asks him this, He doesn't ask him this, He just puts His finger on the dot of where his idolatry when he says ... "And Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, 'You lack one thing. Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven. Come follow me.'" He's pressing right on the center of the target, that thing that the man is holding onto that is preventing him from full submission to Christ's lordship, repentance and faith before him. This is what Jesus does. Further, the man says, it says, "Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions." So Jesus, like a surgeon, incisively reveals that this man who's perfect on the outside, he's an idolator. He does not love God first and foremost above everything in his life. He does not think that he was made to worship God and be satisfied by life of communion with Him, and so much so, his grasp on his money, his wealth, and perhaps all the things that it brought was so great that God is standing there right before him inviting him to follow Him, to care for Him, promising him riches in heaven and he wouldn't let go of it. So God, He just searches this man, Christ searches this man super quickly and nothing. This is what he does with all of us. Regardless of whatever good appearances or law-abiding appearances that we can conjure up, Christ can see what our heart truly longs for, and if it's not Him, He's going to expose it. In the case of the rich young ruler, it was his grip on his money. Jesus, He's not revealing that money is an inherently bad thing. There are great saints of history who have had money in scripture. We have Job, we have Joseph of Arimathea, the man who donated his tomb upon Christ's crucifixion. We think of Zacchaeus, who in his repentance used his wealth for God's glory, but money is not evil, but the text shows us that money is something so powerful that it can blind us to its control over us. It's money, there's something specific in Christ bringing this out in this passage. There's a special authority that it can have to us. This man clearly had no self-awareness, but everybody is tempted to clinging to something in this life for satisfaction that is not Jesus. Jesus wants to reveal that to us and root it out. I remember hearing about a story where there were monkey hunters in a jungle somewhere, and the monkeys were so ... What they did was, the hunters, they basically just had to put nuts in a jar and essentially fasten the container to where they put it. The monkeys were so greedy about getting the nuts. Their desire was so set on the nuts that when the hunters would arrive, they just kept their hand and stood there even though it led to their capture, their demise. We are just like the monkeys. People today, we hear the gospel go out, we hear it, we feel its call. We see the peel of a life with Christ, the joy of salvation, but we're unwilling to come when Christ calls us because we won't let go of our grasp around that thing that our heart is in love with. We tend to make, and it's not just rebellious sin, it's often good things that we put in the place of God. So what is it for you? What are you holding onto? If Christ came and He just looked at you, He didn't have to play around with the man with talk of goodness, He says, "You want to talk goodness? God is good. Let's not confuse categories here. Let's not talk about goodness. Your sense of goodness, you don't see it, but it's decided by your culture, your preferences. You want to talk about the law? Okay. I'm going to use the law to try to show your own blindness. That clearly doesn't work. Then we'll look at you and put it, bring you right to your idol." Christ, He could just look at us and call it out. So if He was here today, what would be that thing that you were thinking, that thing, that relationship, that experience, that lifestyle that you think could satisfy you more than Him? He's going to search us and probe us and try to get us to relinquish our grip on such things. Notice the text says, "Jesus looked at him and loved him," when he brought out the man's idolatrous relationship with his wealth, with his possessions. The text says this is loving, this act by Jesus is loving. It's tough love. This is Jesus with the holy gaze trying to help someone come out of their blindness, come out of the slavery to that thing that is dominating their life, that thing that they structure all of their life around to keeping, to retaining, that thing that's preventing them from worshiping Him, and He's trying to free them to come receive forgiveness for their sin, enjoy a life of freedom, a life entrusting Christ to provide for you one day at a time, and it's what is He calling you to let go of. I think we all have those things. Is it a relationship? Is it wealth and the control of your life that it could bring? Is it having a child? Is it your children? What is it? How do we ask? We ask, "Jesus Lord, search me and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'll be any grievous way in me." If anyone has walked closely to me, you know that was my verse of 2023. The Christian, you get frightened by this searching at the start of faith because you see what Jesus is going to call you to leave to come and follow Him, but actually, you see the goodness of it and you grow in your profession. You grow in this prayer, "Lord, search me because if there's anything in me that is going to separate, tempt me to leave You, stop following You, if there's anything in me that's going to get in the way of this relationship that I have with You, just root it out, and please be gentle, but if You have to be painful and I'm that blind, just do it." We should grow to appreciate this searching. The Christian should grow, but the thing that happens when you feel the Lord, He's shocking you, He's searching you, it's offensive because our flesh, until Jesus returns, is going to fight and resist. It's going to want to look back and be tempted to cling to those idols. So when we come to Jesus, you should get ready to be blessed or grieved. This is when Jesus is shocking you, He's searching you, you've got two directions to go. We see in this text, these two results. With verse 22, we see the grief in the reaction of the ruler, "Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions." The word for grief used here, it's the word used in the gospels to describe the same grief that Jesus felt on the cross when the Father with whom He dwelt in perfect communion, loving, eternal communion, turns His face away, does not respond to His cries of, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me on the cross?" That same word for grief that talks about just a grief that we cannot fathom, that is the same word used to describe the grief that this rich young ruler felt when he's walking away from Jesus, when Jesus is pressing on that idol. The irony is, this is after he's walking away, he feels this grief. Jesus is actually letting him have what he wants, yet he's walking away despondent, in despair. He's clinging with a vice grip to that idol. It's tearing him apart, yet he's still holding onto it. We don't know. The text says, "Jesus looked at him and loved him." The only way Jesus can actually look at a sinner and idolator and love him is by grace. A lot of people say, "This guy definitely was not saved." The prayer is, hopefully, he saw the folly of his ways, and what did he have to do? He had to repent, go to Jesus, confess his sin of idolatry, of thinking that his wealth could satisfy him more than Jesus, and by confessing his sin, he could have been saved. That's the same with all of us if we catch ourselves in such idolatry. Then when we do that, whether it's in the initial first time that the Lord is searching us or later on perhaps, hopefully in the way that the ruler did, we can experience God's blessing. We see God's blessing, Mark 10:26-31, "And they were exceedingly astonished," the disciples, "and said to Him after the rich young ruler goes away, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.' Peter began to say to Him, 'See, we have left everything and followed you.' Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for My sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life, but many who are first will be last and the last first.'" For the person who has been searched by Jesus, who repents of their grip on the idols of their heart and follows Him and trusts His position in this life and eternity with Him, these are the most encouraging words. This is not prosperity gospel. These are Jesus' words. We read them at face value. As you engage the shock of just the difficulty of leaving stuff to enter into the kingdom as Jesus instructs you, when you engage Jesus' probing, when you relinquish your grip on these things that keep you away from following Him, He promises to reward you. These verses give us assurance that He sees your sacrifice. He sees your effort to leave, to say goodbye to the old man and live in a resurrected new way when you follow Him. Further, He says, He's not just going to honor in eternity, He's going to honor it in this life. What we're called by Christians upon the moment that we're saved is to follow Him, to trust Him that He will satisfy. We were made for worship for Him. That's what Adam and Eve, they're made to worship and dwell in the garden in perfect communion with the Lord, but they sinned against Him thinking that Satan said, "There's fruit of this world. Taste it. He's withholding something from you," but when we come to Christ and say, "No, God, I see You are enough," He promises to satisfy. Anyone who receives Jesus' call to follow Him and allows Him to stay in the position of Lord of their life and follows Him one day at a time, they know that actually a lot of these earthly things don't matter. The joy of salvation, the joy of peace, the peace that comes when you know that you're right before God, the Father through Jesus Christ, the perfect mediator, the knowledge that God loves you despite having full knowledge of your sin because of Jesus, you know that the joy of salvation is better. These extra benefits, these are just words and promises to give us hope to persevere until the end, but we can ask Him expectantly that He will offer them. There is an element, Mark says with persecutions. So it's not going to be perfect. Our hearts can be tempted towards sin. The creation is still crying out for Jesus' return. We're still in a fallen world, and these persecutions, they're means to test us, to grow us, and we're called to endure through them. I have had the pleasure in the past few weeks of having a rich young ruler of Boston of our congregation approach me and say, "Pastor Andy, I've had this relationship with you for five years, and just want to be honest with you. These whole five years I've checked in with you occasionally once a year, every year, year and a half, and what the Lord has shown me in the past couple months is I've been in grievous sin, just finding my satisfaction and building my kingdom, building my resume, grasping, having a vice grip on relationships that did not honor Him, and I see that that is sin. I see that I was committing idolatry, thinking these things could satisfy me more than God." What did he ask me? He set an appointment with me and he said, "How can I serve?" He knew that the work was finished in his life. He asked me, "How can I serve?" Then he told me he also went online. He heard about Mosaic's campaign for the building fund, and he said, "The Lord blessed me while I was in this period of sin and I just really want to serve Him with my life. I sold the stock that I had." I don't know what a lot meant to him. I don't know the specific amount, but he sold stock that he acquired over this period and he gave it toward the kingdom of God. So praise God, I got to see the Lord move. It's a miracle anytime the Lord does this in a person's life, but we need to trust that Jesus Christ, He is on His throne because He has lived, He has died, He has resurrected, He has ascended, He is in charge still, and He does save people. He gives people conviction by the Holy Spirit to repent of their idolatry, repent of their sin, repent of their self-dependence before Him and convinces them to repent and follow Him. So what was the rich young ruler called to? He was called to faith. It's confusing when you think Jesus has this perfect evangelistic opportunity and he's like, "Why didn't he just tell him to repent and believe?" Well, have faith in Christ. Well, Jesus, He's wiser than us. He knew the hard work that He needed to do on this guy, but we're basically called to be saved and trust Him and trust Him with our salvation and trust Him with provision to help us persevere to the end. When God saved Israel, He said, "People forget the preamble of the 10 Commandments." It's, "I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me." When we fully believe that God and Christ has met our deepest need, our guilt, our shame, our sin, our idolatry before Him, our hopelessness, our condemnation, that we are just walking towards apart from Him. When we see that God has met our deepest need through sending Christ to be the propitiation for our sins on the cross, we can trust Him with everything else. Israel was called to trust God after they're delivered from slavery. We are called to trust God when we realized He delivered us from the slavery to our sin. So we seek first His kingdom and all things will be added to us. Let me pray and close there. Heavenly Father, we praise You that You sent Your Son Jesus Christ for we know by Your word and by our personal experience of salvation and His provision as we've walked forward in faith, we know that He is the real rich, young ruler. Lord, we thank You for giving us the perspective to look upon this instance in history, the story, this tragedy, to learn more about how we may enter, to learn that we, by our own efforts, cannot enter, but through Christ, through His efforts, through faith in them we can, but Lord, please embolden our faith, grow our faith, grow our trust that You, as You have saved us, You will always provide for us. You see our effort today to honor You. We ask that You would bless us, preserve us, provide the comfort and strength and care we need to continue to honor You. Lord, we just ask, we pray, sustain us until we receive our reward in heaven. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
The Compassion of Jesus
January 14, 2024 • Andy Hoot • Mark 8:1–10
Today, we are continuing in our series in the Gospel of Mark. It's called Kingdom Come, the Gospel of Mark and the Secrets of God's Kingdom. And I just want to say I get to preach about every five or six weeks. I'm here to give passing on a break, a week off from the pulpit this week. And I just pray that you have been blessed as I have been blessed, as we've gone through this book. I hope that that continues today. We thought we'd go through a little bit faster and maybe close to the end of Mark, but we're about halfway through. Given just the satisfaction, the refinement we're getting from it as individuals in a body, we're just happy to meditate on it again today. Today we are in Mark 8, chapter 8 of Mark verses 1 through 10. Open, with me, if you have a Bible and if you don't, you can follow along on the screen. So Mark 8 verses 1 through 10. This is the word of our Lord. "In those days when again, a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they've been with me now three days and have nothing to eat and if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. And his disciples answered him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said seven." "And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground and he took the seven loaves and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the people and they set them before the crowd and they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them and they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces, left over seven baskets full and there were about 4,000 people and he sent them away and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha." Let's pray. This is a word of our Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you this day that we can come together as a people, as a multitude to learn about you, to hear from you, to hear the living word that we have in scripture. We thank you Lord that you have not left us in darkness, but those of us who know we are saved in Jesus are those who live in the light. And we thank you for the guide that your word is to us. We pray today that as you have been faithful to do throughout the course of Mosaic's history, we pray, bless us with a great sense of your presence. Enliven our hearts to just hear the lessons that you have for us, the comfort we need, the conviction, we need, the growth, the holiness that we need. Lord, open our eyes and just give us receptive hearts. We pray, Lord, that we would be satisfied, that we do pray that the thoughts and anxieties about the previous week, about the week to come would just leave our minds. And when you enable that Lord that you would fill us with gladness and joy in Jesus. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the primary phrase in our text today comes from verse two and it says, "And Jesus said to them, I have compassion on the crowd." Jesus has compassion on the crowd and this is the primary theme of the text. I'll talk about Jesus' compassion. And as I enter into this, I want to admit to you that when I opened up the text this week just preparing, in preparation early on to preach this Sunday, I read this text, I saw the topic of compassion and I really wanted to avoid it. To be honest, my heart coming back from the holidays, I had a great time, got to see my parents, a couple siblings, my in-laws. I got to be in my hometown where I grew up, my wife's hometown. It was a great time, but in many ways it was ... I don't know if it's similar for you, but it was kind of a family missions trip and a catch-up time between me and the wife, me and the kids, and driving to Philly and DC, a lot of my week was spent on I-95 and Highway 15 in Connecticut and came back tired last Tuesday, getting back to work. And I've been a little bit on autopilot where my body has been going forward, but my soul just feeling a little dry and I saw this topic of compassion or really wanted to avoid it. I basically wrote three sermons as I was trying to justify Pastor Jan preached on this topic a little bit, thoroughly enough a few weeks ago when talking about the other feeding. The Lord just corrected me. And how did I ... when I identified I was avoiding this, I did spend time in prayer to really just get softened and be receptive to what the Lord wanted me to engage and what wanted all of us to engage through this text this week. And I'll just prepare you, it might not be stimulating to the brain, but just as important as Christians is, we need our heart engaged and this text certainly does it as we cover the topic of compassion and to really ... if you're not really with me on compassion, you're feeling a little cold today, I want to warm your heart a little bit, attempt to very quickly, by reading First Corinthians 13, one to seven, this famous passage that we often hear at weddings on love. For Jesus said, the sum of God's command is the love God and love our neighbor and talking about compassion, about practically meeting the needs of others, praying that God would use us to meet the spiritual needs of others in the process. Just want to pause and remind us, we can't do any of that without love in our hearts. And if we do so, what do we resemble? We resound noisy gongs, clanging symbols, people who talk a lot but hypocritically don't back that talk with action, with loving action. So let me just read First Corinthians 13:1-7 with the hopes that the Lord prepares you for the rest of the passage. "If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I'm nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." So I just really want to say we need to love and why ... the sum of Christianity is that we love, we extend compassion to the loss, to the needy around us because Jesus Christ has been loving and compassionate. And merciful and gracious to us in our needs and primarily in the way that he has met our need to engage our sin, the guilt and shame we carry before the Lord. He provides the means of peace with our father. And so we should go forward with love on our minds and engaging with people with compassionate love. So this morning engaging in the text as is obvious from the scripture I read, we're going to study the miraculous feeding of the 4,000. I think it's best to cover this text going through verse by verse. For those of you who like checkpoints in the sermon, I want to know three points. The compassion of Jesus will be my first section, the power of Jesus will be my second section and the satisfaction of Jesus will be my third. So for those of you who are very attentive listeners to Mosaic sermons, thank you. We're glad you're here and following. You've been with us the past couple of months in Mark. You'll notice that today's text is not very different than the text on the feeding of the 5,000 that we covered on December 10th in Mark, when we studied Mark 30 through 44, Pastor Jan preached an incredible sermon. You should listen to it. As we open up this text, if it sounds really similar, you're not experiencing deja vu, we haven't gone backwards. We are just going forward in the text trying to be faithful to the scripture that the Holy Spirit is bringing our body to today. Now, the stories are very similar between the feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000, the accounts, both accounts mentioned the compassion of Jesus on the crowd. Both accounts take place in a wilderness. In both accounts, Jesus inquires about how many loaves the disciples have. In both accounts, the people are asked to sit down. In both accounts, Jesus prays over the food and miraculously creates massive amounts of food. In both accounts, there's a distribution process where Jesus has the disciples, involves them in bringing the bread to the people. In both accounts, the people are very satisfied. In both accounts, Jesus dismisses the crowd before leaving on a boat on the Sea Galilee to continue his ministry with his disciples. Both accounts, there are only two chapters apart and because of these similarities, the text is often criticized by scholars and critics of scripture, those who criticize the deity, question the deity of Jesus Christ. They say that this repetition of these similar stories or many of them say this one story gives reason to believe that the book of Mark, it's just a messy work. The guy who wrote it, who edited it was really just trying to trick people into thinking that there were two separate accounts, two separate events in order to get his literary intentions through, to get the lessons that he wanted to get through forward. And essentially, he concocted the stories, he wove them together to build this myth of the deity of the God man, Jesus. So we say, just want to leave that battle because at Mosaic we believe in the inerrancy and in the infallibility and the divine inspiration of the scriptures. We're not troubled by this. There certainly are many similarities between the passages, but many differences as well. In the first account, there are 5,000 people running around the lake with Jesus and spending a day with him. In the second account, it's 4,000 in the wilderness of the Decapolis for three days. In this account, we find people who have been with him ... Sorry, three days instead of one, after one day in the first feeding, Jesus feeds the multitude. In the first account, there's five loaves and two fish. In this account, there's seven loaves and a few small fish, probably sardines. After the first feeding they picked up 12 small baskets of leftovers. In this account, they pick up seven large baskets. It's kind of frustrating because every time you read on this passage, every time you listen to a sermon, everybody has to spend like five minutes, as I just did, saying that there's a lot of debate here, but we rest in the authority of Scripture, the most important and conclusive evidence that these are two separate accounts as Mark shows us, comes from later in chapter 8 verses 19 and 20, when Jesus Christ himself says, "When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, 12, and the seven for the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, seven. So that's it. Case closed. Jesus himself refers to these events as two separate events. This is a separate feeding of a multitude of 4,000 taking place at a different time than the feeding of the 5,000 chronicled in Mark 6. So this account, it does teach some of the same lessons as the feeding of the 5,000, but there are unique details in this one and that's what we want to pull out because that is what differentiates some of the meaning between the two accounts. So I want to bring out these differences and the primary lessons that we see here in the text through these three main headings and first the compassion of Jesus. So we begin here at 8:1, chapter eight verse one. It says, "In those days, and I say ..." okay, we're through that required part that I was frustrated that I had to go through, but so come back, listen to me now. We begin now at chapter 8:1, "In those days when again, a great crowd had gathered. In those days." So what mark means is that there was not a great passing of time since that last feeding. Remember Jesus ... these are the days where Jesus, he has traveled recently to Capernaum, to Tyre, to Sidon and now, he is south in the Decapolis. Jesus in those days, it's these days where he is in this Gentile region more prominently Gentile, less Jewish region and he's met by many who are bringing to him throughout his travels, the sick and the needy. And he is healing a lot of them. He's teaching a lot of them. So Mark is saying, this is what is happening in the Decapolis. Many translations say a multitude has gathered. Verse nine tells us there are 4,000 people. The parallel account in Matthew mentions that ... of the same feeding, that it's 4,000 people not including women and children. So this easily could be a crowd of 10 to 12,000, 15,000, 20,000 would not be unreasonable estimates. A huge congregation has sought Jesus once again as has been the case over and over again to this point in Mark since Jesus started his ministry. So we have the 12 disciples. Jesus, a large crowd of people. And why did these crowds come? To be healed, to see miracles. Most of all, we expect they came to hear him preach the word in three days with him. It's pretty clear that he would've been teaching them. It was said, why was Jesus ... what was the appeal? John 7:46 has a Gentile say. It was said of Jesus that no man ever spoke like him. People said that he preached in a way that they'd never heard before. People would hear him speak and they're there hanging on to every word that he said. And what would they do? A lot of them ... what we'd see in Mark is they'd hear him speak and if he got up and traveled they would follow him. We see here that he's probably preaching in a single area and just they are camped out for three days. It's like a revival scene, and that is what seems to be taken here in the Decapolis. Verse two says, they've been with me now three days. In the Greek, the translation for these words, been with me, three words, it's actually one word. It can be translated more precisely that they've been strongly attached to me. They've been committed to me. The people hear Jesus preaching and they want to stay to him, as close to him as possible. They don't want to leave. They hear Jesus preach his message of the arrival of the kingdom of God and the mercy and grace and forgiveness and his call to repent and they'd never want to leave. It's as if time has stopped and all their needs are being met. Their soul is experiencing satisfaction that it's never encountered before. And all earthly concerns don't matter for three days. Do you know this feeling? I don't know it for three days. I wish I did, but I remember when I first arrived in Mosaic in August of 2011, a year out of college, I grew up in a church ... before I come to Mosaic, I grew up and attended a church where the pastor had a strict rule for himself that he went 18 minutes with his sermons. And I was one of those people that was counting down those 18 minutes. When I arrived at Mosaic and I really think I was saved in those initial weeks where for the first time, I finally saw I'm a sinner, God is holy, I have no access, no right to go into his presence by my own means. By my own actions, by my own record, but Jesus is perfect and I can have his record applied to me by faith. That's when I started hearing the word and when I heard it was if time stopped, a 45-minute to an hour long sermon, that was like nothing to me. Time felt like it flew by and when it was over I was sad. Do you know this? This is the experience really of every true believer is going to have a love and this kind of deep satisfaction in the word of God, and I would say I still feel it. I'm not saying I don't feel this right now. I love to come to church on Sunday. I want to get filled my soul during Christmas time. I went home and ate all my favorite takeout foods, Philadelphia hoagies and soft pretzels and lots of local spots and I just had to come back and fast because that ... a few days of that satisfaction that really didn't satisfy, I wanted the Lord. And when I come to church each Sunday, I feel this spiritual exhaustion and need to get filled up. And I elaborate on this to tell you what it was like when I first encountered it. Do you know this? If not, ask the Lord to just give you this experience. Have the humility to say that, "Lord I don't know this and please give it to me." And Pastor Jan and I we're trying to recreate this timeless experience for you each week as we preach the word. As you hear me speak so slowly, you're like, "I don't know if that's possible with you Andy," but I say, "Go home and list to me at two times speed. I've got the perfect voice for it. You won't miss a detail." My sermons are the same length and pages as Pastor Jan, he just speaks 1.5 times faster than me. Do you know this? Pray, Lord, I want to know and love your word and be satisfied like this. So, people, they were so astonished at the teaching of Christ, they feel such deep soul satisfaction that they seemingly ran out of food. Some of them probably had food. The existence of baskets there means, they probably ... some people probably brought some, but they probably ran out and there were probably others who went, "I'm just going to go hear you guys speak. I've got nothing." They still stayed and had an unplanned three-day fast. And I also have these experiences. When I first arrived at Mosaic ... and I'm saying this, if you feel like you have experienced this, when I'm not experiencing this, I go to a new believer in Mosaic and I hear them tell me of their experience of just the newness of the kingdom of God spreading and there's this old rain in their heart as they serve the Lord. When I was saved, first saved, when I was born again, it was go, I want to go serve. I want to want more people to know this word and have this peace, this joy from the Lord. I'm going to go serve. I'm going to go help us set up. I'm going to go worship and drink in that sermon, I'm going to sit in the front so that I'm not distracted at all. And well, naturally back seater, but then I'd spend my whole day just how do I help with tear down? How do I help with spending time with people? It's not to call attention to myself, it's to say again, "Can you get lost in this?" And I still have this experience, I still do it here basically in the building all day. It's now my job. So I do get paid for it. I still kind of get lost and I don't eat all day and then, I go home and I get in trouble with my wife because I'm starving and ask her where her food is. Do you know this wilderness, this satisfaction in the wilderness experience that these people in the Decapolis are experiencing when Christ is preaching to them for three days and we can believe it's the middle of summer. These people, they're experiencing ... they know what Peter 2 to 3 says ... it's talking about, it says like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. They're living out the fulfillment of man shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, Matthew 4:4. If you study world history, Christianity is not in existence because it was just propagated by people who maintained it over time. It's that, Christianity is the most popular religion in world history because believers have had this experience with the Lord through the engagement with him, through his word throughout history. It's real, it's satisfying, and we should pray. We should pray that if we don't know this, Lord, give me this experience. Give me this love and satisfaction of you and we should pray. Lord, help us to live in a day where we get to see masses of people, revival, people confessing sin, repenting of it, turning and receiving grace from God at a mass level. Have you read church history? Do you read it? I read it for fun because it's hard, we do live in a pretty desolate place. So I go to scripture, I go to church history to read real life accounts of people who not only we read in scripture of this multitude, this revival among the masses when Christ walked the earth, but over and over again in our nation. In almost every nation of the world, every region of the world, maybe not modern nation, you can learn about revivals where people are filled and satisfied by God's word and just give their lives to him. So we need to pray for this and God has not changed. He can still do it. His word, his power has not diminished since Jesus ascended into heaven. In fact, his spirit is now poured out on us in a uniquely powerful way and we can experience this today. One of my favorite stories is in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, who would not identify as a Christian, when George Whitfield, a great faithful preacher of history, supposedly preached tens of thousands of sermons in his life just walking around Europe and Britain and the states. Benjamin Franklin at one point scientifically measured the radius of the crowd of people that came to hear George Whitfield speak in a day where they didn't have microphones to hear him preach and just Franklin was no believer, but he said he could feel this cleansing effect on his soul and he measured that it was probably 30,000 people gathering in a Philadelphia square open space to hear the word preach. And so we should long to have these experiences with the multitudes and pray that they come. So the people forget their needs, but Jesus hasn't forgotten, and this is the compassion of Jesus. So in verse two he says, "I have compassion on the crowd because they've been with me now three days and have nothing to eat." And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. Jesus knows people have come a long way. They're in the wilderness. There isn't a Chipotle nearby, there isn't a new H Mart in the area. There's no DoorDash carts that are willing to travel as far as they are into the wilderness. He knows that if he sends the people home through after this long experience in the wilderness without food, that the people could faint along the way. This is the compassionate Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the God of the universe, cares not just for the people's spiritual needs but for their physical needs as well. God, Christ, he caress for body and soul. We see this Christ's true concern and he gives us permission to care for our body and soul. And when he instructs us how to play with the Lord's prayer, we address spiritual needs. Our Father who is in heaven hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done all earth as it is in heaven. Skip a section, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others, lead us not in temptation but deliver us from evil. These are our spiritual needs that we should pray for, but then, he gives us ... he acknowledges that we should pray for our practical concerns. Give us this day our daily bread. God, Christ, he caress about them. Philippians 4, 6 and 7 says, do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication, but thanks to him. Let your requests be made known to God. God wants us to ask for our spiritual needs and for our physical needs. I think a lot of reformed Bible believing Christians really struggle to enter that practical area to admit when they need God to provide one of their needs, food, clothing, health, a safe place to live, we can ask for that and actually so much more and that's kind of another sermon when we ask for things in Jesus' name. Through Jesus' concern for the physical needs, we get a deeper sense of his compassion, and when he says in verse two, I have compassion on the crowd, the word for compassion in the Greek. It's one that refers to feeling in his inner organs in the guts, this word, it's roots, talk about the guts. This feeling that arises in this guts out of sympathy, true empathy, true sincere concern for the condition of others. As he becomes aware of it. It's more than a feeling, but it's a feeling that makes him ... that moves him. It's not the kind of compassion that we show when we sign up for a 5K and pay $25 last minute on a Saturday morning just because that's what all of our friends are doing. It's not the kind of compassion that when we donate five or $10 for a friend for their Facebook birthday nonprofit drive, just because we're like, "Oh, well this person's finally into something good." I want to support this. No, the Lord's passion is so much deeper. It's the kind of compassion that says, I'm not going to leave here until I find out a solution. Disciples, do you have any food? Okay, I can work with this. Let's get moving. People sit down. Jesus has this gut wrench in compassion and has the Lord given you this gut wrench and compassion for anyone, for any cause lately? What are you doing about it? We have to pause and really ask ourselves that there are many instances in scripture where Jesus is marked with compassion for the multitude. Matthew 9, 14, Mark 6 and 8 here. What's a note in Mark's gospel is that he uses this word compassion. This compassion for surprising groups of people. And Mark Jesus who is Jewish is moved with compassion for people that an ordinary Jew would not have compassion for or any association with. He's moved for Gentiles, lepers, demon possessed, even his own disciples were not moved like Jesus. There are several instances where the disciples, they respond to someone who approaches Jesus, a needy person and quickly reacting by telling him to send them away. This is what they did last week when we studied the text with the Syrophoenician women, they essentially say, "Can't you just get rid of her, send her away?" In the feeding of the 5,000, what did they do at the end of the day? This is before the miracle, the feeding occurred. They say Jesus send them away to get food. And they're probably thinking about themselves because they want some food. They're not really compassionate. Even in the amount, this account of the feeding of the 4,000, the disciples don't seem to care too much for the people. At least after one day at the last feeding with the Jewish crowd, they actually approached Jesus and said, "Hey, nobody has any food." This is after three days in the wilderness with this Gentile crowd. They don't point out the crowd's need for food. Who does that? It's Jesus. So, the comparison between the reactions to the poor, the needy and of the disciples in Christ, it helps us through this appreciation, Christ compassion so much more. The disciples are very often attempting to send people away, seemingly showing cold self-focused hearts. Jesus is always open and concerned for the wellbeing of the people around him. As we reflect on this point, we really have to ask ourselves if we, the churc, as a body, as individuals, make the same mistakes as the disciples today, especially those of us, we are church. We really have dignity in the fact that we are rooted on the rock of Jesus Christ and his word. We're biblical. We are reformed. Part of this world, theological world, we say, we need to preach the word. The word is what matters. My church, yeah, preaches the word and we love that. We love the correct framing of the doctrine, but we need to really back our commitment to the word with deed and this is something that churches throughout history have really struggled with. I grew up in the United Methodist Church as biggest denomination in the country still, though it's breaking apart and I do miss my experience in the Methodist church sometimes because they were so good at deed, just very loving people. The problem was a long time ago they really left scripture and left its authority and they're being torn apart because a lot of what they're teaching resembles just what modern isms of the world modern trends are teaching. We as churches, we as individuals, we love the word, but we also love to commit good deeds that are inspired by our commitment to the word, out of thanksgiving for Christ's compassion and love and kindness to us. Just as a church passing on, I think Mark has really got our thoughts going. We've also had to think about the church budget for 2024, a lot in the past month, month and a half. And just a few things we're focusing on to try to correct ourselves a little bit, is we just want to pray over those in our body who are sick more. James 5:14 says, is anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. If you're sick, we want to be faithful to this and we want to call for the Lord's help and just make sure people are not struggling out there without our knowledge. Furthermore, we have plans to offer meals. Pastor Jan mentioned for the first time last week, we're piloting lunches on the first week of every month and it's just open invite, if you can, RSVP ahead of time that get us ... help us estimate how much food we need to order, please do so, but this is a chance to just create a space where members, guests, people are starving for food, can come and sit and share a catered meal, provided by the giving of others and build the fellowship and really have greater opportunity to really get to know each other and get to understand each other's needs, where this is part of the heart, this heart of compassion. Furthermore, Jesus, he talks to his disciples about ... He does this miracle around bread and fish twice. So furthermore, we are going to add another form of food in the near future. We're bringing back bagels for the first time before services in the lobby, for the first time since COVID. We are trying to create a warm, loving, compassionate space and feel to match just the commitment to scripture that we have, and just ... I say all of this, meditate on the compassion of Jesus to hopefully get you to meditate on whether or not you're showing compassion to Christ here, Christ with your life here at our church. John 13 says, "The world will know you by your love for one another." Christ further instructs his disciples to serve one another by washing each other's feet and just that symbolic, it's where to go that far in your engagements in your personal life. Are you compassionate to others? Is there anyone that the Lord is asking you to serve? Any needs for any neighbors that the Lord is calling you to address? And I live in a building of ... here in Brookline of 30 something units and there's a lot of people three decades older than me and I know they've made me the president of the building to hand over maintenance and the board ... because I'm young. That's it. Hopefully, I've shown them a good neighbor. Yeah., I learned these needs and a guy just got a hip replacement on Friday. I forgot to pray for him. I know of all these ways where I can just show Christ's kindness and compassionate and I try to turn a blind eye from them sometimes, but I'm trying to faithfully step into those situations. And so what is that for you? We've got to focus on the word. That's true. That's what Jesus did here with the 4,000. He preached the word for three days, but he knows that he can't send them away in the condition that they're in. He sees the need to administer to their bodies as well as their souls. And Jesus is trying to ... he's doing this if ... there's two main focuses of Mark. It's Mark, the author, he's trying to present Christology. Who is Jesus the Messiah? What is this kingdom he's established and all throughout the book, but the second most important motive he has is to prepare his disciples throughout the book, for life without him. He wants his disciples to equally feel compassion in the way that he feels it and to equally act upon that feeling. He wants to grow their heart and love for others, especially those who are undeserving of them, who they think are undeserving of their compassion. And scripture gives us the example of the good Samaritan, the priest and Levi, those who have God's word in the parable, they walk by the person in need. And then, who addresses the person in need. So the religious people, they walk right by the person in need. The Good Samaritan, the man outside the covenant promises of God. He's the one. The good Samaritan takes care of those needs. We as a church, we can't do that. There are so many opportunities to show love and compassion to people as Christ has done for us in meeting our deepest spiritual needs on the cross. So often, just meeting our daily needs abundantly in this life. Just some scriptures that really hammer this. Philippians 2, 3, 4. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also the interests of others." Second Corinthians one, three to four, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of all mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Do you have a heart like Jesus? And yes, we want people to have compassion for the people in Africa, people in Asia, people in Eastern Europe, people in the Middle East, those areas where Christianity does not have a stronghold or the church does not have a large presence. More importantly, do you have compassion for the people right next to you? Jesus commands love God, love your neighbor. Are you blessing people, looking to bless people as you have been blessed by God? It's oftentimes what do you offer, your presence that goes a long way to a lot of hurting people. What do you have to offer? Prayer. That's even before presence. There's prayer. So many of us say, I'm going to pray for you but don't. And then, from your resources, what do you have? And I want to say extending compassion is art. I'm a pastor and a lot of my job is engaging people who are volunteering to admit their needs. There's a lot of people who quietly have needs but don't tell us. And you need to have humility to share them with people in the CG and the pastors in your community group. One of the things is we often ... when we try to extend compassion with people, sometimes we do it a little blindly. We do it without getting close to people. And that's really important. Sometimes we assume people have specific needs because we just see what their needs are on the surface, but because we're not getting close, we're not given the time, the attention that Jesus does to the multitude here, we really kind of go in and we try to act, we try to serve but we make things worse or we kind of offend the person. We need to really be willing to take time to hear people, to get to know their situation before we act. And then when we make mistakes, it's a learned, extending compassion, serving others. It takes time to learn how to do it well. And you can be a pastor for years and really still make mistakes. Sometimes we have to confess our mistakes to people and we have to learn from them, repent of them. So one thing I do want to say about Mosaic is it's a very generous body. One of the things as a pastor with a bird's eye view of what's going on across our membership and community groups is I find out often several months after the fact that people in our church have financially met the material needs of others. They've given money to people, hundreds, thousands of dollars. They're seeking clothing, shelter, care, legal support. We have members often paying for legal counsel for when there are others who need it. It is amazing. It is, just love Jesus simple. Our motto here at Mosaic being applied, what do we want happening as we preach the word, we want people to hear the word be changed from the inside out as the Holy Spirit just awakens people and softens their hearts. And we want people to organically see the needs of people and offer what they have, their loaves, few loaves and fish and try to meet them in faith. And our body is great in doing Matthew 6:3 to 4, "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you." I hear about a lot of stuff that community groups and members do weeks or months after the fact and we need to keep doing this. I will say though, sometimes it's easy to just give money. We have to give people time and presence as we extend compassion. So let's keep this up. Last, to close out the thought, Galatians the section ... Galatians 6:9 to 10, "And let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith." Jesus says, I have compassion on the crowd. We need to similarly extend compassion. Now, I move on to my next point. So if you've drifted for me, come back with me and my first point is a lot longer than the next two. So the power of Jesus. Jesus is about to meet the needs of people with his infinite power. And I want to just cover four points as we walk through this discussion of Jesus power. First, look at how Jesus brings out the human inadequacy of the disciples before he gives them the ... offers them the solution to the problem. In verse five, he asks, "How many loaves do you have?" He knows he's got, he knows the answer. He's asking because he's getting them to see their own inadequacy. He wants them to see how little they have to offer in this situation. Seven loaves, a few fish when they really spend time to see that fully, gather that, they see that they have nothing to offer to feed this multitude. Jesus, when he calls his disciples to do his work, part of the process is first showing them how utterly inadequate they are in and of themselves to carry out his mission. He brings them to the end of themselves, to the end of their strength, the end of their capacities, the end of their material resources. And he gets them, primes them, primes their hearts to get to this position where they know that they cannot go forward unless he blesses them, unless he gives them power, unless he steps in and offers the solution. This is how God works when he calls people to do anything for his kingdom. And this is kind of paradoxical, the sermon series, Kingdom Come the Gospel of Mark and Secrets of the Kingdom. We need to really understand this is one of the secrets. God functions in this way. The rest of the world tells you, promote your strengths, let them be made known. God says, I want you to work in weakness. The apostle Paul said of preaching the word, who is sufficient for these things. Preaching the word, doing the tasks of ministry. Christians are to work from the position of weakness. Paul knew this. Paul grew in this. Paul learned to really love this situation of I am brought to my limits, but I know that God is going to supply, he supplied grace to save me. He's going to supply grace I need to do this thing that he has called me to do. And he says, "But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my powers made perfect and weakness. Therefore, I'll boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I'm content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for when I am weak, then I'm strong." And as a pastor, I know this is me. I do not bring anything to the table. Any part of my role, I am outside of my comfort zone. I really am not that gifted. I'm a good generalist, but I'm not that specifically gifted anywhere, but I'm learning to grow in this. This is us as pastors. This needs to be everybody in our church taking up calls and trusting that the Lord will supply our ability to carry out those missions that he's called us to. Those things, those people, those needs for which we have much compassion. So God uses those who he brings to their absolute inadequacy who are aware of it. Next, as we discuss the power of Christ, I want to think about Christ's power and how it requires ... I think a good framing and it's our receptive compliance, not just compliance, but receptive compliance. This is really part of a message that we have ... part of the message today that is for anyone who wants to be a Christian, you're thinking, how do I become a Christian? You need to allow Jesus to be lured of your life. You need to receive his commands with compliance. Verse six says, "And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground." I want to emphasize the reception of his commands and compliance. In the feeding of the 5,000, the disciples are instructed to sit the people down, so in the last feeding. In this feeding account, Jesus directs the crowd to sit down. To receive Jesus's saving food. In this process, he is active, they are passive. The people aren't to do anything to receive this food that will save them. They're there to look for him ... look him for and receive it from him. So people might be saying today, "Will the Lord receive me? Can I be saved? You don't know what I've done. You don't know what ... I can't stop myself from doing." The Lord says ... yes, he's offering you, come and receive his command to come and sit at his feet. And let him offer you the food that saves. And so he says, look at the passage. He fed all these Gentile pagans, along with his prideful disciples, all these people who turned to him and all they had to do was receive the blessing of the saving bread that he offered in these conditions. They had to sit, wait and receive, not run up and claim they could help him in the process. The people relied completely on Jesus to supply the saving bread to them. And this connects to our salvation. There's nothing we can do. We simply look to Christ. He has finished the work that is necessary for salvation. We trust in him and rest upon his work on the cross. Next in this section, on the power of Christ, I want to consider Christ continual ... the continual sufficiency of his power. He saved us with his power, but then there is a supply that is never ending, verse six and he took the loaves, the seven loaves and haven't given thanks. He broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. Jesus broke the bread and he gave, it was a continuous action. Jesus broke the bread, he gave it to the disciples, to a disciple, and he just kept giving. He gave one disciple a bread and another arrived. And then, he gave another disciple of bread and he gave, another arrived and he gave another disciple a bread and they went and served it, until all 15,000 or so people were fed and satisfied. And it doesn't matter how many people were there, there could have been 5,000, 10,000, a million more people, and there would've been enough bread. There is sufficiency ... Christ always has a provision for us that is sufficient. This is his infinite, continual sufficiency of his power. And what does this do? It teaches us that Jesus is God. This text shows us that Jesus is the same one as he's making these fish anew and making these loaves anew. In that moment, he shows us that he's the same one that was there at the beginning of creation. He spoke creation into existence. He said, be fruitful and multiply. He made a grown woman out of the rib of a grown man. This is the same God, Jesus here breaking loaves over and over and over in the Decapolis. The same God is alive and living today. And so this is a lesson that teaches that He is God, but it's also a lesson for the disciples as well. It's a lesson for us as well. They're going to live a life on ministry. They're called to be fruitful for the kingdom of God, to go and make disciples of all nations. And they're taking living water, living bread to people. Do they need to worry that Christ's supply of salvific power is ever going to run out? No. There's inexhaustible supply from Christ's power. So lastly, as we think about the power of Christ, think about the room that Jesus leaves for his disciples to be involved. The human involvement in his great saving work, verse six says, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. So Jesus, he incorporates the disciples into the process of distributing the bread. He doesn't need them to do this. He could easily find a way to get the job done by himself in a much quicker manner, but in his grace, in his humility, he wants to give the disciples the opportunity to be a part of his work. The disciples weren't bringing anything to the table. They weren't bringing anything from themselves to the people. They're solely bringing what Jesus gave to them, what Jesus gave to them, to the people. That's all that we do as Christians. We don't have to come up with a new message. We don't have to come up with a new way to save people. Every time that there's a shift in the isms of academia, every time that there's a major challenge in world history. We continue to stand on the word, to preach the word, to trust that it is the power of God and to salvation to the Jew first and also the Greek. We deliver that to people with faith that God will keep using the same method that he always has. Praise God. Praise God. We don't have to come up with a new message, new way to get the word out. I look at churches that have left the word and I feel bad for those pastors who are in churches that are not standing on the word. And I'm actually kind of very impressed with anybody who can somehow come up with a new message to keep the interest of people week after week in such churches. I'm thankful to Mosaic. What decides what we say? The word, and that's what God uses to save people, to sustain his saints, to give them satisfaction and power for the work for him. And it's a blessing to administer the word, and that's not just for preachers, it's all of you. You're all ambassadors of a great king and you're called to go into the world and share the gospel with people, to deliver it with joy, to give a reason for the hope within you to tell people of your love for God and it's an honor. Do you feel honored to just extend such compassion to others, to see them in their deepest ... see their deepest speed. To be aware of it, to know it, and to have what satisfies them? Every Christian will know, will admit it's not my physical needs. It was the darkness, the depravity, the depression. I was in my sin that needed to be addressed. And then, someone shared the gospel with me. So do you feel honored? And so we get to the Lord works, shares his power, dispels it through us as we are faithful in the delivery. Now, to my final point, we've talked about the compassion of Jesus, the power of Jesus. Now we'll talk about the satisfaction of Jesus. The bread that Jesus brings gives full satisfaction, verse eight, "And they ate and we're satisfied." You can draw this lesson out from both miracles. In John 6, which is a parallel passage of the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus goes to the wilderness area. He feeds the people with bread. And this was to point, explains. To point people back to Moses. And Moses had done the same in the wilderness. Remember, God uses Moses to rescue people out of bondage from Egypt. And he parts the sea at the exodus for them to go into the wilderness. And God, during Moses ministry supplies manna, kind of a bread that reigns from heaven. And Mark has shown in these gospels ... the authors have shown that Jesus is the greater Moses who provides living bread. Even more, Jesus is himself the bread. He's the living bread that John talks about at the end of his account of the feeding of the 5,000. John 6:51 says ... Jesus says, "I'm the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I'll give for the life of the world is my flesh." So Jesus provides physical sustenance for people. He provides also spiritual sustenance for his people. Does he provide it for the Jews? Yes. If they'll have it, does he provide it for the Gentiles? Yes. If they'll have it. And one of the great themes of the Old Testament scriptures is that there's going to be a time in history where there's a great feast of Jew and Gentile where the Lord brings the Messiah, brings sustenance, life, bread for the Gentiles. Isaiah 55:1 to 3, the Lord gives a great invitation to this meal. "Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters and he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food." I think other translations are fat foods. "Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live and I will make you with you an everlasting covenant." So the rest of Isaiah 55 continues just inviting people to this feast banquet with Jews and Gentiles, Jews and people from the nations, gathering together. And Jesus at his first coming, he initiates this period and in heaven, in the new earth, we're going to be dining together, feasting together. Jew and Gentile in the presence of God. Remember last week we talked about the Syrophoenician woman and she goes hard to get the Lord's blessing to receive healing for her daughter. And there's this engagement where she says it's not right to give the children's bread to the dogs. He says, I've come to bring food but to bring it to the Jews first, they're my children. She said, "I know who you are, but even the dogs eat the crumbs of the children when they fall to the ground." The woman knows that at Christ table there's space for both Jew and Gentile. This is shown ... and that both Jew and Gentile will be satisfied. This is shown in that Jesus feeds the 5,000 in a largely Jewish area. They eat and are satisfied. This is shown in this narrative in the Decapolis, a largely Gentile area. The 4,000 eat his loaves and are satisfied. They're stuffed, is the proper translation. Engorged, because of the filling. On both occasions, the people either fill and in both occasions there are leftovers. In the instance of the leftovers, there are 12 baskets full of leftovers that they collect. 