Powell Butte Christian Church: Recent Episodes
Powell Butte Christian Church
Powell Butte Christian Church exists to know, love, and serve God by helping people CONNECT to Jesus Christ and God's Family, encouraging them to GROW to become more like Christ, equipping them to SERVE in ministry and facilitating the Body of Christ to GO - both locally and globally - in the expansion of God's Kingdom. Enjoy our sermons and please feel free to visit us online at powellbuttechurch.com.
Welcome. It's good you are here today, because today's question is, without a doubt, the most important one Jesus ever asked.
There are many important questions in life. Where will you go to school? What career will you pursue? Who will you marry? Where will you live? How will you raise your children? Those are significant questions because they shape the course of your earthly life.
But there is one question that determines far more than the next few decades. It determines your eternity. The question is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16.
"Who do YOU say that I am?" Everything about faith rises or falls on the answer to that question. Throughout history people have wrestled with that question. Maybe you're here today and that question still lingers in your life. WHO is Jesus?
Throughout this series, we have been examining some of the questions Jesus asked during His earthly ministry. That may seem a little unusual at first because we often think of Jesus as the One who provides answers. People came to Him with questions about God, life, eternity, forgiveness, marriage, money, and countless other subjects. Yet when you read the Gospels carefully, you discover that Jesus frequently responded to questions by asking questions of His own. In fact, one scholar estimated that Jesus asked more than 300 questions during His ministry. He understood something that every good teacher understands: answers can inform the mind, but questions have a way of revealing the heart.
When Jesus asked a question, it was never because He lacked information. He already knew the answer. Instead, His questions invited people to examine themselves. They exposed assumptions, uncovered motives, and forced individuals to confront truths they might otherwise avoid. And the same is true today. The questions Jesus asked two thousand years ago continue to echo into our lives because they are not merely questions for the people in the story; they are questions for us.
Billy Graham was arguably one of the most respected Christian leaders of the twentieth century. When he passed away, during his funeral service, his son, Franklin Graham shared something significant to those of us whose vocation and calling is to preach. He said one of the defining characteristics of his father's ministry was his absolute confidence in the Word of God. He recalled countless occasions when his father would stand before thousands of people, hold up his Bible, and simply declare, "The Bible says..."
For generations of Christians, that phrase was the foundation of preaching. The preacher's authority wasn't found in his personality or his opinions. It wasn't found in his education. It wasn't even found in his experience. The authority came from one simple conviction: "The Bible says."
And yet today, there are rising voices - even from those who preach - suggesting that this phrase "The Bible says" should be cast aside because it is essentially outdated. Some preachers claim that since modern people are suspicious of authority, when we appeal to Scripture AS authoritative in one's life, we are in danger of creating barriers rather than bridges to faith. There is one prominent modern-day preacher who has even suggested that portions of the Bible, particularly the OT, are outdated, embarrassing, or largely irrelevant to modern believers.
So which is it? Is the Bible still relevant? Does it still matter? Can we still confidently say, "The Bible says"? Or has the Bible become little more than a religious artifact that we respect but rarely open?
This morning we are beginning a brand-new summer sermon series that we're calling "Questions Jesus Asked* (And We Must Answer)."
When most people think about Jesus, they think about His answers. They think about His teaching, His miracles, His parables, and the incredible wisdom He shared with those around Him. And certainly, Jesus gave some remarkable answers.
But what many people don't realize is that Jesus was also a master question-asker. In fact, when you read through the Gospels, you discover that Jesus asked questions everywhere He went. Some of them were simple questions. Some were uncomfortable questions. Some were questions that cut straight to the heart. He asked questions like, "Why are you afraid?" "Who do you say that I am?" "Do you want to get well?" "Where is your faith?" and "Do you love me?"
And here's what makes those questions so powerful: Jesus wasn't asking because He needed information. Jesus' questions are rarely about information. They are about revelation.
He asks questions not because HE needs answers, but because WE do. And Jesus' questions are powerful in that they reveal what is happening in our hearts. They expose our fears, our assumptions, our priorities, and sometimes even our idols. In many ways, spiritual growth begins when we become willing to answer honestly the questions Jesus asks.
So throughout this summer, we're going to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen carefully to some of His questions. Because if we're willing to wrestle with them honestly, they have the power to transform us.
Have you ever noticed that one of the very first words children learn is the word "mine"? Mine; my toy. Mine; my blanket. Mine; my cookie. Mine; my seat. Nobody has to teach a child to say "mine." In fact, my dad did NOT do me any favors when he himself taught my kids that word. (Thanks, Dad!) It seems to come naturally, our obsession of ME. What takes years to learn is another word: "ours."
Some people never really learn that word, I'd say. We live in a culture that constantly teaches me to think about ME. My career. My house. My plans. My retirement. My comfort. My happiness. Couples who go through pre-marital counseling with me learn that one of the biggest helps for a healthy marriage is being willing to turn the M upside down, from ME to WE, where our decisions and paths we forge aren't only about ourselves alone anymore. God put us into communities like families and tribes and congregations so that we can experience the power of WE, OUR, US.
The concept of turning the M upside down can be easily played out in Christian communities called "The Church." I'm going to make the statement that it's absolutely crucial for us to learn it, in fact, because it's easy to see that churches can fall into exactly the same trap. We can become focused on our worship, our programs, our budget, our building, our ministries, and our preferences. And before long, the church exists primarily for the people already inside it rather than the people Jesus wants to reach outside it.
In football, they have the huddle. The whole purpose of the huddle is to give the team about thirty seconds to call the next play. That’s it. Now, here’s what’s funny—sixty thousand people might be watching that huddle. And they don’t mind. They understand. You’ve got to get organized. The quarterback needs to know where he’s going. The ends need to know their route. The backs need to know their assignment.
But let me tell you something obvious: nobody pays between 250 and 1000 bucks just to watch the huddle. People come to see the team break the huddle, snap the ball, and move down the field against a defense doing its darnedest to stop them. The 60,000 plus Number 12s ("fans", for the uninitiated) want to know: did your practice actually make a difference? Will it work?
Now, here’s where we as Christians get into trouble. We get high on our huddles. Sunday morning, Worship Nights, Sunrise Services — we go nuts over the huddle. “Man, worship today was amazing!” “Our quarterback calls plays better than any other quarterback in the league!” We end up critiquing the music, the sermon length, whether or not people were friendly.
But the huddle only exists so we can play the game. The effectiveness of your church cannot be measured by how well you do on Sunday morning. It's when you get out there - in the world - in your own unique harvest field, if you will. THIS is what we see in the Book of Acts, chapter 8.
There are certain people in life who leave a lasting impression on you.
Spend enough time around someone and eventually you begin to sound like them. You start using their phrases, picking up their habits, laughing at the same things they laugh at. Sometimes married couples do this so much that they can practically finish each other’s sentences. Children pick up expressions from their parents without even realizing it. Why? Because proximity leaves its mark. Time spent together changes us.
That is exactly what happened in our text this morning.
Remember the old tv game show Name That Tune? Where you are given a certain number of notes and you have to figure out what song is being played? Well this morning I want to play a version of that game. We’ll call it Name That Person.
I’m going to give you some clues, straight out of Scripture, and you keep track of the amount of clues it takes for you to guess the person
“I am like one born at the wrong time…”
“I am less than the least of all God’s people…"
“I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin…”
“I know that nothing good lives in me…”
“For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…” So...who does that describe?
Alright, let’s shift the clues.
A man who breathed out threats and murder against the followers of Jesus…
A man who went from house to house dragging men and women off to prison to face possible execution…
A man who was on the scene approving of the lynching of first Christian martyr…
Name that person.
Same answer. Saul… who would later be known as Paul.
Do you see the tension? In the last set of clues you have a man who seems to be so confident of his convictions and commitment to doing the right thing. But on the other hand, you get this man who recognizes his brokenness - like the tax-collector in the parable who goes to the temple and can't even look up at God, he is so cognizant of his sinfulness. He is humble, he acknowledges his weakness, he is no longer self-righteous.
And somehow, those two realities live in the same person. Which raises the question: what happened in between? What made this self-righteous, confident persecutor of the church become a selfless, humble servant --- one who would actually go from NUMBER 1 persecutor of the Early Church to the NUMBER 1 missionary to the Gentile world?
The answer, of course, is Jesus. But more specifically, the answer is that Jesus refused to leave Saul where he was. And that really is what spiritual growth is all about.
Let me start with a confession. I like being independent. I really do. I like making decisions without asking for help. I like solving my own problems. And at times I see that tendency creeping into how I do ministry. I mean, I'm the pastor --- I should be able to do all these things on my own. It doesn't impose upon other people, it's just easier for me to do it by myself, me and God, man, we got this covered.
Sounds holy, doesn't it? Problem is… it's not biblical. It's not beneficial. And it's not sustainable.
Years ago, when communism fell in Romania, the world was introduced to something heartbreaking. There were thousands of children living in overcrowded orphanages. Their basic needs were technically being met — food, clothing, shelter — but they were rarely held. Rarely touched. Rarely spoken to. There was no consistent love. No family. And doctors began to notice something; they called it “failure to thrive.”
These children were alive… but they weren’t developing. Months would go by, even years, and they still functioned like infants. Not because they lacked nutrition, but because they lacked connection. They didn’t just need food. They needed family.
And in a very real way, the same thing can happen spiritually. A person can come to faith in Jesus… be genuinely saved… and yet, if they try to live the Christian life in isolation, disconnected from other believers, they begin to stall out. They don’t grow. They don’t mature. They struggle to persevere. They begin to experience a kind of spiritual “failure to thrive.”
So today, as we continue our CONNECT series, we're going to see that connecting to Christ is first—but connecting to each other is how we grow up.
There are moments in history when everything seems to be falling apart, and yet at the very same time, God is quietly at work doing something that changes everything.
You can see it in different places and different times. In the 1700s, both Britain and America were facing deep social and moral decline. Tensions were rising, and in France those tensions eventually erupted into violent revolution. But in Britain and in the American colonies, something very different happened. Instead of a political uprising, there was a spiritual awakening. A series of Christian revivals swept through the churches and permanently affected Christianity in the Protestant denominations primarily. Evangelicalism became a movement in many denominations and ordinary people began turning to Christ in massive numbers. Lives were changed. Families were restored. Society itself began to shift—not from the top down, but from the inside out. It became known as the Great Awakening.
There's a movie out right now in theaters that highlights the relationship between one of the major leaders of the revival - a man named George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin. Revival leaders like Whitefield and John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards presented a theology that changed people's hearts as they relied on the power of the Holy Spirit - which brought about a deep personal conviction of the need for salvation through Jesus, and a new standard, then, of personal morality.
It was an incredible movement - but it wasn't the first time something like that had happened.
The very first "great awakening" actually took place in the Roman Empire, in a small and seemingly insignificant corner of the world, in the city of Jerusalem. There was no political power, no cultural influence, no economic strength — it was just a small group of about 120 people gathering together in prayer. And yet within a couple of centuries, the message that began with that small group had spread throughout the entire empire.
That’s the story that the New Testament Book of Acts tells. It is the story of how God takes a small group of ordinary, often broken people, draws them into connection with Himself, fills them with His presence and His power, and then works through them to change the world.
There’s something in all of us that drifts toward making things about us, even when they weren’t designed that way. Have you ever noticed that? You go somewhere beautiful—a sunset, the beach, the mountains—and instead of just taking it in, what do we do? We pull out our phones. We take a picture. And then we end up looking at the sunset through the screen. And without even realizing it, the moment that was supposed to be about the beauty in front of us becomes about capturing something for ourselves. We end up looking at the screen instead of the sunset. And the crazy thing is, we can walk away and say, “That was amazing,” and never have REALLY looked at the real thing.
And I wonder if sometimes, without even realizing it, we can do the same thing with the church. Because the church is a beautiful thing. It’s meaningful. It’s powerful. It matters deeply. But it was never meant to be the end of the story. It was always meant to point to something greater. So the question I want us to wrestle with this morning is not just, “What does the church do?” The better question is, “Why does the church exist at all?”
You know, there are certain words in life that carry more weight than others. Not because they’re long. Not because they’re complicated. But because of what they settle.
Just a single word - or a simple phrase for that matter - can change everything.
A judge leans forward and says one word: “Guilty.” and everything changes.
A doctor walks into the room and says: “All Clear.” And suddenly, a family that’s been holding its breath for weeks can finally exhale.
A coach looks at the team and says: "We're in." And a small school gets their first shot at the big tournament.
At a wedding, two people stand before family and friends, and one simple phrase seals the covenant:
“I do.” And let’s be honest, that’s a moment where one word carries a lot of weight! Neither of those two people standing before the preacher in that room at that moment is thinking, “Well, we’ll just circle back in a few weeks and see how this goes.”
No, “I do” means something is settled.
Or even something as simple as: “Done," which is essentially what Jesus said at the end of his life there on the cross: Tetalestai. Done. Completed. Nothing more to add.
For some of you, the most powerful word you can think of is "Dinner!!" That’s a spiritual moment right there.
When you hear those words… you don’t ask a lot of questions - you just respond.
All these are small words or very brief phrases -- and yet they carry enormous weight because they bring certainty. They take something that was in question and settle it once and for all.
And then there’s a word we don’t use very often anymore, but when we do, it carries a unique kind of weight. That word is “Indeed.”
It’s not flashy. It’s not loud. It does sound almost British, I know. 🙂
But one thing is certain: it's final. It conveys truth. It says, "This is settled." It's no longer up for debate. Indeed. And for over 2,000 years, on this day - Resurrection Sunday - the Church has declared: “He is risen!” And the response has come back across generations, across cultures, across languages:
“He is risen… indeed.”
Not maybe. Not hopefully. Not metaphorically. But IN DEED (it's right there in the word!) Not in theory. Not in word. It's certain. It's true. Indeed.
There’s something about “last things” that just carry a different kind of weight.
If you’ve ever been with someone near the end of their life, you know what I mean. The conversations change. People don’t talk about trivial things anymore. They don’t waste time on surface-level stuff. They start saying what really matters. Sometimes it’s simple—“I love you.” Sometimes it’s clarifying—“Don’t forget this.” Sometimes it’s relational—“Take care of each other.”
I remember reading an interview with Billy Graham when he was 92 years old. He was being asked to look back over his life—decades of ministry, traveling the world, preaching to millions of people—and the interviewer asked him a simple question: “What would you do differently?”
And his answer was striking. He said, “I would study more, I would pray more, travel less, take less speaking engagements.” He went on to say that if he had it to do over again, he would spend more time in meditation and prayer, just telling the Lord how much he loved Him and how much he was looking forward to eternity.
And when you hear that, you realize—you’re not listening to a casual opinion. You’re listening to clarity that comes at the end of a life. You’re hearing what mattered most when everything else was stripped away.
That’s why we lean in when someone is speaking from that place, because we understand—this is what they want remembered.
And when we come to John chapter 13, that’s the moment we’re stepping into. Jesus knows the cross is just hours away. He knows exactly what’s coming. And so when He gathers His disciples in that upper room, He’s not filling space with random conversation. He’s giving them what matters most.
Not just something to remember… but something to live.
"The next time someone asks you 'What Would Jesus Do?' remember that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibilities."
It's funny because it shatters our image of Jesus. We like the gentle Jesus holding lambs. We like the compassionate Jesus healing lepers. But this Jesus—the one with a whip cord, overturning furniture, shouting in the temple courts—this Jesus makes us uncomfortable.
But here's what we miss if we're not careful. We turn Jesus into an action hero. We celebrate the anger without understanding the reason for the anger. We cheer the table-flipping without noticing what happens after the tables are flipped. And it's actually what happens AFTER this scene that is, to me, the most beautiful part of the story.
So we are walking with Jesus through Holy Week. Last week we looked at Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as the humble King. This morning we will be looking at Monday, the day Jesus went into the temple, which was the very heart of the Jewish faith, the dwelling place of God's name. And what he sees breaks his heart.
Let me read from two Gospels today, weaving together Mark's account with Matthew's, because together they tell us the full story of what Jesus came to do.
You know, there are moments in life when expectations collide with reality in ways that aren’t just disappointing, but heart-wrenching.
Most of us have experienced that at some point. Maybe it’s something small, like ordering something online that looked incredible in the picture, only to open the box and discover it’s not quite what you imagined. Maybe it’s one of those moments when you finally meet someone you’ve admired for years and the experience just doesn’t match the picture you had in your mind.
They say be careful about meeting your heroes - because they tend to not measure up to the image you have in your head about who they’ll be, how they’ll treat you, etc. And far too often people leave the encounter they had with this hero figure and wind up thinking: That wasn’t what I expected at all.
Sometimes the people we admire don’t live up to the expectations we’ve built in our minds. But sometimes…SOMETIMES something even more surprising happens. Because sometimes the person DOES show up - but in a way that may not have been anticipated, but which is infinitely better than what we were expecting.
That’s what happened on Palm Sunday.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on the Sunday which began what is now known as Holy Week, the city erupted with excitement. Crowds gathered along the road. People spread their cloaks on the ground in front of Him. Others cut branches from the palm trees and waved them in the air. It was a majestic scene - one of intense anticipation for sure.
This was not a quiet moment. This was a parade. It was loud. It was joyful. It was a celebration. The people believed their long-awaited King had finally arrived. But there was a problem. Not that they were celebrating the arrival of the King, but that they had misunderstood the kind of King Jesus was.
This past week, with the Olympics just behind us, Pastor Ethan brought up one of the greatest sports movies in history: Miracle, about the true story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and their player-turned-coach, Herb Brooks, who led them to victory over the seemingly invincible Soviet squad.
That truly is one of the best. I think that victory spawned the idea to make another pretty good hockey movie, The Mighty Ducks. Again, great movie about the underdog achieving the seemingly impossible. The clip you just saw was from the sequel. And though it wasn't as good as the first, I do believe this scene at the end is one of the most joy-filled I can think of.
The championship game is over. The pressure gone. The fight is finished. And as they gather around the campfire, relishing in the victory, notice no one gives a speech. No one organizes a party. There's just that one kid who begins singing softly, "We are the champions, my friend..."
And slowly — one by one — the rest of the team joins in...Not because it was planned. Not because it was rehearsed. But because sometimes, when you’ve fought hard for something, singing is the natural reaction.
And consider this: nobody sings like that before the game, typically. There's too much focus on the task ahead. And rarely will people sing like this in the middle of the third period (that's how hockey works for those who don't know 🙂), especially when you're down by two.
But AFTER the victory? "We are the champions, my friend..."
And that's Exodus 15. Israel is on the other side of the Red Sea, protected from Pharaoh's chariots and horsemen. God has rescued them from the impossible - or we could even say from the impassable. And what do they do? HALLELUJAH!
If you've been following our series on Hallelujah, you've seen that there are different kinds of hallelujahs.
There’s the hallelujah you sing when the worship team plays your favorite song. There’s the hallelujah you sing when your week was good, the coffee was strong, the kids behaved.
But then there’s the hallelujah you sing when you didn’t think you were going to make it.
The kind that comes out cracked, tear-stained, a little shaky. It's truly a Hard-Fought Hallelujah.
But there is this amazing period we experience from time to time when after we get through the sea or the storm, and we look back and - WOW! - we can see more clearly what God has done.
And though praise is praise, I can see how this kind of Hallelujah sounds a bit different. And that's what we're seeing here in Exodus 15.
One of the interesting things about human nature is that we don’t really struggle with obedience in general — we struggle with who we’re obeying.
For instance, if a stranger in a parking lot tells you to move your car, your response will most likely be much different from if a police officer with lights flashing behind you signals to pull over. The action may look the same (you move your car), but what changed? Your perception of authority.
The same thing happens in everyday life. If your co-worker suggests you redo a report, you might weigh your options or flat out tell them to jump into the lake. But if your boss says the report needs to be redone, your decision becomes much simpler. In other words, authority clarifies obedience very well.
The truth is, obedience becomes easier when we are convinced of both someone’s authority and their character. If we trust that a person has the right to lead and that they have our good in mind, obedience doesn’t feel oppressive — it feels reasonable.
That brings us to something deeply spiritual.
Many of our struggles with obedience toward God are not primarily struggles of rebellion. They are struggles of perception. We say we believe God is powerful. We say we believe He is good. But in the daily realities of life — in our decisions about forgiveness, generosity, surrender, trust — we often operate with a much smaller view of Him than we realize. And this is where our Hallelujah series comes into focus.
Praise is not just emotional expression. Praise is perspective correction. When we lift our voices in Hallelujah, we are not informing God of who He is — we are reminding ourselves. Praise enlarges our awareness of His greatness and His goodness. And when that awareness grows, obedience begins to make sense.
When it comes to praising God, have you ever found yourself in an awkward position because the language of worship is a foreign language to you. I mean, even the word Hallelujah, someone asked me last week, they said they know it's some kind of praise for God - but what does it actually mean? And, I thought --- yeah, that would have probably been a good idea to define it for you... It's Hebrew for (ready for it?) PRAISE GOD.
What happens when you have believers who love God, who believe in God - but when it comes time to express praise and worship to God, they just fall back on something rote, without a lot of meaning to it, and something they may not understand, so they really can't be intentional about it.
It's like memorizing the phrases before heading to another country, but not really understanding the language because you aren't fluent in it.
In the same way our worship may become more meaningful when we learn to be fluent in our Hallelujah. Because praise has a vocabulary. Heaven has a language. And God invites us to learn how to speak it. And it comes, first of all, with remembering WHO God is and WHAT He does.
Hallelujah is a powerful word, a powerful concept. It brings in the power of God into the circumstances of our lives in a way that no other word truly can. If we turn it off, we could easily fall into the habit of forgetting what the Bible has to say about praise and adoration and worship and gratitude for what God has done, who He is, and what He is about.
So for the weeks leading up to Easter, I want us to look at several aspects of Hallelujahs in the life of the believer, and today I want us to consider the power of the CHOSEN Hallelujah.
As you look at scripture, we see people like King David, and Habakkuk, and the writer of Hebrews suggesting a radical approach to the circumstances surrounding our Hallelujahs.
Again, because of the "rate and review" culture we live in, it's easy to slip into Hallelujahs when things are going great...but what happens when things turn and aren't going our way, times when we would love to give God a one-star review?
As a family drove home after church, the dad was complaining about everything. He said, “The music was too loud. The sermon was too long. The announcements were unclear. The building was hot. The people were unfriendly.” He went on and on, complaining about virtually everything. Finally, his observant son said, “But Dad, you’ve got to admit that it wasn’t a bad show for a dollar!”
So let’s just identify the elephant in the room right up front. Anytime a pastor starts talking about money in church, people immediately get nervous. Some of you right now are thinking, “Oh good. This is THAT sermon.” Others are checking to see if your wallet is still in your pocket. And a few of you are wondering if today might be a good day to suddenly need to get up to go to the bathroom!
Money has a way of doing that to us. You can talk about prayer, forgiveness, evangelism, even sin — and people will nod politely. But mention money, and suddenly everyone gets very spiritual and very suspicious at the same time.
And here’s the irony: the Bible talks about money all the time. Jesus talked about money more than almost any other subject—not because He wanted something from people, but because He knew money has a way of quietly taking something from us.
So if you’re feeling a little tense already, relax. This is not a guilt sermon. This is not a pressure sermon. This is not a “the lights might go off if you don’t give” sermon. This is a discipleship sermon.
Because 1 Timothy 6 isn’t actually about budgets. It’s about what kind of people we are becoming.
Discontentment is an American epidemic. Maybe we're susceptible to that epidemic because we live in the most affluent society in the history of the human race. And discontentment is fed by the advertising industry, as it promises us time and time again that our discontentment will disappear if we just buy what they're selling.
And though, intellectually, we know those promises aren’t really true, but something deep inside our soul - the part that’s not rational - cries out, "Maybe this will make my restlessness go away or fill up my emptiness." And yet, the tragic truth of creating this kind of hunger in a population is that these things will NEVER be the solution. Because the problem goes deeper than what material things can bring to my life.
Last week, we dealt heavily with showing respect and honor to all people in the church, focusing MAINLY on the generation gap. But I hope you saw that the underlying principle Paul was trying to get across to Timothy was all about respect. It would have been difficult for some to be in Timothy's position... being a younger leader, but having the responsibility of leading those who were his elders, and who by that measure, deserved honor and respect.
It's not always easy being a leader. It's a calling and a responsibility that, at times, doesn't win you many friends.
Leadership is a unique thing. Not everyone is called into it - and there are some perks to being a leader, it's a rough road. You are called to not just be out in front (a person who leads but has no followers is just taking a walk, I've been told) - but to make sure the direction you are headed in is correct, that you are looking out for the good of your team, that you make decisions that will build up those under your care. And again, those decisions aren't always popular.
I will tell you after 35 plus years in full-time vocational church ministry that leadership in the church is just as hard as leadership on a sub...and at times, I would venture to say, is even HARDER because you are taking the lead with folks who claim to be followers of Jesus, but who oftentimes don't ACT like it. They're your brothers and sisters in Christ, not just people in your congregation. And as long as there are people in churches, there will be times when people will act like people and other people will be wounded.
So with that in mind, I think this next passage of Scripture is good for a church in general to hear. It's about HOW a church can lift up its leaders, and avoid inflicting too many wounds on those who have been called to love and to lead the Church.
There are a number of different church leadership structures that exist today. For instance, you have top-down authoritative models similar to how a business is run where you have a CEO doing the wishes of the board and stockholders. Churches with this structure keep a distinction between the “clergy” (who basically run the church) and “laity” (those who are told what to do in the church). If you know anything about Jesus’ teaching about the first being last, and the greatest becoming the servant of all, you’ll catch pretty quickly how UN-biblical this particular model is.
When we study scripture to learn about church leadership, you’ll see there is a consistent model Jesus established for us. And since the church has been called the Body of Christ, and the Bride of Christ, and since we belong to Christ, it’s probably a good idea to begin with HIS example…
When we went through the series this Summer on Exodus, I mentioned towards the beginning how the Exodus story is really OUR story. The Bible isn't filled with perfect examples of perfect people - at all. I told you that it was messy. Because life is messy at times --- at MANY times, in fact.
One of the places that those messes can happen is when one sinner comes into contact with another sinner. And the sparks fly! Relationships can be tricky - especially when those in the relationship haven't yet submitted their lives to the Lord. Then you have a situation where there are two people (like in a marriage) who both are REALLY looking out for themselves; they probably even chose their partner based on how that partner made THEM feel. And it's no wonder that things can get messy.
A lot of Paul's writing focuses on how to get along in the Body of Christ. Because apparently when people come to faith in Jesus, turns out, they are STILL people. And people, being as we have noted, can be messy. We need to know how to do this thing called church.
"I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." - 1 Tim. 3:14b-15
Last week we saw that one of the main reasons Paul writes this letter to Timothy is that there are false teachers who have crept in among the various home churches - often claiming to come in the name of the Lord - and have introduced things that are NOT scriptural.
It's clear that this wasn't an isolated event in Ephesus. Read the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation and you'll see MANY churches having to guard against, or having fallen to, the error of false teaching, heresies, that do not provide the solid foundation of the truth of the Gospel.
What I want to propose today is that heresy and false teaching aren't always wrapped up in an obvious package. In fact, the best way to deceive people with false teaching is to start with something that is true, and then begin to veer away from that truth little by little, until finally the teaching isn't just unorthodox - it's downright opposing what God has revealed to us in Scripture.
You could argue that the most dangerous false teachings isn't in blatant lies that anyone could catch, but in the misuse of Scripture. And I would bet that these false teachings we deal with today were begun by well-meaning folks who just didn't understand how to deal with Scripture the correct way.
This morning I am approaching the idea of fighting against false teaching in a unique way. Today I want to give you five ways to misuse the Word of God. If you can keep these five things in mind, then perhaps you can guard your mind and your heart from following a false gospel that doesn't have the power of God to save and to purify us from all unrighteousness.
Welcome to a new sermon series that will take us up through the Advent season in December. It's 1 Timothy - a book that is both challenging and empowering. It's a great blueprint on how God's House has been built and how it's to be maintained. We will look at LIFE and LEADERSHIP in the Church, and I know it will help sharpen our focus on what God wants of Powell Butte Christian Church.
If we’re honest, most of us probably don’t think of ourselves as missionaries. We tend to think that term is reserved for those like the ones we’ve been hearing from in our GO Moments this month - usually people involved in reaching past their own culture, be it overseas or intergenerational or just cross-culturally in our country. But reality is: Scripture calls those who are under the New Covenant "Ambassadors;" people who GO and as they are going share the good news of Jesus.
But that's a new way of thinking for much of Western Christianity. Unfortunately we are surrounded by a "me-centered" culture that often - as I have observed - slips into that same mentality. So when we hear GO Moment presentations, it's very easy to get into the mindset of Missions is THERE - not necessarily here; and Missions is THEM - not necessarily me.
In other words, like it or not, we have a Missional God. He was the first to send people out as His ambassadors, His representatives in this world. He did it with Adam in the Garden of Eden. He did it with Abraham, the Father of Faith. He did it on the Day of Pentecost as the HS empowered the disciples to share the Gospel with people from all over the world. And as we read in Revelation, He will one day have representatives around the throne, worshipers from every tribe, people, tongue, and nation.
And Missions isn't just a NT thing. And today I want to focus mainly on a Psalm that shows us the mission of God that is timeless and part of the intent behind God's creation of the world, and more specifically of mankind.
One of the saddest realities about our world today, I believe, is the loss of integrity. We live in a society where someone’s word is no longer their bond. Years ago - and actually as is the case today in this area of the State, I have found - a handshake and one's word was enough. And that was the case throughout the country a long time ago for a long time. But today? Not so much. Promises are often given to just get things, and if it benefits someone, they'll break promises with no problem.
That’s why we live in such a contract-driven society. We sign contracts for everything—cell phones, cars, mortgages, jobs. We need pages of paperwork because people don’t always keep their word. I’ve got a contract right now with my phone company, and that contract says I’ll keep this phone for two years. If I break it, there’s a penalty. That’s how contracts work: if one side doesn’t live up to their obligations, the contract is broken.
But when we come to Exodus 24, we’re not dealing with a contract. We’re dealing with something much deeper, richer, and more binding: a covenant. A covenant is not just an agreement between two parties. A covenant is a sacred relationship established by God Himself. And unlike contracts, a covenant doesn’t end the moment one side fails. God is always faithful to His promises, even when we are not.
A New York family bought a ranch out West where they intended to raise cattle. Friends visited and asked if the ranch had a name. "Well," said the would-be cattleman, "I wanted to name it the Bar-J. My wife favored Suzy-Q, one son like the Flying-W, and the other wanted the Lazy-Y. So we're calling it the Bar-J-Suzy-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y." "But where are all your cattle?" the friends asked. "None of them survived the branding."
There’s a big difference between something written lightly and something branded or carved deeply into something. There's a difference between the student who writes on their desk in ink, and the one who carves their name into the desk. Chalk can be erased. Ink can fade. But when something is engraved, it stays.
That’s the picture we learn from Scripture. Under the old covenant, God's law was written on tablets of stone. The Law was given to show us what our sinful nature looks like and behaves like - but here's the deal, there was no power in the Law to make things new or to change anyone's heart. And so God decided to lead His people into a place where He would carve the Divine Law into His people deeply, permanently, by His own hand.
How good are you at receiving and following advice? If you're like me, it’s a struggle at times for sure. I'm amazed at the times my stupid pride has kicked in and I know what I want and I know how it should be done. And there have been too many times when I ignored what turned out to be some REALLY GOOD advice, and of course I end up regretting being so stubborn. But none of you know what that's like, I'm sure!
This morning we're getting to the part of Exodus where Moses could easily have fallen to the same sin. Last week Steve McCall outlined several stories where the people weren't real happy with Moses' leadership... Moses very well may have been at a place where there was much stress, and from what we will read in the passage today, absolutely overloaded and frustrated.
As we dive through Exodus, we're going to look at this overarching narrative but we're going to look today at a section that turns out to be a very frustrating time for Moses and Aaron.
Now, because we are looking BACK at the story, it's obvious to us that God is at work. But, you must bear in mind that Moses and Aaron are LIVING this thing out in REAL TIME. They DON'T know the end of the story. They may have sort of a clue as to the end results, but this is hard for them, these lessons they are learning. We see this and think, "Hey - no worries, Moses. It's all gonna work out in the end." But that's again hindsight. And what Moses and Aaron will deal with in this section of Exodus this morning had the potential to knock them off kilter, for sure.
Alright, now as Chapter 3 begins, Moses is living his new life in Midian, married, caring for his father-in-law's flock of sheep, and safely out of the reach of Pharaoh. He is not, however, safely out of the reach of God. When the king of Egypt dies, God is not only full of compassion for the enslaved Israelites but He is now ready to act.
We meet Moses as he is out tending to his father's flock of sheep. I cannot help but wonder how these years of caring for sheep helped prepare Moses for the hard task that is to come. There is something about caring for other creatures that requires deep empathy, practical skills, creative problem solving, and situational discernment.
Moses takes his flock to the far side of the wilderness - most likely a seasonal grazing area. He is far away from civilization, fully immersed in a wild place. This setting is crucial to what happens next, for in the wilderness Moses is alone, vulnerable, and free from distraction. He is, I would imagine, hyper attentive to the land, paying attention to what's out there - where the flock could be fed, what potential dangers are out there... Primed, as it were, for what happens next because he is so aware.
My wife, Jenny, has certain shows she absolutely loves to watch. And now that we got rid of our satellite service and are just doing streaming and what we get from our external antenna, she can watch these things whenever she likes. Most often it's after a long day of running around, working, getting stuff around the house done, etc. So when I get home, these shows like Survivor or The Amazing Race are on - and, honestly I get sucked into the drama that is on the screen.
But I KNOW that I drive Jenny crazy, because I haven't been tracking the progress of the show like she has. And I'll either come into the room in the middle of an episode - or even start watching an episode, but like 4 episodes into the season - and I will ask, "So what's going on? What's happening? Who is he? Why did she say that?"
And I'm sure Jenny is thinking, "Just watch and you'll figure it out!"
