The Unforgivable Sin
October 15, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Mark 3:20–35
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/ For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I'm the youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston, and whenever I get the opportunity to preach, I always say it is my honor and my privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. We will be continuing our sermon series through the book of Mark. We'll be in Mark 3:20-35, and the sermon series title is Kingdom Come. And we're going to be looking at what does life in the kingdom of God look like? What does that look like here? But before we get into the text in today's sermon, I have something to say. "I will never forgive you." Harsh words to hear on a Sunday morning. First service was even more appalled. No, I hope you know that I'm not saying that seriously. You have not offended me. You have not done anything to cause me to hold forgiveness from you. But I want to know what would it take for us to say that to someone? What would someone have to do to us to say to them, "I will never forgive you." Maybe it's something as simple as, "If you lie to me, you break my trust, there's no way I could ever trust you again. I will never forgive you." Maybe say, "Oh, I'm a little bit more holy than that. They would have to cheat on me in a relationship. That I couldn't forgive." And then maybe someone says, "I'm a little bit more holy than that they would have to murder someone I love in order for me not to forgive them." Maybe it's things going on in the world and you say, "I could never forgive that." Maybe you're here and you're saying this is church on a Sunday. This is a trap. I know the right Sunday school answer is, "I'll forgive everyone of everything." I would ask you, does your heart really truly reflect that? If we're honest with ourselves, is there anything that we say and believe someone can do to us and we will never forgive them? Now, what if I told you that there is something that God Himself says he will never forgive? Now, this is the harsh reality of the text that we will be in is what we call the unforgivable sin that Jesus says is an eternal sin that will never be forgiven. We're going to get to that. But before we do, I want to point out something that's really important about it. It's a sin against God, not a sin against man. So what does that mean? It means that we are not able to have a sin that we withhold forgiveness from others, right? That's not our job. God is the one who forgives and declares that this one sin is unforgivable. So with that sombering mood to set the tone for our service today, will you pray with me over the reading and preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that you are a God who forgives. You are a God of mercy and grace, but you do not take sin lightly. Lord, help us to not take our sins against you lightly. Convict us where we need to be convicted. Help us to turn and run to you in repentance, knowing that you do desire to forgive and you are willing, ready, and able to forgive. Help us to trust you more. Lord, use this time. Encourage your church, speak through me. Speak through your word and your scriptures to encourage and strengthen your church and convict us where we need to be convicted. In Jesus' name, amen. So it is going to be a hard text today and there's a lot going on in it, but I do want to say I believe it is an encouragement to us. I have been greatly encouraged in my studies of this text this week, and I hope it's an encouragement to you. And so to be able to frame up our time, we're going to be spending in three sections. I hesitate to call them points. They are pretty distinct thoughts, but at the end we'll wrap it all together. We'll see how it's all connected. But our three ideas for the sermon are one, liar or lunatic, liar, or Lord, we'll get to that. Number two, the unforgivable sin. And number three, right relationship with Jesus Christ. So that's how we'll be framing our time today. And this is what we see in our text in Mark 3:20-35. If you have your Bibles, you could open it, you could find it on your phone or you could follow along on the screens behind me. God's word says, "Then He, Jesus, went home and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when His family heard it, they went out to seize Him. For they were saying, 'He is out of His mind.' And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying He's possessed by Beelzebul and by the prince of demons, he cast out demons and he called them to him and said to them in parables, 'how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, the house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven. The children of man and whatever blasphemes they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin,' for they had said he has an unclean spirit." "And His mother and His brothers came and standing outside, they sent to Him and called Him and a crowd was sitting around Him and they said to Him, 'your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.' And He answered them, 'who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking about at those who sat around Him, He said, 'here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother'." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Point number one, the fun one, lunatic, liar or Lord? This is a phrase that was coined by C.S. Lewis in terms of these are the options that he presented that we can believe about Jesus and who He is. You can either believe that He is a lunatic, a man out of His mind claiming to be God. Think about it. Where in society today do we see people who claim to be God? Most of the times it's in some sort of institution because society has said, "You're not in your right mind." Second is liar, that Jesus claimed to be God. And so He willfully led people onto believe that even though He knew he wasn't and He was lying to lead people to follow Him. Or thirdly, that He is Lord, that He is who He says He is. And this idea was brought up by C.S. Lewis to combat the idea of Jesus as a good moral teacher and philosopher. This is something that I think is still prevalent in our society today. We're okay with saying that Jesus brought good ideas that help society, that Jesus is a good man with moral teachings, and so it was good for society that He came. But C.S. Lewis argues we cannot hold that position because good people do not claim to be God. If He willingly knew that He was God, then He was who He says He was. And if He willingly knew He wasn't and lied about it, then He's a liar and He is not a good person. So these are the only three options that C.S. Lewis presents. And many scholars believe that this text in Mark is where C.S. Lewis gets this idea from because we see all of these options here and we're going to go through them. The first option is lunatic. And this is the very first two verses, verse 20 and 21. "Then He, Jesus, went home and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when His family heard it, they went out to seize Him, for they were saying, 'He is out of His mind'." His family, His mother and His siblings said about Him, "You're out of your mind. You're crazy." This is what we mean when we say lunatic. And for the context of where this chapter falls, in the previous sections, Jesus has been healing people and been casting out demons. And while He's doing that, more and more people are coming to Him, bringing their sick, bringing those that are demon oppressed for Jesus to heal them. And so such a great crowd comes around Jesus that He goes down by the sea, He goes, "I can't stay in the city anymore. It's too much chaos. We're going down by the sea." And then the crowd got greater and greater and greater to the point that Jesus was like, "I need to retreat up in the mountains. I'm taking my disciples. We're going up to the mountains to be with the Lord and then we'll come back eventually." So Jesus is up in the mountains and then verse 20, "Then He went home." So He's coming down from His retreat in the mountains to home, but where is home? Home is in Capernaum. It is most likely Peter's house, not His own home. Why is this what we believe? Is because Peter's house is the only house mentioned in the book of Mark and His family had to go out to find Him. So it's not His parents' house, 'cause they wouldn't have to go anywhere to find Jesus. So it's not His parents' house. It's most likely Peter's house. So He comes down from this retreat and everyone's like, "He's back. Let's go find Him." So the crowd gathers again and they're swarming Him with so many people that need healing and casting out of demons that they don't have time to even eat. They can't gather anything, they're just working the miracles of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. And His family sees it and they're like, what kind of person draws such a crowd? What kind of person spends so much time with the sick and demon oppressed? He must be out of His mind. He must be crazy. So that's the first option that we see people believing about who Jesus is. And the second is that He's a liar. And this is the next verse, verse 22. "And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, 'He is possessed by Beelzebub and by the prince of demons, he casts out demons'." And so the scribes come down to see what's going on with this great gathering and they find Jesus casting out demons and they're saying, no, no, He's saying He's doing it by the power of God. He has claimed to be God the Messiah, but no, He's a liar. He's doing it by the power of Satan instead. That's a bold, bold claim. Now the purpose of the book of Mark is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the one true messiah, that He is God come to earth and Mark has written this book to convince the Jewish readers of his day that Jesus is the Messiah and its purpose is the same for us today. Yes, I agree with C.S. Lewis in a lot of ways that these are the only three options. We cannot say Jesus is a good person, but the Gospel's point is there's only one option. You could say that He looks like a lunatic. You can accuse Him of being a liar, but those do not hold any weight. He is clearly who He says He is. He is Lord. And Jesus proves that point in the following verses. This is Mark 3:23-26. "Jesus then calls the scribes to Him and said to them in parables, 'how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, the kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end'." Jesus defeats the arguments of lunatic or liar by these few sentences and appeals to the scribe's natural understanding of the world. Logically, He says, can Satan cast out Satan? How is that even possible? Think about it this way, if that doesn't make sense to you, how can a kingdom divided against itself stand? Think about a kingdom that's at constant civil war with one another. How is that kingdom going to stand until one of the side cedes to the other and there is unity between the two. It can't. Constant battle will eventually destroy them. So a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. And if you're saying Jesus is casting out demons by the power of demons that makes no sense. It would be a kingdom divided. But maybe the kingdom analogy doesn't work as well. So what about a household? It says a house divided against itself cannot stand? Unfortunately, this is one that many of us are much more familiar with in our day and age is the broken household. How can a broken household stand? How can a household where mother and father are constantly pitted against one another, arguing without any unity, without any forgiveness, how can that household stand? And most of the times it does not. And Jesus is appealing to their logic. He's appealing to their reason, He's appealing to their natural sense of saying, what you are accusing me of makes no sense. And by doing this, He defeats both arguments of lunatic and liar. The argument that He's making is against Him being a liar. He is saying, "I'm not lying. What you're saying, it doesn't make any sense." And He proves not to be a lunatic because He's in His right mind and He's able to out reason the scribes. Well, the question is who are the scribes? Scribes aren't just your average, everyday Joe Schmo on the block who likes to pick fights and argue? No, the scribes were religious lawyers. So they were the ones who were charged with interpreting the laws of scripture and giving it to the synagogues, that's the temple to the Jewish people, for what to follow. It was their job essentially to be the most logical and reasonable. And Jesus outlogiced and reasoned them. And He is saying, I cannot be a lunatic. I'm in my right mind. I'm more reasonable than the most reasonable people in our society. And I'm not a liar. I just proved that in the argument. So what else is there? Is Jesus who He says He is? Is He Lord? Is He God? And this is verse 27. Verse 27 is actually a statement, a claim of divinity by Jesus. Jesus says, "But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed, he may plunder his house." The strong man here is not Jesus. The strong man here is Satan. The argument is if you're casting out demons by the power of Satan, that's what they're accusing Him of, He's saying, how can I do that unless I first bind the strong man, bind Satan, then I can cast out the demons, then I could go in and plunder his house. So what Jesus is saying is He's not the strong man, but in order to be able to bind a strong man, what do you need to be? You need to be stronger. Jesus is saying, I am the stronger man. I am the strongest man. And that is where the statement takes place in terms of Jesus claiming His divine authority that he is God, because in the spiritual realm, everyone at this time understood that the most powerful spiritual being was Satan, apart from one, that there was only one who was greater in power and might than Satan, and that was God Himself. So by Jesus saying, I am stronger than Satan, He is saying to the people and they well understood it, I am God. Jesus doesn't just defeat plausible arguments about who He might be. He declares boldly that He is God. And as we are going to transition into this topic of the unforgivable sin, the first thing that we need to talk about before we get anywhere near there is who do you say Jesus is? Who is Jesus to you? I want to put forward this to you and argue and plead with you to hear that Jesus is who He says He is. He is Lord, whatever cultural or societal or prejudices or ideas about Jesus that you might have, I urge you to consider is He who He says He is? And I promise you that He is God, He is Lord, and He is savior. And that is the setup for this section on the unforgivable sin. And this is verses 28 through 30 where Jesus says, "'Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven. The children of man and whatever blasphemes they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin,' for they had said He has an unclean spirit." So before we get to the awkwardness of the unforgivable sin, we have to understand that this is ultimately about forgiveness as a whole and it's forgiveness by God. This is what I mentioned in the beginning, and John Piper wrote an article on his website about these verses and he says this, "First, the forgiveness in view is God's forgiveness. The sweetest news for a sinner is that God has forgiven him, that God no longer holds his sins against him. But the worst news in the world is that God will never forgive you. God is the one to reckon with. What men think about our sin is relatively unimportant. What God thinks is infinitely important." So we're talking about forgiveness from God and what does Jesus say? The first part that he says, "All sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemes they utter." I want to pause there because oftentimes this gets lost by the following section of the unforgivable sin, we can't even hear these words of Jesus. Do you feel the weight of these words, all sins will be forgiven the children of man? I kind of say, do you feel the weight of that facetiously because it's light, it's freeing, it's something that sets us free, that we know with certainty God is able and willing to forgive us of anything we do. Do we run to Him in forgiveness? And not only is He willing, He is able, He's able, He's powerful enough to do it. This is my favorite part of that strong man section that I skimmed over a little bit. But He says He's going to go in and plunder the goods once He binds the strong man. So Jesus is strong enough to bind the strong man and plunder his goods. What is pluming goods? It's taking the goods from, say, someone's house and then bringing them into your own and saying, These are now mine, making them your own. Well, what are the goods of the kingdom of Satan and what are the goods of the kingdom of God? What are the most valuable possessions of them? It's people, it's you, it's me. It's souls. It's eternal beings that Jesus doesn't just sit back and say, "I could forgive you if you want," but he says, I am actively going in and I am plundering. I am setting free those who are in captivity to the kingdom of Satan, those who are in captivity to sin and to death and to Satan. Jesus comes in and plunders us. He sets us free from that and brings us into His kingdom and says, "You are mine now." That is the freedom of this verse and it's really important that we get it before we get to the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit because we like to hold onto the like, what about the but? But the main thing here is that there is ultimate complete forgiveness from God for all sins. Psalm 130:10-13 says this, "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love towards those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him." God's love is so great. It is higher than the heavens. It is so great that He's willing and able and powerful enough to forgive us of all of our sins if we just turn to Him and repent. And the incredible thing about this is even if you called Jesus a lunatic or a liar or anything else, any other words under the sun, Jesus is willing to forgive you of that. Many of us at one point in time, maybe were angry with God, maybe said some things we didn't necessarily mean or maybe we did mean and don't want to admit that we meant it. But if we have called Jesus a lunatic or a liar, God is willing to forgive. If we have hated Jesus and even hated some of His teachings and said, "I don't like what the Bible says about X, Y, or Z," God is willing to forgive. Even if we say, "I hate God's people, I hate Christians, I hate the church," even if we have ever said any of those things, God is still willing and ready and able to forgive. So if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I want to encourage you, God is looking to forgive you. He is willing and ready to forgive. Nothing that you have done is so grievous that He will not forgive. And if you're here today and you're a Christian, what this means is that we can joyfully repent when we have the conviction of sin because we know that He wants to forgive us. So then you're all wondering, we're all wondering what about the exception to the rule? What about this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Where does this come in? I have always said that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is equating the works of the Holy Spirit to the work of Satan or to the demonic, and that is true in a lot of senses. I think it's a clear example of how we see this sin take place and it's the example we see here in our text, but I think it's a little bit more nuanced and the heart of the sin is a little bit more nuanced. And John Piper, in his article on these verses, again, the same article says this, "What then is it? The unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an act of resistance which belittles the Holy Spirit so grievously that He withdraws forever His convicting power so that we are never able to repent and be forgiven." I'm going to say that again. "Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an act of resistance, which belittles the Holy Spirit so grievously that He withdraws forever with His convicting power so that we are never able to repent and be forgiven." This is important because what it means is there is no sin so grievous that God holds a grudge and won't forgive. I think the initial thought-provoking question of what would someone have to do for us to say to them, "I will never forgive you?" Our mind immediately goes to how bad of a sin is that thing going to be? And the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not unforgivable because it's so bad that God is incapable of forgiving. No, and it's not that. It just is this one thing God said, "I guess I can't forgive it, so I'm stuck in this and I can't forgive." No, it's a belittling of the Holy Spirit so grievously that the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, we push away, we say we want nothing to do with you. We remove the ability of God's convicting power from our lives so that way we are never caused to repent and therefore cannot be forgiven. This is where the word that the scribes use to describe the spirit that they believe God is or that Jesus is working through is so important. It's the word Beelzebul. Beelzebul. It's a actual nickname for Satan. Not a good nickname. But the title for Satan that they're kind of doing a play on is Beelzebub. The name Beelzebub means Prince of Demons or Ruler of Demons. And so that was kind of the formal name that Satan was called by. But man, the Jewish people and the scribes, they had a great sense of humor. We think that we're the greatest memers of all time, memers, look at me, I don't use memes ever, but we think that we have the best memes of all time, but it's just that we have the internet to spread it more. But the Jewish people are like, yeah, Beelzebub, we'll call them Beelzebul. Well, what does that mean? Beelzebul, by changing one letter, they changed the name from Ruler of Demons to Lord of the Flies or Lord of Dung. In a lot of ways this was a relatively good thing. Satan is not Lord of anything good, all that he rules leads to death, destruction, despair, you could say dung. The issue is the scribe said the clear working of the Holy Spirit is as dung to us. Those are harsh words to say about the Holy Spirit. It's a harsh thing to say about the Spirit of God. And Jesus's warning against the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. He uses the words very specifically saying, Holy Spirit. This is something that I learned. I don't know when, but I didn't know growing up, and I don't know if you guys know this, but the Holy Spirit is not His formal name. It's not like Holy, His first name, Spirit, His last name. It's a descriptive word many times throughout scripture, Jesus just calls Him Spirit or the Spirit of God. Holy is not a requirement to be attached, but it's an identifier. And Jesus uses this very intentionally here to counteract the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is saying the spirit you are working with is dung to us. And He says, no, no, I'm going to tell you who the spirit is. It's the Holy Spirit, it's the anointed one, it's the cleanse, holy, clean spirit of God. That is the power by which Jesus is working His miracles here. So the question then becomes, okay, that's a whole lot of theological talk. What does it mean for us today? First, very simply, honor the Holy Spirit. Bestow honor upon whom honor is due. And this is one of the beautiful things that I love about the Trinity, is that each person of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bestows honor on the others. The Father bestows honor upon the Son and upon the Spirit, the Son bestows honor upon the Spirit and upon the Father, and the Spirit bestows honor upon the Son and on the Father. And I think oftentimes we neglect to honor the spirit because of two temptations. One is that we are very academic, intellectually based people. And so spiritual things tend to be harder to understand. They don't come as naturally to understand. And so we kind of shy away from it a little bit. Or the other temptation is to over exalt the giftings of the spirit, right? We say the Spirit enables people to do good things, to prophesy, to teach, to do all these wonderful good things. So we want the gifts more than we want the Spirit. And so, one thing that we are called to do in terms of avoiding and getting as far away from the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is to just honor the Spirit, recognize His working in our lives, recognize the conviction of sin when we feel it, recognize the gift of comfort and peace in hard times as a gift of the Holy Spirit, that God is with us, He is not leaving us. That when we are able to do work for the glory of God, that it is a blessing of the Holy Spirit and praise God for His spirit and ask for more. Say, Lord, I need more help. Lord, give me more of your spirit. Help me to live for you. And the second thing, and I think the most directly relatable to this text that we are called to do in terms of avoiding the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, is if you feel conviction of sin, don't take it for granted. Don't take it for granted. If you feel conviction of sin, don't say, "Yeah, but it's not that bad of a sin. I know I got to work on it, but I'll deal with it later." Don't say, "No, I don't believe that's a sin. God, I think I'm okay. I'm going to hold onto this for now." When you feel conviction of sin, repent quickly. And while you are able and ready to forgive or ready to be forgiven and to repent, remembering again that God is willing, all sins, He says, will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemes they utter. So God wants to forgive when you feel that conviction go and repent. And I think one of the lies of Satan is that when we feel conviction, we associate it with guilt and with shame. What I want to tell you today is recognize that the conviction is a gift from God of the Holy Spirit. It's a good thing. It is something to rejoice over when we feel conviction and not be ashamed about because we could say, hey, the Holy Spirit's still with me. God is with me. He's talking to me. He's correcting me, He's guiding me. It's a blessing. It is a good thing to feel conviction of the Holy Spirit. And the other side of this is the more that we reject that conviction, the easier it becomes to continually reject that conviction of sin. In a separate account of Jesus warning His disciples about this sin a second time, in Luke chapter 12, it immediately follows the passage on the warning of the leaven of the Pharisees. Well, what is that? Jesus is warning His disciples about what He calls the leaven of the Pharisees, which is a little bit of yeast, a little bit of leaven that gets into a loaf of dough will eventually take over the whole thing and the whole thing will be infected with this leaven. And so beware of the little things, beware of the little sins that continually perpetuate within you and ultimately lead to something that is much greater than what it set out and started out as. And I believe that this connection is very intentional with the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit because the more we continually reject the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the more we're going to do it, the more we're going to say, "No, that's okay. I'm good. No, I don't need to repent. I'm fine. I'm good." Until we get to the point where we're like the scribes who stand above the law, they say, we're the ones given the right to interpret the law. We're the ones given authority to say the do's and don'ts of the scriptures. I don't need to repent 'cause I know what I'm talking about. I know what I'm doing. Beware in the leaven of the Pharisees, beware the rejection of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not a one-time event. It's not something that you say once and it's like, "Oh, sorry, you're done. No hope." It actually comes out of the state of our hearts. It reveals the state of our hearts. And in Matthew chapter 12, it's the same story of Jesus warning, the scribes and the Pharisees about the sin of the blaspheme of the Holy Spirit. But He doesn't stop there. He continues. Matthew continues the account of what Jesus says to them. And in Matthew 12:33, it says, "Either make the tree good and it's fruit good or make the tree bad and it's fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers. How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." I'm going to stop there for now. But for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Jesus knew the heart of the scribes and of the Pharisees. This wasn't just something that they were wrong about. This wasn't just them not believing in Jesus. Within their hearts, they had built up this resentment towards the working of God. Why? Because they had a nice job. They had a good living. They were high in society and anything that challenged that, they wanted nothing to do with. And so they put themselves over God and over His scriptures rather than submitting to it and trusting the conviction of the Holy Spirit to the point that they have belittled the spirit so much that they couldn't hear that conviction any longer. What I want to say to you is I do believe that this text is an encouragement. I know you might be like, "How? Why?" It's an encouragement because again, we cannot forget God's willingness and readiness to forgive us when we repent. And also it's an encouragement because if you have ever worried, maybe you're worried now, have I done that? Have I committed the sin? Oh, maybe I'm headed down that way. That's a good sign because it means that God is convicting you, right? It means that the Holy Spirit is still with you, is still active, is still moving in your life. Many people when they talk about this sin, they'll say, if you ever fear that you have committed it's proof that you haven't. And I agree because that is the conviction of the Holy Spirit within you saying that you're not in a right place with God. And then whatever you need to do to get in a right place with God, do and repent of whatever sins the Holy Spirit is convicting you of. So Jesus proves that He is Lord, which proves that the working He is doing is by the power of the Holy Spirit and He exalts and lifts up the Holy Spirit, calls us to repentance. So now what brings us into right relationship with Jesus Christ. This is the last section of our text which connects back to the very beginning of this text. In verse 31 it says, "And His mother and His brothers came and standing outside, they sent to Him and called Him and a crowd was sitting around Him and they said to Him, 'your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.' And He answered them, 'who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking about at those who sat around Him, He said, 'here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother'." Remember back in verse 20, it said that Jesus's family was going out to seize Him. In other words, seize is take by force. So they go and they finally get there. They get to where He is, and the crowd's still there and they're looking around at the crowd and they're like, maybe it's not the best idea to take Him by force. We might cause an uprising. Let's just tell people, "Hey, we're here to see Jesus. Can you tell Him His mother and His brothers are here?" So the crowd is like, "Jesus, your family's here. Go see them." If you want to start a fight with your family, go home and say these words, "Who are my mother or my brothers or my fathers?" Oh man, I said first my mom would never hit me, but she would want to slap me if I said that to her. But she wouldn't. She wouldn't. But she would want to because that is offensive. That is harsh words, Jesus. What are you getting at? What are you saying here? And Jesus is defeating another argument about Him, not just who He is, but how do we have relationship with Him? You see, Jesus's family thought, we're His family. We have the right to tell Him when He's going too far. We have the right to tell Him that He is wrong and tell Him what to do because we have that familial relationship. I want to tell you friends, no external relationship will make you right with God. I work with the teens, the middle school and high schoolers, so I often tell them, but any kids, teens that are here, you're not saved just because your parents bring you to church. The question is, who do you say Jesus is? Do you repent of your sins? Do you have right relationship with God? Maybe you're here because you're an adult, but family or friends invited you and God is good to them, so I just want to know a little bit more about this God. We're glad you're here, but God being a friend of a friend is not going to save you. Are you right with God? Do you repent of sins and trust in Him and recognize Him as Lord of all? And I also want to point out that Jesus has already, and I just wanted to loop it in here, defeated the other second presumption of the scribes and the Pharisees on how they thought they could have right relationship with God. Scribes said, we are the religious lawyers of the day. You get all the benefits of being a lawyer. We think of lawyers, what do we think of? Liars, cheaters, swindlers. My wife's a lawyer. She's none of those things. Praise God. But we think negatively of lawyers, but we recognize they make a lot of money. They do good work. They're very smart people. So take all the benefits of a lawyer and all the benefits of being a religious leader like, oh, great, they're the moral virtuous lawyers. We are so upstanding in our society. Jesus didn't care. Jesus understood their hearts were not right with God. They had the most schooling. They had the highest education of the people of their days. Friends, I tell you, God doesn't care about how many letters come after or before your name. They don't care about what degree titles you have. Those are good. I'm not saying don't study, don't get education. But when you stand before God, He's not going to say, "Wow, PhD. Nice, nice. Okay, I guess you could come in." No. What makes us right with God is right relationship with Jesus Christ alone. Nothing societal, nothing external, nothing but faith and trust in Jesus Christ and obedience to Him will make us right with God. This is why Jesus says, "Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother." Do we do the will of God? Do we understand the will of God? This is where it connects back to blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is the one who guides us in the will of God. So if you reject the Holy Spirit, you will never be able to do the will of God. So I challenge you today, Christians, anyone who is here, Christian or not, ask God for His Holy Spirit to guide you, to lead you in His will. Study scriptures that reveal God's will to all of humanity for us, and listen and obey them. I pray that we can be humble and quick in our repentance of our sin and bold in our obedience and faithfulness to Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good and You are stronger than sin, you are stronger than Satan, you are stronger than the penalty of death. Lord, we thank you and we praise you. Remind us of your greatness, of your ability to forgive and your willingness to forgive when we are in sin. Help us to run to you quickly, to confess our sins to you and to repent quickly. As soon as we are convicted, help us repent, because we know how good you are, because we know how willing and ready you are to forgive. Lord, help us to then change our lives. Help us to live in accordance to your word, to faithfully follow Jesus, to recognize Him as our one true Lord over our lives and overall, and submit faithfully to you and to Him. So Lord, we thank you and we praise you. Encourage us with this text in Jesus name. Amen.
The Chisel of Grace
July 16, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Genesis 45
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 Church, welcome. I'm glad that all of you are able to be here to worship with us today. As I always like to say, it's great to hear all the conversation that's going around, and we are able to continue those conversations after service as well. So take that opportunity, remember that we still love and care about each other after service and talk to each other afterwards. But if you don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston and as always, whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is my honor and my privilege to be able to deliver the word of God to us today. So as Pastor Andy mentioned, we are continuing our sermon series, Looking at the life of Joseph in the Book of Genesis. Today we will be in Genesis 45, but the sermon series that we are going through is called Graduate Level Grace. The reason for this is we're trying to have a deeper, better understanding of God's grace, what it is, how it works, and how it applies to our lives. And so there's a bunch of sermons online, I encourage you to listen to them if you miss them or study the texts and the chapters that have come ahead. It is a narrative arc. It is historical events, real true stories, but it is an arc and so each chapter builds and builds on each other. So for the real quick summary, last chapter, pastor Andy preached on chapter 44, and we saw the story of Benjamin, the youngest brother, being found guilty of stealing a silver cup from this Egyptian ruler, who they did not realize was their brother Joseph, that they sold into slavery. And as he is being condemned for this crime and being forced to become a servant, his brother Judah steps in and pleads for his life and says, "Please take me instead, let my little brother go." And that was the cliffhanger we were left with last week. And we are going to see what is Joseph's response to his brother's plea for grace, to his brother's plea for mercy. So that's where our story picks up today, in Genesis chapter 45. But before we read, will you pray with me over the preaching and reading of God's word? Heavenly Father, lord, we are so thankful and amazed that we get to be here and worship and praise Your name today. We thank You that You have lavish grace upon us that we do not deserve, so that way we can be in Your presence, have a meaningful deep relationship with You. So in this time, teach us from Your words, speak to us from Your scriptures, help us to better understand Your grace, Your love, Your compassion, and how it applies to our lives today, so that we thank You and we praise You in Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, so we are in Genesis 45, and as I mentioned, it is a historical story. It is real, but it is a narrative. And so as we read through Genesis 45, I want everyone to be paying attention to the story, to the characters, to the arts. If you look for a point in the story without understanding the story, you're going to miss some things. So as we read, I want you to just pay attention to what is the story? Where are we going from here? So Genesis chapter 45 verse 1, it says this, "Then Joseph could not control himself before all of those who stood by him. He cried, "Make everyone go out for me." So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me please." And they came near and said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. For God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and Lord of all the house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me Lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me, you and your children, and your children's children, and your flocks, your herds and all that you have. There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.' And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here." Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all the brothers and wept upon them. After that, his brothers talked with him. When the report was heard in Pharaoh's house, "Joseph's brothers have come," it pleased Pharaoh and his servants. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Say to your brothers, 'Do this: load your beast and go back to the land of Canaan, and take your father and your households, and come to me, and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat the fat of the land.' And you, Joseph, are commanded to say, 'Do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Have no concern for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.'" The sons of Israel did so and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the journey. To each of them, he gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin, he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes. To his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provision for his father on the journey. Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, "Do not quarrel on the way." So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. And they told him, "Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt." And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them." Excuse me. I needs some water. Excuse me. "But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, 'It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.'" This is the reading of God's holy and error-infallible, authoritative word, may He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We are going to spend our time in two points today. Two points better than the three, because we'll get out of here in two thirds of the time. Well, we'll see how the Holy Spirit moves, I'm not promising anything. But two points today. The first point is Grace that Guts Guilt. And the second point is Grace that Corrects. So as I mentioned earlier, we start this story with the predicament. Joseph's brothers are guilty before him. What is Joseph going to do? And what we see Joseph's responses, 1 one through 3, where it says, "Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, 'Make everyone go out for me.' So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to the brothers." He's so emotional about what has just happened that he makes all of the Egyptians go out. He's like, "I don't want any of you here. It's just me and my brothers." If you're the brothers, you're like, "Oh, that's kind of scary. There's no witnesses. There's no one here to see what's about to happen." And then it continues, "And he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it." He is uncontrollably weeping. If you've been in the presence of someone who's uncontrollably weeping, you're often like, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going on. I just got to be here and see what happens." And then he says to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" This is the first moment that they recognize it is their brother Joseph, who has been ruler or leading the Egyptians and leading them for their food and supplies, And so what is their response, the brothers? It says, "But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence." Dismayed. The word literally means fearful, trembling. They are shaking in fear of what is about to happen. Why? 22 years ago, they sold their brother into slavery. And for 22 years, they lied about it and thought they got away with it. And then all of a sudden, "Oh! He's right here. We got caught." And not only did we get caught, he has now had 22 years to build up anger, to plan out his revenge, to think of the best way to torment them when they get back. But it's worse than that, because Joseph was their little brother, but he's not their little brother anymore. Joseph is the second most powerful man in the world. At this point in time of history, Egypt is the most powerful empire. So much so that all the surrounding nations are in desperate need because of the famine and they're all flocking to Egypt for help, "Help us, help us, help us." And in our text it says that not only that, but Joseph is as a father to Pharaoh. What does that mean? It's a statement about being a highly esteemed, a really trusted advisor. So, what do you call the second most powerful man in the world who gets to tell the most powerful man in the world what to do and he listens? You call him the most powerful man in the world. And so what we see here is the brothers recognize their transgression. They recognize the predicament that they are in, they are caught in their sin. But now it's not their little brother, it's the man with all the power to do whatever he wants with them, that stands before them. It's kind of terrifying. At a moment's notice, Joseph can say the word and they'd be killed. At a moment's notice, he could say the word and they'd be thrown in jail. Whatever Joseph wanted to do with them, he could do. And as we'll see throughout the rest of the story, what one of the main highlights here is that the way the brothers relate to Joseph is often how we relate to God. I don't want to make too much of this, but it is important. God is the most powerful, all powerful God of the universe. We have sinned against Him. We have done wrong. Scripture tells us the wages for our sin is death. So God in all His power could do whatever he wants with us. The question is, do we react like these brothers when that reality sets in? Are we dismayed? Are we fearful? Are we trembling before God because of His power, because of what He could do, because of our guilt before Him? Now I bring this up to say that we'll see how the story progresses because this is not the end. But I want to ask if it wasn't you before God and it's just the brothers before Joseph, how would you hope that Joseph reacted to the brothers? I don't know about you, maybe you're better people than I am, but I love revenge. Revenge movies are some of the most popular and moneymaking movies that there are. There's something sinful, but it's natural. I think it's naturally sinful within us that we love revenge movies. After first service, I was talking to some brothers and sisters and our worship leader, Caleb, pointed out, I believe rightfully so, that it's a warp twisted view of God's justice. We want justice, but we take it too far and we make it vengeance. But anyway... And this is just so popular in our society and especially in media. And so recently, I had a week of vacation, where I got to travel and I was very thankful for that opportunity. And I had 11 hours of travel time, during which I was like, "I'll watch some movies." And a movie that was recommended to me a lot, and just to be clear, I'm not recommending this movie, it was recommended to me, I was like, "Let me see what the hype is all about," it's called John Wick. I think a lot of you probably know that movie. But, spoiler alert for the first 10 minutes of the first movie that informs the whole series, but basically there's a guy, John Wick, whose wife dies of disease, I believe it's cancer. And she knows that she's the only person he's ever loved. And so he's going to have a hard time loving anyone after this. So she gifts him, in her dying wish, a puppy. She says, "This puppy is going to help you learn to love." Well, spoiler alert, and I'm sorry to have to say this, very soon after, a jerk comes in, beats up John Wick, and not only that, he kills his puppy. Know what I thought as I watched that movie? Go get him, John Wick. That's right, I wanted vengeance for this puppy. And it starts and launches a four movie series where John Wick kills 439 people, all because someone killed his dog. And you know what? I loved it. I was like, "That's right." I can recognize it's not actually right. It is wrong. But there was something, again, I said sinful, within us, that's like, "Yes, give them what they deserve." And that's exactly what Joseph could have done in this story. He had all the power to do it the same way. That's what God could have done in our story. He had all the power to do it. But what happens instead? This is verses 4 through 8, it says, "So Joseph said to his brothers, 'Come near to me please.' And they came near. And he said, 'I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep a alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.'" See, Joseph sees that his brothers are distressed. He sees they're fearful, trembling, "What is Joseph going to do to us? Is he going to exact revenge?" And Joseph, he comforts them, says, "Do not be distressed or angry." He recognizes what they did. He recognizes that they wronged him. But he says, "Don't be angry or distressed about it." But the most important thing he says is the very first thing he says, "Come near to me please." This is a very impactful statement, "Come near to me." It's a sign of forgiveness. It's a sign, more specifically though, of the relationship that he is seeking with them. This idea of coming near is saying, "I don't want there to be a distance between us because of the sin. I don't want there to be any hindrances, barriers between our relationship. Come near to me. I forgive you." And this is a phrase, that throughout scripture, is used for God's relationship with us. The Gospel of John specifically highlights this phrase. I'll just bring up three verses where it says it. In John chapter 14, we're doing a reverse search through John, John 14:6, it says, "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.'" Jesus is saying if you want to come to the Father, come to the Father, but you got to come to Jesus first. You come to Jesus and He restores, He redeems, He reconciles our hurt and broken relationship with God the Father. In John chapter 6, verse 37, Jesus says, "All that the father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out." This is a really powerful verse; come to Jesus and he will not cast you out. How often are we like the brothers, where our guilt and shame of our sin kind of paralyzes us? It keeps us in fearful, trembling and we say, "I don't know if I can go to Jesus." Jesus responses, "Come. Come. I forgive you. I will not cast you out." How many times do we say, "Yeah, but you don't know how bad the sin is"? Or, "You don't know how long I've been sinning. It's been 22 years of sinning and covering it up. Maybe it's been longer. It's really bad. If I go to Jesus, he's not going to want me. He's going to reject me." Well, Jesus says He will not cast you out. So we need to take encouragement from this grace that there is no sin, there is no shame, there is no guilt so great that when we come and run to Christ and ask Him to forgive us and want to seek and restore a relationship with us, He will never cast us out. There is nothing so great that we can't do that, come to Him. John chapter 5, verse 39 and 40 says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." Jesus says study Scripture, that's good. Scriptures are important, they bear witness about Him. But it's not about studying Scripture, it's about the relationship with Christ. If we want life, if we want forgiveness of sins, if we want eternal life, we need to go to Christ. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian or maybe you're just trying to understand what Christianity is about, I want to preface all this by saying it's about relationship. This is the gospel that we not only hurt, we broke our relationship with God when we sinned. We rejected Him, we rebelled against Him. And God did not keep it that way, He sent His son to save us for our sins, to redeem the transgressions that we have done. And He came near to us first, and just ask that we draw near to Him. Just says, "Just come to me." It's not that difficult, it's just, "Yeah, Jesus, I'm wrong. I have sinned. I'm going to You. I need You. I need Your forgiveness. I need Your grace. I need You." That's what Christianity is. And He promises to forgive us and not forsake us. But in this text, we learned two really important things that I want to highlight about forgiveness in general. The first thing is what I would call preemptive forgiveness. What do I mean by preemptive forgiveness? If you read the text, the brothers never confess, the brothers never repent. They never acknowledge their sin before Joseph, yet Joseph already forgave them. Joseph already forgave them. And this is how we, as Christians are called to forgive. Not just because Joseph did it, but that this is how Christ forgives us. Romans chapter 5 verse 8, "But God shows His love for us, that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us." God didn't say, "Get your life together, then I'll send Jesus and then he'll forgive you of your sins." No, he said, "You're in sin. You need a savior. I'm going and I'm doing." And so Christians, we need to forgive like that. Are there brothers or sisters in the church? Are there friends, family that you are holding unforgiveness against? It is your job, your responsibility, to forgive them. Why? Not because of anything they do, not because they repent and come to you and say how sorry they are, but because Christ forgave you and gave up His life for you, and we are called to give that grace to others. Now, to be clear, this does not excuse those who are in the wrong. When we sin, that doesn't mean we get to say, "Well, it's your job to forgive me." No, we still are called to repent. Scripture is clear that as soon as you recognize that you have sinned against a brother, you are going and repenting and reconciling with them. But here, we're talking about when you are the one who is wronged, it is your job to forgive. It is our job, when we are wronged, to forgive. Well, that's a lot easier said than done, right? When you get hurt, you don't want to forgive. And if they don't say they're sorry, you don't believe that they're sorry, and so why would you forgive them? Well, the second thing that we learn about forgiveness from this text is how we are able to forgive like that. And I call it heavenly perspective. We need to have heavenly perspective and able to forgive like Christ and forgive like Joseph. Three times in this text, Joseph says, "It's not you, it's God. Sure, you sold me and you were trying to do your purposes and gain from it, but God was the one who sent me here, and He brought it about for good." Now, that's hard in the moment, right? This verse comes at the end. Joseph isn't in prison, being like, "Oh, it's all good." I mean, maybe he was, we don't know. But it's hard. It's hard to do. It's difficult. But if we want to be able to forgive as we are called to, we need to recognize that God is in control, that God is sovereign over all things. He can do whatever he wishes and we hope and wait and trust in Him, that He will bring it about for good. That we can see maybe not all the ways that God is working in the situations, but that we can trust even where we don't see Him moving that He is moving. And that's the only way Joseph is able to forgive so quickly, his brothers. Then the story continues in verse 14 and verse 15, where it says, "Then he fell," Joseph fell, "Upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that, his brothers talked with him." Two really important things. One thing that I just love about this verse, it's a group of men being emotional. It's really refreshing, you don't get to see that very much. But that's here. All the brothers are hugging and kissing and making up and forgiving one another, it is emotional. But if you notice, this is the reason why the brothers accept that Joseph truly forgave them. When Joseph said, "Come near," they came near, but they were still scared. It wasn't until this that it says, "After that, his brothers talked with him." After this, they said, "Oh, okay, he really forgives us. He's not just messing with us. He's not just toying with us. He really forgives us. We can work on this relationship. We can talk with him. We can have a relationship again." And what this speaks to is a common saying and an idea that we all know, is that actions speak louder than words. Someone can say, "I forgive you." And then in the back of their mind, you know that they don't forgive you and you know that they're holding it against you and they're waiting for you to mess up so they can bring it up again. And it's not actually forgiveness. Actions prove that Joseph has forgiven his brothers, and in the same way, that's how God works with us. God doesn't just shout from heaven, "I forgive you. Now come into my presence and see if I actually forgive you." No, God says, "I am going to forgive you and how you'll know, I am sending my son, Jesus Christ, into the world, to die for your sins, to prove with action that I forgive you." And that should enable us to actually trust God forgives us. When we sin against God, we know that He forgives us not just from words, even though God gives them and they are true because He is the Lord and He is honest and true, but He proved it with action. He proved it with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I think that this speaks to a lot of the ways that we have a warped view of our relationship with God. When we sin, maybe, again, for the first time you come to Christ, you are forgiven and you say, "Does he really forgive me?" I remember as a kid, about once a week, I would spend my nighttime prayers just praying for God to save me, because I didn't know if He actually saved me or not, or if my sins from the past week, nullified it. And Scripture tells no. When God saves you, He saves you. You are forgiven. He will not reject you. And so do we view God as that? Do we trust that He actually forgives us when we sin? Or are we worried in the back of our mind that He is holding it against us? He does not. I think that we often have a very weak view of forgiveness because we view it as a transaction, or we view it as a business deal, right? "I did wrong, I repented, now we're even." Or, "I did wrong, this person wronged me back, we're even, we're good." Or, "The number of sins that I did versus the number of times I repented and good things I did, we're in a good space." Forgiveness isn't a transaction. Forgiveness is about relationship. God is not keeping a ledger saying, "This is how many times you sinned. So this is how many times you need to repent. And if you don't do enough good things, then I'm not going to forgive you." No, it's a relationship. He's a loving father. Jesus is a loving friend and brother who wants to forgive us. He wants to. It's a relationship. Naturally, when you sin against someone you care about, it hurts the relationship, right? It takes work to restore and redeem that relationship. But being good and holy and gracious, God doesn't hold that against us and he does the work to redeem the relationship for us. He is the one who redeems and saves us. And the last thing on this point that I want to point out is I did not forget the emotionalness of the brothers. I think that's really important, because did you know that God has emotional responses to us too? Not in the same way that we have emotions. God is holy, He is perfect, He's not thrown about by whims, but He does have emotions. And two of my favorite verses in all of Scripture, Luke 15:7 says, "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." All of heaven rejoices when we repent. Yes, this is true when for the first time you repent and say, "Jesus, I need you to save me from my sins," for the very first time, yes, all of heaven rejoices. But it's not because they're like, "All right, plus one to our totals, we got another one," No. It's because God genuinely cares and loves you and desires for a relationship with you. And it's a rejoicing because He says, "This relationship is restored. We're working on it. We have right relationship again." And it's the same for us as Christians. It's not just the first time we repent, it's every time. God rejoices when we repent of sin. It's not, "Oh, you're a Christian." We all know we're not perfect, we still sin. And then it's like, "Well, God doesn't care anymore. It's just all tallied up in that one party that..." No, God loves when we repent of our sin. Why? Because He's a good father. He loves repentance because it heals and it brings closer, the relationship we have with him. And this is why, all of this together compounded, is why the first point is called This is Grace that Guts Guilt. It's not just for alliterative purposes, even though anyone who stands up and preaches loves alliteration, it's actually very meaningful to me. So recently, I started enjoying fishing. I'm horrible at it, I'm not good, but I love it. And I specifically like fishing for striper. So if you know anything about fishing, they're a little bit harder to catch. Not very easy, but one of the tastiest fish you'll ever be able to taste if you like eating fish. But one of the things I had to learn when I was fishing is you can't just catch a fish out of the ocean and then throw it on a grill and eat it. There's this kind of gross, disgusting process that's called gutting a fish. It's actually very important for the sake of eating and enjoying the fish, so hold on with me for a second. The guts, the longer they sit within the fish, basically pump iron and other minerals into the meat of the fish, which is why it gets what a lot of people call that fishy taste that they don't like. It's the iron and the minerals that are being brought in. And so if you really want to enjoy the best, freshest fish, you got to remove the guts as soon as you possibly can. You remove it so that way none of the minerals get pumped into the meat and then you get to enjoy the beautiful reward of a delicious fish. Well, in this analogy here, our sin, our shame, our guilt, are the guts of the fish. They are things that the longer we let sit, the longer we let persist, will try and infect, I would say warp, our view of the reward. Well, what is the reward? It's not a tasty fish, it's relationship with God. So the longer our guilt, sin and shame sits within us, we persist in our sin, we refuse to come to Christ, the more it will warp the way we view our relationship with God. You say, "God, I know you say I should trust You, but I've been hurt so many times by sinful people in this world. I can't trust You." You say, "God, You love me and you'll forgive me no matter what, but I've experienced people who won't forgive me, so I can't trust You." These are all ways in which we can warp our view of our relationship with God. And so what is the solution? We need the exacting, sharp knife of grace to come in and remove the guts of our sin, guilt and shame from us, so that way we can enjoy the reward of right relationship with God. But the greatest news of it all is that God is not just a filet chef. When He removes it, He does not hurt the filet at all. He doesn't nick and chop up and make the meat... It's a beautiful, perfect filet, but He is also the all powerful mighty God of the universe. So wherever those minerals and that fishiness has come in and taken over the meat of the flesh, God is powerful enough to remove it and you would never even know it was there. This is the true reward, the reward of perfect, peaceful, blessed relationship with God, our Father, through the work of Jesus Christ. And if we want to get rid of that guilt and shame that prevents us from running to God, that prevents us from really experiencing true forgiveness, it takes grace. We need grace. Run to Him, accept the grace that He gives. Point number two is that this grace doesn't just remove the guilt, it also corrects. And I don't think we often think of correction as grace, but it is. And so we see this in verse 24 of our text where it says, "Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, 'Do not quarrel on the way.'" Joseph sees the brothers in he's like, "Oh, they're about to start fighting. I'm going to preemptively jump in and be like, 'Please don't fight.'" Well, how does he know that they're going to start fighting? Three chapters earlier, when the brothers did not realize it was Joseph, they thought it was an Egyptian man who did not speak Hebrew, Ruben says, in chapter 42, verse 22, "Ruben answered them, 'Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen to me. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.'" When one of their brothers is arrested, seemingly unrelated to the events of Joseph as far as they know, because again, they don't know it's Joseph, Ruben immediate is like, "This is all because you guys did this to Joseph. I told you not to do it, you did it." And if you're like me, you could hear the natural response if you've ever argued with siblings or friends, it's, "My fault? We wanted to kill him. If we killed him, this wouldn't be a problem. It was your idea to throw him in the pit." And then Ruben's like, "Well, it was my idea to throw him in the pit because I wanted to save him before you guys could do anything. But then you went and sold him into slavery." And you could see how it all unfolds. And Joseph sees it and he lovingly, gracefully, corrects them. Why is this correction grace? It's because it's about the relationship. Joseph is working on redeeming and restoring a 22-year broken relationship. He says, "You sinned against me. It is my job, I forgive you. So don't fight about it on the way. It's forgiven, it's done with. Let's work on building this loving relationship." And in the same way, God corrects us. It's with grace. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11 says, "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." Yes, the discipline, the correction may seem painful rather than pleasant, but the point of is it's a yield peaceful fruit, so that there's no more hurt in the relationship. If you keep on sinning against someone, you're going to keep on hurting them and creating distance in the relationship. And so God corrects. He disciplines us so that way we can have a right and good relationship with him. Proverbs 3, verses 11 through 12 says, "My son do not despise the LORD's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father, the son in whom he delights." So when God disciplines us, it's not this judgmental God that I think we often get our warped view of relationship with God with. We think that God is this guy who just hates us and hates what we do and just says, "No, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that." No. God is a loving good father who, like a good father, disciplines because He loves and because He knows it's good for His son, for His children, for us whom He delights in. So, practical points real quick. There's been a lot of practical, but practical... Parents, do we correct our children with grace? Some parents might need to hear the first part. Do you correct? I'll pause there. A lot of times now it's a very popular idea to let the kids do whatever they want, they'll figure it out. But actually, Scripture tells us, if you love your kids, you will correct them. You will discipline them. Why? Because if anyone spent any time with kids, you know that there's only pure evil in the bottom of their heart. No, okay, they're not pure evil, but they're sinful. They are warped. And so they need guidance, they need correction. But do we do it with grace? It's not overbearing, demeaning, but can we do it with grace? This reminded me of something. In undergrad, I had a minor in criminal justice, but with behavioral analysis. This is why I work with teenagers, I study why criminals are the way they are. No, I'm just kidding. But, there's basically four different types of parenting that they all categorize in, and there's only one that they say is generally successful, and it's the one where they have guidance, they have rules, but they also are reasonable and they explain why and they tell the kids why, and they build a relationship with the kids so that when they discipline them, the kids are like, "Yeah, you're right. I deserve that." But anyway, that's kind of side point. So parents, do we correct but in a graceful way? Where you love them and where the kid knows that, "Yeah, my parents love me." Yes, this is hard, but you genuinely want to see them repent. I think a way that graceful parenting would look is that when a kid comes and confesses sin or repents of sin, you have grace, you rejoice over the fact that they have the ability to recognize sin in their lives and you are thankful for it. That doesn't mean no punishment at all. I remember my parents always said, "If you tell us ahead of time, the punishment will be much better than if we have to find out much later that you've been lying about it." And that's something that I think TV and media tell all the kids and all the kids know that, but it's a different thing when you actually experience it. It's a different thing when as a kid you go to your parents and you confess sin and your parents are like, "Thank you for telling me, I forgive you. You need to correct this, here's how we're going to correct it." And it's like, "Wait a second. That's it? You actually forgive me? There really is a lesser punishment for this?" That is grace. And then another thing that my parents did really well with me that I always appreciated was that they explained why they were disciplining me. As a kid, I was a liar. I lied all the time to the point that my parents sat me down one day and were like, "Tyler, we can never trust anything you say because you lie so much, you're going to have to build our trust back." I was like, "I didn't realize I could actually lose the trust of my parents." That was new. And they were like, "This is why it hurt me. Because you say this here, so how can we trust you over here? How does this relate to this? It hurts us when you lie to us." And it was like, "Wow. I never realized I had the power to hurt my parents. I guess I do need to work on some things." And that was really a pivotal moment that I remember in middle school when my parents sat me down, I was like, "Wow, this is going to change me. I got to work on it." And so parents, correct your children, but do it gracefully. Then on the flip side, children, do you recognize your parents' discipline and correction as grace? Kids here are all like, "Yeah, I got the parents. Now it's my time." Kids, when your parents correct you and discipline you, it's because they love you. It's because they care about you. It's because they want what's good for you. They are trying to prepare you for the life ahead and help you grow into the person that you were meant to be. So kids, recognize that grace your parents are having on you. That doesn't mean you're going to sit there when you're corrected and be like, "Thank you mom and dad, you did a great job correcting me." I understand emotions are hard, but recognize the reality that your parents do love you and have grace for you. But it's not just a grace that corrects in the sense of discipline, it's a grace that corrects in the sense of making wrongs right. This is, in our text in verses 27 and 28, where it says, "But when they told him all the words of Joseph telling Jacob their father, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, 'It is enough; Joseph, my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.'" Again, 22 years that Jacob has been dealing with the lie and belief that his son is dead. And clearly it made him depressed. Why? Because he needed his soul revived, meaning his soul was not revived for these 22 years. It's a long time, but even still, God works to restore and redeem the wrong that had been done to Jacob in this lie, and revive his soul, bring him hope. When I see this, I think of Psalm 130, verse 5 through 8, it says, "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word, I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchman for the morning, and more than watchman for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities." God wants to redeem and reconcile all the wrongs that have been done in this world, to reconcile all the hurt, pain, sin, guilt, shame in this world. And what is our response as we wait for that to happen? It's to wait on the Lord. I love it, as a watchman of the morning, as a watchman for the morning. Think about it, if you don't have a clock, if you don't have a watch, you have no way to tell time besides the sun. It's night, so the sun's gone, you're like, "Okay, I got to watch for morning. I have no idea when it's going to be." And you know how sometimes a minute feels like an hour and sometimes an hour feels like a minute. So you really have no idea what time it is. All that they know, the sun's going to come up. It will be morning. In the same way we are called to wait for the coming of the redemption and reconciliation that God himself can bring, we have to know with certainty that it will come. Sometimes it might take longer than we think, or it might feel a lot longer than we would like, but we know that it is coming. Why? Verse 7, "Hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and plentiful redemption." I love that, "Plentiful redemption." This is what God wants to do. He wants to lavish the world with redemption. We see it happen for Jacob here in his life. Sometimes that total complete redemption only comes in the perfection of eternity with God, but God's desire is to lavish redemption on all. The last verse I'll talk about as we close is verse 22. Actually jumping back a little bit, this is my favorite verse In this section of text. In verse 22 it says, "To each and all of them, he, Joseph, gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes." I love this verse because it shows that grace doesn't only correct in making wrongs right, grace over corrects, it makes the wrong even more right than we could ever imagine. What is going on here? Remembering last chapter, Benjamin is the one who stands guilty before Joseph. He is the one who needed an intercessor, someone to stand in his place and say, "Forgive him." And yet he here is the one who receives the greatest reward. Friends, dear Christians, this is us with the gospel. We deserve nothing. We do not deserve this grace that God has given us. We rightfully deserve his wrath and punishment, but because of the one Jesus Christ who stood in our place, the reward that rightfully should have been bestowed upon him is given to us, more than we could ever hope for or ask or even imagined. We are given the greatness of God's grace, His love, and a pure right relationship with him. This is the kind of grace that leads to rejoicing. So as I close in, will you pray with me over our further time of worship and rejoice in the Lord's grace for us? Heavenly Father, Lord, You are good. You have bestowed more grace upon us than we ever deserve or could imagine. Help us not to cower from You because of sin, shame, or guilt. Remind us of Your steadfast love, of Your plentiful redemption, of Your relationship with us, and that You gave up everything to have relationship with us. Help us to run to You when we are stuck in sin. Help us to run to You when we feel the weight of guilt and shame. Help us to run to You when we want to rejoice and praise You for all that You have blessed us with. And help us to learn to forgive like You have forgiven us, to truly love and have grace for those around us. We thank You and we praise You. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Praying for Hope