12, it's a number that represents fullness in the Jewish community. Think of the 12 tribes of Israel. It indicates that Jesus offers full satisfaction to the Jews who believe in him. And the instance of the leftovers with the Gentiles, there are seven baskets and it's a number of completeness. When before Moses brought the people ... before the people of Israel entered the promised land, there's a line in the scripture that talks about these seven nations. These seven Gentile nations will be driven out of the promised land. So this number seven, it indicates fullness of the Gentiles, and this verse shows that seven basketfuls of fragments being left over, there's space for the Gentiles. All of them can be satisfied in God's kingdom at his table. Jew or Gentile, Mark teaches us that ... Jesus teaches us that he is enough. He can abundantly, he can generously satisfy any need that you can have in this barren, empty spiritual wilderness, only Jesus can provide satisfaction for one's body and soul. In verse four, the disciples ask, "Where will we ever find anyone who can satisfy these people in a desolate place like this?" And that's answered in verse eight when it tells us, because Jesus fed them, they ate and were satisfied. Satisfied in verse four and ate, they're the same word. The disciples found their answer in Jesus. Jesus provides the loaves of fish he satisfies in this barren, empty place. In the Decapolis, Jesus is the only one who can provide satisfaction for the people. 2000 years later, Mark is saying, "In this barren, empty wilderness of the world, only Jesus can satisfy the needs of all the people." No one else can. No other religion can. No other form of spirituality, no money can, no chemical experience, food, foodie experience can satisfy like Jesus. You can have everything that the world has to offer, but it won't satisfy your soul. And when you have it, you'll even feel emptier, because when it doesn't deliver, you really feel the pain. Jesus is the living bread. He can satisfy your soul and continue to satisfy your soul. If you continue to feed on him, your desire and capacity to feed on him will grow. Think of Mark four, Jesus teaches the disciples about the kingdom of God. And he says that when it takes root in good soil, it grows 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. When someone is satisfied by the word of God, it takes root in their heart. Their desire for it grows, their understanding of it grows and it grows exponentially. And your desire and capacity to feed on it, grows. Jesus can feed your soul to the point that there are leftovers. This pastor is a seven, basketfuls of leftovers. An interesting note that separates the two feedings again is that these are big baskets, seven big baskets for the feeding of the 5,000. There's 12 small hand baskets, lunch baskets, this large basket. It's the same size basket that the apostle, Paul was lowered down from a wall when he was fleeing a city in Acts 9. So the English word is the same in both accounts, but the word for basket is bigger. In the feedings of the 5,000, it's all to show Jesus provides super abundant provision for the Jews and super abundant provision for the Gentiles. All people can come to him and be satisfied. And I do want to say one note is that there's a special ... Jesus, Mark again, he has the first motive of showing us who Jesus is, as the Christ, as the Messiah in these verses. Those verses I mentioned from Mark 8:19 to 20, where Jesus asked, "Do you remember how many basketfuls of leftovers you had when I fed the 5,000? Yes. 12." "Do you remember how many basketfuls you had when I fed the 4,000? Yes. Seven." Jesus says, "Do you not yet understand?" He wants the disciples to think about the leftovers. And this is a lesson for those of us who are living a life on mission, those who are disciples and stretching themselves in service in the wilderness to people who are hard to serve. People who we often find are undeserving of God's mercy and grace, but we can keep serving them because we also are. He says, "Look at the leftovers. There a sign that I am always going to take care of those people. I'm going to satisfy them abundantly when they're stretching themselves on mission for you." So the Lord is always going to provide. And Jesus, this is why Isaiah extend the invitation to come to the Jews and Gentiles, we're all invited to come eat, delight our soul and fatness in Jesus the Messiah. That's everything we could need. So to close, I ask, do you have it? Do you have the living bread? Are you feeding on Jesus Christ, the bread sent down from heaven? If not, he is offering you himself this morning, and if you have fed on him before and you know you're saved in him, you have been satisfied in him, but you've gone off and eaten a lot of junk food of the world that's just intoxicated your mind and body. He's invited you, come back, feet on me, rest in me. Let me serve you and satisfy you. And all you need to do is obey, receive me and obey. And Jesus he sees your life. He sees the journey ahead of you. He sees that it's a long journey and he sees the difficulties ahead and he says, you need bread, you need sustenance. You need food. You need something that will keep satisfying you. And you don't just need bread. You need broken bread. If you want the bread to be good, to actually give you the power to keep going, you need it to be broken. He breaks the loaves in the feedings. That's what Jesus was on the cross. His body was broken in a desolate place on the cross so that he could invite us into a life of abundant satisfaction and feasting in him and the eternal feasting in his presence. Jesus, he bought our redemption. He earned our redemption. He purchased our pardon. He gives us peace, forgiveness, eternity in his presence. So that when we look to him by faith and feed upon him, it gives us life. It gives us strength. It gives us hope for the journey that we'll make for him the rest of our lives. Let's trust in him and extend compassion like him. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your compassion toward us. For we are like those in the crowd. We are those who are famished, those who have come or are at the end of our capacities, and we need your saving food. We need your bread. We need your loaves, and we need you physically to provide for us, but deep down, we need you to spiritually provide for us. Save us, satisfy us. Continue to give us your power as we walk this journey home to you. Lord, we just acknowledge that we often turn and consume things that are not good for us. Taste the fruit of the world that Satan tempts us with. And Lord, we just come back to you just trusting that you will satisfy. And Lord, we just pray as we turn to you and you politely involve us in your work. Just take our loaves, take these few loaves, take our little fish and use them, multiply them so that we might have an impact on a multitude of people. Please use us to save many in the rest on the rest of our journey. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Marveling at Unbelief
November 26, 2023 • Andy Hoot • Mark 6:1–6
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 mosaicboston com. Today is exciting as is every day that we open up God's Word. We are continuing in our series Kingdom Come, the Gospel of Mark and the secrets of God's Kingdom. And today we're landing in more of the secrets of how God functions in saving people and how God matures His servants. And in fact, He shows us through the model of the way that he constructed Christ's life. And so without further ado, I'm going to start reading our passage from today. It is from Mark Chapter Six verses one through six. Mark Chapter Six, verses one through six. And this is a good Thanksgiving passage. We're talking about a homecoming. We're talking about the ordinariness of Christ, something that we sing praises about at Christmastime, the simplicity of his life and the Lord will use it as a good segue to our Christmas season. Would you please hear the preaching of God's Word. "He went away from there and came to His hometown and His disciples followed him. And on Sabbath He began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were astonished saying, "Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to Him? How are such mighty works done by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household." And He could do no mighty work there except that he laid His hands on a few people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. And He went about among the village's teaching." This is the word of our Lord. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you this day for your word. We thank you for assembling your saints here today. We thank you Lord for giving us your word so that we are not people who are clamoring about, walking in darkness. We thank you for your revelation of yourself to us in the life of Jesus Christ. And now in just the opening of His word, we ask, Lord that you prime our hearts to receive what you would have us hear today and let us receive with belief. We pray that our hearts would be good soil to hear your word so that we would believe it and be faithful servants in your kingdom as we go forth from this week, this day. In Jesus name I pray, amen. Well, I've learned over the years about myself that I like to learn by learning on the positive side of things. I like to be told what to do and to believe a little bit more than being told what not to do and what not to believe. But as I've gotten older, hopefully as a mark of wisdom, I've learned that those lessons that talk just as much about what not to do, what not to believe are just as valuable as those positive lessons, the positive wisdom. And today is a lesson from scripture, a text that teaches us in the negative manner. Last week, the last couple of weeks, we've talked about profound miracles and faith. And chapter five of Mark where we were the past couple of weeks might be labeled as the triumph of faith. So we talked last week a lot about the triumph of faith. Jesus healed a man and who was possessed by a legion of demons. And what does Jesus do when he sees who Jesus is properly, he sees him as the Christ, the Messiah. The Lord tells him to go and spread his faith, tell others about what the Lord has done for him and how he has saved him. Furthermore, Jesus learns of the faith of a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years and He heals her and he says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease." Furthermore, in chapter five, when Jairus, a father with a sick dying daughter comes to him and pleads with him to go and heal her, Jesus says, "Do not fear. Only believe." And he does, and he saves Jairus's daughter. He actually raises her from the dead. And so Jesus in Chapter Five, encounters faith in people. He encourages them to have it. And today, as I said, we're learning more in the negative. What do we encounter in chapter six of Mark? We encounter unbelief and in profound ways. In verse 6:6, we come across Jesus doing something that the scriptures do not capture Him doing often. Verse six says, "He marveled. The man who cast out a legion of demons, who healed a woman who was bleeding for 12 years, who raised the life of a dead child, marveled." This is only one of two areas in all the scriptures where Jesus marveled, He was amazed, He was awestruck. Here and in Matthew 8:10. In Matthew 8:10, He marvels at the extraordinary faith of the centurion who asks him to only say the word so that his servant lying at home away from him would be healed. And Jesus does. He marvels over the man's faith, the centurion's faith. But here in chapter six, Jesus marvels at the unbelief of the people of Nazareth. Verse six says, "And He marveled because of their unbelief." Furthermore, in chapter six, not in our scripture today, but later on, we encounter a profound example of unbelief in the life of Herod. Verse 14 of chapter 6 mentions that Jesus' name had spread to the courts of King Herod. King Herod heard of it, heard of Jesus and his teaching and his proclamation that the Kingdom of God was at hand for Jesus' name had become known, the ruler of the land of Israel knew about Jesus. But verse 20, he tells us, "For Herod feared John knowing that he was a righteous." John is John the Baptist, baptizer. "Knowing that he was a holy and righteous man and he kept him safe. When he heard him," heard John preach. "He was greatly perplexed and yet he heard him gladly." But what we learned is that though Herod liked to hear John preach, it stimulated his intellect. In Acts 12:20 to 23, we hear of his gruesome death and he stands as an example of what unbelief can lead to for all of us. And so today it is a sermon with a lot of gravity. We're not celebrating a happy homecoming. Jesus didn't go home and have a joyful Thanksgiving. This is a sad story. The people closest to Jesus, the people he spent his adolescence and young adulthood with reject him. But as I said, there's much to learn in this negative teaching, this text told us to not be like the people of Nazareth. And in many ways, our job is to make sure as Christians that we don't repeat the same mistakes and practice such unbelief. So I'm going to break the sermon up into two sections, the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief and the second one, the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness, the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief. As I meditate upon our texts here in the first section, I'm going to bring out the characteristics of unbelief. Unbelief is a topic that we typically avoid, but it's really good to understand it, to be able to identify it. And when I speak about this, I don't want you to be thinking about all the people out there, all the people sitting around you, maybe a brother, sister in the church who you know is struggling. First and foremost, I want you to check your own heart to be listening, to hear if you have any signs of unbelief, if you are showing the tendencies of unbelief. And so as we discover unbelief, we'll talk about the fact of it, the tendencies of it, the nature of it, the consequences of it as we discuss the ordinariness of Nazareth's belief. So firstly, I emphasize the fact of unbelief. Nazareth's unbelief is something that Christ disciples will encounter regularly in their ministry. And as I said, this is not your average homecoming for Jesus and his disciples. We read in verse one, "He went away from there and came to his hometown and His disciples followed Him." And so what we find out today is that Jesus, He goes to His hometown, He's bringing his disciples, and this is a business trip. He's been back to Nazareth before a year or so ago, and He goes back to Nazareth. That time He was by himself. This time it's with His disciples and what's he doing? Last time He was at Nazareth, this was the start of His ministry. And Luke Four chronicles this and he basically goes to the synagogue and He reads a passage from Isaiah that talks about the arrival of the Messiah, the arrival of the Kingdom of God. And he says, "On this day the scripture has been fulfilled." And what do the people do? His hometown, they rejected Him then and then they take him up to the highest point in town and threaten to push Him off the cliff for his blasphemy. But now He comes back a year later after gathering a group of disciples and he comes back after developing this reputation in the land. And so first and foremost, this is a lesson, what Jesus is going through with His disciples through this experience is a lesson about discipleship. It's a lesson for them that He's preparing them for the time when He's not with them. He's given them a dose of reality for what they're going to experience as they serve Him after his death, resurrection and ascension. And I emphasize this first point, the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief. I emphasize that with the subpoint of the fact of unbelief because Jesus shows his disciples that a clear and authoritative proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ will not always be met with acceptance and joyful welcome in the hearts of an audience. In fact, we should be more liable to expect that we will encounter more unbelief than we do belief. In the Book of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53:1 the prophet writes, "Who has believed what He has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" And these are written as rhetorical questions with the implication that not many. When the arm of the Lord, when Jesus walks the earth, not many hear Him. Not many people heard God's Word and believed it and obeyed in Isaiah's day and not many when Jesus walked the earth. And so Jesus is, by talking about the fact of unbelief, He's trying to get them ready. You are going to encounter this and you need to be prepared. And I lead with this point because if you read the Gospel of Mark up to this point, it's almost as if you're reading a Marvel comic book. Jesus is this superhero where town after town, He's preaching the truth. He's destroying his enemies in debates, He's healing, He's showing limitless extent of his authority and power. And now this is just an oddity, this point in Mark Six where he goes to His hometown of all places and it says, "He could do no mighty work there." And why? Because of their unbelief. So we as disciples today need to expect that unbelief is something that we are going to encounter often. A lot of churches don't really prep people in their body for this. They tell people, evangelize, evangelize, evangelize, share the gospel. But they don't really prepare them for the challenges of unbelief. They don't prepare them for the tendencies of it, the way it expresses themself and talk about the seriousness of it. And so a lot of Christians, when they are saved, they're excited. They want to tell people, "God has saved me, he has forgiven me of my sin in Jesus Christ." And they cannot help but speak and share it and tell other people in their life, in their circles on the street of the great grace and mercy that God has shown them. But they have one or two experiences where this doesn't go as planned. They're rejected or met with coldness, hardheartedness attack, attack of them, and they go into being incognito Christians like Secret Service Christians hiding from the world and never or rarely sharing the gospel again. And so today, I just emphasize this first point, we can't be surprised by unbelief. We're going to face it over and over again in this life. And in fact, we need to see that when we face it. It's not just ... Of course it's sad, we want everybody to believe the gospel, but it's a confirmation that we're doing something right. Christ himself came and he preached the word mightily and clearly and yes praised God, some believed Him, but He also was rejected. It's an affirmation that we're doing something right. If we tell people about God and we're always getting people believing, then that's an indicator that there might be something that isn't faithful with the message that we're sharing and we really need to assess if that's real fruit coming in through our ministry. But we need to expect that the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief, it's extraordinary at this point in the course of Mark, but Jesus for his disciples has shown this is a reality you're going to face regularly going forward. And going forward, I want to talk about the tendency of unbelief. We need to realize the fact of unbelief, but we need to see the common tendencies of it. One of the things, the primary thing that unbelief does is it has a tendency to disguise itself by transferring its object of attention to something else away from the real stumbling block of Jesus Christ. And so we see here in verses two and three, the people of Nazareth, they practice this. Verse two says, "And on the Sabbath." And just little side note in other towns in Capernaum where Jesus was prior to this, before His disciples, he couldn't go anywhere without crowds gathering in His way, just stopping him in His path and forcing him to preach and perform miracles. He couldn't get a break, but now He enters into his hometown and nobody's welcomed him. He has to wait for the Sabbath to preach. "And on the Sabbath, He began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished." So the people who we know will show extreme unbelief, they actually are amazed at Jesus's teaching. He opens up the word like nobody else they ever heard. Every time Jesus preaches, it's a home run. Imagine a preacher having that kind of preacher show up, but how do they respond? They say, "where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?" This is a deflection. It's a deflection from the central message that Jesus brought to them. The people respond to Jesus teaching by directing their attention to his ordinariness, the ordinariness of the speaker. They do this in order to hide the fact that it's the message of the gospel that their hearts were hardened against. And anyone here, anybody who's been Christian for a while and has faithfully shared the gospel, know the tendency of people to do this. People will talk about anything and go for hours and avoid the central message of the gospel. They'll avoid the elements of it that offend them, the elements of it that call them to belief, call them to repentance, and we need to be ready for it. Again, we can't be surprised by this. When we share the gospel, we should expect to face this sort of dodging. And furthermore, we should expect to face that they will attack us. One of the greatest ways they just look at Jesus, "Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this the son of Mary? Aren't his brothers and sisters here in town? Who is this guy? Who is he to call us to repentance before Him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? He's just an average guy, an ordinary Joe. He's cheese pizza. We shouldn't listen to him." And they poke. They poke at Jesus. They start pointing at his deficiencies according to earthly standards. And we as Christians, we should expect this. How far did Jesus's opponents go in His life to doing this? They sent Him, they attacked the person to the point of sending him to the cross, leading to His crucifixion and for His servants, we are no greater than our master. We are going to get the same treatment. But one thing, just when this happens, when there's this tendency for people to start questioning our character, questioning our delivery of the gospel, our maybe not so refined delivery of it, though it is full of the truth, we just have to remember the gospel ourselves in that moment. We can have security to stand before people in our weakness while proclaiming the gospel because what does the gospel say? Our identity is not built upon any good works that we've done. Our identity is not built on the sin that we've committed, the rebellion against God, the guilt and shame that marks our lives. The gospel is that when a person turns in faith, turns from their sin and turns in faith to Jesus, God applies Christ's perfect and righteous record to your account and He applies your sinful, imperfect, prideful record to Jesus. And that's what the transaction that happened on the cross and it's applied to us by faith. And when we are attacked by the world, we can't take those attacks by heart. They're predictable and we have an identity that is rooted in the rock of Jesus Christ. So we need to be steadfast in these moments when we face these tendencies and we need to redirect people lovingly, kindly, gently to the central question of belief and that is the message of the scriptures of the gospel, God's rescue plan for man and his sin that marks the whole book after Genesis Three, the fall of man. And so we need to anticipate this tendency. Unbelief is always distracting from the heart of the gospel and distract them from the fact that it's really the gospel that is offensive to a person. And so as we discuss the ordinariness Nazareth's belief, next I want to talk about the nature of unbelief. This is something that really needs to be made clear. The reason Jesus marvels at unbelief here in these verses is because it's one of the evidences of the power of sin in man's life. That's the great reason behind marveling at it. Here in the world upon God's creation, Jesus, the begotten Son of God who took on flesh is seeing firsthand the outworking of the fruit of sin in the lives of men and women that He knows and loves. Men and women who should have known the story of his mom's birth. And we get the understand it's not this Mary's son. In that day you would've never appealed to someone by their mom's name. It would be their father's and they're appealing. They have knowledge that he was born into a unique situation, whether maybe they're implying promiscuous or it was actually a miraculous birth. These people who would've known the story of his birth, who would've thought deeply about Him and His childhood. Have you ever seen a perfect child? If Jesus was in this community for 28, 29 years, a perfect child would really stand out in a community of 500 people and they would've seen him when they engaged with him as a carpenter, an honest tradesman who doesn't raise the prices. This guy would've had a righteous standing before Him. And these people who would've known Him better than anybody else who walked the earth, they hear His teaching, they hear of testimonies of his miracles in the nearby lens and He does actually heal a few people upon this visit. These people reject him and it shakes Him. And this is why He shudders an agony at unbelief when He faces death later on with his friend Lazareth, He faces the reality of sin and its impact and He marvels, He shudders, He weeps at it. And so unbelief is not something that Jesus engaged casually. It's not something that we should engage casually. What I'm trying to get us to is unbelief. It's really important in a city like ours with lots of just bright people, driven people, motivated people, unbelief it's not just a weakness of one of our friends who's really intelligent. The ultimate key to unbelief doesn't lie in the mind. It lies in the realm of the moral nature of the will of man. That's where unbelief finds its home. In our text today, the people in their response, they try to deflect from their unbelief. They try to show themselves as not gullible. "Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of men and women that we know? We're not going to be tricked by Him. Jesus, you were just one of us. You didn't get the proper education that a rabbi should get. This message sounds too good to be true. We're not going to believe you Jesus. You're not just one of us." And so unbelief in the Bible, it arises from first and foremost a hard, evil heart of unbelief, not a lack of truthfulness or sufficient appeal to the intellect. We need to understand that. And that's a lot of conversations, apologetic conversations, sharing the gospel conversations, they devolve into these long conversations about minutia, details of scripture away from the heart of the gospel that calls people to repentance and faith in Christ. And we need to treat it seriously, not let people trivialize it. Well, unbelief is one of the ways, it's described in scripture is in essence it's calling God a liar. Where every find our hearts are still an unbelief. We're calling God a liar. First John 1:5 to 10 says, "This is the message we've heard from Him and proclaimed to you. That God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar. And His word is not in us." Anybody who denies that they were created by God and His image and have rebelled against Him and do not have right standing before Him is saying, "God is a liar for telling me this, for proclaiming this, for sending His son into the world to proclaim this and be the means of reconciliation between me and Him." We need to be honest with ourselves as we process this. We need to be honest with the people with whom we share the gospel about the nature of unbelief. Unbelief, it's of a moral nature. It is rebellion against Christ's rule and reign of creation of our hearts. And so this isn't to say that they're not intellectual problems, they're not hard questions to take up with scripture, but what I want to say is that the heart of unbelief lies not in the mind but in the moral nature and the will of man. And we need to keep people to think in that area when we engage unbelief. Jesus further elaborates on this in John 16: 8 to 9. He says that, "When the Holy Spirit comes, when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe in me." It's a moral unbelief, it's a moral problem, not an intellectual problem. And we see this further in Mark 6 as we'll talk a little bit more about Herod next week. Herod's a perfect example of this. He loved to hear John the Baptist teach. This guy who was a prisoner in his castle or fort or property. He wants him to come up and preach to him. So he heard the good news of Jesus' coming, of the King's arrival, about how John said, "He must increase, I must decrease." But Herod had all the facts. He knew everything and he did not believe the message and so therefore ... And why? What's behind that? Herod didn't want to change his behavior. He knew that the message that Jesus Christ was the Lord, that he had a call on his life, that to believe in Him and to obey Him would mean that he has to change, he has to repent and submit to Christ and His ways. And that's behind a lot of unbelief. The nature, it's moral rebellion. We just don't want to honor God with our lives. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it. And how many of you know that? I know that that was me before I was Christian. When I grew up in the church, in eighth grade, I wrote at the end of confirmation class, it was a 100 word essay, which is like that was frighteningly intimidating at that point. And I wrote it. I was like, "I think I'm saved because God offers me a great deal here. I sin and Jesus takes the punishment. I get eternal life. I get the power of his spirit in me and it's just a good deal. I'll take it." I intellectually understood that in eighth grade and I was amazed that the pastor of 15 kids was quoting my 100 word essay for a sermon. But I was not saved until I was 23. I was not born again until I really saw that I needed to repent of my sin and give Christ the lordship over my life. I didn't have freedom from the guilt and shame of sin until I did that. I did not walk in the Lord's power and the power of the Holy Spirit until that point. And the nature of unbelief is that we need to repent of that mindset. And this goes for Christians too. We hesitate to give Christ lordship in specific areas of our lives. A lot of people talk about anxiety as if it's like a friend in their life, as if Jesus doesn't have anything to say about anxiety. He has a whole lot to say. Jesus, we've struggled to give Jesus our finances to steward them for His glory, for His kingdom. We've struggle to give Jesus over our plans for our singleness, plans for our marriage plans, for our career, and the Lord calls us to and we just go on justifying sin, justifying unrepentance. And it isn't just neutral intellectual protest,. It's a rebellious act in which we dethrone in Jesus as Lord of our lives and we call God a liar. So we need to constantly ask ourselves if we're struggling with unbelief to identify that we ask how do we respond to the Word of God? Do we hear with gladness and let it and I just hear it and say, "Well, good talk, good speech. That's clever?" Or do we hear with gladness, let it take root in our hearts and lives as the powerful of the sower discussed earlier in Mark? Do we have good soil or are we resisting it? Are we holding onto it until we have a problem believing it and applying it into our own life? To close out our discussion of the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief, I lastly want to discuss the consequences of unbelief. And this is building off of the last point. When we don't believe, there are great consequences. This is covered in verse five, and the scripture says, "And He could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them." The emphasis here isn't on Jesus's inability. We've seen the extent of his power and authority over nature, over sickness, over death itself. He can function in any way that He wants that is consistent with His holy character. But the focus here is not on Jesus's inability but on Nazareth's foolishness, on the way that the city robbed itself of receiving more grace and power of the work of Jesus among them. This shows us that there is no greater enemy than to the work of God than unbelief. It causes God to turn away without revealing himself with further grace and power. And when you really take this in, there's something really scary about it. And if you're feeling like this is heavy, there's a lot of weight to the sermon so far, you should. I was feeling it all week as I was meditating on this. It's scary to think about what happens when God turns away from a place, turns away from a people, turns away from you. Mark 6:11 helps us understand this a little bit more. Jesus gives counsel to his disciples for how they should respond when He sends them out and they are not received with belief. Verse 11 says, "And if any place will not receive you, and they'll not listen to you when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." So Jesus in this situation, what we see after Mark Six is that Nazareth does not believe Him, His hometown, and He turns His back on them. They know they know His Word, they know who He is, they know how they should respond to it, and he walks on them. Further, Mark 6:11, He tells his disciples that when they're not received with belief to shake the dust off their feet and leave a land. This is a reference to what Jews would've done when they left a gentile, pagan, non-believing land to go back to Israel to the Holy Land. This act would symbolize the shaking off of the defilement that could have got on them in the non-believing land and more importantly, serve as a called to the judgment of God upon that land end. So we need to see there's grave consequences to unbelief. We need to see that the Lord, the gospel not only has a saving effect where it meets true faith, but that it has a judging effect where it meets unbelief. It is the proclamation of the gospel that both exposes and judges unbelief. And I love this passage in scripture that talks about for someone, the life of Christ you are called. You're not just saved. You're not just given the power of the spirit. You're called into God's profound work to spread His rule and reign on the earth, to go back to the initial mission of being fruitful and multiplying for His glory. And you are given a power and your life is a triumphant possession. You are the victor and God has given you power as a steward of the gospel. And in that power, people are going to receive you with joy and gladness when they hear the gospel and they receive it and repent and obey God. And to others, you're going to have a stench. That power goes out and being a means of judgment to those who hear the gospel and do not receive it. And this is pretty intense, but this is what the scripture says. When we share the gospel, we have to understand the responsibility that we are given. We need to stay faithful to it and we have to just keep people at the center, keep people at the central focus. We need to try to get people to honestly assess, do they believe God's Word? Do they believe He has a call in their life? He is creator, they're created. The greatest position of experience of peace, love, joy is to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ. We need to keep people there given the consequences. So now after this solemn discussion of unbelief, one can only wonder how to respond to unbelief when we face it and to get the right answer, we look at how Jesus reacted to it. Look at verse six. It says, "And He marveled because of their unbelief and He went about among the villages teaching." That last part. "And He went about among the villages teaching." How do we respond to unbelief? We keep going. We keep sharing the gospel and leading a life worthy of a child of God. This is what Jesus did and we have to revel over the fact that Jesus kept going when it was really difficult. Verse four says, "And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household." Jesus's marveling would have been filled with grievous pain. Of all the people in the world who should have believed in Him, those in His hometown, his own relatives, His own household should have believed Him, but they don't. Do you know what it's like to be rejected in your own household? My wife, when she does not joyfully receive me for five minutes, I'm a broken man and that's two become one. You do become one another and there's something good about feeling that pain, but we have to make sure we don't make idols out of our spouses and their adoration. But Jesus was rejected by His household and He did nothing. I sin, I say foolish things to my wife, to my family members. Jesus never did that. They had no reason to reject him. Can you imagine the pain He felt when people who He lived with for almost 30 years rejected him, a town of 500 residents? I'm from a town of 17,000 people and you kind of know everybody 5 years above you, 5 years below you who went and did something significant in the world. Jesus is from a town of 500 people. He should have been their poster boy, they should have been seeing how lucky they were to have Him be known as Jesus of Nazareth, put their town on the map, but they reject Him. Imagine that pain. But how does Jesus respond? He keeps going. He knew that in his walk facing unbelief would be a fact. It would be an ordinary thing. And he says, and what does he do? He continues his primary task. He went about the villages teaching, trying to save others. He's preaching the word for His first task, telling them that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and we need to do the same, and we do it because Jesus did. But we also as we talk about this, it should remind you already about the nature of the Kingdom of God. In Mark 3:26 to 29, we read and he said, "The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not hell. The earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because of the harvest that's come." And this is saying that to a degree God has ordained that His kingdom functions this way. What are his servants to do? They're to continue to scatter seed by preaching the gospel whether they are received with gladness and belief or whether they're rejected. And that's the call of all Christians. Regardless of the reception we have, we're called the faithfulness to this task and we submit to the Lord's way of building His kingdom. And this, when you share the gospel, sometimes you feel really foolish. When you are humbled by the grace of God and know your weakness more and more you say, who am I to send this? But it's maintaining that proper heart and keeping to the task that the Lord uses to save people and we keep going whether He lets us live in the day of profound harvest, of salvation of many souls or not, and we're just following the path of Christ himself. So I've spoken a lot about this topic of unbelief. I hope that you do understand the fact of it, the tendencies, the nature, the consequences, but this passage does offer a whole lot more. One of the reasons Jesus was able to face such unbelief and keep going was because he knew the fact that He would face it. However, Jesus could face such unbelief and stay faithful in ministry because of His faith in his father's chosen plan to develop Him and grow Him as a disciple. And this is a discussion of the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness. In our passage today, we see that one of the reasons the people of Nazareth showed such unbelief is because they rejected Jesus for His loneliness and poverty. They say, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of these men and women that we know." They're saying, "His ministry is presumptuous. Who is he to preach to us in this way? Tell us what to do. What did you do? Go and hide in a cave and learn all these teachings." What are they saying here? They're wrestling with tension of there's a tension between what they hear and learn from him and in all of its magnificence and glory, and what they see when they look at Him, they see an ordinary guy. You see in the minds of the minds people of Nazareth, a person in order to be listened to and heeded as a prophet of God must have gone to school to study and obtain a degree. They should have studied under the best rabbis of the day, God and formal teaching. But Jesus though, astonishing, He does not have that background and they reject him for that. They were offended at him. They're scandalized, they are revolted and they want nothing to do with Him for disobeying these manmade rules, these prejudices that they have over how their faith tradition should be stewarded regardless of what it says, how it weighs against the scripture, they disqualify his ministry. They're offended that such a man with such a background could teach them with such wisdom and power. And even though the facts say that, wow, this guy's teaching is like no other. This guy performs miracles like no other. If they studied the scriptures, they should have been inclined with all the knowledge they had of Him to say maybe this is the Christ the Messiah, but instead they're revolted by Him. And so the world, it revolts against Christ's ordinariness and the people of Nazareth do that and people still do that today. Christianity is too simple. The gospel's too simple. Christians themselves are too simple. It's been the case throughout all of history. One a great story from the Old Testament is about Syrian general called Naaman. He is essentially, Syria is the powerhouse, the force, the nation, strongest nation of the day, but he has leprosy and he's their strongest general and he wants to be healed. He hears about this prophet, this power in Israel who has his power in Israel. And he goes, where does he go first? He goes to the king's courts to find his healing. The world always thinks that the extraordinary must do extraordinary, be extraordinary by their sins and he goes to the King, the King says, "Why are you here? I don't have any authority to help you here. I can't heal you." Then he says, go to Elisha, the prophet, and he takes his horses, he takes his royal chariot and he goes to Elisha and Elisha sends out his servant. Elisha doesn't even greet him and Naaman is offended. The servant tells him, "Go to the water, jump in the Jordan and you'll be healed." And Naaman's revolted at that. He says, "Why didn't I go just jump in the mighty waters in Assyria to get healing if this is what you are offering me?" The world is revolted at the ordinary of Jesus and Christianity, but we need to actually see the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness. Our Lord doesn't look at life in the same way as us. What's important to man is not important to God. How could Jesus face such unbelief in his ministry? How did he have the character to not lash out when crowds willfully dishonored Him? The answer is that our Heavenly Father believed that it was the best possible education, occupation for his begotten son before His public ministry to be a carpenter. Jesus was 30 when his ministry started, but all the time from His early teenage years until the point of the start of ministry, He did the lowly work of a carpenter and He probably did some stone mason rework. That's what the text gets us to see here. That's why the crowd was offended at him. God has his ways of raising up His disciples to do the work of the ministry often against the standards of the world. And we need to be able to appreciate that. God's ways are different than what you and I would ever conceive. And if they were limited to what you and I conceive, would He really be a God that we can worship? And when we project expectations onto God and we say scripture doesn't align with them, we're really just forming a God in our own image. We're breaking the first commandment of practicing idolatry, but God is different. Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways," declares the Lord." We should revel in the fact that God's ways are greater than ours. When I know my prejudices, my biases, my preferences, my tendencies, I praise God that I'm not God because I know that I would just destroy people who are different than me. How many times have we seen people of power do that? Just rid the world, cancel the world, be revolted like the people of Nazareth are at those who are not like them and do not meet their standards. But you see, God is different. The object of Christian life when you're saved, it's to be more like Jesus, to grow in the character of Jesus and to tell other people about salvation they can have in Jesus. And so once saved, God starts to do new and good work on you. The object is no longer to impress people with our own strengths and wisdom, but to become like Jesus and pray that He would use us as much as He wills, use us profoundly in our weakness for His glory. And God to prepare Jesus for such work, what did He do? He didn't want His son to go to the Jewish seminaries of the day. He had another school in mind and that was being a carpenter. Philippians 2:5 to 8 describes the way that God trained up Christ for the task ahead of Him. Have this mind in 5 through 11. "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of a God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." I know a lot of you have read this, we return to this passage a lot because it is gold, but what I want you to take away today is have this mind among yourselves. We're supposed to have the mindset of Christ, the humble, the lowly mindset, the faith to believe that God the Father, can use the most trying and challenge of circumstances to save us and to raise us up, to grow our character, to prepare us for greater ministry. Verse seven, like Christ, we're to empty ourselves, make ourselves some translators say, "Make ourselves of no reputation." Jesus deliberately excluded himself from positioning himself to be of any reputable status before the world. Even going as far as being willing to take on death on the cross to fulfill his calling. Jesus didn't position himself to be great in the eyes of men with His life. He was great by humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death on the cross. While the world shames and rejects Him for this, and Jesus was the cornerstone that the Jews stumbled over. They could not believe in a God man, a messiah whose primary mark on this earth was going to the cross, the world rejection for this. We need to praise Him for this. God the Father knew that the best way for Jesus to have the mindset to carry out His task was to be a carpenter in a place of obscurity, a place of humility in a family without reputation or money. Jesus obeyed the Father. He deliberately chose obscurity in the eyes of men. And throughout His ministry, we see him especially multiple times in Mark to this point, even as ministry is launching, He intentionally tells people not to tell of His mighty works so that He doesn't get popular in the eyes of men according to the standards of men. He doesn't want to draw a following around those things. He wants to draw a following around people who worship Him as Lord and Savior. And so if we follow Christ, we need to have this mindset. We need to see that all the pain of being the carpenter and Nazareth and facing this rejection from a tiny town. It was preliminary training for Jesus's crucifixion on the wood of the cross as well as rejection from his brothers, the Jews in Jerusalem. Jesus worked with wood, but one day he would be worked upon wood and he had the strength of character and the spirit of God to carry out and endure His task because of His training, God's training program in Nazareth. In His human nature, Christ faced experience that gave him a growing obedience to the Father. And as I talk about the way God, the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness, how God used it all to form Jesus, to shape Him for the work that he had for Him. We need to see that this isn't something that seminary offers. This isn't something that's sitting in holy huddles and small circles doing Bible study, filling yourselves with knowledge can accomplish, can teach you. Seminary and Bible study, of course, we love scripture. I'm taking you to a really hard scripture today, the day after Thanksgiving because that's what the Lord brought us to. That's what the Bible says. We love scripture. But you can fill your head with knowledge through seminary, through bible study, through formalized discipleship programs, but it can leave you lacking in the ability to obey your heavenly Father in the face of hardship. That takes discipline, that takes hard work. It involves the development of pain tolerance, and you see, when you face hardship and the ordinary of things of life, when you're dealing with a stubborn roommate or spouse or boss, facing crazy and rebellious children, being put to the test in the face of unbelief and persecution, you can't just get the good book out and pause every time in the moment. You have to have the ability to fellowship with your heavenly Father in the moment, abide in the moment, rely upon His spirit to give you the wisdom, give you the power to handle that moment faithfully. This is what Jesus learned in his upbringing and of course he knew a lot of scripture and was quoting a lot of scripture. We want to have our hearts and words saturated with it, but we need to know how to act out our faith as he did in the moment. Jesus learned how to wisely while facing challenges as a carpenter in a household with many unbelieving family members. He learned how to not proudly put himself forward in religious debates. He learned how to respond to rejection, disappointment with grace. He learned how to do good work, careful work, wise work for the glory of God and not himself. He lived for the glory of God in all situations as all of us are called to. And these lessons are just being able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary in our day-to-day lives. This is some of the most important wisdom that any Christian can have. I mean, it just unlocks life. We read of God. He is sovereign. Jesus Christ, He has ascended to the throne of God and at his right hand of the Father, He is in control of all things. And so all circumstances we face, He has ordained them by his providence and we need to trust and His goodness. That doesn't mean we don't stand up for righteousness's sake in the face of sin and injustice. It doesn't mean that we become doormats in this life. We stand on the truth. We speak the truth in love, but we as Christians, we need to trust in His plan in every moment. And we need to see that oftentimes Christianity is lived out and worked out in the ordinary. This is important for all Christians, all people, but especially young people in Boston because so many people come to the city and they take up Christianity like any other field or trade or profession, thinking that it's something to be studied, something to be mastered through work, through effort, you reap greater benefits, through study, you ascend to higher levels of knowledge and enlightenment. It's not the same. When I became a Christian, I associated Christianity with adrenaline that I got while doing things that I was good at. You hear the word flow, the experience of flow. You feel like you're in the zone and you can go for hours and you feel unstoppable and your whole system is working in coordination with your mind. And no. Much of Christianity is going forward while your body and flesh is resisting because Jesus Christ hasn't come back to give us a new regenerated perfect body. You are called to walk forward in faithfulness and it's hard. Your body resists, your mind resists while the soul keeps going forward. And we as Bostonites, we need to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. The goal of Christianity is not to do something, step into a community and master it and get adoration from peers around us, smugly show ourselves to be more capable than others. The goal of Christianity is different. Our calling is to show ourselves approved unto God. Two Timothy 2:15 says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." You're saved by God's grace. He gives you a new identity and He is calling you to be faithful in day-to-day life with every task before you. And we need to see that we're workmen, we're carpenters, we're people who don't need to be ashamed, fearful of what people think of them as we pursue this faithfulness and we need to continue to rightly handle the truth. This is for pastors, but every Christian needs to be able to give a reason for the hope within them in a coherent manner. As Christians like Christ, as we reflect on this pastor, we're to view the world as God's workshop and see that through whatever circumstances that we face in faith, we need to be humble and obedient to His plans, even to the point that obedience brings suffering and even physical pain or death. I know some of you're thinking that this is radical and it is. It's completely radical to the message of the world that tells you to live for yourself, your comfort, your glory, but it's what Christ himself did and told us to do. Matthew 16:24. "Then Jesus told his disciples that anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Unless a person takes up this mindset, unless they're aiming for this, they can't be a disciple of Christ and their life is going to be marked by the void of God's power. All disciples of Christ should ask regularly, am I losing my life that I might find it? If that's the case, we'll find that the people around us don't approve of us, but God does. And that is what really should please our heart, that our Father accepts us. Even in our stumblings and imperfections, He's willing to give us, clothe us with more and more grace. The world may laugh and reject and despise us for our ordinariness, but we can be okay with that because they did that to Jesus. We're in good company. Isaiah 53 says, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed Him not." The world rejects Him, but when we trust Him in faith and follow Him, we're going to face these same trials. The world might laugh at us as we try to stay humble, keep a servant's mindset in the face of adversity and persecution, but we know that we take heart knowing that the Lord proves us in Christ. Are you denying yourself to follow Jesus? The travesty of this passage, the tragedy of unbelief, is that the people of God often do not do this. They often do not deny themselves to follow Christ. That's what happened in the synagogue of Nazareth. The people of God were not denying their preferences, were not submitting their view, their religious views, their tradition, their faith to the teachings of the scriptures and the Christ himself. They weren't willing to change their preferences, their actions for Him. Furthermore, Philippians 2:20 to 22 shows us that even Christians, even in this age of the church, a lot of Christians do not deny themselves the follow of Jesus. He says, "For I have no one like Him." This is Paul writing about Timothy. "For I have no one like Him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interest, not those of Jesus Christ." So what church communities can be marked by people who are all seeking their own preferences and the way they go about things and the way that the ministry is operating and who speaks and how traditions are upheld. And Paul says that what Mark shows us in this passage is that this is a tragedy and it leads to just the power of God being put out among the people. And so we each as individuals need to check our hearts to make sure that we are dying daily to follow Christ. We need to trust that God can save us and that he can use the ordinary in extraordinary ways to grow us further into the image of Jesus, and to use us for his mighty works in this life. Jesus marveled in this passage that all of these people were seeking their own good, not the things of God, not Christ himself, not faithfulness to His plan for them. Let's make sure that we don't make the same mistake ourselves. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your steadfast love, your loving kindness, your long-suffering love toward your children, for we are prone to wander. We are prone to favor our preferences, our desires, our ways over yours. But praise be to God that you are patient toward us in Jesus, in the same way that you sent Jesus to Nazareth multiple times in the same way that Christ just continued to minister despite facing rejection. Lord, you just offer us forgiveness in Jesus, in our folly, in our stubbornness, in our hardheartedness, and we can have peace with you because of Christ. And Lord, we pray, grow our belief. If any of our lives are marked by unbelief, we pray, help us in our unbelief. Lord, help us to identify those areas of our lives where we are not submitting to your lordship. Show us how we can be more faithful servants of your kingdom. Help us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Help us to see your word and your power going forward in our lives while the world might say otherwise and try to quench such power. We ask, give us greater faith to trust you and honor you. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Blessings of Christian Community
August 27, 2023 • Andy Hoot
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 Welcome. We're thrilled to have you here. We're always praying for the Lord to send us just people asking questions about Christianity, questions about Jesus, how to be saved, and we're always praying for the Lord to send us people who already have vibrant, loving relationships with the Lord and are here to work. And this is an exciting time here to serve the Lord with us, join mission with us. And this is an exciting time of year where we always have a lot of fresh faces coming in at the end of summer, beginning of the year program, academic year and after a lot of people have left. So we're thrilled you're here. If you are new and you want to get plugged in, I hope you just talk to people next to you, but a formal way to do that is to fill out the connection card and take it to the welcome center or put it in the offering bin there at the back of the center aisle, and we'll get you plugged in. And if you are new, again I said, I'm Andy. I was out for the past four weeks. The church blessed me with a long three-week vacation after a busy year, and I'll elaborate a lot on that. And today is an exciting time of year for us. We just ended a long series in the Book of Genesis, going through Genesis 37 through 50, talking about the life of a great saint Joseph and how his life pointed us to Jesus Christ in many ways, even in the first book of the Bible and how he pointed us ultimately to Christ and his sacrifice and the forgiveness he offers us. But today we're done with Genesis and we are taking up an identity series. We talk about our identity, we talk about our values every time this time of August, every September, and we're really trying to bring unity of identity, unity of purpose and vision to the body, and so I'll take us up. My hope today is really to prime your hearts, prepare your hearts as we reflect on the past year together today in order to prepare our hearts to get going and flying in support of the slightly tweaked vision going forward. So today I want to begin by reading the main passage of the day, and that is Ephesians 2:11-22, Ephesians 2:11-22. And this is the living word of God. Ephesians 2:11-22, "Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands." "Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God and one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near." "For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." This is the word of our Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is living. We thank you that it is authoritative. We thank you that it is powerful. Lord, we thank you for the reminder that we see in it today that who we are is rooted in the work of Jesus Christ and his life, death and sacrifice in the cross. And Lord, we praise you that we can have an identity that is gifted to us by you. We do not have to work our way towards you, but in Jesus we can have peace simply by believing in his works. And Lord, right now, we pray as we work out our own identity, seek to understand it better, let it inform the way that we approach brother and sister, especially here in the church here at Mosaic. Lord, we seek to be a more faithful body. We seek to show the world who you are, show the blessedness that comes with faith in the gospel by loving one another better this year. Lord, we ask that your spirit would just refine our view, our understanding of church, our understanding of relating to brother and sister and, of course, our understanding of our relationship to you and Jesus today. Bless the preaching of your word. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. So happy New Year. To contribute to my introduction, I want you to look at the person next to you and say, happy New Year. And wow, some of you actually did that. I would've been the kind of person to just sit there. Thank you for your vulnerability and following my instruction. So why do I begin the day, this series, this little moment in the year where we reflect on who we are as a church with happy New Year? Why first? There's three reasons. First, because it actually is the real new year in Boston coming up this week. We have Labor Day weekend next week, and everybody who's been in Boston for a while and really the northeastern United States and America knows that this is really the start of the real new year, and this is New Year's Eve. We're at the point where we are looking back in preparation to looking ahead to the new year before we get running. And I say this just as a little reminder to all of you, get ready for it. Next week, life speeds up. And if you haven't prepared your body, haven't prepared your heart before it takes off, you've got to be careful because you could just get lost in the wind as the dust of life speeds up. And so you know that preschools through postgraduate programs are starting in the coming week. You know that there's a lot of people starting new jobs, taking up new titles, they're actually getting real responsibility if they got the title in the summer now that September is here. And you know that everybody who survived May through August without leaving the city is processing, committing their hearts for another year of what's to come here, and you're welcome for the reminder if you've been snoozing on that a little bit. But I bring this up to you just because we at Mosaic, we don't want you to get lost in the storm, in the wind, in the waves of life. We at Mosaic, we have a philosophy of ministry rooted in Ephesians 4:11-6 which says, and "He," the Lord, "gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers," and we pastors are shepherd, teachers, "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus 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 and love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly." So at Mosaic, we are the pastors, we view our role to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, and we pause at this time of year to really calibrate your hearts, calibrate your minds to get prepared for really the program missional year ahead, for we don't want you to get lost into the waves and winds that come through life. And we know more than ever, since 2020, just how unpredictable life can be compared to those who grew up in the '90s and 2000s when things were pretty chill. Every year we hold this series and today's no different. Today, as the real new year approaches, again, I want to help us process in looking back, Pastor Jan will look ahead. And so the second reason though, why I say happy New Year is with facetiousness. As I acknowledge the approach of Boston's real New Year, I say it in a manner that's a little bit flippant and sarcastic. It's a year, it's really stating, "Thank God 2022, 2023 is over," in the words of a blessed beloved member of Mosaic in my mind I say happy New Year, there's a little bit of, "Bye Felicia," as I think of 2022, 2023. There's a, "Sayonara, goodbye. Good riddance. Let's turn the page and move on." And I say that because it was a hard year, and today I just want to acknowledge that I really wish that it was as simple as moving on, turning the page and everything will be different after Labor Day next week, but we need to be honest as a church that it was a hard year. And so today I hope to process that with you a little bit. Now, keeping the last two reasons in mind for why I say happy New Year, the third reason why I say happy New Year to start off this missional program year in the church is because I really mean it. I say it with deep sincerity. Why? Because even though I wouldn't have planned everything that the past year brought, even though it was excruciatingly painful personally as a church body, I'm so thankful that we as pastors, we as a membership, we as a body of believers here at Mosaic, went through what we went through. And just to give you a little bit, those of you who are new, in many years, it was a great year. We have a great membership at this church of a couple hundred people. People committed to be on mission here and we did maintain, we retained that membership and boy, did it grow up a lot. And I could give you dozens of examples of how people in this body came to faith, were baptized, grew in the faith, served the Lord through tremendous acts of charity and generosity, but really it was a year that was difficult. The trajectory of Mosaic's history, we're a church that was started in 2011, and that's a time when Pastor Jan really took over, rooted this church with the vision, the values, the beliefs, the identity that is very similar to what we promote right now. And 2011 through 2020 just basically putting it in simplistic terms, lots of growth, lots of seemingly flourishing on the outside and a lot on the inside. But since 2020, what did we deal with in 2023? 2020 poured over into 2021, poured over into 2022, poured over into 2023, and we're just catching our breath in the past year. At one point in the year we had three pastors, Pastor Shane, a beloved pastor was here for 10 years. He felt called home to the Midwest in the past year. He took an extended period of rest. Pastor Jan felt the effects of the strain of engaging all that came with just being a pastor in the past few years. And he took an extended break. I got a nice three weeks. I've never had that amount of time off in my adulthood. And so we as pastors, we as a body, we've faced challenges that we could have never imagined, and we're just feel like we're coming up from being underwater, grasping to stay afloat. And furthermore, we as a church, we confess to one another as a membership that we did commit some sin. There was some youthful, what we often phrase as youthful naivety, but there was some pride behind our method. Perhaps, we thought, "This is the way we're always going to go, just trajectory and growth as a body up, up, up." But furthermore, no, we pastors profess to this congregation that we functioned in our own strength a lot, especially since 2020. We didn't admit to one another when we needed rest, when we needed help, when we needed care. Furthermore, we were guilty of breaking the Sabbath and keeping it holy, and in many ways that emanated and trickled down in our body. And so praise God, we have a united body. We've processed a lot, we've been through a lot, sometimes from the public pulpit a lot of it, and members meetings, deep family talks over the past year. And I go back to why I say happy New Year sincerely, I'm thankful we went through it for we're a young body, young pastors, pretty naive. We don't have old saints to really guide us in the way and the Lord has matured us. So as I look ahead at the new year, I'm excited to think about what the Lord can do with this body of believers, what the Lord can do with me as someone who's grown up a lot as we look ahead to 2023, 2024. And so I begin with this happy New Year. I have pretty raw, transparent explanations for, and in my flesh, this is the time of the sermon where I want to switch back to Mosaic mode and really enter into classic Love Jesus Simple sermons. And if you go online, these are great sermons. Pastor Jan has preached these every year since 2011 except in 2020. And I want to just jump right into, "All right, said a little bit about what happened. Let's jump forward." But I want to use efficient language. I want to use just brilliant clear language that we've often used to articulate our vision. I want to make comparisons to our simple method of ministry to Chick-fil-A's simple method of business. I want to make comparisons to Michael Scott and Albert Einstein as we have over the years in pursuit of our vision and, of course, as all of their quotes pertain to scripture. But I don't want to run ahead, you're going to get that Pastor Jan, he's rearing and ready to go and I say, whatever you think, whatever you get today, come back. It's going to be very different. But realistically, we as pastors, we called an audible. I told Pastor Jan after coming back from my time off in the past week about what I've been processing, and really we're just trying to hit the heart of those in our body who are still ailing a little bit, coming out of what we went through, for it was hard. And so I'm not jumping into classic Love Jesus Simple mode. Today's not a classic expository sermon where we, in a very logical sense, pull the analysis of the textile and very systematic, orderly manner. This is really a very reflective pastoral sermon. And we just want to be cognizant that you guys have hearts and that the church is something you've invested in, and we really want to engage you where you are. And we are a body with many members with Christ as the head, and to go forward before we jump forward, and it's going to come fast next week and in the weeks beyond. We don't want anybody struggling, anybody holding on to pains, anybody questioning their commitment with us going ahead this year. And so I continue, therefore with a very transparent vulnerable tone, and I don't really want to go like this, but I think it's most appropriate to meet the season. So I just took three weeks off. It was my first chance to process this year and everything that transpired. And I have to admit that once I got a chance to breathe, once separated from the community, and I did have accountability in my wife, I wasn't just not working as a pastor and then rebelling and lashing out, no. I just want to be honest. I was really struggling with, "I just want to be a Christian by myself. Why do I need the church? It just makes everything so much harder. Why deal with the people? Why deal with the hardship? Why deal with standing on the truth? Why speak the truth to my brothers and sister in love when it often comes back to bite me? And then we have to do extra meetings to reconcile." And I wasn't thinking about quitting my job, I wasn't thinking about walking away from the faith, but I saw the appeal of letting myself continue in my thoughts, and it's been a great year actually outside of the church. Great year for me socially. I've lived in Brookline for three years. My son was in second grade. It's like all of a sudden I have all these social connections in the community that took a few years to cultivate. And so it's easy to think, "Man, I could start my own ministry, my own little circles outside this church and just run without the impediments of truly committing to the body that I've committed to love here at Mosaic and in Boston." And in an attempt exercise wisdom, first thing I did was said, "I'm tired. I need to rest," and so first week I just shut my mouth and prayed. And as I prayed approaching the trip and into that first week I just said, "Lord, bring me to the scriptures. Bring me to a Christian book. Bring me to a brother, a sister that can check my heart, check my mind, call me out in this position of frustration toward the church, disillusionment with the church," and the Lord in his grace was working on me and my wife at the same time at multiple times, separate ways we heard quotes and snippets of this book, Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In the months leading to our time off, and separately unbeknownst to one another, we both ordered this book to read together during our time off, and there were multiple copies that arrived at our apartment and I said, "I ordered this. Why is there another one? Did you order one?" And the Lord providentially arranged for us separately to take up this book. And it really appealed to us too because we have three kids under seven and you can't really take up a giant tome like a giant biography or theological treaties. This is 122 pages, and it really unexpectedly just spoke right to the heart of just a lot of the questions and a lot of frustrations I was dealing with. And so today the main text is Ephesians 2:11-22. I will open that up a little bit but not open it up as much as we often do with the text. The general outline flow of the message is going to be a list of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer says are the blessings of Christian community. He asked the question, "Why is Christian community a blessing?" And he helps press us to think about, "Why should we... Why should I, Pastor Andy? Why should we continue to gather with other Christians?" And I know some people in our body in moments are dealing with that. I know that some people are new, and you might be coming here today, it could be your first time at church in years and you have pains and scars tied to dealing with church. And so I hope that this is an encouragement to those within our body already, those coming from the outside to really see the church as a blessing, see engagement with other Christians as an essential part to this life. And so the first point that I'll take up... And who is Dietrich Bonhoeffer? He was a Christian German pastor, theologian who was a pastor in the 1930s into the 1940s. And he saw the German church rooted in just the reformation of Martin Luther. He saw the German church leave God's word, leave the gospel and in its insecurity dealing with modernism, dealing with just technological advantages, dealing with politics, the German church in his day went with the Nazi party. And so he was one of a minority of pastors that started a new confessing church that stayed true to scripture. Ultimately he died as for being a part of a plot to try to kill Hitler. And ultimately he offers us perspective for what are essential elements for church, and really as part of the Love Jesus Simple series, I hope today I help strip apart any views of church, expectations of church, expectations of other Christians that might not be biblical, and a man who faced such pressures really has a lot of wisdom and insight for us. So why is a Christian community, a church, a blessing? First, Bonhoeffer says Jesus lived among his enemies. First paragraph, he just says this right away, "At the end of his life on earth, all of his disciples deserted him. On the cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause, he had come to bring peace to the enemies of God." I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but Jesus entire walk on the earth was really full of disappointment with community. Who rejected him? His brothers, the Jews. And then even his disciples, those intimate 12, even within the 12, his top three, they all were not there at the end. They all left him, and then the 72 and greater crowds came and went as they agreed and disagreed with his teachings. And so when we face hardship in community, we're not facing something that the Lord himself did not face. And this is to start with this point, it's a kind of logic that says, "You think you have had it bad in your situation in your church. Think about how bad Christ had it, yet he endured faithfully to the end." And it's an effort to counter any entitlement we as Christians have thinking we deserve better. We deserve a better church. We deserve to be received better. Christ himself, if anybody of all people in the history of the earth, the Son of God deserved to be received better in community, and he really never was. And are we greater than him? John 13:16, "Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor a messenger is greater than the one who sent him." And so this isn't really the kind of reason to show the blessedness of Christian community that's soothing to the soul. But I love that Bonhoeffer begins with this. He says, sorry he doesn't say this. Because if we really understand the extent that God went through Christ to show us love for us, the fact that Christ in the trinity, in the wisdom of the trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit for all eternity took on flesh to come and walk among enemies, walk among flakes that would abandon him simply to come, primarily to come and be our savior just fathoming that, fathoming the love of God shows us in doing that, that really should help us to look upon our struggles in this life with Christians and even the greater world, with a little more humility, we should be amazed what the Lord endured for us to procure our salvation. So why is Christianity a blessing? Because Christ didn't have it yet he is gracious enough to offer us the chance to gather with others. Second, why is Christian community a blessing? Many Christians Bonhoeffer says, don't experience community. He says, "It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in the world to share God's word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered, lonely, the proclaimers of the gospel in heathen lands, they stand alone." Do you ever pause when you're pondering the challenges that come with gathering with the church, that there are people, there are Christians all throughout the world, people all throughout history who profess the name of Christ who don't have a regular gathering assembly of believers to gather with, people who don't have pastors to open up the word for them? And the truth is those of us who do have it, we take our community for granted, and this is my mind, my heart was drifting in this direction. "It is true of course," "Bonhoeffer says, "that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden underfoot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of a Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed." And so if we have it, we should function with the awareness that the Lord could strip it right away. And how many of you... As I processed just my thoughts, my approach towards the church, I asked myself this question, "What would happen if Mosaic Boston Church just closed its doors, it just disappeared?" And I didn't really pause to think like this all throughout the turmoil of recent seasons, but I realized I would be broken. I wouldn't be broken to the point of despair and unbelief, but I'd still have Christ, but man, it would be so hard to face that and just this perspective, others in the world do not have what we have. And so seasons of turmoil, they're not fun. But we should still bless the Lord and be thankful that he has provided our community. Third, Bonhoeffer goes on to say why the church is a blessing. "The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength for the believer. The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength for the believer." To support this, he mentions how Paul in 2 Timothy 1:4 talks about his longing to see Timothy in the flesh. Next, he talks about how the Apostle John in 2 John 12 says that his joy will not be complete until he can come to his people and speak face to face instead of writing to them. Do you long to come to church and see your brothers and sisters like this? Bonhoeffer says, "It's okay to feel no shame... He says, "The believer feels no shame as though he was still living too much in the flesh when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians. Man was created by a body, man was created a body. The son of God appeared on earth in the body. He was raised in the body and the resurrection of the dead will bring about the perfected fellowship of God's spiritual physical creatures. The believer therefore lauds the creator, the redeemer, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the bodily presence of a brother." So Christ taking on a flesh shows us that this world, this life, the relationships we forge, especially in the church, matter. And it's okay as a Christian to say, "Lord, I need you," as we sung earlier, "but I also need my church," and to get excited about gathering with other Christians. And I ask, do you have these people that you see and they just give you joy and strength? And I definitely feel this way broadly about Mosaic. I got to visit three different churches while I was taking my time off, three different worship services and they're good churches, love the Lord, preach the gospel, but it just wasn't the same as gathering with you. When I'm here, as processing the worship music, there's different things that every member of our band does that encourage me. Aaron put his hands up here in the front and I'm a stiff guy, but he encourages me to worship with more passion, and this body, there's so many people who encourage me like that. But in terms of just outside of worship, are there people who bring you joy and comfort Christians, people who you don't really even have to talk to them but their presence brings you joy? And I can think of so many people here in the church who provide that, but do you have them, and if you don't, are you seeking to build those relationships? Only in commitment to a local church can you forge such relationships. People, friends that are nonbelievers can't be this presence for you in your life. And what's the benefit of them? Whether you have a great spoken relationship or it's really just about the presence, there's some kind of encouragement that comes with gathering with people who believe what you believe, who are fighting the good fight. Sometimes they stumble but they get back, they receive grace, they keep going and they just keep walking forward in the direction you're trying to go. And at Mosaic, that's what we're trying to do every Sunday and as part of our service, create a warm hospital strengthening environment and with community groups. A lot of times people come into our church and we have community groups that do discuss every week's sermon together. They do sermon discussion, fellowship, just hanging out and prayer. But really we're trying to forge bonds where it's just the unspeakables of gathering that breed encouragement with one another. It's not necessarily just about the discussion and conversation. We want people gathering simply because they love each other and are encouraged by one another. And Paul and John show us that, that happens. And the thing about it is that we should pursue this, we should desire these kinds of relationships, but we should not become codependent, overly dependent on such relationships. For once we do so we commit the sin of idolatry and we're looking upon these relationships for our sense of satisfaction, strength, peace, joy instead of looking to Jesus Christ himself. And that's one of the main things that happens, we have a really young body, lots of people, very driven, lots of people who came to the city for academic programs, for work. The way they grew was finding mentors, finding training and studying and climbing the way to the top, and they approach Christianity the same way. And I'm saying we want you to get relationships. We want you to build bonds where there's this unspoken connection. We want you to build a mentor relationships where there is spoken connection, but we don't want you to be overdependent on them. We want Christians to develop abiding relationships with the Lord where they one-on-one are engaging the Lord in their minds through prayer, in song, in worship, independently of others, for that is ultimately just the most life-giving relationship we can have. So we just don't want to overemphasize these relationships. Next, why is a Christian community a blessing? And this is the hardest one to chew on, but if you get this, this is the greatest source of encouragement. Bonhoeffer says, "A christian has an alien righteousness and needs to be reminded of it constantly." So the Christian community is a blessing because it's a place where a Christian can go and be reminded of who they are in Jesus. What do I mean by alien righteousness? He says, "The Christian is the man or woman who no longer seeks his salvation. He's not trying to earn his way to God's love and favor. The Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification, his declaration that he is not guilty before God in himself but in Christ alone. The Christian no longer lives of himself by his own claims and his own justification, but by God's claims and God's justification." "The reformers expressed it this way, our righteousness, our right standing before God is an alien righteousness that comes from outside of us. The reformers were saying that the Christian is dependent on the word of God spoken to them. God has willed that we should seek and find his living word in the witness of a brother in the mouth of a man." And there's scriptures that really open this up. God chose the foolishness of the preaching of men, of broken vessels to save people. God chooses the foolishness of his broken vessels in the church to exhort one another with the word. There's a lot of scripture around this. But what Bonhoeffer is stating is that the way Christian is saved with this alien righteousness, this right standing before God being applied to him by the Lord himself from the outside, the way Christian is saved through this signifies the way that he needs to be encouraged over and over again after he is saved. And when you understand this, he's really defining how a church should get engaged. A man is saved by that which is outside of him, the righteousness of Christ coming to him and therefore over and over he needs to be reminded of that when he stumbles in sin, when he's discouraged by the events and circumstances around him, when the church faces hardship, a person, a Christian needs to be reminded of who they are that their right standing despite their circumstances before God does not change. And the thing about it is God has willed whether we like it or not, that the way that we are reminded of who we are in Christ is by other people, brothers and sisters in the church. And so if you're not gathering in a church, you do not have people who can remind you that you are not a sinner. When you fall into the just being overcome by guilt and shame, you are a beloved son and daughter of the living and true God because Jesus Christ died on the cross for you. What happens when a person is saved, when they turn and receive God's forgiveness? They believe that their sinful record is applied to Jesus Christ, and in turn his perfect righteous record is applied to them, and it's a whole process initiated by God through the Holy Spirit. And once we experience this, we know who we are but we forget over and over again, and so what is the church? It's the place that we go to, to be reminded of who we are in Jesus. For when we know at the fundamental level the source of our identity, when we understand all of the promises of God, that we are forgiven of our sins, we're beloved adopted son or daughter, we are bestowed with the inheritance due to the firstborn. All the covenant promises due to the Old Testament fathers apply to us in Jesus when we have security of identity in who we are through this alien righteousness that's gifted to us, we can face the world, we can face others with the sobriety of mind and heart, and boldness that God can use us in the process. And so what is the church? It's the place not where you go because there's people who might look like you, might be at a similar age, might have similar interests of you, might be in a similar life phase of you. You go to the church to be reminded of who you are in Jesus Christ, first and foremost. And that is the single most important center of your bond to the church. And as a member of a church, you have to fight to keep that central with the challenges of seasons, with the desires of the flesh, with the competing models and preferences that you have, that people in the church have. You have to look first and foremost at the church and identify, "Does this church remind me of who I am in Jesus?" And what does that change? The way we engage with one another. There is a huge part for listening to one another and Bonhoeffer has a great section on listening as one of the primary practices within the church. But we also speak the word to one another and it's not therapy. We're not just consoling one another and trying to make each other feel better in the moment. A lot of our communication in the church when you understand we are all bonded together as recipients of this alien righteousness. We are the common practice. The way we engage is reminding of ourselves who we are in Jesus. And when we do that, we are setting ourselves up to be able to face all the challenges of life church around us. And Pastor Jan talked about this a lot over the years as we are not here... Once you know you're saved in Jesus, your identity is secured, the Father will never leave you or forsake you, and you have newness and you have freedom, and you have innocence before the Lord that even stumblings and sin can't take away for you after you turn and repent. And so what we are doing, church is not, "I come and go to the sanctuary to receive therapy." It's the halftime talk. It's where we remind you of who you are in Jesus. You have all the promises and power of God working for you, and we are here to boost you up, build you up before we send you out, and then you have community group to get a little boost midweek as well. And so the church is the place, it's a blessing because we are reminded that we are recipients of this alien righteousness. And I connect this if you're not really buying fallen Bonhoeffer for following me on this, this is really a point that Paul makes in Ephesians 2:11-22, the text for the day in verses 11:12, it begins with a description of alienation separation between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Verse 11 says, "Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, but what is called the circumcision," that Jewish believers, "which is made in the flesh by hand, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." So what's going on here? Paul is saying there's a conflict in the community, from the context of the passage, we don't know exactly what the conflict is given the rest of the book and the specific verses. It seems to be rooted in the racial and ethnic differences, Christians, people who are Christian highlighting their ethnic, religious and racial differences. But important thing to point out is there is a conflict and how does the apostle Paul tell them how to face it? What does he do? Verse 13, he reminds him of their hopelessness and exclusion from God's family, the Gentiles particularly. He reminds him of their hopelessness and exclusion from God's family before Christ came and died for them. Verse 13, "But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Once you were alienated, once you were hopeless without the promises of God applied to you, without chance of coming into God's family, but now because of the blood of Christ, because this alien righteousness that comes to you, you are brought near to the Lord himself, "For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in the flesh the dividing wall of hostility." It's a really frustrating piece of advice like, if you're in conflict with someone and someone says, "Remember who you are, that's the way forward." In a way, Paul is doing that. He's telling the Gentile Christians and then all of us Christians today for when we face conflict, really if you really remember who you were, whether you're Jew or Gentile in this situation, but God and his mercy was gracious to you. He offered forgiveness of sin. He saved you despite your rebellion against him. If you really process that, this identity that has been gifted to you, you can look upon your brethren and offer a similar grace and mercy to them. And so if you remember who you are that'll inform your way forward and help you to go forward faithfully. And one of, in Christianity, the main area where we see instruction similarly, Mark 10-9, "Let not man separate what God has put together," with regard to marriage. Every good Christian marriage knows that there's points in the marriage because it's two sinners come together who both need grace from God and each other daily. There are going to be times where conflict and trial are so large that the only thing that makes them stick together is the belief that God has established their relationship, and that's the logic that Bonhoeffer, that Paul are trying to teach us. They're trying to get us to view our sense of personal security with God derived from the identity that he has given us. And furthermore, trying to say we have a bond with other believers and that bond was forged by God, and we need to commit and covenant and hold fast to our commitment to other believers, not walk on them or isolate ourselves from them because God has established the capacity for us to have peaceful relationship with them. And so it's not really practical, but he's calling through this appealing to alien righteousness. Paul and Bonhoeffer, they're saying it's a call in our walk with the Lord individually, how do we correct ourselves? We remember who we are in Jesus. We remember this gifted identity that we have. For our walk in the church, we remember the gift that our community is and there's greater spiritualties. As an individual, who we are is not the one who is stumbling in sin over and over again. Who we are is a beloved son and daughter, and that's how we should view and see ourselves and that's what's going to help us march forward. Who we are in community is so much more than a body of believers at stray and get in the fickle arguments often. What does Paul say to end the passage? Paul alludes to, there's so much more spiritually going on with our believers. And Bonhoeffer and Paul, the next line, Bonhoeffer says, another reason why Christian community is a blessing is because we are going to be with each other in eternity. And so there's greater spiritual realities that we are called to live up to as individuals and as a body. And to continue what I was saying, Paul says, he appeals to these greater communal realities that take place when a group of people gather. In verse 19 it says, "So then you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you're fellow citizens, Jew and Gentile. You're fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit." So what is taking place when Christians truly rooted in their identity in Christ, this blessed gracious gift of an identity that they have when they gather in community. There's some sort of spiritual holy, eternal temple suited to be a dwelling place of God that is being constructed. And I say that and we're getting up into the sky, but that's a reality that is happening when we covenant, when we commit to live with one another, when we don't isolate with one another, when we disagree but come and love one another and work out conflict for God's glory, this spiritual structure is being built. And does it always feel like that? No. When we look back at the past year, did it feel like we were building this glorious, heavenly structure as we faced a lot of hardship that we never faced as a young church before? No, but we need to function with faith that, that is actually taking place as we go forward in faith loving one another, calling one another to the identity that we have in Jesus and the faithful ways forward, repentance of sin and faith. And so one of the things that Bonhoeffer really points out to close, I just want to bring up a thought. He says that until a church is really united and gathering around just the fact that everyone has this alien identity applied to them, this alien righteousness applied to them, until that is revealed as the primary connection point between a body of believers, the Lord is going to strip away pretty painfully all of those other things that appear to be the central bond that brings them together, and it's in his mercy. He could just bring wrath and punishment for the folly of gathering around other things, but in his mercy, he strips away all that gets at the heart of our true bond with one another, which is our faith in Jesus Christ and his saving work and in his sanctifying work in our lives. Bonhoeffer frames it like this, "The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us." And that when you think about the past couple of years facing a little more challenges as a body, that's what I see happening. That's what we pastors see happening. Scripture talks about us maturing. Scripture talks about us being pruned. God is a vine dresser, and as we hold fast to Jesus, and we are the branches, he's going to pull off those fruits that are taken away, the nourishment for the good fruit and he's going to refine us, put us in the fire. That's what God does to make sure that Christ stays central as the primary gathering point for our body, and that's love Jesus simple with Jesus at the center. Pastor Jan will elaborate in a whole lot more detail in a technical sense on how we apply these things. And I couldn't help but think that Bonhoeffer or Paul, they're alluding to imagery that comes with our name, our logo, Mosaic. "You are united by the blood of Christ," says Paul. "You are united by this alien righteousness that comes with believing in the blood and the cross of Christ," says Bonhoeffer. And isn't that what a mosaic is? We're a bunch of pieces, different shapes, different sizes, different backgrounds, different colors, different language, different nationalities, coming from different socioeconomic strata, life perspective, church background, non-church background, uniting together around the saving work of Jesus Christ. And my prayer, as I say, happy real New Year. My prayer before we cast the vision for next year is that Christ shows us more deeply that the most vital thing between us all is Jesus Christ and his work. And if he has to continue to strip it away in slightly painful ways or sometimes really painful ways, then all praise and glory to God because ultimately we're developing a more pure and unified bond as saints and followers with him. So let me pray in closing. Heavenly Father, we praise you for just the blessing that this church has been. We thank you as our 12th birthday is coming up in October, we thank you that I could have spent weeks talking about just amazing stories of seeing your saving hand just call dead sinners to life in Jesus Christ and bring them to freedom from the power of sin in their lives. I could spend just weeks talking about ways that communities, brothers and sisters walking together have served you in the form of doing charitable generous works, have served each other in terms of speaking the truth and love, calling each other to accountability to the identity that you have bestowed upon them. I thank you that we really have had such a blessed experience as your saints here in this city, in our short lifespan. But Lord, I praise you all the more for the hard lessons that you've provided in the past year. And Lord, we thank you for the perspective. We thank you for the maturity, the insight that we have developed for facing them. And Lord, I just ask, give us power to hold fast to you, hold fast to the cross of Jesus Christ, to always preach it, to always teach it, to always point ourselves first and foremost to it and your offer of salvation in it when we face personal challenges, when we face collective challenges as a body moving forward. Lord Mayor, we pray that our light would continue to shine brightly in this city, and we do ask for a harvest, Lord, just pour out the rains from heaven where you just call just thousands of people home in the months in the season ahead. I pray this then in Jesus name. Amen.