But it would be helpful if she clued me in a bit, right? That way I can know what's going on and can track much better. What's going on? THAT'S how I want to begin today's message, because Exodus is the second book of the Bible. And we're smack dab in the middle of a story, it seems, as we begin our reading. It would be super helpful if we knew what happened in Book 1 (Genesis), where we see the beginning of the story…and not just ONE beginning, but three.
There’s a story of a man who worked with Mother Teresa for a period of time. Every night he would go out with the Sisters of Mercy into the streets of Calcutta and pick up men and women who were on death’s door. They would then take these individuals to a hospice home called Kalighat, where these people who were actively dying would be cared for in their last days. A friend of a friend had gone out there to serve personally and said it was a HARD ministry to be involved with...
So anyway this man who was helping Mother Teresa, after spending a week at this hospice house said to her, “I wouldn’t do what you do for a million dollars!” And Mother Teresa said, “I wouldn’t either.”
Say what you will about Mother Teresa, she was certainly someone who came to understand that giving of one's talents and time and effort and giftedness couldn't be measure in terms of earthly treasure. What they found to be true about the Treasure Principle is that these principles we have looked at go beyond our financial lives.
This week, I want us to look at what the Bible says about what we do with our time and our talents.
You may have observed in the time you have known me that I don't have a great sense of balance. Therefore when I navigate through uneven terrain, I must be very careful. Balance is one of those things that is necessary when you have to go through rough terrain.
Today is going to be about finding balance. And whether you are talking about whole body balance, or whether you are talking about balancing, let's say, this, science has demonstrated to us that there are a few laws that govern balance. And what's REALLY cool is that if you can get your mind around the laws of physical balance, it's going to be easier to think about the other areas of your life that God has called you into balance.
Ultimately when we live in God's holiness we live in balance in a number of ways: our appetites, our relationships, our emotions, our work life, and since we've been on the subject, you can add our finances. And here's what I've observed in my lifetime: though the number is starting to grow, there are very few people out there who actually live a balanced life when it comes to their personal finances.
So today – I’m going to ask this question: What is the overall objective when it comes to money? What am I trying to do? What is the one thing I am trying to accomplish with my money?
Now that question has a variety of answers for a variety of people.
There have been times, I must admit, and I would imagine so must you, when poor planning has brought about some serious problems in my life. And there have been times when I could have sworn that I DID plan things — it was just a lousy plan. I didn't take things into account; I didn't foresee real issues that could possibly (and often DID) pop up.
It's good to plan, for sure. If you are engaged in an important endeavor, it is good to think through the things that could happen that might be obstacles or challenges along the way. But here's the deal: you can plan and plan and even think of potential pitfalls and come up with contingencies, and there will still be times when things go awry - things totally out of your control, and things that frankly, you never thought of.
So how does GOD want His people to plan? I've unfortunately been a part of teams where it ended up that WE thought something was a good plan and then WE asked GOD to come alongside us and, essentially, bless this mess (as it turned out). Many believers live their lives like that: God, these are my plans; I'd like to invite you into my plans. When, as it turns out, God is asking us, His people, to find out HIS plans, and to find ways that we can fit into those plans, rather than vice versa.
This is what the next part of James' letter is all about: not presuming what the future will hold, and what plans you will accomplish, but to humbly ask God to guide and direct you where HE wants you to be, doing what HE has assigned and empowered you to do for HIS glory and HIS plans.
This last week in our Staff Meeting, I said some things out loud. And they weren't horribly critical. I think that they were just funny observations (at least in MY mind). And the staff basically told me how awkward it was to hear them. I told them that's what popped into my mind. And that's when Ethan said, they pop into our minds, too, Trey - but those tend to be INTERNAL conversations with us! 🙂
That was funny. But then it got me thinking, in light of this week's message: how often do we let things slip out of our mouths with no filter at all; things that SHOULD have stayed as INTERNAL conversations that flow out of our mouths. Now again, mine weren't critical at all… having fun with people's names, as I recall. BUT I have to admit that there have been times when what comes out of my mouth IS critical. And like Thumper's mom, I would do well to listen to the advice: If you can't say something nice…don't say anything at all. Especially if I'm not saying things in a helpful way.
Sometimes the things that come out of my mouth have been downright judgmental. And THIS is exactly where we find ourselves in our study in the book of James: slander and unrighteous judgment. And it shouldn't be surprising. Again, James is writing to those who had been a part of his congregation, people in the First Century Church in Jerusalem. And the times they were facing were getting tough. But these were REAL PEOPLE who were learning how to "do life together" in Jesus - people who in many instances came from completely different backgrounds, with the only thing they had in common (often) WAS their faith.
Several years ago Barbara Walters interviewed General Norman Schwartzkopf, one time commander of Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. When asked about the cost of the war in terms of human life the general began to cry. Walters rather bluntly inquired, "General, aren't you afraid to cry...?" To which the general replied, "Barbara, I'm afraid of a man who can't cry!"
Here is a soldier who’s been trained to be tough, a man who’s seen more death and destruction than I know I will ever see and yet doesn’t apologize for his tears. In fact he's afraid of the one who can't cry.
Many of us aren’t so much afraid of tears as we are ashamed of tears. Maybe it’s because of the steady stream of messages we get: stop crying, shake it off, only babies cry. Crying makes us feel vulnerable, and we fear being vulnerable.
But in that same vein, I also have come to realize by experience that sometimes the absolute best thing you can do is to break down when you realize things are not as they should be. And things are NOT good. The situation is NOT funny. And sometimes you just have no choice but to cry.
That's a part of what we get from the next verse in our study, as we are in James chapter 4. Turn with me to James 4 and let's look at verse 9: "Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." (ESV)
Draw near to God. And guess what? He will draw near to you. That's where we ended last week, if you'll recall. What this means is that some of us have to quit thinking that God is so far away, playing some sort of cosmic hide-and-seek game with you. James is clear: make connection with God your destination and you'll find Him coming towards you the same way!
Last week we looked at the attitude of Humility: submitting to God, resisting the Devil, and drawing near to God. All of these things happen on the inside. But here's the amazing thing about Biblical faith: remember even the overall theme of the book of James is this: FAITH WORKS. Right? Yes, the Bible teaches that we are not saved by our works - it's by God's grace that He even extended the olive branch, the rescue rope, offering to pull us up out of the pit of our sinful nature; but it's also very clear from Scripture that the faith we have in that Grace causes us to move, to do, to obey, to become something different.
And so not only is the attitude of Humility important when we consider what it means to be saved, to live in God's eternal Kingdom, but our ACTIONS - the way we live, the decisions we make, the way we honor God with our bodies, the way we treat other people - these, too, are important.
Who needs grace today? Who really wants grace? Grace awaits - but notice to whom God gives grace… to the deserving? to the famous? No. It's very likely that those people miss the fact that they have NEED of grace. After all, why receive grace if you haven't done anything wrong?
So then, God gives grace to…the low-down dirty rotten scoundrels of this life?
Be careful before you give the church answer to that one. When we sing Amazing Grace, we DO sing the phrase "that saved a wretch like me." Grace DOES seem to be for those who NEED grace, those who are NOT perfect; the ones who do NOT have it all together. And that's what we celebrate when we sing that song - the fact that grace is available to the low-down dirty rotten scoundrels.
But I say be careful even with THAT sort of thinking, because something is missing in that equation. I'm sure that, like me, you know people who NEED grace, but won't receive it – ironically for the same reason that those who think they are deserving won't receive it.
James says it's all about HUMILITY. And you can be a pious do-gooder relying on your own moral behavior to make you right with God, or you can be an unrepentant sinner that doesn't care to have a connection with God because you don't want to ch
I want you to think back on a recent argument or conflict you had with someone. Could be your spouse, parents, kid, or somebody at work. What was the argument over? What was it about? Money, chores, politics, or something else. Regardless of the issue, what caused that argument?
That is the question that James wants us to deal with because the answer gives us deeper insight into why we have conflict with others. At the end of James 3 God gave us some incredible insight into what real wisdom looks like in our daily lives. Just because you are walking in wisdom does not mean you will not have conflict. This is why James 4 begins the way it does.
James just finished a section dealing with God’s wisdom and what it looks like and acts like in our life. When we are living by God’s wisdom, we are told that we will plant seeds of peace in our lives and in our relationships rather than seeds of conflict and division. So then, it's perfectly natural to follow that discussion up with a practical question: “Why do I get into arguments with others even when I’m trying to walk in God’s wisdom and pursue peace?” Such an important question that James begins chapter 4 with THIS question: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?”
Wow. What a great question. Great because it seems to cut to get to the core issue. Many times when conflicts arise, we go for the quick fix - but ultimately what we end up doing is merely putting a band-aid on the problem without fixing it. A band-aid given to a hemophiliac. So you might take care of the immediate problem at hand - but wouldn't it be better to get to the root of the problem so you don't waste so many band-aids??
So it's good to find the cause of quarrels and fights. But before we do that, let's make sure we know what we are speaking about…
If you had just ONE wish, what would it be? Obviously this scenario is one that reveals what is at your core. If it's to win the lottery, I suppose people could conclude that financial security is most important to you. If it's to live to a ripe old age, perhaps family relationships are top priority for you. If it's to possess a certain ability, again, that would demonstrate what motivates you, or what do you care most about.
There's an event in the Old Testament in the life of young King Solomon, of whom God asked for his greatest desire.
What are YOU looking for today? Today, many seek riches, power, long life and other things…. but do you see how truly wise it was for Solomon to ask for wisdom? Because ultimately, one could live by the wisdom that is gained, and in doing so, you can take steps to get to some of those other goals that people have: financial security, relational harmony, physical and emotional health. Those things aren't bad. But by seeking wisdom, you might be able to benefit from MANY things because you have approached your decisions in life with wisdom.
Hard times were coming for Israel; big needs, big challenges to come. They desperately needed help. Enter Isaiah - a prophet with a word from the Lord. What will it be God? After all, in the past, there were 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea to get us away from Egypt. There was that time when the wall around the city of Jericho fell down so that Israel could just rush in and take it. There was that time that an angel entered the camp of the Assyrians and killed 185,000 of them. What will it be this time, God?
Something quite unexpected… “Unto us a child is born. Unto us a SON is given”
Here is God: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace. But not in a great wind. Not a pillar of fire. And he's - a BABY??
Israel needed help. Humanity needed help. And what do we get? A Destroyer of Worlds? A Knight in Shining Armor? No. We get a SON. A Son who started out small.
I wonder if this was a letdown for the people of Israel when Isaiah delivered it. I mean it STARTED well enough: Matthew 4 repeats this prophecy to show how God fulfilled His promise, not just in Isaiah's time, but with the birth of Jesus.
In just a few short days we will celebrate Thanksgiving Day. It is a shame that we have only one day set aside each year to give thanks to God as a nation. We should have some time set aside each day, to give our praise to Him who has blessed us so richly.
As God's people it is fitting that we should focus our thoughts, not only now but often, upon the goodness of God and offer our gratitude to Him for who He is and for all He has done for us. Thus, today focusing on this theme of Thanksgiving.
Remember the mirror? How God's Word is a mirror for each of us individually? Remember how much courage it takes to stand there, allowing God to show you what needs to be changed? Well, did you ever think that maybe churches need mirrors as well? We have come to a short passage where we get to hold a mirror up to us as members of a church body.
It's amazing how many different experiences people have when they start connecting to a church. I believe people tend to show up when they are genuinely seeking some sort of spiritual fulfillment. Maybe they're coming back after a long absence. Maybe they're at a stage of life when it's important to them to raise the children in a church. Some folks are just connection-less and are seeking what's missing in their lives.
And so they come - for various reasons…and what they find in the gathering of the people of God is sometimes good - and sometimes shockingly bad! Especially if their interest is, as I said, genuine; they are REALLY looking for a place where they can ask questions, find some answers, and find a group of grace-filled people who are willing to share the journey with them.
And what they find, again, amazes me — both the good and the bad. I'm SO encouraged whenever someone tells me that as they attend PBCC, they're finding it almost like "home." I like that. It was the word I thought of when my dad asked what word would I put up on the outside of our church. And I'm amazed at the openness and welcoming atmosphere that has been created here.
But then I hear of horror stories of churches. People who claim to be religious, and yet don't act ANY different from the people outside the church (and sometimes WORSE!). Folks truly searching for something significant and different sometimes just find the same ol' same ol' - judgmentalism, hypocrisy, isolation, people pretending to have it all together. Not much different from what's out there in the world today, really.
So what are people looking for when they connect with a church community? Are they looking for a place of perfection? Probably not. Are they looking for a place to fake it? I highly doubt it.
I think what MOST people are looking for in a church connection are people who are sincerely making an effort to grow in their faith; people who want to be authentic about their spiritual journeys - weaknesses and quirks and mistakes and all - BUT who are actually finding true, real life-change in a community that is there to help them thrive.
This morning I wanted to use this time together to really highlight the Perspective course coming up in the first part of 2025, and to encourage all of you to prayerfully consider making that gutsy call to step forward and put yourself out there and take the course.
Perspectives is a globally-focused discipleship class that is hosted in churches and universities around the world. It's a 15 week experience that will expand your vision of God and your worldview. And though we typically think Perspectives is this Missions class, it really is one of the best tools for launching folks into ALL SORTS of ministries.
God has a heart for every people group on this planet. Read the Book of Revelation - you'll see that John saw in his vision there around God's throne were people from EVERY tribe, tongue, and nation. How does that happen? Are you one that doesn't even THINK about that? Or one that just presumes that other people are going to get that done?
Perspectives helped me understand why God even WANTS all of that around His throne, and how God has called ME to be a part of seeing that future promise become reality.
What’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning? Whatever it is, it’s probably the same thing every day. Everybody seems to have their own morning rituals to get them going.
Some part of everybody’s morning ritual is coming face to face with the mirror.
Most of us probably get our first look at ourselves while we’re still pretty scary looking. Our eyes have that bleary, dazed look; hair is sticking out in strange places… Ugh. Not a great experience, right?
Here's the bad thing about mirrors: they're too honest. Unless you have one of those carnival fun-house mirrors that distort things… What you see is what you get!
Mirrors don't flatter, they don't gloss over the junk we have stuck between our teeth or the make-up that's been smudged. They don't try to tell us we look better than we really do. Every wrinkle, gray hair, blemish — they're ALL there staring back at us.
So, the question is…why do we even HAVE mirrors in the bathroom? And why the bathroom???
Well, because as unpleasant as it may be, the reality is: if we DON'T take a look at ourselves and (most of the time) make some kind of adjustment (sometimes MAJOR adjustments), then the rest of the world will have to deal with THIS!
And so we figure it's better to face the truth and do what we can to not scare everyone else off!
Today we're looking at a passage in James 1 that likens God's Word to a mirror. Not a mirror for our physical appearance, but a mirror for who we REALLY are, deep down where it really counts.
John Adams, in a letter to the Massachusetts militia, dated October 11, 1798, said this: Because we have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion, avarice, ambition, revenge, and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
What Adams was expressing was this idea that Constitutions such as the United States of America has only work when those who live under it can exert a strong degree of self-control.
Adams wasn't alone in this view. To our Founding Fathers, it was “self-evident” that a democratic republic could only be sustained by those who were able to be self-controlled. Reflecting that thought, a contemporary German author and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stated: “What is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.”
A later prominent 19th Century minister, Henry Ward Beecher, simply said: “There is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.”
Self-governance consists of self-regulation of attitudes and actions. In keeping with this philosophy, the Founding Fathers believed that the success of our nation, our culture, hinged on both individual and community virtue - that is, moral character.
This morning, we are still in the first chapter of James (wow!). And the text we are looking at is short - again, just three verses long, but HUGE in its impact. Because what we are going to see is the key, according to James, to being the people God has called us to be.
Opening up a can of worms this morning. Gonna talk about something that I haven't heard much about from the pulpit in my life. Gonna talk about addiction, which is something very easily demonized by good Christian folk. Too easy to think it's not a problem because it's not a problem for YOU. It's on THOSE people, in your opinion. They made their bed so to speak. Or maybe too easy just to say it isn't a problem because you don't want anyone finding out that it IS a problem for YOU!
Why do we do that? Pretend that we're okay when we're not? I bet that if most people were honest with themselves and really understood the power of the sinful nature, we would realize how easy it is for anyone to find themselves trapped in sinful addictions.
You'd think that once we give our lives over to the Lord, then sin and addiction shouldn't come into play anymore, right? That "good Christians" don't deal with addiction. And yet, that's not what we find. The Bible tells us that there is a spiritual war we enter when we step from the darkness into the light. And the enemy isn't one to just give up ground in this war. The power of God is there to free us from the punishment of sin - but it's also there to free us from the power of sin and one day free us from the presence of sin as we step into eternity.
Now here's a disclaimer this morning: addiction is a big issue, and this is merely an overview and a look at addiction from a biblical perspective. And that's good and necessary. BUT…if you think you have an addiction, it would be wise to also seek out other avenues of support and accountability, Christian counseling and other support programs. MY job today is to tell those struggling with addiction that God is for you and gives us some valuable wisdom in dealing with this battle.
Last week we talked about some of the trials of life - stuff that happens simply because we live in a fallen world; and how God uses what we go through to help us through what I called the Perfecting Process (perfect being a Biblical term that often just means complete and whole, or mature). We saw how if we watch, if we ask WHAT GOD and not WHY GOD, then we can cooperate with the perfecting process and God's ultimate intention for our lives - making us more like Jesus - is able to happen.
This week, we are still in the first chapter of James - but I want to show you something that may shake your theology a bit.
You see we live in a culture where those who believe in God love the blessings that God brings to them. We like to look at verses 16 and 17 of this first chapter: "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."Father of Lights you delight in Your children, we sing. We love the good and perfect gifts from above, don't we?
But have you ever gotten a gift that ultimately was good, and truly perfect - but it didn't SEEM good at the time? IOW, what if SOME of those trials we face in life didn't come from just life happening, but from a different source?
I'm sure you've heard of Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong it will.” I just discovered this week that there are a few other laws of Murphy as well…
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“The chance of the toast falling jelly side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.”
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“When you drop your phone while driving, it will find the gap between your seat and the center console."
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“The light at the end of the tunnel is too often the headlight of an oncoming train.”
Why are these funny? Why are these true? It's interesting that, whoever he was, Murphy sure had a bead on the insight that problems in this life are pretty much inescapable.
But why is that? Why are there troubles in this world? Why doesn't the world operate in a - what WE would consider - fair way? Where is God when it hurts? If God is real, why is there so much pain and trouble in this world??
Open your Bible to the New Testament Book of James. This morning begins our next Bible book study, and for those who have been hungry for some applicable lessons to connect with all the theology we've been studying for the past year, this is for YOU! This letter, broken down in modern Bibles into five chapters, is all about living out what you believe. And this morning, I'm just hoping to give you a 30,000 foot view of this letter, setting the table (if you will) for the meal to come in the next few months.
Authority. Who gets to say which course gets changed? And where do they get that authority?
“You’re not the boss of me” “You can’t tell me what to do.” Especially in Western culture, where we are used to having the right to do what we want to do, it’s difficult to submit to authority.
But as Christians, the whole idea of Lordship involves submitting with the correct perspective of authority:
Matthew 7:28-29 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority— quite unlike their teachers of religious law.In other words, there is a kind of authority that is not Tyrannical, but actually beneficial for those who are being led. The kind of authority Jesus talked with was different, obviously different than the religious rulers of the day. And in the next few chapters in Matthew flesh out this idea and show Jesus’ authority over sickness, over nature, and over demons. Then in chapter 8, we get the big picture about authority:
*Matthew 8:5-10,13 When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, “Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.
Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.” But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!... Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.*Authority matters. The officer understood it. HE had authority over soldiers and could command them to accomplish certain tasks, and so Jesus was able to perform miracles because all things are under his leadership. He is the ultimate authority – not just in this world but in the spiritual world as well.
Reading through Scripture, there is a correct way to embrace authority in our lives…
A 5-year-old girl was sitting at the breakfast table one morning and, in between bites of sugary cereal, she sang with one hand in the air and the other cradling her spoon. Her mom asked her what she was doing. “I’m praising God, Mama.” Then, in a huff of overly dramatized exhaustion, she dropped her hand on the table saying, “But sometimes praising God is hard. My arms get sooooo tired.”
Do you realize how true that statement is? There are definitely times when praising God is easy… Blessings are realized, we feel close to God, there’s so much good things going on.
But then there are times when it is almost exhausting to lift up praises to God. Life wears us down, people are taken away from us, things seem to end up in failure. Maybe you are in a season right now when praise just gets stuck in your throat and, like that little girl, you drop your arms on the table, crying out: “It's too hard!”
We are coming to the conclusion of this amazing letter to the Hebrew believers. And in the midst of the doctrine it teaches, we can see that ultimately what the Author is demonstrating is how the new covenant through the death and resurrection of Jesus is actually designed to lead God’s people into a new way of worship. Previously the Hebrews had been burdened with fulfilling the Mosaic Law, but by his sacrifice and resurrection, Jesus fulfilled those impossible standards and opened the way for the Holy Spirit to indwell believers and write the Divine Law on their hearts.
And if this is a new way of worship, then through that same Holy Spirit at work in our lives to get rid of the old self, the sinful nature, we are led into this lifestyle of worship.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was gearing up for the children’s performance down in Bend, I had a conversation with one of the dads of the kids in the theater group. He is a film-maker and he and I started up this conversation about potential collaborations. And in the course of the conversation it was brought up that he was a Jew - but he was quick to point out he wasn’t a “practicing Jew.” Now, I THINK I know what he meant. But it got me to thinking about the first part of Hebrews 13, and the practicality of how the Author of Hebrews is ending his letter.
Remember the letter is about encouraging the Hebrew believers to stay the course and to not go back to an inferior system of being made right with God. It’s a giant commercial for Jesus, if you recall. There hasn’t been a lot of practical application - more just teaching about correct doctrine and God’s plan for salvation. But now we are heading into this passage that is VERY practical. And connecting it with the conversation I had with this Jewish man who was not a “practicing Jew,” I look at today’s passage as a way to help us determine what is a “practicing Christian.”
And to be honest, I have come to a strong belief that true believers can ONLY describe themselves as “practicing Christians,” or in other words, Christians who put their faith into practice; not just leaving it as abstract theological thoughts and discussions. But truly life-changing faith that HAS to be put into practice in order to grasp faith that God has called us into...living your faith out loud.
In today’s passage, we have a good list — it’s definitely not the exhaustive complete list, but a good list nonetheless about what living out loud looks like for a Christian. Let’s read the passage and then talk about five pieces of evidence that would convict us if being a Christian were outlawed. These are some of the main marks of living our faith out loud.
Olympics - runners. Some pretty amazing finishes! as you're running there's something that happens even in a marathon when you're completely fried when you're completely tired when you've hit the wall but then somehow when the Finish Line comes into view when when the Finish Line hits that Horizon something reinvigorates you you get that second wind you can pick up speed
In many ways it feels as though we very well may be running the last lap. We would do well, as Jesus taught in the Gospels, to live each day with the mindset that He could truly be coming back at any moment on any day. And instead of trying to figure out WHEN that day and hour will be, Jesus pretty much told us - doesn’t matter - just be doing what I want you to do when I get back.
And so, whether this is the last lap for us (or not), the Spirit of God has been given to us so that we run this race, whichever lap we are on, with all our might and our eyes FIXED on Jesus, as we saw a few weeks ago when Dad and I shared the sermon time.
What this means is that instead of focusing on the state of the decline of our culture so much, we focus solely on living as followers of Jesus. HE must be our only true passion and our only true purpose. Because, as we will be reminded in our study this morning, he is the only true destiny for those who walk by faith.
Do you remember the old slogan for Avis Car Rental? Hertz, apparently, had taken the top spot on the list - and of course, they let people know: “We’re #1!” Avis’ approach was intriguing to me. They were like: “We’re #2…BUT WE TRY HARDER.”
While there’s something to the idea of trying your best, in my experience I have found that by adopting this motto in our spiritual growth, more often than not what you end up with is frustration and guilt and at times the feeling like it’s not worth it and the temptation to just walk away and give up.
You see the symptoms of folks teetering on that edge. They neglect time with God. They stay away from God’s people. Worship is - at best - an afterthought.
That very well may come from a lack of understanding what GRACE is, specifically what the PURPOSE of grace is.
We’ve talked a lot about grace recently. And ultimately we understand grace to be the thing that saves us. But is there something else grace does? We’ve touched on this a bit before, but what I, as your pastor, am excited to show you today is how grace is the thing that helps us BE who God designed us to be - How to be SAVED and how to BE saved. and WITHOUT doing the Avis thing, trying harder in our own power.
As we begin, I want to make sure you know a truth about this book, the Bible): this isn’t A book; this is 66 books with over 40 authors, written over a period of 1500 years on 3 continents - and yet there is amazing harmony throughout. And scripture helps us interpret and understand scripture; when you get to one passage that may be difficult to understand, you can be sure that there’s most likely a few other passages that deal with the same subject that can shed light on how the difficult passage should be interpreted.
There are a few books, in addition, that give us a clue as to WHY it was written. The Gospel of John, for instance, has a purpose that John tells his readers. John 20:30-31 “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But THESE are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
This is why, by the way, the Gospel of John is made available by many churches and Christian organizations and given out to those who are seeking spiritual truth. John hand-picked the events in Jesus’ ministry and the teachings he heard for the purpose of showing people that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God - AND that in seeing that truth, one could come to faith and eternal life.
So it’s nice when a book from the Bible actually tells us what it’s about.
So that’s why I LOVE this next section of the book of Hebrews because there is a whole lot that the Author lays out for us, here in the second part of chapter 7 and going through the first part of chapter 10. In fact, there is SO much that I probably don’t have to read every verse of that section, cuz if I DID, we would go much longer than we even did last week. 🙂
I mean, we WILL look at sections of this passage, but I was excited, as I read through chapters 7-10, to see one particular verse - Hebrews 8:1 - which, once you read it, you’ll see how helpful that one verse is. So let’s go to Hebrews 8.
We don’t know a whole lot about him, and what we do know is buried in mystery. We know that he was the King of Salem, we know that he was a priest of the Most High God, we know that he had a funny name and we know that Abraham thought enough of him that he made an offering of ten percent of everything he owned to him.
He is fairly obscure. He’s first mentioned in Genesis 14 where he is given a total of three verses. He’s not mentioned again until Psalm 110:4 where David makes reference to the coming Messiah and writes: “The LORD has taken an oath and will not break his vow: ‘You are a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.’”
And then nothing, not in Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes, none of the prophets mention him. Melchizedek’s name doesn’t come up in any of the gospels or the book of Acts. Paul doesn’t mention him - but then, all of a sudden, the Author of Hebrews writes 17 verses about this mystery monarch.
We actually have preached a couple of times in the past year about Melchizedek. Last summer we studied the life of Abraham, where we first encountered him, and earlier in our study in the book of Hebrews we talked about the priesthood of Jesus being like Melchizedek and not like Aaron and his descendants.
Today I want to focus on yet another aspect of these verses - one that is perhaps not as obvious, but definitely is worth stopping and taking note, especially because the story found in Genesis 14 is the first recorded instance of somebody sacrificing financially to provide for the work of God in some way. Before Genesis 14, there were definitely sacrifices made by individuals as a way to honor and worship God, but this event in the life of Abraham is the first time a priest of God is given a portion of someone’s resources.
One of the greatest problems we face today is a loss of trust. It used to be that in the past a man’s word was a sacred bond. Contracts would be signed with a handshake and one’s word. There was little need for lawyers or documents. If a person promised to do something, their honor depended upon them following through with their pledge.
Not so much today. Today we have grown cynical and question everyone’s motives. You can’t trust the media, or the government, or corporations, or the educational system, or even pastors! At least, that’s where our cynicism has led us to believe. And no wonder - because scandals and lies and crime happens in so many arenas of our world today.
And you know where this cynicism lands us? With the inability to trust anyone but ourselves! The only one I can really trust is ME. And when THAT happens for too many people, we see the damage that is done to what was used to be known as community. It’s bad. And for many, there seems to be no answer…
In the midst of this cynicism there IS a clear voice that cuts through for those who have come to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior:
*“Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart..” (Psalm 37:3-4)
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)*Throughout our sacred Scriptures there is this voice that tells us we can trust God… But sometimes I wonder if our cynicism has spilled over into our relationship with God. I have seen people who have been burned by so many systems be EXTREMELY cautious when it comes to putting their trust in ANYTHING outside of themselves — EVEN GOD.
We read from the Author of Hebrews how important it is to maintain momentum in understanding and living out faith in Jesus. He said in Heb 5:11-14: “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”The people who were receiving this letter apparently had been Christians for awhile. We know that they are HEBREW people (Jewish people), as were the majority of the Early Church in Jerusalem. (A fact that many people don’t know - that Jews and Christians are very closely connected to each other, and what Jesus began 2000 years ago was intended to bring the Jews to the next level of relationship with their God. Some of them got it, some of them did not.)
And as we read through Hebrews, we see that these Jewish converts were having a tough go in their new-found faith in Jesus. And that’s understandable. If you grew up being taught one way, believing in a certain set of teachings, sometimes it’s difficult to embrace something new without being tempted every now and then to go back to the old ways.
So the Author of Hebrews is encouraging these Jewish Christians to keep growing, keep maturing. His point is that, if you’re not moving forward, you are in danger of falling back to your old ways.
He is reminding them throughout this book of the superiority of Jesus. In fact this whole book is one gigantic exciting commercial for faith in Jesus! The Author will tell us that Jesus is better than the Prophets, better than the Angels, better than Moses, better than the Law, better than the High Priest, and even better than the annual sacrifices proscribed in the Law.
The old way of doing things served, he says, as a foreshadowing of a better covenant, a better connection with God - not based on our performance in adhering to the external lawbook, but in the deepening relationship we have with our Heavenly Father made possible through the work of Jesus on the cross.
Mother’s Day is probably the toughest day of the year to preach. That’s primarily because it seems that Mother’s Day is a minefield of different emotions for so many in any given church. In the 8 years I have preached here at PBCC, I have not ever preached a Mother’s Day sermon. We have taken time out of the service to honor moms, but I typically have just barreled through with the sermon series we happened to be in at the time.
And to be honest it’s a difficult subject because while there are many of us who had great moms, some people have had – or still have – painful relationships with their moms, and some have lost their moms.
And then you have the ladies who would LOVE to be moms – but for whatever reason, could not be. And there are moms who pray continually for their kids who have gone off the rails, hoping that one day they will come back to the family or come back to their faith.
So it’s tough to find the balance. And besides, how many ways can you say honor your mother? I’ve heard that one so many times when I was growing up. And it can get so trite that it really carries very little meaning!
But today, as I DO bring a Mother’s Day message, one thing we can say that we all have in common - regardless of where you might fit into the mine field I described - is that we all have mothers. Our mothers gave us life. Whether they turned out to be great moms or terrible moms, or something in between, the Bible is clear that we are to honor our mothers.
I have long been fascinated with Western Turkey, and the area of the world where the seven churches of Revelation were located. In fact, one day, my hope is to visit that area to see for myself the places that I have studied for over 30 years now.
Of course, the actual cities where the churches that John addressed in The Book of Revelation no longer exist as they did in the First Century - but the ruins of those ancient cities can still be seen to some degree.
The only thing that remains are the foundation stones. You could still easily build on these foundations even today. The BUILDINGS that were on these foundations are gone - but the foundations have endured the centuries.
We have been talking about the Foundations of our Faith, according to Hebrews 6, verses 1-2. The Author of Hebrews was frustrated that the believers who, by the way, were being tempted to go back to the law to justify themselves, rather than to put their full weight on the work of Jesus for their righteousness, these believers SHOULD HAVE progressed to deeper spiritual truths - but they still were stuck on the ABCs of the Faith.
And it has been those ABCs of the Faith that we have spent the past couple of months studying, making sure WE understand the principle doctrines of Christianity - especially when we move on to the next thing the Author of Hebrews wants to talk about.
If you recall those ABCs are repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands (which is the work of the HS in the lives of believers), and finally the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And it’s this last part of the Foundations that we are in the middle of talking about.
It’s been said that an essential key in life... is the wisdom to navigate life WITH THE END IN MIND. IOW, when we understand what we want our life to lead to, we are able to form a life that is consistent with that end. So it’s vital that as a believer you bear in mind WHERE are you headed? What is the end aim for your life? Is there an aim - or are you just shooting your arrows at trees and then going up and painting the target on the tree where the arrow hit?
Where are WE going? What is the end that defines our existence? Where is life ultimately headed? These are the questions we are going to explore today. We’ve been studying the foundations of faith as outlined in Hebrews chapter 6. We talked about Repentance, and Faith, about Baptism and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And now we come to the end of the list - “the resurrection of the dead and eternal punishment.”
70% of Americans (or right around that number) believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But the reason there isn’t a spiritual awakening in this country is that what was ALSO determined from research was that for a good majority of those people who believe Jesus rose from the dead, those who acknowledge the truth of Easter, they don’t see how it makes any kind of difference to their lives.
And so, they do not live resurrected lives. They remain dead in their sins; their faith in Jesus’ resurrection, just a mere mental acknowledgement that has no power, practically, in their lives.
Many people may not gather in a faith community throughout the year - but somehow they know that being in church on Easter is somehow important. And they’re there. And they tell me, sometimes, how they USED to come here as kids - but they haven’t been in a long time. And they are afraid that somehow God is going to strike them with lightning as soon as they step foot in the building.
Some have even seemed hesitant to come in. You wonder what their lives must be like for that kind of almost FEAR. Like in there, where the service is happening is a holy place, and for whatever reason, they feel like they would not be welcomed there.
Some of you may have come to church this morning with a similar anxiety that something this morning at church is going to be holy, and you won't be welcome there. Deep inside there has been something that has been closed off, at least that’s how you feel. And you’re here today - but you aren’t sure you’re truly welcome in the presence of a holy God.
Today I want you to see that what you THINK, what you FEEL, has been closed off, actually has been opened. The title of today’s message is History’s Greatest Grand Opening. And there’s something exciting about a grand opening, isn’t there? Big news and great hope for the future.
I hope you’re ready today for a doozy! There is a skyscraper in Chicago known as Willis Tower. And one of the features of the tower is a glass sightseeing box extending from the 103rd floor. It attracts 1.5 million visitors each year. Pretty trippy, if you ask me.