April 16, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Ephesians 1:15–23
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 Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens or youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston. And whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is truly my honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. So this week we're kind of in between series, and so the pastors gave me the opportunity to preach something that is on my heart and it's a message about hope. I'm calling it, Praying for Hope. We're going to be spending most of our time in the text in Ephesians. And my wife and I recently had just gone through Ephesians, and so this is something I've been thinking about, been meditating on. But even before then, this idea that we're going to see and expound upon in this text is something that God has been working in my own heart, challenging me, growing me in, and I think it's something that will benefit the church as a whole. So we're going to see what does God mean? What does God call us to pray for? But what does it mean to pray for hope in our lives and in the church in general? So before we get started, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We are so thankful that we get to be here today to hear your word, to learn from you, to know you more. So Lord, we ask that in this time that you speak to us through your word, that you use me to proclaim the truth of your word for all of us. And you challenge us, you soften our hearts to see the reality of who you are and how you are working in our lives. So Lord, we thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, we will be in Ephesians 1:15-23. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you could follow along on the screens behind me, but I'll read the whole thing and then we'll get started. So Ephesians 1:15 says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers, 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 towards 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 the 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 in 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." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative, infallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in kind of three points today. The three points are actually one sentence and the third point of that sentence has three subpoints. So just to throw some chaos and difficulty into things. But the one sentence that I want you guys to take away from this is the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. And the reason why the church should do that is to have hope, to recognize riches, and to perceive power. So that's what we're going to be spending our time in today. And so if you're like, "Wow, Tyler normally goes a long time with three points, and now He has three and three subpoints," I want to encourage you points one and two are on one page. So we'll get through those real quick. We'll spend most of the time on point number three. But point number one, the church, this is verse 15. Verse 15 says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints..." Who is Paul addressing here? He is addressing the church. Well, he's clarifying how he knows it's the church that he's speaking to. It's the people that have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. This is the very basics, the very fundamental definition of the church. It's those, it's the people who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards all the saints. Now, a couple clarifying things. I love that it says, Lord Jesus, because I think oftentimes in my mind I focus on savior Jesus, which is good. Jesus is savior. I have faith in Jesus as my savior. Which is what we talked about last week with Easter, and we talk about every week at Mosaic, that Jesus came and died to save us from our sins and raised to life three days later to prove that He had the power to do it, to save us from our sins. We have faith in that. But He's not just savior, He's also Lord. Lord is ruler. He is Lord. He has power. He has authority over our lives today and we trust in Him as our king. We have faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. That's a Christian. And naturally, when you do that, you love the saints. So let's clarify saints. If you're like me, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and so a saint is someone who did some really incredible work and then died, and so you get to be a saint. But that's not what the word means. The word just means holy or set apart. Paul is talking about Christians. He's talking about the church. And so when we have faith in Jesus, naturally, we should love each other, we should care for each other. And so Paul is just being very clear at the start, he is addressing the church. He is talking to the church. And so everything that we're going to talk about now, he is addressing to Christians. And so if you're here today, and you're not a Christian and you're like, "Well, why am I here?" Praise God that you're here. We're very thankful that you're here. We want you to be able to see a glimpse into what we talk about when we talk about church. We're not talking about a meeting on Sundays. We're not talking about a place that we go to do the thing we're supposed to do and get on. We're talking about a faith and love of Jesus Christ and a love for each other. And what I would just ask you, humbly, in this time, if you are able to just pray and ask God, "If this is true, if you are real, if you are here, open my eyes to see you." Ask God that, "If this is true and what we are speaking about is true," ask Him to reveal himself to you. Because what we are going to see in this text is that God works powerfully in His church to help, to give hope, and to save His people. Forgot to mention real quick, we have a motto, love Jesus simple, right? That's what this text is all about. That's why we have that motto, love Jesus simple. We love God, we love His people, and we love those who do not yet recognize that they're His people. We love the church. We have love for the saints. We love God and Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just God in general, but we love Jesus Himself. So we have faith in Jesus. We love the saints. Simple, that's all we need. That's the foundation. That's the point. That's the root of all of that. We do. End of point one, nice job, nice and easy. Point number two, the church should pray. And this is verses 16 and the beginning of 17. It says this, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory..." And we're going to pause there and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger. But Paul starts saying, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers..." First thing, we cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. When we pray, thanksgiving needs to be a part of it. Whatever you are thankful for in this life, whenever something happens or you receive something or whatever, you're just reminded of something that you're thankful for, praise God for that thing. Literally, go to Him in prayer and praise Him. Thank Him for it. We cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. But specifically what Paul is thankful for is for the church, is for other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians, we are called to be thankful for each other, so thank you. I mean that very sincerely. You don't know how much this church has been an encouragement to me, been an encouragement to the staff, been an encouragement to the pastors, to each other, been able to support and help each other throughout the many years that this church has been here. Thank you. I praise God and thank Him for you and your faithfulness to Him. And I mean that sincerely. Now, when we look at each other, do we sincerely feel that way? Let's feel that way. Let's be thankful for each other that God has blessed us with the ability to have these relationships with each other. The next thing I want to point out is that Paul is very specific in who he is praying to and why he is praying to Him. This is the beginning of verse 17, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...." So he's specific. Paul's not just talking to air. He's not just throwing out prayers to someone in general. He is praying to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's specific. And then he throws it in and follows up with the Father of glory. Is this just some fancy phrasing that really religious people like to do so they sound nice when they pray in the letters read out loud to the church? No. What Paul is doing here is he's clarifying why He's praying and trusts this God that he's praying to. He's not just any God. He's not just any person. He's the Father of glory. I was reading a commentary on this text and it was written by a guy named Francis Foulkes, who he didn't write many commentaries, but he did on Ephesians. But most of his works were about prayer. Most of the things he wrote was like how to pray. Why do we pray? What does it look like to pray? Things like that. And I thought that he would be a very helpful person to study in these texts. And this is what he says about Paul's address of God. He says, "He is the Father to whom all glory belongs; for all the power and majesty revealed in creation, providence and redemption are His, and He the source. Such a thought of who God is gives to prayer a sense of awe and strengthens the faith in those who pray." Christians, we should strengthen our faith when we pray. It actually matters how we address God when we pray. It doesn't mean that we have to say, "The Father of glory," that's not the point. For me personally, when I prayed, I said, "Heavenly Father," that's what I usually say. You don't have to say that either. But I say that, because I'm reminding myself, yeah, I'm praying to God who is in heaven. He is above all things. He rules. He reigns. That's who He is. But He's not just in heaven. He's a father. He's relational. He knows us. He cares for us. We can have relationship with Him. And so I start, when I pray that way because I'm reminding myself, I'm speaking to the God who has a relationship with me, and He has power to do things. He has power to hear me. I trust He will hear me. I trust that He can act on what I'm asking of Him. I trust and grow in my awe and faith of Him. And so this isn't to say that's how we all need to pray, but what we all need to do is go to God in awe and reverence. Go to Him and prepare our hearts when we pray to say, yeah, I am speaking to the one true all powerful God. That matters. That makes a difference. And so when we are in times of questioning, times of doubt, times of weakness still go to God in strength, not our own strength, but we can go to Him saying, "God, I know I'm weak, but you're strong. God, I'm weak, but I'm reminding myself of who you are. I'm reminding myself of how you've been faithful to me." And so that regardless of our season in life, we can pray in strength, because it's God's strength, not our own that we pray in. And then from this point on in our text, Paul is going to launch into specifics that he prays over the church. So he's writing this letter to remind them and encourage them. He is praying for them and he's going to tell them specifically what He's praying about. And as we continue through these texts, we're going to see what are those specific things, and we're going to stop and we're going to pray for those things for this church. Why? Because Paul thought it was important to pray over the church in Ephesus. And if God thought it was important enough to canonize in scripture, I think it's something good that we should pray for ourselves as well. Plus, I know that it is something good for us to pray for ourselves as well. But real quick before we continue with that, I want to point something out, and this is something that I learned only a couple years ago and was never explicitly taught to me. And I was like, "Wow, why was this never explicitly taught? This is really important." When anyone, myself or a pastor or someone else is up here preaching and praying, or if you're in a small group and one person is praying and you're just there listening, we're all praying. And what I mean by that is it's not a time to just sit and listen and think, "Okay, do I like what he's saying?" Or, "That sounds good or nice? I like that wording." That's not the point. But it's the time of Christians to be led by one person to pray to God together about the same things. That's why the word amen matters. If you don't know the word, amen means truly. You're saying that you agree with everything that was said and you're praying it. So we've all done this, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you've ever been in a prayer group and someone's praying and it's late and you're tired and your mind starts drifting and you don't really hear anything that they're saying, and then the end comes and everyone's like, "Amen," you're like, "Amen. Amen." You just lied and you're guilty of lying. So what I'm saying is that as we talk about these things, I'm asking that we as a church pray together for God to bless His church with these things. It's not about me standing up here praying these things. It's about us as the body of Christ praying together in unity and seeking God for His help. So with that, that's the end of point two, on to point three. Wow, we're flying through this. Point three, the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. This is verses 17 through the end. I'm just going to read the first part of it for us. But "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." We'll stop there for now. So Paul's first request to God in prayer for the church is for us, for that church, but applicable to us as well, to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Everything else that we're going to talk about, all of the rest of the requests of Paul are summarized in this point. He gets more specific as to why it matters as he goes along, but this is the heart of it. What Paul really wants for the church is to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God. So what does that mean? What is the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God? Well, wisdom is knowledge applied, right? Wisdom is about how we act based on information that we have. So you can classify it as a spirit to know God's will. The ability to know what God wants for us, for His people, for His church, for us to do. And then what is the spirit of a revelation in the knowledge of him? This is a spirit to know God, to see God. Well, Paul, you're writing to Christians, don't they already know God? Why are you asking for a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him? Because we all can know God deeper, better, and more personal. Again, Francis Foulkes in His commentary on this section says this, "Such wisdom and revelation, moreover, come, not simply as such higher intelligence is given from God, but by the knowledge of Him, the personal knowledge of God Himself, which in the Bible always connotes the experience of life in union and fellowship with Him. Paul put the prayer for wisdom first, because to him the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for people to see the glory of it unless they were taught by God, and also because he knew that the knowledge of God was life itself." So when put that way, does it make sense to pray for a spirit, to pray for more revelation of God so that we can have greater unity with Him in this life, that we can have greater fellowship with Him in life? Yes, of course, it does. Well, how does that happen? How do we receive the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him? It's the next verse that says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know," right? It's not that God is suddenly going to be someone more of Himself than He was so you could recognize it. He's always there. He's always there. We need to recognize Him there. We need to see how He is working. See who He is. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened. What does that phrase mean, eyes of our hearts? Our hearts don't have eyes, that just doesn't make sense. Well, the only way you think of your heart is as a beating organ, you're probably the first person in all of history. Because every single culture talks about the heart, not just as a beating organ, but also as more than that, as part of who you are about emotions and desires. But what Paul is saying with the eyes of your heart, it's saying, "Let all of who you are, the truest part of you, your soul, everything that you are, have that open, your eyes open to see who God is, to see who He is, and how He is working His will and His revelation in your life." And we need to have our eyes opened, because we can't do it ourselves, right? We all know this experientially that we can see things and not actually understand what they are, or we can hear things and not understand what you're supposed to take away from it. During first service, it came to me that there's a really good example of this in art for me. I can look at art, I could see there's painting and brushes and whatever, and I just don't get it. It's art. Cool, that's nice. But I understand that there is beauty in it and that some people do get it. And so I need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened. There's a painting or a picture in our office space that Raquel, God bless, who God has used powerfully in this church and has blessed her, but Raquel loves this painting and I look at it, I'm like, "I don't get it." It makes me angry that I don't... Anyway, but she gets it. So I just need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened to the truth of the beauty of that painting. But anyway, I bring that up to say we all know what it means to see something and not get it. And what Paul is praying for the church is that we're not that way with God, that we can see Him and we can get Him, and we can see the fullness of Him and grow in our relationship with Him. And we need God to do that for us. We see this idea also in Isaiah 6:9-10, it says, "'Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." It's a very difficult text, but what it's saying is that God is the one who has the power to open people's eyes. And so if we need our eyes open to the reality of God, let's go to Him. Let's ask him. Let's ask Him to reveal Himself to us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is what I urge you, ask God, open your eyes. Ask God to reveal himself to you, to show you to reveal His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through the work of Christ for you. And he ends this part by saying, "that you may know..." And then he continues with what He's praying for. We need the eyes of our hearts opened and enlightened, not so that we could have an idea about what God is like, so that we can know Him, that we can know the hope that He gives us, that we can know what the inheritance is, that we can have confidence in Him. It's not a wishy-washy thing, but we could have confidence in Him. That's what God wants for us, and we need Him to open our eyes to it. So as the first thing that Paul is praying for the church, let's now spend some time praying for us, this body, this church here to receive wisdom, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We need more of you, and we need to see you. Open the eyes of our hearts to wherever we are blind to you and who you are and the way you are working in our lives. Give us eyes to see you. Lord, wherever we are blind, wherever we are stubborn, where wherever we are hardhearted, soften us and open our eyes to know you more. Grow our relationship with you. Lord, we know you desire the deepest relationship with us. Give us hearts that desire the deepest relationship with you to know you personally, to love you personally. Bless this body of believers, your church here with the deepest growth in relationship and love for you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So now He's going to get into three subpoints for why we should have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of God. So the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God, subpoint number one, to have hope. To have hope. And each of the subpoints is going to get a little bit more specific, but they're all relating back to this idea of hope. And they're going to be ways that Paul shows that we as the body, we as Christians, can have hope. So this is in verse 18 where it says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you..." Have you ever thought about hope that way, as you're calling? Christians, you are called to have hope. We are not called to despair. We are not called to anxiety. We are called to hope. And not just any kind of hope, a living hope. Pastor Shane referenced this in his prayer as he started the service. But 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Christians, we are called to have hope because we have a living hope. Christ did not stay dead. This is what we celebrated last week at Easter, that Christ raised from the dead. He is alive. We have a living hope, and it is practical to us in day-to-day life. It's not just a hope that we can have one day in the future. It's a hope we can have now. And I want to pause here for a second and recognize that life's not always easy. It's not always easy to have hope. I recognize that there are many brothers and sisters in this church who have gone through struggles and difficulty and are in the middle of that even right now. I know people in this body that have suffered from illness, have been diagnosed with cancer or disease. I know people in this church that have suffered from mental illness or anxiety or eating disorders. I know people in this church who have this desire for God to answer their prayers, and they've been waiting and waiting for an answer. I know people who have lost their jobs and are wondering when they're going to be able to pay the bills. I know people who are looking for housing, and like, "Don't know where I'm going to live, but I'm going to do something, I guess. I don't know." I know people who are suffering and I know many of you are. And what I am saying is God is calling us to have hope, even in that. It's not a call to suck it up and get tough. That's not what I'm saying. It's a call to recognize that we are weak and that in those moments we need help, and that God is the one who can provide it. And that God is the one who can give us hope, even when we don't see the reasons for hope. Because we are called to it through the life of Christ. We can look at Christ. We could look at what He willingly suffered for us. We could look at the way He lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and say, "You know what? Regardless of my circumstances, I could look to Christ and have hope." And as I mentioned, we're going to see in the further points of Paul's prayer, more specifically, more powerfully the thrust of why we can have hope. But Paul starts generally, we are called to it. We are called to have hope. So with that, let's pray for this church to have hope. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We live in a fallen, broken world where we see the effects of sin, and where we see the pain and suffering and bitterness that comes from our own sin and from the sin in the world around us, and just from the brokenness of creation apart from Christ. Give us eyes to see the hope in those situations that only you provide. Give us eyes to see that you are with us. You love us, you are there. You have endured and suffered for us. And you are our reason for hope. Our hope is not in the solving of all the problems. Our hope is in you alone. Give us hope. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Subpoint number two, why the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God is to recognize riches. This is the rest of verse 18. I'll just read the first part to remind us, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," to what? "To what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints..." This made me pause and think, what is the inheritance that he is talking about here? The inheritance that Christians have is the kingdom of God. Yes, we can see it fully in eternity in heaven with eternal life with God in His presence, in His kingdom forever. That is the inheritance that Paul is talking about here. And he clarifies what he means, actually, earlier, he had already talked about, it in verses 11 through 14 of this chapter. He says this, "In him," in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise and glory of God." We are not in heaven right now. We have not acquired possession of the kingdom of God, of this inheritance that we are given yet. But in verse 11, he says that we have obtained it. How have we obtained it if we haven't taken possession of it? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of it. But how have we obtained it? Three small words at the end of verse 18 of our text, "in the saints." In the saints, right? There's this idea with the kingdom of God, it's a idea that we talk about as an already and not yet. And the day that Jesus was raised from the dead, He already conquered sin and death. He did it, definitively, done. He already ushered in the kingdom of God here on earth. Done. But we don't see the fullness of it yet. We're waiting. We're looking forward to that day. But as we wait, what do we look for the hope and to recognize what that inheritance is? We look to each other. We look to His church, His people, the saints. Because when we look at the way the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to interact with each other, the way they love each other, support each other, pray for each other, build each other up, use their gifts for each other's good for the upbuilding of the church, we just get a little taste, get a little glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And I want to be clear. The word glimpse is my word. That's not what Paul uses. What does Paul say? Paul says, "What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." What Paul is saying, "Don't downplay the power that the body of believers have to be able to reveal the love of God, the kingdom of God to each other." I said glimpse because I recognize the ultimate, infinite glory of the kingdom of God in heaven whenever we get there. But Paul is saying, "The church here now is still rich and glorious. It's still able to fully reveal the kingdom of God to those who are in it and who see it." So Christians, does this describe us? Are we the riches of His glorious inheritance to each other? The way I think about it is what do we want most or long for most when we get to heaven? The right Sunday school answer, which is true and good, is that we desire the presence of God. That that's what we want when we get to heaven, is just to be in the presence of God. Good, praise God. We need that. Do we bring the presence of God with us where we go? Do we bring the characteristics, the love, the nature, who He is to each other when we interact with each other? Or are we more of our own sinful self than Christ? But if we're honest with ourselves, maybe it's a little bit more specific than just the presence of God. Maybe it's the peace of God that we're longing for in heaven. Now, there's so much uncertainty in the world around us, so much going on that we don't have peace. We're not settled here. We just can't wait for the day that we have peace in heaven. Well, if that's the case, are we bringing peace wherever we go? And when you need peace and you're struggling to see that, do you look to the other believers, the brothers and sisters in the church, who you see, you've been walking with, you know are faithful, and say, "You know what? I need peace. I don't have it. Can you help me? Can you encourage me? Can you strengthen me?" Can we be the church for each other? Maybe it's hope. Maybe you're like, "There's so much that I have going on that's suffering, that's hard, it's difficult. I can't even imagine how to have hope for the next season. And in heaven one day we won't have to worry about any of that, so I'm belonging for that." Well, do we bring hope to each other? If what you need is hope, do you have the ability to share hope with other people? And if not, do you have the humility to ask for help? Do you have the humility to go to members of your community group, to go to brothers and sisters in Christ, and say, "I'm struggling. I need hope. Can you help me?" And are we willing to help when that happens? What Paul is saying is that we need to have the eyes of our hearts open to see how great it is to be the church. It is a blessing. It is an honor, and that we can reveal all of who God is through the church. And we need to be that for each other. So with that, let's pray that we could have the eyes of our hearts opened to see the riches of God's inheritance here and now through His church, and that we can be that for each other. Heavenly Father, we need you. This is what this all comes down to, Lord, is that we need you. Open the eyes of our hearts to see how you are working in our brothers and sisters here in this church. Strengthen us, convict us on how we are called to live to exemplify the fullness of the inheritance of your kingdom in heaven while we are here on earth. Let us to live joyfully and fully in that reality that we are in your kingdom even now. Give us that hope. Give us that boldness to live that way, to be your church here and now. Open our eyes to see that, to rejoice in the riches, the fullness of it, to not look at it as something light and not view it as merely a glimpse. And then just hope for that day when we get to be with you, even though we do. Help us to see the blessing, the richness of the blessing that is your church, even here at Mosaic. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. And the last subpoint that we have is that the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God to perceive power. This is verses 19 through the rest of the chapter. I'll read just verse 19 first. It says, verse 18, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," why? Verse 19, "to what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His great might..." I love this verse. I love this verse. Paul is using as much human language as possible in this text to try and give us a sense of God's power, even though he knows no human words can ever describe the power of God. But he uses these phrases, immeasurable greatness, power, working great might in this verse to try and stoke in us an understanding of how great the power of God is. The word for immeasurable is huperballo, which is where we get the word hyperbolic from. And what it's saying is use all the hyperbolic language you want. Think as lofty and as high as you could think of anyone, any type of power, and it's not even accurate enough to describe God's power. That's not how, it's not even close to how great He is. It's immeasurable His power. But it's His greatness as well. And the word for greatness is exceeding a standard of excellence. So God is a standard of excellence, so much greater than we could ever imagine. That is who He is. That is His nature, His character. He is more excellent than we could ever measure or imagine. Then he uses the word power to describe God's working. And this word is what I characterize as gym strength, or you could think of it as potential energy. For those of you who are smarter than me and like science, it's potential energy. It's that God has the power, the ability to do, He has the ability to get things done. That's gym strength through me, right? You're not physically doing the thing, but you're preparing to be able to do whatever you need to do. You're lifting weights so that way you're prepared to do something with it whenever you need to. I'm not trying to dis gym strength. I need more gym strength myself. Pray for me for that. It's a good thing, but it's about being prepared to do something. Church, do we recognize the immeasurable excellence of God's ability to work to who? It says, "towards us who believe." God wants to work for His church, He wants to use His power to benefit Christians, to use His church to usher in the kingdom here. So when we look at the immeasurable, ultimate excellence of God's power, do we ask Him for help in times of need and recognize that He has the power to do it and that He wants to do it? And that that's the reason why He is using this power is for the benefit of those who believe in Him. But He doesn't just want to do it, He does it, that's the word working. This is kinetic energy. This is, it's happening. It's active. I call this manual labor strength. The strongest people I've ever known in my life never went to the gym. My friend Ty Harris, praise God for him. Love him. You look at him, you wouldn't think He's strong. He loves musicals. He loves singing and dancing. Great guy. I love him. He had to help someone move and lifted a pool table by himself. Now, for those of you who don't know, pool tables are solid stone. They weigh almost a ton. No, not quite a... They weigh a lot. I'm not using ton literally. They weigh a lot. It usually takes four or five people to install them. And if you have to move them up or downstairs, you usually you need to use machinery. He's just like, "Okay, go lift it up, and help people move." He has working strength. Never once in the gym, working strength. My friend Rich, his father, also Rich, Stovakin, had all of the brute ruggedness of German and Russian heritage combined. So think of the toughest German and the toughest Russian, put them together, that's him. He's like 6'7. And Rich and I would work out in his basement in high school, and we were like there curling our 20 pounds, feeling good about ourselves. And then he comes in, and is like, "what are you guys doing?" "Oh, we're lifting. Well, how much can you do?" And He's like, "I don't work out, but I'll do whatever I need to." And he starts curling a 100 pounds just for reps, just like, "I'm good." What he did for a living, he lifted bales of paper and just moved it and did it. And He was faithful in his job and he just worked for his job. God has working power. He doesn't just sit and say, "I have the ability to, I could do it if you want me to. We'll see if I do." No, He works. He does. He uses His power to help His church, His people bring His kingdom here. And the last one in the sentence is great might. The word for great is just focusing on the intensity, the magnitude of the might, of God's might. But the word for might is focusing on the ability to execute something. So God doesn't just have power to work, and then He keeps working and working and working. If you've done home projects yourself, you probably know what this is like. It takes a lot longer than you thought. And you just feel like I'm just working and working and it's never going to end. No, God executes. He completes. He does what He sets out to do. He finishes it. He finishes the work He promises to do it. He has promised to save His people. He has given us that assurance. He has promised to protect His church. He has given us that assurance. So we can trust that He will do and complete what He says. And Paul says, "You know what? Maybe you still don't understand the power of God." So He goes on to try and even more hyperbolically, explain the power of God. And we're just going to fly through verses 20 through 23. I'm just going to read the snippets of it real quick. But the next thing he says is that... Well, sorry, this is the most important thing in verse 20, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places..." When we look at Easter, when we look at the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead, that's the power He uses for His church. When we're talking about working power, when we're talking about Him completing and His ability, He shows us that He does it. He doesn't just tell you He's going to do it and hope that... He proves it through the resurrection of Christ. And now He's going to point out all the power of Christ to again stoke in us a desire and understanding of the ultimate supreme power of God, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. The right hand is the hand of power. Whoever sits at the right hand of the king has all the power, all the authority of the king himself. So what it's saying is that Jesus Christ has the full power, full authority of our heavenly Father. Is that not enough power? Well, it's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. I think we, like I do often, clump these together and just run through them and it's like it's a bunch of things that are powerful. God's more powerful than that. But Paul is calling out specific things here, and he clarifies what He means by them in Ephesians 6:12. He says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." So rule and authority are specific positions that are being addressed, there are rules of people who rule and have authority, but then power and dominion is the force, is the power behind them. But Paul's saying, "We're not talking about flesh and blood here. We're not talking about physical earthly kings and rulers and authorities. What we can summarize all of this by is the kingdom of Satan," is what Paul is addressing here. Whether it's those who are working for the kingdom of Satan and the force behind them, whether it's demons or Satan himself. The sin and brokenness we see in this world, you compile all of that power together, and it's nothing compared to Jesus Christ. I think we often fall into thinking Satan is just the equal opposite of Christ, and that is so far from the truth. He is nothing compared to Christ. Jesus Himself alone is even more powerful than all of the kingdom of Satan could throw at Him, so much so, He's so far above and beyond that. In terms of power looking at it, He can barely even see the power of Satan, because He has none in comparison to Christ. Not only that, that not enough power for us, Jesus has the name that is above every name. The name of Satan has no power. He's not Lord Voldemort, or he who shall not be named. No, his name has no power. The name of Christ does have power. We see that in the New Testament, that the name of Christ has power to cast out demons. It has real, tangible power for those who believe. This is all in the context of those who believe. Don't want to say like you could just throw out Jesus' name and everything's going to go your way. That's not what it's about. It's about for those who believe and for the will of God. We see in the New Testament that the disciples see these people running around casting demons out in the name of Christ. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Should we tell them to stop?" And He's like, "No, no, they're fine." Why? Well, because apparently, even though they weren't known, they had some sort of faith or trust or relationship with Christ. But then there's a time when we see people who don't have a relationship with Christ try and cast out demons in the name of Christ, and the demon says, "I do not know you," and attacks them. So study the book of Acts. It's a fun one. There's a lot that happens. But the point of all this is being is the name is not just the name you throw out and it's just like, "Okay, whatever I want is going to happen." It's that it has power for the church. It's powerful for God's people to work the will of God. To help, to protect, to bring hope, to perceive power, to understand our role in the church. The name of Christ has power unlike any other name. All things are under His feet, not just the kingdom of Satan, but everything you could think of in all of creation. Compile all the power, all the greatness, all the honor of anything in all of creation that you can think of, and it's barely even a footstool for him. Culturally, at the time when this was written, if they heard the word feet, the initial response would've been, "That's disgusting. Feet are gross." It's very similar to today. Not much has changed. I think of when my wife and I were dating, and if my feet went anywhere near, she would slap me, and jump and run away. And it's like, my feet are gross. I get it. Feet are gross. But back then, they were walking in sandals, barefoot. The dust of the road, the filth and grime that are on the streets that they're walking are just covering their feet. And that's why washing of feet was such a big deal when someone like Jesus did it for others. But what it's saying is if there was a less honorable part of Christ, which there's not, all of Christ is fully honorable, fully glorious, fully beautiful, all of the greatness of the things of this world, they barely are even able to get to His feet. They're barely even worthy of that. That's how great is the honor and power of Christ. And He's not just powerful sitting there on His throne. He is head over all things. He leads. He guides. He is in control. He is sovereign. He is working and leading and guiding His people. We can trust in His power because it's not just there and doing whatever He wants, but He is leading, guiding us in His will. And then verse 22 and 23, 23 is my actual favorite verse of this text. It says, "And He put all things under His feet and gave Him," Christ, "as head over all things to the church, the church is His body, the church, which is the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Church, do we recognize that we are called to be the fullness of Christ. Like I said, not just a glimpse. We are called to be the fullness of Him, to bring all of His power, all of His working, all of His love, His characteristics to the world. Why? Because it's not about us. He is the one who fills. We are dependent on Him. Again, going back, bringing it full circle. We are dependent on the relationship we have with Him, our love and trust for Him, to trust Him, to fill us, to open our eyes to what we need to see, to help us see where we are weak and need to be strengthened, to let Him fill us, so that the way we live can fully exemplify Him to all who see Him. Are we the fullness of God to each other? Are we the fullness of God to those who see us? We need to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see our need for His power, but also to see how His power can help us be the church today. So we'll close with prayer for that. We'll close with prayer, for us to have the eyes of our hearts open to the power of God, that fulfills us and enables us to be His church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are powerful. You are mighty. You are working. And you desire to do good for your church. Open the eyes of our hearts to see the greatness of the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, individually where we need to see you, open our eyes to see how you are working in our lives. Lord, corporately, with this body, your church, here, open our eyes to see how you are working powerfully for your kingdom here and now. Lord, open our eyes to see that we are called to exemplify fully you to those who see us. Fill us with your power. Fill us with your strength, not for ourselves, not for our own good, but so that we can truly be your church. We can be your people. We can bring your kingdom here and now. And that those who see it turn to you and love you. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your hope. Fill us with your power. We praise you, and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Commit to Scripture
February 19, 2023 • Tyler Burns • 2 Timothy 3:14–17
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com To get our minds set and our hearts set on what it means for Christians to be committed to scripture, I'm going to read a quote for us from John Wesley and I'll read it and then I'll make a couple comments on it. But John Wesley says this about scripture, "I want to know one thing, the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book. At any price, give me the book of God. I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a man of one book." I love this quote. I'm going to add one thing to it. Amen and yes to all of this, but it's not just about how it'll land safe on that happy shore. It's also about how we are called to live while we wait for that day to come. Praise God that He has given us a book to instruct us about the way to heaven and eternity with him. Praise God that that same book tells us what to do while we wait. So with that, I just want us to be thinking and meditating upon what does it mean to be characterized as men or women of one book? That when we call ourselves Christians, we are truly committed to this book, the scriptures, the Bible, God's word, and that is a part of who we are. So with that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much that you have given us this book. You are word, your scriptures, the Bible. We thank you that you speak to us directly, plainly, clearly. We thank you that we have the privilege to be able to read this book whenever we desire. Lord, change our hearts. Encourage our hearts to love you more and specifically by loving your word more, by listening to your word, by submitting to your word, by committing to your word in our lives and trusting what you teach us in it more than ourselves. Lord, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty. Today we will be spending the majority of our time in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses four 14 through 17. We will be referencing a lot of scripture as we go into here. Really when I was preparing for this, all I wanted to do was open up the Bible on my computer, hit control A, copy paste, there's my sermon notes. We'd be here for a long time and that's culturally unacceptable. So I decided to narrow it down a little bit. But I bring this up to say that if any of the topics that we address today are interesting to you and you think, "Man, I want to know more, I want to learn more about it," there are a ton of scriptures that deal with the topics will address today. So I encourage you to study scripture, to go to scripture and study and see what it has to say about whatever the things are that we're talking about that you would like to know more about. So I also bring it up to say we're going to go through a lot. So hope you had your coffee, hope you're ready to go and let's dig into God's word. So starting in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 through 17, it says this, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you've learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." This is the reading of God's holy, unerring, authoritative and fallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in three points today. First point is that scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. Secondly, that scripture is breathed out by God. And thirdly, that scripture is able to equip you for every good work. So point number one, scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. I just read it, I'm going to read it again. This is verses 14 and 15 where it says, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you've learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." So if you'll bear with me for a quick aside, something that really stood out to me in this text that I would like to address is that it says, "Timothy, you have been acquainted with the scriptures from a young age. And it has, you have been made known of Him." So okay, what's going on here? The first chapter of this book tells us that Timothy was taught the scriptures from his grandmother and his mother. If you're like me, the question is, "Well, what about his father?" Scripture tells us in the Book of Acts that his father was not a Christian and we don't have the whole story, but from what we know from beginning to end it, we believe that his father was never saved. By God's grace He may have and we pray that He was, but we have no idea. I bring this up to say a few things. First, to give a charge to parents and second to give a charge to kids. Parents, don't be afraid to make your kids acquainted with scripture. We live in a day and age where we like to say, "I'll let my kids figure it out for themselves. I'll let them decide. I don't want to bias them in anything." What we're going to talk about in the sermon, how scripture is life and it is life giving. So if you have something that gives life, why would you withhold that from your children? Think about it this way. If you said, "I bought food. I'm going to eat my food and I'll let my kids figure out how they're going to eat. They can ask me what I personally like to eat. They can ask me what I bought to eat and I'll tell them all about what I like to eat and why I eat it, and I'll tell them all that, but I'll let them figure it out for themselves." Child services would be called on you. That's not loving. It's not helpful to them. If we truly believe that scripture is life giving, we should want to raise our kids in it to know it. And now, kids and teenagers, let your parents teach you the scriptures, trust them. Trust that it is life and they are seeking your wellbeing and your good in it. So allow them to teach you and desire it for yourself. Seek after desire to know scripture yourself. The last thing I want to address in this little tangent of mine... Sermon's not over yet, sorry. But the last thing I want to address in this tangent is I want to address single mothers and women who are married and they are a Christian and their husband is not. I want to tell you, take encouragement from scripture. God is with you. God loves you and He cares for you and He has given you the ability to equip your child to follow the Lord, that when scripture tells us that fathers are called to lead their family spiritually about when they fail, whether from death, from disease, from abandonment, from not being around to begin with, mothers, you are still loved and cared for and equipped to raise your child and even more so the need for scripture is needed. So I just want to encourage you, mothers, rely on scripture. When life gets hard and it's hard to raise a kid, depend on scripture and depend on the church. But scripture is able to equip you in that as well. So there's my brief aside. Sorry about that. Point number one, scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. That's the text that we just read. It ends with saying it's able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. So point, first thing we got to figure out in here is the word able. It says that scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. It's not a guarantee, but it is powerful to do it. It doesn't mean that just because you read this book you're going to instantly know what it means to be saved, but it has the power to do it if you submit to it and trust it. The second thing that I want to point out is that it says it's able to make you wise for salvation. It's not going to save you in and of itself. You can't read this book and say, "Oh, I read this book, I'm good to go. I'm saved now." No, that's not how it works. But it is able to make us wise, to show us to open our eyes to the message of the gospel through faith in Christ Jesus, right? Christ Jesus is the one who saves. I could quote the entirety of scripture and show you how it points to this concept. I'm just going to read one in Acts chapter 4, verse 12, speaking of Jesus, it says this, "And there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." What's scripture is all about, what it's all pointing to is Christ, and that He alone gives us salvation. Through His life, His death and resurrection on the cross, He has paid the penalty for our sins. And through our faith in him, we can be saved. No other name, no other religion, no other concept or ideology or thoughts or way of life can save us. Nothing but Christ alone. And so scripture is able to make us wise to that because it's what it talks about. That's what this whole book is about. And Jesus knew this. What I find so interesting about this idea is that Jesus used scripture in this way to make people wise for salvation. Well, what do I mean by that? So the gospel, very clearly, that Jesus Christ is fully God. He came to earth and died on the cross because of our sins that when we rebelled, we transgress, we reject God. We sinned against him and the penalty for that sin is death, eternity apart from God. And Jesus came to die and take that penalty for us so that through faith in him saying, "Jesus, you saved me from my sins. You lived a perfect life, died to pay that penalty and raised to prove that you are God. I trust in you because I need you to save me. I can't do it on my own." Jesus did that. He was raised from the dead. Fact. And then He comes across two of His disciples walking on a road to a maze and the disciples are sad and they're talking to one another. They're sad because Jesus just died. And Jesus sees them and talks to them and they don't recognize him. And Jesus goes to them, "What are you talking about? Why are you guys sad?" And they're like, "Don't you know anything that's going on in the world today. Aren't you up to date? This guy Jesus that we've all been following? He just died. What are we supposed to do with our lives? We've been following him. He's dead. What do we do?" Well, as Jesus is talking to them, what does He do? Does He go and say, "Hey guys, it's me. I'm live. You don't have to be sad anymore"? No, He doesn't. We see in Luke chapter 24 what Jesus says to them, in chapter 24, verse 25, "And He said to them, 'Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." What Jesus chooses to do is to say, "Let's read the scriptures together. We all agree that this is God's words. Let's read it and I'll show you how all of it points to Jesus Christ." So if you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe you're here just seeking questions, have thoughts, we're glad you're here. Maybe you're here because you just have this feeling that you're supposed to be here, you want to be here, a friend invited you, we're glad that you're here. Thank you for coming. I want to challenge you. If you are seeking after God, read this book. Read this book. Ask God to reveal himself to you from this book. It's not going to save you. Reading this book isn't going to save you, but it is able to open our eyes. It is powerful enough to open our eyes to the reality of Christ as our savior and our need for him. So if you're not a Christian, that's my challenge. Read this book, start reading it and see what it says about Christ and salvation. Point number two, scripture is breathed out by God. This is from verse 16 in our text, the first part of it where it says, "All scripture is breathed out by God." So a couple things we need to clarify here. What is meant by all of scripture? This is one of the times where I love to point out Greek words and like, "This is what they mean." The Greek word for all means all. It's very plain is what it means. It's all of it. It's this whole book, the whole cannon of scripture. Now, I can stand up here and go through historical arguments, scientific arguments, scholarly arguments and things like that to show you why this is the scripture. This is the whole of it. But I'm not going to do that because I believe God's word is powerful enough on its own. And if you read this book, it'll prove it's scriptureness, it's divinity, it's holiness to you. So I'm not going to defend it in that way, but I will give you just like a little bit of information that that might be helpful. So first, when we say all scripture, we're talking about the Old and New Testament, so this book, the Bible. And if you have questions about the canonicity, the completeness of the Old Testament, I just want to encourage you that scholars and historians have never really questioned this. This is not really something that's ever been debated. It's been solidified for a very long time. If you want to know more about that, I encourage you to study it, to look it up. You can talk to me afterwards. But Josephus was a Jewish historian. He was not a Christian, but a Jewish historian at the time of Christ. This is what he says about the Old Testament canon of scriptures. He says, "For although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured neither to add or to remove or to alter a syllable." What he was saying is for as long as we can study history, as long back as he was able to find, no one has dared change or add anything to the cannon of the Old Testament because everyone knew that this was the scriptures. It's the same scriptures that we have as our Old Testament today where most people have questions comes to the New Testament. I just want to tell you that the books of the New Testament were largely decided by three things. First, the divine qualities, the idea that they were written by God and speak of God truthfully. The reception by the churches, did people at the time when they were written actually believe that they were scripture? And third connection to an apostle, connection to someone who saw the life of Christ. So I'm just going to point out two places where the New Testament affirms its canonicity. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 18, Paul writing a first letter to Timothy says this, "For the scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages'." This is an idea that is from the Old Testament, but it's not a quote from the Old Testament. The idea is consolidated to this quote by Jesus in the books of Matthew and of Luke. So Paul writing this letter is affirming the gospels as scripture. He's saying we in the church at that time believe that the gospels are divine quality, are of equal value of scripture as the whole of the Old Testament. So the church in the early days accepted the gospels as scripture. Second one I want to point out is 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 15 and 16, where Peter says, "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures." I'm pointing this one out because for some reason Paul is the one we have the most difficulty with in modern times, and it's not for some reason. It's the reason that it says here, he says hard things which we don't like, and so we twist them. But Peter makes a couple of points here. First, he points out that... Excuse me. Paul is writing from wisdom given to him. It's not his own wisdom, it's not his own thoughts. It's the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that has been given to him that Paul is writing these letters. Then he says, "Just like every other scripture, people are going to twist it." This is a statement confirming the canonicity, the authority, the scripture or nature of Paul's letters saying that, "Yeah, Paul's letters are scriptures. And just like all of the other scriptures, people naturally are going to try and twist them to fit their own desires." And so people like to say, "I believe in the canon of scripture minus Paul. Just get rid of Paul and I accept the rest of it." Well, if you accept the rest of it, you have to accept that Peter calls those letters of Paul scripture. And so you have to submit to them as scripture as well. I could go on and on forever about this. I'm not going to. If you have more thoughts or questions about the canonicity of scripture, I encourage you to study it and feel free to talk to us and people in your community groups about it. But, that's what we mean by all scripture. We're talking about this book. Every single part of it is breathed out by God. Well, what do we mean by breathed out by God? It means kind of three things, but first is that it's inspired by God. It originates from God himself. We see this idea in 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 20. Peter says this, "Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So Peter is telling us, "What is scripture? What are the things written in there?" Yes, men physically wrote them down, penned them, but they were speaking from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was guiding them, was directing their thoughts, their minds, their heart and saying, "This is what God wants you to tell people" and they just wrote it down. So when we talk about scripture as a breathed out by, we say it's holy, unerring, authoritative, divinely inspired is what we're getting at. We're saying that this is from God. It's not a message that men have to tell other people. It's a message that God has to tell us. The second thing that it means for scripture to be breathed out by God is that it is alive. In scripture when we see God breathing, it's not just because He's like out of breath huffing and puffing or anything like that. It's He's doing something with it. He's giving life. We see this most clearly in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7 when God creates man, creates Adam. It says, "Then the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground." Dust is not alive, dust is dead. "And breathe into His nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." This word is alive. Do we know that scripture is alive? Well, what do we mean? I'm not saying it's going to jump out of my hand and start attacking or talking or doing. That's not what we're talking about. Well, Hebrews clarifies for us what does it mean for the word of God to be living. It says, "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Scripture is alive. It is living, meaning it's always relevant. It's never going to not apply. Why? Because it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It can pierce through culture. It could pierce through personality. It could pierce through ideologies and thoughts and mentalities and upbringings and get to the heart of all of the issues. It will always be relevant because it speaks upon what actually matters in life. This is something that people like to debate or throw out there. Not even debate. All the time it's like, "It's an old book. It's not really relevant anymore." My favorite thought on this is from Voltaire. I don't know how many of you are familiar with him, but he's a French theologian and a really smart, brilliant guy, loved the concept of a God existing so long as that God didn't tell him how to do anything or have any impact on his life. This is what Voltaire says about scripture. In 1776, he says, "100 years from my day," so 1876, "there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker." By 1876, Voltaire promise that a Bible's not going to exist except by the people who like weird old stuff. They'll have a Bible just for curiosity's sake. Well Voltaire, you're wrong. You're very wrong. I didn't mention this in first service, but he died a few years after this and his house was bought by the French Bible printing company and they used it to print even more Bible. So anyway, that's just God's humor in all of this. But why? Scripture. It seems so outdated. It doesn't speak to the things that culture likes. Cultures move past this. We've progressed. Why would it still exist? Because it's true and it speaks to our hearts. It speaks to us on a level that only God can pierce through everything going on in our lives and speak directly to us. This is what it means for scripture to be alive. The third thing that it means for scripture to be breathed out is that it gives life. It gives life. In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus says, "But He answered them, 'It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God'." We can do everything we're supposed to physically. We can eat right, we can exercise, drink water, stay hydrated, do everything that we can to prolong our life here on earth, and without God's word, we've never really lived. We can do everything to extend our life on earth, but apart from the salvation that comes from Christ that we are made wise to from the scriptures, the eternal life is one of death. Only through the power and the saving work of Christ can our eternal life breathe life. I was convicted in the middle of first service. So if you guys know, God's convicted my heart of sinfulness and reminded me how much I love bread. It says, "More man shall not live by bread alone." God reminded me in college before I cared about my health at all because I wasn't married yet, so I didn't affect anybody else. I would just buy a loaf of bread for dinner and just eat it with olive oil, garlic, Parmesan. Anyways, I'm hungry. Bread is so good. There is nothing better to eat than warm, fresh out of the oven, good bread. This is incredible stuff, guys. Praise God for bread. Amen. We need to love God's word more than that. Amen. I clarified in first service, as much as I loved bread, we need to love scripture more than that because maybe you don't feel the same. But the idea is that God's word will actually give life. It enables us to live a life of abundance here on earth, but also it leads us to a life of faithfully following the Lord an eternal blessing and reward for following him. And so if we actually believe God's word, the scriptures is breathed out by God, it is alive, it is from God, and it is able to give us life, we should really like this word, like to read it, like to study it, want to know it. This is what the early church exampled or lived like to show us. In the Book of Acts in chapter 2, a couple weeks ago we had a sermon on committed to a local church. We talked through the end of Acts after the Pentecost what did the local church look like. This text is 100% absolutely about needing to be committed to a local church, but I want to read it to us and I want you to focus on where does it talk about scripture in how the early church lived immediately after the Pentecost. In Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42 it says, "And they, Christians, devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." So yes, this text is about commitment to a local church and what the early church looked like, but it's bracketed by scripture. It starts off that the early church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves to the words and teachings of the apostles, what we have written down and recorded as of the New Testament. And then it ends in day by day attending temple together. Well, what happened at temple? Yes, there was community events and things like that, but primarily what happened is that people were reading aloud the words of the scriptures and we're teaching upon the scriptures. And day by day they went to hear it. This is how much the early church was committed to scripture that even though manuscripts and copies weren't widely known and available to people, they were willing to travel and go to hear it every day. Now, the city of Jerusalem, where they would go was broken into different sections for sort of the higher ups and the lower ups, most of the people in the church were just common men and women. The common men and women lived in the lower part of the city that was a half mile walk upstairs, up a mountain. They had stairs though. So upstairs to get to the temple to be able to hear the word of God preached. Now if you're here and you're like, "I live in Boston. I walk more than a half mile every day, that's no problem," good. Then why is it so hard for us to take two steps to find the Bible in our room, in our home, in our apartments, wherever it may be? Oh, just take the phone out of our pockets and be like, "Oh, there's the Bible app." Why is it so hard for us to read God's word? If we truly believe it is breath of God, it is life and God's words, we should want to hear it all the time as much as we can. We should not let the Bible app on our phone be the least used app on our phone and we shouldn't let the Bible be the book collecting dust on our shelves. We should want it, we should desire it, we should love it and seek after it. Point number three is that scripture is able to equip you for every good work. This is verses 16 and 17 in our text. This is where the big thrust of this text comes in and it says, "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." First thing I want to address here is the phrase man of God. What is meant when Paul writes that the man of God may be complete? Well, the context of this book is that Paul is writing this letter to Timothy who is a pastor and a preacher in the church. And so he is writing to him specifically about how to lead and run a church. That's why we call these books a pastoral epistle, is what we call them. And so the idea is that pastors, preachers, people in ministry, missionaries, whoever is charged by God for the work of God, you need to be rooted in scripture. You need to let scripture work on you first before you are able to preach it to others. But it's more than that. It's more than that. The phrase man of God is actually an Old Testament phrase for any person that God sent with a message to deliver. If someone, a prophet was given a message, words by God and said, "Go tell this to someone," they were referred to as the man of God. So if you're sitting here and like, "Good. Wooh! This is for pastors and preachers and missionaries. Great," you're not excused either. None of us are. Because if you remember, a few weeks ago we talked about the Great Commission. Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 and 20, it says, "And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age'." We've talked about how this is a charge for every Christian. So if you're a Christian here today, you have a message from God, the gospel, that you are called and sent to go and proclaim. And so if you want to be equipped, if you want to be complete to do that work, your life needs to be rooted in scripture, needs to have scripture as its foundation because it is what equips us to do what God has told us and sent us to do. How does it do it? Paul gets into this sort of four phase step of how scripture equips us and it's by teaching, by reproof, correction, and training. So what does it meant by teaching? Well, teaching is essentially information-based. You can think of it that way, that it's scripture tells us, teaches us what God is like, who He is, what is righteous, what is good, what is sinful, what is bad. It gives us that information and we should know it. We should desire to know it. And then because we are sinful people, that information will reproof us. I don't know the last time you heard the word reproof in day-to-day conversation. I don't think I've ever heard it outside of a church. But the word is essentially convicting. We are convicted by it. It's literally the process of trying someone as guilty. It's like, "You're guilty. We're going to put you to the test to show that you're guilty." I think of the Salem witch trials if they were actually all guilty, and it's just like, "You're guilty. We're going to prove that you're guilty to everybody. Okay, you're guilty." Essentially, it is what it is. Scripture convicts us in that way. We are sinful. When we read God's word, it shows us, "Oh, God wants me to be like that? I'm not like that. I'm sinful. I've fallen short." And it should convict us. It should change our thoughts and ideas about how we live so that we want to live more like Christ. And so if reading scripture doesn't convict us, there could be a few things going on in our lives. First thing is maybe you haven't understood the weight of the gospel, right? The weight of the gospel is that our sin, the things that we have done wrong, transgressed God with, is what put Christ on the cross in the first place. It is the reason why Christ God needed to die. That should convict us when we think about the weight of our sins. But we are sinful people, so we aren't always convicted of our sin because we're not perfect. And so maybe we're not convicted of sin when we read scripture because we have what a psychiatrist and therapists call main character syndrome. Main character syndrome is the idea that when you watch a movie or read a book, you just naturally insert yourself in the place of the main character. That's why these things are written most of the time. We can't do that with scripture. You can't. We're not the main character of scripture. Jesus is. Jesus is the main character. Again, we already talked about how scripture is all about Jesus and His salvation to us. So it does apply to us. It is relevant to us, but it's not primarily about us. And so if we read scripture as a main character, we're like, "Wow, this Jesus guy is pretty good. It makes me feel good about myself. I must be pretty good too. All right, I guess I'm good." We can't do that with scripture. We have to let scripture convict us. The third reason why we might not be convicted when we read scripture of our sin is we have itching ears. "Itching ears. What does that mean? What's going on there?" This is what Paul tells Timothy to be warned, be careful of, in the next chapter of his letter. In this chapter, he is focusing on Timothy's need for scripture for his edification in and of himself. In the next chapter, he says, "You must then preach it. You need to preach scripture. It is the best thing for preaching.' And then in chapter 4, verse 2, he says this, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but will have itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." Christians, we can't have itching ears. We can't say, "Ooh, scripture says that. I don't like that so I'm going to find someone who says something different and I'll listen to them." Or, "Ooh, this part of scripture says what I like and that part doesn't so I'm just going to not think about that part and I'll just focus on this part that I like." We can't have ears that we want to scratch with whatever we feel is right and we want to hear. We need to have ears that humbly come to scripture and say, "Ooh, I don't like that. Why? What's that convicting me of? What's it challenging me of? Why am I so disturbed by this text? It is the word of God, so what do I need to change?" Scripture is able to inform us about God and about righteousness and about life, but it is going to convict us then when we see our sinfulness and our fallenness. But we don't stay there. We don't stay there. So the next point is correction. Correction, I think, we all think of as a negative word. Like you're correctional facilities, that's bad. It sounds bad. Literally, it's to improve. It's to change. It's a good thing. It has a positive connotation. We can correct. We can change. When we see sin in our lives, we don't have to stay that way. I love this verse. 1 John chapter 1, verse 9 it says, "If we confess our sins, He, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So when we're studying scripture and we learn that we are sinful and we are convicted of sin in our hearts, what do we do? We go to Christ and we confess it to him knowing that he is faithful and just to forgive us. He will forgive us. We don't have to stay in it and don't have to stay in our guilt and shame. Then he also cleanses us. I love that. He cleanses us. So he removes it from us. We aren't that anymore. It's not who we are. We can change. We can grow. We can mature in our lives and in our faith. This process then will mature us. And that's the last thing that Paul talks about is training in righteousness. The word training is the idea of disciplined, but it's also of parenting. It's the same word that is used for parenting, for raising up in maturity. Scripture is profitable for raising us up in spiritual maturity. Well, how does it do this? Psalm one 19 verse 11, it says, "I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." Joshua 1:8, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it." So as we are training, as we are preparing to grow in maturity of our faith, to grow in faithful obedience as we've been talking about in the Roman sermon series before this, we need to have God's word stored up in our hearts and not let it depart from our mouths. Why? It does both sides of the coin, that we might not sin against God. It helps us fight sin, and that we may be careful to do according to all that is written. That we can actively do what is right. Scripture has the power to discipline, to change us, to train us up in maturity and it has the ability to help us fight temptation and sin, right? The thing that prevents us from growing in maturity is when we fall back into sin, when we sin and we sin and we don't recognize, we don't repent, or we just keep falling back into sin. Scripture is there to help us in those moments, to fight off sin in the first place and to encourage us when we have failed. And Jesus knew this. Jesus' primary weapon against temptation was scripture. In the New Testament, Jesus is tempted by Satan. He is tempted. And the first time Jesus says, "No, for it is written." And then Satan's like, "Okay, I'll tempt to you a different way." And Jesus says, "No, for it is written." And a third time Satan tempts him and Jesus says, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written." This is where I get to talk about memorization of scripture. I don't really like that word. I'm sorry. If you are great at memorizing scripture, great. Praise God. That's awesome. I prefer the word internalize. We need to internalize scripture. It's good to memorize. Do. I encourage you. Do memorize scripture. Know it. That's great. But if someone's like, "Ph, what does this verse say?" and you're able to repeat it to them, that's awesome. And then if they ask you, "But what does it mean?" and you're like, "Oh, I don't know," that's not very helpful. And if they're like, "Well, how does that apply to your life?", you're like, "Ah, beats me," that's not helpful. That's not what scripture is talking about. We store it up in our hearts. We internalize it. We make it a part of who we are. We let it transform us so that way when temptations come, we can say "No, for is written." I think when I've heard that section of Jesus' temptation preached on most, it's often just memorize scripture. It's good. Good. Good to know the scripture. But do you have specific scriptures prepared to fight against specific temptations? We are all sinful people. Let's not pretend we're not. We are. We all have different struggles and different temptations. So whatever it is, whatever sin you are struggling with, you are dealing with, study scripture and what does scripture say about that. So that way the next time temptation comes, you're ready. I think when temptation comes, our primary response is to just ignore it and try and delay it. That never works. To muster up emotional strength within us like, "I'm going to fight against this. I'm just going to be tough and stand here and not moved." Or it's to just, "Oh, well, whatever. That's the worst." But do we do what Jesus did? Actively say scripture. Don't be afraid to say it out loud. You might sound weird for a little bit, but that's okay. But there's power in words. So when temptation comes say, "No, Satan! Be gone, Satan! For it is written." And have scripture ready. Know scripture. Be prepared with scripture to be able to fight against temptation. This scripture, as we study and as we meditate on it and internalize it, it will encourage us in this process because even still, we'll fall short. We'll fall to temptations, we will sin, but scripture will then still encourage us. And this is Romans chapter 15, verse 4, it says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through the endurance taught in scriptures and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope." One of the ways Satan likes to have power over us in that temptation is that when we fall, when we sin, he wants to lead us to despair, to lead us to guilt, to say, "Ah, I just stuck in it. I've messed up a lot," or, "I'm just here. I can't get out." It's when we need scripture. We need scripture to preach truth to us that there is endurance. We are able to endure. And there is encouragement within God's word to help us to have hope. Even when we fail, even when we fall short, no matter what is going on in our lives or what temptation we face, we can always have hope. When we're lacking that hope, we should go to scripture and study it and seek it and ask God, "Give us hope in these situations." Really this four stages of teaching, reproof, correction, and training, it perfectly exemplifies what I was taught as the cycle of growth. This cycle of growth was something that I was taught at a teen's conference of how do we do ministry to teenagers. And I was like, "This is silly. Everybody needs to hear this. This should just be everywhere, not just for teenagers." But it's called the cycle of growth because it's how we are called to grow. The first step of it is unconscious incompetence. You don't know how sinful you are. You don't know how incompetent you are, but scripture teaches us. It teaches us and it reproofs us. It convicts us and says, "You're going to move on to the stage of conscious incompetence. Oh Lord, I'm aware. I'm a sinner. Lord, I am incompetent at following you. I have failed at following you." I should say do think about "What sins am I struggling with and what stage of this process am I in? Where am I at?" and try and help yourself progress through this cycle of growth by dependence on the scripture and reliance on the community and the church and the Holy Spirit and prayer. Absolutely. But scripture is able to help us in this as well. And so in first service, I used an example that I think is just prevalent in our society, but also we never want to talk about it Lust. Lust is a sin. It is sinful to look at a man or a woman with lustful intentions in your heart. Maybe you don't recognize that that's a sin you are dealing with until you read the scriptures that say it is a sin. Or until maybe someone, a brother or sister in Christ points it out and it's like, "Hey man, hey sister, you have an inappropriate way of looking. You lust after these people." And it's like, "All right. I didn't realize it, but now I am consciously aware of my incompetence in this area." Well, now the next step is to get to conscious competence where it's you are aware that you are not doing it anymore. It's like, "All right, lust is the issue. I'm not going to look at that guy that way. I'm not going to look at that girl that way. I'm not going to look at anybody in any way other than that they are a child of God." And so when a beautiful human being walks by, you're just like, "Nope, nope, nope. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it." And the more you train yourself, the more that you are consciously competent and faithful in your resisting of the temptation, you move to unconscious competence. It's just natural. A beautiful person walks by, it's like, "Hello, brother or sister in Christ." There's no thoughts of impurity. There's no lust within your heart. It's just natural to do the right thing. This is the process for all sin and all temptation and that we need to grow to, is that we are faithful. We are faithful in following the Lord to the point that it just becomes second nature. This is what scripture talks about in the big fancy word of sanctification. That's what it is. That we are sanctified. We are becoming more like Christ to the point that we don't have to think about it anymore. It's just part of who we are. It's internalized. It's our nature. We are like Christ. So I just want to encourage us today, church, that this word, this book, the Bible, the scriptures is powerful. It is able to reveal the truth of the gospel for salvation to anyone who reads it. It is God's word to us to give us life. It will never be relevant, and it can change us. It could work in us to grow us, to sanctify us, make us more like Christ so we can be equipped to do the work that God has called us to do. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you. We praise you for this book. We thank you that you have chosen to speak so clearly to us, to guide us and provide life in it to us. Lord, soften our hearts to your words. Convict us of sin as we read it. Give us a heart and a mind that's willing to be dedicated to love your word more than anything else, to be able to seek after it daily and to let it change us, to sit in the uncomfortable tensions where we feel convicted and say, "Lord, change me. Change us." Lord, help us to love your word and proclaim it boldly and not be ashamed of it. We thank you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Final Faithful Instructions
January 15, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Romans 16:17–27
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 So we finally made it to the last week of Romans. Yeah, praise God, we are very thankful for the year that we have been in it. This is a clap of celebration, not of it's over with. No, amen. It has been 11 months, I believe, two weeks and two days since we started the Book of Romans, and we are finally in the last section of this text. And so what we're going to see is how Paul is a master of communication. He knows how to communicate points to people. And any good public speaker, in any format, knows how to communicate clearly what they are trying to say. I pray that I communicate clearly to you what the Lord is trying to say through me today. But if you've taken any classes on public speaking, on sermons, on how to communicate to people, there's a very common three part saying for how to communicate, and I'll get to it in a second. No one knows exactly where this phrase or idea or originated. Some people attribute it to Aristotle, some to like other philosophers and whoever. The earliest date that we have it written down is 1908, and it's in a piece called Three Parts of a Sermon. If you've been at Mosaic for a while, we love three-part sermons, but it's a little bit different here. But it's by a pastor as Mr. Joette, and he talks of a preacher who was communicating to him how to communicate to others. So he says, "How do you prepare your sermon?" The elder pastor says, "I take my text and I divide my sermon into three parts. In the first part, I tell them what I'm going to tell them. In the second part, I will tell them. And in the third part, I tell them what I told him." And that's exactly what we see Paul doing in this text. We have been in Romans for a long time, and if you remember way back to the first sermon in Romans, Paul told us what he is going to tell us. He had a thesis statement. And then we've spent a year hearing what Paul told us. And now, today, he's going to tell us what he has been telling us for the past year that we've been in this text. And so it's his conclusion, it's his summary, but it's not just a restatement of the same things for the sake of concluding. It's a restatement to show how each and every one of the themes and things he has been trying to say to us actually has practical implications for the church today. So before I get into the reading of scripture and the preaching of God's word, I just want to break down the major overarching themes from the Book of Romans for us real quickly. We've spent a year real deep in the details. This is the high arching themes of the Book of Romans. So in Romans 1:1-15, he starts with a greeting to the church in Rome, and a expression of his desire of his wanting to be with them and be in fellowship with them. Then in verses five and then 16 and 17, we sort of see Paul's thesis statement twice stated. So in Romans 1:5, Paul says, "Through whom we have received grace," through whom is Christ, "we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all nations." Then in verses 16 and 17, Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it as the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also 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." Paul stated his point in writing the book of Romans is to produce faithful obedience from the church to the Lord, that's verse five. It's the same thing in 16 and 17, from faith, once you are saved, once you have saving faith in Christ for faith, for living a life of faithful obedience. That's why the righteous shall live by faith. So that's Paul's thesis to promote faithful obedience to the Lord and the church. And then the rest of chapter one through the end of chapter five, Paul is arguing about how this faithful obedience is not the same as legal works. It's not the same thing as fulfilling the law or doing your duty. It's a joyous, faithful obedience to the Lord out of love for him. And when we strive to live in love for God, now in chapter six through the end of chapter eight, we get the battle of the spirit versus the flesh. We want to do good. We want to follow the Lord. We want to live by the Spirit. But there is the flesh, the sinful desires, the earthly nature within us that is waging war and trying to push against the Spirit. And so we talked about how we are called to live by the Spirit, not by flesh, to follow the Spirit, to put our flesh to death. And that's a battle. It's a war that's waging. And so what do we do? How do we fight this? Well, first we start by trusting the sovereignty of God, that's chapters nine through the end of chapter 11. In this battle, in this life, all of it is under the umbrella of God is in control. He is Lord and sovereign. Then in chapters 12 through the end of 14, he gets into the specific practicals, "Here's what you do. Here's how you live Christians. Here are the marks of a Christian. What to do as a church." Then he sums it all up, kind of saying, "This is how we're able to actually do it." In 15:1-21, he says, "It's all because of the hope we have in Christ." That everything Paul has written about in the Book of Romans, we need to focus on Christ and have hope that comes from him alone. To be able to live practically for God, to be able to recognize God's sovereignty in difficult times, to be able to fight in the Spirit and reject the flesh, to live in faithful obedience, not as one completing the law, it all requires hope in Christ. And then last week we see how Paul is sort of completing his themes. We talked about his longing, his greeting to many brothers and sisters in the church. Last week we talked about that. And so this week we're seeing Paul's conclusion, and I'm summarizing all of what he has said before, because I want us to be looking at the text we'll read today and seeing where is Paul making connections to these themes? Where is he drawing from these points to try and bring it all about to the practical life of the church today? So with that summary, let's pray over the reading and preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that we have the opportunity to gather here today to praise and worship and honor your name. We thank you that you give us your word, your scriptures to challenge us, to strengthen us, to provoke in us a desire for faithful obedience to you. We thank you for the gift that is our ability to serve and live for you. In this time, use your word, use your scriptures to challenge us, where we need to be challenge, to strengthen us, where we need to be strengthened, and encourage us ultimately to live lives that glorify your name. In Jesus' name, amen. Alrighty. So with that, we actually are not going to have three points today, because I told you what I'm going to tell you, and I've told you that Paul's already told us it. So now I'm just going to go to the third point and tell you what he's been telling you. But what we're going to do is we'll read the text and then I'll go through verse by verse just to point out, this is the theme that Paul is arguing and drawing from. So our text today is Romans 16:17-27 with you'll read with me, you can follow along in your bibles or on the screens behind me. It says this, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsman. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you. Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen." Alrighty, so we will start in verse 17, at the beginning of this text. And what Paul is focusing on is the practicalities of the Christian life. What we talked a lot about in these last few chapters, that was sort of the ending of Paul's argument, is how to live as a Christian. And Paul's argument for the practical life of a Christian, he summarizes with two points. First, focus on the gospel, and second, focus on unity within the church. That is the summary of all the things that Paul has written in terms of the practical life of a Christian. And here in verse 17, he says, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them." And so he's drawing on the text from Romans 14:13. His point that he made there is says this, "Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother." If you remember back in chapter 14, Paul's argument of not passing judgment was specifically, "If someone bears the name of Christ, if they are a Christian, they're in Christ. They are saved. It is not your ability to save them or not save them, to condemn them for what they say or do. God alone saves. So do not pass judgment on them, condemning them. And also rather than condemning them, now, decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of the brother." So focus on the gospel. If they are saved, that is the power of God, that is their identity through Christ, and do not put up any hindrances. Now, the hindrance that Paul was talking about specifically in chapter 14 was meat offered to idols, right? Some Christians said, "We can't eat meat offered to idols, lest anyone think I'm dare worshiping that idol?" Then other Christians were like, "Idols aren't real. We could eat whatever we want." And there was division within churches because of this issue. And Paul's saying, "No, no, we don't have any divisions. We seek, we focus on unity within the church based on the gospel. If it is in the gospel, that is what we focus on." What's interesting, and a brother in the church pointed out to me this week that it ends by saying, "Avoid people who causes division." Seems like it's causing division. Well, two things that we need to recognize here is that, first, Paul is calling for the flip of what he was saying before. Before he said, "Seek unity and don't create division yourselves." Now, "Avoid those who do cause division and reject the gospel." Well, what is this about? It's first, we as Christians are called ourselves, specifically, individually but also corporately as a body to seek this, to seek unity, to pursue unity in practicality and to live it out. And to focus on the gospel ourselves, to hold the gospel of Jesus Christ in utmost authority over our lives. And when we do that for ourselves, we want to protect it. We want to protect that sanctity. We don't want anything to come in to this body and affect that belief. So we do need to protect the gospel of Christ. Now, are we causing divisions by doing that? No, we aren't. Why? Because Paul is clear, "Those that are causing these divisions are not part of the body to begin with." This is verse 18, "For such persons," those causing divisions, "do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." See, we cannot serve the Lord and our own appetites. You can't do both. It's one or the other. And this is Paul's argument from chapter six through eight of the Spirit versus the flesh. You can't serve two masters. This is from Romans 8:5-8, it says, "For those who live according to their flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." And so what Paul is talking about is not division within the church. It's about recognizing that if you are causing division, you are in sin, and you cannot please both your own satisfactions, your own appetites, it's literally your stomach, your hungers, your earthly desires, your flesh and the Lord. And so when we see those that are serving their own desires solely, they are not serving the Lord, we should recognize that, as not what Christ is about and not what Christ is like. And there's always grace and forgiveness and repentance. So if you see somebody who is causing divisions within the church, call them to repentance, and forgive them if they do. If you are causing divisions within the church, call you to repent, and there will be forgiveness, and you will be in the Lord. And we can put aside the desires of our flesh to live in the Spirit. And again, it says that, "Those who set their mind on the Spirit, it brings life and peace." Well, what is the gospel? The gospel is the story of life. The life that we can have eternal life through the working of Christ. And peace is the unity that we seek in this church, but also the peace of our hearts and mind, because of the gospel of Christ. So if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I want to tell you, there are two sides of this, Spirit and the flesh, serving Christ and serving yourself. Ultimately, we'll see that as serving the kingdom of Satan. But I urge of you to run to Christ, pray to Him, seek Him, go to Him, because He desires relationship with you. He died on the cross. He left everything in heaven above to come and save you from your sins, if you have faith and trust in Him. If you will say, "Lord Jesus, I submit my life to you. You are the only one who can save me and bring me into the Spirit, and save me from this sinful flesh of mine." And Paul then goes on talking to the church in Rome, recognizing that they have been saved and they are sanctified, and he knows that by their obedience. Actually before I get to that, quick point, at the end of verse 18, it talks about that, "Those who do not serve the Christ but serve their own appetites, do so by smooth talk and flattery." I like the word flattery. Well, I don't like the word flattery, but I like that it's here. When I think about flattery, what I think about is people telling me I look good when I don't. Like, "Oh, Tyler, you smell great. Is that new cologne?" It's like, I've just been running up and down stairs. I've been sweating. I know I smell terrible. That's not good. That's not true. That's flattery. But that's what flattery is emphasizing here is praise that is not true. So we just sang a song before the service about how God is worthy of praise. That's actually the same word as flattery here. But the difference is, yeah, God is worthy of praise. God is holy. He is worthy of glory. He is almighty. So it's not flattery, it's praise. Now, when someone gives us praise, and we know it's not true, that's flattery. I don't know about you, but my least favorite compliment to ever receive is, "You're such a good person." Jesus is very clear, there is none good but one and that is the Lord God. And so when I hear that, all that goes through my mind is, "You have no idea how much of a sinner I am. You have no idea how wicked I am that you say I'm good." What Paul is saying here is, "Watch out for people who tell you what you want to hear. Watch out for people who tell you how great you are and amazing you are, when it's not true." You see, this was what was causing division in so many churches in the first century, and throughout all of history, is that people start to say, "You know what? I'm going to tell people what they want to hear. I'm going to tell them how awesome and great they are, and then they'll follow me." But, Paul's saying, "No, follow those not who speak well, not who have smooth talk, but those who live lives of faithful obedience." Don't listen to what I'm saying or any other preacher at Mosaic says, because we are eloquent, check us. Are we faithfully following the Lord? And by God's grace we strive to, we desire to. And anyone who is faithfully obedient to the Lord, they are the ones to follow, regardless of how well they speak, regardless of how charismatic they are, are they bearing fruit of faithfulness to the Lord? Follow them and praise them, because then it's true. Praise God that you are able to live a life of faithful obedience and bestow that honor upon such people. And that's what Paul does here, right? In verse 19, he says, "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." Paul rejoices, he brings praise over the church in Rome, because he knows that they have been obedient. He's also clarifying, he's like, "I'm not saying these things about you. You haven't been the ones causing division. You aren't the ones with smooth talk and flattery. I'm thankful and praising God for you because of your obedience." And what Paul is drawing on is that faithful works, faithful obedience is not the same thing as fulfilling of the law. And where do we see that clearly is the rejoicing that Paul gives for their obedience. Have you ever rejoiced because someone followed the law? That's like, you're supposed to follow the law, just do it like we don't rejoice and celebrate the fact. Guys, I can tell you this past week I did not murder anyone. Great. Yeah, exactly. That proves my point. No one rejoices over me doing what the law says I'm supposed to do. You're like, "No, duh, just do what you're supposed to do." But what we rejoice over is when people do things that they're not supposed to do, that they are not supposed to be able to do. And this is what Paul argues in Romans chapter four and in chapter five, kind of together, that whole argument he brings it about. But in 4:1-5, Paul says this, "What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." See, when we work, we get wages, right? You have a job, you get paid. So when you receive wages for the work you do, that's just what you're supposed to get. When you get a gift, that is a cause for rejoice and because you know don't deserve it. And what this text is saying, is that Abraham was counted as righteous, was counting as faithful before the Lord because of his faith. He was counted as doing good things, as fulfilling the law, because of his faith, not because of the works he did. And so he is in a position of saved by grace through faith. And anyone who bears the name of Christ is in the same. We are in a position, a state of faith by grace, of grace by faith, I should say. Well, so then what do we do from that position? This was Paul's argument in his thesis that from faith, for faith, you are in faith. From that faith, now you go in faith, you do faith, you live in faith. And this is Romans 5:2-5, "Through him," through Christ, "we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand," this is the state we are in because of faith, "and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." We're in a position of faith, now, we live in faith. We live in a way that allows us to endure suffering, to build character, to produce hope in us. Why? Because of the faithful obedience to God that we are able to live in because of the state of grace through faith that we are in. And we rejoice over it, right? He says twice that, "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, but we also rejoice in our sufferings." There is a rejoicing, and that's Paul's point here. He says, "I rejoice over your obedience," because when we see the obedience in our lives, when we see the obedience in other faithful Christians lives, we look at them and what we see is not them doing good things. What we look at is we see that God has saved them and has allowed them to live a life that actually brings honor and glory to God. Praise God. That's not possible for any of us to do unless it's a gift of God. So when we see faithful obedience, we should rejoice, we should celebrate it, not because it's good work, but because it's a gift from God. And then he says this little phrase, "Be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." The word innocent literally means unmixed, untainted. What he's talking about is purity. Be wise as to what is good without any evil mixed in. Okay, well, and what is wisdom? My working definition that I don't know where I got it from, but I've heard for many years and I love about wisdom is knowledge applied. It's not just knowing what is good, but actually living in it and applying it to day-to-day life. I can see what God says is good and apply it to my day-to-day situations. So what Paul is calling for us to do is to strive for perfection. Oh, that's a hard thing to do, right? Now, none of us are perfect, none of us achieve it. But again, it is a gift from God in the first place that we could do anything good. And so if that is true, then we trust God and we seek him, and he will enable us to remove the evil within our hearts, within our lives. And so Christians, we are called to examine ourselves. We are called to look at our lives and say, "Where is their sin? Where is there evil? Where is there something within my heart and my life that I am not submitting to the Lord?" And we're called to cut it out. We're called to remove it. We're called to submit it fully to the Lord and be sanctified, so that we are unmixed, we're innocent to evil. Now, Paul transitions very easily to verse 20, which is all about the sovereignty of God in this. If we want to strive for perfection, if we want to grow in sanctification, we need God to be in control of it. That's verse 20, where Paul says this, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." So Paul's encouragement for us as we're striving to be faithfully obedient, to do what is good and remove evil, is that God will crush Satan under our feet. This is my favorite verse in this text. I love this verse, it's good pre-workout. You should just read it before you lift. But it's really interesting, because it's God doing the crushing. It says, "God will crush you." Sorry, "God will soon crush Satan." Sorry, slip of the talk. No, God's not going to crush you, by god's grace, if you're in Christ, so repent and believe. God will soon crush Satan. But it's under our feet, not under His feet, under our feet, but God is the one doing the crushing. What is going on here? If you think back and remember to the story of creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, the very first prophecy of the Messiah is in Genesis 3, and it's about how Jesus, the Messiah, will crush the serpent's head, will crush him with His foot. And in Hebrews 2, we see that Jesus is that Messiah who has done this. In Hebrews 2:14, it says this, "Since therefore the children's share in flesh and blood, he himself," Jesus, "likewise, partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." What it's saying is that we are flesh and blood, we are people, and Jesus Christ, likewise, took on flesh. This is what we celebrated at Christmas. He became like us. He took on flesh. Why? So that through his death, his death on the cross, he might destroy the one who has the power of death. It is Satan. That word destroy and crush that it's the same idea. It's complete, utter destruction, completely destroys. It's the idea of a fine China vase that you just take and throw and smash on the ground. It's just shattered into millions and billions of pieces. And you could never put it back together the way it was before. It's completely destroyed. It's no longer what it was. Jesus did that. Jesus defeated Satan in that complete total way from his death and resurrection on the cross, because he proved that he has power over Satan, sin, and death. And just like Christ's righteousness is applied to us through faith, so is this applied to us. This actually comes from the book of Luke. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out 72 disciples and tells them, "Go preach the gospel to anyone who will listen." And those 72 come back, and this is what it says in Luke 10:17, The 72 returned with joy saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" And he said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." See, God is in control of all things. Romans tells us that all things are from Him, through Him, and to Him. He is in control of all. And what He has ordained from the beginning is that Christ will defeat Satan. That the kingdom of God will reign and power and might and defeat and crush and utterly destroy the kingdom of Satan. And by God's sovereign grace, we are called to partake in that mission. We are called to partake in the treading of the kingdom of Satan underfoot. And how do we do that? Not by rejoicing in it, not by celebrating and getting power hungry and being like, "This is great. We can do all this." No, but we rejoice that our rejoice that our names are written in heaven. We rejoice in the salvation that comes from Christ alone. And like those 72 that were sent out, the great commission calls us to be sent out, to go and preach the gospel to all nations, to all who have not heard. Why? Because it's good, it's true, because we desire for people to be saved? Yes, and this is how God ordained us to continually tread, excuse me, continually tread the kingdom of Satan underfoot. We recognize that it is the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan. And so when we see places where God is not at, where the world is not in submission to the Lord, where kingdom of Satan is ruling, we march into those areas and boldly, faithfully proclaim the gospel to anyone and everyone who will listen. And we usher in the kingdom of God in places where it is not, because we recognize kingdom of Satan you have no power, you have been defeated from Christ. And as we look forward to the day that that is fully realized, at the second coming of Christ, we still are faithful in ushering the kingdom of God here and now. We want to trust in the sovereignty of God. But specifically what Paul is calling us to do that in is the preaching and proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of those who hear. So in everything in life, trust in the sovereignty of God, but especially in the preaching of the gospel. And then in verses 21 through 23, Paul gets into a little bit more of greetings saying hello to more people. If you're here last week what we talked about was how the word greeting is Paul welcoming as if into their own home. We talked about how Paul genuinely loved and cared for other Christians, and he can't help but greet more people and send more greetings from other people, because they actually love and care for each other. So if you want more information on that, listen to last week sermon where we talk about how Christians, we are called to love each other here in this room, but every single person who bears the name of Christ, we are called to love and care for. But in verses 21 through 23, Paul says this, "Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsman. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greets you." So rather than greeting people who are at Rome, he's sending greetings from people that are with him, encouraging them like, "Church in Rome, there are people who love and care about you here too." And this is just like my personal head cannon. This is not certain, so don't... it's not certain, but Tertius and Quartus, it says, "Our brother Quartus," I believe they're physical, literal brothers. But anyway, here's why Tertius means third and Quartus means fourth. So great creativity, parents, they named their kids first, second, third, fourth. And praise God, I haven't had any teenagers roll through. "Oh, you're the first one. What's your name? First, oh, second, third..." Thank you parents for creativity in naming your kids. And if you name is first, second, third, fourth, I'm sorry, but the Lord still loves you, and we will all receive a new name in heaven anyway, so it's okay. No, anyway, sorry. So he is just continually pointing out his themes that he is going through. He has his greetings, his longing to be with the people in Rome. And then in verses 25 through 27, the largest part of his conclusion, his summary, he focuses on the most important thing. The most important thing for how all of this applies to us today is that we need to hope in Christ alone. So verses 25 to 27, he says this, "Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel in the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen." Starts by saying, "Now to him who is able to strengthen you..." Well, who is that? That is God. That is Christ. He is the one who is able to strengthen us. So when we're looking to live in faithful obedience, when we're looking for living in life in the Spirit and to follow all the practical wisdom and guidance that the scriptures give us, we first need to recognize that the strength we need to do this comes from Christ alone. Comes from the hope that we can have that He is with us, He is strengthening us, He is encouraging us, He is there. Then he says, "According to my gospel." Paul, it's not your gospel, it's the gospel. Don't hold it for yourself. No, this is incredible, because what Paul is saying is he really truly believes the gospel applies to everything about him. He has internalized the gospel, recognizes the reality of the power it has over who he is. It's not just the gospel, it's not just the good news, it's his good news, because it's the only way that he can be saved. It's the only way that he can have hope in Christ. It's the only way he can have hope in this life. So Christians, do we actually think the gospel applies to every single area of our life? Do we look at parts of our lives, what we think, what we say, what we do, and say, "Is this following the gospel? How does the gospel transform this?" And do we actually have pride in this? Paul is bold enough and proud enough to say, it is his gospel to declare to everyone that it is his. He takes ownership of it. It's not just something he thinks about or likes or prefers. It is his gospel. It's part of his identity. It is his identity. Christians, are we bold enough to proclaim to those around us, "It's our gospel too"? We're not ashamed of the gospel, right? That was his thesis in verse 16, chapter one. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, we're not ashamed of it, because it's our gospel. It's the only thing that saves us, as we talked about earlier. It's the only thing that brings life and peace in this world and in the one to come. Then he says, "In the preaching of Jesus Christ," I love this too because that's part of why I'm up here. That's part of why every preacher does what they do is we want you guys, we want all of us, myself included, to focus on Christ. To focus on Christ, so that you are strengthened, you have hope in Him, so that way we can live lives of faithful obedience. I'm not up here just to talk about things that were written a long time ago. I'm not up here just to say whatever I want to. I'm up here so that we can all, as a church, as a body be unified and strengthened and encouraged. So that when we walk out those doors, we don't just say, "That was nice. I had a good time." No, that we walk out these doors saying, "I am ready. I am prepared. I am strengthened to be able to live this day, this week, this life in honor of God, to bring glory and praise to His name." And in this text, Paul can't help but focus on the sovereignty of God still, right? That's the next part. "According to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations..." Paul is saying, "This salvation through Christ alone has been God's plan, his sovereign plan for all of human history. And what gives us the strength to go and live lives of faith... we need His help in living lives of faithful obedience." And it's his command. I love that, too, by God's command. God's command is do not fail. He is true. He keeps his word. He is honorable, and it is His command that all nations will hear the gospel. And so when we see that we take encouragement, we take hope in Christ, because Christ coming, His death and resurrection, His life here on earth is proof of God's sovereignty. It is validating to us that when we look at Christ, when we see the hope we have in Christ, yeah, God's sovereignty is real. It's not just in theological idea. It's not just something we think about, but it is proven true through the life of Christ. And He can change all nations by it, by this reality, by his sovereignty. And within this conclusion, he just slips in his thesis one more time, just to make sure we all understood and we all heard it. Verse 26, "But has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings and has made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God..." Why? "To bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forever more through Jesus Christ! Amen." The obedience of faith is a gift from God that we even get to live at all, let alone live a life that brings honor and glory to His name. And so we should live lives of obedience, faithful obedience to the Lord, joyfully, trusting in his sovereignty, focusing on the hope we have in Christ. And as it says in verse 27, "All for the glory of God." That is the way we bring the greatest glory to God's name by living lives that honor Him, by living lives that are faithfully obedient to His word. And that when others see it, they recognize it as God in us, and that we are then able to proclaim the gospel to all who witness and see. So I told you what I was going to tell you, talked about what Paul has already told us. I just told you what I've been telling you. We are called to live lives of faithful obedience to the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We thank you that we get to honor and glorify your name. We thank you that we get to live in obedience to you. We thank you for that gift. Give us hearts that are able to recognize where sin is in us and to run to you, to repent of it to you, and remove it from our hearts, remove it from our lives. Lord, give us hearts that truly desire to see your kingdom come here on earth, to live faithfully marching forward for your kingdom. And give us hearts that no matter what circumstances come our way, are focused on Christ, are focused on the hope that you alone provide, and will strengthen us to be able to get through all of life's situations. We thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Greetings from Paul
January 8, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Romans 15:23—16:16
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 So we will be in Romans 15:22 through chapter 16:16. So we got a lot. We're going through a lot real fast today. There's a lot of topics covered here. So instead of reading the whole thing and then going into it, we'll read it in chunks as we go along. And I want us to focus on the major theme of Paul's argument here in Romans. And in this section, the idea that he is addressing is essentially how do we relate to one another? How do we interact with each other as Christians in real life, when sometimes things aren't always going as planned and aren't what you expect them to be? What should our mentality be towards one another? So with that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that you allow us to be here together today to worship and bring honor and glory to your name. Lord, we thank you that you are a good and loving God and we ask that you give us love for one another in the same way that you love your church. Help us to truly seek the wellbeing and welfare of our brothers and sisters in Christ, to desire good for all your people. First and foremost, for those in your local church here that you have placed us in, but also for those who bear the name of Christ around the world. Help us to love and care for one another, all for the glory of your name. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty. So we will still be spending our time in three points here today. The first point is be encouraged by other Christians. Secondly, pray for other Christians. And third, praise God for other Christians. So first, be encouraged by other Christians. And this is in verses 22 through 29 of chapter 15 where it says this, "This is the reason why I've so often been hindered from coming to you. But now since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I'm going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints for Macedonia and Achaea have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it and indeed they owe it to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ." We'll pause there for now. And so the first point, be encouraged by other Christians. And Paul is talking about his desire, his wants to visit this church in Rome, a church he has never met before, a church that he had no part in planting, it was not planted by him. So he just wanted to go and be encouraged by a faithful church somewhere in the world, because they were faithful, they were worshiping God and he wanted that to be an encouragement to his soul. But he says in the beginning, "This is the reason I have been hindered." Well, what is the reason? That goes back to chapter 15, verse 20. He says, "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named." So Paul is saying, "I really want to spend time in fellowship, be encouraged by this other church somewhere in the world, but God has placed a call on my life and I need to fulfill that call before I can go and experience that." So one thing that we should take note of here is we've been spending a lot of time talking about our calling, like that God has placed a calling on every single one of our lives, that God has placed us in specific cities, specific parts of the world, but also specific jobs, occupations, roles, and we are called to be faithful to the Lord in that calling wherever we are. And we need to understand that that calling takes precedent in our lives. We talked last week about fully submitting everything in our lives to God, to his will, to his desires. And that for Paul took precedent even more than something that is good, fellowshipping with other believers. Now, fellowshipping with other believers is good and something to be desired and we should want to do that, but it's not more important than the mission. And why I point this out is to say Paul is talking about another church. He is not talking about fellowship in the local church that he is at. So what I bring up to say is that we are still called to fellowship with one another, but oftentimes we might see other churches doing great and glorious things for the Kingdom of God and praise God for those churches, and we should want and desire to be with them and just simply be encouraged by the work that they are doing that is good, and it's something we should desire and do. But it shouldn't be in place of our faithfulness to the ministry that God has placed on our lives. Let us start by being faithful in service to the Lord here in our local church, the place where he has placed us, and as we are faithful here it grows the opportunity for more encouragement from other churches because we get to say, "Hey, I've been faithful. I need encouragement. I need strength and restoration. I can go to another faithful church and be encouraged by them." But we cannot neglect the call that God has placed on our lives wherever that may be. And secondly, I want to point out that this is Paul's view of rest. Paul views rest as fellowship with other believers. This is interesting. Is that how we view of rest? I think oftentimes we idolize rest to the point of saying, "I just need to be alone and nobody talk to me and then I'll be better." It's good, spend time alone. Every person needs some time alone with the Lord and to get rest. Sleep. Sleep is important. That is all good. I'm not trying to say anything against those things, but intrinsic to rest is fellowship with one another, with believers. This is part of the idea of Sabbathing, right? Sabbathing we talk about as a day of rest. But Sabbath is not a day to be alone by yourself and not talk to anybody. Sabbath is a time to be in fellowship with other believers. Alistair Begg is a preacher I believe in the Cleveland area who I love and respect and he has a sermon series on Sabbathing, I highly recommend it. It's a two-part series, but it completely changed the way I view Sabbathing and I'm sure it will for you. But one of the things Alistair says about it, I want you to read for us, he says this, "Loved ones, I've got to say something. Whenever our experience of worship is so devalued and our notion of the Lord's Day is so disintegrated so as to conceive of it in such a way that we believe that the religious exercises are supposed to get over and done with as fast as they possibly can so that we may get on with the day, then we stand condemned before the fourth commandment." This is keep the Sabbath, "We ought actually to be getting down on our knees and thanking God for the privilege of being brought under the orb of influence of a church that has determined on the basis of holy scripture that we will give every opportunity on the Lord's day for all the things that the Lord's day was intended to mean, for worship, for prayer, for study, for fellowship, for holy contemplation. And the fact that it does not appeal to us says more about the low level of our spiritual appetites than it does about anything else." Pretty harsh words. But it is meant to be an encouragement to us to say let's actually love and enjoy and praise God for the Sabbath. Let's honestly praise God for the opportunity that we get to meet in a church together and be encouraged by one another, that we have that power in each other's lives to strengthen and encourage and worship God together. And this is how much Paul loves God's people that he's like, "I'm working all the time, I'm planting churches." He's doing everything he can, "I want to go somewhere else. I want to go to Spain and plant churches. So for my rest and energy to plant another church, I'm just going to go and hang out in another faithful church. I'm just going to be there for a while. Be encouraged, be strengthened. Spend time together, be in each other's homes." That's what Paul takes encouragement from. So dear Christians, do we love to be with each other? Do we like to spend time together? Do we encourage each other when we are together? Are we building each other up for the sake of the mission that God has called each and every one of us too for the spread of the gospel? And we are also called not to think just about ourselves in the local church. Again, Paul is writing to other Christians that he has never met to the church in Rome, and he connects them with other churches that he has planted. This is in verses 26 and 27. He says, "For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it and indeed they owe it to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings." So Paul recognizes that the church in Jerusalem was a spiritual blessing to all the other churches. What does that mean? Well, the gospel started, Christ came and was raised and the first church was in Jerusalem that worshiped him. And from there it went across the world. And so Paul recognized the need of the gospel to spread and the influence of the church in Jerusalem to have influence on other churches, and then in response, those churches should still care for the church in Jerusalem. So there's two specific ways that Paul brings this up. But first is we are called to care for those Christians who have had an influence on our spiritual health and wellbeing and our growth in life. Praise God for Faith Baptist Church in Hamilton, New Jersey, the church I grew up in, because they played an integral part in my faith as a Christian. And without them I don't know if I would be a Christian, I do because God is sovereign and he's in control of all things and he chose me to be safe in his child, so I am. And he would work his will through all things, but he chose to use that church. And I praise God for that and I want to honor them and be encouraged by the work that they're doing. And for many of us, we have home churches, we have places where we had heard the gospel for the first time and where we came to faith and we are called to honor them, we are called to remember them, be encouraged by them and encourage them in their times of need. For many people here Mosaic may be that church, Mosaic may be the church where you came to faith, it was instrumental in your growth. It is instrumental even to this day in my growth as a Christian. And I praise God for this church. And Paul says that those churches who are in need, like the church in Jerusalem, we are called to help. The churches in Galatia only existed because of the work of the church in Jerusalem. So they owed it to them, he said, to help and to give. It was also their pleasure, right? It's that balance of they were pleased to give aid and to help the church in Jerusalem in their time of need, but they did owe it. It was their responsibility they should have, and in the same way if we see those that have been instrumental in our faith, in our salvation and our growth and walk with Christ, we should joyfully seek to help them. And we kind of owe it to them, because they have brought us to this place and our relationship with Christ. And then secondly, he talks specifically about the poor in Jerusalem. And so before I get to the poor in Jerusalem, he points out that the church is giving to help the contribution of the poor in Jerusalem are Macedonia and Achaia. Well if you know anything about Macedonia, what the church in Macedonia is famous for as being poor. In Second Corinthians, Paul talks about the church in Macedonia as saying, "They're the ones that have suffered and endured great suffering and endured through poverty." And so they are known for being poor, yet they are the ones giving to the poor in Jerusalem. Well, their portion that they save and keep it for themselves so that they can be prosperous and take it, what's important to know is that in Second Corinthians Paul says that they have endured through that poverty. Not that they aren't poor anymore, but that they have proven faithful even in poverty, that they have proven to be able to care for one another, to provide for each other's needs even in their own poverty. So that way they could, with whatever they had left, give to those in need. So what does that mean for us. Christians do we care for those in need in our church first? Do we see people in this body who are in need, physical, financial needs, it's giving monetary value to those who are poor? Do we see brothers and sisters and help them? And the easiest way for this to start is our community groups, if you see somebody in your group who you know is in need, do we help them? Do we actually take steps to help. By God's grace a few years ago, I've been in a couple different community groups, but in one of the groups I was in a member was not able to pay for rent, was unable to afford rent, and another member of the group was financially blessed in that season and offered to pay for the rent of that person for a few months and was like, "I don't want them to know I'm going to do it, anonymously and give it to them." And I'm saying this because it's not me, I'm not involved in any of this. So this is I'm praising God for the work that he has done through other people. But they genuinely cared and loved each other, and they saw somebody in their group in need and they provided. We as Christians, as brothers and sisters in Christ need to be prepared to do the same, to care for one another practically in reality, even if it costs money, even if it's financial, even if it's time, even if it's relational, no matter what it is, we need to love each other enough to actually care for each other practically. And when you are able to do that, then your area of influence of generosity begins to grow, right? If you're able to provide for one another and care for each other in your group, maybe you get to the point where you say, "Hey, there's no one in our community group that has any needs." Praise God if that's your group, and if that's the case, maybe you should talk to other community group leaders and be like, "Hey, is there anyone in need? We have a wealth, we have an abundance within our group. Can we help you? Is there anyone in need?" And help each other. And then when we as a church, when we as Mosaic are helping each other, genuinely, always providing for each other's needs, supporting and encouraging each other when we need it, then God gives us that margin, that blessing to be able to give even more generously, regardless of the amount of our finances. That's never the point for Paul. The point is that they were faithful regardless of their finances. The church in Macedonia was faithful in the little that they had, that God blessed them with the ability to bless others. So Christians, let's strive to be a church that is faithful with what we have to provide for each other, care for each other, so that way we can become a greater blessing to those around the world. To the other churches in the city, to other churches that love the Lord and are in need. We want to be able to care for each other. And so you notice that the point is be encouraged by other Christians, but I'm talking a lot about how we can encourage other Christians. It's because to say be encouraged and encourage other Christians was too long of a point, it didn't really fit on the slide, but it's easy to say be encouraged. That's very passive. And how that happens is we have to encourage each other and then we will be encouraged by others when we are all living out this call. But point number two is pray for other Christians. This is in chapter 15, verses 30 through 33. It says this, "I appeal to you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen." So Paul is begging, or is asking, appealing to this church in Rome and saying, "Please pray for me." Saying, "I am trying to do what God has called me to do. Please pray for me." He needed their help. He was asking specifically for prayer to be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea who sought his arrest, who wanted him to be arrested for preaching the gospel. And so he wanted deliverance from them so he could be faithful in delivering the gift to the church in Jerusalem and be faithful in proclaiming the gospel around the world, specifically in Spain. And so what we need to understand is that when we are apart physically from each other and from other believers, what we are primarily called to is prayer. This is how we wage war, spiritual warfare, with brothers and sisters around the world when we are not able to physically be present with them. I know a lot of us have friends and family who are not from this area. Maybe we are not from this area, we're a transplant, and so we want to care and protect our friends and family back home, but we're not there. How can we do that? First and foremost, we pray. We pray hard. John Piper says, "You cannot know what prayer is for until you know that life is war." And so when we view that as the reality, we will be praying for each other and we will be praying for those we love and care about. But it's also for just everybody who is calling and who is faithfully following the call of Christ in their life, who bears the name of Christian. We need to be praying for Christ's church universal, but for the people especially that we know are in need. And Paul's asking for the church that doesn't know him to be doing this. So it's not just our best friends that we pray for, but it's when we hear of a brother or sister in Christ that's in need we pray, we seek their wellbeing, we do what we can to help. But what's really, I find interesting, I find really fun, I guess, fun may not be the right word but fun about this text is that Paul is asking for a deliverance and he was not delivered. If you know the story of Paul, he went to Jerusalem, delivered the gift, and he was arrested there. And it was actually because of his arrest that he appealed as a Roman citizen to go to Rome, and so Paul's desire, the reason he was asking for the church in Rome to pray for him is so that first he can go and be encouraged by the church in Rome, then he could go and preach the gospel where it had not yet been named, in Spain. Well God didn't answer the prayer the way he wanted him to, but God's plans are bigger than our plans and God's thoughts are bigger than our thoughts. So God used Paul's imprisonment actually to bring him to Rome, that was the way through which Paul was able to arrive and land in Rome. And not only that, we are told in history that the church in Rome heard of Paul's arrival when his ship landed and the group of Roman soldiers, was escorting him to the city that they walked 30 to 40 miles south of Rome to meet him, to greet with him, to celebrate his arrival and worship and praise God together 30 and 40 mile walk back to Rome. All in the witness of the Roman guards who are keeping him imprisoned. Paul wanted to be encouraged by the church in Rome, he was encouraged by the church in Rome, just not how he had planned or expected. And once he was in Rome, he was under house arrest where he was able to have as many visitors as he wanted coming and going. And so the church in Rome were primarily the ones visiting him and caring for him while he was in prison. The second thing Paul wanted to do was to go to Spain to preach the gospel where it had not been named. Sorry, Spain didn't get to hear Paul preach, but the gospel still has reached Spain. We're very thankful and praise God that the gospel reached Spain. We love Spain. But what happened while Paul was in prison at Rome? He wrote Ephesians, he wrote Philippians, he wrote Colossians, he wrote the books to Timothy. You see, Paul's vision for the spread of the gospel was Spain, God's vision for the spread of the gospel was these books that we hold in our sacred scriptures to this day that have been used around the world and for generations to proclaim the gospel to those who have not heard it and had not yet known it. So when we pray for Christians, those in need, those who need our help either in our local church or the church abroad, we need to recognize prayer does have power to change things. Prayer is important. It is how we wage war against the kingdom of Satan and for the Kingdom of God. And while we are persistent in our prayer, we trust the sovereignty of God. We trust that God is in control of all things and that his plans are greater than our plans and that even when we want things to go a certain way and the answer to our prayers may seem no in that moment, God is still working for good. He's still working for the spread and glory of his Kingdom and of the gospel. And lastly, I want to point out verse 33 is prayer language in and of itself. In verse 33, Paul says, "May the God of peace be with you all. Amen." Paul is praying for the church as he is asking them to pray for him. This is our relationship, we need to be praying for each other. And lastly, in this point, sorry, I say lastly and people think it's the end, it's not. Lastly in this point. Don't be that guy that says, "Praying for you." And doesn't actually pray. We all know we all have been there. We all understand. But don't be that guy. If prayer truly is how we wage war against the kingdom of Satan to say, "I'll pray for you." Is a promise to go out into the battlefield with somebody and then to not pray is to not go, and to leave them alone. So if you tell somebody, "I'm going to pray for you, pray for them." Do it, write, make notes, write calendar alarms, whatever you need to do to remember, do it. And that should also remind you to when you say it in the first place, to actually mean it, to be going in with the heart of, "I'm going to pray for you." And not a default response of, "They're saying something that's too much for me to handle. So I'll just say this to shut them up, I'm praying for you." No, no, no. We need to really mean it and truly pray for each other. And lastly, point three, we are called to praise God for other Christians. This is chapter 16 verses one through 16. And there are a ton of names in here. I promise I'm going to butcher half of them. I'm sorry. But I'm going to read through it, because Paul wanted to honor these people. I want to honor these people. But I also want to encourage you, if you like history, if you like puzzles, if you like seeing how things all fit together, really delve into this text and into the names and who they are and what it's been. It's actually been really a blessing to me this past week, but it's really fun just to see who these people are and what they've done. So if you like that kind of stuff, dig even deeper into the names. But I know a lot of us, the names, it's just a, okay, I'm going to skim through or skip over this section and get to the good stuff. But this is the good stuff too. So we're going to preach even the names, but Romans 16 versus one through 16 says this, "I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her and the Lord in our way worthy of the saints and help her in whatever she may need from you. For she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary who has worked hard for you. Greet Adronicus and Junia, my kinsman and fellow prisoners, they are well known to the apostles and they were in Christ before me. Great Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ and my beloved Stachys, greet Apelles who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobolus, greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus chosen in the Lord. Also his mother who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philol-" Oh man, sorry, "Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you." All right. Told first service this, so second service if any of you are in teens, I want you to know you're all going to have to read this out loud to each other tonight. Just, no, I'm just kidding. But Paul here lists and greets those Christians who he has worked with and served the Lord with together, and writes essentially a letter of recommendation to the church in Rome for these people. So want to be clear about something, he is not writing to a church that he knows and picking out a couple of good people in there. I thought that's what was happening before I really started my study, and I was like, "Oh, maybe on Sunday I should go up and be like praise God for this person and that person and greet all of these people." And then I was like, "Yeah, that's just going to cause division because I don't know everybody who does everything in this church. And many of you that I do not know are still faithfully serving the Lord and are worthy of being honored before him for the work that you do." So that's not what Paul is doing, that's not what he's doing. What he is doing is he's writing about Christians, primarily Christians that he had met in Ephesus, we'll get into that in a second, to a church in Rome that they are newcomers to. They are newly members of this church in Rome. And he is writing a greeting to the church to say, "Welcome these people. They are faithful, they have served the Lord with me. They have proclaimed the gospel and have been used powerfully for the Kingdom of God. Welcome them." And Paul is thankful for all of the work that these people have done. These are people that didn't move around with Paul, didn't always stay with him, didn't go everywhere he went. He understood that they had calls that were different than his, but were ultimately about proclaiming the gospel. And so he was thankful and praised God for the impact that they had on his life and on the world around them. But I want to point out again that it is specifically people from Ephesus, mostly, not entirely. And we can go through all the names and see who is from where and go through all that, but to give just an example, I'm going to look at verse three where it says, "Greet Prisca and Aquila." For many of you, you might sound familiar and be like, "That sounds a little off." Well, it's Priscilla and Aquila, that's her full name. And why does he call her Prisca? It just shows that Paul actually was friends with these people. He actually liked them and they had nicknames for each other like, "Hey Priscilla, that's too formal. Prisca sounds good." So it's good. Have nicknames for each other, call each other by loving names. But they were people who helped him plant the church in Ephesus and helped him plant the church in Corinth. They were founding members of those churches and had worked powerfully with Paul for the Kingdom of God. He praises God for them. He says in an event that we do not know about, that they risked their necks for his life. So he is thankful for them. I'm bringing this up specifically because some scholars will try and say, "Oh, there's a lot of people in Ephesus. This is the wrong church. He meant to write to Ephesus and then they threw on Rome later." And I'm just trying to show that it was meant for Rome, because what we know is that in Acts chapter 18, we are told that Priscilla and Aquila were removed and kicked out of Rome for being Christians, because all of the Christians were kicked out of Rome at that time by a decree, and that decree ended seven years before Paul wrote this letter to the Romans. And so like many people there, you could see the floods of people, actually the church in Rome, the Jewish population in Rome grew more so after the people returned, because they had gone out, proclaimed the word of the Lord, and then more people came back with them than were there before. And so the church grew, but you saw a mass return of people who had been exiled from Rome, returned to Rome. And Priscilla and Aquila were likely these people. And we saw that, if you look at a map, you could see Ephesus is on Western Turkey, and that's what they called Asia in the Bible times, Asia was Western Turkey, just so you know. But Ephesus was there. Then they traveled to Corinth with Paul, which is essentially halfway between Ephesus and Rome, so we see that throughout their faithful ministry proclaiming the gospel, helping Paul and all that he did, they were journeying back to Rome, which is why they're here now. And Paul is saying, "Hey, there's these people in your church Rome, and they're just faithful servants. Welcome them. Praise God for them." And the word for greet I love, because it literally just means as welcoming someone into your home, the same way that you would welcome someone into your home, welcome these people in your church. So a few points that we should take away from this church is that first, do we welcome Christians? Do we welcome people into this building? When people enter this door, do we think of it as they are entering our home let's welcome them. Let's greet them. Let's genuinely care for them and love them, and greet them as you would to your own home. Not just a hello and goodbye, but actually spend time with them. Talk to them, get to know them. I just want, I got to point out the holy kiss thing, in verse 16, it says, "Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches in Christ greet you." That had always been a little weird to me. Why are we kissing each other in church? That seems odd. But then thinking about greeting each other as welcoming into your own home, it makes all the sense in the world. For those of you who don't know, I'm Italian, and what that means is you hug and kiss everybody when you see them and you welcome them. I learned at a young age that not everybody does that. I was a kid, my friend's grandfather had just passed away, I had never met her grandmother before and we were at the funeral and I saw the grandmother and I was just like, "I want to show her that I love her and I care for her." So I hugged her and I kissed her on the cheek and she was mortified. And I was like, "I am so sorry." I was seven so I think she brushed it off, but I was like... Anyway, so I learned not everybody kisses on the cheek. So I stopped doing that. And then I moved to Boston. You all know. But I was in college at Northeastern and first day there, I met a few people, we became friends, it was good, the next day I was like, "We hung out, we had a good time, we're friends, I'm going to give everybody a hug." So I'm like going down the line, giving everybody a hug. And then I get to the first girl in the line and I give her a hug and she just freezes. And I was like, "Oh no, I did something horribly wrong." I am sorry to that person. We became really good friends after that. Praise God that she forgave me. But I was like, "Okay." That's not the point. The point is not that, but the point is to love and greet each other as if they're your family, so you need wisdom, you need to act wisely, but welcome people in your home as if they're your family. What this means for me now is we have a community group in our home and our community group, we eat dinner at the start. Why? Because my family loves food. Again, we're Italian, but when I'm with my family, the primary thing we talk about is what food are we going to eat? Oh, we eat breakfast, we're done with breakfast, what are we going to eat for lunch? We're done with lunch, what are we going to eat for dinner? What are we eating for the rest of the week? And we spend time eating food together and having fun. And so my community group is my family, and so therefore we eat together, we spend time together. And it doesn't have to be a meal. It doesn't matter what the thing is, but think about what do you do with your family? How do you welcome and greet your family? Are you willing to do that with each other here? Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ enough to do that and actually welcome people, again, with wisdom, but actually loving and caring for one another? I want to read a quote from Justin Martyr, because he gives the context for when and where this holy kiss was used in the churches primarily. So in his first writings, Justin Martyr says this, "But we, after we have thus washed him." So that's baptism, "Who has been convinced and has ascended to our teaching." So someone is saved, agrees with the gospel, they are baptized, "Bringing him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled in order that we may offer hearty prayers and communion in common for ourselves and for the baptized person, and for all others in every place that we may be counted worthy, not that we have learned the truth by our works." Sorry, lost my place, "Now that we have learned the truth by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers we salute one another with a kiss." So this is literally how the early church welcomed people into the family. You're saved, you're baptized. We all kiss on the cheek. Holy kiss. But the point is that was how families greeted each other then, and when somebody is saved, when a person is saved, brought into the family of God, they are actually viewed as being brought into the family, not just another person in a building. So let's welcome people like that, and when we see the work that others are doing in the church, the ways that they have encouraged us, developed our faith in the church we bring praise to God and we love each other like Christ loved the church. This is the summary of the whole sermon. Love each other like Christ loved the church. How's that? He actually loved them. That was real. And he did it practically. He gave up everything, he came to earth, he lived for them, provided for their needs, cared for them. Ultimately, and the most loving thing of all, died on the cross to save us all from our sins when we trust in him. And so we are called to love each other with real love, but a practical love, sometimes may be costly, but that is able to proclaim the love of God to all those who are witnesses. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you. We praise you that you have saved us through the working of your son Jesus, and that you loved us enough to not stay in heaven and shout that you love us, but to come and show us, to live it out practically. Lord, help us have hearts to love each other, help us practically with our hands, with our time, with our money, with everything that we have, provide and care for each other in times of need. Lord, help us to do this faithfully so that we can overflow with generosity, so that we can be a greater blessing to those around us, to the churches, to the missionaries, to the world around us, to those who bear the name of Christ, so that we can see your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Give Him the Glory