The Pattern of Salvation
July 9, 2023 • Andy Hoot • Genesis 44
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 do not leave us in despair, carrying the guilt and shame of our sin by ourselves. Lord, you are a father standing at the entrance of this household with his arms open wide, hoping for us to turn back to you from our folly. And Lord, we are children prone to wander. We're children prone to blatantly rebel against you, but further we are children who would prefer to do anything they can but admit our need to come back to you. Holy Spirit, we pray, show us today where we need to humbly submit our lives to you. Show us Lord, where we need mercy. Reveal to us our tendency to conjure up our own righteousness at the cost of receiving that which you offer in Jesus Christ. Bless the preaching of your word. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. We've been taking a look at the brothers of Joseph very closely the past few weeks. The sermon series began when we learned in chapter 37 that 10 of the brothers minus little brother Benjamin, sold innocent and unsuspecting Joseph into slavery. What we've covered in thorough detail over the past few weeks is that while nobody else in the world knew about this sin of selling Joseph, God knew and he was dealing with these brothers and he's dealing very directly with them to try to expose their sin and invite them back into loving relationship with him, to bring healing to their hearts and lives. How has God been dealing with them? We talked about in the previous chapters. He's used famine, unjust imprisonment, undesired circumstances, and a whole lot of tender love and kindness and affection. He's used tensions with an Egyptian ruler who the brothers don't know to actually be Joseph, the one who they sold into slavery. He's used these tensions while Joseph has hit his identity to try to get the brothers to direct their attention to him. We talked about how the exposure of the brothers to these tensions, those in the natural world and those in engagements with the Egyptian ruler as actually acts of mercy by God some severe, some tender, that the Lord is using to try to awaken their consciences to get them to see their need for him. We've mentioned that the text has given us glimpses that the hearts of the brothers were softening and they're beginning to see that God has not left them abandoned to the guilt and shame of their sin. We see their heart soften, but they have not blatantly confessed and acknowledged their sin to their father, to God at all. And so every time their conscience starts talking, they find a distraction, they push it away. They suppress the truth that they need to deal with this, that they're guilt ridden because of it. But today's chapter, it actually begins in a narrative where the brothers still with their sin unaddressed, sin against Joseph unaddressed. They actually are in a position where they're at a high. Of all the moments in the last 22 years, they have an opportunity to congratulate themselves, pat themselves on the back for passing the character tests of the Egyptian ruler. But what we see is that while they're at a high, God strikes them with an unforeseen blow, demolishing all self-confidence and ability to avoid their guilt. Out of this death blow to their self-confidence, God saved these men and they're finally spiritually reborn. And so to elaborate on what transpires in Genesis 44, I want to break down my sermon into two sections. The pattern of salvation and the pattern of transformation. The pattern of salvation and I give this section this title because in these verses we see the pattern that God uses to actually save people, to bring them into true, saving, eternal, peaceful relationship with him. This is the pattern that we see all throughout scripture. And to understand how God, what this pattern is, we need to first understand and remind ourselves of the mindset of the brothers entering this morning that Genesis 44 starts on. So remember last week we talked about how the brothers were really apprehensive about going back to Egypt for the ruler who received them and gave them the grain the first time, really put them to the test upon their visit. First the ruler questioned their word. When they told him they were simply there to buy grain, he didn't believe them, then he didn't believe their story after further questioning that they were all brothers of the same father and that they had one brother who was lost and the youngest brother was still at home with their father. Second, the ruler questioned their integrity altogether. He calls their whole appearance affront. He accuses them of being spies of a foreign land there to scope it out for a ruler, for an attack. He goes on to press the brothers to vindicate their story. He demands proof. And Genesis 42:19, the ruler says to the brothers, "If you're honest, men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households and bring your youngest brother to me." So the men are forced to leave one brother, Simeon, travel back to their father with the grain and what do they do? They put off the return trip as long as possible. They go through to the grain to the point that they're desperate and they have no other choice but to beg their father to let them take his cherish son Benjamin back to Egypt with him. And third, the brothers would've been apprehensive about returning to Egypt, not just for the treatment they received by the ruler, but because upon returning from Egypt, they realized that they didn't leave any of their money for the grain back in Egypt. It was in their money sacks. And so they realize that if they go back to Egypt, they have to get right before the ruler regarding this money situation. And finally, the brothers would've been apprehensive about returning to Egypt because it was Egypt going there. The ruler actually before they returned, forced them to stay in prison for three days. And that sparked for a moment a thought that maybe God is doing this to them for the sin committed against Joseph. They leave it as a question, but that's short-lived and they don't want... when they get home they forget that thought, they don't want to go back to Egypt and trigger that memory again. So that's the context that we start with last chapter. And so what happened on the first day that these fear ridden, guilt ridden, anxious, and insecure men return to Egypt. They bring Benjamin, the youngest brother, they bring double the money and what do they find? All their fears and worries were unnecessary. Last chapter we saw, in chapter 43, that their word was accepted. The ruler accepted them as honest men. He doesn't question their story for why they returned. He doesn't question their update about their father, the identity of Benjamin. This would've been a sense given them a feeling of vindication. They start to feel good about themselves. Imagine engaging with a foreign diplomat worth billions and having him receive you in such a manner and especially in a culture, an honor culture where commitment to your word is a high cultural value like these men. Handshakes, deals are made by handshakes in this culture and word. We saw that their offered money was accepted. After returning with the money they bring double the money along with some many local delicacies from their homeland and the ruler receives them. He lets them buy grain again. And you can imagine they're extra careful on this trip to make sure that the money was transferred to the Egyptian ruler from their money sacks to his money sacks. And you can almost hear them boisterously and smugly counting the money out loud, 1001, 1002, 1003 just to make sure and show the ruler his servants that they were there, they were good for their money. So there's this buildup of they're starting to feel good about their self. And so chapter 44 begins when they're departing Egypt and they're taking great confidence overall in their integrity. That which was questioned is shown to be good in this trip but the steward of Joseph follows them once they hit the road. He shows up shortly after their departure and he accuses them of having his stolen master's silver drinking cup. And these brothers feeling good about themselves, showing that their character checked out on the last day are just astonished at this accusation. He says in verse four, the steward says, "Why have you repaid evil for good by stealing my master's cup? They say, why does my Lord speech such words as these far be it from your servants to do such a thing? Behold the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your Lord's house?" So self-confident that everything just checked out the day before with the ruler so they go even further to say this is completely unnecessary. It's a bold and rash statement in verse nine. "Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord's servants." After what happened on the first trip where they unknowingly returned with the money, isn't it astonishing that they offered death and enslavement if any one of them is found with the silver cup? After they sold their brother into slavery for a pass, isn't it ridiculous that they present their character in this moment after one day of showing themselves to be good? It's kind of ridiculous to the point of... it's like my son's engagement with my daughter. My daughter's birthday was last week. She got a new toy, whenever we'd walk away. She's playing with it. He would go over and just take it from her and steal it, take the prize possession and he probably took it from about five times but the one time he consciously opted to not do what he intended to do, he came over to me and told me how proud of him I should be, "Daddy, I didn't take her toy." And so there's this self-confidence that can well up in a child very quickly. And of course I say, "Praise God, good, but let's see it over and over again," to my son. But that's how these guys are. The brother's lofty view of themselves is more apparent in that they don't think anything about how the steward checks the money in verse 12, remember the night before they're seated from oldest to youngest, perfectly, properly arranged by a foreign ruler who doesn't know them. That mathematically the chances of that happening are almost impossible. And here it happens again, the steward shows up, tells him of the cup and checks their bags one by one from oldest to youngest. And these guys in their self-confidence, they're blind to God's involvement in the situation. Last night, he lined you up seemingly randomly from oldest to youngest. Again, he does it and they're not thinking, they're not seeing God's hand. God's direct intervention in this moment. So the brothers stand there boldly and confidently with chest up as a steward looks for the cup in the money bags of Reuben, of Simeon, of Levi, of Judah, of Dan, of Naphtali, of Gad, of Asher, of Issachar, of Zebulun without the cup appearing. And then the ruler gets to Benjamin, if they had any slight worry that any one of their brothers took the cup, they wouldn't have suspected Benjamin, little Benjamin as a suspect. But the steward gets to Benjamin, searches the money sack and slowly lifts the cup, the ruler's special silver cup. And so despite the brothers' insistence, despite their projected ridiculous sense of self-confidence considering the history, the ruler's cup is found among them. How did this happen? How did the cup get there? You can imagine these questions quickly rising in the heads of the brothers. But these questions only last for a moment for finally, finally, finally, the brothers see what is going on. In an instant, they all start to see that the situation of the discovered cup, of the ruler and whatever treatment is to come is of a little importance. Finally, they see. So what is happening? Forget the cup. God is showing them that he's dealing with a much more grievous sin. The brothers immediately tear their clothes and guilt and sorrow, return as a group to Egypt with Benjamin. And what does Judah say before the Egyptian ruler? Verse 16 and Judah said, "What shall we say, my Lord? What shall we speak? What shall we say? What shall we speak?" He's saying there is nothing to say, nothing to speak. Our word. Our integrity has been shown to be worthless. We have nothing to stand on before you right now. Then he says something really interesting, "What shall we say? What shall we speak or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants; behold, we are my lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found." Judah professes that God has found out the guilt of his servants, but it's in a confusing way. How can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants. The NIV Bible translation says, how can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servant's guilt. So how can innocence and guilt be proclaimed right next to each other? The answer is that both statements are true. Judah and his brothers are innocent regarding the ruler's cup, but before God, they were guilty of the grievous sin that they tried to push down for the last 22 years, the horrible sin of selling their brother Joseph into slavery. Finally, they see that. They see very clearly that the Lord was bringing the sin of the past to light through the situation with the cup. Beyond that, what is happening right now? The brothers are being saved. Judah and his brothers are all being spiritually reborn. They are actually experiencing godly grief for their sin and they're inflated sense of self-righteousness and they see their need to be given mercy. The Lord, through this story, he's showing us the pattern of salvation, how he saves his true children. God shows us that only he can bring life to the dead consciences of sinners and he does so by chipping away at their own sense of self-worth. He reveals the folly of attempting to build up a righteousness on our own in order to try to come to terms with the guilt and shame that marks our soul for our sin. Even Judah and his brothers, the crudest of men, the most rebellious of sinners, had a tendency to want to convince themselves that they're not as bad as they think. God is showing the folly of doing so. What did these guys want? They wanted to have their day. They knew they were bad dudes, but their hope was in having days like this where everything checked out. Their word, their honor, their integrity, their money. And how many of you are just waiting for that day? That day when your spouse admits to you yeah, you're right all the time. You were right on this one. That day that your children say, "Yes dad, thank you for this wisdom. I'm going to do what you ask right away." That day your boss says, "Thank you. You are so good. We couldn't do this without you." Anything that we place our hope in like this, it doesn't really matter before God. But functionally, a lot of us practice such idolatry of placing our hope in these moments, trying to build a sense of righteousness around these moments. And God has shown us that before him those best moments don't matter. What matters are what we do in the worst moments when our guilt and sin is revealed, how do we turn to him or reject him? The pattern of salvation is a process by which God mercifully brings abou our own humiliation. He takes away all reasons for us to boast before him and he leaves us vulnerable to his mercy alone for salvation and restoration. So if you personally want to be right before God, you have to let God work on you, deal with you, humble you. A lot of people frame it as break you as he has with Judah and his brothers. I know that many of you have had this experience. When we practice membership, when we people become members, they give a sense of life before Christ, life after Christ. And the story that comes up over and over again is I tried to build my identity around this. I tried to build a sense of righteousness by this, by religion, by following society's rules, by conjuring up an identity that would draw me acceptance from God or people and I was backed into a corner, through a trial, through a conflict, through a layoff, through an illness, and I was left to cry out to God that I have nothing. I had to call upon him for mercy and that's the pattern of salvation. If it were not for God's merciful and persistent probing to keep our consciences alive and chip away at that which makes us proud, we'd all be like the brothers in the story before this moment. We'd be self-deceived, we'd be wrongly settled and content in our short-lived moments of doing right. Fools self-confidence that spells of good behavior, right adherence of God's law can make us right before him, dull to the ways that God is whispering to us and shouting to us that he is calling us back to him, offering us a righteousness from Christ full of fear or full of fear and insecurity that God and others will find us out. And so this like us, we are like the brothers. Aren't the brothers at the start of the chapter men of their word? So are we, we tend to say, we tell the truth, we don't lie. We're good for our word and have a sound profession of faith. If you want to know something about me, ask me. At the start of the chapter, chapter, aren't their brothers good for their money? So are we. We won't be beggars in this life and the life to come. We bring our money to the table as is expected. We go to church, we give to the church, we pay our taxes to Caesar and even go beyond that which is necessary to give to the church and nonprofits. We work hard for our money and our status. At the start of the chapter aren't the brothers confident in their integrity? We're not hiding anything from ourselves, God or other people. We're not like spies with rebellious or vindictive motives against God and his authority. We're upstanding citizens of our church and land. We have no reason to not claim innocence or righteousness before the law. We tend to think functionally day to day, even when we're united to Christ that we need to build a righteousness of our own. Do you claim innocence like the brothers? Remember their sense of confidence, their sense of righteousness in all these areas came at the cost of being honest to themselves about the sin that plagued their heart. It led them to justify the act of selling off their brother into slavery and convincing their father he was dead for a couple of decades, that's how self-deceived they were. Or maybe you're not claiming innocence but to be mostly innocent and I think this is most people. You admit that sometimes you do wrong, but that you're still good. Yes, you sin, but you're not doing as much bad as the person sitting next to you in the pew. Your neighbor, your spouse, your colleagues, your classmates, all the people out there. Such a mindset is filled with pride. It's sin before God. It's just as heinous in the sight of God as any rebellious sin. It's full of self-denial and one self-denial that one has sinned. It's full of self idolatry, placing yourself in the position of God, of claiming you know yourself better than God and others better than God himself. This text clearly shows that God destroys the self-confidence of the 10 brothers but I really want to focus the detail of in verse 16, he doesn't leave Benjamin out. God has found out the guilt of your servants. Behold, we are my lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found. He also in whose hand the cup has been found that makes it clear God is dealing with Benjamin in addition to the 10. Benjamin wasn't a part of the selling of Joseph, the abandoning of Joseph, but there apparently was self-confidence that he was bringing to the table, that God had to deal with right now as he dealt with it with his brothers. The lesson to takeaway is that even the people, the most innocent in the eyes of the world need to be purged of self-confidence. This is Boston, some of the nicest non-believing people in the world. A believer can really come into conflict here with the tension of sometimes I think my non-believing friends are much better people than me, but God, even those people need to have their pride dealt with. So what is the pattern of salvation? God like the Egyptian ruler seeks out and destroys the temptation to come to him with any self-confidence, any self-righteousness and receives us and builds us up anew in his mercy. Taken further, there's no true Christianity that separates itself from confessing that all people are individually guilty of sin against God and our brother Jesus Christ. God has created us and Jesus is our Lord, but we have rejected their claims on our lives and have gone about life boasting in our own self-confidence, our own self-righteousness. So the pattern of salvation, the crushing of our self-confidence and turning to receive mercy. Now after God has dealt with the brothers self-confidence and they actually get saved, what happens? The brothers are transformed, they're changed. This is too the pattern of transformation. What always happens when someone gets saved? Two things always happen. Their relationship with God has changed. Their relationships with other people change. When one is saved by God, they get peace with God on the vertical level. What is salvation? It is God saying, I know everything about you, the good, the bad, and the ugly and I am choosing to love you. I am choosing to bestow upon you a righteousness that is not your own, a righteousness of Jesus Christ. I am not loving you because of anything you've done to earn it. You haven't done it. In fact, you've sinned but I'm blessing you with righteousness and it's a love that is freeing. He loves us because he loves us, because he loves us. And that experience of that love brings true peace, true joy, and it enables us to then engage the horizontal relationships that we have on Earth with security, with stability, with peace. So first we see the brother's relationship with God has changed. In Genesis 42, during the first trip they acknowledge that God is doing something. They say, "What is this that God has done to us?" But notice this acknowledgement is framed as a question. And the text between this statement and now shows that it was only a short-lived question as I said earlier, from when they got relief from the pressure of their circumstances, they didn't ask the question anymore. But here they proclaim a fact in verse 16, "God has found out the guilt of your servants." It's a fact that God is dealing with them and their sin. They can escape it and they accept it. Until this moment, the brothers couldn't see they were all what we call unregenerate, dead to the movement of the spirit of God in their lives because of their sin. They couldn't see God working on them when he dished out severe mercy in previous chapters through the famine, through prior dealings with the ruler, through hard circumstances, they couldn't see God working on them when he dished out tender mercy to them through the ruler's kind treatment, through his kind greeting, his forgiveness of the mix-up with the money, his generous meal to them where they were seated in perfect order. But now that God has stripped them of their self-importance, their sense of self-righteousness, their integrity through this cup situation with the ruler, they're broken. They can see God's hand at work in their lives. They acknowledge their neglect of him as Lord and they accept that their future is contingent upon reception of his mercy. So we see transformation in their relationship with God. And second, we see evidence of the transformation of the brother's relationships, with Benjamin Joseph's younger brother as well as their father. This is what the whole second half of the chapter Judah's long speech shows us. This is what the Egyptian ruler who we all know to be Joseph, the brother sold into slavery, was waiting to see in his treatment of the brothers during this process of the visit of the last two years, Joseph knows God gave him multiple dreams saying that there's going to be a seven-year-long famine and he knows that upon their arrival, the first time he knows that he has time to deal with them, to test them. Are these guys repentant? Are they changed? And so the whole chapter, the situation with the planted cup at the beginning, the conversation with the ruler back in Egypt, it's none other than a reconstruction of selling Joseph into slavery again, contrived by God through Joseph. So what the Egyptian ruler is curious to see is how the brothers would treat Benjamin. The scene is reconstructed such that now that Benjamin is found with the Egyptians cup and his life is on the line, Joseph is wondering how the brothers will take advantage of the chance to leave him as a slave or not. They could leave him now just like they left Joseph and they would get off free. They would be able to make up another story about their father and even more honestly say we were forced into this situation where we had to sell our brother as a slave or they could take another path and act differently than before. And praise God what we see is that the brothers choose the latter. The text doesn't give any evidence that the brothers consider abandoning Benjamin as they did Joseph. This is shown in that they all went back together when the cup is found, even though in verse 9 the steward says, "Only the man in whose sack the cup is found would have to return as a slave," they all go back. And when nobody protests, when Judah offers that, they all become the Lord's servants, the ruler servants in verse 16 because of the found cup. Furthermore, Joseph even tests them by saying in verse 17, "Far be it from me that I should do so! Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant but as for you, go up in peace to your father." But Judah and the rest of the brothers do not accept these terms going back with fake peace to their father, going back with fake peace on their consciences at the cost of Benjamin's freedom will no longer suffice. All of the brothers show the resolve to stand before the Egyptian ruler until another option is identified, until Benjamin is released. So these are changed men, changed before God, changed in their relationships by the mercy of God. Most astonishing is Judah's engagement in verses 18 to 34, he provides one of the most stirring speeches in all of scripture. In the speech, Judah who was the one who facilitated the deal to sell Joseph for 20 pieces of silver 22 years ago, offers himself as a substitute in Benjamin's place. Furthermore, the primary thrust of what he has to say is that if the ruler keeps Benjamin, it'll be the cause of his father's death. To return to his father, to see him die in grief at the loss of Benjamin would be far worse for him than to become a slave in place of Benjamin. Judah shows that he has changed. The brother's support of him in the moment, show that they've changed, they show a great love and regard for their father and he's mentioned 14 times in the speech and Benjamin, the kind of love and regard that was not shown to the father and Benjamin when they sold Joseph into slavery. And so I say all of this again to show that a tremendous transformation happens when people are saved. Tremendous transformation in one's relationship with God and tremendous transformation in relationships between man and man. And that's really how our text ends today. And you probably all know the start of next chapter, there's a question of, well, did the Egyptian ruler receive them? I'm going to force you to read your Bible this week or wait until the sermon next week, but I really want to spend some time closing out the sermon, getting really practical. This has been a lot of... done a lot of teaching, really long chapters. I know some of you're sitting there and you didn't realize that you signed up to go to a sauna this morning, but I want to spend some time engaging some of the takeaways that we should be refinding as we engage on this story of the brothers and their salvation and their transformation. And this is just a rich piece of scripture. I named my son, Andrew Joseph. Joseph, man the Lord adds to because I just love the goal that's in this story. So first practical lesson, God is going to find us out. This passage teaches us that whatever we do to try to alleviate our conscience in life, God is going to find us out. We can run but we can't hide. As he did with the brothers, he's going to search us and probe us in this life in order to get us to truly acknowledge our sin before him and cry out for deliverance that only he can offer. That's his treatment of every true child of his. Second. We need to learn to listen when we feel like God is being silent. Remember that in the past couple of chapters in Genesis, God was trying to speak to the hearts of the brothers through quieter, less dangerous means. Through earthly calamity, challenging the famine, challenging relationships with people, hard undesirable circumstances and trials, but the brothers didn't listen. He had to use the ruler to bring them to a situation where slavery or death were the only options to get them or their father's death at the selling of Benjamin to hear them. So many people think that God only talks to us in the extreme highs and lows. We are in the cacophony of busy church life, evangelistic meetings, Christian conferences, but as I established really thoroughly last week, we can see that God is often speaking very blatantly to us in the day-to-day life, through providence if we have the eyes and ears to see it and notice when we don't hear him speak in what seems to be silence, he often takes drastic means to get us to hear like he did with the brothers and the situation with the cup. So we can choose the easy way or the hard way. We can take him at his word, receive him as Lord and Savior or we can have him force us to that point. Third, prideful sin is just as dangerous and blinding as blatantly rebellious sin, seeking peace of conscience in doing right while leaving sin unaddressed will only breed greater pride within us making it harder to see our realization of our need to seek peace in God's mercy. Sin all throughout scripture, what's its effect? It's blinding. Rebellious sin, prideful sin, the same. We when we are not turning to the Lord, confessing it and calling out for mercy that blindness can grow and grow and grow to the point that we're lost all together. But we need to see both prideful sin, rebellious sin, make it hard for us to see our need for God. Fourth, God changes people. In Genesis 38, Judah was a man willing to sell his brother into slavery, an adulterer, a hypocrite, a liar, and now he's a man willing to take the position of his brother as a slave. What does God do? He changes people. He finds us out, but he doesn't leave us in our despair and folly. He takes difficult people, makes them new. Scripture talks of the apostle Paul, a proud religious Jewish scholar who stood over the murders of early Christians, who persecuted the church and his incredible instantaneous conversion and ministry thereafter, he's the second most influential Christian in history after Jesus Christ. Paul himself talks in first Corinthians six about how people consumed by self, enslaved to pride and sin come into the family of God, of adulterous, drunkards, fornicators Paul says, "And such were some of you. You were cleansed. You were transformed by the blood of Christ." Praise God that our church has some Judas, some Reuben, some Levis, some Benjamins. Church history talks about the famous songwriter John Newton, the writer of amazing grace. He was a former slave trader who was transformed by Jesus. What amazing transformations we get to see God do in the hearts of people and what hope for us individually when we're honest with ourselves, we see our sin and see our hopelessness apart from the mercy of God. So maybe you're ridden with guilt. Maybe you've been trying to change in your own power, but not getting anywhere. If you humbly confess your sin, cry out for mercy and forgiveness. Scripture says over and over again, he will forgive you. He will change you. Fifth application, you need to repent of your sin. That's the word, repentance, that's the word from scripture that describes what's happening in the lives of the brothers in this chapter. It's a complete change of heart and attitude toward God, initiated by the Holy Spirit. As your conscience awakens to your sin, you turn from rebelling against God's lordship of your life and building your own kingdom and turn to Jesus as your savior to receive mercy. No amount of self-loathing will save you. No amount of penitent, self lashing will save you. Doing works, building self-confidence, religion will save you. Only believing in him, in Christ and repenting of your sin will save you. Romans 2 says, "God's kindness, his forbearance and patience, his mercy to you and your sin is meant to lead you to repentance." If you come to church, you engage the word of God, you engage our preaching and our teaching, our community here, and you are never brought to confront your sin and seek to turn from it and turn to the Lord, you're probably not saved. You need to repent and place your faith in Jesus and note that repentance, it just goes beyond a feeling. A lot of people get this wrong. The brothers in the story experienced some guilty feelings at times throughout the narrative, but they left it there. They felt some guilt. They felt sorrowful. They're the kind of guys that said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. They tried their best to shake it and leave it unaddressed, this isn't repentance. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, "For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death." Feeling guilty, feeling sorrowful, just meditating upon that over and over again does not save you. You have to do something about the guilt. You have to turn to God to confess and see that only he can address it and relieve you of it. Christ exclusively bore the burden for your sin on the cross. Salvation, forgiveness is only in him. Repentance, it needs to go beyond the feeling. The experience of repentance is yes, there is a moment of grief, but very quickly in that conviction, you should be inclined to turn to Christ and receive the grace that God offers. If you're stuck in guilt, you're not receiving that grace. Further, true repentance will lead to a transformation, a lasting change of behavior. A truly repentant Christian will not be able to carry on for two decades in sin and folly like the brothers. These guys were not saved. There's no way they could live with themselves for 20 years as they did if they were true believers. Matthew 3:8 eight says, "Bear fruit and keeping with repentance." You're given a new nature in Christ upon your salvation and when you're truly repentant, you can't bear to live under the dominion of sin anymore. Though you know how hard it was for God to search you and pursue you before you're saved, you take a new attitude as a true repentant believer. It's an attitude of Let me have it, God please continue to search me. Root out anything within me that is not Christ-like. Psalm 139, 23 to 24, "Search me, oh God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." You want God to keep squeezing out any remnants of sin, the old man and your being, habits, patterns of thinking that lead to ungodliness and sin. And furthermore, you crave that other people, believers speak into your heart to bring help, bring about that greater refinement of your character. I had to sister speak some truth to me this week in the conversation in the moment. I wanted her to acknowledge all of the good things that I've been doing in this season but she very pointedly brought up some patterns that she'd seen in me that were not God-honoring, that were sinful. And how did it feel in the moment? Of course, it bit, it stung. It burned a little. I wanted to defend myself, but I'm thankful she did it. She loved me so much and had such concern for me and she wanted me to better honor God with my life. And because she spoke up, I can do so as a husband, as a father, as a Christian, as a pastor. So we need to repent, truly turn from our sin and turn to God, receive the righteousness that he offers us and the power of the spirit to walk anew. Sixth, we need to receive forgiveness from God. And this is part of repentance, turning from sin, turning to God. First John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Hebrews 4:16 instructs us to with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and fine grace to help in time of need. The way forward, when our conscience is awakened, when we're ridden with guilt, when it's just suffocating us because of our sin, it's actually really easy. It's offensively easy. A lot of people look at Christianity and say, it's too easy to receive forgiveness. How could a God function like that? But we turn and in faith, we confess our sin and we ask God to forgive us and he forgives us. We have to truly believe that this happens. We don't have to self loath anymore. We don't have to carry the guilt from the past. When we believe an exchange happens, our guilt, when we acknowledge our need for forgiveness of our sin, when we acknowledge it as rebellion against God, whether it's prideful sin, rebellious sin, we look to Jesus. When we look to Jesus, our sin is applied to him on the cross where he bore the full wrath for it and his righteousness is applied to our account and we need to see that we are made new in the moment. Nothing is better for a weary, tired soul just trying to conjure up its own righteousness, to hide from their guilt than to receive the righteousness of Christ. And the greatest part is you don't have to change first to receive it. It's receiving the grace of God, the righteousness of Christ that changes you and helps you to persevere going forward, to lead a life that is honoring to God. Seventh, we need to seek forgiveness from others. The reconciliation that needed to take place in the story not just between the brothers and God, but between the brothers and Joseph and Benjamin and between the brothers and their father. So much strife, so much trouble, so much guilt could have been avoided if forgiveness was pursued on all sides and much more quickly. When forgiveness is accomplished between the brothers, that's when this family of God, this chosen family of God, blessed with all the promises of Abraham, Isaac, and their father Jacob are positioned to stick together and work together to become a nation that shows the righteousness of God to the world. When forgiveness is extended in the family, in the church, that's when the people of God can work toward spreading the rule and reign of Jesus without getting paralyzed because there's bitterness and pain lingering in the body. Ask yourself, is the Lord calling you to go to someone? To acknowledge your wrongs, to seek forgiveness in order to bring reconciliation? Are there any situations in your life? Matthew opens up in his gospel. He says, "It's so important to be reconciled to your brothers and sisters in Christ that you should even leave worship and not partake in the Lord's supper before you partake in them." You need to get right with your brothers and sisters before you worship God. That's how important it is to pursue reconciliation, pursue forgiveness, pursue peace according to the word of God in a timely quick manner. Eighth, we need to love others sacrificially and this is where I'll end. We need to love others sacrificially, that's what drew to models in this chapter. He offers to give up himself for his brother. As we follow Christ, great commandments to love God and neighbor we need to love in the way that God loves us, which is to love regardless of the worthiness of our brothers and sisters and neighbors. For all we know, Benjamin wasn't worthy of such sacrifice. Judah wasn't nearly loved as much by his father as Benjamin, but Judah chose to love Benjamin anyway and all himself in his place. A person who knows their unworthiness before God and contemplate that Christ laid down his life for them, despite full knowledge of their sin, whether it's prideful or rebellious, is going to live in a manner that is much more loving, generous, and kind even toward those who are difficult to love. With spouses, children, family members, church members, roommates, neighbors. It's not a true act of love until it's difficult. We need to love when it's hard. We can do so because Christ did for us. And when we realize how hard it is in the moment, our appreciation of the love of Christ grows all the more. Our appreciation of the love of the Father who sent him grows all the more. Just close with this classic verse, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Believe this message, God love you so much. He has full knowledge of your sin, that he is offering mercy and grace. Admit your need for it. It will change you. You will experience forgiveness. You will experience transformation in your life. You will experience transformation in your relationships. You will truly love God. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, your word which convicts us to not seek to build our own identity before you, but to rest and receive in that which you offer to us. We praise you, Lord, for your transforming mercy and grace. We thank you that when we cry out for it, when we acknowledge our need for it, we experience great relief of the guilt due for our sins, the shame in which we walk, and we have full knowledge that you will love us until the end. Lord, we pray right now. We pray for healing in our relationship with you. If anyone right now is resisting your call on their life, Lord, bring them to full submission to your lordship. Give them a heart to receive Christ as their savior. Break them but be gentle. And Lord, we just pray for restoration, for reconciliation in relationships, for in the folly of our sin, our rebellion, our pride, we've often acted wickedly. Lord, we pray. Let us have peace here as we experience peace in our hearts from your love. Give us peace with brothers and sisters in the church, that we might be a body that works more in sync for your glory. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Preparation for the Siege of Boston