BUT, what’s even scarier is that back in 2019, the protective layer covering the glass floor of the Skydeck shattered into millions of pieces. No one knows really why - but it just shattered. Apparently it happened when a woman with her two kids were standing there inside the extended box.
Needless to say, people are afraid to go out on the ledge anymore!
So I mentioned last week that we would look at the doctrine of the Trinity. And like the Skydeck, so many people are afraid to tackle the concept of the Trinity. We think it’s difficult, if not impossible, to understand - and even harder to explain! So people tend to stay safe, far away from the ledge.
On top of that, you have both certain denominations within Christianity, as well as some Christian-LIKE cults who have tried to shatter this doctrine with frontal attacks on the Trinity.
It’s my hope when we’re finished, each of us will grow in our delight of the triune God and our faith will be fortified. AND, if you are good at taking notes, I hope you’ll pick up some good points to use when someone asks you WHY you (and your church) believe in the Trinity.
For a variety of reasons, I am excited about this message. Have you ever said this: I can hardly wait to get my hands on that person! I’m pretty sure that’s NOT what the Bible means when it speaks of this “laying on of hands.”
But I also am pretty sure that this is one of those really confusing ideas we read in Scripture and don’t automatically understand what it’s talking about.
I mean - on one hand, you have pentecostal preachers out there (some on tv) who claim to have the gift of healing people by laying hands on them. You find others laying hands on folks who then break out in tongues and things get chaotic. And so on that one hand, people tend to not WANT to know about the laying on of hands - especially if it means that kind of experience. Kinda scary to many people, ya know?
But then on the other hand, you see that the Bible DOES instruct the Church to participate in the laying on of hands…and if it’s commanded in Scripture, then we know it must be important…
So what does it mean to have hands laid on you? What does that signify?
Well, this will be a journey that may take us a couple of weeks to get through - which is fine. I would rather us have a more thorough understanding, because this is one of those issues that represents, what I believe, to be the power of life-transformation that God designed us to experience. And for that reason, I don’t want us to misunderstand the source of that kind of power.
This morning I want to talk to you about Baptism. Baptism is one of those things we talk about here at PBCC - but I don’t remember the last time we had a study on the basics of baptisms. This is one of those issues that was clearly important to the early Church. In the New Testament book of Acts, for instance, it might surprise you to see that there are absolutely NO unbaptized believers. Baptism is brought up time and time again by the writers of the New Testament, beginning with the gospel accounts and going through Paul’s letters and Hebrews and Peter.
Paul likens baptism to the death, burial, & resurrection of Jesus and says things like: Rm 6:3-4: “...all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death…in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”Peter likens baptism to the saving of Noah and his family when God destroyed the world through the flood. 1 Pt 3:20-22 “In it only a few people, 8 in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also - not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God…”Jesus himself was baptized, as he said: “To fulfill all righteousness” (Mt. 3:15) and then he instructed his disciples to baptize in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20a: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…”When it comes to baptism, I’m not sure why there’s so much debate because it seems to me that the Word of God - if we are to trust this book as the Word and Will of God - the Word of God is clear. Baptism is a part of what it means to be a disciple. Make disciples, Jesus said; TEACH them what I have taught - a part of which is the importance of obedience through faith into the waters of baptism.
What I want to do mostly today is to show you from scripture itself that baptism is something that is part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and that it really is, more than anything else, an amazing piece of evidence of one’s faith in the saving power of God’s grace.
I want to start this morning with a question. Does your faith have any value at all? In other words, once you come to faith in Jesus, does that mean anything?
Once I become a follower of Jesus, should there be anything different about what I do with my life? Should there be a different focus for the way I live than what I had before I confessed my faith?
FAITH in Jesus can not just be something to acknowledge. FAITH should have a profound effect on our lives. This is at the heart of Hebrews 11, which we looked at briefly last week. This chapter, this Hall of Faith, is one of those great passages that lifts up the example of people who came to truly KNOW God, to LOVE Him, and to TRUST Him to the extent it caused them to surrender their own wills to God’s will, and to live a life characterized by obedience to the leading of God’s Spirit.
This past week I was doing a lot of thinking and meditation and discussing with other people about the concept of faith. You know, even if you claim to be a person without faith, the fact remains that you have faith in SOMETHING. And you can have 100% of faith in something.
Don’t believe me? People do it everyday when they get on an airplane…this multi-ton metal tube that hurtles through the air at an insane speed. And it comes to land on three points of rubber… don’t tell me you don’t have faith. Obviously you do - otherwise you’d never get on a plane.
We live by faith. In fact, I don’t think you can get through a single day without demonstrating faith in SOMETHING. When you flip a light switch you put faith in the electrical wiring. When you turn the ignition switch in your car, you trust the motor. When you mail a letter you have faith in the US Mail Service. Well….okay….maybe there’s a limit with somethings.
I KID! But, seriously…when you THINK you can trust things, and it turns out bad, there is a better chance that you just placed your faith in the wrong thing rather than that thing doesn’t exist. IOW, faith SEEMS to be only as valuable as WHAT (or WHO) you put your faith in.
Now that’s true in human relationships, in commercial companies; and it’s ALSO true when it comes to SPIRITUAL faith. And there are many, many things and entities that people have put their faith in over the course of human history. Buddhists have put their faith in the idea of getting to do things over and over and over until you get it right, according to the teaching of the Buddha. Muslims have put their trust in Mohammed, the prophet, and his insights into God (whom they call Allah). Hindus have put their trust in thousands of gods. Even when people claim no religion at all, they still live by faith. Faith that their system of belief is actually real.
And at the heart of most religions, interestingly enough, is the faith that people are by-and-large generally GOOD. Humans seem to have faith in human potential. And that may manifest itself in the preeminence of science or politics, or it may well be expressed as a harmony with nature.
Last week we began a mini-series in the New Testament Book of Hebrews based on what the Author of Hebrews refers to as “the elementary” things of God - the Basics, if you will. Things that you should probably understand before moving on to some deeper understanding of how God works in our lives, and how He leads us. In fact, the Author of Hebrews is frustrated that the Hebrew converts to Christianity to whom he is writing aren’t able to withstand the temptation to go back to try to be justified by the Old Testament Law, rather than to trust in the sufficiency of Jesus for their right standing with God.
He tells them that by this time, they ought to be teachers (Heb. 5:12), but instead they are on shaky ground because they still need someone to teach them the basics yet again.
The basics shouldn’t be shunned or thought less of. That’s why I decided we should pause our Hebrews study to go back to the basics. And for some of you, that might be frustrating; you want to get past all this elementary stuff and get to the Master’s courses. But please note there are others here who have never even heard about the basics EVER - and this is the first time they are hearing about things like repentance, and faith, and baptism, and the Holy Spirit, and Eternal Life.
And then there are the majority of us who find ourselves somewhere in the middle of those extremes; folks who THINK they know the game, but who need to be sat down every once in a while and have a coach pick up a Bible and say, “Church, this is the Gospel. This is the Faith.”
For the next two weeks we are looking at the second foundational truth the Author of Hebrews mentions in chapter 6, verses 1-3. Last week we talked about repentance, this week and next will be all about
I want to begin by mentioning an important event that will happen this week for many, many churches around the world. Now, in our tradition, in the Restoration Church, where we don’t follow many of the High Church events on the Church calendar (i.e., Epiphany, All Saints’ Day, etc.), we haven’t ever really focused on this event - much less ever really mentioned it; BUT it is a day that has been held as sacred for many Christians over the past centuries.
The day is Ash Wednesday - a commemoration not specifically commanded in Scripture - but a day where the intention is very much connected to the principles that we read of in Scripture.
What is Ash Wednesday? Well, Ash Wednesday originated somewhere between the sixth and eighth centuries (in the Year of our Lord - A.D. - Anno Domini). It was a day for the Church to gather to remember the sinfulness of mankind and the need for repentance. And as a sign of the sorrow for sin and the decision to be made clean, believers would sprinkle ashes over their heads.
Last week I showed you from Hebrews 5 and 6 the FOUNDATIONS of our faith. Remember the Author of Hebrews is concerned that the Hebrew converts to Christianity would not be strong enough to withstand the temptation that they faced to go BACK to trying to be justified by the OT Law, rather than through their faith in the sufficiency of Jesus’ perfect life and perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for their sins,
He scolded them for not growing past the basic, elementary doctrines of the faith, knowing that if they still were having trouble with the foundations, they wouldn’t get the deeper stuff that is involved in living out one’s faith through obedience to the Spirit of God.
And, if you recall, this prompted me to decide that perhaps, before we continue in our study in Hebrews, we would do well to pause and take a look at those foundational truths of the Gospel: The truths of repentance from dead works, of faith in God, of the teachings of baptism, of the laying on of hands - which is the yielding to the Spirit of God, and finally of matters of eternal life.
So this morning I have set the scene for us (and I think it’s quite timely since this Wednesday will be a time where Christians around the world will be focusing on repentance) for us to also consider the basic, foundational truth of repentance, and what that IS, what is MEANS, and what it LOOKS LIKE for believers today.
When people don’t mature like they should, we recognize that there is something wrong with that. What’s even worse is when people experience a real psychological phenomenon called Personality Regression.
Personality regression is a mental state in which one suddenly adopts an identical or similar personality, thought structure, mannerisms and behaviors to that of their past self from a younger age. During this state, the person will often believe that they are literally a child again and begin outwardly exhibiting behaviors which reflect this belief. These behaviors can include talking in a childlike manner, engaging in childish activities, and temporarily requiring another person to act as a caregiver or guardian.
Now…what could be unhealthy in a physical sense (because there is the truism that healthy things grow, right? And if you’re not growing - or if you’re regressing - that’s NOT healthy)... what could be called unhealthy in your physical life, I can argue that it’s just as unhealthy when you are regressing or not progressing in your spiritual life as well!
We now come to a section in the NT Book of Hebrews - this letter that we have been in since back in the Fall - where the Author (remember, we don’t know WHO wrote the letter, we just know it was written to Jewish converts to Christianity - religious people who were being tempted to go back to trying to earn their salvation by works of the OT Law, rather than on the sufficiency of Jesus as the one who didn’t abolish the Law, but fulfilled it by his perfect life and sacrifice on the cross) - this section is where the Author is bemoaning the spiritual maturity level of these people.
We can suppose that in the Author’s mind, if the Hebrew converts were well past the fundamentals of the faith, the “elementary truths,” he will call them, if they were more mature in their faith then they wouldn’t be tempted to regress!
Apparently the Author of Hebrews is concerned that these believers remain ALIVE in their faith - not dead and unproductive. DEFINITELY NOT regressing, but moving forward. Because if we aren’t, well, then, there is something wrong.
What makes a King? Is it merely the title? Some people operate like that. Not great leaders. What makes a King is the power he has AND HOW HE USES THAT POWER…
Today’s culture - LOTS of politicized things. Driving a wedge between people, where there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. There’s an explanation - and it has a lot to do with the kind of leaders we have in power…
Today as we approach the Christmas story, we will take a look at power and how things haven’t really changed much in human history. And, this is the week we will look at the three Kings.
Today I want to talk about words. Words are powerful ways to communicate ideas. And some words are beautiful. Majesty. Creation. Life. Forgiveness.
Home’s a good word . Some of you have confirmed that word for me in the last few weeks.
There are some beautiful words. There are also words that make us a little uncomfortable, aren’t there? Tests. Moist.
Submission. Obedience. LORDSHIP. Start using these terms with people and they tend to bristle… or not even truly understand what you’re talking about. Lordship? What’s that?
We don’t have Lords anymore. We have bosses – and that’s KINDA like a Lord. But there was a stronger bond connecting a vassal to a Lord in olden days, more so than an employee’s connection to a boss at work. You can quit your job, tell your boss to take a hike, if you don’t like what has been told you to do. And yes, you’ll have to find another job, sure… BUT you don’t HAVE to do what the boss said if you would rather walk away to perhaps be your OWN boss.
The Bible speaks of submission and obedience and Lordship. And because of our culture, those things aren’t popular words or ideas to many American believers. And yet they are characteristics of a lifestyle that biblical faith leads believers into.
This morning we are looking at the baby in the manger and his advent, his coming into this world, as the Lord of Lords - a title that we read of throughout scripture:
Last week we closed by looking at a passage in Revelation - Revelation chapter 5, where we read about how the Lion of the tribe of Judah had the strength to open the seals of the scroll of eternal life. This was the Lion of Judah prophesied in Genesis 49 by the patriarch Jacob as he was blessing his sons on his deathbed.
And I told you that we would be continuing to look at that passage this week. So, let’s finish up the thought there in Revelation 5.
The Lion of Judah had the strength - and now that strong Lion SEEMS to have taken the form of a Lamb looking as if it had been slain. And all the creatures around the throne were worshiping the Lamb, giving it all praise and honor and glory - because as the Lion was strong enough to open the scroll, the Lamb was WORTHY enough to open the scroll.
And with that we begin the second week of Advent, focusing on the newborn Messiah as not just the strong Lion of Judah from prophecy. We now see him also as the Lamb of God worthy enough to bring peace between God and mankind.
Many of you know that I am involved in the theater scene in Bend.
One famous playwright that I have never done a play by - nor really even have the desire to do so - is a Russian playwright named Anton Chekov. He is famous for plays like Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters. But he is also famous in the theater world for a literary device known as Chekov’s Gun. In a nutshell he was saying that it was important for the playwright to strip everything down to the bare essentials - get rid of anything you don’t need in the play.
So for instance, if there is a rifle hanging on the wall in the first act, then that gun absolutely MUST go off in the second or third act. Here’s a quote: “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it ISN’T going to of off; it’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”
This is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent comes from a Latin word that means “to come.” We sing the Christmas hymn: O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Emmanuel is a title that the prophet Isaiah attached to the promised Messiah. And the hymn depicts the longing of the people of God to fulfill His promise to deliver them. O Come, O Come. Advent. We need you. We cannot do it on our own.
Advent has been celebrated by churches for centuries. It’s designed to be a time leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ birth where believers prepare their hearts to recapture the meaning of that birth into our world. And in these four weeks that lead up to Christmas (five, this year, if you count Christmas Eve day when we gather at 9:30 for the Children's Christmas Pageant and at 6pm for the Candlelight Communion Service)...in these four weeks, churches have come to focus in on several aspects of the story of Jesus’ birth.
Sometimes you take characters from the story and focus on them. Sometimes you take concepts like Joy, Peace, and Love - and THAT’S what you focus on each week. Here at PBCC we have gotten creative as we have looked at Christmas Songs, or Christmas Movies, things like that. I think it’s cool when we can find a fresh perspective on a story that can - unfortunately for some - lose some of its wonder because it feels so routine and boring…the same old story told the same old way.
This year, as I mentioned last week, I want to use these beautiful banners you see behind me to guide our preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ birth. So we will be looking at Jesus as the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, the Lord of Lords, and the King of Kings: all titles that are found in the narrative of the nativity.
But we start today with the Promises of God - “Chekov’s Gun,” if you will, when God hung the loaded rifle up on the wall in Act 1, and promises that the gun WILL go off before the story is finished (of course, this is all metaphor!
Ever have a job where you feel like the conveyor belt just gets faster and faster and you can’t keep up with the demands? Ever feel like that when it comes to other areas of life? Like maybe your religious experience, where the rules just keep coming at you, and you feel overwhelmed by all the things you THINK you have to do to please God?
This morning I hope to clear the air of what God has called you and I as believers into - the kind of relationship that benefits us and pleases Him. And it might just surprise you what God DOESN’T want of us…
Question Authority. Ever hear that? It was a mantra of the peaceniks of the 1960s. Free love; peace, love, and dope. Oddly enough - now those people are now in Authority, and how they’ve changed their tune: Don’t Question Us. We know what we’re doing.
But back in the day, rebellion against authority was turned into almost an art form! You can’t tell me what to do. My opinion is right - and you can’t convince me otherwise.
Well what was fashionable in 60’s counter-culture society, if it’s brought into the church, or into the life of someone who is still immature in their faith, can actually kill faith. And there is no one who knows better than the nation of Israel that had come out of bondage in Egypt.
Remember last week - we saw how, though Moses would eventually come to be greatly honored - though it was most likely due to a watering down of the Mosaic Law which took a backseat to the interpretations of the Law by the rabbis of the time - that first generation of Hebrews out of Egypt were a little iffy about Moses’ leadership. They complained, they rebelled. They wanted a re-vote. They even demanded that they return to slavery in Egypt!
And at that point, God had had enough.
Chapter 3 of Hebrews harkens back to that point in Israel’s history - a time of hardening of hearts and fueling of rebellious spirits. And, in fact, the Author is comparing what the Hebrew converts to Christianity were tempted to do (which was to turn away from salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus) to what was happening there in the time of rebellion against Moses’ leadership in the wilderness.
Today, really is going to be about just one verse - and, really, mainly only one word.
It’s a powerful word - but one that I think we don’t fully understand in many Christian circles. I think it would benefit us greatly to take this time before we barrel ahead in the Book of Hebrews to makes sure we get what the NT authors meant when they use this particular word.
So here’s the verse: HEBREWS 3:1 “Therefore holy brothers you who share in the heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession…”
There you go - obviously throughout our study we will definitely be doing that - considering Jesus. And next week we will see what it means for Jesus to be apostle and high priest. And I should remind you here that this is the purpose of the book - to encourage these Hebrew converts to the Way to NOT go back to the Law to rely on it to save them. The whole meta-message of the letter is to show that Jesus is enough.
Before we get to our text today (and I geek out again), I want to lay some groundwork as we proceed with our study of an ancient Hebraic document - the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews.
Hebrews, remember, is a different kind of animal. It’s rabbinical in nature - with concepts taking the forefront, rather than systematic logic.
It’s challenging - especially for modern thinkers. We like to figure things out nice and easy. This means this, that means that, etc.
But the ancient Middle Eastern mind just processed things differently. For example...
Rabbis would look at the phrase God’s Son found in the Old Testament and they’d see the meaning of that in a number of different ways.
BUT ALSO they would interpret the phrase to refer to the KING. (Makes sense, because the King did sort of embody the nation…read the history and you’ll see that, truly, as the King went, so often went the nation; good king - the nation followed God, bad king - the nation…not so righteous.)
And, by the way, this wasn’t confusing to the ancient Hebraic mindset! You could have a variety of things referred to as “the Son of God.” In their worldview you could have someone representing a larger group of people.
It’s like mountains and buttes and such
You could look at the Butte to the South of the church and if you catch it at dawn, or on an overcast day, and it looks like one big formation, right? But on a clear day, it always amazes me to look at the Butte and see the dimensions of it. It’s not just one thing - it’s a few formations close together. But there are layers, dimensions.
Mountains are like that. They look like one formation, but in reality there might be a couple of lower peaks sitting in front of a taller peak.
So in rabbinical thought, you could have a prophecy that had an immediate fulfillment… but also, at the same time, it could have a future fulfillment as well. Like the dimensions of the Butte.
That might seem confusing to our modern mind - but not to the First Century Jews! They knew EXACTLY why Jesus was quoting that Psalm…The Son of God could be Israel, the King, AND (at least in the Author’s mind) the Messiah – ALL of them - without it being strange at all.
With that in mind, in Hebrews 2:5-18 (the rest of the chapter we didn’t get to last week), we are going to see a passage that refers to another Psalm that can be seen in more than one way. It confused me the first several times I read through the passage in Hebrews 2 - and yet, I hope you can see this morning why I got so excited when I finally figured out what the Author was doing! So ready? Here we go…
For those of you who are joining us for the first time - or the first time in a while - let me quickly give you a synopsis of the study we have undertaken in the NT Book of Hebrews…
What the Book of Hebrews is, is a letter written to Hebrew converts to Christianity in the First Century. And the REASON the letter was sent as an encouragement for these converts to stick with their new-found faith. Persecution had arisen, things were getting difficult for Christians. Add to that the fear that maybe they made a mistake and that perhaps they couldn’t fully trust in the sacrifice of Jesus to make them right with God.
Well by way of encouragement, chapter 1 was all about how Jesus had a better message to reveal because he was God’s agent in salvation. He served as perfect prophet, priest, and is now reigning as KING. The Author of this letter is telling the Hebrew believers to trust in Jesus because HE IS GOD. And if they go back to the Law to try to justify themselves, it would be a grave mistake. They needed to know for a fact that JESUS IS GREATER than the old ways.
Now, even though this letter is written to Hebrew converts to Christianity in the First Century, I think this is a message we ALL need to hear. I have a good friend who, as I was sharing the Gospel with him, told me that his father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic - and so he KNEW the guilt!
And that’s the problem. When those of us who have put our faith in Jesus are tempted to doubt his sufficiency, to wonder if the NT is accurate when it tells us that we are saved - NOT BY WORKS, but by God’s Grace. We need to be reminded that Jesus is enough, right?
And that is why this second chapter of Hebrews is so important. Fixing our faith so that we don’t dangerously drift is the focus. So let’s read the first few verses together…
The man of God, Moses, has led a host of Israelites to the foot of Mount Sinai. Jehovah, the God that rescued them from bondage in Egypt called Moses up onto the mountain to receive His Law for His people.
We speak of awesome things - nothing was more awesome than the sight of a mountain, terrible, smoking and fiery. Thunder pealed from the clouds that enveloped the top of the mountain and a strict warning was given: the God who had come down to this mountain was so holy that if even an animal were to touch even the base of the mountain, it would mean instantaneous death.
Our God is an awesome God; He reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power, and love - our God is an awesome God!Can you imagine that experience? To witness the evidence of a holy and awesome God; to know that a sinful person could not even look upon the face of that God, he was so awesome.
And yet - in the book of Hebrews we are told that there is something even more awesome that we can experience right now, right here, today - everyday, in fact.
When you and I enter into a time of worship, what happens is truly awesome. And believe it or not, it’s way more awesome than the Mount Sinai experience!
What have the Romans ever given us? What have they ever done for us?
When I read the first three verses of Hebrews 1, this is what I think of.
We live in a post-christian world. No longer do people recognize one absolute truth. Here’s the danger for believers today — unless we fully understand WHO Jesus is and the benefits he brings, we could easily be swayed to accept other ways to be made right with God.
That’s the issue with these First Century Hebrew converts to Christianity. They didn’t understand all that Jesus brought to them through WHO he is and WHAT he has given to them.
Let’s look at how the Author of Hebrews describes Jesus in these roles.
I don’t know about you but there are some things I’d LIKE to change. There are sins, habits, hang-ups that exist that keep me from walking closer to Jesus. I KNOW I’m supposed to deal with these things - but I’ve tried…and I’ve failed…and sometimes I don’t WANT to change - though I know I’m supposed to… And the things I know I’m supposed to do, I DON’T do - and some of the things I’m NOT supposed to do, I end up doing.
Who’s gonna help me??
BTW, in case you think I shouldn’t be your pastor if I have these issues, this is EXACTLY what the Apostle Paul told the Romans about himself (show Romans 7:15-17)
You see - we ALL need help. And the vision of Jesus in bringing us life, abundant life, life to the full, more and better life than you ever dream of, was to not just save us from the PENALTY of sin, opening the way to eternal life with him in Heaven, but to save us from the POWER of sin as well.
Today we’re gonna park ourselves in 1 John 1.
This letter served to encourage those who were already saved from the penalty of sin (that’s important to note: this was not an evangelistic letter, but a rallying letter for those in the Early Church that was connected to the ministry of the apostle.
The Music Man… a con artist selling a boys band in River City, IA. Problem - he didn’t know music at all. Used a con called “the THINK system.” There was no practice; he just told the boys to THINK the Minuet in G (la de da de da de da de da…).
And when they all came together, it was obvious they had no clue what they were doing!
What happens when you don’t put things into practice - what happens when things stay mere theory - when you approach reality with something as bogus as the THINK system? As a pastor it frustrates me to see many believers come to salvation - which is awesome - but then never really DO what someone who is saved participates in… I know many believers who HEAR about the spiritual life, they READ about the spiritual life, but they never get out there to actually EXPERIENCE and put into PRACTICE what the spiritual life is all about.
For them, it seems like their connection with their faith isn’t rooted in reality.
I read this morning from Romans 12 - and it’s a very practical part of scripture, by the way. I realized this about 25 years ago as I was teaching MIddle Schoolers going through the book of Romans. And we get to this amazing and well-known passage: Romans 12:1 - Therefore I urge you, brothers, ,in view of God’s mercy, to offer bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. And do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…Something we memorize - something I heard in lessons and sermons my entire life - but without anyone really telling me what it MEANS to offer my body as a living sacrifice. Yes, it’s my spiritual act of worship…but what does that LOOK like in reality? And that’s when it hit me: the rest of the chapter, and for the next two chapters, Paul tells us EXACTLY what it means. And you get this incredibly practical teaching about how to live out our faith… and we see that our faith affects all these areas of our lives: our relationship with God, our relationship with unbelievers, our relationship with civic leaders, our relationship with other Christians…
That’s the context that we find our text in this morning. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is no longer theoretical theology. This is no longer coffee mug spirituality, where a nice inspiring verse gets us going in the morning. This is what God REALLY calls us to DO - to actually DO.
Mark 9 captures a story of a man who had a son possessed by a demon.. When the boy was brought to Jesus the spirit threw him to the ground and he began foaming at the mouth. And the father says to Jesus: (Mark 9:23-24) “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us! And Jesus said to him, ‘If You can? All things are possible to him who believes.’ Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, ‘I do believe; help my unbelief.”
What a statement. An acknowledgement, really, of the essence of a journey of faith. A faith that is very much there - after all the father went to Jesus’ disciples to cast out the demon - but also at times seems to be lacking.
Faith is really something we grow in; it’s part of our journey. Abraham was a man of faith. In Isaiah, God calls Abraham his “friend.” Can you imagine God singling YOU out and calling you His friend? Abraham is known as the FATHER of faith. We are told in Scripture that Abraham believed God’s promises that Brian preached about last week - and that because of his belief in the faithfulness of God to fulfill His promises, God counted Abraham as RIGHTEOUS.
So we shouldn’t be surprised to find times in Abraham’s life where that faith stood out - times where his trust in God was obvious. But it may surprise you to see there were times in Abraham’s life where he could easily have said as the father says to Jesus there in Mark 9 - I DO believe…but I need help with those times where my faith isn’t as strong. in other words, help my unbelief.
Some discoveries as a child…
- Mom and Dad have lives outside of my life (even a romantic life! - shiver!!)
- Certain mythical creatures are indeed mythical
- Boys and girls are different
- Where our burger really comes from
- The Submarines at Disneyland don’t really dive
- The answers are in the back of the book!
- Once they knew that WE knew, that’s when they assigned just the ODD numbers! Grrr.
The Bible is like that. A lot of the preliminary stuff - things you read in the OT, they have their fulfillment towards the back of the book. ETC.
The same is true in the book of Psalms. (Doesn't matter what the tone is - good, bad, imprecatory, etc) - all have the same end. ETC.
Today we’re going to the back of the book to see that answer, so turn with me to Psalm 150 - the very last Psalm in our Bibles - and let’s read it.
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we don’t want to be in - situations we would never CHOOSE to be in. I remember in my 20’s, after a lifetime (albeit a SHORT lifetime) of wanting desperately to find someone to love and to be married to, I remember being hopelessly single. I’ve known couples who have tried and tried to conceive, desperately wanting a family, but to no avail. I know of people, even here in this congregation, who live in constant pain - literal pain - who would give ANYTHING to just live ONE DAY without the suffering.
My wife Jenny and I just made a whirlwind trip to Manteca, CA, for the funeral of a friend and great mentor. It was good to be there. I wanted to be there - but I DIDN’T want to be there, if you can understand that sentiment. It was a Valley of weeping - not a pleasant place to be.
Let’s be honest - there are times when Peace like a River does NOT attend our way; times when the path we are on is filled more with sea-billows crashing in around us.
Today’s Psalm, Psalm 84, I must confess I truly hadn't understood until my study this past week. I know it from a couple songs we sing based on it. But I discovered that these words are spoken/sung by the psalmist not because he is where he longs to be - but because he's NOT there, and his heart is asking to be there.
He's not in the courts of the Lord, he's not as close to God’s presence as he has been in the past. He remembers how good it was, and he expresses a longing to be there once again.
This morning will be different from other Sundays - and that’s okay. It’s good to be jarred from the routine from time to time in order to catch something that you might have become numb to.
And it’s good that we are messing with the order of WORSHIP - because really what I believe would be good for us to wake up to is our attitude towards worship; but not ONLY what is thought of by people when the term WORSHIP comes up in conversation.
Whenever a church begins to talk about worship, church people tend to go immediately in their minds to MUSIC, right? Or maybe you think worship as the sermon or the prayer time - or in some churches, even the liturgy, the rituals. But as you read through Scripture, you’ll find that in God’s economy, there is something deeper than the mere rituals we participate in each week. There’s a HEART, so to speak, an ATTITUDE that God calls His people into throughout their entire lives.
And that’s why I love the Psalm we are studying today: Psalm 95, because this Psalm has helped many people move from thinking about worship in terms of the external - what we DO in our religious life - to the internal - who we ARE as worshipers.
Now, if you're here this morning and, and you're not a Christian, as you the topic of worship, you probably think, great - but that’s not for me. I’m not a church person, and I’m definitely NOT a worshiper. HOWEVER, I would beg to differ; because the reality is worship is a human thing. It’s not just a religious thing. If you are a human being, you worship. It’s the way our minds, our hearts, our souls work - how (we would say here in church) we were created.
Now, you may not CALL it worship - but all of us give ourselves to SOMETHING. All of us chase after something; moved by something we place high value on: a sport, a hobby, a job, a Netflix series. Things that have WORTH - THIS is what it means to worship, to assign worth to something. So, even people who aren’t religious, the problem isn’t a lack of worship - the problem is MISPLACED worship.
What I hope happens today as you give me about half an hour is that you would through our study of Psalm 95 begin to see who GOD truly is and why He invites YOU into a relationship where you come to worship Him in a way that is higher than anything else you count as significant.
And, if you are here this morning and you ARE a believer, I hope that you would gain a firmer foundation wherever you DO enter into worship, whether it’s here on Sunday, or in your everyday life; I hope you’d see worship as the essential thing God designed it to be as He invites you to COME.
Let me ask a philosophical question: is perfection the main thing God wants of His people? It’s an interesting question, if you think about it. God gave His people the law - so it would seem obvious that God wanted them to be obedient to the law, thereby desire perfection of His people, right?
Here’s an issue that arises from that standpoint: and if you are acquainted with the history of God’s people as we read in the Old Testament, you’ll see that there are two distinct patterns that emerge, First off, there is a pattern of IMPERFECTION, right? There is this pattern of God’s people sinning, as if in their sinful nature they are unable to stay loyal to God. In their fallen nature they cannot overcome the temptation to chase after foreign gods and to trust in their own strength and wisdom.
And when that happens, God brings punishment. He is displeased and allows His people to suffer the consequences of their sinful actions and attitudes. And so, again, it seems as if God is demanding perfection - or else.
HOWEVER, there is a second pattern that emerges even in the unfaithfulness of God’s people in Scripture: this pattern is a God who, yes, DOES confront HIs people in their sin, and DOES correct them - but to what end? Just to punish them, to let them know how angry He is at their disobedience, their imperfect choices?
Or might there be another purpose to His discipline of His people?
This morning, I'm going to talk to you about the theme of silence. What is the place that silence has in our lives and in a special way in our praying to God?
Eugene Peterson once wrote that: “Language consists in equal parts of speaking and silence.”
Equal parts…that’s significant. What does this mean then about prayer? If prayer is our language, our communication with God, then according to Peterson’s insight, prayer must include more than just what we say to God. But how often do we actually discipline ourselves to be quiet and to wait?
Often I hear people complaining that they’ve prayed and God just hasn’t shown up, hasn’t done what they’ve asked of Him. For some, that is the last straw in their wavering faith, and they walk away because they aren’t getting “what THEY want out of God.”
It’s interesting to stop and think through that phenomenon: that perhaps they aren’t finding any power to prayer because THEY’VE done all the talking - and maybe if they’d just shut up and wait and listen for God to actually speak to them, they’d see the power that God is offering to them in whatever situation they are seeking help in.
But to learn how to LISTEN to God, rather than just speak, is difficult, because, as we saw at the beginning of this message, too many of us are incredibly uncomfortable with silence. I know some of you introverts think that you love silence, but when I say silence, I don't mean you sitting on your couch, flipping through your phone, reading tweets or looking at Instagram. That's not the kind of silence we're talking about. We'll get into more of that a little bit later. But the kind of silence that I think we're invited to in God's Word in Psalm 62 is a silence that takes a lot of practice and hard work. And it's in that that we learn how to truly communicate with our God.
Psalm 62, which we are studying this morning, carries with it this idea of using times of silence in our communication with God to deepen our faith in who He is and what He does in our lives. What if your prayer life could consist not only of what you say TO God, but what you HEAR from Him as well? I believe this is one of the key things we learn from reading through Psalm 62.
Have you ever seen the verse from Jeremiah 29:11:
“For I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future.”?
You can’t miss it, since we put it on posters and coffee mugs and t-shirts! It’s one of the Christian’s favorite Bible verses because it just makes us feel so good about what’s happening in our lives.
It’s funny how we often grab hold of verses that SOUND great in one way - but we don’t really see the CONTEXT of the verse. I have heard this verse quoted about how God wants His people to live wonderfully prosperous lives, devoid of tough times. And I think, “Do you not KNOW the situation that led Jeremiah to write these words?”
As we begin this morning, let’s look at the context of Jeremiah 29:11.
When I was growing up, back in 1978, my family moved to a home in South San Jose. Our family was growing with the impending birth of my little sister, and so we found a larger home that we would stay in until I graduated from college.
It was a nice home, good neighborhood, some good friends. But for the first time in my life we lived by a pyracantha bush. This bush was characterized by very small red berries. And thorns. And their dense thorny structure makes them particularly good in situations where an impenetrable barrier is required. And so in South San Jose the backyards often would display these plants.
Now here’s where I’m going with this description of the bushes in our backyard: while the pyracantha berries are apparently safe for human consumption, the seeds are mildly poisonous, containing a substances called cyanogenic glycoside, which - if consumed in large amounts - it can cause intoxication. So while humans probably wouldn’t consume toxic amounts (though apparently you can make JELLY out of it - go figure!), when birds eat the berries, watch out!!