January 1, 2023 • Tyler Burns • 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 Happy New Year. It's great to see everyone all together at one service and especially to have the families, kids and parents together. This is fun. This is exciting. I love this. This is great. So happy New Year everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am, as pastor Randy mentioned, the youth, the teens, and the hospitality director here at Mosaic. And it is my honor and privilege to be able to be up here preaching God's word to all of us today. And over the Christmas holiday break, I had the opportunity to go down to visit my family in Virginia and attend church with them on Christmas. And that was fun. It was exciting. It was great to be able to fellowship and worship with another gospel preaching and faithful church. And it's just fun. It's fun to be able to worship God together in unity. And so today, because we have kids in the service with us, I'm going to do something a little bit different that I'm taking from that church. What we're going to do is, I'm going to start by reading our text. And while I'm reading, we're all going to stand. I'll tell you when, you don't have to do it yet. And then when I'm done reading, I'll say, "This is the word of the Lord." And I want everyone to scream as loud as you possibly can, "Thanks be to God." Amen. Amen. And the idea of this is that we should be thankful for the word of the Lord. It is good, it is glorious. It is something we should appreciate that we have. And so I want everyone, parents included, to shout, "Thanks be to God." After I say this is the word of the Lord. And kids, I want you to be louder than your parents. And parents, I dare you, I bet you can't be louder than your kids. And so we'll see how much praise we bring to the Lord through the noise. So if you will stand with me and we'll read from Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. It says this, "So if there is any encouragement in Christ and 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 accord 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 amongst 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, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you. Kids, I hope that was an opportunity for you to get a little energy out because I am not known to preach for a short while. I'll do my best, but hopefully that'll sustain you through the whole sermon. But we are in Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. As you heard, and we've been going through this text the last two weeks, pastor Andy has been preaching on them and we've been seeing the divinity of Christ, the incarnation and humanity of Christ. And today we're going to be talking about the exaltation of Christ, that Christ is high and lifted up. And even just from that opportunity where everybody was willing, I've watched most of you, some of you were a little quiet, but most of you were willingly shouting out. We all know how to worship. We all know how to let our emotions out and give praise to someone or something. I was thinking about my junior, or sorry, my sophomore year of college was a year that the Red Sox won the World Series. Now for those of you who don't know, I am a New York sports fan. So that was a day of morning for me. But my college roommates were Red Sox fans and they were celebrating, and they were joyous. And they went out into the streets after the last game and everybody there was singing and chanting, "Let's go, Red Sox." People were taking it a little too far climbing street lights and jumping off of them and people catching them. It was a little insane. But I bring that up to say that even in a city like Boston that we talk about a lot as the reserved intellectuals and bookies, we still know how to worship. And what I hope this sermon does is that it allows us to all freely worship God as he deserves to be worshiped because of who he is, because he is exalted and worthy of our praise. And so we are going to focus on the last few verses of this text on verses 9 through 11 in our time together. But before we do that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good and you are glorious. And your son Jesus Christ is seated at your right hand in power and honor and glory and we praise you for this. We thank you that you are sovereign ruler, King over all the world, over all creation. Give us eyes to see your majesty. Give us hearts to humbly praise you and love you and give our lives and submission to you, our King. Speak through your word to all of us today, humble us so that we can praise you, exalt you, lift your name up and know that you promise to exalt us in your righteousness as well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we will be spending our time in three points today. First point is that He, Christ Jesus is exalted. Second, so bow and confess. And third, and give him all the glory. So first point, he is exalted. This is from Philippians 2 verse 9 where it says, "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." First, there are two things that stand out to me in this one verse. First is the phrase, highly exalted, exalted means lifted up, raised up, high above. But it's not just exalted. Jesus is highly exalted. This is one of my favorite things that Paul does. Paul makes up words. It's not really making up words, but this is something common in Greek. He would combine two words to make an emphasis or a new meaning of that word. So he combines the word over and exalted. So the idea is that he is highly exalted. He is overly exalted as high and worthy of honor and praise as Jesus is. He is even above that. He is more exalted, more honorable than anyone or anything ever would or could be. My question when I heard this is, why? Yes, he is exalted, he is worthy of praise, but why so emphatic on his exaltation? And the verse that was brought to mind is from Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 13 through 15. And for those of you who don't know, Isaiah 52 is a prophetic passage about Christ, about the coming of Jesus. And in verse 13 it says this, "Behold my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told, they told them they see. And that which they have not heard they understand." So why is Christ highly exalted? It says because he acted wisely. "He shall act wisely." Okay, what does that mean? And this is the foundation of the gospel. This is why we are talking about Christmas even after Christmas. And why it's so important is that Jesus Christ came and lived a life here on earth in reality, in historical fact, Jesus did that. And he lived a life of perfection, complete total submission and obedience to God the Father's will, that's who Jesus is. And in his life on earth, his wisdom in his action was the faithfulness to God's will. It's not about Christ's intellect, though he is the smartest man to ever live. It's not about His understanding, excuse me, His understanding, His ability to teach or preacher any of that, even though He was the best at all of those things, it was about His complete and total submission to the will of God, even to the point of a gruesome death. It says that He was marred beyond human semblance. This is a prophecy about Christ's death on the cross, His beating beforehand and the crucifixion where He was so brutally injured that He didn't even look human anymore, that he looked more like a monster than a man and that He was willing to follow the will of God, even to that extent. Even to that point, nothing would shake him from the will of God. And so He is highly exalted, so He is worthy of our praise and our honor because of his obedience to the Lord no matter what. And the second thing that stood out to me from verse 9 is it says that, "God has highly exalted Him." Right? We see here in Isaiah that he acted wisely, and that might tempt us to think that Christ's action made himself worthy of praise and that he exalted himself because of the things he did. So if we want to exalt ourselves, we just need to be really good people. But know God is the one, God, the Father is the one who lifted Him up, exalted him and put Him in a place of honor. And this is an important distinction because it reflects a teaching of Jesus in the book of Matthew. It's actually in most of the gospels, but in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus teaches verse 12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And so yes, it is about Christ ultimate submission and fulfillment of the will of God. But in order for Him to do that, He needed to be humble. He needed to be a man of ultimate humility, submitting again to the will of God. And as He humbled himself, made himself lowly, He exemplified this throughout His whole life. But one of the most famous in our minds is when He washed the disciples feet, a place of a servant and of a slave. He was willing to do that humbly. And as He humbled himself, as He recognized, I'm just doing the will of the Lord, God honored Him and exalted Him. Christians, do you know that it's not our job to exalt ourselves? We live in a world that is all about credentials and ideas, and who is the smartest, who's the best, who has made the most impact in this world. Christians, that's not your job. Make a great impact in the world for Christ, for the kingdom of God, but not by earthly standards. The way we do it is by being the most humble we can possibly be, by submitting fully to who God is to Christ and His exalted place at the right hand of God, the Father seated on the throne ruler of all things, king of all things. Scripture tells us, "All of existence is held together by the power of Christ. And it continues to exist because of the power of Christ." And because of that, we need to recognize He is there and I'm not. He is there and I'm here. I am a sinner. I am a man. I am a woman. I am a child of God. I need forgiveness. And when we recognize the position of Christ, that should change the way we view everything in the world. Everything in the world is under his authority. Everything in the world is under his rule and reign under the rain of a good sovereign loving God. How come the world doesn't look like it then? How come we see sin? How come we see pain and hurt and suffering? Well, the book of Hebrews tells us clearly chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. It says this, "At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." "At present we do not see everything in subjection to Him," because why? Because of the fall, because of sin. And because of Christ's promise coming again, His second coming, the second Christmas you could say where he will make all things in subjection to Him. But in this in between time, what are we to do? It says that we are to first recognize the position of Christ that He is now presently crowned with glory and honor because of the work he did on the cross. But then we should also be thinking about things in the world as not, I like this, I don't like this, I would change this or that. But the way we should view things on earth is either in subjection to Christ or not in subjection to Christ, either in the kingdom of God or not in the kingdom of God. And I know a couple weeks ago, about a month ago, we were in the book of Romans and we talked a lot about how each of us has a call placed on us by God. And there was a lot of talk in community groups about, well, what does that mean for us individually, for us as a group and things like that. And that's great, continue to discuss those things. And I want to point out something here that wherever God has called you to be in your life right now, make it your aim, make it your goal to make that part of your life in subjection fully to Christ. Can you imagine a world where modern medicine was in subjection to the authority of Christ, to the loving, merciful, gracious God who heals and desires for the health and wealth of his people? That would be amazing. Can you imagine a world where the justice system was just and merciful like our just and merciful God? I can go on and on about example and example. But think about wherever you are called, wherever you are working, wherever you're in school, whatever you are doing in your life right now, how can you do it? How can you live it out in a way that is fully, completely in subjection to the kingdom of God, to His rule and reign and authority and say, "Lord Jesus, I'm following you in this realm and not society, not people." Now we do still submit to the authority of the governing authorities. That's in Romans, you could rewatch that sermon that's there too. But our focus should be exalting the name of Christ, wherever we are and making everything we do fully submitted to Him. And in life where we see things that are in submission to him and are bringing praise to his name that should result in greater praise of God. We should rejoice over that. We should praise his name for it. And where we see things that are not in subjection to God's will, His kingdom, our heart should be broken a little and we should be moved with compassion to see those things brought into the kingdom of God, not by force or not by selfish motivations or because of anything in ourselves, but because we know the real reality of Christ as King. And we don't want anyone to be his enemy. We don't want anything to be in opposition to him. And I said anyone, because this mostly applies to people. Every single person you're here today, even if you're not here today, every person is either in submission to Christ or not. Everyone is either recognizing the reality of Christ's rule and reign and submitting our lives to Him or we're not. And if you're here today and you say, "I'm not a Christian, I do not submit fully to Christ as Lord and savior." I urge you to do so because he is a good, powerful, loving king who wants to help you, wants to save you, wants to bring you into His kingdom. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe you're here today because a friend invited you or someone you know who cares about you, invited you. I want to tell you that person loves you more than you could ever understand because they want you to understand the gospel of the one true King and Lord. And even if you disagree, if they believe this is true and I believe this is true, and they invite you, want you to hear it, how greatly they must love you to invite you to hear the gospel of God. Now Christians, do we share the gospel of God with people? Do we love people enough that we know do not know the gospel, that we are willing to share it with those who do not know because we want them within the kingdom of God? We want their prosperity, their health, their wealth, yes, but not here on earth but an eternity under the sovereign rule of Christ. And when I think about this idea, this concept, I just want to read from the book of Acts, doing a lot of reading today because other people are smarter than me and I was working on my humility. But in the Book of Acts, Peter gives one of the greatest presentations of the gospel on the day of Pentecost. And it's a powerful thing that we should all remember and be reminded of. And I just want to read it for us now. So in Acts chapter 2 says, in verses 22 to 33, I'll read it in sections and we'll break it up. So it's not going to be so long, but, "Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty who works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know..." Pause, Peter is writing to people who are eyewitnesses of the life of Christ. He is writing to people who saw him, who knew him. They were not fooled by stories of old. They saw the things that Christ did. And Peter is appealing to them saying, God attested, God said that he is the Messiah, the coming one by the works that he did and by the signs that he has done in your midst. You know it's true. You know it's the reality. You cannot deny that these things happened. One of my favorite things is that historians who are not Christians affirm that these events happened from the modern, sorry, the current day from the first century, they affirm, "Yeah, these things happened." They might not believe that Jesus was real. They not believe that he did them by any power, but they admit that they happened. And Peter is saying, "You cannot deny the reality of the works and life of Christ." Continues in verse 23, "This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosen the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it." We'll pause there. So this Jesus, the real historical Jesus who lived for Christ or lived for God the Father, in complete submission to his will, He was delivered up to be crucified because of the total definitive plan of God, but also because of us. Yes, Peter is speaking directly to people who had a physical hand in the crucifixion of Christ, delivering him over to the Pharisees, delivering him over to Pilate. But the reality is the same that each and every one of us is responsible for the death of Christ on the cross. Why? Because that is the penalty our sin deserves. Anything that we do in rebellion to God, sin, rejection of His rule and authority as king of our lives. Scripture tells us the penalty for that sin is death. But Jesus died to pay that penalty for us. And he did not only die, he was also raised. Why? I love this part. Because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is the power of Christ of our God. That death itself has no power to hold Jesus in the grave. This is the power of our almighty exalted king. Death itself cannot hold Him. And He did this to prove His power, to prove His authority, prove His divinity, and to save us from our sins and prove that He is worthy of it. And this has been the case through all of history. And here Peter appeals to David and in the Old Testament brings in some of the prophecies about Christ. And I'm going to read it so that we can see that this has always been the plan of salvation throughout all of history. In verse 25, for David says, concerning him concerning Christ, "I saw the Lord always before me for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us today. Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendants on His throne, He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption." Even back then. God was making it clear to his people, this is the plan of salvation, that his holy one, the Messiah, Jesus Christ would come, would die, but would not be abandoned to death because death has no power over Him. And He will raise proving His power to save us from our sins. Praise be to God. He has the power to do it. And this is a reality that we can live in if we recognize that Jesus truly is Lord, He truly is king. He is sovereign ruler of all things and we submit our lives to Him. This is why he continues. Peter continues in verse 32 saying, "This, Jesus God raised up..." He raised him from the dead. "And of that we all are witnesses." If you ever wondered what church is, it's a gathering of witnesses in a sense. It's that we are witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, not literally as Peter was saying, that they literally saw the resurrected Christ. But I'm here as a witness to tell you I've seen the power of the resurrected Christ in my life to save me from my wickets sin, to save me from my heart that has been warped into sin and desired that. And God saved me from it to give me a new heart, to a desire to serve Him and love Him, even though I'm not perfect, nowhere close. But He's changed my heart. And every single one of you who's here today bearing the name of Christ that is true of you, you are a witness to the power of the resurrected Christ in your life to change you, to sanctify you, to make you more like Christ. How? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what Peter says in verses 33, "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God..." Now that Christ is there at the right hand of God. "And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing." So Jesus at the time of Peter is at the right hand of God, had received the promise of the Holy Spirit was pouring it out on the apostles. And this is the day of Pentecost where they are preaching and proclaiming the word and gospel of the Lord so that every person can hear them in their own native tongue so that all can understand that's powerful. And while may not look the same today, it's still true today that Christ has poured out the promise of His Holy Spirit upon all who bear the name of Christ. So that way we can live in a way that exemplifies to the world around us, that we are in the kingdom of God. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, what you are seeing and hearing today is the power of the Holy Spirit to change my life, to change this church's life, to bring honor and praise to His name because He is worthy, he is loving, he is deserving of it all. It's nothing to do with us, it's all about Him. Praise be His name. And the only natural response for us is to bow and confess. For those of you who are like, we're just getting to point 2, don't worry, two-thirds of my notes were point 1, so we're we're coming along. But he says in verses 10 and 11 in our text in Philippians, "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." Praise be his name. Our natural response when we understand the position, the reality of Christ as king over the universe, but also over our lives is that every knee is going to bow. What does that mean? It's a position of humility. It's a position of total submission and recognition of the authority and power of the one you are bowing to. This was something that has been done throughout history, but especially in the Old Testament. It was a sign of saying, "I come with no arms. I come with no weapons. You can see I'm bowing before you. My head is before you. I cannot defend myself. If you want to kill me, you can. I can do nothing to defend myself because I am not worthy. You do with me whatever you wish." That should be the posture of the heart of a Christian saying, "Lord Jesus, you do with my life whatever you wish and I will follow and I will obey whatever it is you can do it." And this is a phrase about position and about relation. One of the things that I want to point out is that it's all about our relation and position according to Christ, not according to each other. This is something that we talked about in Romans. And actually in the book of Romans chapter 14, Paul quotes the same verse that he is quoting here in Philippians to make a similar point in Romans 14 verses 10 through 12. He says this, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written as I live says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." We talked in Romans about how this means we shouldn't be judging one another, we should be focusing on the Lord and praising Him and recognizing our position before Him. And that's true here. And Paul's point in Philippians is the same referencing this verse that our position is not to look at each other and say, "I'm better than them or I'm not as good as them, or I fall somewhere in between on the hierarchy." No, God doesn't care about that. God cares about your relation to Him. We don't look at each other and say, "I am humble because I'm not as good as other people. Or I am not humble, I'm boastful and proud because I'm better than other people." God doesn't care. We all need to be humble regardless of our lives here on earth, regardless of what we say or do, it doesn't matter because we are nowhere near the power and authority and might of God, of Jesus Christ, our Lord and king. So we bow before Him, we are humbled before Him. But there's good news here. I know that that sounds a little like we are humbled, we are low in it. But that's good news. That is good news. And one of the greatest news that I don't know if everyone here knows this, but that Christ promises to exalt you, to exalt me to anyone who is in his kingdom, who has been in submission to his rule and authority, He says that He will exalt, He will lift up in honor and praise. How does that happen? This is from James chapter 4, verses 8 through 10. It says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you double-minded be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you." It's all so intense. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners." Wow, that's powerful language. But the idea is that we are all sinners. We all have sinned, we've all rejected God. So how are we saved? How are we cleansed and purified from that? We draw near to God, we run to him. When we sin, we don't hide it. We don't keep it away and say, "Oh, it's too shameful to talk about." No, we bring it to God and say, "God, forgive me. I repent. Save me. Cleanse my heart. Make me more like you so I won't keep doing it." When we are in states of mourning, when life is hard and things are depressing, we go to God, we draw near to Him. We don't let those things get in the way and keep us from Him and say, "Life's too hard. I don't feel like talking to God right now. I'm going to stay away." No, we run to Him. We draw near to Him and He promises He will draw near to you. And as we bow, as we humble ourselves before the Lord, He says He'll exalt us. Why? Because again, it's the same teaching that Jesus taught that we talked about for his exaltation, is that those who humble themselves before the Lord will be exalted. This sounds a lot like I'm talking to people who don't know Christ or maybe just know Christ. And I want to be clear, this is for all of us who are Christians. And no matter how long we've been Christian, our goal is to be more and more humble, to be more and more like Christ who was the most humble, who has ever lived to be able to fully submit to the will of God. And as we are humbled, it's not a depressing, woe is me. It's a recognition of the greatness of God. And the more we recognize the greatness of God, the more we recognize how not great we are. And then the more we are lifted and exalted by Christ where he says, "Yeah, but I saved you." By Christ's righteousness, He saved us and we can partake in His power, His glory, His honor in heaven for all of eternity because of Him. Praise be to God. And so we bow in humility and we confess with our mouth that he truly is Lord. We are unashamed of that reality, that He is Lord of our lives. And as we bow and confess this reality, naturally we give Him the glory. We give Him the glory. This is the end of verse 11 where it says, and every tongue confessed that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We are bestowing honor and praise and glory to His name. When we recognize the greatness of His salvation, when we recognize how great of a gift that is to us. We're talking about this on New Year's Day while kind of talking about Christmas still. And it's like, what's going on here? Christmas, New Years? What are we talking about? Well, New Years is a time to look back, to look back on our lives of the past year and say, "What went well? What do I need to change?" And then make changes for the future? And what we are doing today is we are looking back at Christmas, that just happened, but we're looking back at it and saying, "This is the reality of Christ coming. This is true. He came. He was born as a baby. This is great. This was the impetus for all that we've been talking about today." Now, how is that going to affect how I live from now on? We cannot lose sight of that. And the reality is that we need to give God more glory. We need to be more humbled. We need to give Him more glory. We need to give Him more and more constant praise. This is done by, as I talked about, giving all of our lives in submission to the will of God, doing everything that we can to Him, but also being thankful in all seasons to God. No matter what is going on in our lives, we can say, "God is still in control. So I am thankful to Him." And so we should be growing in thankfulness for the Lord and His work in all seasons of our lives. And I take this from Psalm 107 versus 1 through 3, and I find it funny that this is basically a command to us as Christians. It says this, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south." If you are a child of God, if you have been saved by God, no matter where you come from, no matter how far east, west, north or south, it doesn't matter if you are a child of God, give thanks to the Lord. Why? Because he is good. It has nothing to do with our situation. It has nothing to do with what's going on in the world around us. It's just because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Praise God. Give Him the glory. And I love to talk about worship through song. If you listen to me preach, I talk about it every other time that I preach because I love it. But also scripture loves it. There's a whole book of Psalms, of songs written to God in praise. But also throughout the Old Testament, as major events happen of God's working they write songs. After the Exodus, they wrote multiple songs of phrase to God because of his goodness. There is something intrinsic about Christians worshiping God through song. And I bring that up to say, let's sing to the Lord. We're going to do that in a little bit, but let's sing. Let's praise him and not be ashamed of what we think about each other or what's going on around us. But just praise him because he is good. And I bring it up to say that sometimes when life is hard, that's the times it's hardest to sing. It's the times where it's hardest to lift your voice in praise. Because songs most of the time are joyful, upbeat things. And if we're sad, we don't want to be joyful and upbeat. But even then, this is from real experience. When you don't want to sing, sing and God will soften and change your heart and help you give Him more glory. Two things before we close. First we will be partaking of communion after this, but then after that we are going to sing some Christmas songs. And I say that to prepare you because I know we live in a divisive culture. Where can we listen to Christmas music after Christmas or not? It's still a worship song, so we're still going to sing it. And I want us to really just focus on that. Not to be thinking of it as a Christmas song, but to be singing it as a song of praise to God. And the second thing, I'm going to read a section from S.M. Lockridge sermon, That's My King. I don't know if anyone knows who S.M. Lockridge is. If you think I'm a passionate speaker, and preacher, I've heard that said about me. If you think I'm passionate, comes nothing close to this guy. S.M. Lockridge, you know his family loved the Lord because the S.M. stands for Shadrach, Meshach, so they really wanted him to be faithful. But he was an African American Baptist preacher in California and he died in 1993. But he has this sermon that's called, That's My King. And I'm going to read less than a third of it. It's a very short sermon, but I cut out a lot. I just want to give you guys a taste of it because it's a song, well, it's a sermon that gets put to music a lot that I listen to every year on Easter. On Easter I listen to him preach this. And on Good Friday he has another sermon called Sunday's Coming. It's also great, listen to that. The idea is how dark and depressing the world is on Good Friday, but Sunday's coming, so we have a reason for hope. Anyway, great sermon. I'm just going to read a section of That's My King, to try and stir up our hearts, to praise and recognition of the true authority of Christ. And then I'll pray and pastor and will come up after that to lead us in communion. "But speaking of Jesus..." He says, "He's the king of the Jews. He's the king of Israel. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of the ages. He's the King of heaven. He's the king of glory. He's the King of Kings and he's the Lord of Lords. Now, that's my king. I wonder, do you know him? There's no means of measure that can define His limitless love. He's enduringly strong. He's entirely sincere. He's eternally steadfast. He's immortally graceful. He's imperially powerful. He's impartially merciful. That's my King. He's God's son, the sinner savior, the centerpiece of civilization. He's unparalleled, unprecedented supreme. He's preeminent. He's the loftiest idea in literature. He's the highest personality and philosophy. He's the fundamental doctrine of true theology. That's my King. He's the miracle of the age. He's the superlative of everything good that you choose to call him." "Well, he's the only one able to supply all our needs simultaneously. Well, I wish I could describe him to you, but he's indescribable. He always has been, and He always will be. You can't impeach Him and He's not going to resign. That's my King. Great is the Lord. That's my King. Thine, thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever and ever. How long is that? And ever and ever and ever. And when you get through it with all the forevers, then amen." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are glorious. You are good. And we praise you that your son, Jesus Christ, saved us from our sins and that he is now seated at your right hand, in all power, glory and exaltation. Help us lift Christ as the one true king and ruler over everything in our lives. Help every aspect of what we say and what we do. Bring honor and glory to your name in submission to your kingdom. Lord, humble us. Give us humble hearts to bow before you and recognize that we are not worthy of your salvation. Yet you are so good and glorious and great that you give it to us anyway. Help us to confess to all those around us of your greatness, of your love, of your goodness, and bring praise to your name because you are good. And we know your steadfast love endures forever and nothing in this world can change that. Give us passion and desire as we leave here today to live in honor and glory of your name so that when the world sees us, they see your power and glory. Amen.
Holy Spirit Powered Hope
December 11, 2022 • Tyler Burns • Romans 15:1–21
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 in our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com What we will do today is I want to clarify a little bit of where we are at in the book of Romans. I'll introduce it, we'll read the text and then we will pray and continue. But we are in chapter 15, the second to last chapter. We're not reading the whole chapter. Verses one through 21 is where we will be. And the first part of this chapter, Paul is sort of summarizing what we talked about last week, what he talked about in the last chapter, but then he is connecting it to his summary of the book as a whole. Paul is starting to wrap up, remind us of everything that Paul has been trying to say in this letter to the church in Rome. So, if you remember, I mentioned last week, but also way back in the beginning of the series, we talked about how Paul's purpose in writing the book of Romans is to encourage the church to faithful obedience to the Lord. So, here, Paul is going to be making that connection, be wrapping it up, summarizing how everything he has written is leading to that. So, as I read, I'm going to read the whole text all the way through. As I'm reading, be thinking, be meditating on what is Paul saying about faithful obedience? And then we will pray over the preaching of God's word. So, in Romans chapter 15 verse one, it says this, "We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.' For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another 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. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written. 'Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.' And again it is said, 'Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.' And again, praise the Lord all you gentiles and let all the peoples extol him.' And again, Isaiah says, 'The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles in him will the Gentiles hope.' May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. But on some points I have written to you very boldly by the way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by word and deed, by the power and signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. But as it is written, 'Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.'" Let's pray over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you and we thank you that you are a God of endurance, encouragement, and hope. Lord, fill us with your spirit, fill us with the power of your spirit to be able to live lives of faithful obedience to you, lives full of hope in you. Help us, Lord, in our weakness, help us when life is hard and when seasons of difficulty are on us. Give us your strength, your power, so that we can praise you and we can glorify you as one body, your body, the church. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, we will be spending our time in three points today. First point is be rooted in hope. The second point is abound in hope. And the third point is fulfill your call. So, point number one, be rooted in hope. This is verses one through seven. I'm not going to read it all again, but he starts again with this summary of the strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. And the failings, I don't like that word because it makes us look down on people, but it's just the weaknesses of the weak. Where people are weak, bear with them. And this is the idea we talked about in last chapter, in chapter 14, that it is the duty, it is the obligation of the strong to not hold onto their strength, to not hold onto their freedom and their rights to do whatever they want, but instead to use that to serve those who are weak. To bring about unity and harmony within the church so that way we can praise God. And that's what Paul clarifies here in verses six and seven. He says 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." So, unity within the church is not just for the sake of unity. Unity and laying down your rights for others is not just so we can all get along. That's true and good, but the point of it is so that we as one body in unity can bring praises and honor and glory to God, because he deserves it. That we as his church, unified, strong together, bring praises and glory to him. That is the point he was getting at last week and in this text of why we seek unity, why we seek harmony with one another. But the emphasis of this section of the text is in verse four where he says, "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." We talk a lot about the idea of hope during the holiday seasons, during Christmas time. Hope is something that we look for then, but we always need hope. Every single day we need hope. Hope is something that is powerful. It has the power to encourage us to continue on, even when life is hard and when things look desperate and when times of despair are there, hope can power us through. And the base state that we as Christians are called to our at the very least to have hope. Now how do we have hope? Paul is encouraging us and he's telling us, instructing us, that the ways we have hope are first and foremost, endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures. And so endurance, what does he mean by endurance? Paul is calling back, he is referencing his own writings in this book, in Romans chapter five, where he tells us the process of how we get to hope. So, in chapter five, verses two through five, it says this, "Through him, Christ Jesus, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." And so Paul outlines the root of endurance to hope. And the connecting factor is character, but it assumes suffering. That is the start, the impetus of the endurance and the hope is actually suffering. And it's something that we can all admit is that life is hard and that if we are Christians, we will suffer. That is a promise actually that scripture gives to us, that Christians will suffer. And then we need to endure and then we have character and we have hope. So, what is character? Character is referring to the results of a test. Okay, what does that mean? So, suffering is that you are presented with a test. Endurance is you taking the test. And character is what was the result? Pass/fail? And the idea that Paul is saying for how endurance and character leads to hope, is that we can look back on times in our lives where God has caused us to endure through suffering to pass that test and endure and remain faithful to him and say, "Yeah, God helped me pass this. He helped me endure through the suffering. He can do it again." Anytime I face suffering, I can have hope that God will help me endure through it. And so when Paul is saying endurance leads to hope, we need to look back. We need to look back on our lives, look back on the faithfulness of God to help us endure and say, "He's going to do it again. He can do it again. God is faithful, he will help me endure." And then secondly it says that we get hope from the encouragement of scripture. And here I asked myself a question and the question was, "How often do I go to scripture for encouragement?" Not just because I'm supposed to read it, not to learn more information, not because it's part of my routine, or I'm supposed to, or it's good, which it's good, it is. We should do it for those reasons as well. But do we actually read scripture to gain encouragement? To gain hope in this life? And what Paul has said is that everything that has been written in former days was written for this reason. And the idea is what is in the Bible? What is this book about? It's a book filled with the faithfulness of God in times when people sometimes endured and sometimes failed in enduring, but regardless of the people, God was still faithful. And so we need to be going through scripture, not just to learn, but instead to say, "God, give me hope." Give me hope that you are faithful no matter what. Give me hope that you have power, you are sovereign, you are in control, you are a loving good God. Give me that hope always, so I can be encouraged. I can have hope. And this is what we are called to as Christians, to be rooted in this. We need to have this as a foundation in our lives, because Christ is our source of hope. And in verse five, I love his transition to this. In verse five he says this, "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus." Paul just told us you want to have hope, seek endurance, be endure, and the encouragement of the scriptures. Read the scripture. And then immediately he prays. This is prayer language when he says, "May the God of..." He is praying over the church and he is saying, "May the God of encouragement and endurance..." The point is, it's not about us. When we endure, it's not us enduring. It's God causing us, helping us to endure. He is the God of endurance, so he can help us endure. When we need encouragement from the scripture, we don't just pick up this book and be like, "I'm not encouraged." We go to God and seek encouragement from him, because he is the God of encouragement as well. And we cannot separate the fact that if we want hope, we need to pray. You can't separate those. Paul knows that this is intrinsically needed. It's not his ability to speak, it's not their ability to endure, be encouraged. It's our need to pray and cry out to God when we don't have endurance, when times are hard, when we are suffering, God help me. And when we are struggling and we're sad, depressed, we have no hope, God encourage me. And he will. He's faithful to do that. But not only that, we need to be doing this for each other. Paul here is not looking at himself saying, "I need encouragement, I need endurance." He's looking at someone who is weak, a church who is weak and hurting. And he's saying to them, "May the God of endurance help you endure. May the God of encouragement fill you with encouragement." We, as the body of Christ, need to be doing that for each other, need to care about each other enough to do that. And once we are rooted in this hope, we have that as a foundation in our lives. It enables us to live, to move on, to carry on regardless of circumstances, you could say to live in faithful obedience to the Lord. But we don't stop there. When we have hope, that is the base, the foundation. But actually Paul encourages us and scripture encourages us to now abound in hope. And this is verses eight through 13 where it says this, "For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, 'Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.' And again it is said, 'Rejoice, Oh Gentiles, with his people.' And again, 'Praise the Lord all you gentiles and let all the peoples extol him.' And again, Isaiah says, 'The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles in him will the Gentiles hope.' May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." So, just some quick clarification and understanding. Paul starts with his talk about the circumcised and the Gentiles. What is he talking about here? He's talking about that regardless of any life circumstances, regardless of even where we come from, who we are, Christ is our only source of hope in this life. He's saying to the circumcised, to the religious Jews who knew and had heard and been raised in the law, Christ gives them hope. Why? Because he has fulfilled the promises of the scriptures. They can look at the faith that they were raised in and say, "Christ has fulfilled all the promises of God. God is trustworthy, he is reliable. We can depend on him. God that gives us hope." And to the Gentiles, to those who had no religious in the scripture's upbringing, he says, still, God is the hope for you. And he quotes a bunch of verses from the Old Testament. Why? To show that God always was the hope of the Gentiles, even before Christ came. But he's hope for the Gentiles, because it shows the mercy of God on all. Gentiles, you didn't know the laws, you weren't raised in the people of Israel, yet God had mercy on you. That gives us hope. I don't know about everyone who's here, but me personally, I am a Gentile. I am a Gentile. I was not raised as a Jewish or of the nation of Israel or any of that. And I have hope, because God loved his people enough to say, "I'm going to even save this guy," and praise God for that. And we should praise God. And regardless of our nationality, our backgrounds, regardless of anything, Christ alone is our hope. And again, in verse 13, it's prayer language. It's prayer language. "May the God of hope, the God who is hope, fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." The word abound, it's an overflow, it's an excess. It's a more than you could ever want or need. May the God of hope help you reach that point through the power of the Holy Spirit with joy and peace and believing. I like that part too, because as we believe we have hope, we believe, we trust in God, he promises to fill us with joy and with peace that we can then continue to grow in hope. And this points directly back to the last chapter, in chapter 14 verse 17 where it says, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." What Paul is making the connection to is the kingdom of God is a kingdom of peace, it's a kingdom of joy, and we need the God of hope to fill us with that. But he will when we are faithful in obedience to him. When we are believing and trusting in him, he will do that. And then God will also help us grow in hope. And this is the cycle of growth for a Christian. We start with hope. We start with the gospel. The gospel and hope are interchangeable, because the gospel is the only reason we have hope. But also there's scripture to say that it's interchangeable. And this is from 1 Peter 1:3. It says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." So, as Christians, we start in a place of hope. We start with the gospel. Why is the gospel hope? Well, the gospel is saying that we are all sinners. That God, Jesus Christ, left his throne above, did not count the freedom and rights that he had, like we talked about last week, as something to be held onto, but gave them up to come to earth, live a perfect life, die on the cross and save us from our sins, and be raised again to prove that he has the power, he has the command and dominion over everything in life and death. And we can have hope in him that through his work we can spend eternity with God when we put our trust in him and say, "Jesus, help me. I need a savior. I need you to save me. I need you to help me." What this also means is that apart from Christ, there is no hope. This goes back to the first few chapters of Romans where we spent a lot of time talking about God's wrath. It was not a lot of fun, but it was true and it's good and it's helpful, because the idea is that when we are in sin, we have no hope. We are in sin. We are deserving of eternity apart from God, eternity in hell, condemned for our sins. But praise be to God that he did not leave us like that, and he sent his son Jesus Christ to save us. So, if you are here today and you are not a Christian, I beg of you, I urge you, take hope. Turn to Christ, submit to him and say, "Lord Jesus, I need hope. I have no source of hope in this life. Lord Jesus, help me." Submit your life to him and he will help you, he will give you hope. So, that's the starting point, that's where we start, and then we endure. We get a little bit of suffering. We talked about this already. We endure, we suffer, we endure. We get more hope, we get encouragement from the scriptures. We get hope. We get a little more hope. And that more hope allows us to endure a little more. And the more we endure, the more that we are able to see hope. And the more that we have hope, the more we can endure. And it's a cycle and it's how we grow as Christians. But it also implies that it means more suffering is coming and that as you grow, life will get harder and harder. And that God knows that and he wants to help us endure and give us hope, but we can't rely on ourselves. The moment we rely on our own strength, we are bound to break. And this is the greatest temptation in these seasons. When you endure, you feel pretty good. You're like, "Wow, I accomplished something." And as we already said, it's not us, it's God. It's the power of the Holy Spirit that lets us do it. But after time and time again of seeing God's faithfulness and helping us endure, we are tempted to say, "Wow, I did a good job of enduring," or, "I was able to do it. So, bring on the suffering. I'm ready to go. I can do it again." Once we do that, it's just a matter of time before we break. We cannot and should not allow ourselves to rely on our own strength. It's the power of God alone. This is why it says in this verse that, "By the power of the Holy Spirit, we may abound in hope." We cannot break that chain. We cannot break our need and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. We need the spirit to strengthen us. And once we abound in hope, once we are overflowing, overwhelmed by hope, because of the power of the Holy Spirit, we actually have the ability to fulfill the call that God has placed on our lives. This is verses 14 through 21. It says this, "I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by word and deed, by signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ." I'll pause there for a second. I want to point out real quick in verse 14 that Paul says he is satisfied about his brothers. Does that mean he's saying that he is satisfied with their maturity? He recognizes that they are mature, they are filled with goodness, they are seeking righteousness, they're filled with knowledge, they're able to instruct each other. They are a mature church. This is actually a very mature statement by Paul, because he is trusting in God for them. And what is natural and what is a natural temptation is to be cynical and to question and say, "Yeah, I've heard about you, but I'm not so sure." And what I mean by cynical is, cynical is an inherent distrust of someone or something else. And I'm bringing this up here specifically because it is in direct contradiction to the idea of hope. Cynicism is directly opposed to hope. Why? Because you're distrusting. Well, who are you distrusting? When we are being cynical, we are showing we are distrusting God's sovereignty in all situations, that he is in control of everything. We as Christians are called to be hopeful, not cynical. And this is hard. The reason I bring this up specifically is because we live in a city that we talk about, it's really hard to be a Christian in Boston sometimes. We also talk about how it's just hard to be a Christian in general sometimes to faithfully obey the Lord. And what we are naturally drawn to is this cynical nature. The world has failed us. The world has disappointed us. We should not trust everything. That makes sense. So, naturally we are changed to that. And the longer you're in this city, the more you see it. And I bring this up because I know it's something that our pastors, our staff, every single one of us in this church, we all struggle with this temptation to become cynical. I was talking with Pastor Shane earlier this week. He gave me permission to share this. But he talked about how he even felt in his life that cynicism had crept in and that he had stopped being as hopeful and as joyful as he once was. And he praised God that he was able to recognize that and see that, and we should all follow his example of recognizing it in our own lives and cutting it out, getting rid of it and seeking to be hopeful. We need to be hopeful again, because it's what enables us to carry on. When we are cynical, we will not carry on. We will not live lives of faithful obedience. And cynicism is easier too. It's a lot easier than being hopeful. And this is a little bit of a tangent, but it's related, so hang with me for a second. The first service, I believe, is the first time ever that I've preached without mentioning my wife, which is crazy to me. And after the service, she came up to me and I didn't do as good of a job in the first service in explaining the cynicism part. And she was like what was speaking to her in this time, she texted me and it was really clear to me and I was like, "Wow, that's even better than what I said." So, I'm just going to read what she sent me. She just gave it as encouragement to me, but it's better than what I was saying, so I'm going to read it. Cynicism is easier than hope. We hate to be disappointed. We hate to be wrong, to look foolish. Cynicism protects us from too high of an expectation, but God has proven his faithfulness. He's proven that our hope is not in vain. We don't need to fear disappointment because we know that in the end, God will always get the glory. God will always get the victory. And we have confident hope in knowing he wants to use our lives in his church in unity to give him that glory. Praise God. That's why I married her. Amen. Yeah, we can clap. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Praise God. But that's the point. That's how cynicism contradicts hope, is like we stop trusting in God. Cynicism is easier. It's so much easier to do that. But we're not called to the easy thing, we're called to the faithful thing. And faithful obedience is to trust in God regardless. And so Paul here, bringing it back to verse 14, Paul is trusting in God over a church that he's never met. He doesn't know these people, he's never met these people. He just has heard good things and he's saying, "I'm trusting God that you're good." I'm not going to be skeptical and cynical and say, "Well, you're probably not as good as I've heard you are." He's trusting in them. Yet he wrote an entire book, a very long dense book of instruction of guidance to this church. Paul, if they are a mature church that you are trusting God that they are solid and faithful, why are you even writing them all these instructions? Well, this is what he says in verse 15. He says, "On some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given me by God." And the idea is that first and foremost, Paul did speak very boldly here. He had said some harsh things about the wrath of God, about sin, and he is proclaiming boldly that they need to be unified and all this stuff. Why? First, it's the grace of God that has been given to him. It was God's grace, the position, the call upon his life that God had put. And so he is just being faithful to the call that God has put upon him. But this idea is that God told him he needed to instruct and encourage the church in this way. So, he was faithful in doing it and he was like, "I understand. He's not perfect, I'm not perfect, we're not perfect. But I'm giving you this bold statement, because God told me I need to, I'm supposed to. That's the call on my life." But he also says, "By way of reminder," he knows that they know this. He knows that they know the gospel. Specifically what he is reminding them of is the gospel. And I want to be clear when I'm up here, when any pastor or any preacher is up here, our job is not to give a good new idea, to give something for you to think about intellectually. Our job is to speak boldly on what God has given us grace to say by way of reminder, of drawing us all back to the gospel. The reminder is the gospel. And it's not just Paul that talks about this. Peter talks about this as well in 2 Peter. Give me a second to find it in 2 Peter 1:12 and 13 it says this, "Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir up by way of reminder." Peter, Paul, they both recognize churches know the gospel. You know the gospel. But if we are to have hope, and if we are to live in faithful obedience to the Lord, to do what God has called us to do, we always need to be reminded of the hope we first had. Again, once we remove ourselves from the power of the Holy Spirit, we'll lose hope. Once we rely on ourselves, we'll lose hope. So, we constantly need to be reminded of the reason we began to have hope in the first place. That is what should stir us up most to obedience to the Lord. And I want to be clear as well that Christians, we are not Gnostics. What do I mean by that? What does Gnostics mean? We are not people who seek to grow and gain higher levels of Christianity by our continual growth in knowledge and information. It's not the idea that we get more information, so we get more knowledge, so we become a better Christian. And then we get more knowledge and higher knowledge and higher knowledge until we become the ultimate holy Christian. That's not what Christianity is. Instead, we are Christians seeking to have more and more hope in our lives by the continual reminder of Christ and him crucified and raised from the dead. That is again the cycle of growth, how we grow. It's not grow to be better, greater, more important or holy Christians. The goal is to be more hopeful, faithful Christians, to be faithful to serving the Lord, to live as he has called us to, and to fulfill the specific call he has on our lives. And for me in this season, for me right now, the call that God has is to be up here preaching and proclaiming the gospel. That's not the call for every single person. That's not even the call for me in every season. But every single Christian has a call, has a purpose, has something that God has ordained for them to do and to fulfill. And we can, and scripture even says that we can be proud of it. It's interesting, verses 17 through 19, he says this, "In Christ Jesus then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ." In Christ. So, in Christ, being rooted in Christ, Paul then has reason to be proud. What is his reason to be proud? Everything that Christ. Has done that's not really pride, it's honor and pride in God. He's saying, "I can be proud of everything that I've done, because it's not me. I had nothing to do with it. It's God. It's God who did it all." And here I'm just going to take a moment to be vulnerable with you guys, I have nothing in and of myself that means I should be here, that I should be up here. Last week I preached, but then afterwards at CG, one of the couples, good friends of ours in our CG was like, "Man, it was like it's a different Tyler up there, but it was good." And it's like it's not just a different me, it's that the spirit is powerful and the spirit moves. And all that I am doing before service, while worship is happening, while the band is practicing, I'm sitting over there and I'm praying because I know how wicked of a sinner I am. I know I don't deserve to be up here. And I can say, "God, I am so weak. I have nothing to give that I should be here. Lord, pour out your spirit. Help me. Empower me through your Holy Spirit to be able to say anything that is encouraging to your church, that is helpful to your church." And so while I'm up here, if anything I say is good and encouraging and sanctifying you, that's from the Holy Spirit. If anything you don't like and is bad, that's all me. I'm sorry, I apologize. But Paul says that he's speaking of nothing except for what Christ has done in every area of his life. This is where he says, "By word and by deed," by anything he says and anything he does, even the miraculous stuff, even he says, "By the power of signs and wonders." People looked at Paul and was like, "Wow, he was doing miracles. This is great. He is awesome. He is the super spiritual guy. He must be incredible." And Paul says, "It's by the power of the Spirit of God." If we want to be proud of the work we do, and if we want to be able to fulfill the call we have on our lives, we need to rely solely on the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul said something very bold here too. He says that he has fulfilled the ministry of the gospel. You sure, Paul? You sure you couldn't have done a little bit more? You sure that you did everything? You completely, totally fulfilled the call of the ministry of the gospel from Jerusalem to all the areas you said? Are you sure? Paul says, "Yeah." He's confident. And why is Paul confident? Because when the Spirit led, he followed. This talks about in the rest of 15 and in some of 16, all the people he met and the ways he traveled and wanting to go one place, but the spirit preventing him and so he went another. Paul can say he has faithfully completed all that God had placed on his life, because he listened to the spirit. He trusted the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit said go, he went [inaudible] the call of the gospel on our lives when we remain faithful and reliant and dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit in everything we say, do and wherever we go. Whatever that call is for each of us, you do have a call. God has a purpose for you here. Trust in the Holy Spirit. Ask God for the power of the Spirit to enable you to do what you need to do. And what is Paul's response when he says, "I have fulfilled, I've done everything?" "Thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel." Wait, Paul, thought you fulfilled the ministry of the gospel? He's like, "Yeah, I fulfilled it in the ministry and the call that God had in that season. And once I fulfilled it, I have another call. I have something else that I am supposed to do." And as we grow in our faith, as we go from just being a base level of hope in Christ to growing and growing and growing in our hope and trust and dependence on God, he will continue to use us. We will never reach a point where we're done being useful to God. He can always use us for his glory and for his kingdom. Again, so long as we are dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit and on the power of God. I want to close just by reading the two verses where Paul prays over the church. I want you to know that I do pray this over you, over me, over all of us. That this is something we should be praying for each other, but I want us all to take encouragement from it. So, I'll read those and then I'll close in prayer. In chapter 15:5 it says this, "May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus. That together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." And then in verse 13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we lift up our voices to you and say, thank you, God. You are glorious. You are good. Strengthen us. Help us to endure. Encourage us, give us encouragement through your word so that we can have hope always in you. Grow our hope. Fill us with your spirit. Give us the power of your spirit. Equip us to live lives faithful to you. To be hopeful regardless of anything that this world throws at us, or that this life has to offer, that you are good, you are faithful, you are in control. You will give us peace. You will give us joy. Help us fulfill the call you have placed on our lives. Give us your power so that we can see your kingdom come here, so that we can see the world change for your glory and for your namesake. In Jesus' name, amen.