May 7, 2023 • Andy Hoot • Jonah 3
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're thrilled to continue our series in the Book of Jonah. This is week three and next week will be our final week. Today we are continuing in the series, it's called Reluctant Believer. And again, we are engaging the fact that Jonah does present himself in many ways as a reluctant believer throughout the book, but today chapter 3 is where he is walking in tune with the Lord. And there are a lot of lessons for us to glean and take away for how we should be looking to God to prepare us for the missions that he calls us to. This is really just one of the most exciting chapters of Scripture in my mind. The Lord's used it profoundly in my life and today I will pray right now that he does the same. So let me read Jonah 3 and then I'll pray and deliver the word. Jonah chapter 3 and the full chapter, verses 1 through 10. This is the word of our Lord. "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.' So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, 'Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!' And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. "The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, 'By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.' When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented on the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it." This is the word of our Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you this day for the chance to hear your word almost 3,000 years after the life of Jonah. Lord, your word still stands. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And today we ask that your word would go out in power as it did in the day of Jonah when he went to Nineveh. Lord, we ask that we would get to see your might at hand in the form of changed hearts, in the form of humility and contrition and repentance before you. We pray that all of us here would be inclined to look to you for grace and mercy and receive it with gladness. Holy Spirit, we pray, remind us of the specific callings that you have put on our hearts, those callings to bring you glory. Remind us of your grace if we catch ourselves and having failed in our callings. Remind us of just the ways that you have prepared us to be your servants. And Lord, I just pray, let us be faithful to your formation today through the delivery of your word. I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. I want to begin with a question. Are you doing anything that requires you to live for a cause greater than the glory or good of yourself? Are you doing anything in life that requires you to live for a cause greater than the glory or good of yourself? I am. I recently started playing on an organized sports team for the first time in 11 years. I did the whole work too much in my mid-20s, get married, have kids, gain weight, have my first reconstructive joint surgery thing over the past decade, and now I'm back on the soccer field with the co-ed parents team for my child's elementary school. And you know what? It's a blast. It's not been a blast because I'm 35 and the average age of everyone else is 40 to 50. It's not been a blast because I'm able to get a workout in that I've been lacking. In full sincerity, I love playing on this team because in locking arms with my teammates, I'm doing something that is blatantly bigger than myself for a couple of hours in the week. I'm playing for a team and essentially it feels good and right to be forgetting myself as I join my teammates. After my first game of playing on the team, I honestly had to ask myself while just feeling good to have joined this greater unit, "Have I been doing this anywhere else in my life? Have I been working for the good of something greater than myself for a while?" And you know what? I realize that I have. I realize that actually day to day as a husband, as a dad, as a pastor, a church member, I've actually been seeking to live for many causes greater than myself as I've tried to serve faithful in each of these roles. And you know what? As hard as being a husband, dad, pastor, church member can be with this renewed perspective from playing soccer, I realized that grinding it out each day in all of these callings is the blessed life. And so why is that? Why do I see it this way? Because I know that to live for myself, for my glory, my desires, my preferences, my plans alone leads to nothing but wasting away and self-deceptions and efforts to try to numb myself to the fact that living in such a way does not satisfy. I tried that approach for five years from the start of college to a year out before I found Mosaic, and I know it doesn't deliver. How many of you have tried that before? To live for yourself for extended periods and it just does not deliver? The pain of the grind to be faithful, though it's not quite as fun as losing oneself while playing soccer on a team, is so much better than the stagnancy and stoutness that mark a life without ambition beyond one's own desires or life with ambition that is too small. So I again ask, are you doing anything that requires you to live for a cause greater than your glory or good? You see, I asked this because I'm trying to draw out something that's inherent in human nature. We were made to live for so much more as the Switchfoot early 2000 song says. Man was made to live for so much more than himself and if he doesn't do this, he gets lost and blind and rots away. The Scriptures attest to this. When God creates men and woman, he gives them a commission, Genesis 1:28, "And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" Furthermore, when someone is saved in Christ, Jesus commands all... In Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission: "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go with therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." As humans and especially as commissioned Christians, we can't get rid of this inner calling to live for something greater than ourselves. The specific calling to live for God, our creator, to live for his purposes, his glory, the spreading of his dominion through the preaching of the gospel on this side of creation is our unique and grand calling in life. And we can't get rid of it, we can't shake it. I say to you, this is the calling that God places on the lives of all people, whether they profess to be Christian or not. And beyond the Scriptures, what's my further evidence for this? A lot of Scriptures that I can't really spell out today because it'll distract too much from Jonah 3, they tell you to simply look within your heart and you will find this out. It's something about being an image bearer of God that he has imparted part of his attributes to you, that you are going to want to live for his glory. You are going to want to make use of the skills, the gifts, the qualities, the characters, beings, the longings in your heart in this life. And that's a little spiritual, it's a little hard to flesh out with Jonah 3, but I want to just argue with it that we just know this, that we have this part of our human nature just by looking at just literature and media over the years. Look how big and successful the book and movie industries about heroes and heroines who single-handedly take on the world for a great cause are. Ask why are anti-Nazi World War II movies still being churned out like rapid fire constantly in our day? Why are superhero movies so popular? Why are action movies where The Rock, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone just automatic ways to make a ton of money and draw big crowds? Why are so many stories like The Lord of the Rings where a little or simple man or woman like Frodo takes on a tremendous force of evil against all odds, so popular? The answer is that as much as modern, post-modern and India authors and artists try to badmouth these stories and write these narratives out of the human story, they can't. There's something in the heart of the narrative of these one-man army stories, of the underdog stories that appeals to our heart. We can't shake the call to do something great in life. We can't prevent our hearts from being stirred and amazed at the stories of one man taking up great tasks because it's written on our hearts that we must do so ourselves. What does this have to do with our passage today? It has everything to do with it. What takes place in our passage? One guy, one man, a prophet of God, Jonah, with a really shaky track record, in a short moment of wholehearted obedience goes to a great city and God uses his simple message to inspire the most sincere and astonishing revival recorded in all of Scripture. Just think, they didn't even let their... They clothed their animals in sack cloth and ashes. They had their animals fast, not just the people, not just the king and the nobles. There's true humility and contrition with the hope that God would relent of the disaster. The most unbelievable part about the Book of Jonah is not that Jonah is swallowed by a great fish and then spit up on the shore. It's that the great city of Nineveh turns from its evil ways and true contrition and turns to God for mercy. This city great in every way, in size and riches, in population and architecture and security. It had these great walls. In reputation and culture, in military might and wickedness. The people were known in history for cutting off the noses of their captured enemies, skinning them alive, placing their skins on the walls when they captured their city. This great city and its king, its nobles, its people is brought to its knees in sack cloth and ashes before the Lord by the efforts of one man. Jonah's seize and conquering of Nineveh is none other than the classic story of good conquering evil, God conquering Satan, a man carrying out the duty that all men were created to do by God. Just like being on a team has reminded me, just like all the classic hero stories and blockbuster movies do, Jonah's conquering of Nineveh should pull out of all of us that which is inherent in our nature. It should pull out the desire to live for the greatest cause in the universe; to live for the spreading of the rule and reign of the kingdom of God. When we look at this story, it should inspire us. So think about how God can use us in this great city of Boston to think about how we can be more than conquerors for Christ here, to think about how we can take down the giants that are in this land. We should truly believe that through hiding God's training and call in our lives, we can bring this great city perhaps pound for pound, person per person, the most influential city in the world except where it matters most to its knees before God. Today we study Jonah 3 with the intention to identify how God prepares his servants to accomplish much more than they should, to identify how God is preparing us for the seize and conquering of Boston. So how does God prepare his servants for this great service? That's what I want to talk about today as we look at the text. And I say persistent calling, generous grace, strategic planning, giving of power and suffering. Said differently, how's God trying to fight the cynicism that is built up in your heart as an adult, as you've sought to only build your own kingdom or preserve your small cup of peace? Persistent calling, generous grace, strategic planning, giving of power, suffering. So persistent calling. How's God prepare his... How does he prepare his servants for great service? Persistent calling. Jonah 3:1 says, "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time." This is one of the most encouraging pieces of Scripture, encouraging verses in all of Scripture. How many of you need to hear this right now after walking out the door and saying something to your spouse or your child or your roommate that did not honor them as an image bearer of God as you're trying to rush here today? By nature, as I mentioned, God sends and calls. He doesn't claim or save his children and leave them to stay where they are. He tells them to go and claim dominion for him. With Jonah, there's no ounce of pity toward him after he spent his time in the fish. He doesn't give him a week off. God knows that after his experience in the fish, he has Jonah's heart and he calls him to go to Nineveh a second time. This is encouraging to me. What it tells us is that mission isn't for the elite, it's not for the well-rested, it's not for those who have all authority, have all the resources. It's not for those who are professionally trained, seminary educated, overflowing with resources. It's for anybody who claims that they are the Lord's. God by nature is ascending and calling God. Those who genuinely know God know that he will come to you not just a second time but a third and fourth and beyond to press you into action to get you to stop living for yourself and live for him. Live for the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Live for other people. God constantly pushes and plows us out of our comfort zones in an effort to ask us, "When do you really want to start learning who I am? I live to make things new, to change people, to renew them from the inside out. You can never find out who I am if you're never in action dependent upon me." God never sucks us in, swallows us without spitting us out and telling us to go. Think of God's calling of Abraham in Genesis 12. "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.'" He never saves without calling you to save. He never blesses someone without calling them to be a blessing. And the only way you can be a blessing is if you go, you leave, you leave your comfort zone, your safe space and you get out. God calls us to leave that which is familiar in order to engage that which is foreign and scary and requires vulnerability. It takes these things to bless others. You can't be a Christian and not expect to be on mission without engaging the own mess of your heart and engaging the mess of the hearts of the people that you're trying to serve and love and be used by God to convert. If you don't follow God's call, it's not just that you can't be a blessing and be used by God, it's that it prevents you from becoming like God. Many more years after Abraham, 700-plus years after Jonah, God the Son, Jesus Christ, left the ultimate safety zone, the throne of God's radiant and infinite glory in heaven to take on flesh. And when he was on earth, he faced every tension, every challenge, every hardship that was possible. He spoke, he engaged the world in order to reach out to us and in doing so, he created many followers but many enemies. The same thing we experience in being Christian here in the city. And yet in doing all of this, by humbling himself, Jesus exalted himself. By losing himself, he found himself. The very opposite of what happens when someone lives for themselves. Just thinking about how God just persistently calls us. Just practical application. Just ask yourself, are you living for something beyond the maintenance of your schedule, your work, your reputation, day in and day out? Are there any places where you are extending yourself, making yourself uncomfortable for God and for others, for the sake of saving others, for the sake of encouraging other Christians? Through your giving, through your service, are you actually sacrificing to God? Can you really convince yourself or others that you're doing this? There's a lot of Christians who are like Monday morning quarterbacks. They go to church on Sunday. They have a little analysis of the word, whether it essentially entertained them or not, and then they live as if they're not Christian throughout the week. They're not on mission. We need to be on mission. The great hope when we look at Jonah, the reluctant prophet, the reluctant believer is that we don't really need to be talented, we don't need to be that smart. We don't have to have the gifts, the resources, but we need to give God our will, our willingness to submit to his call. And when we do, he will always accomplish his intended purposes and make us new in the process. Until you understand this, you're going to live life in a fake reality. It's going to be the size of your own head and you're going to be out of touch with who he is and who you are and who you are created to be. And so we have to receive God's call like Jonah, even if we reject it like he did the first time. Next, how do God prepare his servants to do great things? He gives them generous grace. Still talking about verse 1 here, "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time." Those of you who know the story so far of Jonah, that God's calling of Jonah, again, you know that it doesn't make any sense. Why? Because Jonah didn't obey the first time. God called him, he disobeys, he sins, he goes in the complete opposite direction that God wants him to. Jonah let God down. And I don't know about you. If you think of God's tactic right here, it just doesn't make sense. When you look at... If you're at war, do you go and find an officer who's just been court marshaled to go and place him at the front and be the commander at the most important battle? That's essentially what God does here in sending Jonah to the great city of Nineveh. Jonah's second call and second commissioning is given purely out of the grace of God. He's recommissioned not because of his own merit, but because of the undeserved favor, merit, the undeserved kindness of God. You see, the way that God works to accomplish his great works is completely contradictory to the ways of the world. According to the world's practices, who does the most important tasks? We know very clearly here who that is. It's the Harvard grads, the MIT grads, those who are the richest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the most deserving on paper. But God doesn't work like that. Here he chooses to work through the foolishness of men through a guy like Jonah to show the world his power. He works through Jonah's racist and prejudice tendencies. Jonah talks about this. Jonah really does not want Nineveh to be saved because they're the arch rival of his home nation Israel. He does not want God to give them his mercy. In the New Testament, who does God work through? He works through disciples, fishermen, laborers. And who does he give leadership, a seeming position of leadership among them? Peter the fisherman, the guy who betrayed him three times on the eve of his crucifixion. God gives generous grace over and over again to his servants. He works through people who are saved by grace and powered by grace. People who have no heirs about them because they've already acknowledged to themselves to be complete failures in their own right. People saved by grace who've cried out like Jonah, "Salvation belongs to the Lord," as he did at the end of chapter 2. They're humbled. They don't take up tasks and callings to prove themselves, hide their insecurities or to show themselves to be something that they're not. They take up great responsibilities with a pure desire to honor God out of thanksgiving for his forgiving of them, out of thanksgiving for calling him to his work. And so this is as a Christian, as a servant of God, we have to receive his generous grace over and over. And do you know it? First of all, do you know that the alternative, what you really deserve on the opposite end of being called by God to do his work is wrath? Have you run to him and received forgiveness by looking to the cross, looking to the blood of Jesus Christ to get peace with him, to avoid eternal condemnation, to avoid judgment? Are you powered by grace or are you powered by self-ambition? And that's something that a lot of Christians here will say, empowered by grace, but you really have to ask this question to yourself multiple times. If you're the kind of person drawn to the top programs, drawn to the schools, drawn to the industries and big companies of Boston, are you driven by grace? Are you driven to act in every area of your life out of thankfulness for what God has done for you? And the hard part about being Christian is you have to receive it daily. In my marriage, one of the hardest things is... We've been married nine years and now it's just been hundreds of times where I know that the only way forward is to receive grace from my wife. The only way forward is to just accept that she needs to forgive me for my sin. There's nothing I can do to justify what I did, but I've got to stop. I've got to receive it. I've got to praise God that I have a woman that is happy to give me grace, happy to work forward together just simply out of the kindness of her heart in the same way that God forgives me for my sin. And as Christians, when we're called on task, we're stretched to our limits. We're at the end of our widths. It reveals the inner insecurities that remain in us. It reveals the bad habits and tendencies that are sinful part of the old man that don't honor God. And when we're out on mission, we just need to constantly come back to him and go to the cross of Jesus Christ. So Jonah in this moment, he knows that coming right out at the belly of the fish. Furthermore, how does God prepare his servants for great work? With strategic planning. Verse 2 says, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you." So God gives Jonah strategy. What is that strategy? He sends Jonah into the city, he sends him into Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, the great power of the north of Israel. This is the same strategy that the Apostle Paul used on his mission trips. The man who God used more powerfully than any other person, aside from Jesus Christ himself to spread the gospel. He went to cities to spread the gospel. And why does God employ the strategy? People in the city throughout history, they've always been a little more open to change. The nature of the city, the engagement with different kinds of people, trades and challenges, forces them to think more deeply about issues and seek solutions regarding life, death, heaven, hell, and human flourishing. I can attest to this. I'm from the suburbs. I've worked on staff at a suburban church before and I can tell you... Ask Mosaic staff. I can tell you just for hours and hours all the good things about Southeast Pennsylvania, suburban Philadelphia life, I can go on and on. It's a special place in the world. But as much as I love the people there and confess that they could teach us city dwellers a lot about contentment and resting in the Lord, living there, working there, being on mission there, it was really hard to get them to think about beyond what they're going to eat at their big Sunday family dinner or beyond the big game that afternoon. The best part about living in the city is that people press hard for answers, press hard for truth and don't avoid tensions. Further, God sends Jonah to the city and gets his disciples to employ a city-centered strategy because life primarily runs through the city. Commerce primarily runs through the city. Immigrants arrive at the city and live in the city for a generation or two before considering moving out as the city provides a safe net. Media, theater, publications are still centralized in the city and their material is spread from there. The city is the heart from which all of the lifeblood of a land flows. And that's Boston. That's our pride. Our license plates say, "Spirit of America." That's not for Massachusetts, you know that's Boston saying that. That's so true when you think of the power of the institutions, power of the companies, the power that young 20-somethings and beyond get when they work on companies that you see touch the global market. The city is the heart from which all of the lifeblood of a land flows. And as Christianity, just one point to think about is, as Christianity gripped the Roman Empire and spread rapidly in the early centuries after Christ's death, those who were called pagans were the people who typically stuck their fist up to Christianity and chose to live outside of the city as it spread there in the city. The word pagan can actually mean countrymen. People who lived outside of a city, carried on with all kinds of idolatry. And again, I'm not trying to say that about modern, rural or suburban America. I will never stop feeling homesick for my place where I grew up, suburban Philadelphia, but the Book of Jonah and all of Scripture has a very clear acknowledgement of the importance of the city. Jonah 4:11 says, "And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?" And that's saying people who do not know their right hand from their left is probably children. And so when you consider the amount of adults, the number probably gets to 500,000, 600,000. So God reminds Jonah of how many image bearers in this case, particularly children are there in the city. Jonah's upset about God taking away a plant at this point that gave him shade from the sun, but he does not care about the salvation of hundreds of thousands of people. And we just need to be careful that just even being residents in the city, that cynicism toward the city does not grow. We have to be careful that we don't lose heart for the image bearers of God around us. And the question is, do you care for the city? Do you actually have a heart for the city? I think as a church of people who were pent-up in small apartments for an extended time in COVID, we were left panting for space, panting for breathing. Our view of the city might have become a little more matured or nuanced, especially as transplants who just don't know a city life that well, many transplants here. We really need to pray for God to renew our hearts for this city, for Boston, for Brookline, Jamaica Plain, Cambridge. Furthermore, are you here to use the city or just get out? Or are you here because you view your time here as a person who was sent by God to be here to first and foremost do his service or work? A lot of people, the typical Mosaic person who comes for a program just says, "I'll ask these questions later. I'll think about the good of God's name in this city when I'm done my program." And I say, "Don't hesitate, engage them now." Next, God prepares his servants to do great things by the giving of power. And this is from Jonah 3:3-4. "Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, 'Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'" So Jonah goes into the city. The way the text describes his efforts, the focus isn't placed on the quality of the sermon. It's just eight words here in the English, five words in the Hebrew. Many think this is just a summary. There's a lot of debate. Was this his full sermon or was it just a summary of what Jonas said? I think it's more of a summary statement. I see the limited content on what Jonas says to draw us attention not to his words, it's to have us keep our attention on the power of God in this moment, how God used Jonah. Verse 5 says, "And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them." The people of Nineveh believed God. They didn't believe Jonah, they didn't hear Jonah through his sermon, they didn't hear his words. They heard God, his words. It was God, his power, which gave the people of Nineveh the ears to hear his voice, which led to their complete and wholehearted repentance, which is chronicled in more detailed verses 6 through 9. Verse 6 says, "The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes." And it says, "The word reached the king." Better translated, "The word touched the king of Nineveh." That's God's power touching even the heart of the king. So how did Jonah strike the hearts of all the people of the city and ultimately the king and the nobles? He repented in his own life and the Lord used his sermon, paired it with his power to lead the city to repentance. What does the city need more than anything? This great conversion that we see or this great repentance that we see in the city. What does the city need more than anything in Nineveh? What does it need more than anything today? Repentance before God. Individuals, heads of households, heads of state weeping for their sin before God, turning from their violent and evil ways and turning to God for mercy. The city more than anything needs more people with repentant hearts before God. Do you think that Christian, or do you agree with what you hear out there in the media? Do you ever hear modern politicians, local or nationals say that that's what the city needs? Individual repentance, a turning from sin and turning to God, a change, a true change in the hearts of people? No, it's always band-aids. It's diplomacy, negotiation, urban planning, therapy. That's what the politicians, that's what anthropologists, that's what sociologists, that's what college professors, that's what counselors say, but it's repentance before God. It's a new heart, a changed heart, a heart that does a complete 180 that stops looking for itself all the time and starts looking to God continually. So God's called children need to trust that when he sends them, he sends them in power. That's the only reason why I'm here in Boston today. I have no confidence in my own strengths. I'm a preacher because I truly believe that God gives us power. When we speak, when we spread the word faithfully, when we fight for holiness in our daily lives, he uses us in our weakness for his glory. We need to remember that. And this is what Mosaic believes. This is what has built this church. I've been blessed to see Mosaic grow from 15 people in 2011 to what it is today. And the strength of Mosaic has always been its fight to stay faithful to the word of God. And it's not because we have a website with nice design. It's not because we do have lot of young, cool, trendy, attractive people. It's because we have gathered people around the preaching of God's word and God's power has gone out as he says it would. We believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also the Greek. It's what everybody in the world needs to be saved to be right before God and to live a righteous and holy life going forward until Jesus returns or until they die. The local church isn't to focus its energies and resources on efforts focused on big picture systemic change and politics, but on individual soul salvation, which makes people new from inside out. God will be glorified, the city will be renewed when one person, one household at a time turns from their evil ways and turns to receive mercy from the Lord. So do you believe this? Are you expending all of your energies in all of these other areas at the cost of being faithful to the stewarding, the sanctification of your own heart? At the cost of being faithful to being present with brothers and sisters in Christ who are asking hard questions of God, of the gospel, who are asking for help and encouragement as they fight sin? For the Christian, there should be a whole recalibration of how I'm saved in Jesus. Now, how do I better invest my time to honor God, to bring glory to his name? And a lot of young people are... Sometimes that means stay there, stay where you are and really try to be a witness to God there. But if you're not accepted after faithful effort, after faithful effort, God says, "Stomp your feet off and go and find somewhere else." And so how are you actively trying to identify your calling today? And a lot of it, it begins with loving God. What did you say? Love God, love your neighbor. Are you looking to be present to serve God with the people who are physically next to you? Not the people online, not the people on social media. And even I say if you've left mom and dad and they're in a city far away, you have to be present with the people who are there in person before then. You have made the choice to actively leave them to be present somewhere else. And you either accept that and own it and be present where you are. And you still praise God. We get to call them and have FaceTime and video chats in our day. Or you say, "All right, I've got to go home. God wants me there." And so we need to be present with the people that God place in our life. We need to love God, love neighbor. Do you believe what the world needs is the gospel, is Jesus, is repentance and faithfulness before him? And it's so easy, it's such an easy offer. All people have to do is turn in faith, believe the good news, and they get the Holy Spirit, the power of God to work about a new identity rooted in him. It's the greatest deal in history. So Christians, we need to share God's word with boldness and faith, trusting that his power will go out. The God who once used the delivery of gospel to save you at some point, to convict you of your sin before him, he will send the power out when you share the gospel and try to live it out faithfully. We need to stop being ashamed. If we're in the gospel, we have what all people hear, whether rich or poor need. That's the message which brings about peace and restoration before God. So God, he gives us grace and he calls us here to go out in power. And furthermore, how does he prepare his saints for great service like he did for Jonah? And last is the suffering. God gives his servants suffering to equip them to do great things. He gives them suffering to be as powerful of a one-man army as Jonah was in this book. And I don't get this text from Jonah 3, I get it from Matthew 12:38-40, which is Jesus's analysis of this text. It says, "Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, 'Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.' But he answered them, 'An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.'" Jesus is communicating here that it's out of his death that others will receive life. It's not miracles that ultimately show his power and authority and make him worthy to follow as God, but it's out of his weakness, his death, that the sufficiency of his saving power will be born, that he himself will show himself worthy of worship. Jesus was the suffering servant. It's through suffering that Jesus makes his followers good servants. A servant cannot be greater than his master. When we are saved, we are called to be formed by suffering in our service. There's no doubt that the greatest form of preparation for Jonah's ministry was his suffering, the dissent into the deep, into the abyss, a near-death experience because of his rebellion against God that he was prepared to take up this task. And why is that the case? Why is suffering a good thing? Particularly in this instance, Jonah's suffering enabled him to embody the message that he delivered to the Ninevites. What's the message that he had? What's the message of the gospel? God is both righteous and merciful. He's not just merciful. The church is really good. Modern church is really good at hitting mercy, mercy, mercy, grace, grace, grace. God is both righteous and merciful. He is holy and righteous by nature, and he cannot and will not accept anybody into his presence who is marked by sin. At the same time, he is a gracious God and merciful, slow to an anger and abounding and steadfast love and relenting from disaster toward anyone who repents of their sin and calls on the name of Jesus Christ. That was Jonah's message. That's the message of the Bible. That's the message of Jonah. That's the message of the gospel. And Jonah knew this very well. He knew of God's righteous condemnation of his sin because he was put in the belly of a fish for it. He knew of God's grace and mercy through his experience of being spit up by the fish and given a second chance at life, a second chance to do the work of God. Jonah's ministry to the Ninevites was so powerful because his life embodied the message of God's righteousness and mercy towards sinners, and that is the same of Jesus Christ. When we look to the cross, when we look at Christ's life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and ultimately his return, we see the righteousness and mercy of Jesus. Jonah, when he would've told of the judgment coming for a sin, he would've told them with all sincerity of its inevitability and reality. When he would've told them of the grace and mercy of God, he would've told them in a way that convinced them that he knew it personally. He knew this all because God allowed him to suffer. Remember chapter 2 he says, "Your waves, your breakers were cast over me in this experience in the water, in this experience in the belly of the fish." God appointed suffering is what gave Jonah the humility, gave Jonah the appreciation of grace, gave Jonah the humility to rely on the power of God in service, even in a place as wicked as Nineveh through his suffering. And he does the same with us. And just Jonah, why was his ministry so powerful? Because his life, his presence embodied the message that he delivered to the people. And I ask, is that true of you? All Christians know upon conversion, they're going to have a moment of true conversion. They're going to know that they're under the conviction of a holy God. And that strikes the fear of death, fear of hell in you. And the thing is, you can't stay there. A lot of people stay under conviction that's an old historic word before they turn and receive grace. They're there for too long and they think they just have to self-loathe and feel guilty for their sin. But no, when you feel this, when you see your sin, your folly before God, you have to look quickly and receive his mercy and find forgiveness, love, joy, freedom in him. So Christian, are you benefiting from your suffering? Are you learning in your suffering? And I press this point that it's up to us to... We have the power to decide how suffering affects us. This isn't what a lot of counselors, this isn't what the world's going to tell you. We have the choice to let suffering embitter us and paralyze us, or sharpen us and embolden us. It's all a matter of faith. When you suffered, you trust that God could be using it to better enable you to embody the message of salvation that you offer to other people, to understand just how much your savior went through for you, to understand his righteousness, his grace better, or do you harden yourself and get angry and close yourself off to him and others? So God used suffering in the life of Christ. He used it here in the life of Jonah, and he can do it in yours. To close, I just want to ask, how are you going to start living for something greater than your own glory or good today? How are you going to start living for something greater than your own glory or good today? As you ask that question, remember that to do that, God has persistently called you. He has generously offered grace time and time again. He has given you the strategy, he has given you his power, and he has blessed you with suffering to embody the message that you deliver. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you that we have this great passage of Jonah before us. We thank you for the hope that it offers to us as sojourners, as aliens living in a foreign land away from heaven, away from the fullness of your presence right now. We have this hope that you can use us, jars of clay, just weak vessels for your glorious and grand purposes. We praise you that you do not change, that we have hope that you can move here in Boston today as you once did in Nineveh. Lord, we ask that you would shine your face upon us, that you would give us grace, that you would continue to give all of us here as individuals and as a body, just great mission, great call, and great purpose, the honor to serve you and the tensions between heaven and hell. The honor to serve you as we face the thorns and thistles of life. The honor to be a part of your calling home of your children. Lord, we ask, give us eyes to see all the ways that you are forming us, training us, encouraging us, sharpening us, molding us to be more humble, more faithful, more repentant servants in your kingdom. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.