As we found out one particular summer day. Mom was in the kitchen at the sink, which was right below our kitchen window overlooking the fence between our yard and our neighbor’s - which displayed a huge pyracantha bush. And all of a sudden: BAM! Something hit the window HARD.Scared my mom to death. I remember her
scream. Not a minute later, there was another BAM! And it was then that Mom saw that these two birds were literally flying into the window. Shades of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds flashed through our minds. These two birds seemed to be trying to attack us! Mom freaked out and called dad. And we stayed OUT of the kitchen the rest of the afternoon, as I recall.
But then a friend from church, when they heard of the incident told us about how common it was for birds to get drunk off of the pyracantha berries, and then to see their reflection in nearby windows and attack the image in the window, thinking that they were seeing another bird in their territory.
They literally thought their reflection was their enemy.
Now I believe this illustrates an appropriate thought for us to consider today as we study the next Psalm in our series, because at times when we feel overwhelmed, attacked, in trouble, often it’s a consequence of our own doing.
So what do you do at those times; times where the enemy is YOU; times when you cannot blame anyone, really, except yourself?
There are some memorable numbers. 1492, December 7, 1941, Y2K, 9-11.
9-11 is a number we won’t soon forget. But so is 23 - as in the 23rd Psalm.
Most everyone has heard of Psalm 23. It’s been called the sweetest song ever sung. Abraham Lincoln read it when battling depression, we read it during memorial services, President Bush chose to quote part of it when bringing comfort and direction to a nation reeling from an unprecedented terrorist attack.
It’s one of the most familiar portions of scripture; and yet, there is a danger of missing the depth of its meaning. Growing up in Suburbia, I know much of its language escaped me… I wasn’t in 4H. I didn’t know much about sheep. The only shepherds I knew about were my peers who put towels over their heads and robes on for the annual Christmas pageant!
And yet - the Bible speaks of sheep often. It even connects God’s people to sheep nearly 200 times!
The 23rd Psalm is the Psalm we will study today, and I am praying that God opens up our hearts to understand WHY it’s important to have Him identify us as His sheep…
Psalm 5 is an interesting psalm to study. The things of this world that the Psalmist brings up in prayer to God have a tendency to “stink” to many people. Injustice - the bad guys win and it doesn’t seem fair - in fact we even sometimes use the phrase “well, that stinks.”
And yet as you proceed through the Psalm, as we will do, it becomes clear that there is an attitude and there is a course of action that can change the aroma from something confusing and repellant to something that draws us nearer to God.
Perhaps you are here today and you still bring skepticism to the things of faith. You may still wrestle with the question that if God is good, why does He allow evil and pain and suffering to exist?
I hear that question a lot in our world today. And, by the way, even as a pastor, I’m rarely offended. I only get upset when the question is asked with no intention to actually search for the answer. If you are asking that question - good! It’s a question that the Bible itself wrestles with from time to time. So you aren’t the only one to have that question. My question to you is this: do you REALLY want to seek understanding - or are you allowing that question to actually pull you away from God?
I want to talk today about a Hebrew word that adds richness and depth to our faith - and it’s sad that far too many believers have no idea of the word because they don’t read Hebrew. It’s the word “chesed.” This word appears 250 times in the OT. You’d think it's kind of important, right? And what’s intriguing to me is that (talk about getting our attention!) 127 out of those 250 times, over half the time the word appears in the Bible, it’s here in the book of Psalms.
Last week I misspoke in saying that “chesed” means enduring love. So that’s true - but not true as well. Yes, love is PART of what this word means; BUT when you try to pin down a definition of “chesed,” you’ll find something interesting. The word is truly beautiful - like a diamond - whose beauty is enhanced by the many facets on the diamond, each reflecting the light in a different way. As such, the meaning of “chesed” is many faceted - each definition reflecting something unique and beautiful; and you can’t capture the definition with just one English word. So, in the NIV there are at least 12 different translations of this word!
Included in the list of translations of “chesed:” Graciousness, loving-kindness, faithful love, enduring love, benevolence, favor. At times it describes God’s forgiveness; at times it represents tenderness. AND it’s said to be a word with gravitational pull because the OT authors attached other Hebrew words to “hesed” to bring out more of the flavors of the word.
It is the driving force in the Psalm we are studying this morning: Psalm 136.
Sometimes I think we come into this place and we leave our stories outside. Sometimes I think we come in here and we try to separate ourselves from the things that have distracted us or overpowered us all week. And yet, that’s not being true to what it means to be fully devoted to following Jesus.
Yes, there are times when following Jesus makes you feel on top of the world - and you experience a season of blessing, and it’s all good. But those times can make you feel like the times where things AREN’T going so well - well, those stories some people feel the need to keep quiet about; those stories somehow seem to be meant to be kept outside of the Church.
Have you ever thought that maybe it’s precisely those times where God beckons you, draws you, calls to you to come and bring all those thoughts with you, and to bring them to HIs feet in this place. Maybe He invites you to come in with all those things that are just weighing heavy on your heart, occupying your mind.
Here’s the truth of Scripture - be it good times or bad, God invites you to share your heart with Him.
The Psalms that we find in Scripture are intended to bring power into our lives during the seasons of our lives. You read through the Psalms and you’ll find different types of meditations, different sounding songs - and this is because, I believe, that there are different types of seasons we all go through. And through those seasons, we find that the people of God, the people who have lived a dynamic relationship with God, have learned to lean into God in good times and in bad. And that in leaning in, they find what they need in the stories of their lives.
My wife, Jenny, has just a few shows that she records and does not miss. One of these is the show “Survivor,” a “reality” game show in which people are “marooned” on an island where they compete for a million dollars at the end of the season. It’s now in its 44th season. The show uses an elimination system, where contestants in teams compete in a variety of challenges, and then are made to vote off other tribe members until only one contestant remains and becomes the "Sole Survivor."
Why is Survivor so popular? One reason, I think, is that in some ways “Survivor” has become a study of our culture. Anymore, it seems like the goal in life is to just survive, to get by - trying our hardest to stay afloat without getting voted off the island.
What is life? A cynic would say that life is a series of the struggle of sin, relational issues, the feeling of being overwhelmed, not knowing if our lives truly matter in this world or not. But what if God intended for us to go deeper than just merely surviving? What if there was something MORE for us to experience?
This is what we read in the last part of Luke’s Gospe l- it’s what happens to a group of disciples who seem to have lost their way. Even having been enlightened in regard to the resurrection, it took one more encounter with Jesus for them to catch what the resurrection was supposed to mean for them. They needed to see what it meant to truly be resurrection people.
A book called Mission Drift explores why organizations such as Harvard University or the YMCA that BEGAN as Christian organizations eventually wind up “drifting” from their original goal and even landing in direct opposition to the mission of Jesus.
The authors believe that, without making intentional choices, faith-based organizations can easily drift from their founding mission, never to return to their roots. But, you know, Harvard and YMCA didn’t drift off course overnight - the drift happens in small, subtle ways. But left unchecked, those small things become huge obstacles preventing you from getting to where you wanted to get to in the first place!.
It’s the same way in our faith, Church. We as individuals can experience “Mission Drift” as well.
It seems as if the principles Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God are goals we want to reach one day, goals that should define who we are as followers of Jesus, true disciples.
But unless we make intentional choices at every step of our journey toward that goal, we run the risk of losing focus and experiencing Mission Drift.
The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 9:24: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
Paul knew the importance of keeping one’s focus as a disciple - to run the race of faith with our eyes on the prize, the finish line. In his letters he mentions those who had shipwrecked their lives by shifting their focus, when they let their mission drift.
This morning I want us to see a portrait of what that looks like with actual disciples of Jesus.
To be honest, as I was trying to put together the message for today, it hit me how mundane, how routine, this story may be to some. For preachers, it’s hard to find a new angle, or an exciting new way to tell the story of the resurrection. I spoke with my dad, who is also preaching an Easter message today, and he confirmed how difficult it can be at times to go from the Yawn to the Yahoo!, or - as I put it, from the Yada Yada Yada to the Yaba Daba Doo!
If you think through some of the greatest events in history, you might think of the victory in WWII, the Emancipation Proclamation. You might think of the moon landing or the fall of the Berlin Wall (that was pretty significant!). But as you go through these events that have shaped our culture, events that have shaped world history, you have to come to grips with the idea that there has been nothing at all greater than the resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah, from the dead.
Now maybe you don't feel the same way I do about the resurrection, and if that’s you, I would challenge you to view this event with new eyes this morning. I’d challenge you to not underestimate the significance of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead.
For believers, it’s important for us to view the resurrection with the proper perspective as well. It’s not just A doctrine of the Church; it is THE doctrine of the Church. If Jesus stayed dead, if God would not have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, then God’s plan to redeem mankind (to buy us back from the penalty of our sins) DIDN’T WORK.
If there had been no lifting up of the Son of God from the grave, then there would be no lifting up of the curse that sin had brought to this world.
So…in the scope of things, I would say that makes the resurrection pretty important.
Last week I mentioned the most unfair, illegal trial you could ever imagine. And if you’re like me, when you begin to read what’s happening at this point of the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, you think, “This ain’t fair. This REALLY stinks!"
In the movies we are accustomed to the guys in the black hats getting what’s coming to them, right? The guy in the white hat - the hero - we’re used to HIM winning. Movies typically wrap things up nicely and justice is served and you feel good about the story you just watched.
But in life, it doesn’t always work that way, does it? Good guys don’t always win. Bad guys don’t always suffer… and often there’s nothing we can do about it. And we want to cry out to God, asking, “WHY??”
Let’s talk about the cross this morning. Because without the proper perspective, you can get the wrong idea about the cross.
To some, the cross represents a colossal failure. People had seen the momentum of the movement of Jesus as he ministered and preached to massive crowds. They saw a movement that would inspire the people of God to rise up and throw off their yoke of Roman oppression. And yet, Jesus had failed to bring about the political utopia people were expecting. And like other disappointing so-called Messiahs, Jesus had failed in his mission. At least in their perspective…
To others - like King Herod - the cross was a huge joke that put an upstart teacher in his place, a place to punish a bumbling fool who was all talk but no substance.
And still to others, like Pilate, the cross was a gross injustice. In Pilate’s mind, Jesus was a man who seemed to just be a guy preaching love and kindness - definitely not a threat to the Roman empire!
And then there were those in the crowd who saw the cross as the death of their own hopes.
So many different perspectives of the cross: failure, injustice, mockery, loss. But what if the events of Luke 23 were something different? What if there was another, higher, more divine perspective that we can find once we, like in Psalm 73, enter into GOD’S presence and focus on GOD’S perspective?
The cross, I believe which is clear from scripture, is actually a love-letter from God to the world.
March Madness. A defensive play in basketball - the Full Court Press. Things get tight, lots of intensity. A good chance of giving up possession and letting the other team score. This morning we will look at a place where you could say that Jesus was facing a full court press. It all happens in a place called the Garden of Gethsemane.
This Garden of Gethsemane is significant to those who follow Jesus because it is here where the final battle was fought for our very souls. It is here that the true “last temptation of Christ” took place. It is here where our spiritual fate was decided. And that seems so appropriate, doesn’t it? I mean it was in the Garden of Eden where sin brought spiritual death.
In that first Garden, the first Adam failed to obey the will of God - and it brought death into the world. It’s in this second Garden - the Garden of Gethsemane - where Jesus (the second Adam, as he is called in scripture) succeeded in his obedience to the will of God. Adam fled, ran, hid from God; Jesus submitted saying, “Nevertheless, not as I will - but as YOU will…”
On Thursday of the final week of Jesus’ life, he and His disciples would share a special meal together. This meal was special because it celebrated the Jewish feast known as Passover. It was a very special time for the Jews - a time of remembrance, a time of celebration.
It was a meal the disciples had celebrated with Jesus before - but this time it would be different. There has been a suggestion that Jesus didn’t specify publicly where the meal was to take place because he didn’t want distractions. Didn’t need the crowds. Perhaps didn’t want to tip his hand so that Judas could inform the Jewish leaders to help facilitate the arrest that would take place later that night… And that makes sense - what is happening here becomes a very intimate occasion for Jesus and His disciples; it is a time for final instructions, for spending quality time, and all that.
Everything is set, and it was quite a production to get ready for the Passover meal - kind of like our present-day Thanksgiving meal. Lots to get done. But the problem of procuring a place had been taken care of. And when Jesus and the disciples arrive, you could just imagine the man who was furnishing the upper room might say: “Jesus, party of 13? Your table is ready. Come this way.”
Today we are going to look at a passage that has been quite possibly misinterpreted for some time. Many who read this passage automatically jump to a preconceived notion of what it means, namely, the end of the world.
For the past century and a half, there has been teaching that Luke 21 and the parallel passages in Mark and Matthew’s Gospel account point to the last days.
The word, BTW, is eschatology; from the Greek word eschaton, meaning “last” or “extreme,” as in “last days.”
Eschatology is the study of the end times. It’s a rather popular study in our world today. It seems as if there are scores of books and movies that have come out that have a certain bent on what the end of the world, the last days, will be like.
It’s natural for us to wonder about things like that. People tend to be morbidly curious. There are websites out there where you can put in your date of birth and a few other facts about yourself and the website will crank out the day of your death.
And people go to that website all the time! Let me tell you - I WOULDN’T. I really don’t think I’d want to know WHEN I’m going to die… Sure, it might give you a lot of confidence for quite a while - but as soon as that day approaches, it seems to me like it would be like the days in elementary school when we were told at the beginning of the school that sometime during the day there would be a fire drill.
But people are curious. They want to know. And so reading passages like the one in Luke 21 gets people’s imagination going.
I have become increasingly fascinated by the response to Jesus by the religious leaders of his day. We speak often (and most times disparagingly) of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Scribes and the Teachers of the law that opposed Jesus at just about every step of His ministry life.
And why I’m fascinated, I think, is two-fold. First of all, I’m fascinated because these were the men who had devoted their lives to the study of the Law and the Prophets, they were supposed to be the so-called experts in correct theology. These were the “shepherds” that God had designed to lead his people into a right relationship with Himself.
And yet, they get it so wrong. They are the ones who missed the visitation of their Messiah, the Immanuel, God in the flesh dwelling among them. And I wonder because I can’t believe that they just woke up one day and thought, “Hey - I’m gonna start thinking wrongly about God, and I’m gonna be a jerk about it!” I get this sense that, like many others who live in error, they probably started out well; it would seem reasonable that they are religious leaders of God’s people because they knew the importance of leading God’s people. And yet, somewhere along the way something happened that knocked them off kilter. And they end up opposed to what God was doing right in their midst.
Secondly, this fascinates me because I am a present-day religious leader, you could say. At one point of my life I felt a call from the Lord to be in full-time ministry, and have devoted over 30 years of my life to that call. I love studying the Scriptures, I enjoy helping people grow deeper in their relationship with God, I take the call to spiritual leadership very seriously and hold my calling as very sacred.
But I have to be careful — because obviously there have been so many others who started down the same path I did who, like the religious leaders of Jesus’ time, did indeed get it wrong. Who’s to say that the same can’t happen to me? Who’s to say that the same can’t happen to YOU?
So what happened to the religious leaders of Jesus’ time? What MIGHT be something that happens to you or me that could lead us to some very wrong conclusions and decisions about our own lives?
If only - one of the most powerful emotions to experience - regret. Man - if only I had know….fill in the blank… then I wouldn;’t have gotten into that situation, I wouldn’t have bought that car, that house, I wouldn’t have … whatever. OR if only I had known I WOULD HAVE done something. I WOULD HAVE visited my dad, would have studied harder.
Today, as we continue to study the book of Luke, Jesus is going to talk about that kind of regret. But, He’s going to go even deeper Into a spiritual regret that many will one day feel.
Before we start reading it, let me remind you of the context: For the past two weeks we have looked at the triumphal entry of Jesus. We looked at the crowd who wanted to make Jesus an earthly king - though that was not His intention. We then looked at the donkey that was used by Jesus and how, if we are to be used for His purposes, we, too, must be bought and brought and broken before him.
And this morning, Jesus is still on that donkey - he hasn’t even made it to the city gates yet. But as he overlooks Jerusalem - the city of peace - he is overcome with emotion - and for good reason.
Let’s take a look. Turn to Luke 19 once again - this time we’re picking it up at verse 41.
Last week we observed Jesus as he was preparing to make himself known to the people as their promised Messiah. But he was coming, not to set up an earthly kingdom, but a spiritual one. And, while the crowd was very excited - willing to hail him as King - they really didn’t totally understand what that would mean for Jesus; and what it would ultimately mean for themselves.
Here’s the point for this morning: if Jesus is truly YOUR king, then there are some implications that cannot be ignored or even avoided. Those implications, interestingly enough can be seen in an unassuming character in the events that played out that Palm Sunday.
This character wasn’t a disciple for years and years as some of those gathered that day had been; this character didn’t raise his cheers of Hosanna with the adoring crowd; this character didn’t even wave palm branches.
All this character is known for is being NEEDED by the King. Let’s go back to Luke 19, verses 29-31.
Have you ever been in a situation where you really needed some help? A situation just got out of hand. It was too difficult, too painful, you were trapped and there was nothing you could do about it. You really needed someone who could come into your situation and make things right.
Now imagine a situation when help DOES come - but you don’t recognize the help! I’m SURE you’ve heard the story of a guy who was stuck on his roof with rising floodwaters all around. A raft comes - nope, God’s gonna save me; a boat comes - no thanks, God’s gonna save me; a helicopter - go save someone else, God’s gonna save me… then he dies. “Why didn’t you save me?” “I sent a raft, a boat, and a helicopter - what more did you want?!?”
Israel was in constant need of help. So many enemies throughout their existence: the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Philistines, the Midianites, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. Then after the Old Testament came the Syrians and the Greeks and finally the Romans.
Much of the Old Testament prophets’ message was about how God would one day bring about a once-and-for-all rescuer, a deliverer and Savior. He would be the anointed one, the Meshiach, or in our language “messiah” who would come to save. And throughout the centuries God’s people held onto that hope.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the help finally DID come - but they missed it?
As we read the Gospel accounts, we see as Jesus begins His ministry, confirmed by all sorts of signs and wonders: miraculous healings, teaching that illustrated the heart of God, there were those who obviously saw in Him the promised deliverer. But not everyone was convinced. Especially those who didn’t feel like Jesus was doing it right, wasn’t on the right side of the theological arguments.
And there were those who THOUGHT they had found the guy - but would eventually waver in their support because in the end, Jesus didn’t seem like the King they had been looking for.
This morning we are going to look at a remarkable event. Luke records this in chapter 19, starting in verse 28. This is the account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, one of those significant events that all four gospel writers include in their narratives.
Today is all about priorities. We all have priorities, and sometimes our priorities reflect wisdom, and sometimes…not so much.
Last week we saw what it meant in our lives - especially when it comes to our resources - to be under new ownership. We saw how all the things we have in this life were entrusted to us by the REAL owner - the Lord Almighty - and we get to accept the position of manager of all the resources He chooses to give.
So if God owns everything - if we are HIS managers, is there a place we can go, a document of some sort that outlines what the owner’s priority list is? Well, obviously there is. It’s found in the Bible. And yet, how ignorant are we when it comes to finding out about HIS priorities for HIS resources? You know there are essentially 4 ways of using money as it comes into our lives: we can... Spend it, Pay what we owe (debts/taxes), Save/Invest it, or (if there’s any left) Give it.
And for most of us – this is our order. Take a look at it: essentially we are talking ME, ME, ME, and then GOD. ME, ME, ME, God — now it doesn’t take a Seminary Graduate to figure out something… If we are truly seeking the owner’s heart when it comes to using resources that He gives to us, His managers, then it should be obvious — this is a problem!
And it’s not just a problem, according to Scripture. Oh no. Church, if this is right, if this is the BEST WAY to prioritize your resources, then answer me this: Why do so many people who prioritize like this end up broke, scraping by, living paycheck to paycheck, getting stressed about finances, and experiencing broken relationships? Seems that maybe, just maybe, THIS DOESN’T WORK.
As we begin to dive in, let’s first look at an interesting event in the ministry of Jesus. Turn with me to Luke 20, verses 20-26.
There are a few things we could unpack from this passage, but today, in light of what we’re learning about managing God’s resources, I want us to focus on the phrase: “Render unto God the things that are God’s.”
Perhaps you’ve gone into a place of business - one that you had been familiar with for a long period of time - but all of a sudden, this time as you walk in things it was apparent something had changed? The carpet is new, the layout is different. If it’s a restaurant, the menu has changed - both in what it looks like and what it is offering for your meal choices. Maybe the server is new, the greeter, the decor — the whole place has changed.
And then you realize that everything is different because there was a change in ownership!
Today is our second week in looking at a series called Money Matters - finding the teaching from Jesus in the Gospel of Luke in regards to wisely handling resources that God has given to us. And last week we commented on how God really DOES care about how we view and value and use those resources. He has given them to us for a few things: to enjoy our lives, to take care of our families, and then to share with those who are in need.
Last week was all about the overview, but this week we are looking at the Biblical principles that will lead us to a CHANGE in our attitude, our choices, and our decisions about what we have.
This morning we’re kicking off a brand new message series based on many passages in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus teaches about one of the most important subjects we could ever understand as we follow his lead in living in the Kingdom of God. It’s a 4 week series that I have entitled: “Money Matters.”
So I have a question: Hearing that title, “Money Matters,” how does that make you feel? What’s going on in your gut right now? Are you…Anxious, Angry, Defensive, Uncomfortable?
Money touches almost every aspect of living: work, leisure time, creative activities, home, family, and spiritual pursuits. Everything we do and dream of is affected by our relationship with this powerful form of energy. Whether your dream is to travel around the world, pay for a house, establish a food bank, buy a Corvette, get out from under a mountain of debt, or take a year off to write a novel, that vision is intertwined with the possibilities and pitfalls bound up in the energy of money.”
It’s no wonder that Jesus says in Luke 18:24-25, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Now, don’t worry - we’re going to unpack that verse in this series: what it means, what it DOESN’T mean… and we’re going to discover that apparently Jesus understood the fact that money in one’s life does bring with it a kind of energy - an energy to make us fearful, or make us discontent, or make us take advantage of people, or make us secure, or creates an excitement in us as we participate in something beyond ourselves.
So our study in these next few weeks will be about Attitudes and Biblical Principles and Core Practices: the ABCs of Money Matters that God calls us into as we live in His Kingdom here on earth.
We will look at a Godly perspective on money, we will look at the essential foundation to be built in order to live in a healthy way with our resources, and then we will even look at the necessary choices that must be made in order to FIND health in this area of our lives.
Happy New Year - new plans - new visions - new outcomes, prayerfully. 2022 was good. What’s this next year going to look like? Some feel like we’re getting close to the final days of the last days. And, like my dad would always say whenever anyone asked him about his views on the end times, he’d say, “Well, I know that we’re closer today than we ever have been!”
And that’s true. 2023 MAY be the year Jesus returns to rule and reign (as we saw last week in our final Advent Series sermon about Joy the World). Of course, no one knows the day or time - and so Jesus advises his followers to just be ready; to be doing the things we’ve been called to do to prepare for his return - and that is, to continue to share the gospel and to expand the kingdom of light into the darkness of this world.
Today we conclude our Advent series, Heav’n and Nature Sing, by looking at one of the most well-known of all Christmas songs - though, as you will see, though it definitely could fit in with the message of Christmas, it wasn’t actually written to be a Christmas song. The song is “Joy to the World.”
The author of the hymn was a pastor born in the late 17th century by the name of Isaac Watts. Watts was a brilliant child. He learned Latin at age four, Greek at nine, French at ten, and Hebrew at thirteen. In his early twenties, Watts became frustrated with the heartless church songs of his time. His father challenged him and said, "Well then, why don't you give us something better to sing?" Watts rose to the challenge by writing his first hymn. It was well received by the church he attended and over the next two years he wrote a new hymn for every Sunday service. These songs - the first of eventually 750 attributed to Watts - were put into a compilation, including a song we sing today: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.
In 1719, Watts wrote Joy to the World. Like many of his other songs, Joy to the World was written as a paraphrase of scripture. This time from Psalm 98. He entitled it “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom.”
Which brings up the point I made at the beginning. It wasn’t intended to focus on the first coming of Jesus, but the Second Coming, as Watts himself testified.
So, today, as we break down the song to discover the amazing theology contained in this masterpiece, I think it would be best to also take a good look at Psalm 98.
We’ve been focusing this year’s Advent Sundays on the songs of Christmas - Heav’n and Nature Sing! And more than just the tune and the harmony, we are focusing on the deep theology found in some of the most beloved Christmas songs we sing during this time of year.
We looked at the anticipation and hope for the coming Messiah as we lit the prophecy candle and studied O Come, o Come Emmanuel. Then last week we lit the Bethlehem candle, singing O Little Town of Bethlehem, and focusing on the character trait of humility, looking at how God infuses his power into the ordinary to bring about the extraordinary.
This morning, we come to my personal favorite Christmas hymn SOLELY for its incredible message found in a couple of its verses. It’s powerful, and always touches me deeply. The tune for this song was written by the composer Felix Mendelssohn in 1840, and the words were written by none other than the brother of the great churchman John Wesley, Charles. In his time, Charles Wesley wrote over 6500 hymns. This particular song, along with “Jesus, Lover of my Soul” are considered to be the finest hymn lyrics Wesley ever wrote.
The song we are looking at today is Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, which has sometimes been named the most popular hymn in the English language! nmnm
It’s based on Luke 2 where the angels visited the shepherds who were out in the fields by night keeping watch over their flocks. And indeed the first verse is all about that very first Christmas birth announcement…
Today we continue our Christmas series entitled Heav’n and Nature Sing! Each Sunday we will be taking one well known Christmas Hymn and looking at the meaning behind the words. You may have heard the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” It means that sometimes we can hear something so many times that we no longer hear what is being said. Today I want to take the time to break down the words of the hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem.
We read of Bethlehem, the City of King David, in both Matthew and Luke. This morning, we will look at the passage in Luke.
While the Christmas countdown clock has already started ticking away for many of us, we actually have four whole weeks laid out ahead of us, which gives us plenty of time to stop and ponder the wonder, the miracle of Jesus’ first coming into this world. As an adult, with all that goes on in our day and age, Christmas always seems to speed by - this season goes by in a snap.
But I remember as a kid, the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed to drag by painfully slow. We knew something great was coming - but it seemed so long in coming. SO much so that my parents - non-traditionalist that they were - began to let my sisters and I actually open up ONE present on December 23. Then the rest of the family gifts on December 24. And then, of course, on Christmas morning we got to see what was in our stockings and such from (you know who).
Christmas anticipation through the eyes of a child… very similar to the anticipation that the people of Israel experienced not just for a month, but for generations on generations as they had been promised a Messiah, a Savior (and sadly, most Jewish people are STILL waiting).
They knew that when Emmanuel arrived, when the Dayspring arose, they would see God’s promised redemption, His conquering power. Little did they expect it to happen quietly, without fanfare, in an obscure little village to an unassuming couple.
This morning we launch a season of preparation called Advent - a time to prepare our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ coming into this world. Some wonder, since we really don’t KNOW when Jesus’ birth took place - the ancient Jews not commemorating birthdays, and Jesus not telling us to remember his birth, why do we then celebrate Christmas at all.
“I was gonna…” Never gave me a leg to stand on! In the 18th Century James Boswell said, "Hell is paved with good intentions."
Today we are studying a passage we looked at last year at this same time - the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I find it pretty amazing that this is where our study in the Gospel of Luke naturally leads us to. This is literally the next passage after the passage we looked at last week! God does indeed work in mysterious ways!
It’s a passage where 10 people have received a huge blessing from God - but only one followed through with his intention of demonstrating a grateful, thankful heart… The others? Well, we aren’t specifically told what was up - but obviously each had his own excuse for NOT returning to the One who had blessed them.
I bet every person knows something about making excuses for not following through with your “good intentions.”
The problem with excuses - they betray an attitude that seems to go contrary to what you SAY is true. If what I was supposed to do was REALLY a priority for me, wouldn’t it seem like I would do what I needed to do in order to make it a reality? By giving an excuse as to WHY I didn’t follow through with my good intentions, I feel like I am betraying the fact that I really didn’t TOTALLY intend to do it!
Mankind seems to always have a problem with being grateful for the blessings that come our way. We are given so much - and unfortunately for too many people, expressed gratitude is rare.
This morning - like we did last year - we are going to have an opportunity to consider the blessings God has given us (much like the check I received from Grandma), and to express our gratitude for what we have received.
Why do we get offended? As I look back at my life, I get embarrassed at how often it was those LITTLE things that made me offended. Like there was a DEFCON meter for my offense when I’d go to the movies… Or the elderly gentleman who was mentoring me in my mid-20s whose ONE VOTE I blamed a particular presidency on…
I look back and realize that every time I’m offended, my anger is involved. And I have found out that not only does my anger NOT please God - it isn’t even REALLY EFFECTIVE. It sure isn’t making me more like Jesus - and it typically doesn’t settle any issues.
In the book of James, chapter 1, we are told, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry; because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” And we’re talking about your human anger at the small offense AND at the major betrayal. We’re talking about your anger at the opposing political view AND at the guy that gave you the middle finger in the parking lot.
And some people push back saying, but Trey, you don’t understand - MY anger is a RIGHTEOUS anger because I’m angry over sin. And you might be, and there IS such a thing as righteous anger over things that break the heart of God, BUT in my experience, what I’ve noticed about “righteous anger” whenever we are angry about someone’s sin, it’s always about someone ELSE’S sin, not our own. Have you ever noticed that?
Here’s the truth that we will discover today in our passage: giving offense and taking offense does not bring glory to God, nor does it produce in us that which makes us more like Jesus and more ready to see the Fruit of God’s Spirit evident in our lives…
So let’s turn to Luke 17 as we begin today, and see how Jesus addresses this issue of offense.
You have to keep the worms warm.
One of the most difficult to understand parables of Jesus is a parable of the dishonest manager found in Luke 16. Some misinterpret this parable to imply that Jesus is actually commending the dishonesty of the servant of a certain rich man. And at face value, the parable can be quite confusing - especially in the lens of our modern Western mindset.
Before we attempt to interpret this particular parable, I want to go back and remind us about the nature and intent of Jesus’s parables. Some are easy to understand, sure; but, even according to Jesus’ own words, many of the parables weren’t MEANT to be easily understood. Because a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, often you have to work at it a bit to find what Jesus really meant.
The Bridger Wilderness just south of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming was designated in 1964 and memorializes the famous Jim Bridger. This Wilderness lies within the Wind River Mountains and offers 428,000 acres and over 600 miles of trails for the adventurous of spirit to explore over a lifetime. Extending 80 miles along the Continental Divide and holding the headwaters of the Green River, Bridger Wilderness is home to 7 out of 10 of the world's largest glaciers, hundreds of high alpine lakes, glacial cirques and wide sweeping valleys. The wilderness area gets millions of visitors each year. The following are actual responses from comment cards given to the staff members from actual visitors to Bridger:
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Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.
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Too many bugs and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the area of these pests.
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Please pave the trails to make hiking easier.
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The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake.
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A small deer came into my camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed?
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Too many rocks in the mountains.
These comments and complaints indicate that the people who made them do not really understand what it means to stay in a "wilderness area." They were looking for something convenient and comfortable, but not truly a wilderness experience.
In a similar way, many people today do not understand what it means to be a genuine Christian. There are so many people throughout history that have responded to the Gospel of Jesus and have made a decision to trust Him as their savior. Some are fervent and fully immersed in their followership; but some who claim to be Christian seem to have made that decision on THEIR terms, rather than on His.
Things overheard at the dinner table:
Say the blessing. Don’t know what to say. Just say what you hear mommy say: Dear Lord, why did I invite so many people to dinner?
OR. Older man telling about the great restaurant he and his wife had visited - forgot the name; what’s the name of the flower with the thorns and smells nice? Rose. That’s it! Rose - what’s the name of the restaurant we went to the other day?
In Luke 14 Jesus is at a dinner party where many things are overheard! And what a time for Jesus to once again drive home what it REALLY means to believe in God and to follow His laws.
1 Timothy 4:1 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will [a]fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons (NASB)”
Demonic doctrine (doctrine, meaning the teaching of a set of beliefs). What is THAT about? Sounds out there…UNTIL you realize that there’s this new trend on Social Media called ex-vangelism (people who are leaving the faith for some pretty incredible reasons): Did you know…
1 - Christians, not Jews, wrote the Torah?
2 - The God of the Bible is NOT the One True God, but is actually a smaller god out of a larger pantheon of gods from Canaan?
3 - Jesus didn’t die on the cross?
4 - We are saved by keeping the Sabbath?
5 - Jesus is actually the ANTI–Christ!
Well, at least that’s what the ex-vangelists say… And they know this because they heard someone else quoting someone else who read it on a website put together by someone else who saw it one time on a social media meme.
That’s tragic, Church. But you know what worries me more? When the people of God are deceived and actually BUY INTO THIS CRAP.
One of worst things I have seen in my ministry life over the years is a lack of knowledge in the Church about Biblical doctrine and true Theology. What is Theology? It’s the study of God. And though you can develop part of your theology through your interaction with this world: “The heavens declare the glory of God,” for example; or “men who deny the truth are without excuse because what can be known about God can be seen in Creation.” And for hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of years, people only had the oral traditions of the working and the character of God along with their observations of the world (i.e., science - which, ironically led them TO God, not AWAY from God as many people do today). It was Moses who would write down the story of Creation, of the Patriarchs, of the interactions of God with His people. The first 5 books of our Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - are called the Book of Moses. There were people who chronicled the lives and ministries of God’s people throughout the years - but there are huge portions of history where the majority of the people were illiterate and could not read.
That’s why the invention of the printing press was so radical. People were able to get the scriptures into their own hands, and as they began to learn to read, they were able to see for themselves the story of God throughout history.
And as the writings became more and more available and studied, Theology became rooted in what we know of today as “THE BOOK,” which is what “The Bible” actually means: “bible” being a word that means “book.”