You Are Free
December 4, 2022 • Tyler Burns • Romans 14
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 I want to frame up our time with a quote from Martin Luther before we read the text and before we preach or before we pray for the preaching of God's word. And the reason why I want to do this is because this was a quote that I came across while preparing and while studying for preaching. And it really just stuck with me the whole time and it really has resonated with me. And I think it's a clear sort of encompassing statement about what Martin Luther is expounding upon in our text, the concept that we are going to deal with in our text, Martin Luther expounds upon it in this way. And so I think it's going to be helpful for us to think about. So I'll read it and then we can talk about it. But Martin Luther says this, "A Christian is a most free Lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a most dutiful servant of all, subject to all." Now this is a statement that kind of deals with a paradoxical concept that we are going to be wrestling with in our text. The idea is that we as Christians are free. We are free. Scripture teaches that we are co-heirs, that we are rulers with Christ. And so we even have authority, real practical authority in the world around us, and that we are not subject to one another. We'll get to what that means in a little bit, but just hang on to that. But at the same time, scripture is clear that we are to love one another, to serve one another and to put each other before ourselves. And so how do we live in freedom and authority as rulers, as lords, lowercase L, in this world, while still being a dutiful servant and being subject to all? That is the concept that we are going to be wrestling with today. And I'll read the text, I'm going to read the whole thing. It's a long text, but the reason why I'm reading it is because Paul is making one logical argument that I want us to sit on and think about. What is Paul saying here? And I just really want the word to penetrate our hearts and our minds and let us just sit and dwell on that. So I will read it and then we can pray over the preaching of our God's word. So Romans 14, starting in verse one, it says this, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, and the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike." "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord since he gives thanks to God. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, for it is written, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God.'" "So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men, so then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding." "Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." Let's pray over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You, we praise You that You are Lord of all, that You are in control always and of everything. We thank You and we praise You. Lord, we also thank You and praise You that we have an ability to join You in that freedom, that You have blessed us with that opportunity. We thank You. Help us to live in that freedom. Lord, we thank You that You did not count that freedom as something to be hold onto, that You willingly gave it up to save us, to sacrifice for us, to serve us. Help us to have hearts that desire to do the same. Grow our ability, our willingness to serve and to submit to one another in the freedom that You have blessed us with. Lord, challenge us, grow us. Use Your word, use Your scripture to strengthen Your church now. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, we will be spending our time in four points today. Normally we like the three-point sermon, I like the three-point sermon, but we're doing four. The last one is really short so it's really like three-and-a-half, but we're going with four. But the points that we will be spending our time in are that you are free to serve the master. You are free to give thanks to the Lord. You are free to be subject to all, and you are free by faith. So we'll start with you are free to serve the master. This is coming in verses one through four. I'll break it up a little bit, but verses one and two say this, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables." So Paul hates vegetarians of... No, that's not what he is talking about. There's a lot of contextualization going on that we need to understand what is happening here. But the first thing I want to point out is the word opinions. It's not a word that we talk a lot about from the pulpit, but did you know, dear Christian, you are free to have opinions? Wow, what a novel concept. You are allowed to think. You are allowed to have opinions. That's great, but you're not free to quarrel over them. It's interesting. It implies that as Christians we will have opinions that are inherently contradictory to other people in the same body of Christ. If you look around this room, we're going to have different opinions on the same subject matter. The Bible says that's okay. You are allowed to have differences of opinion, but what's not okay is to allow those differences to cause division, as to quarrel over them. We'll get into what the quarreling exactly means in a little bit, but I just wanted to start with that and point out like yeah, we can say it's okay to have opinions. It's okay to disagree, but we still need to live in unity and love with one another. The next thing I want to point out is the context of the eating whatever, and the weaker one only eats vegetables. So this has a lot to do with the history and the context of the day. But specifically, the church in Rome was living in a city where people offered sacrifices to pagan Gods, and that sacrifice was a meat offering that then after the sacrifice they would take the meat and they would just sell it in the market. And so the question that the Christians in this early church were dealing with, is it okay to eat meat that is offered to idols? Is it okay to eat meat if you don't know that it had been offered to idols or not? What should we do? And Paul goes into greater detail in his stance on that in 1 Corinthians. Feel free to check that out, but I'll just summarize it real quickly. What Paul's point is saying is we know there is one true God. Yahweh is the only God. And so any other God, lowercase G, that these sacrifices are made to, they're not real. So really what it is it's a barbecue. So Paul says, "I can eat it." There's nothing sinful, there's nothing unclean about eating it because in faith, Paul knows he's still praising the one true God who provided food. Makes sense, seems good. There was another group of dedicated Christians who loved the Lord that said, "I cannot eat meat dedicated to an idol. Less to anyone dare think I'm possibly worshiping that idol. I don't want to cause any confusion. I don't want to worship an idol I'm not going to eat the meat offer to them." But sometimes it's hard to know what meat at the market is offered to an idol and which is not. So they refrained completely from eating meat. They said, "We will not eat meat at all to make sure that we do not eat meat sacrificed to idols." Wow, what conviction. What strength to and dedication to the Lord to say, "I will not do anything that possibly can go against the Lord." Whoa, faithful Christians are disagreeing. Faithful Christians have a difference of opinion. And that's okay. And Paul is saying, "Welcome each other." And what's really interesting here is we're at church, I'm preaching, so we take this primarily at church, but primarily what he's talking about is at the home. He's talking about, well, let's just thought experiment practically. Let's say there's a group of us here that love meat. No one knows who's in that group. Let's say that there's a group of people here who don't eat just vegetarian, for whatever reasons. And then you come to church and you know who eats meat and who doesn't. What do you think's going to happen? Naturally, most people will probably separate, hang out with their friends, "Oh, I'm not a meat eater. I'll sit with the other people who don't eat meat." "Oh, I'm a meat eater. I'll sit with the people who eat meat." And then what do we do after service? Oh, let's go get lunch. Oh the meat eaters go get barbecue. The vegetarians go, I don't even know, I'm sorry, I'm a meat eater. I don't even know where you go. And the result is division. The result is division in the church over something that doesn't matter, over something that is an opinion. And what Paul is saying, have the people over your house and enjoy a meal together that you disagree with. I'm sticking with the meat and vegetable example because that's what Paul uses, but think about it yourself. Think about what opinions we disagree with one another within the church. Actively invite and welcome into your home people you know that you disagree with, and genuinely welcome them. It says don't quarrel, don't have them over to have a debate about the opinions. That's not helpful. Don't bring them over to try and persuade them or if you don't know, I'm having people over to find out who's on my side of this opinion so we could figure it out. Like that's not helpful, it's not helpful. Paul says to welcome them, and it gets a little bit stronger in language as he goes. In verse three it says, "Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains. And let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand." The word for quarreling, it actually has to do with making a judgment over. And it's like when you are arguing with someone like oh, I'm right, they're wrong. I'm better than them. They're just weaker. They don't understand as much as I do. You're coming from a place that's not loving. And Paul recognizes that and he says, "Don't despise the one who eats. Don't despise the one who abstains. Don't hate them. Don't make a judgment over them." Why? Because you are not their master. And this is an important thing to know that we are given authority and we are given rule in this world, but we are not masters of one another. I am not your master. Praise God. You are not my master. Praise God. I have the freedom to live not concerned about you mastering yourself over me and you have the freedom to live without concern of me mastering over you. Why? Because we have one master and that master is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we still have to serve Him, right? This doesn't mean we have freedom to sin or freedom to do whatever we feel like. It's freedom to live in submission to our master. Freedom to serve our master. That's why it says before his own master, he will either stand or fall. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes our opinions are wrong and we will fall. And that's okay because we are not the ones who ultimately decide our standing before our master, the master decides that. And the Lord, it says, is able to make us stand. He is the one who upholds us. And so we can trust in Him. We can live in freedom to serve Him knowing He will uphold us. And that's something that we should be joyful about. We should be thankful for, that we are not masters of one another, but we do have a good master who will cause us to stand and we can serve Him. So then we should give thanks to Him. This is point number two. We are free to give thanks to the Lord. This is in verses five through 12. It says in verse five, "One person esteems one day as better than another. While another esteems all day as alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord since he gives thanks to God. While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God." I'll stop there for now, but the first thing I want to point out is Paul brings in another contextual disagreement that the church was having when he says one esteems one day and one esteems all day is alike. And most often this is used to talk about things like what day do we worship God on. Like we're here on Sunday, we worship on Sundays. That's what we do. But actually it's a lot more nuanced than a lot more specific of what's going on. There's a group of people in the early church that believed God told us specific days are holidays, or specific days are sabbaths to worship Him, to remember Him, to do different things. So those days are inherently more holy than the rest because God had ordained them for the worship of Him at specific times. Okay, all days are holy, but those days are like extra holy. You could see that argument. Other people, and Paul falls into this camp, say the Lord made all days, all days are holy. We can worship God however we want on those days, whatever we are called to remember in those holidays, we can worship every single day. Every day is a holy day to serve the Lord. Praise God. That makes sense, too. People disagree again. But the idea is the esteeming has to do with holiness, and the emphasis is the esteeming of the days and not on the differences. The point is, do we actually think about days as ordained by God to serve Him? To love and serve and worship Him and specifically honor Him, right? It says if you abstain, if you partake, whatever your view on the days are, if you do it in honor of the Lord, then it's good. Then it's good. And this takes intentional, proactive thought, right? This is not just passive like, oh I go to church every Sunday. That's just because that's what I do. It's like, no, today is a day to honor the Lord. Praise God. And then when we go home and wake up tomorrow, still a day to worship and praise God. Praise God. And how do we honor Him in our eating, in our not eating, in our following of certain days or whatever? Says by giving thanks. Says that they honor Him by giving thanks. This is very applicable. We're just coming out of the Thanksgiving season, headed into the Christmas season, thinking a lot about thankfulness and things like that. We, as Christians, are called to proactively thank God for everything always, all the time. And this is the following statement where He gets into a totality statement. This is what He's saying in verse seven, "For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again that He might be Lord, both of the dead and of the living." What's in the realm outside of the dead and of the living? Nothing. That's what there is. Either it is dead or it's alive, physically, spiritually, whatever category you want, alive and dead are the categories. And Paul's point here is everything, the good, the bad, the scary, the hard, the things that bring life, the things that lead to death, all of it is under God's sovereign control. Nothing is out of his hands. And so that gives us the ability to thank Him always, to thank Him when things are hard. To thank Him when things aren't going the way we want them to. He is master of all. He is the one in control. We can praise Him, we can thank Him. That doesn't mean it's easy. There will be seasons when it's hard to do. But as Christians, we are called to do this and we are free to do it, right? That's something that's important to think about. The freedom, the ability to recognize with one another yet may be hard. But even in the difficult seasons, we have the freedom, allow each other to praise God even when things are hard. Allow each other to give thanks to Him even when things are difficult. So we are free to give thanks to God. Whoa, we're free to do whatever we want in submission to the master, our Lord. And we are free to thank Him for it. That doesn't mean there's no accountability, right? And this is where it continues in verse 10, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother. Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to me, to confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." We have the freedom to not judge one another because not only are we not their masters, we're not their judge. God is their judge. God is my judge. God is your judge. God is everyone's judge. And so we have the freedom when we see things wrong, when we disagree over opinions, we have the freedom to not pass judgment on one another and say, you know what? It's in the Lord's hands. This goes back to Romans 12 at the very end where he says, the Lord says, "Vengeance is mine and it's not for us." And so we have the freedom to not worry and be obsessed with and condemn each other because we know that God is in control and that He is a good and perfect judge. But we ourselves will stand before God and give an account for everything we have said and done. And that should cause us to faithfully serve Him, right? We have the freedom. We have freedom, great. But we do have to give account to God for what we do with that freedom. And then Paul's going to tell us what we should do with that freedom, what we are called to do in that freedom. This picks up in verse 13, "Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and I am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil." We'll pause there for a second, but I like to tell people my favorite verse in text that I preach because I think it's helpful. But my favorite verse is verse 13. That's my favorite verse. Let us not pass judgment on one another any longer. Well, it's saying that we have been passing judgment on one another and we need to stop doing that. And Paul is writing that to the church in Rome, but I know that it's applicable to every church, but it is applicable to our church here. We need to commit to not passing judgment on one another anymore. Then it says rather decide, and this is really why it's my favorite verse. The word decide is the same word that has been used throughout this text for pass judgment. So what does Paul mean by pass judgment? What does he mean by decide here? What is he talking about? Passing judgment is a legal thing. It's a legal term of making a decision of guilty, not guilty or making a sentencing, a final, complete, total statement on what to do or what you are. And so Paul is saying do not make a condemnation, a guilty, not guilty statement on other people. That's not your job. Stop doing that. Do instead make a legal decree over your own life, place a law over yourself that you will never, never, ever put a stumbling block in the way of a brother or sister. How many of us are perfect at that? None of us. We aren't perfect at this and there's grace and there's forgiveness and repentance when we fail at this. But do we even have this mentality? Is this something that we are even thinking about? Because it's not like, oh, remove stumbling blocks when you can. It's, do not put them there. That means is we're putting them there, and we need to proactively stop ourselves from doing it. Do we have the mentality that I love somebody else so much that I will not do anything at all that causes them to stumble? Even eating meat. You see, this is where the gospel makes clear of this balance of the paradox because Jesus is the Lord and ruler are one master. And so he has the most freedom of all. He is free to do whatever He wants. But He knew that we needed help. He knew that we were not all right. And He said rather than just letting them figure it out and I'm free to do whatever I want, I'm not going to let them bother me. He said no. Jesus Christ came down to earth. He gave up His freedom, submitted Himself to us to serve us, to die on the cross, save us from our sins so that way we can join the family of God, when we've put our faith and trust in Him. When we say, Lord Jesus, you are truly Lord of my life. You are in control. You are the one I need to submit everything to. And so do we love each other like Christ love the church? Do we say, "Yes, I may have freedom to have whatever opinions I want"? Sure, true. Do you say, "But I'm not willing to let them become a stumbling block for anyone else"? And it's very strong language. He says never. Don't dare put a stumbling block. And this is really important because it continues and says, "Do not destroy the one for whom Christ died." Christ died for them. They are valuable to our master so they should be valuable to us, so we shouldn't do things that destroy them. And the word destroy isn't about salvation, but it is about physical breaking and hurt and pain and anguish. Do we recognize that's the severity of our actions at times? I think we can all agree experientially the times that we are hurt the most, the times that we feel destroyed are when we're hurt by the people we care about the most. Because it's not painful to be hurt by someone you don't care about. Like whatever, I don't care about you. But when you really truly care for someone, it is painful when they hurt you. And we, as a church, aren't primarily just a group of people that meet on Sundays. We are called the Body of Christ. We are called the family of Christ. We are relationally brothers and sisters. And so when we hurt one another, it hurts. It really has power to hurt. And so we need to proactively fight against that. We need to actively seek love, seek peace, seek the ability to help one another rather than hurting one another even when our opinions are right. This is important. What I find really interesting about this text is that Paul is talking about opinions. Well, making an argument for which opinion is right and which opinion is wrong. If you noticed, he started the first time he talked about it in the beginning, he said this, "One person believes he... The weak person eats only vegetables." So in the decision, should we refrain from eating all meat to serve the Lord or should we eat meat and freedom to serve The Lord? Calls the ones who refrain, weak. He's making a statement about who's right and who's wrong. He continues, "The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord. The one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord." But it's okay. If they eat, they eat. If they don't, they don't. It's okay. Then here he says, "I know and I am persuaded in the Lord that nothing is unclean in itself." Then Paul is saying, Paul's convinced I know that there is nothing unclean about it. We should all eat meat. And then later we'll get to it in a second, he says even more strongly, "Everything is indeed clean." So Paul in this text is trying to show people what is true, what is right. But that's not the point. That's not what he's focusing on. He actually focuses on the unity. Nowhere does he tell the people who are refraining from eating vegetables, you're wrong, stop doing it. Start eating meat. No. And actually he corrects the people who eat meat and challenge them and says, "Let them do it. They're following their conscience, they're following the Lord. They're seeking to serve the Lord and doing it. Let them do it." We live in a city that prizes intelligence, that prizes knowing information and knowing the most and being right and all this stuff. Dear Christians, that's not your goal in life. That's not the purpose. And ultimately it doesn't matter as much as everything else that we are called to. What is the purpose? What is the goal? This is verse 17, and it says it very clearly, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." What is our purpose? We are to pursue righteousness. That does mean there are things that are right and wrong. We should not use freedom to do whatever we want. We submit to the Lord, we follow Him. If you remember, I know it's been a long time since we started Romans, but if you remember way back to week one, Bastion talked about how the purpose of this letter is to encourage the church to faithful obedience to the Lord. It's the idea of encouraging people to faithful. You could say righteousness. So we as Christians, we do pursue righteousness. We do pursue living lives according to God's word and doing what is right. But then we pursue peace, we pursue unity, we pursue that at the cost of our own freedoms. Talking a lot about opinions more than I like to talk about from the pulpit because I think it shouldn't be about opinions, and that's kind of Paul's point. But we have opinions, we disagree. But if I allow my opinion to get in the way of anyone else's faith, it's better that I don't have an opinion at all. It's better that I don't because that's not the point. The point is peace. The point is righteousness. The point is peace are what we're doing, what we're saying bringing about unity within the church. And joy. We can't forget about joy, too. Again, even when things are hard, even when you disagree, we still are called to righteousness, peace, and joy. So this is why I love singing songs of worship to the Lord here on Sundays, because for me music brings joy. I mentioned that the first service when I was a baby, I was a very cute baby, you'll have to take my word for it. But my parents said I was a joyful baby. I was a happy baby. And then from then until I got married, I was never once in my life called joyful. Now that I am married, I have been called joyful, and praise God, and I'm very thankful for my wife. But the point of that is I was actually in sin all those years of my life, because I wasn't following the Lord. I wasn't pursuing joy as I am called to. And joy is important. And sometimes you don't feel like being joyful. I get it. And that's why the church body is so important. That's why we need each other. I love to come to church on days when I don't feel like coming to church. You know what I mean? On days when you feel like it's the hardest, on days where you don't feel the joy and you show up at church and you see other people worshiping and praising God, it's a little bit easier to be joyful. It puts things in perspective, it's helpful to remind ourselves we're here to praise God. I can praise Him no matter what because He again is in control of all things. We are called to do this for the mutual upbuilding of the church. This is how the church strengthens, this is how the church grows. So when we are in seasons where we feel that the church is hurting and needs strengthening, this is the most important time to focus on this. Pursue righteousness, pursue peace, and pursue joy. I don't think I clarified when I switched to 0.3, but I switched to 0.3. We were subject to all. I hope you picked up on that. Going to transition to 0.4 because a lot of this gets confusing, like practically speaking, how do we do this? And 0.4 clarifies a lot of this for us. You are free to live by faith. This is verses 20 to 23. It says, "Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself, for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." Do not let what we do destroy the work of God. Again, we said but do not let it destroy the one for whom God loved. But God is working in those situations, and the people are people that God is building and shaping and growing and so do not let our opinions destroy them. And I have to clarify this in verse... Sorry, I'm trying out of context that didn't go well. In verse 22 it says, "The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God." I want to clarify what this means. This is not talking about saving faith in the gospel, saving faith that Jesus died to save me from my sins. And He is Lord of all. No, nowhere else in scripture doesn't talk about that. Actually everywhere else in scripture it's like please tell everybody. Go tell the nations, proclaim it to everyone, we should not keep our faith and our love of the Lord Jesus Christ between us and God. No. We need to tell people about it. That is a command in scripture. Contextually what this is talking about goes back to verse one. Those who are weak in faith, quarreling over opinions. We can have faith that we are doing, living faithfully even in our opinions, but we need to keep that between ourselves and God sometimes. Now if you have good strong relationships with people and friends and brothers, like it's not saying never talk about it. Like, you can, that's all right. But the point is it for encouragement? Is it a building or is it going to bring about harm? Again, we can have opinions, but if it's going to cause somebody else to stumble, it's better to just keep it between me and God. It's better to just for you to keep it between you and God because the point is unity. And so think about how many things we do a day, how many decisions we make, how do we faithfully follow God in everything while serving Him, while submitting to all? Like what if there's an option to do something that might bring peace, but another one that would bring more joy, what do I do? Paul gives us more freedom. The freedom to live by faith, to trust in the Lord. That's what he's saying at the end here. If you eat when you don't have faith, you are condemned. Why? Because the point is about doing things in faith by trusting God. When we make decisions, do we seek after God's will? Do we pray? Do we read scriptures? Do we consult brothers and sisters in Christ and go from there? And once we make a decision, if we have been faithfully following the Lord, Paul says have the freedom to do it. Don't constantly be second guessing yourself. Don't constantly be having to go, oh, did I do the right thing or not? Live in freedom for the Lord. And if you make a mistake, repent. Because you will make mistakes, because we are all fallible people. But ultimately the motivation for everything we do, the decisions we make needs to come from a position of I have faith that the Lord is in control of all things. I am seeking after Him. I am doing the best I can to follow Him. And so I'm going to proceed in this life from there. I want to close by reading two things that I find helpful, and it's things that you've already heard. I'm going to read again the quote from Martin Luther to summarize what I've been saying. And then I'm going to read the verse that I think Paul used that summarized most what he said, which is verse 17. And I'm just going to read them in conjunction to one another because I think thinking about them together has really helped me understand this idea. So Martin Luther says, "A Christian is a most free Lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to all." Verse 17, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we do thank You for all of the freedom that You have blessed us with, that we can be free from judgment from one another, that we can be free from Your wrath because of the work of Your son, Jesus Christ. That we can be free to live in this world following You. We thank you, we praise You for that. Lord, we also thank You for the opportunity You have blessed us with to serve and submit to one another. We thank You that we are able to proclaim the gospel to those who see us by our submission to one another. We thank You that you did not count your freedom as something to be hold onto, but gave it up for us. Lord, You are good. Lord, help grow in our hearts, the ability to view others more significant than ourselves, to view others as primary in us as secondary, to strengthen our faith in You so that we can be better at serving those around us. Bring unity to your church. Help us to pursue righteousness, peace, and joy. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Overly Conquering
July 31, 2022 • Tyler Burns • Romans 8:31–39
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. Good morning, church. Welcome. Oh, nice response this time. That's great. I know we've all been waiting for this week. It's finally here. It's the party passage week. I brought out my colored pants. They're the only colored pants my wife allows me to keep anymore and these have be officially named my party pants. As of today, we are in the party passage, the end of Romans 8:31-39 is where we will be today. I want us to understand this text is encouraging. When we read this, we are going to get jacked up excited, ready to go. The way I think about it is when I was a kid, my favorite movies were the Rocky movies. I loved Rocky because first and foremost, they are fighting movies and you're a kid and you're just, "Yeah, punch somebody." And you get to see him getting hit in the face again and again, and he just takes it, and then he comes out swinging and he wins. I would be so excited I would just start punching the pillows on the couch like, "Yeah, I'm going to fight somebody." So much so that my parents eventually bought me a standup punching bag thing, a little electronic one, really cheap online. I would only really ever use it after watching Rocky movies because I was so excited. The problem was I didn't have a purpose for that excitement, I just was excited. And so I had nothing to do with that excitement, but punch things and that's not good. What our text is today is building up that excitement in us. However, we have a purpose. We have a mission with which we are to use this excitement, this joy, this energy, ready to go and use it for the kingdom of God. So that is the framework I want us to understand going into this text today. Also, I realized I didn't introduce myself. Most of you know me, you responded with hello. I'm Tyler. If you don't know me, if you're new, welcome, we're glad that you are here worshiping with us. Will you pray with me over the reading and preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you, we praise you that you are a God of power, a God of complete decisiveness who acts on our behalf, who conquers for us, and enables us to live in your power and your freedom. Lord, help us to be encouraged, stir up our hearts to be encouraged to leave this place living lives that boldly, powerfully proclaim who you are and live lives unafraid, unashamed of any attacks of sin, Satan, suffering. Anything the world has to offer, Lord, we know you are greater. Fortify our minds around that you are the greatest conqueror. Lord, we praise you, we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, we are in Romans 8:31-39. If you have your Bibles, you could follow along, otherwise, it'll be on the screens behind us. Let's read. It says, "what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will he not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies? Who is to condemn? Christ. Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations, or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written." "For your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us for, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Amen. This is the reading of God's holy inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. May He write these eternal truths upon our heart? This is exciting. We're going to be spending our times in three points today, overly conquering sin, overly conquering suffering, and overly conquering the world. Well, why is it overly conquering? We're going to address that first. What do I mean by overly conquering? When we use the word overly before things, it tends to take a negative tone. Like someone's excited, that's a good thing. It's good to be excited, but overly excited, you're like, "Whoa, hold up. You're a little annoying with that excitement." That's not what we're talking about here. This is a good, great thing. Overly conquering, where do we get this from? It's kind of the framework that Paul builds this text around. The most clear example is in verse 37 where it says "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." The more is the idea that we didn't just win, we didn't just conquer, we completely totally conquered. There is no doubt at all that we have conquered. And then he also starts our text with this in verses 31 and 32. "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. How will he not also with Him graciously give us all things?" See, the emphasis is not that we in and of ourselves are conquerors. The idea is that because of the actions, the works, the power of God, He has completely conquered. And for those who are in Christ, that is now applied to us. So when we think of this idea of overly conquering as we go through this whole text thinking of overly conquering, I want us to understand it's God who is the over-conqueror and that is applied to us through Christ. Even later on Paul quotes from Psalm chapter 44 where he says like, "We are being slaughtered all the day long." Like, "Wow, that's really encouraging text to say, 'Get us ready to go.'" What is going on there? But in Psalm 44 even it starts by saying this, "O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us what deeds you performed in the days of old you with your own hand, drove out the nations, but then you planted. You afflicted the peoples, but then you set free. For not by their own sword, did they win the land nor did their own arms save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face for you delighted in them." Throughout scripture and throughout the history of the world throughout our lives, God is the one who has victory. God is the one who gives us victory. He gives his people, Israel, the victory. And so when we think about conquering, focus on the God who has historically always conquered. He has not lost. When you think about that, that should get us going. So now what specifically is Paul talking about us conquering? This is our first point. First and foremost, he's talking about overly conquering sin. This is our text in verses 33 and 34. "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us." The imagery Paul is getting is a court case. Think about a courtroom where the judge seated on the bench is God the Father, He is sitting there, and we are down below, and next to us is the prosecutor, we are the defendant. So there's a prosecutor, prosaccuser we could say Satan, who is called the accuser in the Book of Revelation. That's his title. He's trying to accuse us before God. "See, they have sinned, God. They are wicked. They are evil. They have done all these things." And it says, who can bring a charge against God's elect? This is really comforting. If Satan tries to bring a charge against us, if anybody is like, "God, they did this. God, didn't you see how they sinned? Look at them. They are guilty." God turns to Satan and says, "No, I justified them." God did it, not us. It's God's power that justified us. Who can condemn? Satan says, but there's a whole long list of them, God. There's not just one thing. There's so many. And since you justified them, they continue to sin. They continue to do more. There's even more. They should be condemned to hell. Oh, and we have the greatest trial attorney ever, Jesus Christ. He was like, "Oh, Father, just so you know, I remember I paid that." He is interceding on our behalf saying to God the Father, "Remember the work I've done on the cross. I have paid the penalty. You cannot condemn them." This is the greatest comfort that we can have that is not dependent on us. It is not dependent on our own faith in every moment. It's not dependent on our own ability to be obedient day in and day out. It's on the faithfulness of God. It's on the power of God. And that power should then encourage us and strengthen us to live lives of faithful obedience. I know we've been in Romans a while, but if you remember back to the very first week in Romans, we talked about the reason Paul is writing this book is to encourage us to faithful obedience to God. This is not just, "Oh, God did it so I'm good." It's, "God did it. I'm good. Praise Him. Now I'll live for Him." Last week, Pastor Shane talked about how the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, specifically in our prayers, and what a comfort that is in our sufferings. Here, we see Jesus is interceding for us daily. Two-thirds of the Godhead are interceding for us. Two-thirds of the Trinity are interceding for us. What about God the Father? Oh, He doesn't need to intercede, because He's already done. He's the one who executes judgment and He has forgiven us. So he executes His forgiveness on us and I see this most clearly, and I love this from the Book of Zechariah. I don't know about you, but it's been a while since I read Zechariah, but it is a great book. It is encouraging. And in Zechariah chapter three, we see the high priest, Joshua. This is not Joshua like most people think of, but he is a high priest at the time. He is the first high priest after the Babylonian exile when they rebuild the temple. He was one of two men charged with rebuilding the temple. And in Zechariah, we see this scene that while Joshua is still alive, Zechariah is seeing him before God. And in Zechariah 3:1, it says this. "Then He showed me Joshua, the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at His right hand to accuse Him." And the Lord says to Satan, "The Lord rebuke you O' Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked from the fire? Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments, and the angel said to those who are standing before him, 'Remove the filthy garments from him.' And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I will cloth you with pure investments." "And I said, 'Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments and the angel of the Lord was standing by. See, whenever Satan tries to accuse us, he doesn't even get a chance if we are in Christ. God doesn't even let him speak. Before Satan can even utter the words to try and condemn us, God says, "I rebuke you, Satan. They are mine. Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" Wow. God is the one who stuck His hand and when we were all deserving to be condemned and go to hell because of our sins, God reached out, He plucked us from the fire and said, "No, you are mine." Nobody can change that. Nobody can take that away from us and the Lord rebukes anybody who dare try. Oh, we get to serve the God who did that for us. We can know that no sin can condemn us. So when we are living our lives now, okay, if you're a Christian, you have been justified by the work of Christ, dying on the cross to save you from your sins. Praise God. We still fall, we still fall short. What should we feel in those moments? Satan wants to accuse us and make us feel guilt, make us feel ashamed and say, "Oh, I am weak. I have failed." God does not want us to stay there. God wants to call out to us and say, "No, I plucked you from the fire. I have saved. You live in that joy, live in that confidence, and now go on sinning no more." If you are here today and you are not a Christian, let's say that you have not been saved from this, but God wants you. God is eagerly waiting to pull you and pluck you from that fire. Turn to him, say, "Lord Jesus, I need your saving power. It's you alone who can save me. I can do nothing to add value, to be saved. God, I need your help." Cry out to Him now and God will conquer sin. He already has conquered sin and death on the cross. Do we feel this way when we feel temptation coming? Very rarely not. I mean, sometimes. Sometimes we sin and we're like, "Ah, I wasn't even prepared for that. I am so sorry." Most times we know it's coming. We feel temptation and we're like, "Oh, do I do it? Do I not? Ugh, I did it." That's not the attitude we should have towards sin. Why? Because God conquered it. Sin has no more power, no more hold on our hearts to even draw us into it. So when we feel temptation like Paul says, we say, "No. No. God has conquered you. You have no control over me. I am living in freedom from you. I rebuke you, sin. I am living a life glorifying to God." And if we still fall short, there's still grace for us. God still forgives. It's His power. It's not dependent on our faithfulness, it's dependent on Him, but we don't take advantage of that. The second thing that God wants us to know that He has overly conquered is suffering. We've talked a lot about suffering in the past few weeks because Paul has talked a lot about suffering, because the early church suffered a lot. And throughout history, even today, the church still suffers. It's a concept that is relevant to the church always. So in our text, Paul addresses this in verses 35 and 36 where he says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written. For your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." Sheep to be slaughtered. That doesn't sound like conquering. "Jesus, what are you talking about? Paul, what are you saying here when we are able to conquer?" The first thing we need to understand is the commonality between these. I had a hard time personally tribulation, distress, persecution. What's the differences? What are the differences? They are nuanced. They are difference, but actually the thing I want to focus on is the commonality between them. What is the same amongst these things? The idea that is the same is that they are outward forces that affect us. They are on the outside. They are circumstances. They are things that are not within, they are outward that bring us suffering. I was thinking about this today, obviously preparing for the text. And if you were here a little bit early, you would know that the fire alarms went off. And while I was getting ready to prepare, and pray, and get my heart ready to go for the preaching of God's Word, I had to stand outside and wait for the fire department to come, and turn off the alarm. And I'm preaching this text to myself then. "God, you're good. You've taken care of everything. There is no outward circumstance that can affect who I am in you." Now that's a very light and easy example of this. His example is being slaughtered. That's hard. Paul, are you sure that that has no effect on me? It kind of feels like it does. It feels like I die. That's sounds like it affects me. But what he's talking about is that it has no effect on our identity, on who we are. Outward things cannot change the internal. The internal is that we are in Christ, we are His. Nothing that can happen can change that. Do we think about times when we suffer where we face tribulations or persecutions and we're like, "Ah, I don't know if I really think it's worth it right now to people I'm Christian. The consequences seem worse than the benefits, or I don't know if I should live the way I'm supposed to in this setting because the consequences seem worse than the benefits."? That's the wrong attitude, it's the wrong mentality in those situations. In those situations, our mentality should be, "God has conquered all circumstances. Whatever happens to us, He's in control. He's got it. We're good so I can live freely, faithfully to him in any circumstances, no matter what even to the point of facing death. Because if I face death, I get to be with God, praise Him. And if I get to live, I get to proclaim the Word of God, praise Him." One of the things that I think we often don't talk about in American churches enough is the early martyrs. We don't talk about them because we aren't facing the same persecutions that they are. And so we're like, "Oh, well, that's nice, but that's not really relevant to us." But today, because Paul is specifically talking about being faithful even to the point of death, I want to listen to them. They have insight that I don't have because I haven't been in that situation. Praise God. Yet, who knows? So I want to see what they have to say, gave them the strength to persevere even in those times, and to see what they said to the church who wasn't being persecuted to the point of death. What was their charge to them? So the first example I want to appeal to is Polycarp. If you know anything about Polycarp, he is the earliest recorded death of a martyr. There are others that we know were killed as martyrs before him, but he is the earliest that we have recorded exactly how he died, and what happened to him. He was a Bishop of Smyrna. So he was a religious leader over a large area, over a large church. And he was killed by being burned at the stake. So they would gather wood and kindling and throw it in a pile. They would put a person on it, they would chain him to it, then they would nail him to the post, and then they would burn him alive. He remained faithful to the end. What gave him the ability to remain faithful to the end? First, I find this so interesting. When they went to do this to him, they forgot the nails. So they're like, "Oh, let's go back and get some more nails." And Polycarp responds to them and says this, "Let me be. He who gives me the strength to endure the flames will give me strength not to flinch at the stake without you making sure of it with nails." Savage. He's like, "God's giving me the strength to endure the flames of fire. You don't need to nail me to the stake. I'm not going anywhere. God's going to give me the strength to face this suffering." Okay, what gives you that confidence? What gives you that strength? Polycarp says this, "O Lord God Almighty, Father of thy blessed and beloved Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have been given knowledge of the thyself. Thou are the God of angels and powers of the whole creation, and of all the generations of the righteous who live in thy sight. I bless the for granting me this day an hour, that I may be numbered amongst the martyrs to share the cup of thine Anointed and to rise again onto life everlasting, both in body and soul. In the immortality of the Holy Spirit, may I be received among them this day in thy presence, a sacrifice rich and acceptable, even as thou didst appoint, and for show, and dost now bring it to pass for thou art the God of truth and in thee is no falsehood. For this, and for all else beside, I praise thee, I bless thee, I glorify thee through our eternal High Priest in heaven, thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, by whom and with whom be the glory to thee and the Holy Ghost, now and for all ages to come. Amen." When he finished saying amen, that is when they lit the fire, that is when he died. This was in 155 AD. I love this. They have the exact date, February 23rd, 155 AD. That's how detailed I'm an account we have of this. He relied first on who God is. He didn't say, "God, help me through this fire. Help me not feel pain when I'm in the fire." That's a prayer I often pray when I'm suffering like, "God, help me not to feel pain in this. Help me to just get through it." And there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not his focus. His focus isn't help me get through the pain, God. He's like, "God, you're great. I praise you. You are the good God. Glory forever. Jesus Christ, your Anointed One suffered on the cross. He died. He is with us so I can too. I can endure all suffering." If we want to endure any and all sufferings we face, we need to start by focusing on God, the God who overcame, overly conquered all sufferings. Now you say, "Okay, well I'm not being burned alive at the stake. What does this mean for me?" Well, Polycarp had a friend, the Bishop of Antioch whose name was Ignatius. Now Ignatius, I love this story because he wrote seven letters. One letter he wrote to Polycarp on his way to be killed. And he wrote a letter to Polycarp essentially saying, "We're all good. Don't try and stop them from killing me. I'm good and you might face the same thing one day so just keep persevering, keep enduring. You're going to be good. God is in control." And then he wrote six other letters to churches to encourage them in the same way. And he wrote one letter in particular to the church in Ephesus. Now, why this gets me so excited is he wrote this 40 years after Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians. So he is writing to the same people that heard the letter of Ephesians firsthand. That's pretty cool. You ever think about that like, "Wow, what would it be like to be there firsthand?" That's awesome. Well, this guy is writing to those people. He's writing to the people that was there firsthand. And what he gives is a charge for those Christians who are not being killed. He knows that they are suffering. He's writing to them while they are suffering. The church is still being persecuted, but they are not condemned to death. So that sounds a lot like us. We've talked the last few weeks. We are suffering. Christians do suffer, but we're not condemned to death right now. So what about for us? This is Ignatius' plea. He says this I know well what I am and what you are to whom I write. I am the condemned. You are the pardoned. I am in peril, you are in security." Okay, so the idea is he's condemned to death, but you're in security. You're in different positions. "You are the gateway through which we are escorted by death into the presence of God." That's a weird statement. What is he talking about? He's talking about the advancement of the gospel is able to continue through his church regardless if he dies or not. It doesn't matter, he's still able to get into heaven because it's the gospel that reigns, not him. All right. "You are the initiates of the same mysteries as our saintly and renowned Paul of blessing memory. May I be found to have walked in his footsteps when I come to God who has remembered you in Christ Jesus in every one of his letters." He's reminding them. Paul just wrote to you. He died, but he is still writing to you or sorry. That came out wrong. He has died, but he was writing to you. Remember the things that he wrote to you. Then he says this. "Do your best then to meet more often to give thanks and glory to God. When you meet frequently, the powers of Satan are confounded, and in the face of your corporate faith, his maleficence crumbles. Nothing can better a state of peaceful accord from which every trace of spiritual or earthly hostility has been banished." Wow. Do you think of corporate worship this way? This is a complete mind shift. Like we are not here just to hang out. We are here to worship and praise God because He is our God regardless of suffering, regardless of anything that happens in this world. And when we worship Him, Satan is confounded. What does that mean? Satan's like, "Man, I killed some of them. I threw suffering at them. I threw tribulations. I threw hardship at them and they go back to this God and worship Him? What is going on?" Satan is confounded because he knows nothing he can do can overcome God's power, nothing. He has no power against God. So when we come here, we worship in unity, in praise of the one true righteous God because He is worthy. We don't come in and say, "Oh, it's been a hard week." It can be a hard week, and sometimes we come in with that mentality, and that's fine. Then we go to God and say, "God, it's been a hard week, but you are God still. I praise you." We don't let that affect how we worship God because He's worthy regardless. And there's something about it being corporate as well. When you're going through hard times, do you ever not want to worship? I think that's the natural temptation that Satan wants to give us. I remember a time years ago I was just depressed. Yeah, I was just depressed. And a song came on the radio where it said, "I'm going to worship you even when I don't want to." And I said to God, I was like, "Yeah, God, but I really don't want to. I'm really not feeling like it right now. This is hard." And it was hard because I was alone. Two days later, I showed up to church on Sunday and I'm singing out praises to God, and I'm losing my voice. Why? Because I'm encouraged by being with the brothers and sisters in Christ who say, "Yeah, they've had hard weeks too. They've gone through things I don't know about. It doesn't matter. They're still worshiping God. No suffering is deterring us corporately from worshiping to God." And that stirs that up in each of us individually to worship and praise God always. So when outward circumstances try to challenge us, try to tempt us away from God, do we approach them with the mentality God has overly conquered you? He has given me that power. You can do nothing, absolutely nothing to take away my salvation, to take away my confidence in Christ, to take away the work He has done. So I'm going to persevere. I'm going to continue through because of God. The last thing that we overly conquer is the world. This is a catch-all phrase for absolutely everything else. Absolutely everything else we have overly conquered because of Christ. This is verse 37 through the end. Verses 39 says this. "No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." This is one of the most powerful and most quoted texts in all of scripture. And I was thinking about this. We often only use this text at funerals. I use this text at a funeral and we often use it in funerals because it says, "Oh, not even death can separate us." So it is a great comfort at a time of a funeral for someone who is in Christ, that that's not going to separate them from the love of God. Amen. That's true. That is a great comfort. We need to start applying this text more to life as well because it talks about being true in life. It should not just be a comfort in our times of sorrow. It should be an encouragement in our times of life as well. And what Paul is saying is a totality of everything. He gives extremes of one end or the other. Neither death, nor life can separate us. Nothing can separate us. Nor angels, nor rulers. I didn't realize rulers were the opposite of angels because all rulers are demons. No, that's not what he's saying. He is saying is that the word for rulers is powers and authorities in this world, the word essentially means demons. He's talking about the demonic realm here. Because think about it, this world is called the kingdom of Satan. Until Christ comes and completely brings in His kingdom, Satan has authority here on Earth. Some, nothing that's greater than God, but he does have some. And he has structures in place. There are rulers, there are powers. And Paul is saying no angels or demons can do anything to affect your salvation in Christ, nothing can. And he says, "Nor things present, nor things to come. If you're like, "Oh I'm going through a hard time right now," Paul is encouraging you. It can't separate you from the love of God. God saved you. God plucked you out of the fire. It is His work that brings our salvation. Nothing you experience today can change that, nor things to come. If you're like, "Oh, I see the way the world is headed. It's scary. I don't like it." And it's like, "Ah, don't worry about it." Nothing that changes in this world can ever affect this salvation you have in Christ. Christ has over-conquered it all. Nor powers, this is just any like spiritual authority powers in the world. Nothing, nothing can separate us. Nor height, nor depth. I love this one because it convicted me. Height or depth, I was like tall or low. That's limiting God's height and depth. The word is actually an astrological term to describe the whole of the universe. It's the whole of the universe. He's saying absolutely no distance, one way in the universe and no distance in the other way in the universe can separate us from the love of God. It doesn't matter how far away you go, distance doesn't matter, nor anything else in all creation. Paul loves these catch-alls. He's like, "You're probably thinking of something I didn't say so nothing in creation." This should be a great encouragement. Do we live like this is true? Do we live like God has saved me totally, completely? There's nothing that can separate me from Him. So I'm going to live like it. Too often we live as if we are separated from Christ. We live as if we can do whatever we want. We follow our own desires, our own passions. Rather than saying, "God saved me. I'm running to Him. I'm going to Him. I'm doing whatever it is He wants me to do. I'm going to because I have the freedom to because God has conquered." The way that I think about these things was actually inspired a little bit by the new ESPN documentary series, The Captain, but it's about the Yankees so I won't talk about that here. Instead, I was thinking like what's a similar mentality? Derek Jeter was asked about facing the Mets in the World Series. He was like, "Did you feel threatened by the Mets?" And his response was, "I'm going to get flack for this, but they're the Mets. I knew we were going to win." And so my thought was, "What is the equivalent of that?" Patriots fans. Someone was ever to say to you, "Are you worried the Jets are going to be a greater dynasty than you?" You would start laughing and say, "They're the Jets. No, I'm not worried about this at all." And that is the mentality that Paul is talking about. When we face temptation and Satan coming at us like, "Satan, good try, but you're nothing compared to God. You're nothing. Suffering? Good try. That's a cute effort, but God is so much greater than you. You impose no threat at all. Oh, anything else we face in the world? You're not even worth my time. I am confident. I am fully assured of the salvation that I have in Christ because He did it. It is His work." And this text is positioned so perfectly in Paul's argument. Remember, he's making a whole argument this whole time. We ended the text last week talking about predestination. Why did Paul talk about predestination and God doing these things? He says, "God for new, God predestined. God did all of these things." What does this text have to do with that? And then the next text, chapter nine, is all about how God did it. And no matter what our complaints or rebuttals or questions are about it, it doesn't change the fact that God is in control of everything. But this text is trying to say to us, that is the thing that is the greatest joy. "Oh, it doesn't depend on us. Oh, we are fickle people. Our wills changed." This morning, I completely changed the format of this sermon. Why? Because I felt like it. No, because I hope it was the Holy Spirit guiding me and changing me, but I'm fickle. If any part of salvation was dependent on me, I would be terrified because what if I changed? What if I changed my mind? God says, "No." We rely on the power of God. He saves us. This is our joy. This is our confidence. And we praise Him for it. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. You are the God who has plucked me and plucked all of your children from the fire. Lord, you have conquered everything in this world. Nothing can stand against you. Nothing even comes close. Lord, help us to live lives fully assured, fully confident that we are your children to put our faith and trust entirely in you and not in ourselves. Lord, give us hearts that build up that excitement, that encouragement so that when we leave here we go and proclaim your gospel. We go and live lives of faithful obedience to you. Give us that strength, Lord. We praise you and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Spirit Minded
July 3, 2022 • Tyler Burns • Romans 8:5–11