To God be the Glory
April 7, 2023 • Andy Hoot • Mark 15
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 Well, good evening. My name is Andy. I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic along with Pastor Jan and Pastor Shane. And as we say every service, we are glad to have everybody here worshiping with us today. And whether you're new or one of our seasoned attendees, we're thankful to be worshiping with you. If you are not a regular attendee, we invite you out to come on Sunday after this service. We won't hold any announcements at the end of the service today. Come out, we have services at 9:15 and 11:15 AM. Bring friends, bring family, and just come celebrate the resurrection, as tonight we'll be a little more intense. But we're glad that you're here and we're always praying for the Lord to send us people asking questions about Christianity, asking questions about the cross of Jesus Christ. And praying that the Lord would also send seasoned saints to come and just take up the labor, the mission here with us in Boston. Tonight, I'm going to have just a meditation on God's zeal for His glory, how good Friday shows God's zeal for His glory. And before we do so, I just want to jump in and pray. Heavenly Father, we praise You that You are God. You are worthy of our worship. You speak to us through Your creation. When we look upon all that is good in this world, we see Your fingerprint upon it. When we look upon other human lives, we see Your presence. We see some of the character attributes that You have passed on. Lord, when we look upon Your word, most importantly, we see Your love for us. We see this Bible from the third chapter through the finish, talking about man's fall to sin and Your plan to be the solution to that, to crush the serpent on the head, and to come and be both the priest and the sacrifice of the atonement for our sins. And Lord, we praise You for sending Jesus Christ who is our brother, but is also our God. We thank You that He took on flesh to be tempted and tried in every way. He took on flesh to know the challenges firsthand that we face in this life. And Lord, He took on flesh to walk perfectly under your law in the way that we could not. And we thank you Lord that He came, He lived for the primary purpose of going to the cross for Your lost children. And He went and He bore the full wrath that is due for all of our sins and the work is finished. We praise You that as we look upon Good Friday, as we look upon Christ, we know that it is finished. And Lord, it's sad, it sickens us to know what Christ went through us. But we praise You for that. We praise You that we can say ultimately You have worked the great travesty of the cross for Your good, for Your glory, for our salvation. We pray right now. Lord, just show us more of Your heart. Let us not get lost in thinking what this day means and offers to us. Let's not just seek an emotional religious experience, Lord. Let us grow further and further in love with your heart. I pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. Now to start, I want to read from Matthew ... Excuse me, Mark chapter 15 and I'll read the whole chapter, I think it's 1-47, Mark chapter 15 verses 1-47. "And as soon as it was morning, the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' And he answered him, 'You have said so.' And the chief priest accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, 'Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you?' But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them saying, 'Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?' For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priest had delivered him up. But the chief priest stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, 'Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?' And they cried out again, 'Crucify him.' And Pilate said to them, 'Why? What evil has he done?' But they shouted all the more, 'Crucify him.' So Pilate wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him a in a purple cloak and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. And they comp compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry the cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, 'The King of the Jews.' And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, 'Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross!' So also the chief priest with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, 'He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.' Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' And some of the bystanders hearing it said, 'Behold, he is calling Elijah.' And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink and said, 'Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.' And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!' There were also women looking on from a distance among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and the younger and of Joses and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem." "And when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph brought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid." This is the reading of God's holy word. It's in this, the blood of Christ, His crucifixion, and on Sunday, his resurrection that we boast as Christians. To start, I'm glad that Caleb in the introduction said Happy Good Friday because it's just a confusing day. This is the most solemn day of the year for the church, yet it really is one of the most joyful days. Today we celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ. And I come from a lot of ... I've been through a few traditions of Christianity before I came to Mosaic. And there's a lot of questions about how to approach Good Friday. And so I want to start by just making a couple critiques of the typical approach of Good Friday. There's one where people come and on Good Friday, there's this extra pressure to come and think about what Christ went through for me. Wow. Look how far, look at the ridicule, look at the mockery, look at the physical pain, look at the sin, the wrath that He bore for me. And I want to say keep doing that. We have to keep doing that for at the cross we boast He who knew us and became sin, so in Him we might become the righteousness of God. And there's a tendency though, to just get one side of the Good Friday story. And it's when you really just think about, wow, what did Jesus go through for me, what you miss out on is, is your heart being taken to worship of God. What does the cross, how does this direct me to worship of God? And so this point's a little confusing. I say, don't make this the only thing that you do. As you contemplate the weight that Christ bore on the cross, you should be in awe and astonishment and wonder about what He did for you. You should grimace as you read the gospel story, the crucifixion story. You should grimace as we take communion and you eat the bread and drink the juice, the wine. You should grimace, almost feel sick as I go through a reading to close out my portion of this message that will tell you and explain more details of the crucifixion than you could have ever wanted to know. But you don't want to make it the primary thing. And there's just beneath this wow what he did for me, some Christians can just get lost. We say that Jesus Christ, He is our Lord and He is our savior. And we get stuck in our faith just saying, "Wow, he's my savior. What has he done for me?" But beneath that is really me, me, me, instead of wow, God, God, God, look at what God has done. And so I challenge you today, think. I said this is a message where we're talking about God's zeal for his glory. As I preach to you right now, ask the Lord to show you what does Good Friday teach me about God Himself? Not what does Good Friday do for me? And so that's a nuanced point. You want to feel the weight. You should feel the weight. You have the law of God standing over you in this dark building right now. I just read Mark, the crucifixion story. You should be feeling it, but don't let that be the only thing. Don't let that be the primary thing. And next, I just want to critique. A lot of people come to a Good Friday service to tremble and really just get that little taste of religious experience, of emotional experience that will just carry them forward in their life. There's a famous hymn that really I think captures this tendency for Good Friday and it's, were you there when they crucified my Lord. I think a lot of people know that. And the lyrics go: Were you there when you crucified my Lord? Were you there when you crucified my Lord? Oh. If you know the song, you know that I do not have the capacity to sing it. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. And I used to attend a church that sang this song on every Good Friday and I really looked forward to it. It's catchy. Guys like Johnny Cash sang it. But I think this approach captures, reveals the wrong mindset. It reveals a mindset of I just want to tremble. I just want to be shaken a little bit as I engage God, as I engage His holy scriptures. And this has shown, some Christians who are regular church attendees, we fall into this. But many people come out once a year, let me go get my fix, let me go get right before God by doing this. And it's not the right way. What's the problem? We only want to sometimes tremble. We want to pause and be shaken a bit. And what Good Friday teaches is that it's not about us. It's not about coming to get a religious experience. And you can come and do that every week at Mosaic and hopefully it goes beyond that to your heart. But Good Friday, first and foremost is about God and His zeal for His glory. And if your mind, as you ponder just the weight that Christ bore for you, if you come and you have this religious experience, but you don't get taken up to worship and awe and wonder at the glory of God and his character, then we have failed in this service. You are either after the wrong thing in your approach or we as a church are not taking you to the heavenly of heavenlys, taking you into the presence of God. And Jesus knew this. He knew that the cross was all about God's glory. Right before He was betrayed by Judas and handed to the authorities Christ prayed, "Now is my soul troubled." And this is John chapter 12:27-28. "Now, is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.' Then a voice from heaven came from heaven: 'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.'" When we observe Good Friday, we tend to get so caught up in the thinking about the power and ambiance of Christ, of the situation of the service. We get so caught up in thinking about what does this mean for me? What's the point of coming out here? How does this add to my personal walk in the faith? But in doing so, we miss what God is trying to teach us about himself. And what is that God has a zeal. He's teaching us, God, I have a zeal for my glory, first and foremost. What is Christ's passion? This week where we talk about his suffering in holy week, it's a storm, literally the sky went black, probably felt a lot like this for several hours of the day in Jerusalem, while Christ was on the cross. The cross is the storm. The fury of God's just rest, the whole cup of it for all sins, past, present, and future of his children. And our engagement in one of the events in Christ's life with a storm should teach us how to take lessons from this storm on the cross. Mark 4:36-41 says, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep in the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they're filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind in the sea obey him?'" So what's the situation at the end of this storm scene? Imagine just being in a boat with waves just rocking over your head, the winds just loud howling in your ears, rain's coming down, thunder, lightning, and Jesus is there sleeping and he wakes up and he says, "Peace. Be still." The situation at the end is that the disciples are left more scared as they ponder the nature of Jesus than they were by the storm that was rocking them a moment ago. "Who is this man? Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him," they ask. And that's how our engagement with the storm of Good Friday should be when we think about God. We should ask, "Who is this God?" When we get a greater glimpse at the lens he goes to preserve his just, his righteous, his glorious nature, it should shake us to the core, not just give us a little tremble. It should inspire us to turn to get right with him through Christ immediately and should change us all together from the inside out. And this is in several parts of scripture. Where do I give this primarily tonight? Romans chapter 3:21-26. It says, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." I think these verses contain the most important paragraph on the atonement in the Bible, and that's not biblical. That's just my after me really digging into it in this season and in the past. What do these verses say? They say that beneath God's pursuit of our justification, our being made right before him and forgiveness, beneath our justification and forgiveness in sending to the cross was the pursuit of God to clear his own name. Verse 25 can be understood as "God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." The text tells us that until Christ sacrifice on the cross, God's righteousness is at stake. His name was in need of vindication. Why is that the case? Why did God face the problem of needing to give a public vindication of his righteousness? The answer it's provided in verse 25, "because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins." Now what does that mean? It means that for millennia, God had been doing what Psalm 103 verse 10 says. "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities." Think King David. He sends a man off to war to get killed so that he can marry his wife and the prophet Nathan tells him his sins are forgiven and David gets to continue to serve as king. There's no punishment in the kingdom, and he's not stricken dead. And that's offensive. Why is passing over of sin of forgiveness such a problem? Well, what is sin? Romans 3:23 says, "For all sin and fall short of the glory of God," or translated literally, "all of sinned and lacked the glory of God." Sin is related to glory and it's understood as a lacking or losing of it. When Adam sinned, he lost the glory that came with being a sinless image bearer of the trial of God. How did he lose his glory? He exchanged that glory which was inherent in his nature as an image bearer of God for something offered to him in the creation. All sin is a preference for the temporary pleasures of things found within the finite creation over the everlasting joy of eternal fellowship with the creator. Sin is a failing to love God's glory above everything else. Altogether sin might be understood as an effort to rob God of his glory, or that sin is a rebellion against God's glory. Therefore, the problem when God passes over sin is that God seems to condone the behavior of those who commit sin. He seems to be saying it is a matter of indifference that his glory is spurned. He seems to condone the low assessment of who He is, His righteousness, His worth from the sinner. Where the passing over of sin communicates that God's glory and His righteous governance are of little or no value to the sinner. But according to Romans, this is the most basic problem that God solved by the death on his son. Verse 25 and 26 say, "This, God's putting Christ his son forward to die was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time." So God, he could have settled accounts with man by not saving anybody and punishing all sinners with hell. This would've demonstrated that He does not condone our falling short of his glory or the belittling of His honor. But God did not will to condemn everyone like that. John 3:17 says, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." This truth we know well. We know well that God is for us. We know that our salvation is God's goal in sending Jesus. But today I'm asking, do you know the foundation of God's rescue plan for his children? Do you know that there is a deeper goal in the father's sending of the son? Do you know that God's love for us depends on a deeper love, namely God's love for his own glory? Do you know that God's desire to save sinners rest on a deeper desire, namely God's desire to vindicate his righteousness? Do you realize that the accomplishment of our salvation does not center on us, but on God's zeal for his own glory? The big question of the cross is not can we be saved, but can Christ repair the glory of God for the people of God? And the resounding answer of the Bible is yes. Christ drank the full cup of God's wrath for the sins of his children, past, present, future when he went to the cross and first and foremost for God the Father, then for us. So this is why is it important to understand, meditate upon Good Friday. It shows us that the cross is the foremost display of God's love for sinners. Not because it demonstrates the value of sinners, but because it vindicates the value of God for sinners to enjoy. God's love for man does not consist in making man central, but in making Himself central to man. The cross doesn't direct man's attention to His own vindicated worth, but to God's vindicated righteousness. This is love, God pursuing His own glory because the only eternal happiness for man is happiness focused on the riches of God's glory. Psalm 16:11 says, "In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." God's self-exaltation, it's loving because it preserves for us and offers to us the only fully satisfying object of desire in the universe, Himself, the all glorious, all righteous God. If God doesn't correct things, if God doesn't make sure that there is payment for sins, he is not worthy to be God. At the cross your view of God and His character and love of God and His character, they should expand. He destroys any formulations of a God that we could have contrived by our own personal preferences. He destroys any construction of God that could have been contrived by the primary ideals of our day, our culture, our country, our government. At the cross, you don't just tremble. Sometimes but are shaken to the core. Who is this God that chases after his own glory with such zeal? At the cross, you see that you're not the center of things. Your glory and joy are not at the center of life and history, but God and his glory and joy are. You see that you're just blessed that He even offers a chance to walk beside Him in life despite your sin through faith in Jesus Christ. At the cross you see most clearly on Good Friday that you are a mere creature made for worship of the good, holy, and wise God. At the cross you see that God is both just and the justifier. You cherish the fact that he has procured your salvation through the sending of the Son and the fact of His righteous character. At the cross you'll find that to be loved intimately is to be forgiven, cleansed and enabled to see and to feel the wonder that the Father has for himself and that Christ has for the Father and that the spirit has for them both. To close my speaking portion before we partake ... Oh, excuse me, what the cross is it's the Grand Canyon. God doesn't take us to Mount Washington, a cheap New England wannabe. Now the cross, God takes us to the Grand Canyon. He displays the full majesty of who he is. He shows a zeal for righteousness, holiness, perfection, all glories, preserves them and says, "Look upon me. Look upon how great I am. Look at how holy set apart from all other as I am and be holy before me, because that is what is best for you." And praise God, he doesn't say that to us in our sin without hope, for we know that without Jesus Christ, who was perfect, who was holy, while we are sinners, we can look to Christ and have peace with him. We can look to God and know that He in all of His glory and power and splendor, the might of His good hand is working towards us for all of eternity in Jesus. And so to close my portion before we partake in communion together, I want to read a really long excerpt that does spend a lot of time making me say, "Wow, look what God has done for me." But as you read it, I want you to test yourself. I want you to test yourself. When you look at the death, the crucifixion of Christ, do you look simply to be shaken, to tremble a little? Or as a reader, are you only thinking, "Wow, look at what God has done for me," and not go beyond that? Or are you brought to praise and wonder to see the lens that God goes to preserve his glorious and righteous character for your eternal satisfaction in him? I'm going to read a long section from Fleming Rutledge's book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. "It is formidably difficult to understand the cross today in its original context after 2000 years in which it has been domesticated, romanticized, idealized, and misappropriated. Occasionally a modern interpreter struggling to find some correspondence that can be grasped by people today will compare the cross of Roman times to the American electric chair. This is an adequate analogy for a number of reasons as we shall see, but we can learn a few things from it. Imagine revering an electric chair. Imagine using it as the focal point in our churches, hanging small replicas around our necks, carrying it aloft in procession and bow bowing our heads as it passes. The absurdity of this scenario can readily be grasped, but other features in the comparison might help us. For instance, the electric chair when it was still used was almost always used for executing the lowest class of criminal and majority of them black with no powerful connections or other resources. Similarly, the Romans virtually never used the cross for executing people who had occupied high positions and never for Roman citizens. Another point of contact is the contradictory response of revulsion and attraction familiar to anyone who has ever slowed to look at a wreck on a highway. Even the most fastidious person when confronted by a photograph of an electric chair, let alone the real thing, will experience a disturbing fascination. There have always been people who specialize in coming to cheer and applaud executions when they took place, whether lynchings, hangings, or electrocutions. That is what undoubtedly happened on Calvary when Jesus was nailed to the cross and left there to die. Crowds of people then as now took pleasure in reviling the one who is being put to death. When they became bored with this pastime, they went safely home to their comforts and gave the victim no further thought. 'It is nothing to you, all you who passed by,' Lamentations 1:12. But there are very important differences. Electrocutions were at least theoretically supposed to be humane and quick, but crucifixion as a method of execution was specifically designed to intensify and prolong agony. In this sense, the cross was infinitely more dreadful than the electric chair, odious, though the chair was. Another difference is that the person to be electrocuted is permitted the dignity of a mask or a hood, presumably so that the privilege of the face noted by Susan Sontag would be protected. Most important of all, electrocutions took place indoors out of public view with only a few select people permitted to watch. Crucifixion, on the other hand, was supposed to be seen by as many people as possible. The basement resulting from public display was a chief feature of the method along with the prolonging of the agony. It was a form of advertisement or public announcement. 'This person is the scum of the earth, not fit to live, more an insect than a human being.' The crucified wretch was pinned up like a specimen. Crosses were not placed out in the open for convenience or sanitation, but for maximum public exposure. Crucifixion as a means of execution in the Roman Empire had its express purpose, the elimination of victims from consideration as members of the human race. It cannot be said too strongly that it was its function. It was meant to indicate to all who might be toying with subversive ideas that crucified persons were not of the same species as either the executioners or the spectators, and were therefore not only expendable, but also deserving of ritualized extermination. Therefore, the mocking and jeering that accompanied crucifixion were not only allowed, they're part of the spectacle and were programmed into it. In a sense, crucifixion was a form of entertainment. Everyone understood that the specific role of the passerby was to exacerbate the dehumanization and degradation of the person had thus been designated to be a spectacle. Crucifixion was cleverly designed, we might say diabolically designed, to be an almost theatrical enactment of the sadistic and inhumane impulses that lie within human beings. According to the Christian gospel, the Son of God voluntarily and purposefully absorbed all of that, drawing it into himself. Anyone seeking to interpret Jesus crucifixion must decide whether or not to include a clinical description. Since the New Testament writers are conspicuously silent about the physical details, it is legitimate to ask whether it is suitable or helpful to introduce them. On the other hand, people in New Testament times had all seen crucifixions and did not need a description. The evangelists and the other New Testament writers were able to assume a familiarity with the method that is unthinkable for us today. Most of us have never even come close to see anyone tortured to death. 'For this reason,' as Martin Hengel writes, 'reflection on the harsh reality of crucifixion and antiquity may help us to overcome the acute loss of reality, which is to be found so often present in theology and preaching.' The early theologian originally called Jesus death the utterly vile death on the cross. Cicero, the great Roman statesman and writer referred to the crucifixion as the supreme penalty, exceeding burning and decapitation and gruesomeness. Some rudimentary knowledge of what was taking place will help us to understand these terms. The first phase of a Roman execution was scourging. The lictors, Roman legionnaires assigned to this duty used a whip made of leather cords to which small pieces of metal or bone had been fastened. Paintings of the scouring of Jesus had always shown him with a loin cloth but in fact the victim would've been naked, tied to a post in a position to expose the back and buttocks to maximum effect. With the first strokes of the scourge, skin would be pulled away and subcutaneous tissue exposed. As the process continued, the lacerations would begin to tear into the underlying skeletal muscles. This would result not only in a great pain but also in appreciable blood loss. The idea was to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death. It was common for taunting and ridicule to accompany the procedure. In the case of Jesus, the New Testament tells us that a crown of thorns, a purple robe and a mock scepter were added to intensify the mockery. The condition of a prisoner after scourging just prior to crucifixion would depend upon several things. Previous physical condition, the enthusiasm of the lictors and the extent of blood loss. In the case of Jesus, these things cannot be known. But the fact that he was apparently unable to carry the crossbar himself would indicate that he was probably in a severely weakened state and he may have been close to circulatory shock. Those being crucified were then paraded through the streets, exposing them to the full scorn of the population. When the procession reached the site of the crucifixion, the victims would see before them the heavy upright wooden post permanently in place to which the crossbar, sorry, they have the Latin terms, to which the crossbar would be joint. The person was to be crucified. The person to be crucified would be thrown down on his back, exacerbating the pain of the wounds from the scourging and introducing dirt into them. His hands would be tied or now to the crossbar. Nailing seams to have been preferred by the Romans. Ossuary finds have given us a clearer idea of how this was done. 2000 years of Christian iconography notwithstanding that nails were not driven into the palms which could not support the weight of a man's body, but into the wrists. The long stake of the cross was then hoisted onto the crossbar with the victim dependent from it, and the feet were tied or nailed. At this point, the process of crucifixion proper began. Victims of crucifixion lived on their crosses for periods varying from three or four hours or to three or four days. It has often been remarked that Jesus ordeal is relatively brief. Perhaps he was weakened by the scourging or had lost more blood than usual or suffered cardiac rupture. We cannot know. In any sense, it has been surmised that the major pathophysiological effect of crucifixion beyond the excruciating pain was a marked interference with normal respiration, particularly exhalation, passive exhalation, which we all do thousand of times a day without thinking about it, becomes impossible for a person hanging on a cross. The weight of a body hanging by its wrists would depress the muscles required for breathing out. Therefore, each exiled breath could only be achieved by a tremendous effort. The only way to gain a breath at all would be by pushing oneself up from the legs and feet or pulling ones off up by the arms, either of which would cause intense agony. Add to this primary factor, the following secondary ones, bodily functions uncontrolled, insects feasting on wounds and orifices, unspeakable thirst, muscle cramps, bolts of pain from the severed median nerves in the wrist, scourged back scraping against the wooden post. It is more than any of us are capable of fully imagining. The verbal abuse and other actions such as spitting and throwing refuse by the spectators. Roman soldiers and passersby added the final touch. The New Testament shows us life lived between two worlds, the Roman and the near Middle Eastern crucifixion was noxious enough in Roman eyes. Palestinian attitudes would've found it perhaps even more so. Middle Eastern cultures still have to this day an acute sense of personal honor lodged in the body. An amputation administered as punishment, for instance, would be seen as much more than just physical cruelty or permanent handicap. It would mean that the amputee would carry the visible marks of dishonor and shame for the rest of his or her life. Anything done to the body would've been understood as exceptionally cruel, not just because it inflicted pain, but even more because it caused dishonor. Furthermore, the passion accounts reflect in part a very ancient ritual of humiliation. The mocking of Jesus, the spitting and scorn, the inversion of his kingship and the studious dethronement with the crown of thorns and purple robe would've been understood as a central part of a total right of infamy, of which the crucifixion itself is the culmination. Another aspect of crucifixion not widely noted is that a crucified person gasping and heaving on his cross is forced to be his own executioner. He is not even allowed the perverse dignity of having a human being corresponding to himself who hangs or decapitates him. He dies truly and completely alone with the weight of his own body, killing him as it hangs, causing his own diaphragm to suffocate him." All of this Jesus Christ went through for you, but also for the Father's glory. Let us pray before we partake in communion. Heavenly Father, we are just sickened and nauseous, just pondering just what Christ went through on the cross, the pain, the isolation, the thirst, the sadness. Lord, we cannot fathom. Lord, we do thank you that He came and He bore that for us. And because He bore that, He can identify with us from this moment on in history and our weaknesses and in our pains and conflicts. But most of all, Lord, we thank you that on the cross when He cried out, you did not hear Him, you did not respond. You did forsake him. Lord, he took the full cup of the punishment due for our sin so that we do not have to. We thank you that we do not have to relate with Him in that. We praise you for freeing us from the fear of death, from the fear of eternal torment, which would rightly be due to us had Jesus not gone to the cross for us. Lord, we pray, we thank you. But more as I reflect on tonight, we thank you for your zeal, for your glory. We thank you that to preserve your holy and right name, Lord, you go to such lengths. We thank you that you use your power for all that is good and godly and pure. We thank you for the hope that we have, knowing that as we go forward facing this creation, that is still impacted by Satan, sin, and death. We know that you're working for our good and not against us. Lord, help us to grow in our love and appreciation of you and who you are. You are all together set apart. You are all together holy. And with our limited minds we can only understand that to the degree that you allow us. So I pray, Lord, as we look at the cross, let us grow in our love and knowledge and understanding of you in addition to our appreciation for what you have done for us in Jesus and offering us salvation. Let us find joy walking in communion with you. I pray these things 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.
Infinite Glory Becoming Intimate Glory: Part 2
December 25, 2022 • Andy Hoot • Philippians 2:1–11
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 in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Today we're thrilled to celebrate Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all. I forgot to say that at the beginning. Merry Christmas. Thank you. And we are going through a series, we started it last week, in the book of Philippians; Philippians 2:1-11. And this is not necessarily a traditional Admin or Christmas series, in that we're not going through the themes of hope, love, joy, peace. We're not walking very closely in the birth narrative of Jesus Christ. What we're doing is gleaning from this section of scripture that really consolidates the whole Christian message within a small, beautiful, concise statement. And we're pulling out themes around the realities, the spiritual, the historical realities of Christmas that you cannot quite dig into as much while going through the Christmas season in those more traditional methods. If you want to dig into the birth narrative of Jesus, want to go through hope, love, joy, peace as you go through this holiday week, feel free to go to our website and we have several years of those traditional series for you. So this last week I painted a big picture about God, generally. We talked through how Jesus was in the form of God, but did not count equality with God to be grasped. I tried to draw unity around who is God, by talking about Isaiah 6:1-8 a lot. Today we're going to talk about God a little more specifically in the person of Jesus Christ, but there's going to be a lot of overlap because I think the overlap is really good. My mind has just been taking off. I think a lot of people really enjoyed the thorough description of God and his glory, but I don't think quite as many people took whom the idea that his infinite glory has become our intimate glory. And that's where the gold is. So I'm going to repeat that next week. Tyler Burns, our teens director and hospitality director here at Mosaic, will walk us through the infinite glory, the exalted glory that Christ has and what that means for us today. So please join me and listen as I read the word of God from Philippians 2:1-11. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love being in full chord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus Christ, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is the word of our Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are. We praise you that in the person of Jesus Christ, we can look upon him and know your glory, not just generally, but personally. We pray Holy Spirit, that you would enliven our eyes to see the heart of God more and more in the person of Jesus Christ today. We pray, Lord, that as we reflect upon the humility shown by him, that our hearts would in turn be changed, that as we live and go forward in his glory, we would reflect his humility and power to the world. Holy Spirit, just wake up our hearts. Let us grow our expectations for this season that we would not just expect a season, a moment, a period, couple days or weeks of good tidings, but a lifetime of comfort and joy in the Holy Spirit of God by our faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, awaken our hearts and fill us that we may go and serve and be your lights in the world from this day forward until eternity. I pray, Lord bless this, the reading, the preaching of your word, may you be glorified in all that we do. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. So if you weren't aware, last week, there was a big event in world history at 10:00 AM in Qatar. It was the World Cup final. Last week, I preached both services and I tried to ignore the fact that it was taking place because I didn't want any of you to pull out your phones and check the score. It fell perfectly in between both of our services. But what took place? Lionel Messi, who has statistically proven himself over the last 16 years to be perhaps the best soccer player in history, the most popular sport in the world, perhaps the best player in history. Lionel Messi got the crowning achievement. He led his country, his band of teammates; all guys who grew up just worshiping as their idol, to victory in his fifth World Cup. And he got player of the tournament and he just had moments of just holding that trophy. I honestly just got chills thinking about it. I grew up with a coach from Argentina, played a lot of soccer myself. And praise God. I got home, I worked till 6:00 PM last week. I somehow got through the whole day without anyone telling me the result of the final. So I got to really enjoy the moment in the right way. Watched it with my son, didn't realize it went into extra time and he stayed up till about 10:00 PM, going into Monday. We felt that all week. But as I watched Messi, I just was rejoicing for him. I said, "Wow, look at the immortality that he has. The rest of his life, no one's going to doubt him. No one's going to question him. All of his critics are silenced. Look at the piece that he has. No one can count anything against him in his career." And furthermore, that internal, that battle that he had, that question of his worthiness, his greatness is taken away. That voice in his own head. Look at the love that he has. Look at the adoration of the fans. Look at the adoration of his wife and three kids, sitting there, just snuggling the trophy together. Look at the joy, just the pure exuberant happiness in a guy who is generally very mild mannered. And honestly, I looked at him and I said, "I want that. I want that now." And the little boy inside of me said to my 34-year-old self, "It's not too late, Andy. Dig in, go out and train. Practice. You're 34 years old, but you can still get that with soccer." And I believed it for a moment and then I stood up and my back hurt, and baby number three started crying. And very quickly, that goal was put away. But in all seriousness, for a moment, watching Messi just kiss that trophy, the most liked Instagram picture in history, watching him get paraded around the stadium in front of thousands of fans and then having that peaceful moment of just rest with his family, I really wanted what he had; the immortality, the peace, the love, the joy, the status, the guaranteed riches. This was even right after I preached last Sunday, which shows how quick we can stumble, how fickle we are as humans. I genuinely got caught up in the moment and really desired what Messi had, but after preaching my sermon from last week to myself, I realized that through Christ, I have what he has and so much more. And why does this matter this week? To restate myself from last week, because Christmas is all about understanding that God's infinite glory has become our intimate glory. And last week I painted this picture of God's infinite glory and brought us pretty quickly, to the end, how... Sorry. How his infinite glory becomes our intimate glory. But this is really what happens at Christmas. Beneath the details of the birth narrative, beneath hope, love, joy, peace is the reality that upon Christmas, the infinite has become intimate. I want to build off this today. Our great God, in all of his exhausted holiness, who would be fully just to leave man in the predicament before him in his state of sin, faces his sin and sends a messenger from heaven. And not just any messenger, God sends himself. Heaven itself reaches down, touches the sinner. The light of heaven breaks through the darkness caused by man sin. When the infinite glory becomes intimate for us, we realize that the greatest... There's actually an even greater glory than God's transcendent glory. It's God's transferred glory. Christmas is the season that should bring us to our knees in absolute awe as we reflect upon the holiness, glory and character of God and see that he is graciously reaching down from heaven to touch our lives and not just cancel our sin, but to graciously give us a right, a new nature in Jesus Christ. And we talked about this last week. I sped through it, but too often churches preach a half gospel. It only talks about the removal of the debt of sin. They preach as if when someone's made right before God, that it's like going to a bank and paying a debt. And you get a zero sum balance between you and God. And when they preach that lives are not actually changed, it soothes people's conscience for a period of time. But the true gospel says that when God saves people something greater than forgiveness of debt happens. God doesn't just forgive our sins when he saves us, he graciously gives us his own righteousness, his holiness, his glory, the power and presence of his Holy Spirit as we go forward through all of life and eternity. How is this possible? Our passage from Philippians 5 says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. When the passage says, he, Christ was in the form of God, it traces Christ's preexistence before creation as the only holy begotten son of God, a member of the Holy Trinity of God, the Father, God the Son God the Holy Spirits. Christ existed with God in the heavenly of heavenlys. He was infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness justice, goodness and truth, just as much as God the Father and God, the Holy Spirit. He was fully satisfied within the Trinity, fully joyful, fully loved. He did not need worship from man. And yet he, Christ took on flesh that he might save man and give him the chance to worship him. Scripture says of Jesus, in Hebrews 1:3, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And when he walked the earth, though truly tempted to sin, he retained his perfect righteousness throughout his life, walking blameless before God's law. But on the cross, he positioned himself intentionally to receive the wrath of God, due to man, for his sins, his unrighteousness, his imperfection before the law. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that because Jesus Christ, God himself, took on flesh and lived the sinless life before God that we could not live, when one turns away from their sin and turns to God once and for all, all sins of past, present and future or are forgiven. And once for all, the righteousness of Christ is applied to them by God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Once truly in Christ by faith, the Father promises to never leave or forsake his children and gives them esteemed status as heirs of his eternal glory, with his firstborn child. So 2 Corinthians 5:21 captures this gospel in a concise statement, for our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. So that's for our sake. He, God made him, Christ to be sin on the cross, who knew no sin in heaven and on earth, so that in him, Christ we might become the righteousness of God. And so what I'm talking about is typically called double imputation, in the theological world. By faith, our filthy, sinful record is applied to Jesus and his perfect, right, holy record before God is applied to us by his Holy Spirit. If you just pause and take in what I said, this is a deal that works so much for our benefit and just is not very fair to God. This is something that you have to pause and meditate. If Christ came from infinite glory in heaven and took on flesh as a baby in Bethlehem, to live a life with the lowliest of people for the primary purpose of going to the cross, that should wow you. That should make you in awe of God. That should make you in awe of Christ. And when you pause and think about who you are in your sin before a holy God, the only way you can justify why God would do such a thing, send his own son to go to the cross in your place, is you find that it's only love. There's no reason that he loves you in his holiness. He loves you because he loves you because he loves you. That is a freeing love and that's what we get offered to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we want to see this. I want to press upon you and just keep building off of what I said last week, that Christmas offers us so much more than the chance of getting a right balance before God. It's not just a chance to receive a shot of jolliness or nostalgia that powers us through a few days or a few weeks. Christmas is all about this transfer of glory. That light in the distance that we foresaw in the prophets, in the symbolism of the sacrifices and the temple and the tabernacle, that light far off, that's God's light coming into history and man are no longer left to toil. Peace on earth, goodwill to man, praise be to God. The gospel is now going to be transferred and offered to the world, not just a single people, the Israelites. That's the beginning of what is happening. And so some verses that describe the transfer of glory from God's manic Christmas and scripture are Ephesians 1:3-1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. 1 Peter 29, he says to Christians, Peter says, "But you are a chosen race." Christians, we are a chosen race. We're like a new form of immortal being, "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Going further, scripture talks about God's gracious transfer of glory to his children in the church is something that angels, even in their present heavenly glory long to look at in wonder and amazement. And the Christmas story verses mention this. Luke 2:8-13, and in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. This is close to where Christ was born. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased." This is legions of angels, lighting up the sky to look upon God's taking on of human flesh and they are brought to worship to see this taking place. 1 Peter 1:10-12 mentions how prophets of old and angels further long to look ahead to Christ's life on earth in this gracious salvation that it garnered. Concerning the salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, Christians, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them, the prophets, that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. The angels, long to look at the gospel of Jesus Christ being played out, his taking on of the flesh, his righteous life, his going to the cross in our place, his rising from the dead, his ascension to the right hand of God the Father. And they're also waiting with us for his pending return. And when you pause and think about the prophets who prophesied about this grace that was to be ours, that says the God of the Old Testament is not a mean God, who wants to punish us and hold his authority over his head. This is a common myth about Christianity. The God of the Old Testament and New Testament is the same. He's a God of grace. Going back to the Garden of Eden. All he wanted to do was to walk in the garden and enjoy life with man. This relationship where God is creator, man is the created one and man finds his ultimate joy and freedom walking with his father, with his creator. And man breaks that relationship. And so there's a few confusing things. But even in Genesis 3, the gospel is first preached. When it says the serpent will bruise the heel of the man, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head. God all along has been planning for this gospel to come forward and we're seeing it take place at Christmas and Jesus Christ being born. This is the middle of history. This is why history's called his story. It's Jesus' story coming to this earth to be our savior. In Ephesians 3:7-10, the apostle Paul once said, of this gospel, as made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me though, I am the very least of all the saints. This grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring light for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities, and the heavenly places? Isn't that amazing? The rulers and authorities in heaven, they already have access to God in all of his holiness, at least greater access than us. And they're even more excited to look into this gracious transfer of glory to man on earth through the Son of God. The gospel for them, it gives them a deeper understanding of God's heart, his heart of love for his created children. So at Christmas we celebrate the gracious heavenly glory becoming our intimate glory. And this should cause us to take a view of the life that Christians get to live. At one point during the World Cup celebrations, while still on the field, there's a moment where a great Argentine soccer legend and world soccer legend who's retired, Sergio Aguero, lifted Lionel Messi onto his shoulders while he held the trophy and carried him around the stadium as Argentine fans cheered and sang and cried in celebration and worship. It's this beautiful picture, but the grand picture of our life as Christians is even greater than that of Messi being paraded around the stadium on another soccer legend's shoulders. The grand picture of our life is one of Jesus himself, the son of God, parading around with us, not with him on our shoulders, but with us on his shoulders. That's the life we get to live and the power of the Holy Spirit of God, all thanks to faith. Scripture talks about life as a Christian, as a triumphal procession, like the parade taken by a victor of war who is then given dominion to reign in the conquered territory by his Lord. In 2 Corinthians 2:14-17, it says, but thanks be to God, who in Christ, always leads us in triumphal procession and through us, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one, a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. Do you view yourself, your life as a triumphal procession, as one commissioned by God, as a righteous victor over sin in Jesus Christ who God uses to call other people, living in the domain of darkness and death, into his kingdom of heavenly light and resurrection power? Do you? How many of you feel like you're just limping through life, feeling bad for yourself because you have to face the challenges that come with walking through life in this world as a Christian? Living in Boston, perhaps three or 4% evangelical Christian that's in four or five years old now? Being of the extreme minority? How many of you are just feeling bad for yourself? Are you forgetting that the very Holy Spirit who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is in you? Some of you who just come here at Christmas and Easter, we are very glad you're here. But are you just ashamed of being Christian in a day where it's not popular or are you too busy? You're not understanding all that you have in Jesus Christ. Christians who know what a blessing it is to be saved and made righteous in Jesus Christ, to have his glory should look at Messi and realize that he has nothing on us. We know a greater glory in our salvation. We have a greater glory living within us. We have a greater joy, love, peace, and true eternal hope of victory. Do you know this? Do you know that Christ's glory is already yours today if you're in him? Or that it can be yours today if you receive his invitation to follow him? Or are you stuck pursuing your own glory or watching other people pursue earthly glory, living vicariously through them while rotting away on the inside? Can you look upon earthly heroes, those athletes, artists, musicians, those people who live in the neighborhood next to you who have multi-million dollar houses... or if you have one, there's the ones who have bigger houses than you, and say that I have more in Jesus? Or are you caught living vicariously through people or trying to catch up with them? I met this one guy. It was the weirdest thing. He tied his peaks and valleys and development in life to the peaks and valleys of the career of the famous tennis player, Roger Federer. It was just the weirdest thing. His whole Facebook, social... multiple social media profiles were him with, not Roger Federer, but pictures of Roger Federer; pictures of him with the TV, watching him. It sounds crazy, but a lot of us practice such functional ideology. One thing that I don't understand is America's obsession with the British royal family. Why does the media make millions and millions by telling us about this royal family? What's our fascination with them? Why are we living through life through their experience? Didn't we say goodbye to them a while ago? But if you think about it, the Kardashians, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Hillary, Obama, anyone else who is known by only one name, your soccer team, football team, basketball team, baseball team, social media influencers, Jesus Christ took on flesh that we might take on an infinitely greater glory than any of those people or groups. One of the things that Christians who really understand the glory that they have in Jesus can actually say with confidence is that life in Christ is just better. That's one of the things that I say in my evangelism. Just life... I've tasted some things of the world and I wish I never even tried to because life in Christ is that much better. A lot of us Christians are afraid to go too close to a prosperity gospel and say this, but even in suffering with Jesus, it's better. Life with Christ is better. It's the most rich and glorious life to live in this life and in eternity. And so the apostle Paul, he knew this, that our writer of Philippians, and that he commented on his knowledge of his present glory with a really just powerful statement in Philippians 3:7-16. He said, "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. That by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I've already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Jesus Christ has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. Let those of you who are mature think this way. And in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Paul, perhaps the most influential Christian, aside from Christ, renounce all spiritual, ethnic and professional privileges. And he had many, he was the Jew of Jew, the Pharisee of Pharisees, the top at the top PhD program in his course of study and he gave it all up for the sake of knowing Christ and becoming more and more conformed to his glory and likeness as his life went on. Will you leave your vice grip on those things to which you desperately cling in order to conjure up your own glory, your own righteousness before God and man? Your own faux hope, fake hope, peace, love passing riches in order to receive something far better? That's the offer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so with all of this, I think I've made myself clearer in trying to get you to realize that the greatest glory of Christmas is realizing that God's infinite glory has become intimate glory. But I want to expand on what I've said to say how we make this glory our own today. How can we continually increase our experience of this glory in our lives today? I had one sister say to me this week, "I'm really captivated by the idea of that infinite glory becoming my intimate glory. But what does that mean for my day-to-day life?" This is what Philippians 2 is all about. Have this mind among yourselves. This is an active thing. We're to take on this mind of Christ when he in humility, took on flesh. This is what the whole book of Philippians is about, if you want to explore it further in detail this week. Paul, as he talks about in the quote that I just read, this making his identity in Christ's own, pressing on, holding true to what we have attained. Our lives as Christians should be marked by continual progression in making Christ glory our own. So how do we make Christ's infinite glory our own intimate glory on a day-to-day basis? And so first, we have to believe the gospel. We have to really want the glory of God, the righteousness of God in our life. Do you really want that? Then we repent of our sin, of living for our own glory and trying to conjure up our own righteousness, before our heavenly Father and see that it's only in Jesus that we can be made right before him and receive a new nature and glory. And then we do this on repeat, every day, every hour, every time you begin to slip again. And if we cannot see, we ask God to help us see his glory and our sin before him. And then very quickly, the grace that he offers to us, the glory that he offers to us in Christ. And once we believe, the way that we make God's infinite glory, our intimate glory in a sense that it becomes personal to us and changes us, is by realizing that we're given such a gift of glory in order to live for God's infinite glory. And this is where I want to expand on my statement of the past two weeks. The most glorious part of Christmas is understanding that God's infinite glory has become intimate glory for his infinite glory. God's infinite glory has become intimate glory for his infinite glory. And so it has become our intimate glory for his infinite glory. So we don't get saved and then continue to live for ourselves. We don't become Christians and then continue to live as Johns and Joes and Marys and Amys, trying to use God's power to get that better job or bigger house, or more friends or spouse or children, or retirement nest egg or whatever it is that we believe will make us happy. We become Christians. What does Christian mean? Little Christ. We follow in his way. The original Christians are called the way because they lived like Jesus, for his glory. So how did Christ live? Philippians 2 says, being born in the likeness of men, he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on the cross. How did Christ live? He continually died to himself and ultimately, died on the cross. Christ showed great humility. The Christian life is the glorious life. But the paradox of Christianity is that the way we access that glory personally, and the way we bring more glory to God is by dying daily. And that's something really hard. The world wants us to be firm, be proud, be strong in our own strength. The Christian life is one where we step out constantly to the ends of our own strength so that we get to see God's power at work in us and through us. It's a constant cycle of extending yourself, praying that God would work in you and through you and serving others beyond your capacity, stretching the limitation of your gifts and saying, "God, use me." So how can you have the best Christmas? How can you have the best life from here on? Believe in Jesus, take up your cross daily and follow him. Live for his infinite glory, not your own. And this should not be a forced dying. It shouldn't be a drudgery to follow in the way of Christ, but a joy to do this. In Philippians, Paul calls the church of Philippi to rejoice over and over again. He says, "Live in this way and rejoice. I say, rejoice." And he says, "It will be the source of my rejoicing to see you live and die like this." That's what we should want to see when we do evangelism, when we make disciples and we invest in people. We want to see people who don't just adhere intellectually to the faith, but take that information, learn how to use it for wisdom and just in their daily dying. We want the Lord... We can't feel bad, we can't nurture our babies, spiritual children in the faith. We can't nurture our own physical children. What do I want with my children? I want them to grow up and I want them to lay down their lives for Jesus. And I have to accept that that's going to be a life of risk taken, not following the way of the world, but standing on the word of Christ and laying themselves down to get his truth, get the lord's heart and character across to people. And as Christian, in living in this way, all of your life becomes a song that you sing with dally life. A song that you sing by laying yourself down like Jesus, with the hope of being used by him to draw more and more people into his flock. And historically, this section of Philippians 2:5-11, it's been called the Hymn of Christ, the Song of Christ. And in the original language, there's some elements that would suggest that Paul wrote it to be a song. As you reflect on how great God's glory is, how amazing it is that he offers you glory, your life becomes a song, a form of worship as you joyfully lay yourself down for others as Christ did for you. That's the view we are to have of this life. Not sitting around feeling bad for ourselves. Even in modern day Boston, our life can be this song. We can have joy to die to ourselves. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, let us lay aside every weight and sin which sings 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 the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. In other words, Christ's joy and life song to take on flesh and endure the cross for us. It should be our joy and life song to take up our cross daily in this life so that others might get to experience the glory that we know. And who do you lay yourself down for? That's a really important question that Christians need to ask. And it's more confusing than ever with just the amplification of social media, the existence of the internet, the way to engage in life in a variant, impersonal way, essentially without human, people incarnate in front of you. But who do you serve? Who do you lay yourself down for? The people that God has placed right in front of you. And that's probably the people that you are going to celebrate Christmas with today. And you know what? They're probably the hardest people to lay yourself down for in life because you know them. You know their sins, you know their shortcomings and their stubbornness, and it's really hard to love them sacrificially. And I say this about my family. They're great, they're lovely, my wife is incredible, but every day I say, "Lord, fill me up. Give me your power to love her well, as Jesus Christ did, to lay myself down as Christ did for his bride, the church." So who do we lay ourselves down for? For your wife, your husband, your kids, your roommate, brothers and sisters in the church, physical neighbors, parents, in-laws, siblings, coworkers, friends. And probably that order, especially when you gather together at Christmas. And I just want to close with a reading from Ephesians chapter 1. I actually don't have the verses in front of me. My Bible doesn't have verses here, but where do you get the power to keep loving? You look to the Lord. You look upon his infinite glory and see that in Christ, he has given you his infinite glory. That's how we continue to lay ourselves down. That's how his glory becomes more personal. That's how it grows in us, and we grow more into the likeness of Jesus Christ with our lives. So this Christmas, my prayer is that which the Apostle Paul has here for the Church of Ephesus, very much like he had for the Church of Philippi, just with grander language. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also into the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head, over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would give us your fullness. Give us the fullness of your joy. Give us the fullness of your love, your mercy, your grace, your humility. Lord, light a fire in our souls whose source is your heavenly glory so that when we just go out and spend time with our family, our neighbors, our friends, those people who are to believe, we can begin today properly serving you. Lord, we know that you want us to be your children. We know that your power is what truly saved us. Help us to know how we can walk in it. Let your joy, your light, your love just grow in us. And we pray that as we do so that other people would see you in us. Lord, let us go forward with confidence that we have greater glory than the greatest champions, the greatest icons, the most influential people of history. We have greater power than them. You have called us to be your ambassadors in this world and let us take to the world your love, hope, and grace today. I pray this in the name of Jesus' holy name, amen.