So now that we live in a time where the Scriptures are more readily available for people to read for themselves than ANY OTHER TIME IN HISTORY, isn’t it tragic how it seems like no one really KNOWS what the Bible says. Oh - they’ll tell you what OTHER PEOPLE have told them what the Bible says, but if you really dove down deep and asked them, they’d really have no first-hand knowledge of what the Bible says.
Now - that’s a sermon in and of itself…but I bring it up today because Luke 13 has a LOT to say about false assumptions and bad theology. There’s a thread running thru these short accounts that tie it all together in the fact that Jesus has come to bring the light of TRUTH into the darkness of myth- conceptions about WHO God is, HOW He works, WHAT His will is, and WHERE things are going.
Now, we could probably take a few months to confront so many misconceptions, but since we’re going through the Gospel of Luke this year, I just want us to focus in on the five false assumptions about God and our relationship with Him found in Luke 13. So buckle up - we have 6 points to cover today!
The last couple of weeks have been pretty stark when it comes to the messages we find in the Gospel of Luke. And today is no different. There is a clear warning to us in Jesus’ teaching in Luke 12. BUT - there is always a flip side. As some may hear the message and fear, it is my opinion that those who are true disciples of Jesus will find encouragement.
This message is about the end - a hotly debated subject in Christian circles. Some believe in a pre-tribulation rapture (a “catching up” of the Church before the Great Tribulation), some believe in a mid-tribulation rapture. There is a pre-millennial concept of the coming of Jesus, the post-millennial concept, and the a-millennial view. Some of us just have concluded that we are pan-millennials - that no matter what happens, it will all “pan out” in the end.
But it doesn’t matter what your view of the end times before Jesus comes back is, I think we all can admit that we’re closer this week than we were last week!
It seems as if the people of God are paying closer attention to what’s happening in the world; and as I have recently mentioned, I believe that we who have enjoyed a relatively easy path for our spiritual journey here in the Western World may very well be heading into a time when we understand more and more what Christians throughout the world and throughout history have had to endure.
So the question of the day is: if Jesus were to come back today - WOULD YOU BE READY?
AND if Jesus waits to come back until after you die, you still will stand before the Judge of the Universe and the same question applies: WILL YOU BE READY?
Demons - are they real? Charles Baudelaire said “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.” Imagine a scenario where something IS real - and dangerous - but is not taken seriously.
Today’s passage talks about the reality of a spiritual world that - unfortunately - too many people living in the modern western world either doesn’t know exists OR is woefully misinformed about it.
The errors lie in either having no clue that there is a spiritual realm that exists alongside this material world, OR if there IS an understanding of that realm it’s either not taken seriously OR it’s feared. None of these attitudes towards the reality of Satan and this spiritual war that is raging is what God has intended for His people.
So let’s turn to Luke 11 to see what is happening in this event in Jesus’ ministry.
I’m going to give you a list of items - can you figure out what category they all fall into?
TV Remote, Cell Phone, Keys, Socks, Wallet, Pen, Passwords / Usernames
Things you lose more often than you should! For me, I have to count to a certain number each day to make sure I have all the things I need before starting my day… because while there are certain things you can lose and life will go on - there are some things that makes it difficult to continue on without them.
Like what if you lose confidence. Or motivation? What if you lose hope? What if you lose heart?
Times when we find it hard to go on, to think that God could ever turn our situation into something good; times when you just can’t win for losing, experiencing one defeat after another; times where we’re ready to throw in the towel, feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, and lost…
We’ve all been there…some of us are there now.
I want to speak specifically to us as Christians in America. When we look at our nation…it’s easy to begin to lose heart. It seems as though faith is being trampled on more and more as time goes on. There are so many people antagonistic towards the Church, it feels as if we’re on a dead end street.
I also want to speak to us as individuals & families. Life isn’t easy. Storms come our way that we never asked for. Troubles blindside us. Struggles threaten to suffocate what little hope we have left.
But for the believer, for those who have put their trust in Jesus, the Bible is pretty clear: greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. Jesus did warn us that in this world we will have trials - but He then told us to TAKE HEART for He has overcome the world.
Today some of us need to hear that God is still in control, and that Jesus still offers a lasting hope.
We’ve been studying the Gospel of Luke this year and today we’re going to look at a couple of passages that relate closely to the idea of finding hope, finding heart - those things which are easily lost in this world, but which God intended for us to never lose…
I’m going to give you a list of items - can you figure out what category they all fall into?
TV Remote, Cell Phone, Keys, Socks, Wallet, Pen, Passwords / Usernames
Things you lose more often than you should! For me, I have to count to a certain number each day to make sure I have all the things I need before starting my day… because while there are certain things you can lose and life will go on - there are some things that makes it difficult to continue on without them.
Like what if you lose confidence. Or motivation? What if you lose hope? What if you lose heart?
Times when we find it hard to go on, to think that God could ever turn our situation into something good; times when you just can’t win for losing, experiencing one defeat after another; times where we’re ready to throw in the towel, feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, and lost…
We’ve all been there…some of us are there now.
I want to speak specifically to us as Christians in America. When we look at our nation…it’s easy to begin to lose heart. It seems as though faith is being trampled on more and more as time goes on. There are so many people antagonistic towards the Church, it feels as if we’re on a dead end street.
I also want to speak to us as individuals & families. Life isn’t easy. Storms come our way that we never asked for. Troubles blindside us. Struggles threaten to suffocate what little hope we have left.
But for the believer, for those who have put their trust in Jesus, the Bible is pretty clear: greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. Jesus did warn us that in this world we will have trials - but He then told us to TAKE HEART for He has overcome the world.
Today some of us need to hear that God is still in control, and that Jesus still offers a lasting hope.
We’ve been studying the Gospel of Luke this year and today we’re going to look at a couple of passages that relate closely to the idea of finding hope, finding heart - those things which are easily lost in this world, but which God intended for us to never lose…
I want to begin today by talking about being prepared. The motto of the Boy Scouts, right? Be Prepared. Even the worst case scenario can be at the very least minimized when you have taken the time to prepare. But the sad thing is that many people realize the importance of preparation only when it is already too late.
The parable we are going to look at today is really about delaying to the point of no return - a thing we all (unfortunately) can relate to. It’s all about too little, too late.
And we’re too late more often than not because we tend to be people who put things off for tomorrow that which should have been done today, right? We delay…get to it later…
Stories can teach us things in powerful ways. They allow us to let our guard down so that the principle to learn can be caught, rather than taught..
Parables were commonly used by Jesus. Why? For a couple of reasons,
In Matthew 13:10-13 The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
In other words, those who really did not desire to know God or what God wants would not get it.
But he also spoke in parables so those who desired to understand would remember and think through the implications and truly begin to understand.
Mark 4:33-34 With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.
He spoke in parables to help those who were willing to understand, to understand deeply. It is my hope that through this summer series where we are looking at several of the parables recorded in the Gospel of Luke, that we would desire to understand more and live life in accordance with Jesus’ teaching so that the Lord would draw our hearts closer to his and compel us to action in life.
Today's story makes me wonder where compassion can be found in this world anymore, we are going to look at a story that Jesus told that also talked about compassion.
It is a familiar story to most of you here, even if you are not regular church goers. It is the story of the Good Samaritan. Turn with me to Luke 10:25-37. Jesus will present this story in response to a question asked of him by an expert in the Jewish Law.
Luke 18:15-17 Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
Do you see something special about Jesus in this passage? Can you see how Jesus had time for children?? Isn’t that amazing? He is the Lord of the Universe - but he knows your name, and he always has time to listen to you and spend time with you..
This morning I want to give you 3 reasons why children are so important to Jesus according to this passage, and why they should be important to us.
It is time for us to see WHY our Children’s Ministry is so important. That’s why Communist countries, and secular educators and the entertainment industry are already geared to reach the young people. It’s time we understand the critical nature of children’s ministry…
Our children CANNOT be the Church of Tomorrow. That will be too late. They must be part of the Church of Today.
Satan always tries to crush anything in infancy, when it’s weak and helpless. (Moses, Jesus, church plants, people who are born again, etc.) Why? Because he knows the future potential! If he can destroy a child’s faith in God while they’re still young and impressionable…he’s got them for life!
We can’t wait until kids grow up to be teens or adults…because often that’s just too late! They’ve already experienced enough pain and hurt in this world that they’ve given up on God. We as a church have the opportunity and privilege to stop that trend! By reaching elementary kids for Jesus NOW…we’ll be reaching the high school students of the future. And eventually the adults! Over time…we can see this community transformed by the power of the gospel, as God brings one child at a time back to Him…and then uses the children to lead the parents back to Him.
In chapter 8, Jesus sent the disciples out to fly solo in doing ministry, remember? And they had success! It was great! So naturally, they're pros now, right? They should be experts now and be able to run with thus authority and power without stumbling once…
Yeah. How often does THAT happen?
You try something and get lucky and have some success the first time you try it. “THAT’S EASY!” you say. And so you run into another situation with great confidence in your own abilities — and fine that it’s NOT easy.
The disciples had a great time the first time solo. It was exciting because they had success…
But I think that they misunderstood HOW it was supposed to work. Because today we will look at an event that follows the transfiguration of Jesus (we looked at that last week), where things weren’t so easy for the disciples…They stumbled and failed and didn’t get THEIR “atta-boys” either. So what makes the difference? Again, like me, I think they had an inflated sense of what THEIR part of the events in chapter 8. They put to much confidence in what THEY could accomplish.
They had experienced POWER, but there is a problem with power when you don’t realize WHERE the power comes from and under whose authority you are to be using that power. .
Who was your hero growing up? Your dad or mom; a baseball star; a teacher?
For the Jewish community, Moses still is a great hero. In fact, you could say that for the Jew, Moses was all of those guys rolled into one. He freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt… He showed God’s power through miracles, providing miraculous food and water in the desolate places, he gave the law, creating the social and religious structure for the nation of Israel. Essentially he gave the Jews their constitution and, like our forefathers who began our nation and gave us our great constitution, Moses is still highly revered today. A true hero.
However, he was also a man - a man with sin and with weaknesses. A man with flaws. And as a man, like all me, he died. And when he died, God’s people were left with a big hole to fill. Who was going to take his place?
If Moses - their hero - isn’t going to be around anymore, what are the people going to do?? Well, God is giving them a promise - a promise to send someone LIKE MOSES. He will be the one who will take over from Moses - but he will be able to overcome the flaws and short-comings of their national hero. In the KJV it says the promised one will be the prophet “like unto Moses,” but I like to call him the Dude from Deuteronomy.
Up until the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we have seen Jesus doing a LOT of things. Just last week we read how Jesus cast out a legion of demons, healed a woman who had been unclean and diseased for twelve years, and raised a little girl from the dead. By now, the disciples have known something significant about Jesus: he has power to do the impossible. The miracles have validated his message in regard to the Kingdom of God being at hand.
But up until now - this has been a JESUS thing only, right? They have been with him and supported him and listened to and learned from him. But it’s been HIM.
That’s good. That’s necessary. You have to watch and learn to understand what the Gospel is all about. But here’s the deal: it can’t stay just a Jesus Thing. As disciples, these guys have been called by Jesus their rabbi to be LIKE him. In fact he tells them in John 14:12: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” Jesus is not calling these guys to be fans, nor is he even calling them to just be followers because you can follow and fall short of what Jesus envisions his disciples to be; no he calls us to be imitators, to DO what he does, to reflect HIS character and even his POWER.
So here in Chapter 9 Jesus is letting his followers do a trial run, if you will. They’ve been watching the dance - now he encourages them to try it as well!
How would their ministry begin? Exactly how HIS began: Matt. 4:17 “ From that time on Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” This is the foundation of any kind of service or miracle they would do. If they didn’t keep this one main thing in mind at all times: that it’s NOT about them, or what they can do - the spiritual authority they will exercise, the message they will proclaim – it’s all about the Kingdom of Heaven.
We’re studying through the Gospel of Luke and today we’re in chapter 8. We have a lot of information to cover today - probably actually three sermons in one. But these three are together for a very specific reason. Three stories in the ministry of Jesus - but just ONE POINT. So this morning, sit back and listen. See if you can figure out what the thread is that ties these three stories together.
I’ve got a few things here this morning to show you. First of all, I have a toy boat. This reminds me that we are approaching Summer (starts officially Tuesday). In past summers, when the reservoirs were a little bit fuller, I know people who love to take their boats out there and have a great time. (I even remember a good friend from PBCC who had told me he wasn’t going to be at church - I believe it was last summer - and while we were outside for church, I saw him drive by, towing his boat!)
Boats are great for many people. Some people use their boats to go fishing, or to go water skiing. And others may just like going out and enjoying the beautiful weather on the lake or up on the river.
But Summer is not just the time when people go out in their boats a lot. In many places in our country, summer is also the season for storms, so when people go out in their boat, they must always be careful to pay attention to the weather because a storm can come up very suddenly - which can be very dangerous.
Storms at sea can be very scary. The wind howls and the waves crash over the boat. You definitely don’t want to be out in a storm in a little boat - that’s for sure. If you haven’t got a very big boat, it is extremely dangerous because you are in danger of being swamped completely and sinking!!!
So one day, Jesus and some of his disciples were out on a lake in a boat. And it wasn’t a huge boat. Obviously big enough for 13 people - but definitely not a cruise liner! It was a fishing boat that had sails and oars and fishing gear like nets and such. And when they were crossing that lake - also called the Sea of Galilee, something scary happened.
Is it just me, or have you noticed that it's getting harder and harder to hear things correctly?
There's lots of noise going on around us. Hard to hear - and to hear correctly.
In the book of Revelation, as Jesus sends the various messages to the seven churches, he would end his message with the following: He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Now what does THAT mean? Of course we all have ears. There’s only one guy in scripture we hear of being earless - Malchus, the servant of the chief priest whom Peter attacked as Jesus was being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. But even that was momentary, as Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, and then healed Malchus’ ear.
So if Jesus is talking to people who do have physical ears, what does he mean for those of us who have ears, for us to hear?
There is a difference in hearing and in HEARING, if you catch my meaning.
In today’s passage, Jesus will use a parable to show us the importance of that answer: indicating that we HEAR what has been said, and we HEAR what is BEING SAID…
We are in Simon’s house. We are in Simon the Pharisee’s house. We are in Simon the Pharisee’s house in Galilee.
Implication: the house of a wealthy, prestigious man living in the luscious, green, mountains land of Galilee. This guy is well-off in every aspect in that culture - financially, socially, even religiously. A man who definitely was living the blessed life. A man who seems to have it all together.
And Jesus is there, reclining at the table, sitting among the religious elite - the teachers of the law, a fine dining experience. Elegance, posh, comfort. He has accepted the invitation of Simon. Simon was a good guy. A respectable guy - no reason why Jesus would shun him or decline the invitation.
Everything was just right. Perfectly representing the respectability of Simon the Pharisee.
And then SHE comes in.
We all have formed an image of God, or of another person, or ourselves after certain experiences. Perhaps your image of God was shaped by a particular preacher or book. Your image of yourself was most likely shaped by your peers, your parents, and the media. The image of others certainly is shaped by your interactions with people.
I want to look particularly at the image you may have formed about God throughout your life. There’s a reason that Commandment #2 given through Moses forbade any images made of our infinite and eternal God. For the Israelites, it was a matter of not engraving an image - but in my experience the idols we may worship falsely aren’t graven as much as they are embedded deep in our minds. And in order for us to get a better picture of God, those idols MUST be torn down so that we can relate to God much more accurately.
Let me ask you - have you got God figured out? You think you know all that He will allow to happen in your life, all that He will ask you to do, all the ways He will interact with His creation?
Or do you, like me, if we were to be honest, have some questions about WHY life is the way it is?
The Christianity I was taught as a young person seemed (at least in my mind) to discourage questioning God. Doubt was frowned upon, as it seemed like doubt was the opposite of faith.
But here’s the deal, Church. Doubt is a part of life. We believe in a God who is all powerful, all knowing, and all good - and yet He does things that knock us for a loop at times. It’s not really DOUBT that is the opposite of faith. The way the Bible authors talk about faith, the opposite wouldn’t be doubt, but a rejection of reality, which includes a lack of belief in God, but also disobedience and inaction.
Doubt can be likened to a hammer. Is it good - or is it bad? Depends on how you use it, right? Doubt can drive me away from a relationship with God — OR it can deepen my faith in a God that is at times too marvelous for me to comprehend.
So today I want us to study a passage where a person of amazing faith encounters a time of doubt, of questioning the plan of God, of living in the moment when we don’t understand.
If you're new with us we're going through the Gospel of Luke verse by verse and we're in what some call the Sermon on the Plain which essentially is chapter 6 of Luke’s gospel and it all began when Jesus went up on a mountain to pray and he pulled an all-nighter spending time with the Father and then selecting his apostles. He then descended from the mountain to a level place (a plain) and there proceeded to give a sermon to those who were following him.
And the sermon - like the Sermon on the Mount as we studied last year - is all about discipleship. What it means to walk the talk, if you will. Putting things into practice. Not just SAYING you believe, but actually LIVING out your faith.
For far too many people, their spiritual lives are like the box of Frosted Flakes disguised like a jigsaw puzzle; doesn’t make sense. Too many gaps. Many professing Christians experience these gaps between their profession of faith and their practice of faith - and it’s confusing. In the end it doesn’t make sense. The storms of life hit, and they are knocked for a loop. Is it perhaps because they don’t understand what the big picture is supposed to actually be? They think it’s about conversion, when Jesus is clear that it’s MORE than that…it’s actually about DISCIPLESHIP. That’s what he has been talking about: loving enemies, going the extra mile, living outside of one’s self, committing to a godly lifestyle…
And now it all comes to a conclusion with two final analogies: FRUIT and FOUNDATIONS. And, like all good sermons (I’ve been told), Jesus ends his sermon with an ALTER call, if you will. No, not an “altar call,” like come up to the altar, but an ALTER call - will you choose to let God alter your heart and your mind and your life choices in order to truly be a disciple?
Jesus is essentially asking this crowd of people: now that you’ve heard about the Kingdom, who’s in? Who wants to REALLY be my disciple?
We all make judgments - what is safe, what is healthy, what is true…
But often - the judgments we make are off. Especially when it comes to dealing with people. As humans we are at a bit of a disadvantage because people tend to be mask-wearers. And what we see when we interact with others MAY NOT be who they really are…
And this can go two ways, BTW… In one sense, you know as you are relating to people that somewhere deep inside, there is baggage, and that baggage makes communication difficult at times. In these situations, it’s good to be aware of the fact that there’s more going on under the surface.
On another front, how easy is it for us to jump to conclusions, taking at face value what was being done or what was being said, without really knowing what was behind the interaction…
Let’s look at the next section of the Sermon on the Plain here in Luke 6, beginning in verse 37, to see how this plays out in Jesus’ teaching.
Mother’s Day - yay! Proverbs 31 woman: her children will rise and call her blessed.
Moms are blessed: gift of nourishment, understanding, protection, LOVE.
Moms have been blessed: why? Perfect example of being blessed to be a blessing…
Just saw a video of a sermon: moms take what they are given and multiply it: give them a house, they make it a home; give them groceries, they make a meal; give them a blessing, and they turn right around and multiply it and give it back abundantly.
So we’re in Luke 6 now - and some people get confused when they read this part of Luke’s gospel because it seems like Luke is contradicting one of the most famous passages in the gospels, specifically Matthew 5-7. Sermon on the Mount.
I HATE when people don’t understand the word they are using. There are Christians who fall into this trap. They use words that they really have no idea what it truly means… Justification, Sanctification, Elect, GRACE…
Today I want to challenge our thinking the way Jesus challenged the religious culture of his day. Last week we saw him challenge the Pharisees on their idea of traditions like fasting, but this week we’ll see that the very next challenge Luke records revolves around something even more sacred than fasting - this one deals with one of God’s Top Ten - the Big Ones - the Ten Commandments
Happy Easter! He is Risen! Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Today is the Super Bowl of the Christian faith; we can rest on the promises made by God to us. You get today, you get Christianity. If you don’t get today, you don’t get Christianity.
A sign from high school: Three types of people – Make things happen, Watch things happen, Wonder what happened.
In any given situation, aren’t we in one of the three categories? In my life, I’ve always remembered that sign with the idea that I want be the one to make things happen in my life. That’s our culture: Take the bull by the horns, pull up your bootstraps, seize the day. But maybe that isn’t the best advice. Considering the death and resurrection of Jesus, maybe we need to flip the priorities of making, watching, and wondering. Maybe it’s time to be okay with “wonder” again as our first option!! Maybe even a dangerous wonder!
Looking back at a few key events from the final week in the life of Jesus, we have some examples of people who could fall into each category of making, watching, and wondering. Many of us can tell the Easter story from memory. We’re familiar with the multitude of characters who had parts to play in the rising action of His story. What was their impact? Were they makers, watchers, or wonderers?
RESTORATION… Whychus Creek in Sisters - Government spending millions of dollars. First part of the restoration started back in 2016, and now they are starting on a new section called the Rimrock Ranch section. What’s going on? Why are we spending money on a restoration project? Well, because many years ago, WE sanitized it, we made it pretty. We made it flow “better” so that we could have more recreation activities… What’s the problem? That’s not what its purpose is. We are restoring to the way God created it; where fish can spawn and trees can grow, etc.
Today we are looking at three passages from Luke 5 that really represent the restoration project that Jesus came to accomplish. And again, like I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the healings we will read about in Luke’s gospel (and there are a LOT of them) aren’t JUST about Jesus’ compassion for those who are sick or lame. There is a higher motivation, a more eternal representation of God’s redemptive plan for mankind, in other words, His Eternal Restoration Project.
Don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this or not, but as disciples you and I have been branded in a sense; marked; called by Jesus to follow Him. And at times the process of branding seems pretty intense. The cinematic series “The Chosen'' does an amazing job at portraying the call of Jesus on the lives of his followers. Among those whom Jesus called to be His disciples was a tax collector (despised by his countrymen), fishermen (tradesmen who did not possess a particularly high level of education or position in society), a political zealot (a man’s whose chief priorities were on the politics of his day), and common ordinary folk. Those are the first followers of Jesus.
We’re in Luke chapter 5 this week, and we’re going to look at the call on four guys’ lives: working class guys with minimum education, fishermen by trade - probably pretty rough around the edges, And at times you gotta know that certain people need a little more “branding” than others, right? But when Jesus called these guys, it was a call to discipleship, which was a life-long call. And like these fishermen, you and I have a branding that lasts for the rest of our lives, too! The calling to follow Jesus is all-consuming, all-encompassing, and designed for us to be “In It for Life!”
Debt is nothing new, is it? Most of us, if not all of us, have had to deal with (or ARE dealing with) debt to some degree…
Our nation in particular and much of the global community in general are in the midst of dealing with the effects of crippling debt, both corporate and government.
There are many reasons for debt: unforeseen circumstances like emergency surgeries or loss of a job, out-of-control spending (often on things to satisfy our desire for immediate gratification) and over-use of credit, sky-rocketing inflation of prices…
Now there ARE laws in our nation that give a BIT of protection to debtors unable to meet their obligations. And yet even these bankruptcy laws carry some pretty severe consequences for those who choose to resort to them. The record of bankruptcy stays on your credit report for years making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to re-establish credit. AND unfortunately, these laws have been known to be abused by people who manipulate the system, taking advantage of those who had extended credit privileges to them.
Now - imagine this scenario… What if we announced that, on Resurrection Sunday - April 17, the debts of every member of PBCC would be paid off by an anonymous donor?
That would be kind of exciting, yes? I don’t think ANYONE would be so manipulative to go out and run up all the debt they possibly could before April 17, would they? :-) Would our membership class coming up on March 27 be filled with not only attenders of PBCC, but tons of other people who live in our area who had also heard of the incredible offer?
Now why am I talking about debt this morning? Well, today’s passage in Luke 4 is rooted in that very idea of the mass forgiveness of debt for God’s people.
So here’s a question: is there anyone here who has been tempted?
Here’s one of the things you can take to the bank: you will be tempted. It’s part of our humanity, it’s what we inherited in our sinful nature.
But you can also bank on the fact that, for those who trust in and follow Jesus, God is in the business of changing us, chipping away at that sinful nature, re-creating us through His Spirit in the image of Jesus. IOW, God accepts you for who you are - but His plan is to not LEAVE you like you are.
Last week we saw how there is preparation that is required in order for His Spirit to do the producing. The soil of our hearts must be prepared before the produce comes to fruition. This involves keeping in step with the Spirit, and surrendering more of our will to the Lord’s. The preparation, as we saw last week, sometimes is very public. Repentance and baptism are heart issues - but they are things that can be witnessed and seen by other people.
But what about the internal things that still trip us up? The things in our heart that no one can see, but that are still a mess? Don’t they need preparation as well?
How do you deal with private preparation? That’s what I want to look at this morning. Because, as a saved person, a forgiven person, I want to make sure that I’m doing what I can on the inside in order for God to bring about the change in my life that I need. That, folks, will always require DISCIPLINE.
Watching a video of Tony Evans, one of the pastors featured on RightNow Media, a thought came to me about preparing for something important…
Imagine…if someone told you that the time has come… Jesus is returning this week...and he is going to start with you. He will come to your place….within days.
Would you be concerned about how tidy your place is? Would you make sure that big family Bible is dusted off and sitting on the coffee table? Would there be any rooms you would be embarrassed for him to go into?
How would you prepare yourself if you knew that Jesus was coming?
Tony Evans said expectations will affect behavior. (Bumper Sticker: Jesus is coming; look busy!)
Well first - guess what? He is coming back. And though I’ve never been one who became obsessed with the end time signs, I gotta tell ya…if Jesus came back right now, I wouldn’t be shocked.
No matter WHEN Jesus is coming back - he IS coming back. And that thought prompted the people who gave their lives to his Kingdom back in the days of the Early Church to DO something; to be at work for the kingdom, experiencing renewed purpose for their lives and undergoing life-change.
Luke 2:8-158 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
This is a passage of how the good news began to be spread. An angelic army visiting shepherds, watching over their sheep at night in the hills outside of the bedroom community of Bethlehem, just a few miles away from Jerusalem. Later on in chapter 2, after the shepherd visit the newborn savior, they are so filled with joy that they spread the news to everyone they encountered.
Last week we began our series in the Gospel of Luke by looking at some UN-extraordinary people, Zechariah and Mary - but people who were living in HOPE.
Here Luke continues that theme. The shepherds were UN-extraordinary as well. Gruff, uneducated working class people, doing their duty as they protected the lambs that would be used for the sacrifice at the temple. But the message was truly extraordinary: Today, in the city of David, a SAVIOR has been born to you - he is the anointed one, the Lord.
This message, according to the angel, was good news of great joy for the world. For all people. And the angel army chanted their worship of God who was finally bringing the provision that would bring peace on earth: peace between God and man, which would lead to peace among mankind.
We are so used to hearing that part of Luke 2 that often we forget another UN-extraordinary person who shows up in the Christmas story - he is an old man who has been waiting for such good news as the angel delivered to the shepherds.
We are beginning a new Bible book series this week - the Gospel according to St. Luke.
What is cool about Luke’s gospel is that Luke, a doctor (we learn that from his second volume entitled “The Acts of the Apostles”) has decided to do some investigative reporting about Jesus. Luke acknowledges he is NOT personally an eye-witness; BUT he has eye-witness accounts available to him and has put in a lot of time and effort to check out the claims and the stories and the timeline to put things in an orderly account.
Luke begins his story of Jesus in an intriguing way. He will introduce us to an extraordinary Savior by first introducing us to some very UN-extraordinary people living in a very UN-extraordinary place and a seemingly UN-extraordinary time…
Israel has lived in divine silence for 400 years. 400 years, no prophetic voice of God.
Now - here’s a valid question… WHY is God staying silent? Is He ignoring us? Why isn’t he moving in a way that I can understand?
Have you ever been there? We say, “God moves in mysterious ways.” But do we REALLY believe that? At times, we probably do. At times, I would imagine we don’t. There are those who say, “I believe in God….as long as He does it in THIS way; as long as He does it in THIS timeframe.”
And when He DOESN’T move the way we want Him to - when He DOES move in mysterious ways, where does that tend to send YOU?
There’s a reason that JOY is considered a fruit of the Spirit. Joy is a divinely inspired thing because in our sinful nature, we tend to fall into gloom and pessimism when things are rough. JOY comes when we are able to trust the truth of Scripture that GOD’S ways are higher than OUR ways. His plans, much more extensive and entailed and eternal than ours. Joy grows when our faith gets to the point where we are okay with that fact.
So here’s Luke, trying to make an orderly account, and he’s got to open with some kind of tie-in to the Old Testament, right? He’s got to show how his story fits perfectly into the timeline of the other stories of God’s people. And since those people have been in darkness for 400 years, it makes sense to Luke to open with a ray of light, a glimmer of hope, shining into this spiritually dark landscape.
Matthew 28:19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
“Make disciples” … When you look at what a church is supposed to be about, people can talk about a lot of things: preference in music style, service time, buildings, order of service, etc. Ultimately everything we do hinges on making disciples. On this side of eternity, it’s all about DISCIPLESHIP.
As we talk about the Church: This Is Us, we have opened our understanding to the concept of fellowship – fellowship WITH GOD, and fellowship WITH ONE ANOTHER. Both of these directions of fellowship help deepen our spiritual lives.
When we have fellowship – authenticity – with God, we come clean with him in regard to our sinfulness; we confess our need to be made right with him; we keep in step with the HS as he leads us in this divine dance… and we experience the power of God to change our lives so that we reflect the image of Jesus…
When we have fellowship – again, authenticity – with fellow believers, we allow the power of God’s church to come alongside us to provide encouragement and loving correction for the struggles we face. We all have sins – and far too many believers try to hide that fact; and in doing so they never truly find the freedom that Jesus came to bring to his people…
Now, though the church structure has shifted throughout the ages, one thing has remained constant. It was essential to the life of the Early Church in the days after Jesus ascended back to Heaven. It sustained the church during times of intense persecution and gave them strength to go the extra mile in serving the outcasts of this world: the diseased, the forgotten, the oppressed, the impoverished. And even today, I think it’s so foolish to try to live out your faith without that structure that has been so vital throughout the ages of Christianity.
To see what that structure was and still is, we have a great resource in the Book of Acts from the New Testament. The Book of Acts is actually entitled “the Book of the Acts of the Apostles,” you know - what apostles did back in the first century as they were living out the Great Commission. So if we want to get a picture of how authenticity is played out most effectively in the body of Christ (the Church), there are a few passages to look at from the Book of Acts.
This Advent season we have been looking at how we can have all we need for Christmas. The first week we heard that Christmas needs to be a time for reflection as we slow down the pace of the season and focus on God’s purpose in our lives. The second week we heard that this is a time for simplifying; the manger stood as God’s declaration that the plan of salvation shouldn’t be complicated; and that the path to Jesus must always be presented as being simple. Last week we heard that Christmas should be a time to serve others – to get outside of ourselves this year and to serve in the way Jesus served us. Today we come to the last purpose of Christmas and it’s something the world has never known and yet every heart and soul longs for – peace. That was the message the angels brought to the shepherds - and it was part of the prophesied titles of the Messiah, born to be the PRINCE OF PEACE.
Today I want you to see that, in order for us to receive all we need this year for Christmas, we must slow down, simplify, serve, and finally we must SEEK PEACE, for this above all identifies us as followers of that Prince of Peace born in Bethlehem.
This year millions of people will open millions of gifts. Some won’t fit. Some will be the wrong color. Many will be returned or exchanged ‘cuz it wasn’t just right. Wouldn’t it be nice to find a gift that doesn’t need to be returned because it really is the perfect thing, the thing that is most needed?
‘Tis the season, really, of giving. And when it comes to the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth, you can’t help but associate giving gifts with a certain group of men… The Magi from the East who came to worship the Christ child.
But oddly enough, the Magi (also known as the Wise Men, and sometimes even Kings) actually are some of the most mysterious characters in the Biblical account..
The Christmas season has a way of suddenly taking off on us. Each year we think we have it under control, but that usually doesn’t happen. And when Christmas Day has come and gone, we wonder why we can’t ever just slow down and enjoy the season.
It’s an uphill battle, you know. In America we rush everything, don’t we? Stores now have Christmas items up as early as October. For weeks now, we’ve been getting Christmas catalogs in the mail. Christmas has become more and more about the almighty Buck.
But let me share with you one of the most profound verses in the whole Biblical Christmas account.
Luke 2:19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
If anyone had reason to be frantic during that first Christmas, it would have been Mary, the mother of Jesus. From the angel’s announcement of an impending pregnancy, to the potentially awkward situation of letting her fiancé, Joseph, know what was going on, to a last-minute trip out of town to register for the census, to having to give birth in a stable, to having unexpected guests come over to see the newborn baby… one wouldn’t blame Mary for feeling frazzled!
But instead of being overwhelmed by the chaos, after all was said and done, Mary was able to slow down, to treasure the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, and ponder them in her heart.
Maybe that’s why God chose Mary for this amazing honor. Was there something about this young Jewish maiden that put her in favor with God?
Most of us know that gratitude doesn’t always flow like we know it should.
As a kid, my mom trained me to say thank you. But there have been times when I have forgotten to acknowledge a gift, either by sending a card or expressing through my words how appreciative I was for what had been given. The tragic part of those times (gratefully, they have been few) is how my relationship with the person who had given me the gift was affected. When I would run into those people, say for instance at church, though we were on friendly terms there seemed to be an unspoken obstacle there. And once I was able to get my act together and actually THANK them, that relationship obstacle melted away.
You see, gratitude - being thankful for things you have been given - is not simply something you OWE somebody, but it defines the very nature of a relationship.
It’s easy to say Praise the Lord and be thankful when things are going well, like when we ace the test, when the annual physical turns out well, when we get the raise, when our family is healthy and doing well. It’s not so easy to give thanks when we fail the exam, when the prognosis is not good, when we get fired, when there are struggles on the homefront, and when tragedy strikes.
In sports — I have yet to see a slugger point his finger to the sky after striking out or a quarterback do so after getting sacked.
But here’s the deal: Is God faithful and loving and therefore should be thanked only when favorable circumstances come our way? Do we think God has forgotten about us when bad things happen, or even worse, that God is able to protect us from the bad stuff? Is God our God only when things are going well?