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning, church, and welcome. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens director here, and it is an honor and it is a privilege to worship with all of you this morning. It is also an added bonus honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today, myself included. If you have been with us, you know that we have been going through the Book of Romans. But for anyone who hasn't been with us, just to catch you up real quick, we are in Romans and today we will be in chapter eight versus five through 11. Paul sets the thesis of the Book of Romans in chapter one as to encourage us into faithful obedience. Last week, Pastor Shane touched on the first few verses of chapter eight, where there's sort of a mini thesis for this chapter. The thesis is that we are now not under condemnation, praise God, because Christ fulfilled all of the requirements that God required of us. That is the idea that Paul sets in our minds to start. And then the rest of chapter eight, he is building upon that idea. He is building and building and building to the ultimate crescendo that Pastor Shane, I love this quote, has called the party passage, excuse me. The end of chapter eight, if you know those verses, they are some of the most famous in the book. It is a joy. It is a party. It is one of the most great texts to celebrate in the book of the Bible. Today, Paul is trying to set the foundation for that celebration. Have you ever been to a party, a birthday party, for someone you don't know? It's kind of awkward. It's nice. You have a good time, but like, oh yeah, happy birthday. Then compare that to a party for someone that you actually know deeply and you care about and you love. That is a party. You get to celebrate. You get to rejoice. Before we can get to the rejoicing celebration at the end of chapter eight, Paul is saying, "I'm going to remind you why. I'm going to remind you what the celebration is all about." That is the text that we are in today. Will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you and we praise you that you have sent your son Jesus to fulfill all the requirements of the law that we could not, to save us from our sin and to bring us into your kingdom. Lord, we thank you that you have blessed us with your Holy Spirit to change our hearts, to sanctify us, to make us more like you. Lord, help us always daily in all things be submitting to your Spirit, help us to grow in our love for you and our willingness and desire and action and living in the Spirit. Lord, all good things come from you and we praise you for the opportunity to live for you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Today, we are in Romans 8:5-11. If you have your Bibles, you could follow along there or you could follow along on the screen in front of you. Here it is, Romans 8:5, it says, "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." This is the reading of God's holy and authoritative infallible word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We will be spending our time in three points today, because I like structure, but three points. The first point, side with the Spirit, the second point, submit to the Spirit, and the third point, live in the Spirit. The first point, side with the Spirit. This is just verse five, Romans 8:5, again, it says, "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit." The first thing I want to point out in that we really need to understand in order to understand the context of the rest of this text is that Paul uses a very specific word in this verse that we translate as set the mind on. Whereas the rest of the text, Paul uses a different word, because Paul is trying to bring about different emphasis, the different points in those verses. In this verse, the word is forneo, and the idea is to espouse yourself to someone's cause. It's a weird sentence, but it's the idea of marriage and war in one. One of the things I've learned being at a very international church, a church where the pastor does speaks in other language, is that sometimes the English language has limitations. Sometimes all languages have limitations, but some languages have words that there's just no equal equivalent to in the English language. I would say that this is one of them, because the idea is something. It's not both like war and marriage. It's the commonality, the thrust. What is the same between these two things? It's not that marriage is war. No. Cut that out. Some people thought that was the point. No, it's not the point. The commonality between marriage and war is that the sides are clear. Think about war, especially in biblical times, right? How did you know who was on your side in war? Well, here's a guy standing next to me. You've got a sword. I've got a sword. You're not trying to kill me. You're going in the same direction as me, so I guess we must be on the same side. It was obvious. If they were to start coming at me and attacking me, well, it's pretty obvious they're on the other side. It's obvious. Marriage, it's obvious. I've been married in three days it'll be four years. Praise God for that. When I am here, I don't look around and be like, "I know I'm married, but which one of you is it again?" No. I know who my wife is. She's not here in this service, so I don't have to... I made her feel awkward in the first service for being here, but I know who she is. There's no doubt. There's no confusion about who my wife is. It's clear. It's black and white. Similarly, if anybody comes into our relationship and supports our marriage, "Oh, they're on our side. They are with us." And if, God forbid, anybody comes in and tries to tear apart our marriage, I'm going to go to war with them because they are not on our side. They are not with us. Again, the idea of war and marriage here is that it's clear black and white sides. What are the sides? It's the Spirit, and it's the flesh. Those are the two sides. It's clear. There's no in between. There's no gray area. This is the same word that Jesus uses to talk to Peter. In Matthew 16, Jesus tells the disciples, "I'm going to go and die." Peter says, "No, Jesus, you're not going to go and die," and Jesus says to him in verse 23, But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance[a] to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." Literally it's, "You are not on the side of man. You are not on the side of God, Peter. So get behind me, Satan." It also needs to be clear that this is an identity statement. This is not sometimes we live like this, sometimes we don't. It's an identity. It's who we are. This is what allows Jesus to call Peter Satan, right? Jesus isn't confused. To be clear, Jesus knows who Satan is and he's not like, "Oh, sorry, Peter. I just got confused for a second. I thought that you were Satan. My bad." No, it's an identity issue. The way that Peter was living proved his identity was sided with the flesh, was sided with Satan. It's the same thrust in our text. In verse five it says, "Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh." The word for live is the word for existing. It's to be. It's you are. Literally it's those who are flesh side with the flesh, those who are Spirit side with the Spirit. It's an identity statement. This identity we need to understand can categorize each and every one of us here today and each and every person who has ever lived. You don't like to categorize people, but there are two sides to this. Either you are in the flesh, or you are in the Spirit. Where are you today? Which side have you aligned yourself with? Have you married to the cause of? If you are in the Spirit, how you know that you are on the side of the Spirit is that Christ is in you and that you are in Christ. This is Paul's favorite phrasing. Over a hundred times in the epistles, he talks about us being in Christ and Christ being in us, because the idea is total and complete surrender to Christ. That he is our covering. He is our protector. He is our shelter. He is all around us, but also he is in us, meaning he gets to change everything about us. He gets to see all of it. There's nothing that is hidden from him. It is complete and total surrender to Christ. When Christ... We are told that he blesses us, his children, who have surrendered to him with his Holy Spirit. It is when we have the Spirit within us that we know we are in this side of the Spirit. Now, what about the side of the flesh? What determines that? If you have not completely and totally surrendered your life to Christ, you are on the side of the flesh. Those are the two options. There is no in between. Again, if you're here today and you're not a Christian and you're saying, "I have not surrendered my life to Christ," you are in the kingdom of the flesh. I want to say praise God that you're here. I'm thankful that you are here, and I'm thankful that you are listening to what I have to say, because it's not my words, it's God's words. I want you to know you don't have to stay on the side of the flesh. You don't have to stay in the kingdom of the flesh. You see, the thing is I used to be on the side of the flesh. Every single human being who has ever lived was formerly sided with the flesh. But it is because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that he came in and died on the cross for our sins. God literally sent his own son into the midst of the battlefield, into the opposing kingdom to come and conquer them, and he did so by dying to save us. You can side with the Spirit. You can join in the kingdom of God. Paul did this. Paul is writing very personally. He used to be Saul. Saul was killing Christians, but he wasn't just like, "Oh, this seems like a fun thing to do." No, he was passionate. He was like, "This is what God wants of me. This is my purpose. This is my goal. I am fighting the good fight." And then he changed. What made him change? He had an encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, where he realized he was fighting on the wrong side this whole time. He thought he was right. He was wrong. He knew he needed to change sides and fight for God's kingdom, and he has. That's what he's doing. That's why he's writing this letter. Another way we could say it is we can all be a Colin Anson's. Does anybody know who Colin Anson is? Nobody for our service knew who he is either. I didn't know who he was until I started preparing for the sermon. But Colin Anson was formerly known as Claus Ascher. If you couldn't tell, that's a German name. Claus' father was a soldier in World War I for the German army and Claus loved his father. He loved Germany and historians have described him as, I find this hysterical, as Aryan as it gets, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, good looking. He is everything that the Aryans were looking for. He was raised in Germany with a father who was a patriot, loved Germany, fought for Germany. He naturally wanted to follow his father's footsteps. He wanted to go to war for his country. Thing was, Colin wasn't old enough to enlist yet. While he was waiting to become of age, Hitler came in and took power and started ruling over Germany. And then Colin turned 18. He is able to enlist and he enlisted. He enlisted in the army of Great Britain. Why Great Britain? Well, because Colin recognized he was on the wrong side. He recognized he was fighting for the wrong kingdom, that that was not where he was meant to be. When asked specifically why he enlisted with Great Britain, this is what Colin said. He said, "The war had broken out and we felt it was our affair as much as anyone else's. We were very aware of the generosity and compassion of Britain. We owed a debt to this country for saving our lives." Friends, this is the gospel. This is the gospel that we were in the kingdom of the flesh. We were on the wrong side. We see the other side that is fighting against us, the kingdom of God, and we see the goodness. We see the generosity. We see the compassion of God on us. We say, "God, you've saved my life. You've sent your son against who save us. I owe you this debt. I'm not only being a turncoat. I'm leaving my own country to join yours, but I'm also fighting for your cause now." Colin was enlisted. He was a soldier. He fought in the war. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, I'm here to tell you, look at the goodness and compassion of God who loved you enough to send his son for you to save you. He is willing. He has set you free from this kingdom. Except that my favorite verse that talks about this idea comes from the Book of Joshua. It's a verse that is hung in our home. It used to be the first thing that you would see as soon as you walked into our home, but now there's nowhere to hang that, so it's in a different spot, but it's still there. In Joshua 24:14-15, it says, "Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in the land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." This is our call. My challenge to you today, choose this day whom you will serve. If you are in the kingdom of the Spirit, praise God, commit to serving him. If you are in the kingdom of the flesh, I urge you to commit to Christ to change, to run to the good, glorious king and submit your life to him. Do not submit to the gods of the land we dwell in, right? There are lots of gods vying for our affection and submission in the world around us. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. This was Joshua's statement, and this is my statement. Me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We have made this commitment. We all, as Christians, need to make this commitment. We will serve the Lord because we are sided with his Spirit. We know what he has done. Again, as Pastor Shane talked about last week, we know the sacrifice Christ made for us, that he saves us. He brings us out. We can now live for him. Now, we are called to submit to the Spirit. It is once we are sided with him that we want to do what the Spirit wants us to do, right? This is verse six through eight. Verses six through eight in our text that says, "For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Here, again, Paul is using a different word that we translate for setting the mind on. The idea is the faculty of fixing one's mind on something. It's the ability, the intent of focusing solely on one thing. Naturally, if those who are in the flesh set their mind on the flesh, it is death. Why is it death? Because it is in opposition to God. It is opposed to the life-giving God of the universe, so naturally it leads to death. But to set the mind on the Spirit, to focus on the gospel and the goodness of God on his Spirit, on all that he has done for us is life and peace. Why? Because God is a God who gives life and gives peace. One of the things that we need to work on as Christians and all of us regardless is, do we train our minds? Do we think about the thoughts we're having and decide if they're good or bad, and then correct them and then work on it? This is actually really important. It's vital because it's part of the greatest commandment in scripture. Someone asked Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment?" This comes from Matthew 22:36-37. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'" Sometimes we are tempted to only take this holistically. We should take it holistically. The idea is that every single part of us needs to surrender and love God. Everything. There's nothing safe from him. But it's also specific for a reason. He doesn't just say, "Oh, from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, love God." He doesn't say, "Just with everything you have, love God." He is specific for a reason. He says specifically your heart and your soul and your mind. The heart and soul, that's a whole other sermon. We could get into that for a long period of time. But we have to surrender our soul, our identity, our being, who we are to God. Our heart, our desires need to be surrendered to him and to love him with them, but also our mind and all of it. Every single part of it. Every thought we have, we need to submit to the Spirit. This can reveal itself in a few ways. The first question is, did you know that we need to even submit logic to the Spirit? If you're like me, you're saying, "Whoa! Hold on. God is a God of logic." Amen. Praise God. He is a God of logic. However, his logic is greater than our logic. Thinking about Jesus calling Peter Satan, I have to tell you something. Peter was the most logical disciple in the room that day in terms of earthly logic, right? Jesus, you said you're Messiah coming to save us, and then you tell us you're going to die. Jesus, I don't know if you know, but you can't save us if you're dead. That's logic, but that's earthly logic. The reason why Jesus says to get behind him, that he's in a hindrance, that he's in the way is because he's not following the logic of God, God's logic. God knew that Jesus needed to go to the cross to die. That is how we are saved. Nothing else. When we have thoughts and we're reasoning through things, do we bring God into that conversation? Do we ask God, is this true? Is this right? Is this logical? Do we have positions or stances that we hold onto that we have come to that conclusion simply by earthly logic? Are we willing to go to God and say, "What do you say about this topic instead?" Whatever topic it is, it doesn't matter. This is what we have to be doing with everything. Every position we hold, every stance we take needs to be from the Spirit, from God, from his word, not from our own human logic. Another question, do you knowingly have any areas in your mind that you do not submit to God's law? Are there things that God says to do or not do? They're like, "Meh, I'm going to skip that one. I'm going to not pay attention to that one. I don't like that one." An easy way to see if we have this in our hearts is to fill in the blanks to these questions. If God did blank, I couldn't believe in him, or I couldn't believe in a godlike blank. You fill in those blanks with whatever you want, whatever you've heard. Do we have those types of statements? I know I have. I know I've had many conversations with people about this as well. But as I've grown in my faith, I've tried to out Christian that idea, If you know what I mean. I tried to Jesus-juke and be like, "Well, I know scripture says God won't lie, so I can never believe in a God that would lie. Because I know the one true God isn't like that." I could say that safely. I got to tell you something, my heart was not submitting to God when I said that. Why? Because the whole point about God is that he is transcendent. He is greater than us. He is above us. We have no control to dictate anything about him. Even if it is true about him, I don't get to say, "God, I'd only believe in you if you are like you are," because then I am trying to usurp authority over God and say, "I have some control of you in some area of my life." I chose an area where I wasn't submitting to God. Is there any area like that in our lives where maybe even we've tried to like out Christian and be like, "Oh, I know God is like this and not like that, so I'll say I can't believe in God." Well, it's showing that our heart's desire is to usurp God, to put ourselves over him. When I think about this, I think of the clearest example in my mind is Abraham, right? How many of us would say, "I would never believe in a God who would tell me to kill my own son?" God did that. He told Abraham to do it, and then he saved him. He stopped him. He didn't kill his son. He provided deliverance and salvation, because, again, God's logic is greater than our logic. God's ways are greater than our ways, but it seemed like that might be something safe to say, right? I couldn't believe in God who did that, but he did and Abraham still believed. Abraham did not doubt. Abraham trusted. And not just in commands and in laws, but are there just anything in scripture at all that we pick and choose? I don't like that text. It's a theological ideal I don't want to deal with. That one was in the Old Testament. We're not in the Old Testament anymore. Oh, that one was written by Paul. I don't like Paul. We've been in Paul a lot. I'm sorry. But these are things that I have all heard, but we don't get to pick parts of scripture to listen to or not listen to. We have to submit fully to it. Why? Because God is greater than us. He is God. Two chapters ago about God's law, Paul said God's law is good because it is spiritual. God's law, the commandments, his words in scripture are good because it is spiritual. It is what breathes life in us. Again, Spirit leads to life is what our text says in verse six. The idea is, yeah, everything God says, God does, who God is, is what brings us life. It's only when we submit fully to him, we can fully enjoy that life. If we have any areas in our mind we are holding back on, we will not fully enjoy that life that we have been blessed with. This is something we need to do proactively and not reactively. What I mean is it's not like, "Oh, I didn't realize there was a debate about this topic. Let me try and think, or, oh, I didn't realize this was an area of my life I wasn't submitting to God. Let me do it now." Please do that. Submit to God in those moments when those revelations come, but we also need to proactively be submitting to the Spirit. Every single day we need to be asking God to change our hearts, change who we are, so that we are submitting to him in our thoughts especially. I love how 1 Peter... Peter, again, the one that chooses called Satan after he's been redeemed, talks about it this way. In 1 Peter 1:13 he says, "Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'" The conclusion is be holy in all your conduct, in the way you live. How do we get there? It starts preparing your mind for action and being sober minded. How do we do that? We set our hope fully on the grace that will be to you at the revelation of Christ. What this is talking about is the same thing in our text, setting your mind on the Spirit. We focus our minds on the gospel. In everything we do, we think, how does the gospel speak to this? When life is hard, am I looking to Christ? Am I looking to the gospel? Am I looking to the love of God, or am I looking to myself? We're preparing, right? Proactive every day. Again, we're continuing the theme of war and marriage here. Marriage, do you just like, "Oh cool. There's a person. Let's get married." No. You prepare for marriage. You got to work on stuff. I had to change stuff. My wife had... We all have to work on ourselves to prepare ourselves for marriage. Going to war, do you think soldiers only submit to their commanding officers once the battle starts? I have not been in war. I've not been in any form of service, but I guarantee you can ask anybody who has and they will tell you it's trained in them very, very early on that you submit to your commanding officer, even during training, every single day. No questions asked. That is your job. In the same way, how foolish would we be? If we only started preparing our minds once difficulties arose? How silly would that be? We are called to prepare our minds ahead of time, to prepare ourselves for action, for what we are called to do and being sober minded. What does it mean, being sober minded? It's the idea that once you're in the battle, you're clearheaded. You know what to do, because you've trained for it. You don't get thrown into the battlement like, "I've not been prepared for this at all. What am I going to do, God? I guess, I don't know. I don't know." No. We are told in scripture what to do. God encourages us. He leads us in the Spirit. When we're preparing ourselves daily, even when we aren't faced with difficulties and temptations, when we get into those moments, we're able to say, "Oh, I know what to do here. I go to God. I go to him in prayer. I seek out community," whatever it is in that situation. We can know what it is when we prepare our minds ahead of time, when we are focused on the gospel and we are focused on the grace that is to come to us. And that is what allows us to live in the Spirit. Yes, it is the Spirit first transforming us, bringing us into the kingdom of the Spirit through the works of Christ. Then we work on sanctifying our minds and our thoughts, and then we can sanctify our life, our actions. Again, I should be crystal clear about this in wording. The Spirit is the one who brings change, but we can submit to the Spirit to let the Spirit bring that change in us. Point three, live in the Spirit. This is verses nine through 11 where it says, "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Excuse me. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." Quick theological point to make here. In verse nine, he uses the word if. We've been talking about it's clear. It's black and white. There are two sides. There's no debating. There's no, is Paul starting to question. He says, "If the Spirit is in you." No, he's not questioning. This is a conditional statement. He's saying if the Spirit is in you, you are in the Spirit. That's how it works. But also he's not giving a false sense of security. What do I mean by this? In Romans 1:10, we find out that Paul has never met the Christians at the church in Rome. He doesn't know them. He doesn't know them personally. Paul knows that this letter is going to be read aloud to the church as a whole, and Paul does not want anyone in the congregation to have false assurance that they are in the side with the Spirit if they are actually with the flesh. He's not going to have it proclaimed, "You are all in the Spirit. Praise God." Well, he doesn't know. In the same way that today I started to clarify, there's Spirit and there's flesh. Some of us are on one side, some of us on the other. I would never stand up here and say, "Praise God, you're all in the Spirit," because I don't know. I don't know. We don't want to give anybody false senses of security because then you get complacent and then you don't see the need. I don't want you to have a false sense of security if you are in the flesh, because I want you to know, again, that the life in the Spirit is so much greater and I want you to join the kingdom of God. It is glorious. Then in verse 10, a very interesting phrase that stood out to me, "But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness." It's a very interesting phrase, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. This broke my mind a little bit. I thought it would be the opposite. I thought it would be that the Spirit is life, which leads to righteousness. It's the Spiritual life that leads to righteousness. But no, it actually says the opposite. It's righteousness that leads to the Spirit of life. How is that possible? What was it talking about? Well, first, we need to understand what righteousness is. Righteousness is complete and total alignment with the will of God. It is that faithful obedience in all things to the will of God. If God is life giver, complete alignment with his will leads to life. That makes sense. But what about sinful people? What about when we sin? Well, praise be to God that, again, last week, Shane talked about that it was Jesus who fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law. It is the Spirit that applies the righteousness of Christ to us. So that when we si, God the Father doesn't look at us and say, "Oh, you made a mistake. Condemn to death." No, it is that God looks at us and sees the righteousness of Christ and says, "There is life. I give you life. I breathe life into you." That is why it's righteousness that leads to life. It's not our righteousness, it's the righteousness of Christ. Similarly, Christ was perfect, right? This is why he was able to save us. He lived a life of perfect faithful obedience. That's why he was able to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law, and so is the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we don't think about that. We only think about Jesus as being perfect, but the Holy Spirit is perfect too. The Holy Spirit is in complete total alignment with the will of God, and it's the Spirit within us that we are given that allows us to become aligned with God's will and to live in life in the Spirit. In verse 11, it's talking about this idea of our mortal bodies being brought to life. This has a dual meaning. It's a dual purpose here. First and foremost, the idea is that there's going to come a day where we will all die. The Spirit of God is powerful enough to raise that dead body to life for eternity in heaven with God, for eternal glory. Death itself cannot stop the power of the Spirit from doing what it has set out to do. But the other idea is that our mortal bodies that we still have now can be brought to life. What do I mean by that? It's not that I'm like, "Oh great, Holy Spirit, have me lose 20 pounds. Good. That's better life. I feel better about myself. Great. The Holy Spirit has brought my dead body to life. Praise." No, it's not what it's talking about. What it's talking about is the most sinful areas of our life. You know those parts that you don't let anybody else know about? The parts just rotten flesh, disgusting and gross. The Spirit is powerful enough to even bring that to life. There is no sin to great that the Spirit cannot raise to life within our mortal bodies. This is why we need the Spirit to change us. We can't do it on our own. The Spirit is the one that leads to this. Again, we've been talking about Spirit, flesh, Spirit, flesh. I realize this in the first service, I'm doing it again. Now, I'm not pointing to this side for spear and this side for flesh for any other reason. Nothing against you guys. It's just... Anyway, but so how does living in the Spirit relate to those who are in the Spirit, and how does living in the Spirit relate to those who are in the flesh? There are two categories. The way we live with one another if we are in the Spirit or the other people are in the flesh is different. It is different. In Colossians 3, we get to see what we are called to live like as Christians with other Christians, as people on the side of the Spirit with others on the side of the Spirit. Colossians 3:12-17 says this, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." I love this text. I read it at a friend's wedding. It's great. It is talking about the church though, but it's talking about not just a church service, it's talking about the life of Christians, what we live like as Christians. When we look at this list, where are we not living in the Spirit? Where are we not submitting to the... Maybe we have to go back to the mind and say, "Oh, I haven't submitted my thoughts to God on this, so therefore, my life isn't changing." But where do we need to submit? Compassionate hearts, do we have compassionate hearts for each other? When we see someone who is hurting, who is broken, do we actually care about them? Are we actually moved to do something to care for them? Patience, do we have patience with one another, bearing with one another even when we have a complaint against each other? This is a big one, and I'm calling it out specifically because it's actually very important. Christ himself says a house divided against itself cannot stand. Christians, if we are divided against ourselves, we will not stand. We will not. We need to be patient bearing with one another and forgiving each other as Christ forgave us. When a brother or sister in the church sins against you, do you forgive them or do you write them off and say, "Ah, I'm not dealing with that person anymore?" Do you leave them? Do you abandon them? Again, in the war and marriage analogy, that's not how those things work. Praise God, that's not how marriage works, right? My wife can't just be like, "Hmm, I got to complain against you. Bye." Praise God. But praise God that I'm also called to lovingly, sacrificially love her and change and not cause her to have complaints against me, but that's not how it works. In war, can you imagine being sent into the battlefield with someone, going to war together and being like, "I don't like you anymore. Bye. Peace." How horrific is that? How much must we hate that person to do that? And then we are called to forgive. We are called to reconcile. We are called to bear with one another, to be compassionate to one another. It is vital for the life of the church. Do we let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts? Do we look at our own hearts and be like, "Oh, that's a peaceful place. I want to spend all day there." I don't know anybody in Boston who thinks that way like, "Yeah, my heart's completely at peace all the time." Well, that's why it says we need to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, not just make your heart peaceful, but let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts because Christ is the one who provides peace. It's the Spirit that says leads to life and peace. Do we do that? Do we let Christ's peace rule us? Are we thankful? I like this one too. It's just one sentence, but it's three words in English. And be thankful. Are we thankful? Do we recognize all the things that we have, our gift from God. The only reason why we're alive and able to enjoy anything that is happening in this world is because God allows us to be alive. Do we thank him? Do we complain more than we are thankful? Do we complain at all? We shouldn't be complaining because we have nothing to complain about. Yes, I understand life can be hard sometimes and there are things that upset us, but God is greater than those things that we should be thankful to him. When we sing praises, when we sing hymns and psalms and spiritual songs, are we thankful then to? Praise God, both services, people were clapping after some of the songs. Awesome. A sign of thankfulness to God. Praise him for it. But that's not what determines it. In our hearts, are we actually recognizing that we are in God's presence, singing to him thankful that we are even able to worship him because he saved us from the kingdom of the flesh into the kingdom of the Spirit? Last week with the teens in the evenings, we talked about worship and we talked about how we are called to worship in joyfulness and thanksgiving. You got to do both. It doesn't mean you're always happy, but it means you're joyful because we know that God is here. We are actually reality singing to him. In case there's anything that you're thinking about in terms of actions and the way we live with one another, that you're like, "Whew! Thankfully, that's not in that list. Thankfully, Tyler didn't bring that up." Well, Paul's got us covered. Verse 17, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, again and again, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Giving thanks is really important. But in anything we do, word or deed, is it in alignment with Christ? Here's a way to be thinking about it. Do we recognize that everything we say and do directly reflects who Christ is to everyone else? Think about something you've done or said and been like, "If people saw Jesus do that, what would they think?" I'm a '90s kid. Sorry, but we had the most amazing thing in the world back then. They were called WWJD bracelets. I think some of you know what I'm talking... No, okay. I mean, they're not perfect. They're not great. But the whole concept was what would Jesus do? To ask yourself before doing anything, is this something Jesus would do, or what would Jesus do in this situation? There's some truth to that. That's what this text is talking about. I'm not saying we need to bring them back. I'm not saying we're not supposed to bring them back either. '90s are coming back. But everything we do is a reflection of Christ. Do we recognize that? And then we are called to live differently with those who are not in Christ, not in the Spirit. Well, how are we called to live in the Spirit? When we are with those who are not in the Spirit, when we are with those who live in the flesh? We have one purpose. We have one purpose. This purpose can take many different forms or look in different ways, but we have one purpose and Christ Jesus is very explicit about it. In Acts 1:8, he says this, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." As Christians, our purpose in this world when we are not just congregating with other believers is to always be witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Wherever we go, whoever we are with, that is our sole purpose. Jesus says that's the purpose he sent the Spirit for in us, that we have the power of the Spirit to do it. Now, what about non-Christian family? What about non-Christian friends? What does that mean for them? Praise God. Love your non-Christian friends. Love your non-Christian family. You should have friends who aren't Christians, and you should genuinely care about them. This isn't a facade to be like, "Oh, I'm subverting them to get them to hear the gospel." No. You need to actually care about people who aren't Christians. Why? Because we were there. Again, we were in the kingdom of the flesh. We know what it is like and want better for them. We want the ultimate good. We want the goodness of God for them. We love them. We are witnesses to the gospel to them in word, not just deed. Also in deed, but also in word. We are called to be explicit with our language, to be my witnesses in Jerusalem. Witnesses is not... You don't just go to a place to be a witness and then start doing something. If you're called to be a witness in court, you don't just like start caring for people that they call you in contempt of court. You have to say things. But this doesn't mean that every time we're with people who aren't Christians, we're like, "So are you a Christian yet? Do you believe in God yet?" No. No. But are we able to know them, to care about them well enough to see how the gospel actually applies to them specifically. To say, "I understand what you're going through in your life right now and here's how Jesus transforms that. It makes it so much better, so much greater. Here is the love and generosity of God for you right now." Whatever we do wherever we are, whether we're with Christians, not with Christians, we need to submit to the Spirit and we need to live for him. Totally, in everything we do, we want all of our actions to be wholly and acceptable to God. Let's live for him. Amen. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you and thank you that you have sent your son to save us out of this kingdom of flesh. That we are now into your kingdom of the Spirit and that we can live in the Spirit. Lord, we thank you for the blessing that it is to have your Spirit. Lord, transform our minds, renew our minds, make our minds in complete and total alignment with you. Help us to live with one another in harmony in a way that proclaims the gospel to those who see it and help us to be witnesses of your kingdom, to be witnesses wherever we go, because we know your kingdom is good. We know your kingdom is life and peace. Lord, give us the boldness to be that witness. In Jesus' name, amen.
Spared from God's Wrath
February 27, 2022 • Tyler Burns • Romans 1:18–23
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. Good morning church, and welcome. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens director here at Mosaic Boston, and it is an honor and a privilege to be able to preach God's word to all of us today. If you haven't known, we've been going through the book of Romans. We are in the middle of our series on Romans and we are taking it nice and slow and digging in deep to this text. To try and see and understand the truths that God is revealing to us in it. And one thing I want us to understand as we go into this text today is that Paul throughout the book of Romans is making an argument. Each verse, each thought is building upon the previous and leading into the next, making an argument. It's a continuous thought. And I bring that up to say, if you were here last week and heard pastor Jan's sermon on the previous verses, I want you to remember that. I want you to remember the idea that he preached on that was in the text of the power of the gospel for salvation. That is where Paul leaves off and launches into this text. If you haven't heard that sermon, I strongly encourage you to go back and listen to it right after. It'll make this make even more sense. And the reason why I bring that up is I have the joy of preaching on the wrath of God today. Not many of us like to talk or think about the wrath of God, let alone want to stand up in front of people and stare them in the eyes while you tell them about God's wrath. It's not what we like to do. I remember my first day in Boston, I was looking at colleges, just visiting. And I was here with my parents and we were just walking around the city, having food, enjoying the sites and things like that. And there was a guy with a sign. You know the signs I'm talking about. The signs that say like "Repent for the wrath of God is at hand." Or like, "You are going to hell repent and believe." Things like that. I don't remember exactly what it said, but it had that sign. And I was like, "Oh, praise God I'm not a fire and brimstone type preacher. I like to focus on the love and grace of God. Thank you." And last time I preached, I got to preach on the love of God. And I was so thankful and grateful for that. Because I love God's love. But today the text is about God's wrath. So we're going to deal with God's wrath, because it's in scripture and it's in the word and it's true. So with that, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word. Heavenly father, we come to you humbled, submitting, knowing that we are unrighteous before you. Knowing that you are great and glorious and have provided salvation through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord help us to submit our entire lives, to you to let the gospel permeate all of us, every area of our life to sanctify us, to change us, to make us more like you, and use us to bring and proclaim the gospel to those around us, into the world. Lord, we thank you. Praise you for who you are and your goodness and your love your mercy, and even your wrath, praise you in Jesus's name. Amen. So today we are in Romans chapter one, verses 18 through 23, you can turn in your Bibles or you can follow along on the screens behind me, but it says "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God as 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 and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. For, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile and their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images, resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and authoritative infallible word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We will spend our time in three points, but the three points is really one point. It's all point it's even one sentence. So it should be nice and easy to remember. God's wrath is coming so stop suppressing the truth by honoring and thanking him. So first point, God's wrath is coming. This is verse 18. The first part of it, where it says for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. So before we address the elephant in the room of God's wrath, there's a small word that we need to deal with first. It's the word, for. If you've been in church or Christian culture for a long time, you've probably heard the phrase. If you see the word, therefore scripture, you have to ask, what is it there for? Similarly, if you see the word for at the beginning of a sentence or clause, you need to ask what in the world is it referencing that came before. It's a little less catchy, but the truth is still the same. And it's good, helpful advice. We have to look at the previous verses and see what is Paul talking about? So if you will follow with me, we'll go to verse 15 of the same chapter where it says, "So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome for, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also 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." Paul used the word for a lot there again. He's stream of thought. He is making a point, it's all connected. You can't separate it. So what is being addressed. Says, "I am eager to preach the gospel." Why is Paul eager to preach the gospel? For he is not ashamed of it. Why is Paul not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. How do we know it's the power of God for salvation? For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. We see and understand the gospel because in it we understand God is righteous, but we also understand that in his righteousness, he provided a sacrifice and penalty for our unrighteousness. And our response to that is living by faith. It says the righteous shall live by faith. Now the natural next step question is why do the righteous live by faith? That's where our text picks up, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." What Paul is addressing is we are called as Christians to live in faithful obedience to God because we also know what the alternative is. The alternative is the wrath of God for our unrighteousness. Now we can talk about what is wrath. Wrath is different than anger. Anger is just an emotion. It's you get mad about something, something you don't like. It's distasteful to you, hurts you, you get angry and you get mad. The definition for wrath in this context is the strong indignation of wrongdoing with a focus on retribution. So if you remember any part of that, I hope you remember that ending part. So it's with a focus on retribution. So unlike anger, that's just an emotion. Wrath is an emotion, strong indignation, strong hatred and distaste and anger against wrongdoing against sin. But it's also an action of bringing in retribution, bringing in payment for that wrongdoing. God's wrath is not just anger. It is requiring and bringing in payment for sin. And one of the things we need to know about God's wrath is that it's not just blind rage, either. It's calculated, it's precise. He is using his wrath, his characteristic of wrath in perfect harmony with all of his other attributes. We like to focus and talk about how God is love. That is true, but God's love does not negate his wrath and God's wrath does not negate his love. And it's not that at certain points in time, God is acting in love. And at other points in time, God is acting in wrath. It's always all of it. He is always fully his attributes and this can be difficult to understand. But one of the texts that I find clearest demonstrating this idea comes from the book of Exodus. With the teens downstairs we've been going through the book of Exodus. We actually finished it last week. And one of the most famous stories in the book of Exodus is the story of the golden calf. And this text comes in Exodus, chapter 32, wherein verse seven, it says, "And the Lord said to Moses "Go down for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods, oh Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people and behold it is a stiff necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them. And I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you."" God had just led the people of Israel out of Egypt. He saved them from slavery and from oppression and he delivered them and they choose to worship something that they made. And say, this is what saved us rather than God. That's sin. That's unrighteousness. It's putting something else in the place of God and rightfully so, God's wrath burned against them. And he says, let them... Sorry, "That my wrath may burn hot against them. And I may consume them." Why consume them while in Romans, it tells us, and throughout scripture it tells us that the penalty for sin, the retribution that is required for sin is death. That is the only payment for it. And so God's wrath is anger at the wrongdoing, but it's also bringing in that payment. However, God's wrath does not negate his other attributes. God is still trustworthy and he is true. And he has promised Abraham that he would make a great name out of him. So how does God's wrath and God's trustworthiness, God's love, God's mercy work together in this moment. God relents, but there's still punishment in verse... The next chapter in verse three, it says "Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you unless I consume you on the way for you are a stiff necked people." God has mercy. He doesn't kill them. He spares them. But he also says, I'm not going to go with you, lest my wrath consume you because that is the only right response to sin. So he has mercy, but there's still punishment. And then Moses prays to God, begs him and says, "Save them, forgive them. We ask that you forgive them." And God says, "I will forgive them. I will go with you. However, there will be a day. He says, I will blot them out of my book." He says, "Those who persist in unrighteousness, I will blot out." And so God's wrath didn't come requiring retribution in that moment, but he promised that it would come. So the natural question then is why are we all alive today? If we have sinned, if we have done wrong, the penalty is death. God requires retribution. Why are we even here? How are we alive? It's all God's mercy. Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God, if you haven't read it, I encourage you to read it. It's free online in PDF form. It's a very convicting and challenging sermon, but it helps us understand the wrath of God. In this text, in this sermon, Jonathan Edward says this. "The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will restrain by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else, but God mere will had in the least degree or in any respect whatsoever any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment." Wat he's saying is the only reason why we don't all die immediately when we sin is because of the will of God. It's because it's God's will, it's God's plan, it's his mercy on us to give us a chance, to repent, to give us opportunities, to turn to him and repent of our sin. But that doesn't negate the fact that penalty still needs to be paid. Retribution still will need to be paid at some point. This is why I again started this sermon talking about remember week sermon on the gospel, because that is what the gospel is. Is that Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to be that penalty for us, to pay that penalty of sin for us. In Romans chapter five, verse nine, it says, "Since therefore we have been justified by his blood much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Through the gospel, we are saved. We are justified, we are declared righteous before God, but we are also saved or spared from his wrath. Praise God for that." But the reason for that is something that we need to think about. If you're like me, I like to get technical. I like to get it like into the nitty gritty. How does Jesus dying forgive us. How does it pay the penalty for our sins? Well, first again, the penalty for sin is death. So that is why Jesus needed to die. But Jesus didn't only die he also took on himself, the fullness of the wrath of God. In the garden before his crucifixion, Jesus is praying and he is anxious and stressed and he starts sweating blood. This is actually a medical thing called hematidrosis. You can look it up. It's where so much stress and anxiety comes upon you, that blood vessels in your forehead burst, and it starts sweating out of your pores. It's gruesome, but it's that much anxiety that Jesus was having in the garden. Why was Jesus so anxious? It's not because he knew he was going to be crucified. It's not by the way he knew he was going to die. It's because he knew he was bearing the wrath of God. How do we know this? He says, "Lord, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me." What is the cup? It's always talking about the cup of the wrath of God. But he submitted anyway. He lived in obedience and faithfulness to the father because he loved us and knew he can save us from our sins. Isaiah 53 prophecy about this in verse four through six, it says, "Surely he, Jesus, has born our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all." Praise God that there needs to be a penalty for sin. And that Jesus willingly took it. He did it. He died on the cross, bearing the fullness of the wrath of God for us. Let's run to him. Let's thank him. Let's live a life and full faithful obedience to him because he is worthy because he saves us and he spares us. But if you choose not to accept this free gift of God, there still needs to be payment for sin. And if we don't let Jesus take that payment for us, we have to pay it ourselves. This is in Revelation, chapter 14 versus 10 through 11. It says he, the he that's talked about here is any buddy who rejects Christ, no other qualifications. Doesn't matter, race, ethnicity, nationality, political... Doesn't matter. Do you reject Christ? "He also will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger. And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name." That ending part, the beast and its image and its worshipers. What is that talking about? It's the antichrist. We often think of this in the graphic image that's depict did in Revelation, but the idea is anti-Christ, anyone who is in opposition to Christ, who rejects Christ will have to bear the fullness of the wrath of God Themselves. And I was thinking about it. Why would anybody choose to do that? And one of the things I was thinking about is that we don't actually fear hell. Hell, doesn't scare us. We think about it as just like this red painting, where Satan lives with his pitchfork. And like, it's not fun, but it's fine. We view of it like a campfire where you stick your hand and you get a little bit burned, but it's not that bad. And it's also where all the fun happens, because that's where all the sin is and things like that. That's not what hell is. I want to tell you, God is love. There's no love in hell. God is joy. The greatest parties that have ever been thrown in the history of the world are in the Bible, thrown by Jesus. If you want to have a good time and have a party, it's going to be in heaven. There's not going to be any party in hell. It's not what we think of. And also we think we can take it. We think we can handle it. Oh, it's not that bad. I was watching a YouTube video this week of a guy who was playing a game where he had to like answer questions about himself and see what it said about him. And it was complete and utter nonsense. But one of the questions was if there's a hell, which there is, would you go there? And his response was, well, I don't believe in God. So I don't believe in hell. But if there was hypothetically a hell yeah, I'd probably go there, but I could take it, I've got tough skin. I want to tell you something. None of us can take the fullness of the wrath of God. None of us. We are not as strong as we think we are. How do I know this? I almost died this past week. First service, I said, no one knew this, but now first service knows it, but no one else here who hasn't heard the sermon yet knew this. Besides my wife. I almost died this week. How did I die? I didn't die phrase God. How did I almost die? Sorry. How did I almost die? My wife was out to dinner on a business dinner. And so I was like, okay, she's out. She's been like being really good about being health conscious, trying to eat well. And so she hasn't been eating fried food, but I love fried food. But I feel a little bit guilty. So like I'll make it healthy. I'll have fried fish, fish and chips, fish and french fries. French fries, potato, super food. It's basically a health meal right there. And so it was a great time having fish and chips. And I'm actively writing this sermon as I'm eating my dinner. And I have this vivid image burned in my mind of me grabbing three french fries. Someone after the service was like, you should only eat one french fry at a time. I was like, "Who does that?" I ate three and I put it in my mouth. And one of those three immediately went straight down my throat and then turned sideways and stopped. And I started choking and gagging and coughing. And all at first I could think of was, "I'm going to be a guy who gets killed by a french fry." Who wants to be known as the guy who died to a french fry, I'd become famous. I would make the news, but it'd be idiot gets killed by a french fry. And then I start to think my wife is going to come home and see me dead on the floor with a french fry in my mouth. Be like "He got killed by a french fry. Why was I ever married to this guy? Like, what is he doing?" Then my next thought was, "She's not even here. No one can save me. There's nobody here to help helped me. I'm helpless. I'm vulnerable to a french fry." And then praise God. I remember that he had a purpose for me still to continue living in preaching the sermon and Lord willing many more things. He will use me for afterwards. So I, in that moment, thanked God. I said, "Thank you that you have a purpose for my life. I know I'm not going to die now." And then I threw up the french fry. All this is to say, we aren't as tough as we think we are. We can be killed by french fries. We cannot withstand the wrath of God in and of ourselves. We can't. Don't try. Don't even try. Turn to Jesus who has fully paid the penalty for you. Trust him, submit your life to him. Let him bear that penalty for you. Now, how do we go from being in God's wrath to being in his good graces. It starts by stopping suppressing the truth. We can't suppress the truth. This is verse 18, again, through verse 20, where it says "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to the 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 and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." And verse 19 starts again with the word for. So again, what is it referencing? It's explaining why the wrath of God is coming against those who suppress the truth. Well, we need to understand what that word suppress is. If you're like me, I think of the word suppress as like push down. The image I have in my mind is packing for a vacation where the weight limit is 50 pounds on planes. So you take the smaller suitcase, but you still shove everything in that you want, that would actually fit into the bigger suitcase. And you're trying to get it to fit in. And so like you put everything in it, won't close. So like you jump on top of it with a knee and knee it down and you're sitting on it and you finally get it zipped up. That's what I picture when I think of suppressing. And that's not what's going on here. That's not what's happening at all. The word is more of an idea of restraint. It's the idea of a prisoner breaking free and you being like, oh no, we can't let this out. Let's put shackles on his wrist and anchor him to a wall. We don't want this thing to escape. What this verse is saying is that our sin suppresses truth. It's not just truth in general, it's a specific truth. It's the gospel. That is what Paula is referring to. Our sin restrains and holds back the gospel. The past few weeks pastor Jan has been talking about how he believes that God is wanting to do a great work, miracle in this city. And he wants to use this church and praise God, I agree. But he's also said that if we tolerate and we live in sin, it's holding God back from doing that. Where does he get that from? It's this verse. Our sin, our unrighteousness is suppressing the power of the gospel from being let out. We are restraining it. We are holding it back. Do we want to see God work mightily in this city and in our lives? Yes. Then live in righteousness, live in obedience, stop suppressing the gospel. Now why is God's wrath coming against those who do suppress it? It says in verse 19, "For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them." This word plain is a word that is plain. It doesn't affect us in any way. It doesn't make us feel a certain way. But the idea of this word is it's obvious beyond a doubt, beyond a question. We get a reference to this word in Acts chapter four. And in the story, Peter and John just healed a man who was lame from birth. The whole city of Jerusalem knew that he was lame, couldn't walk. They heal him in the name of Jesus and he jumps up. It says he leaps up and walks out. And then Peter and John are proclaiming that this is the work of Christ. This is the grace of God that has done this, repent and believe. And then the Pharisees come and arrest them and bring them and put them on trial. And after they hear what happened, they send them out. And this is where it picks up in acts chapter four, verse 15. It says, "But when they," the Pharisees, "Had commanded them," Peter and John, "To leave the council, they conferred with one another saying, what shall we do with these men for that a notable sign has been performed through them is evidence to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And we cannot deny it." The same word is the word evident. It's so clear that when you see someone who their whole life couldn't walk, jumps up and walk. You're like, "Oh, That's clear. I can't deny that." And the Pharisees wanted to deny it. This doesn't help their cause. They were trying to suppress the preaching of the gospel. They were trying to prevent people from proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ. This doesn't help their cause. So they want to deny it. But they can't. They're like we know this guy, the whole city of Jerusalem knew this guy. He was in the gates begging and his whole life, he couldn't walk. Now he can, it's clear. And that's the same way that God reveals himself to each and every one of us. It's plain. It's clear. It's undeniable. And this leads us into the question. One of the many pushbacks and many questions about Christianity is like, what about those who have never heard? What about those who live in a remote island or a remote part of the world where no missionary has ever been? Nobody has ever gone with the Bible and proclaimed the gospel. What about them? Well, what this text is saying is that God is revealing himself even to them. And actively, it says because God has shown it to them. God is actively involved. God doesn't want anybody to not know who he is. He is actively showing it to them. One of the craziest stories that I love when I think about this is the story of the Paumarí tribe and the Amazon, Paumarí, if you haven't heard of them, you should look up this story. It's incredible. But there's this small tribe in the Amazon of the Paumarí who live up this river. That's like black with gun and dirt and debris. It's hard to get to. And then they live in a lake village. And so there were people that decided they were going to be the first missionaries to go and preach the gospel to these people. So they gather their resources, their supplies, everything they need. And they go to get there. And they can't because of this river. And so they feel that God is calling them to sell everything that they had brought, all of the provisions, to get a boat ride, to get somebody who can make the journey for them up there. So they do. And it's the exact amount that they needed for a boat ride. And so then with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they go up this river and they get to this village. And the people of the village welcome them joyfully. They throw a feast and a party for them. One of the elder women of the community comes to them and says, "Why are you here? What are you here for? What are you doing?" And they say, "Well, we want to share with you the story of Jesus, the son of God who loves you and wants to save you." And she says, "Good. We have houses built for you." And they're like, "What?" And she said, "You don't know this, but we have radios. And a rogue radio wave came to us and we heard a sermon about a God who loves us and wants to save us. And we said, if this God is real, he'll clearly send people to help us. And so we built houses in preparation for you.' Let's not limit the ways God can reach people. He is all powerful. He is all knowing, all loving. He can reach anybody he wants to, he can reveal himself to anybody he wants to with or without us. We should still be faithful in proclaiming the gospel. Let's not stop that. Later, Paul says, "How are they to hear if no one preaches?" So we still need to preach. But it also says in verse 20, "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." This is saying is creation is crying out to reveal God to us. Creation is an example, is God showing us, "Look at how great I am." You can't deny God's existence when we look at creation, I challenge you to study the origins of science. I challenge you. I talked about this briefly in the first service and then someone, a brother came up to me and gave me even more information, praised God for him. And reminded me that we came at a time when people were worshiping odds over every specific area. And then Christians came and said, no, there's one, God, who's over all things, but he's a God of order and of design. And so we can know God through the order of creation. When we look at creation, we can understand who God is. So the first scientists that ever existed were studying creation to see the proofs of God. A small example of this, I don't know. Do you guys remember high school chemistry at all? Most of us probably blocked it out. But Boyle's law. I don't know if anyone remembers Boyle's law. I can't even tell you what it was about, but it's one of the fundamental principles in chemistry. In seminary, I was reading a book, a theological work by a guy named Boyle. And I was a like, who is this guy? What does he... I want to know more about him. This work is really good. And he is the guy who made Boyle's law that is named after him. Why is a theologian founding scientific laws? Well, because he knew that within it, he saw the greatness of the glory of God. He couldn't help, but look at creation in the world around him and be like this screams that God exists. The screams that God is here. And so we are without excuse. God is revealing himself to us. We are given his gospel. And even those who don't hear, he is actively revealing himself to, and all of creation testifies to the existence of God. And it says, so we are without excuse if we reject him. And that phrase without excuse is not like you got caught off guard and you weren't prepared to give an answer. So you're like tongue tied. It's not that you gave an excuse, but it wasn't good enough. It's that there's not even an option for excuses. It's the idea that when we get to heaven and stand... Well, when we get to the judgment throne of God, we stand before him and he doesn't say, "Why didn't you believe?" And then be like, "Oh, okay. I understand that reasoning or, oh, that wasn't good enough reasoning." That's not what happens when we get before the judgment seat of God, he says, "Did you believe? Or did you not?" No. No. Then you have to incur the wrath that we have is in bio disobeying God. Now, one of the main reasons why throughout history, we suppress this truth, even when it's so obvious to us is that we're arrogant and we're stubborn. I know I am arrogant and I am stubborn. You can ask my wife. But God calls us to stop being arrogant, and in the very next chapter in Romans chapter two, verse five, it says, "But because of your heart and I'm-penitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself. On the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." I know many brothers and sisters in the church, not many. I do that to make everyone feel a little bit more anonymous. But there are some brothers and sisters in this church who I know that come every Sunday, that sings songs go to community group. And we're thankful that you do that. But that you don't call God Lord of your life, that you don't put him as king and ruler over your life. And there's excuse and reason after reason. And what I want to challenge you with guys, soften your hearts. Stop fighting against the truth of the gospel. Let the gospel change your life. I didn't say this first service, but I was thinking about it. The church I grew up in there's a pastor named Ted Martins. I'm very thankful for him. He had a huge impact on my life, specifically in love for scripture and love for debating, love for arguing the truth of scripture. But he had an example that I loved and has stayed with me my whole life. Says the gospel is like a lion. Now imagine that there's a lion and a cage behind me and I'm standing here like back up against the cage. You'd be like, "What are you doing? The lion's going to reach out and claw you. You're going to die. What are you doing?" And I'm saying, "No, no, I'm, I'm protecting the gospel. I'm protecting this lion." And he says, what we need to do is not stand and protect it. We need to let it out. We need to let the gospel come out and transform our lives. Change every single part of us. Come into the parts we don't want God to be in, reveal the truth of the gospel in us. And then we can stop suppressing the truth. Just let God work in you. Let him, he loves you. He sacrificed and gave up everything for you. He incurred God's wrath for you. Let him change your life. Now again, I said, I am stubborn. So I know that hardheaded, stubborn people don't stop doing things just by saying, don't do it. Again you could ask my wife. And so how do we actively stop suppressing truth? How do we actively stop being stubborn. It's by honoring and thanking God. This is verses 21 through 23, where it says "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. They became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the images, resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." They're suppressing the truth because they did not honor God or give thanks to him. What do we mean when we say we need to honor God? What is honor? Honor is putting someone or something in the rightful place that they deserve. What does it means to honor God is to put him in his rightful place as king and ruler and Lord of our lives and Lord of all creation. That's what it means to honor God. So if you want to honor God, you first have to start by acknowledging God exists. Then you need to acknowledge that he is ruler. He is creator over all things, and you have to live in faithful obedience to him, let him change your life. And to give thanks to him. We don't do it begrudgingly. We don't do it because we have to. We actually realize, oh, the gospel spared me from God's wrath. Praise him. I'm alive because the gospel, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God, you're a ruler of my life. Thank you. I'd be dead apart from you. You have something you want to command me to do and tell me to do all right, I'll do it. Because if I don't, I don't have any reason to live. I'm thankful that you allow me to live. So I'll do whatever it is that you tell me to do. Thank you. Thank you for life. Thank you for the ability to do anything. Thank you for creation that proclaims your goodness and your glory. Thank you. And when we don't. It says that we become futile in our thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Were darkened is not the idea of putting on sunglasses or closing the blind so it gets a little bit darker. It's the idea of complete and utter darkness. We see this in Matthew 24, verse 29, where it says "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. And the stars will fall from heaven and powers of the heavens will be shaken." It's the idea that there is no more manmade light. There's no sun, there's no moon. There's no more stars. Complete utter darkness. The darkness where your hand can be an inch in front of your face and you can't see it. That's what happens in our hearts when we reject God. It's not that God makes us darkened. It's that we reveal that our arts are dark as well. If you're here today, you're not a Christian. You're thinking, you're saying I have questions. I have doubts. I'm thinking about it. I'm on a journey. I want to ask you a question. If, hypothetical, it's not hypothetical, but hypothetically, if there is an all powerful God. A God who created all things, a God who willingly suffered for you to save you and offered you a free gift of salvation and you choose to reject it. What kind of a decision is that? Is that a smart one? It's not. It's not. And it shows that our thinking is futile. The word futile means useless. Shows that if we can't trust God with the most important thing in life, our thinking is flawed. Because of sin all of us start this way. So how does our hearts change from a darkened heart to one of light. That loves the truth, gives glory to God and thanks him. What changes? We need light. Revelation 22:4-5 says, "They will see his face," Jesus' face, "And his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more. They will need no light or lamp or son for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever." How do we get rid of the complete utter darkness in us? We let Jesus come in and change our lives. We welcome Jesus into our life and say, "Jesus, I need you. You are light." And his light pierces all darkness, nothing will be hidden from him. He will expose all of it, help us, heal us, transform our lives, sanctify us when we let Jesus in. I beg of you, let Jesus into your heart. Let him transform your life. Verse 22, it similarly says "Claiming to be wise, they became fools." Again it's showing that when you say you're smart, but you reject God it shows how not smart you are. And then verse 23, "And exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." The word exchanged means understandably, giving up. You can't exchange something you don't know you have. And what God is saying is I offered you really my glory eternity with God, praise him for it. But we gave it up. We gave up the immortal glory. The word immortal we think of as only not dying, but that's part of it. But the other part of it is it's imperishable. It's untaintable. It can't be diminished, withered or hurt or destroyed in any way. God's glory is immortal. And we gave it up for what? For mortal, for perishable, for things that are on their way to death. And what was that? For man, for creeping things for... Sorry, for man and birds and animals and creeping things. This phrase at the end should immediately bring us back to Genesis 1, the story of creation, where these are the categories of the creatures God created on earth. And the idea here is that yes, throughout history, people have created images of these things. We read that in the beginning in Exodus. They created a calf, an animal. But it's also the idea of anything in creation. We exchanged the immortal glory of God for things in creation, for things God created, we worshiped creation over creator. So the question is, what do we put in the place that God alone deserves from his creation? Doesn't have to be just animals and birds and creeping things. What in creation takes the place of God in our lives. What are the things that we say, "I'm not going to listen to God on that. I'm not going to budge." What are the things that we say, "I can't believe in a God like that." Or, "I don't need to go to church today because I have more important things to do." I don't need to spend time with God and his word and praying to him because I'm just so busy. What are the things that we put in place of God in our lives? And what are we to do with them? We're to exchange them back, or to get rid of them. We're to give them up and say, "God, I don't want these things. I want you, I want your glory, I want your love, I want your grace, I want the gospel." Praise him for it. And if you're not a Christian, think of those same things and say, God, I don't care. Any of it. I'm changing my life. I'm submitting all of it to you. With this, I'd like to close. And if you know anything about preaching, when someone says, I'd like to close you got to at least 10 minutes left, but I'll try and be a little bit shorter than that. I'd like to close with a quote from Jonathan Edwards' sermon again, sinners in the hands of an angry God that he brings up at the end. Where he says, "And now you have an extraordinary opportunity a day wherein Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open and stands in the door, calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners. A day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, south many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are in now a happy state with their hearts filled with love to him who has love them and washed them from their sins and his own blood and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind at such a day, to see so many others feasting while you are pining and perishing. To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for so of heart and how for vexation of spirit. How can you rest one moment in such a condition. Are not your souls as precious as the souls of the people at Suffield where they are flocking from day to day to Christ." Suffield is another place where the gospel was being preached and people were being saved. And his point is the people he's preaching to your souls are just as valuable. If you're here today, you're not a Christian, God values your soul. He loves you. He willingly died to save you. Why put all off committing your life to him? Why, when you see the rejoicing. It says that wherein many flocking to him pressing into the kingdom of God and that we were not that long ago in the same state. There was a point in my life where I wasn't a Christian. I'm a Christian because God revealed his love to me because God showed the gospel to me. And I'm willingly submitting my life to him because he is worthy. And I could tell you, I rejoice. I praise him. I get to sing songs of praise to him. Again, the greatest parties are in heaven. God is great. I'm rejoicing. I want that rejoicing for you too. If you're not a Christian, let Jesus bear the wrath for you. Let him do it. Let the gospel transform your life. If you are a Christian, praise him, he has paid the penalty, has spared us from his wrath. Let's glorify him. Let's praise him. Let's honor him and rejoice. Let's pray. Heavenly father, Lord, we love you. Help us to love you. Lord, help us to no longer suppress the gospel in our lives. Let the gospel run free and reign in our lives. Let it transform us. Sanctify us. Make us more like you. Lord, we thank you that Jesus has spared us from your wrath. Lord, we ask that everyone here who is on the path of incurring your wrath, that you soften their heart and change them. Help them to see your love and your grace for them and spare them. Lord, we thank you and praise you that you are good. You are holy. You are honorable and praiseworthy. In Jesus' name, amen.