The Heart of Unbelief
September 25, 2022 • Andy Hoot • Romans 10:16–21
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 and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Today we are continuing this long but lively journey in the Book of Romans. We're going to read Romans 10:16-21. Romans 10:16-21. Open that up in your Bibles if you have one. On the surface, as we read it, it might be a little confusing as to what it's about. There's a lot of Old Testament quotations. There's a lot of terminology. Ultimately, there is one clear message. The title of the sermon is the Heart of Unbelief. We'll get to the heart of an unbeliever, flesh out what that actually looks like. It'll really inform us about how to engage people in evangelism. There will be many other asides that we can take away through this piece of scripture. Please hear the reading of God's word, Romans 10:16-21, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?' So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ, but I ask, have they not heard? Indeed, they have, for their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. But I ask, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, 'I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry.' Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, 'I've been found by those who did not seek me. I've shown myself to those who did not ask for me.' But of Israel, he says, 'All day long, I've held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.'" This is the reading of God's holy Word. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are. You are a majestic, glorious, all-powerful, holy creator and king, and we are but lowly creatures. Lord, you created us to walk with you day to day in the garden, in the comfort of your care, your shield, your oversight, your embrace, your Word. Lord, as your Word says, we are disobedient and contrary people. Time and time again, the story of history shows that you offer your grace. You offer esteemed position before you out of the sheer love of your heart. We people, your people, turn and rebel. Holy Spirit, we pray today that you would guide our hearts to understand just how openhanded our God, our Savior, is to us in the offering of His love. Lord, let it be a sermon that draws us in closer to you. For those who already know you, help us to fight our hardheartedness as we step forward in the ministry field. Lord, we pray right now, use this sermon to call home your children. Give them ears to hear. Give them the ability to understand your Word. Let it come alive in their hearts. Let them leave here new in Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Jesus precious name. Amen. Throughout Romans, we've been learning many things, but, primarily, we've been learning about the nature of salvation that God gives to His children. God is the author of salvation. He saw man in his sin, and He gave His son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. What we've been learning the past couple weeks, especially in Romans 9 and into Romans 10, last week, is that God's work does not stop there. We learned that, last week, God is the one who sovereignly sends the message of the gospel to His children to call them home. In verse 12 to 15, we read, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'" These verses teach God is sovereign over salvation. He sovereignly calls His children home through the preaching of the gospel. What is the gospel? We have to say this. We're going to revisit it and rehash it over and over. The gospel... It's an incredible and yet simple message. It's profound. It's changed the world, but it can just be consolidated into a few short words. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst." All you have to do to eat and drink to your delight, to be filled with never-ending streams of love from Christ that are the deepest longings of your soul is to believe that God is holy and righteous. You are sinful and, therefore, unrighteous, but Jesus who is sinless and righteous paid the penalty for you on the cross. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ can be granted righteousness in Jesus name sake before the Father. That's the gospel we've been discussing for a few weeks all throughout Romans. Today we turn to think about, what are the results of God's sovereign sending of preachers, of heralds, particularly to the Jews up to this point in history when Paul wrote Romans? Have all who have heard the gospel believed? What can we learn from Paul about his ministry to the Jews? Very quickly, what does Paul say? He's preached the gospel. Heralds have been sent from God. What does he say? Verse 16, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel." The short answer is, no, not everybody who has heard the gospel has believed the gospel. This is just a teaching point to start off. Did you know that not everybody who you share the gospel with is going to believe it, hear it, believe it, place their faith in it? Do you really know this? It's okay for a Christian to read this and actually get relief from it. The Apostle Paul, person who the Lord used more than anybody in the history of the world to spread the gospel, was rejected, denied, and even beaten time and time again for preaching the gospel. He knew how to take a loss. I've been playing pickup soccer recently for the first time. Just played four or five times since 2020 after not playing, really, any sports since my son was born six years ago. My first few weeks of pickup soccer, I treated it like the World Cup. I went home, bragged about it to my wife. Week four, my team took an L for the first time. I was heartbroken. It was just like a child. I wanted to just train more, forsake all of my home responsibilities, work responsibilities, dig in, and find the method that's going to make me win. A lot of us, as Christians, we don't know how to take an L. We are really frightened when people don't receive us well. I want to emphasize this point because the Apostle Paul... It seems, scripture tells us, he had a solid ministry to the Gentiles. Pretty good success rate, maybe a 300, even 400 hitter, if we're talking batting average in terms of percentage of Gentiles that probably received him over the years. To the Jews, he was probably a 100 to 200 hitter, like a Minor Leaguer. We get the sense from this text, they have not obeyed the gospel. In the previous chapters, we get the sense that very few Jews have believed the gospel at this point. We have to emphasize this because too many Christians are shocked when they go out there. They preach the gospel, and they're not heard. Scripture makes it clear that it's going to happen. It tells us that sometimes when we share the gospel, it's going to be a fragrance of life that draws people in closer to God. For other people, it's going to be a fragrance, a stench of death that hardens people's hearts further against God. Hopefully, it's not. We want everyone to come and know the grace of our Lord and Savior. When we don't receive positive results, we should check our message and methods but, ultimately, rest in the fact that the Word of God does not return void. It always accomplishes its purpose according to God's will. Some of you, I just want to really harp on this to start off. Some of you have shared the gospel to a sample size of one to five people. Upon mixed results, you're staggering for... How do I change things? Do I change the message that God has given us for years and years? Do I make it more palatable? Hold tight. Keep putting your hand to the plow. Trust that the Lord is using you in the weakness when you share the gospel, and His spirit will do the work that, ultimately, God has foreordained to happen. Now this is important. Don't get discouraged. Keep putting it forward. Keep scattering seed. Now back to the text. Now it's really sad. From verse 16, we find that not all people who hear the gospel believe the gospel. This is no surprise because Paul teaches that Isaiah the prophet taught this 700-plus years before the birth of Christ. He says at the end of verse 16, "For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?'" This comes from chapter 53 of Isaiah, the chapter of the suffering servant by the one through whose stripes, we are healed. Isaiah teaches that in his day, in his time, there would be those who would not believe his call to repentance and faith in the Lord and that in future times, this time of Paul's ministry, that there would be many who would not hear and believe. The Apostle Paul knew that people would raise questions. Was the ministry to the Jews sufficient? Did they hear it? Right now, he's going into why have they... Yes, they've heard it. Why have they not believed? He's going to explore this question with two points. If they've not believed, is it because they have not heard? one. Two, though they have heard, did only a few obey the gospel because they did not understand? Let's start with number one. Why have only few Jews believed the gospel? Let's start reading verse 17, "So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ." Paul's leading with this premise, building off of verses 14 and 15 that I read. To have faith, you need to first hear the Word of God, particularly that which highlights Jesus Christ the Son of God as crucified and risen Savior. Paul asks, "Have the Jews heard this, the Word of Christ?" He says, "Indeed, they have." How can you say that they have heard? Paul... He's exploring this right now. In a confusing manner, he quotes Psalm 19:4 from the Old Testament. He says, "Their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the earth." Right here, we have another aside teaching point about the method that Paul uses in his evangelism. Notice that when he answers, anticipates questions from people in this text, he answers with scripture. He doesn't add to scripture anything that doesn't need to be said or take anything out of it to make it more palatable to his audience. Have the Jews heard? Indeed, they have. How do we know that? Because in Psalm 14, God tells us, 'Their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world." "That's the answer," says Paul, because thus saith the Lord. This is a method. When you don't know, you have to rely on the wisdom of God. Simply standing on His Word is sufficient. Scripture says about God, "Oh, the depth of the riches, and wisdom, and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgements and how inscrutable His ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor, or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever." When we don't understand something from our creaturely standpoint, we have to be careful not to mislead our own hearts or others. We have to practice caution. Simply take scripture as our word and accept what limited information that we have. We have to believe it and restate it as God has given it to us. The past few weeks, I've heard about a lot of debates about this discussion of God's sovereign election versus man's responsibility. We've advocated at Mosaic that they're not versus. Essentially, they're antimonies. They're seemingly contradictory, just statements from God, that do run parallel to each other but in a way that we, by our creaturely... Cannot understand it. How do you engage this topic? What I'm saying, engage it as the Apostle Paul has. For some, God has decided to show mercy. He will give mercy to whom He will have mercy, and He will give wrath and justice to whom He will give wrath and justice. That's how we can handle some of these hard topics while we're sharing the gospel. Going back to the beginning of Romans, what's Paul say? "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith." When we stand on God's Word, we are not relying in our own power. When we don't try to explain away and make the message more palatable but stand on it as it is, that's when the power of the gospel goes out. We need to stand firm on the Word in these engagements where it's just not clear. In the same way that the Apostle Paul... He just quotes Psalm 19:4 here. It says, "Thus saith the Word." There's a humility in doing this. It's the mark of true salvation. In submitting to God's Word as in this manner, standing on it, quoting it, not trying to take away from it or add to it, we're placing ourselves at the feet of our creator. It's a good and healthy restoration to the position that we are created to thrive in when we let God be God of our lives. We let God be God of the gospel. We let God be God of the doctrines that are blatantly clear in scripture. That's what Paul does here with Psalm 19. It's kind of a weird quotation because it's... Psalm 19. It's a text that tells of how the whole creation shouts out that God is real, and He is reigning. Psalm 19 starts... It starts, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." Psalm 19... It's a psalm that says, when you look at creation, it's shouts. There's a mighty and glorious God. Why do we take vacations to nature? Why are we amazed when we study the natural world, the body? Why does observation of these things take us to praise, and awe, and wonder? Because God communicates about Himself to us in it. It's His natural revelation. It's all around us, and it blatantly shouts, God is real and glorious. This is affirmed in Romans 1, which we've touched thoroughly a couple months ago. Verse 19, "For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. People are without excuse to acknowledge Him as God." Paul... He's quoting scripture to engage the question, have the Jews heard the gospel? The thing is is that he takes a passage described natural revelation of God, and he applies it to God's special revelation. His special revelation is his specific Word of the gospel that tells us that God is a just and holy God. He can't be in the position of sin. He cannot be in the presence of sin. No one with sin can approach Him. His special revelation tells us that those who are saved through faith by the works of Jesus Christ in His life, death, and resurrection can approach him. Paul's doing this imagery of blending natural revelation with special revelation with this quotation. What essentially is he doing? He's saying it's not that the Jews have not heard. In fact, what he's saying is that the gospel is as readily available to the Jews as is God's natural revelation. He's saying, did the Jews hear? Yes, they did. There's sufficient evidence that they have heard. The gospel was spread, particularly in the Roman Empire at that point where Jews would've been dispersed. Think Pentecost. Christ, before He ascends, He says, "You will receive power and be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Pentecost... When the disciples preach God's word, the Holy Spirit comes upon the crowds, and they start speaking in tongues of the nations. We're to believe that that Pentecost moment was the broad dispersion of the gospel to the Jewish population. Did the Jews hear? Yes, they can't claim that they haven't heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is their unbelief problem one of the ear? No. Okay. What is it next? Paul goes on. Maybe the Jews didn't believe because it's a problem of intellect. Did they not understand? Verse 19, "But I ask, 'Did Israel not understand?'" Again, where does Paul get his answer? Scripture. He says in a quote, from Deuteronomy, "I'll make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry." The question is, do few Jews believe because they didn't understand? The answer is no. With this quote from Deuteronomy 32, what he is really saying is because even the Gentiles in our day, the people who Paul mainly got positive results from in his preaching... Because they understand, certainly, the Jews who have had the oracles, the promises of God for centuries, for millennia... They certainly can understand. Paul's saying, "Have the Jews heard?" Yes, certainly, they have. Did they understand? Yes. Even the lowly Gentiles understand the gospel and are believing it. The Jews are without excuse. I just want to do another aside here. Pause and think about what's happening here, what Paul's saying. With this quote from Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, one of the earliest written pieces of scripture, God's doing something quite profound. He's declaring that Israel... Very early on in history, he's declaring, God's chosen nation will one day reject their Messiah, and God will offer salvation to those who are not a people, not a nation, the Gentiles, to make them jealous. When you pause and think about this, this is a really convincing point for the divine inspiration of scripture. We're talking about the fifth book of the Bible. Couple thousand years before Christ's life, you have this prophetic statement that God's chosen people would reject the Messiah, the Savior, the one whom all the law, and the prophets, the scriptures were about. Who comes up with that stuff? If you're trying to form a fake religion, why would that be a part of the plan? It's not very convincing, but it's believable because it's real, and it did happen. Now, back to the scripture, Paul establishes that it's not a problem of the ear for the Jews, that they did not believe. It's not a problem of the head, the brain. They understood it. Before I go on, I want to just do another aside. An interesting thing from the quotation from Deuteronomy is... It says, "I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation." What God's saying... He's doing at this moment in history with the Gentiles receiving the gospel, and cherishing it, and believing it, while the Jews are only doing so on a very tiny scale, he's offering salvation to the Gentiles as a means of making Israel jealous. It's all a ploy to get Israel jealous and to come back to Him. This is what we will delve into next week as we go into Romans 11. Some of you might read this as, I don't like this move by God. It seems twisted, seems conniving. He seems a little needy to be demanding this love, this worship from anybody. If He is God, He's worthy of that worship. This neediness to have someone, a people, always following him and trying to make the Jews feel jealous... It doesn't sit right with you. I assure you, as a father, this tactic works. Holding my two-year-old daughter, Clara, is the best feeling to have in life right now. Her name's Clara Joy. She was born in July of 2020 when everything was depressing. She's a bundle of warm joy. If you can get her to come, and hug you, and squeeze you, and just look you in the eye, she'll melt you. The thing about Clara is she's a little stubborn. Multiple times a day, I'm sitting on the floor, and I'm just saying, "Clara, I want a hug. I want your embrace." She just turns to me and says, "No," but there's a way of getting Clara to hug me. When she rejects me, when she denies me, do you know what I do? I walk over, and I pick up my three-month-old daughter, Audrey. I give her some snuggles and kisses. Immediately, Clara comes running over seeking that embrace. Is it wrong of me in that? Is it twisted of me in that to want Clara's embrace? No. Is it twisted of me to give my other child love at the moment, which is genuine and sincere, because there's nothing better than holding that baby? No. God... What He is doing, it's not twisted. It's not wrong. He wants Israel to be saved. We're going to just flesh that out, what that looks like, what His hope for the nation of Israel is, next week. Paul... He makes clear, the Jews have heard. They didn't understand. They did understand. Going forward, as if the quote from the law, first, the law from Moses wasn't enough, Paul quotes from Isaiah the prophet. It's as if in this whole text, it's kind of an interrogation of the Jews. It's, say, have they heard? Yes, they heard it from the gospel. The gospel's dispersed enough. Has it been made clear to them? Yes, it was made clear to them in the gospel. It's made clear to them in, first, the law, as the text says, through Moses. First, Moses, then, Isaiah. It's saying the Jews had enough information to have understanding of the gospel through the Old Testament scriptures. That was Paul's Bible. That was the Bible of the Jews that led Paul to understand Jesus as the Messiah. As if quoting from the law were not enough, to make it clear that it wasn't an issue of understanding, Paul quotes from Isaiah the prophet. He's the prince of prophets, the prophet of prophets. That's why he can be representative of the prophets, when I say the law and the prophets. Verse 20, "Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, 'I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.'" Paul... He's saying again, even the Gentiles can understand and believe. So the Jews can understand and believe. They are without excuse. It's not a problem of hearing. It's not a problem of the ear. It's not a problem of understanding, a problem of the head. We're left to, what is it? What's the root of the disbelief of the Jews? Where does it come from? Ultimately, it's the heart. The Apostle Paul says in verse 21, "But of Israel, he says, 'All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.'" Other translations say, "Disobedient and obstinate." Others say, "Disobedient and gainsaying." Why have the Jews not believed on a large scale, not just collectively, but individually, to make up the collective lack of belief? They have an issue of the heart. They won't believe because they aren't willing to believe. They don't want to believe. They won't be persuaded. They are disobedient and contrary. They can have all the evidence before them as convincing as can be, and they will not turn and trust the Lord. In the face of obvious gospel realities, they will not be persuaded. Whatever you say, God, this is the heart. We are not going to do that. This disobedient, this contrary. We're going to go and do the opposite. An example of this is just my son, six years old. He can be eating pizza one day, and then the next day... and just loving it. He can have that memory fresh in his head. A week later, you can offer him the same exact pizza, and he will say that he does not want it. Why is he doing that? Simply because he doesn't want it. He is in a moment where he doesn't want to listen to anyone. He wants to do his own thing. That's the position of the Jews throughout the history of scripture. The Jews were just hardhearted. They did not want to follow God because they didn't want to follow God. This is their history. They saw God part the waters while leaving Egypt and essentially rebelled in the wilderness. He appeared to them at Sinai. He gave them the law. They questioned him. They built the idol of the bull around that time. He gave them the victory after victory by his power as they were entering the Promised Land. Establishing the kingdom, the prophets proved to be right over and over again in their foretelling and their forthtelling. He established His presence in Jerusalem. How could they just not see that God had a special hand of favor on their life, rejoice in that, and give Him their trust? The Jews had a heart problem. Christ says of them, Matthew 15:6-9, "And he said to them, 'Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites?" He's talking to the Jewish leaders, scribes, and Pharisees. "As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. He said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition." The Jews had the law of God. They had the prophets, and they're always twisting it and tweaking it to give them temporal benefit in the short run. God's word, God's promises, God's law didn't seem to provide them convenience and joy in the short run, so they're constantly contriving it to work for them as history went on, to the point that when Christ came, they could not recognize Him. They could not see Him. They were the ones that eventually put Him on the cross because they did not recognize Him. Acts 7 says... Stephen says, "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart." This is the great deacon of the church as he was on his way to being martyred. He says of the Jews, "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered. You received the laws delivered by angels and did not keep it." It's not that the Jews could not hear, but that they did not want to hear. It's not that they couldn't see the light, but they chose darkness. That's the reason why very few believed. It's for the same reasons today that people, Jew and Gentile, do not believe. They have foolish, hardened hearts. All true Christians who've heard and believe the gospel know that at some point, they had a hard heart that was contrary to God and that when they turned from such hardness, the gospel appeared to them as a source of light and salvation. I remember... I grew up in the church. When I was 12, I understood the gospel enough, 12 or 13 when I took confirmation class in the church that I grew up in. We had to write a 100-word essay, which sounded like the hardest task, to explain why we wanted to get confirmed, essentially follow Jesus for the rest of our lives. I wrote this 100, probably 100 to 105-word essay, explaining just... I believe it because this story sounds too good to be true. Why would I not take God up on this offer to trust Him, to believe that all I have to do to be saved is to place my faith in Jesus. I remember I was shocked when, on confirmation Sunday, among a class of 15 people, the pastor went up there and said, "Wow, we have youth who understand the gospel so well." What he did was the whole time, he talked about my 101-word essay. Really, the reality of it was was that I understood it. I could write it. I could state it and explain it to people, but I did not truly admit that I was a stubborn and contrary person before God for another 10 years of my life. You see, we can understand the gospel. We can hear it. We can understand it. We can state it to other people, but if it doesn't hit our heart, we're not going to really understand Christianity. We're not going to know the experience of receiving God's grace. We're not going to be able to truly tell others of the joy of salvation. We're not really going to want to see the gospel go forward in our own hearts and in the world. This text... It's a check for those who are Christian, who are in the church, because the Jews where the people in the church. The Pharisees would've been great religious neighbors who kept the neighborhood tidy, people that were respectable, but they didn't get it. This text... It's a check for those who are in the church. Have you repented of having a hard and contrary heart toward God, or is this just your culture? Are you here only because the church aligns with some of your political preferences? Are you here because it aligns with some of your personal preferences, your marriage preferences? You're here to get someone to go on a date, whatever it is. No, we're here. The church is the assembly of all true believers that have faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who see themselves as helpless, just condemned to a place called hell, free from the, just, loving existence and presence of God the Father for all of eternity. The church is the people who get that. It's always a gift that God would offer His hands, just open-handed. How many of you have ever wanted a benefactor to come into your life and just take care of all of your needs? The gospel is so much more. I had friends in college. There's this guy who would sponsor an international student on the college soccer team every year. I was a hardworking, vocal boy doing multiple work-study jobs. Well, he gifted these guys who came from other countries that went to the best schools in their other countries and were wealthy in their other countries. I said I wanted someone to come into my life and just throw me a bone, just meet my greatest, deepest needs. I didn't get that in college. I'm glad God kept me humble. My life really wasn't that bad. How many of you are just looking for that thing that's going to satisfy your deepest needs? What scripture says... That thing is not a thing. It's a person. It's God Himself. We're called to submit to him as Lord. That's the way it was in the garden before Adam and Eve got this message of God's offering His hands. What did God do with Adam in the garden? He walked with Adam in the garden. You get this imagery of maybe they held hands, naming the animals and the plants. How many of you just want someone to hold your hand through life and just give you the comfort that they love you because they love you, because they love you? They know everything about you, but they choose to offer you love. That's what God offered Israel throughout their history. They never receive that. That's what we as Christians need to believe. The greatest friendships in life, a good marriage... All the single people or married people obsessed with sex... The greatest thing of marriage is just having that friend to hold your hands with as you go through life. When you have that bliss in a marriage or you have that bliss in a brother or sister in Christ as a single in the church, just, you have that unity, that's all to direct us to the ultimate walk that we take with God our Father through this life and, ultimately, when we live in the fullness of His presence when He comes back and makes all things new. Christians, have you really repented of your heart condition? If you don't know what grace is, that's the real test. Do you know what grace is? It's, really, just someone gives you courtesy that you don't deserve. It's not Chick-fil-A. Walk in, they say hi to you. They're paid to do that. They make you feel like the best person in the world, but they pay you to do that. What God's grace is saying, everyone deserves wrath for their sin against me, but I am choosing to extend mercy and grace, unmerited favor, just because. When you know that love, you know that grace, that gives you the freedom, the security of identity to function and be who you were really created to be. Christians, do you know this? Non-Christians, if you think you have to clean yourself up to come into this relationship, you have it all wrong. It's just something you receive. You hear the call. You say, "Yes, Lord. I need you. I am a stubborn and contrary person. I see that that is rebellion against your law, your command. You are king, and I have rebelled against you. I see that you offer me forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Take me. Welcome me into your family as a child. I want to submit my whole life to you." When you do that, that's where true life... That's where true freedom begins. Have you done that? I just want to close with a point of when you share the gospel, you're fighting hardheartedness. In Boston, people want to over-intellectualize it. People want to take you, "Oh, well, it doesn't make sense: God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. It just doesn't make logical, earthly sense." You're right, it doesn't. You don't get caught in the theological, the philosophical, the distracting conversations. What this text teach us is the heart of non-belief is hardheartedness, a contrary heart. If you're having these conversations with people and not going for the jugular, saying, do you believe you're a sinner? and pressing on that... Do you really think that you are perfect? Does your heart sit right with that? If you're not going for that jugular and you're just kind of having palatable conversations with everybody, you're not sharing the gospel. Romans says, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation." This message, calling people out of their hardheartedness... That's what just gives people true salvation. Try to bring them in through the real deal. Don't make it palatable. The Lord moves. There's power behind the message when it's faithful. Let me just close and say, God is not a judge waiting to condemn his people. Verse 21, "All the day long, I've held out my hands." He's a father waiting to receive His children at the door of His house after they've run away in rebellion. He's waiting, calling, offering us restored relationship into the family. Take up His offer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you that in the gospel, we have the opportunity of restored relationship with you. All of nature, all over the world, the majesty of your creation, the complexities of small things, like the human body, the eye, the heart... Lord, all of these things direct us to the fact that there is a creator. He is good, and He is powerful. Lord, we just want to deny that. So often, we want to contrive a reality such that you do not exist. Even those of us who are in Christ, we're caught functioning in the habits of the old man, just living life according to our own principles, our own ways at the cost of submitting to your lordship overall. Holy Spirit, we pray, give us hearts to just see life for what it is. We are children with a Father who is sitting down, offering us His hand, offering us hugs, offering us to be our redeemer, our shield, our protector, to just give us a spot in His glorious kingdom forever. Lord, we continue to go on just choosing our own way. We pray, Holy Spirit, help us to repent of living for our own glory, our own momentary satisfaction, and to live a life of faith pursuing heavenly glory, pursuing heavenly, just, thriving. We pray, give us hearts of joy to share the gospel. Give us boldness to go after the heart as we engage people in the world around us. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
Death to Sin
May 22, 2022 • Andy Hoot • Romans 6:1–14
Audio Transript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Today, we are continuing in our series in the Book of Romans. We are in chapter 6. We're going to read verses 1 through 14. Let me pray and I will read the text... I'll read the text and then pray. And then we'll see the Word that the Lord has for us today. Romans 6:1-14... Oh, sorry. Clicked on the wrong document there. There we are. All right, Roman 6:1-14. All right. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 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. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. "We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For zone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you that just by a simple matter of faith, of deep trust, deep belief, deep hope in your Word in the gospel, we can have forgiveness from sins. We can be forgiven from the penalty that is due to us for our sin against you, a holy God. Holy Spirit, we praise you that salvation is a matter by grace through faith, but Lord, we praise you further that upon reception of that grace, we're not called to continue to earn your love. We're not called to just strive further and further through works. We're called to be sustained by you, by faith in you. Lord, show us today how we can be changed by faith, by trusting in your Word that by that newness comes with just clinging to who we are through our faith, through our union with Jesus Christ. We pray Holy Spirit, show us the truths that you want us to take home today. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. We're in a difficult season right now. The brokenness of the world is becoming more apparent every day. Russia, Ukraine, refugee and humanitarian crises, pre-official ruling Roe v. Wade battles, COVID infections, COVID closures, travel, weddings, still being canceled because of COVID, inflation, Brookline teachers strike. These are the topics that we can escape today. Our energy levels and compassion capacities have the same empty status as our gas tanks. While I consider just every day through all this, I consider myself blessed to be breathing, blessed to have the knowledge that can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus. I was feeling the weight of all of this, this week, as I was processing these challenges with brothers and sisters who have dealt with these more personally, thinking about how challenges have hit my life. I've been thinking about what should we do? What should Christians do? What should we do as individuals in the church? We're in this Book of Romans in week 16. We're just in chapter 6 of this book with 16 chapters. And just I was tempted to ask is this the right thing to do every Sunday? Is preaching the Word, proclaiming the whole counsel of God the way forward? Maybe we should be talking more topically about how Christians can stand firm right now in the midst of the challenges, in the midst of the animosity that is directed towards them. Talk more specifically about how to stand our ground, prepare for persecution and face tumultuous periods of life. But in my preparation this week, I was just reading the introduction of Romans in my ESV Study Bible and found great comfort. With all those thoughts in my mind, as a reminder that the Apostle Paul wrote this book during the reign of the Emperor Nero. And Nero was an evil vial man. He was emperor, he was king. He could do whatever he wanted and he hated Christians. Nero publicly shamed and tortured Christians. Nero blamed issues of society on Christians. One of the worst things he did was to use Christians as street lamps. Placed them on stakes and put oil on them and light them up for they were the problem in society. And according to church history, it was actually under the reign of Nero that the Apostle Paul, eventually, who wrote our text from today was put to death. And so in this reign of Nero, when society was just constantly affected by war, by disease, by slavery, by sexual slavery, by battles for power, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church of Rome. Through all this stuff, he wrote about the gospel. The theme line of the Book of Romans that you just hear me say all the time if you spend time with me is Romans 1:16-17, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" I'm comforted despite the weight of this season, two plus years of it, to fall in the example of Paul. When we face times of war, trouble, fear, anxiety, persecution, confusion, we press on towards the goal of the upward cause of the glory of God. We the church talk about the faith that we have in Jesus Christ and the power of that faith to change lives. While the world and man goes through its cycles, we do what brings honor and praise and glory to God. And we keep the focus on what really as our text today says, makes men new. That's one of the challenges that we are faced today. Why is man still in this situation? Why are these fights happening? Why has not men ascended above these trials? And the answer that we acknowledge is, he still is tainted by sin. All of his faculties are tainted by sin and there's forgiveness for that in the gospel. But here in chapter 6, after Paul spelled out that salvation is by grace through faith, by a matter of faith, Christians can be forgiven from the penalty of sin. And Romans 3:21 through the end of chapter 5, which we finished last week, he's talking about how the gospel changes people. What makes people new? That's a question they're wrestling with back then. That's a question we're wrestling with today. So chapter 2, it's all about the gospel's ability, not just to offer forgiveness of sin, but to change men and women, make new men and women. So as we begin this text, reflecting upon the reading, you may have noticed that it sounds like Paul, at the beginning of this passage, he's in the middle of a conversation. He is. He's in the middle of a thought that we covered last week. Roman's 5:20 says, "But where sin increased grace abounded all the more." What he's saying here is that where sin is on the move in the hearts of individuals, in society, in the world, there's a corresponding work of God's grace that is also on the move. And it's not that these two powers, sin and grace are actually at war with one another, fighting one another where the two switch a seed of power occasionally, or over time they balance each other out, but that God's grace of abounds. To abound means to grow more plentiful. Grace doesn't just meet sin, it abounds. It goes beyond sin. Where sin increase, grace abounds all the more. And so what Paul's going to talk about in chapter 6 is our relationship to sin. For those of us who are saved in Jesus, by grace, what is our new relationship with sin? And so before we're saved by grace, Apostle Paul provides in Ephesians 2:1-3, he provides a statement on our condition man's condition. Born in sin before one is truly saved through faith in Christ. He says, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." We were dead in our trespasses, enslaved to the passions of the flesh. They were our master. We didn't have the ability to say no to our flesh and passions prior to Christ. Paul says this was our previous relationship to our sinful nature, but God made us alive together with Christ. So how do things change? Let's look at verse 1. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue and sin that Grace may abound? This is his engagement with the end of chapter 5. What he's doing here after elaborating on the great doctrine of justification by grace through faith for a couple of chapters and ending chapter 5 with the statement: "Where sin increases, grace abounds all the more." Paul's pausing to deal with a question that naturalize when people hear that we're saved simply by grace through faith in Christ. Not because of anything we do. So he's thinking if our good works add nothing to our justification before God, our righteousness is not our own as Paul's spelled out very clearly. Then why in the world do we need to do good works at all? Why fight sin? Why fight temptation? Why the need? Why not just give in? If we've been set free by the demands of the law, why can't we just live free doing anything we want? Won't God's grace abound all the more? Won't he just forgive us? It's hard to know if Paul actually engaged this question with the Roman church or in his ministry, or if it's a rhetorical question, just saying, I know that people could logically follow the previous chapters to this line of thought, but it certainly has come up in church history. One of the most famous examples of this is a monk, Grigori Rasputin, in the early 1900s. He basically assume this mentality of if I sin all the more, God's grace will abound all the more. And he became so influential in Russian culture with his... just for the way that he stuck out, that he misled the whole Russian royal dynasty to the point that he led Russia into just debauchery. He broke up the royal family, which led to the eventual Bolshevik Revolution. And Russia is still struggling with moral issues today at a profound level, as all countries are, but just one example. But what Paul's dealing with is this issue. For some of you who are in a season where you're just reveling in the grace that God has extended to you, you can't really fathom this question. Are we to continue in sin where grace may abound? Where you are right now you think you'll never want to break God's command. Anyone for whom the experience of God grace is fresh and present knows that this thinking is horrible. It's evil. It's vile. How could somebody who knows God's grace think like this? However, just to drive at home to connect you to the passage, I wonder if some of you, for whom your love of the gospel is at a low point have had moments where you've thought, "I'm just going to indulge a little bit. Give myself a break. God's ransomed me. He's rescued me from great depravity, great pride in my past. What if I just delve into sin a little bit here? God will forgive me if I turn quickly." Paul, today, he's exposing how such thinking is an abuse of grace. So Paul's going to respond to this question and show how the relationship between Christian and sin changes profoundly. And the result will be, as we go forward, that believers who know God's grace cannot continue to live a life of sin. They're dead to it. So verse 2 says, Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? "By no means!" He quickly denies that we should continue to live in sin. And he responds with another question, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" How can we who have died to sin continue to live in it. He's asking how can those who have died to sin live in sin? And the proper question to ask when we read this is, "Hmm. When? When did we die to sin?" I think this is the engagement with a lot of people raised in the church in past decades. Paul just makes a statement we've died to sin without explaining where it's coming from or what it means. He says it's a big fact without a background or backstory, but he said, we've died to sin. And so when did we die to sin? What does that mean? So that's what he continues saying. When did we die to sin? Verse 3, he answers that. "Do you not know..." What don't we know? "That all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death." He asked, "Do you not know?" And here's a question, did you know that? Did you know most of the people here in this room were baptized, many of you as believers, not just infants? Did you know that you died to sin when you were baptized? Do you know what I'm talking about? Honestly, I was saved at Mosaic, born again by the spirit of God in August 2011 at Mosaic after being in the church my whole life. And I liked church. I didn't see myself as a sinner in need of God's grace until that point. But honestly was already at Mosaic, listening to Mosaic preaching for five years, in my second year of seminary after I understood that I died to sin. I remember Dr. Gamble taking us through a systematic theology class, opening this chapter, Roman 6, as I understood the implications of this for the first time. So when Paul asked this question, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? When you said you have died to sin, did you know that? I can answer no, I didn't know that. And you see, I thought by believing Jesus, I was just forgiven of my sin in just kind of a nebulous sense. And that was good news to me. That was great news. That should be great news to all of you, but I never really thought about the specific ways that Christ's death connected to my sin and how it affected my relationship to my sin going forward. I was really thankful for forgiveness. I got baptized. I was baptized as an infant. I was convicted that I needed to get baptized as a believer, as we teach here in Mosaic (but are friendly to child Baptist). But to find out that I was baptized into death was eyeopening. And so today when Paul's getting us to think about this topic of death to sin, baptism into Christ death, to continue understanding where he was going, I have to open up verse 4, "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 the newness of life." So to understand what I'm saying, to understand what Paul's saying, we have to talk about this term, baptism. We have to have a better understanding of it. To begin with I want to ask the question, when were you baptized into Christ? As I ask that question now, some of you are like thinking, "I was not baptized into Christ." Some of you are thinking, "I was baptized as an infant, an adolescent, an adult." You're thinking about your water baptism, but that's not what Paul's referring to here. For most of the church, we tend to think about the act of baptism more than the meaning, but the simple word for baptism here in this text that opens up all these verses is to be immersed, baptizo, to be immersed. To be baptized is to be immersed. The Bible talks about several baptisms/immersions. Water baptism, baptism of the spirit or by the spirit, and even baptism into suffering, but generally it means immersion. So when Paul is talking about baptism here in our text, he's talking about the actual spirituality of being immersed into Christ through faith that is portrayed when Christians are baptized in water. What I didn't quite understand before I was baptized as a believer was that baptism is an outward portrayal of an inward spiritual reality that has taken place in my heart. It's an outward picture of an inward spirituality that takes place in the heart of a person who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ. And because of this, to be very clear, it's not the water baptism that saves people, it's the actual reality. Being immersed into the person of Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection, having union with him in these acts that saves people. By faith, the Holy Spirit applies Christ death, burial, resurrection to us. Water baptism is a portrayal of a greater reality. So the church, we immerse people into water, and yes, we do this at Mosaic as often as possible downstairs in a horse feeding trough. The water ranges from about 58 degrees Fahrenheit to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If you want to get baptized, you should do it now in the summer, because it's not fun in the winter, though it's more memorable when it's cold. The church immerses people into water to portray the fact that they've been immersed into their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith because of their belief in his death, burial, and resurrection. So on verses 3 and 4, Paul, he's telling us that when we're baptized, we're immersed into Jesus by faith and we're baptized into various things. So we're joined with him in one, his death; two, his burial; three, his resurrection. We see this in these verses. So when we bring people in the water at Mosaic, it's a display of their life before Christ. The first thing that we do is we lower them down into the water. This is a portrayal as this text tells us that they have joined Christ with his death. Then step two, we lower them and we make sure that they're all the way under the water. Sometimes at Mosaic, you see some people keep their hands up. We don't want that. At burial, they throw the dirt all over the body. Why do we want that whole body beneath there? It's to show that this death was final, this death was complete. And you're only down there for a second. So let the pastor get your hands below water. Don't hold onto the sides. And three, we raise people up, back out of the water and that depicts the spirituality of the fact that they've been raised with Jesus into new resurrected life. And so baptism, it's a beautiful, outward picture of this inward spirituality that has taken place of people's death to sin and resurrection to new life. So understanding the spiritual realities that have taken place prior to one's baptism. These are places. We're not saying that putting someone in the water saves people. Can you imagine if that was the case? Can you imagine what the church would be doing? I think we'd be running around like cowboys, riding horses, just lassoing people, fighting them to dip them in the water. If that's what saves you, that's what we would be doing. And that sounds hard, but a lot of fun, but that's not the case. Baptism is primarily this depiction of a great spiritual reality. It's something we do in obedience to Christ. It's something that we can do to encourage other people, but it's much more than these things. It's a response to what Christ has done for us. It's a proclamation of what Christ has done in us, forever changing our relationship to sin and its power over us. Paul says we've died to sin, but why does he talk about this resurrection part? Is he talking about the great day in the future when the remains of your body will be raised and soul and body will be united free from the influence of sin? No, he's talking about a resurrection that we, that you can have in Jesus today, May 22nd, 2022. That's a great day to remember your salvation. 22, '22. A resurrection life, a new life, a new nature that you can embrace, enjoy and revel in and walk in today. That's what Paul says is offered to us when we by faith, receive Jesus as our Lord and savior. A death to the old self, a complete death and a resurrection to new life. To spell this out, let's read verse 4 and 5. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism, immersion into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might..." Raise one day? No. "We might walk in newness of life. For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." Paul, he's talking about our new relation to sin. Before baptism, immersion into Christ, you were dead in sins power. After immersion, you are dead to its power. You're no longer under sins dominion and helpless to its longings. You can walk in a new way in life today. You can walk free in accordance to God's purposes, principles, plans, and heart. I have to emphasize this because a lot of people just, they come into Christianity again with this nebulous understanding of forgiveness, but they lack this true belief that they are dead to the power of their sin. And they stay fighting the same problems in their life for years and years and years, never experiencing freedom, never experiencing true newness that comes with salvation in Jesus Christ, being weakened disciples for his glory, being weakened ministers of the gospel. So we meditate on this. And so everything I said adds up to one statement. When we are saved by grace through faith, we're not just saved by the penalty of our sin, by the power of our sin. Do you believe that? There's a lot of people who just believe in this nebulous forgiveness and what it typically amounts to without understanding that they're dead to sin. It's they're just trying to fight and pursue holiness, growth in Christ in their own power. They're trying to take on a task that only God can do by their selves. They're essentially trying to grow through their own power, which is limited. And when you do that, how you find that fast. Some of you in Boston are really smart, really strong, really physically fit, really stubborn, and you can get far on your own power. But if you continue in that, you're going to find you don't have strength to grow on your own. This approach, it leads to cycles and cycles of sin and repentance, sin and repentance. Taking two steps forward, one step back, and you're taking one step forward. And because it was so tiring to go forward one step in your own strength, while you were recovering from the exhaustion of working forward, you take two steps backward. What Paul's getting at in these verses is that grace is what gives a Christian life, and it's God's grace that enables to live the Christian life. It's God's grace that gives us power to say no to sin and yes to God. Grace changes people. This is really bad news to really good people. What do I mean by that? This is bad news for people that think it's too easy, it's too simplistic to trust in God, to give people grace for both salvation and growth and holiness for change in their life. These people who think that extending grace without requiring specific adherences to a law creates lawless people. These people who do not understand grace, the people who ask the question in verse 1, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? That's who Paul is dealing with. He's dealing with Judaizers, Jews who are saying it can't just be salvation by grace through faith. It can't just be that sanctification is a matter of grace. There's got to be works added. Christians who don't understand this, they're the ones who are going to ask the church in times of trouble and trial to change its message to something that is more directly irrelevant at the surface level. They're going to doubt the church if it proceeds with primarily preaching the Word on Sunday. They're going to try to strong arm their preferences on structures, teaching tradition into the church, because they don't believe that grace changes people. Do you believe that grace can change you? Before baptism, immersion into Christ, you were dead in sins power. After immersion, you are dead to its power. In verses 6 and 7, he drives this point home more clearly. "We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin." Paul compares our previous relationship to sin as slavery. Slaves don't have choice. Slaves don't tell the master what to do. The master tells them what they should do. They simply obey their master. We in our sinful state before Christ had no choice, but to obey the flesh. But now with Christ, that slavery is broken. Why? Because the slave is dead. For a slave, one way to be free is to die. So in a Christian, the old man has to die in order that we might be able to live in the newness, the freedom of resurrected life. So just as death releases a slave from their servitude, by joining with Christ, being immersed, it says that we are set free from the slavery relationship to sin that dominated our lives. And so next week, Paul develops this more, this connection to slavery. So I want to continue verses 8 through 10. "Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that, Christ being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God." So Jesus can't die again. That's what he's saying here. He can't die again because death, the penalty for sin has been defeated. In the same way when we enter into Christ death, we enter into his victory over sin. And we have the power to stand in authority over sin, going forward with our lives. As long as we walk forward with him, we have that resurrection power to conquer our sin. And so Paul continues. He's saying a lot of what he said already, but verse 11 here is probably the most important thing to take home. This is Paul's take home point of this section of Scripture, Romans 6:1-14. After everything I said, "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ." The means to freedom from the power of sin over your life is considering yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. I'm going to say it in a few ways. In order to let grace take hold of your life, to change, to experience true freedom from the power of sin, not just the penalty of sin, exercise faith and believe that you've entered into the death of Christ and that sin no longer has control over your life. I'm just going to keep going. If you want the freedom from sin, you want newness of life, you want resurrection life today, you must become what you are. You must become in day-to-day living what you are in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, this is a quote from Jay Adams, pastor, theologian, "The high calling of the Christian, conferred upon him in Christ by which he is to reconcile himself dead to sin but alive to God, is itself a powerful motivation to holy living. Putting on the uniform is itself a potent factor that the Holy Spirit uses to bring about change." I know that some of you are having day-to-day struggles with sin. I have them myself every day. And this sounds like the most dissatisfying advice. He's saying walk in this new identity, but one, heed it, meditate on it, chew on it. This is what the Bible says. Paul says, "Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus." And two, think about the power of the uniforms that you've put on in your life. Think about the callings that you have accepted in life. Think about the empowerment that you might have felt as an athlete or soldier when you put on the uniform the first time, you were the logo or the crest of the team or your unit. Think about the doctor, white coat ceremony in all other forms in the health field. Think about the gowns that people around us through graduation season, in these past weeks, clogging up all the parking. When you see them and you're stuck in traffic, think about what that gown means in their lives. Think about how placing on any garments for any honorable or charitable calls act powerfully to alter one's life. Think about being a husband or wife saying those vows. I'm doing a ton of premarital counseling, doing a lot of weddings in these coming months. Think about becoming a parent. We have babies, praise God, being born all the time in Mosaic right now. Receiving the uniform or the garments or the title, it doesn't just affect how we engage in our respective field. But when we cherish it, we cherish the uniform, the calling, taking it on alters how we view ourselves in every other area of life. In college, my college soccer coach, as much as I struggled with my bad older guy, he really had a powerful tactic. Every time we got on the bus for an away game, we had our polo jerseys with our soccer patch on our chest. And he said, "Remember, you represent not just yourself, but the team when we go travel. When we're in restaurants together, you represent us. When we're in bathrooms at rest stops, you represent us. When you're on the field in the heat of battle, you represent us. When you're in the classroom, you represent us." And it was a powerful tactic and it inspired us to some championships. We took great pride in that. This is how Paul reflect on taking the badges, taking on the uniforms, taking on the callings of your life and the power that it brought, not just to that area, but every area of life. This is how Paul wants to view our lives in terms of the grace of Jesus Christ when we think about our immersion into him, in his death, burial and resurrection. When we grasp just what it means that who we are, we have the chance at a new identity, a new life, it should affect every area of our life. With this understanding of Christian life sanctification, it's one, this process it's by grace we are saved. We're justified once we truly receive Christ as our Lord and savior by faith, believe that he went to the cross and he bore the wrath that we deserved on the cross. And by faith, God applies the punishment that I deserve to him and his righteous record to me. By faith, we are justified. The judge hits the gavel. We can never be declared guilty again. That's justification. But what Paul's teaching us here is that sanctification, it's one of growing up, it's a process. It's one of growing up into who we already are in Jesus Christ, in the power of the spirit. And so it's not satisfying advice. It's not a quick, easy fix that's going to improve your life. It's not a self-help strategy to just go home and fight that sin that you know you're going to be attempted with. That you're saying, "No, this does not satisfy. This will not help." But this is just all over Scripture. 1 Peter 2:1-3. "So put away all malice..." This is Peter, one of the other early disciples. "So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." And other translations throughout history have said gracious. If you've tasted his grace, grow up into your salvation. Ephesians 2:8-10, the Apostle Paul wrote, "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." He saved us. We're called to walk in our new identity into good works, good deeds for his glory. Ephesians 4:1 Paul says, "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called." Paul, the most effective disciple, the most effective apostle in history, the most influential man in history, probably aside from Jesus Christ, this is the way that he told his spiritual children to grow up. This is how he told them change would come, victory over sin would truly come. And this is why he had enemies. This is why he takes a whole chapter of Romans. He continues on with his people debating this means of sanctification by grace of living within your identity, walking in it. People said, "You're telling me the path to resurrected living, holy living, Christ likeness comes by faith that you have died through Jesus Christ." The freedom of tearing of sin comes from faith and believing who you are. Not from additional works. "It just seems too simple. It's too easy." People would say. And Paul would engage them, "When you came to Christ, you literally joined with him in his death and replaced your faith in the fact of that reality. You'll begin to see it manifests itself in an increasing basis. And so some people are thinking that this is too passive. Work out your new identity, consider who you are. It's too spiritual. It's unrealistic. It's like taking a wishful approach like Disney. Like when you wish upon a star, I heard a pastor connect to this point at one point. It's this belief that you're just saved and you just let God change you. That's not it at all. Paul knows your questions. He knows your challenges. It's not wishful thinking. You really have to just battle to remind yourself of who you are in Christ. There's a song, it's by Bethel Music, which we don't really support their church's teachings, but there's a song, "I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God," and it's husband and wife singers. And the wife, she's just singing this, "I am a child of God," it's like she's growling it. And we sometimes, we have to, when we're facing difficulties, we're facing sin, facing temptation, feels like it has power over us. We need to pause and remind ourselves we are a child of God. A blood-bought child for whom death is dead. And in the Holy Spirit's power, we can have victory. So many Christians struggle because they just don't have faith that they can have victory. They've failed, they've stumbled and sinned over and over again, but you can have victory. And the most important thing is actually believing that. And Paul, to show that this is not just a wishful thinking, versus 12 to 13, here's how he tells us to walk out our faith. This is practical application of this, walking out your faith that's considering yourselves dead to sin. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness." He's saying nothing short of a whole reorientation of your practical life will go along with faith. With the faith that he's calling us to exhibit. The faith to believe that we have truly died to controlling the power of sin. Present yourselves to God. A lot of Christians are struggling because when they were saved, they did a partial recalibration of their life. They did not open their lives. They liked the idea of a savior, but they didn't like the idea of a Lord who they were called to submit to in every area of their life. But that's what we are called to do. We have this ability to look upon God and receive his love. And in turn we're supposed to... We have this new orientation where we can look at him and we have to reorient our whole lives. Many Christian, they're too afraid to follow God's Holy Spirit. Many people receive callings, many people receive nudges, many people know how to stand when their work department is not being honest. Many people know how to respond with a righteous response and the moment looks like when someone sins against them. Many Christians know what faithfulness looks like when they're alone at night in front of a computer, but they choose not to do that. If you really believe the Holy Spirit is working in you, helping you grow in this holiness, call upon him, ask him for help. Remember who you are in Jesus Christ. Work out that identity. Now, Paul says you've been set free from the slavery, now walk in it, work it out. And when you do this, this is the last verse, you will not be ashamed. This is what he ends with, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." And there's all these different kinds of interpretations of is this a command? But no, it's not a command. It's a promise. When you exercise faith and believe that you've entered into the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, that sin no longer has control over your life, you will experience grace upon grace. The newness of salvation will be there and there will be joy as you see God's grace, God's glory just spreading into every area of your life. And other people will see that in you. And so this life, it's not permanent. It's just a sojourn. It's just a pilgrimage. We, in the sight of God, have already been placed in a spiritual sense in the heavenly sanctuary. And growth, change, Christ likeness comes when we own up to that identity. And that's Ephesians 2:4-7. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." That's present because of our immersion into Jesus Christ. We in a spiritual sense before the eyes of God are already raised up and seated with him in the heavenly places. "So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Jesus Christ." As we cling to that identity, we will receive his mercy and grace and abundance as we go forward in life. We just have to believe that. Do you believe it? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the simplicity of the gospel. We thank you that it is not a matter just having peace with you and having growth in you. It's not a matter of following more rules. It's not a matter of striving. It's not a matter of doing stuff in our own strength. But Lord, we praise you that it's a matter of faith that you will follow through on your Word, on your promises to us. So Lord, we pray as we root ourselves deeper in our identities in Jesus Christ this week, we pray, let the reality of our new nature just manifest itself more and more. Show us by your spirit, what it looks like to reorient our lives, all of our beings to who we are in you today. Help us to repent, help us to not quench the spirit when he calls us to take up great offices, when he points out sin that is affecting our freedom. Lord, let us humbly submit to you your ways and promises. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
The Gravity of the Gospel
March 20, 2022 • Andy Hoot • Romans 2:6–10
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. Today I am taking up, I think this is our seventh week, in the book of Romans. This is the book that is called the fifth gospel. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John talking about the life of Christ. But this is often called Paul's gospel. The Apostle Paul, the most influential man in world history, apart from Jesus Christ, this is how he framed the gospel to the church in Rome around AD 50, year 50. And we are taking it up. We are currently in a section where Paul says the gospel is the power of God and to salvation for the Jew first and also the Greek. And immediately he steps into the gospel as the power of God and to salvation, but he steps into a section about wrath. Romans 1:18 through 3:20, he's heavy on wrath that all men, for their unrighteousness, for their sin, cannot stand before God apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ. And therefore, they're under God's wrath. It's a heavy section, but we can learn today that, going to the depth, ultimately makes the light shine much brighter. Let me read from Romans chapter two versus six through 10. That's Romans chapter two versus six through 10, and hear the word of our Lord. He will render to each one, according to his works. To those who by patients and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. This is the inner and fallible fully authoritative word of God. May he write these truths upon our heart. And if before I go in, we had a lot of mic trouble in first service. I have a backup mic right behind me. Thank you in advance for your patience if we have to deal with that. Let's pray. Heavenly father as one of the songs that we just sung said, "Jesus is the desire of every nation." Going beyond that, he's the desire of every heart. But many nations and many people do not admit that or acknowledge that. And Lord, even those of us who know Jesus as our Lord and savior, our desires for him, for his rule and reign, for his grace to penetrate the depths of our sin and brokenness is too weak. Lord, we confess today that we are numbed. We are lukewarm. We are deaf and blind to your word often. It's not because of your doing, it's because of our own doing. And we pray right now that as we open up your word, as we engage some of the greatest themes that there are to life and eternity, that you would awake in our hearts, that you would soften them, that you would ignite a fire in us that last for eternity as we pursue growth and glory in Jesus Christ. Holy spirit just bless our time together, in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Our text today is a mine field. It begins with, he will render to each one according to his works. If anyone's been in the church for any amount of time, short amount of time, this verse here, it just will trigger, you know that that is going to trigger half the minds in here to think, is this a presentation on the millennial old topic of works versus faith as the means for our salvation. What most pastors do, how they handle the text is typically a pretty dry technical conversation or presentation where they offer a lot of dozens of proof text to say which side they land on. Ultimately, I think that this passage has a lot more than just contributions on that topic. And really most people don't leave sanctified or encouraged in their faith through such conversation. I don't want to leave here with my I head exploding. I don't want you to leave here or your head exploding. I'm going to take up a different theme. Furthermore, my dad actually worked on mine sweeping ships for much of his career. The thing that I learned most through his boring engineering lingo over the years was, the best way to avoid mine is to go around them. That's the best way to prevent yourself from getting blown up. And then let a minesweeper come in and do the detailed work. Pastor Jan, he waited 12 or 13 years to get to Romans. And then his text next week really engages this works verse a faith topic. You're welcome Pastor Jan, I mean, chapters two, three, four just really continue on this topic. We're going to get plenty of that. What I want to stick with today is just what is very clear on the surface of this passage. I have two points to make, let the gravity of the gospel into your life and live in the glory of it. Let the gravity of the gospel into your life and live in the glory of it. To begin, let the gravity of the gospel into your life. Of the many things that our text for today teaches, it says many, one area that's very clear and extremely important and one that everyone in this room can understand is what it says about the stake of judgment. It's clear that the text says, when your life on this earth ends and this present age of God's creation ends, God will give you either eternal life or wrath and fury. He'll give you either eternal life or wrath and fury. You'll receive either glory and honor and immortality and peace, or you'll receive tribulation and distress. Heaven or hell awaits you. Awaits each one of us, as the text talks about. These are weighty topics. When your life on this earth ends, God will give you either eternal life or wrath and fury. You'll receive either glory and honor and immortality and peace, or you'll receive tribulation and distress. Heaven or hell awaits each one of us. You know what I want to do when I come to church? I want to come out and jam a band like we just did. This is week three or four on wrath. I know it's heavy. And I know some of you are saying, "I don't really want to engage this right now. I'm not ready at this point in the morning. The tea was late. I got here late. My heart's not settled. Let's ease into something a little lighter." But one of the points I want to make is that there's never time to address this, to address these topics, heaven, hell, life, death, glory, judgment, wrath, immortality. These are categories that just aren't a part of our culture today. And there's little preparation that we have in the world around us to really engage these topics. Here's a few things. We live in a day where self and the self immediate needs are at the forefront of everybody's thought. I don't need to back that. That's true. We rarely have to think beyond the moment. We have on demand everything, food, entertainment, rides, apps, Amazon Prime, so that we can basically get any item that we want delivered to our door within 24 hours. We live in a day where depth and wisdom is not rewarded or popular. It's all about flash. It's all about image. It's all about what gives somebody a momentary rise. People who read books are not that highly regarded. Depth is not really thought of very highly. I see this with my son in his kindergarten class already. He's five and a half. And you already see the children who are just really just charismatic, personality wise, really beautiful, just really engaging that they have a following. Then the little girl with the curly hair who you can tell is really contemplative, she's not getting as much attention. She's not as appreciated. Like death, wisdom, contemplation of the big topics of life are not commended. We live in a day where we content to use mindfulness and therapy only to find treatments of issues that are deep and foundational. We accept just treatment, whatever distraction, comfort chemical numbs us or temporarily makes us forget the greatest problems we face and the biggest questions that we have. That's what we take. We accept that. Our dreams are filled with us at the center of them. God is not a part of them. The nation, the community, they are not a part of just our future, when we envision where we're going. Lots of young people don't envision having a family coming out of their college and young adulthood. Sin is not called sin. We just don't have a category for it in our country. We're constantly encouraged to push guilt and shame that is from sin, our own sin, our own doing upon those who have ill treated us in the past. Lastly, we pay other people to handle our dead. We send people away to die to nursing homes. For most of history, there were professional wellers and people who were professional at processing grief, helping families through such periods. And we're not to grieve as those without hope. And those who go too far with it, but we just don't deal with illness. We don't deal with death. We don't face it. You look at a situation like today with Ukraine, you look at COVID, those first couple of weeks, people just don't really know how to fathom these moments. The first couple weeks of quarantine I'm talking about, when people were actually really scared that they were going to die. A lot of people just didn't know how to talk about it. The categories of life, death, heaven, hell, we've been distracted away from addressing them. Satan is genius has done that, and we don't really know how to process them. We don't really know when we're faced with the weight of them. It just paralyzes us. We just literally get paralyzed or we do whatever we can to busy ourselves to stay away from them. In our culture, we do everything we can to avoid the fact that death is coming and that judgment is coming. But even in churches, the weight of these topics, the weight of these verses today, it's not felt. Even in churches there's often an atmosphere that God and salvation have only to do with my presenting, relational, financial and mental wellbeing needs. God is only relevant in those moments of victory or when we just need them bad in the pinch. We're content to let the power of the gospel only penetrate those issues that are on the surface for fear of the inconvenience that led in that penetrate further would cause the kind of upheaval that the gospel would cause, should we let it? Jesus said, "You must leave mother and brother and sister and father to follow me faithfully." None of us like to hear that. And just what that looks like in other areas, Christians who look after the needs of others or believe that the gospel, the why in the church, there's also the situation where Christians who actually believe that the gospel is the primary need of every soul in creation, and can help mankind overcome the greatest problems in the world are few. And I just want to clarify, mankind and the just joy and health of America, that is not what we seek first and foremost as Christians. It's not the church just should be a blessing, we should seek to glorify God before we bring just peace and Shalom to the land around us. When we pursue that glory, that's when our power can transcend and go beyond these doors. But the people who really believe in the power of the gospel, to really change people's hearts in eternity and then hear with the world and their engagement with the world are few. And in my role, we have this young church and I'm still pretty young. But one of the conversation that I have often with new Christians in their late teens or early twenties, they come here, they're converted, their hearts are on fire. They're repenting of sin, and their eyes are opened for the first time in their life of just the situation of the world of life, death, heaven, hell, the church. When their eyes are finally opened, they see, how come so few Christians have passion to share the gospel. We don't believe in the gravity of the gospel, the way the depth that it can penetrate into the hearts and lives of the people around us. And the practice of the church that most illustrates that we don't really understand the gravity of the gospel is found in the way that we share the gospel. How do we share the gospel most often today. We say, come to Christ and experience love, joy, peace, and hope that you've never experienced. We say, come to Christ, build your identity on the rock of Jesus Christ. And those are faithful gospel presentations. Those are the presentations that we share exclusively, we're kind of providing a romanticized version of Christianity. When do you ever hear someone go direction of, come to Christ to honor the God who in the splendor of his majesty and holiness is a consuming fire. He will consume anything that is touched by sin. We rarely say, repent of your sin and believe in Jesus so that you can spend eternity in heaven and hell. Everybody in modern Boston, we don't share the gospel with these terms that have gravity. These terms that we see in this passage today. Flee the wrath and fury of God. And I'm not saying you have to go and do this to everybody this week or hold the sign out in public. Sometimes that is appropriate. Everyone in modern Boston, just pausing here on this point, everyone in modern Boston and Brookline hears about love, joy, peace, and hope all the time. And these terms have been hijacked and confused, yet that's what we use in our engagement. You want to make a gospel presentation that lingers on the conscience of somebody, make sure that you talk about life, death, heaven, hell, wrath, sin, repent, forgiveness, justice, holiness. These are the terms that the Apostle Paul used when he shared the gospel. This is what we're reading right now in Romans. And he says, "Do not be ashamed, for it has the power unto God for salvation." This is the book that lit the world on fire when Rome became just the center, just completely pagan place, pagan nation, just the masses were converted and Christianity spread. And this is the book that is just telling us to be shameless in our sharing of the gospel. This is the book that just triggered the great awakening, the reformation. We shy away. The way that we share the gospel, we do it in such a way that we take the gravity out of it. For most Christians, as the gospel, it's only a substantial to the degree that it served them with their most recent struggle with depression, cancer, illness, or relational struggle. And that might sound impressive already but it is not. You see people who really look to the gospels as, it gave me deliverance for this situation. Instead of, it gave me deliverance for my sin in eternity. When life is really tested, when their faith is really challenged, when circumstances of their life are terrible, you see a lot of people drift away with that kind of supposed faith. What our passage shows us today is that the gospel is mainly and primarily about how to be right with God at the day of judgment. The gospel is mainly and primarily about how to be right with God at the day of judgment. It's not primarily about good experiences, feelings and personal preferences for life being met here, but first and foremost, about safety at the judgment and glory beyond. As Christians, we need to let the weight of this statement stay at the forefront of our minds as we walk through life on this earth. When you think about your friends who you supposedly love, but you never share this message with, what could be a more important or urgent topic or weighty topic than your and their misery or glory for all of eternity. I once heard an atheist comedian say, "If I have a Christian friend and he does not share the gospel with me, how much does he really hate me to not share it with me?" We don't trust the gravity of the gospel, and we need to. We need to Let the gravity of the gospel come into our lives. Athletes and musicians know the power of keeping, just what their craft is all about at the forefront of their minds. They know the importance of constantly visualizing themselves receiving, in the midst of the battle, in the midst of the game, the fight, then visualizing receiving primarily, what do they visualize, receiving the trophy or metal with their team, with confetti flying around. Or they themselves performing with those of lights on them. They know that if they don't prepare with any other mindset, they probably won't get on the field or they'll get destroyed on the field, or they won't get on the stage. It'll just be a travesty. Tom Brady, he knows that he can't come out of retirement again just to throw the ball around for giggles. If he wants to come back, if he doesn't want his body to get destroyed, he has to just really come back with that mentality that he has had for 20 years or whatever saying, "I'm here to get that trophy from Roger Goodell, despite the awkwardness of us standing next to each other." Tom needs that mindset. We need that mindset. We need to let the gravity, what is most essential that the gospel delivers us from eternal wrath and fury at the forefront of our minds. That is what is going to drive us to persevere. That is what is going to drive us to greater acts of faithfulness and service. And how do you do it? I want to just do just a different activity for mosaic. I want to help you. I want to tell you how to talk to yourself, talk others. Children, I hate to say this, but someday you are going to die. I hope that you get to live a long and joyful life, but there's a chance that you might be really young when you die. It happens to some people. When you die sooner, but hopefully later, you'll either enter eternal life with God or face God's anger forever. Fortunately, you don't have to fear death. God has given his son Jesus to die for sinners. He said that, everyone who believes in him will not go to hell, but have eternal life. I know you have a lot of fun and important things to do, but you need to care about death. Keep listening to me today and ask your parents, especially your dad to teach you more about Jesus and how you can be in heaven forever. Teenagers, look up from your screen and take in God's creation around you. Take in what is truly good in it. Don't build your sense of significance around what other people think of you. Don't give the best of your energy and attention to TikTok videos or Snapchats that last a moment and disappear and lose relevance forever. If you do, you may find that your mind and heart are so influenced by the world that you'll have literally no sense of what is truly good and godly and pure when you say you're going to think about this when you're older. College students, most of you have a parent/benefactor who is literally committed to paying for every penny of your cost of living for several years, to think about the big topics of life and eternity. You will never have this kind of opportunity or the time to do it again. Wake up every morning, go to the cafeteria when it opens at 6:00 or 6:30 AM, get your free food, read the word of God, memorize it, chew on it and pray, and then treat your classes like they're your 9:00 to 5:00 so that you can actually have a tent making skill in your ministry later. You think these are big commands, but they're not. You're an adult. Don't extend your adolescence. Don't blindly accept the skubala that your professors, that's a theological term, kind of like horse pucky. Don't accept the skubala that your professors are serving you in class. Engage all that you learn with the Bible. Don't be too proud to ask for questions and clarity and explanation when you prayerfully and honestly ask the big questions or stand on scripture when nobody else is. Trust that the Lord will be there with you. He'll give you wisdom to face that moment and to move forward. And then young married couples and singles in the prime of your life. And this is word for word. I got this from someone else, because it was just too good. Be aware of being swept into the all consuming demands of your careers, only to find yourselves gasping for some fun and entertainment on the weekend, finding your relief from worldly work and worldly fun. And waking perhaps someday to realize you have no taste for things of God. You have become a connoisseur of restaurants and videos and movies, sports and stocks and computers and a hundred transient things. And all the while, your sense of heaven and hell has died. Wake up before it's too late and tremble at these things today. And set your minds to think about the biggest issues in the universe, eternal life or wrath. All the young men and women with no hair or light or shades of hair in here today, don't deny that the end of your days could be approaching fast. And that brings concern to your soul. Don't wait for another day. Don't wait for retirement. Honestly, ask yourself if you are ready to face your maker. If you find that you are not, confess your sin and ask God to cloth you with the righteousness of Jesus. Don't shy away from building the legacy of being the grandparent friend, aunt or uncle who only talks about Jesus. To the nonbeliever, I know you don't want to hear me talk to you in this semi awkward format. I say, listen to your conscience. When it tells you that you're not in the right before your maker, don't do all that you can to suppress it. At the rare moments when you're confronted by death, don't deny its repulsion. Don't deny that eternity is written on your heart and death conflicts with that. Flee from sin through death and fury for and run to your heavenly father who's waiting longing for you to come home because of Jesus sacrifice for you on the cross. You think these topics are too weighty to engage, but you're missing half the message of the gospel. Yes, they are heavy by worldly standards to engage. But the point of the gospel is that Jesus took the full weight of your sin on the cross. And the God-man was able to take that weight, take the penalty that you deserve, bear that wrath and he overcame it and rose from the dead. And you can have freedom from the authority of that sin, this weight that you feel when you engage these topics, just by believing that Jesus did that for you. To all of USA, let gospel gravity into your life. You nerds who wish that I really did a technical discussion of verse six, let the gravity of the gospel into your life. Worship the Lord, not just with your mind and strength, but also with your heart and soul. In a city like Boston, we have a lot more of those people who want that technical discussion, but they don't want the gravitas, the weight of the gospel to hit them. It interrupts their efficiency. You need to allow space in your schedule. Allow space in your heart. I know it's a relatively simple point to emphasize. Let the gravity of the gospel into your life, especially for those who have been in the church for a long time. But it's particularly you who need to ponder about this. And before I go further, this is the meditation of my heart and mind in my prayer life. most of my prayer life is saying, "Lord, I know that you are God. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that Jesus went to the cross for me. I know that he's delivered me from the penalty of your wrath forever. And that just by a simple matter of faith, trust in you, I get to go to heaven." But today, that does not move my heart. Lord, why, what has numbed my senses? What has numbed my soul today to the point that I am not moved by this. It's okay if this ends up becoming your daily prayer life. That's me 75% of the mornings. But I have to get up and engage that fight. I fight it. I push for it and I have to get that peace with God on a vertical level so that I can engage the world properly on a horizontal level. So I can truly love people and extend compassion to them in the name of Jesus. But this topic, it's something that I engage with, that gravity of this message hit me. And if there's something wrong, it's not because God has changed. It's because something in my heart has changed. And this point, I really think this is the message of Romans 1:18 to 3:20, this whole section on wrath. 1:18 begins with, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all and godliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 3:20 goes, "For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." What this whole section is saying, it's Paul beginning with gospel saying that you have to feel the depth of your status before God, apart from Jesus, in order to go into end of chapter three and four, to see how glorious his light is. To see how amazing and astonishing the gospel is that it's only by faith in Christ, that he took the wrath for you. You have to enter these depths, you have to enter the gravity of the gospel to be able to see its glory. But furthermore, people of the church, especially those who have been here for a while, in the church for a while, this is just the message that you need to hear the gravity and let the gravity enter into your life. This is really important because, just throughout church history, throughout the Bible, it's really the saints who forgot this, that led them to doing heinous sin. Those who forgot how their life fits into God's big story of redemption, this is the downfall of many of them. Think of King David, a man after God's own heart who wrote some of the heaviest literature, the heaviest poetry in the history of the world. Think of Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me. Prophetically, just engaging Christ excruciating pain on the cross 800 years before it actually happened. David who understood the gospel to that degree saw into God's heart. He forgot. He forgot the gravity of it all. He forgot his role in God's history of redemption. He went out one day on his porch and started looking at women bathing. That led to great tragedy. Fortunately, he knew to turn and receive God's grace in the moment. But many times in church history, people fall asleep. In the New Testament, the occasion for writing many of the books that we have in the New Testament, it was when Christians forgot that the gospel of salvation in Jesus was primarily the good news that they needed for eternity. And what Paul's engaging in those moments is, because they forgot that, they just started engaging the church, trying to project their preferences, their longings, their desires for how the church functioned onto the church. So that those things took precedence over the gospel. And that's what we have in Romans. Yes, with Romans the whole book, he's kind of given them, "Hey, this is my gospel. I'm going to travel to you one day. I want to make sure we're on the same page here." But he knew about this situation. It was a church that was filled with Jews and Gentiles. There was a lot of tension actually. The church was started by Jews, probably met in synagogues. The Jews were booted out of the city in AD 49 because of tensions between Jews and Gentiles about Christ. And then the church was taken over by Gentiles. And while the Jews were out of the city and as they crept back in, the Jews and Gentiles were battling over how the church should run. Should the Jewish calendar be observed, should the Gentiles? We're looking down upon the Jews for some of the things that stirred their conscience and vice versa. Paul is writing this book here to explain to them like, "Hey, if this is where your minds are, if this is how your faith, now that the honeymoon period has ended, if this is what fills your mind, you're missing the gravity of it all. And you need to repent and you need to just look at the basics of the gospel." And I'm going to begin with wrath very thoroughly for you. You're missing the gravity. I worked for a church before mosaic one time. And there was an issue where, there was a battle over what knife to use to cut the communion bread. And that battle got so big. It had to travel up to the pastors. And churches wonder where is their power? Where is their authority? It's because they've lost the focus. They've lost sense of the gravity of the gospel. They wonder why their lamp stand has gone out. I've just sat here made you think about the gravity of it this whole time, but I do want to point to you, let the gravity of the gospel into your life, and when you do that, live in the glory of it. Those who are really in Jesus, as you let the gravity of the gospel into your life, you'll be brought to praise and glory and honor, as you ponder the immortality, the salvation, the glory that you have at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I emphasize, yes, the gospel is primarily about how to be right with God at the day of judgment, but live in the glory of it today. Verse seven, it talks about, to those who by patience and well doing seek for glory and honor, and immortality, seek, that's an active connotation, seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Verse 10, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. What Paul's talking about here is, show yourself elevation to be true. Eventually, Pastor Jan is going to get up on stage and tell you in a couple weeks, again, for the thousandth of time, that salvation is actually by grace through faith. It's not by works. We do need to think about this engagement here in detail. By salvation, by grace through faith, it's gifted to you and you only have to receive this message in faith to have eternal life. And you're called out of thanksgiving for what God has done to you, by patience and well doing seek for glory. By persistence and well doing. As an expression of your faith to prove it genuine, work it out in your life. By taking on callings, doing good works for God's glory. These are primarily talking about eternal benefits, but we can desire to make them our own today in our life. And this is again, engaging the context Paul show that he wants the Romans to grow in glory in Romans 15:5-7. Chapter 14 and 15, Paul engages these tensions and these stupid debates that the Romans were having at the distraction of emphasizing the gospel in the community. He says, "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one other, in accord with Christ Jesus. That together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. What's at stake he's saying, if you keep squabbling over these just minor shortsighted topics, is the glory of God. Paul wants the Romans to start fighting for God's glory in their lives, in the church today. He wants them to repent of this short sightedness, to repent of just going into the community of God and pursuing their own preferences that they be upheld. He wants them to have vision for greater things in their life, to see God glorified. It's okay to read from these verses, I want that glory today. I want God's name to be glorified in the world, in every nation. I want every tribe to hear his word and glorify him. I want God's name to be glorified in my life, such that his righteousness is manifested more and more, as I step forward. I want God to grow in glory by seeing the fruit of the holy spirit increase in my life. I want to grow in the gifts that I have. I want more of the gifts. I want greater levels of sanctification. I want sin to have less impact on my life. I want God's glory to increase in my life. When on mission, I step out in weakness and see his power made manifest through my humble efforts. This glory of the doxa in the text and Greek, it's kind of the term that's used hundreds of times, you can't really get specific. Glory is an all encompassing. There's many facets of it, and we should pursue them all. And most importantly, make sure that it's God's glory that we're persuing, not our own first and foremost. A lot of Christians and biblical circles don't want to talk in this way. I think we're afraid to just get a little too close to prosperity gospel. But we need to drop the kind of faul humility that says that we don't want God's glory to grow in our lives. The saints of history were people who wanted to experience God's glory more and see it spread in the world and their own hearts. Think of Moses, as he pleaded with God to see him and God let him eventually see his backside. King David, yes, he did have his stumbling, but David was called a man after God's own heart. David understood it. David knew that life wasn't about him, but about God and God fulfilling his redemptive purposes for man and whatever happened, all glory be to him. And David wanted to see God's name so glorified that, at a big moment when the Ark of Israel just representing the presence, containing the presence of God, was on its way to Jerusalem, he essentially danced in his win and effort. His underwear, he thrust off all public forms that would bring him adoration to just show his excitement, to see God be glorified in this moment. Nehemiah, a man who was just in the cushiest job possible for Jew in exile as the wine taster of the king of Persia, a man who his heart was broken to just simply hear that God's holy city Jerusalem was left unprotected. The walls had come down. He left that job in order to honor and glorify God to go rebuild that wall with enemies all around him. These people, these men, and some women in scripture, think of Esther sacrificing in her life, putting her life on the line for God's glory. These people knew the gravity of the gospel. They knew the stakes that were before them and they saw to maximize God's glory in the way that they did everything in their life. Who really model modeled this, the Apostle Paul, he said, the man with the greatest ministry apart from Jesus, in the line of Jesus. He said, "But whatever gain I had ... This is Philippians 3:7-16. "But whatever gain I had, I counted as lost for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as lost because of the surpassing worth of known Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I've offered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection. And may share in his sufferings, becoming like him and his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I've already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I've made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. But those of us who are mature, think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained." Paul's saying, "Think like me." It's okay for a pastor or to say that. Think like me. In my family, I know I'm not anybody. I am a simple man. I've struggled with speech my whole life throughout elementary school. They sent me to speech therapy. I just didn't talk. I had a cousin in my class who did the talking for me. I was efficient. I didn't need to say anything. But I'm nobody. I know I'm not a world class public speaker. I know that I don't have the greatest technical skills, the greatest organizational skills, but I'm trying to live my life to maximize glory of God with what he's given me. And with the resources that he has put at my disposal. If each and every one of us in the church imagine how much he would be glorified, that's the top thing that should be on our minds. And then imagine his grace, his love, his power pouring, his glory pouring through society. And I would say, I am just a simple man. And people's lives change when they engage with me. I think it's only because in my alone time, I fight for faithfulness. It's only because I'm trying to fight sin early and just call upon, "Lord, I need you right now in this. In my own personal fights and as I engage these fights that I'm called to do as a member of this church and in my job as a pastor." And people do change. You don't have to be a public speaker like Pastor Jan. Every one of us has the holy spirit of God working in us. And he promises to gift every single member of the church for the good and upbuilding and mission and power of the church. If the gospel, you have the message, you have this message with gravity that can change people's lives for eternity forever. And even if you don't see that happening, all glory be to God. he's chosen to save some and not others. But when you step out in faithfulness, all glory be to him, and ultimately one day he will bring full justice when Jesus Christ returns. And when we focus on that faithfulness, that's when he is glorified. Do you think this life is too heavy? These topics of wrath, judgment, death, heaven, hell, sin, repentance, faith, are too much to graph, too much to chew on. If so, you're missing the key message of the gospel. Christ already took the weight that we feel when we engage these topics and see that we naturally, on our own accord, are subject to wrath and punishment and fury. We don't have to feel that burden. We can live in the light. We can live in freedom. We don't have to all become religious zealots with my message when I say pursue the glory of God. There's freedom to this life. And particularly, that freedom that sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ, that's what frees people to become who they really are. That's what glorifies God. Let that gravity of the gospel into your life and live in the glory of it. And just trust that when you share it with others, that they can experience the same glory. If you do feel the weight of burden of all this and just struggling to persevere going forward, standing on this word of the world, I just want to close with 2nd Corinthians 4:16-18. We do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. That's the good stuff, God's glory growing within us. For this light momentary friction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient. But the things that are unseen are eternal. Lets pray. Lord, we just come to you and we acknowledge that have looked to the things that are seen too much at the cost of not looking at the things that are unseen. Lord, we pray that your spirit would call us out of our slumber. Call us out of our apathy, call us out of just the sloth in which we live and give us great visions, a great vision for life and your glory. Life in eternity with you, but more specifically, while we're awaiting Jesus' return. Give us vision for how we can pursue your glory, greater in the world, that it would be maximized in the world and in us. Lord, show us the steps that we need to take to honor you. And Lord, when we step out in faith, when we share this message, that just the penalty of sin is death, wrath, fury, we pray that people would hear your voice. That they would be stricken with fear. They would be confronted at the thought of your holiness. But then Lord, incline their hearts, use us to incline their hearts to turn to and look at Jesus to see that the penalty has already been paid. Lord I pray that we would be able to walk in the freedom of just newness that we have in Jesus Christ that will last forever. And we pray that you would use us to walk in that newness. While the world is routing away lord, we just pray, use us, in your process to make all things new again. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.