Philosophers and theologians have tried to answer the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” They tell us that we would not appreciate the goodness of life if we did not experience its dark side. Some discuss how a sovereign God permits evil to occur. Others ponder how humans cause those evils. But here’s a good question: What does the Bible say?
This Saturday is one of those rich traditions PBCC celebrates during the Harvest, the Lord's Acre, which has been around for 75 years.
All of you have HEARD about Lord’s Acre - new people means you might not know WHAT/WHY...
You can read about it - but you might be surprised to find its roots in the Old Testament.
Love harvest festivals? The Israelites were given THREE! Beginning of the grain, the end of the grain, and the beginning of the grape. Lord's Acre is connected with the first - Feast of Firstfruits.
We read of the instructions for the Feast of Firstfruits in the OT book of Leviticus chapter 23:
Lev. 23:10-14 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the Lord so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath... You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.”
God is speaking of a time in the future when the Israelites would possess the land.
- When the guidelines were given, they were still wandering in the wilderness, no land yet.
- God speaks of a LATER time - so it’s both a time of remembering the goodness of God in the past AND an anticipation that God will continue to BE good as He promised.
What do the Firstfruits and Lord’s Acre mean? What purpose do they serve?
Making 77 Look Good involves many things - one of which is to make sure you have invested resources wisely. Especially if you have retired from your career, a lot depends on how wisely you invested the resources you earned throughout that career!! On top of that, you have to think about what you’re going to leave to the next generations… what kind of legacy - financial, relationally, spiritually - are you bequeathing to your kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.
Now I want us to start today with a passage in the New Testament that many people breeze over because they think it doesn’t apply to them - but, with the understanding of the wealth of the Western World, the blessing God bestowed on our great country by means of the ability to earn money, you probably have seen the statistic that in terms of the rest of the world, even the poorest of Americans are by comparison more in tune with resources than 90% of the rest of the world!
This week I ran across this little gem: "Dear Lord, I have been re-reading the event in the gospels about the rich young ruler who came to inquire of Jesus about gaining eternal life, and his obviously wrong choice on hearing Jesus’ answer. But it has got me thinking: no matter how much wealth he had, he could not ride in a car, have surgery, turn on a light, buy penicillin, listen to a piano play, watch TV, wash dishes in running water, send an email, mow a lawn, fly in an airplane, sleep on an innerspring mattress, or get a voicemail on his cell phone. -- If he was rich, then what am I?”
Puts a little bit of a different perspective on who the Bible is talking to when it addresses the rich of this world. When we read those words - rather than say, “well that doesn’t apply to me,” I think we would do well in at least paying attention with open ears to see if we cannot find some of God’s Will for our Wisdom in Wielding the Wealth that we DO have.
So let’s turn to that passage - one that is one of my favorites when it comes to instruction for the rich, because what is being said is not unrealistic, nor is it oppressive or have the intent of causing guilt for those of us who are truly better off when it comes to resources than many, many others in this world.
This morning, we are in the fourth sermon in this series entitled Making 77 Look Good - essentially a spiritual check-up series for a church that just turned 77 years old a couple months ago. And today, I want to share a story of another “seasoned citizen” whose story is found in the OT. We find this story in two OT books - the book of Numbers, chapter 13 (which we will refer to from time to time) and the OT book of Joshua, chapter 14. Turn there as I tell you the background of this amazing man;s story.
So (if you recall) God used Moses to bring His people out of slavery in Egypt, and after Moses died, He then called Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land. Taking Canaan took a LONG time. There were years and years of war, and finally - at this point of the story - the land of Canaan is finally under the control of the people of Israel. Now comes the divvying up of the land to the tribes of Israel.
Now I don’t know about you, but dividing things up between siblings (the tribes were descendants of the sons of Jacob) can be tricky at times. You may have experienced horror stories when it comes to what you do with your late parents’ estate and/or possessions.Or you may be a parent of kids close to the same age where you are trying to teach them to share.
The way the land of Canaan was to be distributed to the tribes was a very interesting method found in Scripture: casting lots. The main point was that, by casting lots for the inheritance, God’s people truly believed that who got what was left entirely in the hands of God. There could be no objections.
But here’s the thing… just because the land was divided didn’t mean that it was all over. Reality was that there was still much work to do to complete the task of conquering the land, and the people of each tribe had that responsibility now to complete the work in their territory.
Often times when one gets to the ripe age of 77, we think it’s time to sit back and relax. We’ve earned our pension, perhaps; we’ve entered into retirement. And many people take the chance now to pick up stakes and go RVing, right?
One thing I know about RVing is this: before the actually RELAXING part, there’s preparations to be made, right? Yes, the retirement has been earned - but if you’re going to travel by RV for any good amount of time, like the Israelites responsible for the completion of the task of conquering in their own territories, there’s some work to be done. Enter the man I want to talk about: a guy named Caleb.
This morning I want us to see the kind of preparations Caleb made for his retirement in the Promised Land. And to help us remember these preparations, they’ll all start with the letters R and V.
Stress is NOT good for our health.
The date—750 B.C. The place—Jerusalem. The man—Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, a good king, the son of Asa. During his reign there was peace and prosperity because Jehoshaphat was a man of the Book. More than anything, he wanted to do what God said. God honored him for that commitment and made him great.
The events of his kingship are found in 2 Chronicles 17-21. But in chapter 20 we read of an event that proved to be most stressful indeed: a surprise attack from the southeast. Three nations suddenly moved against Judah—Moab, Ammon and the Meunites. Without warning, they crossed the Dead Sea. Even now they were only 40 miles away. The attack came from nations nursing ancient hostility, long memories of perceived slights, anger simmering over the years, jealousy now boiling over. The danger was very real.
But to make it more personal, Verse 2 adds a significant phrase: “A vast army is coming against you.” These forces weren’t just coming against Judah, not just against Jerusalem, but against the king himself, against Jehoshaphat.
What happens to YOU when the stress comes? Stress, we are told by healthcare professionals, can truly take our lives. They can shorten our lifespans.
Stress management is critical to our spiritual health. Especially at 77 years of age! So how does Jehoshaphat deal with this crisis? Let’s turn to 2 Chronicles, chapter 20, starting in verse 3 and see.
Does the church matter anymore? Why study to be a courageous church, even? What’s the point?
You look around and wonder if Christians just aren’t playing that stupid “victim” game anymore. “They don’t like us. They want to change the laws. Oh, poor us - we’re being persecuted.”
Tell me - when other groups play “victim,” is that valid in your mind? Then why would it be okay for the Church to play that game as well? If we aren’t relevant, perhaps it’s high time that we ARE relevant. Perhaps it’s high time we get off our collective duffs and do something significant for the Kingdom.
Because here’s the question that has been haunting me for weeks now: IF NOT US, THEN WHO?
In my 53 years, we have slipped. We have become complacent, comfortable. We’ve deceived ourselves into thinking that the Church can be a great social connection, a way to feel like we’ve done our God Duty, but nothing more.
We forget that we as a Church have a mission. (And what are the four words PBCC has adopted to remind us of that mission and its components? C, G, S, and G --- need banners to remind us!)
But we also need a sign right above the doors - a sign like Pastor Ethan has over in the Youth Room; a sign that I saw on the Redmond Community Church a few weeks ago: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE MISSION FIELD.
The Church will only be relevant to this lost and dying world if we understand WHY we are supposed to do what we are called to do; if we know WHY we should be a place where people feel loved and accepted, a place where broken people can find health once again, a place where the outcast finds a family who doesn’t merely tolerate them - but truly embraces them in love, a place where we learn and discover more about our God and our Savior - His character, His law, what He desires for us as His redeemed people, a place where the urgency is felt in the convicting question: IF NOT US --- if we won’t care for people, if we don’t share the good news, if we don’t fight against the darkness: THEN WHO WILL????
This is the last week of our series on the Courageous Church. We began by looking at several stories in the Book of Daniel to gain inspiration from four Hebrew young men who stood their ground in courage and as a result made a difference in their world.
Then we began to break down the Mission Statement of PBCC to its four components: Connect, Grow, Serve, and Go, and learned how to do these things with courage. We began with the first concept: Courageous Connecting. We learned that nothing we do here at PBCC will mean anything if we haven’t first established a right relationship with God through a connection with Jesus; and then we saw how important it was to BE the church - to come and connect with others in meaningful ways.
Then we focused on the second concept: Courageous Growing. There we learned how important it is to get God’s word into us, how growing in our spiritual lives is a healthy thing and how discipleship can make a difference in our growth.
Last week, we had a guest speaker, Paul Becker, who showed us a practical way of living out the third concept: Courageously Going. Yeah, that’s out of order but we had Paul for one particular week, and so that’s how things lined up for us. BUT...as Paul spoke, I hope you saw that, though it would be awesome for people to step out in faith to serve on short-term mission teams overseas, GOING doesn’t just mean overseas. It means being involved with the expansion of God’s kingdom wherever God leads you: in your own neighborhood, in the larger community, in planting churches, or in serving on a foreign mission field. It’s all part of the process of courageously going.
Today, we come to the concept that comes THIRD in our mission statement - Courageously Serving. And we’re going to talk about how that looks like as we continue to minister to the body here at PBCC.
Here’s a question that I want you to consider as we look at God’s Word today: What practical actions can I take right now to take this next step in my responsibilities in God’s Upside Down Kingdom? This morning, I want to turn to the writings of the Apostle Paul for some answers to that question, especially in his letter to the disciples living in the city of Ephesus.
Daniel 6
So Nebuchadnezzar is gone, his successor Belshazzar has been judged and God has raised up the Persian emperor Cyrus to overthrow the Babylonians. The Medean ruler, Darius, is now overseeing the governance of Babylon, and Daniel has once again impressed the ruler with his wisdom and his integrity. And Daniel is lifted into a position of high authority through the blessing of God.
But not everyone was happy with Daniel’s promotion. Jealous politicians conspired to get Daniel out of the way - and it was just as sneaky as anything you’d find in Washington D.C. today.
Have you ever wished not-so-nice things on those who attack you?
Daniel and his friends have definitely seen opposition while living in Babylon. And yet they stand firm - and what’s interesting to me is that the confidence in which they face the opposition enables them to not strike back…
Are they just not human? Do they not get angry and frustrated? Are they never tempted to counterattack?
I can understand people wondering how to stand up against the forces that seem very scary in our culture and our country today. I know we know that God is in control - but at times, the lions that we face are truly frightening.
Oh LORD! When will this end???
This morning we begin a brand-new series called The Courageous Church, and in this series we will look at the mission statement of PBCC: Connect, Grow, Serve, and Go. Now, this was just going to be a sermon series on the book of Daniel, but God has refocused my thoughts, and we will be studying several characters from scripture who demonstrate the kind of courage God has called His church into.
But as we begin, Daniel will be a great study, because, with an increased intolerance in our culture for the sacred, I think Daniel and his three friends give us a great model of what it means to be a COURAGEOUS CHURCH.
You see, Daniel’s situation parallels our own. For most of his life, Daniel was in the minority in a pagan culture. From the time he was a teenager until his death at 90, Daniel lived out faith in God under a series of pagan kings. He never had the luxury of living in a country surrounded by people who had faith in Yehovah, the One True God. There was continual pressure to conform to the pattern of the pagan world - threats, persecution, temptations to compromise. And yet Daniel is able to stand against all of that - and God BLESSES him and provides and protects him.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
And with these words the American colonists declared their intention to throw off the yoke of British oppression, launching the movement that would eventually establish the greatest nation on the face of the earth. It was all about FREEDOM.
It was in August 1776 when a committee composed of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams proposed a design for a national seal. Each gave their own ideas, with Franklin and Jefferson proposing the image of Moses and the Israelites being rescued from the hand of Pharaoh and his armies. That design idea made its way to the final proposal, with the words: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” Unfortunately, the red tape of government was conceived at the birth of the nation, and the idea of Moses and Pharaoh on the seal of the US was tabled - never to be considered again.
BUT the idea of the story of the Biblical exodus validated and rallied groups that are confronted by an enemy greater than themselves. For the American colonists, success against the mighty British Empire would not be achieved without God’s help.
You see, at the end of the book of Genesis God’s people had made their way out of Canaan to live in Egypt. There God fulfilled His promise to Abraham to bless them and to increase them in number. But the promise that they would be afflicted also came true. A pharaoh who had not been educated as to the importance of the Hebrews living in the land grew afraid of their numbers and decided it would be best to enslave them.
The Hebrew people fell under oppression and slavery in the land in which they had once enjoyed freedom. They were forced to make mud bricks - filthy, miserable work - to supply their oppressors with the resources to build an empire.
At the end of it all, God led His people out of slavery, to the mountain where the law was given, through a wilderness experience where they learned to obey, and finally to the land He had promised the patriarchs He would give to His people one day.
The story of the exodus out of slavery into a promised land is the same story as those who have turned their lives over to the Lord Jesus.
As Americans, slavery isn’t a part of our present reality, so if you were asked what enslaves you, you’d think that was an odd question. You might even get a bit defensive. This is America - land of the free, home of the brave!
That would be pretty much the response that Jesus received from the Jews in John 8.
I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
We are in graduation season, and that poem that I just read has been incorporated into many a graduation ceremony throughout the decades. Written by the American poet, Robert Frost, the poem is perfect for graduation because graduation represents not just an end - a finishing up of formal education - but also a beginning - and a choice. What are you going to DO with your life? The poem is perfect because there are at LEAST two choices of roads offered to the graduate. And the decision really is life-changing because it typically determines what the rest of one’s life looks like.
Today we are graduating ourselves. After almost a year of studying the Sermon on the Mount, we are finally coming to the conclusion… BUT, like a school graduation, it’s not ONLY an end --- it actually launches us into the beginning of the rest of our lives as disciples now living in God’s Upside Down Kingdom. And it’s appropriate to see that, as Jesus concludes the greatest sermon every preached, we are given some very clear choices. After hearing Jesus’ remarks, after considering his teaching, in each and every person’s life who hears his words there are now two paths diverging in a yellow wood, so to speak. And the one we choose will make all the difference for us as well.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks , the door will be opened." Matthew 7:7-8
What if this verse read, “If you don’t ask you will get only what you can get on your own, if you don’t seek God you will never really find him and if you don’t knock the important doors will ever be opened to you.” Because that’s what is actually being implied here.
I could ask you, “where do you live?” That will give me some information. But it will not bring me to your house. I will not know how you live. I will not know what your neighborhood looks like. If I don’t ask you anything, I’m really saying, “I’m not interested in knowing anything about you.”
Isn’t it the same with God?
Jesus is giving us some incredible teaching here on the kind of relationship God has called each of us to have with him - a relationship that is solid enough to give us the boldness to ASK, to SEEK, and to KNOCK. This morning I want to break those three things down and see what we can learn about what God is seeking and asking for, the thing He keeps knocking on our own doors for…
No one likes to be judged—for their appearance, their taste in clothes, their hair, their tattoos...No one likes to be judged for making a mistake in the game, or for their driving. Problem is, many people have taken the statement from Matthew, “Do not judge,” and latched on to that even when their behavior is stupid, destructive, or contrary to God’s law. They say, “Don’t judge me,” or “You have no right to tell me what is wrong.”
But what if you’ve got a piece of lettuce sticking out from your front teeth? What if the way you are driving is putting yourself and other people in danger? What if the path you’re headed is going to wind you in debt, in divorce court, or even in prison?!?
The premise this morning is that there IS a difference in ways you can use judgment and discernment in relationships. When Jesus says in Matthew 7 “Do not judge,” we must get to the HEART of what he is speaking of. If you are in a situation where you see someone you care deeply about acting out in a dangerous way, or you observe an injustice being committed against an innocent person -- is Jesus REALLY telling us to not CARE about those situations, not reach out and try to make things right?
Didn’t Jesus judge the money-changers in the temple? Didn’t he instruct his disciples as they were going from town to town preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God to shake the dust off their feet if they encounter people hostile to the message? Doesn’t that take judgment??
And yet too many folks misunderstand this passage of Jesus’ teaching.
The Bible is full of passages that speak of righteous judgment and discernment when it comes to our relationships. Write these references down and check them out this week: Romans 16:17, 1 Corinthians 5:11, Ephesians 5:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:6
All these passages speak about making judgments about the actions and attitudes of others, and making a sound decision BASED ON THOSE JUDGMENTS!!
So IF those kinds of judgment are necessary and good, what did Jesus mean, then, when he said, “Do not judge”?
There’s a different slant I want to bring today. We’ve talked about how everything is the Lord’s; He is the owner of it all, and we get to serve as His managers. Then we talked about being ungrateful and discontent with what He has given us so much so that we put ourselves in a prison-type of reality where we cannot give as freely, we cannot be as generous as we would like. We are strapped because we paid no attention to the Biblical principles of managing money. Then last week, we spoke about reordering our priorities in God’s Upside Down Kingdom, flipping the list, if you will. But today I am going to talk about all of your extra money...to which you might be saying, “Pastor Trey – I THINK you have the wrong audience!” 😊
So – before we launch into the sermon, I’m going to present a case to you that you really DO have extra. This isn’t about making anyone feel guilty. It’s about AWARENESS (like last week!). AND my case will include the fact that what you DO with your extra money is an indication of something you believe – which you may not know you believe, but Jesus in fact talks about there in the Sermon on the Mount.
Now the fact that I must present a case regarding the extra you have indicates to me that many, many folks don’t think there IS any extra. They get to the end of the month, and there is less money and more month! And that’s when debt occurs – or when people decided that they can’t be generous with their resources.
But if you have been doing your homework these past couple of weeks, you may have found that a lot of our “extra” has been consumed – but not on things that are necessary. For instance, if you are part of the Dutch Mafia (Dutch Bros.), and drive through on a regular basis for your morning coffee – you are spending money that isn’t necessary. But I don’t just want to pick on coffee drinkers. It’s the fast food or eating out crowd as well; and the household that subscribes to the dish package with over 240 channels… Those things are things we consume --- but we don’t need. THEREFORE that money that we spend on those things, that is EXTRA.
Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12. I want to show you a story that Jesus tells to make a point about the purpose of the extra.
This morning we are going to talk about PRIORITIES… because we all seem to order our lives in different ways. But is there a best way, a Godly way to prioritize the resources God has entrusted to us as His managers? I believe that there are essentially 5 ways of utilizing those resources. We can... Spend it, Repay debt, Pay Taxes, Save/Invest it, or (if there’s any left) Give it.
Now, speaking AS a disciple living in God’s Upside Down Kingdom TO disciples living in God’s Upside Down Kingdom, I have a question: Does anyone see a problem with this?
If this is right, if this is the BEST WAY to prioritize your resources, then answer me this: Why do so many people who prioritize like this end up broke, scraping by, living paycheck to paycheck, getting stressed about finances, and experiencing broken relationships? Seems that maybe, just maybe, THIS DOESN’T WORK.
I find it frustrating as a pastor that in many cases, disciples of Jesus live with their priorities ordered in this manner, with God last --- UNTIL THEY GET INTO TROUBLE, and then all of a sudden they cry out: “God help me get out of this financial crisis. I need to sell my house. I need a blessing in my life right now…but after Your help, You’re gonna be relegated to the bottom of the list again.”
To me that seems pretty messed up. Who is in control in that situation? And, even more importantly, what kind of TRUST does that demonstrate??
It has been said in the past: either He is Lord of ALL, or He isn’t Lord AT ALL.
The question, when it comes to our resources and the way we manage them and how we acknowledge the Lord in our life, is this: Can we trust God? Can we? And if we SAY we can --- how does that play out practically in our lives?
God gives a very practical way to demonstrate our trust in Him --- and it’s all about FIRST-FRUITS.
It's sad; we don’t acknowledge people WANT to be generous. It’s not the heart. People should be commended for the heart. BUT - the problem is the complication of the inability. (Look at bank account, budget, etc. --- how in the world can I be generous on all occasions, as God has instructed?)
Why - DEBT. The management/mismanagement of the resources given by God (the Owner of it all) make us feel strapped and trapped. Debt hole like the Grand Canyon.
God wants to free you from that trap so that you can live in freedom - free to obey the Spirit’s leading, free from anxiety and feelings of helplessness, free from the rat race we get into in trying to keep up with the Joneses!
Now sometimes debt is caused by an unforeseen emergency. I get that. I’ve been there.
BUT too many of us are in debt and cannot live in the freedom God calls us into because of unnecessary debt. And what drives unnecessary debt? DISCONTENTMENT.
Discontentment is the dissatisfaction with what I have (or don’t have).
The word to connect with Discontentment is the word AWARENESS. In our culture we have developed the WRONG KIND of AWARENESS. And in order for us to break through to live in the freedom God has in store for us, we must gain a NEW AWARENESS.
How can you know what’s important to someone? How much they talk about it, right?
So - if we did a study through the Bible, you’ll find something eye-opening about what is important to God. And we know this is true because of how much of the Bible is centered around those things…
Richard Foster, the man who wrote the book about Spiritual Disciplines that we preached through a few years ago, also wrote a book called “Money, Sex, and Power.” His main point was how these three aspects of life are deeply connected with our spiritual lives. He points out that these are three of the most dominant issues found in scripture - and things that Jesus taught about.
What’s funny is that all three are natural parts of life that God gave to us --- but when we allow them to get out of hand and begin to control us, they have this amazingly evil power to corrupt if we aren’t careful. Whenever we experience money, sex, and power outside of God’s design, they become god-like in our lives and begin to exert spiritual power over us.
This morning we begin a four-week series related to one of those issues. And it’s an issue that is critical for churches to address --- not because of any need the church has, but because of the responsibility we have in teaching the full counsel of God.
WHY DO YOU DO GOOD?
Is it to LOOK good? Is it because it’s the right thing to do? Is it to get some kind of reward?
You know, there are some who believe that the idea of a reward should have no place in the Christian’s life and have no bearing on the Christian’s behavior. They teach that we ought to seek to be good for goodness sake. Virtue is its own reward.
But the problem with that is the fact that the Bible speaks a LOT about reward. Jesus will tell us in this passage that there IS reward. Paul would speak of a victor’s crown, John would tell us of a heavenly reward… We are told that if we stand under persecution, we will be rewarded. We are told if we give a cup of cold water in His name, we will be rewarded. We are told that if we love our enemies, we will be rewarded.
To shun the idea of rewards in order for our motives to do good seem more pure - that’s the temptation, isn’t it? Oh - I don’t need a reward. I just do things...yes?...you do things --- for what? For the blessing that it is to give, rather than to receive? Well, then wait a second: isn’t that understanding and feeling of blessing a reward in and of itself? Of course it is. The idea of reward is NOT BAD.
The issue isn’t whether you are doing things for applause --- it’s FOR WHOSE APPLAUSE are you setting about doing good things in this life?
I want to take a good look at what Jesus is saying to us in this passage this week.
This is a message I have long been waiting to preach about. It's about being offended.
Today's passage from the Sermon on the Mount has been used in a number of ways: to talk about non-retaliation, to justify pacifism… but I believe it speaks to the idea of becoming unoffendable in an offensive world.
The passage: Matthew 5:38-42. The Old Testament law it's based on is in Leviticus 24:19-21. And Jesus quotes it in verse 38.
The purpose of that law was restraint and equitable punishment. In other words, if someone hit you and knocked out a tooth, you weren't allowed to go all John Wick on them.
If you knocked out a tooth, a tooth was required. That was fair. Good had always cared about the fair treatment of His people. If this passage meant to become a doormat then 13 chapters later, Jesus wouldn't have taught his followers the proper way to confront people who HAVE sinned against you.
That's a time and a correct way of confronting. Jesus didn't teach us to just pretend we weren't sinned against. But he DID teach that God's way of dealing with it could be trusted.
So I think a more relevant application of this passage from the Sermon on the Mount has to do with the things that happen to us that DON'T require us to strike back to make things right.
Life in God’s Upside Down Kingdom comes with a set of principles laid out by the King himself. As we enter into the Kingdom as disciples, we are called to a life marked by attitudes and actions that differ from the Kingdom of this world.
In fact it USED to be that the term “Christian” was synonymous with right behavior. Someone might have said a while ago: “That was a Christian thing to do.” Or they’d say “That’s not very Christian of you.” All according to the behavior of the person.
But, like a lot of things, that term began to be misused. People started to label things that THEY didn’t approve of as “unchristian” (whether the Bible addressed the issue or not), and eventually everything seemed to fall under the category of “unchristian:” playing cards, movies, dancing, dating… Growing up I didn’t know what to make of my family on my mom’s side, out in Oklahoma; because I knew that they were believers, but … they SMOKED!!! And drank beer occasionally. :)
But even though we categorize some things as “unchristian” that don’t deserve that label, the truth remains that there are things that ARE Christian, and there are things that AREN’T. You could simply call these things “right” and “wrong…” BUT there IS a standard that the King of the Upside Down Kingdom has set for those who enter in and conduct their lives in that Kingdom.
What we’ve observed over the past decades is a growing number of people who reject that standard. Now what was once called wrong is called a choice. You can’t tell people that they are behaving in the wrong way. But in the Body of Christ, in the Kingdom of God in which believers live, Jesus calls us to a higher standard.
In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 9, Jesus is sending the 12 disciples out for a “test run,” if you will. He tells them to go out and heal the sick and cast out demons. He tells them to rely on the kindness of people receptive to the message of the Gospel, and then they go.
They had been watching Jesus do the exact same thing. He had modeled for them what it would be like to spread the Gospel message with power. And he handed them the paintbrush and said: “OK, now YOU pick up where I’ve left off…”
See, being a disciple of Jesus was never a passive thing. There was movement. There was ministry. There was involvement. If you read through the gospels you’ll see that God’s intent has always been to commission His people to work alongside the master on the Great Masterpiece of redemption.
Today, I want to talk about what some counselors consider the single most important choice that you'll make in a relationship as it relates to becoming a happy couple. This choice often feels more like a reaction than a decision. So, this morning it would be good for us to see how we’re already making this choice – and maybe, by becoming more aware of it, we will be able to make that choice well.
The choice is found in a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to some Christians in the first century in the City of Corinth. This letter was written primarily to Gentile (non-Jewish) NEW believers who were trying to sort out the whole Christian thing. They were brand-new to this whole "There's only one God” thing, and they were wondering what they were supposed to do with the other gods?” They USED to go to temple and had their religious practice look a certain way. And now, they are finding that Christianity was WAY different.
We are in part three of "What Do Happy Couples Know?" And so the question is, what do happy couples know? Well we saw that they know that over time that hopes and desires CAN become expectations. And as we hand our box of desires over to someone else, they feel like this heavy burden has been put on them - a burden that they didn’t sign up for. And what was meant to be enjoyable, becomes transactional with everyone negotiating their position. Sounds romantic, right? But when you get into “I did this - you now have to do this…” that’s what we identified as a DEBT/DEBTOR relationship; that we think that our spouse somehow OWES us something. And that’s unhealthy because then nothing they can give us is a blessing to us - only a debt that is owed.
A few weeks ago, we saw how happy couples understand that the best way to live in godly love with someone is to have a submission competition. It’s based on something called MUTUAL SUBMISSION; a race to get in the back of the line for the other person, desiring what is best for their spouse, and trusting that God will bring you the desires of your heart.
Now we also had to admit that it is scary to go first, but happy couples know that you have to go first in order to be last, in order to win in the relationship.
So where does that lead us? For that we look at the insights the Spirit gave to us through the words of Peter, one of Jesus’ earliest followers and closest friends. Peter was there to hear Jesus at the Last Supper talk about a new command to love each other as Jesus had loved them. And then the dots were connected once Peter realized the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross to pay for the sins of humanity.
THIS was the ultimate act of humility, Peter knew. And for Peter - though he would use different language than Paul, who spoke of mutual submission - humility was the key.
We're in part two of this series of What Happy Couples Know, and to recap what we talked about last week, remember that all of us enter into relationships with a box of desires. Desires for what we want for our future, for our family, for our finances, for all those things that are incorporated into our marriage. And one of the main reasons you chose your spouse was that you thought they would be the one who could fulfill all those desires (it’s the great American Romantic Dream!).
So with these desires, we enter into our life-long relationship, and the way things tend to happen, those desires somehow become expectations. All those things that were desires - not bad at all - now are piled on our spouse as things they feel like they HAVE to do in order to please us.
Desires are things you would LIKE to happen, and will be BLESSED if they DO happen. Expectations are essentially a strong belief that something WILL happen. It’s SUPPOSED to happen. So if it doesn’t, something is wrong.
So when couples exchange boxes, what happens is this little game of negotiations. “I will - if YOU will.” “If you’ll do this the way I want, then I’ll give a little to you.” And back and forth, just like that. And eventually this leads to a relationship defined by a debt/debtor relationship. YOU OWE ME.
Problem: If your spouse owes you something, then they can’t really ever GIVE you or BLESS you with anything. ILLUSTRATION: If you owe me money, let’s say $100, and you come up to me one Sunday and say, I want to give you this $100. Is that a gift? Does that speak LOVE or BLESSING to me? And if you give me $75 instead of $100, I might not SAY it, but I’d probably wonder, “Ok. Cool. Where’s the rest?”
AM I GRATEFUL that you paid me back? Sure. But the gratitude is really minimal because it was what I expected. It’s not a blessing, really. It’s much more of a blessing when a congregation decided to go above and beyond to bless their pastor by giving generously so that his truck could be worked on and made safe to drive in the snow. THAT would be a blessing. (And BTW, it was! Thank them!)
Way better to get something that wasn’t owed. Much more grateful. Much more blessed. And this is why I said at the end of last week’s message that we would do well to remember that whatever our spouse gives us - it IS a blessing -- it’s not a requirement. They didn’t owe us what they give us.
God didn’t design marriage to be a debt/debtor relationship, a contract established according to a code of conduct. Biblical relationships on the whole (and a godly marriage in particular) boil down to being a competition to see who can submit to the other person the fullest. It’s like those crazy chipmunks on Looney Toons: After you; No, no, after you - AND THEY MEAN IT!!
That’s a fun race to see who can be the servant to the other. THIS is what makes for a healthy and godly marriage. And it’s what Jesus commanded his disciples to live out in all their relationships, so I think it’s especially true for husbands and wives. Let’s look at what Jesus says in John 13.
Valentine's Day - one day vs. One month vs. A lifetime
Women - excited we get to work on our relationship. We get to talk about our relationship.
Men - we hear "work on" and that only means one thing. Gotta fix something. And we know what happened to the dog!! Or it's “Work on it? I didn’t know it was broken!”
It may or may not be broken. But either way it would be good to catch God's design for the most intimate of all human relationships: the covenant of marriage; and I believe this will be important to us all: to singles maybe dating or getting ready to go to the next step in their relationship. To newlyweds who have just begun the journey and are still in the honeymoon phases. And of course, those who have been around the block a time or two, veterans of the marriage game. All of these we will cover in the next four weeks. The series is entitled What Happy Couples Know - a great approach, I think.
We all want to know the secret to a successful marriage. Some of you may have bought books, or signed up for retreats or a 16-week class that gives you the secret to successful marriages. And most – if not all of these resources come from people who have figured it out, it seems. You don’t necessarily want to go to a class offered by an UNHAPPILY married couple. You want that, just turn on the tv, right? You’ll see a LOT of unhappily married couples modeling what NOT to do.
You want to find out the secret, you turn to HAPPY COUPLES! What makes them happy? What do they know that we don’t?
The FIRST answer to that question is designed to take the pressure off of couples. Because the first thing that Happy Couples Know is NOTHING. And you could even make the case that it’s BECAUSE they know nothing that they are truly happy. Because if you think there’s some magical, ethereal secret to a happy marriage, then you may pursue an ideal that reality never seems to measure up to.
Perhaps this one of those things where just trusting the creator of marriage and submitting to His guidelines that a marriage can be all that God meant it to be…
So what DID He mean it to be? We start at the very beginning. In the beginning it was God’s idea:
Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
There was a time in Israel’s history after the exiles had come back from Babylon. Many of the people, while living there in the foregin land, had intermarried with the pagans living in Babylonia and Persia. God had forbidden His people to intermarry, not because He thought mixed race marriages were wrong, but that He knew how easy it was to stray from one’s commitment to HIM when your marriage partner is worshiping a false god.
So, in Ezra 9 we read: After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel… have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices… They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”
When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles…
Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now honor the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”
Ever read this before? Hear a sermon on it? Intriguing event in Israel’s history where God’s remedy was actually putting away the foreign wives. In other words - Divorce. Why? Because these marriages weren’t the kind that honored the Lord.
Which begs the question: Does God bless all marriages? Seems like maybe the answer isn’t what you’d expect… And another question: Are there times when God actually PERMITS divorce? Again – for many of us, the answer isn’t what we have come to THINK it is.
When I realized the implications of this, it changed the way I ministered. For a long time, I was willing to do ANY marriage that came across my desk. Thought I was doing a good thing: helping two people to not live in sin anymore. But in light of this event recorded in Ezra, it dawned on me: If these two folks aren’t even believers; if they don’t understand the idea of a covenant representing God’s love for us, then, even if they go through the rigamarole of a ceremony, aren’t they STILL living in sin??
God blesses marriages where two people understand that this is GOD’S covenant in which THEY get to participate, and so submit their wills and lives to the Lord’s purpose through their marriage.
Remember from last week we saw how marriages were GOD’S design, they were GOD’S covenant. And therefore, since they were spiritually legal arrangements, the only way out of them was to be permitted by a spiritually legal arrangement. But what does that look like, in reality? Is it, like the Catholic Church, a matter of annulment? Where is the Christian leadership team that gives out certificates of divorce? And what are the grounds that God would permit divorce?
Let’s go back to the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 5, and see what Jesus says in vs 31-32.
I approach this subject with extra respect because it’s a passage that begs to be studied and understood in the context that Jesus taught it. And it’s an issue that affects so many - even pastors aren’t immune. It is the issue of divorce.
I would bet that in our church, as in many in our culture, divorce touches directly or indirectly at least 90% of the people. The prevalence of divorce throughout history and a variety of culture has made it necessary for the Church to address the issue, rather than ignore the elephant that’s in the sanctuary (so to speak). On one extreme we close our eyes to the issue, and on the other extreme we sit in condemnation of those who have been wounded by broken intimacy in their marriage.