Love
December 12, 2021 • Tyler Burns • 1 John 4:7–12
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. Let's jump right into our text. 1 John 4:7-12. It is short. It is sweet. It is powerful. God's word says, "Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loves us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love on another. No one has seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us." This is the reading of God's holy and authoritative and fallible word. May he write these eternal truths on our hearts. I said it's about Christmas. I want to make sure you understand it's about Christmas. Not just because I said it because that's what this text is about. The main crux of this text is verse nine, where it says in this the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent His only son into the world. So, God sending Jesus into the world is His way of manifesting His love to us. We need to understand what the word manifests mean. If you're like me, I picture a magical movie like Harry Potter or something where they just conjure something out of nothing and they manifested it. That's what I think of. That's not what scripture talks about when it talks about manifesting. When scripture talks about manifesting, it's talking about something that has always been there, but you didn't know it was there. And now you know it's there. Where do I get this from? A couple verses real quickly. Mark 4:22. It says for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. So again, it's always been there but it's hidden, but it's hidden for the purpose of being revealed, of being manifest, of coming to light. Another example is 1 Peter 1:20. He being Jesus was for known before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, for the sake of you. So what it's saying is Jesus is eternal. Jesus has always been, but we haven't always seen Jesus. But He was sent into the world to be manifest, to be made known for our sake to benefit us in some way. And it was at God's timing that he did this and this is Christmas. It is the moment when Jesus was made manifest to us. It is the moment when Jesus came into the world and made himself known to us. But, the purpose that Jesus was manifested for was so that God can manifest His love to us. So, this is about Christmas and I want us to know when we think of Christmas, we need to be thinking how is God manifesting? How is God showing us His love, a love that has always been there, a love that is eternal, but maybe we don't always see it. Maybe we don't always know it's there. So if you take anything away from the sermon, I want you to take away that God's love is eternal. And even when you don't see it, it's there. And to make this one point, we'll have three points. So I said remember one thing ... remember three things of that one thing. But the first point we have is you are beloved. The second point we have is now love the beloved, and our third point is we need to un-warp our view of love. So point number one, you are beloved. Twice in this text, John says beloved and five times in the epistle of 1 John, he says beloved. He calls the church beloved, and in verses seven and eight and in our whole text, what I want to make clear is that the word for beloved and for love is the same, and word is agape. Now, maybe many of you have heard that there are different words in Greek for love. If you haven't, there are four different words in Greek to explain love. One of them is agape. The others are phileo, which it's called brotherly love. That's where we get Philadelphia from, city of brotherly love, but it's not just brothers. It's not actually about siblings. It's about comradery, friendship. This is companion love. Then, there's eros, which is romantic love. This is what we think of in rom-coms and movies and things like that, this feeling, this emotion, romantic love. Then there's storge, which is familial love. So this is actual brotherly love between siblings or parental love between a father and a child or children to their parents. And it's very important that we understand the difference because God does not say He is phileo. He does not say He is eros. He does not say He is storge. He says He is agape. So, what's the difference. Oftentimes I've heard agape defined as servant hearted love, as a love that is self sacrificial. It is serving others. That is true. That is a huge understatement of the importance of agape love. What it says in our text in verse eight is that God is agape, that He is love and that to know agape, we need to know God. And so, what it's saying is God's love is different than every type of love. So we have to ask what is it that makes God different from us? If His love is different than our love, what makes Him different? And the word that summarizes all of the things between the difference of God and us as the word transcendent. Big word. Really what the word transcendent means is that God is the absolute greatest. The greatest there ever could be. There are no improvements that can be made, and not only is He the best, He is better than anything you can ever imagine. You can say, "This is the best I've experienced, but I can imagine something better," and God's still better than that. And that's His type of love. God's type of love is the best. It is the purest. It is truest form of love you can ever experience, and it's even better than you can ever know. Even once you do experience it, it's still even greater. That's why I prayed Ephesians and why I pray it for me and for all of us, because it says that we will be filled with the fullness of God. I want us to know that there is a fullness of God and I want us to be filled with His love and that we can know there's still more even when we're full. But, because it is the same word for beloved and for God's love, He's telling us this is the type of love I have for you. It's not about you because it's about God. It's God's love. It's agape love. So when John says beloved, he's not saying, "Guys, I love you." He does love them. When I come up here and I say, "I love you," I do love you. That's not what John is saying. He's saying, "God loves you. You are loved by God with the greatest type of love that there could ever be." That's your identity. This is who you are, and it's really important that we understand this as an identity thing because it helps us when times when we doubt it. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe a friend invited you, family invited you, you just walked in, whatever it might be, I want you to know God is constantly pouring out His love, His agape, the greatest, the truest form of love you could ever experience. He is pouring it out on you now, and He wants you to know it. He wants you to see it. He wants you to know it's from Him, that He loves you. He cares for you in an everlasting eternal transcendent type of way. And, if you're here today and you're a Christian and maybe you're doubting, maybe you're questioning. Maybe you're going through a hard time and it's causing you to doubt God. I want you to know your identity is still the beloved. I get this from our text where it says that God loved us, even when we didn't love him. But I also get it from the context. John is writing to a church. We don't know exactly which church, but it's likely the church in Ephesus because John doesn't have an introduction. He doesn't say, "Hi guys, I'm John. These are my credential." So the church knows him. They know who he is. And he writes it in a way that he loves them. It's clear that he loves them in his writing, so it's a church that's very familiar with him. And John lived most of his life during his ministry in Ephesus, so it's likely the church in Ephesus. But, whatever church it is, there's a specific issue going on in this church that he wants to address. And we get this in chapter four, right before our text, in verses one through three where it says beloved. Again, he calls them beloved. It's really important. Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And, every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. The specific false teaching that this church he is writing to is dealing with, so they don't know that Jesus actually came in the flesh. They're like, "Jesus would have done this for us. It's something He was willing to do. He could have done." It's an expression. It's a phrase that will teach us the type of love that God has, but it's not literal. And what John is saying is if you do not know Christmas as a reality, if you do not know that Jesus came in the flesh as a reality, you're going to question love. You're going to have a hard time with the foundation of love. But remember, John is writing to those people. He is writing to people that are questioning. He is writing to people that are doubting. He is writing to people that are having a hard time, and he still says, "Beloved, if you are doubting, if you are questioning, you have a hard time, you are still God's beloved. That doesn't change it." This is your identity because it doesn't have to do with you, because it's about the God who has given it and said this is who you are. You are His beloved. I want you guys to know this. I don't just want you, I need you guys to know this. I need to know this for myself. We need to know that God loves us, and once we understand that, we understand that we need to love the beloved. The beloved is Jesus. It's God. In scripture, God, the father calls Jesus and he says this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. If we want to understand what it means for us to be beloved, we need to understand God, the father's love for Jesus Christ. But the natural response to someone loving us in this way is to love them back. This is in verse 10. It says, "And, this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loves us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins." So even when we don't love God, even when we're passively not loving God and even when we're actively rejecting and not loving God, it says He still loved us. And that's great. That's good. But I want to know ... if you're like me, I want to know how does God love us in those times? What does it look like for God to love me when I'm rejecting Him? And the only text ... not the only text. The main text that speaks this to me is the book of Hosea. The whole book. This is a little weird. Allie, my wife, wasn't in the first service so I could talk about her and she wasn't here. Now I have to look at her as I say this, but she hates when I bring this example up. She's grown on it, but she hates when I bring it up because it's a text about marriage. And so, she wants to make sure I'm not thinking about our marriage in this way, and I don't. But anyway, if you don't know the book of Hosea, it's an intense one. It's a different one than you might say most of scripture is, but if you know all of scripture than you know it's all the exact same anyway. But, the book of Hosea is about God going to a prophet named Hosea and saying, "You need to marry a woman." It's like, "Oh praise God, that's great." He says, "It's not just any woman. A very specific woman." I'm pausing, because I'm looking around. In the first service, there were kids, so I didn't say the word. I don't see any kids. If there are, forgive me. He says, "You need to get yourself a wife of whoredom." Oh my God, why in the world would you say that? God, you use that word in scripture. Why would you tell someone to do that? And he says, "Because you need to understand, this is what it's the like when I love you." He says, "All of God's people are Gomer ..." is her name. And God wants Hosea to know what God feels when he loves us even when we reject Him, even when we don't love Him. And so in the text, Hosea marries Gomer. They have kids, and the whole time, she's cheating on him and going and running away and spending time ... We aren't told how long, but time that they're providing housing and food and clothing for her. So, it's an extended period that she is with other men. And God says, "Here's how I deal with Israel, and here's how I want you to deal with her. Here's how I deal with my people." It says God gets angry at her. God gets mad that she is cheating on him. Then it says that He gets furious at the people she is cheating on him with, and so how does God love in that anger when we have rejected Him? This is Hosea 2:14-15. Therefore behold, God speaking says, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her, and there I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of Achor adore of hope. And there, she shall answer as in the days of her youth as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. Huh. It's not what I expected. It's not the response I get when people are mad at me. It's not the response I give when I'm mad at people. Why does God love this way even when we reject him? I love it. It says He is going to allure her. He's talking about ... the her is Israel, it's His people. Eh wants to show us that he is worthy. He's like, "Come, let me love you. Come let me show that I am worthy, that I love you, I care for you." In the text it says that Israel, all the people are going after other people and things for satisfaction, for identity and for provision. It says that they're going to other people because they want love. The reason why Gomer is running after other people is she wants her identity of love in people. She's going there and she's getting food and clothing and housing, and she's thinking it's these people who are giving it to her, and God says she doesn't know the whole time it's been me. She doesn't know that ... we don't know ... that God is the one who is always providing for us. When we have food, when we have clothes, when we have housing, when we have love, when we have care, God is providing it to you. He wants you to see it's from Him. And that's what it's doing here. This text might scare us a little bit because we live in a city and it says bring her out to the wilderness. We're like, "God, what are you going to do? That's terrifying." But, what it's saying is God is taking her out of the place where all the temptations are, where the life that she has always lived is where we have always been in the root ... our normal day. And, sometimes we need to get out of our routine to see God and to be with God. This is why sometimes you do need to take a vacation. This is why sometimes you do need to just go out into nature and be alone with God. Because sometimes we just need a change of pace. We need a change of scenery to say, "God, I'm getting out of this every day. I'm getting out of the temptation. I'm getting out of all the things that are vying for my love and I just want to be with you, be in your presence." What does God do for His people when they are in his presence? Here's my vineyards. Here's a whole valley. What does that mean. He's saying, "I provided everything for you. Here's the vineyard from which I provided all your food. And not only that, look, it's a whole valley. It's beautiful. It's majestic. It's glorious. Here's everything that I've been using to bless you with, to provide for you, to give to you to show you that I love you." And, it's only a door to hope. It's not the whole thing. It's just the doorway. You're cracking the door open and you're getting a glimpse into the riches of which God wants to bless us. Please, I beg of you, know that God loves you fervently, gloriously, mightily, with all that He has. He's giving it to you and He is showing that He is worthy of us to love him back. It says that the response for His people for Israel when God does this is that she will answer in the days of her youth as of the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. What is this talking about? It's specifically talking about the exodus and we just have been going through exodus with the teens downstairs, and what is the response of the Israelites as soon as they get out of Egypt? This was last Sunday, not this Sunday because I'm seeing the teen's leaders here being like, "We know what we talked about today but what we talked about last week." They sang an impromptu song. Moses just starts singing and Miriam's like, "That's great, Moses, but you need tambourines and dancing as well." And, they're just joyous and they're celebrating and praising God's salvation. I think of it as wedding day love. The type of love where you're passionate. You remember the first time you felt love and you're like, "This is incredible." In my newsletter that I sent out this week ... If you didn't get it, I can send it to you ... I gave a little study guide, and at the end of the study guide, I gave a list of songs that God has been speaking to me through and that have been an encouragement to me to know God's love. In there, half of them are worship songs and half of them are not. I feel like I need to explain that a little bit because whenever someone who is preaching sends non-Christian songs, I feel like people are like, "What in the world is going on? What's happening here?" So, I want to explain it. One of the songs in there that I put was This Will Be, or Everlasting Love, sung by Natalie Cole. I love this song because one, it's an everlasting type of love. Only God knows an everlasting love. I see a bunch of you singing it in your head. Praise God. But why I put that song in this list is because the whole beginning of the song is her singing about a guy saying you have loved me in an incredible way. You have cared for me, you have provided for me. This is the best feeling I've ever had. I've never known anything like this. And then, before she gets to the end of the song where she just repeats love over and over and over and over, before she gets there, the transition is she says, "I'm going to love you because you deserve it." God wants us to know He deserves our love back. He has proven that He is worthy of our love. That's why I start with saying you are beloved, because I want you to know God loves you because He is trying to prove to you that He is worthy of your love back. And apart from knowing the love of God, that is the greatest joy we can ever have. The second one is having love reciprocated. I bring this up ... again, I say love is a very personal topic so I'm going to be very personal. I'm going to tell a lot of stories about my wife and I, and when I think about this idea, I think about our relationship. We started dating September 28, 2016. I said that confidentially first service. She's nodding yes so I'm good. But before then, we were just friends and I had drove her home one day after church and I said, "Hey, I would love to take you out on a date." Her response shows you a lot about our relationship and why I married her was, "I need to pray about it." I was like, "You know what? That's great. I've been praying about this for months whether to ask you or not, and it's not fair of me to require that in this snap second decision, you have to answer yes or now, so you take the time you need to pray about it." In my head, what I was trying to communicate was that when I was praying about it, before asking her, was that God gave me peace about asking her, gave me peace about saying if she says no, that's okay. I've got God. We're going to be good. If she says yes, it's okay, but don't be overwhelmingly excited because I still go God. That's all I need so I'm good. If we start dating and we break up, it's going to be okay. We both serve at teens, so the things going through our heads were what if we break up? Does one of us have to step down from teens? It would have to be me. She's much better at it than I am. So, I would have to step down so what is this going to look like? We decided ... Well, I decided in my conversation with God that if we broke up, it'd be okay. We could be a good example of what a breakup looks like to the teens, and God knows we need that. We need good examples of that. But praise God that didn't happen with us. And then, the last one was if we go one and get married, then it'll be great. We can show the teens what God's love is like through that, so praise God. That's what I was thinking in my head and trying to communicate to her when I said it's okay, take your time to pray about it. What I literally said was, "It's okay. I've prayed about it and God told me it's all going to work out." I can tell by your laughter you understand that that, to her, said we're going to get married. That's what she thought I said before we ever went on a first date. And, that's not what I meant at all. Women, if you have ever been in a relationship where a guy has done something similar to you, have grace on them. I am so sorry. Forgive them. We are just dumb. There's no other word to describe it. We're just dumb. So forgive them, please. Please. And then, a month later ... It's insane to me that it was only one month later looking back at it and doing some reflection. It shows how insane of a human being I am. A month later I was praying about whether or not I loved her. To say, should I tell her I love her? We've only been dating for a month. We had known each other for a long time. I was praying and I was trying to know is this just an emotion? Is this just a feeling? Is this just affection or do I actually love her? I said in my mind, praying to God, I said, "Do I want to be with her no matter what? That's the question I need the answer to," because if I want to be with her no matter what, then we're good. We've only been dating for a month so there's a whole lot I still didn't know about her, and so how can I answer that question if I don't know so much about her? My thought was if I assume the absolute worst about her in everything I don't know, would I still want to be with her? She hates when I say that, too, but it's true and praise God, it's been great. It's been fantastic. It's not been bad at all, but I wanted to be prepared if I found out the absolute worst about everything, would I still want to be with her? And that day I decided yes. Yes, I do. It doesn't matter what I find out. I want to be with her. I love her. So we had a date. I drove her home from that date. We get out of my car and I say, "Hey, I just want you to know, I love you." And being the gracious gentleman that I am, I said to her, "Please, I beg of you do not say it back to me. I don't want you to say it. I want you to take your time, pray about it. Think about it, see if you actually do, and whenever you feel like it, then you can say it." I did give a full 30 to 45 second pause in between saying that just to see if she would be like, "I love you too," and she didn't so I was like, "All right, I guess I got to say it." No, but that was the end of October. We were dating for only a month. And I told her I loved her. Two months later, praise God it was only that long, Christmas ... We were celebrating Christmas. She was going to be with her family. I was going to be with my family, so we were going to have our first extended period apart. And so, we exchanged gifts and cards and she hand wrote her card. She always hand wrote her cards and drew a little picture on the front, and I still have all of them. And I'm reading the card, and at the end of the card, it says, "I love you, Ally." Aw, not quite yet. I smiled and I turned to her and I just looked at her. She's like, "Hey, did you see what it said?" Literally poking me, I think. I don't know. Like, "Did you read it? Did you see what it said?" And I said, "I saw what it said. I want to hear you say it. You could write things down, but if you say it, I'll know you mean it." And, and she said it and we were great. I was filled with joy. There was so much joy in my heart. Our date was done. She went inside. We said goodbye, and I drove home. At that time, I lived in hour away and I just blasted love songs. And, I was singing them at the top of my lungs. Everlasting Love was one of them. I was prophesying over our relationship. It's going to be an everlasting love. No, I wasn't prophesying. But anyway, I was singing joyfully and I could tell you, I have not experienced that joy apart from the love of God. Because when someone loves you back, when for two months, I've been like, "I love you. I'm trying to show you that I'm worthy of you loving me back. I want you to know that this is real. This is not fake. I love you." And, she loved me back. Oh man, that's joy. That's what joy is. How much more immensely, infinitely so when we return the love of God that has been from the beginning, that is an eternal love. It is literally an everlasting love. I said this in the first service, I used the word literally a lot because I'm trying to teach us what that word actually means. It means it's real. It's practical. We're not just using it lightly, but God's love has always been when we return it to Him, oh, the joy in His heart and oh the joy in our hearts. Amen. I want you to love the beloved, which is why you need to know that He loves you. You need to know you are beloved and then you can love Him back. And sometimes, we don't feel like it. Sometimes we forget. This is why another song I put in that list is September by Earth, Wind and Fire. Great song, great song. I've been convinced that it is a Christmas song. You cannot change my mind. It is. I'm going to read some of the lyrics for you and listen. It starts off do you remember the 21st night of September? Love was changing the mind of pretenders. I love this song because I can sing it to God and I can sing it to my wife, because we started dating on the 28th of September. So instead of do you remember, I say, (singing)? Yeah, I'm pointing at her and she hates it and she's so embarrassed right now. And I sang in first service too, because that's what I do when I love someone. But anyway, I could sing this to God. And what it's saying is do you remember the first time you felt loved? Do you remember the first time you felt loved by God? Last week, Pastor Shane said we needed to write down times we have seen God's faithfulness in our life so that when we are in despair, when we are doubting, we can look to them and remember and be hopeful for the future because of the faithfulness of God in our past. We need to do the same with His love. I don't always write things down, but I have them cataloged in my head. And I remember times in my life when God has expressed love on me. Do we remember the times when God has loved us? When He has had compassion on us, when He has comforted us? Remember them. Do you remember the first time? The second verse says, "Remember how we knew love was here to stay. Now December ..." This is why it's a Christmas song. It says December. I didn't make it up. Found the love we shared in September, only blue talk and love ... I don't know what that line means. Remember. True love we share today. What it's saying is they were in love September, now it's December, they've forgotten about it, but they need to remind themselves. It says, "Remember the love in September." Remember the love of God that you had at first, and remember it here in December. Remember it at Christmas because Christmas is when God is manifesting His love to us, but also always remember it. Whenever you doubt and question, remember God's love. And it says that in December they found the love we shared in September. So in Christmas, in this month of December, rediscover the love you had for God at first. I want us all to do this. I need to do this. We all need to do this. Let's rediscover the love we had for God when we first knew He loved us. And then it says, "Remember, true love we share today." And that line is basically saying we have to remember the true love we had at the beginning. We need to remind ourselves of it when we forget it, because that love is still as true today as it ever was then. So as you remind yourself of the love that you had for God at the first and He had for you at the first, remind yourself, rediscover that love and remind yourself it is true today. It is just as true. Why? Because God calls you beloved. It's your identity. It has nothing to do with you. It's about Him. And so, He is never changing, His love for you will not change, and so you are still beloved today. His love for you has not changed. And once we start loving the beloved, when we start loving God back, we are now able to un-warp our view of love. This is from verse 12 where it says no one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. It says when God starts abiding in us, He's going to perfect love in us. Why does it need to be perfected? Because we all inherently have an understanding of what love is. You can ask anybody. They'll tell you what love is to them, but it's saying we all have a very messed up view of what love is and we need God to change it. We need God to perfect it in us so that we can see what true love is because He is the source of true love. So what I did is I wrote down 10 ways where we warp God's love, where we warp love in general, and we're just going to go through them. So the first way we warp love is that love is sexualized. Love is about pleasure. It's about sex. My only note for this point is cut it out. If at any point in my sermon that has happened so far, that will happen in the future, you have thought about sex when I've been talking about love, cut it out. It's a clear sign that you are sexualizing love. I told you this is a very personal sermon. My wife told me I was allowed to say anything I wanted to about her, which is a dangerous thing. And the day after she told me that, I was like, "Are you still sure I can do that?" And she said, Yes." She's trying to work on being open with things in her past, and one of the things in her past that has warped her view of love is that there has been sexual abuse in her past. Oh, it makes me angry. I'm crying right now. I cried first service at this point too, but I'm crying even more because I'm looking at her as I'm saying this, but it makes me angry because it has nothing to do with her, but it has to do with people who have had a warped sexualized view of love and this warping of love does harm, does real, real damage. And I don't want anybody to experience that. And so, if this is part of your struggle, there's grace but cut it out. It's going to hurt people. And, if you have been hurt by a warped sexualized view of love, I want to tell you it doesn't change God's love for you. God still loves you. You are His beloved and nothing will ever change that. Do not let what has happened to you warp your view of God's love for you. You are His beloved. I need you to know it. With that being said, the next way we warp love is we emotionalize it. And by this, I just mean that we make love just an emotion. Clearly, love is an emotion. There is an emotional aspect to love. I love my wife. I have an emotional response. I love God. I have an emotional response. I sing and I praise it into worship. I have tissues in my pocket because every single time I've preached this in practice, I've cried besides once when I just didn't tell the stories so that way I didn't cry. But every time I've told the stories, I've cried because love is an emotion. There is an emotion to it, but it's not just that. What happens when there's not an emotion anymore? What happens when we're really being Gomer to God and we're not stirring up an emotion of love, but we're stirring up an emotion of wrath in Him? He doesn't stop loving us. He still loves us. He still calls us beloved. Love is not just an emotion. It's a decision sometimes, and agape love is a decision. God said, "I have committed to loving you before the foundation of the world." I knew I loved my wife when I said I commit to loving you. That commitment is just as true today as it was back then, and God's commitment to loving us is just as true today as it always has been for eternity. So, don't make love just an emotion. Know that it's real. It's tangible. It's something God has chosen to pour out on you no matter what. The next way we warp love is that we make it self-centered saying this is how I feel loved. Where is that in this text? Nowhere. It's not there. What it says is God is love. Love is the identity of who God is. Love is God-centered. It is centered around Him. If you want to know what love is, what true agape love that will surpass every other type of love, just go to God. If you want to know today, I beg of you, cry out to God, pray to Him, ask Him to reveal this love to you because it's better than anything else you'll ever experience. It's true. And when God loves us, He pours out so much of His love that we just overflow and that love falls and pours out on other people. So even in this text where it says love one another three times ... It bookends the text. You need to love people. You got to. It's just in there. You have to. But even then, it's not about you. It's about God. It's not about them. It's about God. Because God is the source of the truest purest love, and He is pouring it out on us that we are overflowed that we want to share that type of love with other people. We need people to see it. We need people to know it because it's all about God. The next way we warp love is we make it self-realized saying I know what love is by the way I love myself. In the ways I feel love, that's what I can identify love as. No. Love is God realized. It says if you do not know God, you do not love right. It's messed up, so we need to have a God realized love where we go to Him, ask Him, "Make us realize your love." I'm saying a lot of things over and over and over again because they're really important. We need to go to God if we want to know true love. Nothing I say up here is going to convince you if we don't go to God. The reason why I'm up here trying to convince you is because I've experienced the love of God, so I want you to know it. The next way we warp the view of love is we make it self-validating. We say, "All I need is to love myself and then I can carry on. What I need to make it through this life is to love myself and to care for myself, and if I got myself, I'm good. I can carry on." No. Revisit, re-listen to the whole point one. You are beloved. God is validating you. He is telling you, you are valued. You are cared for. He loves you. And, it's still not about you. It's about the greatness of His love. He does love you. You need to know it's about you in that sense that God loves you, but God wants to value you. He wants to validate you. He wants you to know you are worthy because He says you are, not because of anything else. The next way we warp love is we say that it is earned. And this one, I think we all deal with but if I can be so bold, I will say I think this is one that particularly our sisters in the church deal with and struggle with. And I say that because this is one I know my wife deals with and struggles with because of the hurt that has happened in her past. There are times she doesn't feel like she has earned love, she has been deserving of love. And, God's love is not earned and it's an identity. God doesn't say you need to do X, Y, and Z before I will love you. He says you are my beloved. That's who you are. If you have a list of things where you say I need to change this, that and the other before God can love me or before any other person will love me, no. It's not earned. God is freely giving it to you. Accept it. Know it to be true, know it as a reality. You're never going to earn it. None of us are worthy of it. It is grace alone that God gives it to us, but God doesn't want us to try and earn it either. He doesn't want us to be like, "Okay, God, I know it's a free gift, but let me work at it so that I can feel validated." No, God says it's free. Don't earn it. Just take it. It's a free gift. Accept it. But, there's a flip side to how we warp love by making it earned and that's saying, "I'm not going to love anybody until they've earned it." We need to stop withholding love. We do. God didn't withhold love from us, so we cannot withhold love from each other. I see this in our world all the time, everywhere around us, and unfortunately I have seen it in our church as well. And so, dear Christian, stop withholding love from other people in this room. Stop withholding love from brothers and sisters in Christ. In your community groups, stop withholding love. Stop saying, "I'm not going to be vulnerable. I'm not going to be honest and loving of people until they've earned my trust." You need to start it, earn their trust. Be vulnerable, love them, care for them. In whatever ministries you serve in, love them. Love the people you are serving. Love the people you are serving with. Do not withhold love. And I said this first service, and I want to be clear, the pastors didn't know I was going to say this and they didn't make me say it. Stop withholding love from your pastors. Stop saying, "I need my pastors to preach like this before I will love them." Stop saying, "I need these programs at our church before I will love them." Stop saying, "When we do this or that or whatever, or when I feel loved and they meet what I want in a church this way, then I'll love them." Stop it. They are beloved by God and you cannot do anything about it. Sorry. So, stop withholding love from them. Stop withholding love from each other. It says, "Love one another," and the one another is talking about Christians. So we need to stop withholding love from one another, but it also says nobody, Christian or not, will understand who God is until they have seen love. So stop withholding love from your friends and families, even if they're not Christians, because if you want them to know who God is, if you want them to know what true love is, you've got to love them first. And a few weeks ago, Pastor Yan in his sermon gave us homework. Full disclosure, I didn't do it. Well, technically now I did because I did it first service but I'm going to do it again later in this service. But, the homework that he gave us was to write out ways that we can defeat arguments that we see in people's lives against God. Whatever arguments there are to be against God, we should be ready to answer those questions. It's absolutely true. It's in scripture. It's just fact. But, I can tell you no one's going to listen to a word you have to say if you don't love them. So amend, adapt your homework and make sure it starts by saying, "I am committing to loving them. I am making that decision now to love them. So that way they can get a glimpse of what the God love, the agape love, looks like. And then, maybe they'll listen. Maybe I will have earned their trust and proven I am worthy to be listened to." The next way we warp love is we say it's unattainable. Sometimes this is because we feel like we haven't earned it, but I feel like a lot of times it's because we feel like I haven't experienced it yet. I haven't felt true love from my friends, from my family, from my church, from anyone else that I know. And if that's you today, oh, I want you to know you are loved. Love is not unattainable. It's the easiest thing to attain because God is already pouring it out on you. I'm going to keep saying it. It's already there. Just let your eyes be open to it. Just receive it, go to Him. If you want to attain true love, cry out to God, pray you to Him for it. He wants to give it to you. And, I want you to know people are going to let you down. If you're hoping for fulfillment and love in people, you're going to be disappointed. And I can say that because I know it from experience. I think we all do. I've shared some of my story many times when I've been here and I'm going to continue to share it, because it's important and love is very personal. But for me, I was very depressed in middle school. That's why I work with teenagers because I know it can be hard. But I was very depressed in middle school to the point of being suicidal. I wanted to take my own life. And what I needed to learn in that time was I needed to stop putting my hope in my friends because why I became depressed and suicidal was I was looking for love from my friends. I went to church. I've heard about God's love all the time. Great. I have parents who love me and care ... I knew they loved me. I wasn't looking to them for love. To my parents, I'm sorry. I was looking for love in my friends and they abandoned me. And when your hope is in friends and you no longer have friends to hope in, you're never going to have hope for love. It just makes sense. And so, I thought love was unattainable because the source in my hope was gone, and it wasn't until I was able to recognize I needed to stop that and put my source of hope for love in God that I could ever change. And, I'm going to get into how that change happened in a little bit. The next way that we warp love is we say it's conceptualized. We make it conceptualized. That love is an idea. It's something we just want to spread across everybody. We just want everybody to have a concept of love. This one also makes me angry. This one makes me very angry because this is what I had done my whole life, and I see the damage it did to me and I don't want that for anybody else. I said I was depressed and suicidal in middle school, and what got me out of there is God sent a friend, a guy named Rich. And Rich came to me one day and he was like, "We should be friends." That was the exact day I had a plan to take my life. And I said to him, "You want to be friends? We don't got a long time." And he said, "Well, why is that?" And so I told him about my plan and he said, "No, no, it's okay. We're going to be friends. We're going to be friends." And that was all I needed to hear in that moment. That was all that I needed to hear to keep me going, to continue on, to be alive. But my hope for love was still in him, still in someone, not in God. And for three years after that, I still battled with suicidal thoughts. I still battled with depression. And one night we were having a sleepover, we were hanging out having a good time and I was thinking, "I'm having a good time here, but I'm so depressed all the other times." And so, I cried out to God. I prayed to him and I said, "God, why would you let me feel this way? Why would you let this happen to me? I've gone to church my whole life. I've started a Bible study in a public school. I started a Bible study where we convict each other of sin with the high school guys in my school. I'm serving you. Why would you let me feel this way?" And God said, "I need you to understand something." He said as clear as day, I'll never forget it. He said, "I am the one who sent Rich to save you. I am the one who sent him." He's like, "And in the real tangible way you experienced being saved from death, even more so I saved you when I sent my son, Jesus Christ to die for you." We need to stop conceptualizing the love and the death of Christ. It is real. It is tangible. That is the issue John is writing about here. It's not a new one. It's an old one. But when we don't believe Christmas is real, when we don't believe Jesus literally came, when we don't believe He literally physically died, it's going to warp our view of love. This is a very hard year for me. This past year, I have lost four people that were really close to me and I have been to four funerals this past year. And that was very hard because it was unexpected, but also it had been six years since I'd been to a funeral. So, it was different. I've changed a lot in six years and it affected me differently. And when I was at those funerals, I was asking myself a question, why do I take death so seriously with my friends and family, but I don't do it with Christ? As I'm there at these funerals, I'm crying, I'm praying, I'm sad because I knew them, because I loved them, because they had an impact on my life and to lose them leaves a void. You feel it. But I know God, I know Jesus. He has had an impact on my life. He has affected me in a greater way than any person ever could. Why am I not broken up that my sin caused him to have to die for me, and by God's grace and God's power alone, Jesus didn't stay there. He has risen from the grave. He has defeated sin and death. Praise God for it. And as I'm standing there at these funerals, I'm wondering and I'm thinking, man, there were people that stood over Jesus like this. There were people that were there, felt the same emotion I'm feeling now, and it was real to them. I need to make Jesus' death real. We all need to know Jesus' death and sacrifices, greatest act of love for us is real. It's practical. And for some reason at funerals in particular, we conceptualize love the most because we're afraid to say what it really is. And this is the part where I do the homework that I didn't do for Yan. I was at my Uncle Tommy's funeral, very unexpected that he died, and at the funeral they said, "No, he's still here. You can just reach out and feel his presence. He loves you." Oh, that made me angry. At my Aunt Carol's funeral ... She had had cancer. Her immune system was done and then she got COVID and she passed away not too long ago. At her funeral, they said, "I don't know Carol," because of course, he don't, "But from the stories you have told us, it's clear that she was kind to people and she loved people. So because of this kindness, I am certain that she is in Heaven today. So, if you want to see her again, you need to be kind to people. You need to love people." Oh, that made me angry. It took everything in me not to get up there and punch that priest in the face and say, "No, this is what love really is." It's God holding me back that I didn't do that. But instead I sat there and I prayed and I prayed and I said, "God, show your love to the people in this room. Help them to know you love them. You really love them. Show your love to them." And so to my friends and to my family ... I'm talking to the cameras and I'm talking to all of you, but I'm talking to my family. To my friends and family that were at my Uncle Tommy's funeral, to Josh, Mar Rose, Thomas, Logan, Damien, Demetrius, I have hope, real hope that my uncle is in Heaven because my parents have been faithful witnesses of the gospel to him. They have proclaimed the gospel to him and he said he knows it. Whether he does or not is not for me to decide, it's for God to decide, but I have real hope that he is in Heaven. Not because of a feeling but because I know what the gospel is. And if you want to see Tommy again, I pray, I beg of you, pray to God, cry out to Him. Ask him to show you that you are loved, that He loves you so much that He sent His son Jesus into the world because He loves you, and Jesus died to save you from your sins so you can have eternity with God. I love you guys so much. I want you to experience the greatest love that I have ever experienced and that there ever is. And to my friends and family who are at my Aunt Carol's funeral, I'm not naming you all by name because you know who you are and we'd be here for another three hours if I went through that side of the family. I want you to know same thing. I have real practical hope that my Aunt Carol is in heaven today because again, my parents were faithful in proclaiming the gospel to her, even when I wasn't, and she has heard it and she has said she agrees, and whether or not she does, I don't know. It's not for me to decide. It's for God to decide, but I have real practical hope that she is in Heaven. And I want you guys to do the same, please. I love you. I want the best for you. I want you to know and experience the true saving love, glorious love of God. Ask Him for it. Ask Him to reveal it to you. He wants to. He's already pouring it out on you. He wants you to know it's there. The next way we warp our view of love is we make it temporary. We say, "This is only here for now. You say you love me now, but what about later?" This is another one that I told my wife I was going to call her out, that I think she deals with this one, because she always asks ... she said I could say anything, so I'm going to. She asks me the question often, "Why do you love me?" I hate that question. I hate it. I used to answer it and say, "I love you because you are beautiful. You are my best friend. You challenge me to love God more. You challenge me to know God more. You know scripture better than even I do. I love you." And, I thought that those were good answers. I thought those were answers that were putting my source of love in things that weren't about superficial things, like you love God more than you love me so I love you. And that's true. That is a fact, but that's not what she was asking in that moment. And I needed to learn what she was actually asking, because for her, those things are temporary. What if she doesn't feel like she is beautiful anymore? Tell her that's not an issue because she always is beautiful, she always will be beautiful. That is her identity. God says it so she is. There's nothing she can do about it. You're beautiful. And to any women in the room, this is your identity. God says you are beautiful. You don't need to change it. God says it. It's your identity. So even when you don't feel like it, know you are. But she wasn't asking, "Am I beautiful?" She's like, "What if I'm not?" She still feels that way, again because of things that have happened in her past, she doesn't always feel beautiful and I need to work and grow in showing her that she is. She says, "I want objective truth. It's your opinion, your subjective." And I say, "My opinion's the only one that matters because I'm your husband." And I say, "If anyone else thinks you're beautiful in a different way, I need to find them and I'm going to get them." No. But she wasn't asking about that. She was thinking what if I'm not beautiful? What if I'm not loving God more than you are? What if I'm not challenging you to grow in your relationship with God? What if I stop being your best friend? What about then? And what I need you to know, and what I need all of us to know, this is not a temporary love. God is eternal. God is everlasting. His love is eternal. It is from the beginning. It's not going to stop. My commitment to you, my wife, was once and I said it and I made it and nothing's going to change it. Nothing. I've committed to an everlasting type of love. God says the same thing to his bride, the church, to all of you, He has made an eternal covenant to love you. It's not going to stop. It's not temporary. The last way we warp God's view of love is we make it limited. God's not limited by anything. God is an all powerful God, an all knowing God, a transcendent God. Nothing can limit Him, so nothing can limit His love for you. He gave up everything. He gave up all of His riches in heaven to come and to die and to save you. He didn't limit it. And that's why, again, I prayed Ephesians 3. I want us to be filled with the fullness. It's an unlimited love. I don't want us to just get a taste. If you don't have a taste, I want you to get a taste of the love of God, but I want you to receive the fullness of it, and then when you feel like you have the fullness of it, I want you to know there's even more. It's never ending. Don't limit God's love. Don't limit love that you have for others, either. I have one last thing to say. I love you guys. I forgot to say this earlier, but when I get up here and I say, "Good morning, church," I started my sermon saying good morning church, and I saw my wife mimicking it in her head, and I saw all of my friends who know that laughing, because it's funny because I'm weird. I get it. But what I want you to know when I say that, I'm trying to tell you who you are. You are Christ's church. You are His bride. I don't want to do this, but I might have to stop saying it because I might have to say what I'm trying to get at. You are beloved. That's who you are. I want you to know it, and the way I show my love for people is I cook for you. I make food. I love to cook. If I've ever made a meal for you it's because I love you. And every single Sunday, we open our house ... I didn't mention this first service. We live in Lynn, so it's a little bit of ways away, but every Sunday we open our house and I cook for people. If you're here today and you're saying, "I like what you're saying, but I'm struggling." You're saying, "I don't know if I feel loved. It's nice what you say." Or, "I've been struggling with knowing I am loved. I want to know more about this agape type love," please come on over. Let me cook you a meal. I'm not going to give my address out right now, but if you want it, come on up. I already gave it to two people after the first service. You won't be alone. Please come on over. It's Lynn. It's far away. We'll find out rides. If we run out of food, we'll just empty everything in the freezer and in the pantry. It doesn't matter. I don't care. We'll order pizzas if need be. I don't want you to doubt that God loves you. I want you to know it. I want it to be real. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you. You are good. You are great. Most importantly, you are loving. You have given us, you have poured out, you have made manifest your love to us in this season of Christmas by sending Jesus to come and to live and to die for us. If we do not yet know your love, open our eyes, open our hearts to know your love. Your true love. Your greatest love. If we are doubting, if we are questioning, if we are hurt right now, comfort us, show us your love and help us to perfect our love. Help us to perfect the way we view your love, the way we love others. Help us to un-warp our love, because as we have a warped view of love, we proclaim to the world a warped view of you. We don't want that. Help us to have a right view of love so we can proclaim a right view of you to those who need it most. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Plant a Tree in the Desert
June 13, 2021 • Tyler Burns • Genesis 21
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning church, and welcome to Mosaic Boston Brookline. My name is Tyler. As Pastor Andy said in the beginning, I am the teen's director here. And it is an honor and privilege to be preaching God's Word to all of us today. And if you will with me, we're going to go on a quick journey back to get a glimpse into high school Tyler's life. It's a dark and scary place. Only be real quick, we're going to get out real fast, but we're going to go there for a second. And when I was in high school, I had a good friend, his name was Rich. And Rich loved working out. And he wanted me to start working out with him. I was, at that time, 150 pounds soaking wet, scrawny kid. And he was like, "You like theology, though. So in Revelation, it says that we're going to fight a war with Jesus. And so you need to get buffed for that war." First off, it's bad theology. That's not how bodies work in heaven and that's not how the war works. It says that a flaming sword comes out of Jesus' mouth and all his enemies are gone. So, that's bad theology, but it convinced me. I started working out. And again, I was super light, just wanted to get working out, wanted to have a good time, get stronger. And I was doing that... Sorry, my mic's falling off, I could tell. And then a friend of ours, Greg, started also coming in and working out with us. And we were having a good time. And he was also about my weight. We were the same size. And so we started competing with one another. And we set up a benching competition, because we are high school boys, all you care about is benching, you don't care about anything else. And so we were like, "Let's have a competition who can bench the most weight, just straight up most weight. If you do the same weight, then we'll go to reps, like whoever does more reps, then they win." So we give ourselves a week to train. We start preparing. We start working out. He's taking pre-workout. He's taking creatine. He's doing all that stuff. I'm not, I don't care. And he's a trash talker. I don't know if you know trash talkers. I'm not a trash talker. If you ever want to shut down a trash talker, all you do, you smile, you nod, and you say, "Okay." Trash talkers feed off of trash-talking. If you give it to them, they give it back and they grow and they get amped and they get excited. So my friend Greg, I just said, "Okay, let's see." He's talking trash saying, "I'm going to beat you. I'm stronger than you. I'm better than you," all this. "Okay." He goes first. I said, "Honor, honor first, you go first." He starts benching. Okay, we're both around 150 pounds. "I know Tyler can do his own weight, so I'm going to do 175, 175, that's what I'm doing." He goes, he pushes one and he pushes two. And he's jacked. He's like, "Yeah, I did two over my own body weight. Let's see you beat that." Now this is going to date myself a little bit. But if you remember the old Tootsie Roll Pop commercials, yeah, I channeled that owl in my reps. I went one, a two, a three. And that's right, I crushed it, I had three reps at 175. I destroyed him by a whole rep. And my friend Rich who was the one who brought us together was like, "All right guys, come on. Now let's actually work out." And he goes to bench. And I spot him because I'm a good friend. And he starts throwing up to 225 10 reps, three sets of 10 reps. It was deflating. I just spent everything I could doing, the moment there was a week of build up to this moment that I was so excited for. It was a joyous victory. It was a victory, nonetheless. But I was completely overshadowed by someone who wasn't even trying to overshadow us. And I realized in that moment, yes, I had a victory, but what he was doing was better than what I was doing. And that's really the story of this text that we see. We see a great highlight, a great moment that we are celebrated, but it gets completely overshadowed by someone else. And we will be spending our time in Genesis chapter 21. And it's the story of the birth of Isaac. We have been waiting since Genesis chapter 12 to have this birth happen. We have been waiting for this moment. And it's an exciting one. But we're going to see that the story is not about Isaac. It's not about Abraham. It's not about Sarah. Someone else overshadows them. Will you pray with me over the preaching of God's Word? Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you now knowing that all is for you, all is for your glory. You are the one, true, everlasting God. In this time, help us to learn and study from your word, your inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. Help us to love it, to cherish it, to see who you are through this text and turn that knowledge and understanding about you and to praise because, Lord, you alone are worthy of our praise. Lord, bless this time and speak through me and to all of us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Again in Genesis chapter 21, it's a long one. So we're going to read it in sections as we go along, but we're going to be spending that time in three points. The first point is God is precise, God is protector, and God is praiseworthy. Again, you will notice there are no points about Abraham, Sarah, or Isaac, because the story is not about them. The story is about God. So will you read with me either on the screens or in your Bibles? Genesis chapter 21 verses 1 through 7, it says, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me." And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." Again, we've been waiting for this moment since chapter 12. Abraham has been holding on to this promise that God has given him waiting for this moment. And we get seven verses. Now I want to be clear, I guarantee you there was celebration in Abraham and Sarah's life and in their family and their household. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying the text isn't emphasizing that. The text is emphasizing the Lord in Hebrew, word order is important, but it's important because the sooner it comes up, the more important it is. If it comes first in a sentence, it's saying this is the important thing, let's pay attention to it. And to us, the sentence "The Lord visited Sarah," seems, okay, that's just good English grammar. But in Hebrew, it could go any way you want it to go, but the first word is Yahweh, starting the text saying, "Pay attention to the Lord." And five times in seven verses, we get the name of God, we get the Lord. Only three times do we get Isaac. It's saying, "Pay attention to God here, pay attention to God here." And in the Hebrew, the end of verse 2, we say at the time God had appointed, it ends with the word God. It ends with God. It's making this loop. God was there in the beginning, God is there at the end, he is also there in the middle in case you don't get it. This is all about God. And so the thing we have to be thinking is what can we learn from this text about who God is? What is God revealing to us about his nature? And the first thing we learn is that God is precise. He is precise in his words and in his actions. It says the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said in the exact way in which he had told her that she would be the one to bear a son. God did that, he visited her. And the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. Again, he had promised this multiple times to them, to remind them, "You need to remember, this is me who's doing this." And he does it. As he said, word and in deed, and specifically, it says at the time in which God had appointed. So this was in Genesis chapter 18 verse 10, God said, "This time next year she will conceive and bear Son." God did everything exactly as he said it. And it's intentional. God didn't say, "Oh, you have a kid. I said it would be a son but it's really a daughter. I said, it would be through Sarah, but Ishmael is good, you should take Hagar. And Ishmael, that'll be your son." No, Abraham pleads that to God and God says, "No, it's Isaac." He is precise in his promises. And what we see is Abraham's response to God's precision is to be precise back. In verse 3, it says, "Abraham called on the name of his son who was born to him who Sarah bore him, Isaac." Why is this? God told him to name his son Isaac. Abraham didn't say, "Oh yeah, but I like Abraham Jr. better. So I'm going to go with Abraham Jr." No, he followed God's saying. Abraham didn't say, "Well, I'm not actually Jewish," Jewish people, like he's the founder of it. So they weren't thinking of it. I'm from Chaldeans. I'm going to go to Ugaritic which is my native language and I'm going to call Isaac laughter in Ugaritic, whatever that word may be," because it means the same thing. No, he is precise. He does exactly what God says. And in verse 4, "And Abraham circumcised his son when he was eight days old, as God commanded." God said eight days. Abraham didn't say, "Oh, eight days is close enough to a week. Seven days, I'll do seven days." No, eight. He didn't say, "Oh, God, I just woke up. It's the ninth day. I'm sorry. I just had a newborn child. I lost track of all time and I don't know what day it is. I thought it was the eighth day. It's the ninth today. Lord, will you forgive me? I'm going to circumcise him." No. No, he was precise in his actions and in his words. And this is something that our culture of Christianity has oftentimes lost and it's really sad, because God is precise and we need to be precise back. And there's this old story from the 16th century of a pastor named Richard Rogers. I like to think of him as Mr. Rogers. I picture him with a sweater. And he was riding around on a horse, as all pastors do. I'm not a pastor because I'm not up here on a horse. If I was up here on a horse, you would know I was a pastor. That's not true, sorry. He's riding around on a horse with the lord of the land. Oh boy, what time to be alive. He's riding around with the lord of the land, and the lord of the land goes to him, Mr. Rogers riding on a horse, and says, "Why are you so precise?" He recognized in his language and what he was saying he's being precise about life, precise about theology, precise about God, and Richard Rogers' response is. "Oh, Sir, I serve a precise God. And when we serve a precise God, he calls us to be precise back." And J. I. Packer has a book called the Puritan Papers. And in this he commentates on a lot of the Puritan movement, but he also commentates on that exact story. And on that exact story, J. I. Packer says, "A precise God, a God, that is, who has made precise disclosure of his mind and will in Scripture, and who expects from his servants a corresponding preciseness of belief and behavior, it was this view of God that created and controlled the historic Puritan outlook." I'm not here to say Puritans are perfect. They all had their issues. Every human being has their issues. But one thing we can learn from the puritanical movement, he said, they cared about the precision of God's word about exactly as how God disclosed himself to be. And that we should desire to be just as precise in our beliefs and behaviors or in our words and our deeds. Now, what does that look like? That could be easy to say, but what does that look like? Precise in behavior, I think, is the easier one to start with. A lot of times you ask people about their life, how are they. Oh, I tried to be a good person. Our behavior is we try to be good people. That's very general, it's not precise. As Christians, we can be precise. It's not that we're trying to be good people. We're trying to do the will of the Lord. It's very precise. It's very specific. And we can be precise. And when we want to get even more precise, we don't say, well, when certain situations come up, I try and understand like what do I feel is best to do. Now, we can be precise. God has given us his word, where he is precise with what we are to do and what we are not to do. And so we can be precise, where do I need to grow in my life, where do I need to change my behavior? Well, what does Scripture say? The Scripture says, "Thou shalt not murder." So good, done, I'm good to go. But it gets more precise. "Thou shall not hate your brother in your heart." How many of us are perfect at that? None of us. We got to work on that. And so when we want to know how to be precise in our behavior, we go to Scripture, to see what we are to do. Now, how do we be precise in our words? I want to be clear first off wit, this is not. This is not arguing about semantics. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 14 and 15, it says, "Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who needs not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." So it's not quarreling over words. It's not semantics. It's not about that. But what it is about is rightly handling the word of truth. Are we handling truth? Are we speaking truth when we are talking about God? When we are talking about spirituality, are we truthful? Are we accurate in our truth? And again, none of us are perfect. But is this even a desire? Is this even something that we are striving for? This is something we have lost and I want us to all grow back. And I need to grow back on this. None of us are perfect but we need to desire to be precise and speaking truth about God. And when I was thinking about an exact example of this, the first thing came to mind is an example that we hear all the time. And you will see in storefront windows and in signs in front of people's houses, there's usually a sign with a lot of things. It says, "We believe." And it has a lot of things listed. But the largest letters is always love is love. Is that a true or false statement? It's true. It's true. The law of identity says that something is the same thing as itself. Love is love. I am Tyler. That is a correct statement. But the issue we should have as Christians is it's not precise. It's not precise. And Scripture is precise about what love is. This comes from the Book of 1 John. If you ask anyone, "Describe an attribute of God," or, "How can you describe love?" the first thing most Christians say is God is love. That is true. That comes from 1 John chapter 4 verse 16. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. Great. God is love. That's true. It's also not that precise. But John is precise. He gives surrounding texts to be precise. He says that abiding in love is the same as abiding in God. Those are the same things. Abiding in love, what does that mean? I think that one's pretty obvious and John explains it in the surrounding text. It's to be loving and to understand what love is. He says, by this we know love. So to talk about abiding love is love. This is his definition of love, to abide in God. What does it mean to abide in God? Again, John is precise. He tells us in the verse before... I hid it until now, so little surprise. But in John chapter 4 verse 15, right before this, he says, "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." This is called a parallelism. It's the same exact phrase. It's whoever confesses Jesus is God, the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. Then it's the same thing. Abiding in love is God abiding in him and he in God. It's the same thing. It's not saying it's good to do both. It's saying abiding in love starts and is foremost confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Why? John says that by this we know love that God sent his son into the world to die for our sins. The only way we know what love is, is through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of love, and he showed that love is sacrificial. And so when we speak of love, we have to understand we are directly speaking about Jesus. We are directly speaking about an attribute of God. So we need to be precise. We need to be precise. This isn't semantics. It's upholding truth. We need to be precise, lest we be found guilty of speaking falsely against God when we speak about his character of love. And I know that this is a specific example and I want you to understand this was just truly faithfully praying about the text, this is what came to mind. I have no agenda with this. But we need to be precise in our words and in our actions, because God is precise. But we also see that God is protector. God is precise and he is protector. And in verses 8 through 21, we see two big stories of God's protection, two separate ones. So we'll start in verses 8 through 14 where we see the first example. It says, "And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian woman, and she had borne to Abraham, laughing." "So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba." First thing, if you are a father who has an infant who is nursing, just finished nursing, or if going to have a child that is nursing, throw your wife a party. It's biblical. She did a lot of work. It was hard. Throw her a party, celebrate that. But what we see first and foremost here is that God is protecting Abraham's family. But the question if you are like me, first and foremost is, "God, how can you do this to Hagar and Ishmael? You sent them away? Doesn't a child need to grow up with their father?" And the answer is yes. And what we need to understand is that in Genesis, we are told that when Ishmael is born, Abraham is 86 years old. And when Isaac is born, he is 100 years old. And then Isaac was weaned and it was after this that Ishmael was sent away with Hagar. And so, Ishmael, depending on the time of the weaning and the nursing, culturally different back then, it could be anywhere from a year to three years. And so, Ishmael is somewhere between 14 and 17 years old. This is an adult in that culture. He's a young adult. He is a child, but God is not abandoning a child without a father. God's perfect sovereign timing works so that way Ishmael can still grow up with a father and then be ready to go. So that's first and foremost, it isn't a harmful banishment, unjust by God. He is faithful even in this. But he is, first and foremost, protecting Abraham's family and specifically protecting Isaac. In the Book of Galatians, Paul gives a commentary on this. In Galatians chapter 4, it says, "For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born according through promise." So, Ishmael is born of the flesh, is symbolic of the flesh. Isaac is symbolic of the spirit, of the promise. And he continues, "Now, you brothers, Christians, like Isaac are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now." Paul calls Ishmael's laughter persecution. Whether it's just that one laughter, likely there was some sort of mentality that was throughout everyday life where Ishmael was persecuting, mocking, making fun of Isaac. But Paul says that was persecution. And God was protecting Isaac from that. But also this is a message showing forth as Paul's point is that this applies to us today, as Christians, as God's people, God promises to protect us, not just from persecution but in persecution. It says the as it is happening now, those who are born of the flesh, the world, those who are not of God are persecuting Christians around the world still today. And God promises to protect us even through persecution, not just that God is also protecting Abraham and Sarah's marriage. If you remember, this thing has happened kind of before Hagar ran away the last time because Sarah was mad and was treating Hagar poorly. Sarah said to Abraham, when Ishmael was born, in Genesis 16 verses 5 through 6, "May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with content. May the Lord judge between you and me." But Abraham said to Sarah, "Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please." And Sarah dealt harshly with her and she fled from her. This is what happened last time, and it caused division between Abraham and Sarah. She says, "You have done this wrong to me. You have sinned against me, and may the Lord judge between you." She's saying, "We're on opposite sides. I'm the prosecution, you're the defense. There is a division between us." And God wanted to protect their marriage. God did not want division in their marriage. Why, because marriage is a symbol of God's love for his church. God desires for unity in marriage and God wanted to protect it, but how does God protect this marriage? It's not primarily by sending Hagar and Ishmael away. But what you'll notice is in Genesis 21, God comes to Abraham and tells him what to do. You see, the first time Abraham was passive, when we talked about the failure of him as a father in leading, because he was passive and he's like, "Sarah, she's your servant. You do whatever you want to do." And it led to this division. Whereas now he is displeased, it says he loves Ishmael. Ishmael is 14 to 17 years old. He loves him. He cares for him. He doesn't want to send him away. But God comes to him and tells him, "It's okay. I'm going to protect them as well. I'm going to protect you. It's okay to send them away." And Abraham, even though it's contrary to his own desires, does what God says. He becomes a leader. We see the change happening in Abraham that he is no longer a passive leader. He is an active leader. He's doing what God has told him to do. And God loves to protect families through men who lead. And this is what God is doing here. God protects Abraham and Sarah. But it's not just that. God does care for Hagar and Ishmael as well. God is protecting Hagar and Ishmael. This is in verses 15 through 21, where it says, "When the water in the skin was gone, she, being Hagar, put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off about the distance of a bowshot for she said, let me not look on the death of the child. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept." "And God heard the voice of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar? Fear not for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is up. Lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. And then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy. And he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran. And his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt." So again, this is parallel to the passage in chapter 16 where Hagar ran away. And in chapter 16, we are told that she was between Kadesh and Shur and she ran into the wilderness. Well, if you go into the back of a physical Bible or you look online for a map of the time, you will see that directly between Kadesh and Shur and Egypt where she is headed is the wilderness of Beersheba where in verse 14, we are told she is currently. And what likely is happening, she is in the same exact wilderness she was before. And she knew, "God, you came to me last time." And it says she lifts up her voice as she sees Ishmael dying. As she believes Ishmael is going to die, there's no hope, she lifts up her voice, she cries out to God saying, "God, you came to me before when I was here. Lord, will you come to me now?" And what happens? God answers. And God doesn't just answer and say, "Yeah, I'm here." He answers by showing her, opening her eyes to a well of water that will give her life. Friends, this is the gospel. This is the gospel. Well, in the book of John in chapter 4 verses 13 through 14, Jesus is meeting a woman at the well and he tells her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." This is the gospel. We recognize that we are sinners and we are dying in the barren wasteland of our sin. We are dying. And we need to cry out to God and say, "God, I need you to save me now. I can't do it on my own. There is no hope. We're both ready to die." And what God does is he opens our eyes to see the well that was already there. It was always there, but we needed God to show it to us. And just in that same way, Jesus is always there. He tells us that he is ever present. He is there with us. Anyone who is in time of trouble, they call on him, he will answer. If you cry out to Jesus asking him to save you, he is there and he wants to save you. He wants to give you this well of eternal life, not just save you temporarily from thirst and dehydration, but to save you eternally from the penalty of our sins. Where's Jesus in Genesis in this text? Right here, right here. This is the gospel. We all need to cry out to God. He's the only one who can save us. We can do nothing of our own. And God protects Hagar and Ishmael. Ishmael grows up and he lives in the wilderness of Beersheba. He lives in the wilderness of Paran. Paran, by the way, is where Mount Sinai is. It's just interesting. They stay in a place where God had revealed himself to them. And God continues to reveal himself throughout history. This is where they built their life around. And this is also the after part of the gospel. We don't say okay, "God, I'm saved, I'm good," and do whatever we want. We plant our lives around where he is and where he is spoken to us. We do according to what he has said. We build our lives around Jesus around who he is. So we see that God is precise. We see that he is protector. And now we're going to see that God is praiseworthy. He is worthy of our praise. And this is verses 22 through the end, where it says, "At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do, now therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but I have dealt kindly with you so you will deal with me, and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear." "When Abraham reproved of Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? He said, these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand and that this may be witnessed for me that I dug this well." "Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them sworn an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines." So, what's going on? Recap from last week. Abimelech is the king that Abraham was like, "Yeah, Sarah is my sister. You could take her as your wife." So he takes her as his wife and in his sleep, God says, "I'm going to kill you unless you give Sarah back." So Abimelech is like, "Abraham, it's clear God is with you, even when you are clearly in the wrong. So let's make a covenant that you will no longer deal falsely with me so your God does not try to kill me in my sleep again." That is what Abimelech is thinking. And Abraham is like, "Yeah, sure. I'll do that. I'll swear that. It makes sense. I'll go for it." And it says that we won't deal falsely with each other for our descendants or also the land that we are in. And so Abraham is thinking, he's like, "Oh, we're not dealing falsely about land. Speaking of not dealing falsely about land, Abimelech, your servants captured my well. And I'm not allowed to use it anymore because of them. Can we not deal falsely with each other in this?" Abimelech is like, "I have no idea. What are you talking about? Yeah, sure. We'll fix this. We'll fix this. I don't want your God to kill me. So yeah, we'll fix it." But the word that I think is really important is in verse 25 it says that Abraham reproved Abimelech. And this word reprove is one that we often think of like rebuking, we think of like telling him he is wrong. But actually, it's kind of the converse of that it means to be found in the right. So it's saying Abraham was found to be right to Abimelech about this well. So yes, Abimelech didn't know but it came out to be true that Abraham was dealing truthfully with him. And we see, again, that Abraham has started to change. Abraham is being active and leading his family, but now he is also dealing truthfully with others. He is not dealing falsely with them. God has already been working on his heart. And so they're like, "Okay, we settle this. You get your well back. Why are you giving me sheep?" And he's like, "Well, remember all that silver you gave Sarah to prove that she's innocent? I'm giving you these lambs back to be like this is my well, but I'm not holding it against you that you took it. You're fine. We're good now as long as you don't take it." And Abimelech leaves. Why does Abimelech leave? Because he was there for a transaction. He was there to say, "I don't want your God to kill me. So let's do this thing so your God doesn't kill me." It happens. He's done and he's good to go. Is that how we view God sometimes, as a transaction? As I come to God, I don't want you to hurt me. I don't want you to judge me for my sin. I don't want you to do this or that or whatever. So I'm going to come to you. Can we be good? Can we set the record straight? We're good. And now I'm going to go on. I'm going to leave and do whatever I want. Or are we like Abraham who sticks around and plants a tree? What's going on with planting a tree, guys? It's not Earth Day. That was back before all this climate change stuff. So he didn't need to plant a tree. Why is he planting a tree? It says he plants a tree in the name of the Everlasting God. And this verse 33, I believe, is the crux. It's the whole thing that this whole text wraps around. There's three distinct stories that in and of themselves you're like, "What is going on here? Birth of Isaac, Hagar, Abimelech, what's happening?" Verse 33 sums it all up. Verse 33, "Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God." Throughout the Scripture, when people name God, they do so based off of God first revealing something to them about his nature and then responding by calling him the thing that he revealed. Think back to Hagar, again, in chapter 16, in Genesis 16 verse 13, it says, "So she, Hagar, called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are a God of seeing, for she said, truly here I have seen him who looks after me." God revealed to her that he was a God who cared for her, looked after her even when she was running away. And her response is to give God a name, which means you are a God of seeing. So what did God reveal about his nature to Abraham that made Abraham say, "You are an Everlasting God?" Just killed some animals, made a covenant, and then went their way. What is about an Everlasting God? It really goes back to that first statement of Abimelech, where he said, "God is with you in all that you do." And God loves to use people that maybe we don't even think fear him. Remember, last week, Abraham was like, "You don't fear the Lord, so I deceived you." God loves to use people that we don't expect to speak truth into our lives. And I remember my freshman year of college. I had freshmen roommates because I changed roommates because I'm scared of the first one. But that first one, he told me, he was like, "You need to find the girl you are going to marry by your junior year, otherwise you will never get married." I was like, "Man, I'm a freshman. I've never had a girlfriend. It's taken me this long I haven't found anyone. I really need to get started now, because I'm going to have no hope of getting married if I don't find her by then." I don't know why I believed him, though, silly. It's not sound biblical. But anyway, so I was worried about my future marriage. And also, I was at that time studying chemistry and my goal was to do forensics to work for the FBI. That's what I wanted. And I got my first ever D on a test. And I was like, "Oh Lord, I'm never going to make it into the FBI. What am I going to do? I have no hope in my future." And I was complaining about all of this to my friend Jeremy. Jarebear, if you're watching, love you, man. Jarebear. Anyway, but Jeremy is not a Christian. He's not a Christian. He loves to talk about God. We have great conversations, but he's not a Christian. And I was telling him these things. And he said, "Dude, you believe God is going to take care of it, so stop complaining." And then he moved on and started talking about sports and video games. And that was it for him. And clearly, that moment had an impact on me that I remember it today and I bring it up today. And every time I'm stressed and worried about my future, I look back to that moment, because God used someone I didn't expect to speak truth to me, to reveal something about who God is. God is in control. That is who God is. I don't need to worry. I don't need to be stressed out. I can trust in him. That's what Abimelech does to Abraham. He says God is with you in all that you do. Abraham is like, "Oh yeah, he is. He is." We see the birth of Isaac is important, and it is great and it is huge. But immediately after, we see the hints of Abraham's past failures coming up, and God is saying, "Hey, remember this whole situation with Hagar and Ishmael? Remember when you sinned in that? But also remember the strife it caused in your family? Remember all that? I was still with you then. I was still with you then. Remember that time you pimped your wife off to Abimelech? Oh, and don't forget about to Pharaoh as well. I was with you then. I was with you in all that you did, even when you were wrong and I'm with you. Now, can you believe that I'm with you now? I've given you the son that I've promised you. I've precisely fulfilled my promise. I've been protecting you. Do you believe I'm with you now?" And Abraham says, "Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I see it." And Abraham is not just looking at the past and in his present, he looks forward to the future and sees, I can see how God is fulfilling his promise to make me a great nation. I can see how God is going to be faithful in the future as well because of how he has been faithful in the past and how he's been faithful right now. So Abraham understands truly God is an Everlasting God. God has always been there. He is there now and he will always be there. And his response to that is praise. And this is why the points are all about God here is because as we grow in an understanding of who God is, we can grow in praise of him. He is the object of our praise. And so the greater understanding we have of God, the greater praise we can have for him. And Abraham praises God by planting a tamarisk tree. If you don't know a tamarisk tree is, it's an evergreen, it's an evergreen tree that grows in deserts with high salt content in the soil. In other words, where trees aren't supposed to grow, this can grow. Abraham plants this tree in the desert, it's an evergreen, saying, "Lord, you are an everlasting God. Like this tree's needles that never fade, that never die, that never wash out, you are an Everlasting God, you will never fade, you will always be here. But he also is remembering Sarah, the barrenness of her womb, their barrenness as a couple, they were not able to have child and say, "God, even out of the barrenness of this desert land, you can bring life to this tree. And out of the barrenness of our lives, you can bring life." God is in control of all things. He is everlasting. He has always been there with Abraham. He will always be there. He's in control of all. And the response is praise. And so, our response, as we grow knowledge of God, is to praise. Have you ever thought about why we sing songs at church? Have you thought about why? It's because just like Abraham's form of praise was relevant to who God is, God, you're an everlasting God, so I'm going to worship you in a form that shows who you are. So, worship through song is a form of praises that is glorifying to God. In the Book of Revelation, we are told that angels will sing for all eternity to the Lord, but that also we will join them in singing. We will have jobs. We will do work and we will sing songs to praise to God in heaven. So oftentimes, when I talk about praise through song, the pushback I get is, well, I praise God with my life. Good. Hallelujah, praise God, do that. We need to praise God with our life. We will be doing that in heaven. All of heaven will spend working to the glory of God. We need to do that. But we also need to praise in song, because we will also be doing that in heaven for all of eternity. And if you say, "Ah, I don't Christian music and singing is just not for me," get practice now. We're going to be doing it for all eternity. So let's build it up now. It's not about talent. I am a terrible singer. I am the worst singer in this church. People hear me sing and they're like, "Even Pastor Jan sings better than him." No offense and none taken. But it's not about that. It's about worshiping the Lord. He is worthy of our praise because of who he is. And so we respond in praise in the way that he desires to be praised. And I want to end with this, verse 34 says, "And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines." Every time we have seen Abraham or Lot in this text sojourning, it was followed by sin. It was a story about how they were not trusting God and they were sojourning and they sent... Abraham sojourned in Egypt, he gave his wife to Pharaoh. Lot sojourned, he ended up in Sodom. Abraham sojourned in Gerar, that's what happened with Abimelech. Every time they sojourn they sinned. The issue wasn't the sojourning. The issue was the not trusting God. And now we see Abraham is trusting God. And now we see he's still sojourning. So the question that we need to be thinking about as we go into next week's sermon is, is Abraham still going to trust God, or is he going to fall back into his old ways of sojourning? And the question all of us need to think about is, as we're here today, we just heard the revelation of God that he is praiseworthy in this text. Are we just going to praise him now or when we leave and we are sojourning through Boston? That's the only way to describe living in Boston, sojourning. As we sojourn through Boston, are we still going to remain faithful and trust that God is an everlasting God, he is in control of all? Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you encouraged that you have always been you are now and you will always be. Lord, help us to grow in our love and understanding of who you are so we can praise you as you rightfully deserve. In this time, strengthen us, encourage us, stir your spirit in us to lift up our voices praising you because you are worthy. Lord, we love you and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.
The Gospel of Matthew Week 2
January 3, 2021 • Tyler Burns • Matthew 3:13–17
Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com. Good morning church. Welcome to Mosaic Boston. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler Burns, I'm the teen's director here and it is an honor and a privilege to be worshiping with you this morning and to be proclaiming God's word to all of us today. And we are going to be continuing our series through the book of Matthew in Chapter 3:13-17. You heard that right, it's only five verses. And as I started to prepare and see, okay, what is this text going to reveal? What are we going to be preaching on today? As I was studying, God revealed the depths of the greatness in these short five verses and I just got excited. So I am really glad to be worshiping with you all today. And this text is a text that I'm sure most of us have heard before. It's the story of the baptism of Jesus. Many of us have heard this story before, but what I want us to think about today is what is at the heart of this story. At its heart this is not a story about baptism, at its heart it's not a how to baptize people, at its heart this is a story about identity. And the thing about identity is that we all understand what it's like to want an identity, to struggle with our identity. To see maybe I want something a little bit different about myself, or maybe I want something affirmed about myself. We all know what it's like to think about our identity. And I remember growing up, the biggest part about my identity was sports. Not because I was any talented, but because I love to play and I worked hard at it. And I remember that part of my identity in sports was, I'm going to outwork anyone on the basketball court or anyone on the soccer field. And that was who I said I was. Now just think about it, if I go up to you today or in any context, and I say, "Hey, I'm a harder worker than you," or "I'm going to work harder than you today." What would you think of me? You'd be like, man, that guy's an arrogant jerk, I want nothing to do with that guy. But the thing is I still wanted it to be true. And so I remember a specific day, my senior year of high school. I was on the varsity soccer team. That's right, backup goalie. And as the backup goalie you know you never get to play. And so we were having this one game, it was awful, we were losing miserably. It wasn't good. And the second half my coach says, "Tyler, you're going in." So I go, I grab my gloves and I go up and my coach says, "No, no, you're going in at striker." Now, if you know anything about goalies deep down inside, the heart’s desire of every goalie is to score a goal themselves. They spend their entire time blocking shots, defending the goal to just have one opportunity to make a goal yourself. Oh, there's no greater joy. And so I was excited. I said, "Coach, I'm ready to go." And he says, "Tyler, what I want you to do, is I want you to go and run around like crazy." He said, "I want you to tire out the defenders that they are so tired they can't run anymore because they're chasing you everywhere." So I go, "All right coach, I can do that." So guess what? I go out, I run around like crazy, like a chicken with my head cut off. And if you know anything about soccer as well, you also know that's not how to play soccer. And so I go and we don't score a single goal. Nothing good happens. We lose the game miserably by like six goals or something like that. It was bad. And so my coach sits down the team after the game and he starts yelling at us and I'll never forget what he said. He said, "Tyler's out there running around, working so hard and he's not even any good." I had never been so offended and proud at the same time in my life. You see, something about my identity, I wanted people to recognize was that, I was the hardest worker there. And my coach recognized that, but what he was really saying was, you all have talent. If you even try, you're going to do better than what Tyler did. And so it was offensive, but I will still remember this fondly because he gave me an identity that I wanted it to be true. He said that Tyler is the hardest worker. It wasn't my mom who said that. It wasn't my mom who's probably watching this, "Hi mom," in her high heels and pompom saying, "Tyler is the hardest worker, yay." No, it was my coach. It was the coach who saw how I worked and saw how my teammates worked and said he is the hardest worker on the field today. And the reason why I share this story is because there's something inherent about all of us, where we distrust what people say about themselves and we want to have it affirmed by others. Like it's one thing for you to say something is true about you, but you're biased about you, to someone who knows you say the same thing about you. And so as we're reading our text today, what I want you to be thinking about is that this is a story of people, of those in the know identifying who Jesus truly is. But then having an understanding that once we know who Jesus truly is, that inherently changes our identity. We have a new identity. So with that, will you pray with me for the preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you and we thank you that we are able to come together to gather, to worship you, to praise your name and to study your word. We ask that in this time, your spirit is moving, is using your word, is using me to proclaim the truth of your word, that you can convict all of us, challenge us, strengthen our hearts to love you more and to see our true identity, our value and our purpose in you. Lord, we praise you and we thank you through Jesus name we pray, amen. So again as I mentioned, our text for today is Matthew chapter 3:13-17. And it says, "Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, "I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water and behold the heavens were opened to Him and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." To frame up our time today, we have four points, that's right, five versus four points. I wanted to go the perfect five for five but God said, "Have mercy on you all." So we're only doing four points. And so the first point for today is that John, John the Baptist identifies Jesus. Then we see the Father identify Jesus. And once those identifications are made, Jesus chooses to identify with us. And because of the work of Christ, the Father then identifies us. And so on this first point that John identifies Jesus, this is the first two verses, 13 and 14, specifically where John says that he's going to prevent Jesus from being baptized by him saying, I need to be baptized by you. Now you might be like, well, he didn't say who Jesus is there, how was this John identifying? If you remember from the text from last week that Pastor Andy had preached on, it said that John the Baptist is the one coming to prepare the way for the Lord. This is his purpose. This is why John is alive on earth, to prepare the way for the Lord. But that he specifically prophesied that there's one coming after him who is greater than he, who is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And when we study biblically, John, these are the only two baptisms that are ever associated with him. The baptism John does, water for repentance and this one who is coming after him who's greater than him that is baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. So by John saying, Jesus, I don't need to baptize you, you need to baptize me. He's clearly identifying to everyone, Jesus is the one I was saying is coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. That is the only other baptism that John would need. But if you're like me and you're skeptical and you're like, well, that's us reading back at the text and having all the context. And so that's good. But what did the people that were there that day think? What did they hear when this was spoken? They heard the same thing. And how do we know this? The gospel of John, John the apostle wrote a more detailed account of the events at the baptism of Jesus and in the gospel of John chapter 1:29, it said, "The next day he, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and said, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is He of whom I said after me comes a man who ranks before me because He was before me, I myself did not know him, but for this purpose, I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel." What do we see here? John explicitly stated to those who were there that day, this is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. There was no ambiguity about what John was saying who Jesus was, it was explicit. It was clear, but also there's a really important detail in that first part of that verse where it says the next day. Why is that important? Well, because what it's saying is that John the Baptist prophesied, gave the greatest sermon of his life so much so that it's written down in scripture saying there is one coming after me who is greater than I, who is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, going to take away the sins of the world. And the people who were there and they're like, wow, this guy is good. I want to hear him again. You see the thing was, where was John preaching? It was in the wilderness. You don't just go to the wilderness for an afternoon, you go there to hear him and you stay there. And actually there's archeological evidences and sites that show that camps were built around where John was baptizing so that people could stay and hear him preach. So what we know is that the majority of people who heard John prophesy, there's one who is coming who is greater than I, were there the very next day when John said, "It's Him. This is that man." And this is powerful and I don't want us to underestimate how powerful it is specifically that John makes this identification. When I was thinking about this, I immediately thought of the movie, The Matrix. If you haven't seen it, it's a 20 year old movie, come on, what are you doing? Spoilers are coming. I'm a little sorry, but not that sorry. To be very general in the movie, The Matrix, the premise is that all of humanity is under control of the system called the matrix. And everyone, well, not everyone, the people who understand that they are enslaved to the system want to break free from the system. There's a group of people called Zion. She's trying to make sure you understand, there's biblical references here. And it's saying we're trying to break free. And they're following a guy named Morpheus because Morpheus has heard that there's a prophecy that there's the one, the one who is to come to set the people free from enslavement to the matrix. And Morpheus's right-hand woman, the Trent named Trinity is there as well. Really just beating us over the head, pay attention. There's biblical references here. But the movie is following a man named Neo to see is he the one who is going to save humanity from the matrix? Spoiler alert, he's the one. His name is an anagram for one, Neo, one. It's the same anyway. So Neo is the one, but when is the first time that he is identified as the one? Who identifies him as the one? I watched a clip to make sure I had this right because when I was like, it's Morpheus. No, it's actually not. It's Trinity, Trinity identifies it first, but there's a reason why in my mind and in probably most of your minds, you're like yeah, Morpheus is the one who identifies Neo as the one. I think I had a Freudian slip where I said Jesus, instead of Neo, but anyway. Morpheus doesn't identify in first, the Trinity does. And why does she identify him as the one? Because she knows, but no one cares. The movie itself doesn't care. I don't remember it. The movie stays exactly the same. Nothing happens. Nothing changes after she says, "This is the one." But then a minute after she says it, Morpheus is standing over here and he does a dramatic turn just almost to the camera and says, "He is the one." And as those words flow out of Morpheus's mouth, the instrumentals crescendo, they pick up, the drum beat is going, your heart gets pumping and Neo starts doing all the crazy stuff that you expect in The Matrix movie, stopping bullets with his mind. Well, why does it happen then? He has already been identified as the one. Why now? Because Morpheus was the one in the know. And Morpheus was the one who had gained a following, giving this message of hope that one is to come. And so the people were following Morpheus saying, "Who are you going to say it is? Morpheus, who is it going to be?" And he says, "Finally, it's Neo," and the people rejoice. And that's in a movie. This is the same thing that is happening when John identifies Jesus, our hearts should be stirred to excitement and joy should overflow from us because John is the one in the know. John is the one who has gained a following by promising there's one coming. There's a message of hope. He is coming to take away the sins of the world and it's him, he's here now, this is who Jesus is. John identifies Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and it should cause us joy. But if you don't want to take the word of one man, God's like, "I'm going to make it abundantly clear to you who He is." The Father then chooses himself to identify who Jesus is. And this is the second part of our texts in verses 16-17, it says, "And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water and behold, the heavens were open to Him and He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." Explicit language. Jesus, He is the beloved son of God. That's who He is. There's no doubt that's who He is. But this language and this imagery actually calls to mind a different text. It calls to mind when the angel came to Mary and prophesied to her that she was going to have a son. I want to read it for us. And then I want to see if you guys recognize the similarities. In Luke chapter 1:35, it says, "And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God." Two really important things here. First our text, the baptism of Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy, right? Yes, Mary has already had a son Jesus and that part of the prophecy was true. However, it says that He will be called the Son of God. Where is Jesus called the Son of God? Here, the Father proclaiming, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. That is the fulfillment of the prophecy given before Jesus's birth. But also, both cases are making identifications of who Jesus is, right? The text when the angel came to prophesy to Mary was also the fulfillment of Isaiah 7, the prophecy that he will be Emmanuel, God with us. What we have been talking about in the advent series. And both times at the identification of Jesus as Emmanuel, as God with us, as the Son of God, we see the whole Trinity and I love this part. At the baptism of Jesus, we hear the voice of the Father proclaiming who Jesus is. We see the Holy Spirit descending and we see Jesus the Son rising out of the water. We see all of the Trinity here in the baptism. But also at the identification in the story that the angel gives, we see the Trinity as well. We see the power of the Most High and the Holy Spirit coming upon her so that she could give birth to a son Jesus, who is the Son of God. And I love this because what it's to show us is that yes, Jesus is the Son of God. But his identity is inherently unified with the Godhead as a whole. He is not just a man. He is God, He is divine. It is imperative and it's amazing that at both moments of identification of Jesus, we see the Trinity. And so we see John the Baptist identify Jesus as the lamb who comes to take away the sins of the world. God the Father identified Jesus as His Son, God divine, and Jesus doesn't stand there and say, "Well, they said it, take it or leave it." Instead, Jesus chooses out of love to identify himself to us by identifying with us. And this is actually my favorite verse in this passage. It's only five verses. I do have a favorite verse and I do genuinely like this versus. It's not just like the one of the five that I had to pick, I love this verse because when I read this verse I get excited. You could ask my wife when I was practicing this sermon, I came out of the office limping because when I was practicing this part, I was bouncing up and down so much I strained my hamstring. Literally no joke. Ask her. Here's my favorite verse. You guys ready? Matthew 3:13, "Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him." You guys feel it? You feel that excitement that's in that verse? No. The look on most of your faces are the same look when I talk about any sport to my wife besides football, like what are you talking about? This verse, I love it and I want to show you why. And in order to understand why we actually need to look at a map. I'm a visual learner, I love maps. I love pictures. So I hope that this will help you guys. But if you look at this map at that top section, there's a red square that says Galilee, right? The text says, "Jesus came from Galilee." That's where he was from. And that red circle up there is Nazareth. That's where Jesus was from, so most likely Jesus was traveling from His home in Nazareth to the Jordan to be baptized by John. Well, the Jordan is a long river, where was He getting baptized? That little red circle down there. Again, there's archeological evidence that shows that this is where it was. But also we know that John was in the wilderness, which is in that green Perea area just south by the Dead Sea. And so the closest place for the Jordan and the wilderness to me, it's right there. So it just makes sense. That's where John was baptizing. And so what this verse is saying is that Jesus left his home in Nazareth to go down to the wilderness to be baptized by John, to reveal his identity as the Lamb who has come to take away the sins of the world. In this verse, this one verse is a historical fact, it is truth. It is just documenting what has happened, but it shows God's sovereignty and His providence that this historical movement and journey of Jesus actually points us to the greatest journey of Christ. I don't know if you caught it in there. Jesus left his home, not in Nazareth, in heaven. And He left His home in heaven and came down to the wilderness of the sinful broken world we call earth, why? To show to us, to reveal to us that He is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. This one verse just parallels that so perfectly. It brings this to mind. It shows us that Jesus identifies with us by coming and living among us to save us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, or you're wondering what Christianity is about, the Apostle's creed, I didn't know we were reading that, but that was perfect and that explains it. But this whole first part of the sermon, this is what Christianity is. We believe truthfully, objectively, Jesus is the Son of God, Emmanuel, who has come to take away our sins. That is truth. It is fact. It is reality. That is who Jesus is. And Jesus then, just base it on the words of others, even though others did affirm it about Him, He proved it to us. But Jesus doesn't just identify with us in the sense that He came and was a human because as you know, there are human beings that identify with us and there's other human beings that were like, they know nothing about what my life is like, right? Jesus identifies with us in all things and this is why I really love verse 15 in this text where Jesus says to John, "Let it be so now for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." What is Jesus saying? Saying, "John, I don't need to be baptized by you. You're doing baptism by water for repentance. I'm God, I have no need to be repented of anything, but I'm going to do it to fulfill all righteousness." Why? Because it was the will of the Father for Jesus to be baptized because this is how God wanted to reveal and affirm the identity of Christ to John the Baptist and to those there and to us reading the scripture today. Jesus was striving to be obedient to God in every single step of the way. And as human beings, we're called to do the same. As human beings, we are called to be obedient to the Lord in our lives. And it's once we are Christians that we are given the heart and the desire to truly be obedient to God. And Jesus identifies with us in that life of striving to be obedient to God. And while Jesus was perfect in doing so, he identifies with us in our weakness and our temptation as well. This is why in Hebrews chapter 4:14-16 it says, "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in a time of need." Jesus knows what it's like to be tempted. Spoiler alert for next week sermon, Jesus goes to the wilderness and is tempted. Jesus knows what it's like to have that struggle. And while He was perfect, when we are tempted to sin and to go against God, He knows what it's like. And what this text tells us is that we can hold fast to our confession that Jesus is the Messiah who saved us from our sins. Even while we are being tempted, because when we do so we run to Christ, we go to His throne and say, "Jesus, I need grace. I need your strength. I need your help to come out of this. Whatever the temptation is, Jesus, I need you to get me through this." But it's not just in temptation when we are successful in overcoming it, it's temptation when we fail as well. What is our response to be when we are tempted and we sin. It's the same exact thing. When we are tempted and we sin against God and we fall short, our confession still holds fast that Jesus saved us from our sins. And so when we sin, we still run to His throne and ask God, "God, I need grace. I repent. I know that you have died to save me from my sins and I need your grace now." And it also says in our weakness, not just temptation, in our weakness. And I love this one because Jesus came to reconcile the sins of the world, not just in us but also around us. Have you ever felt weakened just by the weight of the sin in the world around you? I don't know if I've ever felt that more than in this past year, that just so many things going on around us, it wears us down. Whether it's loss of a job of a loved one, loss of a life of a loved one. Whatever it might be, struggling with job yourself, struggling with how to have community while things are online, and whatever it might be and you're just overwhelmed and weakened by the world around us. Jesus knows what it's like to be tired, to be burdened. Jesus died on the cross a gruesome death, but before that, He was in the garden on his knees praying through the night. "God, if there's any other way, take this cup from me." And in our lives, when we're at the same point, when we feel weak and we feel burdened and we're at the point of saying, "God, please, if there's any other way, please make it happen." We have the same response that Christ had then, "But not my will, but yours be done." Why? Because we know who Jesus is. We know He is the Lamb who has taken our sins away. We know that He has promised to give us grace in our need. We know that He is with us through our pain and suffering. We can rely on Him. He is dependable. He is trustworthy. It's who He is. And as much as I said this text is not about baptism, it's about identity, it is also about baptism. And so I'd be remiss to not talk about how Jesus identifies with us in baptism. And the clearest place we see this as from Romans chapter 6, where the apostle Paul says, "What then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means, how can we who die 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." This is one of the reasons, one of the scriptures that supports why we do believers baptism by submersion here at Mosaic. But the reason is because baptism is symbolic of this. When we are dumped under the water in baptism, it is symbolic saying that Jesus, I'm giving over my sinful, my fleshly desires, my old self, who I used to be. I'm giving it over to you. And I know that the penalty for my sins has been taken when you died on the cross. And when we are raised out of the water, it is symbolic of the spiritual reality of, Jesus has made us new. That the penalty of our sin has been taken away in that just as Christ was raised, we will be raised with Him in heaven. And He gives us a new identity. We're washed clean. We have a new identity. Well, what is that identity? Because of Christ, the Father now identifies and tells us who we are. This comes from Galatians chapter three. It says, "For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female, and you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." Who are we? We're sons and daughters of God. That same phrase that was used by the Father to identify who Jesus is, "This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." What it's saying is when we are baptized into Christ, the Father says the same to us, "That is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. That is my beloved daughter with whom I'm well pleased." And I need to be clear here what I mean when I say this. Baptism is not magical. It does not save us from our sins. It's not like you could go downstairs, fill up the baptismal, do a cannonball, pop on one and be like, "Cool. I'm good, son, daughter, let's go." No. What it's saying is that baptism is the natural following, the natural process of salvation. That's why it starts off through faith. We are sons of God through faith, and then talking about baptism. It's like if you have a good meal, the natural process is to post a picture of it to Instagram. It's just what you do. There's no other option really, right? It's the same thing. And when you are saved, the only rightful response is to be baptized. And so if you are here today and you're a Christian, what this text is saying is that your new identity is son and daughter of God. There's no more Jew or Greek. There's no more racial divide. Your identity is not in your ethnicity, it's a part of who you are, sure. Every single human being is fearfully and wonderfully made, but that's not who you are. Your identity, your value, your purpose comes in the fact that God says, "I loved you enough to adopt you into my family to say you are my son, you are my daughter." We have gone from sinners in identification to sons in identification. We have gone from delinquents in identification to daughters in identification. We have a new identity, this is who we are. And I love the last part. "We are heirs according to the promise." We got an inheritance. What is that inheritance? It's in the kingdom of God. We get to have an inheritance in His kingdom, but we need to be clear that just because we are sons and daughters and we have an inheritance, doesn't mean we are stereotypical trust fund babies. What do I mean by that? We don't go around saying, "Well, God's my Father so I can do whatever I want." We don't go around saying, "Well, God's my Father. He's given me the greatest inheritance of all times, I don't need to do anything, I've got an inheritance." No inherently in our new identity as sons and daughter is also the identity of missionary. Where do I get this from? Why am I throwing missionary? Churches love to use the word missionary, pastors love missionary. It's a trigger word. So that's why, I mean, no, it's true. Why? Culturally speaking and especially at the time of Christ, fathers trained their sons in the work that they were doing, right? Joseph was a carpenter. He trained his son, Jesus, to be a carpenter. Peter's father was a fisherman, he trained his son to be a fisherman. This is just how it went and what happens. And in the same way, our God the Father has a work that He is doing. He has a work of bringing reconciliation and His kingdom here to earth. And so we now, as sons and daughters are being trained in the work of our Father. This is why the great commission is the thing. Matthew 28:19, it says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." See, the natural progress from baptism then is teaching to follow all that Christ has commanded. Why? Well, because Jesus is the Son of God. He knows perfectly the will and work of the Father. And so He has given us commandments. He has given us his word so that we can follow his instruction to do the work of the Father here on earth. And this is our greatest purpose now. Our identity, who we are as sons and daughters of God and our purpose is to do the work of the Father. We are missionaries. Now, I want to be clear. When I say missionaries, I don't mean you all need to start working for a church or go to another country. Those are your options, pick one. No. We are all missionaries wherever we are at. And what I mean is, I was a missionary before I worked for Mosaic. I love being on a mission at Mosaic. It's a great opportunity, and I'm honored to be used by God here. But I was a missionary and called to be a missionary before I started working here. Before I worked here, I was at the New England aquarium, fun job. Penguin husbandry unit. If you ever been to the New England aquarium, you look down and you see the people playing with penguins, they're not actually playing with them, but that was me. And I remember that at this job for a long time, no one knew that I was a Christian. And then one day we were prepping food for the penguins. I remember distinctly it was smelt because you could get fried smelt outside of the aquarium. And one of my coworkers ate it every day and I was like, "How can you eat it? We just fed it to the penguins." But anyway, I remember something came up about like God and science and evolution and the penguins. And I just threw out casually, I'm a Christian. And as everyone in Boston does when they find out you're a Christian, they get awkward, they don't know what to do. So they just kind of became quiet. And I went through the rest of the day cleaning the islands, feeding the penguins, cleaning, feeding, cleaning, feeding. And when you're done, you're dirty and you're gross. And so you pop out and you go, you go shower. And there were three showers. And I remember as I'm showering, the guy in the shower next to me, he says, "Hey, you're a Christian?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "What does that mean?" And all that I can remember thinking is, really God, right here, right now? Like, this is where we're going to do this? Like all right. And so I shared the gospel with him and I don't bring this story up to be like, look at how great this story is. I bring this story up to say what it means to be on mission the majority of the time is being willing to be used by God wherever you're at when He gives you opportunities and seeking those opportunities. The biggest way for opportunities to share the gospel and the love of Christ with those around us is simply do people know that we're Christians. It was not a coincidence that I identified myself as a Christian to those around me, that then they started to ask questions. Because how were they going to ask if they didn't know? But also when I think about this, I think about my wife. Any chance that I can get to brag on her, I will. My wife, if you don't know, she is a missionary. And by that, I mean, she is a lawyer. She's a good lawyer. And by that I mean, she does a good job with her job, but also she's a good person. You have to clarify with lawyers. It's a biblical thing to clarify and my wife hates this joke. But what does it mean for her to be a missionary at her law firm? It means that her primary purpose in life is not to win cases for her firm, her primary purpose in life is not to make money or to be the best boss lady that there ever has been. Those are her words. Her primary purpose in life is to bring the kingdom of God, to make disciples in her office but everywhere that she goes. And she's working on it, she's doing it. And I remember this past year one atheist lawyer's goal was to go to church once. That's a huge win in my book. I don't know about you guys, but that, praise God, hallelujah, that someone was like, I'm going to go to church once. And then COVID happened. And then they watched online and they actually really enjoyed, and they had a conversation about it. And so even still God is working, but she is on missions. That's what her purpose is. No matter what our job description is, if you're a doctor, your primary purpose isn't your patients. Take care of your patients. Let me be abundantly clear, do that. That is one way to honor God. But your primary purpose is to be used by God where you're at. What does this look like? Do your coworkers know you're a Christian? Do you pray for your patients, understanding that yes, you do your job, but there's a God who's greater than me? I can pray for those that I work with. If you're a student, if you're in high school, did you know that your primary purpose is not to go to college? Did you know that if you're a college student, your primary purpose in life is not to go to grad school or get a job? And if you're in grad school, did you know that your primary purpose is not to write that paper or get a job? Your primary purpose wherever you're at is to be used by God on missions to proclaim the gospel to those around us. And again, it looks different for each situation and each person. It's a willingness to be used by God. I remember a year ago, a teen messaged me and was like, "Hey, I have a friend, he's really struggling with an eating disorder, how can I encourage them?" And as sad and as heartbroken I was for that individual, I was still joyful that one of our teens got it. They understood, my purpose isn't grades, I need to be used here by God to be an encouragement to this person who is broken, who is weak, who is hurting? How can I do that? Wherever we're at, we need to be looking for ways that we can be by God for His kingdom. And I understand it's difficult now, especially with COVID, everything's online now and you're like, how can I do this if I'm not seeing people in person? You still can. It takes a little bit more creativity, but it's still possible. I know people that have started Bible studies with their friends being like, "Hey, you don't get to see anyone. I don't get to see anyone. At least this way we can see someone, it's a reason to meet. Let's do it." It's as simple as that sometimes, not always, but sometimes it's an example. But I say all of this to point out that we have a new identity. We are sons and daughters. And with that comes this purpose of doing the work of the Father and it's vital that we do it. It's vital that we do it. I had a teen ask me a couple of months ago, how important is it for us to live out the Christian walk. If we're saved, isn't that enough? How important, how important, lets quantify it. And it's vital. And there's a verse that I was challenged with that day by my wife. Again, she's a missionary, even to me. She challenged me with a verse, Luke chapter 9:23-26. It says, "And He, Jesus said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words of him, will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." The reason I bring up this versus to challenge us. We have a new identity. We are sons and daughters. This is the most valuable thing that we could have in life. Why would we sacrifice it for anything this world has to offer? Why would we be ashamed of our identity as sons and daughters when it is the greatest gift we have ever received? Don't be ashamed. Don't sacrifice your identity for things of this world. Know the truth of who you are. You are loved, because if Jesus loved you enough to die on the cross to save you from your sins, you are sons and daughters. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you and we thank you that you have given us a new identity. That we are no longer who we used to be, but now we have been put in a place of honor as your sons and as your daughters, because of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Lord, give us firmness and security in our identity as your children and give us the strength and the wisdom and the understanding to do your work here on earth. In Jesus name, your son we pray, amen.