Because this is an issue I deal with personally, I felt the Lord leading me to tap into the wisdom of other godly leaders who have made extensive study on the complete counsel of God regarding this issue. There are many, many schools of thought in the theological world. But for the next two Sundays, I have borrowed heavily from the scholarship of Dr. Tony Evans. Dr. Evans has written some wonderful curriculum that we use in our Marriage class here at PBCC, and has written several books on the strength and health of marriages. So he is a man whom I trust regarding marriage on the whole, and his words helped me make sense of this issue. So this sermon is essentially a summary of his book Divorce and Remarriage - but it’s really based on the full counsel of Scripture.
A burglar had been casing a house for some time. Finally, he saw the owners leave for what appeared to be an extended trip. That night he broke in through a window and was trying to find his way in the dark when he heard what seemed to him to be the voice of an old lady saying, "Shame on you! I see you, and Jesus sees you!"
Startled, the burglar says, "Quiet, Grandma, or you're gonna get hurt!" He shines his flashlight all around, but no Grandma. Again the voice, "Shame on you! I see you, and Jesus sees you!"
Finally, the beam of the flashlight finds a large cage and in it a riled up parrot. Relieved, the burglar finds the light switch and turns it on, only to spot by the parrot’s cage an enormous Rottweiler snarling at him. Just then the parrot screams, "Sic 'em, Jesus!”
Continuing in our series on the Sermon on the Mount, God’s Upside Down Kingdom, we now come to a very hard-hitting issue that has always been a struggle for people throughout history.
Do you remember that Sunday School song: Oh be careful little eyes?
Did you know that advertisers now use technology to help understand what catches the attention of the human eye? They actually hook people up to these machines and show them commercials, and a laser follows the person’s eye movement so researchers can know exactly which components of the commercial is most eye-catching. If there’s a nice car, they can see if that catches your attention. If there’s a scantily clad woman, they can see that as well.
Can you imagine what it would be like if this morning I showed a portion of YOUR eye movement; better yet - the movies that play through your brain every day? What if I could have a device here that would lay your life out on the screen for us all to see. Wouldn’t THAT be something? Lol. No thanks!
Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
Do you remember the 1970 movie called “Love Story?” Romantic, gushing...garbage. :) At the end there is the dying gal - played by Ali MacGraw - who says that now renown statement to her husband - played by Ryan O’Neal, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Gag!
Two years later, Ryan O’Neal was in another movie with Barbra Streisand, “What's Up, Doc?: And in this film, Streisand's character repeated the very same line to O’Neal. This time, however, O'Neal had an answer. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard," he said.
I agree! Why? Because when you truly love someone, you end up saying “I’m sorry” a lot! Too often!
Conflict is part of relationships, unfortunately. It’s part of our sinful nature. We are self-centered. We get stressed and grumpy. We project emotions onto other people. AND…. I’ll let you in on a little secret: EVEN CHRISTIANS STRUGGLE WITH THESE THINGS!!!
By the way, if you’re looking for a church that has absolutely no problems in it, you’ll have to find one that has no people in it. As long as churches have people, there will be conflict. The tragic part isn’t that there would be conflict - but that even as God’s own people, we don’t know how to handle conflict.
So here’s the thing: when believers lack the ability to say we are sorry, even minor offenses can accumulate enough weight to sink a relationship. And when you’re talking about people for whom Jesus prayed would be unified, that’s the tragedy.
Last week, we saw how our words can damage relationships. And we ended with a couple of verses in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus was telling us the importance of being reconciled quickly with our brother who has something against us. Notice he brings up a scenario NOT where we have something against our brother - but were we have DONE something TO our brother - and he has something against US. Here is where Jesus is telling us to run to the fire, to take responsibility and to go seek reconciliation with the one you have wronged.
It seems like it should be an easy thing, to go and say “I’m sorry.” But what I’ve found is that in our culture we have somehow lost the art of the apology. THIS is what I want to study this morning simply because as your pastor, I want us to have the ability to acknowledge when we have done wrong and to be mature enough in our spiritual lives that we would be willing AND ABLE to do what is necessary on our part to re-establish love and brotherhood amongst God’s church. We must learn the art of the Christian Apology.
Many people, including me at times, tend to “compartmentalize” their faith into their lives. They see some kind of gap between the Sacred and the Spiritual. Like THIS part is God’s, and THIS part is just life.
Now God DOES separate certain things. Like the Sabbath. But that was for US, for OUR benefit. Left to ourselves we will work our way into an early grave. So He separates one day from the others as a day of rest. Some folks get that wrong. They think the Sabbath was separated as a day to worship Him. Problem? God wants our worship EVERY SINGLE DAY. The dichotomy of Saturday worship and Sunday worship is a FALSE dichotomy. You can go to church either way. The Sabbath is the Seventh Day - Saturday - BUT God didn’t tell us to go to church on the Sabbath. It was set apart for US to rest. The truth is God wants our worship EVERY DAY. Some choose to meet with others to worship congregationally on Sunday, some Saturday, some Wednesday nights… Doesn’t matter. We can worship whenever. Why? Because God never separated the Sacred from the Secular. The truth is God cares about every part of our lives every day and every hour of our lives.
As we kind of finish up with the traditional Christmas season, I thought of that illustration. Did you get so caught up in the Christmas peripherals that you forgot to invite the One we were celebrating?
What if Jesus were in charge of all of our Christmas celebration weekends? What would he include? What would he leave out? Is it the season that’s the most important - or is it the reason? Because you can have one without the other… you can probably guess the best choice to make in that matter!
What IS the reason for Jesus coming into our world? The answer to THAT question is actually a bonus WHITE that I wanted to throw in before we started a new year. It’s been a White Christmas for this whole Advent Season. Not obviously on the ground outside, but in our study of scripture. We saw the white light of Christmas guiding us to God, the pure unblemished white lamb that would serve as the sacrifice to bring us forgiveness of our sins. We saw how though our sins were as scarlet, because of the sacrifice of that lamb, we are washed white as snow. And we saw that as Jesus came into this world, we now must make a decision about the throne of our hearts - or risk facing eternal punishment standing there at the end of time at the Great White Throne of God.
But there is one more white that I felt important for us to study before we leave the White Christmas in the rearview mirror...and that white actually revolves around the PURPOSE of the incarnation; the REASON that Jesus came to our world in the first place. And believe me, it wasn’t just to add another holiday to our calendar!!
Church - you know I tend to not be a hellfire and brimstone preacher. I believe that when you give people a taste of the Lord they will see for themselves that He is good, and then their decision to accept Jesus in order to make things right with their Creator is based on God’s goodness and kindness and the amazing Kingdom He has called us to live in - both here and in eternity. I don’t like to talk about salvation as mere “fire insurance,” because it doesn’t make sense to me to scare people into the Kingdom of God…
BUT - I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about a reality that became a reality BECAUSE of the birth of Jesus. You see because Jesus came to the earth, we now have a choice. Will we accept him as Lord, worshiping and offering our bodies as living sacrifices - or will we reject and oppose the Kingdom of God and His Son?
There is this item in scripture that is also white. Remember, this is a WHITE CHRISTMAS sermon series. We saw the white light, the white lamb, the white snow, which our sins have been washed as clean as… Those are the beautiful white things. But now here is a GREAT WHITE THRONE, and at that throne we see this decision of accepting or rejecting Christ played out into eternity.
This, our third week of Advent, a time of preparing our hearts for the celebration of Jesus coming into our world, is focused on another of those items in scripture that are white. Remember, this series is entitled White Christmas. We have these brilliant white decorations up here as a way of focusing on new beginnings, clean slates, etc. And none of the mentions of white in Scripture deal better with cleanliness and freshness than today’s focus: SNOW.
Our main scripture today comes from Psalm 51 where we read David’s prayer: Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
This Christmas season for our Advent series it’s a WHITE CHRISTMAS! And we are looking each week at another thing found in God’s Word that are white - and what they represent. Last week we focus on the Christmas Light - the Light of the World coming into a dark world - and what a great thing to celebrate...not just in December, but throughout the year, throughout our lives.
What other things found in scripture are white? This morning I want to show you the purity and the unblemished state of a perfect lamb, born to a virgin named Mary, laid in a feeding trough in a simple stable (probably a cave out back), and visited by shepherds who were, some think ironically but I believe to be ordained, watching over the flocks of sheep that would be used by the priests in Jerusalem for the purpose of sin sacrifice.
Lambs have held very important places in the story of our faith. They played a role in Scripture even before God chose the nation of Israel to be His special people, and then you see that role expanded as the nation was given specific instructions for the covering over of their sin and guilt.
This morning we’re going to focus on the Christmas Lamb. Jesus, of whom we read in the Book of Revelation as “the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.” IOW, even before God began the work of creation, he made provision for the sins of a fallen race. The Lamb is cradled in the womb of the Old Testament, whose types and symbols, promises and prophecies are pregnant with Jesus. Instead of just camping in one passage, I want to do a Scriptural survey to show that Mary’s little lamb was the promised Lamb of God, sent to save people from their sins.
Again we find ourselves this Advent season in the Gospel of John, chapter 1. Let’s pick it up at verse 19 and read about the ministry of John the Baptizer, the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah.
Have you ever stopped to think what Christmas would be like without light?
Lights are significant - integral part of the celebration of Jesus coming into the world. Turn with me to John 1:1-9
The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
Today starts ADVENT season - a time of preparing our heart to celebrate the true light that dawned on this dark world. And as you can see, this year the decorating team decided it would be best to go with all white as a symbol of being refreshed, renewed, clean slate, etc.
When I heard that, I decided that the ADVENT series would be “White Christmas,” and we would take the next four Sundays to look at some Biblical ideas of the color white. This morning - it’s light!
What happens to a relationship when someone loses that “loving feeling?” I know that feelings change and we shouldn’t build any kind of relationship merely on FEELINGS. If you’ve been married any number of years you will know that feelings will come and go. The loving “feeling” isn’t strong enough to sustain a long-term relationship… BUT what about a loving “decision?” The love we read of in the New Testament is based more on a selfless decision to love no matter what - and THAT has proven to be the foundation on which successful marriages are built upon. What happens if that ever goes south?
Today I’m gonna dive into a book that I will rarely preach from - though I have done and will do Bible Studies on it - because of the controversy and several ways of interpreting it. I want to start us out today in the Book of Revelation, chapter 2, to shed some light on a church that was doing all the right things - but apparently for all the wrong reasons. They had lost that loving feeling!
What is it about light?
LIGHT BRINGS SECURITY - Need the hall light on. Why? Because I was afraid of the dark.
LIGHT BRINGS CLARITY - I won’t stumble if I can see the obstacles in front of me.
LIGHT BRINGS GROWTH - Vitamin D, photosynthesis, etc.
LIGHT REVEALS, IT REPELS, IT CAN EVEN DESTROY VIRUSES APPARENTLY (whonu?)
In the OT, the Tabernacle, and then the Temple housed the instruments of worship. There was a table of showbread - 12 loaves, representing the 12 tribes of Israel; and bread reminding the people of how God provided food for them as they came out of Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before entering into the Promised Land. There was the altar of incense that represented the prayers of God’s people being lifted up to heaven, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. And there was a lampstand - called the Menorah - with 7 flames that would illuminate the Holy Place where the priests ministered.
The lampstand had a center column with six branches extending from it on each side, so seven lights in all. These branches were like the branches of an almond tree, with ornamental knobs, ending in an ornate flower at the top. And each of those flower-shaped cups held olive oil and a cloth wick; so it wasn’t so much a candlestick, but more like a many-limbed oil lamp. And the priests were supposed to keep it burning continually.
The purpose of the lampstand wasn’t for mere physical light. It also served to represent a supernatural source of light. You know we are told in Scripture that God is light.
Look around you and find seven other people. Including yourself, that makes 8 Christians, right? Open Doors just released their World Watch List for 2020 that shines a light on the level of persecution believers face in this world today, and in that report they tell us that the number is now over 260 million Christians – one of every eight believers – experience high levels of persecution. Almost 3000 followers of Christ were killed this past year for faith-related reasons. Folks, that's eight Christians a day.
SO...your group little group of eight? You can see that group in two ways: 1) ONE of you would have died last year for being a Christian; or 2) ALL EIGHT of you would have died in just one day last year because of your faith.
Why do I bring this up? This isn’t the kind of inspiration you want when you come to church, is it? It completely blows my mind that I rarely think about that kind of persecution when I go to church each week, TAKING FOR GRANTED THAT WE STILL HAVE THE FREEDOM TO COME TO CHURCH without threat of repercussions from the Government.
But again - why bring it up? First, because today is actually the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church and Persecuted Christians. And secondly, because of the last Beatitude we come to as Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount is about persecution. BTW - this timing was NOT my intention. I had NO IDEA that this sermon would “coincide” with the Day of Prayer. It just came up as I spoke with Ann Andrews about this sermon.
In the beatitudes, we’ve been studying what it means to live in God’s Upside Down Kingdom and about God’s favor extending to those who experience true life-change. But here’s the truth. When people’s lives change, apparently not everyone stands up and applauds that change. (Not sure why...except for the fact that Satan sets himself in opposition of anything good and godly.) And just as Satan opposes life-change, it’s clear that transferring your citizenship from the World to God’s Kingdom makes some people very angry. Operating under the influence of our great enemy, the Devil, these folks aren’t just content to “agree to disagree;” they actually are in full-force engagement in a war against God and His Church.
I love symmetry! And the Gospel of Matthew is constructed in such a way to demonstrate a beautiful symmetry a LOT.
- Most of these fall under the Moses/Jesus parallel
- Which includes Mosaic Law and Sermon on the Mount
- The Penteteuch and the 5 major teachings of Jesus
Perhaps that's what draws Matthew to Jesus. Jesus draws parallels as well. And he structures these Beatitudes in a fascinating way. Make a quick study and you'll see that the next 3 Beatitudes in Matthew 5 directly parallel the first 3. Watch this:
• If you are poor in spirit, you'll be merciful to others.
• If you truly mourn over the sin in your life, you'll strive to be pure in heart.
• If you live in Meekness, putting yourself under the control of the Spirit, that will bring gentleness in your interaction with others, and consequently you'll be a peacemaker.
This shouldn't be surprising. Last Sunday I shared with you the metaphor of a tree, where the first 3 Beatitudes form the root system from which our lives grow. And the 4th Beatitude, which is the desire to do what is right, serves as the spiritual growth in one's life. Now what is produced - the fruit that the next 3 Beatitudes are - are of the same nature as the roots themselves, right? You plant a lemon tree, you're not gonna get olives. The fruit reflects what has been planted, so the parallel is very real.
This morning I want to talk about those three characteristics that are produced when we hunger and thirst to walk in God's ways; and these three characteristics are the next 3 Beatitudes. Let’s examine these more closely.
The 4th Beatitude. In our series on the Sermon on the Mount, we are beginning as Jesus did: with the blessings - or beatitudes - that he speaks to his followers.
- These statements of Kingdom character are like a tree. Roots are there in the first three blessings as we consider our relationship with God, and how we need his grace and forgiveness and power to even LIVE in the Kingdom.
- Then this 4th Beatitude, this 4th characteristic of the citizen of the Upside Down Kingdom, is really like the tree that grows from the roots - the tree that eventually will produce the fruit, which are essentially what Jesus speaks of in the last 4 beatitudes. Those will be what THIS CHARACTERISTIC that we will study today will result in.
Let’s look at Matthew 5, verse 6: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Let's break that down into 4 truths about being in a place where we are thriving in the Kingdom.
Last week we began a series on the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5-7)
This week, Beatitude #2 - some think this is a paradox. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN. Or - Happy are the Sad. What in the world??
Let’s take a closer look at the verse. "Blessed are those that mourn, for they will be comforted." Matthew 5:4
Does this really mean that we should be happy when we’re sad, or sad when we’re happy?
Does it mean that we go around looking like the frozen chosen, scowls on our face?
Actually - like the first Beatitude, this involves a spiritual characteristic that is connected to our sinful human condition, In other words, our response to the wrong-doing in our lives. And that makes sense, because once we realize our poverty of spirit and our desperate need for grace, we will experience a deep sorrow for our sins.
How sorry are YOU for the wrong you do in your life?
This morning we start a series that will most likely take us through the end of the year. It’s a series that will take a close look at the best and quite possibly the most famous sermon ever: the Sermon on the Mount. Of course these few chapters in Matthew’s gospel are not the ONLY words Jesus used while teaching - but the Holy Spirit prompted Matthew to record them because they represent the bulk of what Jesus meant when he announced that the Kingdom of God was at hand. He had a mission, yes; the cross and the empty tomb. But he had a message as well. The religious leaders of the day had missed the mark by a longshot. They had taken the message of the Scriptures and had complicated them to a ridiculous degree. It was more in style to LOOK godly rather than to actually BE godly. And this sermon really was an amazing way of Jesus calling out the fact that God’s people were NOT living in God’s true Kingdom. They had adopted the way of the world, the system of self - and Jesus’ message called God’s people to live in a radically different way.
Have you ever seen this little game: Can You Spot the Difference? I love that game!
Today’s flannelgraph foundation story is all about Spotting the Difference in a couple of ways. I want you to do some detective work as I tell the story on our flannelgraph, and see if you can spot the differences in TWO SEPARATE PICTURES we see in the story of Jesus healing a demon-possessed man.
Now for those who doubt the existence of demons, or the dark spiritual realm and how it can influence us; for those who think demon-possession is just stuff for hollywood fiction - let me tell you that the Bible is clear that demons do exist. We are told that our struggle isn’t really against flesh and blood; when you get into a long-term bitter feud with a relative, or when you are up against an addiction that you just can’t seem to kick, or when your emotions seem to drive you to lose control - Paul tells us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the forces of this dark world.
The spiritual realm is reality. And we must be aware of that so that we can focus on the real problem, rather than spend all our time and effort putting bandages on the problem when deep surgery is what is needed. It was CS Lewis that said that the greatest trick the devil played on mankind was to make us believe that he wasn’t real. What a great strategy! Now we are constantly distracted from the REAL issue, which allows many people to never be able to find true healing.
Our main story today is actually a smaller story intertwined with another, bigger story that I want to tell you through Flannelgraph today…
And the walls came a-tumbling down. Except for part of one wall – a fact that, according to Answers in Genesis, has been confirmed by archeological digs in the ruins of ancient Jericho. A German excavation in the early 1900’s found that on the north side of the site of the ancient city there was a short stretch of the lower city wall that did not fall down as everywhere else. A portion of that wall was still standing to a height of over eight feet. What is more, there was evidence that houses were indeed built against the wall. So it is very exciting to me to read in Joshua 2 of a woman whose home had been incorporated into the city wall.
It’s this woman whose story I want to focus on this morning. Her story is why you are holding a scarlet cord today. She is a woman for whom the color scarlet will be forever connected, both as it represents SIN and as it also represents HOPE. Here was a lady whose life truly was hanging by a thread. Her name is Rahab, and her story is there in Joshua 2, as well as in Joshua 6.
It would be awesome to be able to walk on water, wouldn’t it? If there was a way for you to experience incredible things, would you do what was necessary in order to see those things happen?
In this story there are three things I see that are needed in our lives in order for us to be able to walk on water, to see God work in ways we would never imagine, and to have our lives serve as a testimony for God’s protection, provision, and empowerment for work in His Kingdom.
One day an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher - what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered: “You’re the expert in the Law...how do you interpret what it says?” And the expert in the law said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you must love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said: “Cool. Then go do that and you’ll live.” But the man, wanting to find some kind of loophole, asked: “Yes, Teacher. But who is supposed to be that neighbor that I love? Who am I required to show compassion to in order to live eternally?”
Then Jesus told him this story of the Good Samaritan. You’ve heard the story...but really, in light of the purpose for Jesus telling it, it might very well be called The Poopoo-Head Priest or the Loathesome Levite! People KNOW this story, but many don’t know WHY Jesus told it, nor are they aware of its context.
Mountains are significant. You don't pack up the fam and drive hundreds of miles to go to Magic Valley. You don't stand in line for 3.5 hours at Disneyland to ride Space Sidewalk. You don't cherish building top experiences. In the Sound of Music, the advice wasn’t to Climb Every Sand Dune. John Denver didn’t praise Rocky Rooftop High… Mountain of the LORD – sounds impressive, right? Comes from OT prophecy - 2 places, in fact:: Isaiah 2 and Micah 4. And though these prophets were speaking of the temple mount primarily, their prophecy extended much further into the future, as well as reached back to the beginning of their faith. That's where we are today in our Flannelgraph Foundation story: on the Mountain of the Lord.
Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man2 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Now, you may be like me - you hear this story and you begin to wonder about things like: who cleaned up afterwards? How did the owner of the house feel about the damage to his property?
How long before the crowd became so distracted that Jesus finally just had to stop teaching while the scene was playing out? Did Jesus say something like: “We interrupt this sermon to bring you a paralyzed man. Please direct your attention to what’s left of the ceiling.”? :-)
Was the paralyzed man a little uneasy about being lowered down from the roof? Did he REALLY trust his friends to not drop him? This HAD to be at least somewhat embarrassing: like, “Hey, there - just thought I’d “drop” in.”
I want to see Jesus. I want my FRIENDS to see Jesus as well. And this morning I want to center on what Jesus saw as the main point of it all: Turn to Mark 2, verse 5. When Jesus saw THEIR FAITH…
I want you to want to see Jesus. Our first story is about a man who desperately wanted to see Jesus, so much so that he really puts himself out there. Who is this man?
You guessed it. Our guy today was an IRS agent in Israel - a Jewish man working for the Roman government - and if you think the reputation of OUR IRS agents is bad, you’re gonna find out that it was worse for this man named Zacchaeus..
What does the story of Zacchaeus have to do with us?
This Father’s Day morning I want to briefly address the men of PBCC.
YOU MATTER. DADS MATTER.
Our society has told you that you’re just a donor of genetic material. You have been relegated to an afterthought of the courts, an object of suspicion to the child welfare system, and a buffoon to the media outlets. But I believe that scripture models this principle for us: the more encouraged and supported the fathers in this country become, the better fathers they will become, and the better our society gets. When we stand to be the kind of men God created us to be, our world changes because once our homes have been transformed by the life exemplified by dads, children become who God had intended them to be from the beginning of creation.
So moms, kids - let's show our appreciation for the dads in our lives right now.
Our scripture this morning are the last words of King David - arguably Israel’s greatest king - who is on his deathbed giving some final words to his son Solomon. These words are in 1 Ki. 2:2-4
If only there was a way to know what is good… If only there was a way to know how GOD feels about George Floyd, the rioting, the anger, the lashing out, the racial tension, the perversion of justice, the oppression of people who are on the margins of our society…
Wait a second… He has shown you, O Man - O Mortal - O Human, what is good.
FaceBook tells me everyday how YOU feel about it (and I have friends on the extremes of this issue); but I want to assure you today that THISBOOK (the Bible) tells us how GOD feels about these dark times that can get scary and confusing...
In the midst of these dark days of oppression, sin, and injustice, God first promises that His Kingdom WILL NOT BE LIKE THAT. Those things invariably happen when you take God’s authority out of the equation and put PEOPLE in control of things. Best let the Creator of all things also RULE all things.
You put any kind of system - capitalism, communism, social justice, welfare, protests… you put ANYTHING into the hands of a human and you will always run the risk of it failing.
Let's listen to the Bible’s indictment regarding man’s ways.
We are now at week 7 in a series entitled QUARANTINE - which means 40 days, looking at specific 40 day events found in Scripture. It’s been intriguing to see all the things we can learn in 40 days; to see how God brings about change in that amount of time…
40 days of rain. 40 of repentance. 40 days of relying on the Word of God. 40 days of resisting the humiliating taunts from the Philistine enemy. 40 days of drawing near to God amidst our exhaustion…
But out of all those 40 day events found in Scripture, there is none so meaningful as the 40 days in between the Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus - a period of time where he showed many convincing proofs of his resurrection, as well as clarification about the Kingdom he was establishing.
In the book of Acts we see so many amazing things that were accomplished by the Early Church. People saved literally by the thousands. People healed of diseases, set free from prison, delivered miraculously over and over from circumstances that looked hopeless.
We see the Church, the Body of Christ, marching on, proclaiming the Good News with boldness in the face of the worst persecution ever imagined. You wonder how could this ragtag group of disciples, once so afraid of the religious authorities find the strength to become the most powerful force on the face of the planet?
That’s the power of those 40 post-resurrection days. The Church gained confidence in knowing what they believed in was truly REAL, and and it mattered to their final marching orders from their Lord.
What was true for the Early Church must be true for us today. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is what sets our faith apart from all other religions in this world. Paul tells disciples in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 14 and 17: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith… And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
You see how essential it is to be shown convincing proofs that his resurrection was fact not fiction??
The resurrection is absolutely essential to our faith. Everything we believe stands or falls on this one truth. You might consider the philosophy of following the TEACHING of Jesus (and that would be a great thing, btw) and say: “Well… even if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, I would still be a Christian because of the faith and the hope and the love that Christianity offers.”
Church - if Jesus is still dead then THERE IS NO FAITH, NO HOPE, AND NO LOVE!!
The 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension is the most crucial time for Christians. Why? Because it’s in this 40 day period where it all becomes reality, begins to produce results, and commands a responsibility in the lives of all believers.
It’s entirely possible that just about now you’re getting really tired of the coronavirus situation. I’m tired of staying inside so much, tired of the restrictions and the dumb ways people are implementing them (or NOT implementing them as the case may be. I'm tired of going into the bank looking like I’m part of the Hole in the Wall Gang. I’m tired of Zooming!!
What do we do when we feel inundated, overwhelmed by life and BURIED by all the things we have to deal with. How do we rise above it?
The 40-day event we’re looking at today comes from a guy we might never have suspected would ever get down or be discouraged – yet he was. When God chose two heroes of the faith to talk with and encourage Jesus at the Mt. of Transfiguration, this guy was one of the two selected. He was a man who literally heard God’s voice, speaking for God as a prophet. He walked in obedience; he was a prayer warrior; through Elijah God performed some pretty amazing miracles. And finally, at the end of his life Elijah didn’t even have to die, but was taken up to be with the Lord in a chariot of fire.
This is Elijah – and this morning I want to take a look at a 40-day period in Elijah’s life that came immediately after a spiritual high. The background to the story comes from 1 Kings 18. And it’s a great story that really shows what kind of guy Elijah was – the boldness in which he lived out his faith in God.
So much has transpired in the days of the coronavirus: we’ve talked about watching what God is doing, listening for what God is teaching us, making His Word central in our lives, finding out what needs to be done away with that fails to bring glory to God…
I hear a couple of things:
1 – we want this to be over (Yes, of course)
2 – we can hardly wait to go back to the way things used to be… AH! There’s the rub for me as your pastor.
DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know what you mean. You want to get back to working, to earning a paycheck, to seeing folks who have been holed up. You want to get back to socializing without having to worry about the old man at the Presbyterian dance holding up a 6-ft pole, making sure you don’t get too close to your dance partner!!
But in our rush to get back to the way things were, I’d caution you. There are things that have happened in your life during this time that have made you a different person – a better version of you. You have perhaps slowed down a bit, enjoyed your family more, gotten into God’s Word more consistently, learned to worry less about the things that really don’t matter…
Those are the memorials, the altars, if you will, that have been erected during these past couple of months.
What you have learned, the places you’ve grown, the addictions you’ve chosen to throw away – those are altars. And as your pastor, I’m imploring you to NOT TEAR THOSE DOWN as you want to go back to how life used to be. In other words, you’re ready to get rid of the restrictions – but realize you’ve now got something very precious in your life that wasn’t there before…don’t throw that baby out with the bathwater!
Today I want to look at a series of 40-day events that SHOULD have been a cause for great celebration as they represented God doing a NEW WORK, a TRANFORMING WORK, in the lives of His people.
“Lord, let me out. You hurled me in here! I’m in the midst of seaweed wrapped around my head and stale water all around me. I know You can lift me up from this stench. I forgot You for awhile – but now I remember! I know that others cling to worthless idols. I know they turn their back on the grace that could be theirs. Even in this muck,I will sing a song of Thanksgiving because I know that it’s only You Who can save me. You!”
And with those thoughts, Jonah, still in the belly of a great fish, began to change his mind and follow God’s way. You know the story. Here is Jonah in chapter 2 running back to God with a heart-cry for mercy and grace. Why was he in such desperate need of these? Because back in chapter 1, Jonah was running FROM God.
The Lord had a mission for him – and Jonah rather than obeying literally had run the other way. God wanted him to preach against the city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria - about 500 miles northeast of Jerusalem. Travel by land would take about a month.
Instead he had booked passage on a ship heading across the Mediterranean Sea in the exact opposite direction, headed to a city on the Spanish coast - the city of Tarshish.
To get Jonah’s attention, God had sent a storm that couldn’t be ignored – almost like a coronavirus that has to be dealt with. The ship was about to sink and Jonah told the sailors it’s his fault – his God wanted to deal with him and so Jonah is thrown into the sea, where a great fish that God had prepared swallowed him whole and alive.
So Jonah, now in the belly of the fish for three days, begins to pray for mercy and grace. And, after three days, in answer to his prayer, God causes the fish to vomit up the prophet onto dry ground.
It’s a fairly simple story to remember:
Chapter 1 – Jonah’s running from God
Chapter 2 – Jonah’s running back to God
Chapter 4 – Jonah’s running ahead of God
But for 40 days, in chapter 3 - the chapter I want us to look at this morning - Jonah is actually running WITH God.
So, where’s your focus right now? On things you’re missing? I’m sure your list is growing:
Visiting parents, Hanging out with friends, Our “normal” routines: school, workplace, etc., Ministry
I’ve told you this story before – it was on my way back into town on an early Sunday morning. I was in a bit of a rush… and all of a sudden I hit that dang red light there at Veterans and 97. I was inconvenienced, frustrated, a bit angry. I had just expressed my…uh…disappointment when I felt God moving my head just 10 degrees to the right and this is what I saw…
That moment was the only time I was going to see that sight, for just 2 minutes later, the snow clouds covered it up for the next 3 days. What a difference it makes to have a different focus!
So, let me ask you to think of another list. This time, focus in on what you have been learning.
I don’t know about you, but I’m one who doesn’t like to waste time. Let me ask you this: If your financial institution credited your account each morning with $86,000 – BUT allowed you to never carry over any balance into the next day, restricted you from keeping any cash in your account, and whatever part of the $86,000 that was left was zeroed out at the end of the day, what would you do? Wouldn’t you come to understand that the best way of using this money would be to draw out every dollar every day and use it to your advantage?
Well, we actually DO have such a bank, and its name is TIME! Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balances, it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.
Church, I don’t want you to waste this time – this experience. I would hate to have lived my time during this pandemic ONLY frustrated and discouraged over things I can’t even control! But there are SOME things – like what I do with my time – that I CAN control.
When God freed His people from slavery in Egypt, it was only days before they started murmuring and complaining against God, making a list of all the things they missed in Egypt and all the things they hated about the wilderness.
The protesters are out in force nowadays, demanding an end to the quarantine, murmuring and complaining. They’re tired of having to wait. To think of having to do this for another 40-day period stinks!
Imagine being on restriction for 40 YEARS
That’s what happened to the Israelites as they came up out of Egypt and began to complain. God would use not just a 40-Day period, but a 40 YEAR period to re-focus His people on what is most important – and that is to learn to trust and obey when the Lord leads.
A thought came to me this past week. Most of you have heard the 23rd Psalm read at some point – perhaps at a funeral, maybe in a sermon.
What caught my attention this past week was the phrase “He makes me lie down.”
On Sunday, someone shared with me that one perspective of my injury was that it MIGHT have been God’s way of getting my attention during this pandemic, and the quarantine conditions we have been forced into. I guess if you would have asked my wife, before my injury, I wasn’t really slowing down much. I’ve talked about this before: how I have this tendency to go and go and go, to take more on than I should, to not trust others to do the job well enough, etc., etc…
Then go back to Friday, April 10, when in one moment of clumsiness, my world shrank. Falling on my back and cracking one of my vertebrae put me on bed arrest, flat on my back, not being able to do much.
“He makes me lie down.” Ha! NOT funny, God. But necessary.
But necessary.
Could it be that, like me, many of God’s people had found themselves before the pandemic in a place where it was necessary for God to make them lie down?
2020 – an election year. You know what that means? Promises ever intended to REALLY be fulfilled. A cynic once said the way you can tell if a politician is lying is if he is moving his lips.
From the opening story, we can see that politicians aren’t the only ones who make empty promises. Satan – the enemy of God’s Kingdom – our adversary - is SKILLED at those kinds of lies.
Resurrection Sunday will forever stand as an example of a few empty promises the devil made to the world – or at least TRIED to. He THOUGHT he promised he would win in the end. Crucify the Son of God, get rid of the King; the world would be a better place. Wait...I’ve heard that more recently….
God made promises that weekend as well. And in a way you can say that these were Empty Promises – but in a vastly different sense. Whereas the Enemy’s promises, when bought into, just lead to a sense of emptiness in ourselves, God’s promises are intended to fill us full of his love and grace and power through His Holy Spirit. AND (here’s the great part) those promises hinge on the emptiness of the tools employed by Satan in an attempt to derail our faith.
And so the promises of God – based on an empty cross, an empty tomb, and some empty grave-clothes – are the Empty Promises I want to celebrate with you today.
YOU KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE HAD A BAD DAY WHEN:
You see a "Dateline” news team waiting in your driveway when you get home from work
Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles
You wake up and discover your waterbed broke and then realize that you don’t have a water bed.
Your income tax check bounces.
Your twin brother or sister forgets your birthday
The bird singing outside your window is a buzzard.
It’s REALLY a bad day when you come to a point of your faith where you really do question your faith. It’s happened to me a few times in my life: times when you wonder if you’re on the right path God has for you, times when you wonder if God really cares what’s going on in your life, times when you wonder if God is even real and you may have been led astray to put your faith in Him…
That’s never a fun time. But I will testify to this: every time I have come to those crises of faith, I have kept my heart open - I have been willing to doubt the doubt - and I’ve waited for the Lord...and you know, He has always been faithful in showing me what I needed to see just in the right moment.
As we continue in our study of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians - and especially in the context of encouraging them to continue to reflect the IMAGO DEI - the Image of God in their lives, we now come to 2 Thessalonians where Paul is addressing a crisis of faith experienced in this church. Do we just ignore those crises? Do we pretend that we have it all together, like the crises don’t exist?
I don’t know about you, but for me at times I get frustrated at simple pie-in-the-sky spiritual solutions to real-life struggles. It sounds like I have no faith when people say “Well, God’s got a plan.” I know He does. I know there is a God, and I am not Him. I realize that things will happen in life that I cannot explain at all. When there’s a crisis of faith because of intense suffering or confusion or whatever, it is good to be reminded that God is in control and that I should learn to just trust in His power and providence - but at times I want to know that God does have practical answers for my crises.
BUT here’s the catch (and here’s where I believe most people get tripped up when it comes to faith): while God sometimes does calm the storm, in my experience He more often calms ME in the midst of the storm. In other words - I want to know how to deal with my crisis of faith; and God, rather than manipulating the circumstances to make me feel more comfortable, He leads me to a deeper understanding of the truth of His sovereignty and how MY response to my crises is a better thing to focus in on as I go through them.
The year was 1988. I was in Bible College and many of my peers were all abuzz. This was supposed to be the year of Jesus’ return. There had been a book written entitled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Experts watched the signs they felt so sure of. People sold their homes, liquidated their assets and waited…
Folks - just STOP IT, would ya?? I’m thinking that MAYBE we don’t really have a clue as to when the end of the world will occur… Sounds like I’m being cynical. But please understand – I’m only cynical at trying to figure out WHEN it’s going to happen. I’m not cynical at all that is WILL happen. We are told that it will. We can take it to the bank. So what should our attitude be?
I get it. We’re fascinated with the end of the world, and like my fascination with lightning, werewolves, and sharks, many are terrified as well (funny how those two things are so intertwined). So we try to figure it out...and some are anxious...
2000 years ago believers saw things with completely different eyes. Read the NT and you’ll see that in the early Church, many people including the Apostle Paul, expected Christ's return to take place within their generation. They thought that those who had believed in the Lord when He was alive on earth would see Him come back. Their view of the Second Coming was filled with hopeful expectation. It was part of the IMAGO DEI, the Image of God that they demonstrated to their world. For them, the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy about the coming Kingdom couldn't come soon enough.
Not something to fear, but something to REALLY look forward to.
The passage I want us to look at today from 1 Thessalonians was written at a time when Christians really did believe Jesus could come back at ANY TIME. The debated interpretations of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John hadn’t been written. All they knew about the end of the age was that Jesus said he was coming back to take us to our eternal home, and that no one knew the day nor the hour.
I remember when one of our elders, Scott, showed me the news of the shut-down of the NBA. No more basketball. Frustrating. Then no March Madness. Righteous indignation! 😊
Then the shut down of large gatherings. My little sister, Talicia, is getting ready for her wedding on April 18. This is a big deal. 41 years old – never been married. TONS of people who love her coming to celebrate… not anymore.
I was angry at the news that churches had to shut down. The government, I argued, can’t tell a church what to do!
Then you go out there and you see the run on essentials – and you start to wonder is this the end of the world? No toilet paper?? 😊
Here’s a question for those of you who follow Jesus: what if it IS?
No matter what the timeline of the last days are – and as we proceed through the writings of Paul to the Thessalonian church over the next several weeks, we will definitely look at how the Apostle viewed the end times – the main reason we are even told about the troubles in this world is that those who are in God’s family would respond in a much different way than how the world responds.
What are we going to do in times like these? Will we ignore it and act like everything’s ok? Does trusting God really mean that we act in a foolhardy way because somehow we believe that He has this policy of not letting anything uncomfortable or bad happen to His children? That somehow God has this gigantic Norton Anti-Virus that He shields us with?
Pretend that you are travelling alone through a vast desert and have been for a while. You are weary and weak, and your canteen is empty. When you come across the strangest sight: there is a water pump standing alone in the desert and tied to it is a handwritten sign that reads "I have buried a bottle of water right here in the sand. The purpose of the water is to prime the pump. There’s just enough water to get the pump working properly, so do not drink any of it."
"To get the pump working, pour in half the water to wet the leather, wait about a minute, then pour in the rest. Then pump. The well has never gone dry, but the pump must be primed to bring the water up. You just gotta trust. When you are through drawing water, fill the bottle and bury it in the sand for the next traveler.”
So – here’s the question… you’re tired and thirsty and out of water. You see this water pump and this sign… you dig up the bottle of water that was buried there… so what would you do?
Risky, isn’t it?
Folks, that’s really what FAITH is all about. FAITH is a fancy word that gets tossed around a lot. It is used to describe one’s religion. It is used to define our acceptance of the reality of a Supreme Being. BUT according to scripture, FAITH really embraces a risk in something that claims can save you.
This is our second week looking at the writings of Paul to the church in Thessalonika – the first letters we have on record of Paul having written to the churches. Last week we looked at the foundation of the letters as Paul was celebrating the way that the Thessalonian believers were living out the IMAGE OF GOD, or as the Latin phrases it, the IMAGO DEI.
We saw last week how if we as a church are going to have an eternal impact in our community and in this world, we must be committed to show GOD’S image to the world, relying on HIS power to do the works HE has planned for us to do.
This can get complicated, though; because I’ve seen many churches fall into the sin of pride when they are doing good things…for they never truly do those things to display the glory of God. It’s too easy to think too highly of our own efforts in being a great church.
Today we’re going to be looking at the first characteristic of the Thessalonian church that Paul commends; and it’s all about their FAITH that is focused on the RIGHT PLACE.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, would it make a noise? If PBCC were to close its doors this week and cease to exist as a church – would anyone notice?
That’s a haunting question, isn’t it? At the heart of that question lies our purpose and identity as a church. Are we making a difference at all in our community? Is the gospel giving people hope? Are we sharing the love of Christ with the world? If this tree fell, would it make a noise?
Often when you look at the letters in the New Testament written to various churches, you see the common issues churches have always dealt with because you’re dealing with people with issues. So when you get to a church like the one I want us to look at in the next several weeks, it’s refreshing to see something a bit different.
Last week we started a two-week look at church conflict. We saw from the book of Philemon how the potential for conflict in the church was there from the very beginning as the church was made up of people from all walks of life, all political persuasions, all races, all economic classes, even masters and slaves – all becoming disciples of Jesus, and having Jesus as the one thing in common.
And because all of these people bring their humanity and brokenness and sinful natures with them into the church, guess what? Conflict is inevitable.
But the pain of conflict is NOT. The hurt that can be connected with conflict doesn’t have to have a place in the family of God. And ultimately, scripture shows us HOW to deal with that conflict in a manner that honors God and will help further His Kingdom here on earth.
So today, we’re gonna look at one of the key chapters in the gospels that help us understand the process of reconciliation out of conflict. Turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 18.
Fights happen. Just because you’re a believer doesn’t mean you are immune to conflict in your relationships.
Considering the church: comprised of all SORTS of people. In speaking of the church, Paul declares to the believers in Colossae:
Colossians 3:11-15a Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothes yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace…
In the early church you had people of all races, from all countries, of all genders, cultures, economic statuses, social classes, all coming to faith in Christ and being put into one body, the ONLY thing in common being their faith in Jesus! You even had masters and slaves (talk about awkward.) You’d have two people of unequal rank in society being brothers in the Lord. How does THAT work?
So how do you do it? How do you take a bunch of people who have NOTHING in common, from all sorts of places on the political spectrum, the racial spectrum, the socio-economic spectrum, and bring them together in the way God designed His Church to be?
“You’re not the boss of me” “You can’t tell me what to do.” Especially in Western culture, where we are used to having the right to do what we want to do, it’s difficult to submit to authority.
But as Christians, the whole idea of Lordship involves submitting with the correct perspective of authority.
If you recall our mission statement: You’ll see that we tend to focus in on 75% of the mission a lot.
- “Greeting time” – designed to give you an initial connection (hope it deepens)
- “Newcomers gatherings”
- GO Moments, Mission Sunday
- Lots of classes to help you grow.
But what about “equipping them to SERVE?
What kind of people are the elders of a church supposed to be? Are they to be stubborn and authoritative? Are they to operate under the power of their own wisdom and strength? What qualifies a person to serve as an elder in the church?
It’s interesting to see the list of qualifications which the US Constitution has established for anyone who wants to be President. 35 years old, natural-born citizen, permanent resident of the US for 14 years. That’s it. No intelligence test, no moral requirements, no past experience necessary…(scary!)
Thank GOD that when it comes to church leaders, He has established a much higher standard! Today as we gather after the service to affirm the budget and the ballot of proposed officers, I think it’s very appropriate to look into those standards – especially when it comes to the elders of our church.
Now, last week, I shared with you the Biblical model of shared leadership that Jesus established for the Church. We saw what role an elder is supposed to play in the leadership of local congregations. So the fact that we are a church that is elder-led is a very good thing. But what are those elders supposed to BE like?
As the elders developed our mission statement, we also began to understand the role of the elders in the discipleship process at church, because ultimately discipleship is the outcome of that mission.
And so it’s important to know that our elders have buy in to the mission, and to the direction of discipleship at PBCC. Next week we will be having our annual congregational meeting. It’s at these meetings that the official members of the church vote to affirm a couple of things: 1) the budget proposed by the church board; and 2) the new officers of our church as it stands as a non-profit corp.
It was recently that we came to the realization of the importance of studying the principles of church leadership found in the Bible. Many of you may not even know what an elder or deacon or deaconess is supposed to DO, much less know the qualifications.
Having church elders – is that like having a congressman representing you and your opinions to the church board? Is church leadership REALLY modeled after the great American government structure? What does the Bible teach about the way a church is to be run? That’s what these next two weeks are going to be about for us.
We’ll begin this morning with an overall principle that is the key to everything else we’ll look at for the next few weeks: Pastoral oversight of the church is to be a team effort.
Today we’re talking about debt. This one hits home. Jenny and I are on the road to sinking our debt. This means there are decisions to make: hard decisions.
This is part 2 of a series we’ve entitled The Great Escape. We are trying to find GOD’S way out of the traps of consumerism and materialism and debt. Remember last week – this isn’t about the church needing money. In fact, through this congregation God provided for our needs once again. In 2019 our offerings were above what we had expected. That’s awesome.
But even if someone wrote a check to take care of the entire 2020 budget this morning, I would STILL preach about finances. Finances SHOULD be taught in churches: Jesus said more about money and resources than he did about Heaven. The Bible ties our spiritual maturity with our financial understanding. Those who are out of control in this area of their lives tend to be out of control in other areas of our lives as well.
So this is about YOU, really. YOU finding health in this area of your life so that when those occasions arise where you fell led by the Spirit of God to be generous, you will be able to be generous. It’s not just about the tithe. It’s about the WHOLE SHEBANG.
In 1347, the Black Plague was raging through Europe and thousands of people died. Many people saw it as God’s judgment; so, hoping to appease Him, the citizens of Lubeck, Germany surrounded the monastery of their city and offered the monks enormous amounts of money and such in order to protect them from God’s wrath.
The monks though, fearful of contamination, barred their gates and didn’t allow the citizens to enter. The persistent crowd started to throw their gold and jewels and resources over the monastery walls… and the frightened monks threw all of it back. Money and valuables were thrown back and forth over the walls for hours until the monks finally gave up and allowed the riches to remain. Piles of money rose 3 to 4 feet. And for months the money went untouched.
Why did the people of Lubeck want to give the money? They thought it would bring them life. Why didn’t the monks want the money? They thought the money would bring them death.
This historic event that occurred in 14th century Germany illustrates two basic views of money )both wrong): one – it can make them happy; two – that it will bring troubles. But neither are TRUE...
Missions are an important part of PBCC's ministry. In today's message we hear how we are making a difference and spreading the good news of Jesus Christ locally and globally.
LET IT GO. Perfect song for this season. Think about it…. It’s the middle of December - and has it hit you yet? You know what I’m talking about… the Christmas RUSH. The way Jesus gets kinda pushed to the side so we can get the meals cooked and the goodies baked; we can get to all the pageants and plays we need to get to; and we take out a second mortgage just to make sure everyone gets exactly what they want… And at the end of it all - another Christmas has come and gone and all you have to show for it is the Visa bill and the terrible mess you have to clean up after everyone leaves.
And each year we think we have it under control, but that usually doesn’t happen. And when Christmas Day has come and gone, we wonder why we can’t ever enjoy the season as it was meant to be enjoyed.
This Christmas, I want to encourage this congregation to live counter-culturally; to make some determination to take steps to stop the madness. I know it feels as though there’s nothing we can do, but I believe that’s a lie; I believe we can learn to put our foot down and make the hard decisions that need to be made in order to take back this amazing time of the year.
If you take a good look at the Biblical Christmas account, you’ll see some CRAZY things going on. Chaos, and complexity, and conflict. What we read of is NOT what is typically pictured on the front of Christmas cards. But even through the crazy, people like Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds were able to let that all go; and they were able to receive the blessing of being part of a life-changing event.
This morning, I think we need to learn how to let it go. To look past the chaos, to defy the commercialism, and to seek a way to end conflict that so many people experience at Christmas time. If we can do that, we will be able to guard against the culture’s desire to make our hearts frozen.
I love nativity scenes. As a kid I would rearrange the characters every other day, it seemed. I loved how the little lamb in our main porcelain nativity had a broken leg that made it always bow towards the manger.
I even love how my kiddos decided a couple of years ago to ADD to the nativity scene, and – running the risk of being a bit sacrilegious – I brought a picture of the additions.
(There’s Luigi, and the troll doll, and of course Nemo. I like how the angel is laying down in front of the manger. And then you got one of the TMNT, Donatello, guarding the baby Jesus. And just to the left of the manger – Bowser, a bad-guy from Mario Bros., growling at the whole scene.
Ah! Almost dragon-like, if you catch what I’m talking about. Which brings up a very interesting point to consider as we launch into our Advent season this year – Advent meaning preparing to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ…
Now if you say my nativity scene is all wrong, I’d throw it back to you: do you have the magi there with the shepherds? That’s wrong. They came later. And while we’re on the magi, does your set include THREE wise men? If so, it may be wrong – we are never told how many magi came to the house where the baby Jesus was staying. (Yes, it was a house – not a stable – where the holy family was staying when the magi showed up.) Does your set include an angel? Not included in the biblical account – at least not at the manger. The angels were outside of the city, telling the shepherds where to find the baby… So the traditional set has many things “wrong” – but one of the most important things we get wrong is leaving out the dragon at the manger scene.
Turn with me to Revelation, chapter 12. What? Isn’t this CHRISTMAS TIME, Trey? Yep. And I want you to see an overlooked account of the Christmas story. You want the story from an earthly point of view, check out Matthew and Luke. BUT if you want to see it from a cosmic point of view, you have to look at Revelation 12.
Have you ever wondered about the ending of the book of Acts? We just finished the book of Acts last week – and many of you would have had no clue. There’s no big finish, no “and they all lived happily ever after.” Be honest: if I had begun this morning by saying, let’s all turn to Acts 29 --- how many of you would have gone to look for a chapter that isn’t there??
Or is it?
In a way, there is another chapter in the story of Acts, an Acts 29, if you will – but it wasn’t written in the first century by Dr. Luke; rather, it’s actually a chapter that is being written right now, in the life of believers from the Early Church until today; in the way that the Church of God, the Body of Christ goes about fulfilling the Great Commission and expanding the kingdom of God.
The Great Commission, from Matthew 28 “Go, make disciples of all people groups…”; Jesus’ last words in Acts 1 “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world.”
Well they were. They obeyed. The gospel permeated the known western world. And it was not just a new philosophy – it changed lives. There was a POWER, a dunamis in Greek – dynamite power, that accompanied the gospel. The unstoppable, explosive power of the church we have studied this year.
That’s what it means to write the next chapter as God’s Church. I want you to see that the way the gospel works, the manner in which it flows, compels us to continue the story of the power of God alive in the Church in the world today.
We have seen the story of the mission of God starting small and multiplying beyond what anybody would have dreamed imaginable, and it's been one story made up of smaller stories
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faithfulness and unfaithfulness
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opportunities and obstacles
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difficult circumstances wrapped up in the sovereignty of God.
Each story is woven into the bigger story by these consistent themes of the Reign of Jesus, the Power of the Holy Spirit, and the Kingdom of God advancing through the Church.
From 120 followers of Jesus in Jerusalem to hundreds of thousands throughout the known western world. And this morning, I want you to see it’s more than just an adventure. It’s more than just mere history. In fact, I would say that chapter 28 is really the fulfillment of a promise Jesus made. He said that his disciples would be witnesses to the uttermost parts of the world. Well...here they are: Rome - for all intents and purposes, the uttermost part of THEIR world - AND quite literally the gateway to the rest of the world (All roads lead to - and from - Rome, right?).
By the time we get to chapter 28, we see that the Great Commission is attainable. You could say that chapter 28 is a guarantee of sorts. Yes, God gave us a mission - and because of what we have read this whole year, I believe this book proves we as God’s ambassadors are guaranteed to succeed.
There’s not a whole lot in life that has that guarantee. School? (academic excellence, clubs, activities - guarantee for success?) Career? (effort, training, education, internships - guaranteed for success?) Marriage? Diet? Raising great kids?
Some of you know what it’s like to put all your effort into those things, just to watch them fall.
Without guarantees we are left with this sense of uncertainty and doubt. Sometimes cynicism prevents us from developing a true confidence to keep on keeping on.
I wonder if that has happened with our efforts in fulfilling the Great Commission. When it comes to sharing the gospel with the world, is it because we don’t have the right training or techniques that we neglect to obey what Jesus commissioned us to do? Or is it something else? Is it a lack of know-how, or is it a lack of confidence?
But what if we TRULY believed that we are guaranteed to succeed in evangelizing the world, if we would just put ourselves out there and do what Jesus told us to do?
In John 16:33 Jesus says, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble but take heart – I have overcome the world.”
In this world you will have trouble – not one of those promises from God that you’d want to put on your coffee mug, right? This is a reality check for those who claim that by becoming a Christian, you are magically protected from anything going wrong in your life. Jesus is saying that, especially as a disciple, if you’re on his side, you will be opposed. Period.
So, then what’s the point? How does this give us peace anyway?
Well, Jesus follows up the promise with a fact – a fact that Acts 27 is fixed firmly on. Jesus declares that he has overcome. And in fact, the rest of the NT testifies to that truth as well. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, all of the enemies of God’s Kingdom have been defeated.
And so, even though we still are engaged in the battles – we know the end has already been written, and this ought to give us the courage to face the opposition that the enemy will throw at us.
In 1871, five years before his death, Philip Bliss published a song based upon a sermon in which the preacher said, “He who is almost persuaded is almost saved, but to be almost saved is to be entirely lost.” The song was appropriately entitled, “Almost Persuaded.”
“Almost persuaded” now to believe; “Almost persuaded” Christ to receive;
Seems now some soul to say, “Go, Spirit, go Thy way;Some more convenient day on Thee I’ll call.”
“Almost persuaded” come, come today; “Almost persuaded,” turn not away;
Jesus invites you here, Angels are lingering near,
Prayers rise from hearts so dear, O wanderer, come.
“Almost persuaded,” harvest is past! “Almost persuaded,” doom comes at last!
“Almost” cannot avail; “Almost” is but to fail;
Sad, sad, that bitter wail—“Almost—but lost!”
That happens every day, you know. People who are continually on the fence when it comes to putting their trust in Jesus’ sacrifice to make them right with their God. This morning, I really want to address those of you who have been faithful in coming this year as we have gone through the book of Acts; and specifically those of you who still consider yourself as “checking things out.” We’ve talked about how there are people in these services who are not yet disciples. They are “almost disciples.” They are still on a path of doubt or discovery, still considering whether the claims of Christianity are real, are relevant, and are right. If that’s you, I want you to pay particularly close attention this morning, because to stay an “almost disciple” is to miss out on the greatest blessing you can ever receive - but not because you hadn’t ever heard about the blessing...but because you never got off the fence when it came to faith.
This morning, we are finishing up chapter 25, and will continue through chapter 26 in the Book of Acts. Bliss wrote that song based on this event in Acts - we’re gonna find out what it was that King Agrippa - a Jewish man familiar with Christianity - said in response to hearing the gospel message.
As we are nearing the end of this year’s study in the book of Acts, this amazing story of the unstoppable power of the church of God, you’ll start to see that it begins to blur together. Whereas earlier in the book, you get the specific individual stories that stand out, now – though there will be separate trials that Paul has to go through on his way up to Rome – it all seems like one long drawn-out trial.
But don’t give in to the temptation to just turn this next few weeks off thinking, “Oh it’s just the trial of Paul again…” In each instance, there will be something of importance to note, I promise.
If you recall back to Acts 9, when Paul was converted from persecutor to disciple, God had given him a commission to go along with his conversion. God designated Paul a “chosen instrument” to bear God’s name before Gentiles and their kings… In this commission was also the promise that it wasn’t going to be a bed of roses; there would be hardships and suffering.
So now Paul comes to his second trial in front of one of those “Gentile kings.” Festus has succeeded Felix as governor. History tells us that Felix was ineffective and was replaced by the more even-tempered Festus. And the prediction God made for the testimony of Paul’s life is starting to REALLY come true.
A couple weeks ago we talked about how having a clear conscience allows one to be bold in standing for the truth. Proverbs 28:1 says “The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” Paul is able to be bold because his cause is righteous, he lives with integrity; and so for him, these trials don’t seem to faze him at all.
The American Legal system can drive you NUTS. The Apostle Paul understands. As we come to Acts 24, he’s in it up to his neck! This chapter begins one court-room after another - each time, proven innocent...but when has THAT stopped the legal system ever?
His life is on trial. Reminds me of Impact Brass & Singers: “Evidence”. Could they put you away? If it was against the law to be a disciple, is there enough evidence in YOUR life to convict you?
What if YOUR life were on trial? What evidence could you produce that proved you were a disciple? This morning in Acts 24, though there are a LOT of things we could look at, the one thing I want us to consider this morning is just that: YOUR LIFE ON TRIAL.
The hinge verse is in 24:16 - before we look at the whole passage let’s look at Paul’s plea entered into the courtroom transcripts: “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before GOD and MAN.” What a statement about the integrity of one’s life. My prayer as your pastor - who loves you and loves serving as your pastor - is this: that we ALL could be confident enough to say exactly that.
There are 4 areas of Paul’s life that provide evidence of his discipleship. We’re going to look at how these 4 areas can come into play in the trial of our lives today. The four areas we will look at are the HATRED of the world, the pursuit of HOLINESS, the confidence of HOPE, and an undeniable change of HEART. HATRED, HOLINESS, HOPE, and HEART. So let’s dive in: Acts 24:1-8.
Hinds Feet on High Places. The story of “Much-Afraid,” a shepherdess employed by the Great Shepherd. Longs to accompany the Great Shepherd up to the mountains where he leaps with feet like a hind. But she’s crippled - physically: deformed feet and face; and emotionally: paralyzing fear. No courage. But longs to be loved, to be changed, to be able to leap with hinds feet on high places.
I think in fact we want the courage to face all of life's hang-ups, problems, issues and circumstances that are gonna come our way, don't we? Don't we want courage to face an unknown or new career? Don't we want courage to face hardship or grief or failure?
We want courage to face the current situation that we're in, maybe that's filled with conflict or boredom and we're all staring at ourselves in the mirror saying, “If I just had the courage to face this then I'd get through it. If I just had the courage…”
Courage wouldn’t exist without fear. If you weren’t afraid, you wouldn’t need courage. Courage is taking action WHILE BEING afraid. Courage is demonstrating a kind of deep faith that can’t be just put on a plaque or a poster or a coffee mug - in fact is inexpressible with words.
Where do you get that kind of courage? Acts 23 gives us a direction to head…
It was just an ordinary bush; a nondescript desert thorn-bush that, no doubt, Moses had seen many, many times in his 40 year career as a shepherd. I’m sure Moses had gotten familiar with every rock and tree and bush by the time he saw this bush. This ordinary bush.
But there was something different... And no, it wasn’t the fact that the bush was on fire… I’m sure Moses had witnessed a wilderness fire or two over those 4 decades of tending his father-in-law’s flocks. No - what made it different was the fact that, though it was on fire, the bush was not being burnt up; it wasn’t being consumed by the flames.
And from this supernatural experience, nothing would ever be the same for Moses.
You see, without the fire, the bush was just a bush. WITH the fire, it became something greater.
That’s like us. We are celebrating 75 years incorporated as a church. And I hope you’ve understood by now: this building, the Historic Chapel, the proposed youth center --- none of those are the CHURCH. WE are the church.
Church, WE have good news. That’s what GOSPEL means. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is GREAT news. It’s the hope of the world. And here’s the deal: it was MEANT to be shared.
There is a world out there that is STARVING for eternal hope - and we have what they need; but part of our sinful nature makes it difficult for us to share at times, right?
Acts 21:37 through chapter 22 is a great picture of what it means to know your story, and to know what God wants you to DO with your story.
Paul is going to tell his story - it’s a BC/AD story, if you know what I mean. BC - before I knew Christ; AD - the year of our Lord. It’s a story of what I USED to be like before I met Jesus, then what I am now that Jesus has come into my life. Some people call it a testimony, right? And what’s powerful about a testimony is that it’s YOUR STORY. No one can argue.
Fact is - YOU have a story, just like Paul. And that story has been given to you for a reason. Once Jesus comes into your life, there is a new purpose, a new direction, a new force behind what you do. As a disciple, you now live for a different kingdom and are under new management, if you will. So it matters WHAT you do with that new life. It’s not just about you getting to go to heaven. There is a re-created sense of identity and value. Today I want you to see three things about the power of our story. Because if we have been given this story for a reason, it will be good for us to understand how to utilize that story to its full potential, just as Paul does.
Who gets to determine how the message is to be understood? Who is right? HOW DO I KNOW??
Is it a sense of peace? Is it the majority vote? Is it the thing that makes me happy?
Are there principles found in the Bible that can help us determine for ourselves if what we’re hearing is from the Spirit or not? I believe there are - and I want to share a few of them:
Learning and growing. Also called DISCIPLESHIP. Remember Jesus didn’t call us to make converts, but disciples. There’s a difference. “Want to be a Christian” is different than “Want to be a disciple?” Disciples are disciplined. They learn. They grow. They follow. They change.
Learning and growing. In other words, there’s no “arrival” in the Christian journey - not ‘til heaven, really.
But even though we aren’t there, God’s design is that we continue on a journey towards “there.”
But check out Hebrews 6:1a "So let us go on to grown-up teaching. Let us not go back over the beginning lessons we learned about Christ." (NCV)
Or Ephesians 4:15 "...we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (ESV)
Or Colossians 1:9 "And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding" (RSV)
Today as we look at the last part of Acts 18, there is this account of a significant event in the life of the early Church.
“Pull, Nellie, Pull”
Try pulling by yourself - it’s hard. Just like Ministry. Ministry is amazingly satisfying. Ministry is amazingly hard. And we tend to make it harder than it really should be.
When approached in the wrong way, ministry will burn us out. But God designed it differently. His design was to make it amazingly encouraging - but only when we approach it as the Ultimate Team Sport. No Lone Ranger Christians. Today as we come to Acts 18, there is a transition where we see Paul worn out by ministry - but God is good and reminds us how ministry SHOULD operate. And eventually, Paul would experience the equivalent to a Pastors Retreat...though the city in which it happens doesn’t seem the likeliest of places for a spiritual rejuvenation. Let’s talk a bit about Corinth.
As we have traced the 2nd Missionary Journey of Paul over the past couple of weeks, we now come to the city of Athens. And it’s a pretty amazing story we find in Acts 17. But first a little background:
Athens was the cultural center of the world:
- Politics (birthplace of democracy)
- Philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Socrates)
- Art (Parthenon, statuary – think of Greece? You’re thinking of Athens)
This all leads Athens to be a place committed to PLURALISM
In many ways, 2000 years later, we still live in Athens - COEXIST
Trouble for Christians? Again, we have a Savior who claimed to be THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life
- How do you proclaim that in a post-modern world that values the “coexist” model?
- How does PAUL do it? Is there something here on this port of call that affects us?
We’ll find out in this next part of Acts 17, starting in verse 16, the WHY, the HOW, and the WHO of Paul’s famous sermon.
The Bible is GOD’S STORY - a full narrative arc; a beginning, middle, and end; You can’t just pop into the middle of it, expecting to understand.
What is Truth? You gotta learn how to REALLY read your Bible - not in part, but the whole.
Today we come to Acts 17. Paul and the Gospel are now in Greece, setting foot for the very first time on a brand new continent. Last week we studied his stop in at Philippi and learned something about worship on this first leg of the European Tour; and this week we’ll study the impact of God’s Truth as Paul makes his way Southwest to the cities of Thessalonica and Berea.
Paul and Silas are in the dark this morning in our study in Acts. Paul set a demon-possessed girl free in the name of Jesus, and what does he get?
What do you do when life is unfair? Pout? Lash out? Close yourself off from the world? Get on Facebook, hoping to find people willing to join the pity party? How about singing?
Why sing? Does it matter when we do? And if so, to whom does it matter?
Why sing? Why worship? Because God desires it and he deserves it.
This morning, we are talking about freedom - and the opportunity to become freedom fighters in our world - not for civil liberties, but for spiritual liberties. In our country, where we are free to choose many things, unfortunately many people have chosen to give UP their spiritual freedom as they have walked into the enemy’s trap and find themselves in bondage. This is what happened in Acts 16, so let’s turn there and see what’s going on, and what inspiration we might gain from these events.
What do you do when God has other plans? You think you know which way is best; you even are pretty sure it’s not a matter of a sinful choice! You think this is the right direction, and God says, “NO”?
In our study in the book of Acts, Paul is now REALLY excited to take the message to the world (BTW, this happens… talk to ANYONE who has been used by God to make a difference in someone’s life, whether here in our own community, or overseas or across the border; kinda like a drug - hard to get them to NOT do it again...and again...and again; thus Paul). He’s got plans. Asia (not the continent, but that direction, at least! Central and Eastern Turkey, specifically... ). Huge mission field, right?
But at every point where Paul tests the waters, God keeps interfering… It begins, actually with the travelling companions.
What do you think of when I say the word “alone?” Images of solitude, feelings of loneliness. But what about that word in another context: “The BIBLE, yes that’s the book for me, I stand alone on the word of God, the BIBLE.”
What about the phrase “In Christ alone…” Where does THAT phrase take you in your mind, your heart? Does it bring comfort or anxiety… release or indignation? I know believers who this phrase is the heart of the theology that literally saved their lives; I know some who wince at this phrase, wondering how many people will abuse it in justifying a lifestyle of habitual sin…
In our study of Acts 15 this morning we come to the most hotly contested theological debate of the early church. What is the nature of the gospel? When we say: “In Christ alone,” does that negate the Old Testament law? How do we resolve the apparent tension between grace and faith and law?
Let me begin with this question: Is the Gospel you believe the true Biblical gospel - or for those of you who have been skeptical about God and Jesus and the Church and Christianity and all that...is the Gospel message actually the true Biblical Gospel? Or have we either put our faith in, or have outright rejected, something that we have actually very different...something we have MISUNDERSTOOD?
That’s an important question to ask. British theologian J.I. Packer made an assessment of modern Christianity and said this: “There is no doubt that evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement and if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the Biblical Gospel without realizing it.” He goes on to say that in the 20th Century, over time, we Christians traded the Biblical Gospel for a substitute. Now the substitute LOOKS similar...there are points here and there that RESEMBLE the Biblical Gospel message...but because it doesn’t actually produce a deep reverence, a deep repentance, and a deep humility. In other words, today’s Christianity may be informational and even inspirational, but because it is NOT God-centered and God-glorifying, it will never be TRANSFORMATIONAL as God designed it to be.
In the early 50s, the US government constructed an $78 million troop carrier for the navy. The purpose was to build a ship that could quickly carry 15,000 troops in times of war and was designed to outrun any other ship and travel non-stop anywhere in the world in less than ten days. The SS United States was the fastest, most reliable troop carrier in the world.
The only catch is, she never carried troops. Instead the SS United States became a luxury liner for presidents, heads of state, and a variety of other celebrities who traveled on her during her seventeen years of service. As a luxury liner, she boasted 695 staterooms, 4 dining rooms, 3 bars, 2 theaters, a heated pool, 19 elevators, and the comfort of the world’s first fully air-conditioned passenger ship.
Instead of a vessel used for battle during wartime, the SS United States became a means of indulgence for wealthy patronswho desired to cruise peacefully across the Atlantic. I want to talk about a couple of different shifts today. First of all, there is the shift in focus in the book of Acts. We have come to a chapter where the Apostle Peter sort of fades from the narrative, and a new primary player comes to the forefront: the Apostle Paul.
The problem, truly, is one of perspective. And, ironically enough, it was through the Perspectives on The World Christian Movement course that I took almost 20 years ago that I began to understand the purpose of God's church much more clearly than I ever had.
I have come to believe that the Bible is really a book that has just ONE story. Sometimes the individual stories IN the Bible obscure that fact. Perhaps people find the Bible boring or irrelevant because they only see the trees, and miss the forest. They only see the individual stories, and can't figure out what practical learning for their life can be seen in those stories. But not all passages of the scripture have a "practical application." Some are just about God. In fact all of those seemingly disjointed stories are intricately crafted as part of a BIGGER, COMPLETE STORY that is a page-turner - if you understand the whole plot from beginning to end.
"Where's MY miracle?" "Why don't I get a miracle?" Preachers promise miracles - but not everyone GETS a miracle. So what is the purpose of miracles anyway? Perhaps our focus needs to change; perhaps the point isn't the miracle itself, but what the miracle points to...
The Church is a movement. Our piece of the PBCC history and heritage is exciting - an opportunity for US to be a part of the movement. This is what we are all about. Let's consider the power of the Gospel to Save and to Sanctify through the working of the Spirit in this movement.
Truth is there are a lot of ideas people have as to how to get to heaven. The important question for us today is what about OUR afterlife? In what have we place our trust to get to Heaven? This question is important because of what Easter represents. Resurrection Sunday was evidence that there IS life after death - so where does that leave YOU?